Title:
Miniature Disasters and Minor Catastrophes 3?
Author:
mondavis
Characters: Adama/Roslin
Rating: teen
Disclaimer:
None of these folks are mine. I just play with other people's
stuff.
Spoilers: Season 2, through The Captain's Hand.
A/N: This is complete speculation. I don't know any spoilers.
Summary: Where things get even hotter…
"Radiological alarm! Nukes incoming!"
"Brace for impact!"
Bill Adama grabbed hold if the hatch doorway with one hand and Laura Roslin with the other, waiting for the missile to hit. He spared a glance at the dradis console and noted grimly that there was a hell of a lot of activity out there.
Galactica rocked and pitched hard to port. Bill stumbled badly and would have taken a header into the wall if Laura had not quickly reversed their grasp and held him steady with a startlingly strong grip. He gave her a grateful look before he returned his attention to CIC.
"Was there impact?" Tigh yelled.
"Negative," responded Lt. Gaeta. "The CAP intercepted."
"Thank the Gods for small favors," the XO breathed and Admiral Adama was inclined to agree.
"Sitrep," Bill said as he and Laura approached. His eyes were glued to the dradis.
"Two Basestars jumped damned near on top of us," Tigh reported. "Alert Vipers were just in the tubes when this last barrage came in."
"Confirm alert Vipers are away," Adama said.
Dee checked. "Confirmed, sir. They are away. Pegasus also reports her Vipers away."
"Do we have a solution?"
"Negative," said Tigh. "The civvies are scrambling all over the place out there. The CAP has had a hard enough time avoiding hitting them. I've already ordered an emergency jump but –" the ship rocked again – "some of them report blast wave damage."
"Put us between the Cylons and the civilians – "
"Not necessary, sir," Gaeta reported. "They're not targeting the civilians. Fire seems to be concentrated on Galactica and Pegasus."
"Radiological alarm!"
This time Galactica jolted sharply, immediately followed by the wail of alarms.
"Partial impact!" Gaeta yelled over the din. "Starboard flight pod. Moderate damage. Crews are on their way."
"We've got to get the civilians out of here," Adama said. He picked up his handset and at Dee's signal, began to speak. "This is Admiral Adama to all remaining ships. If you are capable, execute emergency jump protocol gamma immediately. If you cannot jump, attempt to get your ship out of the immediate combat area."
"Sir!" Dee's voice was sharply alarmed. "I'm reading a nuke heading toward Colonial One."
He couldn't help it; he looked at Laura in time to see all of the color drain out of her face.
"Colonial One, this is Galactica!" Dee said. "You've got a nuke coming your way!"
"Too late," Tigh murmured, watching the Dradis.
A few seconds later, Gaeta said, "Direct hit to Colonial One… Port side, aft section … They're venting atmosphere."
"Sir, the civilians are clear of our solution."
"Target the axis of the nearest Basestar and fire!" Adama said immediately.
"Incoming nuke!"
"To us or Colonial One?"
"Both, sir!"
"Are they targeting any of the other civilian ships?" Tigh asked gruffly.
"Negative, sir."
The Admiral, the Colonel and the President all shared an uneasy look before all three had to grab the console to keep from falling as a blast wave rolled over the ship.
"Get me Starbuck!"
"Alright, kids, it seems that the Cylons have got a beef with our President," Starbuck told her pilots over the wireless. "HotDog, you and PunchBag haul ass over to Colonial One and make sure she doesn't take any more nukes. The rest of you, let's see if we can take some heat off Galactica."
She rolled hard right and fired at two Raiders crossing her path. Up ahead, one of the Basestars was starting to list and buckle under the assault from Pegasus. Galactica's main batteries were lit up on the other Basestar and Starbuck dove under the ordnance to intercept an incoming missile. On her wing, Kara could see Kat take out two more Raiders, then flip to hit a third coming in from her six.
"Show off," she muttered under the breath.
Her radiological alarm sounded and she looked up in time to see two nukes buzz by her out of nowhere. Flipping her ship, she pursued the missiles, dodging debris and weapons fire as she tried to get a target lock.
"Come on!" Kara yelled as she missed. "Where are you going, you frakker!"
The missiles streaked straight up, then hard left and dove. Kara got on her wireless. "Galactica, you've got incoming nukes!" She got an intermittent lock on one of the missiles and fired. She hit with her third volley and screamed out in a mix of triumph and frustration as she missed the second one. "Galactica, one nuke down; the other one is still coming in hard."
"Acknowledged, Starbuck," Adama said over the wireless. Starbuck increased her speed, trying to catch up. Firing almost desperately, she jerked her joystick up, then down, following the missile. Amazingly, she nicked it and it started wavering wildly before it exploded with a blinding flash.
It was then that Kara Thrace realized how close she'd gotten to the nuke but she also knew it was already too late.
"The nuke has been destroyed, sir!"
"Good. Keep firing on the Basestar. Is Colonial One hit?"
"HotDog reports that she took a hard blast wave, sir," Dualla informed him. "She's lost all attitude control and I can't raise her on the wireless."
Bill felt ice in his belly. How easily could Laura have been on that ship tonight? It's where she should have been. He looked over at her pale, grim face and thought that while he deeply regretting the lost of life over there, maybe there was something to the belief that many in the fleet still held of her. Laura Roslin was either very lucky or maybe the Gods really were watching out for her.
But it didn't really matter. Not now. She was relatively safe on Galactica and they were somehow beating back what appeared to be an attempt at endgame by the Cylons. They could debate the causes of their good fortunes later.
Instead, he dispatched Raptors to check out the damage and see if there was anyone still alive on Colonial One.
Gaius Baltar was pacing. Cloud 9 had been one of the first ships to jump when the Cylons attacked and had been waiting at the gamma coordinates with thirty other ships for nearly five hours. At this point, they had no idea if the remaining ships had survived and the more time that went by, the more unlikely it seemed.
"Congratulations, Mr. President," Gina told him with a broad smile.
Gaius frowned. "They haven't called the election yet," he reminded her testily. "Seems the attack by your people has thrown off the election schedule."
She laughed and lounged back on the sofa. "It doesn't matter, does it? Either you've won the election or Roslin is dead along with her pet Adama. Either way, you're President and now I think it's time for you to go make a speech about the tragic loss of our President and how peace is the only real answer now."
He smiled a bit. "Ah, yes, I suppose I should."
Fifteen minutes later, Baltar was where he loved to be most: in front of cameras. "Regardless of the outcome of this election," he said solemnly with an adjustment of his glasses, "Laura Roslin will be mourned by us all. And with the tragic losses of Galactica and Pegasus, I do believe that our circumstances have changed dramatically and our first priority must be to –"
"Mr. Vice President!" someone called out. "We've just received a wireless report that both the Galactica and Pegasus have just jumped to our position. They say that President Roslin is aboard Galactica unharmed."
As all of the cameras and microphones swung back his way, Gaius Baltar fought to keep a calm smile on his face. And in the back of the room, both Six and Gina turned and walked out.
Laura had not been on Galactica in the aftermath of an attack many times before. The chaos of damage reports, head counts and clean up was overwhelming. Especially since she still didn't know the status of the people she'd left on Colonial One.
Her mind catalogued all 352 names and faces of her shipmates. Most of them had called her ship home since the very early days of the exodus. They were faces that Laura was accustomed to seeing every day. They were ordinary people but they had proven so resourceful and helped to form a government out of almost nothing. The young man with the dirty blonde hair was a whiz with mathematics and had calculated fuel supply usage so that each ship had enough. The blind woman from Virgon had studied agriculture and worked with the ships capable of growing food to set up crop rotations. The older man from Aquaria had collected skill information from almost everyone in the fleet and put those willing to work where they were needed. Everyone one of them had proved themselves valuable beyond just being alive and to think of them now as dead filled Laura with more emptiness than she'd felt since the beginning of the end of the world.
Galactica's Combat Information Center was a whirlwind of activity and not wanting to be in the way, the president left CIC and headed for the hangar deck. If there were survivors, the Raptors carrying them would dock there.
She rounded a corner and came face-to-face with the last thing she had expected: reporters. Immediately, their lights came on and they thrust cameras and microphones in her face.
"President Roslin! We've heard reports that Colonial One was destroyed!"
"President Roslin, why weren't you on Colonial One?"
Laura sighed and signaled to her security. "I'm not taking questions right now," she told them wearily. "This ship has sustained damage and there are a great many people injured. Perhaps the four of you could find something more useful to do than standing around asking me why I'm not dead." With her nod, her detail pulled the reporters out of her way and the President of the Twelve Colonies continued to the hangar deck to check on her people.
"The reporters got here shortly before the attack," Tigh said with a grunt as he cracked his back. "I guess they were coming to record her concession speech."
Bill frowned at his executive officer. "She hasn't lost it yet."
"No, but the writing was on the wall," Saul returned. He put up his hand when Bill glowered at him. "Look, for what it's worth, we're a hell of a lot better off with her than that frakkin' loon Baltar but this thing had been going south for her for a while."
Bill sighed and leaned on the console. "Yeah. I told her about the civilian liaison job."
Saul snorted grumpily, clearly cursing the day he'd jokingly planted that damned idea in Adama's head. "Is she going to take it?"
Bill nodded. "Probably." He paused and checked the roll-call of ships Gaeta had just handed him. It was conspicuously minus one. "Besides," he added, "she needs somewhere to live now, doesn't she?"
To be continued…
