Chapter Thirty-Five.

Unlabelled System, Edge of the Conflict Zone.

When it had become obvious that the system they had initially selected as a primary base was going to be vulnerable to an attack by the Terran Imperial Navy, the Cylons decided to establish themselves in a system that was somewhat out of the way of what they perceived to be the main thrust of the Imperium's assault on the Raptors. Here they had started resource extraction and were beginning to build the other facilities that they would need to properly establish their presence in this area of space.

One major advantage this system had over the other one was that it possessed an inhabitable planet, one which had never been occupied. The Cylons, deciding to take full advantage of this, established most of their space-based facilities in orbit around the planet, with only their primary resource extraction and first stage processing facilities in the extensive asteroid belt in-between the fourth and fifth planets and in low orbit of the gas giant further out. On the surface of the planet they began to establish what they fully intended to be the first Cylon colony in this area of space, with the aim of using this as a springboard for further exploration and colonisation, thinking that if they kept a fairly low profile they could avoid being noticed by either of the two galactic superpowers that were currently fighting a war that put the First Cylon War to shame.

At least, this was the plan being expounded by D'anna Biers and the Threes. The Ones, led by their representative, Brother Cavil, were pushing an alternate path, of allying themselves with the Raptors and going on to annihilate the "Human Pest" and he was currently off on a diplomatic mission to see if he could accomplish the first step in his plan. The Threes, backed by the Sixes, Eights, Fives and Twos, were, to put it mildly, somewhat sceptical about the chances that his plan would succeed, but decided that it would be best to follow both paths in the likelihood that at least one would succeed.

They got an indication of just which one was likely to be successful when a badly-damaged base star, one of the ones that had gone with Cavil's expedition, jumped in system and began broadcasting a weak signal calling for assistance.

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As the heavy raider carrying them approached the damaged base star D'Anna Biers and one of the Eights accessed a schematic that outlined the amount of damage that the vessel had suffered. "Frack," said the Eight. "How did they ever get it to jump through hyperspace, let alone get it here in that condition?"

"And where are the rest of them?" Biers asked. "Surely they can't be the only survivors!"

"It's beginning to look that way, D'Anna," replied a Six. "I've just heard that the resurrection ships in this system are starting to download some casualties from that ship into new bodies. It appears they were being kept alive long enough to reach this system."

"Which argues that something happened to the resurrection ship that went with them," said a Two.

"I wonder who did this to them?" asked a Six. "The Raptors, or the Terrans?"

"According to the casualties we've managed to download so far, it was the Raptors. And they may have captured the remaining base stars plus the resurrection ship."

Biers snorted disgust. "Oh, that's just brilliant!" she said. "Have they managed to download that frakked-up excuse for a Cylon Cavil yet?"

"Not yet," replied the Six. "But this isn't the vessel he was on."

"Coming in for final approach," replied the Eight who was piloting the raider. They angled in past the damaged spines of the vessel and through the opening of a landing bay, fetching up in the middle of a large area which showed signs of battle damage.

"Looks like they may have been boarded," said an Eight. "I wonder how they managed to prevent the Raptors from taking over the ship?"

"Well, we won't find out simply by staying here," Biers said. She looked at the Eight. "Open the front hatch." The Eight nodded and complied.

As they walked down the ramp in front of the heavy raider they saw a Three, sporting some bruises and blooded bandages, come up to them. "Did you bring us some reinforcements?" she asked.

"Reinforcements?" said Biers. "No. What for?"

"We've got the remnants of a Raptor boarding party holed up at the end of one of the upper spines," replied the Three. "We've managed to keep them there while we somehow managed to get enough control over the ship's jump engines to get back here. It was slow going, but we did it." She looked at Biers. "We managed to isolate the Hybrid and get our Centurions under independent control, but we're running low on ammunition. And Centurions."

Biers turned to an Eight. "Go back and have several heavy raider loads of Centurions brought here at once. And plenty of ammunition." She turned her attention to her counterpart. "How come you haven't downloaded into a new body?"

"Because the Raptors managed to capture the resurrection ship," replied the Three. "Intact."

"My God!"

The Three nodded. "They got hit by one of those software packages that seem to be used by both the Terrans and the Raptors in their warfare. So did we, but we managed to isolate it to the Hybrid. But while we were preoccupied trying to contain the damned thing we got boarded." She shook her head. "Thankfully not by as many that got onto the others ships, but enough to give us a real headache."

"And Cavil?"

"His ship was the first one to get hit." The Three gave Biers a savage grin. "I hope the Raptors wound up using him as a chew toy."

The Eight returned to Biers. "There are several heavy raiders full of Centurions inbound, as well as plenty of ammunition." She looked at the Three. "How did you manage to keep the Raptor boarding party contained?"

"We jury-rigged some replacement cannons from some heavy raiders and had the Centurions crew and move them," said the Three. "It wasn't easy, believe me."

Biers looked at the others. "Well, since Cavil's little effort turned out to be the complete frack-up that I had expected, we had better hope that Caprica's mission to the Terrans turns out somewhat better."

"And we had better look at shifting this base," said the Eight. "If the Raptors are as efficient as the Terrans are at getting information out of enemy computer systems..."

"They'll know where to find us," replied Biers. She looked back at the Three. "You want to come with us and download into another body?"

The Three shook her head. "I can wait until we've got the others downloaded," she said. She looked at Biers. "And I think it would be good if you can arrange for the Prayer to the Cloud of Unknowing to be said for those we have irretrievably lost."

Her look turned feral. "But not for Cavil. As far as I'm concerned, he can go rot!"

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Sandoval System.

The acceptance trials for both Galactica and Nike had gone very well. There were a couple of minor hitches, but these were with non-vital systems and could easily be fixed without heading into a spacedock.

The tests at the firing range had also gone off well. The Terran anti ship missiles had been tested out on some hulks that the Terrans had dedicated to that purpose, including, much to the surprise of the Colonials, one of the base stars the Terrans had captured, gutted and turned into a remotely-controlled training drone. Galactica had been the first to test her new weapons, and even Saul Tigh had to agree that the X-ray laser heads on the Terran missiles were very effective. "Gods only know what the ones the Terrans use on their capital warship missiles would be like," Tigh had muttered as the telemetry signals telling them what the results of the salvo came in. When Nike's turn came both Adama and Tigh were surprised to see that Apollo had adopted the tactic of rotating the base star so as to bring a fresh set of guns (as well as undamaged hull armour) to bear on the target that the Cylons had used to great effect in the First Cylon War. "I suspect Athena may have had a hand in that," Tigh said.

While they were in the outer system Adama also took the opportunity to conduct a series of exercises to shake some of the rust off both ships' crews and to accustom both vessels to working together. Using some remote drones the Terrans had made available the Colonials practised an appropriate convoy formation for the two ships so as to better protect the Fleet from a Cylon attack. Fortunately, along with a minor refit, the Terrans had managed to reconfigure the cockpit area of Nike's complement of old-style Cylon Raiders to be able to take a human crew of two, with room for at least one passenger. They had also fitted the Raiders with a fairly formidable EW/ECM suite, turning them into even more formidable craft than they had been. That, plus finding that the main weapons bay of the old-style Raiders were capable of taking two of the short-range attack missiles the Terrans called torpedoes, meant that a flight of the old-style Raiders were fully capable of at the very least crippling a base star. The fact that their refit had been completed by the resources available to the Terrans at Sandoval Base meant that the Colonials now possessed an aerospace force that, had it been available at Picon Fleet Base when the Cylons had attacked, and combined with the expanded capabilities of both Galactica and Nike's CICs, would have at the least bought the Colonial Fleet enough time to reboot their computers and defeat the Cylons. It also meant that Adama was able to work his new force into a coherent whole, with Nike and her ships taking more of a defensive role while Galactica could counterattack, returning to dock with Nike for reammunitioning from her stores, something that the Colonials also practised.

It was while they were practising the latter routine that they received a message from the Terrans.

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"Fleet Admiral Templar on the line for you, sir," said the communications officer to Adama.

Adama shared a slightly surprised look with Tigh. "Put it through to my repeater station," he said. The tech nodded and Adama turned to Tigh. "Wonder what he wants?"

Tigh gave a slightly sour grin. "Who knows what our somewhat superior cousins want?" he said. At Adama's look, her continued. "Yeah, I know. But as far as I'm concerned I am an officer of the Colonial Fleet and a citizen of the Twelve Colonies. And, from what they told us in the hospital, we're obviously based on human DNA, albeit modified. So I can say that they're our cousins." Tigh the fell silent as Templar's holographic image appeared in Adama's tactical repeater.

"Admiral Adama," Templar said.

Adama gave a nod in greeting. "Sir Simon. What can I do for you?"

"More a case of what I can do for you," Templar responded. "We've just received a message from one of the one-shot hyper transmitters we sent to the Cylons. Seems their embassy has just jumped into the coordinates we gave them to go to if they wanted to talk with us."

Adama and Tigh shared a look. "So the Cylons sent an embassy?" Adama said. "Has President Roslin been informed of this?"

"She was the first person we told," Templar said. "You're the second. And she asked me to tell you that if it doesn't interfere with the acceptance trials for Galactica and Nike, she\d appreciate it if your two ships were included in the reception party that is going to be assembled near Sandoval Hub for their arrival, including an escort wing of Vipers and Raiders to accompany whatever ship the Cylon ambassadors use to transfer themselves to the Hub."

Adama looked at Tigh. "We're pretty much finished up anyway," he said. "We were just undergoing some live exercises to accustom the crews of Galactica and Nike to working with each other. So, yes, we should be able to participate in the welcoming party."

"On the subject of working up your two ships: how did they go?"

Adama smiled. "Beautifully," he said. "The anti-ship missiles you fitted us out with came out of our main coil guns and launchers brilliantly and the old girl seems to be just that bit more manoeuvrable. Only a couple of minor hitches, but your technicians say they can fix them without us having to go into spacedock."

"Glad to hear," said Templar. "Oh, and to escort our visitors in I'm sending Grace Park and her scouting group. If the Cylons have managed to work out that the holo projector we sent in with the one-shot hyper transmitter can also be used as a short-range holotransmitter, well..." Templar's voice trailed off as his face assumed an evil grin.

"The shock of seeing a Terran flag officer who looks like an Eight could be interesting," Adama said. "Plus it could unsettle the Cylons. Intriguing, and positively evil. I imagine President Roslin liked the idea?"

"Very much so. Well, I had better get things readied at my end. Templar, clear." Templar's image vanished from the repeater station and Adama turned to Tigh.

"Well, you heard the man," Adama said. "Put a call through to Nike and tell Lee that we're heading back insystem to greet the Cylon ambassadors."

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"Well, we've sent the message," said a Five. "Hopefully they've received it."

Caprica Six looked at Boomer and Baltar. "Now all we have to do is wait for them to respond. Hopefully it won't be too long."

"I suppose they'll arrange for us to have an escort of some kind," said Baltar. "And they'll be watching every move this ship makes."

"Why do you... Oh!" said Caprica Six.

"Yes," replied Baltar. "I'm sure the Colonials will have told them everything they know about the Cylon race... including the attack on the Colonies as well as what happened on New Caprica. Add into that the, ah, 'reconnaissance mission' that D'anna sent here..."

"And the Terrans would have good reasons for not trusting us all that much," said Boomer. "Let's hope we can change that, at least a little." They stood there, waiting for the Terran response when, all of a sudden, a Two called out "DRADIS contact! Several ships just jumped into our DRADIS range."

"How many?"

"Looks like four battlecruisers, four heavy cruisers... I'd say, going with what we know so far, it seems to be a smaller version of that force that hit our old forward base." The Two looked up. "And by the energy readings, probably the same ships."

"Well, that definitely sends us a message," said Boomer. "One, however, that is quite unpleasant."

"I've just received a radio transmission from the Terrans," said an Eight. She sounded puzzled. "They want us to activate the holo projector."

Caprica, Boomer and Baltar all looked at one another. "I wonder why they want us to do that?" said Boomer.

"Only one way to find out," said Baltar. He walked over to where the holoprojector, with its now useless hyper transmitter sat, and activated it. Immediately a holographic bust of what was obviously a Terran officer appeared above the projection ring, and all who saw it immediately drew in a startled breath. Save for the uniform and some slight differences, the Terran officer looked exactly like an Eight.

The Terran began speaking. "This is Vice-Admiral Grace Park, Officer Commanding the Twenty-Third Scouting Group, Terran Imperial Navy," she said. "By now you will have undoubtedly realised that we have our weapons trained onto your vessel." Her image disappeared and was replaced by a set of jump coordinates. "You will jump to these exact coordinates and these coordinates only," her voice continued. "Jump anywhere else in the system and we will hunt you down. Is this understood?"

Caprica looked at the others and then stepped forward. "We understand," she said.

The Terran officer reappeared. "Glad we have reached an understanding of sorts, then. You will jump after the end of this transmission. You will receive further instructions once you are inside Sandoval Base. Park, clear." The Terran disappeared from the projection space, and Caprica Six turned to face one of the ship's control surfaces.

"Well, you heard her. Have the coordinates been fed in?"

"Fed in and waiting to go."

Caprica Six drew in a deep breath. "Jump," she said.

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The Cylon base star emerged from its jump just outside the main sphere of Sandoval Base's fixed space defences in the centre of a ring formed by three battlesquadrons of Terran superdreadnoughts. But taking pride of place, and put in a prominent position were two vessels that were quite familiar to the Cylons: the Colonial Fleet battlestar Galactica and a certain First Cylon War vintage base star.

On hearing this, Boomer turned and said "And that sends yet another message. One I'm not all that sure I like."

Caprica shrugged. "Well, we had better hope that the message we have to send will change that somewhat." She looked at Baltar. "Ready to play you part, Gaius?"

Baltar took in a breath. "As ready as I'll ever be."