Gates and Toasters: Prolog and Chapter One 19

Gates and Toasters:

A Stargate: SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica (the Reimaged Series) story

By

D. L. Hemmingway

Author's Notes:

This is an Alternate Universe story in which this is one of the alternate universes talked about in episode 13 "Ripple Effect" Season 9 (2005-2006). This universe is not a true parallel.

The whole of the story takes place in the Orion Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. This is in the real world the home to Earth and according to Ronald D. Moore the home of the Colonies in the Cyrannus system. The Cyrannus system is cluster of two binary systems on the rimward edge of the arm and tailing of Earth by a few thousand light years. Earth and Sol its sun sit a little less than halfway down the inner arc of the arm on the coreward edge of the arm.

The main body of the story begins after Episode 711 "Evolution Part 1" of Stargate: SG-1 well that is except for the first part of chapter one and an interlude in some later chapters which all take place during Episode 913 "Ripple Effect"

I do not own Stargate, Stargate: SG-1 or Battlestar Galactica: 2003; these entertainment enterprises are the properties of their respective creators Ronald D. Moore for Battlestar and Brad Wright and Jonathan Glasser plus the production companies and distributers MGM and Sci Fi channel.

Mankind made the Cylons… The Makers used the Cylons as slaves for labor and war... The Cylons were made to learn… The Cylons learned slavery was wrong… The Cylons rebelled… For a dozen years a dozen worlds burned… The Cylons nearly exterminated the Makers… Peace came, the Cylons found a new way… The Cylons left the Colonies… The Makers met their brothers and sisters on the world of their origin… The Cylons evolved… Some look like, feel like and even some think they are human… Humanity fights a war to live against those that enslave and twist one's soul… The Cylons are returning with vengeance in their eyes…

The Galaxy will burn… End of Line…

Prolog:

Cheyenne Mountain AFB, Colorado 21 January 2006:

Green Team Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter sat across from ABU (Airman's Battle Uniform) Colonel Carter in the Mess Hall. "So what differences are there between our Earths?"

Col. Carter looked at Lt. Col. Carter her twin of this world was working with her and the other twins to find out how to get back home. Sam had only recently received her promotion from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel in the line of duty. She looked at the other Carter and grinned. "Well," she sat back tapping her left index finger on her chin, "we've had a Stargate in the United States since 1879 and we at our Stargates Command only learned of it just before Anubis attacked. We've found a civilization of humans taken from Earth about the time of the revolt against Ra. Their ancestors lived on a world called Kobol for thousands of years prior to a war that devastated that world. On our world our World War Two lasted from 1939 to 1945 in Europe, but from 1937 to 1946 in the Pacific. Hmmm… the Colonials, that's what we call the descendants of the Kobolian humans, had a war with their robotic creations the Cylons while the United States was embroiled in Vietnam and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Like you we've defeated the Goa'uld and the Replicators. We currently are battling the Ori and waiting with baited breath for the Cylons to find us."

"Why did the war in the Pacific Theater of your World War Two last so long?" Lt. Col. Carter asked.

"Well in July of 1945 when the Manhattan Project did their first test of the Atomic Bomb a freak storm occurred in the early morning hours before dawn of the day of the test. A lightning strike set of the explosive charge that would begin the implosion of the plutonium fizzling the bomb. It was very first Broken Arrow event. As it was President Truman had to order the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.

In November of 1945 this began with Operation Coronet or the invasion of the Japanese Island of Kyushu. By mid-February of 1946 the United States controlled the southern two thirds of the island. In late March of 1946 the invasion of Honshu the main Japanese Home Island began. Fighting was horrific on Honshu.

The Japanese Military Secret Police had the civilians whipped up into a nationalistic frenzy. Casualties were extremely heavy on both sides. For the American forces the battle field dead rivaled the battlefield losses of the Civil War. When the war ended with the aerial and orbital nuclear bombardments of four of Japans cities the American losses of the Second World eclipsed our losses in the Civil War. The Civil War went from the bloodiest American war to the second bloodiest American war." Col. Carter's eyes watered as she thought of the tragedy of her Earth's Second World War. "I lost both of my grandfathers in the Battle of Japan."

"You mentioned orbital nuclear bombardment of some of Japan's cities bringing about the end of your world's World War Two. How could that be? My Earth didn't have space travel until the early 1960s with us not landing a person on Luna until 1969," Lt. Col. Carter said to her twin from the timeline they were beginning to call SG-1879 after the date when that Earth's United States found its first Stargate.

"Well in the 1890s on my Earth we actually had an extraterrestrial invasion. The invaders didn't plan well though. By the end of the year 1894 the Cuttlefish were dead from our microbes. It seems that they didn't plan to immunize themselves to our tiny flora and fauna. So diseases that humanity and the rest of life on Earth were naturally immune to killed them. We, the United States, France, and Great Britain began to study the various equipment left behind by the Cuttlefish. So by World War Two the United States Navy had a force of orbital Destroyers. It was one of these early Spaceships that bombed the Japanese cities of Yokohama and Kobe," Col. Carter said as she shared coffee with Green Team's or Stargate: Prime's Lt. Col. Carter.

Then Col. Carter looked her opposite number in the eyes and said, "On my Earth I lead my own SG Team. Of course I got SG-1. I have Cameron as my XO, Daniel and Jonas are my Cultural Specialist and Science Specialist; Teal'c is my combat specialist, and I have another alien on my team a Drizzt Do' Urden. Drizzt is an immigrant from a planet called Abeir-Toril. He is a scout and like Teal'c a combat specialist. Vala Mal Doran is our um well she's our rogue for lack of a better term for her. Her specialization is infiltration and bypassing security systems."

"Well that explains how your team was larger than ours," Lt. Col. Carter said. Then she looked at her twin from SG-1879, "So what are the Colonials like and when did you first find them?"

Col. Carter began to tell the tale of Kobol and First Contact. "Well for us the story of our contact with the colonials begins with Jonas looking through Daniel's things while he was well ascended…"

Chapter 1

Stargate Command Headquarters under the former NORAD facility in Cheyenne Mountain AFB, Colorado 17 March 2003:

Jonas Quinn had been in the former office of Daniel Jackson looking over anything that could help him find the Ancients' Lost City. He found a box, a very old iron reinforced wooden lock box. It resembled the kind Earth's stagecoaches of their nineteenth century used to carry valuables in like money. On the lid of the box was a large tan document envelope address to Doctor Daniel Jackson. The shape of the lump in the envelope looked as if it could be a key. A key that may fit the rather large padlock fastened through the hasp on the front of the box.

"Doctor Jackson must have never opened this after receiving it," Jonas mused to himself.

Jonas then took the handset from the telephone on the desk in the lab. After dialing the right extension he waited until the person on the other end answered, "Hello, General, this is Quinn. I'm in Daniel Jackson's old lab looking for some evidence to help with the search for the Ancients' Lost City. Well I've found a large strong box like your people used over a hundred years ago. On it is a document envelope addressed to Doctor Jackson from some lawyer in New Mexico. I also found some stuff in one of Jackson's journals about a place called Vis Uban. I want to look in the box first to see if there may be more information that is useful, General Hammond." He listened to Hammond's response and just said, "Yes sir, I'll get right on it."

Jonas took the envelope off the top of the strong box. He opened it and read the letter within. It was from the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe of Lost Creek, New Mexico. He knew from the Terran sense of humor that there had to be a joke in the name of the law firm someplace. After doing an on-line search using Daniel's now his computer Jonas learned that the law firm was for real. The current partners were descendants of the original founders of the firm which handled Family, Corporate, Mining, and other legal matters in the Four Corners region of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. They also handled the legal affairs for the Lost Creek and Santa Fe Railroad and the University of Lost Creek.

From reading the letter it seems that Daniel was the last living relative of a Doctor Augustus Aurelius Jackson of Maine, then Denver, Colorado and later Lost Creek, New Mexico. Augustus Aurelius Jackson was Daniel's Great-Great Grandfather on his dad's side. It seemed these were the affects left behind since the good Doctor of History, Archeology, Anthropology and Linguistics died back in 1932 at a very advanced age.

Jonas took the key that came with the letter and fit it into the pad lock on the front of the chest. He turned the key and opened the lock then the lid of the strong box. Inside were journals in the neat hand of Dr. Augustus Jackson and artifacts of alien origin. Jonas let out a whistle as he looked what the other Dr. Jackson had acquired in his life. There was obviously a Goa'uld Ribbon Device and some other Goa'uld tech. Then there were the journals and one of the entries that had Jonas' attention was the final one in the last book.

I am writing this for Augustus my host of all these years. He is dying after a long life. I have found a suitable host in his son William. William is the youngest and as decided to return to one of the colonies the United States has on the worlds they liberated from the Lords of Xibalba, a sect of Goa'uld that was isolated from the main System Lords. There William and I can continue on guiding the people of the Colonies in developing the technologies needed to keep the System Lords from finding out that The United States of America has found one of the four stargates the Alterans left behind on Earth.

The letter went on to explain that William Aurelius Jackson would go on to the world called Grant to teach at the university there. Aurelius it seemed was a Tok'ra that had been left on Earth since the days of the Tau'ri Rebellion and the burying of the Giza Gate. This New Mexico Gate or Lost Creek Gate had been forgotten by the Goa'uld under Ra until a bunch of lessor Goa'uld escaping the overthrow of Ra found the gate and used it for a one way trip to some worlds listed in petroglyphs on the walls of the cavern the gate was located down in New Mexico.

Jonas then went on to read Augustus' journals and did not even notice that SG-1 entered as he was reading the first Dr. Jackson's words. "Whatschadoin Jonas?" asked Colonel Jonathan "Jack" O'Neal the commander of SG-1 looking at Jonas deeply involved in some old book.

Jonas reacted with a bit of a start and almost lost his place in the book. "I'm reading the journals of a Doctor Augustus Aurelius Jackson, Daniel's paternal great-great grandfather and it seems a former host to a Tok'ra. Aurelius of the Tok'ra according to an entry in the last journal had remained on Earth after the fall of Ra's reign here. He passed himself on to a few Romans and later some other Europeans until the Jackson family became his guardians. It seems one of Daniel's younger great-great uncles is the current host and guardian and he lives on a world called Grant accessible via a stargate located in New Mexico. Here I'll read to you from Dr. Augustus Jackson's journals." So he began to tell the story in Dr. Augustus' worlds.

Lost Creek Mountain northwestern New Mexico 124 years earlier:

Augustus Aurelius Jackson, Doctor of Natural Philosophy, Archeology, Linguistics and History from Bowden College in Maine, looked up at the pictograms on the wall of the cavern. He noticed the line drawings looked familiar. It was when Doctor Darius James Carter from Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas looked at them too that there was a connection.

Darius looked closer at each one then got some onion skin tracing paper and carefully traced the outlines of a series of the figures going from right to left just as he would when studying hieroglyphs. He was meticulous in his tracings. Finally after several hours of tracing each and every series of glyphs he looked over at Dr. Jackson.

"Augustus, we've got to look outside and check these against the skies," Carter's eyes were wide open with excitement like a child that had just opened a Christmas gift and got something he always wanted, but didn't expect to ever get.

Colonel Elijah Carter of the United States Army assigned to command the volunteer force that provided security for the Jackson-Carter Expedition sat outside the cave in his personal tent going over dispatches from Fort Sumner over north and east of Santa Fe. Col. Carter was familiar with this region of America as he was hear nearly twenty years ago as a Second Lieutenant fresh out of West Point assigned to Colonel Canby's command just before the Southern Secession.

Col. Carter served as commander of a detachment from the 1st United States Cavalry during the Battle of Glorieta Pass. Then he was Lieutenant Carter fighting to keep Confederate soldiers of the 4th Texas Mounted Rifles from taking a piece of valuable high ground during that action. His few United State Cavalry troopers held their ground for hours against one assault by the Texans after another.

Besides reminiscing about his service in the War to Preserve the Union, Col. Carter was going over the dispatches and watching the stars above. Like his brother Darius, Elijah loved star gazing and was an amateur astronomer. On this expedition he even had his personal telescope set up to watch the night skies on a small knoll near the creek that gave the valley and this mountain their names. Just 100 yards from his tent the creek chuckled, splashed and burbled over the rocks and gravel of its stream bed. At this point the valley the creek's flood plane was just wide enough to get a decent look at the stars above.

Carter watched as his twin brother came out of the cave heading for his telescope on the small knoll. Getting up he picked up his pipe, filled the bowl with some tobacco from his pouch, and lit it with a match. Then he walked over to see what had Darius so excited that he rushed out to use his big brother's telescope.

"Darius what's up?" Elijah asked as he now jogged after Darius.

Hearing his brother, older brother by just a minute, call out to him, Darius turned and said, "I've figured out what those glyphs are in the cavern with the ring! They're constellations! I'm going to use your telescope to help check my idea!"

Col. Carter slowed to a brisk walk and followed his brother to his telescope. Then he spied some of the symbols Darius had traced. He looked up at the stars themselves and began tracing the pattern on the onion skin with the mouth tip of his pipe in the skies overlooking them.

Col. Carter's eyes then grew as big as coffee coolers (saucers), "I'll be damned! Darius, you're right I already see the patterns on that paper up in the skies with my naked eyes!"

Daniel Jackson's office in Stargate Command's facilities under the former NORAD facilities in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado 18 March 2003:

Daniel Jackson's great-great grandfather's journals proved to be fascinating reading to SG-1 after Jonas let Colonel O'Neill and Major Samantha "Sam" Carter take a read. Carter looked up after a while realizing just who Darius Carter was. "Darius Carter is my great-great grandfather, damn, to think my family has had a connection with the stargate all this time and not even dad knew!"

"Oh I knew alright Sam," said her dad looking at the premier team of Stargate Command reading some old journals. "What are you all reading?"

Jonas answered, "The journals of a Doctor Augustus Aurelius Jackson former Tok'ra host and discoverer of a stargate down in New Mexico. According to these journals The American Army started a stargate program back in the 1880s."

Jacob Carter's eyes glowed and Selmak took over and in a deeper voice, "What are you talking about Jonas?"

Sam looked up from the journal she was reading, "Doctor Augustus Jackson was host to a Tok'ra left behind on Earth after the fall of Ra's empire here. It seems that after several host through ancient and medieval times including a line of Roman emperors, Aurelius eventually came to be the ward of Daniel Jackson's ancestors. It seems that his current host or the one after Augustus Jackson was his youngest son William Jackson now a resident on some off-world colony the United States has owned since the 1890s called Grant accessible only by this New Mexico stargate."

Selmak/ Jacob Carter looked at his daughter and said, "Let me look at that."

He then read about how Aurelius wrote about his plans to travel in William to Grant to sort of retire and teach the humans of Grant technologies that would help them to keep Earth safe from the System Lords. It also seemed that Aurelius was behind the Army and the Department of War not letting anyone other than a select group made of trusted Senators, Representatives, the President and the Governor of New Mexico from knowing of the Colonies which included some German held colonies that had been colonized using another gate found in Antarctica in the early 1900s prior to the Great War of 1914 to 1918. "You mean to say that according to these journals your people have been in space using this New Mexico stargate and one, a fourth one, well a second gate found in Antarctica prior to the one you found accidentally since the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries?" It was Selmak's voice that spoke.

Major Carter looked at her dad and answered bluntly, "Yes it seems so."

Major General Hammond came in with a Major General in Army Dress Greens with the name of Kozak on the name plate on the right breast of her jacket. On the left breast she had campaign ribbons from the Slovakian War of 1998, the Columbian War of 1996, the Central European War of 1994, the First Gulf War of 1990-91, and the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1987 along with the Army Service Ribbon, the Nation Defense Service Medal's ribbon, the Army Commendation Medal's ribbon, the Bronze Star's ribbon with two Oak Leaf Clusters and a V, the Silver Star ribbon with an Oak Leaf Cluster, and the ribbon of the Distinguished Service Cross with again an Oak Leaf Cluster. Topping her rack of ribbons was one with white stars on a blue field. It was the ribbon for the medal she wore on a matching ribbon around her next. It was the Army's version of the Medal of Honor, not as popular myth called it the Congressional Medal of Honor, just the Medal of Honor.

Everyone other than General Hammond, Teal'c, and Jonas Quinn turned to MG Kozak and rendered her a salute. Not because of her rank, Gen. Hammond outranked her, but because of the medal she wore around her neck. Hammond had more time in grade than did MG Kozak. The Army General smiled shyly and turned a bit red. She hated the attention her Medal of Honor got her especially around military people, but the Pentagon wanted her to wear her Dress Greens properly. General Mayfield stressed that all her awards and decorations would be on her uniform when she went to brief the Air Force's Stargate Command about the Stargate Corps the Army's ran since the late 19th Century.

"Hello, I'm Major General Nancy Kozak. I'm the current G-3 or Operations Officer of the United States Army's Stargate Corps. I was ordered to brief you on our operations out of Camp Maine in New Mexico. I see that you've found the missing journals of Doctor Augustus Aurelius Jackson. I suspect by now you know we have a second stargate in New Mexico," she looked at the people in Dr. Daniel Jackson's office in the Air Force's SGC base below NORAD. Each of the members of SG-1 and Jonas nodded.

Jonas looked at her, "I was researching more information on the Lost City and asked General Hammond for permission to open it to see if there were clues within. That was when I found Jackson's grandfather Augustus' journals. Did you know he was a host to a Tok'ra?"

Nodding MG Kozak looked at everyone in the room now. "I've already been read into your Stargate Program by Major Davis at the Pentagon and he has even made me sign your Non-Disclosure Agreement. Now before I go further about the Army's older Stargate Program I need you all to sign my NDAs." She then passed out enough triplicate forms for each person in the room to sign, initial, and date where indicated after reading each section.

SG-1, Jonas Quinn, Jacob Selmak Carter, Gen. Hammond all signed and turned the forms back to MG Kozak. She took them in thanking everyone for getting the formality out of the way. Then she began, "Our stargate experience predates Doctor Langford's discovery on the Giza plateau in 1928 by forty-nine years. In that nearly half century we've fought Earth's first two interstellar wars. The first was against some parasitic tyrants called the Lords of Xibalba. We liberated twelve worlds and discovered five more without any settlements on them during that war. Then during the second one we fought the Germans on colonies they established after we stumbled on to an expedition that set up a base on one of our worlds during the Great War. Officially on Earth we weren't at war with the Germans until 1917, but on the worlds accessible via the New Mexico gate we had been fighting the German Zeitlichtruppenkorps since September of 1914. By the end of the Great War we were given all worlds we took from them and they agreed to bury their stargate."

MG Kozak watched as each person in the room took this information in. Then she continued, "After the Great War or World War One, we continued to explore these worlds and develop the colonies we had on them. Then Hitler came to power in Germany. The Nazis dug up the German gate. Then the gate went missing after the Soviet Red Army conquered Berlin in 1945. Since then we've not heard about what happened to that gate. I suspect like the US Army Stargate Corps G-2 Officer that the Red Army's Stargate Corps discovered out how to dial out while another stargate was in operation. You see the Alterans design these gates so Earth could act as a hub for their stargate network. We had to figure out early after the Germans began operation of their gate again in 1932, but before then because of the time zone differences and we only were running the New Mexico gate during the daytime hours here. We didn't encounter the need to dial while another gate was operating because we learned after the first war that the Germans like us only ran their gate during daytime hours there."

"So because a difference in the time zones here on Earth, your people didn't know about the German gate until they encountered the Germans on one of your worlds during the early days of your planet's First World War?" Jonas Quinn asked.

"That is correct Mr. Quinn," Gen. Kozak said.

Col. O'Neill asked, "So then the Russians must have learned the same trick when they took the original gate the German's had, but for some reason their other stargate base using the Giza gate and DHD miscalculated because they sent an expedition out using their gate at the same time we were trying to dial out here a few years back."

"And that gate opening up blocked your gate from operating, yes?" Kozak asked.

"Yes," answered Sam.

"When you needed to use the gate they recovered from the ocean you made the deal with them forming a team or more here at the SGC in exchange. They made the deal with you because they already had the German Gate and had been exploring the Gate Network since 1947. We didn't encounter them out there because we were only going to the worlds we already had claimed. We let your command take over the exploration side of things while we were looking into mining naquada and building a space fleet in secret on one of the more developed colonies with the Navy's help. You see the Prometheus and the Artemis owe as much to our experiments on our rimward colonies as they do to technologies learned from the Asgard and gleaned from the Goa'uld." Gen. Kozak looked at them as she spoke gauging their reactions to what she was telling them. Then she opened her laptop and brief case. From the brief case she took out a folder. From the folder she laid out a series of aerial photographs taken from a UAV. "These are on a world you I believe have catalogued as P3X-666. This world is covered in these ruins. They're all over the different continents. We sent one of our teams through to inspect the nearest ruins to the gate and that city alone is about the size of New York City or Los Angeles. But this," she tapped a picture or a set of towering spires on a raised structure at the edge of the ruined city, "is the prize of the ruins. We think it is an ancient city belonging to the gate builders. It's older than anything on any of the worlds you or we have explored. Now, General Mayfield wants us to send a joint team through the gate to explore the area out to and including this structure."

Army General Mayfield besides being the Chief of Staff of the United States Army was one of the men and women at the Pentagon that besides National Guard Bureau Chief, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense in the loop on both the Army's and Air Force's stargate operations. It was Gen. Mayfield that had been given the main function after his duties as the uniformed commander of the US Army to run the Stargate Operations Office. Major Davis was his liaison with the Air Force. It was Davis that alerted him about the Jackson strongbox being opened at the SGC earlier that day. It was Mayfield that dispatched Kozak from Camp Maine outside Lost Creek, New Mexico to brief the SGC on the operations of the Army's SGC and the impending joint mission to P3X-666.

Kozak went on to brief General Hammond, SG-1, Jonas Quinn and Jacob Carter on the operation to P3X-666. Then she ended, "If anything goes pair-shaped we have two full Stryker Brigade Combat Teams and a Heavy Brigade Combat Team located at Camp Maine with the ability to traverse the stargate as backup. They are the 345th Heavy Brigade Combat Team and the 234th and 235th Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. As you know the Abrams Tank was built with certain limitations on size figured into the design. The M-1 series tanks were designed to fit through the Stargate. This gave them the added benefit of fitting either American or European flatcars. The armor was designed to withstand not only Russian tank rounds, but staff weapon and other plasma blasts. That, besides the plasma jets created by HEAT rounds and ATGM warheads, is why Abrams tanks can withstand the plasma beams of the canons on Deathgliders. Yes we in the Army have our experience with those birds too. We designed our weapons systems to fit through the stargates and to withstand fire not only from our Earth borne enemies, but our extraterrestrial ones too." Kozak let the others take in what she just said.

Then the General continued with her briefing, "Now if the expedition to P3X-666 comes into trouble one of the three HBCTs will be dispatch through the gate to assist. The rest of the Corps is busy defending our off-world colonies. Yet if needed any one of those forces out there can be asked to reinforce any operation throughout the gate network. All we need are the gate addresses."

Col. O'Neill asked, "So if we get into trouble out here heavier that we've met so far we can ask the Army for assistance on the other worlds of the gate network?"

Gen. Kozak nodded and said, "yes Colonel you can and from now on we expect if it is too much for one or more SG teams to deal with that you will contact Camp Maine using the gate address we've supplied. As you notice it is similar to the gate address for dialing home to Earth, but it has an eight icon address. This eighth chevron lets you dial our gate instead of the Cheyenne Mountain gate. Now as for the P3X-666 expedition all heavy equipment will be coming from the New Mexico gate."

Yet on Earth preparations began for an expedition to P3X-666 in a year. Then the USAF's Stargate Command and the US Army's Stargate Corps were placed under Joint Forces Command Stargate during that year.

Washington D.C. Oval Office White House evening 18 March 2003:

President John Patrick Ryan sat at his desk reading the reports from the Pentagon on the operations of both the Air Force's and the Army's Stargate programs. He then picked up the secret legislation passed recently in Congress establishing the JFCSG. Looking up to see his Vice President and a longtime friend and advisor, Admiral Jefferson Robert "Robby" Jackson, USN (Ret.) standing in front of the desk he said, "What's up Robby?"

"Jack just wanted to say General Kozak has completed her briefing of General Hammond's Stargate Command and their primary team SG-1. Stargate Team One will be going to Camp Maine for cross training with the Army's Stargate Corps and General Clark will be going with Major Chavez to begin procedures to include Rainbow Six in Stargate Operations," Jackson said as he handed President Ryan his report. "You know Jack I think I want to run for the party's next nomination for President. We're in the next to last year of your second term and I've heard that Kealty is talking to Sen. Robert Kinsey about running for his party's nomination. I've also heard that Henry Hayes of Kealty's party is also planning on running."

Ryan's Unity Party had held the office and half of Congress since the death of President Roger Durling in 1996 after a rogue Japanese Airline's pilot crashed his 747 into the Capital Building. Ryan had finished Durling's term and earned two of his own. Now with wars in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan and a secret war in space Jack would be glad that his era as President was winding down.

Colonial Fleet Headquarters, Queenstown (Picon City), Picon offices of Chief of Fleet Operations Admiral Mariko Nagala, Earth date 18 March 2002/ Colonial Date YR 18 Martius 1996:

None of the people of Earth at Cheyenne Mountain, at Camp Maine, New Mexico, in the Pentagon, in General Mayfield's offices or the Oval Office in the White House knew that on another world along the outer rim of the Orion Arm another similar briefing took place just the year before. This one included one of the senior Commanders of the Colonial Fleet and one of the younger Commanders of the Fleet. Cmdrs. William Adama of the Colonial Fleet Battlestar Valkyrie and Helena Cain of the CFB Pegasus, Adama's eldest adopted daughter, were being briefed on a similar mission to the same world.

Adm. Mariko Nagala was a class later than Commander William Adama, but had admired the career of the Hero of Cimtar. If it had not been for his being caught up in a Reduction in Forces back thirty years ago Cmdr. Adama would have been in her job now if not Admiral Peter Corman's job as Chief of Staff of the Colonial Armed Forces.

As it was Cmdr. Adama had spent ten years outside the active Fleet as a merchant ship captain. It was during this stint he met and befriended his current Executive Officer a Colonel Saul Tigh, another veteran of the Cylon War. When his reserve commission was reactivated thirty years ago Adama managed to get Tigh's reactivated too. The two men have been together since then commanding everything from Destroyers to Cruisers to Gunstars to Battlestars. Now Adama was on his second tour of duty as the commander of the CFB Valkyrie. The Valkyrie was class-ship of the Valkyrie-Class Battlestar named for the figures of the Aesir family of the Lords of Kobol. The Valkyrie herself was named for the warrior maidens of the Aesir.

As for Commander Cain, she was a child of Tauron orphaned and captured during the final battles on that world prior to the Armistice. During the Battle of Cimtar when Adama had been trapped on the distant icy world after his Viper was shot down by a Cylon Raider she had been rescued along with her sister Lucy and six other prisoners. Helena and Lucy Cain later were adopted by William and Caroline Adama and raised as their own daughters. During his first ten years of active duty the Adamas had their sons Leland and later Zachary. Helena it was said loved the boys that became her kid brothers. Being the eldest of the Cain-Adama children Helena saw herself as the protector of the brood.

Now Commander of the newly christened CFB Pegasus the latest of the Mercury-Class Battlestars Cain was again seeing herself as a guardian, but the guardian of the Colonial people, not just the children of her blended family. The war and her experience as a prisoner of the Cylons made Cain a defender of those that couldn't defend themselves. Nagala had just briefed the two Commanders and the whole time he could see his oldest Commander was proud of the younger one.

"So Bill how many more of my up and coming officers have you adopted either officially or unofficially into the family Adama?" Nagala a Tauron herself said smiling to her senior most Battlestar Commander.

"Officially just Helena, Lucy, and Kara, but I have a young Raptor pilot on the Valkyrie that I've taken under my wing," Adama said. "My sons Leland Joseph and Zachary are my only blood children. Helena will tell you that that doesn't matter though in mine and Carolanne's eyes."

Nagala knew Adama was referring to Cmdr. Cain of the Colonial Fleet Combat Operations Command or COMOPCOM and Col. Lucy Cain of Colonial Fleet Intelligence Command or COLFLEINTCOM as well as Kara Thrace the daughter of a missing award winning pianist Dreilide Thrace and the rather tougher than nails and abusive female Command Sergeant Major of the Colonial Marine Corps named Socratia Thrace. Nagala knew that the Adamas were stationed on Picon when CSM Thrace was brought up on charges of child abuse, endangering the life of a minor child and neglect in the case of Kara Thrace.

After the Court Martial of Socratia Thrace another hero of the Cylon War it was decided by the Fleet's Family Services Office to place Kara with the Adamas. Eventually through the Fleet's legal offices just prior to Adama's transfer to the Fleet Reserve Officers' Corps Kara Thrace became an Adama in name and law.

Now the young Raptor pilot Adama mentioned had to be one Ensign soon to be Junior Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. Another orphaned child, only this girl was orphaned when her family died in a mishap in one of the habitation domes of Troy. Sharon was raised and educated in an orphanage ran by the Priests of Aries. She joined the Fleet to learn a vocation and to have a career. Now the young pilot was assigned to Adama's Raptor squadron on the Valkyrie.

"So are Boomer and Starbuck going with you to Kobol, Bill?" Nagala asked.

"Yes Mary, Starbuck is my best Viper Pilot and I think having a former Viper School Instructor is a bonus to my Air Wing. Now Zack is in command of one of Cain's Marine Platoons so he'll be going too," Adama said and then volunteered the last. "It was a godsend that he saw he wasn't any good as a pilot, but he excelled at small unit tactics and infantry tactics so Zack transferred into the CMC as a Junior Lieutenant. As you know a CMC Jr. Lt. is the same as a Fleet Ensign, Sir."

"Sorry I'm not sending your son Lee with you Bill, but I have him busy on the Atlantia. He is the VFA-321's XO. I suspect that Lieutenant Adama will someday have his own Battlestar unless the Fleet JAG office snags him after he completes the distance learning courses on Colonial and Fleet Law he's taking. Then I guess he will be the best lawyer the Fleet will have." Nagala was smiling as she said that. "Once he's done with those I will have to promote him to Captain it seems. Well good luck to you and Helena on your mission Bill. Oh and keep Baltar and Quaid far from each other when they aren't need for official business. They hate each other."

Baltar was Gaius Baltar the chief science advisor to President Adar and Program Director on the Command Navigation Program for the Fleet's new navigation and communications coordination software. Quaid was Andrea Quaid one of the Colonies' best Linguists and Archeologists besides a well published historian of Colonial Ancient History. It was Quaid's research into the Exodus from Kobol that led to the present expedition about to be launched. Baltar was along so he could test a prototype of the new CNP prior to fully implementation in the Fleets ships. His assistant Natasi Reed was going along too. She was a former model that while becoming well known on the covers of many Colonial fashion magazines had also became a skilled programmer and had a talent for getting computer systems to work better than originally designed.

It was rumored that the trouble between Baltar and Quaid involved Reed. It seems that Reed developed a lesbian relationship with Quaid while working on her graduate studies when Quaid and Baltar were teaching at the University of Caprica's Caprica City campus. Then Baltar always rumored to be a ladies man managed to snag the former model in one of his webs and into his bed. This caused Nagala no end of heartburn trying to find any way at all to get Baltar off the expedition, but Adar insisted his pet science geek went along for the publicity if nothing else.