TWO

The male announcer's voice on the wireless was upbeat and excited. "…..and we'll have more local and system-wide sports results at the top of the hour. Now here's our own Wendy Wilcox with how our day's weather is shaping up in Spaceport City and other points of interest with All Around Aerilon…Wendy!"

The female announcer quickly chimed in. She too, was excited about the previous evening's ball scores, and the weather, as pleasant as it was, was just going to have to take a back seat for a few seconds. "Thanks, Bill! That must have been a truly disappointing loss for the Caprica Seabucks last night, but what can I say? GO AERILON! Coach Mark Mayville was taking some hard hits of his own about his opening string choices, but I dare say all of his critics are ducking for cover this morning!"

The male announcer was just nodding in agreement until he remembered they were doing the wireless show, not television, and all of his 'body language' cues were worthless at the moment. Blushing, he rushed to fill the silent signal. "So true, Wendy…But the Lords of Kobol know that every last man and woman on that team was ready to do what needed to be done to win, and by golly, win is what they did!" Now, more than ever, he was grateful that this wasn't television.

"Well, Aerilonians" continued the female announcer, "last night's game may have been a disappointment for our brethren on Caprica and the Seabucks especially, but if you're in the city for tonight's fireworks, you're in for one truly spectacular day AND night! We awoke to an absolutely cloudless day with temperatures that will climb to an all-day, shirt-sleeve comfortable high of twenty nine. There's going to be a southwest breeze coming over the Greater Aerilonian Ocean into Spaceport City most of today making sea-states for you beach goers a fantastic three to six…Just enough for you waveboarders to find something to do, yet still calm enough right at the water's edge to let granny and the kiddies wade in for a great time. This evening's sunset will come at 18:35 with those breezes calming down as the sun sets. The fireworks start at precisely 20:00, so have those picnic dinners and lawn chairs ready for one light show you'll never forget!"

At that, GaeLynn Adama switched the wireless off and took her last bite of a doughnut she'd been nursing for the last three hours. She took one more nibble, then turned her nose up at the remnants of the drying confection. She wrapped the rest in a piece of paper towel and sent it on its final journey…into the waste can at the end of the table, courtesy of a well aimed and enthusiastic overhand toss. The wasted morsel flew through the air and went squarely into the basket. "Yeah…nothing but net!' she said to herself. Impressed with her own latent Pyramid skills, she snatched another paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, dampened it, and then wiped the sticky remnants of sweetness from her fingers. She then paused for a moment to adjust her skirt and blouse in the mirror, and quickly ran her fingers through her hair, brushing her bangs back above her eyes. Satisfied with her quick freshen-up, GaeLynn Adama, Aerospace Traffic Controller, turned and pushed her way through the swinging doors into the darkened but bustling array of DRADIS consoles that made up the bulk of Aerilon Approach Control.

GaeLynn stopped for a moment, allowing her eyes to re-adjust to the low ambient light. Gradually, the finer details of the Center became clear to her once again, and she took in all of the sights and sounds of the facility around her. No matter how many times she stood here, she was always in awe of the workings of the Approach Center. The chaotic hum of the dozens of voices and sounds throughout the Center often left visitors dazed and confused, but it all made sense to her. It was as if she were born to it. The DRADIS sweeps, the alert tones, even the occasional outburst from one of her colleagues as a ship or plane veered from its ordered course…It all seemed to resonate within her. And what awed her most of all was that she was a living, breathing part of all of this technology. It was as if she could feel the pulsing, the literal ebb and flow of traffic as it passed through Aerilonian space. This was something that she was a part of. It was home.

Her eyes adapted quickly to the low light and she turned and headed down the row of DRADIS stations to her own. No doubt the specialist who relieved her for a break would be wondering if she'd taken a powder and left him hanging. It wouldn't be the first time a traffic controller just threw up their hands and walked away. But not GaeLynn Adama. She'd do this for nothing more than room and board if she had to. This was where she belonged.

Seeing the young controller in the reflection on the screen in front of him, the DRADIS specialist occupying her station pushed back from the work station, arose and turned to meet her as she approached.

"Well, I hope you'll remember this! I cleaned all of them up for you except for one, the Breaker Castle. She's at the outer marker of the Aerilon Three approach. She's coming down with her butt on fire. Looks like a clean entry, but it looks like she caught some translight flotsam following her in. Ought to dissipate before they get back into comms, though. Enjoy!"

Adama took the relief controller's hand and shook it briefly but firmly. Her father taught her the importance of a good handshake, and she'd mastered it well. "Thanks, Tony…I have the watch, you are relieved" she said. With that, the svelte, dark skinned beauty took her seat at the DRADIS console, adjusted her seat and pulled herself into the station. She took the connector-end of the headset that had been hanging around her neck and plugged it into the headphone jack over her head. Her right foot found the wireless transmit switch and she tapped it twice as she affixed the earphones to her head. She then replaced the headset to its rightful perch and heard the reassuring 'click click' of the transmitter as her foot tapped the switch. She was ready.

Adama watched the Breaker Castle's DRADIS target switch from "ID CONFIRMED" to "ID LOCK LOST" as it entered the atmosphere. DRADIS would continue to watch the target, of course, however the ID mode was inoperative while the ship was surrounded by the ionized gasses of aerobraking re-entry. Mankind had mastered the speed of light, but some laws of nature couldn't be overcome, and trying to transmit through ionized gas was one of them.

Adama moved her hand to the skew ball next to her console and placed the cursor over the spot where she knew a ship the size of the Breaker Castle should break out of blackout. Few were the targets that she missed by more than the width of one cursor blink.

The young controller allowed herself to slump back in her seat for a moment as she took a long draw from the water bottle she carried with her. Today was her turn in the Deep Space Approach Control, or D-SAC for short. Just a year out of Aerospace Traffic Control School, Adama almost hated this station. Only twenty-three years old, she was, as her supervisor opined, "full of piss and vinegar". When doing local air traffic control in Center, she'd often find herself at the edge of her seat soaking wet from perspiration and her heart racing so hard her tunic would rise and fall with it, but she absolutely loved it. She thrived on the staccato rate of wireless transmissions, air traffic coming and going, even the occasional wayward civil aviator…D-SAC didn't provide that kind of adrenaline rush. She often found herself looking for opportunities to trade places with her colleagues that were anxious to do just the opposite and most were glad to hand off the local stations for the slower deep space seat.

Most of the Center veterans looked forward to the break, too. ASTC controllers had one of the largest burnout rates of any other occupation on Aerilon but that didn't faze GaeLynn Adama. She welcomed the challenge.

Still, air traffic control wasn't her first choice, and everyone knew it. GaeLynn had applied to the Colonial Fleet to be a Viper pilot. After all, with her surname, Colonial service was almost a DNA trait. Her only uncle, Bill, (and a half uncle at that…), was a Battlestar commander. His son, Lee, was a well-known Viper jockey. Her own parents had served in the Colonial Forces as her younger brother did now. Ironically, only two generations ago it was almost unheard of for more than one Tauron in any family to serve in any Colonial government service, let alone the Armed Forces. But in that time, the name "Adama" became almost revered in the Forces. But an irregular heartbeat and poor vision nipped GaeLynn's military aspirations in the bud. At least she was able to obtain her civil aviator's permit and had found a niche at ASTC. She'd never command a Battlestar, but she sure could tell one where to go!

As the Breaker Castle's target continued down the track, the primary targets behind it continued to follow. Adama scooted back to the edge of her chair and laid in the archive of the Breaker Castle's entry from Point Daggit and saw that the targets were still exactly 300 kilometers behind the BeeCee. Strange that, she thought. In her short tenure at Aerilon Center, GaeLynn had seen several instances of ships dragging space debris with them as the residual magnetic forces around ships tended to pull the iron-laden asteroids along.

Something didn't feel right this time, though. A story her Uncle Bill had told her once of a devious enemy echoed in her mind, but she didn't remember why. Something just wasn't…right.

Translight debris would usually dissipate within a couple of hundred clicks as the residual magnetic field weakened and the ship drove out of the field.

These were keeping pace.

GaeLynn keyed her intercom. "Watch Supervisor to D-SAC, please…". She'd probably get a ribbing for reporting this, however better a ribbing by the Super than a scolding by Center Actual if she allowed space junk of any appreciable mass to hit the atmosphere unannounced.

Eddie Welch was the Watch Supervisor at Aerilon Center. To be truthful, although he didn't plan it that way, he was a lifer here. Like GaeLynn, he'd applied to the Colonial Forces to fly but got snipped at Medical due to his own health issues. Five years into his new career at ASTC he was offered an opportunity to undergo surgery that could potentially put him into the cockpit, but by now he'd settled into a predictable and secure position. The coffee was plentiful, the hours manageable and no one shot at you. What was not to like?

"What's up, Adama?" His tone was almost satirical as he plugged his headset into the headphone jack next to GaeLynn's.

"Take a look here, Eddie…" She tapped at the dim but persistent primary targets on her screen with her fingertips. The click of her fingernails on the monitor screen distracted Welch's attention momentarily.

"The Breaker Castle is doing an aerobraking approach to the Spaceport. But this stuff behind them has me worried, though…" She pointed out Breaker Castle's avatar and showed him the debris traces she was tracking.

Welch bent over the screen for a closer look, but if the truth be known, the "closer look" he was after was of his young charge in the chair beside him. As much as he loved his job, it certainly didn't offer too many opportunities to socialize, and certainly not with a woman as attractive and comely as GaeLynn

Adama.. He granted himself a brief moment to allow his eyes to wander, his mind diverting to Adama's soft black hair and gentle features. If she was wearing any makeup, he couldn't tell, but then makeup would probably only ruin the artistic work that nature had put into making her the beauty that she was.

The watch supervisor's mind swam in the warmth of a lazy day-dream for a moment. As he gazed over the younger specialist's shoulder, he couldn't help but wonder if, under the right circumstances, he might find himself arm-in-arm with this Tauran beauty. Certainly, it wouldn't hurt to ask her out for dinner one evening. What was the worst thing that could happen? She could say no? It wasn't as if she would be the first woman to tell him that. Certainly he'd been dismissed for lesser impositions!

Welch was jerked back into reality when he realized that Adama was turning her head towards him, and he diverted his attention back to the DRADIS screen lest his indiscretion be exposed. For a moment, however fleeting, he was sure that he'd gazed upon an angel. Perhaps one day he'd find the courage to ask her out, but right now wasn't that moment. For a brief second he cursed himself for both his wandering mind and for his failures with women. How could a guy who controls millions of tons of air traffic with such cool professionalism wilt so easily at the thought of just asking another human to have dinner with him? Sheeesh.

Welch quickly reached up to the skew-ball with his right hand and just as quickly re-centered the target cursor over the primary traces and hit the 'update' button. In that moment, what he saw sent an ice-cold shock down his spine. The return to reality was abrupt and painful. Forgotten was the lass in the chair next to him. For in that second, he couldn't believe what he was seeing, and in that second, he froze.

This "debris" was now accelerating.

Instinctively he reached up to the intercom panel and switched from "Civil Net" to "Combat Net".

Eddie Welch suddenly realized that there were painful goose bumps running up and down his arms and down his spine. Wherever his mind had roamed to only a moment ago, he suddenly felt dread. "Combat Control, this is Aerilon Supervisor…" he said in a steady but shaky voice that was almost an octave above his normal tone. "Please verify unidentified primary targets on Aerilon Three Approach drafting the Breaker Castle's track, break…" Welch's normally calm, professional, on-the-air monotone suddenly had a marked sense of urgency and impatience to it. Adama noted Eddie's sudden use of the military "break" at the end of the transmission, and she looked up at him with trepidation. Welch stood erect and glanced down the row of other controllers towards the defense operator's station. He could see them switching their screens to see what Welch and Adama had been watching on theirs.

That's when Adama realized that the "debris" she'd been looking at wasn't debris after all. In that terrifying instant, a sense of horrifying terror gripped her like a cold steel glove in her gut.

They were spacecraft. And they weren't Colonial.

The Combat Controller didn't even take the time to respond to Welch directly. He no sooner switched from his screen to the Aerilon Three approach that he realized what was going on. The targets were hardly benign trash. Far from it.

Eddie saw the military controller open the emergency panel above his own console and reach for the red "SCRAMBLE" button. And just as the controller lifted the switch safeguard, the unthinkable happened…

The lights went out.

In an instant, the entire center was as dark as a tomb. Even without the benefit of the all-points intercom, there were now panicked voices from every corner, each operator calling out to the others in fear and confusion, and the din rose by the second.

"EMERGENCY POWER NOW!" bellowed the military controller. "Everyone calm down!" chided the watch officer. "Stay your stations! You've drilled this before!" he barked in the darkness.

Eddie Welch had already reached for the "emergency power" button on the D-SAC console, although the automatic generators should have already kicked in. They were controlled by the defense mainframe computer to respond automatically. They hadn't. Welch knew that it only took three seconds for the power bus to completely switch over in such a case, but only the battery-supplied safety lights were now switching on, and it was creating an eerie, almost ghost-like scene in the center. Each station had it's own battery back-up and Welch had D-SAC up thirty seconds after the power went out. But those thirty seconds were all that the incoming ships had needed, unknown to Eddie.

As Adama's screen came back on, she saw the Breaker Castle's avatar. The BeeCee was still in "ID LOCK LOST" but was almost to the cursor spot marking the expected end of her communications blackout. The "debris" was now well ahead of the BeeCee, however, and almost upon Aerilon Center. Only now there were well over one hundred well defined primary targets and dozens more out at Point Daggit. None were showing Colonial transponders. Either they must have done a short FTL jump to travel that far that fast, or these were a new combat craft that the Colonials had never seen before. In either case, they were in trouble, and Eddie knew it.

The Combat Controller reached up to his own intercom panel and keyed his mike on "all stations".

"THIS IS AERILON COMBAT. SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE FACILITY! CONSIDER THE UNIDENTIFIED TARGETS ON AERILON THREE APPROACH AS HOSTILE, I SAY AGAIN HOSTILE! ALERT VIPERS SCRAMBLE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I SAY AGAIN, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Welch and Adama could hear the Combat Controller, only four station positions away, barking the orders into the voice powered telephone's public address system and to the Colonial Forces Base only a few kilometers away. As the emergency lights obtained full brilliance, the cacophony of voices in the center abated slightly as each station came back on line.

But the Combat Controller's last words "…this is not a drill" resonated in GaeLynn's ears and sent a shiver down her spine. She'd done some dumb, even stupid things in her life, but she'd never felt fear…until now.

What a moment ago seemed like a ghost on the DRADIS screen was now unfolding into an unfathomable horror…it seemed like a nightmare from which she was unable to awaken. GaeLynn was terrified. The fear gripped her and wouldn't let her move. It was as if icy cold water had been poured down her spine and into her veins and frozen her in place. They were about to be attacked by an enemy unseen by her generation. The Cylons were an enemy her parents and grandparents knew. To her, the Cylons were just the topic of war stories told by graying Veterans trying to out-tell each other for another cold beer. What did she know of Cylons? What did the Cylons know of her?

Welch glanced back to Adama's screen. He knew it would take two minutes for the pilots to man-up and get the Ready Alert birds turning. Another thirty seconds to get skids-up, and a minute or two to get overhead. On a normal day, the alert Vipers could be in the air and half way to Azur'a before any intruder could get within Azur'a's orbit.

These intruders were already in the atmosphere!

Even though Aerilon Center was deep under ground, Adama could hear muted thuds begin to shake the ceiling over her head. The distant rumbling noise was followed by the abrupt swaying of light fixtures and rattling of metal cabinets. A third rumble struck and loose furniture began to cast about the open spaces of the center. There was a scream as one of the controllers was knocked to the floor by flying debris. It startled Adama out of her near-trancelike fear.

Her mind raced. She remembered the drills of her childhood, when the fear of the Cylons returning was still a fresh wound on her parent's minds. Many a Colonial child grew up in fear of 'the bombs' told to them by their parents or nannies. But that was long ago and GaeLynn's generation never once saw a real Cylon.

Now they were here, and they weren't coming peacefully.

Could it be? No! They couldn't be! The Colonial Fleet would never let anyone get that close! She had never heard bombs exploding before except in movies, and these didn't sound anything like those. Maybe they were duds? Then she remembered…She was under 150 meters of dirt and that dirt covered another ten meters of reinforced steel and concrete. What sort of bombs could make that loud of noise this deep in the ground in a hardened bunker?

Over the staircase door, a bright red light began to flash as the bunker doors began to slide shut automatically. A klaxon alarm began to sound, its repetitious and bellowing horn startling everyone in earshot. Then the overhead annunciator panel began flashing the words she was too terrified to read:

"RADIATION HAZARD"

Now she had her answer.

These weapons were nuclear.

Something in the back of Adama's mind had held out for the hope that this was an unforeseen meteor shower or some complex military drill. It was something she could hold on to, but now that hope was dashed.

Suddenly GaeLynn was startled from her trance-like state by the male voice calling to her in her headset. Only the ear-piece in her left ear allowed GaeLynn to hear the BeeCee calling over the sounds of the bombs over her head and the alarms now sounding all around her.

"Aerilon Approach this is Breaker Castle out of blackout, how copy…?"

The calm, male voice must be the Breaker Castle's first officer, she thought. Why she suddenly remembered such a trivial thing as the Captain of the BeeCee being a woman was beyond her. And the tone of the first officer's voice told GaeLynn that the Breaker Castle crew was oblivious to what was happening right in front of them. How could they not see what's happening? Are they blind? How could they be so calm in so terrifying a moment?

Suddenly Adama was back in her element, and she had a job to do, even if she was scared to death. She stomped on the foot pedal transmit button, her normally calm and measured tones now panicked and nearly screaming.

"BREAKER CASTLE, THIS IS AERILON APPROACH! GO AROUND! I SAY AGAIN GO AROUND! AERILON IS UNDER NUCLEAR ATTACK! DO NOT ATTEMPT A LANDING AT SPACEPORT CITY! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Adama let her foot off of the transmit switch of her wireless. She had been pushing so hard on the footswitch that she could feel the pedal pushing through her shoe. She waited a few seconds, and after hearing no response, she stepped on the pedal once more. Terrified, she almost mashed the fixture through the floorboard.

"BREAKER CASTLE, THIS IS AERILON APPROACH, I SAY AGAIN, AERILON IS UNDER…."

GaeLynn never had a chance to finish the sentence.

The bunker-buster nuke detonated in the service elevator shaft only twenty meters away from where she sat. The blast doors had started closing, but not fast enough.

She evaporated at the speed of light.