I own neither franchise and don't claim to. There's no point suing me for borrowing the storylines or characters unless you want a share of an underpaid Civil Servants salary and trust me it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

This is a crossover between Battlestar Galactica and the Battletech Universe and offers a vision of what would have happened if the surviving colonials had run into another very different tribe who were themselves fleeing tyranny and genocide and who thought a hidden planet in a nebula thousands of light years from Earth was a good place to lay low.

"In the halls of the Clans of Kerensky they seek to rob us of our identity by calling us the "Not Named" but we are known by many names. To the Inner Sphere we are the Minnesota Tribe, mysterious strangers who walked among them a while never to be seen again. To the Colonials we are the Thirteenth, lost brothers and sisters, the saviors of their race. To the Cylons we are known as the Earthers, a testing sent by God as a punishment for their hubris. We are perhaps all of this and more, we are the people of New Circe, we are the 331st Division of the SLDF, we are the Star-League-In-Exile, we are both the Hunted and Hunter and we are, above all and forever, Clan Wolverine!"

Jennifer Vaun, Lord Protector of the Star-League-In-Exile: 3047

Colonial Raptor - Nebula - Deep Space

As soon as the indescribably strange sensation of jumping faded Lieutenant Margaret Edmondson, almost invariably referred to by her call-sign of "Racetrack", looked out of the cockpit. 'This doesn't look right' she stated, inwardly groaning. One jump, they were onejump into the series of ten that would take them all the way back to Caprica and it already looked wrong she thought. It was probably that Cylon bitch feeding them false navigation coordinates she decided.

Her electronic Countermeasures Officer Hamish "Skulls" McCall couldn't help but agree, he also knew something she didn't. 'No other contacts on DRADIS' he announced.

'What?' the pilot exclaimed.

'Oh, man. We're at the wrong jump coordinates' the ECO said, checking his instruments. Starbuck was going to kill both of them if the Cylons didn't kill her first back on Caprica.

Racetrack slumped in her seat. 'So what happened?' she asked eventually, listening for a few moments as Skulls played with all the fancy electronic gear. She was qualified for the ECO job herself and knew exactly what he was doing and how long it would take. The two marines in the back leaned forward and stuck their heads through into the cockpit looking less than impressed by the turn of events even if they had the sense not to express their feelings out loud. They had volunteered to go back to the colonies and help bring back any survivors that could be easily found and now they were stuck in the ass-end of nowhere instead.

'I think there was some kind of glitch in the navcom firmware' Skulls theorised based on the displays. 'Hey bottom line, we're to hell and gone from where we're supposed to be, skipper' he told his pilot.

Racetrack blinked. 'Okay, um, any chance that we can still catch up with them?' she asked hopefully.

Skulls inwardly shrugged. 'Not a chance' he replied. 'Mission rules say we head back' he reminded her.

'Frak me! It was the first jump' Racetrack complained, as much to the universe in general as towards her ECO.

'Hey, look, you gave me these coordinates' Skulls responded defensively. He only punched them in to the jumpdrive and had no intention of taking more than his fair share of any blame.

Racetrack sighed. 'Back to the barn' she said resignedly. On the plus side at least they wouldn't be going five days without a shower like the others presumably still with Starbuck would. It was a long way back to Caprica for a Raptor, even with the Cylon calculating the series of unusually long jumps for them.

'Hey, I am picking up a large planetary body out here and it's frakkin' close' Skulls announced, checking the DRADIS again.

'Where'd that come from?' Racetrack asked in surprise, you didn't suddenly "notice" nearby planets, they were usually pretty self-evident right from he start.

'Hell if I know. So much DRADIS interference here, it didn't even register at first' the Electronic Control Officer explained. The nebula they seemed to have accidentally jumped into was playing merry hades with the equipment, the displays almost seemed scrambled.

Racetrack checked the sensors herself. 'Check this out' she said. 'Atmosphere is nitrogen/oxygen. Organic molecular spectra. Fresh water? Hey, you know what this is? It's habitable! We may have just found a world that can support human life. Maybe we're not just a bunch of frak-ups after all' she said optimistically, or if they were they were luckyfrak-ups which was just as good in her book, the corners cut off like they should be of course.

Skulls blinked and started checking his electronic warfare gear. 'Skipper' he said nervously, 'I think we just got scanned and it wasn't any kind of DRADIS signal I'm familiar with' he said. 'Frequency is all wrong and so is...' he began then stopped when he noticed something else. 'We're receiving a transmission but not on a colonial military or civilian channel' he told her.

'Frak me sideways' Racetrack exclaimed. 'Cylons' she quickly decided under the circumstances. Guess they were unlucky frak-up's instead. 'It could be a virus carrier signal' she suggested. 'Let's just get the frak out of here. We'll do a series of jumps to shake them before returning to the fleet' she said, getting ready to leave in a hurry.

Skulls listened to the transmission. 'It's audio only Skipper' he said, 'and I think it's a language but I don't understand a word' he continued. 'Whoever it is they're starting to sound agitated we're not replying' he said. 'Lords of Kobol!' he suddenly cried out. 'We just got painted by enough wattage to light up Caprica City!' he exclaimed. 'We're being targeted boss.'

Racetrack looked at her own DRADIS display and felt her jaw drop. 'Something in high orbit around that planet just entered line-of-sight' she said. 'And I think it's pissed' she added with a grimace.

'Basestar?' Skulls queried, still trying to find a way to interfere with the apparent weapons lock but getting nowhere fast. There was no way a raider, even a heavy one was putting out a fraction of that kind of power he knew.

'I don't think so' Racetrack said slowly, 'but whateverthe frak it is I vote we run away' she opined.

'Good call' one of the marines wholeheartedly agreed.

'Do you want the good news or the bad news?' Skulls asked his pilot flatly.

'Just spill it' Racetrack replied fatalistically.

'We need to reboot the navcom before I can plot a jump and that takes longer than we've got' the ECO replied.

The pilot blinked. 'So what's the goodnews?' she asked.

'That wasthe good news' Skulls told her, 'the bad news is that I think we've got fighters heading our way hell for leather' he said. 'Maybe I should have said the bad news and the worse news?' he suggested apologetically.

'There's no way I'm being taken prisoner by the toasters' Racetrack stated with determination. 'We fight until we're out of missiles then ram the frakkers okay?' she checked with the others.

'Frakking A' the marine who had spoken before agreed, the other one nodding assent. Getting captured alive by the toaster bastards wasn'tgoing to happen, if they had to they'd use their service-automatics on themselves first.

Skulls closed his eyes. 'I'm with you Skipper' he agreed eventually. 'Oh frak it' he said and switched the radio over to transmit on the same frequency they were being signalled on. 'The entire frakking Cylon race can kiss my colonial ass' he replied to the transmission. 'You can hunt us down until the Goddess Artemis herself would give up chasing and you'd stillnever catch us' he declared. 'We'll see you in hades' he added.

The increasingly frantic transmissions suddenly cut out and after a few minutes another voice came on speaking the worst dialect of Old Caprican either of the colonial officers had ever heard and with an appalling accent. 'Who are you and how did you get here?' it asked haltingly. 'And why are you speaking bad Ancient Greek?' it added suspiciously.

'Ancient what?' Racetrack asked nonplussed, looking at Skulls who shrugged his shoulders.

There seemed to be some conversation going on at the other end in the unknown language before the voice speaking Old Caprican spoke again. 'Are you from a lost Star League colony?' it queried.

'What the frak is a "Star League"?' Skulls asked Racetrack rhetorically. 'We're Colonials' he signalled back.

More conversation on the other end was eventually broken by. 'Follow the...' the voice began then stopped, 'metal bird' it said eventually 'into dock.'

'Metal bird?' Racetrack repeated to Skulls with a quizzical look.

'Doesn't know the word for fighter?' Skulls suggested. 'Their Caprican is garbage' he noted. 'Where are youfrom?' he transmitted back. If this was a Cylon trick it was sure as hades an interesting one he decided.

'Family... first... from Taurian Concordat' the voice replied in its halting, uncertain vernacular.

'Taurian... shit maybe they're a lost colony who set out from Tauron?' Racetrack theorised. 'Where is this "Taurian Concordat" located?' she signalled back, getting into the conversation.

'Four hundred and fifty light years rim... direction of Terra' the voice replied after a few seconds. 'I mean...' the man continued, evidently trying to think of whatever "Terra" translated to from his own language into this weird Old Caprican dialect he was speaking, '... Earth' he said eventually.

Skulls simply looked stunned, for her part his pilot whooped then started to dance as best she could in her seat. 'Better to be lucky than good' she began to chant over and over again as the DRADIS told them company was approaching fast.

Note from the Author:

The point of diversion from nBSG is Episode 2:19 Lay Down Your Burdens (Part I) in this universe New Caprica was already populated when the colonials found it by accident. You can find links to the Battlestar Galactica and Battletech Wikis on my profile page but I do recommend reading this story on Twisting the Hellmouth (also linked on my profile) as the author's notes there have hyperlinked references.