CH 29
John was pleased with the talks. He wasn't happy with Tom Zarek, but at least he didn't attack anyone like that other woman had. He knew Delilah was being politically correct with not killing her.
Delilah and Joan wanted to stay and play and maybe check this planet out some more before they left. Although John thought that wasn't a bad idea, they did have to get their butts home and let Ed go take his copy of the agreement to Washington.
Getting all the instruments and people back on board, John note the cylons left right after the meeting. Tom had been awake and left with the other colonials. Making sure everyone was on and they didn't leave anything behind, John was surprised to see the colonial 'raptor' as they called it fly to land close by.
Lee came out and waved. Delilah went out to see what he wanted. She came back into the ship with him, smirking. "Hey John, they ran out of gas. They can't get home by themselves."
John eyed Lee. "How'd that happen?"
In a grumble, Lee explained, "The raptor we were suppose to get was an extended range model. Apparently the one we have isn't. We don't have the fuel to get back."
Cameron eyed him. "Aren't you suppose to be the advanced space-going race? What do you use for fuel?"
"We call it Tillium. It's a refined liquid fuel."
At the piloting station, Joan laughed. "Wow! No gas stations out here, huh?"
John smirked and keyed the intercom. "Open number two cargo bay. We're taking the Colonial ship back to their fleet." To Lee, he said, "When the bay opens, get your ship inside, then someone will show you to your quarters for the trip. It should be about two days, maybe a bit longer. We'll get you to your fleet. Got enough gas to make it back into a hanger from there?"
"We should. Thanks for the ride," Lee told him then left to go get their ship into the cargo bay.
Delilah left to go help park their ship. Once they were inside and the bay doors shut, John had Joan lift off.
.
Since there were six men and two women, Delilah gave Lee and Tom one bedroom, the four marines another one and Emily and Victoria one across the hallway. Delilah then asked, "Victoria, could you come with me, please?"
She did. Delilah led her to the medical bay and had her lay on the table.
"May I ask what this is for?" Victoria asked.
Delilah gave her a reassuring smile. "I just wanted to check any differences in a colonial, and one of our humans. Later on, that may become important."
"I see."
"Relax, it's not like I'm going to take your brain out of your head," Delilah said. "I'm just going to scan you for any differences you may have from our humans."
Victoria eyed her, then said, "Right, you're not human, you're a terminator."
Just by body scanning Victoria with her own sensors, Delilah knew the woman was a cylon. She used the medical scanner to search for details. She found Victoria had a large amount of silicone in her nervous system as well as computer looking nodes all through her body. Her brain was the same. Her brain also had a larger node in the back, towards the bottom just above where her spinal cord attached to her brain.
"Find anything?" she asked.
"Minimal differences, nothing that would prevent you from interacting freely with us." Delilah told her. She then moved the probe down to her lower belly and did a detailed scan of the woman's womb and ovaries. They looked normal. She didn't find any reason why cylon women could not conceive a child.
Finished, Delilah thanked Victoria for her patience, and helped her up.
"How different are you from your humans?" Victoria asked.
"Want to see?" Delilah asked. She got up on the table. Pointing to the scanner. She explained how to use it, then let Victoria scan her.
Right after Victoria got the scanner on and over Delilah, her eyes widened. She scanned down Delilah's body with her jaw hanging loose. "Dear … Gods! It's like you're mostly centurion! You have metal plates, actuators and even metal bones!"
"I'm a terminator, I told you that," Delilah replied. "Full armored combat skeleton of hyper allow over my biological exterior. If you look, I do have human style organs for digestion, breathing and child bearing. Under my stomach I also have an organ that produces nanites for self healing."
"But you look and act completely human!" Victoria cried.
Delilah laughed. "I act intelligent, as I am."
"What's going on here?" Tom asked as he came in.
Victoria turned to gape at him. "Delilah wanted to scan me to see if I'm different from Earth humans, so I wanted to scan her also. She… she really is mostly machine under her normal looking exterior!" Spinning to look back at Delilah, she asked, "How did you get like that?"
Smirking, Delilah sat up. "My creation was a two step process. First, my mechanical parts were assembled and my CPU was put in place. The second step was immersing me in a nutrient bath. In that bath, my nanites grew my biological organs following my body plan that is in memory. I don't have DNA to grow like a human does, but the data that my nanites follow to make and keep me whole. That was a problem when we wanted children. How it was solved was adding a nanite type that was compatible with a human sperm cell. Like the sperm cell, these nanties contained half my information. So when the nanite and the sperm cell meet, they were able to form a whole cell that divided and grew a baby inside me."
"That is astounding!" Victoria said in a gasp.
"That's unbelievable," Tom stated.
"Go look at Joan, she's Cameron's daughter," Delilah replied. "Do you believe she exists?"
"All Earth people are at least part machine?" Tom asked, not looking happy.
"No, we have many species. Terminators are only one. If you're asking if every fully biological person on Earth is human, the answer's no. Many are, but there are those who are not, and even some who aren't human at all," Delilah explained.
Blank faced, Tom turned and walked out.
"Why did you decide to marry a human man?" Victoria asked.
"That's easy," Delilah said with a smile. "John and Cameron are my heros. I would not be alive today, let alone have a chance to be free or know the joy of having children and a family without them. I wanted to be with them. There are no greater or kinder people anywhere, than John and Cameron Connor."
"You hold a high respect for them."
"I do. I also love them with my entire being," Delilah stated. "When Cameron and I were doing concerts, I sang a song just for her and John. I meant every word. Would you like to hear it?"
Lee stuck his head in the door. "What's up with Tom? I passed by our room and he's sitting on his bed, holding his head and rocking back and forth."
"He didn't take the news well," Delilah concluded.
Lee looked at her, so Delilah explained wanting to scan Victoria, and Victoria scanned her to see she was all metal skeleton and reinforcing armor on the inside. A terminator.
"I think Tom is going to have a bad couple days," Victoria noted.
Lee rubbed his head. "I'm thinking he's going to push for a no vote for any treaty with the cylons. I better go talk to him."
"Think it will help if I try too?" Delilah asked.
Lee shook his head. "Frankly, I think it would be a great help if a couple of you come talk to the President and the Quorum with us. Some of the things we've learned are going to be hard for them to hear."
.
Delilah took Lee's request to John. She added, "Both Lee Adama and John Cavil were shocked at the fact we all lived together. I think Tom Zarek is about to go nuts over the fact I really am a terminator."
John thought for a moment, then said, "I don't think it's a good idea. When Bob was there, they shot him even though he was helping them. We can't trust them enough yet to be on their ship. We also need to get home, and I'm certainly not leaving anyone here with them."
"John's right, Delilah,' Cameron said from her sensor station. "We're already doing much more that anyone expected of us. This peace agreement is something those colonials need to do on their own. They've been given the facts, they need to decide by themselves if they want to believe those facts."
Delilah nodded. "You're right. I'll go tell Lee."
On her way to go see Lee, Delilah could hear the men arguing. In front of her Gale was coming, looking nervous.
Holding her hands clasped and tight to her chest, Gale said, "That one man has very violent thoughts! He wants to find a way to take the ship over and get soldiers and explosives on the ship to blow it up!"
Deliah let out a sigh. "Great," she grumbled. "Go find a couple terminators, one is to guard the engine room, the other to guard the control room. Our guests are no longer allowed in either one, and have a third Terminator watch that violent man."
Gale nodded and went to do as Delilah asked. Delilah came to the men's room to hear them arguing.
"We can't trust they won't sell us out to the Cylons!" Tom roared.
"Then why did they spend so much effort to get an agreement?' Lee asked in a wail.
"We MUST find a way to get the upper hand here to make sure we get back to the fleet!" Tom insisted.
"HAY!" Delilah barked loudly as she appeared in the doorway. Both men snapped their heads to look at her. Pointing a finger at Tom, Delilah said to Lee, "That fool is deluded. You are responsible for his actions. A terminator is coming to keep watch over him. If he does anything to harm this ship or the crew, he gets vaporized and the rest of you get kicked off no matter where we are! Any questions?"
"So, you ARE just a centurion pretending to be human!" Tom growled.
"I'll take care if it," Lee said, ignoring Tom.
"If you don't, I will and it won't be pleasant." Delilah stated. She then turned and spoke to the terminator who came up by her. Again she pointed at Tom. "Watch him. If he does anything to hurt the ship or anyone on board, terminate him."
"Yes, Delilah." the terminator replied. Delilah strode away.
Lee cast Tom a hard stare. "Keep your mouth shut, or I'll shut it for you. You've cause enough trouble."
Tom eyed the terminator standing just outside the door and decided to keep quiet.
.
John was sure there was going to be more trouble from that Tom Zarek. Somehow, the man held in his anger and although the Atlantians were sure he was going to try something, he at least stayed quiet and didn't do anything but go eat then return to his room with a terminator watching him the whole time.
Very late in the second day, they found the fleet close to where they'd seen them last. A hundred miles out, Joan matched the pace of the fleet and dropped the bubble while Delilah and a couple terminators got the colonials into their ship, then pushed them out of the cargo bay.
By the small craft heading for them, John knew that fleet saw them. He had Delilah make one radio call to them.
"Colonial fleet, we brought your raptor and representatives back. They were too low on gas to return on their own."
With the little raptor ship clear, John had Joan bubble up and start for home.
.
Admiral Adama and Laura Roslyn met the raptor when it was brought in. When they were parked, Tom Zarek was the first out. He strode over to Roslyn and yelled, "That was a disaster! The ones who came on that ship refused to let me speak, I was threatened with fire, at the meeting with the Cylons, that Cameron woman punched me and broke my jaw, and that Delilah … THING, threatened to kill me!"
Right behind him, Lee said, "Admiral, Miss President, Mr. Zarek was acting badly. Those people don't put up with someone ranting at them. We did get an agreement with the Cyons for non-aggression to each other. I have the recording of the meeting here. I suggest we watch it before anyone does anything else."
Roslyn smirked. "At least they didn't kill Mr. Zarek like I thought they might."
"Why did you call Delilah a thing?" Admiral Adama asked.
Tom firmly said, "She looks human, but inside she's all metal, just a small centurion wrapped in human skin! Miss Foster tricked her into letting her scan that thing, she saw it first hand!" Tom exclaimed.
Victoria told them. "Delilah didn't trick me. She wanted to scan me to see if we were compatible with Earth humans. I let her. I wanted to scan her to see how different she was, she not only let me, she showed me how to use their scanner. She also stated from the time she met us that she is a terminator, not human. None of them tried to hide anything from us."
"They refused to let me talk to them!" Tom explained loudly. "They also seemed to get along very well with the Cylons."
Lee told Roslyn, "John Connor and his crew got along with everyone who treated them decently. Myself and Victoria had no problems at all speaking with them. As I said, we all need to watch that meeting."
Roslyn turned to Adama. "I think we need to see it before we present it to the Quorum."
"Indeed. Lee, we'll watch it in my quarters."
.
On the way, Roslyn talked to Victoria about what she saw scanning this Delilah. Victoria told her, then told her about the conversation they had before Lee showed up, then told about Lee asking for one of them to come to Galactica to help the agreement. After that, Lee told about Zarek mouthing off about trying to take the ship over and Delilah came to have Zarek watched and told him John wasn't going to allow anyone from his ship on Galactica due to their violent behavior.
In Adam's quarters, Lee put the chip into the large view screen. They all watched people coming, Tom ranting out, Cameron knocking him out, and the following agreement with John Connor mediating. After Lee and Cavil shook hands, they watched the musical event with subtitles they could read.
"That's John's daughter?" Roslyn asked.
"One of them," Lee replied. "They got quite a few kids."
"She does sound like she's a bit wild," Adama noted aloud. 'She's one of these terminators too?"
"Cyborg," Lee explained. She's part human also. A machine and human mix. John is human, her mother is full terminator."
"Delilah explained how they can do that," Victoria said. "Delilah does have human organs in her, including a functional womb. The things she called nanites she has for self healing also are used to help her become pregnant. Cameron is the same."
'Cameron?" Roslyn asked.
"John Connor's other wife. Delilah explained that to me also. She holds John and Cameron as her heros, and wanted to be with them. They accepted her." Victoria explained.
Roslyn winced. "I don't think many people in the fleet would find that acceptable."
Lee grinned, "Then Robert, the guy that was here, they wouldn't accept either. He's got two wives also and the red head that can shoot flame from her bare hand insists she's his slave."
"You saw this?" Adama asked.
"I did. Scared the hell out of Zarek, but he became more manageable after that."
Roslyn chuckled. "Earth people sure are different."
"Very," Lee agreed. "They all live and work together, no matter what they are individually. A few of the ones who came had pale skin, light blue eyes and pure white hair. John said they are a race called Atlantians. They are a decent lot and very non-violent, but they can read minds. Delilah also told me she and Cameron can also detect if someone's not telling the truth."
"Handy abilities to have when dealing with strangers," Adama noted.
"I am sure they used them too," Lee stated.
"Did you see any weapons?" Adama asked him.
"Nothing conventional," Lee said, "But I know Delilah has plasma canons her arms turn into, That red head, Malinara I think her name is, can shoot fire from her bare hands, and I also saw Cameron Connor has a wicked punch. I imagine all the terminators that came with them have the same arm weapons that Delilah has. From when Bob and Joan came here to clean those cylons off the ship, they also have hand held plasma canons also as well as very good person armor, but I didn't see any on their ship."
"Those plasma things are a load of fire power. I'd love to have some of those," Adama stated.
"Maybe if we can convince them to help us, they will let us have some," Roslyn said. To Lee, she said, "You were there, what do you think about this non aggression pact with the Cylons?"
"I think it's a golden opportunity," Lee stated. "It wasn't just stopping the fighting John Connor proposed. For us, Kobol to live on at least until we find another good planet, and for the cylons, the ability to have children. They badly want that also. He each gave us reasons why it's beneficial for both our races to at least stop fighting. He and his crew showed us that it is possible for both our kinds not only to live in peace, but also help each other prosper. Just their ship proves John Connor's right. It was made though their AI' s and humans working together. Not only is that thing faster than anything us or the Cylons have, they can see where they are going and maneuver when they are screaming along at jump speed, if not faster."
"Any possibility of Earth working with us?" Roslyn asked.
Lee shook his head. "Not at the moment. John made it clear that they will help end the fighting, but he considers both our races to be too violent to deal with. We're going to have to prove ourselves to them. I think the Cylons know that also. More incentive to get this war stopped."
Roslyn nodded slowly. "I take it this John Connor is not a pushover."
"Hardly," Lee replied. "He found out what each side wants, and is using that to help us. I don't think he can be persuaded to change his mind in the conditions either. We both agree to peace or no one gets anything."
"He should be in politics," Roslyn said with a snort.
"We need to know more about him," Adama stated. "What's the chance of that?"
Lee shrugged. "I'd say ask the next time they come around. I tried to get some information, but he insisted our meeting was on making peace and stayed focused on that."
"So, he will return," Roslyn said.
"He will, he just didn't say when. I got a feeling we'll be watched. Their ship is completely hidden when they are using that bubble, they could be inside the fleet right next to us listening to everything and we'd never know."
Slowly, Roslyn said, "When we meet the Quorum and show this video, I think the press should be there as well and broadcast it so the entire fleet can see it. Knowing the fleet is watching may help the Quorum agree to this peace initiative."
.
Getting back to Earth, the XTS flight time had been just over 2 weeks, but another 4 and a half months had gone by on Earth. A few things had happened while they were zooming about the universe.
Charlie's movie was a hit, and Cameron and Driftwood has made millions off it, as did Charlie, Jackie and Monty. 'The crazy Princess' was popular, not only for it's retro style, but also for the last fight scene where Jackie actually got stabbed though the boob during the sword fight between her and Monty. Many people wanted to see it just to see that scene. Because of that also, Jackie and Monty had press interviews and had gone on quite a few talk shows. They also got a string of movie offers to consider. They were officially now movie stars.
Two more XTS ships were also under construction. Catherine was planning to use them to mine asteroids. There were tons of precious metals in the form of asteroids to be harvested, which was going to make her more wealthy.
Louise and Eddie Brock were becoming close. Eddie did take reporter jobs but always came back to Driftwood after the job was done. He and Louise were already fixing up a house on the big lake, waiting for Joan to get back so she could officially 'sell' them the house and land. Hearing this, Joan took them down to the Sheriff's office and registered them as the owners to the place.
Kaede wasn't pregnant any more. She had a cute little baby girl who bore horns and pink hair she and JJ named Kanae, after Kouta's little sister who died young. The Atlantians on the farm had two more children. JJ himself was now the Third Division Texas Guard General which now had members in towns up to Johnson City and out to Austin. Instead of just one base, they now had 3 main bases and three other local bases in towns. Instead of 1200 members, JJ's army numbered 5000, with a 30 aircraft force, plenty of vehicles and even boats for rescue and border patrol.
John found out he was the lead General of the Texas Guard for the western half of Texas. He needed to go see the Governor again.
John had been thinking when they got back, he and his wives would have 'them' time to relax. The small lake was cleared of algae and rotting remains now and was looking like the lake it should be. Delilah took on the task of beginning to repopulate the lake. John had to go see the Governor and talk to his other Generals. Charlie bugged Cameron about making another movie. Cameron also decided with John, when they did go back out to where the Colonials were, to take some information about Earth with them. She also caught up on what was happening with the world by talking to John Henry, who was also becoming an important figure. He was also a mysterious one. Many important people now knew of John Henry, but no one had ever seen him or knew where he was.
After a single night of being home, they had to split up and go about their various tasks. Bummer.