A/N: Chap 25 review responses are in my forums as normal. I'm glad folks enjoyed the true crossover elements of the story!
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Fork in the Road
September 22th, 2013 (Day 67 CH)
Despite the very real risk of the Cylons, Kobol had something the fleet needed so desperately that Commander Adama and President Roslin both felt they had no choice but to stay: food.
In the sixty-six days since human civilization was almost completely wiped out, the fleet had been surviving primarily on Galactica's food stores salvaged from Ragnar Station, the lone Agri ship, and whatever stores people were able to grab when they fled. They could not just turn away from an opportunity to gather food from such a life-rich planet. Despite the promise of food from the mages, even their young admiral admitted that they would be hard-pressed to feed the fifty plus thousand Colonial survivors in addition to their own numbers for long.
While the majority of the fleet held station at a randomly selected set of coordinates far away from anything of import, an invasion of raptors, tender ships and cargo vessels descended upon the world of their ancestors with the sole intent of gleaning as much edible material and potable water as they could carry. Laura knew just from her meetings with the Commander that the fleet ate through almost forty-five tons of food every single day. Since the holocaust they had consumed almost three thousand tons of food, more than half their food supply.
So there they were, on a planet well known by the Cylons, scurrying like rodents to get as much to eat as they could before being squashed.
Laura should have been back at the fleet—she knew she and Bill had a responsibility to publicly reconcile. He'd even shown her some notes he had for a joint news conference, something he'd never done before. Of course, the notes conveniently forgot to mention their new, odd allies.
She sat huddled in blankets in the command and control tent with a cup of hot, bitter tea in her hands provided by one of Potter's…mages. The Commander set up his coordination tent in the meadow outside the Tomb of Athena. Potter's mages had converged on the place by the dozens and were there even still.
Witches and wizards just did not sound right, so like Delapina, she decided 'mages' was the better term for them, and Potter seemed amenable to the label. The Scriptures spoke of magi advising the Lords of Kobol, after all. Given all they knew, it seemed apt. Now she just needed to figure out a way to tell the fleet that they had, at long last, found the lost Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol and Earth.
Oh, and she had to find a way to mention that Earth was a steaming, volcanic wasteland.
She could see that Adama's people were all uncomfortable with their newest allies. The Galactica crew greeted the marines from the Asteria with open arms, but viewed Potter's people like lepers. Unfortunately, the mages did not help matters at all. Most of those who came down spoke Caprican in the sense that they knew the words. However, there was such a huge cultural divide that they could hold a conversation with a Colonial, say every word clearly, and neither side would understand what the other actually meant. Many of Potter's people had no idea how guns worked, and stared at Raptors and tender ships with fascination.
Of course, that was nothing compared to the reaction the broom flyers got from the Colonials, or when they popped in and out of existence as they explored.
I'm going to have to be careful how I present them.
She glanced over to where Commanders Adama and Delapina were working together to help coordinate the resource expeditions. She knew Potter had volunteered some of his people to help, but after the first few hours they decided to segregate their efforts.
"I'm getting reports of mages magically pulling every nut on a tree into a single container in a minute, and then magically shelling them into another. The lieutenant soiled himself and requested a transfer," Bill told her early on.
Speak of the demons...
Harry Potter stepped into the tent. When he and his people first arrived, they'd looked like stewards on a luxury liner—slacks and white shirts with half jackets. Now, though, he wore a dark navy-blue jumpsuit not too dissimilar to what the Colonials were wearing, with pockets on his thighs and chest. He still had that odd badge on his uniform to mark him apart from the Colonials, but the change in uniform definitely made him stand out less than his old attire.
Laura had no idea where the uniform came from, though, or how all the other mages were suddenly wearing similar clothes despite having landed wearing other items entirely. He nodded to her with a strained, tired smile before walking to the desk where Adama and Delapina worked with half a dozen communication techs to coordinate the efforts. After a quick word, he walked to the bar where the tea was and fixed himself a cup. Only then did he walk to the small sitting area where Laura was officially reading status reports, but in actuality was drifting on the verge of sleep.
"Admiral," she said with some effort.
"Madam President."
Laura had heard him say to Delapina that he actually preferred to be addressed by his common name. She'd witnessed his own people do it as well. However, she refused to engage him at that level of familiarity. It was simply too soon. Fortunately, he seemed to understand and did not try to insist.
"Have your people made progress in your studies?" she asked as a way of breaking the ice.
He nodded as he sipped his tea. "Some, yes. We're trying to reconstruct exactly what happened to cause the Lords of Kobol to lose their powers. We have some theories; now it's just a matter of finding proof to confirm or amend those theories."
Laura nodded and sipped her own tea. After a moment, perhaps because of being warm and dry for the first time in days, she said, "Your people are frightening us."
Rather than take offense, Potter nodded glumly. "Yeah, I noticed that. I ordered everyone to transfigure their clothes into something not so…different. I've also asked people to be a little more circumspect in how they use their magic. But at the end of the day, we are what we are. I was really hoping…"
He stopped and ran a hand through his hair. In that moment, he looked startlingly young. "I have always been a little naïve, I suppose. On Earth, we had to hide from the larger population out of fear of persecution. For all our magic, we never really had numbers. Our history is filled with instances of persecution and murder. It was often for religious purposes, but the religion was just an excuse for the fear."
The mage religion was something else that made Laura profoundly uncomfortable. Those mages who had religion were monotheists, like the Cylons. However, those monotheists were evidently in the minority. The majority of mages were secularists—agnostics who did not bother to deny the possibility of a god or gods, but did not worship them or ascribe to any particular faith. Either option left a bad taste in her mouth.
Potter's stomach growled loudly, causing him to blush. "Er, excuse me. Are you hungry? I have a snack here." He reached into one of the pockets of his pants and removed a brown bag that should not have fit. From that back he removed what looked like a sandwich, and then a second which he offered it to her.
"What is it?"
"Chicken salad," he said. "A small bird we raise for eggs and meat. We decided early on that large meat animals were just too inefficient to bring with us, so most of our protein comes from smaller animals or…well, whatever we have to do to survive, right?"
She accepted the sandwich and smelled it. It smelled tangy and slightly sweet. A bite confirmed that it was utterly delicious and she found herself devouring the sandwich quickly. Potter simply ate in companionable silence while the tent bustled around them.
"So, how long do you have?" he asked casually when they finished.
She turned and gave him a flat stare. "Excuse me?"
"Do you remember the tall woman with the dark hair? The gorgeous one who shook your hand a second too long? That was Andromeda Tonks, a healer and medical doctor. She sensed your cancer from the handshake."
Laura fought to keep her face blank. "Admiral, I'm sure you mean well, but I'm not prepared to have this conversation with you."
He shrugged. "Fair enough. I only mention it because she's fairly certain we could cure you. Not just put you into remission, mind. But actually cure you entirely."
She blinked at him twice before sipping her tea. "More of your magic, I suppose."
"Actually, the magic is in your, Madam President. Our potions would kill your commander, for instance. Healer Tonks wanted to meet you because of something Unspeakable Patil mentioned regarding your vision. You see, non-magical people cannot have visions, not like you did. With the handshake that confirmed your illness, Healer Tonks also confirmed you had magic."
Laura couldn't help but snort. "You're trying to tell me I'm a witch?"
"No," he said, smiling thinly. "You'll never be able to perform magic and a wand would be useless for you. You're what we call a squib—someone with latent magic who cannot actually perform magic. You have magic in your body that would allow you to benefit from magical healing and would make you immune from the negative effects of our magical environments, but you're not a witch. We got a sample of that Chamalla we heard about and confirmed that it was able to chemically activate just enough magic to make you receptive to psychic phenomenon. I suspect all your oracles are squibs, really."
He paused and sipped his tea before glancing over to the command center. "We are a common people, Madam President. The Lords of Kobol were our mutual ancestors. Everything we are, you could be as well. If a mage married a Colonial, in the right environment there's a good chance their children would be born magical. That's why I hoped…well, like I said. I'm a little naïve sometimes."
He removed a large, mottled red fruit from the back and casually tossed it to her lap before taking another. She lifted it and stared. "An apple?"
"You have those too? Yeah, these are particularly good." He bit into it with a crisp sound and tore off a sizable piece. With no reason not to, she did the same. The apple was not quite as sweet as a Promethea apple from Aerilon, but it held a wonderfully crisp texture to it—a nice crunch without being too chewy.
Potter ate his down to the core before tossing it into the bag. He offered it to her for her trash as well when she was done, and then the bag simply disappeared. He sighed as he leaned back and watched the bustling activity around him. "So what are your people going to do, now that you know Earth isn't the answer?"
"That's a hard question to answer, Admiral," Roslin said.
"I bet so," Harry said. "Our goal was Cyrannus. We got there and discovered all the worlds we thought we could colonize were under attack and already dead. Now the Cylons know we're here and seem to want us as badly as they wanted you. So, right now we have no target world to look into and enemies we never knew existed. I suppose we're open to suggestions."
"What about that seer of yours?"
Potter shrugged. "She says we're caught in a fork in the road. We can't move until you decide."
"Decide what?"
He turned and looked at her intently. "Whether we're your allies or your enemies."
~~Invincible~~
~~Invincible~~
Bill Adama sighed and then held up the latest report with an all-too rare sense of satisfaction. He was going to give his people one more day on the planet if the Cylons allowed because it was just too much to turn down. So far the tender ship had deployed nets and was doing just casual flybys over the nearest ocean. And just with surface trolling and SONAR, they reported almost five thousand tons of fish caught. The oceans of Kobol teamed with unbelievable amounts of life.
The ground teams found forests of fruit and nut-bearing trees in the southern continent, while still others had found huge fields of grains to rival those of Aerilon itself. His hunters reported almost twenty tons in meat animals already harvested in just the past three hours. That wasn't even taking into account everything Potter's people had gathered.
Kobol was a breadbasket of a world with more natural resources than all twelve of the colonies combined, and just like everything else, the Cylons would keep them from living there in peace. Until they had to leave, he was going to extract as much food from the world as the blood they had already shed afforded them.
"Wonder what they're talking about?"
Adama blinked and looked at Delapina, a capable commander perhaps a decade younger than himself. He followed the younger man's gaze to where the President sat huddled in her blankets with her tea across from Potter, who leaned back in his seat with a tired expression. They were speaking quietly together.
"Don't know, but it's probably not good," Adama said.
"So, a school teacher, huh?" Delapina said. "I've heard some of the scuttlebutt."
"We both could have handled the situation better," Adama admitted. "She proved we need civil leadership for the fleet, that much I can't deny."
"Listen, Bill, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, but I haven't really had the time. We're pretty sure the Pegasus survived and is out there even now."
Bill straightened. "The Pegasus? Admiral Cain's ship?"
"That's right."
"How do you know?"
"Because Potter's first Colonial contact was with a fleet of civilian refugees that Cain raided. The survivors are all on the Asteria. Bill, she gang-pressed civilians and ordered the families shot if they protested too much. She ordered women and children shot. She took their jump drives, fuel and clothes and left them adrift to die. There's no question, the Pegasus identified itself and the marines who came on board and did the shooting all wore ship patches and clearly identified themselves as having orders to act as they did. Civilians were murdered in cold blood."
"Damn." Adama sank down tiredly in his seat. "Cain is a good officer, but she's hard. More importantly, Pegasus is a Mercury-class Battlestar. It could take on the Galactica, Asteria and Notus combined.
"Don't I know it," Delapina muttered. "Especially when the Asteria only has two functioning engine pods. The Notus could almost land in one of the Pegasus flight pods."
"What I wouldn't give to get my hands on a Mercury's production facilities, though," Adama muttered.
"Potter had an answer, though. You're now senior officer in a fleet of three or more Colonial ships. You have the legally appointed President of the Twelve Colonies and a Quorum of Twelve. Just have them promote you to full Admiral. No matter how hard Cain is, she couldn't argue with the legality of it, and you are senior officer. I'd certainly support you, as would Petrie and Tannith."
"Good to know. Thank you."
"Commander Adama?"
Bill straightened and looked back at the young ensign manning the wireless. "Sir, the CAP just reported. We just got buzzed. Single bandit, in and out in twenty seconds."
No peace. "Acknowledged. Stay on mission to cover withdrawal. Standby for bug out signal."
"I'll get the people here moving," Delapina volunteered.
Adama nodded before stepping to the wireless and putting on a headset. He reached over the ensign's shoulder to hit the planet-wide frequency, using the many raptors in orbit as satellites to carry the signal. "This is the Commander. We've been scouted. All units are to cease operations immediately and return to the fleet by numbers. Repeat, cease all operations and return to the fleet by numbers. Report withdrawals on this frequency. Acknowledge!"
One by one, the various teams acknowledged the orders as Adama took of the headset. "Report when all teams are out," he ordered.
The ensign nodded. "Yes, sir." She pulled out a piece of paper where she'd quickly scrabbled down the various teams. Adama walked toward the president and Potter.
Potter had already stood. "Time to go, then?" he asked.
"The Cylons scouted the planet," Adama confirmed.
Potter nodded and reached into one of his pockets for what looked like a mirror. He said something in his oddly guttural native language before slipping the mirror back in to the pocket. "I hope you were able to at least get some food supplies."
"Yes. Despite some uncertainties, we do appreciate your people's help." While it scared the frak out of the Colonials, Adama was not going to argue with the sheer tonnage Potter's people were able to produce. "Will you need a lift off planet?"
"No, thank you, Commander."
They stepped outside the tent just as the marines gathered it up into its travel case and loaded it quickly into one of the many waiting raptors. The ensign at the wireless was busy writing down the various team withdrawal reports.
Another of the many raptors from the surface came buzzing into the field—the side hatch opened and Apollo rushed out before the craft even landed. Bill still hadn't decided what to do with the boy. He'd committed mutiny against a superior officer, regardless of his motivations or rational. But they were so stripped of qualified personnel at the moment that the idea of losing one of his best pilots made his stomach hurt. Nor was it just his piloting skills—Apollo was a fine officer.
If he just weren't so damned stubborn. "We're clearing out?" Apollo asked.
The Commander gave a curt nod. "Commander Delapina is supervising the evacuation. Assist," he ordered tersely before following after Roslin and Potter. Around their clearing, marines and specialists were already collapsing the other tents and collecting what materials they brought down with them.
They had the temporary command camp broken down and stored in less than five minutes, which even then was cutting it close. "Commander, all teams evacuated. CAP reports contacts inbound—Basestars and raiders descending on the planet," the ensign reported breathlessly.
They didn't need the report. Bill could hear the sonic booms of raiders entering the atmosphere in large numbers as he climbed into the Raptor his son was piloting. It was a tight fit with all the equipment and marines. "After you, Madam President," he said as he helped Roslin in.
"We're jumping from the atmosphere as soon as we're airborne!" Lee called over his shoulder. "It's going to be a rough ride!"
Outside, Potter's people were emerging from the Tomb of Athena carrying crates and baskets. They disappeared as they emerged, one by one. There were no flashes of light, just whirls of dust where they once stood. Potter himself gave Adama a lackadaisical salute before he disappeared as well.
His attention was drawn from the mage Admiral when one of his raptors abruptly disappeared in a flash of white-blue radiation as it jumped. Before the second could fly away, a Cylon missile struck it amid-ships, vaporizing it.
"Frak me!" Lee shouted as he violently flew their Raptor away from the explosion just as a second missile impacted the spot where they were just seconds before. Bill clutched his restraints with one hand and reached out another to help brace the president as Lee inverted their raptor just feet off the ground in a gut-wrenching barrel roll over the edge of the cliff, diving down until the jump drive spun up enough to flash them away.
In the stunned silence that followed, veiling the universe around them in an empty field of stars, Lee's co-pilot said, "Damn, Captain, I think you left my heart back there!"
Bill wondered if the co-pilot was more right than she even realized.
~~Invincible~~
~~Invincible~~
The Avalon hemisphere was on the night cycle, while the Broceliande hemisphere was on its day. The decision to have the hemispheres operate opposite of each other was made during their year orbiting Earth and no one could argue that it made things easier.
The night shift crews simply moved to the Broceliande side of the ship, ensuring each shift enjoyed what amounted to a normal work day and evenings off. On those rotations, though, the Avalon side of the ship was sometimes eerily quiet. It was that way as Harry walked down the main corridor on his side of the ship toward the medical bay.
He found Dr. Barnes in the isolation ward with Hermione. Both women wore charmed aprons and masks to keep out contamination as they stood over the body of the Cylon Harry killed on Kobol. At his wife's signal, Harry donned his own apron, mask and gloves before joining them.
"Well, I'm here," he said. "What do we have?"
"She was pregnant," Barnes confirmed crisply, without a discernable note of condemnation for the fact that Harry killed her. "We've taken blood samples from the fetus and the mother and determined that the child was essentially human. The body was engineered to be so human that it produced organic ovum. The same genes that would create the organic transceiver were present in the fetus, but otherwise it was human."
"The child was a human that could preserve its consciousness after death," Hermione clarified for Harry.
Harry nodded, having grasped that much. "What else?"
Barnes took a shaky breath. "If this child married a mage, and their child married a mage, and on and on, no matter how many generations, none of their offspring would ever be magical. This child's genes are the antithesis of magic. It would be the death of magic for whatever bloodline it joined."
Harry stared down at the body on the table. Even by Earth standards, she was attractive, with the type of petite figure and large eyes that many men found themselves wanting to protect. All he had to do was look at the enraged, crushed figure of Carl Agathon to realize this much. She was also identical to the spy they found in Brenda Laird's group.
An uncomfortable thought came then of Cassandra Appolline's breasts. Before his conscious mind could berate his unconscious mind for such inappropriate behavior, he suddenly remembered the words that came moments before the exposure of those breasts. It took Occlumancy to recall it entirely.
"`There is a crossroads,'" he said aloud, recalling her prophecy. "`The traveler is beset by storm, plague and famine. They are weary and weak. On one path lies a cold eternity. On the other, a rainbow of strife. They must choose—an eternity of life without life; or the mortality of magic.'"
"Harry, what was that?" Hermione said carefully.
"Something Cassandra said, back in August. She said the Colonials were the traveler, and we were the strife. The rainbow. Hermione, you've viewed the memories from Kobol—at the end, after magic had mostly died out, those born magical were lit with color. Like living rainbows."
"That seems abnormally clear for a prophecy, then," Barnes said. "If this child were born, the Cylons could offer peace to the Colonials with the promise of eternal life. The price would be the ultimate death of all magic. And given the Colonials haven't had access to real magic in the last two thousand years, I'm not sure it would be that difficult of a choice for them."
Harry could see an expression of fear and horror on Hermione's face when she glanced back up at him. "Harry, we can't tell them. The Colonials can't ever know."
"I know," Harry agreed, though his stomach twisted at the idea of trying to keep such a huge lie. "Destroy the body. No evidence."
Barnes nodded grimly.