Reversus Patria
Part: 2
Rating: PG, maybe be PG-13 later on
paring: ensemble cast
Summary: continuation of Faoi Dheireadh

Note: I do want to thank AlbertG, James Axelrad, Moggie, and Rap541 for their expertise. Without their input this story would not be what it is today. Be warned, this takes place sometime near the end of season two. Anything after Epiphanies are conjectures from the author's warped mind. . . This is a sequel of Faoi Dheireadh.

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters are creations of Glen Larson and copywrited by Universal Studios. I make no money off this.

Colonial speech: " "
English speech: ' '

Chapter Two

Cavil woke with a start. Within seconds, he was hit with a searing headache. As he sat up and wiped away the mucus-like liquid, he muttered, "I hate downloading." It was going to take a few hours before his headache finally disappeared. Everything had been going according to plan until that ship had showed up. If anything, he wanted that ship. If not captured, then destroyed.

With a grunt, he rose to his feet and then stepped out of the mucus. The room was dark, mostly to help the newly downloaded Cylons to re-acclimate to their surroundings. Cavil could hear others also in the final stages of their resurrections, but he ignored them. He had more important things to do than to talk with his brothers.

Once he was out in the corridor, another model immediately came up to him. It was number Three. "It has been destroyed."

The news took him aback for a moment. "The ship that we can't seem to stop?"

"Yes," she answered with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. "It's vulnerable while recovering from one firing of its weapon. We were able to locate it at that time and destroy it."

"Had you ever thought to capture it? That way we could figure out why we cannot track it?" When she didn't answer, he stormed past her. He wanted that ship, and now it was destroyed.

"The human, Anders, didn't make it," Three called out before he had made it around a turn in the corridor.

What? Cavil turned around and patiently waited for Three to catch up with him. "Do we have any others that we can send out?" He cringed inwardly at the question. That was something he didn't want the others to realize. He had been spending so much time trying to figure out how to defeat the Terrans, that he forgot about the supply of human prisoners they could use for their own motives. It bothered him that they might run out of the humans.

Three shook her head. "Not here."

"And we can't take the chance of sending one of our own. Those new humans are too smart for their own good," Cavil answered darkly. "We have to do something else." Just as he started to take a step down the corridor, he turned back to Three. "Notify the others."

"Of course," she answered with a wolfish grin.

A short time later, the small group was gathered in one of the brighter chambers.

"What's this about?" a Five asked.

"We need to know exactly what happened," Cavil answered.

"We know that the Terrans aren't completely invincible," Three answered.

"What about the Centurions? Do we have any data from the ones that were destroyed?"

An Eight studied the information that was scrolling across a monitor. "It looks like each one that came into contact with a Terran was shorted out."

"That's obvious, but is there any information we can use?" Three asked eagerly.

Eight held up her hand. "I'm still looking."

"Look faster," Three grumbled.

The Eight slammed her fist down onto the console and ground out, "If you're so eager, then why don't you look for it?"

The Five looked at the two feuding Cylons for a moment before pushing himself between them, "Calm down." Once he got their full attention he continued, "All we know so far is that these Terrans aren't that easy to stop."

The Cylon known to the Colonials as 'Leoben' watched the whole scene with detached amusement. He had seen some surveillance information that told him that Thrace was with the Terrans. Now, all he had to do was to figure out how to get to her. "They should have a weakness. All humans have that."

Eight seemed to suddenly have a change of heart. "The problem is that I can't seem to find it at the moment."

"They could be fighting themselves."

Three's eyes lit up. "We'll have to keep that in mind."

Eight looked back down to the console to begin her search one again. After a few moments she sighed as she looked up, "There's not much there. Only a few fleeting images that were captured by the backup computers before being sent back here." Knowing what they would say, she immediately had the images displayed before them. It was the one from what looked like the command center on one of the Terran ships. It looked like several humans were working frantically over another one.

"What about moving images?" Cavil asked.

"Less than a minute." In a moment the sill image was replaced by the video. The group of humans were carrying one out that was on a stretcher. "I know him," Eight muttered.

"Who is it?" Three demanded.

"Lieutenant Gaeta. He was the tactical officer on the Galactica." Eight shook her head. "What is he doing there?"

"This is proof that the humans are working with the Terrans," Cavil said almost triumphantly. In his mind at that moment the Terrans were deemed to be just like the Colonials. That meant that they also needed to be destroyed.

"We need to send out scouts to see what's going on," Five commented.

Orbach looked at the reports coming in from the scouts. They had found nothing, and that bothered the American greatly. Not only that, but the Aurorians were on the Yorktown,several days back from his position. From the information he had received about what happened to Dolohov he pondered the thought of having the two fleets merged. If they did, they'd have more firepower and have a much better chance going toe-to-toe against a large Cylon fleet.

There was one thing, though. From what he had seen, the Cylons didn't sneak around. They came blasting in like Cavalry. That wasn't the way the men and women operated under him operated. They could easily sneak in, as well as show up, guns blazing. The key was that they needed better sensors. Then they could just sneak in, leave a surprise, and then sneak out. Maybe an ambush or two would be good, he mused.

Before making his decision, he pulled up a starchart that had all the Terran fleets and where they were relative to his position. Tapping a few keys, he had plotted all the new information they had about the unknown area. It wasn't much. They would have to do surveys between skirmishes. Hopefully those skirmishes would be few and far between while they figured out what was out there. For now the Cylons had the upper hand, but they had no idea what they had stirred up. It was a sad fact, but Terra had honed her war skills by fighting herself.

Seeing that they were spread far enough apart, he drafted the order forYorktown's battlegroup to join his smallish fleet. From what he saw, it would be beneficial for both fleets. He addressed the memo to Captain Windsor of the HMS Hood. When it was completed, he powered down the computer and rose from his desk with the new orders and left his office for the flag bridge. He would personally send it with his command code on it to let Stephen know the importance of the new orders.

There was an ulterior motive, as well. Jeremiah wanted the two remaining Aurorian officers near, so he could use their knowledge and information proactively when dealing with the Cylons.

'Admiral on the bridge!' someone called out as he stepped into the flag bridge. He didn't even bother to answer, his sole attention was on the communications officer.

'Lieutenant Willson,' he moved towards the young officer. 'I need you to send this to Captain Windsor of the HMS Hood,' Orback said as he handed the datastick over.

'Yes, sir!' Willson answered smartly as he accepted the order.

As the young American scurried back to his station, Jeremiah let a small smile cross his face. He easily remembered when he was a fresh-face lieutenant just out of the Academy and eager to please his superiors. Now he was the superior, he mused.

With that taken care of, he decided to head back to his office. There was always something he needed to do. It didn't take long to get back to the area he frequented. The HMS Invincible wasn't that big of a carrier. It was considered more of a baby carrier than anything else.

Soon enough, he found himself passing the observation deck on his way back. Making a quick decision, he pushed open the hatch and stepped through. The room was more like an observation lounge than an observation deck. The men and women who manned the carriers back on Terra still called it by its old term: vulture's row. He found it interesting that most of the people stationed on the space carriers called it the same thing. Some things never change, he mused.

Nearing the wall, he looked down onto the deck. The ship's setup was somewhat similar to the ship Mair had commanded but smaller. For a short time he watched the men and women working on the Piranhas, making sure they were in top condition.

'Admiral, sir?' a woman's voice broke through his musing.

'What is it?' He didn't even bother to turn around.

'Yorktown's battlegroup is on its way.'

'Thank you. You're dismissed.'

'Yes, sir,' she answered, quietly closing the door behind him.

Jeremiah stayed there for some time before heading back to his office. With the coming ships he knew his workload would be easily doubled, not that it was already hectic. There was always something to do.

Captain Mair O'Neill, liaison to the Aurorian forces, sighed as she looked over the growing list of things she still had to do. She had thought it difficult to command a ship, but this was completely different. When onboard, she at least had the luxury of the men and women obeying her orders promptly.

There seemed to be requisitions coming out of the whazoo as Jeremiah would say, she mused. The smile faded fairly quickly when it hit her that he wasn't there. All she could do was to pray for his safety, and that he would come back in one piece. It seemed that once a month ships started arriving with wounded Picts. She had to admit, they had been lucky so far. Considering what had happened so far, the death toll was still low.

O'Neill sat back and rubbed her temples. She had too much to do, and not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Not only that, her extremely tight schedule had her meeting with the Aurorians about the Terran vessel that had been retrofitted with one of their precious FTL drives. For the test, there were going to be several engineers that knew how to operate it, that way if anything went wrong, they'd know how to fix it.

'Captain?' a voice came over the speaker. 'The people you were waiting for have arrived.'

'Thank you, I will be right out,' she answered. Before she got up, she rubbed her ever growing stomach. She was already moving, and it made her smile. Mair was somewhat restless, and she could tell her baby was picking up on her mood. 'It's all right,' she mumbled.

Mair got to her feet, she knew it wasn't wise to make them wait much longer. Before she moved from behind her desk, she quickly glanced at who she would be meeting.

"Welcome, Captain Garner." She opened the door wide enough to let him and anyone else he deemed necessary.

"Thank you, Captain," he answered, his voice slightly gruff. For a moment Mair thought he didn't want to be there.

Oh great. O'Neill answered his gruff tone businesslike, "Good. The sooner we get started, the sooner we will finish."

Garner's mood seemed to improve at that possibility. "All right, Captain," his muttering was quickly becoming much less pronounced.

The ship they were headed for was recently pulled from the mothball fleet. Even though she didn't see active duty recently, her maintenance had continued. "We're headed towards one of the older ships in the Terran Navy. For the tests they have given her to us on loan," she explained as they left her office and moved into the corridors.

Garner nodded in agreement. "How far along are they in the instillation?"

"They're just about ready to start the testing. This is why I wanted you here, or at least someone who knows how your FTL drives work."

The hint of praise easily brought a small smile to the engineer's face. "I will make sure the test goes well."

TBC...