Thirteen

Chapter Eleven

And So Was Said, Long Ago…

They landed closer to the original landing site, but it was still a long way to hike to the Tomb of Athena. The weather was good, though, as it stayed cool but dry, and a gentle breeze from the north helped to refresh the spirits of those walking along the trail to the tomb. Boomer was in the lead followed by Starbuck and Helo, then President Hollifield and General Ivanova. Several Rangers and Earthforce security officers accompanied them, all of which Hollifield personally knew and trusted. He knew that keeping the lid on the Colonials was next to impossible, but he had to do what he could to hold it on for as long as he could.

The team arrived at the tomb unhindered by Centurions, and Helo, along with several of Hollifield's trusted associates helped push the doorway open. Starbuck, Helo, Hollifield and Ivanova entered the tomb, while Boomer stayed outside at her own insistence. Walking inside, Boomer noted that the place was much the same as she left it, and she spotted the statue of Sagittaron, the archer. She indicated to the others where she was going, and she slowly walked up to the statue, taking out the Arrow of Apollo from the pack slung across her shoulder. With trembling hands, she held it just above the hands of the archer. "You ready?" Starbuck asked the group, and they all indicated they were.

She placed the arrow in the hands of the statue, and the doorway suddenly slammed shut. "Holy crap! Did you see that?" said one of the security officers.

"Starbuck said this happened before, so we'll give them time to get out. The president and the general have monitors on them, and we're still picking up their signal.", said one of the Rangers by the name of Molly Harkins, whose brown hair flowed down and matched the color of her uniform. The others nodded and sat down to wait out the others, and Boomer seemed to be the most nervous of them all.

Inside, Starbuck noted that she was not in a field of grasses anymore, and it wasn't nighttime either. It seemed to be the early morning, and they were standing on a hill, outside of an ancient temple. From out of nowhere, a woman with long red hair walked up to them, wearing a black pantsuit. "So you came to see the truth? Are you sure you want it?"

Hollifield turned to the image of Lyta Alexander and answered her, "Yes, I want those answers. They'll only produce more questions, but I want as many answers as I can get."

Lyta snorted and replied, "If you only knew…well, let me begin by asking you where you think we are on Earth?"

They all looked around, and Ivanova said, "This looks like the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Only it's not ruins like the one on Earth."

"Yes, you are correct, Susan. Long ago, they came to Earth to take those who chose to come. The Vorlons knew, somehow, we were special. They found beings on an island continent who fit the mold of those they wished to transport to a new world, but they also came here, to Athens, and took people from here, as well as other parts of our world: Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, and other parts of Europe. They took with them the knowledge and beliefs of the Greeks and Atlantians, and forged them into a mythology that they hoped proved helpful for their plans.

"You see, the Vorlons had their eye on the humans, long before anyone else did. They also knew that the Shadows had noticed our race from their travels. Our location was remote, and we were virtually isolated from the greater part of the galaxy. They knew that the Shadows would try to bring us into the war someday, so they took some of us and moved them to a world on the edge of Vorlon territory, known in the ancient tongue of one of the tribes of man as Kobol."

Lyta waved her hand, and the room transformed, changing into a vast star field. She zoomed in on the Sol System, and brought them close to the home world of the humans. "Is that…Earth?" asked Starbuck, who was beside the president.

"Yes, it is." Hollifield replied, entranced in the imagery.

"It's beautiful!" she said, her eyes locked onto the planet.

Lyta continued on, not noticing their whispered banter. "The Vorlons came with great ships and took away those they had gathered in Atlantis, destroying the continent so that others would never know of their interference, using their powers to create a volcanic eruption that consumed the island. This happened almost four thousand Earth years ago."

Helo spoke up and said, "That's roughly around the same time as the first Scrolls were written."

Lyta rambled on, "Every so often, the Vorlons came to the humans here, in disguise as the various 'gods' of the Greek religion. They kept our kind here, in the hopes of uniting them with the humans left on Earth and one day raising both to help them defeat the Shadows once and for all."

Starbuck looked lost, not wanting to believe what was being said. To her, the gods were supposed to be real, but to hear that they were aliens intent on manipulating them for their own needs was a shock to her system. She reached into the pocket of her jacket and thumbed the figurines of Artemis and Athena, the gods that she prayed to, and said a silent prayer to them asking for understanding.

"Two thousand years ago, the Shadows found out about this place, and convinced their allies to launch an attack on this place. The Vorlons and their allies defeated them, but they needed to evacuate the humans to a system far from the reach of the Shadows and their allies. Thus, they created the myth of the Great Exodus, and settled the humans onto twelve worlds that they had terraformed to serve their purposes. There, they allowed them to flourish, tinkering with them to adjust their languages and cultures to closely resemble that of those on Earth." Lyta finished her lecture and put her hands to her sides.

Hollifield came forward and asked, "Why did they do this? I still don't understand!"

"They did it because they saw within us the mind set that would win them the war. They saw that we tamed chaos and brought order to our world, and they thought it was good. We flourished faster than any race that they had ever known, and they decided that they would help make us into their image. For generations, they tinkered with us, through visions and chance encounters, nudging us in the direction they needed us to go. They knew the Shadows had visited Earth as well, and were also doing what they had to do to foil their enemies. This was why the Vorlons took some of the humans away: to deny the Shadows all of our kind."

"But why? Surely there were other races they could have chosen?" asked Ivanova.

"They chose us because we had the genetic makeup to create telepaths. The Colonies of Kobol were to be their backup plan, in case Earth didn't make it. When Valen arrived a thousand years ago, they realized that Earth would be key to the next Shadow War, and they stepped up their efforts. Their vision was to, one day, reunite humanity and drive the Shadows away for good."

"But it didn't happen that way?" Helo asked.

"No. John Sheridan came along and forced our hand. He made the Vorlons and the Shadows flee the galaxy, and left the Colonials to fend for themselves. They knew of the Cylons, but did nothing to stop them from attacking the Colonials, as they knew that the Earthers would be around for the Shadow War. So, when the Vorlons left twenty years ago, the Cylons went to a world on another frontier of the Vorlon Empire." Lyta then waved a hand and the room spun around as they went to another part of the galaxy.

"I know this world! Garibaldi showed it to me once shortly after the end of the Telepath War. He told me that the second director of the Psi Corps, Kevin Vacit, had landed there and been exposed to a world where the Vorlons had conducted experiments to enhance telepathy in other beings. But why bring me to this world?"

"Because it's Vacit who is behind all of this! You felt him, Garrison, there on Caprica! He is behind the Cylons getting Vorlon organic technology, and he is the one responsible for the abductions of humans from Earth to base his human versions of Cylons on."

Hollifield walked up to the image of Lyta and asked her, "How do you know this?"

"You know of the Great Machine on the world you call Episilon 3? Well, this is another machine like that. I am of a race long dead from this world. I only appear as this person because of their connection to you in your mind. My race died in one of the Shadow wars, and the Vorlons kept this world safe to serve as a haven for a future race. They did not know of me, so I recorded it all. I found the one you know of as Draal not too long ago, and, together, we have put together all of the information that you have now." Lyta answered.

"So what are we to do now, with all you told us?"

"Find Vacit, defeat the metallic Cylons, and free the clones they had created to repopulate the Colonial worlds. Because Vacit's ultimate plan is to take on Earth as part of his vengeance for the way the Telepath War went."

Hollifield walked around, trying to take it all in. He then turned to Lyta and said, "There's something more to this, isn't there?"

"Yes. One thing about you personally, and it will change the way you look at someone you loathe." Lyta told him the secret, and his face fell at the shock of the news.

When they emerged, they all looked like they had seen ghosts. "Mr. President?", one of the Rangers asked as Hollifield walked past him without even acknowledging he was there.

Starbuck broke out into tears, sitting down hard on a nearby rock smoothed into almost a bench. "It's all been a lie! Everything I believed…a lie! What am I supposed to do now?"

Helo shook his head, while Boomer looked down, not knowing what to say. Ivanova grimaced her face, rapt in thought, and Hollifield looked around. "The Vorlons once said, 'understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth'. Who would have thought that the Vorlons were such liars!" He laughed mirthlessly, then picked up a rock and slammed it down on the ground in frustration.

Ivanova came up to him and asked, "It can't be true, can it? How can you be related to him?"

Before he could answer, Hollifield looked away, sensing something. He then yelled, "Get down!", and hit the dirt just as the first bullets whined through the air.

Starbuck and Helo checked their weapons and looked to see how many Centurions were around, not believing what they were seeing. "Looks to be at least twenty of them! We don't have enough people here to stop them all!"

Hollifield looked around and he could feel others coming from both flanks. They were trapped, and it looked hopeless. That was until he felt a surge of power go through him, the likes of which he had never known.

"What the hell are you doing!" Ivanova yelled as the president rose up, then gasped as she saw that his eyes had started to glow. She knew about how the Vorlons had altered him, but, until now, she had no idea of the extent of the powers that he had. The Centurions targeted him, but the bullets flew away well before they got anywhere near him. Starbuck and Helo got up, and they could make out some sort of energy field surrounding them.

Hollifield began to bleed from his eye, and his body shook from the concentration he had on the Centurions, which suddenly stopped firing and then began to rattle, as if they were having chills. To the shock of all who were there, they began to lift up off the ground. He grunted as his mind took hold of them all, lifting them up until they were all visible to him.

"You…have…no…idea…who…you…are…dealing…with!", he grounded out with gritted teeth, and let out a yell, and, as if he had flung them like a great many rag dolls, they flew back an unknown distance, crashing down to the ground from on high.

Hollifield's breaths came quickly, as he tried to catch his breath. Helo went to him and caught him just as he fainted. "Call the ship! We have to pick him up here!", Ivanova ordered, and soon they had the president aboard a shuttle and heading back into space with the rest of the team.

From deep within the planet, the being who had mimicked Lyta returned to her original form, that of the ancient race that had long ago perished from Kobol. She was the last of her kind, keeper of the machine here. She had light blue skin, and the only marked difference between her and the humans other than skin color was the two bone crests running parallel on her head.

Draal showed up with the twinkle in his eye that she had become accustomed to, and which she found charming. It had been eons since she had encountered someone like him. "So did they, as the humans say, 'buy it'?"

"I think so. It's still a shock to them, finding out the truth about their origins. It's taken me eons mining the other great machines in the galaxy to discover all of this. For all I know, there may be more out there. I just recently stumbled upon you, for example."

Draal grunted, then his image walked along the ancient catacombs deep within the surface of Kobol and said, "So what will become of them?"

"That is in your court now, Draal. I don't know what is to become of these humans, but it would be ashamed to let them die at the hands of such a man as Vacit. I never imagine that he would take control of one of the great machines…"

"Yes it would appear so, but I know these people, my dear Branna, and they can overcome all of this and defeat Vacit. They were the ones who ran off the Vorlons and the Shadows, after all!"

Branna nodded, then added, "But even the strongest can take only so much! Sheridan, Ivanova, Franklin, Garibaldi, Hollifield, and the others…they are old and have been through so much already! How can they endure all of this?"

Draal smiled and said, "My dear Branna! It's best not to underestimate these humans, for my people did just that and they almost made a tragic mistake! And I know these humans, and they may be old, but they are our last, best hope for us all!"