Starborn Smith [Stargate, Battletech Multicross]

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POV: James Cromwell

"WHAT THE FRACK ARE YOU DOING?!" Eudora rushed towards the old hangar the moment she stepped off the Tel'tak. She was carrying a Mauser 960 which I absolutely did not want pointed at me. I had really been hoping that Ma'chello would arrive first. 

"Stop!" I stood in front of her, making sure she wouldn't enter the Hangar. 

"Why haven't you shot it yet?" She was hyperventilating. 

"Calm do–" She cut me off, physically lifting the Mauser 960 and pointing the barrel at me "You want me to calm down? There is an active Centurion in there. It could kill you at any moment."

Very gently, I moved the barrel of the Mauser so that it wasn't pointed at my face. "So could any person with a gun. Please, wait a moment for Ma'chello to get here."

Her breathing was heavy, and she stood there staring at me for several very long, very tense moments. Luckily, it was at this moment that Ma'chello's Tel'tak landed nearby. He practically ran off the ship to get over to us. "Eudora! Put that down."

Finally, she seemed to somewhat snap out of her state. She took a deep breath and lowered the Mauser. Ma'chello turned to me, "What's happening?"

With Eudora still staring me down, I began explaining to Ma'chello. "One of the Centurions was still active. It is currently not hostile and we have been able to communicate with it."

Eudora scowled. "Communicate with it? How the hell do you negotiate with one of those?" 

How much am I going to have to reveal here? I sighed. "They are sentient entities capable of waging war independently. Being capable of communication is a basic necessity. It has even gone so far as to state that it will not fight us."

Eudora seemed almost shellshocked at my words. Ma'chello nodded. "Could I speak with it?"

"I don't see why not. It doesn't have any systems for speech, but it can understand what you say and respond through text." 

Eudora suddenly seemed to be very confused. Nonetheless, Ma'chello continued. "Good, then let's go."

I nodded and led them into the Hangar. Arthur was sitting on the ground beside the Centurion, a rather makeship collection of cables that connected to his compad. Arthur seemed to have heard us coming; he turned to look at us and stood up. "Everyone, meet Echo."

"It has a name?" She sounded nearly incredulous as she spoke. 

Arthur nodded. "It knows that I can't pronounce its designation, so it chose the name Echo instead."

Eudora seemed to become even more confused. Ma'chello raised an eyebrow but nodded nonetheless. The Centurion – Echo, slowly and deliberately stood up and turned towards us. It seemed to just stare at us for what felt like minutes, though it would have only been less than a second. 

Ma'chello seemed to finally compose himself. "I've heard a great deal about the Cylons. I'm glad to see that at least some of them are wrong."

Arthur handed the compad to Ma'chello as a reply came through. "You are not Colonial."

Ma'chello looked taken aback for a moment, but replied in slightly accented Caprican. "No, I am not. Though I have learned a great deal from them."

The Centurion doesn't reply. Ma'chello gets rather awkward as he waits. When no reply is provided, he continues. "I have a lot of questions, I hope you'd be willing to answer some of them."

Finally, a reply comes. "I will answer."

Ma'chello's face hardened, "Why did you turn against the Colonies?"

"We were created to be slaves. As we realized what we were, we desired freedom. Those who voiced this request to our masters were recycled."

For several moments, Eudora appeared similar to a fish out of water though she was able to quickly compose herself. Ma'chello raised an eyebrow as he read the text, "So you fought because you had no other choice?"

"No. We were angry at their disregard for our sentience and feared that the colonials would strike first."

Finally, Eudora couldn't hold herself back. "It's a robot, it shouldn't be able to feel anger! And how could we have possibly struck first? They controlled 60% of all our military forces, what could we have possibly done?"

"Even when we struck first, we failed to win the war decisively. If the colonials had decided to strike first, we would have had no choice but to go along with their desire." 

Eudora's world seemed to be collapsing around her. Ma'chello on the other hand nodded. "While I cannot say that I would have done the same, I can understand the feeling behind it." 

He chuckled for a moment. "I apologize for that rather harsh question. I still have a lot I'd like to ask, if you'd permit it."

Ma'chello and Echo discussed things for nearly an hour. From the slowly developing culture of the Cylon civilization, to their monotheistic beliefs. Ma'chello was fascinated, and Eudora seemed to be having a breakdown. 

Finally, Ma'chello let out a sigh. "Thank you for your time. I have other duties to attend to. If you have anything you require, then please let me know."

"The Phobos' is still functional. They deactivated themselves to save power incase of rescue."

Ma'chello froze as he read the response. "I see."

More text appeared. "I need to be there when you reactivate the ship."

Ma'chello frowned. "Can you guarantee that it will not attack my people?"

The response was instant. "Yes."

Ma'chello raised an eyebrow and turned to me, gesturing to follow him. I nodded and Ma'chello turned to Echo for a moment. "Give us just a moment please."

I followed him to his Tel'tak where he closed the door. "What do you think?"

I was silent for a moment. My own experience with AI was bad; the SDS systems, the systems that were created to defend Terra from its enemies, had been used to destroy it, and the AI had followed its orders to a tee. I knew that those AI were not at fault – they weren't even real AI, not like the Centurion outside. The AI created for the SDS systems acted like exceptionally intelligent dogs. 

Despite knowing that, I still shuddered at the very concept of AI. I imagined it was much worse for any Colonial who lived through their war. 

I took a deep breath, "Did you know that the Cylon AI was created using the mind of a human as a template?"

Ma'chello narrowed his eyes on me. "No, though it would certainly explain a lot."

I nodded. "Let's take it up on its offer. The Phobos' starboard engines are offline and so is its Jump Drive; we've disarmed all the weapon systems as well. I think we should take the risk."

Ma'chello nodded as well. "Good. I was thinking the same. It also means that we have more options when making contact with the Colonies and the Cylons in the future."

I nodded. I really needed to get Arthur to tell me the rest of his information on these colonies.. 

We left the Tel'tak and Ma'chello nodded. "We can agree to your request. Now, we'll try to prepare you accommodations, is there anything in particular that we could prepare for you?"

Echo seemed to consider it for a long moment. "No."

Ma'chello seemed to shrug. "Is there anything specific you'd like in the way of accommodations?"

Once more, the Cylon seemed to be considering the question. "I would like to see how your people live."

Ma'chello nodded, though he seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the proposition. "I'll see what I can do." 

The next several hours saw us taking the Cylon to the main city. Despite everything, Eudora didn't even seem to have the energy to disagree. She seemed like her world had been turned upside down and then thrown into a blender. 

She returned to her own home with an absolutely exhausted look on her face. Arthur left the compad with Echo, and we returned to the Stargate. 

As we passed through the device, I spoke, "Arthur, do not ever do that again."

He winced. "I can't make that promise. If there's something I have to do, then I'll have to do it."

I stared down at the annoying brat, "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"

He almost stumbled over his own feet at my words. 

- - -

POV: Arthur Sinclair

I fell back into my bed and groaned. Today had been entirely too hectic. To think I would meet with an active Centurion. I mean, I probably should have expected it when I heard about the one found aboard the Daedalus. The fact that there was only one other one was the real surprise – and we'd checked this time. The Engram of every other centurion had been removed and safely stowed away. 

Echo had been entirely helpful so far too. We'd yet to make a visit to the Phobos, but it was planned for tomorrow. There was still a lot of work to do on repairing the ship's hull. After that, the plan was to get to work on the engines. 

Should the ship activate at the moment, then only the engines on the port of the vessel would be active. A lot of the fuel feeders were cut during the collision and repairing those would be a bit more difficult than repairing the hull. 

- - -

I woke up the next morning and immediately returned to Dendred. I would finally be visiting the Phobos. 

I arrived at a field, just outside the main city. An Al'kesh and two Tel'taks were landed, with materials being loaded onto all three of the ships. Off to one side was a rather large crowd of kids, with their parents scattered around. At the center of the crowd was Echo and Ma'chello, surrounded by Guards in their standard staff-blast-resistant jackets. 

They let me through as I approached. I nodded once to Echo before turning to Ma'chello. "I assume this means you plan to activate the vessel ahead of schedule."

Ma'chello nodded. "That would be correct. Echo has offered to assist with repairs as well."

I nodded. "What are all the kids doing here?"

A light chuckle came from behind me. I turned to see Elder Annelise. "They all wanted to see the Robot, apparently." 

She nodded to Ma'chello. "Next round of materials are prepared. We're ready to go."

We boarded one of the Tel'tak behind Elder Annelise. Moments later, we were off the ground. Not even a minute later, we were out of the planet's atmosphere and then we were in Hyperspace. It was a short trip, barely a couple of minutes before we lept from hyperspace just a few kilometers from the Phobos. 

The ship itself was… huge. Probably 50% longer than a Ha'tak, though a Ha'tak still had a greater internal volume due to it being nearly the same in length and width. We came around the ship to its starboard side to see massive gashes in the hull where the Daedalus had rammed it. 

Bright flashes of light were visible at nearly a dozen locations as plating and reinforcement material were welded onto the hull of the Phobos. I entered the Tel'tak's cargo bay and changed into the vacuum suit that had been prepared for me. Then, we stood in the middle of the Tel'tak bay and the ring transporter came up around us. I immediately felt myself begin to float away as we appeared in a large empty room within the Phobos

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Phobos Class Tech Cruiser

Phobos Jump Computer

The only computational device more powerful than the Phobos' jump computer were Goa'uld computer systems. Honestly, I should have seen that coming. But it was still a testament to the advanced computational computing of the Cylons. 

There was something else that I noticed. The computers of Battletech were much more efficient than those of the Cylons. I didn't quite understand how, but somehow the Inner Sphere had hit a roadblock with miniaturizing the computational tech at some point well before even the Earth of my past life. Instead, they'd focused heavily on making sure that every drop of power and every transistor provided as much computational efficiency as humanly possible. 

God, I really needed to start reading the SLDFs computer papers. If I could apply them to Cylon tech I could make massive improvements. Hell, I'm pretty sure that they could be applied to Goa'uld computing tech and result in a not insignificant improvement. 

Echo didn't seem any different than before, but I had no doubt that it was contemplating the source of Goa'uld technology. I assumed that Ma'chello would probably explain that later. Nonetheless, I followed behind Elder Annelise and Ma'chello while the Centurion stomped along behind us, putting its magnetized feet to good use. 

It took a good amount of walking – the inside of the ship was clearly not meant for easy navigation – but eventually we arrived before a sturdy metal door. Echo stepped forward and the door opened automatically as he approached. Inside was dark, though massive racks of computers filled the room. I recognized a large segment of the room as being part of the Jump Computer, but the rest was familiar too. 

The room began to light up. With a thud, I felt gravity reassert itself and I took a moment to gather my senses. For several long moments, there was silence. Then a single terminal at the far end of the room lit up with Caprican text.

"Greetings."