Thank you for all of your reviews. Moving along nicely and taking advantage of a snow storm to work on the story.
Chapter 19
This was the reality of war, Helena thought. She sat down at the conference table with her latest translation for one of the last lab meetings before their expedition.
"We have the last book remaining un-translated. I cannot decipher the language, which bears little resemblance to the printed books and the diaries. From its formatting, I gather that it could be a prayer book", Helena stated, "interestingly during her detention in the cylon prison, Laura mentions the prayer of the death, which she memorized from scriptures found in what she called 'The Book of Pythia'. I can only assume that the prayer book we are having in our hands is that Book of Pythia. It is clear that the objects recovered in the Titanium crate were Laura's possessions. She recites a prayer she has memorized, so this has to be probably her original prayer book."
"But you cannot translate it", Dr. Evans replied.
"Did you date that book?" Dr. Inoue asked
"Well, yes we did, but the Uranium-Thorium dating, even if you look at Protactinium-231 will have a very large error. It would not allow us to find out if these books are separated by as little as 5000 years. So it all shows up in the same range of 150,000 years old. We are limited by the big half lives of these elements and the precision of our detection methods." Dr. Evans answered.
"The print style looks older; the manufacturing of the book looks handmade. The illustrations are drawn in ink with some faded colors. It could represent a much earlier version of their language or another language all together. The only thing I have is the prayer she is reciting and matching it in a text with a hundred and more pages is impossible." Helena sighted.
"It is very interesting that she mentions names found in the Greek mythology. That is not the first time such references are made in the text, down to the zodiac signs." Dr. Hsu said. "Greek mythology originated in Tanzania?"
"It is possible that their kind traveled all over the world, spreading their culture. They had technology; they had means to fly. Maybe the only reason we have not found anything is because later civilizations obliterated their existence with their own rising. It is incredibly old evidence." Helena stated.
They had no way of knowing how far their civilization went on earth. But remnants of their culture existed in most world mythologies and that was enough to convince the group of the influence of this civilization on the native humans.
After the lab meeting, Helena retreated in her tent and continued working.
"Another suicide bombing killed several civilians as well as cylons today. I have no doubt this will mean more trouble for all of us very soon. I have severed my ties with the resistance, as I disagree with such methods, but I have no power to stop them. I am focusing instead on identifying the humans who are collaborators. They are indeed more of the problem, because we cannot trust anyone. Those collaborating might be our friends and people we least expect. I teach the school and continue to do so during the day, but it has become a way to gather information as well and organize families in the event of a rescue. Life has become a lot harder due the cylons crack down on the humans."
It was end of a tablet and Helena proceeded to the next tablet. The beginning was disorienting, as if a large part of the journal was missing.
"I am back on Colonial One. We left New Caprica forever. We are back in the void of space. But we have changed. We will carry the scars of the past months in the deepest part of souls. Will our souls ever heal? Is there any redemption for us? Events happened so fast. I am going to try to give an accurate account of the events of the past three days. It started when the police came over to arrest me while I was teaching in the afternoon. This was barely three days after I had been released and I knew immediately that it was retaliation for the recent suicide bombings. This was definitely a very bad sign. I feared for the worse. Hundreds of others were piled up, just like me, in trucks, driving to an unknown destination. I felt we were being exterminated. I was oscillating between a deep sense of desperation and the strangely calming feeling that I had nothing left to lose. I held my head high, surprisingly determined to show courage and defiance, especially for the people surrounding me, who had lost so much more than I did. I really did not have the time to be worried. I did not know where they would take us. Not the jail, certainly, I had been accustomed too. We were not going in that direction but out of the little town of tents and away from the mere buildings. To my surprise, I sat next to Zarek, who told me he had been incarcerated since the beginning of the cylon occupation. I did not know what had happened to him. They clearly were arresting anyone of some importance and I understood that this was the equivalent to a great purge. I think that at this particular moment, I knew my life was over, but it did not matter to me. As I was chatting lightly with Zarek, I was accepting my fate. Everything became unimportant. I was going to die and nothing mattered but showing the others how their once president would die her head high not in defeat, but in victory. Our bodies could be broken, but our souls would never belong to them."
"The trucks let us to a hill next to an open sky mine, where cylons had been mining ore for their metallic alloys. They let us down to walk out of the trucks. But soon the telltale noise of the centurions indicated there was more going on. I saw Cally, Tyrol's wife run away; someone had cut her binding ties. I knew that was the end, then. When I saw them align, I knew they were a firing squad. I braced myself for the impact of the bullets, the pain and the blackness. It went all very quickly. I waited for the void and the end of my life. I saw the flash out of their guns, before I heard the shots and felt the bullets whizzing past my body. It was a reflex out of self-preservation. I lacked the courage to face the tearing bullets. No! In an arrogant attempt to save my life and his, I pushed Zarek down the hill where we rolled in the gravel and rocks. Or maybe he pushed me. I am not sure anymore. It was over in a fraction of a second. When I lifted my head, my first instinct was to check for blood, sure that I had been hit. But I was safe and so was Zarek. The insurgents, made aware that we would be executed, had come to our rescue. We learned later that their informant had warned them and Tyrol pinned point our position to save us. Chief Tyrol told me then that they had made contact with the Galactica and Adama was coming. Bill. I looked up at the cloudy sky and sent him a 'thank you' with all of my heart, overwhelmed by relief and emotion. We piled up again in the truck, but this time we were free and the trucks drove by the edge of town where we quietly slipped from the trucks to the underground tunnels of the resistance. I knew about those, but had not seen them. The tunnels would be our shelter until we were evacuated. The insurgents were organizing their troops and arming everyone. The Galactica's officer, Sharon, was waiting for us and I became naturally the leader again of our people, as if I had never left the presidency. Sharon, a cylon model, who received the call name Athena, seems to be a deviant number eight model, which acquired human characteristics of self-determination. When Agathon brought back a number Eight model with him back from the occupied Caprica, we all thought that it would be Boomer all over again. We thought Boomer could be trusted, but the programming kicked in and without warning she tried to kill Bill. Yet, this Sharon provided us with useful intelligence and was instrumental in the liberation of New Caprica. She also was our guide to find the temple of Athena, on Kobol. This model had become pregnant with Karl Agathon's child, against all odds, as it seems that cylons could not conceive, being that they are genetically engineered and grown in an artificial facility to adulthood. I am still suspicious of her, even if she has shown many times support to us and saved our lives many times. Bill trusted her despite my misgivings. I guess I am still worried that at some point the programming will kick in and she will revert to what Boomer was."
"They all turned to me for advice and we organized the rescue. I saw Helen Tigh brought down the cave surrounded by angry insurgents who intercepted her and surrendered her to her husband. She looked distressed. I wanted to talk with her, but never got a chance, as I was so busy organizing the rescue operations from the ground. And I never saw her again. I do not know what happened to her. I can only assume she did not make it out of the planet. We were busy organizing the rescue. My priority was to make sure that Isis and her mother, Maya, would be safe during the evacuation. Under my authority some guards were assigned to assist and protect them. Hard to explain why this was so important without revealing the nature of the child. There were only a few hours before the Galactica was going to come down and send the Vipers. The Pegasus was not coming, which made me worried about the fate of Lee Adama, Bill's son. We had to get the weapons out and distribute them, organize the resources and warn all of the trusted members of the population. It is only when all of the plans had been laid out and we had to just wait in the growing anticipation that I remembered my journal and all of the notes that Dr. Cottle and I had accumulated over the months of the cylon occupation. It would not have been wise for me to go back out in the town and retrieve them, yet I could not let these notes fall in cylons' hands. I was the leader again, and I was now a fugitive, in hiding until we would be liberated. Until we were all leaving, I would not let Maya and her daughter, Isis, leave my sight either. They were more precious to me than my own life. So Tory went back up, instructed to get the books and notes from their hiding place, under a platform plank in my tent, right under my bed. She also informed the population to get ready to evacuate, as we had planned rendezvous points for months ahead. I was relieved when she came back with the books and all the notes, wrapped in a sturdy thick piece of cloth. We were now ready."
"We would meet at designated areas and run towards the ships, which would be powered up for takeoff. A Galactica officer, Sharon Agathon retrieved the launch keys to power the ships. The plan was simple. The insurgency attacked all at once all cylons centers, exploding bombs in critical areas, while the population was preparing to evacuate. Then, Galactica's vipers would attack the cylons, creating enough of a diversion for us to flee, board and launch the ships. And then it happened. We were already out and running towards the ships, when we saw Galactica boldly jumping into the high atmosphere and dropping like a bullet avoiding detection by the basestars and unloading the vipers. That was quite a sight and a remarkable tactical move. I recognized in it the unmistakable signature of Admiral Adama. Only Bill would have such guts. Bombs were exploding around the town. The vipers were attacking from all angles, allowing us to run out to the ships. In reality, it was quite chaotic. It was as if the whole planet itself was shaking, the ground vibrating from the roar of the ships flying at low altitude. The battle was taking place right above our heads, raiders against vipers. The vipers prevented the cylon raiders to shoot most civilians on the ground, but certainly between the passing low raiders aiming at the population and the centurions, there still was a lot of casualties. As soon as the path was clear and centurions guarding the periphery of the ships had been destroyed, I ran right to colonial one with my guards, losing sight of Maya and Isis in the crowd, as the bullets and explosions were hitting the ground all around us, sending billows of clouds and dust in the air. Colonial One was my ship: I wanted to reclaim it and my presidency. The cylons were shooting everything moving. Bodies were falling around us, but there was no time to stop and check the wounded. We were open targets. It was a slaughter, but there was no choice. In minutes, it was over. Colonial one was the last ship to take off, leaving behind us a deserted planet, littered with bodies we would never properly bury. I sat on the big chair that used to be mine and let the silence, barely broken by the constant buzzing of the engines, envelop me, as I took my diaries out of my jacket, sighing deeply at the relief to be safe. It was over. I was happy to be back, upset about our deaths, and still shaken by the speed of the events. The fleet was back together and we jumped immediately to a secure location. "
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