== Part 23 – Late to the Meeting ==

Colonel Harvey Greystone was what some people might call a "Cylonophile". It wasn't something he advertised to his superiors and coworkers; to them, he was just a Cylon expert, or at least the closest thing the Colonials had to one. Most of his life was spent obsessing over what little information the Colonials knew about their creations. It had started with a story that Harvey's father had told him about his parents' House Cylon, that when the rebellion began and other House Cylons started killing the people that owned them, the Greystone House Cylon had told Harvey's grandparents to hide before disappearing from their lives forever. Since being told that story, Harvey had tried to ferret out every bit of information on Cylons he could find, to the point of joining military intelligence in hopes of learning whatever secrets they knew, which so far had been disappointingly little.

Still, Harvey had managed to parlay his Cylon expertise into forwarding his career. He could recite any number of facts about Cylons, and quite a bit of fiction as well. For example...

Eighty years ago plus change Daniel Greystone demonstrated the first Cylon AI, which had been revolutionary in how responsive, adaptable, and flexible it was compared to previous AI technology. Daniel Greystone had been a cousin of Harvey's grandparents.

Seventy two years ago, the Cylons almost all spontaneously went berserk. And Harvey qualified that with "almost" because over the years since the Armistice, quite a few stories have popped up from recollections and diaries that told stories quite similar to Harvey's grandparents. Some were clearly fakes, but others were quite genuine in Harvey's opinion. Those stories had spawned a thought movement that had become quite popular of late that said humans were in the wrong and the Cylons really were sapient slaves.

Sixty two years ago exactly, the Cylons called for an Armistice and the exhausted Twelve Colonies accepted. That Daniel Greystone had been killed in a Cylon attack that same day, perhaps the same hour as when the Cylons sued for a ceasefire, had spawned quite a few crackpot theories that the entire war and three billion dead humans had been nothing but a manhunt for one person. Even Harvey didn't believe that.

Sixty one years ago exactly, Armistice Station opened for business for the first human/Cylon diplomatic talks as stipulated by the terms of the Armistice. No Cylons had not shown up that day nor any following Armistice Day meeting since.

Thirty two years ago, unknown actors had pulled a brazen midnight heist on the famous Delphi Museum and stolen the Arrow of Apollo along with numerous other artifacts. There were no witnesses. Any security guards that might have gotten a good look at the culprits had been shot out of hand and the security camera system had been down due to a hacking attack. The culprits had escaped via a shuttle that had made an FTL jump out almost at ground level which destroyed any evidence that might have been left behind. At the time, everyone assumed it had been human criminals responsible, but now there was evidence that pointed to the Cylons.

Twenty six years ago was the last time there had been a confirmed Cylon sighting. It had been a clandestine recon mission over the Armistice Line that had gone bad, ironically commanded by the same William Adama that would later decommission the old Battlestar Galactica. The next clandestine recon mission wouldn't happen until well after the Galactica's decommissioning and had found nothing.

Twenty two years ago exactly, the old Galactica had been decommissioned and turned into a history museum of the Cylon War.

Eight years ago, the then Colonial President had finally had enough with secret recon missions that came back with literally nothing and openly sent Battlestars over the Armistice line. He'd been heavily criticized for the order, and he'd nearly been impeached, but his Presidency had been saved when no Cylons had been found and no war had been restarted. Shortly afterwards, he had the history of clandestine recon missions over the Armistice Line declassified and made public.

Seven years ago, a miniseries had been produced, an alternate history story that speculated what would have happened if the Cylons had attacked on the Fortieth Armistice Day and centered on the old Galactica as it was being decommissioned. The miniseries had used declassified recon data for its Raider and Basestar designs.

Six years ago, that miniseries was turned into a TV show that aired the first of five seasons.

Five years ago, Harvey Greystone had volunteered to become the Colonial representative to Armistice Station despite knowing that the Cylons never showed up. He'd been doing the job ever since. Other officers might consider it a waste of time or punishment duty, but Harvey wanted to be here on the off chance the Cylons finally did show up.

Two years ago, Colonial explorers looking for Cylons had stumbled across Kobol and discovered the Arrow of Apollo inside the Tomb of Athena along with signs that the Cylons had been there. That had finally clued everyone in as to where the Cylons had gone.

Five months ago, the Earth Expedition had finally departed for Earth after a year and a half of political back and forth on almost everything about it. The Expedition could have launched a year sooner if every politician, activist, and powerful business interest hadn't wanted to get their two cubits in. Quite a few people had criticized the President's last second pick of Admiral Lee Adama for Expedition leader as a PR stunt, but Harvey had heard enough good things about him to know that she had made a good choice. By now, the Expedition should have planted the last of the planned fueling stations before reaching Earth itself.

Today was the Sixty Second Armistice Day, and Harvey was at Armistice Station to meet a Cylon representative he was sure wasn't coming. They had all gone to Earth after all.


Harvey had just gotten comfortable when it happened. He'd just unpacked his briefcase, setting an old disc player along with a box set of his favorite miniseries off to the side of the meeting table for later viewing. Technically, they were against regulation, but no one cared. After all, it wasn't like the Cylons were going to show up and catch him goofing off.

But then the station shivered with a clang, and the airlock began to cycle. Oh my gods, Harvey thought. It was finally happening! In his excitement, he completely forgot about the contraband box he had left sitting in the open.

Just like in the show, two Centurions came through the airlock. Each with one had a weaponed arm raised, and took up guard positions on either side of the airlock. Harvey's lifetime of studying Cylons instantly picked out the details. Although their heads looked remarkably like the show Cylons and the proportions were just as similar, the rest of their body was clearly far more heavily armored. Large tubular weapons were attached to the Centurion's forearms instead of being intergrated inside them, and a tubing ran from those weapons to some kind of armored backpack. Were these Centurions armed with flamethrowers?

Harvey heard the heavy thumping of foot steps before he saw it. A third Centurion came through the airlock, this one far bigger than the first two. Its shoulder width was two, maybe three times greater than the other Centurions, and it was so tall that it had to bend down to avoid hitting its head on the airlock's door frame. And of course, it was heavily armored, its head little more than bulb sticking up from its torso. As it stomped forward, every step sending a shiver that Harvey could feel through the deck plates, Harvey could see that the head could swivel around, a ball in a socket. There weren't any obvious weapons on it that Harvey could see, but it's sheer bulk and obvious mass was a weapon in its own right.

Dammit, Harvey thought irreverently. If I'm going to die, why couldn't it have been with a beautiful woman sitting in my lap and making out with me like in the show? Oh shit! I left the show on the table! And it was too late to hide it.

But if Harvey was going to die, he was going to die doing his job, dammit! He wasn't going to go out frozen in shock and fear like that guy in the show.

"Uh, welcome!" Harvey greeted with as steady a voice he could as he jumped to his feet. The Cylon representative still towered over him. Harvey stuck out his hand as it stopped in front of the table. "I'm Colonel Harv..."

"Your ships are approaching the Thirteenth Colony," the Centurion interrupted him. It's voice wasn't as electronica as in the old recordings. It sounded almost human, and quite deep.

"Uh, yes, yes they are," Harvey stammered. The Expedition Fleet must have already run into the Cylons, Harvey realized. No wonder the Cylons finally came to Armistice Station. "Um are they still alive?"

"Yes. They are unharmed for now." Harvey swore an internal sigh of relief.

Then the Centurion began to lean forward menacingly. Harvey took an involuntary step back, and bumped into his chair, tripping and falling down into it so that he was sitting again. The Centurion continued leaning forward until it was resting both fisted hands on the edges of the table. The table groaned in protest at the weight put on it. The Cylon's eye slit with its bouncing red light was staring down at Harvey who was still trying lean back as much as he could without falling backwards again.

"We come with a message for the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," the Centurion continued. "Do not interfere in our Great Work."

The tableau held for a long moment before Harvey decided that the Centurion wasn't going to elaborate on what their "Great Work" was. Harvey was about to ask what the Centurion meant when its eye slit suddenly swiveled to look down at the table. Or rather, the side of the table.

Oh, frak. The miniseries!

The Centurion stood back upright and the table groaned again in relief. The table's metal legs were slightly bowed outward now, and there were dents on the edges where the Centurion had rested its weight. With thumb and forefinger on a huge, but human-like armored hand, the Centurion delicately picked up Harvey's boxed miniseries and curiously examined it.

"What is this?" the Centurion asked.

"Uh, it's a miniseries," Harvey said quickly. "It's a three hour long movie that's fiction, not real!"

The Centurion's eye slit went dark for a moment, as if considering. Harvey got the impression of a human thinking with their eyes closed. The eye slit came back on a moment later.

"We will trade for this," the Centurion told him. A panel opened in its thigh, and the Cylon pulled out what looked like a toy ray gun. The ray gun was comically small the Centurion's hand, and it put the ray gun in Harvey's open briefcase with a thump that betrayed that the weapon was heavier than it looked. The Cylon started to turn away.

"Isn't there anything else you want?" Harvey demanded. He was clearly in no position to demand anything, but he wasn't going to let this moment pass without finding out all he could. "Don't you want to talk with us at all?"

"The Twelve Colonies have nothing we want," the Centurion told him. It started to turn away again, then hesitated. It's eye slit flicked down, looking at something below Harvey's face. Its eye slit flickered off again.

Harvey glanced down at his chest, and the thing that leaped out at him was his uniform name tag with the name GREYSTONE printed on it. Of course, the Cylons had killed Daniel Greystone, maybe even targeted him specifically. But a Cylon had also spared his grandparents and his father from the killing madness that started the Cylon War. Which if any Greystone was this Centurion remembering?

"Correction: There is one thing that we want," the Centurion finally said. "Bring us Zoe Greystone. Only then will we 'talk'."

And without another word, the Centurion and its escorts left.

Harvey stared after it, shocked. Harvey had no living relatives that he knew of named Zoe. But given his Cylon expertise, Harvey knew damn well who Zoe Greystone was. Which meant the Centurion had just asked for the impossible.


"You should have let me go in there," Six said as the Cylon ship detached from Armistice station and she casually played with her knife. "I bet I could have scared him way more than you just did."

"Perhaps," Zero replied. "But that would have endangered those who stayed behind."

"They chose their side," Six said dismissively. "And they're going to be endangered anyway when the Colonials get to the Inner Sphere and realize there are human model Cylons." She pointed at the box in Zero's hand with her knife. "What's that?"

"The work of a Seven," Zero told her. "We were curious and wanted to see what he had made."