Blood and Chrome Continuation

***The following is a story for followers on Facebook, dealing with an alternate universe where the fleet assembled in the series Blood and Chrome did not attack the Cylon bases, but instead sought out Earth, as an ally.***

 

Chapter 1: Troubled Girl

Below, in the haze of pollution, lost amid the noise of cars and the crowds, the city exists. The hot asphalt and filthy gutters, the discarded litter and among that, the discarded lives, existed in a myopic cesspool of misery and futility. From her perch above it all, Stormy watched the city trundle on in it’s pointless ballet of crime, hopelessness and mind-numbing pointlessness. Rolling over, she looked back up at the clouds.

They drifted by like slow lazy shadow puppets, forms ever changing. She yearned to go to where they began, and float along to where they end. Anywhere but here. If this is all there is, then whats the point? If there is nothing more to life, then why dream?

Below she could hear the ever present yelling and the cries of children. She shut her eyes, wishing for a sign, a maricle that might make her life have purpose. She felt the tears fall slip from the corners of her eyes, down the sides of her face and tickle her ears.

Post graduate studies focusing on SETI would have meant a one way ticket to the “kiddy table” of cosmology, just a month earlier. Jesus Medinas had already resigned himself to a life of fund raising and begging for sponsors to buy time on any of the “Large Array” radio telescopes, until he could at least earn his stripes among the fraternity of fellow “alien hunters.” It was just how the game was played. The “real” cosmologists would have priority time on the arrays, while the “martian hunters” were allowed to pay for whatever time was left over. Because of that, it was easy to lose hope and become distracted. He had to admit, if he were to be honest, that he regretted turning away from the hard physics, and plunging into the applied field, such as it was. There was just nothing out there. It was just a big empty sky full of nothing… except maybe the twenty or so signals that just popped up out of nowhere!

Stumbling to his feet, he fell over the lawn chair, crashing into the Igloo cooler that held his soda and peanuts. “Gilbert! Get on the recorder! Call Mexico and Canada, we need to get confirmation! He yelled.

Inside the array control house, Gilbert Davenport was already turning the recorder on. The signals were strong clear and steady. “Jesus, check to make sure this isn’t a TV satellite, I’ll get with NASA.”

“Im on it!” Jesus said as he checked over the listings of known obstructions and signal frequencies. If none matched these, then they at least had an unknown signal, and that was exciting.

“Gilbert, there is nothing on this frequency. Its got some side-band, I’m going to… Oh my God!” Gil, look! Look! You see this?” Jesus was forced to sit as his knees went out. There was video, as well as audio, and they looked… human!

“Holy shit… This has to be a joke. It has to be a TV signal or something man, I mean, c’mon! We finally find aliens, and they look like us? No damn way!”

“Jesus, its NASA, they say we are to monitor, but not contact anyone. Dude, I think we might be in trouble.”

Fresh from a shower, Lieutenant General Walters strode into the information center to meet with a group of what were considered “the smartest men on the planet.” Interestingly, of the eleven brilliant men, three were women. He mentally checked himself for assuming they were all men. In all the movies, it was usually three oriental guys, at least one African-American and a bunch of Caucasians. He had never seen a woman in the group to his recollection. Then again, he had never paid much attention to alien movies. That would perhaps change today.

Yesterday, a signal was received that was clearly extra-terrestrial in origin. Twenty seven star ships had simply appeared out of nowhere. So far only a few arrays had picked up the signal before it was lost to some form of encryption, that resembled static. The US Air Force had put out a cover story that it was an errant signal, being reflected back by space debris, originating from a TV station run by JPL. The fact that JPL didn’t operate a TV station, nor was space junk found that far out, or the fact the signal spoke a language somewhat akin to Latin, made any difference. The few arrays that had copy of the signal were already silenced, and the NIS was scrubbing the internet of any mention of the signal.

This secret was going to be kept from the public, till the authorities had in place, the means to handle the possible rioting and hysteria that would surely follow President Obama’s address, informing the world, that mankind’s greatest question, are we alone, has been answered. First, however, the United States and its allies, has to make first contact. The logistics of being first were vital. If the rest of the world, God forbid the Chinese, or Russians, were to make first contact, it could tip the balance of power on Earth, forever in their favor.