Authors Notes: Bad news. I'm leaving for the mine tomorrow, and don't come back until the 23rd December. But, good news is that i've printed this story out, am taking it to the mine, so that in my spare time i can go over it and flesh out some ideas. When i get back, i should be ready to hammer out a coupla chapters.
Good reading.
Nothing really much happens in this chapter, it's just a set-up for things to come.
Enjoy.
Chapter 13
Colonial Battlestar Galactica
They had disabled the Raiders which had snuck up on them, and were in the midst of collecting them for study and spare parts, when an unidentified contact appeared on the DRADIS screen.
"Unidentified Contact," Lt. Gaeta said, and to Starbuck's dismay, she could see that it was almost right on top of the fleet from her view of the DRADIS screen. "Cylon BaseStar, bearing 083, 320. It's launching Raiders," Lt. Gaeta said after a few moments. Starbuck immediately started to leave the CIC of the Galactica and head towards the Viper Bays. The Vipers would have just landed and she would be able to rotate someone off. As she was running there, she heard the announcement of Condition One throughout the ship, and she wondered what they were going to do about the Civilian ships. From the reports that were coming into the bridge, some of the ships engines were disabled, including their FTL drives.
Starbuck reached the Viper bay and she immediately rotated Flight Sergeant Stacey Reantt off of her duty and claimed her Viper. Five minutes later, and she was sitting in the launch tubes, going over the pre-flight checklist.
"Engines, Guns, Life-Support, Navigation, Structural Integrity, All green. Lets go, lets go, lets go," she said into the wireless to the launch commanders. She rested her head back against the headrest of her chair to prevent her head being slammed back once the catapult started. Moments later, she could see the walls of the launch tube rushing past her as the catapult launched her viper into space. As soon as she had the craft stabilised, she looked to her left and right and was glad to see that there were other Vipers in the air.
"This is Galactica to all Vipers. Fleet will not FTL out of location until all personnel aboard ships with non-operational FTL drives are transferred to other ships. Primary objective is to act as escort until that time. Galactica out," Starbuck heard over the wireless. This would not work, and they were going to lose people, both Viper pilots and civilians, even though they did have a full complement of Vipers thanks to the Pegasus when they rendezvoused one and a half years ago. They hadn't seen the Cylons for three quarters of a year of that time, and now, suddenly, as they were nearing Earth, the Cylons were attacking them.
"All pilots. Form up and engage Raiders," Starbuck heard Apollo say over the wireless. He had recently been promoted, but they needed all of the qualified Viper pilots that they had, and he was one of the best.
"This is Galactica to all Vipers. Be advised of another Cylon Base Star, bearing 310, 030," Starbuck heard over the wireless.
"This is Apollo to Galactica. We can't face those odds. It's fracking insane," Starbuck heard Apollo say into the wireless almost instantly.
Battlestar Cerebus
Dr. Wotresser was starting to think that maybe his captors, who currently held him, weren't the same people who had abducted the Copenhagen and subsequently, himself. He had not seen any of the large mechanical walking machines that the captors of the Copenhagen used, but he had seen a large number of people. That didn't change the fact that he was still in a holding cell, no matter who he was captured by.
He was sitting in his cell, listening to the throbbing of the machines behind the walls. He remembered them telling him something about pumping ionised radiation into his cell, and he was guessing that one of the sounds that he could hear would be the pump. He heard the sound of the door opening to the brig and looked across to see four marines enter the room, followed by someone in a dark officers uniform. Some more people entered the room, in various states of attire, but most of them were wearing the standard military uniform of these 'Colonials'. Dr. Wotresser was surprised when two of the marines unlocked the door to his holding cell, and instructed him to stand up. They came over to him and took the cuffs off of his wrists and ankles.
"Mr. Wotresser?" a mature-aged looking woman said to him as she stepped towards him. She was the one wearing the dark blue uniform of the Colonial Officers, which he had now come to recognise.
"Yes?" Dr. Wotresser heard himself say while noticing that the two marines which were inside his cell had their weapons raised towards him.
"I am Commander Catalin Ivy, Commander of this Battlestar," he heard her say. "You are being moved to a secure location for an inquiry. Some of the material covered in the inquiry will be highly classified to the Colonial Government, and must not be mentioned to any individual not participating within the discussion. A shoot to kill order has been given to the marines acting as escort for this discussion should you make any unexpected, sudden movements or pursue any dangerous behaviour," she rattled off in front of him, it obviously being a standard clause in their Government System. "Do you understand?" Dr. Wotresser took a couple of moments to think over what had just been said and nodded his head.
"Yes," he said while nodding.
"If you will please follow me," the Commander said while turning around. Dr. Wotresser did so, and they exited the holding area. He noticed that as soon as they exited the area, more marines appeared from no where and acted as escort. He noticed that they all seemed to have weapons similar to those on Earth. A number of other people were walking with him.
Ten minutes, and a maze of corridors that Wotresser didn't have a chance in memorising, later, they had come to what appeared to be their destination. One of the marines opened the large armoured door in front of them, and Wotresser could see the hints of a large room on the other side. They stepped through, and Dr. Wotresser could see that they were in some kind of large hangar. He looked down it's lengths, and was very surprised. It was absolutely huge, and he guessed that the hangar must have been close to a kilometre long. He saw something down one end, with people all over it, and he recognised it as the Copenhagen, the research ship from Earth. He didn't get time to have much of a look before they rounded a corner and started to walk up some flights of stairs.
They came to another hangar-like area, but this one had a lot of smaller ships within it. He was escorted onto one of them, which he supposed was a shuttle. He noticed that a number of the group that had been walking with him were escorted into another shuttle, but the majority of the marines remained in his own shuttle.
Dr. Wotresser watched as they were raised on some kind of platform beneath the shuttle to an opening in the ceiling, which after he saw how it operated, guessed that it was a small airlock. They then were raised onto what seemed to be the top deck, which was familiar to Wotresser. As he was looking out the front of the shuttle, from the back, he could see that the end was open to space, and he could remember being brought into the ship, as a captive of the other group that had had him.
"Raptor 532 and 802 cleared for take off," he heard a voice say over the radio. He watched as the shuttle easily lifted off of the bottom of the deck and accelerated towards the opening.
They had exited the opening, and had started to head towards a ship which was on the other side of the 'fleet'. The fleet had grown considerably larger since the last time Wotresser remembered seeing it. The last time he had seen it, there had been the three massive battleships as well as a couple of smaller ships, which he guessed were support ships. Now, there were at least fifteen smaller ships. He noticed the two other battleships at the 'front' of the fleet, and he also noticed that they had no smaller ships surrounding them, like the battleship he had just came from did.
Minutes later, and Dr. Wotresser was sitting in what appeared to be a conference room aboard one of the smaller ships that they had docked with. He looked up as Commander Ivy and her entourage entered the room, one of which he recognised as the man which had tortured him onboard the battleship.
"This room has been swept for Cylon electronic listening devices and all other Cylon devices, and it is clean. All conversations which occur within this room today are not being recorded by Colonial methods either," Commander Ivy said as she sat at the head of the conference table. Wotresser just looked around at the people sitting at the table. Apart from Commander Ivy and the man which had tortured him, there was a long-blonde haired woman who was dressed in what appeared to be civilian clothes, as well as two other men in the Officers' Uniform. "We have with us today, Dr. Myra, head of science aboard the Terran Star, and Commander Fisk of the Battlestar Pegasus and Commander Turally of the Battlestar Rycon, and the captive Dr. Wotresser, who is the subject of today's meeting," Commander Ivy said. Wotresser looked around the room, and he could see that everyone had mixed expressions.
There was a couple of moments silence, but it was the awkward silence that Wotresser knew went on too long, and he didn't like it.
"Mr. Wotresser," Commander Ivy said, getting his attention. "You have been exposed to ionised radiation for over a week, and through various hair and blood samples that we have taken and tested, we have determined that you are not a Cylon operative," she said to him. Wotresser still wanted to know why these people were paranoid about him, and what a Cylon was. He was guessing that the party which had captured him first were Cylon. He had spent many hours in his cell, trying to figure it all out. He had figured out that, because of the Colonial's paranoia, that they were obviously at war with another race or group. What he didn't know was; which side were the oppressors, and which side was the defenders. He didn't like either race, as he had been subjected to torture by both sides. He had determined that he wasn't going to take any sides, and if the opportunity presented itself, he would try to inflict the maximum amount of damage that he could to either side. Today was not that day, as the marines had a 'shoot to kill' order on him, and he knew that he needed to figure more out first. He was also shocked to know that these Colonials had taken blood and hair samples from him, without his knowledge.
"We discovered various genetic differences in your DNA, which do not match any genetic variations within members of the Twelve Colonies," the scientist, Dr. Myra said. "We have taken a guess to your origins, but we don't really want to say it," she continued.
"So, if you will, Dr. Wotresser. Can you tell us exactly where you're from?" Commander Ivy asked nicely of him. He sat there, considering the question.
"No. I can't. I want some answers!" he replied. "Where the hell am I? Who are you people? Who is a Cylon? What do you want with me, and why are you keeping me alive? Why should I tell you anything?" Wotresser exasperated, not really knowing what he said as it came out so fast.
"We can not answer any of your questions until you tell us where you are from," Commander Ivy replied.
"Why?" Wotresser asked.
"So then we know that it's safe to disclose that information to you," one of the men in an officers uniform almost spat at him. He was expecting something along the lines of 'you idiot' being added to the sentence, but it never came. Wotresser took a couple of moments to think, and then replied
"I'm from Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere of the Planet Earth. Third planet from the sun in the Sol. System," Wotresser replied. He was very surprised to see the shocked reactions of the people sitting around the table to his reply, it was obviously what they were looking for. "And from what I can gather. You are from the 12 Colonies of Kobool?" Wotresser added, thinking back to the origins of the Great Ship. If these people were indeed from the 12 Colonies of Kobool, then he was royally stuffed.
"Yes, we are from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," the other Commander replied. There was a long moment of silence that Ivan Wotresser could tell was awkward for everyone in the room.
"On behalf of the Colonial Remnant, we are very sorry for any harm that you have suffered while you have been aboard the Battlestar Cerebus, and will we will repay you in any way that we can," Commander Ivy said to him.
"You mean to say that you're sorry? That you don't intend to harm me more? No more interrogations?" Wotresser asked in response, surprised.
"Why would we? You're our own kin," Dr. Myra asked him.
"We have recently in our history discovered texts which have said that the 12 Colonies will return to Earth, bringing death and destruction to us… although, not many believe those texts. No one can predict the future," Wotresser explained. Everyone sat in silence for a few minutes, before it was Commander Ivy who spoke up.
"I believe that you have some questions you would like answered," Commander Ivy said to Wotresser.
"Yes. Can you tell me who exactly you are, what your objectives are, and what the hell a Cylon is?" Wotresser was relieved to see that the Commander nodded her head.
"I'll start it from the beginning, the short story… We are from the Twelve Colonies of Mankind. We created the Cylons, machines with Artificial Intelligence which we then used to fulfil our tasks, and even fight in our wars. They rebelled, and there was a war between the Colonies and the Cylons. Then, they disappeared for forty years. They then returned and wiped out all of our worlds. We are one of two fleets seeking out Earth, the thirteenth colony, for refuge from the Cylons and to seek Earth's help in defence," Ivy explained to Wotresser. He sat there, absorbing the information.
"Those people we took you from, they were Cylons," Another one of the Commanders said to him.
"That's impossible. There were people working with them," Wotresser said.
"They are Cylons as well. We don't know how they did it, but they are very close to human now, right down to our emotions and our blood. Even their ships are partly biological now," Ivy said.
An hour and a half later, Wotresser felt as if they were telling the truth. He had questioned all of the commanders and people in the room about various aspects of their story. Either, they were lying and had a really good story worked out, or they were all telling the truth.
"What can you tell me about this other fleet that you keep talking about?" Wotresser asked them.
"The fleet holds the majority of our population. The last that we heard of, it was made up of thirty nine civilian ships, which are being escorted by the Battlestar Galactica, a ship much like the large warships of this fleet, except much, much older. It was about to be decommissioned when the attack occurred," Commander Fisk of the Pegasus said.
"So, if the majority of your population is in that fleet, wouldn't it make sense to have most of your battleships guarding that fleet?" Wotresser asked.
"We're trying to catch up to them. They're making their way towards Earth, leaving beacons hidden in systems with large amounts of natural resources, to point us on our way," Commander Fisk replied. There was another long silence, before Commander Ivy spoke up.
"If you don't mind Dr. Wotresser, we are very eager to ask you some questions. Wotresser nodded, and he was surprised to see Ivy go immediately into it. She hit a button on what looked like controls built into the conference table, and an image sprung up on the wall behind her. What Wotresser was amazed at was the fact that there was no screen, and he could see no projecting device.
He looked at the image, and he recognised it as a three dimensional star chart. He watched as Commander Ivy hit some more controls, and it zoomed in on an area of the star chart. The image zoomed in again, this time showing a representation of a solar system.
"Dr. Wotresser. Can you confirm that the third planet from the sun is indeed the location of Earth?" Commander Ivy asked him.
"Yes, as far as I can tell, that's the Sol. System," he replied. Wotresser was surprised to hear a commotion coming from his left, and he turned to see Commander Fisk and Commander Turally standing up.
"Where did this information come from?" Commander Fisk of the Battlestar Pegasus demanded.
"That information is highly classified, but I have been considering on how I should tell the pair of you this… The information came from the Cerebus' database," Ivy replied.