Chapter 3

Halo, The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, Stargate, Mass Crossover.

I don't own any of these masterpieces, just the fics AU and that's still debatable.

A map at the current political borders of the galaxy circa 2503 is located on my my page.

Mid year 2003 KE (Kobol Exodus)

Star System Curanus Dyeus IV (Laconian Designation Ilus Romanus IV), Exploratory Battlestar Archias

Commander Thrace Oberam was just finishing her cup of coffee when they jumped to the closest planet in the system. It's been a long day, and the Archias was approaching her twilight hours of her day cycle and all she wanted was to send the SIOR's out and go to sleep while they and the eggheads were doing their nerdy stuff. But she is a woman of duty, so first things first.

"Mrs. Andara!" She yells to her tactical officer. In charge of the DRADIS radar system. The most important thing first after all. "Any contacts on DRADIS!"

The tactical officer Amel Andara looks almost thoughtfully at the DRADIS screen. "I don't know ma'am." She says with a confused voice. "Im seeing what looks like a drive plu- no two drive plumes doing a deceleration burn towards the planet. One is bigger than the other. The first and smaller one is 1 Parsec out from the planet and us, and the second is 2 Parsecs." said the Tactical Officer.

"That's strange." Said Thrace. She turns to her XO Adar Dullas. He was a thin man in his 40s, with a bald spot and greying hair They had been working together for 15 years and have done many anti-pirating campaigns out here in charted barely colonized space, and uncharted space. "Civilians maybe?"

He rubbed his chin. "Might be, but it's against the law for civilians to even be in uncharted space to begin with, and Cylons were kicked out of the galactic arm in return for the location of Kobol, and the last time I checked we are still in the Perseus arm. So my best guess would be pirates."

Thrace then cuts in. "Coming out here thinking it was already charted by the military, and set up a base before any settlers or miners arrive. Makes sense" She nods to herself. 'But why are they heading to a planet though? A gas giant no less?' She decided to make her thoughts known.

"You're right." Says her XO. "Why would they go to a gas giant when there is a perfectly fine asteroid belt in the system to hide in?"

Commander Thrace closes her eyes then opens them up to her XO authoritatively. "Well whoever they are Pirate, Civilian, or Cylon they most definitely aren't a military vessel. Send Erik and a couple of vipers to make contact and determine which. If it's Civilian place the ship under arrest, Pirate or Cylon." She looks at him. "Well, he knows what to do."

The Executive Officer salutes and goes to communicate her orders. But she notices her Tactical Officer was still looked a little weirded out. "What's wrong Amel?"

Amel looks toward the Commander with a weirded out expression on her face. "Um, nothing commander, just getting a little strange readings from the DRADIS, we should have some of the technicians come take a look at it." This makes the commander nod.

"All right."

She sighs and groans. "Ugh, the Gods keep making my day longer. I need some coffee." She taps her intercom interface.

"ETAN GET ME COFFEE!"

A faint sound of "YES MA"AM" can be heard coming out of the metal of the ship.

Archias Hanger Bay

Viper pilot Jessa Valcoma was very excited. 'MY FIRST COMBAT DEPLOYMENT!' She screamed in her mind. This is what she has been training for years for! When she graduated from the Air Academy of Tauron she had petitioned to be sent to pirate patrol fleets, but no she got stationed on a EXPLORATORY BATTLESTAR OF ALL THINGS?! That's like what the lower quality pilots get sent to!

She took a deep breath. 'I can't get agitated now! I finally get my chance and I don't wanna mess it up by looking nervous in front of my superiors!'

But even then she couldn't keep the excitement from her face as she walked over to the table.

Before deployment, even a basic patrol they usually have a very very short briefing that would only tell them what they needed to know at the time, in this case 2 targets, one farther from the other, either civilian or pirate, prepare for combat situation, this is the armament you're carrying, etc.. Then they would tell us more info like location, and what kind of ship (fighter, capital) while we were already in the air.

Around 50 Viper pilots were sitting at the tables with with their CAG (Commander of Air Group) Erik Tullas starting the briefing.

"Alright ya lazy frackers!" Her CAG yelled, A 30 year old handsome looking man with a brown hair and a light stubble. "Looks like DRADIS picked up 2 illegal contacts." He had an excited grin on his face. "We don't know if its civilian or pirates so we may or may not be in a combat situation people! So therefore the higher ups have given us permission to use some missiles along with our 30mm MDC's (Mass Driver Cannons). You all know the drill, you'll be told more when were in the air! We have 20 minutes till launch so-!"

Before he could finish his sentence the 50 strong group had already dispersed. He blinks.

"Man they're excited little fraks aren't they?" He muttered to himself.

Maybe they should have been a little less.

Like the rest of the group Jessa was already at her Viper before he even finished his sentence. Her Viper, a MK IV was definitely an older model, the kind her and her fellow Pilots were trained on. During that time she fell in love with it. The way it sliced through a planet's atmosphere like a Tauran blade, how smoothed it handled out in space, how it could handle the recoil of the 30mm's without hardly moving, it was like a dream. They trained with the other models as well, the MK V and MK VI and their fancy new inertial dampeners that made you barely feel the G's and extremely fast engines, that basically did most of the flying for you. But the MK IV FELT human, felt solid and not like it would break on her if she accidently got to close to another Viper.

First she had a talk with her Vipers main technician to make sure everything was working fine with her baby. Talking with the technician made up most of her 20 minutes, at the 18 minute mark she was all set. Waiting for the flight deck to clear her a launch tube her and her Viper locked in.

At the 20 minute mark to the second 51 Vipers, including her were launched at tremendous speeds. Once they were clear of the Archias the CAG separated the Vipers into two groups, one 20 Viper strong group (Group 2) to jump to and surround the smaller vessel closer to the planet, the other group 30 (Group 1) to jump and surround the farther away, and bigger vessel. I, and our CAG were going with group 1, and our Group 2 was assigned a temporary CAG. After we were told our orders we jumped towards our assigned targets in a beautiful bright flash of light that transported our Vipers almost instantly millions of klicks towards our targets.

On the PEV Isabel

"There has been no movement from the ship Captain!" Said Artemis over the Captain's suit intercoms. "No transponder codes, no distance or targeting lasers, no hails, hell they aren't even trying to intercept."

"That's is indeed strange." Muttered Shirou the captain of the Isabel. He was currently in the middle of helping one of the technicians aboard his ship fix a PDC Turret that got somewhat damaged from a pirate attack a couple of days in the previous system and was now just done fixing it. Since the PDC's were located in unpressurized outer layer of the ship he had to wear a pressure suit. He hated wearing these fucking things. "But it also makes sense, if they are indeed aliens we can't pretend or even suspect that they would act like us, hell humanity has been using the rings for years and we still hardly understand what the Ring Builders were"

"But from the visual cameras we have trained on the object we can tell it has maneuvering thrusters and 4 rear facing engines, this leads me and Mr. Nakamura to believe they probably base their ships on similar laws of physics, instead of you know….space magic….like the Ring Builders." Stated Artemis in a very lecturing tone of voice, a video of her on Shirou's visor showed her with her hand on her hips.

"So you're saying that even if they act or think differently they should theoretically act similarly in space?"

"Correct."

"And you think they aren't?

"That correctly sums it up yes."

Shirou sighs. "Great, the fucker is getting weirder and weirder by the minute now."

He stood and patted his technician partner on the back. "I think the PDC is fixed Carol."

The female technician nods.

"Alright Arty spin up the barrel!" The 40mm PDC gatling barrel one of the of the 14 on his ship, PDC's being mostly a defensive weapon was allowed to civilians to defend against pirates while missiles and railguns were only used by the most wealthy pirates, corporations, and of course the military. The barrel started to rotate at an amazingly fast rate of 6000 RPM. Shirou and the technician Carol

"Hey Captain." said the Technician Carol, "I don't think you've ever told us how you were able to afford this ship and the weapons."

"All right Arty that's good!" The PDC barrels started to slow down. "Well Carol, all I can say is that the Hamasakis owed me quite a bit for things that I did during my time in the military, and that...well.." Shirou started looking off into the wall like he was seeing something that wasn't there. "Uh...yeah."

She was looking at him like he grew a 3rd head. "You wanna finish that sentence sir?"

The sentence snapped The Isabel's captain out of his trance. But instead of finishing his sentence Shirou just patted her on the back. "Looks like everything is done here Carol. You should go take a break, I'm gonna go help Zhang fix the PDC #4's door, we're gonna need all these defense system's up and running if we're gonna try and make contact with the weirdos outside." He then walked away.

She was looking at his back strangely. "Ookay. Later then I guess."

Shirou started walking towards the airlock. He was very deep in though, how he should have never re-joined the military after SHE died,"Captain!" how he abandoned the two things he cared most in this world to get some revenge that wasn't worth the plate it sat on,"Captain!" how he may never see-

"CAPTAIN!"

"WHAT?!" he snaps at Artemis.

"I've detected 30 objects that just appeared on radar 2,000 klicks from us!"

His eyes widened. "Shit!" he cursed loudly and started running towards the airlock.

"Artemis get Mikayla to initiate combat protocol and get all non combat personnel to a crash couch."

When he finally go the the airlock he had to wait for a couple seconds for the area to pressurise. He then started to run towards the ship's bridge which was located in the center of the ship with his pressure suit still on. He knew they might be in a combat situation and needed the suit just in case the hull got breached.

When he finally reached it he saw his Second Officer, and Science Officer already strapped to one of the many crash couches surrounding command and control station which was located at the center of the bridge. They were also in their suits. He strapped into the one directly across from his Second Officer.

"Arty! Show us on the projector our situation!"

"Already ahead of you."

The projector lit up like a christmas tree, showing the Isabel at the center, one of her probes 1 AU away towards the planet. There were 30 objects in what looked like a formation slowly getting closer to the Isabel.

There was an awkward silence.

Finally Mikayla broke it.

"When will they be in range of PDC's?"

"At the rate they are going, 20 minutes tops." answered Artemis. She looked frustrated.

"Did we see how they appeared this time?" Asked asked the resident Science Officer.

"Yes." Confirmed the ship's AI. "It almost looks like a form of teleportation, or of course an extremely accurate FTL system. Honestly I have no idea what. Maybe we'll get more info when the light from the ships finally reaches ours."

"So we'll know which in 16 minutes?"

"Yep."

Silence permeated the area once again, the emergency lighting going strongly in the background.

"What are sizes of the new objects." Asked Shirou in a very commanding voice.

Artemis could tell not to mess around with him right now. "Small sir, very small. Just about 10 meters in fact, that's smaller than 21'st century fighter jets."

"You able to get a good look at any armaments and what they look like?"

"Yes sir, they are designed similarly to fighter jets as well with 3 dorsal fins, but with what looks like I think guns on each fin. They've also got what looks like missile payloads under the fins. Don't know how many thrusters they have, gotta wait for them to do a turn and burn before I can tell you." The only acknowledgement Shirou gave was a few nods.

"Have they attempted communications?" He asked

"No we haven't received any tightbeams from any of the smaller vessels or the ship."

Shirou's eye twitched so hard that he looked like he almost burst a blood vessel. 'Man the capabilities of AI are over exaggerated' He spoke to Artemis as if lecturing a child, an idiotic one.

"Have you thought that maybe they AREN'T using tightbeams for communication?"

"No." she squeaked obviously frightened by the angered Shirou, she had never seen him be this mad before, she could tell she fucked up.

"Then try the OTHER options please?" He said very calmly.

"Yes sir." She whimpered.

She tried radio first, and tried thousand of frequencies in minutes.

"I think I found something sir!" She said far more confidently.

"I doubt we'll understand anything but let's hear it"

She turned the radio on the speakers.

"Αυτό είναι ο αεροπορικός όμιλος της μάχης Archias μιλώντας, Αν είστε πολιτικός έτοιμος να επιβιβαστεί, αν αρνηθείτε ή ανυψώσεις οποιαδήποτε άμυνα του πλοίου, θα καταστραφεί. Αντίγραφο?"

They all stared at the holographic projector surprised. Issei was the first to speak.

"Was that..?"

"Εντάξει θα το κάνω και πάλι ... Αυτό είναι η αεροπορική ομάδα Star της Μάχης Archias μιλώντας, Αν είστε πολιτικός έτοιμος να επιβιβαστεί, εάν αρνείστε ή ανυψωθεί οποιαδήποτε άμυνα του πλοίου θα καταστραφεί. Αντίγραφο?!"

"Is that Greek?!"

"No." Denied Artemis. It's very similar to Greek, closer to a dialect of ancient greek than anything else. So similar yet so different that I can't make out anything they are saying."

"So they are human?" Asked Mikayla.

"I would guess so."

"So not alien but pirates then?" Asked Shirou.

"I'm not so sure sir." Stated Artemis "There is no version of this dialect anywhere in the Empire. Not even in the Greek pagan colonies that openly teach and practice ancient Greek. The 'Fighters' are also almost at our position now."

"How far out?" Asked Shirou.

"A couple hundred miles now."

"Maybe they are colonists that wanted independence from Laconia so they settled all the way out here?" Asked Issei.

"But that doesn't explain the dialect." Stated Mikayla.

The radio burst to life again. "Αυτή είναι η τελευταία προειδοποιηση σας, Αντιγράψτε ;!"

"Should we try and reply?"

Shirou nodded. "That's a good idea, should probably respond to them before they decide fire or something, even if they can't understand us. Arty! Respond to them!"

But before she could reply the radio came to life one last time.

"Είχατε την τύχη πειρατών. Τώρα κατευθυνθείτε στον υπόκοσμο!"

And all hell broke loose.

Artemis screamed.

"They've opened fire!

Tens of holes opened up all over the ship around them in an instant, the bullets barely missing the bridge crew and hitting the holographic table, causing the projector to go out.

"ARTY RETURN FIRE!"

"With pleasure captain!"

13 different 40mm defense PDCs popped out of the hull of the ship and opened fire on the fighter squadron.

The Viper squadron was surprised and almost overwhelmed by the sheer force the PDC's were giving out having destroyed 10 of the originally 30 strong Viper group within a minute.

"Target the PDC's!" Ordered the Viper CAG.

Over the course of a minute the PDC's of the Isabel were destroyed.

Knowing they were about to lose Shirou screamed to Artemis.

"How far are we from the planet!?" Screamed Shirou as bullets flew all around him.

"Why what are you thinking?"

"We jump!"

"I think we might be! Hell if it doesn't work we are dead anyway right?!"

From the Viper's point of view the Isabel did a 180 degree spin with its maneuvering thrusters, and then immediately SLIPPED out of existence.

The gunfire stopped.

"What the frak?"

A/N: Alright 3rd chapter everybody! Sorry this took longer to upload! I was having to much fun playing Metro Exodus!

Man the Isabel really got the shit kicked out of it huh? Well what did you expect? It's an exploratory ship/ former military with only defensive turrets! Definitely bit back at the Vipers hard though..

FAVORITE/FOLLOW & REVIEW I NEED CRITIQUE