Writer's Note: This story is a crossover of two fandoms: the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica and the Japanese animated series Space Battleship Yamato, known in the United States as Starblazers. The characters from Starblazers will be used in this story, and will take place ten years after the events of the last Yamato animated film, Final Yamato. The Battlestar Galactica part of the story will take place after the events of the second season finale, Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II.
The Starblazers part of this story is inspired by the web comic of the series, Star Blazers: Rebirth, which is the creation of Tim Eldred. I am using the events that he has in place for the year 2214, sans the black hole that is coming towards Earth, which I deleted for my own creative purposes.
Phoenix Rising
Chapter One
Blonde Haired Heroines
September 4, 2214Aboard EDS Battleship 20 Avatar
Approaching spaceport outside Megalopolis
Captain Nova Wildstar (nee Forrester) was looking forward to coming back home after this routine patrol of the Milky Way Galaxy just as much as everyone else was. However, for the few of them who had been with the Star Force a decade and a half ago, it was especially noteworthy, as tomorrow would be the fourteenth anniversary of their return from Iscandar with the Cosmo-DNA that saved Earth and the human race from extinction. It was also her tenth wedding anniversary with her husband, Derek Wildstar, whom she had met as part of that fateful journey into the unknown.
We were so young back then Nova thought as she watched her bridge crew go through the procedures of flying the state of the art ship towards the spaceport. It was a far cry from the space battleship Yamato, which rested at the bottom of the ocean on the water world of Atlantis. That was the end of the five years of fire, in which Earth and the human race face almost constant threat from enemies out to either destroy them or to dominate them. Yamato and her crew, called the Star Force by Major General Charles Singleton, who headed the Earth Defense Force and had been behind the creation of the elite fighting force, had been through it all, losing many during those eventful years and gaining a few during the brief interregnums between battles.
It had been ten years since the Dinguil's plan of flooding Earth by using the water world of Aquarius had been thwarted. Nova's eyes misted over whenever she thought of her former commanding officer, Captain Abraham Avatar, sitting in the command seat and pulling the trigger on Yamato's wave motion gun, which had been blocked so as to create a massive explosion to deflect the onrushing streams of water heading towards Earth.
Logic dictated that the water should have frozen in the vacuum of space, but logic seemed to take a holiday in those five years. Even with the ten years of peace since then, she still had a hard time believing all she had been through. The Gamilon war, the Comet Empire attack, the war with the Dark Nebulan Empire, the Bolar war, and the Dinguil conflict seemed to simultaneously feel like it had been both ages ago and the day before yesterday.
"Captain, we're about to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Orders?" Executive Officer Homer Glitchman said calmly as he looked towards her. Nova shoved her mental woolgathering to the side and focused on the task at hand. It was routine: the ship would land in the ocean a few miles outside of Megalopolis, retract its wings after landing in the ocean, and make its way towards the port. Megalopolis was located between Tokyo and Yokohama in what was once known as Japan years ago before the Gamilons attacked, but had become the de facto world capital when Leader Deslok's forces tried to bomb the humans into extinction and take the world for themselves.
"Take us in, Jordie!" she said to Jordie Venture, the ship's pilot. He nodded and went about the task just like his older brother Mark would have had he still been here. Yet another memory she had to force to the side so she could do her job, but she couldn't help but to take a brief moment and remember her late friend.
The Avatar sailed into port with ease, and Nova hoped that the man whom this mighty ship was named after would have been proud of the way she'd handled her. Deep in her heart, she figured that he would be.
The process of disembarking took some time, but she managed to get through it with ease. As she walked down the gangplank, she spotted the two people that mattered most to her in the whole universe: her husband Derek, and their nine year old daughter Miyuki, named after one of Nova's best friends who had died before they had gotten home from Iscandar. She fell into Derek's embrace, which was warm and loving and natural as always. She could think of no better place to be in the whole universe.
"I am so glad to have you back, Nova!" Derek whispered into her ear as he gently kissed her cheek.
"I know!" Nova said, then she felt a gentle tugging on her leg. She looked down at her daughter and smiled.
"I want a hug, too!" Miyuki said, and Nova leaned down and gave her one. She noted that she hadn't had to lean down as far as she had when she had left six months ago. Her daughter was growing fast, and Nova wondered again if she was doing right by serving in the EDF and not being there for her daughter.
Derek and Nova had been over this before. He had stepped down from the military ranks to serve the EDF in a civilian capacity. These days, he sat on the Defense Council, helping General Singleton deal with the fractious members as best he could. Peace had begun to undo what the fire of war had forged, and both he and the General, along with the general's executive assistant, Wendy Singleton-Glitchman, who also happened to be the general's granddaughter.
Speaking of the general's granddaughter, she waited for her husband at the base of the gangplank. It wasn't a long wait, as he was directly behind Nova. Wendy was a short, skinny, red-haired young woman, but, like a lot of redheads, she was fiery and fierce, which she needed to be when dealing with the Council. Her parents had succumbed to the effects of the radiation from the Gamilon bombings, so her granddad had taken her under his wing. She had been there for pretty much every moment of the years of fire, and was considered by all the surviving members of the Star Force to be one of their own.
Nova took off her cap and brushed some of her long, sunny blonde hair out of her eyes. She was tall, lithe, and as beautiful as a model, but she was far from a weak woman. As Derek knew all too well, Nova was a highly skilled combat officer, which wasn't her original forte. Back when the eyes. She was tall, lithe, and as beautiful as a model, but she was far from a weak woman. As Derek knew all too well, Nova was a highly skilled combat officer, which wasn't her original forte. Back when the Yamato first launched, she was Life Sciences Officer, where she was responsible for life support issues. She also served as the chief nurse to the ship's doctor, Dr. Sakezo Sane, whose short, fat, balding stature served as a contrast to her.
"We'd better head home. The ceremony's tomorrow, you know." Derek said as he walked away from the gangplank, his arm around his wife.
"I know. I'm just glad we made it back in time." Nova said. Tomorrow was their tenth wedding anniversary, but it was also the fourteenth anniversary of their return home from Iscandar. As per tradition, the remaining members of the Star Force would assemble at the monument to their leader, Captain Abraham Avatar, up on Heroes' Hill. They would not only honor him, but also those members of the Star Force who had perished in helping to save Earth.
"Hey, Homer! You and Wendy want to come over to our place for dinner tonight?" Derek called out to his friend.
"I'd like to, but Wendy and I had already committed to dinner with her father tonight, since he's due to retire day after tomorrow. How about a couple of days from now, after the big meeting with the council?"
"That'll be fine, Homer! See you guys in the morning!" Nova said, waving at them as they made their way to their place.
Later that evening, they had a time putting Miyuki to bed, but they managed to load her down with dinner and some sweet treats for dessert. Once she was in bed, Derek went to the bedroom he shared with his wife. "She's fast asleep. So what do you want to do now?"
Nova gave him a seductive glance and asked, "Well, what do military couples usually do when one of them returns home?" She said this as she was slipping out of her uniform.
Derek smiled broadly and started taking off his own clothes. As soon as they were disrobed, they embraced and slowly kissed, enjoying the contact of their bodies against one another after so long. Soon enough, they were making love in their bed. Time and space was lost in this coupling, so when they finished after seemingly forever, Derek didn't even think to look at the alarm clock. It had been a long day, so they both dozed off as soon as they had finished their lovemaking.
New Caprica Settlement(Under Cylon Occupation)
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace-Anders should have known that it was a mistake to settle down on this world. Her instincts had told her to stay in space, but she loved her husband so much that she just wanted to have a simple life, the kind she thought she'd never had. More than anything in the world, she wanted stability, and regardless of what the others thought, she didn't mind being a reserve officer these days.
Now, with the Cylons having taken over the settlement and the two remaining battlestars having been forced to jump away with the remaining fleet, they were few if any soldiers left to fight off their enemies. But fight them off they would…someway.
She had enough problems as it was before the Cylons invaded. Her husband, Samuel T. Anders, had developed a bad case of pneumonia, and Doc Cottle didn't have any anti-biotic to give her to help treat him. She had just asked Commander Lee "Apollo" Adama for some of the back-up meds aboard Pegasus when the Cylons jumped in. Lee hadn't even had the chance to say yes or no.
In a way, maybe it was a good thing that he never answered that question. Things had become strained between them, and it was all her fault. Instead of being two friendly couples, Samuel and Kara never came around Lee and Dee. Anastasia "Dee" Dualla was Lee's lover these days, and she had come to resent Kara's meddling with Lee. It wasn't one blow-up that had driven the wedge between them, but several incidents where Kara had royally frakked up.
In their modest tent, Kara fixed some soup for her husband, as well as two of their visitors: Galen Tyrol and his wife Cally. Galen used to be deck chief aboard Galactica, but these days he was the labor union leader for all the workers in their settlement, and frequently clashed with that buffoon of a president, Gaius Baltar.
Thinking of Baltar made Kara grind her teeth together. A year and a half ago, she had been so stupid to have actually slept with Baltar, thinking it would help her deal with her attraction to Lee. This had been before she had met Sam while on a mission from then-President Laura Roslin back to Caprica. She had been forced to leave him once, but she managed to convince Admiral Adama and President Roslin to let her lead a mission back to Caprica to rescue him, along with his Caprica Buccaneer teammates.
Sam had been a professional pyramid player before the attacks, and had been fortunate to be in the high mountains outside Delphi City in training when the Cylons nuked the planet. After the attacks, he and his teammates had become a mercenary force, attacking the Cylons whenever they could. They had met up with a variety of people who had been lucky to be in the high elevations when the attacks occurred, so they had managed plenty of successes in confronting the Cylons.
Kara admired him for his bravery, but it had come with a price. She suspected that the pneumonia was just a symptom of a far greater affliction: radiation sickness. She didn't know for sure if Sam had cancer, but she wouldn't have bet against it.
They needed a miracle, and they needed it fast. Where it was going to come from, she didn't know. But as the saying went, "The Gods help those who help themselves", which was why Galen and Cally were here.
"Sorry if it's not that great." Kara said apologetically as she served the soup to the three people at the table.
"You don't have to apologize, Kara. Galen and I can't cook either, but we make do." Cally said, which drew a brief smile from Kara. Cally was five months pregnant, and seeing her tugged at the deeply embedded maternal instincts within her. Had it not been for the Cylons and Sam's illness, she may very well have been pregnant herself. She hadn't even come close to wanting a child before she met Anders, but having been married to him for almost a year now, she had started to seriously consider it.
They dug into the modest soup and ate heartily. Even with the hot soup and the thick material that made up the tent, the cold still seeped in. It wasn't the first time that Kara had cursed Baltar for settling in this area, and many more people were growing discontent with their lot before the Cylons showed up.
"So what did you want to discuss?" Galen asked.
"Do you still want to see who we could get to sneak out of here and start planning a resistance?" Kara asked.
"I've been mentioning it to some of the people I trust within the union, and I have a few people who are ready to go when you give the word. Some from when we were back on Galactica, some who were on Pegasus, and some of the civilians within the fleet. About thirty to thirty five in total, but we'll need bullets and guns and such."
"Leave that to me. Adama and I had planned for something like this, so we snuck some stuff up in the mountains just ten clicks from here."
"You did?" said Galen and Cally at the same time.
"The old man and I had worried that something like this might happen. So when our president wasn't looking, we flew some Raptors over to a secret location and stockpiled some stuff. Helo helped with it, so we've got plenty of stuff when we're ready to move out. But we'll probably need some more foodstuffs before we head out." Kara said.
"I can take care of that." Cally said. "I have some friends who work on the farm, so I think we can get what we need from them without anyone noticing. Just give me a week to work on it."
"Thanks Cally. It'll be a couple of weeks before we move out anyway. We need things to settle down a bit more before we head out." Kara replied.
The next day, Kara went over to the school to meet with Laura Roslin before the school day started. After losing the presidential election, she had gone back to being a teacher, which gave her some solace after the painful defeat. Now, however, she had seen her worst nightmare come to life, and yet another pang of pain went through her heart as she watched some Centurions march past the schoolhouse.
"Good morning, Madam President. Do you have a moment?" Kara asked. She might no longer be president, but it didn't matter to Kara. Laura had long stopped trying to correct her.
"Good day, Kara. What can I do for you?" Roslin asked.
"Are you sure you want to stay here?"
Roslin looked around discreetly, just to be safe. She knew what Kara was asking. "Yeah, I need to stay here. I'm much too visible a person to leave here. Much as I wish I could, but…" Roslin shrugged.
Kara knew it was hopeless to convince her to come, mainly because she was right. If she suddenly disappeared, Baltar would freak out and suspect a rebellion was brewing. But if she stayed, she risked being killed once the reprisals started against the resistance.
"I know what troubles you, Kara. Death holds no fear for me anymore. If Baltar wants his pound of flesh because of what you guys are going to do, he can have it. I'll go to the gallows with a smile on my face."
Kara wiped her eyes, pretending that some of the mist from the approaching rains had gotten into her eyes. "I hope it doesn't come to that, Madam President!"
"I hope so too. Then again, prophecy may finally be right after all." Laura looked around and saw some of the humanoid Cylons walking close by. "I'll take your idea under advisement, Kara. It'd be good to get the kids out to learn the game of pyramid as soon as the rains subside." Laura said aloud.
Kara took the hint and replied, "Just let me know when you have decided on what to do, Laura. Sam and I would be glad to teach the kids!" She walked away and avoided the gaze of the humanoid Cylons as best she could.
Two weeks later, they were ready to leave. However, Sam's pneumonia had gotten worse, so Cally volunteered to stay behind and help take care of him. Galen Tyrol didn't want to leave his wife behind, but he had no choice. Cally was better off staying behind and could cover for them if need be.
They did have help from an unlikely source, though. Colonel Saul Tigh and Kara Thrace had managed to somehow patch up their differences in the past year, much to each other's surprise. When Kara went to him for help, he gladly volunteered his assistance. "It's not like I have much choice, since they took Ellen away from me.", he growled. She had been chosen as one of the humans to be turned over for breeding purposes, which had angered him. Ellen's last words to him before leaving were, "Don't worry for me, Saul. I'll be all right. Do what you have to do."
A week after they had snuck out late one night, someone had finally noticed that Kara and Galen, among others, were gone. One of the Sharon models came by Sam's tent to ask where they had gone, and Cally delivered the rehearsed lines like an award-winning actor. "Those frakking asses! I never suspected they were having an affair! I hope those damned Centurions of yours shoot them up, because I never want to see that damned Galen Tyrol ever again! How could he do this to me!"
"I'm sorry. Why are you in here, though?"
"Well, someone has to care for Sam, and since Kara only cares about frakking…" Cally shook her head. "He's my friend, and I'm going to help take care of him."
The Sharon model nodded and left. Cally waited a few minutes before whispering to Sam, "How'd I do?"
Between coughs, he said, "Damned good! Kara and Galen would be proud!"
Cally looked towards the mountains, which were blocked by the fabric of the tent. "I hope so."
Kara had established the base camp inside a cave high up on a trail about midway up one of the higher peaks. From their vantage point, they could see the entire settlement before them. To the east, up on a hill, was where Colonial One was. Fitting that Baltar's home abutted the Cylon base camp, Kara thought. Next to that was the camp where the humans who had been selected for breeding experiments were staying. Kara remembered her time of one of the Cylon farms back on Caprica and cringed. Had it not been for Anders and the rest, she might still be in that hospital, hooked up to some machine to mine her remaining ovary for eggs.
"Perimeter's clear. Go grab some rack time, Captain." Tigh said. "You're relieved from watch."
"Thank you, Colonel. Wonder how the old man's doing?"
"He's fine. Knowing him, he's planning to come back here. Gods know how he'll do it, but I wouldn't put it past him!"
"Me either!" Kara added.
Nova and Kara had little in common. They were both blondes and military officers, and that was about it. But soon, though, their paths would cross, and the fate of the human race would rest on both their shoulders. Both had seen much in their lives, and both didn't want to have to fight the war that was to come, but fight it they must.