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AN: To confirm, the four unknown Cylons in the Fleet at this point will be 'activated' during the power blackout, but I won't be looking at what was happening to them at this point directly, although I will include reference to that chain of events in the next chapter
A New Angel, a New Fate
"All rise," the bailiff said, as the judges walked bak into the court from the back room where they'd been deliberating their final verdict.
"Before I read the verdict," the central judge said, "I'd like to make one thing clear. Like everything human, justice is… imperfect. It's flawed. But it's those very imperfections that separates us from the machines, and maybe even makes us a species worth saving."
My thoughts exactly, the Doctor mused with a smile. The justice system might be problematic and flawed, but the imperfections in the system allowed for a sense of variety that no machine could match; he'd believed that ever since he'd disabled the Conscience of Marinus, and he would hold to that belief until his final death.
"The defendant will rise," the judge said, giving the ex-president time to respond. "Gaius Baltar, after carefully weighing the evidence, this tribunal, in a vote of three to two, finds you not guilty."
Amid the subsequent clamour of the courtroom, the Doctor wasn't entirely surprised to see the president, the vice-president and her aide walking out of the court in a particularly foul-looking mood; Laura Roslin might have agreed to the trial, but she'd clearly never expected it to result in Baltar being let off. From his position at the back, the Doctor couldn't hear the exact words as the lawyers spoke briefly while Roslin's security detail led her away, but it was easy to predict Baltar's reaction as he went straight for the press officials who were already thrusting their microphones forward.
"I always knew that I was going to be acquitted," Baltar began, clearly unable to turn down an opportunity to make a scene, "but the fact I have been found innocent shouldn't disguise that this trial has been a total pantomime!"
Frankly, the Doctor was almost relieved when someone among the trial observes yelled out 'Assassin'; he doubted that anyone would actually try anything, but any reason to get Baltar out of this court would be good right now. For a moment, there was chaos down at the front of the courtroom, Lee trying to hold back the crowd of civilians now hungry for Baltar's blood as the marines further strengthened the barrier, but Baltar had soon backed away from the crowd and rushed for a side door. As Lee and Lampkin followed Baltar out of the courtroom, the Doctor took in the current riot and vaulted over the back of the seats, landing on the ground behind them to follow the ex-president's path at a discreet distance.
Even if the Guardians had ceased to use the man as their direct agent, whatever the Doctor had said about Baltar being an 'idiot genius', the man was still intelligent enough to be a potential danger to the fleet if he ended up in the right or wrong place, which left the Doctor obligated to make sure the man understood the realities of his current position…
"I knew right from the very start that if there was a way to demonstrate the sheer… What's the word I'm looking for?" the Doctor heard Baltar say as he took up position outside the ex-President's cell.
"Hypocrisy," Baltar continued, now clearly amused at a situation that could have so easily turned out another way. "Hypocrisy is the word I'm looking for- hypocrisy of the prosecution's case, then really, the judges had no other option but to find me not guilty."
"Well, your boundless confidence provided us with great solace throughout proceedings," Lampkin said in a laconic manner that the Doctor quickly recognised as insincere.
"Look," Baltar said casually, reinforcing the Doctor's suspicions that Baltar didn't realise what his defence counsel really thought of him, "I want to thank you both. Truly. From the bottom of my heart, I am very, very grateful for all you've done. On a personal note, if I could've seen the Admiral squirm just a bit more, it wouldn't have hurt."
"Now you listen," Lee said, his voice so low that the Doctor had to strain his ears to be sure he heard the ex-major correctly. "Don't push it, doctor."
"Fine," Baltar said after a moment's silence. "Romo, perhaps we can have a chat? I've thought about maybe doing a book tour around the Fleet, and there's the publishing rights, there are issues about my security, where I will live, what I will do. Since we've forged this great relationship during the trial, I thought, you know, who better to think about…?"
"Actually," Lampkin said, in a manner that made it clear he was about to redeem the Doctor's earlier concerns about the lawyer's ethics,"now that the Fleet's legal system is in place, my not-so-inconsiderable talents are required elsewhere. So I'm afraid this is the end of our journey."
It was one of the few occasions in his lives where the Doctor approved of comparatively pointless cruelty. Lampkin might have resorted to questionable methods to win this trial, but at least his decision to drop Baltar made it clear that he wasn't going to stay with a jerk of a client (the Doctor was fairly sure that was the right term in this context) whose only positive trait was that he gave Lampkin good publicity.
"Wait a minute, what…" Baltar began uncertainly. "What about me? Wait a minute, wait, please. Think about this for a second. Where will I live? What am I going to do? How am I going to survive?"
And once again, you prove me correct about your opinion of yourself, Doctor Baltar, the Doctor mused grimly. In the end, it's all about you.
"Much as I hate to use a cat metaphor, Doctor, I think you'll land on your feet," Lampkin replied in satisfaction. "Close the door on your way out."
"I'll be happy to do that, actually," the Doctor stepped forward.
"Doctor?" Lee looked at the Time Lord in surprise.
"I had a couple of things to say to my predecessor," the Doctor shrugged.
"You?" Baltar looked at the Doctor in surprise.
"Me," the Doctor nodded in confirmation, his earlier smile shifting into a glare as he stared at the ex-president before he glanced over at Lampkin and Lee. "I think we'd find this easier in private."
"As you wish," Lampkin nodded, looking inquiringly at the Doctor. "Any particular reason for this?"
"I like to make sure genius idiots understand their place in the grand scheme of things."
"Fair enough," Lampkin nodded, as he and Lee strolled out.
"Genius idiot?" Baltar sputtered indignantly. "I'm-"
"An idiot who doesn't realise how idiotic he is," the Doctor reaffirmed. "Before you go off and try to rebuild whatever reputation you can salvage after the way you led these people to a position where they were virtually enslaved by the Cylons for months while you lounged around and let them talk about how great you were, I just wanted to remind you that there is a difference between 'not guilty' and 'innocent'."
"What do you mean?"
"This trial may have let you off on charges of conspiracy and collaboration, but it doesn't mean that you're completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever as far as the rest of the fleet is concerned," the Doctor stated bluntly. "In the end, your 'defence' relied on discrediting witnesses rather than justifying your own actions, which ties into the reasons you're a bad scientist; you can't accept that you might be wrong about something, even when that something is you."
"Do you mind-?"
"And you appear to have forgotten a particularly key point of Lee's closing statement," the Doctor cut Baltar off. "Whether you're guilty or innocent, nobody here actually likes you, Doctor Baltar; as you just saw, your legal defence's responsibility for you ended with the trial, and you yourself admitted that you have nowhere to live now. I'm only here to make sure you understand that your position in this fleet, as far as virtually everyone in the 'ruling party' you criticised in that book of yours is concerned, is currently like the four-headed man-eating haddock-fish beast of Aberdeen."
"…What?"
"It doesn't exist, and nobody in their right mind would create such a thing."
Deciding not to push his luck, the Doctor turned around and walked off, leaving Baltar to think about what he'd just been told. The Doctor wasn't going to kid himself by believing that his words would make that much of an impression on the other man, and he privately acknowledged that there were likely to be some people in the fleet's lower levels who would take Baltar semi-seriously, but the man's whole ego depended on the upper classes paying attention to him.
Lost for anything better to do with himself at this point, the Doctor started walking back to his cabin; there was nothing immediately demanding his attention at this point, so he felt like spending a bit of time in peace and quiet considering a suitable long-term strategy to get this fleet to safety…
When the Doctor's thoughts were interrupted by the next jump, he initially thought nothing of it- this method of faster-than-light travel was still strange, but he was becoming used to the Colonials' unconventional method of transport- but when the lights in the corridor around him shut down, he realised that he was dealing with more than just another jump. Quickly checking his pockets, the Doctor pulled out a small torch, flicked the light on, and began to hurry through the corridors. He passed a few groups of soldiers and other members of the ship's staff running to their assigned tasks, but as much as the Doctor wanted to help, he couldn't afford to spend time focusing on smaller problems when he had to work out what had happened to Galactica as a whole. Relieved that Galactica mostly relied on stairs and sloping corridors rather than elevators, the Doctor traced his way through the corridors before he reached the CiC, where he was only slightly surprised to see that President Roslin was still on the ship; she would have certainly wanted to talk with Adama after the trial had concluded, and this power cut had happened too abruptly for her to get back to Colonial One afterwards.
"What happened?" he asked, looking anxiously between the fleet's two leaders, taking up a position at the opposite end of the central CIC table from Roslin as she leant over it rubbing her head, Adama to the Doctor's left and Helo opposite the admiral.
"Something cut power throughout Galactica as soon as we arrived in the Ionian Nebula," Adama replied.
"The Ionian Nebula…" the Doctor began, before he snapped his fingers. "That was the next equivalent landmark on the path to Earth as indicated by the Eye of Jupiter, correct?"
"Correct," Roslin said, nodding at the Doctor with barely-hidden apprehension.
"We're trying to set up an engine restart, but last reports indicated mass power fluctuations throughout the Fleet," Lieutenant Gaeta reported from his own station, looking anxiously at the Time Lord. "If you've got any ideas, now would be a good time!"
"A couple spring to mind, but without knowing what this nebula actually did to your systems-" the Doctor began, just before the lights flickered and the power was restored.
"What just happened?" Roslin looked sharply between Adama, Gaeta and the Doctor.
"Some kind of power surge," Adama said, looking anxiously up at the DRADIS screen. "Give me a damage report immediately."
"The power outage was fleetwide, Admiral," Lieutenant Dualla began, turning to look anxiously back at him. "It was also simultaneously restored to all ships."
"Really?" the Doctor looked at the young woman in surprise. "Fascinating-"
"DRADIS contact!" Gaeta yelled, as the equipment in question began beeping, the Doctor immediately dismissing his curiosity about that power outage. "Massive Cylon fleet on intercept course!"
The Doctor briefly wondered if the timing of these events meant that the recent power loss had been a deliberate attack, but decided against that. EMPs were a straightforward enough weapon, but if the Cylons had access to the technology needed to knock out the entire fleet's power supply they would have used it before now, and he doubted they had the capacity to develop anything new when they were flying around through space trying to hunt down the last survivors of the Colonies.
"Mr Gaeta," Adama said urgently, "sound action stations immediately; I want an emergency jump of the entire Fleet."
"Sir," Karl Agathon put in, his voice lower so that only those around the table could hear him. "All Fleet ships were powered down during the outage. It'll take at least twenty minutes to spool up the FTL drives."
"And against these numbers, we don't have twenty minutes," the Doctor said, his voice low as he looked between Helo, Roslin and Adama, their grim expressions reaffirming what he already knew.
They were going to make a stand, but even as Gaeta ordered the Viper pilots to their ships, everyone here knew that they weren't going to get out of this one.
The Doctor was ashamed to admit that a part of him immediately thought of Compassion, but he forced that thought down before it could spread any further; he had lost his TARDIS, but he wasn't going to sacrifice his moral principles. So long as there was still a chance that he could save anyone in this fleet, he was going to stay on board Galactica and try and find them a way out of this mess, and there was no reason to give up when the Cylons hadn't even fired the first shot yet…
"Arm and load all nuclear weapons," Adama said
"Yes, sir," Gaeta confirmed, just as Colonel Tigh and Tory Foster walked into the room, Tigh taking up position opposite Adama while Helo joined the Doctor at the end of the table opposite Roslin.
"It's good to see you, Colonel," Adama noted solemnly.
"Good to be here, Admiral," Tigh replied, even as his one eye briefly flickered over to the Doctor, his tone more controlled than anything the Doctor had heard from the injured colonel in a while. "You can count on me."
"I've never doubted it," Adama said.
"I'm here if you need me, Madam President," Tory said, although the Doctor couldn't help but notice the way her eyes shifted momentarily to him before they re-focused on the DRADIS screen.
He could easily be overthinking it, but the very fact that Tigh and Tyrol had arrived together at the same time, from the same corridor, when they'd never even spoken in private as far as he knew, just felt like too much of a coincidence to be a real coincidence…
"Alert Vipers are away!" Gaeta reported. "Hostiles inbound; two hundred plus!"
"CAG, take 'em out!" Adama said, looking at the DRADIS that was now filled with red enemy marks.
"All players, Galactica," Helo reported urgently. "Threat BR350, carom 211. Raptors, lean back as missile pickets. Weapons free."
"The Vipers have stopped the main Cylon thrust," Gaeta reported after a few seconds' pause, the only sign of significant change being the suddenly-depleted red marks on the DRADIS screen, "but the reserves have broken through, sir."
"I want everything that can fly up there immediately," Adama said, looking firmly at the bald X-O, who was looking particularly distant as he looked ahead of himself. "Colonel Tigh? Colonel Tigh!"
The one-eyed man started as he looked at the admiral, almost as though he'd been lost in some horrible thought.
"I gave you an order," Adama said resolutely. "Everybody that's ever held a stick, I want them up there now. Get 'em out! Put 'em up there!"
"Sir," Tigh said, picking up the phone by his position. "Attention, this is the XO; all pilots, man your aircraft."
"I don't suppose…?" Roslin looked anxiously at the Doctor as she moved to stand beside him, keeping her voice low.
"Even if I could get to Compassion and could guarantee that I could get to one of these other ships, I don't know enough about Cylon technology to know what to look for and we don't have time to do things that way anyway," the Doctor said, looking regretfully at the president as Adama ordered Galatcia's own guns to start firing. The DRADIS only offered glimpses of the action taking place beyond the ship, but the radio updates presented a chilling impression of the situation outside, rapid-fire reports of the situation marred by the occasional final scream as pilots died in action…
"Sir!" Gaeta yelled. "We've lost the Pyxis!"
"Oh my Gods," Roslin said in a low, terrified voice. "Captain Tarney, six hundred souls on that ship…"
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, reaching over to give the president a sympathetic squeeze on her shoulder.
"Thank you," Roslin whispered back at the Doctor, before she looked between Adama and the Time Lord with a new sense of urgency. "How did they find us?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Adama mused.
The Doctor wished that he could offer a solution, but right now he knew too little about this situation to offer any clear suggestions; he didn't even know why the ships had lost power yet, and why did he have a feeling that the way Tigh and Tyrol were looking at each other was more important than he realised right now…?
"Baseships launching missiles," Gaeta cut in. "Forty- correction, fifty- plus inbound. Half targeted on us, half on the Fleet."
"Have triple-A target only missiles going towards the Fleet," Adama barked. "We can handle the hits; they can't."
"Yes sir," Helo affirmed. "All forces, priority; intercept enemy missiles targeting civilian vessels."
"OK," Sam Anders' voice suddenly filled the CIC. "I am Samuel T Anders; I was born on Picon; I went to Noyce Elementary School-"
"Get your thumb off the transmit button, Sam," another voice that the Doctor vaguely recognised as new Lieutenant Seelix said. "You're blocking the freq."
"Copy that," Anders said, before the radio fell silent as Galactica was shaken by a wave of missiles striking their armoured hull. DRADIS made it hard to get a clear picture of what was happening outside, but there was enough detail for the Doctor to realise that missiles had struck one of the civilian ships.
"Longshot, Hardball," Seelix's voice yelled. "Turkey right four low at three, committing."
"Longshot, I got the… tally?" Anders said, apparently realising his mistake as he spoke. "I got your back… Seelix, there's a Raider on you!"
Moments like this reinforced one of the things that the Doctor truly hated about war; they had so little opportunity to truly see what was happening out in space, which could make it even easier for their commanders to become detached from the human cost of what they were dealing with.
Granted, William Adama doesn't strike me as the kind of man who'd do something like that, but it's the principle of the thing…
The Doctor's musings were interrupted when Sam's frantic reports about his inability to shoot suddenly became academic, as every Raider currently attacking the fleet suddenly began to disappear from the DRADIS, apparently swarming after a specific Raider.
"Sir?" Gaeta said, sounding just as confused about that development as the Doctor. "The Cylon strike force has just turned back to their ships. Baseships are spinning up."
"They're pulling out," Tigh said, his voice low in awe.
"We're gonna do the same damn thing before they change their mind," Adama said firmly. "Helo, have our fighters cover our withdrawal."
"Yes sir," Helo said. "All fighters assume rear cover formation."
"They had us," Tigh said, staring at the DRADIS in confusion. "Game over. Why the hell did they let us go?"
"Maybe something changed," Tory suggested as she looked at him
"Like what?" Roslin asked, staring pointedly between the two late arrivals.
"I have no idea, Madame President," Tigh said, his one eye briefly flicking towards the Doctor as the Time Lord looked at him in return. "No idea…"
The Doctor didn't know what the other man was looking at right now, but there was something in Tigh's single eye that made him think…
AN 2: Well, as you can probably guess, this is where things are about to diverge significantly from canon as the Doctor learns a key detail about recent developments in the Fleet (to say nothing of Kara not getting caught up in her 'feeling' about the location of Earth). Of course, while they probably won't appear too much in the next few chapters as planned, I'm sorry to report that Baltar's still going to get his little cult; the Doctor might make good points about Baltar being an idiot genius, but he can't talk to everyone in the Fleet to make them, and therefore some people are still going to be idiot idiots who think they're following the smartest idiot.