Betrayal

12 Hours Later

The Fleet, The Battlestar Galactica

Jennifer groaned as she slowly woke up. On the top bunk of her cabin, she felt a kick.

"Ugh....stop it, Lauren."

The kicks stopped. "You know its only for your own good, Cuz. The rest of the fleet just jumped in."

"Uh huh?"

"Starbuck wants you down in the starboard launch."

"Stop speaking like a pilot, you'll never be one with those pipe cleaner arms and legs." Jen straightened her reddish brown hair.

"Still, Starbuck needs you."

"I'm going, I'm going..."

Jen walked into the hanger, looking for a certain strawberry blonde ace. Finding her target, she walked over.

"Reporting for duty, ma'am."

"Well, if it ain't one a mah former nuggets. Just call me Kara for now. Admiral Adama wants you and this guy to go down on a Raptor to the planet down below."

"Who is he?"

"My name's Sam Blyth, call sign's "Boxer." The ginger stuck out a hand.

"Jennifer Thatcher, call sign "Lunaria." Jen took his hand and shook it.

"Did they already do the scans?"

"Yeah. Well, we're supposed bring Dr. Baltar down to the surface and back in one piece."

Sam followed Jen to the brown Raptor. "How heavy is his equipment?'

"Nothing much, just some tubes for dirt samples and some fancy life scanners. He wants to figure out if the earlier recon Raptors were playing a prank on him."

"Why?"

"Would you believe me if I told you the planet was full of stone age ponies that can walk on clouds and use magic?"

"No."

"Exactly."

The two pilots finally got to their Raptor. Jen immediately picked up the pre-flight checklist and ran through it. Sam stood to the side, watching her.

"How did you know all of the systems?"

"I signed up as a Raptor pilot." Jen answered simply.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you sign up?"

Jen nodded.

"Because I needed the cubits."

"Care to explain?"

"My family lived on Aerlion."

"The poorest of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol?"

"Yeah." She set down her clipboard roughly, obviously unhappy about the topic.

"Then what about your cousin?"

"My uncle got lucky and won the Colonial lottery. He and his immediate family moved to Tauron."

"So, they got rich, then left the rest of your family to be stuck on the half-baked planet to die?"

"Do you what the Taurons are known for?" She quickly changed the subject.

"War and blood?"

"Yes. They are battle hardened individuals. Our family has a long line of service. My grandpa was a gunner aboard the Galactica type Battlestar Rycon, my uncle was a marine reserve at the time he hit the jackpot, and my mother was a mechanic on a flak frigate for some time."

"So he moved because he wanted to fit in more?" Sam asked as she suited up.

"Pretty much. They expected Lauren to join the Fleet and bring honor to the family name or something." Jen climbed into the Raptor, closely followed by Boxer.

"And how did your family get out alive?"

"They didn't. Unc commandeered a shuttle, but was shot down by marauding Raiders. Mom was on the Olympic Carrier." She gave a pointed look at Starbuck, who was talking to Sharon "Athena" Agathon. "Dad was killed on New Caprica. Brother was shot down in a Viper thanks to Scar." She strapped herself in to the seat on the left. "G-Ma had already passed. Auntie was on the Cloud Nine when it blew up."

Sam sat down in the right, or pilot's seat. "Sorry for your loss."

"Don't be. They're dead, and not coming back." She flicked a couple switches and press several buttons, getting ready for take off.

"You said you signed up as a Raptor pilot. So, why where you in Starbuck's Viper class?"

"What are we playing, twenty questions?"

"Just answer it. I promise it will be my second-to-last."

Jen rolled her eyes as she put her helmet on. "Fine. Some guy screwed up the simulation, and I ended up in a Viper MK III and had to fight some Cylon war era raiders."

"I take that you did so outstanding that they put you in a Viper class."

"I had no idea what I was doing. I only got through by the skin of my teeth."

"So you were a natural?"

"A person who got "lucky." Jen turned on the DRADIS computer and other systems, and leaned back against her seat. "Is Baltar gonna come or what?"

"You married?"

"To Chuck."

"The mechanic?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. I never knew you fell for lower ranking boys."

"I swear, if you-"

Baltar walked in, cutting Jen off. "All ready to leave?"

"Yes." Jen said through gritted teeth.

The Raptor barreled out of the rear of the left flight pod, pulled up and turned left, zoomed over the Galactica's sublight engines, then headed to the planet below.

"So peaceful. So innocent." Jen muttered. She turned to Boxer. "Unlike you."

"Wow. I'm hurt."

The assault craft hit the atmosphere, and the bottom began to burn. It was in a nose-up position, so it was hitting the air completely flat.

"All systems normal...Preparing for standard flight.

The Raptor leveled out, and the vertical landing thrusters were fired. Landing skids extended, the Raptor roughly settled into the hard ground.

Baltar got out and said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for-"

Jen bounded out form the door and hopped down to the ground. "Wow. This place looks like it just got nuked."

"By the lords of Kobol, Lunaria, you just messed up Doc's speech." Sam walked out onto the wing.

"Don't matter, don't care." Lunaria went back to the engine. "The Raptor might be faulty. Please leave me alone to sort this frak out."

Baltar brought out several life scanners, and took out a shovel. Multitasking by looking at the screen as he dug, his expression rapidly began to change to confusion.

"Lunaria, were done here. There is a place I would like to go."

Jen walked over. "Sentient life forms down under. There's no way we're going down there, even if we can."

"Just fly me to where I need you to go."

"Doc, no. Too. Dangerous."

"I just don't respond to "Doc." A dock is a place for ships to load."

"Well, you are loading, aren't you?"

Jen brought the Raptor down a winding path into the ground. After flying for several minutes, they saw a massive cave, and Baltar directed her into it. As they descended, the ever present cursing from the two pilots brought some humor to the otherwise boring flight.

The cave suddenly ended to reveal a massive cavern. To put it into perspective, Galactica and the rest of the sixty ship fleet could easily have fit in, with room for the whole Viper wing to fly around easily.

"What's that moving down there?" Kara asked to no one in particular as she pressed her head against the windshield.

Jen took out her binoculars. "Bugs. Horse-bugs."

Baltar came forward and looked at the DRADIS screen. "Two contacts coming up."

The two contacts revealed themselves to be two of the bug things, wings buzzing, and they directed them down to a castle in the middle. Slowly coming down onto the flat area to land, she noticed what seemed like humans walked the streets. The whole place reminded her of Aerlion, with what appeared to be slums and low profile. The cavern seemed to reek of depression.

Once again, setting down the Raptor roughly, which brought a muttered curse from Baltar, Jen opened the door and stepped out. Boxer came out next, and removed Jen's helmet from her head, then her own.

"Kali rah." One of the bugs said, making motions for them to follow him. Or her. Jen couldn't really tell.

"You stay here, Boxer. I'll take Baltar with me."

"Sounds good to me." The brilliant inventor nodded.

The two were brought into the massive castle, and the two instantly noticed the hexagonal layout of everything. The green chandeliers were arranged with six arms, the black, six edged bricks, and the green-on-black carpets. Once again, it took on a depressing tone.

Jen and Baltar were soon built into a massive throne room, the six pillars stretching far above them, and the carpet stretched to an over sized version of the horse-bug. It didn't look too good, with bags under it's eyes and obvious hunger. Jen, after thinking about it, realized that most of them were incredibly thin, and mostly skin and bones.

"Haya basi!" She spoke. The guards quickly left, leaving the two humans to be with her. Her hole-filled horn glowed for a moment, then subsided. "Welcome to the humble changeling hive, great sky humans. I am Queen Crysalis of the royal ruling family of Lupis Major."

"You speak Caprican?!" Jen blurted out. Definitely not a good diplomatic start.

"Caprican...? No, this is just a simple translation spell. It allows me communicate with most living specimens." Her cat eyes flicked towards a potted plant in the corner. "Most."

"You said "great sky humans." Baltar spoke up. "What does that mean?"

"Humans are one of the most respected species of Griffonia and the Hive. Your ability to adapt and change your lives to suit your surroundings even surpasses the changeling's abilities, and mental prowess can create machinations that magic cannot match. Your sky box is a good example.

"But this is not the case in Equestria, land of ponies and "harmony." I just did a failed invasion a year ago to feed my hungry subjects. It ended with our hive being blown out by our own food source. They consider you to be second class citizens, even worse than the earth ponies, because you do not have magic. They essentially turned you into free labor."

"Slavery?" Baltar interjected.

"Pretty much. But that's not all. They force you into contracts to "protect" you, but it's just another piece of propaganda to keep them from rebelling. Celestia knows the danger of the humans, and she's doing her best to keep their power in check."

"Sounds like you need help. Right now, above this planet, is a deprived fleet of ships and their weary crew and passengers. We can give you food and technology in exchange for water, tylium, and a place to repair Galactica." Baltar offered.

"No, we feed off of love." Seeing the human's confused expressions, Crysalis began to explain. "Changelings can detect emotion due to magic. Love is like a life elixir to us. It supports all of our needs. The only reason were alive now is because feed off of our own love for each other."

"Like a cow drinking it's own milk to survive."

The changeling nodded. "But enough about us. You said that there is a fleet of ships over the planet?"

"Magic...?"

"Do you not know about magic? Oh wait, a whole civilization of humans. Right." She face palmed. Or face hooved. "Tell you what. If you tell me the story of what happened to you, I'll tell you about it."

"Alright." Baltar agreed. "I'll tell the political side, she'll tell the war side. It all started with a girl named Zoe and a company called Graystone Industries..."

As the two explained what happened in the last couple years in Colonial history, Crysalis's expression grew more and more shocked at the brutality the Cylon tactics and human hatred.

"And that's pretty much it in a nutshell."

"Nutshell...yeah right." Jen muttered. "She didn't understand half the terms you were using."

Crysalis nodded at the,. "Any human or Colonial ship is welcome here. I look forward to meeting President Roslin, also."

Baltar gave a farewell bow to the Changeling, and they made their way back to the parked Raptor.