Book 4 Prophecy: Chapter 9 Aftermath

Cory Brooks: 10 Years after Mercury is lost. President Brooks speaking at the memorial ceremony.

“A lot has happened in the past 10 years. I have served two five-year terms as president of the new Helios colonies. As my last acting office, I have extended the mandatory retirement age of the admiral of the fleet from age 70 to 80. At that time, if he lives long enough, we will have to find ourselves a new military leader.”

“The threat of extinction at the hands of these machines the Cylon’s has passed. We do not know the fate of the toasters. We are happy they have passed into history. We have fought a political battle over women’s reproductive rights versus our need to continue the species.”

“I am proud of the fact that we have a population that now exceeds 3/4 of 1 million. That’s a society we are growing at a high rate. I, for one, hope that we grow to the point where we can all agree to restore these rights and freedoms to where they were before the extinction or near extinction of our people.”

“My last duty is the promotion of commander, Steven Evans, from the rank of commander to the rank of rear admiral. Commander Evans you have waited patiently for a long time. Now get up to the podium and give us some words.”

After a long ovation, Commander Evan’s looking a lot more grey, tapped the microphone and begun to speak.

“I know I have to keep a lower rank for budgetary reasons but I manage to keep the Athena is my command. One mercury class Battlestar cannot do the work of three. However with that handicap we have done well. We have more people wanting to join the colonial fleet and there are spots on ships.”

“It is my intention to reestablish a professional core of officers and enlisted service persons. The great mystery as you all know to be, and solving it may never happen will at least be pursued under the joint administration of myself and vice admiral Morganstern. We will endeavor to try and find out what happened to the Mercury, the Solaria and the Saturn.”

Nine months and 41 days later.

“Admiral Evans. This is the report you’ve been waiting for. We definitely have signs of toasters within 500 light years of this area.”

The rear admiral was sitting at his desk. The colonial fleet was pretty casual these days. The younger man who held the rank of captain, drop the folder onto the desk, which was in the mobile shipyard. It made that bureaucratic satisfying noise as it cut through the air on the way down to the desk. It was a large folder with some printed photos in it. The vice admiral had signed off on it and asked we were admiral Evans to add his opinion.

“Summarize it for me Captain Clemmons. You know I am a busy Admiral.”

“We hit jackpot this time. Two separate finds. The first is a blood field left over by a modern raider. The kind that has blood and all that. We got enough of the sample to do a DNA check. It is related to the samples from our era and the war that ended seven years ago. This was manufactured less than four years ago. There are not many technological changes, but it’s definitely a new batch of modern Raiders.”

“Captain Clemens are you sure it’s not just a wrecked nemesis class ship?”

“Absolutely not. We picked up a half-dozen ships of that class none of which have been operating in this area. There are war casualties from our journey from the colonies to here in New Helios. The second find is even more fantastic it’s a heavy raider. It has living components as we always suspected. The crash site has evidence of five or six dead centurions. The heavy raider itself was modified to allow a centurion of any type operate it. That includes the first war variety of toaster.”

“Captain when was the ship manufactured?”

“13 years ago. Before the start of the second Cylon war. It was destroyed seven years ago. The logs and the navigational database are the real find here. There are log entries made by humanoid cylon’s claiming that the ship was based on the last rebel base star.”

Admiral Evans eyes brightened, and his eyebrows rows above his eyes. His curiosity has been triggered. ”Well go on Captain get to the point!”

“There were dozens of log entries. They claimed three models of the toasters, joined the humans and rebelled against the other models. They mentioned the sixes and the eights. There are entries documenting a Civil War, and a eventual alliance with humans from the Battlestar Galactica. A lot of material until the humans settled on earth, wherever that is.”

“There are dozens of intentionally erased records in the navigation of the database of this heavy raider. The logs say that they found a new planet called earth and the Galactica was heavily damaged by her final jump away from something called the Cylon colony. We have no references about what that might be but there was a battle in the Cylon Civil War and resulted in severe damage to the ship and the destruction of FTL capability of the Galactica.”

“I wonder if Adama made it.”

“Every spare bite of computer storage in this navigational database was over written with random numbers millions and millions of times. We’ve not found any way to reconstruct the navigational records to earth. The reason given for this was the centurions and the last modern base star were freed to explore and evolve.”

The rear admiral leaned back in his chair and stared with a reflective gaze at the ceiling of his office. “So the centurions modified their memories and their operating system so they could forget where they came from. They didn’t want to pose a danger to humanity?”

“Exactly admiral that is exactly my point. They erased the location of earth, but not the memory of earth. Seven years ago the war against the colonies ended with the destruction of three models of Cylons, and the settlement of Galactica and the rest of their fleet on the second Earth. The first earth was destroyed by nuclear holocaust, in another war after inventing toasters in the Kobol era..”

“These three models and their centurions went to great effort to erase all navigational memory in every single survivor of the war. Then they search and explore looking for a new home to manufacture parts and new beings. For about five years they searched after resurrection technology. We don’t know whether that succeeded or not because the ship crashed with that mission incomplete. The date references are vague, perhaps intentionally. They considered the war on behalf of the humans heroic and wanted the memory of the deed to continue on. They wanted a legacy.”

“Captain. What was the scope of their exploration?”

“It was gigantic, sir. A radius of over a 1 million light years. The database was incomplete due to damage during the crash. They found sources of fuel and of minerals, and ore. Some of it was very close to new Helios. Those locations, we have confirmed. We have a new tylium source 105 light years from here.”

“How the Frack did we miss that?”

The captain get only shrug his shoulders. He was clearly excited, and had one more thing to reveal at least. “The exciting part is, there’s a reference to the Battlestar Mercury, Solaria, and Saturn. Take a look at the back page pictures.”

Admiral Evans looked at the blown up, grainy pictures. They were very low resolution, apparently damage in the crash clearly though on the edge of a star, or some celestial body were the outlines of three heavy battle stars. Two were Mercury class, and one was a Jupiter Mark ii.”

“Samuel Clemens, you are the worst storyteller I have ever met. Is there any navigational data in the computer database on these?”

“There is we’ve got exact coordinates. It’s going to require, how do you say a shit ton of fuel to get there if we decide to go.”

“Why would we decide not to go?”

“The logs. There was evidence of a massive, celestial body in the system, where this picture was taken. The theory from the scientific readings is there was a black hole. The three battle stars came out of an emergency jump on the edge of the event horizon, and will be there forever. What actually happened is they were trapped and destroyed, moments after the jump.”

“Was a black hole? Sam were there backup readings and data to prove the black hole theory?”

“No. As you know, there’s a flaw in the design of the Cylons. Certain kinds of radiation quickly starts to melt their circuits. They documented a massive radiation field, put up some warning buoys and headed back for a planned meeting with their base star. Forensics say an error in an FTL jump caused the crash.”

“Any problems for us ordinary humans doctor Clemmons?”

“I wouldn’t plan a vacation there. Over the long haul that radiations not gonna do us any good either. We can probably get a small ship within range to get readings to verify the fate of the warships and the existence of the black hole.”

“The scientific conclusion is that there was not an ability to take adequate readings. We have no exploration data of that sector. We have pointed our most powerful telescopes on that area though. The readings are quite thin, but do not match the conditions of any previously documented black hole.”

“So we have a mystery to explore. Might they be frozen in time by some new type of stellar anomaly?”

“Not possible Sir. They are all quite dead for quite a long time. There is no hurry. We can do the mission at a much lower fuel cost when the FTL mark 4 enters service in five or six years.”

“I see you left the conclusion, fate unknown. So there’s just enough of doubt in your report because I still want to spend the money and the fuel to verify it.”

Both men nodded and made mental notes.