THE LOST YEARS
by Soledad
PRELUDE: CROSSROADS
Disclaimer: see Introduction.
Rating: 10 and above, for this chapter – just to be on the safe side.
Author's notes:
This chapter turned out a little longer than the average, so I simply divided it in two. And no, I have no idea how Dr. Wilker's virus works. Sorry.
CHAPTER 12: THE GREAT BATTLE Part 2
The star-peppered dark background of space was almost completely filled with the enormous double disk of the basestar, and as Tigh steered the Antares with a steady hand between the wildly zigzagging Cylon raiders, the Vipers and the one-man Tennet 5 hunters of the Federation, it seemed to grow constantly. On its seemingly endless, iron-grey surface they could no see the trapezoid dents that served as launching and landing bays for the raiders, at the same distance on both the upper and the lower levels, like the keys of some bizarre, circular music instrument.
The laser guns placed around the basestar's disk were no danger for them anymore (they shot the nearest ones to pieces, and the others were in a wrong angle), but some of the raiders had detected them already and now turned back to keep the Antares from landing. Their powerful laser beams repelled harmlessly from the small destroyer's energy shields, however. Mr. Scott had thought of everything.
"Shields at sixty per cent," Masters reported calmly.
"Good," Tigh answered, without taking his eyes from the navigations console. "Brace for impact. We're going in."
He drove at the trapezoid indent of the nearest landing ramp in a breakneck angle, ignoring the stabbing pain in his spine, caused by the co-effect of the sluggish steering mechanism and the abrupt pressure, and he went down at the empty strip in a rapidly descending line. He set down the relatively big machine as gently as if it were just a Viper.
"We were lucky that the defence system hasn't identified us as a hostile raider," Boomer said. "Or else we'd have bounced off the landing strip's energy shield."
"That doesn't mean we're out of danger yet," Rigel warned. "The unknown configuration might have confused the system for the moment, but sooner or later, the intruder alarm will sound. The sooner we get off here, the better."
In the meantime, in sector Delta-Five the full-blown battle was going on. The fire-carpet of the Starfleet ships had swept a great number of Cylon raiders from the battle plane, but there still were more than enough to outnumber the squadrons of Apollo and Hunter. And the energy shields of the big ships not only had to take care of the raiders that had somehow managed to break through the defence perimeter, they also had to absorb the firepower of the basestars that were coming up against them in a tight attack formation.
"Shields at sixty-five per cent," Spock reported aboard the Enterprise with unnatural calmness. "According to my calculations, we can take four more such hits at best. After that, we will be defenceless."
"The Constellation and the Kennedy are in no better shape, either," Uhura, who was keeping contact with the other ships through her earpiece, added worriedly. "The Intrepid can hold her position for another ten point six five minutes. Only the Divine Wind seems still intact."
"What about the Galactica?" Kirk asked.
"Apparently, the Cylons hasn't detected the Battlestar yet, captain. The Antares has managed to cripple the two basestars at the rear and is just about to land on one of them."
"To land?" Kirk repeated, completely baffled. "They were not supposed to do that, were they?"
Uhura shrugged. Unlike Scotty and some of his team, she had not been informed in advance, as Tigh did not want her to get in an awkward situation.
"I don't know, Captain. But Commander Adama is healing us, so he probably will provide some information."
"It's about time," Kirk growled. "Onscreen."
Uhura obliged, and Adama's face appeared on the main viewscreen. He made a grim impression.
"To all ships of the united forces: this is Commander Adama of the Galactica. Our battle plans have been changed in an important detail. Please retreat to a safe distance. Further instructions will follow in four standard minutes. Adama out."
The connection was broken abruptly, and Kirk exchanged surprised looks with his senior officers.
"What was that supposed to mean?" Sulu was flabbergasted. Kirk shrugged.
"I have no idea. But I guess we should let Commander Adama lead the game for a while. If his new plan doesn't work out, we can still intervene. I'm sure Mr. Scott won't be unhappy to get a break to lure some more energy out of his beloved machines. Take us out of weapons range, Mr. Sulu."
"Aye-aye, sir," Sulu might be flabbergasted, but he knew that being out of weapons range was a good thing, so he did his best to reach that desirable position.
Following Adama's orders, the Starfleet ships retreated beyond the reach of the Cylon laser turrets, and the crews followed the battle on the viewscreens. One of the Cylon raiders also left the battle scene and approached the basestar crippled by the Aerfen unnoticed. At the same time, Colonel Tigh's ship vanished between the double discuses of the farthest basestar.
"One of the Cylon raiders seem to be returning to base," Kirk said. "Uhura, send the Galactica a warning."
"They are aware of that, sir," Uhura replied, after having a short exchange with Omega aboard the Galactica. "There aren't Cylons flying that raider, though. It's Lieutenant Sheba. She's going to land on the basestar to slip their comm system a virus, form which the colonial scientists hope it will burn out the brains of the Cylons."
Kirk shot Spock a surprised glance. "Is that possible at all?"
The Vulcan nodded thoughtfully. "Theoretically, it is, Captain. Cylons in their current state are barely more than machines… and extremely dependent on their programming. The outcome depends on Dr. Wilker's professional skills, in the end. However, Commander Sonak from the Intrepid meant the equations were promising."
Kirk gave his first officer a wounded look. "You've known about it all the time?"
"You mean what they have planned for the battle?" Spock specified, just to be sure about the actual question. "Of course not, Captain, otherwise I'd have informed you. But Dr. Wilker, Commander Sonak and I have discussed the problem… in theory."
"And?" Kirk demanded. For a moment, it seemed that Spock would shrug… but then Vulcan self-control won as always.
"It could work… in theory. However, there are too many unknown factors to make a sound estimate, Captain."
Colonel Tigh left the Antares, not even wasting his time with saying goodbyes. Everything depended on speed now… and on the reliability of his memory; whether he had been able to fix the inner structure of a basestar in his mind, following Apollo's descriptions, or not. Although the basestar was partially crippled already, its internal sensors were still working, and if he didn't hurry up, he could have caught in any moment.
Boomer, using maneuvering thrusters only, lifted the Antares from the metallic floor of the landing bay. He couldn't start the impulse engines until they left the discus-section, as they would turn the entire landing bay into a gloving oven. Once they cleared the bay, however, he went to full impulse and vanished from Tigh's eyesight in the turmoil of the battle.
The colonel pulled his heavy laser pistol (not such a sophisticated tool as a Starfleet-issue phaser but a weapon of considerably more firepower) from the halter fastened to his thigh and started looking for the access tunnel that would lead him into the centre of the ship. He had to waste a few precious moments with orientation but found the lid opening his way into the maintenance tunnels nevertheless. Through those tunnels he hoped to reach the control centre of the sensor phalanx. With considerable effort, he lifted the heavy lid – and looked down almost six levels. They had landed on a bay of the upper discus, and now he needed to make his way downwards. Fortunately, he had never been prone to dizziness – that would have blocked his career as a combat pilot before it had started.
The area was not guarded, which was unusual, knowing the working order of a Cylon basestar. But perhaps the single guard, who was supposed to stand in this section, had been ordered somewhere else. Besides, the Cylons most likely didn't think that someone would be crazy enough to come voluntarily to their base, from where he could not hope to escape. With a mental shrug, Tigh accepted his luck and started climbing down the metal ladder. As he had to hold his weapon, he could only use one hand to aid himself, and the lid fell closed above him with a loud thud.
Not that it mattered, as in case he succeeded he would have to remain aboard anyway. However, the loud noise must have caught the guards' attention in the neighbouring sections, and Tigh knew he had no chance to survive while still hanging from the ladder. Without hesitation, he put the laser pistol between his teeth, grabbed both sides of the ladder, and swinging free from the grades, he glided down some five levels within minutes. His palms were raw and almost smoking when he reached bottom, but he had won precious time with this relic maneuver from his childhood.
Barely had he reached the bottom lid, he could already hear the heavy steps of Cylon foot soldiers. He quickly slid into the next tunnel, allowing the lid to fall closed behind him again. Trying to hide was useless already, now he had to see that he progressed quickly. The Cylons' laser beams were hissing ominously on the now closed metal door behind him.
Seven levels and two additional lids later he reached his goal. The computer room of the basestar was a long, narrow room, near the operations centre. One lengthy wall was covered with the sloping surfaces of the mysteriously blinking and chirping database units. On the other side was a long, horizontal console with countless monitors and some more database panels above it. The surface of the console looked as if protected by a shield of unbreakable opaque glass.
The room was so narrow that it would barely provide enough working space for two persons, and it was obviously not designed for the technicians working at the console in a sitting position. Which, of course, wouldn't bother the average Cylon soldier, at least not as long as their energy cells weren't exhausted. They were barely more than robots, with some organic components, after all.
The lack of comfort didn't bother Tigh, either. He went straight to one of the monitors, and – according to Dr. Wilker's instructions – touched the "opaque glass" surface. It cleared up immediately, and the complicated readings and integrated circuits became visible behind its unbreakable surface. For a while, Tigh studied the confusing layout (well, confusing for a human anyway) with a frown. Most people would have panic at that sight, save perhaps Vulcans. Tigh, however, had not only been a first class pilot in his youth, he also had a good grasp on technology and computers. That was another shared trait with Boomer, in whom he often thought to recognize his youthful self.
Besides, Dr. Wilker had been most persistent to squeeze every bit of information out of Baltar, as long as he still had the chance to do so. And he made the most useful memos and sent them to the senior officers on a regular basis.
Thank to Wilker's instructions and the knowledge about Cylon technology that they had gathered during the war, it took Tigh only a few microns to find the right interface that allowed him access to the basestar's comm system. As a human, he couldn't directly interface with the network, of course. It wouldn't have been recommendable anyway, as the human brain would have been overloaded by the incredible amount of information flowing through that network. That was the reason why high-ranking Cylon officers needed two brains, their supreme leaders no less than three.
But the multitalented Boomer, with Uhura's help, had found a way around the problem. They had created a small gadget that was capable of fooling the system and make it believe that it was dealing with a Cylon executive officer. At the time when the artificial intelligence realized its mistake, Dr. Wilker's sneaky computer virus was already spreading and multiplying happily through its circuits, doubling itself in a higher degree in every nanosecond.
After launching the virus, Tigh only had two more things to do: to create a conference circuit between the comm systems of all basestars, so that the virus could spread to the other basestars… and to wait. He knew Sheba was doing the same thing aboard the other Cylon ship, and that Athena was sending the activation code from the command deck of the Galactica. It couldn't take much longer now.
Had Imperious Leader been able to get a glimpse of the Galactica's bridge, he'd have been shocked by the sudden switch of attitude between the two sides. On board the colonial flagship, concentrated calmness ruled, while aboard his own… even the news coming through his communications network had become confusing since the humans began to shoot back – and win. The losses on the Cylon side were heavier than anything they had experienced during their millennia-long existence. Nor had any Cylon armada had encountered any ships of such strange configuration and such immense firepower.
As his third brain had more time than usual to analyse the situation, Imperious Leader was able to track down his mistakes. It seemed to him that his first mistake was that he had begun to occupy himself with humans in the first place. The second – and even worse – mistake was that he underestimated the contagious nature of this alien plague; the ability of mankind to extend their harmful influence to other people, even in this unknown, far-away corner of the universe.
The order of Cosmos had been undisturbed before humans had begun to spread all across the galaxy. For a while, the Cylons avoided direct confrontation, even under those circumstances. Instead, they tried to persuade the humans to vacate the occupied space; to return to their homeworld and keep out of the affairs of other races.
It had been a fair and reasonable suggestion. It would have served the interest of both parties. But of course, the humans refused to listen. So there was no other solution left than to go to war against them. And even though the Cylons had been the ones to launch the first attack, the actual blame for the hostilities lay by the humans. By their stubborn refusal to stop their meddling with Cylon affairs; to give up their colonies and return to that forgotten, dark corner of the universe where they had crawled forth from.
Imperious Leader accessed the memories of his predecessors and analysed every single case when the Cylons had to deal with this particular enemy. Truly, humans were like a plague. Once they had contaminated an area with their presence, there was no healing possible. The plague spread and spread, until it reached all lifeforms present in that area. Thus they had even contaminated the Cylons, bringing the Empire to this lowest point of its history.
The defeat of the Cylon armada against the small contingent of human ships and their allies was a true shock for Imperious Leader. Especially the way Adama had managed to lure two of his baseships in a trap and to cripple two of them already… the flagship being one of those, to add insult to injury. It was humiliating. Imperious Leader almost became overwhelmed with wrath when he as much as thought of Adama. Without this stubborn, demonic man, the primal source of all human victories, the Cylons would have long won this war, probably at Cimtar, or during the destruction of the colonies, at the very least.
Who could have thought that Adama would be insane enough to lead his slow and vulnerable fleet through the anomaly? Who could have thought that not only would they survive that transit but also find allies that were this powerful – and to lure the greatest Cylon force ever concentrated to eliminate an enemy in a deadly trap? Who could have thought that any Cylon fleet would ever suffer such a crushing defeat?
The alarming proportions of his dire situation slowly, gradually became clear to him. Any other Imperious Leader, realizing the impact of the defeat they had suffered, would have retreated at once and ordered his death. That would have been the only logical step. His death would have been the price for his mistake – that he allowed the humans to survive, although he should have eradicated them.
But he couldn't make that step. No, he needed to live, to pursue Adama and the remnants of this loathsome race, to whatever corner of the universe they were going, supported by their new allies. He could not die before he had fulfilled his obligation: to utterly eliminate them all. He couldn't allow himself to flee his responsibility. He didn't deserve the privilege of self-destruction as long as one human was left.
He had the vague feeling that none of his predecessors would have hesitated to give up their positions and die. That they wouldn't have given in to fruitless hatred, wouldn't have thirsted vengeance with such obsession. When he asked himself what was driving him so mercilessly, he had to realize the hopeless trap he had walked in with all his eyes wide open. He had occupied himself with humans too long. He had tried to guess their way of thinking too long. In a way, he had become just like them. This thirst for vengeance – this was depressingly human.
Becoming like his enemy was perhaps the ultimate, most humiliating defeat in this long war full of frustration and fruitless pursuit. But he was willing to accept it… for the time being. There was a way to exterminate the human contamination from his mind. All he had to do was to exterminate the humans themselves. Starting with Adama, whom he wanted to kill personally. But to that, he needed to stay alive.
Of course, Imperious Leader couldn't know that that particular decision had already been taken off his hands.
Tigh glanced at his wrist chrono. It contained a miniaturized computer (the colonial equivalent of a tricorder), which calculated that the virus planted in the comm system would read critical mass in twenty-five microns. Meaning the amount that would loose the signal that was supposed to burn out the electronic Cylon brains.
The colonel looked at the door at the far end of the computer room in hesitation. That door led directly to the operations centre of the basestar. Entering the command deck of the Cylon ship before it was verified that the virus would, indeed, provide the desired effort, was a great risk, of course. On the other hand, Tigh couldn't resist the temptation to watch the fracking tinheads, as young pilots frequently called the Cylons among themselves, turn into a heap of scrap metal. Besides, if the virus didn't work, he'd be found and killed in microns anyway. What did he have to lose?
The slide doors opened for him automatically, just like on any human ship, and he stepped into an immense, dimly lit room that – together with the adjoining computer room – was the nerve centre of every Cylon basestar.
As he expected, based on previous knowledge, the circular walls of the operations centre were framed with semi-circular consoles. Some of those were round and smooth, their frontal panel ridged with vertical light beams (or lighting surfaces) at regular intervals. In no way could these serve purely decorative purposes. Firstly, because the Cylons lacked any sense of aesthetics as humans understood it, and secondly, because sometimes they emanated a pulsing light in a strange rhythm, presumably sending information to the commander of the basestar.
Other consoles were iron-grey, their front panels shaping up in a sharp triangle. Tigh instinctively felt that these consoles (or rather the Cylon officers standing behind them) had to be the units commanding the merciless swarms of raiders against the human forces, although he couldn't have given a logical explanation for his certainty if his life depended on it. There were certain things a good warrior simply knew. And Tigh was a good warrior, whether he sat in a Viper or stood on the Galactica's bridge. He could barely resist the temptation to shoot both the consoles and their operators to shards… which, at the given moment, was unnecessary and tactically unwise.
Based on Apollo and Starbuck's reports, he expected the middle of the operations centre to be empty, and that in the exact middle of this empty space a Cylon officer in golden armour would stand – a so-called Gold Commander, one of the executive officers who maintained unbroken contact with their supreme leader. All Cylon basestars were led by a Gold Commander – save the one led by Baltar.
And, of course, the very one into whose operations centre Tigh had just sneaked in, urged by his curiosity and by his hatred against Cylons. The middle of this operations centre was not empty. It was occupied by a high, cone-shaped pedestal, the sides of which were covered by sharp, barbed points and thorn-like extensions that were blinking arhythmically in the dim lights of the immense chamber. Atop the pedestal, there was a semi-circular armchair that could be turned around at will, and in that chair a seemingly small figure was seated, clad in a shiny brown robe. Its disproportionally large head was partially enclosed in some sort of golden mesh – a high-capacity communications helmet – but even in the twilight, it could be clearly seen that, unlike its subjects, it was not a machine. The surface colour of its knobbly head was made up of various shades of grey, like shadows without a source, and in all this greyness, many eyes glowed coldly, ominously. At first sight, Tigh could recognize at least three of them. The elongated lower part of its face reminded of the jaws of a Terran crocodile.
The colonel froze for a moment when he realized whom he was facing: the supreme leader of the Cylon Empire, whom very few humans had ever got to see and even fewer had lived to tell the tale. The momentary distraction was enough for the guards, of course, to spot him. The two soldiers guarding the main entrance pointed their laser rifles at him at once, but didn't shoot. They waited for their superiors' orders.
Imperious Leader was just as much surprised by this unexpected encounter. So surprised, in fact, that he couldn't even react immediately. The Cylon leader knew, of course, who the human standing in front of him was. Cylon databases kept track on the most important human leaders, especially on the military ones. Thus he recognized the loathsome aide of the loathsome Adama at once. He just didn't know how to use this particular piece of information to his advantage. Not yet, that is.
Imperious Leader had learned a long time ago to suppress his disgust towards humans. In the extremely rare cases when he was forced to face a captured enemy directly, he always felt sick after the interrogations for quite some time. Humans disturbed his sense of order. As if he'd absorbed a small amount of their irrationality, whenever he had to endure their physical presence. After a while, he had learned how to face them without unwanted after-effects – through self-discipline and the conscious suppression of his third brain's certain sections – but this still didn't mean that he liked to meet them.
The human now facing him, however, threatened with the return of the old, irrational reactions – which was a great danger for his analytic thinking. While he was still trying to understand why he would find this particular specimen even more disturbing, he carefully shielded the parts of his mind that could be harmed by the mere presence of this being.
Perhaps the answer was simpler than he thought. Perhaps this particular human, this stubborn and short-tempered Libran officer incorporated everything that Cylons despised most. The Librans' stubbornness, their unyielding need for freedom, their insane heroism and despicable attraction to the confusing and irrational concept humans called "art" disturbed the order of the Cosmos more than any other human aspects. They were the most loathsome representatives of an utterly loathsome race.
And Tigh, executive officer of the Galactica, one of the last spawns of the Libran priest class, this very incorporation of the most irrational religious superstitions, was the most harmful of all his people. Imperious Leader would have loved to let him killed without much ado, but the intricate rituals of Cylon society demanded from him to be at least polite.
"Greetings, Colonel," he sent a mental order to the vocal output of his helmet to use a frequency audible for human ears. "What brings us the honour of your visit?"
Tigh gave his wrist chrono another glance. Nineteen microns left, the miniature screen told him. If he kept the leader occupied – well, at least part of his attention, as no single person could have hoped to gain the whole attention of a being that had three brains – that would make it a little easier for the Viper squadrons. The less guidance the Cylon raiders got from their leader, the clumsier, the more vulnerable they became.
"I always wanted to see a Cylon basestar from the inside," he replied lightly, determined to win as much time as possible; quite frankly, he was surprised that they hadn't shot him full of holes in the moment they spotted him. "So I decided to seize the opportunity, in case I wouldn't get any second chance. Of course, I didn't thing I'd walk into the very arms of the leader of your Empire."
The nonchalant answer of the human (in which he recognized the flavour this strange race called sarcasm) surprised Imperious Leader. In the rare cases a captured human was dragged before him, the subject was usually half mad from terror… or so apathetic that it was barely capable of answering questions. This human, however, behaved as if his captivity had been a carefully considered part of some complex and secret plan. Imperious Leader was not prepared for such reaction. Although, to be honest, he couldn't always foretell the spontaneous changes of human emotions. This was part of which made this harmful race so annoyingly unpredictable.
"And now that your old wish has been granted, what do you think of our base?" Imperious Leader asked, ordering his third brain to give a portion of human-like sarcasm to the spoken words. The adage of sarcasm turned out adequate, which provided him with mild satisfaction.
"Impressive design," the human admitted, giving the small instrument on his wrist another fleeting glance. "Had your race dedicated to construction just a quarter of the efforts you have wasted for destruction, you'd have reshaped half the universe by now."
"We are reshaping the universe, Colonel," Imperious Leader replied, slightly surprised, as always, by another proof of human inability to understand the greater design of events. "To be more specific: we are reinstalling the order of the universe that had been disturbed by the harmful intervention of the human race."
"The order of geometrically perfect morgues and cemeteries?" the human asked, his voice strangely lacking any emotions. "And order that demands the murdering of innocent children in the body of their mother, before they could have been born?"
"Humans," Imperious Leader answered with the same total lack of emotion, "are unable to recognize the shape of a greater design, unless they are made aware of it. But even then, their minds are too small to absorb the design in its entirety. All they can see are details, never the whole picture. Small wonder that they haven't been able to subjugate any part of the universe so far."
The human made that peculiar sound that his race used to express amusement – or, as they would call it themselves, he laughed."
"The concept might be beyond the comprehension of a race as limited as the Cylons are," he replied, "but we want to explore the universe, not to subjugate it… at least the sane majority of us. We are against the destruction and the mindless killing that accompanies the urge for power. That's why we find it necessary to stop the Cylon war machine… once and forever."
"That is odd," Imperious Leader said. "So far, I had the impression, and the state of the current battle does not change it, that humans have been fleeing from us."
Once again, Tyr glanced at his wrist chrono. The counter stood on zero.
"Up to this moment," he replied with that terrible, cold amusement that all people who'd ever served under him feared more than any outburst, "your impression has been right."
"And what would be changing in this moment?" Imperious Leader inquired, using the tool of sarcasm again. It seemed… adequate, under the circumstances.
Before the guards could have reacted, the human draw his weapon and aimed it directly at Imperious Leader's bulbous head. The guards froze, not daring to move and cause the death of their leader. Tigh smiled. It was a cold, very unpleasant smile.
"In this very moment, it has become unnecessary to kill you. In fact, not allowing you to savour your final and complete defeat, would considerably lessen my revenge. So I'll let you live… for the short time you have still left."
The executive officers and the guards finally decided to intervene. They came into motion simultaneously to relive themselves of the outrageous intruder who dared to threaten their leader. Tigh threw himself to the floor, rolling to the side (and suppressing the stabbing pain in his spine once again), firing at the guards with the laser rifles who presented the most immediate danger for him. It seemed that his reflexes were still quite good. The guards staggered and went down with a loud metallic clang.
In the same moment, strong high-frequency resonance began to sound in the operations centres of all Cylon basestars. The automatic relays, thank to Tigh's expert preparations, switched to the highest volume, so that there wasn't a single nook or corner on any of the eight basestars that was not filled with the resonance. The sensitive second brains of the Gold Commanders were the first ones to succumb, leaving nothing but a heap of burnt-out, half-molten circuits in their sculls. Then the more primitive brains of the foot soldiers also fell victim to Dr. Wilker's intricate programming – as soon as Sheba reached the computer room on the other basestar and slipped the secondary virus into the comm network, amplified by the Galactica's own powerful comm system.
Imperious Leader cringed from the stabbing pain lacing into all his three brains. He became dizzy in his high chair and, falling from his huge pedestal, hit the floor in the most undignified manner, like a dead frog. His resistant reptilian metabolism saved him from being crushed to death, and his high-capacity third brain kept him alive a few microns longer than his subjects. Long enough to see the human get up, walk over to him and look down at his convulsing body without compassion.
"I've met a lot of strange-looking creatures since we passed the anomaly," the human told him conversationally, "but I've never seen such an ugly beast like you. Look at the bright side of it, Leader: our physicians will learn a great deal from dissecting you and studying your insides. That makes your long career of death and destruction just a little less wasted."
TBC