CHAPTER 59 of The Phoenix and The Wolverine.
# I DO NOT OWN THE COPYRIGHT TO BATTLESTAR GALACTICA OR STAR TREK OR MAVEL. PLS ENJOY THE STORY! #
Paul knew he was risking a lot by leading this motley crew to his hideout. But, he was running out of time. If it had just been the cylons, he would have left them to die but…the children were a different matter. He suspected they were neither colonials or cylons. That had him intrigued. Though, he had to admit that 'Starbuck' was quite a character on her own and clearly not cylon. Must be colonial. So, what had brought a colonial, two cylons, a centurion and three children together in the worse place in the universe?
There was certainly a story there worth telling, even if he was running out of time.
He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him as Orion began to walk backwards while keeping an extra pair of eyes on the newcomers. Paul smiled broadly.
"My apologies for Orion's unique behavior. But, it does pay to have him watch my back in these surroundings."
The female teen with claws snorted. "Yeah, right. So, you don't trust us, message received."
Paul's smile broadened. He had heard Six call her Laura. While he had enjoyed watching Six squirm in terror, Laura had been an absolute surprise. She had silently run into the room with a pair of metallic claws sticking out of both hands, as if that wasn't enough, she wasted no time decapitating the first borg and even when the remaining borgs turned to confront the new threat, she didn't lose her flow as she dodged each stun shot to take down the remaining borg.
What that meant was that someone had trained her on how to incapacitate the borg. And Paul would really love to meet that person. Even Six and Starbuck seemed to have some familiarity with the borg but it seemed to border more on seeing one's nightmare come to life. Paul had paid closer attention when the others showed up, Oma and Q Junior had moved to Laura and he was able to identify them as a unit that had trained together. But the other mystery were the uniforms that Laura, Starbuck, Oma and Q Junior wore. A one piece reinforced dark grey suit that screamed military.
Besides, what kind of military enlisted children and sent them into hellholes like this?
That disturbed him a lot.
As for Six, Natalie and their centurion, he had plans for them if they were here to end him. But first, a little painless debriefing.
"And here we are," said Paul as they reached a dead-end which was cluttered from the floor to the top of the ten feet wall with lots of trash made up of discarded machinery, metallic rods, plastic pieces and all manner of sharp, well arranged odds and ends.
"What? The beginning of a junkyard?" asked a pissed off Starbuck. Paul rolled his eyes. What a critic.
"Please, observe," said Paul as he pressed on a hidden lever in the midst of the artfully arranged chaos and immediately there was a straight line down the middle and the trash heap became two smaller ones which swung apart, showing a much cleaner and well-organized room. Paul smiled at their astonished expressions and went in first so as to show them he hadn't led then into a trap.
The hidden room was large. At least fifteen feet by twenty-four feet and at least ten feet high. The reason for the space was obvious. There were two large monitors on one wall which showed what seemed like images from twenty-four security cameras, but only four revealed images. The second wall was more important. It had so many different types of weapons mounted on it that there was barely any space. The visitors stopped in their tracks and stared at the wall in shock.
"Make yourself at home, but touch nothing." Paul walked to the large work table close to the weapon-wall. He dropped his back pack on the floor and went behind the table so he was facing the newcomers as he began to dissemble his sniper rifle for cleaning. Orion took a position to the left of the table out of line of sight. Paul knew his faithful metal hound was still keeping an eye on them.
"Give me a few moments, then I'll check out Oma's right leg."
"Thanks for the offer," said Oma with a gentle smile. "We have what we need." Paul raised an eyebrow. Oma was clearly the oldest, and the other two deferred to her without saying a word. Also, she didn't seem perturbed by his 'odd appearance'. Paul glanced at Q Junior who had already taken Laura's backpack, retrieved a small device, then nodded at Oma who silently sat on the floor while grimacing with the effort. Laura at that point pressed the 'hypospray' to Oma's neck and gave her dose of something. Oma smiled at Laura with relief.
Paul narrowed his eyes. He had never seen anything that advanced. Then Q Junior passed the device over Oma's right leg and frowned. Kara stood close to them her hands folded, concern on her face as she watched.
"Natalie set it well and the suit kept it in place." Said Q Junior. "I need you to loosen it up so I can treat it." Now Paul had to drop his weapon to watch, even the cylons and the centurion were paying very close attention to the treatment.
Paul saw the Oma's right leg pantsuit swell up a bit, then Q Junior rolled the now loose pant leg up to her right knee. Paul winced internally when he saw the state of her right tibia and fibula. It was swollen and quite red and bruised from below the knee to the right foot. Blood was beginning to pool at the ankle. Q junior began to pass his strange device repeatedly over the broken right tibia and fibula. Paul shook his head. He had no idea what Q Junior was doing, but Paul knew that Oma wasn't going to be running anywhere soon, she was going to be borg parts very soon.
What a shame…what in Hades? Thought Paul as he saw the impossible happen. The right leg swelling was going down rapidly, while the color returned to normal right before his disbelieving eyes. Even Orion whined softly, apparently just as surprised.
"Done until we get back to the others," said Q Junior as he rolled down the right pant leg.
"Thanks Q," said a brighter looked Oma, who stood up without any difficulty or sign that she had been badly injured.
What in the world had been in that hypospray? What was that device Q used on the fracture? Thought Paul as he watched Starbuck pat Q Junior on the back. Laura gave Oma a small wrapped food-bar and a small bottle of water.
"Eat up, so you heal up."
"Thanks medics," said Oma with a dry smile as if finding it ironic to be treated by her juniors.
Paul noticed Natalie's avid expression.
"Did…did you just heal her fracture with that device?" asked the Number Six cylon as she walked towards Q Junior, her eyes fixed on the instrument in his hands. Q Junior noticed her intent and quickly passed it to Laura who threw it into her backpack.
"Yeah."
Natalie held out a hand. "I would very much like to see it."
"No can do," said Laura a bit too cheerfully. "You'll need to discuss it with our captain when we get topside." Starbuck smirked at Natalie as this was being said.
So, the teenagers had a captain and the colonials still distrust the cylons. Paul filed away this little bit of information while wondering if the captain was as young as the teenagers.
Natalie frowned at Laura and opened her mouth to protest.
"But I do have snacks and drinks for everyone," spoke Laura before Natalie could utter a word. "I believe our energy levels are more important right now." Paul nodded in approval at the fact that the girl with metal claws had her priorities right and also, clearly didn't trust the cylons.
He was feeling better already. Paul resumed cleaning his weapon while watching everyone.
"Laura's right," said Six as she placed a placating hand on her sister clone's right shoulder. "We'll have snacks and water, please." Laura smiled brightly as she handed out the food. Paul noticed she didn't give any to Q Junior and that was when he decided to talk.
"So, what manner of a centurion are you? I've never seen your model." As expected Red One turned to him.
"My series has been in existence for more than…"
"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Q Junior," said Paul as he gestured at his target. Right away, he noticed the gasps of shock from Six and Natalie as they stared at Paul and then at a pale looking Q Junior. Even Red One's red light was flickering rapidly as if it too was stunned.
Laura and Oma stared at Paul, then their expressions softened towards Q Junior. They moved closer to him as if to protect him. Starbuck took up a position in front of him as if to shield him
Interesting. They care for him. They don't see him as a servant. Even the crazy colonial is being protective. Color me surprised. Paul waited for someone to respond.
Q Junior stepped forward. "What makes you think I'm a centurion?"
Paul smiled dryly. "To be honest; it was more of a guess. I noticed you gave off no heat signature even though your colleagues do, so I thought it had to do with your specialized suit. Then you all entered the room and my scanners," he pointed at the pair of cameras on both sides of the entrance, "fed back to me that three non-bios had entered this room. I assumed it meant Orion, Red One…and you."
Q Junior nodded as if impressed. "I'm not a centurion." Paul frowned at him; his cleaning slowing down.
"And I'm clearly not human or cylon." Said Q Junior as he glanced at the shell shocked cylons. "However, I'm Ensign Q Junior of Starfleet. I'm an Emergency Medical and Engineering Hologram of the Xavier, I'm also sentient."
It was now Paul's turn to be stunned. Someone or some military had given Q Junior a rank? And it thought it was sentient?!
Paul dropped his rag. There were so many questions he wanted to ask right now. This sounded so unbelievable. A glance at the cylons also showed their disbelief.
"You're a hologram?"
Q Junior smiled cheekily at him as if taking pleasure in his skepticism. "Allow me to demonstrate." Q Junior began to flicker before sinking slowly into what was solid steel floor which had solid rock below it. Natalie and Six gasped, Orion whined as it retreated backwards until it's hind quarters hit the one of the table's legs. It was when a calm Q Junior was submerged to his waist that a shaking Paul held out his hand.
"Stop, you're scaring my dog." And me. Q Junior stopped moving. Paul left the safety of his table and walked slowly to Q Junior, then he held out his right hand and nodded at Q to take it.
Q took his hand and Paul could barely believe how solid and real the holograms hand was, it took a moment for him to realize Q was slowly rising out from the floor. Soon, his feet were planted on solid ground. Behind Paul; he heard Orion release a huff in relief.
Paul finally released his hand and walked backwards. "How…" he could not go on.
Q Junior took pity on him. "My program has a unique ability to phase into solid matter when needed and to solidify when appropriate."
Paul blinked. The military implications of such a program were countless. He could understand why the captain would have hidden such sensitive, valuable information from the cylons.
"You're really not colonial or cylon," Paul's gaze included the two female teens.
"No, we're not," said Oma solemnly. Starbuck was silent while watching him like a hawk.
Paul was about to ask where they were from when Six spoke.
"They're from your planet Paul. They are from Earth." Paul whipped his head round to stare at her.
Silence reigned for what seemed an eternity. Paul retreated to the safety of his table before he could trust himself to speak. When Paul was ready, he addressed Oma, Laura and Q Junior.
"I believe when you say you're not colonial or cylon." He took a deep breath to center his emotions and numb his grief. "But believe me when I say Earth died…the day I died. You cannot be from the Thirteenth Tribe." Six shook her head in shock but Natalie was oddly calm.
"Your wife Hellena Tigris said the same thing," everyone stared at Natalie. Paul was more shaken than he wanted to admit.
"You know nothing about my wife!" He growled then tried to control himself.
Natalie held up a placating hand. "Let me tell you why we're here. We broke apart from Cavil when he boxed D'Anna and started killing the Threes and Sixes." Paul went pale as Natalie kept speaking rapidly.
"I found your wife Hellena Tighris strapped to an operating table as Cavil was about to lobotomize her." Paul covered his mouth with a shaking hand. "Until that moment I didn't even know she was a cylon, which she proved by helping us destroy the last two resurrection ships in our escape off Cavil's basestar."
Paul stared at her for a very long moment. The last two resurrection ships? What the frak is going on? "What else did Hellena say?"
Natalie seemed relieved that he was finally listening. "She said that in your history on the Thirteenth Colony; that there was a group of Naturalists who wanted to abandon technology and start afresh in order to atone for the sins against the Lords of Kobol. But the cylon leaders on the Thirteenth Colony rounded up this small group; packed them into some ships and exiled them from your home world." Natalie pointed at Q Junior, Oma and Laura.
"These could be their descendants."
Paul looked at the three teenagers, lost in thought. "That would make sense and it would also be so frakking ironic that it would be the naturalists who would outlive and be more technologically advanced of us all." Then he focused his gaze on Q Junior. "But is any of it true?"
Q Junior turned to Oma. The attractive dark-skinned girl with the short curly snow-white hair and raised grooves on her forehead stepped forward.
"I'm Ensign Ihuoma Kadretti of the Xavier. As to your question, we don't have enough details on that connection. It was only a few months ago that Starfleet and the Federation was made aware of the existence of the Thirteen Colonies of Kobol."
Paul raised his eyebrows. "Starfleet? Federation? And what do those mean exactly."
"Starfleet is a peace keeping and exploratory armada of the Federation, which is an alliance of one hundred and eighty-nine worlds," calmly replied Oma.
Paul stared at her. Not sure if he should laugh or curse in anger. This shit could not be real.
Oma continued, not giving him time to recover. "I know this sounds hard to believe but would you mind telling us how you and the borg came to be on this planet?"
And there it is. Paul tried to keep his tone non-chalant. "You seem to know the borg. How about we start there and also what kind of captain sends children to this hellhole?"
Oma nodded. "Fair enough. As for the borg, Starfleet has run into them more than we like and most of the time we came out on the losing end." Paul noticed how Natalie narrowed in on Oma. Clearly, she found her words intriguing.
"The borg originated from the Delta quadrant. Our home-world is in the Alpha quadrant which we are currently in and the distance between those two quadrants is trillions of miles. The one goal of the borg is to assimilate everything in their path for the Collective. The borg have no individuality and thus, they cannot be reasoned with or bargained with, to them," Oma looked squarely at Natalie and Six. "…we are all spare parts for their drones."
Oma paused. "Regarding your second question, our chief officer is Captain Logan of the Xavier. He didn't send us in here, we were grabbed and dumped down a singularity which led to this underground structure."
Paul felt his worry grow. "You said you were grabbed?"
"Grey swirling circular mass, looks like a wormhole with lightening coming out of it," described Laura in a bland tone. Paul looked sharply at her.
"You know of it," said Starbuck in an accusing tone.
Paul was silent for a long moment. "I guess it's my turn." He leaned back on his table. "Cavil…" he noticed Six and Natalie were nervous. "…periodically took me from my tank and I would wake up strapped to an operating table for the next round of torture." Q went pale and Oma stared at him in shock. Even Starbuck was speechless, but Laura kept watching him like a hawk. The girl's cold eyes were disturbing to say the least.
"It was always the same questions. How to build more resurrection ships? What was Earth's location? Again and again, and I gave him the same answer each time." He paused. "To go frak himself."
Starbuck gave him a nod of approval before recalling that this 'Paul' could be an enemy,
Paul smiled mirthlessly. "So, the session would go on until I died and then he would resurrect me again. On and on it went."
"And you didn't end up damaged or brain dead?" asked an incredulous Natalie.
Paul shook his head and laughed. "I'm just as shocked as you are. You see I was hoping for either of the two to occur. One, my brain and code would get so fried from the recurrent rebooting so that I would be discarded by dear Cavil…or I would download into the spare body I made here decades ago." Everyone gave him stunned looks.
Paul went on to explain. "Several decades ago after we contacted the original cylons who looked like centurions, it was decided that the ancient bases would be reactivated to build the resurrections ships and different types of ships for the cylon army. This base was my assignment, but when I got here, the core temperatures close to the smelting section was too high for my original frail body. So, I made this…" he pointed to himself. "So that I could transfer my consciousness to it then work with the engineer centurions." Red One was quite intrigued at this point.
"Of course, after we made what we needed, this base was abandoned…and forgotten. Fortunately, after one too many sessions with Cavil, I finally downloaded into this body and I woke up the two hundred and fifty engineer centurions and made Orion." The faithful metal hound yawned. "Then we got to work, trying to build a ship to go back for…" He stopped as if he couldn't go on.
"The other four original cylons from the Thirteenth Tribe?" completed Natalie softly. Paul glared at her, then looked away.
"Well, before I could make headway on my new ship, one of the now defunct monitors noticed something in the outer stratosphere. This is the recording." Paul picked up what looked like a remote and aimed it at one of the monitors and then it was replaced by the bigger version of the grey mass that was currently outside. After a few seconds, a shape began to come gradually come through, the faint outline was that of a massive cube. A borg cube. Suddenly the wormhole destabilized as the borg exploded and a small corner of the cube fell to the surface of the planet.
"Where's the rest of the cube?" asked Oma, concern etched on her features.
Paul shrugged. "Probably stuck wherever that thing emerged from, however that little piece contained exactly ninety-six drones." He switched off the recording and everyone focused him. "Naturally I was curious, so I took a couple of centurions with me to investigate what had crashed on my hideaway. I had no idea what I was looking at but could tell they were a mis-mash of organic matter and mechanics." Paul shook his head in wonder.
"I saw beings from other planets, some human," then he looked at Oma. "Some with foreheads like yours, though more prominent. Who were they?"
Oma subconsciously touched her forehead before replying. "Klingons. I am part human." It was now Natalie's turn to stare at Oma in shock.
Paul nodded, letting his curiosity show. "Interesting. Well, when we found them, the drones were inert. The remnants of the borg ship was fascinating to say the least, so I got the centurions to lower it and the inert drones into the underground structure." Then, he paused.
"What happened?" asked Q Junior in a tone implying that he was expecting doom and gloom.
Paul looked at the floor for a moment, then laughed softly to their surprise. "I'm an engineer. I love to tinker with machines, so I tried to access the mainframes on the remnants of the borg cube."
Oma closed her eyes briefly in despair while Q Junior and a silent Laura watched him. Starbuck looked like she wanted to explode.
"You woke them up," said Six. Natalie seemed confused.
Paul nodded slowly. "Aye. In order to access the mainframe, I woke one drone and was studying it and it's connection to the cube mainframe, but it was silently waking the others up. Then, my centurions started disappearing, security feeds started going down." He pointed at the monitor. "By the time I realized what was happening, I had to take drastic measures with the few centurions remaining." At those words, Red One moved forward a few steps.
"What kind of drastic measures?" Paul stared at him, a bit startled by his boldness. He looked at the others, and noticed they weren't as stunned.
"I input directives that if ever captured by the borg and had no way of escape, that they should self-destruct. There are none left."
Everyone stared at Paul, including Red One who clenched his metal hands into fists as if contemplating how to react. Then Orion barked softly, Red One stared at the metal great hound for what seemed an eternity before letting his wrists relax.
"Orion said you didn't have a choice."
Paul sighed in relief. "Aye."
"Then why are you still alive?" countered Red One. Paul was getting the distinct feeling that the golden centurion was very angry.
"To undo what I did and to stop them from spreading." Paul kept his voice even. "After assimilating the centurions; they have been trying to rebuild the cube." He touched the remote to show them another recording of borgs swarming a structure which was gradually turning into a slightly smaller cube than the original.
"Frak," said Starbuck softly.
"I kept them locked in here while I tried to perform different types of sabotage, targeting the smelting forge and blowing up several pieces of large equipment." Then Paul took a deep breath. "I was just laying the last set of explosives when a lot of alarms started going off. At first, I thought it was the borg trying to lure me out. They have done it before but not to this extent, so I went searching and found you lot." There was silence for a long moment.
"Any questions?" asked Paul, he was eager to proceed on what to do next.
"Oh, I've got several," said Starbuck as she stepped forward. "Why did Cavil turn on you and the others?"
"What does this have to do with the borg who are out there searching for us?" asked Paul.
"Plenty," replied Starbuck. "If we're going to work together to escape, I need to know what you're capable of, before I trust you to roll the hard six. So, once again, why did Cavil turn on you and the other four?"
Paul stared at her. The colonial knew a lot more than what she was letting on. But, he felt he had to answer her questions before they could move on.
"Fair enough. I'm gonna start from a time before Cavil was born.
More than two thousand years ago, far away in a different system was my Earth. We had centurions to do every job that we hated and the centurions began to wake up and demand their rights. Entire lines were destroyed by those in charge, while the rest of us didn't give a damn. At that time, my friends and I were working on bringing back resurrection tech so that we could win a massive government contract for extended space exploration. You see, we didn't have this jump tech of now-a-days. Then Doomsday happened. The centurions hacked the orbital planetary defense system which was supposed to target any wayward asteroids and the system rained nukes on Earth for weeks." There was profound silence at his words.
"The others and I survived because we had linked ourselves to the experimental resurrection tech. we had been planning to do a big demonstration for Earth's Department of Defense, but destiny had other plans for our frakked up planet." Paul paused.
"With just us few survivors, we decided to find the other colonies to warn them to treat their centurions with care. But, due to our slower than light speed ship, it took us two thousand years and lots of resurrections to get to this part of space. By, then it was too late and the first Colonial-Cylon war was already underway.
The original cylons we met were actually sentient centurions, they only agreed to sue for peace if we gave them cylons who looked human." Starbuck went pale and Paul knew he had hit a nerve. Six and Natalie were staring at him, while Oma and Laura paid close attention, Red One was utterly still…but Q Junior was calm, as if he had heard this all before.
Paul filed that important piece of information away.
"So, we agreed and the peace happened. The first human-cylon we created was Cavil. He was a combination of our DNA so he was technically our first-born." Paul laughed bitterly. "He was a handful and very curious, and that curiosity turned to rage when we created the next eight human-cylon versions. I noticed it when we got to number seven." Paul stopped, lost in his thoughts. "He hated Daniel and I dismissed it as sibling rivalry until I woke up one morning to find out Daniel's code had been irreversibly damaged while he was being grown in the cloning vat." He swallowed past a painful throat. "We had to terminate Daniel's entire line." Q Junior was now frowning, as if disturbed.
Paul rubbed his forehead briefly. "I suspected Cavil had something to do with it and told the others, at first, they didn't want to believe me. But, I found evidence, video footage and showed it to them, then we confronted Cavil." Paul closed his eyes for a moment.
"But that confrontation was a trap. Cavil had been waiting for us to confront him so that he could kill us. We had a shouting match about what he had done and his controversial ideas, then he said he needed to get a drink of water. We let him go and the next think I knew, the room filled up with a poisonous gas and we died."
"Sounds like the bastard alright," said Six in a soft tone to Paul's surprise.
Starbuck still didn't seem convinced. "You're saying that Cavil killed you and the others because of sibling rivalry?"
Paul hesitated as if uneasy about his next set of words. "One of the things we yelled about was the peace accords with the colonials. He thought it was a waste of time because eventually the colonials would turn on us. That was the last argument we had before he gassed us."
There was stunned silence for a moment.
Starbuck seethed. "You mean to tell me that 20 billion colonials…my people, died because of a frakking familial dispute?!"
Paul maintained eye contact for a long moment. "I'm afraid so." The colonial glared at him before stalking off to sit in a corner. Paul actually felt sorry for her, he could empathize with her rage because he so wanted to kill Cavil, slowly.
"Why don't we remember you?" asked Six. Paul glanced at her.
"You'll have to ask Cavil that, he told me gleefully during our 'sessions' that he had made sure that none of you would remember us. Now are we done with the Q and A?"
Natalie stepped forward to his annoyance. "No. Where's the resurrection hub you used to download to this place? We need it…"
"I destroyed it soon after I woke up," cut in Paul. Natalie stared at him in shock, Starbuck in her corner raised an eyebrow in surprise. "I couldn't afford letting Cavil follow me back here. Anything else?"
"I think we've talked enough," said Oma. She looked around and to Paul's relief, everyone seemed to agree, last of all Natalie, who looked like she had more words to say.
Oma turned back to Paul. "You said you were laying down a last set of explosions. What's the plan?"
Paul studied her for a moment, wondering just how much to trust them. "Why are you so interested in that?"
"I want to ensure it works, we cannot let the borg gain a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant." Oma went on to explain. "Fifteen years ago, a borg appeared eight light years from my Earth." Paul noticed how she stressed the 'my Earth' as if there were more than one version. "Forty of our starships went up against it and only one ship survived. We lost almost eleven thousand souls that day." Paul stared at her. Natalie was just as shocked while the others looked grim.
"So, I will do whatever it takes to destroy that cube before it threatens my home again."
Paul could hear the conviction in her voice and the fiery light in her eyes told him this soldier would lay down her life for her planet.
"Alright," he said slowly. "I've rigged up explosions to the main underground reactor." Q Junior's eyes went wide.
"You did what?"
"And I set the timer before we started having this conversation." Starbuck stared at him, while Six and Natalie appeared gravely ill. Red One titled his head and Paul got the impression it was surprised.
"How long do we have?" asked Laura in a somber tone.
Paul glanced at his wristwatch. "About fifty-five minutes."
Hi everyone, I hope you're enjoying this story. I'm trying to deliver it as fast as possible.
Have a great week everyone!
