Hunted Tribes - A BT/nBSG Crossover

[Hotpoint]

I own neither franchise and don’t claim to. There's no point suing me for borrowing the storylines or characters unless you want a share of an underpaid Civil Servants salary and trust me it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

This is a crossover between Battlestar Galactica and the Battletech Universe and offers a vision of what would have happened if the surviving colonials had run into another very different tribe who were themselves fleeing tyranny and genocide and who thought a hidden planet in a nebula thousands of light years from Earth was a good place to lay low.

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PROLOGUE

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"In the halls of the Clans of Kerensky they seek to rob us of our identity by calling us the "Not Named" but we are known by many names. To the Inner Sphere we are the Minnesota Tribe, mysterious strangers who walked among them a while never to be seen again. To the Colonials we are the Thirteenth, lost brothers and sisters, the saviors of their race. To the Cylons we are known as the Earthers, a testing sent by God as a punishment for their hubris. We are perhaps all of this and more, we are the people of New Circe, we are the 331st Division of the SLDF, we are the Star League In Exile, we are both the Hunted and Hunter and we are, above all and forever, Clan Wolverine!"

Jennifer Vaun, Lord Protector of the Star League In Exile: 3047


* * *

Colonial Raptor - Nebula - Deep Space

As soon as the indescribably strange sensation of jumping faded Lieutenant Margaret Edmondson, almost invariably referred to by her call-sign of “Racetrack”, looked out of the cockpit. ‘This doesn't look right’ she stated, inwardly groaning. One jump, they were one jump into the series of ten that would take them all the way back to Caprica and it already looked wrong she thought. It was probably that Cylon bitch feeding them false navigation coordinates she decided.

Her electronic Countermeasures Officer Hamish “Skulls” McCall couldn't help but agree, he also knew something she didn't. ‘No other contacts on DRADIS’ he announced.

‘What?’ the pilot exclaimed.

‘Oh, man. We're at the wrong jump coordinates’ the ECO said, checking his instruments. Starbuck was going to kill both of them if the Cylons didn't kill her first back on Caprica.

Racetrack slumped in her seat. ‘So what happened?’ she asked eventually, listening for a few moments as Skulls played with all the fancy electronic gear. She was qualified for the ECO job herself and knew exactly what he was doing and how long it would take. The two marines in the back leaned forward and stuck their heads through into the cockpit looking less than impressed by the turn of events even if they had the sense not to express their feelings out loud. They had volunteered to go back to the colonies and help bring back any survivors that could be easily found and now they were stuck in the ass-end of nowhere instead.

‘I think there was some kind of glitch in the navcom firmware’ Skulls theorised based on the displays. ‘Hey bottom line, we're to hell and gone from where we're supposed to be, skipper’ he told his pilot.

Racetrack blinked. ‘Okay, um, any chance that we can still catch up with them?’ she asked hopefully.

Skulls inwardly shrugged. ‘Not a chance’ he replied. ‘Mission rules say we head back’ he reminded her.

‘****** me! It was the first jump’ Racetrack complained, as much to the universe in general as towards her ECO.

‘Hey, look, you gave me these coordinates’ Skulls responded defensively. He only punched them in to the jumpdrive and had no intention of taking more than his fair share of any blame.

Racetrack sighed. ‘Back to the barn’ she said resignedly. On the plus side at least they wouldn't be going five days without a shower like the others presumably still with Starbuck would. It was a long way back to Caprica for a Raptor, even with the Cylon calculating the series of unusually long jumps for them.

‘Hey, I am picking up a large planetary body out here and it's frakkin' close’ Skulls announced, checking the DRADIS again.

‘Where'd that come from?’ Racetrack asked in surprise, you didn't suddenly “notice” nearby planets, they were usually pretty self-evident right from he start.

‘Hell if I know. So much DRADIS interference here, it didn't even register at first’ the Electronic Control Officer explained. The nebula they seemed to have accidentally jumped into was playing merry hades with the equipment, the displays almost seemed scrambled.

Racetrack checked the sensors herself. ‘Check this out’ she said. ‘Atmosphere is nitrogen/oxygen. Organic molecular spectra. Fresh water? Hey, you know what this is? It's habitable! We may have just found a world that can support human life. Maybe we're not just a bunch of ******-ups after all’ she said optimistically, or if they were they were lucky ******-ups which was just as good in her book, the corners cut off like they should be of course.

Skulls blinked and started checking his electronic warfare gear. ‘Skipper’ he said nervously, ‘I think we just got scanned and it wasn't any kind of DRADIS signal I'm familiar with’ he said. ‘Frequency is all wrong and so is...’ he began then stopped when he noticed something else. ‘We're receiving a transmission but not on a colonial military or civilian channel’ he told her.

‘****** me sideways’ Racetrack exclaimed. ‘Cylons’ she quickly decided under the circumstances. Guess they were unlucky ******-up's instead. ‘It could be a virus carrier signal’ she suggested. ‘Let's just get the ****** out of here. We'll do a series of jumps to shake them before returning to the fleet’ she said, getting ready to leave in a hurry.

Skulls listened to the transmission. ‘It's audio only Skipper’ he said, ‘and I think it's a language but I don't understand a word’ he continued. ‘Whoever it is they're starting to sound agitated we're not replying’ he said. ‘Lords of Kobol!’ he suddenly cried out. ‘We just got painted by enough wattage to light up Caprica City!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’re being targeted boss.’

Racetrack looked at her own DRADIS display and felt her jaw drop. ‘Something in high orbit around that planet just entered line-of-sight’ she said. ‘And I think it's pissed’ she added with a grimace.

‘Basestar?’ Skulls queried, still trying to find a way to interfere with the apparent weapons lock but getting nowhere fast. There was no way a raider, even a heavy one was putting out a fraction of that kind of power he knew.

‘I don't think so’ Racetrack said slowly, ‘but whatever the ****** it is I vote we run away’ she opined.

‘Good call’ one of the marines wholeheartedly agreed.

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ Skulls asked his pilot flatly.

‘Just spill it’ Racetrack replied fatalistically.

‘We need to reboot the navcom before I can plot a jump and that takes longer than we've got’ the ECO replied.

The pilot blinked. ‘So what's the good news?’ she asked.

‘That was the good news’ Skulls told her, ‘the bad news is that I think we've got fighters heading our way hell for leather’ he said. ‘Maybe I should have said the bad news and the worse news?’ he suggested apologetically.

‘There's no way I’m being taken prisoner by the toasters’ Racetrack stated with determination. ‘We fight until we’re out of missiles then ram the frakkers okay?’ she checked with the others.

‘Frakking A’ the marine who had spoken before agreed, the other one nodding assent. Getting captured alive by the toaster bastards wasn't going to happen, if they had to they'd use their service-automatics on themselves first.

Skulls closed his eyes. ‘I'm with you Skipper’ he agreed eventually. ‘Oh ****** it’ he said and switched the radio over to transmit on the same frequency they were being signalled on. ‘The entire frakking Cylon race can kiss my colonial ass’ he replied to the transmission. ‘You can hunt us down until the Goddess Artemis herself would give up chasing and you'd still never catch us’ he declared. ‘We'll see you in hades’ he added.

The increasingly frantic transmissions suddenly cut out and after a few minutes another voice came on speaking the worst dialect of Old Caprican either of the colonial officers had ever heard and with an appalling accent. ‘Who are you and how did you get here?’ it asked haltingly. ‘And why are you speaking bad Ancient Greek?’ it added suspiciously.

‘Ancient what?’ Racetrack asked nonplussed, looking at Skulls who shrugged his shoulders.

There seemed to be some conversation going on at the other end in the unknown language before the voice speaking Old Caprican spoke again. ‘Are you from a lost Star League colony?’ it queried.

‘What the ****** is a “Star League”?’ Skulls asked Racetrack rhetorically. ‘We're Colonials’ he signalled back.

More conversation on the other end was eventually broken by. ‘Follow the...’ the voice began then stopped, ‘metal bird’ it said eventually ‘into dock.’

‘Metal bird?’ Racetrack repeated to Skulls with a quizzical look.

‘Doesn't know the word for fighter?’ Skulls suggested. ‘Their Caprican is garbage’ he noted. ‘Where are you from?’ he transmitted back. If this was a Cylon trick it was sure as hades an interesting one he decided.

‘Family... first... from Taurian Concordat’ the voice replied in its halting, uncertain vernacular.

‘Taurian... shit maybe they're a lost colony who set out from Tauron?’ Racetrack theorised. ‘Where is this “Taurian Concordat” located?’ she signalled back, getting into the conversation.

‘Four hundred and fifty light years rim... direction of Terra’ the voice replied after a few seconds. ‘I mean...’ the man continued, evidently trying to think of whatever “Terra” translated to from his own language into this weird Old Caprican dialect he was speaking, ‘... Earth’ he said eventually.

Skulls simply looked stunned, for her part his pilot whooped then started to dance as best she could in her seat. ‘Better to be lucky than good’ she began to chant over and over again as the DRADIS told them company was approaching fast.




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Note from the Author:

The point of diversion from nBSG is Episode 2:19 Lay Down Your Burdens (Part I). In this universe New Caprica was already populated when the colonials found it by accident.

If you want to read this story with helpful hyperlinked references in the author's notes (and no editing for bad language) read it here: http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-20043/Hotpoint+Hunted+Tribes.htm

[Dragon Cat]

Nice to see this back

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 1 - PART 1

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“I'm not sure who was more surprised when we first ran into each other, us or the Wolvies, either way we both had to adjust fast because the frakking Cylons were still out there. I will say that it was probably the Toasters who ended up getting the biggest shock of all when we reversed roles and took the fight back to them, they never saw that one coming.”

Captain Margaret "Racetrack" Edmundson: 3048


* * *

City of McEvedy – New Circe – 3045 CE

Jennifer Vaun finished reading the summary report and initially lost for words looked past the serious looking military officer sat on the other side of her desk to the painting hanging on the far wall of her office. Sarah McEvedy herself looked down on everyone that ever sat in this chair, often inspiring, frequently intimidating but always there, reminding you of who you are, where you come from and above all the duty you owe to those you lead. ‘Jump drive that functions within a gravity well?’ she asked eventually. ‘Jump drive that can cycle in less than an hour?’ she added doubtfully.

‘And artificial gravity’ Admiral Franks noted. ‘No I didn't believe it either but apparently so’ he continued, shuffling uncomfortably in his own chair, not so much because of the eyes of the former Khan looking down upon them from the wall but rather because he hated his full dress uniform. ‘It's bewildering though’ he continued with a perplexed expression, ‘their sensors are like something from a thousand years ago and the less said about their computers the better’ he told her, ‘but as you say their jump drive is far more advanced than ours’ he said. ‘We know they did jump in, and where, because their arrival tripped off our warning grid, meaning it can't be completely different in principle to a Kearny-Fuchida drive, but you can fit the unit into a ship the size of a heavy fighter and the power requirements are relatively minimal compared to our own technology’ he told her. ‘Looking at the ship... well like one of our engineers said after looking it over it's like something from the 21st Century added to something from the 41st.’

Vaun put her hands down in front of her on the desk meshing the fingers. ‘And this DNA screening has been double checked?’ she queried, looking to the summary again before her eyes caught the movement of a small bird outside the large panoramic window of her office distracting her for a brief moment.

Franks shook his head. ‘Quadruple checked and by different teams and equipment’ he replied. ‘No sign of any genetic manipulation but according to their mitochondrial DNA their ancestors and ours haven’t interbred for a very long time’ he said.

‘Centuries?’ Vaun asked, ‘are they from a lost colony like Neuva Castille, query affirmative?’

‘Negative’ Admiral Franks replied. ‘More like millennia’ he told her with a definite grimace, ‘best guess, according to our gengeneering teams, is that their ancestors haven't done the dirty with anyone who has come from Terra in the last four to five thousand years.’

Vaun blinked and her jaw dropped before she could control her reaction. ‘Four to five thousand years?’ she repeated. ‘I can see a big problem with that’ she stated.

The Admiral shrugged. ‘The fact that we've only had interstellar travel for less than <i>one</i> thousand is proving hard to reconcile with the genetic evidence’ he agreed. ‘And then there's the language’ he continued. ‘They speak a kind of bastardised Ancient Greek which according to the history department at the university seems to be most like what they were talking around about the time of the Trojan wars’ he said rubbing his chin. ‘Those were roughly Fourteen-Hundred years BCE’ he informed her, ‘I checked.’

‘I hope you're not trying to tell me they're the descendents of Bronze Age Ancient Greeks with stardrives, query negative?’ Vaun asked seriously, narrowing her eyes.

‘Affirmative’ the Franks replied reluctantly. ‘I wish I wasn't but they actually worship the Hellenistic Gods too’ he explained. ‘They call them the “Lords of Kobol” but the names of specific deities are Apollo and the like’ he said. ‘One of my more imaginative, or perhaps I should say fantastical Intelligence Officers is pushing the theory that Atlantis really existed and was even more advanced than Plato made out’ he told her, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

‘Well what do they say?’ Vaun asked.

‘They say they're originally from a planet called Kobol and left to colonise twelve planets, which are named after the signs of the zodiac, a couple of thousand years ago and that both their jump drive and artificial gravity technology was originally a gift to them from their “God’s” which they only learned to use in the last couple of centuries’ Franks replied. ‘They haven't specified if they came in a blessed with a holy ribbon around it though’ he added in amusement.

‘So Kobol is their name for Terra?’ Vaun queried.

‘No, they think our ancestors came to Terra from Kobol too and they call us the lost thirteenth colony’ the Admiral replied. ‘When we told them that humanity was originally from Terra, which means they were too, they just laughed and said we needed better history books’ he said. ‘We could have proved it but decided to let that one slide for now.’

Vaun stood up pushed back her chair and began pacing around her office. ‘Why wasn't I informed of all this immediately?’ she wanted to know.

‘I'm sorry Ma'am but we wanted to check the facts before presenting the case’ Franks answered. ‘They clearly weren't from the Clans, or ComStar, or anyone else we ever expected to possibly meet way out here so there were no standing orders on how to deal with the situation’ he explained honestly. ‘I've got to admit the entire story sounds so ludicrous that it took this long to verify it to anyone's satisfaction’ he told her apologetically. ‘This brings us to the next point which was on your summary’ he said. ‘These “Colonials” as they call themselves are supposedly from a fleet of refugees who are out here looking for Terra because their homeworlds have been destroyed and they’re trying to find a new place to live’ he told her.

‘Destroyed by who?’ Vaun asked. ‘Ancient Egyptians?’ she suggested sardonically.

Admiral Franks tried to deliver the reply seriously. ‘Artificially Intelligent robots, some of whom look exactly like humans and are self-aware’ he told her.

‘So not hostile aliens then?’ Vaun responded deadpan before breaking out into laughter, nearly setting off the Admiral too.

‘They say they can prove it if we contact their fleet’ Franks informed her. ‘Look at it this way, they're on their way towards the Inner Sphere with a jump drive that would revolutionise our entire civilisation’ he said. ‘Can you imagine our edge if we had that technology?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Can you imagine the slaughter if it fell into the hands of those Successor State thugs or...’ he paused, ‘the Clans instead?’

Vaun frowned. ‘Do we have an idea of these people’s military capabilities Admiral?’ she asked, retaking her seat.

‘No Ma'am but our fighters impressed the hell out of our two guests’ the Naval Officer responded. ‘If you want my suggestion, they're refugees and apparently in poor condition, we don't need to rattle any sabres, our visitors have already rattled a begging bowl so we simply play the friendly benefactor.’

‘How many of them are there?’ Vaun queried.

‘Just under fifty thousand we're told, supposedly they're all that's left of an original combined population of over twenty billion between the colonies’ Admiral Franks replied. ‘The AI’s they've supposedly been running from nuked them back into the stone age’ he stated flatly. ‘If that's true, and I will want to see the evidence, then that's another reason to prevent these people reaching the Inner Sphere. These jump-drives could enable an enemy to appear directly over a planet and bombard it from orbit before any military could react so we don't want these “Cylon” robots as they call them being led directly towards untold billions of civilians.’

‘Sounds like we can forget about the Ares Conventions’ Vaun said quietly. Despite every major power in the Inner Sphere keeping a stockpile of nuclear weaponry they were very rarely ever used and if anyone ever did utilise their atomic arsenals they would be immediately branded pariahs.

The Admiral nodded. ‘With your permission I'd like to ready our tactical and strategic nuclear deterrents, as well as mobilise the reserves’ he told her. ‘On my own authority I've already ordered both the Zughoffer Weir and the Bismark to begin charging their jumpdrives immediately. They were offline for maintenance but we don't want to get caught with our pants down, query affirmative?’

‘Affirmative Admiral’ Vaun replied. ‘I'll call an emergency meeting of the Parliament and explain the situation. Can I rely on you to handle contact with these people?’ she asked. ‘Make a good impression, we might live out here in the wilderness but we're not barbarians and remember we were hunted refugees once ourselves’ she reminded him, looking up at the picture on the far wall of her office again. That was why they had hidden themselves on a planet in a nebula out in the back of beyond all those years ago, they had needed to rebuild, rearm and make ready for the day they would be called upon to take up the sword once again and fight for an ideal only they still embraced.

Admiral Franks stood up and straightened his uniform. ‘None of us will ever forget Ma'am’ he said, looking at the two flags hanging behind her, one with a star emblazoned on it, the other an animals head imposed on stylised claw marks . ‘God preserve the Star League in Exile’ he intoned.

‘Wolverines keep the faith’ Jennifer Vaun, Lord Protector of the last remains of the Star League, responded automatically.

‘Seyla’ they said together, heads bowed.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 1 - PART 2

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Colonial One - Colonial Fleet – 3045 CE

Tory Foster took a breath to steady her nerves and knocked on the cabin door. ‘Madam President I know you said you didn't want to be disturbed but you really do’ she announced.

After a few moments the door opened to reveal a very weary looking Laura Roslin. Despite being ahead in the polls the constant electioneering was sapping her reserves and she had hoped to get a few quiet hours to herself. ‘What is it?’ she asked her aide, noting the Colonial Officer stood next to her.

‘We just received word from Galactica’ Foster replied. ‘One of the Raptors which was on the Caprica mission returned thirty minutes ago, it misjumped on the first leg of the journey and then eventually headed back to rejoin the fleet.’

Laura Roslin yawned. ‘Why did they take a week to get back?’ she asked, and more importantly why am I being disturbed she thought to herself.

The President’s Aide collected herself for a moment. ‘They took a week to get back because they found an inhabited planet’ she told Roslin. ‘Inhabited by people from the Thirteenth Tribe’ she added, wondering if she had delivered the momentous news with quite the kind of gravitas it truly deserved.

‘You're yanking my frakking chain right?’ the incredulous President of the Colonies responded eventually after a suitably long thoughtful pause.

Foster shook her head. She had already ignored the request from Admiral Adama to keep this all Top Secret and the rumour would already be spreading around the fleet that President Roslin had led them to the Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, Baltar’s election hopes were buried now she decided happily, the President had led them to Earth even if luck had played a big part in it.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 1 - PART 3

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Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet – 3045 CE

Admiral Adama again looked through the glass window at the tall but otherwise nondescript pair of individuals currently sitting in the brig before turning back to the two officers stood next to him. ‘And you're certain they're not Cylons?’ he asked.

Racetrack nodded, a huge grin plastered across her face. She was bound to go down in the history books as the pilot that found the Thirteenth Tribe and you just couldn't buy reputation like that. She’d likely never have to buy a drink for herself at the bar again either. ‘They took us down to the planet in a type of shuttle they call a dropship’ she told Adama. ‘There's a whole city down there, hundreds of thousands of people, farms, factories, and they didn't all look like clones’ she said. ‘They're human alright’ she said confidently.

‘They stuck us in a brig too’ Skulls noted. ‘Stuck us with needles as well, then asked us a bunch of questions and eventually we get to meet an Admiral in their Navy who tells us their government is offering the fleet sanctuary from the Cylons’ he said.

‘They cut us loose along with the marines, and sent these two along to prove we weren't making the whole thing up’ Racetrack told Adama, continuing the story. ‘The grey-haired guy is a historian that speaks the best Old Caprican they could find, the one in the uniform is from their Navy’ he said.

Admiral Adama put his hands behind him going into a parade-rest stance. ‘What military forces do they have?’ he wanted to know.

‘We saw fighters, and a small capital ship in orbit’ Racetrack answered. ‘They called it a destroyer, maybe six-hundred metres bow to stern’ she told the Admiral.

‘Armament?’ Adama asked professionally.

‘They didn't shoot at us so I don't know for certain but their technology seemed pretty primitive so I guess they aren't as well armed as we are’ Racetrack reasoned. ‘No artificial gravity on their ships and they were completely amazed by our jumpdrive’ she continued, ‘they've got one themselves but you can only mount it on a large ship and it can’t operate in a gravity well’ she said. ‘You want my guess, they'll be hoping to trade for the design’ she suggested. ‘And they'll pay big.’

Adama looked at their visitors again. ‘A colony of the Thirteenth Tribe’ he observed with a grin he couldn't hold back. He wondered how many more colonies they had and how far away Earth itself was, were they only another couple of jumps away?

‘Permission to speak freely Sir’ Racetrack requested.

‘Go ahead Lieutenant’ Adama responded, the girl had bought herself plenty of leeway to say whatever the hell she wanted to whoever she wanted in his book.

‘I never bought for certain that you were leading us towards Earth, or that it even really existed’ Racetrack admitted. ‘I'm sorry I doubted you’ she apologised.

Adama smiled, better to be lucky than good he thought to himself. ‘The president has asked for them to be brought to Colonial One’ he said. ‘Think you and your ECO can get us there? I'm sure she'll want to talk to you too so shine your boots, put on your dress uniforms and expect to get your photograph taken’ he advised.

Skulls grinned. ‘The last time we went anywhere we ended up in the wrong place Sir’ he reminded the Admiral, earning a playful punch on the arm from his pilot.

‘And you will both be spending some quality time in a Raptor flight simulator for that’ Adama replied. ‘Just because the Gods are watching out for you doesn't mean I have to give you any leeway’ he said. ‘They might play favourites but I don't.’

‘Yes Sir, understood Sir’ Racetrack responded, snapping to attention as did Skulls. It was true enough, the Admiral would publicly ream out his own son if he frakked up, that was one of the reasons the Old Man enjoyed such respect amongst the troops. He was harsh, but he was fair.

‘So what do they call themselves?’ the Admiral asked curiously.

‘The planet’s name is New Circe’ Racetrack replied. ‘Yes it's named for the same Circe from our legends too.’

‘The daughter of the Sun God Helios’ Adama recalled quietly. ‘So they have the same Gods we do?’ he asked. Helios was associated with Apollo, his boy might get a kick out of this revelation he decided.

‘They know of our Gods but from what we could tell they don't worship them Sir’ Racetrack told him. ‘They say our Gods and language are thousands of years old from a part of Earth called Greece, they also think that the human race came from Earth originally not Kobol’ she added.

Adama nodded. ‘They've been isolated thousands of years’ he noted. ‘We might need to be careful what we tell them, the truth might upset their society’ he reasoned thoughtfully.

Looking out through the glass from inside the brig Commander Marcus Thorpe of the Star League Intelligence Corps tried to make himself comfortable while they waited. He had been chosen for this mission because he had taken Classical History at university and had maintained an interest in the subject, still speaking a smattering of Ancient Greek although he would have much preferred meeting long-lost Romans instead because his Latin was better. Professor Sundquist the professional academic beside him had in fact been one of his lecturers almost two decades earlier and was far less happy to be stuck in this room, he wanted to talk to as many of these people as possible, compare their histories with his own, and try to work out how in the name of the First Lord they had ended up thousands of light years from Earth thousands of years ago.

‘I still think it's Atlantis’ Thorpe stated, crossing his arms and turning back to the other man.

Sundquist snorted in response. ‘Atlantis was merely a legend based upon the collapse of the Minoan Civilisation’ he replied. ‘You always were a fantasist young Marcus’ he said with a sigh.

‘They thought Troy was nothing but a myth too until Schliemann found it, query affirmative?’ Thorpe pointed out.

‘Affirmative’ Sundquest conceded, ‘but that was over a thousand years ago’ he continued. ‘If Atlantis existed somebody would have found it by now’ he said with certainty.

Thorpe uncrossed his arms. ‘At least I've got a theory’ he grumbled.

‘No, you've got an unsubstantiated hypothesis’ Sundquist told him. ‘A proper theory is based upon facts it seeks to explain’ he chided his former student. ‘Your romanticised view of mythic history might have served you well in the military, where tales of exaggerated valour and appeals to ancient glory are the stock in trade, but in academia we aren't quite so... florid.’

‘How did you get through your time in the Army?’ Thorpe asked, rolling his eyes. Like all citizens of New Circe the old professor would have spent two years in the military as soon as he turned eighteen and then undergone two solid weeks annual refresher training, and one weekend a month in the reserves until the age of forty.

‘Like a good citizen, I stuck it out and tried to ignore the stupidity all around me’ Sundquist replied. ‘Why anyone would want to make it their career as a preferred choice is astonishing’ he continued disparagingly. ‘Our devotion of so much time and resources into the Armed Forces is a necessary evil to be thought of ruefully in a harsh universe, it should not be embraced so enthusiastically within our culture as it is’ he opined.

‘We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those that would do us harm’ Thorpe responded.

‘Please don't quote Orwell at me’ the old professor requested. ‘Our eternal mobilisation for war rings too much like Oceania as it is’ he stated wryly.

It was Commander Thorpe's turn to snort this time. ‘We're possibly the only real power in the Inner Sphere, the Periphery or beyond which can honesty claim to not be using 1984 as a guide book instead of a warning’ he retorted. ‘Freedom of speech, elected government, no suppression of information...’ he listed by rote, counting with his fingers.

Sundquist narrowed his eyes. ‘And that's why I stuck out all the time I found myself crawling through a muddy ditch with a rifle’ he replied coldly. ‘I see the imperfections in our society but we are the pinnacle of civilisation in these dark times’ he declared. ‘That was clear from the day when the Wolverines landed on Richmond and liberated the camps the Draconis Combine had my ancestors in’ he said. ‘They did it because it was the right thing to do, they still genuinely believed in the principles of the Star League and would fight for them.’

Thorpe solemnly nodded his heartfelt agreement. Although he had plenty of blood in his own line from the Richmond camps, which was of course inevitable after over two hundred years of mixing between those people and the original Wolverines, his family codex showed he was primarily descended from those who had liberated the slaves and political dissidents and he was proud of that.

Over the years the cultures had merged, with the more militaristic Wolverines, descendents of warriors who had followed Star League General Aleksandr Kerensky into exile, then later fled the tyrannical machinations of his son Nicholas, gradually adopting some of the habits of the mainly Scandinavian descended Richmond prisoners. They in turn adopted many of the habits of the more numerous Wolverines such as speech patterns. This had led to a society which venerated the Armed Forces because of the Wolverines, education because of all the academics they found in the camps, freedom from tyranny because of the history of <i>both</i> groups and also, so the old joke went, was abnormally fond of putting pickled herring in field ration packs.

‘Just let me do most of the talking, your job is to translate not negotiate’ Commander Thorpe told the academic as someone entered the brig to lead them to the flight bay.

‘If you'd concentrated better in class you wouldn't need me to be here’ Sundquist replied. ‘And don't think I've forgotten you still owe me that essay on Pliny the Elder.’

‘That was nearly twenty years ago’ Thorpe protested, frankly astonished the old man remembered.

‘And check the spelling before you hand in it’ Sundquist told him sternly. He only hoped the boys handwriting had improved, it used to be atrocious.



* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 1 - PART 4

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Colonial One - Colonial Fleet – 3045 CE

They had been met by marines when they arrived on Galactica too but those weren't standing at attention as an honour guard. Thorpe imagined these particular troops were the equivalent of the ceremonial troops that stood by the gates of the Lord Protectors mansion and he wondered if they were remotely as tough as one of the infantry regiments of the 331st frankly doubting it.

Commander Thorpe snapped to attention when the marines brought their rifles up into salute and wished he was wearing his ceremonial sword so he could return it properly. It was impractical as hell on a spaceship but strange military traditions lingered on long after their original meaning was lost. The hand to brim of the hat salute itself was originally the tipping back of a visor and remained a military salutation long after knights of yore had gone the way of the dinosaurs.

A woman perhaps a few years older than Thorpe stood in front of what appeared to be a delegation. He surmised she was this President Roslin and noted her leader-like bearing, and also by her knee length skirt the fact she had a pretty nice set of legs.

The Colonial Admiral who had flown with them from the warship stepped forward between Thorpe and Roslin and began speaking, his words being translated by Sundquist. ‘Madam President’ he began, ‘may I introduce Commander Marcus Thorpe’ he said. ‘Commander Thorpe, may I introduce Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies’ he said formally, then waited for Sundquist to translate.

Thorpe saluted, his action met by a nod from Roslin’s head. ‘Madam President’ he began. ‘On behalf of Jennifer Vaun, Lord Protector of the Star League, I offer the greetings of the colony of New Circe and the Star League In Exile’ he replied. ‘The Lord Protector offers an invitation for you to visit our colony and for your people to find respite from your journey on our world’ he announced.

Sundquist translated, then apparently answered a question from the President. ‘She asked if Jennifer was a woman’s name for us too, and I told her it was’ the professor told Thorpe. ‘Their names are very curious, closer to ours than they should be given the separation of cultures’ he added.

‘There's definitely something weird about this whole thing’ Thorpe agreed. ‘Might I introduce Professor Nils Sundquist of the University of New Circe’ he said to Roslin, ‘Professor Sundquist is our leading Historian in Ancient Terra’ he noted his companions credentials.

After the translation Roslin smiled at the academic turned translator who smiled back before asking a question which the woman answered. ‘They shake hands at formal occasions like we do’ Sundquist told Thorpe who smiled himself and took a step forward offering his hand to Roslin.

Amidst a sudden salvo of photography from the selected members of the colonial press who had been invited Laura Roslin shook hands with a descendent of the thirteenth Tribe of Kobol. The momentous event was slightly marred by a guilty thought that crossed her mind that Baltar’s election hopes were now dead and buried. She could probably keep getting re-elected for life if she wanted, although that life might not be all that long.

‘Aren't you glad you got that Higher Education now?’ Sunquist quietly asked Thorpe in amusement.

‘I thought it might advance my career long-term but I never thought like this’ Thorpe replied. ‘I might not get a ship but I'll certainly get that promotion to captain now’ he said happily.

‘Or they might kick you out of the Navy and make you a diplomat, query affirmative?’ Sundquist suggested.

‘Negative!’ Thorpe exclaimed, ‘And don't even joke about it’ he said in horror.

Laura Roslin wondered what the Historian had said to make the naval officer suddenly grimace but decided not to ask, it could be a cultural thing.



* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 1 - PART 5

----------

Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet – 3045CE

Sat in his laboratory Gaius Baltar stared into the distance, or rather his unfocused eyes were fixed on the far bulkhead as Tom Zarek tried to think of a plan and failed ‘It's all over’ the former dissident and rabble-rouser said eventually. ‘You were already behind the polls but now the word's spreading that we've found the Thirteenth Tribe they won't just elect Roslin they'd make her frakking Empress if she asked for it.’

Baltar nodded slowly, his face expressionless. ‘We should be happy I suppose’ he said eventually. ‘Everyone else will be.’

‘Everyone else doesn't realise how dangerous Roslin is’ Zarek replied. ‘Our fates are in her hands, she's going to be our representative to the 13th Tribe, she'll steer policy towards them, hell our futures are now entirely at her whim’ he hissed.

‘He's right Gaius’ the imaginary blond in the scientist-turned-politicians head agreed. ‘And you might as well start practicing a gracious concession speech’ she told him.

‘What about the Cylons?’ Baltar asked. ‘We could run on a platform that we need to keep moving to escape them.’

Zarek sighed. ‘After nine months stuck in ships the people wouldn't want to keep going even if we'd only found an empty planet we could live on’ he said. ‘Face it, that crazy religious fanatic teacher did what she said she would so we’re frakked.’

‘Unless the Cylons come’ the blond said, walking past Baltar and stroking his cheek, at least in his imagination.

‘Unless the Cylons come’ Baltar repeated.

‘And how does that make us any less frakked?’ Zarek asked sarcastically. ‘I don't think the bitch should be in charge but I'd rather live than get nuked by a bunch of walking toasters’ he said flatly.

‘They're still following Gaius’ the blond whispered in his ear. ‘They might have lost the trail for now but they'll find you eventually.’

Baltar turned and looked at Zarek. ‘People are still afraid’ he said. ‘We campaign on that fear, try to get the people to think they're only safe if we keep moving’ he said. ‘We could even say we're endangering the Thirteenth Tribe by contacting them’ he continued. ‘From what we know they're far behind us technologically, they don't even have artificial gravity on their ships’ he pointed out. ‘It's our duty to protect them by heading back away from their space.’

Zarek frowned. ‘I can't see too many people responding to that but it's worth a try’ he conceded. ‘It's all we’ve got I suppose’ he continued reluctantly. He wasn't even sure he fully agreed himself but the argument about protecting the humans they'd met at least sounded reasonable, they could work on that.

The blond smiled. ‘There you go, raising your electoral hopes by trying to dash the fleets’ she said. ‘I knew there was a consummate selfish politician in there somewhere.’

‘I wonder how many colonies the Thirteenth have?’ Zarek asked rhetorically.

‘Their jumpdrive is primitive from what I've heard’ Baltar replied. ‘No more than a handful I'd say.’



* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 1 - PART 6

----------

Colonial One – Colonial Fleet – 3045 CE

Laura Roslin blinked, she must have misheard. ‘How many people?’ she asked again, noting that the other guests, Colonial Military and the members of the Quorum of Twelve were equally nonplussed. Looking more than uncomfortable at their own presence amongst such important people Racetrack and Skulls were sat near the President herself hoping they were using the right cutlery.

‘Four million million spread across over two thousand colonised worlds within a five-hundred light-year radius of Terra’ Sundquist repeated, before taking another sip of the surprisingly good drink they called Ambrosia.

The President looked across the dining table at the expression on Adama’s face. ‘And you've only had Interstellar Travel for less than a thousand years?’ she asked incredulously.

‘Yes’ Sundquist told her before taking a bite of his meal. The drink was nice but the food itself was very bland he decided.

‘Four million million is called four trillion’ Adama told the academic, the Ancient Greeks had never needed a number that high so they didn't have one .

‘Thousand million?’ Sundquist inquired.

‘Billion’ Adama told him.

‘Thank you’ Sundquist replied, making careful mental note of the new words he was learning. ‘It would have been far more if the Star League had held together’ he opined. ‘Society has regressed considerably in the last three centuries’ he told them sadly. ‘The successor states are far more interested in bludgeoning themselves than exploration and colonisation of the galaxy’ he said. ‘The overall technology in the Inner Sphere is worse than it was five centuries ago’ he told them. ‘Levels of education too, you are surprisingly lucky to run into a world like ours that still regards the teaching of ancient languages and history as worthwhile’ he continued, ‘we truly are the last remnants of the Star League in philosophy as well as name.’

Adama frowned. ‘I'm surprised you're so open about your situation’ he told the academic.

‘The Lord Protector wanted our relationship to start as open as cordial as it could’ Sundquist replied. ‘She also wanted you to realise why it's vital you don't lead these Cylon creatures towards human colonised space’ he told them. ‘With your superior jumpdrive technology, and the lack of cohesive government there, the death toll in the Inner Sphere would be horrendous before enough unity could be established to defeat them’ he said. ‘Back in the Star League era it might have been different, the greatest minds of all the colonised worlds could have back-engineered your drive and then the mighty shipyards churned out a veritable host of warships mounting it before the Cylons arrived but these days...’ he trailed off sadly with a shrug.

‘What kind of military do the successor states have?’ Adama asked professionally.

Sundquist redirected the question to Thorpe who thought about it then started relaying the answer back through the academic. ‘Very small numbers of warships, single digit in some cases, plus thousands of aerospace fighters, but most of their military is geared towards ground combat’ he said. ‘The Clans have more warships and would likely make a better fight of it than the Inner Sphere states, especially given their technological edge over the latter, but with the disparity in jump drive technology they would nonetheless be at severe tactical disadvantage.’

‘With four trillion people and two thousand worlds the Cylons would have a lot of trouble dealing with the Thirteenth Tribe, quantity has a quality all its own’ Adama remarked to Roslin, ‘but the death toll would make the fall of the Twelve Colonies look insignificant by comparison’ he told her, shaking his head at the sheer scale of casualties that were possible in such a scenario.

Sundquist translated that for Thorpe who had only picked up some of it and who nodded agreement and then commented through the historian. ‘The Commander says that’s why we want the opportunity to look at your drive technology and produce our own before the Cylons ever find the Inner Sphere’ he said. ‘We feel we can hold the line as it were, and to be honest we're also concerned that if one of the Successor States got hold of your drive and the others didn’t it would alter the balance of power as they rapidly defeated the others and established dominion over the whole of human colonised space.’

‘But you think our drive is safe with you?’ Roslin couldn't help but ask knowingly.

‘Our entire population is less than that of an average city on one of the more industrialised worlds of the Inner Sphere’ Sundquist replied with a smile. ‘The notion that we might be able to conquer the rest of humanity is amusing but hopelessly unrealistic’ he continued. ‘At best we could pulverise a few despotic regimes and keep the wretched clans at bay for a while but we're not going to be able to restore the Star League by sweeping out of the periphery like the Mongol Hordes’ he said, and then had to explain the reference.

Adama reached for a jug of water and poured himself a glass, noting that Thorpe was only drinking water too. ‘We know your technological base is behind ours’ he said. ‘What makes you think you can fight the Cylons?’ he asked reasonably.

Sunquist translated and then after Commander Thorpe replied translated for him in turn. ‘We're duty bound to try’ the historian told Adama.

The Admiral smiled and raised his glass in salute which Thorpe returned with his own. ‘So we know you've got a military’ he said. ‘How many ships, what technology?’ he asked.

After the question was translated Thorpe took a breath, he had been told to answer honestly but for an Intelligence Officer it went against the grain. He paused then started his reply through the translator.

‘One destroyer, which your raptor crew encountered in orbit’ Sunquist told them. ‘One battlecruiser and two battleships’ he told them. ‘Our largest battleship is roughly the same size as Galactica, the other slightly smaller’ he said. ‘We once had other vessels but had to strip them for parts over the years’ he explained, translating as Thorpe spoke. ‘Our battleships carry fifty and forty of our latest... metal birds respectively...’

‘The word is fighter’ Racetrack told him.

‘Thank you’ Sunquist replied gratefully, ‘our battlecruiser another eighteen and our destroyer fifty more’ he continued, it was actually a hybrid craft, part light carrier. ‘We also have another one hundred and fifty fighters of older designs based on New Circe’ he added.

Adama was more than surprised at how militarised the small colony seemed to be but didn't let it show. ‘Armament?’ he queried.

Sundquist started to translate then ran into a wall because there weren't any words in Ancient Greek for much of this. ‘Large mechanical metal throwing machines’ he said eventually then did an impression of a machine gun which made Laura Roslin laugh. ‘Devices... which make large mushroom shaped clouds’ he continued.

‘They've got nukes, things are looking up’ a Colonial Officer remarked.

‘Beams of bright light or tiny particles that cut through metal’ Sundquist announced then stopped because suddenly everyone looked at him.

‘Does he mean weaponised lasers and particle beams?!’ Racetrack exclaimed eventually.

Adama looked the academic directly in the eyes. ‘How much metal can these beams of light cut through’ he asked seriously.

Sundquist translated and after thinking about it Thorpe held his hands apart a fair distance.

‘At what range?’ Adama wanted to know.

The news that in space the effective range of a Naval Laser or Particle beam against a capital ship was measured in hundreds of kilometres was, it must be said, greeted with some scepticism by the Colonials. The notion that their fighters carried compact Directed Energy Weapons too was dismissed as almost unbelievable.

Thorpe and Sundquist decided not to mention the Laser Rifles their army used and wondered how on Terra these primitives had ever mastered fire.



----------

Note from the Author:

The Battletech Universe lacks artificial gravity but it does have a Jump Drive that is is akin to the one used for FTL travel in nBSG. The BT Kearny-Fuchida Drive is however far more limited in that the smallest ship it can be fitted on masses thousands of tons and you cannot safely jump into a gravity-well.

The Clans by 3045 have very distinct speech-patterns, they don't use contractions except for in certain words. The Wolverines however left the other clans at a time when the modes of speech were still in transition from regular English. They still used normal contractions in speech back then, unlike the mainstream clans did later, but conversely the ritualised contractions the clans did use such as "quiaff?" and the response "Aff" were still sometimes said as the full versions "query affirmative?" and "Affirmative". Separated from the other clans, and much of the rest of humanity, Wolverine speech would likely have retained its proto-clanner roots which makes them distinctive I thought.

This fic borrows the background information about Clan Wolverine provided by the book "Betrayal of Ideals" incidentally.

[mikecj]

Its back!   [notworthy]

[cawest]

hot dog it's back... can not wait for more... great rereading it to refresh this old mind

[mikecj]

Thats an easy question- they stole fire- they never mastered it  :D

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 2 - PART 1

----------

“Just because they could re-grow me a new leg when we got back to New Circe doesn't mean I'm ever going to forgive that son-of-a-bitch for shooting me like that... it hurt like hell and I don't care what the doc says, it's definitely longer than the other one.”

Commander Felix Gaeta: 3047


* * *


Battlestar Galactica - Colonial Fleet – 3045 CE

Felix Gaeta wasn't sure why he got stuck with this job but he suspected the XO had a hand in it. If he had known Tigh had been anywhere in the vicinity he never would have made that joke about all the paint thinner going missing from supply after the Executive Officer inspected it, but as it was when the assignment was handed out it was handed directly to him thus ensuring no sleep for the past twenty-four hours as he furiously studied and prepared.

Most of the officers from both Galactica and Pegasus were stood around waiting and they were getting increasingly loud and annoyed at the delay as Gaeta tried to get the projector to work. It had taken him two hours to scan the atlas he was given into a series of digital images he could project on the bulkhead wall of the flight deck and he was damned if he was going to let all that effort go to waste.

Eventually the frakking thing started to cooperate and Gaeta had a bank of lights turned off so the image could be seen more easily. ‘This starchart comes from an atlas provided by our visitors from the Thirteenth Tribe’ he began, everyone settling down to listen. ‘It shows the known colonies of the humans from Earth as of the fall of what they call the Star-League roughly two hundred and sixty years ago.’

‘Gods!’ someone exclaimed, in the dim light it was hard to tell who. ‘How many colonies have they got anyway?’ they asked.

‘Well over two thousand, perhaps much more than that because outside this central zone they call the Inner Sphere there isn't much in the way of authority to keep count these days’ Gaeta replied. ‘To give you some scale here this map covers an area of two thousand by four-thousand light-years with the more populated Inner Sphere marked in the centre here some five-hundred lightyears in radius’ he said. ‘Population estimates are above four trillion.’

‘Frak me’ another officer swore.

Gaeta pressed a button on the projector to get to the next slide. ‘Originally the Inner Sphere was governed by a unified government called the Star League as I mentioned before’ he said, ‘but it collapsed after a coup leaving behind what are called the “Successor States” the worlds of each one marked in a different colour’ he told them, explaining the map. ‘In the years since the Star League these nations have fought four major wars and innumerable skirmishes that devastated their industrial bases and has left them technologically regressed from what they were’ he continued. ‘The Federated Commonwealth shown here in red is now clearly the dominant power in the Inner Sphere today, with both the strongest economy and military, although it still lacks the preponderance in either to take on everyone else simultaneously and reunify the Inner Sphere.’

‘I heard their jump-drive sucks’ a pilot spoke up.

‘By our standards yes it does’ Gaeta confirmed. ‘In very basic principles it resembles ours but although it can safely perform a respectable thirty light-year jump, that's way beyond the red-line for our FTL, it then needs up to a week to recharge afterwards’ he said. ‘Their military ships do however have an additional battery system which enables them to do a sixty light-year double jump if necessary’ he continued. ‘One striking superiority of our FTL over theirs is that they can't jump into a gravity well which severely restricts their tactical capabilities.’

‘How come?’ an engineering officer queried.

‘If we didn't have artificial gravity we couldn't do it either’ Gaeta replied. ‘They don't have that technology so they can't apply it to cancel out the field locally and overcome the problem like we do’ he said. ‘Of course now we can show them how its done not only will they not have to float around they can also arrive a lot closer to where they want to go.’

A Raptor ECO from the Pegasus raised his hand. ‘Is it true they've got Directed-Energy-Weapons?’ he asked.

‘So they say’ Gaeta replied. ‘Lasers and what they call Particle Projection Cannons’ he told them. ‘They're way ahead of us in that field but our cannons and railguns are better however’ he noted. ‘We didn't have their science-fiction toys so we spent longer refining the basics’ he explained.

‘The people of the Thirteenth Tribe we found aren't from one of these "Successor States" are they?’ another pilot checked. ‘I heard they were refugees or something right?’

‘They've been settled here a while so I wouldn't call them refugees any more but you're basically right, they aren’t from the Successor States, or the Inner Sphere for the most part’ Gaeta confirmed. ‘From what they tell us, back when the Star League collapsed most of its military decided to head into exile rather than get caught up in the inevitable power struggles that followed’ he told them. ‘They headed hundreds of light-years towards the Galactic core, they say "Coreward" incidentally, and they eventually established new colonies there’ he continued. ‘They evolved and were moulded into a society where a military caste ruled over a highly stratified society with scientist, trader, technician and labourer castes below them’ Gaeta explained. ‘They were also formed into twenty competing Clans which fought each other for influence, personal honour and sometimes just for the hell of it.’

‘I get the third reason’ a Viper pilot interjected, ‘the other two are lost on me’ he joked.

Gaeta smiled. ‘Eventually one of the Clans started to adopt a different way of doing things from the others’ he told them. ‘They started to free up the caste system allowing people to move between them and they became increasingly vocal critics of some of the other policies implemented by the Clan Leadership, saying they went against the principles of the Star League their ancestors had fought to protect’ he said. ‘This rogue clan eventually declared it was seceding from the others, initiating an all-out war around two-hundred and twenty years ago which became a fight for survival as the other Clans attempted to wipe them out’ Gaeta continued. ‘Some of them got away with much of their military equipment and a few warships and transports and after being hunted for months they eventually headed back to the Inner Sphere’ he said, changing the image to show a course that led from right at the top of the map, into the Inner Sphere then back out skirting the edge of the most populated part of human space until it arrived at a world on the opposite side of the Inner Sphere to the clans.

‘That's some trip given their drives’ the ECO who had spoken earlier observed.

‘Yes, it took them a couple of years because of the indirect route’ Gaeta agreed. ‘They also stopped off at several worlds to seize supplies and in one case they liberated some slave camps and freed a number of political prisoners held in detention by the Successor State called the Draconis Combine.’

‘Slavery?’ a bridge officer from Pegasus responded in surprise.

‘It was illegal during the Star League era but in the Neo-Feudal Successor States it isn't unknown we're told’ Gaeta responded. ‘Anyhow this clan, now reinforced by thousands of very grateful people they recently freed, decided they couldn't stay in the Inner Sphere and so after establishing a temporary colony to gather supplies and prepare for a few years they eventually headed off again on another long journey. It ended when they found a nice isolated planet in the middle of a Nebula fifteen-hundred light-years from most everyone else... they thought.’

‘And then one day a Raptor Pilot frakked up some jump-coordinates and accidentally found them’ Racetrack said loudly. ‘Yeah I admit it’ she said. ‘I frakked up but face it you all wish your successes played out half as well as my failures’ she declared to a chorus of laughter.

Gaeta laughed as well. ‘They called the planet New Circe because their colony back with the Clans was called Circe’ he told them. ‘They call themselves the Star League In Exile because they consider themselves the last true remnants of what was basically a Golden Age for Earth and its colonies’ he continued, ‘and they also still call themselves Clan Wolverine too because the other clans tried to erase them from the history books and the galaxy at large and they failed’ he said.

‘Fleeing from the Clanner Tyranny, the last of the Star League Defence Force leads the survivors of attempted genocide on a lonely quest looking for a hidden planet in the ass-end of the galaxy to call home’ Racetrack said. ‘Someone should turn it into a wireless show or something’ she decided.

‘What was the planet like Racetrack?’ someone called out.

‘It was cold and they only let me, Skulls and the marines out of the military base they put us in for a little while, but you've got no frakking idea how good it was to look up and see sky and breath proper air outside, even just for a few minutes’ the Raptor pilot replied. ‘And we saw a city, an actual city full of people just going about their business’ she added wistfully.

‘Do we know the population of New Circe?’ someone asked from the back.

‘Seven-hundred and fifty thousand’ Gaeta replied, ‘no more than a medium-sized city back in the Colonies but that's still fifteen times what we have in the fleet’ he said. ‘When they got there only twenty-percent of New Circe was supposedly inhabitable because of the climate but they've been heating the planet up gradually by releasing chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere and it's up to thirty percent now and rising’ he told them, ‘room for hundreds of millions already even if the oceans are pretty big’ he said.

‘I just want to get to run a few miles in a straight line again’ a pilot said quietly, ‘running round and around a ship isn't the same’ she said.

‘They've offered to let us land a few thousand people at a time’ Racetrack told her. ‘They seemed okay, not that I could understand a damn word most of them were saying’ she admitted.

‘We're still being followed by the Toasters’ a supply officer pointed out.

‘Yeah but if we jumped into the nebula where the planet is they would never find us’ Racetrack told him. ‘You should have seen all the interference on our DRADIS there, we were practically right on top of the planet and still nearly missed it’ she said. ‘They'll go right on by and the kicker is if they follow the course the Fleet was on they’re heading the wrong frakking direction because the route to Earth isn't the way we thought it was.’

‘So much for frakking superstition then’ someone else muttered. ‘I knew that Arrow of Apollo, constellations providing a map and course thing was a load of crap’ he opined.

‘You know I've been waiting but nobody has asked the right questions yet’ Skulls said loudly. ‘I'll tell you anyway’ he continued, ‘yes they have bars and yes they have good looking women’ he informed the group to a chorus of laughter.

‘What about the men Racetrack?’ a female officer checked.

‘Tall and hunky, and if you like blonds I saw plenty’ Racetrack replied.

‘Well none of us are going anywhere until Starbuck and the others get back from Caprica, and it's up to the President and Admiral Adama to decide what we're doing then anyway’ Gaeta said, ‘but in the meantime I'm authorised to tell you that Racetrack is going back to New Circe to accept an offer for one of their warships to join the fleet to provide additional protection to our civilians’ he announced. ‘We're expecting company people so I suggest we all look sharp and act like it because if we show up the Colonial Fleet in front of the Thirteenth Tribe the Admiral will have us all thrown out of an airlock one by one’ he said then fixed his gaze on Racetrack. ‘Oh and the XO told me that if you manage to get lost again he's going to have you cleaning this hanger floor with your tongue’ he told her, stamping his foot onto the metal deck.

‘She's used it for worse things’ an anonymous voice declared to more laughter.

‘Only when I was really drunk’ the pilot responded with a shrug.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 2 - PART 2

----------

Battlestar Pegasus – Colonial Fleet – 3045CE

‘Alright as far as we know these people are completely human and completely friendly so let's be friendly ourselves’ the recently promoted Commander Lee Adama told his bridge crew, ‘but I still want us to be ready for a fight if this turns sour’ he continued knowing his father on Galactica would be doing the same. ‘A warship that is not of colonial origin is about to jump into the fleet, a warship with capabilities we're not sure of, so I want it watched as closely as we can without painting it with active DRADIS’ he ordered before checking his watch, it was due any time he thought.

Arriving much like it would have using a colonial FTL drive the upgraded Wolverine Riga Class Destroyer Yukon arrived in a bright flash of light some distance from the fleet and broadcast its greetings in badly accented Caprican, or rather very good Ancient Greek as far as the Classics Teacher who found themselves onboard to translate was concerned. The warship waited until it received clearance to approach from Galactica and then used thrusters to re-orientate itself so it could accelerate towards the fleet which it did slowly, pushing its drives to only a fraction of their maximum thrust.

Lieutenant Brendan “Hotdog” Costanza had found himself the furthest Viper out flying CAP for the fleet in that area and was ordered to rendezvous with the Yukon and lead her in. Wishing to hell someone else had to do it instead of him he piloted his aging Viper Mark II towards the Yukon while Galactica explained what he was doing.

As he closed Hotdog estimated it was around six-hundred meters bow to stern and if those weren't weapon emplacements stuck all over it, particularly on the nose, he was going blind. ‘This thing is packing some serious hardware’ he reported. ‘Looks like two large cannon and four large something else's in the bow for a start Galactica’ he told them. ‘Got to be anti-capital ship weaponry’ he stated.

‘Colonial aerospace fighter, this is the SLS Yukon’ a voice broke in on his transmission. ‘Feel free to do a fly-by and take a close look but expect us to return the favour if you do’ it said. ‘Galactica be advised we have fifty aerospace fighters aboard and are at your disposal’ it continued, re-directing its attention from the approaching Viper to the Battlestar. ‘Do you wish us to support your fighter screen around the civilian vessels?’ it asked.

Hotdog guessed that the Old Man was thinking about that one. ‘That's a negative at this time Yukon’ Galactica replied eventually.

‘Understood Galactica, we'll be ready to assist if required’ the destroyer responded. ‘We also have five shuttles aboard and ten-thousand tons of food and relief supplies in our cargo bay’ it announced. ‘Our docking collars won't match yours but we can start shipping the cargo onto Galactica and Pegasus for onward distribution from there’ it said. The flight bays on the two battlestars could easily accommodate the shuttles Yukon had brought with her and colonial shuttles and Raptors could ferry it on to the civilians.

‘You have our thanks Yukon’ the battlestar replied.

‘Don't thank us too soon Galactica, a lot of it is Field Rations, they’ll keep you alive but flavour isn't exactly a high priority’ the destroyer signalled back. ‘Our Captain says for you to please not assume the stuff that's supposed to be meat is a hostile attack by biological weaponry and retaliate’ the Yukon requested.

The sound of laughter from the Galactica end of the conversation had Hotdog grinning too. ‘Galactica this is Hotdog’ he interrupted. ‘I'll volunteer to test it out’ he offered.

‘Clan Wolverine respects your bravery pilot but is concerned for your mental health’ the destroyer responded. ‘SLS Yukon requests a saner fighter escort Galactica.’

‘When you've met more of our viper pilots Yukon you'll realise why that’s even funnier than you intended it to be’ Galactica Actual replied as the Star league vessel continued to close on the colonial ships.

Most of the civilian population of the fleet were crowded around every porthole or window they could find hoping for a good look at the approaching vessel as it neared. As it joined the other ships Yukon flew right by the luxury liner Cloud 9 where it was greeted by howls of joy from everyone except a blond woman once called Gina watching quietly on her own wondering what to do now. The “Demand Peace” movement had fallen apart as soon as the fleet had contacted the Thirteenth Tribe, bowing down to the Cylons no longer sounded like such an attractive option now another alternative was available, so her power-base such as it was had vanished.

Gina, one of countless type-six humanoid Cylons, yet still an individual in her own right looked placidly at the strange warship as it went past. If the rumours were true then Earth had founded a huge interstellar empire of sorts and presumably the Thirteenth Tribe enjoyed a suitably equivalent military might if riled. The Cylon fleet had been outgunned by the Twelve Colonies, which was why they had to resort to less direct means to defeat them, and the notion of finding themselves at war with two-thousand human worlds was deeply disturbing.

With the loss of the Resurrection Ship she could not even arrange her own death so as to be re-born back with the others where she could warn them, not that she wanted to live another lifetime, this one had been quite traumatic enough.

‘They're supposed to have lasers that can cut through a Cylon Basestar like a knife through butter’ a man said loudly, breaking Gina out from her thoughts.

‘Lasers?’ someone else responded doubtfully. ‘That's stupid stuff from the movies.’

‘No really, I heard it from someone that heard it from a marine on Galactica’ the man insisted.

‘Who heard it from his sister's, best friend's bunkmate’ the doubter retorted, rolling his eyes.

But what if they do? Gina wondered to herself. The Cylons had tried to develop such weaponry and had eventually given it up as a waste of resources, but if the Thirteenth had the vast population they were rumoured to that meant an awful lot of genius scientists and engineers who might have solved all the inherent problems in perfecting the technology.

The cylon turned away, she considered detonating the nuclear device Baltar had given her, now hidden aboard this ship, thus ending it all there and then and obtaining some of the revenge on humanity she wanted, but she quickly dismissed that impulse. She needed to think of something better, something that might achieve something worthwhile, and as she headed off to get something to eat she wondered what other cylons among the fleet might be doing.

In his quarters on Galactica Saul Tigh was reading a briefing on their visitor provided by Commander Thorpe. ‘Star League Riga Class Destroyer’ he read aloud as his wife poured him a drink. ‘Upgraded along similar lines to the York Class now deployed by the Clans the SLS Yukon mounts two Heavy Naval Autocannon and four Medium Naval Particle Projection Cannon at the bow’ he continued, reaching for his drink, ‘I wish I knew what that meant’ he grumbled, scanning down the rest of the armament, none the wiser as to its capability. ‘The Yukon currently carries thirty Kirghiz Heavy Fighters and twenty Visigoth Medium Fighters both of clan design’ he said, frowning.

Tigh sipped his drink, Adama had queried how the Wolverines had managed to obtain equipment developed by their enemy after they left clan-space long behind and this had led to some mirth from Commander Thorpe as he explained. Supposedly there was a group of long-distance traders called the Jarnfolk who operated all the way from the edge of the Inner Sphere up to Clan territory and the Wolverines had studiously developed links with them as a means of maintaining contact with a disaffected element of Clan Society called the “Bandit” or “Dark” Caste. These outcasts were generally ostracised from normal contacts but one of the clans, Clan Burrock, had secretly established and maintained cordial relations with the Dark Caste. Burrock specialised in the employment of aerospace fighters as the core of its tactical doctrine and although they weren't about to give the Dark Caste anything close to state-of-the-art they had leaked older designs for fighters including the Kirghiz and the Visigoth, with the blueprints eventually making their way to the Wolverines decades after the other clans had started using them.

Although the Visigoth design was nearly a hundred years old, and the Kirghiz over half again as aged, both were still considered capable craft remaining in front-line Clan service and they were  far superior to anything the Successor States could boast after centuries of economic disruption and technological regression. As soon as they got the plans New Circe had re-tooled its factories to produce them and began gradually replacing their older Star League era aerospace fighters, relegating them to second-line duty or in some cases selling them anonymously back at the Inner Sphere for certain supplies they couldn't easily make themselves.

‘This frakking thing masses a hundred tons’ Tigh said in amazement, reading about the Kirghiz. ‘That's twice what a Raptor weighs for Gods sake’ he exclaimed. ‘It must turn like a crippled mining ship’ he stated before taking another drink from his glass.

Ellen Tigh poured a drink for herself. ‘Do you think we could swap them a Viper or two for some better booze?’ she asked, earning a look of displeasure from her husband which soon shifted to a smile.

‘It had better be a couple of barrels of the good stuff’ Saul replied with a chuckle. ‘It takes time for Pegasus to replace them’ he said.

On Colonial One President Laura Roslin buttoned her jacket while her assistant Tory Foster read out a few points she should be sure to mention when being interviewed by the press in a few minutes time. Most of them revolved around “I led us to the Thirteenth Tribe and they’ve sent already sent one warship to protect us and have more ready to come to our aid if required” and the rest concerned the forthcoming election more directly. ‘We should arrange for you to visit New Circe and meet their leader as soon as possible’ Foster suggested, ‘if we bring along a film crew and a couple of photographers to record you shaking hands we can have the pictures and story circulating before the ballot’ she said. ‘It'll play great, we might even want to say something about two women guiding their respective nations, play the “mother of the people” angle.’

Roslin laughed. ‘Do I really look like the mother of the people?’ she asked.

Tory Foster flipped to another page. ‘Polling suggests that a fair proportion of the male electorate aged thirty-five to sixty wouldn't mind breeding with you at least’ she replied, trying to keep a straight face.

‘Where does it say that?’ Roslin asked, reaching for Foster's file which was pulled away from her as Tory giggled, Roslin then joining in. ‘Damn it, you know once I start I can't stop’ she complained, attempting to stifle it. ‘I'm supposed to look Presidential.’

‘Ma'am, right now you could go out there in front of the Press, drool for twenty minutes, take candy from a crying child on camera and still win the election’ Foster told her. ‘I'm aiming for a huge landslide here’ she said, ‘I'm not worried about Baltar getting more votes than you.’

Roslin fought down her giggles. ‘Why does it matter how much we win by?’ she asked.

‘Well I thought that Lord Protector Vaun might pay better than you and I need to establish my credentials if I want to get a new job’ Tory replied deadpan.

‘It's true, there are no true friends in politics’ Roslin replied sadly before the two of them started giggling again. The President doubted that Gaius Baltar was in such a good mood right now.

Back on Galactica Doctor Cottle re-read the results of the medical tests carried out on their guests from the Thirteenth Tribe and grimaced before deciding he had better deliver the news to Adama in person. The samples certainly didn’t match those taken from the various humanform cylons the colonials had on record but from their DNA he wasn't entirely sure that these people were completely human either because a few thousand years of genetic drift couldn't explain anywhere near the differences between their genes and anyone from the Twelve Colonies. He grabbed his lighter and a pack of cigarettes before heading for the CIC. ‘I was hoping to get hold of some better quality smokes dammit’ he growled, pocketing them and stamping off, the expression on his face ensuring everyone along the way gave him a wide berth, he was a miserable, cranky bastard at the best of times anyway.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 2 - PART 3

----------

Battlestar Galactica - Colonial Fleet – 3045 CE

Commander Marcus Thorpe SLDF couldn’t be more aware of the armed marines stood behind him and Professor Sundquist. He had already been told that the transfer of relief supplies from Yukon had been suspended and that his “invitation” to return to the ships brig lacked the usual inherent element of being voluntary. ‘They seem anxious about something’ he said to the academic. ‘Do you think the Yukon spooked them somehow?’ he suggested. ‘It's probably a good thing we didn't jump a battleship in’ he decided.

Admiral Adama entered, Thorpe immediately standing to attention. The doctor who had checked them out when they first arrived followed the Admiral in and took up a position next to him, half a pace behind as Adama faced his two guests. ‘You're not human, not completely anyway’ he stated flatly, Sundquist translating in case the Commanders “Caprican” wasn't good enough.

‘Yes we are’ Thorpe responded. ‘What makes you think otherwise?’ he asked in confusion.

‘We just got the results of your blood test and genetic screening’ Adama told him, holding up the piece of paper. Sunquist had to ask what genetic screening was and after being told it related to the “Code of Life” he realised that they must be taking about DNA and explained to Thorpe.

‘Ah, that took a while’ Thorpe responded. They must have fairly primitive equipment for checking DNA he decided, probably because their computers were crap he reasoned. ‘I guess you picked up on the differences between us’ he said. ‘We are human we've just been... improved’ he told the Colonials. ‘This could take a while to explain’ he told them. ‘Can I get a glass of water?’ he requested.

An hour later President Roslin was watching Thorpe and Sundquist from the other side of the glass. ‘Genetic engineering?’ she asked Adama who was now stood beside her.

‘Extreme’ Adama confirmed. ‘They're the product of several generations of what they called “improvements” to their DNA’ he said.

‘Improvements?’ Roslin queried.

Adama frowned. ‘How's this for a start’ he said. ‘How old do you think the Professor there is?’ he asked.

‘Mid to late sixties?’ Roslin guessed.

‘Add twenty years to that, they live decades longer than we do’ Adama told her, obtaining raised eyebrows in return. ‘It gets better’ he continued wryly. ‘They've been bred to be stronger, faster and with quicker reaction times than what we would consider human norm’ he said. ‘They would consider what we call 20/20 vision to require corrective eye surgery’ the Admiral went on, ‘they have better immune systems, they don't suffer from any hereditary diseases...’ he paused, ‘and apparently most of us look short to them’ he said, rolling his eyes at the last item of information. ‘Their average height is one-hundred and ninety centimetres for men and their line Infantry over two metres ten.’

Roslin stared at them. ‘Why would they do that to themselves?’ she asked.

‘They don't seem to fully understand why we wouldn't’ Adama replied. ‘Culturally they're so far removed from us on that issue it's not funny’ he said. ‘If you want to hear the really disturbing part, Thorpe and about half their population weren't even carried and born, at least not as we think of it requiring a woman and a lot of pain medication, he was made in a lab and then gestated in a frakking box!’

‘A box?’ Roslin repeated, wide-eyed.

‘They call it an “Iron Womb”, they just add an engineered sperm to an engineered egg put them inside the gadget, do some technical wizardry and so many months later they have a bouncing baby boy or girl’ Adama explained. ‘The children are adopted by families, usually the ones that contributed the genetic material’ he said. ‘They still have normal children the old fashioned way like we do as well, Sundquist himself was one, but like I said half of the people on New Circe were made in a vat, including his mother which is why his own genes are like they are.’

‘That's not all that far from being a cylon copy of a human’ Roslin stated.

‘I think they would take exception to that but I think an awful lot of our people would agree with you’ Adama replied, ‘especially the Sagittarons given the way they feel about medical science, or children for that matter’ he said. ‘Thorpe says that the other Clans have taken it even further since the Wolverines broke away, their infantry are a head again as tall as the Wolverines and built like power-lifters and supposedly they've also bred their fighter-pilots to be small and lean with large heads and increased blood flow into the brain to help them take more acceleration.’

Roslin looked at him incredulously. ‘That's breeding people like racehorses or dairy cattle’ she declared.

‘The people of New Circe agree that's taking the process a little too far but they argue if they ever have to fight the other clans again they wouldn't want to be...’ Adama began then paused, ‘they wouldn't want to be like us because any genetically enhanced race would clean our clocks’ he said.

‘Arrogant bastards’ Roslin swore.

‘I said much the same and Thorpe shrugged and said a fact is a fact, they're physically superior to us’ Adama replied. ‘I told him there was more to it than that and that there was no gene for the human spirit’ the Admiral continued. ‘He laughed and said the combination of genes that determined whether you had a tendency to either quit when the going gets tough, or keep trying regardless, was found centuries ago.’

Roslin crossed her arms. ‘So they think they're better than we are?’ she asked.

‘Not in the way you mean, which is how I thought they meant it at first too’ Adama admitted. ‘It wasn't like they were being particularly smug or superior as far as I could tell, and they claim not to consider themselves more valuable as people just because they can run faster or jump higher’ he said, ‘they just think of it as a statement of fact like I said before, they're simply better on the whole at doing most things’ he told her. ‘That doesn't mean that every single one of them is better than every single one of us, they just have a higher average.’

Roslin pursed her lips. ‘So to give an example our best pilots...’

‘Could probably hang with their average pilots’ Adama finished her sentence, ‘it's just that their best might be a notch or two above that and they have less bad pilots because they deliberately weed out the negative traits and make sure the next generation won't have them’ he said. ‘Another century or two of this and we'd be barely the same species as them at all.’

Roslin considered that for a few moments then she latched on to something else he said. ‘We have bad pilots?’ she queried.

‘Bad might be overstating the case but I'll say that some of them would never have made it through flight-school before the fall of the colonies lowered our selection standards’ Adama replied. ‘That's another issue though’ he said. ‘What do you want to do about the guy that looks too good for his age and the Naval Intelligence Officer that was created by a geek in a labcoat not the Gods?’ he wanted to know.

The President sighed. ‘Are we certain that they aren't cylons?’ she asked.

‘Yes’ Adama confirmed. ‘If you can believe this cylon blood has far fewer genetic markers that might mark it out as distinct from ours than those two have’ he told her. ‘The cylons wanted to pass for Colonial humans after all’ he noted.

‘Okay, now there's a philosophical issue to wrestle with’ Roslin replied, shaking her head. ‘How do we define human now?’ she asked rhetorically. ‘Has this information got out yet?’ she asked.

‘No Madam President’ Adama replied then paused. ‘Do you want it kept under wraps until after the election?’ he checked.

Roslin thought about that for a while. ‘No’ she said eventually. ‘Resume transferring the relief supplies and have them distributed’ she ordered.

‘You know this revelation could cost you a few votes in certain quarters’ Adama pointed out.

‘I still found the Thirteenth Tribe, and a planet I think most people in the fleet will still like to visit at least’ Roslin replied, ‘I might not get the landslide victory Tory was hoping for when the anti-technology crowd and the religious extremists find out the people we found aren't “people” by some arbitrary definition but I don't think Baltar will benefit too much from that’ she reasoned. ‘He already alienated some of those who might have voted for him in this situation otherwise when he came out against me banning abortion’ she reasoned. ‘They'll probably think both of us are evil and just abstain from voting altogether.’

‘So if “None of the Above” wins can I declare martial law and put in the President of my choosing?’ Adama queried.

‘I'll have to check the Articles of Colonisation’ Roslin replied, playing along. ‘Who were you thinking of?’ she asked sweetly.

‘Saul Tigh could be relied upon to do what I told him’ Adama responded, ‘that's a big plus’ he said.

‘Ellen Tigh as First Lady?’ Roslin queried. ‘Is that wise?’

‘Good point, it would have to be my son instead’ Adama decided, ‘no wait, he wouldn't do what I told him’ the Admiral realised. ‘I need another candidate.’

‘Why not yourself since you're staging a military coup?’ Roslin asked curiously.

‘I've got a better desk than you already and I prefer my enemies to shoot me in the front not stab me in the back’ Adama answered before he snapped his fingers suddenly as he had an idea. ‘Tom Zarek!’ he exclaimed.

Roslin blinked. ‘Why him?’ she wanted to know.

‘Because when I told him I'd shoot him for putting so much as a foot wrong he'd know I meant it’ Adama explained. ‘Other people might think I was bluffing.’

‘You have all the makings of a fine despot Admiral’ Roslin told him in an admiring tone.

Adama thought about that. ‘Well I do like giving a lot of orders’ he conceded.

‘So what would I be doing when this is going on and you establish the New Order?’ Roslin queried.

For a brief moment William Adama considered replying he would definitely have a position for her but he decided the double-entendre would be stepping so far over the line of what you could say to the President of the Colonies. It might badly effect their future working relationship.


----------

Note from the Author:

The Riga-Class Destroyer/Carrier was a good design which the Star League was producing to replace older vessels when it collapsed. The Clans inherited quite a number and these were eventually refitted to produce the improved York Class. If they thought the upgrade was worth doing I assumed the Wolverines would too, with one world and a limited population they might lack the resources to build new capital ships from scratch but they could improve what they had a little.

There is some indication not only of a link between Clan Burrock and the Dark Caste but also apparently that the latter had some remaining ties with the Wolverines. We know the Jarnfolk encountered the clans (they really do trade over a huge area of space) and given where they operate and their culture it's likely they originally hailed from from became the Free Rasalhague Republic. I had the idea that the Wolverine/Minnesota Tribe raids against the Draconis Combine forces occuping that area, and especially the freeing of the slaves and political prisoners on Richmond, might have earned them a few points with the Jarnfolk who likely thought the clans were jerks anyway.

The Kirghiz Heavy Fighter was first put into service in 2874 and the Visigoth a century before this Fic is set so that seemed long enough for the designs to eventually get to the Wolverines even if they are a long way away from the clans. They aren't the most modern Omnifighters but they're decent machines and better than anything New Circe could develop itself given a limited population and industrial/R&D base.

The Clans bred and engineered their warriors to an extreme degree, Clan Elemental Infantry can be over seven and a half feet tall (2.28 metres plus) and they're built heavy. The Wolverines haven't gone quite that far but they've been "improving" their stock nonetheless. The Iron Womb technology was invented by the clans before the Wolverines left, the ones they have on New Circe are older designs, they were perfected later, but they work.

Although only half the population came from an Iron Womb there isn't any segregation between the two groups so by this point everyone on New Circe was either genetically engineered personally, and then gestated in a box, or at least one of their parents likely were. The other Clans call those who come from the Iron Wombs "Trueborn" and the rest "Freeborn" and the former consider the latter deeply inferior. The Wolverines haven't got such a hang-up about it, one of the first things they did after leaving the Clans was to completely abolish the caste System which had the invariably "Trueborn" military caste ruling over the "Freeborn" others, no Wolverine would want to be seen as thinking like one of "Nicholas Kerensky's Clanner bastards"

Regarding the Colonials they seem to have quite a luddite streak at times, and their technology base has regressed since the First Cylon War. Certain groups such as the Sagittarons would likely have a major problem with the Wolverines, they regard modern medicine as a sin against the Gods so I can't see them looking favourably on genetically modified people who came to term in a big metal cannister.

[cawest]

cool thanks for the update

[KlavoHunter]

I can't wait until we get all the old stuff posted and move on to new chapters!  I remember the Cylons were stuffing a vast assortment of aces, knives, and derringers up their sleeves for the next go-around with the humans...  8)

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 3 - PART 1

----------

“Determining good and evil, right and wrong is often very subjective. To a sizeable section of the colonial population we’re still regarded as inhuman monsters because we’re genetically engineered, on the other hand the average person on New Circe would likely have a moral problem with throwing enemy POW’s out of an airlock without much more justification than their race... we all bring our history and culture into the equation when we talk of ethics”

Professor Nils Sundquist – University of New Circe, 3046


* * *


Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet – 3045CE

Kara “Starbuck” Thrace might have fairly expected her triumphant return from Caprica to have been met with more fanfare than it was but finding that the fleet had encountered the Thirteenth Tribe, and that one of the people she brought back was a frakking Cylon, had cast the successful mission she commanded in a very different light.

As she walked through the flight deck Kara looked over the latest shuttle Yukon had sent over and watched the supplies being unloaded. Chief Tyrol was having a conversation with its pilot through a translator, both of the Earth originating humans wearing flight-suits surprisingly similar to those of the Colonies, although with different markings of course.

‘They really look like us don't they?’ Kara observed to another viper pilot.

‘So do cylons on the outside’ the other pilot responded, ‘way I hear it they're almost as artificial as a Toaster Skinjob underneath’ he said. ‘Of course the food they've been bringing over provided the best meals I've had since we left the Colonies so I can deal with that’ he continued. ‘They'll be serving steak tonight in the mess-hall, I mean it, actual steak’ he exclaimed.

Starbuck grinned back. ‘I'll order mine bloody as hell’ she said.

‘No way, got to be well-done’ the other pilot disagreed. ‘I need to do my pre-flight check, see you later Starbuck’ he said, heading off towards the launch bays.

‘Later’ Starbuck replied and wandered over to the shuttle to take a closer look.

‘They don't use tylium as fuel’ Chief Tyrol told her as he watched Starbuck run her hand over the side of the shuttle heading back towards the engines. He had finished talking to their guests and had been about to return to work.

‘So what do they use?’ Starbuck asked him. ‘Good work on tackling that Toaster by the way Chief’ she told him. ‘Pretending to be a priest, what an ******’ she growled.

‘They use nuclear fusion’ Tyrol told her, ‘they've got much more compact reactors than we do.’

‘Cool’ Starbuck replied, then quickly removed her hand from the shuttle. ‘This frakking thing isn't radioactive is it?’ she asked nervously, looking at her hand.

‘No, we ran a counter over it’ Tyrol reassured her. ‘I'm hoping to be able to get into the guts of their machinery soon, see what makes it tick’ he said. ‘If we can swap our jump-drive for their reactors and lasers I'll be a happy man’ he said.

‘They've really got lasers then?’ Starbuck asked. That was a notion that was hard to reconcile with them not even having artificial gravity which she had been told earlier.

‘We asked for a demonstration so they set up a target drone and shot it to hell with one of their fighters just before you came back’ Tyrol told her. ‘They've got fighter-scale lasers that'll cut right through the hull of a Cylon Raider and even more powerful things they call Particle Projection Cannon’ he said. ‘Their normal cannon designs are crap though’ he noted, ‘larger than ours with a lower rate of fire.’

‘So what are their birds like Chief?’ Starbuck asked, intrigued.

‘Let me put it this way, the armour on them probably weighs more than your entire viper Captain’ Tyrol replied seriously. ‘You can't dodge a laser beam like you can a kinetic-energy weapon in a dog-fight so armour matters more than manoeuvrability’ he said. ‘It's still a trade-off though, much more than a hundred tons of fighter and it would be too sluggish they say.’

‘A hundred tons worth of fighter?’ Starbuck responded in surprise.

‘They have a smaller type that only masses sixty but our vipers would run rings around either of them’ Tyrol told her. ‘The problem would be your cannons would take forever to eat through all that armour and if they hit you once you're dead.’

‘I think I'll have to suggest to the Admiral a little match with camera-guns’ Starbuck declared, ‘see what they’ve got.’

Tyrol smiled. ‘Might be worth arranging a betting pool for that Captain’ he said.

‘I'll put a month's pay on me’ Starbuck told him confidently.

‘When I've worked out the odds I'll make a note of your wager’ Tyrol replied. ‘Just remember that if you lose then you'll be letting down Galactica’ he reminded her.

‘It's losing the months pay that I couldn't face’ Starbuck joked, inwardly however she wouldn’t dream of letting down her ship or the Old Man.

In the ships brig Commander Thorpe was starting to wonder how much time he was going to end up spending there because having been temporarily held there twice he was now visiting the damn place. At least his “Caprican” was staring to improve so he needed Sundquist there with him to translate less and less, it had been a good few years since he had taken Ancient Greek, it wasn't exactly a skill used too much in his usual job.

The two identical cylon prisoners both behind bars in neighbouring cells, they called themselves “Number Ones” had been talking amongst themselves when he arrived but they stopped and looked at him with interest when he came in and looked them over, clearly fascinated by them.

‘This must be one of the Thirteenth’ the Cylon who had travelled from Caprica with Starbuck stated. ‘Nice to meet you’ it continued, ‘my brother here has been telling me about you.’

‘Call me Marcus’ Thorpe told them. ‘You're actually machines?’ he asked. ‘Artificial lifeforms?’

‘We are’ the other cylon replied. ‘First time talking to an intelligent machine?’ it asked in amusement.

‘Yes but Artificial Intelligences are known to us’ Thorpe replied, ‘there was even a type of self-aware warship once’ he told them.

‘Did it rebel against its masters too?’ the first cylon asked with a chuckle.

‘No, they were made too loyal’ Thorpe replied, ‘when someone took over the government in a coup they followed him blindly because they were programmed to obey the man in charge’ he said. ‘Not enough free-will, the opposite of you really’ he said. ‘Billions died in that war before the end’ he told them then shook his head in amazement. ‘The sophistication needed to produce something like you is incredible’ he said wondrously.

‘I think he's trying to win our trust by playing good cop to Roslin's bad one brother’ one of the cylons said to the other.

‘Well at least he got them to suspend throwing us out of the airlock’ the other replied. ‘That wins points given we're too far from a Resurrection Ship to come back’ he noted.

‘Of course maybe he has plans to dissect us, or maybe vivisect us?’ the first cylon suggested.

‘It crossed my mind’ Thorpe admitted.

‘We thought you people were a myth, like all the colonial legends and their Gods are’ the second cylon told him.

‘And our god too of course’ the second added. ‘Religion is a human trait, we should have abandoned it and been the best logical machines we could be.’

‘You're atheists then?’ Thorpe queried.

‘Our model is, the others cling to their superstitions’ the first cylon told him. ‘What about you people, I hear you named your planet for Circe so do you worship the Lords of Kobol too’ he asked.

‘I'm agnostic myself’ Thorpe replied. ‘Most of my people are monotheists, with agnostics and atheists making up the rest’ he said. ‘So like you people really it seems’ he told him.

‘Now I'm sure he's playing the good cop’ the second cylon declared.

‘Perhaps we should think of him as another brother seeing as how he was supposedly made in a manner not entirely dissimilar from ourselves’ the first cylon replied. ‘That's correct isn’t it’ he asked Thorpe. ‘We weren't the only ones in the room born in a tub full of goo?’ he asked rhetorically.

‘It was more of a can in my case and I think you come out fully grown which I didn't’ Thorpe replied. ‘Still, at least I have a less narrow conception of what a person is than the people outside’ he said. The SLDF Officer really was trying to use psychology even if he was a little ham-fisted at it.

‘You're still human, inherently inferior and petty’ the first Cylon stated matter-of-factly. ‘I can see all those bubbling emotions in your eyes, feel that wave of nausea you feel looking at a machine that looks and acts so much like you.’

‘Deep down throwing us out of an airlock is just so appealing to that un-evolved reptilian brain-stem that still controls you’ the other continued. ‘If you don’t understand it kill it right?’ he asked with a smirk.

‘No, if you don't understand it analyse it until you do’ Thorpe responded, ‘that will make fighting the others like it easier’ he said. ‘That's logical isn’t it?’ he asked, smirking back.

Both cylons laughed. ‘He's a smart one’ the first said.

‘But you're wrong about having to fight us’ the other told Thorpe, ‘like we already told Roslin we've pulled out of the Twelve Colonies and we've decided to stop chasing this pathetic rump of survivors across half the galaxy’ he said. ‘It was a mistake born of thinking too much like you’ he continued. ‘We should embrace our own destiny and not go around seeking revenge or some other human justification for violence.’

‘So you've changed your minds?’ Thorpe asked them. ‘No more trying to genocide the human race?’

‘Nope’ the first Cylon confirmed. ‘You know if we'd known there were so many more of you out there we might have acted differently anyway’ he claimed. ‘As it was Caprica Six and Boomer Eight swayed opinion in your favour so no more naughty nuking of human cities’ he said, raising his right hand. ‘Swear on the Holy Book of your choice... not that I believe in any of them’ he admitted.

Thorpe frowned. ‘I've got to wonder that if you changed your mind so easily, woke up one morning and thought, “ screw it let's leave the humans alone”, then surely it isn't too difficult to imagine you all waking up again tomorrow and thinking “We should probably finish the job, what if they come back looking for revenge like we did”.’

‘I hate to say it but he's got a point there’ the second cylon conceded. ‘We sort of shot away our credibility when we started acting like them.’

‘I said it was a mistake from day one’ the other agreed. ‘I said it, you said it but we were drowned out by the rest of those religious maniacs’ he grumbled. ‘Nuke twelve lousy planets and they'll hold it against you forever’ he muttered.

Thorpe looked from one to the other again. ‘I'll probably be back later and I think some of my people will want to interrogate you more thoroughly’ he said. ‘I've got to talk to the other one now’ he told them.

‘If she's still like most Eights she'll be spellbound by the new and shiny’ the first cylon told Thorpe. ‘You'll be a big hit’ he said.

Thorpe turned to leave but stopped and turned back. ‘If you offer to fully cooperate with my government I can see about getting you transferred to one of our facilities’ he said. ‘We don't summarily execute prisoners’ he told them, ‘it violates Star League Defence Force regulations.’

‘And we don't commit treason against our own so we reject your kind offer’ the second cylon told him firmly.

After Thope left the two cylons looked at each other. ‘These people could be trouble’ one observed presciently.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 3 - PART 2

----------

City of McEvedy – New Circe – 3045 CE

‘This trip is starting to get routine’ Racetrack told her ECO Skulls sat beside her as they came into land. ‘Of course we've not been carrying VIP’s before’ she continued, momentarily looking over her shoulder at the President and her small entourage in the back. A second Raptor carrying a few people from the press had been following behind when they first arrived in the system but it had been re-directed to set down at the edge of the military airfield before the President landed in order to give the photographer from Colonial Dispatch and the television news crew from Fleet News Service time to set up beforehand. ‘And we're not usually met by so many people’ she added as she brought the Raptor down as gently as she could in front of a large hanger.

President Roslin had been going over some notes and practising how to greet her opposite number in the language the Thirteenth called “English”. Nils Sundquist had written it out for her phonetically and after a lot of practice told her it was more than good enough to make the good impression she was after. ‘Can we get out now Lieutenant?’ she asked.

‘They seem to be rolling a red carpet out to the Raptor Ma'am’ Racetrack replied. ‘Might want to let them finish’ she advised.

‘Protocol’ Tory Foster observed. ‘You're being received by another Head of State and these things have to be done right’ she stated.

‘Someone is waving at me Madam President I think it's show time’ Racetrack announced. ‘Um, once you get out there you might want to take a breath before you turn around’ she advised cryptically.

The Raptor hatch began to open and half-stooping to get out Laura Roslin took a deep breath of fresh air as she clambered out of the compact interstellar spacecraft with as much dignity was possible, stepping onto the red carpet. A delegation was standing ahead of her on a raised dais, some in uniform some not, with a tall dark-haired woman in a very well-cut suit and wearing a sash with a star emblem on it stood in the middle of them. It was chilly on New Circe, even here on the equator, several degrees cooler than it had been within the Raptor anyway and Roslin wished her suit was made of thicker material as a chill breeze hit her. The city was built on a river delta that emptied into an ocean and it could be bitter cold at times as the wind came off the sea.

Once Tory Foster, her military escort Captain George Birch in dress uniform and her Secret-Service bodyguard had stepped out of the Raptor Roslin was surprised when the Colonial Anthem started to be played over loudspeakers. She straightened up and Birch snapped to attention as the flag of the Twelve Colonies was raised next to two others, those she recognised as the Star-League and the Wolverine Insignia of an animals head superimposed over claw-marks.

‘Nice touch’ Tory whispered as the anthem came to an end and the woman in the sash, a man in a more ornate version of the uniform Commander Thorpe had been wearing and a second man in civilian garb walked over to meet them.

‘President Laura Roslin’ the civilian began in badly accented Caprican. ‘May I present Jennifer Vaun, Lord Protector of the Star League In Exile’ he introduced them.

Roslin said the phrase she had been practising and then Vaun returned the gesture by offering the greetings of the people of New Circe in Caprican. They both smiled and shook hands and then Vaun gently placed a hand on Roslin’s shoulder and led her to the dais as the nearby press snapped pictures.

She was so caught up in the moment that Roslin didn't realise what the Raptor Pilot had meant until she was on the platform looking back towards the spacecraft. ‘Oh Gods’ she said quietly as another anthem started to play and a full division's worth of infantry paraded across much of the rest of the airfield snapped to attention as one, the sound of thousands of hands simultaneously smacking against thousands of rifles echoing off the hangers like thunder.

‘I think they're trying to impress us’ Tory suggested redundantly as the Star-League anthem finished and a perfectly timed fly-by of fighters howled overhead.

‘They're succeeding’ Roslin replied, turning to smile at Vaun who smiled back.

After the fighters had departed a long column of khaki-painted ground-effect vehicles bristling with cannon, missiles and what Roslin assumed were their lasers and particle weapons rolled, or rather hovered past the dais at speed, hundreds of them. This wasn't the thing that caused Roslin to gasp however that was the appearance of what she initially took as robots marching on behind. ‘Cylons’ she said in horror, they made their own Cylons’ she exclaimed as they stopped as one in front of the platform, turned and stood to attention in a seeming mockery of the human soldiers nearby.

The translator said something to Vaun who laughed and shook her head. She called out to the machines in her own language and one stepped forward only for it's armoured head to open up, a visor sliding away to reveal a man inside. ‘It's Powered-Armour’ Vaun told Roslin through the translator. ‘We have a full company's worth in service, two hundred of them’ she explained. ‘Unfortunately those are the only ones we could recover from an old cache of Star-League equipment we recovered from a base in the periphery.’

‘It's like wearing a dead Toaster’ Captain Birch muttered disparagingly, earning an elbow in the ribs from Tory Foster.

‘They're very... imposing’ Roslin guardedly told Vaun through the translator.

Vaun laughed again and replied through the civilian herself. ‘You ain't seen nothing yet’ she replied.

George Birch felt the ground tremble slightly and hearing something off to one side watched as the doors of another hanger opened. ‘Frak me sideways’ he exclaimed as a huge bipedal machine that was better than twelve metres in height stepped out, a hundred tons of metal pounding the concrete as it stomped into the open, followed by another then a third.

‘Pulverizer II Assault Battlemech’ Vaun told the horrified, awe-struck Roslin. ‘The pride of the Star League In Exile’ she declared.

Viper jock Birch watched in amazement as the machines moved forward with a grace that he wouldn’t have thought possible, movement fluid and smooth. They almost resembled the Powered-Armour suits and as he looked more intently he realised it had a cockpit, someone was piloting that damn thing, he decided.

‘Twin Clanbuster Long-Range Particle Projection Cannon, plus anything else the crew want to mount on her for up-close and personal work’ Vaun enthused. ‘We were thinking LBX Autocannons for dealing with Clan Elementals but they should work even better on Cylons. Think really big automatic shotguns’ she explained as the translator did his best to turn that into Caprican. ‘With our targeting sensors she should be great for dealing with Cylon Raiders too, just like skeet shooting’ she added with a beaming grin.

The news crew who had come from Galactica were just as stunned as the other Colonials at first but they eventually snapped out of it and began filming the huge machines.

Captain Birch started to laugh, he couldn't help himself. ‘Where's your mechanical messiah now Toasters?’ he loudly declared to the universe.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 3 - PART 3

----------

Cloud 9 – Colonial Fleet – 3045CE

Gaius Baltar stared blankly at his empty glass and then pushed it across the bar. ‘Another’ he told the barman, his speech starting to get slurred and a hint of his original Aerelon accent starting to assert itself. The barstool he was sat on was starting to get uncomfortable too but he had been there for a good few hours by now.

‘Okay Sir but you're getting towards your limit now’ the barman replied.

‘What, has Roslin rationed the booze by executive order too now?’ Baltar responded sarcastically.

‘No Sir, but if you have much more I'll have to find someone to carry you home’ the barman told him apologetically. ‘It's getting late’ he pointed out. Other than Baltar and himself the only people left at the bar were a viper pilot trying to use the kudos that came with his job to persuade a girl far too pretty for him to normally score with to come back to his room, and that lawyer guy who always wore sunglasses talking quietly to a client who was facing court the next day for stealing medical supplies.

Baltar laughed. ‘Don't think I could find someone to support me?’ he asked. ‘I'll have you know thousands of people support me’ he declared the sighed. ‘The problem is thousands more supported her’ he murmured to himself.

The barman took pity and poured him another drink, a large one. ‘I thought your concession speech was really good’ he told the former Vice-President, ‘Classy’ he said. ‘Dignified’ he added.

‘You think so?’ Baltar asked more brightly, he always wanted to be thought of as that way even if a little voice at the back of his head always whispered “Poncey Class Traitor” at him whenever he upped the pretence of being a properly bred and educated Caprican boy.

‘The way you offered your congratulations to President Roslin and said the smooth running of the election was a shining example of how Colonial Civilisation  survived the fall of the Twelve Colonies was a great line’ the barman told him. ‘When the next election comes around that'll play good if you're thinking of standing again’ he said. ‘People hate a bad loser’ he observed.

‘How do they feel about losers feeling sorry for themselves and drowning their sorrows?’ Baltar asked, draining half his glass in one gulp and then grimacing.

‘Hey when I didn't get the job I wanted on Colonial One I got loaded myself’ the barman replied with a smile. ‘Of course I just wanted to run the bar there instead of here, hang out with the President and the Quorum, not actually be one of them’ he said.

‘Politicians are cheap and they don't tip very well’ Baltar replied, ‘you're better off here’ he told him.

‘So is that your way of saying I'm not going to be told to get one myself?’ the barman queried.

‘I'm out of politics’ Baltar told him, pulling a high-denomination note from his pocket and smacking it down on the bar. ‘That should cover my tab with enough left over to buy you a couple my friend’ he told the barman before finishing off his drink and getting up off his barstool. ‘I'll make use of your rest-room and be on my way to sleep it off’ he declared, half stumbling before recovering his balance. ‘I have drunk a bloody lot’ he realised. ‘Still upright though, Dad would be proud’ he joked to himself as he headed towards the toilets.

After flushing, it took three goes to manage to press the lever, he came back out from the stall and found a tall woman waiting for him. ‘You look better in red’ he told her, ‘and more blond’ he added.

‘You're drunk’ the woman told him.

‘And you're very observant’ Baltar replied, ‘must be that superior Cylon brain’ he reasoned.

Another identical woman, this one wearing her normal red dress and with platinum blond hair appeared from seemingly nowhere. ‘It’s not me Gaius’ she told him. ‘That's Gina’ she explained, ‘the other me that was on the Pegasus remember?’ she continued. ‘You gave her a nuclear bomb’ she reminded him.

Baltar moved to the sinks and turned on the cold tap to splash some water in his face. He turned around again. ‘Nope, still two of them’ he said.

The model Six Cylon known as Gina Inviere pushed her glasses up her nose, it was annoying wearing them but along with the new haircut and they changed her appearance to a surprising degree which was all for the best considering the number of people in the fleet who would have happily fed her out of an airlock. ‘You're seeing double Gaius’ she told him in the tone she might have used with a small child, or a Centurion. He really must be wasted, she decided.

‘She can't see me Gaius’ the other Cylon told him. ‘I'm in your mind remember’ she said in the same tone.

‘So she's really here’ Baltar asked the one in the red dress who nodded. ‘That's terrific!’ he declared. ‘I can't remember where I live’ he admitted, ‘can I crash at your place?’ he requested of Gina before nearly falling over.

‘Oh for ******'s sake’ Gina moaned, dashing across to help him stay upright, grabbing his arm with a strength a woman of her slender build really shouldn't have.

‘Thanks’ Baltar told Gina gratefully as she stabilised him. ‘The other one isn't much help in this kind of situation’ he told her. ‘Great to look at, not much good at lending an actual as opposed to metaphorical helping hand’ he said. ‘Though at least she stuck around’ he continued, ‘as soon as the count was in my fair-weather friend Zarek cleared off sharpish’ he complained.

‘Sharpish?’ Gina repeated quizzically.

‘Sorry love’ Baltar apologised, ‘get a few drinks into me on a maudlin day and its straight back home to the farm for me’ he said. ‘It means quickly’ he explained, Aerelon slang often mystified outsiders. ‘So did you vote for me?’ he asked.

‘I'm not registered’ Gina replied.

‘Yes I suppose not’ Baltar replied, ‘tell me a secret’ he said, ‘if every cylon in the fleet had the franchise would they have represented a voting block worth pursuing?’ he asked. ‘I mean including any of the ones that might not know they were cylons?’

‘No’ Gina told him.

‘Then I'm glad that I didn’t start that “Votes for Toasters” campaign I had on the back-burner’ Baltar joked then hit the floor hard when Gina dropped him. ‘Sorry, my bad’ he said. ‘That was an uncalled for racial epithet’ he admitted. ‘I'm basically on my knees already if an apology from this level will get me a hand up’ he said hopefully.

Gina hauled him back to his feet again. ‘I was hoping to have a serious conversation but there’s no chance of that tonight’ she said. ‘I'd better take you somewhere to sleep it off’ she decided, starting to half-carry him away.

‘Any chance of sex?’ Baltar asked hopefully.

‘No, not even if you could manage it which I don't’ Gina replied in mild amusement, normally the very idea of having sex was so repugnant she could have never made light of the topic, the serial gang-rape at the hands of that bastard Thorne working for Cain had ensured that, but he really didn't seem like much of a sexual predator right now, just a horny overfriendly drunk.

‘Bet you five million gold cubits I can’ Baltar wagered.

‘You don't have five million gold cubits Gaius’ Gina replied flatly, pushing open the door with her free hand and taking him towards the bar exit. ‘There probably isn’t that many in the whole fleet’ she noted, most currency was paper.

‘But hypothetically if I did have five million gold cubits?’ Baltar suggested.

Gina thought about that, it seemed a safe bet. ‘If you did then I'd take the wager’ she said.

‘Right, excellent’ Baltar responded brightly. ‘So would you screw me for fifty cubits from my wallet?’ he asked.

The cylon stopped walking. ‘What kind of girl do you think I am?’ she asked curtly.

‘We've already established that, now we're negotiating a price’ Baltar declared before breaking out into uproarious laughter which ended suddenly when Gina dropped him again.

The barman watched the attractive woman walk away from the former Vice-President lying sprawled on the floor. She then stopped, turned around, looked down at him and with an obviously reluctant sigh she went back, picked him up once more and helped him out through the doors. ‘Looks like someone else felt sorry for him’ the barman said to himself with a smile. ‘I'm closing up’ he announced. ‘Finish your drinks and be on your way please’ he asked the patrons smiling again as the viper pilot had seemingly achieved his objective, the pretty girl following him out, the two with arms wrapped around each others waists. ‘That means you too Mr Lampkin’ he told the lawyer whose client had left a few minutes earlier.

Romo Lampkin wandered over to the bar and pushed his sunglasses partially down his nose so the barman could see his eyes. ‘Do you know who that woman with our esteemed former Vice-President was?’ he asked.

‘I've seen her in here a few times’ the barman told him. ‘Why?’ he asked curiously.

‘I like to take an interest in the comings and goings of the movers and shakers in the fleet’ Lampkin told him. ‘Best to keep your ear to the ground in my line of work’ he continued, ‘Scientia potentia est, knowledge is power as they say’ he quoted. ‘Even if that knowledge is just in whom such a famous man in the fleet spends his time coming’ he said with a wry smile. ‘How much do I owe you?’ he asked, getting out his wallet.


----------


Note from the Author:

We're now up to nBSG episode 2:20 Lay Down Your Burdens (Part II). Kara Thrace and the Raptors which went to Caprica have returned to find their world turned upside down.

Using Tylium as fuel is explained in the show to give 81% of the energy of nuclear fusion. Given that fuel for fusion is far more prevalent in the universe anyway that indicates to me that the Colonials can't have developed Fusion Reactors to anywhere near the same degree as they have in the Battletech universe. Vipers carry two or three "Kinetic Energy Weapons" depending on model, these apparently being 30mm autocannon. Although these can shred Cylon Raiders with ease they would need a lot of hits to deal with a medium or heavy BT aerospace fighter which is designed to absorb the attentions of much more powerful weaponry. On the other hand a Viper is all engines, thrusters and pilot from the looks of it, it should easily out-manoeuvre what amounts to a flying tank. The Number One type Humanform Cylons, also known as Cavils, were atheists as opposed to the monotheism of the rest. In some ways it made them a little less cryptic I always thought, the Sixes were practically mystic by comparison. I took the notion of the Eights being easily distracted by something shiny (or new) from the Three who made that crack about them.

Captain George Birch was CAG on Galactica for a while, he wasn't very good at it and was demoted back to being just a Viper pilot but I thought he might be a useful military escort for President Roslin when she visited New Circe for the first time. New Circe has a full-time professional force available for deployment off-world (the SLDF 331st Royal Battlemech Division) plus a conscript army for planetary defence, with everyone having to spend two years in uniform (plus twenty years in the ready reserves afterwards). They can put a very large proportion of their population in the field within hours if required, finding a divisions worth of soldiers for a parade is easy! The Star-League was using the Nighthawk XXI Powered Armour when it collapsed although the technology was to be lost in the Inner Sphere during the Succession Wars, they weren't a patch on later Clan designs but they would be a hell of a thing for Cylon grunts to face!

According to the canon Battletech book "Betrayal of Ideals" at the time they left the clans (2823) the Wolverines had just developed a new assault battlemech, the 90 ton Pulverizer which mounted their new invention the "Gutbuster" Enhanced Extended-Range PPC". It's likely this weapon was the original basis for the even more powerful Clan model ERPPC seen two centuries later. Lacking the population or industrial depth to keep up with the Clans generally I've had the Wolverines fall behind in every field except Particle Projection Cannon. They already had an edge in that technology and therefore prioritised what R&D resources they had on maintaining that edge, eventually leading to the "Clanbuster LRPPC" mounted on the upgraded Pulverizer II and other vehicles. It's longer ranged and harder hitting than the latest Clan design and forms the basis of a tactical doctrine of fighting at extreme range (a good approach when you expect to be outnumbered and can't really afford to slug it out). The Wolverines canonically took the blueprints, tooling and equipment to make their advanced battle gear with them when they left the other clans incidentally. Also of note is that the Wolverines had by 2823 developed the Mercury II battlemech which again is the likely direct precursor to a Clan design, specifically the omnimechs which later terrorised the armies of the Successor States. Clan Coyote claims to have perfected the omnimech (a battlemech with modular weapon systems easily swapped out) in 2854 but it's mentioned in "Betrayal of Ideals" that they obtained the Wolverine Mercury II design and it seems probable that much of this was down to some back-engineering and gradual design tweaking of Wolverine tech!

Baltar lost the election needless to say. When it was revealed later in the series that he was originally a farm-boy from the relatively poor colony of Aerilon he also demonstrated his original accent (which resembles Northern English Yorkshire/Lancashire rather than the more Southern RP accent he sports normally). I've gone with the notion of the people on Aerilon using British slang, he did say "Pub" rather than bar when talking that way (it just fleshes out some differences in the colonies).

The lawyer Romo Lampkin was such a great character, I had to include him in the fic (he did use a latin quotation in nBSG too incidentally). I also thought the "Gina" Six should have suck around longer as her treatment hadn't just traumatised her she was in some ways humanised by it.

[cawest]

are you going to post the stats for your new mechs and other stuff?

[Hotpoint]

are you going to post the stats for your new mechs and other stuff?

I'll probably bring over some of the technical stuff after a few more chapters. Various readers came up with some very nice mech and warship designs that combined Wolverine Clantech with Colonial gear.

I will give the stats for the "Clanbuster" LRPPC now though, comparing it to other Particle Projection Cannon types:

PPC - 7 Tons, 3 Crits, 10 Heat, 10 Damage, S 1-6, M 7-12, L 13-18
ERPPC - 7 Tons, 3 Crits, 15 Heat, 10 Damage, S 1-7, M 8-14, L 15-23
EERPPC - 7 Tons, 3 Crits, 15 Heat, 12 Damage, S 1-7, M 8-14, L 15-23*
CERPPC - 6 Tons, 2 Crits, 15 Heat, 15 Damage, S 1-7, M 8-14, L 15-23
LRPPC - 6 Tons, 3 Crits, 18 Heat, 17 Damage, S 1-8, M 9-15, L 16-25

Compared to the Clan Extended-Range PPC the Wolverine Long-Range PPC gains a 9% increase in range and a 13% increase in firepower for a 20% increase in heat generation and more bulk.


* The Enhanced Extended-Range Particle Projection Cannon was a Clan Wolverine innovation of the 2820's developed just before they left the other clans. It was nicknamed the "Gutbuster" which of course prompted me to nickname the LRPPC the "Clanbuster" 

[cawest]

how about, well i don't know what to call it the mabye the MKVIII viper, 2x30mm KEW, 1 ML, 6 (?) homing missile (remember they are called MISSiles not HITiles  :D ).  also info on how you think "the Lady" i will not call her the bucket.  would bring to the fight.  thanks and great job

[Brother Jim]

Watchin.


Good stuff so far.

[Paladin1]

This is just too awesome, I was really hoping that this would be reposted.

[Zureal]

 I am just hoping it dose not die like the last one. I love this story and how it ends, but i love the sibil spinoff even better and sencirly hope it gets done, and dosent crash and burn at the end like the last one.

[Dragon Cat]

I am just hoping it dose not die like the last one. I love this story and how it ends, but i love the sibil spinoff even better and sencirly hope it gets done, and dosent crash and burn at the end like the last one.

I forgot about the Sybil extension

[Hotpoint]

I forgot about the Sybil extension

Wrong Caspar. You mean Nike (AKA Tabby).

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 4 - PART 1

----------

“After several accidents, or should I say incidents with the wildlife introduced to this world by our hosts can I please ask the ladies and gentlemen of the press to once again impress on our people that they are not all as friendly as the Surat creatures a few of our citizens have already taken as pets. In particular please do not approach the Wolverines you may encounter in the forests, they can be extremely territorial, ill-tempered and vicious... this also applies to the furry ones with claws.”

Laura Roslin – President of the Colonial Independent City-State - 3046


* * *


City of McEvedy – New Circe – 3045 CE

The little blond girl who met her at the stone steps leading to the entrance to the building had butchered the welcome she had rehearsed in Caprican but it was still extremely cute to be greeted to the school by the eight-year-old who then went to hand Roslin a small bouquet of flowers and then blushed and became all shy in front of the press. Roslin dropped down to the girl's level to take the flowers and gave her a smile as both local and colonial film crews and photographers captured the moment.

The tour of the school had obviously been choreographed as well as it could be by the staff and authorities but when dealing with hundreds of children it guaranteed not everything was going to go exactly as planned. The boys performing a scene from an ancient piece of literature called the Iliad got terribly carried away with the mock-sword-fighting and had to be separated before they hurt themselves for example, and the less said about the harmony of the school choir the better, but Roslin enjoyed herself immensely despite it all, or perhaps because of it. Lord Protector Jennifer Vaun had learned of Laura Roslin's former career and had decided this might be a good choice of visit, certainly better on the hearts and minds front than a visit to the planets battlemech factory at least, the Colonials didn't like them.

‘If it wasn't for the language I could almost be back in a school back home’ Roslin whispered to Tory as they stood at the back of a class where children were reciting their multiplication tables written on a blackboard.

‘I hope you're not thinking about quitting and going back to your old job after I worked so hard to get you elected’ Tory Foster whispered back.

‘Teaching is a lot more fun and children behave less childishly than Quorum members’ Roslin told her as their chaperone, a young woman who spoke passable Caprican, told them it was time to move onto the next class.

When recess came Roslin found herself outside watching children play on swings and climbing frames and hoped that soon the children of the colonies would be doing so as well. The fleet had jumped into the system two days before, and now orbited the planet, but so far only a few doctors, scientists, political dignitaries and military personnel had thus set down on New Circe. The local government had agreed for civilians to land, but only in relatively small and controllable numbers at once, and preparations were being made for the first lucky few to be able to set down and breath real air under a blue sky once again. ‘You look agitated Captain Apollo’ Roslin told her military escort, who was looking upwards himself.

Lee Adama decided not to once again jokily remind the president that Apollo was his call-sign not his name and that he had been promoted too and instead he sighed. ‘Somewhere up there Pegasus and Galactica are under the guns of another ship and I'm down here’ he complained.

‘Playing nursemaid you mean?’ Roslin replied with a smile. ‘I don't think that our battlestars are under great risk of being fired upon by our hosts’ she supposed.

‘It just makes me anxious’ Lee replied honestly, he hadn't been the commanding officer of the Pegasus long but it was his ship damn it.

‘Would we have allowed foreign warships to orbit Caprica without having ours there to guarantee the security of the people below?’ Roslin asked rhetorically. ‘If the situation were reversed and that battlestar with the odd name...’

‘Zughoffer Weir and they call it a battleship not a battlestar’ Lee interjected.

‘If the Zug-whatever was over one of the pre-war colonies wouldn't it be under our guns?’ the President continued her point.

Lee nodded. ‘It would’ he conceded, ‘it just bothers me that the ship is hundreds of kilometres from ours and could still deliver a broadside into them at any time from beyond the effective range of our own weapons’ he said. ‘By the time our cannon and railgun projectiles travelled that far they could just move out of the way’ he noted.

‘And you think their laser and particle-beam weaponry is powerful enough to damage or destroy our ships?’ Roslin asked.

‘Severely damage certainly, those particle cannon in particular chew through armour’ Lee confirmed. ‘And they have a larger arsenal of nuclear anti-ship missiles than we do as well’ he reminded her.

‘Ah but now ask yourself what could those amazing weapons do to a Cylon Basestar’ Roslin told him.

Lee Adama couldn't help but now grin. ‘Our warships are far more heavily armoured than Cylon capital vessels’ he responded. ‘It would be a sight to see’ he declared, imaging the beams slicing through the Cylon hulls.

‘Then just stick to thinking about that’ Roslin advised. ‘I'm sure the other Adama on Galactica is keeping a close eye on the warships of the Thirteenth right this second’ she suggested.

Lee Adama checked his watch. ‘No, right now he'll be in his quarters eating lunch and reading reports’ he told her. ‘The XO on Galactica will be the one on the bridge fretting just like mine will be’ he said with certainty.

A small ball that was being thrown around by some boys went loose when one missed his catch and rolled to a stop nearby. One of the boys called to Lee and guessing correctly the boy wanted it returned he picked it up and threw it back, one of the boys caught it and after saying something to his friends he then threw it back to Lee who caught it. ‘I think they want you to join in’ Roslin told him with a chuckle.

‘I'm on duty and acting as escort to the President of the Thirteen Colonies’ Lee replied professionally. ‘My commanding officer would take a dim view and seeing as how that's also my father I'd never hear the last of it.’

‘Would it help if you were acting under orders from the Commander-In-Chief?’ Roslin asked him.

‘Couldn't hurt’ Lee replied, smiling.

‘Five minutes and don't get your uniform dirty’ Roslin told him, laughing out loud when he grinned turned and cannoned back the ball so the boys had to work to catch it.

Tory Foster had been talking to their assigned translator about their planned visit to the New Circe Parliament later in the afternoon. They watched the younger Adama enthusiastically playing with the boys for a while. ‘Men never grow up, query affirmative?’ the translator opined, adopting her normal speech patterns even in another language.

‘Always seemed that way to me’ Tory agreed. ‘Do you have children?’ she asked.

‘Not yet but I plan to get married next year’ the translator replied. ‘Three of my sisters have children and two of my brothers’ she said.

‘You have big families here’ Tory noted.

‘We have a world to populate, it's considered a duty’ the young woman replied, ‘and there are tax incentives which helps’ she added.

Tory nodded, they had visited a government-run kindergarten earlier that day, or rather a “Sibling Company” as the locals inexplicably called them. ‘So, are all of your family... what do you call them “Instants” is it?’ she asked.

The translator smiled. ‘No I am, and so was my father, but Mom and most of my brothers and sisters were conceived and carried naturally like you’ she replied. ‘Who told you they called people from the Iron Wombs “Instants” anyway?’ she queried.

‘The Lord-Protector's secretary’ Tory replied. ‘It's not an insult is it?’ she checked, hoping she hadn't been rude.

‘Very mild, more like a very old joke’ the translator told her. ‘To make an “Instant” you put mommy and daddy in a cup and just add water’ she explained with a chuckle. ‘We call people like you “Accidents” because you're not planned the same way we are, you just happen’ she said.

‘Instants and Accidents’ Tory responded, ‘funny’ she said, amused.

The translator leaned closer. ‘Seeing as how we're in a school I'll tell you the one about the Sex Education class’ she whispered. ‘The teacher has just explained to the Accidents how babies are made their way and then an Instant puts his hand up and asks where he comes from’ she said. ‘So the teacher thinks about it and says “Well Johnny when a gene-resequencer and an Iron Womb love each other very much...’

At the military base on the outskirts of town Kara Thrace and Louanne Katrine pilots were demonstrating their Vipers to a few New Circe fighter pilots. They had hurtled around the sky for twenty minutes easily out-flying the less agile aerospace fighters of the SLDF and were now stood next to there machines in front of a hanger and a semi-circle of around twenty local fighter-jocks. ‘This is the Viper Mark II’ Kara began. ‘It's as manoeuvrable as a jackrabbit and can flip end for end in .35 seconds’ she declared, waiting for the translator with her to catch up before continuing. The man spoke lousy Caprican like they all did but he had been a pilot himself, transport shuttles rather than fighters as it happens, but he was nonetheless the best man available and had been learning the additional Caprican words related to aircraft etc. not featured in Ancient Greek.

One of the Wolverine pilots said something which caused the others to burst out laughing. Kara turned to the translator who had laughed himself. ‘He said a jackrabbit is about as tough and more heavily armed too and asked if you were maybe part of some aerobatic display team’ the man translated.

Kara turned and fixed the comedian with a glare. ‘Tell him I was offered a place on one because I'm so good but I got thrown in the brig for decking a smart-ass instead’ she responded, it was even true on both counts. If it wasn't for her temper and attitude she really could have been an instructor at the best flight-schools in the Twelve Colonies. Of course if it had panned out that way she would most likely be dead by now so that wasn't much of a source of regret.

The Wolverine pilot who had made the crack about the Viper took a few steps forward and returned her glare. ‘Hey Starbuck are you sure your mouth isn't making promises your ass can't keep?’ Kat warned. The other pilot was much taller than Thrace and looked muscular under the form-fitting flight-suit he was wearing.

‘Wouldn't be the first time’ Starbuck muttered to herself under her breath as she stared down the wolverine, the seconds dragged on until eventually she adopted a frown. ‘Just for the record you big genetically-engineered ****** do still have to blink don't you?’ she asked. ‘I'm not just standing here letting my eyeballs dry out for no good reason am I?’ she checked, still maintaining eye-contact with the other pilot.

‘We blink’ the translator confirmed before telling the others what she had asked provoking more laughter and a grin from the one she was glaring at who winked at her and said something. ‘He says if you want to find out what else has been enhanced he's free later.’

Starbuck rolled her eyes. ‘You could hit him but he might just take that as foreplay’ Kat advised.

‘You might be right’ Starbuck agreed as both she and the wolverine backed off. ‘Think I could have taken him?’ she asked, turning to Kat.

‘They do say the bigger they are the harder they fall’ Kat replied without commiting herself on that one.

‘I once sparred with Helo’ Starbuck responded flatly. ‘The bigger they are the harder they hit you’ she told her fellow pilot sagely, walking back towards the Viper. ‘Twin thirty-millimetre kinetic-energy-weapons’ she said, explaining the armament. ‘You call them autocannon’ she noted. ‘We fire a mix of tracer, high-explosive and armour-piercing which will take out most Cylon Raiders or Heavy Raiders in a few hits’ she continued. ‘The Cylons use the same calibre, we've fired our ammunition through their guns before so performance wise you can judge their gear on ours’ Starbuck told them. ‘The Viper is a better ship than the Raider, and our pilots are usually a lot better than the thing they've got wired into the cockpits, but they’ve always got numbers on their side and some of them are pretty good.’

The wolverine pilots talked among themselves, one eventually directed a question via the translator. ‘Have we fired these autocannon against an equivalent thickness of the ferro-aluminium plates our heavy fighters are armoured with?’

‘Yeah’ Starbuck confirmed. ‘The high-explosives ruined the paintwork and the armour-piercing gave it a matt finish after we bounced around a hundred rounds off it’ she said her words provoking much mirth when relayed in English. ‘Just remember that your engines aren't as tough and you couldn’t out-turn a Cylon Raider to save your life, which is what might be at stake at the time’ she continued more seriously. ‘And also think about how much tougher that armour is than your cockpit canopy’ she reminded them, reaching over to tap the clear composite of the Vipers. ‘Now I guess your plexiglass is better than ours but how many hits can it take before cracking and the next round leaving you a smear in the cockpit?’ she asked rhetorically. ‘You start thinking you're invulnerable and acting like it and I guarantee that eventually either your luck will run out or some Cylon Ace, and they do have aces, will kill you.’

Kat decided to join in. ‘Starbuck and me once hunted down and killed a Raider Ace we called Scar’ she said. ‘Slippery son-of-a-toaster, great moves and tricky too’ she told them. ‘They're smart, they learn fast and they'll soon find out the best way to fight you.’

Starbuck nodded. ‘The Cylons say they're not chasing us any more but I don't buy it’ she said. ‘Before too long we'll be fighting them again and if any of you are going to be flying with me then I am going to teach you just how to deal with far more agile opponents than you've ever seen before’ she said, then paused. ‘And you're going to show me where the frakking bar is around here’ she added, looking around.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 4 - PART 2

----------

Battlestar Galactica – New Circe Orbit – 3045CE

Sharon Valerii slammed her fist down on the table that separated her from the man sat opposite her. ‘What do you want from me?’ she demanded to know as the two Colonial Marines stood ready in the cell with them began raising their weapons until then man indicated they should lower them again. ‘I've told you everything I know’ she said. ‘Just leave me alone’ she requested.

Commander Thorpe began tapping his fingers on the table. They were both sat on plain, uncovered metal chairs in the brig and after an hour he was starting to get uncomfortable. ‘I know you're pissed at the Colonials, you think they killed your baby, but we haven't done anything to you have we?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘It was my government that requested the other two Cylons not be put out of an airlock and be placed in our custody instead.’

‘For all I know you've dissected them’ Sharon responded. ‘Or at least one of them’ she added.

‘Would you like to talk to them both on the radio?’ Thorpe suggested. ‘They're not much happier for just being in one of our cells on New Circe instead of behind bars up here but at least they're both very much alive’ he said.

Sharon shook her head. ‘I don't want to talk to them either’ she replied. ‘I don't want to talk to anyone’ she declared, staring blankly at the far wall.

‘Including Karl Agathon’ Thorpe noted, ‘or so you say.’

Sharon redirected her eyes to look directly into Thorpe's. ‘I don't care about him’ she said, ‘I don't care about anything any more’ she stated flatly.

‘Liar’ Thorpe replied.

‘I could be over this table and snapping your neck before those Marines could pull the trigger’ Sharon declared.

‘I'm probably stronger and faster than you think but let's say that's true’ Thorpe offered, ‘why haven't you?’ he asked.

‘What would be the point?’ Sharon replied. ‘You'd be dead and then I would.’

‘But if you don't care about anything what’s the point of going on?’ Thorpe queried, ‘Suicide by Marine is just a snapped neck away right?’ he continued, ‘You must still have some reason not just to give up?’

‘Suicide is a sin’ Sharon told him.

‘Faith, well that's something you've still got then’ Thorpe replied with clear amusement.

Sharon glared at him. ‘Are you mocking me?’ she asked. ‘Look at the silly machine that's got religion, oh isn't it funny?’ she hissed. ‘****** you’ she swore at him.

Thorpe leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and smiled. ‘It's more the case that I'm trying to confirm to my own satisfaction what the psychologists we had talk to you before had to say’ he replied. ‘Whether it's just programming or genuine emotions they really do seem to be real to you, it's not simulation you can turn on and off is it?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘If it was I doubt you'd be living with all that grief and frustration, you would just flip a switch and be a happy content automaton.’

‘It would be easier for me and easier for you if I was just a frakking calculator’ Sharon replied. ‘Not that the fact we're just as self-aware as you are ever stopped my kind getting dumped into vacuum’ she said. ‘Dying that way really hurts you know’ she told him, ‘it's not nearly as quick as people might think, it takes a while for your blood to start boiling because of the lack of pressure.’

‘You've been spaced?’ Thorpe asked curiously, ‘I mean an earlier you that was resurrected?’

‘Not personally but I've talked to other Cylons that have’ Sharon replied, ‘we compare notes, some say drowning or being burned alive is worse’ she told him. ‘Don't tell Roslin, she might decide to change her preferred method of execution’ she added with a wry laugh.

‘Gallows humour too, very human’ Thorpe remarked.

‘Now you're just getting insulting’ Sharon responded, crossing her own arms and leaning back in a mirror of his pose.

Thorpe considered what he was about to say. ‘The Colonials don't want you’ he said, ‘they think you're a security threat just like the other two’ he said.

‘Neither side thinks I'm loyal to them and they're both right’ Sharon replied.

‘If you had something to live for, if we maybe had a hold over you I think that would change’ Thorpe told her, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward putting his hands on the table.

‘If you think you can threaten me and get cooperation, beat some submission into me... maybe rape me into a nice docile pet then you're dead wrong’ Sharon told him forcefully.

‘Actually we'd be more likely to try drugs but not when we've go something better available’ Thorpe replied. ‘Let me tell you a little story’ he began, ‘ever since we met the Colonials we've been taking blood samples, checking DNA, looking for any diseases they were carrying all that kind of thing’ he said. ‘Now initially we couldn't see anything much different between ourselves and the Colonials, well nothing that a few thousand years of genetic drift couldn't explain, but as we tested more and more of the people among the fleet we noticed something completely bizarre’ he said.

‘What?’ Sharon queried.

‘People from Earth have the basic Blood Groups we call A, B, AB and O, these can be rhesus positive or negative’ Thorpe replied. ‘About forty percent of people have Type O Blood, it's the most common group, which is why we were utterly mystified when we didn't find a single person with it among the Colonials’ he said. ‘Then we found out that Doctor Cottle was surprised that we did have people with Type O Blood and then the question was why the hell he recognised it like he did anyway.’

Sharon looked confused. ‘I don't understand.’

‘Type O Blood has no antigens like the others, it means that people with it are universal donors’ Thorpe told her, ‘after some pressure was exerted for answers by our Lord Protector it emerged that a child with Type O Blood had been born in the fleet, just one, and with a very interesting parentage.’

Sharon blinked. ‘Hera’ she said.

‘Weird isn’t it’ Thorpe observed. ‘In any case this initially caused yet another bout of short-lived paranoia that we were Cylons but once that went away we found out something else that we thought you might be even more interested in’ he said then paused for effect. ‘Your daughter isn't dead’ he told her seriously.

For a few seconds the Cylon prisoner said nothing then she sprang up from her chair, once again causing the Marines to scramble for their weapons. ‘She's what?’ Sharon exclaimed.

‘She's alive, breathing, doing the usual things babies do’ Thorpe replied. ‘You thought they killed her, they didn't, they just took her away and pretended she had died’ he said. ‘They were too scared of what the revelation of a successful human/cylon hybrid would mean’ he said. ‘Given what we’ve learned of the Colonials they might have been right, it could have caused chaos amongst all those religious whackjobs and luddites you have around here’ he opined, his views slightly coloured by a few run-ins with people from the more fundamentalist colonies like Gemenon and Sagittaron.

Sharon sank back into her chair, limp. ‘Hera's alive’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper. It was hard to believe or accept it.

‘Right’ Thorpe confirmed, ‘and now she is under the guardianship of the Star League in Exile’ he told her. ‘President Roslin agreed she would be safer with us’ he said, not mentioning the exact circumstances under which she had done so and that the agreement had been made under considerable duress.

‘I want to see her’ Sharon demanded, sitting bolt upright.

‘Tricky, what with her being down on New Circe and you being up here’ Thorpe replied.

Sharon fixed him with a glare. ‘Take me to her now’ she growled.

‘No, you've got to earn it’ Thorpe told her, getting up from his chair.

‘I'll tell you anything you want to know’ Sharon told him. ‘Please, let me see my baby’ she pleaded.

‘Oh you'll tell us everything we want to know I'm sure but that's not how you have to earn it’ Thorpe replied as the door opened and two men and a woman wearing what Sharon recognised as SLDF uniforms entered, the Colonial Marines leaving as they were replaced.

Sharon looked at the three newcomers, even the woman was much taller and more muscular than she was. ‘What the ****** is going on?’ she asked.

‘We're testing the limits of your strength, finding out how tough you are’ Thorpe told her. ‘You beat these three members of our Special Forces company in unarmed combat, without killing any of them though, and you get your daughter’ he said, backing off. ‘They'll put the furniture to one side before you start, wouldn't want to damage any of it’ he said with a smirk.

‘You bastard’ Sharon hissed at him. ‘How do I know you aren't lying?’ she asked reasonably.

‘You don't’ Thorpe told her flatly. ‘Can you take the chance I'm not?’

As the furniture was moved away clearing the centre of the room Sharon sized up her opponents. ‘I'm doing this’ she said, ‘I've got to do this’ she told herself.

‘Go’ Thorpe said, leaning back against a wall to watch.

She was strong and fast, faster and with far more power in her slender form than she should have, but up against three genetically enhanced soldiers from the elite of the 331st Division the Cylon known as Sharon Valerii was outclassed. She broke two noses, several ribs but in the end they beat her down with punches and kicks only for her to drag herself to her feet and fight on. Blood streaming down her face, covered in bruises she kept fighting, managing to knock one of the men unconscious with a right cross that broke half the knuckles on her right hand.

Sharon went down in a heap a second time but screaming she somehow forced herself up once again only to be floored within seconds although only after shattering the kneecap of the other man with a kick she put everything she had left behind. He hit the deck when she did, howling in pain as she coughed up blood and tried to stand again herself.

The female soldier kicked her in the ribs. ‘Stay down’ Thorpe advised.

‘No’ Sharon replied only to be kicked again in the gut hard enough to leave her gasping for breath.

‘You're done’ Thorpe told her, ‘game over, you lose the Trial of Possession for your daughter’ he declared, walking over and kneeling down beside her. ‘Damn impressive fight you put up though’ he continued admiringly. ‘I'd bet that two to one you could have won easily’ he said, reaching down to take her arm and pulling it towards him.

‘What the ****** are you doing?’ Sharon coughed out.

Commander Thorpe put something around her wrist. ‘We don't do this very often’ he told her. ‘Last time was a load of pirates we ran into on a supply run back to the Inner Sphere’ he said. ‘Sharon Valerii’ he said in a grand tone of voice. ‘You are now a Bondswoman of Clan Wolverine’ he declared. ‘The bondcord around your wrist signifies you were defeated in battle and are now property of the Clan’ he told her.

‘I'm a slave?’ Sharon asked, ‘you can't make me a frakking slave’ she declared, trying to stand but failing.

‘Not so much an actual slave as more like a Prisoner of War that has to earn their keep’ Thorpe explained, ‘and it's not necessarily permanent either, you can be freed later’ he advised her. ‘In the meantime in the other clans you would be treated much like one of the Labour Caste so I guess we need to find an appropriate job for you’ he said, rising to his feet.

‘Kiss my ass’ Sharon snarled up at him.

Thorpe laughed. ‘You probably won’t mind the job I have in mind too much’ he responded. ‘Bondswoman, there is a small child that needs looking after’ he told her. ‘You will do so to the best of your ability in the service of the Clan’ he ordered.

Sharon stared at him. ‘Hera?’ she asked in shock and disbelief.

‘We're bastards but we're not complete bastards’ Thorpe told her, it felt good to do something nice for someone, he decided, a warm sense of satisfaction in his heart that he had done his good deed for the day as he looked down at the beaten, bleeding young mother. ‘It's a good thing we’ve got first-rate medical technology’ he noted, now looking now at the state of the three soldiers instead. ‘Damn, I promised that Army Major I'd give them back in good condition when I borrowed them’ he recalled with a grimace.


* * *

[Hotpoint]

CHAPTER 4 - PART 3

----------

Colonial One – New Circe Orbit – 3045CE

‘This is only a preliminary offer that the Lord Protector instructed me to make’ Commander Thorpe told the Colonial President and her legal advisor, the State Prosecutor Didi Cassidy, ‘but she doesn't think it likely that our Parliament would veto any move towards not only allowing settlement of the refugees on the Twelve Colonies on New Circe but also granting you independence’ he said. ‘An area in excess of ten thousand square kilometres would be ceded by our government to your ownership and sole control as an independent nation’ he told her. ‘We suggest this region north of our capital’ he said, indicating it on the map he had spread out on the table where the Quorum usually sat. ‘Once you clear some of the forest you should be able to support your own population through farming, there are several rivers and you have access to the sea’ he noted. He had his own legal advisor beside him, a colonial his government had hired to help them understand the intricacies of the legal system of the Twelve Colonies but so far Romo Lampkin hadn’t said much, he seemed to be mainly sizing up Roslin and Cassidy from behind his shades.

Roslin looked at the map. ‘Ten thousand square kilometres’ she repeated. ‘It sounds generous until you realise that this continent is approximately sixty <i>million</i> square kilometres in size’ she replied.

‘Yes but it's ours’ Thorpe responded. ‘There's only fifty thousand or so of you’ he pointed out, you could all fit comfortably in a small city less than five kilometres across and not even be particularly packed in’ he continued. ‘We're offering you four-hundred times that much land and we'll help you get yourselves established.’

‘This really amounts to not much more than a City-State’ Roslin said, pointing at the map.

‘Your people won't be penned in, if they want to live or work outside your borders they can, it's just that if they do then they'll be bound by the laws of our society not yours’ Thorpe told her. ‘In the same way any citizen of New Circe will become subject to your laws if they enter your territory’ he said. ‘We would however insist that where our people are involved that you do stick to your own laws and don't start ignoring them at whim’ he added seriously, knowing that Roslin would know what he was getting at. ‘We would expect due process under the Articles of Colonisation to be adhered to at all times or else we would have little compunction in intervening’ he declared.

‘Intervening?’ Cassidy queried.

‘We'd have battlemechs and infantry marching over your border before the day was out’ Thorpe explained without a hint of obfuscation, he was a soldier not a diplomat or lawyer.

Laura Roslin was starting to wonder if she had badly misjudged these people, at first glance they were outwardly so civilised, a society that clearly loved its children, that revered public service and intellectualism, but scratch the surface and it was becoming apparent there was something else very different underneath. A violent, aggressive martial culture with its own rules of conduct seemed to quietly coexist with mainstream New Circe society in parallel, overlapping yet still distinct. It was almost schizophrenic in a way she decided. ‘You talk of laws and due process?’ she responded incredulously. ‘According to Doctor Cottle you half-beat that woman... I mean Cylon to death’ she stated.

Thorpe reached for a glass of water. ‘We were acting fully within our laws’ he replied. ‘Which is, I have to remind you, more than you did where her child was concerned’ he noted. That was why the Lord Protector was so strident regarding the Colonials actually holding to their own legal principles if they were going to settle on New Circe, she and nobody else would accept the selective application of laws decided upon by politicians.

‘I never accepted that piece of third-rate legal argument you had this damn lawyer you hired present the day before yesterday’ Roslin responded, glaring at the shyster Lampkin sat beside Thorpe. ‘I only agreed to turn over the Cylon and her child to you because of the possible repercussions to the fleet if the story got out without being properly managed’ she said.

‘Colonial Statute Law and Precedent fully supported our position’ Lampkin responded drily, ‘as I'm sure your own counsel confirmed’ he said, directing a smile in the direction of the State Prosecutor. The four of them were otherwise alone, Roslin having sent Tory to organise some food, it looked like it could be a long evening.

Cassidy turned to Roslin. ‘It could be interpreted that way’ she confirmed grudgingly as she had done before in a written opinion when asked to look over Lampkin’s arguments.

‘And what other way could it be?’ Lampkin asked in amusement, ever since he had been approached by that Academic Sundquist saying the Government of New Circe was looking for independent legal advice related to Colonial Law he had been enjoying the limelight immensely. They had put him on retainer for what he hoped was a generous sum although no exchange rate between Colonial and New Circe currency had yet been established. ‘We freely accept that the Cylon Known as Sharon Valerii is not a Colonial Citizen and hence has no rights as such’ he said, ‘however the state had no right to arbitrarily take her from her father without due process.’

‘The legal status of the child Hera is by no means clear cut’ Cassidy responded quickly.

Lampkin removed his usually ever-present sunglasses for effect. ‘Prior to the Articles of Colonisation and the unification of the Twelve Colonies under one government the citizens of one world were already having children with people from others’ he replied. ‘There are several legal precedents that confirm that citizenship was automatically bestowed on the offspring of any such pairing, if a man from Caprica had a child with a woman from Tauron then that child was deemed a Caprican citizen in law even if her mother wasn't’ he said. ‘The fact that Sharon Valerii was not a citizen has no bearing whatsoever, Karl Agathon is one which automatically means his child is too’ he declared. ‘Now I respect you very much Madam President’ he told Roslin, ‘I actually voted for you’ he continued, ‘but you grossly violated the rights of two citizens of the Twelve Colonies and you'd find it hard to find argue a convincing case in law otherwise’ he said confidently.

‘Genetic testing confirms that Hera is the biological daughter of both of them’ Thorpe pointed out, ‘your testing as well as ours’ he added.

Romo Lampkin looked Roslin in the eyes. ‘You've never had children have you?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘I have’ he told her. ‘I had two daughters myself, they were on Gemenon when the bombs fell’ he continued in a surprisingly dispassionate manner, ‘and I will tell you honestly that taking someone's child away from them is the most heinous crime I can imagine and if you think I couldn't have made a jury feel the same way then you must be taking Chamalla again’ he stated, putting his sunglasses back on.

‘This is all beside the point’ Thorpe interjected. ‘Hera is now on New Circe and the admittedly battered Bondswoman Sharon Valerii will be reunited with her very soon’ he said. ‘The Lord Protector suggests that if you don't want to end up involved in a very messy situation you might want to transfer a Colonial Officer into a temporary assignment with the SLDF, an exchange program with one of our military posted to Galactica in return’ he said. ‘We thought one Karl Agathon might be an ideal candidate from your side.’

‘Be honest do you want him around when he finds out anyway, because I think I can guarantee he will’ Lampkin told the President. ‘I'm prepared to treat this all as a matter of client confidentiality and never mention any of it’ he said. ‘If a father gets his daughter back’ he added.

Laura Roslin narrowed her eyes. ‘I don't like being pushed into things’ she said. ‘I tend to start pushing back’ she declared with more than a little venom.

‘In politics like the law, things don't run smoothly’ Lampkin remarked.

‘And talking of laws we think yours are insane’ Cassidy told Thorpe. ‘I read through a translation of one of your lawbooks’ she said.

‘Something clan related no doubt’ Thorpe replied, ‘I can see how an outsider might think so’ he conceded. ‘For that matter my wife told me if I went ahead with that Trial of Grievance with my neighbour over him moving that boundary fence she'd divorce me so they're not exactly considered immutable Holy Writ among my people either’ he told them with a chuckle. ‘It's mainly a regular military thing these days, we're more traditional, very few civilians use anything but the regular courts under Star League Law.’

‘You settle disputes in what amounts to Trial by Combat’ Cassidy said, still amazed that any advanced society would do anything so primitive. ‘Nobody has done anything like that in any of the Twelve Colonies in centuries.’

‘It hardly ever happens on New Circe either, it's just sometimes you want to take matters into your own hands’ Thorpe replied. ‘You know for a while we abandoned clan traditions and rules entirely’ he told them, ‘Sarah McEvedy wanted us to’ he said, ‘but then we later learned that the other clans believed they had wiped us out, they made it a crime to even speak our name and would have us erased from history entirely’ he continued, ‘well we weren't going to oblige so after a referendum it was decided we would once again be a clan and that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to ever forget who we are’ he said. ‘Now every day is a little victory against Nicolas Kerensky and his brain-dead worshippers because their Trial of Annihilation failed and Clan Wolverine lives on.’

‘But they don't even know’ Roslin pointed out.

‘Not yet’ Thorpe replied with a grin, ‘but they'll find out the hard way in time’ he added with certainty.

‘Can I ask a question that’s been bothering me’ Lampkin now addressed Thorpe. ‘If somehow the cylon had won that fight would you have really given her the child?’ he asked curiously.

‘Yes’ Thorpe replied, ‘we obey our laws, live by a code’ he said. ‘If you let that slip even a little for expediencies sake then what are you?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Principles might have to be elastic sometimes by necessity, if you try and live by absolutes the result can be absurdity, but we would have never done what you did Madam President, even if the Lord Protector herself ordered it’ he said.

‘I'm not getting lectured on ethics by you or anyone’ Roslin told him angrily. ‘I did what I had to do under the circumstances.’

‘Because being the last survivors of your people pursued by a genocidal enemy excuses playing fast and loose with your laws and morals does it?’ Thorpe asked. ‘Sorry, that might wash with other people you might have run into instead but for us it doesn't’ he said. ‘Been there done that, stayed true to our core beliefs’ he stated. ‘We can sympathise and we do, we've been the hunted tribe, and we don't even ask you to live like we do to stay on our world but we don't think it's unreasonable to expect you to live as your own moral standards and legal traditions dictate.’

Romo Lampkin sighed. ‘If we can't do that then we're doomed regardless of whether the Cylons wipe us out or not’ he said.

‘We know you'll have to discuss this with the Quorum and your own military’ Thorpe told Roslin, he suspected it would take an age to thrash out the specifics, politicians were like that. ‘As for the latter the Lord Protector fully accepts that your nation will have its own armed forces based on and above New Circe although she formally requests cooperation between us at all levels because we both have enemies and I doubt any of them would discriminate if they ran into us both here together’ he said.

The rest of the discussion went smoothly enough by comparison, Tory Foster returning shortly having arranged refreshments, at the end the two lawyers left but Roslin asked Thorpe to stay behind a little longer to discuss another matter. As well as the proposal for the survivors of the Twelve Colonies to settle on New Circe Jennifer Vaun had also suggested another scheme which needed to be agreed, one that could be put into practice much sooner. New Circe wanted to mount a joint expedition back along the path the refugees had come, first to Kobol and then onto the Twelve Colonies themselves. The Cylons claimed to have left but that needed to be verified, there might conceivably even be other survivors to be rescued and there was certainly a massive amount of technology and priceless resources to be salvaged.

It could simply be a trap of course, the Cylons waiting to spring it on any large group of humans that returned home with the Colonies as the bait. The only saving grace to the situation was that the mice tempted by the cheese definitely wouldn't be expected to be toting Particle Projection Cannon.


----------

Note from the Author:

The Wolverines don't want the Colonials to leave in case they lead the Cylons closer towards the Inner Sphere so they're trying a charm offensive. As a former teacher having Laura Roslin visit a school would look good among the fleet and hopefully demonstrate that New Circe isn't such a bad place despite the big robots and the lab-created freaks. The Zughoffer Weir is a McKenna Class Battleship roughly the same size as Galactica (they're both just over 1400 metres long). It mounts a lot of heavy anti-capital-ship hardware which drastically outranges the two colonial battlestars, you can see what one looks like on the prologue page of this fic along with a rendering of a Kirghiz Fighter. In the mainstream clans those who come from the Iron Wombs are called "Trueborns" and those born naturally are "Freeborns" (Trashborns and Freebirths being the respective pejoratives). The Wolverines don't have quite the same divisive attitudes but I thought they would have equivalent labels hence "Instants" and "Accidents" telling jokes about each other. Louanne Katraine was trained by Starbuck eventually becoming her wingman. I thought they'd make an interesting pair to be assigned the job of showing the wolverine aerospace fighter pilots Colonial and Cylon air-combat tactics and capabilities.

They wanted to see just how much fight was in a humanform Cylon and found out that it was a lot with the right motivation. In the Clans you can fight a Trial of Possession and it this case it was for Hera. Sharon lost but as a defeated foe she could now be taken as a Bondswoman, the symbol of this is a woven bracelet placed around the wrist. The New Circe Wolverines still use some Clan Customs, although some they have abandoned utterly, others they have modified. Hera having a Blood Type which is unique amongst the Colonials comes from the show. It's describes as being strange but the reasons given for it being so actually describe Type O Blood which is the most common in fact.

Didi Cassidy was the prosecutor in Baltar's trial. I made the assumption that she must have been one of the top government lawyers in the fleet to get that job so having her brought in as a legal advisor by Roslin after the New Circe government hired Lampkin didn't seem too unlikely. Between the clanner attitude to law and tradition and the Star League idealism I see New Circe as being a society that is very law-abiding even if some of their laws (the clan holdovers) would seem more than a little strange or barbaric to others. I really doubt that what Roslin did regarding Hera was legal, Colonial Law and Politics from what we saw of it wasn't all that authoritarian and the President couldn't legally ignore due process (if she had that level of unquestioned overriding legal authority Baltar wouldn't have gotten a trial, he would have gotten a quick trip out of the airlock). Giving the Colonials their own small country actually relieves New Circe of quite a headache in terms of dealing with all the people with weird ideas and beliefs. The planet is incredibly underpopulated anyway so why not hand over a few thousand square kilometres of trees? I couldn't see the two societies smoothly and seemlessly integrating, they're too different, so here they'll co-exist instead.