Author's Note: These questions have been burning in my mind for a while now. What if Earth had its own Battlestar? What would it be called? And what if the Galactica and her fleet encountered this ship on her way to Earth? I've decided to answer those questions on my own. The end result of the answers, this story that I had been concocting in my mind for months since the Sci-Fi Channel premier of the new Battlestar Galactica series. Now this will be based on the original series though, since I didn't like the 1980 show as much as most people did, I decided to make it an alternate universe. Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica is a property of Glen Larson and Universal Pictures. The author seeks no profit or enumeration. This story is solely intended for the enjoyment of the readers. All characters not original to Battlestar Galactica are from the imagination of the author and are not meant to resemble real persons. Ships and technologies not original to Battlestar Galactica are also from the imagination of the author and are not meant to resemble those from other stories or real situations. Battlestar Gaia By: SulliMike23 Sullimon311@aol.com May 2005 For many years now, Earth had begun to prosper with new technological advances. Its many nations had finally set aside their differences and formed the new Unified Earth Federation or UEF. The UEF began to expand their technological advances throughout the solar system and began exploring the planets like never before. Now their latest project was on her maiden voyage and its mission was to explore space and protect Earth of any possible alien threat if they existed. They called this project the Battlestar project, the process of making ships to explore and patrol space of any threat towards Earth and the outlining stations and planetary colonies. The first ship on the line was called "Gaia" after the spirit of the Earth itself. The year is now 2167 AD, and the Gaia is now en route to the planet Neptune to dock with its orbiting supply station codenamed Poseidon, after the Greek name for Neptune. The Gaia is a massive ship, about 2712 ft long and 1672 ft wide (including the two nacelles containing landing bays for shuttles and fighters). She was named after the Greek Goddess Gaia, the goddess of Earth and nature. Her bulky exterior makes her show the peak of the technological advancements Earth has undertaken. Her main engines in the rear burned a bright white fire that pushed her slowly towards the space station in orbit of the eighth planet of the solar system. Inside the main bridge, this was at the bow of the mighty spacecraft, many young men and women sat at their posts going over standard procedures needed to complete their daily tasks. All of them wore tan colored uniforms similar to that of Navy uniforms. In the middle of the bridge, a middle-aged African-American stood and watched over the crew as they went about their duties. He wore an officer's cap and bore the stripes of a ship captain. His name was Captain Ezekiel "Zeke" Gerard. He was what many would call, a by-the-book commander. He liked to keep things in order and with precise timing. "Poseidon, this is the Battlestar Gaia," spoke the communications officer. "Requesting permission to dock, over." The communications officer was a young lady at the age of twenty-four. She wore her uniform as any other female officer would and she had her strawberry blonde hair tied up in a ponytail that stretched to the back of her neck. Her emerald green eyes looked up while she held an earpiece to her ear waiting for a reply from the station's communications officer. Her name was Ensign Valerie Thomas. "Gaia, this is Poseidon control, you have clearance to dock over." Spoke the station's communications officer through Valerie's headpiece. Valerie turned to her commanding officer while still in her chair. Her chair rotated with her body as she turned to look at him. "Captain, station control has given us clearance to dock." "Very good, ensign." Zeke nodded before turning to the helm station where a young man at the age of twenty-seven sat. "Mister Young," The young man turned around showing his brown eyes and brown hair towards the commanding officer for attention. "Bring us in one quarter speed." "One quarter speed, aye." Young turned himself towards his station pressing a few controls causing the ship to slow down as it slowly approached the docking port of the station. "Well, my friends, as soon as we refuel we'll be underway and begin the Gaia's maiden voyage. Our course will take us beyond Pluto, and our first stop is Alpha Centauri. We are to check for signs of intelligent life and hopefully make first contact with an alien race." Captain Gerard spoke to the crew as he went around looking at every officer on the bridge at their stations. "Captain will we be testing the FTL drive?" Ensign Thomas asked as she turned to look at her commander. "As soon as we're clear of Pluto we will test the FTL drive after we clear at least five hundred kilometers from the planet." Gerard replied as he gave her a slight chuckle. Then with a mumble he added, "Hopefully it'll work." That caused the entire bridge to erupt in laughter with him starting it. The radar operator, on the other hand, was not laughing. In fact, he wasn't even paying attention to the captain; he was paying attention to his radar screen...and several small blips on it. This concerned him a great deal. The blip closer to them was the station, but there were several more blips only six thousand kilometers away. They kept changing their positions and some of them seem to disappear in front of another. He was very confused as to where these came from. There were two other blips and they were bigger than the rest. He lifted his head up and looked towards the captain before interrupting the laughter by saying, "Captain, I think you should take a look at this." Still grinning from his joke, Captain Gerard walked up to the radar operator and looked at his radar screen, mainly at the middle where they were and where the station was. "What've you got Mister Parsons?" "Look at the screen, see where we are and where the station is?" He asked while pointing to them, and the station in front of them. The captain merely nods his head just as Parsons finished. "Well, look right here." He said while pointing towards the many blips six thousand kilometers away. This caused the captain's grin to drop into a frown and his eyes narrowed. "What the hell...?" The captain muttered in surprise. Whatever these blips were, he had to find out who or what they were and fast. "Miss Thomas, prepare two of our fighters to go on patrol." -------------------- It has been four yahrens since the Galactica and her fleet fled from the Cylon attack on the twelve colonies of Kobol. The last time they had encountered the Cylons, they had found them in a solar system only a yahren ago. The Galactica had successfully destroyed a Cylon Basestar in an amazing effort and strategy thought by the ship's commanding officer, Commander Adama. Combined with the will and spirit of the Colonial Warriors and two warriors in particular, Captain Apollo and Lieutenant Starbuck. If it weren't for those two, the battle would've been lost and the Galactica would've been destroyed. The strategy was simple, Starbuck and Apollo would infiltrate the Cylon Basestar with a stolen Cylon Raider that the Galactica captured containing their arch enemy Baltar, a human who betrayed all humans for his own greed and allowed the Cylons to attack the colonies. As a result, he became public enemy number one among the surviving Colonial humans. After they infiltrated the Basestar, they would set explosives to destroy the Basestar's main sensors so they won't see the Galactica coming. Shortly after they've taken off from the Galactica, she would launch all of her Viper squadrons to lure the Basestar's Raiders to come out fighting while the Galactica snuck around the battle and hit the Cylons from behind. The result was the Basestar's destruction and the Colonials were Cylon-free...until now. Just as they were about to enter another Solar System, a Cylon Basestar came out of nowhere and ambushed the fleet. The Vipers were having some difficulty with the Cylon Raiders because there were so many of them and the fleet was already taking casualties. The Cylons had gotten better since the Colonials' last encounter with them; their attacks have become more relentless than usual. What's worse, the Galactica was suffering severe damage as well. Their laser gun turrets couldn't hold off the relentless Cylon attacks forever while at the same time firing back at the Cylon Basestar. "Three more coming towards ya Starbuck!" Boomer called from his Viper looking at three Cylon Raiders flying towards another Viper with their weapons blazing towards him. "I can't get 'em off my tail!" Starbuck shouted while trying to maneuver his Viper away from the Cylons. "Hang on Starbuck, I'm coming!" Sheba called from her Viper as she veered it while getting her sights aligned towards the Cylon attackers. With a perfect lock, she depressed the trigger on her flight stick and lasers from her Viper shot out towards the saucer-like Cylon fighters blowing two of them out of the stars while the other evaded right into Apollo's line of fire. "Stay sharp everyone, there's another group of fighters coming in and they're heading towards the Galactica." Apollo called out to all the remaining Viper pilots; some of them were still busy with other Cylon Fighters. On the bridge of the Battlestar Galactica, the red lights of the alarm klaxons filled the bridge and the rest of the ship in an eerie red light of danger that made everyone aware that the ship was on combat alert. The civilians on the ship had to stay in a secure area that will, hopefully, be out of Cylon fire. The ship shook violently as the Cylons pressed their attack to destroy the mighty Battlestar. The turrets of the ship fired in all directions doing their best to defend the ship while they still can. "Another group of Cylon Raiders are approaching, sir!" The scan officer of the Galactica shouted as she turned to Commander Adama, who was clutching the railing of his command post with Colonel Tigh standing next to him. "They're really pressing it now, Adama." Tight said to his commanding officer, turning to him. "Yes," Adama nodded. "It seems that they're determined to finish us off here and now." "Our fighters can't hold out for much longer and all that is holy knows that we won't last long against that Basestar." Tigh interjected looking at the screen in front of them that showed an image of the attacking Cylon Basestar firing its lasers at them. "Either way, Tigh, we have to keep defending the fleet and fight to the bitter end." Adama stated calmly while staring out towards the battle. -------------------- Several kilometers away, a pair of F-14 type aircraft flew through the void of space towards the unidentified blips. These weren't your ordinary F-14 aircraft though; these were Boeing SF-25 Valkyrie fighters. Unlike their predecessors, the Grumman F-14 Tomcats, the SF-25 is much faster, has a different and new type of afterburner engine, and only carried one pilot. The color scheme of these fighters, though, is custom-painted; both of them had the emblem of the Jolly Rogers on their tail fins while the rest of their fuselages and wings were white with black and yellow stripes. Inside the cockpits of these fighters sat two young pilots, one male and the other female. "I don't get it Striker," the female pilot spoke through the static. "The captain is sending us on a wild goose chase after asteroids or something. I mean there's nothing out there. I say we should just head back." First Lieutenant Travis "Striker" Winters let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head looking over to his wingman. "Oh put a sock in it Xena and open your eyes." He stated almost flatly. "They may look like asteroids and pieces of space junk but look closer at the radar and notice how some of the blips disappear right in front of another." Sergeant Sylvia "Xena" Paseroff rolled her eyes while looking at her radar screen at where Ensign Parsons reported these mysterious blips and did in fact notice some of the blips disappearing in front of another. "Yeah, it could be smaller debris hitting them for all we know." "Xena, look at how these things are flying in space. Some of them are in perfect formation and others are just flying around in loops and circles in every direction; that indicates flight patterns and squadrons. Not only that but just as you think a couple of these blips are gonna hit each other from the side, the one on the side disappears." Striker explained to his unconvinced friend. "That can mean only one thing, there's a battle being waged out there." "Ok, so that indicates fighters. I'm convinced on that, but what about those bigger blips on the radar? For all we know they could be stray planetoids." Xena said, still unconvinced of what's in store for the both of them. "Ugh...use your brain!" Striker yelled before explaining fully. "Those bigger blips move in the same kind of flight pattern as those fighters and that longer blip is circling the round one. It's a huge battle between god knows how many squadrons of fighters and two capital ships." "All right, I'm convinced! It's a battle so what do we do? Go in and stop it?" Xena asked offhandedly thinking that it's not their business. "Yes or do something to help one of the two fighting. For all we know they might go after Earth next. Is that enough to convince you?" Striker stated making it sound like it was the end of the discussion. "Yeah." Travis and Sylvia were both pilots born on Earth in the same place in New York City, USA. They've known each other since they were at the age of five and have been friends ever since. Some believe that they're more than friends from the way they've acted around one another. However, the two of them are quite opposite of one another as well. Travis stands at 6'1" and has dark brown hair in a short military cut. Dark green eyes make him somewhat unique in appearance and often a piece of eye candy to many of the female crewmembers of the Gaia. He's also the lead pilot of the entire ship and one of the best pilots with Xena in second. Travis graduated from the UEF Aerial Ace Academy three years ago at the same time as Xena. The two of them were completely unstoppable in combat simulations and virtually inseparable. Sylvia stands at 5'7" and has red hair that she usually ties in a ponytail down to the back of her neck and blue eyes that makes her attractive to all the men she's encountered, minus Travis. Unlike Travis, who's the collective and calm person among the pilots, she's more of the cocky, arrogant, and aggressive troublemaker who always gets herself into trouble with the senior officers. Even Travis has a hard time keeping her in line. However, in combat she's just as arrogant and aggressive as she is when she's off-duty. Unlike most of the men she's a friend with, she's more open to Travis as he is to her, who makes her calm and tamed. "Tally ho! I've got contacts coming up in visual range." Striker called while seeing multiple explosions appearing before him as well as two ships the size of the Gaia were getting closer to his vision. "Roger that, Striker, I see 'em too." Xena replied as she too began to see what he was seeing. "Looks like you were right, it is a battle...a big one at that." "Opening channel to the Gaia," He fiddled around with his cockpit controls, switching communication frequencies and began speaking again. "Gaia, this is Eagle One, we have visual contact with unknown objects and it is a battle." On the other side of the channel, the entire bridge crew of the Battlestar Gaia sat at their posts listening to what Striker was saying. Captain Gerard sat close to the communications officer's station waiting to reply. "Eagle One, proceed with caution and see if you can get a good description of what ships are in the area. We will analyze data and advise," Communications officer Yamamoto spoke into his headpiece. "Roger, Gaia, proceeding towards battle." Striker replied with a tone that sounded like he was suffering anxiety. -------------------- Back aboard the Galactica, the command post was completely totaled; smoke and pieces of debris filled the entire room along with many wounded and medical teams. Adama just couldn't believe it; the last battlestar of the colonies of Kobol was almost at her end at last. Her viper squadrons were taking heavy casualties and the Cylons were closing in on the civilian ships. The Cylons had finally won after so many yahrens of chasing them throughout the universe. His hopes of finding the thirteenth colony, Earth, were shattered; none of the colonists would reach it alive and the Cylons don't take prisoners. "If we're going down, then we might as well go down fighting." Adama muttered sorrowfully. He then turned to Colonel Tigh, who was covered in his own blood from hitting consoles and railings inside the bridge. He then looked down to his daughter, Athena, whose hair was a mess from what was going on as well. He gave a mournful sigh as he also thought of all those who fell under his command, including his youngest son Zac, who was the first casualty of the Cylon massacre. "Indeed," Tigh replied looking at Adama. "We've fought for so long, we might as well go down this way." "Commander, my scanners show two more ships approaching!" The scanner officer yelled from her console catching both Adama and Tigh's attention. "Cylon?" Tigh asked with hope. "Negative, they're not Cylon." She reported turning back to her screen. "Are they Vipers? They could be from the Pegasus!" Adama exclaimed with even more hope. The Battlestar Pegasus turned out to be another surviving battlestar from the Colonial 5th fleet. Its commander, Cain, performed a brilliant stunt that got the Pegasus away from the Cylon attack and for a while went into a few skirmishes with the Cylons before running into the Galactica. She disappeared again shortly after, after she took on two Cylon basestars single-handedly. Many of those who were evacuated from the Pegasus now serve aboard other ships in the fleet along with the Galactica. The only two witnesses of the fight were Captain Apollo and Lieutenant Starbuck, but they couldn't see her due to so much smoke and debris from the battle. They couldn't even look for her because a Cylon attack group came back to find them; they retreated before the Cylons could even find them. "Negative, they aren't Vipers either." She replied sounding confused on the new visitors. "But it's strange, the warbook also indicates humans inside these ships." "Humans?" Adama echoed almost in a whisper. "You don't think..." -------------------- "Whoa! Xena, you seeing what I'm seeing?" Striker said with his eyes bulged out of their sockets. "I see it, but I don't believe it..." Xena replied with the same amount of shock. "That ship looks almost like the Gaia." "But that's impossible, the Gaia is the only ship of her kind, how can this ship have the same design?" Striker rambled getting more and more confused by the minute. "Search me but I'm scanning that baby for life forms." Xena stated while typing commands into her cockpit's computers. After a few seconds an image of the Galactica appeared on her screen along with its specs. On the right bottom corner of the screen where it said 'life forms', it read one word that shocked her beyond belief; human. "This can't be right...my scanner says that there are humans on that ship!" "Impossible!" Striker shouted after reading the same thing on his computer. "There's no way these guys are human." "A computer doesn't lie, Striker." Xena replied just before an explosion occurred right next to her ship. She looked and saw three saucer-like objects flying towards them both firing laser projectiles at them. "Looks like we've got company!" "Evasive action Xena!" Striker yelled as he flew his Valkyrie away from a couple of laser blasts. He then turned on his communications to the Gaia and call for reinforcements. -------------------- Aboard the Gaia, everything was really quiet since Striker's last transmission. The ship had already turned towards the battle to intercept these unknown contacts, hopefully to make contact with whoever is friendly. After a while, they finally got something from Striker. "Gaia, this is Striker! Xena and I have fallen under attack! The unknown craft are indeed ships and are in a battle. Xena and I have done nothing to get involved but three of the unknown craft are attacking us now. Half of the unknown craft seem to consist of humans while the other half has no indication of life forms whatsoever. We assume that drones operate these ships and they are the ones that are currently attacking us. We have counted over one hundred of these drone ships along with their mother ship. We are currently outnumbered and the human ships are taking heavy casualties. Even more confusing is that the mother ship of the human craft is the same design as the Gaia We are requesting reinforcements and permission to fire! Repeat we are under attack, requesting permission to fire! I am sending info on the attacking fighters!" "Roger that Striker, we're launching fighters now!" Captain Gerard replied almost in a shout before shutting off connection with Striker and switching to the entire ship. "All hands, this is the captain, a group of hostile aliens have fired upon two of our recon fighters. So as of now, we are on full battle alert!" Just as he said those words, the entire ship turned red as the alarm klaxons began blaring. Every crewmember ran to their battle stations while the pilots scrambled to their SF-25 Valkyries and launched from the Gaia's hangar bays. All around the hull of the ship hatches opened and lifted up twin barrel cannons of all sizes and shapes arming the ship for battle. After every fighter was launched, the hangar bays closed as well as any hole in the ship as a light blue energy aura surrounded the ship as she picked up speed towards the battle. The Gaia had become a full-fledged war machine now. To be continued... Author's Note: Well, that about does it. I know I have some grammar mistakes, maybe a lot of them, but that's the best I've got. If anyone has any ideas I'm open for them. Any suggestions please enlighten me. Other than that, send in the reviews.