Author's note: This is a rewrite of my story "First Contact". I am fixing some continuity errors, spelling mistakes and other discrepancies that were either pointed out by readers or that I have discovered myself. I am also combining and rearranging several chapters, while adding details to some of them and possibly inserting some entirely new chapters. This was originally supposed to be just a fun little short story about first contact between the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and an alien race, but evolved into a huge multi universe crossover. My goal is to publish a chapter on the 11th of each month. This chapter is set directly after the episode "Maelstrom" from Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.

When Starbuck woke up she immediately realized she was no longer inside the cockpit of her Viper. She could hear the noise of machines and the sounds of unfamiliar voices. As she opened her eyes she saw a about a dozen or so weird looking creatures standing around or sitting on various barrels, crates and other containers.

"What kind of frakked up dream is this?" she wondered. The creatures looked like worms standing on two long legs that had multiple joints. They each had a pair of long arms and three additional pairs of smaller arms on their chests. With their black, beady eyes and the two antennas on their heads, the creatures looked like something out of a comic book or a Sci-Fi movie. They all had the same proportions and she couldn't tell them apart. Most of the creatures were drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes; one smoked a joint, another one held a cigar which looked suspiciously like the one she kept in the pocket of her flight suit for whatever the next special occasion may be. She immediately checked if it was still there. It was gone. And so was her pistol.

"Ahhh, sleeping beauty has awoken," one of the aliens said. The others of his kind responded with laughter.

"Where the frak am I?"

"On our ship," one of the worm creatures who was sitting on a beer keg answered.

"We saved you," a second one added.

Starbuck looked around and saw the floor on the other end of the room littered with parts of her Viper. She couldn't believe what she saw. The fighter had been completely dismantled and it seemed like some parts were missing completely. The last thing she remembered before waking up here was that she had been in her Viper chasing a Cylon Raider in the orbit of a gas giant. Then there was a white light... an explosion, then... nothing. Until she woke up... here. Where was "here"?

"What the frak have you guys done to my Viper?" she cursed. She looked around and saw one of the worms working with some sort of tool on what appeared to be the fuel pump of her Viper, next to a half- assembled contraption, built from what appeared to be a mix of parts of her Viper and other parts of undetermined origin.

Starbuck was angry, but she didn't want to provoke the aliens. She didn't know what they were capable of. They might be the only ones who could get her back to Galactica. If any human had messed with her like that, she would have punched him in the face. Hard. The worms looked fragile, but Starbuck knew that looks could be deceiving. Gods know what kind of technology they have.

"My brother is building an espresso machine for us, and he needed some parts," the worm said.

"You are saying your brother is using the fuel pump from my Viper for his espresso

machine?"

"My brother is a very talented engineer," the worm said, lighting the cigar he had pilfered from her pocket.

"One of the best," another worm added.

"Frakkin' great. How am I supposed to get back to the Galactica now?"

"Not our problem!" a chorus of worms answered cheerfully.

Starbuck rummaged around until she found the Viper's radio in the midst of all the parts. She turned it on, glad that it was still in one piece and with a full battery, and tried to contact her ship.

"Galactica, this is Starbuck, do you copy?"

She did not get a response, only static.

"Starbuck? Coffee!" the worms shouted in unison.

"You will make coffee for us!" said the worm that was holding her cigar.

"I will do no such thing. Hey, give that back, you frakkin' worm thing", Starbuck shouted and tried to take the cigar away from the worm.

"Your name is Starbuck. Cousin Neeble says Starbuck's coffee is the best." the worm

said and stuck the cigar in his mouth.

Starbuck was furious, but she couldn't let her temper get the best of her. Over the years it had gotten her into more than enough trouble. This was the first contact with a non-human civilization. These worms were not outright hostile, just... annoying. They were obviously playing with her, but they might have technology or information that could help the Fleet in the fight against the Cylons.

If those frakking worms had not taken her pistol away, she would have shot them first and asked questions later. It had taken her all her willpower not to grab the most annoying one of them and smash him into a bulkhead. They seemed physically weak and she could have easily taken on several of them at a time. A fine mess she had gotten herself into. Cut off from the Fleet, her Viper in pieces. But things could be much worse. At least she didn't have to deal with a bad knee this time. She wondered if Lee was looking for her, or if he thought she was dead.

"By the way, where are you guys from?"

"A small planet orbiting a binary star about 30 light years away," the worm explained. "What about you?"

"I'm from Caprica, but it is gone now..."

"You are not from Earth?" another worm asked confused.

"Caprica? Never heard of." a third worm said.

"A human who is not from Earth?" the first said perplexed.

"You guys know about Earth?"

"Yes. Earth, the home world of the humans, a place where everyone can drink coffee!"

"And smoke cigarettes!"

"And drink booze!"

"A paradise!"

"Has anyone of you ever been to Earth?" Starbuck asked.

"We've just been there. That's where we got all the goodies," one worm said and pointed at the crates stacked against the wall.

"Some of us have relatives who live there permanently," another one said.

"And they live on Earth together with humans in peace?"

"Most humans don't know the non- humans are there. Only the ones in the black suits do. And they make sure that the others don't find out."

"So why can't you drink coffee on your home world?"

"Because the Emperor Worm only allows the nobles to drink coffee."

"The Emperor Worm is large...," one worm shouted.

"...and in charge." another one added.

The Colonials have been able to travel through space at faster than light speed for centuries, but they had never encountered any non-human life. Most people from the Twelve Colonies believed that all human life originated on Kobol and that there was no other intelligent life out there. There were a few people in the Fleet who did believe in non-human life. Most of those people belonged to a group that called itself the Disciples of the Doctor, an underground religious organization that had originated on

Cloud Nine and spread across the other ships over the past two years. Starbuck thought they were a bunch of crazy lunatics, but at least they were not causing any major trouble.

The Colonial Defense Force had of course First Contact protocols, just in case they would encounter any other sentient beings from other worlds. However, instructors at the Colonial Fleet Academy would usually rush through them, push them toward the end of the curriculum, or not teach them at all. In the past few years before the Fall of the Colonies they had not even been part of any exam. Starbuck vaguely remembered that there was such a set of rules for conduct in a first contact situation. But when she had been a cadet she had missed the day the topic was covered, since she had been in detention for pulling some extremely dangerous stunts with her viper during flight training the day before.

Starbuck knew that she was on some sort of ship, likely a freighter, filled with goods these worms had somehow obtained on Earth. She just wanted to get back to the fleet. Let the admiral deal with the worms, or any other aliens they may come across. Maybe she should try to take over the ship. The controls were probably completely foreign, but if she managed to figure out how to fly a Cylon raider, she could probably fly this tub as well. But something inside her kept telling her to calm down.

Before the fall of the Colonies her actions affected only herself. If she frakked up, she got thrown in the brig or got demoted, depending on how bad it was. At worst, it could cost her own life. But now things were different. She, like all the other viper pilots, was responsible for what was left of humanity. A single mistake could mean the extinction of the human race. It was already hard enough protecting the Fleet from the Cylons, they didn't need another enemy.

She was shocked by her own thoughts. Was she getting old? Or was she growing up? As much as she wanted to, she could not let her emotions get the best of herself. She needed to consider the safety of the Fleet. She owed it to Sam, to Lee, to the admiral, and everybody else who had become her family over the past few years. And above all, it was her duty. Now more than ever.

Yes, those worms were true aliens. The ship she was on appeared to be a civilian freighter. But maybe they had a military, a fleet, something that could defeat the Cylons. The thought occurred to her that if she could lead the worm aliens back to the Fleet, they could trade technology and supplies with them. Maybe the worms could introduce Admiral Adama and President Roslin to their leader, this Emperor Worm they had mentioned earlier, and work out an alliance. And the Lords know what else was out there. There might be thousands of different types of aliens. The Colonials just have never encountered any of them. No Colonial ship has ever been more than a few jumps away from the Colonies. Well, there had been some exceptions, but those ships had never been heard from again. There has been no real space exploration program. The job of the military had been to protect the Colonies from the Cylons since the first Cylon war, and before that the Colonies had been too busy fighting each other. Civilian space travel had been limited to mining, cargo hauling, and passenger travel between the Colonies and outposts in the Cyrannus System. None of the neighboring systems contained any habitable planets. Most companies that had been able to afford modern and well-equipped spacecraft had not considered it worth the risk to send an expedition out into the unknown. Adventurers who had tried anyway seldom came back. The exodus of the refugee fleet had been the farthest expedition since the founding of the Colonies.

Some people in the Fleet claim that the Colonials first contact with an alien race had happened two years earlier, in the midst of the presidential election. During that time, a raptor piloted by Margaret Edmundson, callsign Racetrack, had misjumped on a rescue mission to Caprica and accidentally discovered a habitable planet named Magrathea. The planet was inhabited by a man named Slartibartfast. However, Slartibartfast, who had claimed he and his people had designed and built the Twelve Colonies, had looked and acted like a human, albeit like one who had a few screws loose. The general consensus among the people in the fleet was that Slartibartfast was a crew member or a passenger of a ship that had jumped beyond the red line many decades ago and landed on Magrathea. He was considered mentally deranged, a heretic and a blasphemer by most Colonials. Except by a few officers and scientists, who mostly kept their opinion about him to themselves. His story about the origin of Earth and the Twelve Colonies had incensed the religious fundamentalists, who had called for his immediate execution. Lucky for him, he and the planet Magrathea had vanished before that could happen.

Those worms knew about Earth. Starbuck needed to keep talking to them, as much as they irritated her. Maybe they would reveal its location to her.

"So, you said earlier you've been to Earth?" she started.

"Yep, cool place. Spent my vacation there. Lots of fun," one of the worms said, filling

up a large coffee mug.

"What do you want on Earth? You don't strike me as the fun type," the worm who was smoking her cigar said.

Several others laughed. This show of disrespect upset Starbuck and she grabbed the worm by his midsection, lifted him up and yelled: "Not the fun type? You guys kidnapped me, tore my Viper apart, stole my last cigar... Do you want me to show you some fun, you frakking worm thing? Do you want me to show you some fun?" She shook him and kept yelling: "Quit frakking with me, you creepy little freak or your friends can scrape you off the floor!"

She managed to calm down and put the worm alien back on his feet. Then she spotted a clear bottle in one of the crates. The label on the bottle was in a language she did not understand. In symbols she did not understand, either. She pulled it out and unscrewed the top.

"I wouldn't drink that if I were you," a worm alien wearing a sombrero warned.

"Shut the frak up!" she shouted at him.

"Seriously, this stuff is not good for humans to drink. In fact, the humans on Earth use it to clean carpets," the worm said and handed her a different bottle. "Here, try this instead."

She tossed the first bottle on the floor and took the one the alien handed to her. The label of the new bottle said "Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Whiskey" in letters that suggested that at least some of the people on Earth were using the same Alphabet as the Colonials. Among others. She opened the bottle and took a sip.

"What is that place you come from? Caprica?" the worm with the sombrero asked.

Starbuck figured that if she wanted those aliens to be more forthcoming, she had to give them some information first. So she told them about the Twelve Colonies, how they got destroyed by the Cylons, and how a small fleet of survivors escaped and was now searching for Earth.

"Why Earth? Why not settle somewhere else?" one of the worms asked.

"We tried that some time ago. It didn't go over too well"

"Tell us!" the worm begged.

"Yeah, tell us, one of the others said."

"Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!" the whole chorus of worms chanted like a bunch of really annoying children.

Again, Starbuck wished for her pistol. She really wanted to shoot these guys.

"Okay, I make you guys a deal. I'll tell you what happened on New Caprica, or Magrathea, or whatever the frak you want to call that shithole of a planet, and you give me the coordinates of Earth. Deal?" Starbuck suggested and took another sip from the bottle.

"Deal!" the worms shouted in unison.

"I was not there myself at the beginning, and only returned after the planet had already been discovered but the other pilots filled me in after I got back", Starbuck explained.

"Where were you at the time?"

"On a mission on Caprica, picking up survivors. But that's another story."

The worms finally managed to quiet down and Starbuck began to tell them how one of the pilots accidentally discovered the planet Magrathea when a Raptor jumped to the wrong coordinates on a rescue mission to Caprica. She occasionally paused to explain military terms or cultural and historical references.