Chapter Two. "Home".
Tomb of Athena, Kobol.
Koobal System.
600 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 100 days.
Commander William Adama's weapon snapped up on pure instinct as the solid rock door to the tomb of Athena slammed shut behind him, plunging the cave into darkness. He could hear the startled gasp of Laura Roslin to his rear over the thunder echoing through the cave and the startled curse of his son as he yanked his sidearm from its holster, but he couldn't see a damn thing.
Then the room was lit with a bright light.
Even as squinted his eyes shut against it, he realized it wasn't necessary as the flash like lightning from a thunderstorm vanished as fast as it had appeared. He opened his eyes again as another pair of flashes occurred, a loud click almost like a light switch being flicked echoed…
And he was no longer in the tomb of Athena.
Training drilled into him decades ago came leapt to the forefront as his weapon tracked across a grassy plain that couldn't possibly exist inside the cave they had been standing in. Insects chirped softly around them and a rumble of thunder from a dozen kilometers away rolled over them before fading into the night.
Night?
His eyes flicked up and indeed the stalactites and rock ceiling that had been suspended above them had been replaced by a night sky full of stars that twinkled serenely. It was all completely impossible, but none the less it was all true.
He felt rather then saw Starbuck and Helo sweeping their rifles as their heads darted left and right in alarm at their change in location, before they both forced themselves to relax and slightly lowered their aim points so they didn't shoot any of their companions by accident. Turning around, Adama stopped short at what had to be the feature exhibit of wherever they were, six stone monoliths brooding over the small party, each with a string of lights glowing at the base and another sequence at their tips. Sufficient to cast a soft glow over the group, but not enough to ruin their night vision.
"Uh…where the hell are we?" Billy Keikeya asked in a low voice, that sounded both awed and half scared to death.
"I don't know" Roslin replied slowly as she looked around, trying to take everything in. "Tomb of Athena, I think" she added, saying the only thing that made any sense to her.
"I thought we were already in the tomb" Adama muttered as also turned full circle to see if he missed anything. Strange, the ground under his boot didn't feel like the soft grass and dirt he expected to feel, instead much harder…almost like rock.
"I think that was just the lobby" Kara whispered, not disguising the awe in her voice as she slowly looked over the monoliths and their alien but familiar patterns.
Laura ignored the chatter as she slowly walked closer to the great slabs of stone, her steps slow and cautious as if she was walking inside a minefield. Adama watched her with interest. Despite his skepticism towards the Presidents claims, he had walked the path to this place with her. Not because he believed…but because she did.
He hadn't known what he would find at the end and he had truly felt bitter disappointment that all they had appeared to find at the end of their search was the broken remains of a stone tomb.
Then they were here…
"Again the ancient symbols" Laura said. She studied the closest stone, speaking in the slow measured cadence of a teacher. "These patterns...were on the original flags of the twelve colonies. Back in the days when the colonies were called by their ancient names".
Slowly looking back and forth, she pointed along those along the top row of lights that glowed with a faint blue sheen and named each as she came to it. "Aries... Taurus... Gemini... Cancer... Leo... Libra…"
"Virgo…Scorpio…Sagittarius…Capricorn…Aquarius…Pisces" Billy finished, pointing at each of the lower constellations which glowed with a golden light.
"But what does it all mean?" Apollo asked rolling his head back and massaging his neck in frustration…then stopped, letting his jaw drop. "That's it!"
Everyone craned their necks to the sky. The three other military officers, spacers all, quickly saw what he was looking at but neither the President nor Billy had any clue what had gained their undivided attention.
"It's Kobals sky" Apollo said softly. "I recognize it from the nights we've spent down here. And that" he said pointing towards the North slightly for the benefit of the two civilians "is Aries". Roslin followed his hand then involuntarily took a deep breath as she saw he was right. Star constellations of course changed configuration depending on which angle you viewed them from. But from the surface of Kobal…there was a perfect match sitting majestically over their heads.
"But what does it mean" Laura asked, not understanding the significance.
"This is the map" Apollo said, almost in disbelief. "This is the map to Earth".
"Maybe" Adama said, not agreeing or disagreeing. So is Earth in one of these constellations"? Adama pointed to monoliths. Why are there two rows? Why are they divided?"
"The constellations we can see from here…it's from the upper row" Apollo pointed out, once again staring into the millions of stars that covered the night sky. "If it can be seen from Kobal…"
"It could mean that all of the star patterns seen on the lower rank can be seen from Earth" Roslin speculated.
"I don't know what good it's going to do us though" Kara said in a voice thick with disappointment. "I mean, what are we supposed to do? Search the entire Galaxy for one particular star pattern?"
Adamas gut tightened. It was a start, that much was true. But trying to find a planet bassed on nothing more then the fact that it had these constellations somewhere in the sky…
"I think…we've seen all we're going to see" Adama said with a final look at the night sky, the kind one only saw from the highest mountains on worlds without any pollution in the atmosphere, literally covered in millions of points of light. "Helo, did you get a record of this?"
"Yes Sir" he nodded, holding up a small portable camera. Adama nodded.
"Ok. So how do we get out of-"
A light flashed like a burst of lightning once more and then the vista faded to complete darkness.
"-here" finished the Commander in surprise. You just have to ask apparently he thought.
A sound like a metal bar being dropped onto the ground echoed through the cave, then with a grinding sound of rock against rock, the door leading into the tomb slowly pushed open and a rather worried looking Chief Tyrol peaked in.
"Hello? Everyone ok?"
"We're fine Chief" Adama said back as the group slowly started to walk towards the door, Starbuck stopping to scoop up the Arrow of Apollo which had fallen out of its place. A sense of awe permeated the group. Earth was real.
Despite the enormity of the task facing them, to figure out where it was with this one clue…it was real.
And it was out there, waiting for them.
"Call in the raptors Chief…lets go home".
Battlestar Galactica
Deep Space.
615 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 101 days.
"We have struggled since the attacks... trying to rely on one another. Our strength and our only hope as a people, is to remain undivided".
Adama paused as he looked around the hanger bay. It was filled back a good forty meters. In the front, President Roslin and Vice President Gaius Baltar stood with Colonel Saul Tigh, his second in command. Behind them stood the Quorum of twelve who constituted the elected Government of the remnants of the human race and the senior officers from his crew as well as the hanger crew squeezed in behind them.
It wasn't easy to contain his pride in his crew, his family. They had been through hell over the last few weeks as everything had fallen apart. President Roslin breaking her word to him, then openly defying him. Himself being shot by a trusted officer…who turned out to be a Cylon. His best friend doing his best to drink himself to death. His Son betraying him, his best pilot betraying him…everyone around him abandoning him.
He had let them down.
It hadn't been an easy realization to come to. Betrayal blotted out all thoughts, all emotions.
All but rage.
It had taken a junior officer brave enough to say it to his face to wake him up to the truth.
He had let them all down.
Over three months ago, President Roslin had come into his office for the first time and started giving him orders to lead the fleet out of the Colonies. It had taken him all the self restraint he possessed not to simply have the Marines through this low level bureaucrat off his ship so he could get back to the business of wining the war. He was going out to start blowing up Cylons. It was his duty afterall. Then she had hit him over the head with a cold dose of reality. He smiled slightly as his thoughts drifted back to that day.
"You don't get it, do you" the firary woman in front of him finally snapped. "The human race is about to be wiped out! We have fifty thousand people left and that's it. If we want to even survive as a species, then we need to get the hell out of here and start having babies!"
He had simply walked out on her…but the sentence continued to nag at him for hours, until he finally admitted it was time to stop fighting…and start running.
But he knew survival was more then simply getting the hell out of Ragnar station. There were fifty thousand civilians with the fleet. They sure as hell were not military. They simply wouldn't follow orders without question or accept that they had to run, perhaps even for years without any direction, to find a place to try and rebuild civilization again.
No, they needed hope, something that everyone in the fleet lost with the destruction of their civilization.
So he pulled Earth out of his hat. The legendary 13th tribe of Kobal. It was a complete lie, but it was also said to the surviviors that there WAS hope. That there WAS a plan. That they had a chance to live on. Hope gave people something to fight for, something to die for. But critically it gave them something to live for.
When Starbuck found out he had been lying to her all this time, could he really blame her for then trying to find real evidence of Earths existence?
Who was he to blame a third of the fleet for following the President to Kobal to find Earth, when HE was the one who started it all?
Could he truly hate his Son for standing against him, to protect the democracy that he had sworn to protect, regardless of if the President had broken her promise and her word to William Adama?
Without a doubt he KNEW his deception about Earth had been a necessary one, otherwise the fleet long ago would have self destructed. He wouldn't hesitated to do it again knowing what had come of it.
Without a doubt he KNEW he had been in the right to arrest the President after she went around him, subverted his officers and put the entire fleet in Danger based on visions that may be from divine intervention or overdoses on drugs.
But…what did it matter if he knew he was right? Oh he had his pride of course, but what would it mean when it destroyed the last remnants of a race he had sworn to protect? Would his pride comfort the families who had been wrenched apart by Roslin subverting half the fleet? Would it get back his best two pilots, without whom the fleet was just that much more vulnerable?
Could it possibly be worth it?
No. he had swallowed his pride and returned to Kobal to reunite the fleet. Regardless if they came up in body bags, he and Roslin were coming back from Kobal. Together.
"We haven't always done all we could to insure that" Adama continued the speech, mere seconds having passed while he reflected on the past. "Many people believe that the scriptures, the letters from the gods, will lead us to salvation". He glanced at President Roslin and held her steady gaze. "Maybe they will. But 'the gods shall lift those who lift each other'" he quoted, breaking and sweeping his gave over the rest of his friends. His family.
"And so, to lift all of us, let me present once again the President of the colonies, Laura Roslin"
Applause broke out through the cavernous fighter bay. Polite and proper as benefited a respected public figure walking to the podium as he stood aside, before rapidly falling off.
Like hell.
Stepping forward, he slapped his hands together. And again. And again. He drew curious looks from the mass of people and the President, but he didn't stop. Then it started.
First one person in the crowd started clapping his hands in time with Adama.
Then a half dozen.
Then a dozen.
Then twenty.
Then fifty.
Slowly even the most shy of the crowd started to join in and soon everyone but the President was slapping their hands together in perfect time. The President herself started at Adama with a completely baffled look on her face, not having a clue why Adama had started the thunderous clapping. Then slowly they sped up. Faster and faster and just as steadily, a smile slowly dawned on her face. Not a politicians smile or one she might show to the media…but her smile. Fighting back tears as the crowd broke into a thunderous applause and cheering. She looked to Adama, now standing precisely in the centre of the front row who completely unabashed continued to clap without pause. And in that glance between the two of them he knew.
His family, divided beyond any possibility he thought of repair, was healing.
Battlestar Galactica
Deep Space.
615 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 102 days.
Vice President Gaius Baltar pulled his glasses from his face in annoyance and tossed them onto his desk as he leaned back in his chair rubbing his face. He had spent the last seven hours racking his brains for meaning, direction, anything from the twelve symbols. But he still wasn't any closer and he doubted he would be until the Galactica's navigational computer finished crunching the star patterns.
Technically, he thought this wasn't exactly a job for a Vice President. But he also knew he was the smartest person in the whole fleet which made him the default choice for trying to solve the enigma.
Which looked to be damn near impossible.
"Oh come on, you can't be giving up already Gaius" a voice broke into his thoughts from behind him. Sounding both stern and amused at the same time, slender fingers lightly touched his shoulders, gently but expertly working the aching muscles in his neck.
"I never said I was giving up" the Vice President said to thin air as he enjoyed the wonderful sensation of his muscles loosening under the steady pressure. "For that matter I never said anything".
"But you were thinking it Gaius" the female voice came back softly in his ear, sounding a little sterner. "You know can't hide your thoughts from me". A slender finger pressed on the side of the chair, sending it turning to bring the stunning woman into view who had been his constant…companion in one form…or another, for over a year. "You will find the way to Earth because you are destined to lead the way".
"Oh. Well that's nice to know, because I have made absolutely zero progress", he complained. "You're supposed to be an angle sent here to guide me right? Well" he said, pointing towards the desk covered with pictures of the monoliths, star charts and books galore, "you can start here"
Six laughed, her pale blond hair dancing on her bear shoulders as she shook her head.
"You still don't understand do you" she smiled; stepping forward and without warning she stepped raised her leg over him and sat, straddling him as she adjusted her scarlet dress slightly. "All this technology, all these resources are useless…the answer has always been in front of you".
"Really" he said with a thin veneer of sarcasm lacing his words.
"Of course" she said. "We are all instruments of God Gaius" she said solemnly. "Even those of us who are impossibly stubborn and unwilling to admit it". Her piercing gaze held his, her blue eyes narrowing slightly. "Remember Gaius, All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. We follow the path of God. The players change, but the story remains the same".
"Was that actually supposed to help me?" Baltar asked, raising an eyebrow. "Or are you just being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic. Again".
"Your stubbornness is not one of your more endearing qualities" Six sighed, carefully levering herself back up to her feet. "You have eyes to see and ears to hear but you fail to notice anything around you". The computer terminal pinged. Excited, Baltar turned to it. The results came up onto the computer screens in front of him.
"Well?" Six asked, leaning over till her head was next to his own and her body gently pressed against his…bringing memories to the surface that he brutally forced down before he got distracted.
Of course he was sure was why she had done it anyway.
"The computer has found every one of the star patterns in the first sequence of patterns, the ones that can be seen in the Kobal sky" he said, pointing to the star map. With Kobal in the middle, four red circles surrounded it, one capped it, the sixth was not visible in the top down map but it was there. "Unfortunately it has only found two of the others…and it tried mapping the entire sky from our current location. In fact-"
"Gaius. The key is right in front of you" she said in a slightly exasperated voice, reaching out her arm and lightly moving it along the leather bound copy of the Pythian prophecy that he had sitting on the desk. "As I have told you, we are returning to the beginning of the circle. Seek the answer here".
"Oh so God left a note for me here did he?"
The Cylon (or her memory) was silent for a few seconds. "Don't mock God Gaius" she said. Her voice was still friendly enough, but there was a clear undercurrent of warning in it. "His hand might be hard to see at times, but it does touch and guide all of us". She tapped the book. "Open it to page fifty."
Deciding not to push the strange relationship with his phantom too far, Baltar opened it and found the page. A quick glance showed a few paragraphs of text, but the page was mostly empty, coming at the end of a chapter.
"Read it" she said, her voice brooking no dissent. Sighing, he sat up straighter and pulled the book closer, then started reading.
"And while the few searched for the path, the six brothers stood in order, forever lighting the path to Kobal, while the six remaining brothers stood in identical order over the gateway to heaven". He turned an irritated expression upon the haunting, but beautiful woman. "Wonderfully cryptic, but-"
Baltar stopped in mid sentence as the phrase hit him. The import stunned him like a proclamation from on high as the meaning permeated through him. Six's expression was one of smug satisfaction, like a teacher whose student had finally grasped a concept that had eluded him time and time again.
"Trust in God Gaius, He will guide your hand" she said, and then simply vanished into nothing. Baltar barely noticed, his mind kept furiously circling.
Six brothers…and six more brothers…standing in order.
Putting the book to the side, he brought up the star chart again. Tapping on his keyboard, he set it for a 3D representation and rotated back, holding his distance constant from Kobal. From this angle, he could see clearly the six star constellations. Six points in space. Each more or less the exact same distance from Kobal on all sides. Using the navigational software that was running his program, he measured the distance between each of the constellations 'midpoints'…each was identical.
His head starting to feel light, he generated a wireframe cube, and then expanded its size until the length of each of its sides was exactly twice the length of each of the constellations to Kobal.
It was a perfect fit. At the exact centre of the cube, the yellow star that represented the Kobal system flashed red. His hands trembling slightly, he selected the two other constellations that the computer had managed to identify and moved the wireframe across and rotated it until two of the faces of the cubes were perfectly aligned with the two midpoints.
And again, a star at the exact centre of the map flashed red. He stared in wonder for a second.
And then bolted for the door.