A common failing among hunters is forgetting that the prey can often turn around and bite.
The Great Colonial Raid.
The briefing room of the Galactica was crowded. There were larger, better facilities, but Bill Adama was adamant that the Galactica was the flagship. Tomas smiled at that, then turned to the single non-human sitting at the table. The cylon was calm, the only sign of life the slowly moving visual scanner. Of course, for all they knew the cylon could be anything from enraged to laughing at them all. Sam Anders and Kara Thrace were there, as two of the only humans to have spent any time on post-Fall Caprica.
The fact that it had submitted to a search that was little short of dismantling it, and was once again secured to a chair with cables that even its strength could not break was a sign of how serious it was…
…or how intent it was on tricking them.
"So let me understand," President Zarek asked. "You are proposing an alliance?"
"No." The voice was emotionless. "My superiors were clear on that. An alliance implies a level of trust that does not— can not exist between our two peoples at this point. We are proposing limited action in concert to achieve a goal that will benefit both our peoples, followed by us going our own way."
"Well enlighten us," the President said coolly.
"The Colonies remain unsettled— numerous resistance groups, both ground and spaceborne have sprung up, especially in the fringe systems."
"We've already decided we cannot aid them. In fact, as I understand it, the number of cylons that have been chasing us are already aiding them." Zarek pointed out.
"Correct. But this has resulted in a decreased amount of fleet assets among the Colonial worlds themselves, as well as reduced defensive deployments. You, after all, do not know where the cylon production infrastructure was located." The cylon tilted its head. "Or it might be more proper to say, you did not know."
"Oh?" Adama asked.
'Do you have a data screen?"
"Yes," Adama said and soon the screen (both electronically and physically disconnected from any other computers) was brought in. It would never be used for anything else. Adama's paranoia ensured that.
"First of all, basestar production nodes and mining sites." A flood of red dots appeared, super imposed upon a star map.
"Lords…" Lee muttered. "There are so many…"
"It was decided to spread out the production areas to avoid the danger of a loss of the type you suffered at Picon," the cylon's voice was calm. "But now many of those sites only have a few raiders protecting them— the assumption of our usurpers is that any attack would fall upon only one or two sites, and they could quickly shift forces to meet such an attack."
"What else do you have?" Adama's voice betrayed nothing.
"Here." The image now displayed Caprica. "Here are the primary internment camps being used for experimentation. The our usurpers failure to successfully breed now fills them with fear and they are focusing on your people as a possible solution. There are as many as 150,000 humans here although my information may be out of date. Perhaps most importantly, of those humans no fewer than 22,000 are captured military personnel. As you can see these camps are mostly on the island chains, here and here, making most forms of escape impossible and there are sufficient base stars in orbit to discourage resistance strikes." The cylon paused. "There may be as many as 500 million or more surviving humans, both in the Colonies proper and the "halo" of systems and asteroid belts around the Colonies. But they are well hidden and it is unlikely that you could avoid warning the organics of your intent were you to try and contact them before a raid. The same applies for the resistance. Like you, they cannot survive an open fight, so they have become…very effective at remaining unseen.
"What do you know about the resistance?" Tigh asked.
"Very little. We are attempting to avoid learning too much as the usurpers would learn it or become aware that not all of their servants are still loyal." The cylon remained silent for a moment. "We do know that they are split into numerous groups that are either working independently or in only loose cooperation and they may have several battlestars of various types."
"Mgh," Tigh's skepticism was clear.
"You said ships…" Tomas said.
"Yes. We have been recovering ships. The organic models originally intended for us to crew them…but due to… problems with the inorganic cylons, the project has been delayed although the ships have already been gathered. There are not many— the resistance managed to claim many and many others were destroyed during the fall. Still, we have managed to gather enough to provide a…substantial gain to your fleet."
"We'd need it if you're thinking that we're about to get an extra 150 thousand people," Zarek muttered.
"Yes. We have managed to gather a number of ships to a single reserve location, at the request of the organic cylons who wish to ensure that they are…safe from potential capture by the resistance. Indeed, the organics have congratulated themselves on their cleverness."
Tomas didn't care that the cylon's voice hadn't changed in tone. He could hear its satisfaction.
"Here is a list of the ships."
"Holy frak," Lee's voice was reverent.
"12 Lybock Bays? Two heavy support ships? A mobile spacedock?" Tomas blinked. "5k easy on each one of the Lybocks... call it 8 if you want a bit of crowding, that's 96 thousand right there, not counting those smaller ships… three bulk freighters… yeah we could rig those up…" Tomas scrolled down the list. "Yeah, this could work."
"You know, I'm more interested in the warships," Tigh muttered. "Three Pockets, a Valiant gunstar, Carrier, and the Zeus." Tigh blinked. "That was in service. I can't believe that Commander Jenson would surrender the Zeus."
"Although the majority of the ships systems were crippled, it did severe damage to the forces sent to capture it," the cylon's voice betrayed nothing. "We eventually boarded it and killed the crew. You will note it's heavily damaged."
"We can fix it, given time. FTL drive and engines still operational?" Tomas asked, looking at the attached picture of the battered ship.
"Yes."
"That's all I need." Tomas muttered. "The rest of the warships were in the reserve fleet, correct?"
"Yes. These are all that remain. Many reserve ships were removed by human resistance when it became clear the battle was lost."
"Thank the Gods," Tigh said.
"Yes, thank God that your people realized the they should withdraw to fight another day," the cylon replied.
"Two strike cruisers, some troop transports… Four more multirole cruisers and…well. 8 Alliance class armored transports. Those will come in very handy."
"Those are?" Secretary Roslin asked.
"Something I'd been trying to get my hands on," Zarek said. At Roslin's raised eyebrows he gestured at Adama. "The Admiral can explain it better."
"During the war we had a problem with supplying the fleet— you couldn't have battlestars escorting cargoships all the time, but without that, the cylons could jump in and kill the cargoships— cruisers just didn't have enough firepower to take down the cylons fast enough." Adama gestured at the information. "Armored Transports were the answer— they're a cross between cruiser and cargo ship— complete with vipers and heavy armor. If the cylons wanted to take them down they had to commit to a fleet action."
"What happened to them?" Roslin asked.
"Expense— in peace time a ship like that can't compete— ignore the weapons and armor, they take 10 times the crew. They were mostly mothballed."
"The resistance managed to secure a number of them, in addition to those pirate and private ships operating on the fringes that were not destroyed," the cylon contributed.
"Yeah." Tomas frowned. "I think we're going to need to talk about this privately."
"Agreed." Adama said. "Wait here."
A few minutes later, they were in another room, after having security officers go over them with anti-bug wands.
"Really don't trust it," Tomas said. "Do you."
"I trust it to be smarter than I think it is," Adama growled. "Opinions."
"Its not offering us ships Bill, it's offering us a fraking fleet," Tigh said.
"And then there are the people," Zarek said. "Even right now, a single plague or disaster could tip us over the level of having a viable population, but an infusion of over 150,000, most of them young?"
"And a chance to hurt the cylons." Tomas shrugged. "But that's the problem, isn't it, Admiral?"
"Yah."
"I don't-" Leeland started speak and then nodded. "Oh."
"Oh's right." Colonel Bransen said. "Everything we want, nicely spread out for us. We had a term for that in the Corps— 'honey trap'. Take an objective the enemy wants, leave it lightly guarded…and have a regiment ready to sweep down on them when they take the bait."
"Why would they?" Zarek asked. "From what you've said the inorganics seem to hate the organic cylons."
"Maybe. Maybe they hate us just as badly," Tomas replied. "Or maybe Aleph never made it to stage one, and that cylon out there is sitting with a head full of false memories— we know that the organics prefer a corkscrew even if a hammer would be just as good."
"You never heard anything about these prison camps, had you, Sam." Laura said.
Sam shook his head. "Talking on the radio was begging for a raider to drop a rocket on you. We didn't know what was going on fifty miles away, never mind half the planet away."
"So you're saying we can't risk it?"
"As much as I'd like to…" Tomas replied to Zarek, "I think-"
"We have to risk it. We don't have a choice." Everyone turned to look at Roslin.
"Madam Secretary," Tomas said to Laura, "the risk would be-"
"Do you know what one of my first acts of president was?" Laura asked.
"I-" Tomas fell silent at the look in Laura's eyes. It was a look he'd seen all to often among the soldiers as they spoke of leaving no, abandoning the Colonies.
"We left thousands of people behind in ships without FTL capability."
"Laura, I was the one who told you we had to do that," Lee said from his position at the table.
"But it was my order Lee," Laura said. "There was a girl, Cami, who was going to go to Caprica City and have chicken pie and then go to sleep. I hope-I pray that nobody told her what was happening, that she didn't know she was about to die. But the others did. You remember Commander? They begged and prayed and cursed…" Laura fell silent for a moment. "And then they died. I would make the same decision again. But it marks you. And this time— we have a choice. We can move the fleet so even if it is a trap the cylons won't be able to strike at the civilians. And we can take measures to minimize our risk— but we just can't run because there might be a risk." She laughed. "I know I'm Secretary of Education now. So let's talk education. What do we want to teach our children? To run, whenever there's a danger, no matter who they leave behind? Or that some things, some people are worth standing up and fighting for." Laura looked around and then blushed slightly. "I'm sorry, she said. We've all got our own stories, I didn't mean to share mine."
"No." Adama rumbled. "You're right. Those people aren't just prisoners. They're our family."
Well that's it, Tomas thought. The prisoners had just moved from problem to family in Adama's book. Now it was just a question of how utterly fraked up those poor cylon son of a bitches were going to get at the end of the day. He looked at Zarek and saw the same thoughts, then Lee, Diana, Bransen… All of them with the same unnerving smile.
Oh yeah you bastards. Kill our people, burn our worlds. Squat on them like flies on a turd? You can do that.
But We can also kick your organic behinds up between your ears.
"So, we should probably start planning the strike," Tomas said. "I think we've got a lot of work to do."
TBC
