Thirteen
Chapter Fifty-Six
Fleet Resurrection
Admiral William Adama, commander of the Colonial fleet, wasn't much for surprises, but this one was very much an exception to that rule. "My Gods! How many of them are there?"
He was standing in the Observation Dome on Babylon 5 as the Whitestars under the command of Starbuck came through the jumpgate, escorting the Colonial battlestars through the gate. The earliest reports had been of twelve Mercury-class battlestars, but that had proven to be incorrect. Instead, six of the original twelve battlestars were here: Pacifica, Prometheus, Solaria, Acropolis, Poseidon, and Triton. The six others were Mercury-class battlestars, just like Pegasus had been: Alexandria, Andromeda, Iscandaria, Olympus, Cerberus, and Athena.
"Twelve, Admiral. We're going to put them on the other side of the planet and have the cruisers stand guard over them. We can repair them and retrofit them just as easily there as we can here." Lt. Col. Sharon Valerii said, not turning from her console as she spoke. "Message coming in from Pacifica, Admiral. It's from a Commander Zoetrope."
"Put it through to the Admiral's office, please." Adama said, and Valerii nodded in compliance. He walked back to the office located next to the entrance to the command and control center, sat down at the desk, and brought up the communications screen. It was an audio-only message, as these ships didn't have video message capabilities yet.
"Bill Adama? Is that you?" Zoetrope asked.
"It is. Gods, it's good to see you!" Adama said, getting a little emotional.
"Same here, Bill! Same here! I thought you were all lost!" Zoetrope replied, getting a little emotional herself.
"When can you board a Raptor and head over to meet?" Adama asked.
"As soon as I can, Bill!" Zoetrope replied.
"Good. Meet you in about an hour?"
"We'll be there, Bill! Pacifica out!"
Adama was joined by President Roslin, along with Admiral Rissen and John Sheridan, and they stood in the reception area of Bay Sixteen as the Raptor docked. The pressure door opened, and his old friend came through the opening. She and her command staff, as well as the commanders of the other battlestars, stopped in front of Adama and the others and saluted. "Commander Ariadne Zoetrope, Pacifica."
Adama returned the salute, then extended his hand, saying, "Thank the Gods we found you!"
Zoetrope took the hand and shook it, replying, "I couldn't agree with you more, Admiral!"
Adama gestured to the president and introduced her. "Pleased to meet you, Madam President!" Zoetrope saluted her and Roslin returned the salute.
"On behalf of all of us here, Commander, it's great to see you and the others! Over these last few months, we've seen so much death and destruction, that something like this is truly a miracle of the Gods!" Roslin said.
"I don't know about that, Madam President, but, speaking only for myself, I'm very happy that we made it here!" Zoetrope replied. Roslin smiled and Adama continued the introductions at the welcoming ceremony. Later on, they made their way to the war room, where the commanders of the battlestars met with Admiral Adama for the briefing to get them up to speed as to what had been happening since the first encounter with the Earth Alliance as well as the Interstellar Alliance.
When he had finished with catching them up, he got into the current situation. "We have reason to believe that the Cylon/Drakh alliance plan to attack Earth. When that will come, we don't know. What we do know is that our initial assessment that the enemy was concentrating on attacking us was wrong, and we've begun to prepare for the eventual assault on Earth."
The commander of the Acropolis, Bartholomew Wilcox, asked, "What part will we play in the defense of the planet?"
"We're unsure at the moment, because we'll need to upgrade your weapons systems as well as other parts of the ship. Galactica already has these, and we had also upgraded the Pegasus before we lost her, so it shouldn't take as long to bring your ships up to where we need them to be. We'll get started immediately, because time is of the essence.
"Not only that, but now that you are here, we can tell you some of what we have planned for the enemy in the long term." Adama clicked a button on the lectern where he was speaking from and the image on the main screen in the war room changed to a tactical display of the Colonial system.
"With the help of the Earth Alliance as well as the Interstellar Alliance, we are making plans to retake our homeworlds from the enemy. These plans are indeed long term, and will involve even more upgrades to our ships, as well as the introduction of new ships of the line into Earthforce and into the Interstellar Alliance. This will all be revealed to you in time, but just know that we will be going on the offensive soon enough!"
Adama could tell that this boosted their morale significantly, almost as much as his had been with the appearance of the twelve battlestars. The technomages had checked the ships, and no humanoid Cylons were aboard any of the ships, nor did any of the ships have any other Cylon surprises, to which Adama thanked the Gods for, because they needed all the luck they could get these days.
Cain still couldn't believe it, but the visual evidence was there for her to see. For the first time, she really began to believe that they could free the Colonial worlds from Cylon occupation. She had her doubts that they could do it with what they had, but with the discovery of these battlestars, which she had considered lost for so long, her pessimism had begun to melt away.
She stood at the map table in the underground complex deep inside of Earthdome, looking over the plans that Ivanova and she had made for possible offensives into the Colonial system. Now those plans would have to be either scrapped or altered severely to account for the significant boost to the Colonial fleet. Neither woman, however, looked negatively on the increase of their workload.
Ivanova joined her at the table, looking over the situation with a smile on her face. "This has had my mind going into overdrive since those battlestars turned up. I haven't been able to sleep since then because of all the ideas I've been getting for our offensive."
Cain nodded and added, "I've been the same way. If we can weather whatever they throw at us here and beat them back, then we can really start to plot our attacks."
"If I were in their shoes, I would throw everything I had at us. If we make it through, then they'll be hurt for some time to come. This could give us enough time to bring in the forces we're building at Marcab and really take the fight to them!"
Cain got up and looked at Ivanova saying, "Thank you and the president for bringing me here!"
"You're welcome." Ivanova said, and the two embraced. The two slowly parted from the embrace and looked deeply at each other. For a moment, it seemed like something was about to happen, but then a knock on the door shattered it. They parted and stepped aside, and Ivanova called for whoever was at the door to enter.
It was President Hollifield, who had a smile on his face. "Sorry I've not been around. I've had to deal with some political crap up top for a while. So, what does this latest development portend for our efforts?" Ivanova showed him over to the table, looking at Cain, who was still trying to figure out what had happened in that moment when she was holding Ivanova in her arms. She shook herself out of that mindset and brought herself back to the tactical situation, but she knew she would have to figure this out soon enough, or else it could lead to problems of a different sort.