Thirteen
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Pleasant Surprises
The message came in and Helo raced onto the bridge, fearing the worst. Starbuck's face looked taut as she sat in her command chair, and Helo's heart sank. "What is it, Starbuck?" Helo asked, trying to hold his voice steady.
Starbuck looked at him and said, "It's a boy!" A smile burst from her face, and she added, "Congratulations, Helo!"
Helo's legs almost went out from under him when the news hit him, and he grabbed onto the railing next to the console where he was stationed at to keep him from collapsing. "Is…is he?"
"Mom and baby are doing just fine, Helo. They didn't expect her to go into labor this fast, but the gestation period for human Cylons appears to be shorter than for regular humans, according to the docs at Tuzinor."
Helo tried to find the words to say, but he was stunned speechless. "Listen, why don't you go back to the communications room and I'll patch a signal through to Boomer?" Starbuck said, and Helo nodded and headed back as Starbuck made the proper linkup back to the Rangers medical facility.
The message screen came up as Helo entered the room and sat down, and when the communications diagnostic screen went away, Boomer was holding their baby in her arms. Tears blurred the image for a moment, but it straightened out when Helo wiped them from his eyes. "Hey Sharon!" was all he could think of to say at that moment.
"Hey!" she said softly, still looking exhausted from the childbirth, but her color looked good. "So what do you want to name him?"
Helo raised his hands up in the universal signal for 'I don't know!' and Boomer laughed as he said, "I wasn't expecting our baby to be born this soon, so I've not had a chance to think of any ideas for a name! Can we wait until I get back to name our son?"
Boomer smiled and said, "Yes, we can, Helo."
The Minbari doctor came into view as the shot widened, along with Sech Turval. "Congratulations! The baby is doing just fine and so is the mother. The labor went smoothly and all signs point to a very healthy child indeed!" said healer Norvak.
They concluded the conversation, and Helo got up slowly from his chair, with a smile on this face and tears in his eyes. When he turned to head back to his station, he was surprised to see Starbuck behind him. Starbuck smiled and threw her arms around him, saying, "Congratulations, my friend!" He hugged her as well, thanking her for her support through this very difficult time.
"So what's the news on the child?" Hollifield asked Norvak.
"He appears to be humanoid with some of the same Cylon implants that Sharon Valerii has, but none appear to be around the brain area, from what our scans can tell." Norvak replied.
"What does that mean for the child, though?"
"This is merely speculation, I must stress, but I think the child will have the same physical capabilities as the humanoid Cylons, but the brain may not be under the influence of the Cylon programming, because we've not been able to find any silicon traces that are in Boomer's brain." Norvak said.
Hollifield thought for a moment about this, then said, "Thank you, Norvak. Please extend my congratulations to the new parents!" Norvak nodded and clicked off the connection.
"Well, this is a interesting development!" Ivanova said. The general had sat out of sight of the camera on the communications terminal, along with General Cain. Cain simply nodded and both waited for the president to reply.
"Yeah, you can say that again! So what do we do about this?" Hollifield said.
"If the Cylons find out about the birth, do you think the Cylons will make an attempt to get the child?" Cain asked.
A smile crept on the face of Hollifield as an idea came to him, and he sat there silent for a moment. Ivanova and Cain looked at each other, wondering what the president was thinking. "Maybe we should tell them about it, only wrap a little lie inside the truth!" Hollifield said with a raised eyebrow, and the idea seemed to crop in the heads of the two women at the same time. "And I didn't even have to use my telepathy!" he joked, and they began to discuss ways to have the Cylons find out about the birth.
"So, her child is okay?" Vacit asked.
"From the signal I received from one of our agents on Earth, the child and mother are both doing fine. He knows that they are both being held in a facility underneath Earthdome in Geneva." Winters replied.
Vacit grunted, adding, "He's not going to make this easy for us, is he?"
Bester interjected, "Do you think it could be a trap?"
"This agent's been under my control for a while, so I trust him implicitly. He's also a P12, so it's highly unlikely he's been altered." Wintered answered.
Bester nodded and Vacit said, "It makes sense, because if they were able to counteract the programming of this child, it would mean trouble for us. We need to get our hands on this child, no matter the cost!"
Bester knew what that meant: an invasion of Earth, specifically Geneva. They would have to throw everything they had to get through the defense grid in orbit of the planet just to get their forces in place to try and make a landing on the planet. Geneva was heavily fortified, not just from forces coming from space but on the ground as well. Bester also knew that Hollifield might just kill the child to deny them access to the technology, but he hoped to get the child before that possibility could occur.
Admiral Adama gently tossed the report he had been reading before the transmission came in onto the desk. "So do you think the Cylons and the Drakh will buy it?"
"I think so, but the Minbari are strengthening their defenses around their homeworld just in case. We've also moved Boomer and her child to a safe place on the planet, so that they won't be in the obvious places should the Drakh not fall for this. Besides, this does give us a bit of an insurance policy."
"What do you mean by that?"
"If they think the baby is here, they won't bring in the nukes and do onto us what they did onto you. This also could cause a rift in the alliance should the Drakh want to take us out badly enough and Vacit doesn't go along with their ideas of attacking Earth. If I guess correctly, this should buy us some time to prepare for their arrival."
Adama nodded and said over the coded and encrypted transmission, "Our refits for the newly arrived battlestars is going well, but it'll take time."
"Do what you can do, Bill. We're planning to defend Earth without them anyway. If you can get some or all of them here to help out, then that's a bonus for our side. Just do what you have to do and do the best you can. Besides, if we beat them back without them, we'll still need them in the future anyway." Hollifield replied.
Back on the Cylon homeworld, Bester strolled over to the facility where the new clones were being grown. He walked along the collection of tubes with human versions of Cylons growing inside them, musing, "So they've had a baby? I didn't think the Cylons could have offspring!" He said this with a copy of D'anna and Simon nearby, along with Aaron Doral and Leoben Conoy, who were working on one of the tubes as Bester passed by. They looked at each other, but said nothing until he left the room.
"What's this about a baby?" Conoy asked.
"I think they said one of the Sharon models on Caprica got pregnant from one of the Colonial soldiers that had survived the bombings there!" D'anna replied.
"If that's the case, then it's possible for us to reproduce!" Simon said.
"But not without human DNA, though!" Aaron added.
They looked around and saw that no one else was in there, then D'anna whispered something, "I think we need to start considering what to do to get out from under the thumbs of Vacit and the other Cylons, and I think we need to start planning now!" The three men nodded and they all looked at the clone they were looking at. "If they knew what we knew, Vacit and his cohorts wouldn't be as pleased as they seem to be." Simon said with relish, and the others nodded.
Bester didn't know it, but he was spreading telepathic thoughts of insurrection among the others. Those thoughts went along with ideas, information, and suggestions that Hollifield had planted inside the brain of Bester. Using the technomage probe implanted onto Bester's earlobe, and with the assistance of Andromeda, Hollifield got the information from Bester and readjusted his programming while he slept, using the faster than light relays that Alwyn and Galen had set up.
That wasn't the only microscopic probe on Bester's person, as he had others on him as well, including one on his forehead, right above the area between his eyes, which gave Hollifield an excellent view of Bester's interactions with Vacit. He knew that he risked Vacit discovering the probes, but he didn't care, because he was willing to take the risk so that he could find out what the enemy was up to. However, he could tell that Vacit had become arrogant in his old age, and it blinded him to what he had planned.
Back on Earth, Ivanova and Cain completed their work for the day and were about to head out the door when Cain stopped short and asked, "Susan, can I talk to you about something?"
"Sure, what is it?" Ivanova asked.
"It's about the other day." Cain said, and Ivanova knew right then what she meant. "Look, I know we've become close and all…"
"Nelena, I apologize if I made you uncomfortable…" Ivanova interjected.
"No, it's not that, Susan! It's just…I've always sucked when it comes to relationships, and after my divorce, I never thought the chance would come along. Then when Sheba, my daughter, died…"
Ivanova nodded and looked to be disappointed, saying, "If you just want to be friends, I'll understand."
"Just for now. Besides, we've got a lot to do anyway. When things settle down and what we're doing is all over with, then maybe we could see how it goes."
Ivanova asked, "Have you ever been involved with a girl before?"
"Back in college, I had a thing for another woman. Her parents objected severely and mine were none too pleased with it, so they did what they could to break us up. She couldn't deal with it anymore and she left college. Last I heard, she was on Caprica, married, and had a couple of kids."
"I'm sorry, Nelena." Ivanova said softly.
"Homosexuality isn't that well accepted among my people, even though there's nothing in the sacred scrolls against it. Like with your people, we've had our fair share of persecutions and repressions."
"Yeah, I know. Things are better than they used to be, but being bisexual isn't easy. I almost had a thing for someone once, when I was on Babylon 5, but something came between us." Ivanova said.
"Well, like I said, when this is all over, we'll think about it then. Right now, we both need to be focused on the task at hand." Cain said.
"Okay." Ivanova said, and the two hugged again. They held each other for a while, and as they broke apart, they looked into each other's eyes a while longer than they would have normally done before an attraction had developed between them. "I…uh, I'll clean up here. I'll see you tomorrow, Nelena."
"Yeah, see you tomorrow, Susan!" said Cain, and she went out the door and one her way to her apartment.
Ivanova stood there for a moment and said aloud, "And I always thought I was too old for this stuff!" She shook her head and laughed as she cleaned off the maps on the table and locked them away.
"The child is fine?" Six asked.
"Doing really well, in fact." Hollifield said, and told her and Dr. Gaius Baltar all the details of the birth. Six smiled and said, "So the child doesn't have the programming in his brain that we have?"
"Nope, not according to the reports I've received. It's still early, but it looks hopeful!" Hollifield said, "So how's Gina doing?"
"Very well. She's becoming more independent everyday of her programming, and she has wanted to get out of here for a while." Baltar said.
"I may have something to do about that. We're going to need you to do something else for us soon, Doctor. Gina will be in good care, though. This is an old friend of mine, and she'll take good care of her and help her adjust to life here on Earth." Hollifield told them of his plans to send Gina to live with Andromeda in Boone. Gina would enroll at Appalachian State University, with Andromeda, under her pseudonym of Andrea Medina, assigned as her advisor. Yes, being president did have its advantages.