Black Alpha One – Part 3

Black Alpha One

by AJ Marks

Part 3

Starbuck glanced down hearing warning alert and froze hoping it would say anything but what it expected to see. Perhaps he had a malfunction of some sort, computers were prone to breakdowns.  He looked anyways and wished he hadn’t as he saw what was there on the screen.

“Starbuck, you see that?” Apollo said confirming Starrbuck’s fears.

“Yeah, wish I wasn’t seeing it though,” Starbuck replied back honestly. They both looked at their scanners seeing a large, growing, group of Cylon attack raiders heading towards them.  “It can stop growing any micron now.”

“Haven’t see that many since Gamoray,” Apollo replied, something Starbuck had to agree with. “Sending a message back to the Galactica now, along with their course.”

“They’re headed towards the fleet, they know where it is,” Starbuck said after doing some quick calculations in his head about the direction they were headed. He had no doubt the Cylons had found them.

“We’re in for a battle,” Apollo said.

“With those number, are you sure its going to be a battle?” Starbuck said looking down at the large number of incoming raiders.

“Yeah, but we’ll take out as many as possible, and as quickly as possible,” Apollo said.

Starbuck knew what his friend was saying, but he saw no way they could survive this battle this time. The numbers were not in their favor at all.  Even as he thought that the additional raiders from the Galactica headed out and in their direction ready to take on the Cylons.

Starbuck readied himself for a quick hard battle.

*****

Adama quickly made his way over to where Athena sat, her face pale and scared.

“What do you have?” he asked calmly, fearing the answer inside.

“Apollo states he had a large number of Cylon raiders, they are headed in the direction of the fleet,” she replied to him.

Adama looked over at Tigh, who had been listening in as well.

“Seems like they’ve found us,” Tigh said quietly.

“Yes,” Adama said, wondering how long they could kept the Cylona at bay, and lose them with such a slow fleet. “Red alert, have all vipers launch and engage.”

“Yes father,” Athena said.

Adama moved back to the command chair knowing he would have to inform the fleet. Switching the communications he waited a few seconds until he felt sure all ships were now listening.

“All ships, red alert, we have inbound Cylon raiders,” he said to them knowing not much else was needed. All ship captains understood what might happen.

*****

Nick stretched as much as the cockpit allowed him to. He had been on patrol for a short time now and knew it would be a long one if he was already uncomfortable.  They were about to arrive in the patrol sector and form some reason they would exercise silence, or that was the procedure they were expected to follow.

He looked around at the vastness of space, something which always took his breath away. There were many, many galaxies out there, but he never had such a view like this back on Earth, or even on board the Seydlitz.  Every pin prick of light was a star, and around that star could be planets, and on one such planet they might even find life.

He knew back in his home system they had already started terraforming Mars, with the hope of colonizing it within a year or so. He wondered what it might be like to live on another planet.

A buzz from his scanner interrupted his train of thoughts and looked down at the scanner expecting to see something about an asteroid, or perhaps a rogue planet. Such things happened frequently during patrols and they catalogued every one for further study.  Glancing at his scanner he stopped and frowned.

“Twitch, you see that?” Nick asked James knowingly breaking protocol but wanted a conformation of what he saw on his scanner.

“Um, yeah, I don’t understand it one bit,” James replied back to him.

Nick had to agree as well, considering what he saw on the screen in front of him. The computer already identified what they were looking at but what really concerned him, the red ‘hostile’ on the screen even though he had never seen it before.

“Think we should inform the fleet?” James asked, the very question Nick struggled with as well considering he had no idea what do with such a weird scanner contact.

“Yeah,” Nick finally answered. “They might want us to start first contact.”

Even as he said it, he hoped he would not have to do it. First contact with an alien race, though exciting, wasn’t something he wanted to do.

“Great, first contact, just what I wanted to do in this patrol,” James said, his tone matching Nick’s attitude.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick said, switching over to the fleet com. “Seydlitz, this is patrol five-one, come in.”

He waited a few second before the flight controller replied back to him. “Patrol five-one, this is Seydlitz control, go ahead.”

“Control, we have, well, something strange on our scanners and are requesting instructions on how to handle the situation,” Nick replied back information the controller of their situation.

“What type of situation patrol five-one?”

“Scanners are showing a ship, probably sentient,” Nick replied, not saying anything about what the scanners said to him about it. He heard silence and wondered what might be happening.  Perhaps they would want him to make contact.

He looked over at James making contact and he saw him shrug as they waited for the reply. Things would be getting interesting he figured.

*****

Ryan looked over at the communications officer on duty, Sara, who appeared to be pulling out a large book and looking something up. He walked over wondering what she might be doing.

“Anything wrong Sara?” he asked, surprising her a bit as she looked up at him.

“Um, no, yes, I don’t know,” she finally replied a bit confused. “Patrol five-one indicated they found something strange on their scanners, might be a sentient ship, or so they said.”  She looked down at the book then back up at him and froze.

Ryan reached down taking the book from her hands knowing what needed to be done wasn’t in the book, at least not for the Black Zone. He knew what needed to be done first, and steeled himself for this.

“Ask the patrol if their targeting computers have identified the unknown ships,” he told her, watching as she looked confused at the order.

“Sir?” she asked.

“Just ask them, and open a channel to the Kiev as well,” Ryan said, knowing the orders were odd and strange, but he had a reason for doing it. He wanted to be ready for anything even as Captain Chin’s face appeared on the screen before him.

“Everything all right admiral?” Chin asked, his tone curious about what might be going on.

“Perhaps,” Ryan replied, looking over at Otto as he walked onto the bridge and immediately seemed to guess something had happened. “We might have company, one of our patrols picked up something and we’re waiting for conformation.”

He watched as both of their faces showed the same tense expression. It was something they all talked about in hushed tones, in back room meetings which were off the record, and now he might be confronted with the very thing they spoke about.  He had to be ready for any answer.

“Sir, the patrol reports the unknown ships came back identified as a Cylon basestar,” Sara replied unknowingly giving the worst answer possible. He needed to know more, and then inform HQ.

“Send the patrol closer and inform them that their weapons are hot, if they do not have to wait to be fired upon to fire first, and open a channel to HQ,” Ryan said turning to Otto and Chin. “Put the fleet on yellow alert,” he said to them.

“Yes sir,” Otto replied, heading out to carry out the order.

It didn’t take long before HQ appeared on the screen.

“Admiral Anders?” the young captain said.

“Inform Admrial Cave, code Black Alpha Ten,” Ryan said to him, watching as the captain seemed a bit stunned, but nodded.

*****

Jack Cave walked into his small quarters after a long day and wearily sat down clicking on the TV seeing the news channel come up. Some news story about another government conspiracy causing him to shake his head in amusement.

He yawned and watched another couple of minutes before switching the channel to a sports game.

“That’s better, much more interesting,” he mumbled to himself settling into to watch the game and unwind.

His communicator had other idea, going off and causing him to stare at it. Grumbling he walked over to it and activated it.

“Admiral Cave here,” he said.

“Sorry to bother you sir,” Adam, his aide said. “Captain Silvis received a code Black Alpha Ten.”

The words woke Jack up right away, knowing what the code meant. The first word indicated the zone, in this case the black zone, second word, alpha, indicated Cylons, and the third the level of involvement, ten indicated the Cylons were only spotted, the lowest level.

“Tell HQ I’ll be right there,” Jack said all signs of weariness gone.

“Yes sir, anything else?” Adam asked

Jack paused and gave the question some thought. “Nothing at the moment, we need information about what’s going on before making any decision, but have the captains of the Bismarck and Ark Royal briefed as well.”

He quickly gathered his stuff back up and headed back out almost running over a person in the hallway but never paused to see who it was.  He needed more information and things might get worrisome rather quickly.  The last thing he needed would be for things to get out of control.

Thinking about who was in charge of the patrol fleet he recalled Admiral Anders, a capable man who was calm under pressure and not prone to quick reactions. He would contact him when he got to HQ for more information.

*****

Nick frowned at receiving the orders from the Seydiltz. What did they mean their weapons were hot?  He hoped to gain more information other than to close and the last thing he wanted to do, start an intergalactic war with some unknown race who was probably more advanced than they were, by a thousand years or more.  Sure, they had some pretty advanced fighters and military now, but he doubted it was a match for some alien race.

“Hey Slim, take a look at the scanner again,” James said interrupting Nick’s thought process.

He glanced down, almost afraid of what he might find, but did so anyway to see what James was talking about. He noticed, off to the side of the scanner, another large group of ships.  These were smaller and a lot more of them.

“What’s going on out there?” Nick asked, more to himself than anyone else and didn’t expect to hear an answer at all.

“Don’t know, but the scanners are identifying the ships as well,” James said in the same confused voice he had since this entire thing had started.

Taking a closer look at the scanner he saw that his scanner also identified the ships as well. He noticed the words ‘raider’ next to some while ‘viper’ represented the others.  Even as he watched he noticed one disappear.  “Twitch, you see that?”

“Yeah, wish I wasn’t though.”

“Know what you mean,” Nick answered even as he looked on seeing that the raiders were Cylon and hostile, while the vipers were Colonial, and he paused looking at the screen once more, unable to fathom what he saw. The lifeforms in the viper came back as human.  “Oh boy, this just got complex.”

“What do you mean?” James asked.

“The vipers, the scanner says the pilots are human,” Nick replied wondering how James would reply to such a result. There was silence for several seconds.

“Now I’m confused, what are humans doing out here?” James finally said.

“I don’t know, but I’m calling control again and hopefully get some real answers about what is going on,” Nick replied, switching his communicator back over to the control. “Patrol five-one to Seydlitz control, come in.”

End part 3

Continued in part 4

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