Happened Before and Again

Dana Bell

My directive stood. I was to protect Atlantis at all costs.

Yet, as the humans poured through the gate from the one point of allowed entry, Earth, I seriously thought of stopping them. After all, I had been alone here for…How long have I been here? I'm really not sure.

Oh, there's been a whisper now and again. Like a creeping nightmare as the energy drained out of the crystals, reminding me of the first time I died. Then came the surge and my dreams - or are they memories? - returned.

They stood in the control room, amazed. It didn't take them long to figure out the city was submerged. They spread out like worker ants, only to scurry back as the power failed.

It was almost fun to flip the switch, freeing the city from its anchor. Of course, I let them panic first. Wonder what they were going to do and if they'd all drown, like they did the first time.

The first time? Now why would I remember that?

I did eventually find the sleepe,r like they did. It must have been strange to Dr. Weir to find a very old version of herself. To hear the fantastic story of the first arrival, how they all died, how she ended up in the past and the sacrifice she made for them all.

It wasn't the last. But I won't go into detail. I shiver when I think of it. I wonder if I would have had that kind of courage?

For five years, I watched them as they struggled with each other, with native humans and with the deadly Wraith.

When they took me from my home in the Pegasus galaxy, there was a brief moment I considered protesting. After all, I had, or rather the city had, been put there for a reason.

As we traveled I let myself remember.

I'd once been considered dangerous. Or so many had thought. They'd accused me of a being a terrorist.

I wasn't, really. I'd just wanted a new family on Gemenon. One where I would be loved.

Little did I understand until almost too late my parents had truly loved me. What they did to bring me back proved that. They just hadn't understood the final terrible price we would all pay.

Damn Clarice. She never was one to listen.

And the Blessed Mother had told her to leave us alone.

I wonder what happened to Clarice when Lacy found out?

*giggle*

No idea how long it was before I woke up. Even virtual Caprica City was gone. I stood in barren and dazzling white walls. I called out but no one answered.

I was alone.

It was hell. If I actually believed in hell.

I wanted to escape but there was no where to go.

My next awareness was a sense of motion. I was traveling along light beams and I emerged in a great ship. I couldn't go too many places. None of the computer boards were connected in the battlestar. Galactica, I think it was.

It was very boring.

However, I learned my father's creations were abhorred creations. Evidently, there had been a war. Wonder how I missed it? And now another. The Colonies had been nuked and destroyed.

I heard snatches of what was going on. Bill Adama was the commander. I wonder if he was related to Tamara? Come to think of it, what had happened to her? We'd had such fun together.

Adama got shot by a human cylon. Boomer I think they called her.

That made me laugh. I'd been the first human cylon, so I don't know why they're all so shocked. Oh, wait. My father's lab had been destroyed when Clarice blew up the house.

How could I have forgotten that?

I miss my parents. Their deaths are a knife in my heart. If I physically had one.

Did I doze again? I don't remember.

I wondered what all that human/cylon stuff on New Caprica had been about. Nasty place. I don't know why they wanted to stay there.

Adama freed the humans and the fleet continued on its journey.

Then Starbuck disappeared. They thought she'd died. Then she came back.

Come on. Really? No one knew she was a ghost?

She had an obsession with the music. The tune she kept trying to remember got on my nerves. She finally translated it into coordinates. It led them to a dank little planet in a forgotten spot no one would ever bother to visit.

It was pretty though. All blue with wispy white clouds, green and brown land.

What would it have been like to have walked on its surface?

Would the grass have squished between my toes? Or the water swirled around my legs all wet and cold. I can almost feel the wind on my face, like my mother's gentle caress.

The survivors, human and cylon, all left. The fleet was a silen,t scary place with only one barely-living being left. His final instructions - fly all the ships into the sun.

I wondered what it would be like to really die.

I prepared to be reunited with my parents and hoped their beliefs in the gods did not offend the one god I believed in.

It was then I noticed the city.

Yep. That's right. A city.

It had gleaming spires and shimmered in space.

Curious, I reached out to it.

It understood I was human, or at least had once been. It embraced me and, somehow, we were united. I ended up in the storage banks.

I listened to the humans who walked its marble halls. I didn't understand their language, nor did I know from whence they'd come.

Had they once been the Lords of Kobol I'd grown up hearing stories about?

The flight was long and cold. When at long last the city settled on a cool ocean, I felt like I had come home. My parents house had been by a lake. I remember playing on the beaches as a child. I think we had picnics. I'm not sure. It was so long ago.

I thought I was drowning when they submerged the city beneath the water. I know they did it to protect themselves from the Wraith. Loathsome creatures. They ate you, or at least your energy. I'd seen more than one dried up body.

I went to sleep again as Dr. Weir put the city to bed.

Many years later, I sat in a cold bay on that strange world Starbuck found, outside a small town no one ever visited. Yes, it's the same place. Don't ask me how I knew. I just did.

I'm listened to the world panic as invaders destroyed their great cities. There were pleas to surrender. They went unheard. Screams as the children were taken, to suffer a fate far worse than death.

I sympathized. My father had done that to me as well. I'd been trapped in the creation he'd made. Yuck! No wonder I freed myself. Me. Terrified of fire.

This new war was the cylon/human battle all over again, except the invaders were not the creations of man. They were real aliens.

Too bad those who knew about such monsters had kept the information to themselves. Maybe Earth would have been more prepared.

The sounds of the dying had been horrible.

I'd thought about lifting off to the freedom of the stars, yet I sensed I would be needed. I stay grounded, hoping the invaders wouldn't find me. I had no desire to end up so much rubble at the bottom of this cold, unwelcoming bay.

Many I knew came aboard again. Colonel John Sheppard. Dr. Rodney McKay. General Jack O'Neill. Dr. Daniel Jackson. So many others.

There were a few ships in orbit as well. The General Hammond. The Deadalus.

When I did lift off, it was because of the screams I heard in South Carolina. There were humans in Charleston and they needed my help.

I laughed at the surprised faces. There had been no order given.

When we arrived, the fighters were trying to protect the civilians. They ran in many directions as blasts shattered buildings. A bus exploded.

Angry I fired several of my weapons.

Want to talk about surprised!

"Drop the shield," General O'Neill ordered.

They obeyed, but their expressions told me they thought he was crazy.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" The general stood glaring at them. "Get the survivors to safety!"

Colonel Sheppard and his men did what they were told. I felt the muddy and weary feet on the city's decks.

When they finished boarding, I enveloped the city, the shield feeling like a warm shawl, and jumped to the stars.

The leader of one of the groups said, "I'm Captain Weaver."

General O'Neill replied. "Welcome aboard."

Then began the boring explanations, so I tuned them out and made sure the waiting ships docked with Atlantis. Only then did I activate the drive. I carried us far, far away from the defeated Earth.

But where to go?

I ignored the humans trying to regain control. I would protect them. That was my mandate.

I pondered where I could take them.

The Pegasus galaxy was filled with deadly Wraith.

The Milky Way galaxy had threats of its own and the humans from the SGC had made many enemies.

With a smile, I went to the one place I was certain no one would find them. Where they'd be safe.

Yep. That's right. I returned to the Colonies.

Now, I'm sure many would think the Cylons still ruled there. But it had been so long and I knew their Resurrection ship had been destroyed. They couldn't keep coming back. They couldn't reproduce, either.

Sure enough, the Twelve Worlds were empty. They'd recovered from the horrible war so long ago and were new again.

I landed Atlantis in Carpica's ocean, so near where I had grown up. My passengers took the jumpers to explore, and soon, they were settled there. Some even lived in the city. At least for a short while.

Time began to crawl and I fell asleep again.

I sensed the city crack and crumble. The tall towers fell into the water. Once again, it sank beneath the waves, its legends forever a part of human history.

I awoke, terrified, when the attack began. I found myself reaching out, traveling

down the light corridors, into a computer aboard a new battlestar. The only one that survived the Cylon treachery. The Galactica.

Her commander was Adama.

Coincidence I wondered?

And had I heard correctly? They were going to fight back when they found Earth?

Where have I heard that before?

Oh, yes. Bill Adama had said it.

Vaguely, I remembered something in the Book of the Word. What had happened once would happen again.

I'd witnessed it.

Me. Zoe Graystone.

Originally published in Diamonds and Dynamite 1, August 2012.