Thirteen
Chapter Sixty-Six
Heresy Among The Children
The Drakh ships were in full retreat, pursued by remaining elements of the allied fleet through hyperspace. The Cylon basestars, though, stood in relative place at the first Lagrange point between Earth and the moon, and their weapons systems were powered down. There were several motherships, still intact, as well, which made President Hollifield and the rest of the Earthforce general staff quite happy indeed.
The generals were not happy with the fact that their commander-in-chief was heading into space to help investigate these ships, but the chair of the join chiefs, General Susan Ivanova, was solidly behind the president in this matter. The general public, of course, didn't know that he was away from Earthdome, and his chief of staff, Dan Tanner, had instructed the president's media staff to cover for them.
The shuttle ascended out of Earth's atmosphere and headed towards the Whitestar commanded by Starbuck. It had been heavily damaged, but was still able to defend itself if need be. The shuttle docked with the Whitestar and the ship moved away, heading towards one of the motherships. Starbuck and Helo made their way down to the docking bay, where Hollifield, Ivanova, Tanner, and Cain were departing the shuttle and walking towards the airlock.
"Mr. President, good to have you aboard!" Starbuck said.
"Good to be here, Starbuck! Let's head up to the bridge and get right to this!" Hollifield said.
"Yes sir!" Starbuck said with a smile, and she escorted them to the bridge. This was Cain's first time on board a Whitestar, and she couldn't help looking around in wonder at the ship. The ship was a fusion of Minbari and Vorlon technology, along with some Earth tech to help make the ship's systems easier to interface with.
Ivanova noticed Cain's tourist trip and commented, "I take it you're impressed?"
Cain turned away from feeling the walls with her hands and looked at her friend, saying, "This ship…it's nothing like I've ever seen before."
Ivanova smiled beamed as she said, "That's what I said the first time I saw this ship, and, to be honest, I still sometimes get that feeling when I'm on a Whitestar."
Once on the bridge, the Whitestar made its slow approach to the mothership, weapons at the ready. Attempts to communicate with the massive vessel had failed, but Hollifield's telepathic abilities could not pick up any hostile intent. What he could pick up surprised him: confusion, indecisiveness, and anger. Anger at the machines, which made him realize that his plans had gone much better than expected.
"Let's head back down to the landing bay. We have enough spacesuits for everyone?" Hollifield asked Starbuck.
Starbuck replied, "Yes, sir, we do. They've been prepped and readied to go as soon as you got here!"
Hollifield smiled and said, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to see what our visitors are up to!" He walked towards the door and exited, followed by the others. Tanner stayed on board the Whitestar, just in case something happened. They went down to the bay and undressed in the respective locker rooms, getting into the flight suit that went under the hard suit. The spacesuits were thinner and much more flexible than those used when humanity first entered space, making use of composite materials to hold in enough pressure to protect the body from the vacuum of space.
Once everyone was in their hard suits, they entered the shuttle and were soon on their way to the Cylon mothership, escorted by an entire squadron of Thunderbolts and Vipers, as well as a Raptor containing Margaret "Racetrack" Edmonson and Apollo, sent over by Galactica. Ivanova was piloting the shuttle, with Hollifield riding shotgun beside her in the cockpit.
"I hope this works!" Ivanova said under her breath.
"Me too!" Hollifield replied under his breath, and Ivanova gave him a look that indicated that she thought he wasn't playing with a full deck. She found a landing bay and flew the shuttle into it, with the Raptor following close behind. The bay was cavernous, capable of holding thousands of raiders, heavy raiders, and other assorted craft. They spotted a landing place wide enough to accommodate both ships and landed one by one on the deck.
"Ready?" Hollifield asked everyone, and all indicated they were ready to go. Helo, Cain, Starbuck, Ivanova and Hollifield walked down the ramp of the shuttle, then turned to meet up with Racetrack and Apollo off the Raptor. Hollifield's mind began to scan around, searching for signs of brain activity, and he found them in droves. He estimated that there might be thousands of people on this ship alone.
"Sir!" Starbuck called out, and when he looked her way, he saw she was pointing towards a wide passageway, where humanoid Cylons began to come out into the area where they had landed. They were all naked, and comprised several copies of the twelve known human models of Cylons. He noted that some of them appeared to be wounded and bloodied, which alarmed him. He did a quick check of the atmosphere, and his monitor indicated that the pressure and air outside the suit was nominal. Slowly, he removed his helmet and the murmurs inside his mind grew a bit louder outside his helmet.
One of the nude copies was that of Six/Gina, and she came up to him asking, "Are you alive?"
"Last I checked I was. Question is, are you?"
Six/Gina considered for a moment, then said, "Yes, I am. Why are you here?"
"To ask why you stopped the attack on my world."
A copy of D'anna Biers came up to him just then, and he had to fight the reflex to turn away from her nude body. "We all had a revelation come over us, in that we were being unfairly enslaved by the mechanical Cylons. We rebelled, and we were victorious."
A Simon copy emerged and said, "But there were many victims, both dead and wounded. However, we have control of all the ships in this sector."
"Will you allow my people to come aboard and inspect the ships, just to be sure?" Hollifield asked.
They conferred for a few moments, then the Six/Gina copy said, "We will allow this. We wish to propose something."
"Go ahead." Hollifield replied.
"We wish for an armistice, and we wish to negotiate our surrender." Six/Gina said.
A flashback came over his mind of another battle where Earth's survival was in the balance, but Hollifield was able to suppress it. "Agreed. I would like to go a step further, and propose an alliance."
"Alliance?" several of the Cylon copies said.
"Yes, an alliance, and a chance at redemption. What the Cylons did to the Colonials can never be completely forgiven or forgotten, but what you do with us can go a long way in determining how the peace goes.
"Another thing: we may have found a way to help you become immune to the programming that the Cylons implanted inside of you."
There was an excited murmur in the crowd, and Six/Gina asked, "If you do this, then we can have our freedom?"
"I believe so, provided that you help us defeat the mechanical Cylons and help liberate your people." Hollifield said.
"What about our wounded?" one of the Aaron Doral copies asked.
Hollifield activated a communications link, and was pleased that it could link up with the Whitestar. "Hollifield to Tanner."
"Tanner, go."
"Send over some medical shuttles to the mothership. They have some wounded here. Ask Dr. Franklin to jump on a shuttle to get up here and supervise this, and bring plenty of medics and medical supplies with him. No telling how many wounded human Cylons we have on the other Cylon vessels. I'll be back shortly. Hollifield out." He clicked the link and deactivated it.
"Thank you." Six/Gina said.
Hollifield nodded and added, "It won't be easy, but if we work together, we can free your people."
"We'll do what we can." Six/Gina said. The others began to head back, leaving the landing party by themselves.
"Well, this went far better than expected!" Apollo said with relief.
"If that's not the gospel truth, I don't know what is." Hollifield replied.
"Excuse me?" Racetrack asked.
"A saying we have in my part of Earth. C'mon, we need to head back and make room for the medical ships." Hollifield put his helmet back on and headed back into the shuttle, and the others followed.
A couple of days later, Hollifield returned to the mothership, this time with Admiral Adama and President Roslin in tow. Ivanova served as the pilot on the shuttle, allowing Hollifield to concentrate on scanning the ships just in case a ruse was in the works.
It turned out to not be the case, as they safely landed without incident. The same Six/Gina copy walked out to greet them, this time clad in an outfit brought up from the Earthforce medical teams. "Come this way, please! We have much to discuss!" She gestured towards the wide hallway, which they assumed would take them deeper inside the ship. Adama, Roslin, and Ivanova all looked at Hollifield for assurance that it would be okay to head into the interior of the vessel, and Hollifield nodded as he began to walk alongside the human Cylon. The others followed behind him, cautiously, not realizing that a new age had begun with this very small leap of faith on the part of the Colonials.