Chapter 12
Battlestar Galactica
Saul Tigh stared out the viewport at the fleet, scattered out among an uncharted debris field. The sight was awe-inspiring, with huge asteroids appearing and disappearing in a vast nebula of gases and dust. This would eventually collapse to form a new solar system, but for now would remain the beautiful maelstrom that played out before him. The other observers watched the nursery like a motion picture, some even eating popcorn, and the lines outside stretched for almost 20 metres. It was certainly more attractive and exciting than normal space.
With a flash of memory he recalled the Cylon raider barreling straight towards the viewport, before alert Vipers tore it to pieces... He banished the image from his mind, and walked out of the observation deck.
The ship (his ship) seemed a lot less active than it had hours before. The corridors were hardly vacant, but certainly fewer go-fers were running around with whatever menial job they did to keep the carrier running.
He was anxious, that was a certainty. Tyrol still hadn't reported back his findings yet, although with all the activity on Earth Tigh couldn't blame him. The shuttle runs between the Valkyrie and the fleet's new position had increased in frequency to twice a day, and Tigh knew that sooner or later there would be an encrypted message for his eyes only. He was almost afraid of receiving it, lest it confirm his fears of being a Cylon sleeper agent. The longer he remained in command of Galactica, the more of a liability he became.
But did knowing he was a Cylon help any? He didn't know any tactical knowledge about them, or anything that could help the humans (there were no longer just Colonials in the fleet). He recalled interrogating the old Boomer, and how she didn't say anything. Now he could feel more understanding, for he knew nothing at all.
Sure enough, a message came two Raptors later. Tigh took it from the delivery non-com and dropped it in his desk.
And there it sat.
It was four hours later, when Ensign Anders ran into Tigh unofficially, that he decided to open it. Anders joined him, though Foster was unavailable. In the President's absence she was running Colonial One with Vice-President Zarek, and keeping the fleet as operational as possible. At least the work kept her mind of other matters.
Anders sealed the hatch behind him as Tigh placed the thick envelope on the desk. Tigh cut through the red tape and slid out a CD, popping into his laptop computer. He'd had to find one, seeing as Galactica hadn't been gifted with as many terminals as the more modern ships, but had managed it.
"Computer, declassify and decrypt, authorization Tigh-3-54-3-Ellen."
The computer hummed slowly and then opened the contents of the disk, which was one file. PROJECT MIMIC
"Jackpot!" Anders punched his palm, and leaned forward.
"He was right all along..." Tigh murmured... "But I don't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed."
"You're no longer a liability to the ship. No programming at all." said Anders. "You can be confident that the ship is safe, for all that matters you might as well be human."
"All this for nothing... Make sure Foster understand the whole story. And tell her not to worry."
"I'm relieved, that's for sure." said Anders, ducking out of the hatch.
Tigh leaned back and sighed. Anders was right. He was relieved.
He was his own master.
Time for a drink.
Fifty Kilometres East of Moscow
Kara Thrace circled the battleground, looking for targets of opportunity. Ground forces had been in confusion ever since the obliteration of Moscow, and several Cylon spearheads had pushed far forward, while Russian forces had pushed onwards in other areas. The front was becoming very disrupted in the confusion.
With air support, the Red Army had been able to set up some standard artillery, with plasma cannons moving into position. The NKGB had only Centurion-mounted missiles and field guns, and were not equipped for battleground fighting. The Raiders had proved the greatest nuisance, and the steadily increasing numbers were starting to strain the Allied forces. Despite this huge numbers of Raiders were easily downed by American fighters, as the DRADIS of both sides seemed to be incapable of detecting the stealth craft.
Starbuck strafed another Cylon position, sending toasters flying left and right (some centurions flew left and right at the same time) and destroying two missile batteries unloaded from landed Heavy Raiders.
She twisted around and pulled hard as a Raider pulled onto her six. She easily out turned the Raider and selected another target. She sent a missile tearing through another Raider, scattering shrapnel all over the Cylon lines. The first Raider was still clawing to find her blind spot behind and below her, and was becoming a hazard. She pulled vertical and rolled at the top, five thousand feet higher and pointing the other way.
The Raider couldn't match her climb, and while he was pulling around she banked hard and turned inside him, placing the crosshairs on her HUD directly between his engines. The short cannon burst cut him in half.
Starbuck dived down, but her DRADIS beeped loudly in her helmet. Sure enough, three large blips were slowly approaching.
"Valkyrie, Starbuck, I got three heavies coming in, airborne, not fighters, repeat, not fighters. Are they allied?"
"That's affirmative, Starbuck. Heavies are allied carriers."
"Carriers? How's that possible?" Starbuck twisted around, trying to catch sight of them. She thought she caught sight of a large streamlined vessel behind her...
You can't launch jets from a frakkin' blimp! Starbuck quickly closed on the carriers, and to her surprise they were massive airships. They were vastly superior to the early Caprican airships, with turboprop engines and water collection grills lining the side of the ship. Everything was as close as possible to the hull, which consisted of a shimmering metallic material. The lead airship was identified on the hull as the USS Shenandoah, the second was the Robert F. Kennedy, and the third was the Richard Featherstone.
"Shenandoahto all Colonial aircraft, we are launching fighters."
Five fighters dropped out of the belly of each airship, dropping earthward like stones. They pulled up after gaining sufficient speed and rocketed up past the carriers. Three flights of five aircraft each broke up to attack the Cylon Raiders, although the aircraft were different from the Nightstalkers already in flight.
These were also invisible to DRADIS, but had swing wings that rotated back to form a delta-platform and could rotate forward for maneuvering. They resembled sharks more than birds-of-prey, the first plane ripple-firing a barrage of missiles into the effectively blind swarm of Raiders.
Some of the Raiders seemed to have clued in to the stealth of the aircraft, and were desperately trying to detect them visually. Unfortunately for them the Cylons who had designed them had not foreseen an attack by stealth aircraft, and the viewing ports were too small for seeking out the black aircraft.
Starbuck wheeled around again, dousing another Raider in a flow of tracer. It broke left, and she turned to follow. Suddenly her Viper jerked sharply to port and started to roll. Her left arm had lost all feeling, except for a slight warmth.
Panicking, she tried to look behind her. Vipers had excellent all-round vision except to the rear, and she could see nothing but her horizontal stabilizer. She had a momentary envy of the American pilots and their bubble canopies, but her dying Viper shook violently to remind her of her increasing decent.
One look at her port wing told her all she need to know. A well placed cannon burst had shorn it completely away, and the ground was growing closer fast. Sixty seconds and she'd be too low to eject.
She cut the engines and dropped her remaining fuel, before punching out. She shot straight out of the craft, leaving her stomach behind, and lightly blacked out, coming to ten seconds later in free fall. With her left arm senseless, she had to reach across to release her parachute, which stopped her with a sharp jerk.
She slowly drifted down over Russian lines, and spilled a little air out of her chute to turn her fall away from the Cylon lines.
She came down hard on her bruised leg, and rolled to a painful stop. She could stand easily enough, and deflated her parachute. The nearest Russian position was to the north, so she unslung her helmet and hung it from her belt. She discarded her oxygen tank, and started out for the camp, muttering curses the whole way.
Cylon Basestar
Six slammed her fist against the wall beside the terminal. The data being relayed directly into her nervous system was looking grimmer and grimmer. Early projections had shown the Terrans to be a fractured world, one the threshold of global war. Defying all expectations, the Americans and now the Europeans were starting to throw up squadrons of aircraft advanced enough to confuse the Raiders' DRADIS. The careful planning was being systematically unwoven as the situation branched away from all projections.
"Bad as we thought?" came a voice from the doorway.
"Worse." said Six, knowing it was a Five before he came into view. "The Europeans are now coming into the fray. And their aircraft are also enough to outperform our Raiders."
"Raiders are space-superiority fighters. They will never be capable aircraft. But they're all we got." said Five. He sat down on a chair in the corner.
"But this was supposed to be impossible!" Six fumed. "The Terrans were barely on speaking terms with one another, bickering and fighting. We should've been able to take them out one at a time." She removed her hand from the data stream, and started to leave the room.
"You of all models should know that things are not written in stone." Five stood up and followed her, "Only God can know the true shape of things to come."
"Yes. That doesn't make me like it any better. We may be forced to sterilize this planet as well."
"That's completely out of the question." said Five. "You know what happened to the Colonies. The radiation didn't just kill them but us too. And in way's we couldn't remedy in time. We must take this planet without resorting to nuclear weapons!"
"We can't even take Russia."
"Our Russian allies are fighting as hard as they can. We've gained valuable knowledge from them. Perhaps we can give them a few Heavy Raiders to use for themselves, that should please them."
"I personally don't care what pleases the Russians! As long as they fight and win! They seem to be having difficulty with both right now!" Six almost shouted, causing another Six down the corridor to turn and stare.
Five raised his hands. "Calm down. If we can start replicating the special rounds the Russians use in their firearms..."
"There simply aren't enough troops there. A couple thousand isn't enough, we need to really start putting more Centurions on the ground. The more Centurions there are, the less effective their ground troops will be. And we can bring a few basestars into orbit to coordinate-"
"We'll have to suppress their entire orbital defense network. And they have a small fleet of starships, as well as the Galactica to defend them."
Six smirked. "It's not Galactica."
"What? How is that possible?"
"It's the battlestar Valkyrie. Part of Battlegroup 41. The one that was missing."
"So the Valkyrie survived..."
"So the battlegroup must be out there! And with Adama on the Valkyrie..."
"The three basestars!" Five exclaimed. "That's why none of them returned! The Colonials doubled the odds!"
"Perhaps it's time we resorted to tactics we've never used before." Six mused... "Total war."
"We haven't fought like that since the War of Independence..." Five pointed out.
"It worked then, it can work now. Some artillery and missile batteries and we could turn things around. And troops. Lots of troops, all the troops we have at our disposal. We've got a planet against us now. Only one. Last time we had 12. The odds are better this time."
"Don't count them out just yet." said Five. "They're human. And humans have a tendency of popping up when you least expect them."
Strikestar Spitfire
Apollo yawned as he wandered into CIC, still wiping sleep from his eyes. The fleet had been doing nothing out here, just waiting for... nothing, really.The conflict on Earth looked like it could last a while. And until then it was deemed safer to remain out here, although no one had accounted for the inevitable boredom. At least at Tau Ceti there'd been a planet, and the possibility of the first true shore leave since New Caprica.
"What's up?" he asked Subharov.
"Not much, sir." she said. After the confrontation at Tau Ceti she had been considerably less irritating and insubordinate. Maybe the initial shock was wearing off as routine set in.
"Great..." he mumbled. "Anything set for today?"
"Well, Blue squadron gets a flight period, Red squadron has a live firing practice by the third rock from the sun..."
"Routine stuff, yeah..." Apollo found an empty chair by the fire control station and sat down. "Funny, you'd think with all this down time I'd be a little more awake."
"Well, your shift doesn't start for another hour..."
Apollo stared at her, then slapped his forehead. "Guess that explains it, then..."
"Alarm go off early?"
"Might not've gone off at all, might've been something else... I've just been going on autopilot for the last few days."
"The rec room's got some nice video games, I try them on occasion."
"Video games? Are you serious?"
Subharov nodded. "Yeah, old CO thought we could use something to do, brought along his whole collection. Little different from standard but sure is a lot more fun on long trips. I didn't think the trip would be this long." She walked over and leaned against the plot table.
"Yeah, well neither did a lot of us. We didn't get a choice on this tour of duty."
"No, I don't suppose we did..." Subharov cast a glance around the cramped control room, and then sighed. "Well, I guess you can get a short nap if you want, or slug it out here. It's your choice."
Apollo sighed, then stood up. "An hour, you say?" Subharov nodded. Apollo nodded too. "Naptime." He couldn't help but notice how absurd that sounded coming from the CO of a Colonial warship.
The ship was running extraordinarily well. It was almost too good to last. But nothing else was likely to happen.
The frigate Minotaur had been sent with Commander Naslund on board to intercept and evacuate the Shackleton, before it reached Cylon-occupied Tau Ceti. That was the only action in the entire fleet. Apollo had only left the ship three times for briefings aboard the Agrippa.
He yawned again, deeply. He was almost starting to get used to the ship, smaller and more compact than either of his two previous postings. Galactica was still in one piece, holding station on the other side of the fleet. And Pegasus... He still missed her, having spent more than a year aboard. But in exchange he had saved the Galactica and civilian population of New Caprica.
And that was worth more, wasn't it? He'd saved more people than he'd killed aboard the Olympic Carrier. That went towards redemption in his own eyes, but the memory of the sleek blue passenger liner erupting before his eyes was still powerful even as removed from the moment as he was.
I gave the order. It's my responsibility.
No, I pulled the trigger. It's mine.
Apollo massaged his forehead as he walked through the sliding doors into his small cabin. The muted blue-white glow was calming after the bright fluorescent hallway. He had forty five minutes of rest before him. Once upon a time that would have seemed like an eternity. In the present situation it was only a small chance to relax before the boredom of his shift.
The door-alert buzzer rang, and Apollo paused in the middle of his cabin. "Yeah, come in."
And the doors parted to reveal his estranged wife.
"Dee?" Apollo was shocked and stunned. Dualla had never set foot on the Spitfire before now, and hadn't had any intention of doing so. He could only guess at what she was here for, and he didn't want to jump to conclusions too fast.
"Hi..." she murmured. She stood uncomfortably in the doorway. "Uh, can I come in?"
Apollo just looked for words before mumbling "Uh, yeah, of course."
She quickly stepped into the cabin, looking nervously around. She looked like she'd jump at a pin dropping, and wished she were somewhere else.
"What can I, uh, do for you?" Apollo asked.
"I'm sorry!" was all she could blurt out. "I listened to your speech at the trial, and..." She choked up. "I..."
"I did what I had to do." Apollo said. He'd been crushed when his wife, with whom he'd spent so much time in trying to iron out the defective relationship, left him as he defended Gaius Baltar against the mob that was the Fleet. She hadn't seen what had become of the 'justice' system, and had been blinded by the mistakes and crimes of the infamous ex-president. He hadn't seen or heard of her after she left.
And now...
"I know..." she whispered. "It's not worth losing what we had. I'd never been happier, and then you-"
"Don't say it." Apollo stopped her. "What's done is done. He's in the shadows again, and we may never hear of him. So forget him."
"I didn't want to appear... I had to have time to think." she said. "And nothing can change the fact that I am married to you, and I love you. And that's good enough for me."
"I don't know what to say..." Apollo mumbled.
"Then don't say anything." Dualla said. "Just accept it and move along."
Apollo smiled faintly. "Do you think Colonel Tigh would allow you to transfer? I have a position open for a comm officer..."
Battlestar Valkyrie
"Morpha, stat!" shouted Major Doctor Cottle. "I need her unconscious!"
"She's in a coma," said Racetrack. "She's been catatonic since we crashed."
"Hell," Cottle mumbled. "You, grab here, we gotta get her to sickbay asap! Move it, go, go!"
Another of the medics grabbed the other end of the stretcher and lifted it onto the gurney, making sure Roslin's injured arm was secured. When she was strapped down they moved as fast as they could without crashing towards the nearest doorway out of the hangar deck.
Adama embraced Edmonson as she stepped off the Raptor. "It's good to have you back, Racetrack." he said. He held her at arms length. "Thank you for keeping the President alive."
"Yes, Admiral," said Racetrack. "Believe me, it's good to be back. We got caught right in the flashpoint."
"You can talk to Commander Nelson about it. My first concern right now is the President."
"I understand, sir."
Nelson excused himself and followed Adama as he left the hangar deck. "Admiral, we have two doctors on board ship now. The President will be fine. There's nothing you can do either way."
"I can't just sit by-"
"Yeah, well you might not have a choice now. Sir. There's a war on down below. Our Vipers are in the air on station. We're up to our necks in this now, and we need to start working with the other powers before someone makes a mistake and sends this whole last-minute coalition into self destruct mode. It's on a knife-edge already."
"Seems to be working fine to me." said Adama. "Anything else?"
"It's not working. The Russians are infuriated at the Americans. The Americans hate the Russians. The Europeans are starting to think they should let things be." Nelson gestured in the air, looking for something to say. "If we're not careful this could blow up in our faces. More than it already has."
"At least the Russians don't blame us."
Nelson looked surprised. "Why would they blame us?"
"Where did that rock come from? Who was in space at the time?"
"Well what stopped them from destroying it? The same reason, turning one falling object into many."
Adama shook his head. "If I've learned anything lately it's that logic and diplomacy don't always go hand in hand. It sucks but that's the way it rolls. The public always demands a scapegoat. And if it's us there's not too much we can do about it."
"That's why you're the one on the hot seat, not me." said Nelson. "So what do we do now?"
"Yeah, that's the hard part." said Adama. "Way I see it, we have two options: Continue fighting the Russian front and carry some goodwill, or recall the Vipers and start talking with the countries again."
Nelson looked at Adama. "Only option we have is to fight. They're too busy down there to do anything else."
"Exactly. Maybe the Cylons knew this. Maybe there's a gigantic fleet after us right now, and these are only destabilizing raids." Adama sighed. "I hope to Gods there isn't."
"And Moscow?"
"I sent my condemnation of the act to the White House. Knowing Warren he'll probably hide it away somewhere and forget about it. The Americans probably don't see it as a crime, at least not as strongly. There's a lot of anti-Russian sentiment in the US, probably a result of the cold war we interrupted."
"So we're to keep our Vipers on station and in the fight as long as possible. Continuous engine running might start to drain fuel resources..."
"I'm sure we can get some from Earth," said Adama. "If it's for the war effort I'm also quite sure that they'd be more willing to share it."
"To think it took a war to align the nations of Earth..." Nelson mused.
"I don't care what it took. What matters is that for the moment we have the nations of Earth on our side. Turning on Russia may have been the Cylons biggest blunder. Perhaps now at last we can fight them on more even terms."
"You're talking about major engagements! We aren't equipped for that kind of campaign!"
"But Earth is. Perhaps we can truly unite them for the first time in their history."
Nelson whistled through his teeth. "Frak me..."
Adama stopped and turned on him. "Every time, we retreat. They nuke our homes, and we fall back. They pursue our fleet relentlessly, and we fall back. Not now, not at out destination. There's nowhere to fall back to, now. The line must be drawn here! Until I see a reason to do otherwise, we help them. This time we're not retreating. This time, we fight."
White House, Washington
President Warren lay his head on the desk as his secretary read off the incoming messages, all of them complaints and condemnations of his actions in Russia.
"...and Admiral Adama expresses extreme displeasure on your choice to obliterate Moscow, as well as your continuing secrecy over your weapons program."
"Does he, really?" Warren expressed mock surprise. "Throw him on the pile, what's that, have we hit one hundred yet?"
"Sir?"
Warren laughed. "How many letters of complaint have we gone through? And I've got trade sanctions being made, agreements being challenged, we're not exactly popular right now."
"I know, sir. Canada and the EU are both threatening to withdraw from the Outer Mars Weapons Agreement, and China is raising hell over our presence in the Belt."
"I can understand that." Warren sighed. "Leave it to them to worry, they aren't involved in Russia."
"We're working on it, sir."
"Yeah." Warren massaged his forehead. "What do we do?"
"I'm a secretary, not an analyst."
"I know. I ask myself questions sometimes, you must do it sometimes."
"Yes sir. The president of-"
"No, no, Connie, I can't take too many more. I'm sure even the grand-poobah of lesser Nowhere Island has got something to say."
"Okay, sir." said Connie, before turning to leave the Office.
Warren leaned back in his chair, slowly spinning around to face the grand windows. "What the hell have I done?" he muttered to himself. So much for that idea.
The weapon itself had been a phenomenal success. Even the Colonials could do nothing once it got up to speed. And now the heart of America's principal rival had been gutted, with the country spiraling downward, and he'd had a legitimate (or so it seemed) excuse. It's just not that simple anymore...
And what would the Russians say? Beria would surely deny ever having suggested a course of action remotely like what had happened, and the Russians themselves would be screaming bloody murder.
If dropping a pebble in the proverbial pond had created ripples of consequences, he'd just dumped Plymouth Rock into the water and watched the tsunamis as they rippled away.
And what havoc they would wreak God only knew.
The speakerphone on his desk beeped. "President Beria would like to schedule a meeting as soon as possible,"
"Why am I not surprised?" Warren sighed. "Tell her I can see her tomorrow afternoon at 1:30. In here."
"Yes, Mr. President."
Well, that would give him enough time to think. And he needed all the time he could get. The question was could he use what time he'd given himself?
I'll think about it later. His TV show would be on soon. Every tuesday he made sure he had an hour to watch it.
He had the opportunity, how many other Presidents had taken it? Frankly he didn't care. He was never one with the historians. Of course he knew the worst leaders were ones with no background knowledge.
But how was he supposed to know he would be dealing with potential armageddon? Where was JFK when you needed him?
Strikestar Spitfire, Star System E33E01
"Jump complete. Launching alert fighters." Dualla reported. She was sporting a new dark orange patch on her left shoulder, displaying the Colonial crest and the Spitfire's name and battlegroup. That signaled more than anything that her transfer was complete.
Apollo smiled to himself inwardly, but remained professional. "Signal group A to engage target drones, group B is to fall back to ready positions. Copy to all fighters."
"Aye, sir." Subharov returned. "All fighters, all fighters, begin strafing run, guns only, repeat guns only."
The DRADIS screen relayed the data from the training exercise, showing the Vipers breaking into pairs. Each pair singled out a Raptor-towed drone and opened up alternately, blasting each drone to pieces. It only took a few seconds for the five targets to be blow away.
"Battle damage assessment..." Subharov began. "One hundred over one hundred!"
"Good work people!" Apollo congratulated everyone over the comm line. "Tell the Raptors to reel 'em in and redeploy. Group B, stand by."
"Yes, sir!"
The battle drills had been a high point on the ship, as it gave everyone something to do. The pilots loved being able to fly around without fear of being shot at, and Apollo had even allowed the CAG to set up some impromptu airshows. He'd even asked Admiral Greer to consider putting on some precision flying demonstrations for the civilians.
"Drones out and locked." reported his XO.
"Stand by to-"
"Contact!" Dualla cried. "Bogey on DRADIS, no IFF, she's launching fighters."
"Lucky most of ours are already launched," muttered Apollo. "Recall group A and the Raptors. Group B will intercept the Raiders. Copy to fighters."
"Yes, sir." Dualla replied. Just like the old days.
"Sir, group B reports that the hostile is not a standard basestar." Dualla relayed.
"What?" Apollo exclaimed. "Put it on viewer!"
The image was anachronistic to say the least. Mk.VII Vipers were flying up against old Skyraiders, the original Cylon spacecraft. The Cylon carrier was the original stacked saucer shape from the first Cylon War, as old as the Galactica herself. Hell, probably older, seeing as they were around before the first battlestar was even conceived.
"They still fly those things?" Subharov exclaimed. "I thought they phased them out!"
"Apparently not." said Apollo. "How soon until the jump?"
"Two minutes."
"Right. Signal Vipers to retreat to recovery line. The minute we get the coordinates, we're leaving."
Dualla shouted in alarm. "They're attempting to hack our library computer."
"Isolate it from navigation and fire control!" ordered Apollo. The networks had been firewalled more securely than the Colonial Central Bank, but he couldn't risk anything spilling over. Physically separating them was the only surefire way.
"Breach contained!" Dualla reported.
Subharov glanced over her board, and signalled to the various CIC stations. "Coordinates laid in! Ready to jump. Recall group B."
All the Vipers broke off from the defense and lined up between the Spitfire's four engines. Only twenty seconds elapsed between the first fighter touching down and the last.
"All fighters down and accounted for!" Dualla shouted.
Apollo clapped in victory. "Engage!
The Spitfire vanished moments before the outdated Raiders reached her.
Yaroslyl, East of Moscow
The cloud still seemed to linger over the ruined city as Vasili Gromyko inspected the city of Yaroslyl from the roof of his makeshift headquarters. He had been lucky not to have been in Moscow at the time of the impact, although he saw it as his motorcade was approaching. Now he and the Cylons had set up in the eastern city, further out of the line of fire. They had also been careful to keep their location quiet, lest the Americans or Colonials try any more aerial bombardments.
The conflict was not going as well as he'd hoped. The Red Army, as inconceivable as it was, had managed to keep several depots hidden from him. And he had made a massive miscalculation. To use his favourite 'English' word, he'd misunderestimated the Alliance.
The Americans and Europeans were in the skies of Russia, something he'd guaranteed would never happen to the Cylons. Now they'd probably be doubting him, and that was a poor position to be in. He owed everything to them right now; without them he'd be finished.
But even with them things weren't so great. There weren't enough Centurions to go around, the Cylons had agreed to his projections and limited the number they'd deploy. No need wasting resources, he'd thought. But the Cylons didn't seem to work like that. They were demanding to bring in more, and they didn't want the dribs and drabs he'd suggested. He was losing his grip, the grip he'd worked so hard to gain.
"Sir, sir!" one of his aides came running in. "Turn on the radio, quick!"
"Why should I do that?" Gromyko asked. He wasn't one to take orders from very many people, even Beria, and wasn't about to take any from his staff.
"The Cylons! They're broadcasting something on all channels!"
"What? I never authorized them to do anything like that!" Gromyko forgot the insolence and turned on the old television sitting in the corner.
"People of Russia and occupying armies! This broadcast is for the soldiers fighting Cylon forces. We now control one quarter of the Russian political division, and more units are arriving every day..."
"What? I authorized none of this! We discussed-" A bang on the door interrupted him.
"We will soon start to advance, and all who stand in our way will be destroyed. Surrender or retreat and you will be spared."
Two Centurions burst through the door and extended their automatic weapons. A Doral walked in between them, followed by an Eight.
"What is the meaning of this?" Gromyko said calmly. "I demand to know when all these deployment arrangements were made."
"I'm afraid you aren't in a position to demand anything." Doral said, equally calm and non-chalant. "You and your forces have proven to be a bit of a disappointment, really."
"I couldn't have predicted-"
"I'm afraid it doesn't matter anymore," said Eight. "You're being removed from power."
"You can't do this!" Gromyko lost his calm and spluttered.
"Actually, we just did. You've outlived your usefulness, and we have no further need of you or your forces. We have our toehold. For that we thank you. Apart from that... We need more force than you've allowed or provided."
"We'll revolt against you, force you out of our country." Gromyko waved frantically in the air. "We can take you on equal terms!"
"With who? The Americans? Alone you don't have enough men. We're landing more troops in a matter of days." He smirked smugly, assured in his control of the situation.
"How many? We have more advanced ammunition."
"All the ammunition on the planet can't save you from two million centurions." said Doral. "They'll be here tomorrow. And hopefully this time we can control our hard-won territory. This should be easier than New Caprica."
The television in the corner continued to carry the Cylon broadcast. "We control central Russia. We occupy one fourth of the landmass and are still advancing. Cooperation is essential if we are to stabilize a country that has been accelerating towards inevitable demise. We mean you no harm. Resist, and you will be destroyed."
It was pointed out that the last line was identical or very similar to one out of a doctor who episode. The last line has been changed. I don't want to break any copyright laws. I am guilty in having seen that epsiode, I probably did base it on the line. The error has been corrected, I hope. Sorry, it wasn't done with any malicious intent, I liked the line a lot.