Chapter 17

Location: Unknown Planet's Palace

Date: February 16, 2025

Time: 1730 Zulu

The negotiations were going semi-smoothly. No arguments resulted in guns being drawn, a few slightly raised voices and nasty looks had been traded of course. But as was the necessity of the type of negotiations that the Earth and Colonial teams were undergoing. After a few hours they'd decided to take a few minutes to gather their thoughts, and report back to their superiors.

Colonel Black had decided to stand out on the wall where he could keep an eye on things, still not fully satisfied with the way things had turned out. The others had settled on staying in the large entryway until Earth had done its own callback to their home base seeing as they had part of their team back at the Ring. He'd been somewhat unsettled by the ease with which his team had been captured by Earth's own team, and that was going to be settled as soon as he got them in a briefing room.

As he waited he saw a flash of white and glow of blue down at the Ring, and knew that was activated. However what happened next surprised him.

"Recon Command to Recon One, come in please," his radio crackled in his ear, the voice clearly stressed.

"Recon One Actual here, go ahead Recon Command," Black replied quickly.

"Recon One, Kobol is under attack, disengage from current mission and dial straight to Kobol. Command Actual has given the order for immediate recall and deployment of all Recon Teams. Command code Alpha Hotel Delta Two Five Seven."

"Roger that Command, command code received and authenticated, but be advised we have encountered and have been in negotiations with an Earth, repeat an Earth offworld team," Black informed them.

"Repeat Recon One, an Earth team?"

"Confirmed, Earth team designation SG-1 has been encountered."

There was a pause from the other line, and Colonel Black paced impatiently as he waited for a response. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the green uniforms of several of the members of the Earth team walking towards the wall. Before he or they got close enough to speak the line came back.

"Recon One, can you bring them with you to base?"

"Bring them to Choros?!" Black snapped suddenly, "Are you frakkers out of your minds? Of course they won't want to come to Choros!"

"What makes you so sure?" a voice from below him called out.

He looked down and saw the blonde from Earth, Brenda Jackson, the daughter of the bigwig Earth diplomat. She was standing there in front of several members of her own team. When he looked down he saw that O'Neill, the military commander of the Earth team, had grabbed her by the arm and was speaking with her with an annoyed look on his face. However she seemed to quiet him with a quick few words and then returned to speaking to Black.

"Colonel, we might not see eye to eye, but we both don't want Kobol to fall into a hostile's hands. I'm sure you don't like it necessarily, but it might help ease relations if we help you here. And frankly, you need it."

"Do you have permission from your own superiors?" Black asked, curious if the Earth hierarchy that seemed to hold the Colonies at arm's length would allow this.

"Not as of this moment," O'Neill assured him.

"Facts will persuade them, we have a vested interest in keeping Olympus out of the hands of aggressors," Brenda said with extreme confidence, as if it was no big deal.

"So do we, and I don't have to tell you we won't be letting the danger persist as is," Black responded.

"But can you handle it?" O'Neill asked, "If Kobol was so important how did the situation get as bad as it is?"

"We can handle ourselves just fine," Black replied defensively, more out of pride and an unwillingness to allow himself to admit weakness on behalf of his people.

"Can you now?"

"Jack!" Brenda yelled, "We're not going back down that road!"

"You want to help I get it, but they don't seem to want our help," O'Neill retaliated.

"We do," Agent Fraser said as he walked up to the scene, "Believe me, nothing would help the situation more than doing something together. But there are other things that have to be considered."

"Such as the fact you don't have the authority to make this kind of call!" O'Neill yelled at Brenda, who turned to face him.

"I know!"

"Recon One, we need an answer," the radio crackled.

"Yes, if we can get permission, happy?" Brenda said loudly.

"How'd you…" Fraser said calmly.

"Your comms are ridiculously easy to tap into," one of the petite officers among the Earth team called out.

"May need to have the geeks work on that," Fraser chuckled.

"Yeah maybe," Black nodded grimly, giving the man a shake of the head, "Recon Command, they said they'd come if they can get clearance from their command."

"Roger that Recon One, we're going by ear with this one. We didn't expect contact with Earth. You have one hour to get a response from the Earthers and then return to base for immediate combat deployment."

"Very well Command," Colonel Black nodded, and sighed as he turned back to the Earth team which was now gathering in larger numbers along with parts of his own team, "I take it you heard that you've got an hour?"

"We heard, we should have an answer in that time."

Kobol, Remnants of Main Colonial Archaeological Base

The base had originally been a sprawling concrete and building covered complex with a makeshift spaceport, a military airfield, and a series of specialist sub-complexes. It had just become a permanent structure on Kobol, stretching over an area well over several square miles in a valley above the ancient capital city with roads branching out in all directions.

Now, it was a sprawling sea of smoke and fire crawling with hundreds of the same pirates that had been slowly driven back from the highlands by an increasingly confident Colonial Marine Corps and Army. Not many buildings had been left unscathed as fires raged nearly uncontrollably, destroying hundreds and thousands of precious artifacts.

In the somewhat intact civilian control center the pirate commanders had set themselves up to stay. But things were not looking good for them. Many of their comrades had been falling to the advancing Colonial units counter-attacking in the highlands. Their orbital forces were however increasingly frustrating them, being unable and unwilling to dip into the planet's atmosphere to aid them. But that was the problem with the kind of ships they had.

These pirates were a rogue band, using cheaply and roughly copied Gou'ald designs built by the same slaves that the Gou'ald had oppressed which meant quality of work had suffered rather badly. Their ships had fussy generators, weak shields, and frequent break downs of other minor systems. But that wasn't to say their ships were not able to get the job done. Their weapons hadn't been all that compromised, and their speed was as good as most other earlier Ha'taks. This had been their saving grace in the engagement with the Colonials. They'd just about lost half their fleet when Colonial Battlestars, five of the upgraded Pegasus Class and three more upgraded Valkyrie Class, had unloaded their powerful magnetic cannons into the pirate motherships.

These weapons struck at glancing blows unfortunately, and had failed to bring the shields down. Meanwhile the Ha'taks had been able to fire into them for, although not as effective, much more lethal results. The smaller destroyers had been blown apart once the powerful magnetic fields surrounding the Battlestars and cruisers had proven too much of a hassle to break through for the pirates' staff cannons, for which the degaussing fields were uniquely suited. The plasma globs had dissipated upon impact, only a few shards making it through to splash upon the Colonial armor, which on the Battlestars had held on to protect their crews. The cruisers were not as lucky, and suffered damage, not crippling, but the Battlestars couldn't stay and fight the much faster pirate ships alone, and had to withdraw with what escorts they could save after recovering Vipers.

The pirates hadn't used their Death Gliders at all, waiting to rid themselves of the Colonial warships, and launched them and called in their troop transports and Alkeshes once orbit was secure. And then they'd begun bombarding the planet. The Colonials bases had suffered badly in the initial attacks, scattering their defenders and scientific inhabitants. Gliders had swooped in, ravaging any vehicles and small outposts they could find. Alkeshes had wiped out an evacuation convoy moving out of the large base, killing several hundred civilians and soldiers alike.

Then they'd come across a problem. Within a few minutes of the attack the Ha'taks had found themselves being interfered with. Their targeting scanners wouldn't work, their sensors only saw forest, and their Gliders and Alkeshes found themselves as the only air support that they could get. And then the Colonial defenders had counter-attacked under this EM interference from a still unknown source. Colonial air defenses got the measure of the Death Gliders, MANPAD Teams taking positions in ridgelines with overlapping fields of fire, with larger stationary turrets and SAM batteries prepositioned to destroy the Alkeshes that always came to aid their smaller brethren. This tactic was responsible for downing dozens of pirate attack craft, and now their pilots refused to venture near any Colonial positions. And one position that they dared not go near was a shimmering metal city-scape deep in the highlands, surrounded by an iron curtain of Colonial AA.

Yet this city-scape was what the pirates wanted most. It was a classic pirate flaw, anything shiny was what they wanted, and this was the crown jewel of the entire planet. But the intensity of the fight that they'd come upon was not what they'd expected, as the thumps of Colonial artillery in the near distance supporting their advancing ground forces reminded them. However, normal pirates would have left by now. But something else drove these men.

"What is going on up there?" the pirate ground commander snarled at a messenger who walked into the command room.

"They're driving our men back sir," the man responded tiredly, "My commander has asked for air support."

"We can't give them any air support until the ships can drop into the atmosphere. And their captains are still unable to do that with all this interference! Make due!" the older man roared, and then turned to another man working on a Colonial computer tower, "Have you been able to get that thing working yet?"

"Of course not! I wouldn't be working on it if it was working!"

"We need to figure out what they have found here. The Agent grows impatient!"

"Indeed," a deep voice stated, and the pirates in the room turned and knelt to a knee at the presence of the man who'd appeared.

This man was simply clothed. He wore a dark burgundy hooded robe, with golden etching on the seams and black around the arms and the buttons which held it closed. A thick goatee on his face was about all that could be seen under the hood and he held his hands together, sheathed underneath his robes long baggy sleeves. He was a rather large man, with a deep ringing voice that echoed the regal manner in which he always held himself.

"Your holiness," the pirate leader stated, "These barbarians are far more skilled in battle than we had anticipated. Our forces are no match."

"Your failure in vanquishing them is none of my concern. I am concerned with your refusal to put your faith in God rather than your meagre mortal might. It is God that has given you the strength to survive and it is God that has given you the right to conquer all."

"Forgive us wise one, we are still weak, God's grace has abandoned us."

"No, God does not abandon his faithful, he merely tests them. This is your test in the eyes of God," the man stated, "Your faith has been rewarded, and now that things are difficult you must choose how you face the challenge. Do you wain in the face of the unholy, or do you stand with the strength and resolve that I have shown to be with you?"

"We shall stand and fight your grace."

"Good, then rise, and let God's strength lead you."

The man beckoned them to rise, and the pirates rose, their newly-found religious fervor and more selfish quest for riches born into new desire. The hooded man, the Agent, as he had been called, smiled and left the room, walking back out into the rainy weather of the early morning, undaunted with the poor path the battle had taken for his little mercenaries. His goal was not to simply take this planet, his was a bit more humble, but more strategic.

His assignment was to see the measure of the inhabitants of this galaxy, and so far he was far from impressed. Neither were his own superiors, but his own convictions to uphold the religion of his people also played a part, and spent much of his time attempting to spread his people's gospel, inviting new groundwork to be laid for his people's coming. However that was still a ways off, and he had other duties to attend to. So he walked towards his own craft, a Gou'ald transport sitting on a landing pad on top of the command center. He'd taken this craft as his own seeing as the network needed for his own people's ships to move around had yet to be installed.

As he came to the ramp up there was a loud snap, and a metallic bang to his right sounded out. He whirled around to see what it was, himself unfamiliar with such noises. As did that he saw a slight flash on a wooded ridge a mile away. It was the last thing he ever saw. A Colonial bullet hit him right in the center of his navel, ripping through the robe and undershirt the man wore, and passed clean through his body, severing his spine and sending the individual over the railing like a rag doll. The body fell onto an air conditioning unit on the roof below, caving in the thing metal shell.

"Tango down," the Colonial spotter whispered to his sniper, "Looked like a bigwig of some kind. Big fancy robe and his own ship on the civilian command center."

"Not a bad start to the day," the sniper chuckled, adjusting his ghillie suit as he lay under a log with his spotter, concealed by some ferns and sticks, "Let's frak up some more."

Battlestar Galactica

The Galactica had been on course for Kobol for the past few hours, Adama making the call to do a test run of the new Battlestar's FTL systems in a series of rapid long-range jumps. In normal circumstances the route they'd travelled would've been done in a few days, but the Galactica, much to scouting Raptor's annoyance, had done it in a day.

After a cool-down period for the FTL's and an inspection for the engineers the new ship was ready for another stretch of jumps. She only had a few more to go, a day's travel at most. At the moment they were waiting on the return of their scouting Raptor, as was routine to make sure that the coordinates for the jump were safe for them to jump to.

"How long has the Raptor been overdue?" Adama asked from the CIC's charting table.

"Five minutes sir," Dee said from her usual spot.

"That's odd, usually they're back within a minute of their cool-down period if the area's safe," Tigh stated from across the table from Adama, "Should we send another Raptor?"

"I'll give Powerball and Whiplash another five minutes to get their bird back here," Adama declared, "In the meantime I don't wanna take chances. Set Condition One, Action Stations!"

"Aye sir!" a crewmen responded, and triggered the alarm.

"Action Stations! Action Stations! Set Condition One throughout the ship!"

The alarm klaxon started sounding out and every crew member and pilot on the Galactica began rushing to their battle stations.

"DRADIS Contact! Reading IFF, it's a Raptor sir!" Gaeta sounded off from the sensor station as Adama looked to the table in front of him to see the Colonial signal himself, but was caught off guard when he saw the IFF was different than the Raptor that they'd launched.

"That's not our bird," Tigh noted.

"Raptor-Four-Seven Acropolis to Battlestar Galactica urgent traffic," the wireless sounded off.

"That makes no sense, the Acropolis should be at Kobol," Tigh noted, remembering the list of ships present at their destination.

"Put him through to me," Adama snapped grabbing a headset, "Galactica Actual, go 'head Four-Seven."

"Message from Commander Aera sir; Kobol under attack, Admiral Balten wounded, Colonial Forces gathering for counter-attack. All available Colonial ships to rendezvous at Waypoint Eleven."

"Roger Four-Seven, land in starboard pod, we're jumping now," Adama rapidly ordered, "Dee guide him in."

"Aye sir."

Within a minute the Raptor had landed and was firmly in place on the landing deck, and the Galactica jumped. What they jumped on top of was a fleet of twelve Battlestars and several dozen accompanying warships. The IFF's of a fleet of civilian ships was also present, although the military signals outnumbered the civilian ones. However, upon immediate count Adama noted that some ships were missing.

"Sir, urgent call from the Acropolis for Actual," Dee stated as they settled in.

"Galactica Actual," Adama stated firmly.

"Gods we're glad to see you Admiral," the voice of Commander Aera stated immediately, "We're in rough shape sir."

"What happened Commander?" Adama asked, trying to get a handle on the situation.

"Kobol was attacked sir, six ships matching the ship the Pegasus engaged a little while ago jumped on top of us and engaged without warning. We attempted to engage but our escorts were being picked off one by one and the civilians were unable to escape without escort. The Admiral made the call to retreat and return with reinforcements. However the Admiral's in critical condition and the XO was planetside."

"Who's in command now?"

"You are sir."

Adama narrowed his eyes and looked around. The CIC had ceased all activity as they looked at the Admiral. He took a breath and sighed as he took this in and shook his head at the incredible turn of events.

"Roger that, flag is Galactica," Adama said and then signaled for Dee to broadcast to all ships, "This is Admiral Adama, be advised I'm taking command of the fleet. All ships to report status immediately. Commander, has a runner been dispatched to the Colonies?"

"Two of them were sent by Admiral Balten before he was injured. We also expect that the RSEC managed to get word through Kobol's ring."

"Then reinforcements are likely already on the ground. I want Raptors to prep for reconnaissance, let's see what we're up against."

"We've been scouting them with Raptors Admiral, looks like there's still just six ships in orbit."

"Are you certain Commander?" Adama asked.

"Yes sir, latest reconnaissance is twenty minutes old."

"Twenty minutes Bill," Saul noted, standing next to him, "We've gone in with less intel than that."

"Against Cylons Saul," Adama responded, "These are not Cylons."

"But one Battlestar group can handle these ships at long range, we've got thirteen on them."

"People are dying sir," Dee spoke up.

"More will die if we rush into this without thinking Lieutenant," Adama corrected her, "This may be Kobol but we're all they have. If we rush and engage a force that has already routed Colonial forces we risk a disaster."

Admiral, a voice whispered through his mind. It was a voice he recognized. You must hurry, a greater danger slumbers on Kobol. These new foes do not know of it, but they must not find it.

Danger? Adama thought, What danger?

A beacon from the time of Kobol's exodus. Something that shall lead Humanity to the most dangerous thing we left behind. Knowledge.

"We have to retake Kobol."

"Bill?"

"Dee is right, as long as we delay lives are lost and more of our past is lost forever. Signal the group commanders to come aboard Galactica for briefing on the plan of action."

"Do you have a plan Bill?"

Adama nodded as he pulled up the data on Kobol, zeroing in on the data referring to the atmosphere itself and the gravitational constant of the planet.

"Order Captain Adama and Captain Thrace to the command action center along with Lieutenant Adama."

"What're you up to Admiral?" Saul chuckled.

"We're going to need to coordinate with and support our forces on the ground," Adama declared, "I'll need my best Raptor pilot for that and we'll need to get Vipers past their blockade and put distance between the fleets so we can engage from optimum range."

"How're we gonna do that?"

"I might have an idea, but you won't like it."

Tigh looked down at the file that had been brought up on the command table. He then had a good idea of what Adama was looking to do now.

Sagittaron, SFM Headquarters

"Boss, we've got a problem!"

Tom Zarek looked up from his desk at the fighter who'd just barged in, carrying an old Sagittaron-designed battle rifle (Imagine the HK G3). It was the mainstay of his arsenal, and his hundred and eighty "soldiers" in the SFM's secret underground headquarters deep in the mountains had enough of the weapons and ammo to supply a small army. Also on his head was a pair of military-grade night vision goggles, the same model that equipped his whole headquarters unit.

"What is it?" he asked, mostly unconcerned.

"A CTF convoy just entered the valley, a dozen armored vehicles."

"Wake everyone up, now!" Zarek snapped as he grabbed his more modern personal SMG. (Imagine UMP-45)

He rushed out as the carved out and well-lit halls became a hive of activity. Men in a mix of old and new military and hunting camouflage with a variety of ammo vests rushed to their fighting positions. Zarek himself ran up a dirt ramp to an observer station where a concrete slab was over the observer port. There he grabbed an infrared pair of binoculars and shut off the lights and pulled down the cover and pointed his vision towards the vehicles coming down the dirt road a few miles away further down valley. He saw the snub-nosed four-wheeled internal security vehicles with their armored turrets swiveling back and forth. (Imagine the GKN Simba)

Zarek picked up a wired phone and spoke into it.

"We've got sixteen CTF Enforcers. Probably at least a company of troops."

"We've got them pinned with the recoilless. If they find us they'll feel it," one of his commanders stated as one of his men rushed into the small observation post with a machine gun built similarly to their rifles (Imagine the HK21).

"Don't fire until they stop."

Zarek waited, looking out into the moonless winter night as snow fell around them, perfect concealment for their positions dug into the rocky caves and mines like pillboxes with no entrances. His men had positioned three long barreled hundred and five millimeter recoilless rifles in their firing positions overlooking the road with plenty of shoulder-fired rockets (Imagine the RPG-7). They were well-entrenched, with pre-sighted fields of fire with well-made, and dangerous weapons. As they came forward, the Counter-Terror Force soldiers moved into the kill zone.

Down below, the CTF troops were well-aware of what they'd be walking into. Intelligence and reconnaissance had been looking for Tom Zarek and his SFM for several years, to no avail. That is until recently. They'd been narrowing in on prior known locations using satellite surveillance, aircraft flights, and boots on the ground scoping out the surrounding country. They'd searched the area before, noting the behavior of the people time and time again, watching their reactions from prepositioned spotters in camouflage positions as their task forces rolled through.

This had been what they'd found to be the most useful. When their units moved in, their spotters saw identical behavior from certain individuals, which was undoubtedly them warning Zarek. They'd acted before, searching the town, finding nothing, time and time again. And never had their force ever had hostile contact.

"All vehicles pull off," their company commander called out, "Dismount and move along this road on the ridge."

The men dismounted out of the side, most of their turrets facing towards the objective, an abandoned mining facility up a road below a shallow ridge in harsh coniferous forest. The black-clothed company had the standard pistol grip magazine-fed carbines and the standard SAW's. They each had their night vision already on and had their winter balaclavas over their faces. Their vests had 'CTF' emblazoned on their backs.

These troops were an elite counter-terrorism task force established to quell the unrest unique to Sagitarron, and had become a fixture in the past few decades. If there was a problem with any of the several terror groups these types of soldiers were called, and they could do the job. Usually they did, and the terrorists had learned to fear and despise them. And this hatred usually led to fierce firefights.

The vehicles and infantry carefully walked up, weapons at the ready. The snow in front of them had not seen any disturbance. The only noises that they heard were the chugging diesels of their own armored vehicles rumbling below them on the terraced dirt road, watching the thin but remarkably rough terrain amongst the coniferous trees. Their night vision picked up nothing as their column reached the mining complex.

"Secure the perimeter."

The men rush forward, revealing themselves, trying to draw fire as the infantry cleared the buildings, checking for any hidden passages. They'd moved up to the edges of the woods, sweeping back and forth. It was an exposed position to be in, and the rank and file troops didn't like it.

"This is wrong, these frakkers are watching us with crosshairs," one of the machine gunners whispered to his fireteam leader kneeling next to him behind a concrete wall looking upwards.

"No kidding, we've got ourselves on a platter for any hostile with a gun," the older sergeant responded.

The men and their compatriots could hear the company commander and their platoon leaders discussing their next moves as other troops tore apart the century-old mining warehouse, toolsheds, and several huts. They found nothing, which was unexpected, as this was where their intel said the locals kept looking towards whenever the authorities showed up.

"Well there's nothing here, let's move up the mountain, see what we can stir up. There's an old illegal mine that's supposed to be up there. We should be able to find something," the company commander said as he pointed up towards the upper reaches, where their foes were waiting.

As soon as he gave that order all hell broke loose. Snaps and cracks greeted the order from above as a storm of heavy machine gun and rifle fire rained down on them. A CTF soldier that had his back turned to the mountain had a bullet pas through his right thigh and collapsed. Another pair of soldiers ran over to their fallen comrade as the engagement began. One of them was shot in the back by a group of tracers and slumped forward limply.

"Frak! Get those vehicles up here!" an officer yelled as he grabbed their radioman, "Get command on the horn! Call for the QRF and air support!"

"Guardian, Hammer-4, we are in heavy contact! Request-," the man said but a bullet passed through his shoulder and he collapsed against his platoon leader.

"Frak! Medic!"

The unit was now involved in its Mad Minute, the first phase of a firefight that would determine whether they won or lost the engagement. And right now, it appeared to the Colonial troops that they were losing. The ripping and popping sounds of rifles, carbines, and machine guns lit up the quiet night. As the battle continued a trio of Enforcers rolled up, their heavy machine guns firing at the flashes on the mountainside where the red tracers were coming from.

"Get the wounded aboard!" their company commander yelled as he fired up at the enemy that was easily laying the fire down from four hundred meters away.

As he said that however, a loud bang and then a whoosh greeted his ears and he knew that this wasn't going to be good. An explosion behind him blew apart the front left wheel of the vehicle and it crashed down onto its nose. Another bang signaled another explosion that hit the vehicle on its right-hand side, penetrating and destroying the engine. A glowing flame started leaking from it as the other vehicles began retreating to cover with the threat of the AT weapons zeroed in on them.

"Shit! Fall back! Get the wounded and fall back!"

The unit began peeling away, laying down suppressive fire as fireteams began sprinting and jumping down the stone terrace. The whole time the force of vehicles below was opening fire, ripping into the granite mountains. But a rocket propelled grenade was launched from a concealed position and landed with an explosion in the middle of a tree, blowing it apart. Another one followed it, flying over the heads of the troops who'd started returning to their retreating vehicles. Bullets followed them down, striking near them all the time, in some cases, hitting one of the CTF troops.

"Get a few more of those vehicles!" Zarek roared into his phone, wanting to see burnt out Colonial vehicles on the road and the CTF running back to their base in much diminished numbers.

His order was acknowledged with the crack of one of their rifles blasting one of the rearmost vehicles in the convoy, blasting a hole in the roof of the vehicle and ignited the fuel and ammo. Cracks from ammunition and the roar of burning fuel sent the crew scrambling out. Another crack blasted a hole in the road next to the one in the lead, and a rocket also struck against the snow bank on the opposite side of the road. Zarek could see the Colonials pulling off the road to get around the obviously destroyed Enforcer. Another burst of machine gun fire raked a trio of troops who fell wounded onto the road as their comrades scooped them as quickly as they could.

"Come on, one more," he mumbled as the Colonial convoy began falling back.

To his surprise he saw a vehicle get stuck on the snow bank, wedged on the shoulder-guard. This was the opportunity that some of his rocketeers were waiting for. Two rockets landed near the vehicle, and a third hit home on the center of the nose and blew a hole through the engine block and he could see the crew and passengers start to evacuate from the burning vehicle, and that left three of the vehicles burning in the night, illuminating the entire valley.

"Alright! We got 'em!" the machine gunner next to Zarek whooped, triumphant in their victory over this raiding force.

"It's not over," Zarek declared, lifting the phone to his ear, "Did we film that?"

"We had a camera going," one of the positions called out.

"Excellent, get some cameras down and photograph and film everything. This is big," Zarek ordered, "And get messengers out to our other cells, order them to hit some soft federal targets, CTF, politicians, non-Sagittaron companies, everything."

"Wanna start bringing in our other units?"

"Yeah, the feds will want to finish us in a very public manner. Best give them a show."

"The weather's on our side," his second in command responded, "Should keep their air power out of the equation for a little while."

"I know," Zarek declared, and started walking out of the observation post.

He walked past jubilant militiamen getting ready for battle, knowing that they'd be looking at a large battle in the coming days. There was going to be a lot to do in the coming days.

Caprica, Caprica City

"So far your treatments have been going as well as can be predicted Ms. Roslin," the doctor said on the veranda of the hospital that Roslin had been secretly going to for treatment, "We'll have to work on keeping your regular treatments on a strict schedule but there's no reason we can assume that things won't go badly."

"Doctor, you know how difficult that is going to be with my position," Laura said with a smile, "As Secretary of Education during Colonial Day I'm going to be very, very busy."

"I know, I know, but…I still must insist that you keep to your treatment schedule and you keep your stress levels down and get plenty of rest."

"Looks like that'll be rather difficult," Laura said sadly.

"If it will be that difficult…as a doctor I would recommend that you reconsider resigning from your position to focus on your treatment. Cancer…doesn't care about your title."

"No, that was made abundantly clear when I was first diagnosed," she responded coldly, but softened up, "I'll have to discuss this after Colonial Day."

"Of course. Well, as usual, your secret will continue to be kept here Madam Secretary."

"Thank you Doctor," she responded, "Good day."

Laura shook his hand with a warm smile and walked down the stairs to where she saw Billy waiting for her in the greeting room of the ultra-modern hospital complex. She was pleased to see it was him rather than one of her many aides whose trustworthiness was rather questionable.

"Thank you for waiting Billy," she said walking up to him.

"Of course ma'am," the young man replied.

"Right then, shall we?" Laura said as she looked out to see the warmth of the Caprica spring sun where her executive car was waiting with a bodyguard standing facing outwards.

"The schedule for today involves…" Billy began as he held the door open and opened up his planner, "A meeting with the commanding officer of the troops that will be involved in the parade here in Caprica City, a rehearsal with the Caprica Choice Youth Choir, and a town hall at the University of Athena with the academics."

As she slid into her seat she sighed, "Military, I've never really seen the need for me to be involved with them."

"They will have their own exhibition before the parade, which itself is education in its own way," Billy replied after closing the door.

"It's propaganda, they showcase their toys so often I don't know anyone who can't name anything they bring."

"Well, it is tradition I suppose," Billy replied.

"Do you have a copy of the parade plan?" she asked.

"Of course," Billy quickly said as he dug in his briefcase and extracted the stapled papers.

"Let's see, I'm still on the fence about the order that we're placing the floats and the bands," she mumbled.

"Madam Secretary," the bodyguard in the front passenger seat spoke up, "Sorry to interrupt ma'am, you have a call from the President."

"Of course," she sighed, "Sorry Billy," Roslin quickly picked up the built-in specially built-in phone for secure communications which always came from the President and were always very important, "Roslin."

"Laura, this…might not necessarily concern your department, but I figured you'd want to know this," the voice of President Adar said, taking a sigh like he always did when bad news was about to be shared, "Kobol just reported it was under attack. We don't know the specifics, but I know some personal friends on the planet."

"Will there be a statement or any change to Colonial Day?"

"Nothing yet, we're still getting information from the RSEC. Once we know everything, we'll have the military come out with a statement. Confidence in the military is…at an all-time high. So we should see a much lessened amount of negative reaction."

"Okay, is that all?"

"For now yes, keep your phone on, we'll share information as we get it."

Roslin hung up the phone, breathing hard through her nostrils as she noticed Billy sitting silently.

"It's alright Billy, it's none of our concern."

"Is it bad?"

"I don't know. I'm just a teacher after all…"

Well, that one was a long-time coming with Roslin and Zarek returning to the fold. Sorry about forgetting about them guys. I'm really having fun with this story and I just couldn't wait to get this one finished and out for everyone to read. So as usual, hope you all enjoyed it.

Next Chapter Preview: Does Earth fight? And what's Adama's plan?