Chapter 5 – Points Of View

Colonel Samuel Peters – Trevelyan Interior – UNSC Base

An assignment to Trevelyan was an odd thing, of course, anytime an officer from the Office of Naval Intelligence came up to your door, something odd was afoot. All of the personnel in Trevelyan were some of the best in their respective fields, xenobiologists, archaeologists, physicists; ONI spared no expense in trying to unlock the secrets of Trevelyan and the Forerunners. At the same time, that eagerness was tempered by a wise cautiousness regarding the advanced technology present. Although the sentinels were friendly at the moment, along with many other technologies that just responded naturally to humans, they were deadly and temperamental. When they were first discovered, they had slaughtered most of Camp Onyx whilst at the same time devastating a Covenant fleet.

Therefore, at the insistence of the more military minded higher ups, Trevelyan had a sizeable marine contingent, armoured vehicles and even a frigate. Many thought it impractical, but with the massive size of the Dyson Sphere, as well as not knowing what they might encounter, a fully armed frigate was useful asset. It had been modified with improved VTOL and RCS thrusters for atmospheric use, along with some other upgrades for improved tactical fire support.

This was exactly the sort of thing that happened to Peters all too often. His mind would wonder, most likely due to the lack of anything to do. After fighting on the frontlines for over a decade, the rattle of automatic weapons fire, the booms of explosives close and far, even the hiss of plasma weapons, Trevelyan was far too quiet. Protocol dictated that the marine contingent was to remain on standby should hostile forces be encountered, but it all seemed so unlikely with the rolling green hills, quiet forests with birds and other small animals tweeting and scurrying in the background. The lack of violence was driving him insane.

Tearing himself from the window overlooking parts of the base and the surrounding area, he returned to his desk. Even the long dreaded paper work offered little respite from his boredom, efficient delegation to other officers, along with their resident dumb AI, or Virtual Intelligence, VI, as some considered them, Mary, sorting through everything had rendered him with little to do. Smart AIs were made using cloned human brains, translated into a Riemann matrix, giving AIs human thought and imagination, combined with the processing power of super computers. Dumb AIs were merely computer programs with no organic origins or components, really just a very intuitive, voice-activated, interactive access system.

"That's it, we're doing something, Mary, rally the men, we're doing war games, we've brought enough weapons for a small war and we're going to find an excuse to use them!"

UNSC Skyguard

The Skyguard was a Charon Class frigate, one of the smaller frigate designs, specialised in providing support for ground forces, rather than space combat. Like many of the older classes, it had been made obsolete and mostly replaced by new, larger ships such as the Paris class heavy frigate. During the war, the navy had to focus its resources on the only things that could hurt Covenant ships, MACs. Charons did possess a MAC, designed in 2490 though, and woefully underpowered compared to the main gun of a Paris Class, something that was the size of the MAC on the original Halcyon Class cruiser. Hence, the Charon's gun was nowadays relegated to orbital bombardment of hard targets rather than in its intended ship killer role. Several redesigns and refits adding large hanger and troop bays made the new Charon perfect to provide ground support.

A consequence of this was that many Charons had made it through the war intact, being in the upper atmosphere ferrying troops rather than in the main formations, fighting, and being destroyed by covenant fleets. Even then, the Charons were low priority targets, with plasma torpedoes seeking out more dangerous foes like Marathon or Thanatos classes, the UNSCs latest heavy destroyer.

The Skyguard was one such survivor, making it through five major battles, from Sigma Octanus, evacuating troops from the planet, Pelicans near crashing into the embrace of their hanger bays, to the counteroffensives on Reach, rearming and launching Shortswords as fast as they could for Air Strikes on the Covenant forces.

The ship had a distinguished combat record, the same couldn't be said for the crew though. The original captain had been promoted to command of a destroyer, which was subsequently lost with all hands, the next had suffered the same fate, with the third being hit by a bus whilst on shore leave, and he too died. People said it was a jinx, that people promoted off the Skyguard were doomed to die. A result of these constant promotions and replacements meant that the Skyguard had a relatively green crew held together by a few experienced senior officers and NCOs who were never promoted off the ship, by virtue of remaining on the ship, rather than being killed on other ships, those who stayed ended up at the top of the Skyguard's hierarchy as people above them left.

Commander John Whittaker had left the Luna Naval Academy in 2049, he'd had a thorough education in military tactics, was fully qualified, he had even had the legendary Jacob Keyes as a tutor for a short while, he didn't have much of a chance to put these skills to use though. He'd been given the rank of lieutenant commander and assigned as executive officer of the Skyguard and had stayed on board for the remaining three years of the war. By this time, the fleet was on the defensive, clustering around the inner colonies, consequently, they only made supply runs, seeing only one engagement against an outdated insurrectionist raider that was subdued with only a couple of archer missiles, a stark contrast to the thousands required to even scratch a covenant warship.

Just before the Battle of Earth, his CO had been run over, Whittaker been hastily promoted to a full Commander and given command of the ship. The new XO hadn't arrived in time for the battle. Those eight hours had been the most frantic of his life, watching plasma fire soar over his bridge before hitting other ships, the burning hulks of human ships drifting alongside the shattered remains of covenant ships, the quiet calm on the bridge as they slung hundred ton rounds at far off targets. He still remembered clearly watching a derelict CSO class super carrier float by the port side, a hole larger than the Skyguard punched through its side by a super MAC. Walking around the infirmary and deployment bays as fresh marines left for Africa, and exhausted and bloodied marines returned. He could never forget. Many veterans may look down on his scant three years of experience, and only being in one battle, but he had been exposed to war, and it would never leave him.

Right now though, he was rather bored, yet trying to stay tense at the same time. He knew he should be constantly vigilant, alert and ready to leap into action at the first sign of trouble, after all, he was the commander of a frigate and all the lives aboard and below him in Trevelyan were his responsibility. Despite this great burden, John was finding it hard to take it seriously, not once since their deployment half a year ago had anything turned up. It was much easier to focus on other things, like how nice his office was.

Most wouldn't call the small, cramped, console and monitor filled bridge on a space starved frigate "nice", but the bridge did have a large, panoramic reinforced window. Looking out over the interior of the shield world, arcing upwards and inwards, was simply beautiful. This was where John was standing now, hands held behind his back, straight back, looking like the very paragon of an officer, doing absolutely nothing productive. By this point, even paper work had lost its already meagre excitement, the reports were so similar each time the crew had taken to using a standard template and just changing small parts each time. John was just thinking about the next "Skyguard vs Trevelyan Base" competition. A small event held every couple of months that involved crewmen facing off against base personnel in a multitude of games and sports, like darts, or football, or…

He was rudely pulled back to reality from his wandering thoughts by a siren ringing.

"Slipspace rupture forming, new contact, ship, large, energy spike, wait, contact has moved" The sensor officer quickly yelled out, sitting up straight and almost spilling his coffee on the book on his lap. Most of the bridge crew were in a similar state of disarray as they tried to return to a state of operational readiness. The sensor officer's announcement was mostly unneccesary as the ships VI sent notifications to all of the relevant crew members through their neural interfaces.

Neither the UNSC nor the Covenant Separatists could open a slipspace portal to Trevelyan's insides, the only way through was the large gate built into the side of the shield world, and anytime that gate was opened, everyone was informed well beforehand.

Protocol was quite clear on how to proceed when an unknown contact appears inside Trevelyan, first, they had to ascertain what the contact was, if it was hostile and, if necessary, how to remove it.

"Launch two Longswords, have them make a flyby, get close up visuals, send all information to the garrison, bring us up to full combat readiness." Commander Whittaker, the UNSC officer and CO of the UNSC Skyguard, a warship of the United Nations Space Command, took over the situation from John, the lax man who was mostly in charge of the Skyguard, a small community of people trying to stay entertained.

A few pilots were always ready to launch, they took turns being fully equipped and waiting in the briefing room, now, these pilots ran to their craft, also kept armed and ready, and prepared to launch. Two of these pilots launched immediately, their fighters hovering and gliding out of their hanger bays before turning towards their target before engaging their main drives and jetting forwards. Longswords used two dual Magnetic Plasma Impulse Drives. The MPIDs heated xenon frozen and compact inside the craft to a plasma state then directed it out using magnetic fields, giving the Longswords a bright blue trail as they accelerated, this time, mixed with other colours as the drives sucked in, heated up and propelled out air from the atmosphere to augment their thrust. Unlike in space, where they were silent and deadly, the Longswords roared as air burnt around them, accompanied by a sonic boom as the craft went supersonic.

Behind them, thrusters glowed bright as they fired to bring the Skyguard into alignment with the contact. Armour plating slid aside as additional weapon turrets and banks emerged from within the ship. Point defence systems activated and began sweeping from side to side, daring any missile or fighter to try and attack its ward. Gauss coils inside heavy deck guns heated up as preliminary current was channelled through them in readiness for a larger current, able to propel 300mm ferrous rounds at any target.

Defensive systems were activated as well, the bridge retreating further into the ship on hydraulic pumps as strong Titanium-A plate slid over the windows, blocking out the sun and view. A holographic image was overlaid across the now dark window, with tactical maps and information popping up on monitors and holographic projectors around the bridge.

Officers and crew unlocked weapon lockers around the ship, arming themselves in preparation for any boarding actions. Lights dimmed before being replaced by blue lighting as power was diverted away from non-essential systems.

A strong electromagnetic field developed around the ship as generators poured energy into the field, designed to make plasma diffuse before reaching the hull. This was activated along with the newer energy shield system, developed from salvaged and donated Covenant technology, mixed with Forerunner inspiration and human ingenuity to.

In engineering, the primary fusion reactor was put up to 80% along with the secondary reactor being activated as well to provide the massive energy required by these shields and fields.

By the end of five minutes, the UNSC Skyguard was ready for combat and moving swiftly through the air towards the possible foe.

Trevelyan Interior – UNSC Base

"That's it, we're doing something, Mary, rally the men, we're doing war games, we've brought enough weapons for a small war and we're going to find an excuse to use them!"

"That won't be necessary, Colonel. I have received a message from the UNSC Skyguard, they have detected an unknown contact and are moving to intercept, Longswords have been launched."

Peters was both concerned and ecstatic, of course a potential enemy penetrating one of the UNSCs most important facilities was terrible, but action, maybe even a battle! Trying, but not quite succeeding in keeping the excitement out of his voice, he ordered:

"Right, put me on speakers, This is Colonel Peters, an unknown contact has entered Trevelyan, they may be hostile, this is what we're here for and what we've been waiting for, prepare for possible combat"

The Colonel's excitement was shared amongst most of his regiment, who eagerly armed themselves and taxied warthogs out of hangers, maybe slightly beyond the speed limit.

Chapter 5-2 – People Don't Have FTL Drives

Trevelyan – Interior Surface

The sudden change in scenery was disorientating, to say the least. More shocking was the environment they now found themselves in. If one was to look across the ground, at their immediate surroundings, one would think they were on a garden world, lush trees, green grass and the pitter patter of water from a small stream a few meters away. If one were to look up though, the illusion is instantly shattered as the land arcing up on all sides and eventually meeting again in the sky, as well as the star that was impossibly floating above their heads, were dead giveaways that something was just slightly wrong about the place.

The displaced marines were the first to visibly react, rapidly looking around, some with rifles shouldered and others with their weapons hanging in limp, stunned arms. To the outside world, Daisy was standing still, impassive and un-phased. Beneath the emotionless and steady MJOLNIR though, Daisy was in disarray. Her visor was crowded with readouts and information as the suits internal sensor suite tried to answer all the questions and thoughts being passed through her neural implant.

Gravity was close to earth standard, atmosphere was breathable, no detectable toxins. Radiation levels were easily within safe levels; all in all, nothing was wrong, or even mildly uncomfortable about the environment.

The moment was broken by the ever so annoyingly chirpy voice of the monitor; "Oh dear, this isn't the surface, there appears to be a problem with the personnel translocation system, I'm sure you can sympathise though, there are bound to be glitches after a few millennia of disuse. I'll have you back on the surface in a second! This is most irregular, there appears to be a total failure in the translocation system, I cannot access the external grid, transport is limited to within the shield world. My creators would be most disappointed at such a large failure after only a hundred and twelve thousand years!"

More experienced and less distracted, Adama was able to discern the important parts from the monitor's rambling. "Are you saying we can't get back to the surface, to the fleet?"

Unlike his previous responses, the monitor was quite concise; "Yes".

The admiral was less than pleased with the answer; "That's unacceptable, we need to get back to the fleet".

Adama wasn't arrogant enough to think that he was irreplaceable, but if at all possible, he'd rather not be marooned in this crazy place, and he suspected that his crew, especially his stubborn XO would not just give up on finding him.

Galactica – In orbit of the Algae Planet

"What do you mean you lost him?" Saul Tigh yelled into the wireless handset, the CIC staff edging away from him. Such outbursts weren't uncommon, but were nevertheless scary each time.

"If a ship disappeared in a flash of light, and you lost them, I would say they made a FTL jump, fair enough, but PEOPLE DON'T HAVE FTL DRIVES!"

Nearby officers backed away more noticeably this time, although Tigh was hardly concerned about the crew at the moment. He was more concerned with the fact that the Admiral had apparently taken a few steps into a mysterious structure, then disappeared in a flash of light and this was all followed by the doors closing behind them.

"I don't care how you do it, open that door; use mining explosives if you have to. You already used them, what happened?" The nearby crew could hear the tinny audio from the wireless, hurriedly trying to give an explanation, with little success.

"A SCORCH MARK, NOT EVEN A DENT?" Saul roared "You're telling me that you used 15kg of industrial explosives and all that happened was you made a scorch mark? Well, you'd better clear the area 'cause I'm going to blow that door open from fracking orbit…"

Trevelyan – Interior Surface

The monitor's expression hadn't changed, unsurprising since he didn't even have a face. "Oh, not a problem, only the external personnel translocation grid is offline. The slipspace mass transit system is still fully operational, with no other traffic; the transit should be near instant as well. I'll have you reunited with your fleet in no time at all"

Adama took a brief second to work out that if they couldn't leave, but the monitor was going to 'reunite them', then…

"Stop!" Adama yelled at the monitor

A loud boom of air being displaced notified him that he was too late; looking up, he saw a battlestar, his ship, being shoved out of a blue portal, large, but incomprehensibly thin, as if it was truly two dimensional in a three dimensional world. Galactica, not designed for atmospheric flight, and about as aerodynamic as a brick, immediately began falling, the blue glow from the thrusters flickering on and off as they were suddenly thrust from the void of space to the relatively full atmosphere. The rapid change in pressure was no doubt playing havoc with the structural integrity of the ship.

"No", a mere whisper from Adama as he watched the Galactica fall.

Suddenly, in the characteristic surge and flash of a FTL jump, the stricken vessel was carried away from danger and was now barely visible, clearly at a much higher altitude.

Galactica – In atmosphere above surface in Trevelyan

Everyone lost their balance for a moment as gravity briefly cut out then increased before stabilizing. There were audible groans and creaks from the hull as the ship lurched to the side.

"What in hades is happening?" Tigh demanded

"We're in the atmosphere, altitude 50km and falling!" Yelled a sensor officer

"Emergency jump! 300km up, get us out of the gravity field" Tigh ordered

Warships were in fact equipped with two jump drives. They were often used in tactical combat situations, a ship would use the primary drive to jump into combat, fire off a few salvoes then use the secondary drive, and a capacitor that was perpetually kept charged with enough energy for a single jump, to jump away again, avoiding reprisal from the enemy.

This secondary drive saved the ship from crashing into the ground as, in a flash, Galactica disappeared then reappeared several hundred kilometres away from the surface and safe from the effects of gravity.

A/N: Right, so I haven't updated in quite a long time, pretty much a year in fact. I've never forgotten about this story, I've just had trouble trying to continue it, a combination of being really busy with IGCSEs (O-Levels) and not being sure how to continue. I've pretty much given up on trying to replicate the characters fully, I just can't do it, and if this keeps up, I might rewrite this story with an entirely OC battlestar in place of the Galactica. Anyway, this chapter is really short and unfinished. I just had a bit of time and I started writing, so I've decided to upload this just to show that this story isn't abandoned. I know that I said the UNSC would make an appearance, and I started writing that part a few months ago, I still haven't finished. It's sitting at 800 words on my laptop, I'll try to finish that and when I do, and I'll merge it with this part for a fuller, more coherent chapter.

A/N: Here we are, the new and improved Chapter 5 in full. I'm quite surprised that I wrote this so rapidly, it took a year last time, whereas most of this was written in 2 days. This chapter has been written in three parts, on three different computers, in two countries, on three dates each two months apart. This chapter flowed well since I didn't have to write too much about BSG, and I could make up my own characters. You can probably tell from this that I really like writing about the tech stuff and describing ships, as I did in the 'Skyguard Battle Stations' section. Apologies about the number of alert emails you may have gotten, but I've had to edit this multiple times since uploading as I left in quite a few mistakes, like paragraphs being repeated in different parts of the chapter, in my haste to upload this.