Lauren had begun to think that if she heard one more joke about that damn Star Trek show she would most certainly lose her mind. Never mind how people kept insisting that the parallels were obvious, she couldn't be bothered with them when there were more important matters to contend with.

Important matters which they didn't have to think about but was her duty to consider. Things like, for example, how they're going to get the Prometheus home when they don't even know how they got there in the first place. Colonel Pendergast was expecting her team to find the answers and she can't help but think he's expecting her to magically transform herself into Samantha Carter and magic up a way back to familiar stars. She wished it were that simple but she was not Samantha Carter, nor a genius, and she was just trying to do her job. Being aboard a ship suddenly thrown innumerable light years away for anything approaching recognizable space was not something she'd had in mind. But then, when she'd joined the Air Force she hadn't been looking for anything like where she'd ended up. It was an act of rebellion, a way to aggravate her father. Joining the military which he loathed and despised had been the most surefire way of doing that.

Getting herself transferred onto a top secret ship hadn't been in the plans but transferred she had been and now she was sitting in a briefing room listening to a rather odd little man blabbering on about Cylons and colonies and could they please show them the way to Earth? Pretty please?

She flicked a skeptical glance Pendergast's way and received a similar look in return. They were both resisting the urge to shrug, she suspected, as the whole thing felt a bit like one of SG1's harebrained missions. She was tempted to blame the entire situation on General O'Neill's promotion. Whatever curse of lunacy that had been the sole domain of SG1 had apparently spread to the entire command.

"Colonels?" The nervous little man the Galactica had sent was watching them with an even more nervous expression on his face. "I....I'm sorry, have I lost you?"

"No, please, Doctor, do continue." Lauren responded coolly, mentally cursing her commanding officer - yet again - for sending her team on the P3J-939 mission. Missions to gateless worlds were always a headache and this one had elevated that to whole new levels. Drawing in a steadying breath, she blinked hard to push away the cobwebs and tried to focus on the good Doctor's babblings.

That lasted about as long as it took the man sitting at her other side to shift in his seat. The movement brought Lauren's attention to Malek's face and caught the look of amusement he was directing at her. Part of her was somewhat curious as to what the Tok'ra was making of the whole situation. Not that she intended on focusing much attention on the problem. It was his own fault he was trapped on the Prometheus with them. Truthfully, it was largely his responsibility for the entire mess. If he'd not gotten himself stranded in a damaged cargo ship they wouldn't have had to divert to rescue him and would not have been caught up in...Whatever it was they'd been caught up in.

So there it was, the Tok'ra and O'Neill were clearly to blame for it all. It was as simple as that.

"Doctor," Pendergast spoke up, cutting off the still-speaking Baltar who didn't seem to appreciate the gesture.

"Actually, Colonel, my appropriate title given this particular situation would be Vice President as I am the...well, I have been elected to the position of Vice President of the Colonies and am acting as such and - "

"Understood." The Colonel again cut him off, his tone considerably more irritated. "Mr. Vice President, we understand your eagerness but we’re still in the process of determining how we came to be here. Getting ourselves, much less your fleet, home is a secondary concern right now."

"Indeed." Lauren put in, attempting to modulate her tone to something more conciliatory, "we have repairs and that little matter of trying to determine exactly what happened to deal with right now. When we've done that..." She stopped, seeing he was on the verge of protesting as an almost comical expression of alarm burst across his features, and held up a placating hand. "Getting back to Earth is our goal, please understand that, but there are a number of things we need to do first." She looked over her shoulder to her second-in-command. "Major Coburn, please escort Doctor Baltar and his party back to their ship."

"Yes ma'am." The major agreed, leaving his post near the door and striding to the doctor's side. "This way, Doctor..."

Baltar looked as though he might argue but then his gaze skittered to the air beside him and he stared intently at nothing for a long moment. Then, abruptly, he turned with a muttered, "Right then," and followed Coburn from the room.

"That man is very strange." Malek mused, his distorted voice oddly soothing.

"That man," Lauren countered, very annoyed by the whole thing, "has been in space too long." She sighed and turned to Pendergast. "Inclined to offer an opinion on this little Cylon matter, Colonel?"

Pendergast passed assessing eyes over her features, reading the cues there, and smiled faintly. "I'd rather hear what you're thinking, Colonel. Care to share with the class?"

She exhaled heavily and tilted her head to one side, composing her thoughts. "I'm not terribly thrilled about the idea of helping these people find Earth. We've only just rid ourselves of the Replicators do we want to replace them with these Cylons? I can't see General O'Neill nor the gentlemen in the Pentagon dancing for joy if we turn up with 50,000 humans who're looking for a brand new home and happen to have these pesky androids chasing them."

He nodded. "That's an idea which crossed my mind too but we can’t leave them out here. They’re human and we have as much responsibility to them as we did to the humans living under Goa’uld occupation. We didn’t abandon those people and we can’t abandon these.”

“I’m not suggesting we abandon them.” She disagreed calmly. “Far from it, I’m suggesting quite the opposite. We should stay with this fleet. Ascertain the threat, protect these people, and try and figure out as much as we possibly can of the lay of the land before we stumble across the Asgard, Atlantis or someone else who can get a message home.” She let a faint laugh mix into her words as she added, “It isn’t as if we’ve much choice to us at the moment anyway. We’ve no clue how we *got* here much less how to get home.”

“The computers have yielded no answers?” Malek asked, moving to stand.

“Not one.” Pendergast admitted in frustration. “We had a complete, system wide blackout when…it happened. We have absolutely no data on what was going on outside or inside the ship. It gives us absolutely nothing to go on. Not a damned thing.”

“Well then, I suggest we find something.” The Tok’ra mused. “Something here, perhaps. If we are unable to glean answers from where we left then perhaps we can discover it from where we are.”

“It’s a long shot.” Lauren put in thoughtfully. “But, we have made quite the industry out of those.”

“We have at that.” Pendergast agreed. “And you’re right, Colonel Reed, it’s not like we’ve any choice about it. All right while we’re trying to figure out what happened,” he pointed at her, “I’m putting you in charge of the investigation of this fleet. Find out who these people are, what they want, and how the hell we’re going to deal with these Cylons.”

“Yes sir.” She nodded sharply as he got up and led them from the room.

It was, absolutely, and entirely...one hundred percent O’Neill’s fault.

That was her first conclusion of the lot and she suspected, by far, it would be the most satisfying one of the lot.

finis?

 

Don't own any of the characters. Mmm Malek. But if Santa ever wants to be generous...

 

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