I own neither franchise and don’t claim to. There’s no point suing me for borrowing the storylines or characters unless you want a share of an underpaid Civil Servants salary and trust me it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

This is a crossover between Battlestar Galactica and the Battletech Universe and offers a vision of what would have happened if the surviving colonials had run into another very different tribe who were themselves fleeing tyranny and genocide and who thought a hidden planet in a nebula thousands of light years from Earth was a good place to lay low.

This is not the lost tribe you were looking for, this is the Minnesota Tribe, AKA the Star League in Exile... AKA Clan Wolverine!

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Colonial Raptor - Nebula - Deep Space

As soon as the indescribably strange sensation of jumping faded Lieutenant Margaret Edmondson, almost invariably referred to by her callsign of “Racetrack”, looked out of the cockpit. ‘This doesn’t look right’ she stated, inwardly groaning. One jump, they were one frakking jump into the series of ten that would take them all the way back to Caprica and it already looked wrong she thought, it was probably that Cylon bitch feeding them false navigation coordinates.

Her Electronic Countermeasures Officer Hamish “Skulls” McCall couldn’t help but agree, he also knew something she didn’t. ‘No other contacts on DRADIS’ he announced.

‘What’ the pilot exclaimed.

‘Oh, man. We're at the wrong jump coordinates’ the ECO said checking his instruments. Starbuck was going to kill both of them if the Cylons didn’t kill her first.

Racetrack slumped in her seat. ‘So what happened?’ she asked eventually, listening for a few moments as Skulls played with all the fancy electronic gear. She was qualified for the ECO job herself and knew exactly what he was doing and how long it would take.

‘I think there was some kind of glitch in the navcon firmware’ Skulls theorised based on the displays. ‘Hey bottom line, we're to hell and gone from where we're supposed to be, skipper’ he told her.

The pilot blinked. ‘Okay, um, any chance that we can still catch up with them?’ she checked hopefully.

Skulls inwardly shrugged. ‘Not a chance’ he replied. ‘Mission rules say we head back’ he reminded her.

‘Frak me! It was the first jump’ Racetrack complained, as much to the universe as her ECO.

‘Hey, look, you gave me these coordinates’ Skulls responded defensively. He only punched them in to the jumpdrive and had no intention of taking more than his fair share of any blame.

Racetrack sighed. ‘Back to the barn’ she said resignedly. On the plus side they wouldn’t be going five days without a shower like the others presumably still with Starbuck would.

‘Hey. I am picking up a large planetary body. It's frakkin' close’ Skulls announced, checking the DRADIS again.

‘Where'd that come from?’ Racetrack asked in surprise, you didn’t suddenly “notice” nearby planets, they were usually pretty self-evident.

‘Hell if I know. So much DRADIS interference here, it didn't even register’ the Electronic Control Officer explained. The nebula they seemed to have accidentally jumped into was playing merry hades with the sensors.

Racetrack checked the sensors herself. ‘Hey, check this out’ she said. ‘Atmosphere is nitrogen/oxygen. Organic molecular spectra. Fresh water? Hey, you know what this is? It's habitable. We may have just found a world that can support human life. Maybe we're not just a bunch of frak-ups after all’ she said optimistically, or if they were they were lucky frak-ups which was just as good in her book, corners cut off like they should be.

Skulls blinked and started checking his electronic warfare gear. ‘Skipper’ he said nervously, ‘I think we just got scanned and it wasn’t any kind of DRADIS I’m familiar with’ he said. ‘Frequency is all wrong and so is...’ he began. ‘We’re receiving a signal, not a colonial military or civilian channel’ he said.

‘Frak me sideways’ Racetrack exclaimed. ‘Cylons’ she stated. Guess they were unlucky frak-up’s she decided. ‘It could be a virus’ she noted. ‘Let’s get the frak out of here, we’ll do a series of jumps to shake them before returning to the fleet’ she said, getting ready to leave in a hurry.

Skulls listened. ‘It’s audio’ he said, ‘and I think it’s a language but I don’t understand a word’ he said. ‘Whoever it is they’re starting to sound agitated we’re not replying’ he said. ‘Lords of Kobol!’ he cried out. ‘We just got painted by enough wattage to light up Caprica City.’

Racetrack looked at her DRADIS display and felt her jaw drop. ‘Something in high orbit around that planet just entered line of sight’ she said. ‘And I think it’s pissed’ she said with a grimace.

‘Basestar?’ Skulls asked, still trying to find a way to interfere with the apparent weapons lock. There was no way a raider, even a heavy one was putting out a fraction of that kind of power.

‘I don’t think so’ Racetrack said slowly, ‘but whatever the frak it is I vote we run away’ she opined.

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ Skulls asked flatly.

‘Just spill it’ Racetrack replied.

‘We need to reboot the navcom before I can plot a plot a jump and that takes longer than we've got’ the ECO replied.

The pilot blinked. ‘So what's the good news?’ she asked.‘That was the good news’ Skulls told her, ‘the bad news is that I think we’ve got fighters heading our way hell for leather’ he said. ‘Maybe I should have said the bad news and the worse news.’

‘There’s no way I’m being taken prisoner by the toasters’ Racetrack stated. ‘We fight until we’re out of missiles then ram the frakkers okay?’

Skulls closed his eyes. ‘I’m with you Skipper’ he said eventually. ‘Oh frak it’ he said and switched the radio over to transmit on the same frequency they were being signalled on. ‘The entire frakking Cylon race can kiss my colonial ass’ he replied to the signal. ‘You can hunt us down until the Goddess Artemis herself would give up and you’d still never catch us’ he declared. ‘We’ll see you in hades’ he added.

The increasingly frantic transmissions suddenly cut out and after a few minutes another voice came on speaking the worst dialect of Old Caprican either of the colonial officers had ever heard ‘Who are you and how did you get here?’ it asked haltingly. ‘And why are you speaking bad Ancient Greek?’ it added suspiciously.

‘Ancient what?’ Racetrack asked nonplussed turning and looking at Skulls who shrugged his shoulders.

There seemed to be some conversation going on at the other end in the unknown language before the voice speaking Old Caprican spoke again. ‘Are you from a lost Star League colony?’ it asked.

‘What the frak is a “Star League”?’ Skulls asked rhetorically. ‘We’re colonials’ he signalled back.

More conversation on the other end was eventually broken by. ‘Follow the...’ the voice began then stopped, ‘metal bird’ it said eventually ‘into dock.’

‘Metal bird?’ Racetrack repeated quizzically.

‘Doesn’t know the word for fighter?’ Skulls suggested. ‘Where are you from?’ he signalled back. If this was a Cylon trick it was sure an interesting one.

‘Family... first... from Taurian Concordat’ the voice replied in halting, uncertain Caprican.

‘Taurian... shit maybe they’re a lost colony who set out from Tauron?’ Racetrack suggested. ‘Where is “Taurian Concordat”?’ she asked, getting into the conversation.

‘Four hundred and fifty light years rim... direction of Terra’ the voice replied. ‘I mean...’ the man continued clearly trying to think of whatever “Terra” translated to from his own language into this weird Old Caprican dialect he was speaking, ‘... Earth’ he said eventually.

Skulls simply looked stunned, for her part his pilot reacted more dramatically, whooping then starting to dance as best she could in her seat. ‘Better to be lucky than good’ she began to chant over and over again as the DRADIS told them company was approaching fast.

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The point of diversion from nBSG is Episode 2:19 Lay down your Burdens (Part I), in this universe "New Caprica" was already populated when the colonials found it by accident. If you're unfamiliar with the Battletech Universe I've put some links on my profile to help you get your bearings.