Chapter 1: Signals
"Helo, start the clock." Margaret 'Racetrack' Edmondson said as she finished inputting the jump coordinates into the hyperlight drive of Raptor 307.
Admiral Adama had ordered surveys of several systems within and along the Colonial Fleet's planned course towards Earth, in hopes of finding resources the mining ships could extract. As well, now that they had Pegasus and it's ability to actually build new Vipers, there was more of a reason to risk tying ships down in one place for an extended period of time. But first the Raptor flights had to see if any of these systems had something the fleet could use.
"Roger, clock is running, jump in 10 seconds." Karl 'Helo' Agathon reported from his seat at the Raptors sensor and electronic countermeasures station.
While he was good at his job as a Raptor ECO, Helo would have preferred to stay on Galactica, and near his the mother of his child, if he'd had a choice. Particularly after what had happened to Sharon, or at least his Sharon, recently. Between President Roslin's ultimately aborted attempt to have Sharon's pregnancy terminated a couple days ago, and the near rape she had suffered when the Pegasus joined the fleet, Helo didn't feel comfortable being away from her for very long.
"Jumping." Racetrack said, just as the hyperlight drive activated.
Within seconds the Raptor had reappeared inside another solar system near a large gas giant, and both of the officers started up their Dradis scans. However, the scans took a backseat when their comms started picking up a large amount of radio transmissions.
"Racetrack, are you hearing this?" Helo asked, trying to figure out the source of the transmissions, which were somewhat garbled and distorted.
"Yeah, they don't look like they are on Colonial bands, and I've never heard of Cylons being this lax with their transmissions. Hang on, going to move us farther from this gas giant, see if it clears things up." Racetrack said as she angled the Raptor away from the gas giant, which she now noticed had a small ring around it.
"Seems like the radio traffic is pretty weak out here, but it looks like it's all coming from deeper in the system, possibly the third planet. But, from what little I can make out, it's almost sounds like humans." Helo said, not quite believing what he was seeing and hearing.
"Another group of survivors, like Pegasus?" Racetrack asked, as the possibilities spun through her mind.
"They aren't on Colonial channels, and there is way too much radio traffic for just a small fleet fleeing the attack on the Colonies. We need to get a closer look." Helo said, running through different filter and analysis procedures to try to clean up what they were hearing.
As the Raptor slowly moved closer to the system's star, the two officers found themselves more and more excited by what they were hearing and seeing. They couldn't understand most of the transmissions, but a few had something that almost sounded like it was the Colonial tongue. All of the transmissions they intercepted were being recorded for deeper analysis back on Galactica, and the source of them was finally coming into view.
"Racetrack, are you seeing this? Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, liquid water on the surface, large scale power grids, huge amounts of radio traffic...I can even see aircraft contrails in the atmosphere. There is also some sort of odd energy signature on the planet, it seems similar to tylium, but the computer cannot identify it. This planet is inhabited, and I think they are human, too." Helo said as he continued to look over the scans in awe.
"Helo, I'm going to spin up the drive and get us back to Galactica, they need to know what we've found. Screw looking for an asteroid to mine, we just found a life-supporting planet full of humans. Can you get us a star fix?" Racetrack asked.
"Get us out beyond the planet's moon, and I should be able to get one in a few minutes." Helo replied, tearing his gaze away from the readings they had taken of the planet to focus on setting up the jump back to Galactica.
"I got a fix, entering it now.' Helo said after a few minutes of taking star surveys.
"Starting the clock." Racetrack stated; a few second later they jumped out of the system and back to the fleet.
At that moment, down on the planet below them, two people look up into the sky and saw a flash of light just besides the Moon.
One was Lelouch Vi Britannia, having just announced the creation of his Knights of Justice, his Black Knights, to the world. Recovering the hostages from the JLF inside the Lake Kawaguchi Hotel had served as a grand stage to make his group's debut.
The other was Cornelia Li Britannia, watching the terrorist Zero, her brother's murderer, sailing away after having rescued her younger sister from a group of fools who still hadn't realized they lost their war years ago. It was both a bitter, and secretly joyous, occasion; she was enough of a warrior to realize how slim the chances of a successful rescue of her sister had been without Zero's help.
Neither knew what the flash had been, and both wrote it off as a shooting star. But that flash had just signaled a new hope, and a new threat, to what both of them wanted for their world and their loved ones.
I plan to make sure each franchise has equal showing in both focus and tech respect, so fans shouldn't worry about one side of the cross eclipsing the other.
Admiral Adama had ordered surveys of several systems within and along the Colonial Fleet's planned course towards Earth, in hopes of finding resources the mining ships could extract. As well, now that they had Pegasus and it's ability to actually build new Vipers, there was more of a reason to risk tying ships down in one place for an extended period of time. But first the Raptor flights had to see if any of these systems had something the fleet could use.
"Roger, clock is running, jump in 10 seconds." Karl 'Helo' Agathon reported from his seat at the Raptors sensor and electronic countermeasures station.
While he was good at his job as a Raptor ECO, Helo would have preferred to stay on Galactica, and near his the mother of his child, if he'd had a choice. Particularly after what had happened to Sharon, or at least his Sharon, recently. Between President Roslin's ultimately aborted attempt to have Sharon's pregnancy terminated a couple days ago, and the near rape she had suffered when the Pegasus joined the fleet, Helo didn't feel comfortable being away from her for very long.
"Jumping." Racetrack said, just as the hyperlight drive activated.
Within seconds the Raptor had reappeared inside another solar system near a large gas giant, and both of the officers started up their Dradis scans. However, the scans took a backseat when their comms started picking up a large amount of radio transmissions.
"Racetrack, are you hearing this?" Helo asked, trying to figure out the source of the transmissions, which were somewhat garbled and distorted.
"Yeah, they don't look like they are on Colonial bands, and I've never heard of Cylons being this lax with their transmissions. Hang on, going to move us farther from this gas giant, see if it clears things up." Racetrack said as she angled the Raptor away from the gas giant, which she now noticed had a small ring around it.
"Seems like the radio traffic is pretty weak out here, but it looks like it's all coming from deeper in the system, possibly the third planet. But, from what little I can make out, it's almost sounds like humans." Helo said, not quite believing what he was seeing and hearing.
"Another group of survivors, like Pegasus?" Racetrack asked, as the possibilities spun through her mind.
"They aren't on Colonial channels, and there is way too much radio traffic for just a small fleet fleeing the attack on the Colonies. We need to get a closer look." Helo said, running through different filter and analysis procedures to try to clean up what they were hearing.
As the Raptor slowly moved closer to the system's star, the two officers found themselves more and more excited by what they were hearing and seeing. They couldn't understand most of the transmissions, but a few had something that almost sounded like it was the Colonial tongue. All of the transmissions they intercepted were being recorded for deeper analysis back on Galactica, and the source of them was finally coming into view.
"Racetrack, are you seeing this? Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, liquid water on the surface, large scale power grids, huge amounts of radio traffic...I can even see aircraft contrails in the atmosphere. There is also some sort of odd energy signature on the planet, it seems similar to tylium, but the computer cannot identify it. This planet is inhabited, and I think they are human, too." Helo said as he continued to look over the scans in awe.
"Helo, I'm going to spin up the drive and get us back to Galactica, they need to know what we've found. Screw looking for an asteroid to mine, we just found a life-supporting planet full of humans. Can you get us a star fix?" Racetrack asked.
"Get us out beyond the planet's moon, and I should be able to get one in a few minutes." Helo replied, tearing his gaze away from the readings they had taken of the planet to focus on setting up the jump back to Galactica.
"I got a fix, entering it now.' Helo said after a few minutes of taking star surveys.
"Starting the clock." Racetrack stated; a few second later they jumped out of the system and back to the fleet.
At that moment, down on the planet below them, two people look up into the sky and saw a flash of light just besides the Moon.
One was Lelouch Vi Britannia, having just announced the creation of his Knights of Justice, his Black Knights, to the world. Recovering the hostages from the JLF inside the Lake Kawaguchi Hotel had served as a grand stage to make his group's debut.
The other was Cornelia Li Britannia, watching the terrorist Zero, her brother's murderer, sailing away after having rescued her younger sister from a group of fools who still hadn't realized they lost their war years ago. It was both a bitter, and secretly joyous, occasion; she was enough of a warrior to realize how slim the chances of a successful rescue of her sister had been without Zero's help.
Neither knew what the flash had been, and both wrote it off as a shooting star. But that flash had just signaled a new hope, and a new threat, to what both of them wanted for their world and their loved ones.
****
AN: So finally hashed out the first chapter of a new fic I had been planning. Not going BS about promised updates, will only say I have a pretty good idea what I want to do overall with this fic, and the rest is filling in the details.
I plan to make sure each franchise has equal showing in both focus and tech respect, so fans shouldn't worry about one side of the cross eclipsing the other.