Empty Space: A Battlestar Galactica Crossover

The two senior officers entered the conference room. "Very well, Madame Pie, you requested this meeting. What's up?" asked the Admiral.

"Well, sir, it was Specialist Rarity, here, who first put me onto the anomalous signal."

Shining Armor nodded in her direction. "Noted," he said. "Please continue."

Rarity spoke up. "One of the routine duties of the comm watch chief, as you know, sir, is to scan for unidentified transmissions, to identify possible vessels or bases in the area. There was nothing on the bands normally used by Equestrians or Changelings, but we did pick up an anomaly, very faint. I reported it to the watch officer," and here she nodded toward Lt. Pie, who favored all present with a confirming nod of her own, "and he thought it was worthy of a closer look."

Here Maud picked up the narrative. "The anomaly was both brief and faint, in this case 7 seconds and 1.6 X 10 -28 emons per square metron..."

The XO interrupted with a snort, "That's faint, all right."

"Yes, ma'am. Worse, ma'am, we only noticed it in the batch recordings, so it was not possible to get more than a 37-degree-error fix on its origin, based on the detector it came in on, and the detector's orientation at the time. But generally, it appears to have originated roughly ahead of us on our present approximate course. However, since it was a repeated signal, with a 98% correspondence between repeats, I thought it merited a closer look."

Here Rarity interrupted with further information. "If it had had 100% correspondence, it would almost certainly have been of natural origin, and so we would have ignored it. This means that each repeat is very similar, but not identical to its predecessor, much like a video image, sir."

The lieutenant verified this data with another quick nod. "So I ran it through the signal amplifier routine on the comm computer and this, sir, is what came out." Her voice quavered a bit with suppressed emotion as he put the image on the conference room screen.

In it, three pony-like figures could clearly be discerned. The middle one picked up a long, thin object with his horn and hoisted it onto his shoulder, then turned abruptly. The figure on the left ducked the end coming toward him, while the rightmost figure was solidly clouted on the head by the other end. It approached the middle figure, knocked the object off its shoulder and slapped it hard on the cheek, causing the middle figure to stumble into the left figure who raised its own leg in impending retaliation... and there was no more.

XO Luna raised her hooves from the table in disgust. "What was that?" she demanded of her hapless subordinates. "Is there any more?"

Rarity answered, "We have been scanning that band for over four hours now. There have been no further anomalies."

"Four hours!" asked Luna in outrage. "Why have you kept this under your hats for four hours?"

"Actually, ma'am, we called you as soon as the signal analysis was complete and we saw what it was." Maud responded.

The colonel subsided a bit, but asked suspiciously, "How many times did you run it through the enhance routine?"

"Twenty three, sir," admitted Maud, a bit sheepishly.

Luna turned to the Admiral. "Armor, with that much adjustment, you realize..."

"That the scene we just saw is increasingly likely with each pass through the routine to be a product of the assumption that there is a signal to amplify in the first place," Shining Armor interrupted. "Yes, I do." To his techs he said, "Let's see the raw footage."

The white screen filled with static. Seven seconds later, it was white again. "Hmm. Not much to see," Shining Armor remarked dryly.

"Armor, this whole thing is a phantasm... or worse." Shining Armor's steady gaze seemed to invite elaboration, so he went on. "If it's a signal at all it could be of a ponyfight, or a documentary on forestry. But what really bothers me is that it really could be the bait in a trap. Besides, radio is only good for local use; beyond a few light minutes, it's hardly practical."

Maud cleared her throat diplomatically. "Begging your pardon, sir, but without knowing either the source or the original intensity, it could be a stray signal that was intended for local use which has just gone on and on."

Shining Armor, though, seemed consumed by different thoughts. "How many people know about this anomaly?"

"Only the people in this room, sir," Maud replied. "I thought the decision on what to do with this information should come from command, sir."

"Quite right, Madame Maud, we will all keep this to ourselves for the present. Good work, lieutenant, specialist." Recognizing the finality in his voice, the two drew themselves briefly to attention, saluted, and exited the room.

"We will have to inform the President, of course. I want you to bring Dr. Whooves into the loop, as well." Noting his friend's sour look, he added, "I know you don't think much of him, but he is a genius. And the Vice-President."

"Aye, aye," acknowledged the Executive Officer.

"And you're right about the trap, too. What I want you to do is configure two phoenixes for comm intercept and have them jump mostly wide of and slightly toward our solution of merit, such as it is, on this 'signal'." He smiled ironically. "I see you're not happy about that either, Luna, but did you have somewhere you'd rather go?"

The emergence of four bridge crew from Conference Room 3 did not go unnoticed. Specialist Artsy Welling found an excuse to visit Rarity's station as the officers assumed their stations. "So," she said, casting her eyes toward the others significantly, "what gives?"

Rarity smiled tolerantly. "I can't tell you."

"OhHHhh. Something really juicy, then."

Rarity almost laughed. "I can neither confirm nor deny the juiciness or lack thereof of anything which may or may not have happened," she concluded primly.

"Just like with you and Spike," Artsy remarked, making Rarity once more twitch her lips in amusement, so her friend continued in a thoughtful vein, "He is kind of cute, in a lost puppy sort of way. Since you are not so interested, maybe he and I could..."

"Don't you dare!" Rarity snapped. "He's..." she trailed off, having said more than she meant to. "...not your type," she concluded sourly.

"You got it bad, girl," Artsy murmured as she moved off.

Now, Technical Sergeant College Grant was, by his own protestation, not interested in gossip. And, as he conceived of 'gossip,' he wasn't. The nugget he had overheard about Spec. Rarity's love life interested him not at all. The chance of getting solid information that command didn't see fit to share with the crew, on the other hand, was, he felt, fair game. Among his duties was to monitor the function of the computers in CIC. Frequently, he griped to himself that this task would be easier if he could just do one check on all of them, if they were networked. But he would not complain today. Not at all.

He brought up the log of programs run on the comm station. "Four hours of signal amplification," he muttered to himself. "Must have been one long message, and who could it have come from, that it needs amplification?" Moving around his route, he eventually came to the projector computer for Conference Room 3. Strictly speaking, he was no authorized to pull the memory core unless he suspected problems, and he rehearsed the type of problem he was going to claim to be investigating, but this proved to be an unnecessary precaution. Not that the crude reconstruction enlightened him much. But, when combined with the unusual Phoenix deployment the XO had ordered just after the meeting, it would be exceptionally fine grist for the Galactica rumor mill.

By end of the next watch, the entire ship was buzzing with theories explaining the officers' actions, and everyone could describe the video. Although no one had a copy, acting out the scene became a major, albeit brief obsession. But everyone had the information, on good authority, from a friend of a friend who had been in the conference. By the end of the third watch, virtually the entire fleet was aware, much to the ire of Colonel Luna, who glared at both Rarity and Maud on general principles, but was privately convinced that Dr. Whooves has spilled the beans.

"Time was," he remarked acidly as he studied the DRADIS scan, "when security on this ship meant something."

The two phoenixes, once recovered, reported no unusual findings on their unusual mission. And so, having no reason not to, Galactica and her tiny fleet made another short hop in the vastness of the universe.