Part 4: If You're Busy, We Can Come Back Later
"I still say we kill them right now!" The bearded man maintained.
Once SG-1 had been discovered, in what was apparently a mostly empty storage closet, they'd been stripped of their weapons and gear. They were used to that. They'd also been told to be quiet and not move. They were used to that as well. They'd been assigned a guard, who currently had a weapon trained them, also not an unusual occurrence for Stargate Command's frontline team. What was entirely new was that their captors had left them exactly where they'd been found and proceeded to treat them to a show, of sorts.
Apparently the closet was the closest thing that this ragtag bunch had to a prison cell, it certainly was cramped and uncomfortable enough for one, Jack O'Neill thought to himself. The show was two people, apparently the leaders of the group, arguing about what to do with the colonel and his team.
"We have to kill them." The bearded man repeated. "They're obviously Cylon spies."
His opponent was a blonde woman, very energetic and not overly patient. "Oh, obviously." She mimicked. "Yes, they're obviously Cylon spies." She lifted an item off of the table, which still had cards scattered on it from the game that they'd been playing prior to the sudden, unexpected interruption. "Think about it, Chief," Tyrol, the bearded man, hadn't been a chief for nearly a year, but old habits die hard, "have you ever seen Cylon agents that looked like them?" She waved her hand dismissively in their direction.
Despite the fact that he had no idea what they were talking about, Jack felt that he should be insulted by the comment, if only to try to insert himself into the conversation. "Hey!" He protested.
"Shut up!" The two leaders said in unison before going back to their own disagreement. SG-1's guard just continued to watch them unwaveringly, his weapon trained on the four prisoners.
The blonde woman continued her argument, "And have you ever seen a Cylon carrying a weapon like this?" She fired the zat at the stone wall. A bolt of blue energy flew out and impacted the wall, causing no discernible damage.
"That's your proof?!" Tyrol demanded. "Some crazy costumes and a weird gun that doesn't do anything and suddenly they must be ok. Is that all it takes to infiltrate the resistance? If so I think I joined the wrong side."
"Listen, chief." She was calmer now, pleading with him to listen. "It's just what my gut tells me. They're something else."
Tyrol was in no mood for calm. "Oh, your gut, Kara? Well, that's a whole different story." The sarcasm was almost tangible. "You'll excuse me if I'm not going to risk my life for your gut feeling. You'll excuse me if I'm not going to risk Cally, risk my son because your frakking gut says so!"
When the Cylons invaded New Caprica a lot of things had happened very quickly. No one had known what the Cylons were going to do or if the human race would even survive another day, but Kara Thrace-Anders, call sign "Starbuck" in her viper pilot days, knew that whatever happened she would fight them to her last breath.
President Baltar had made an announcement that New Caprica had officially surrendered to the Cylon invaders. He'd assured everyone that the Cylons had no intention of hurting anyone. They wanted what was best for humanity, he said, and if everyone just cooperated no one would be hurt. Starbuck, like most humans, didn't believe it for a second. She decided then and there to start the New Caprica resistance.
Word quickly got to her that one of the Cylons was looking for her. He'd already been to her tent. It was one of the models that they knew as Leoben Conoy. She knew that he didn't want her for anything she'd enjoy. She had to get out of New Caprica City.
Under the cover of darkness Kara Thrace-Anders had left the city that she'd called home for nearly a year. Her husband, Samuel Anders, was sick, maybe even dying of pneumonia, and she hadn't been able to go to him, not even to say goodbye. She knew it was exactly what they'd expect. It was eating her up inside.
She'd taken with her a small number of people that she trusted, people who couldn't or wouldn't stay in New Caprica city. These people were going to form the foundation of the New Caprica resistance. Among the people fleeing the city were Chief Galen Tyrol, president of the New Caprica Worker's Union and his wife Cally. She'd been eight months pregnant at the time. Tyrol refused to let her stay in the city. There was no telling what the Cylons had planned.
Tyrol had led the refugees to a series of caves that he knew several miles from town. During the colony's first mining expeditions some of the workers had found the caves and turned them into a makeshift apartment building. They'd offered more protection from the elements than the tents that most of the colony still lived in. It made the perfect resistance base. There were still improvised beds, doors, even tables and chairs. It was almost impossible to see from a distance, and there was only one entrance. So it was easy to guard.
The journey had taken its toll on Cally. The chief and Demetrius, the man currently holding a gun on SG-1 and a veteran of the original Caprica resistance, had been forced to carry her for most of the final mile of the trip. Once they'd reached their destination she was bed-ridden for over a week, finally giving birth to a baby boy, Galen Tyrol, Jr., two weeks prematurely.
The child was doing as well as could be expected. The mother not as well, but she seemed to be improving, and the father had only two things on his mind, protecting his wife and protecting his child. It had thus far blinded him to most everything else since little Galen's arrival.
So far the New Caprica resistance had accomplished very little. They'd built up a network of informants inside New Caprica city, mostly survivors from the Caprica resistance, people who weren't afraid of fighting the Cylon menace. Information slowly made its way to the resistance base, preparing them to begin a series of guerilla-style attacks on the occupying forces.
However, the information they were receiving had been surprising. To everyone's astonishment the Cylons seemed to be keeping their word, so far. No one had been hurt. There were rumors that the invading army had begun construction of permanent housing facilities for the conquered human population. Starbuck had even gotten word that her husband, Anders, was receiving medical attention for his pneumonia.
Nevertheless Starbuck wanted to begin a campaign of precise attacks on the Cylon infrastructure. Tyrol, on the other hand, was convinced that they should wait and see what happened. He argued that there might be no need to attack the Cylons if it was only going to bring about discovery and deadly retaliation for the resistance. He urged collecting more information and coming up with a different way to use it, possibly by contacting any of the colonial fleet that might have survived the attack.
The fleet, Starbuck thought derisively. The night they'd abandoned New Caprica she'd even taken the risk of stealing some communications equipment in case they could contact Galactica or if the admiral tried to contact them. The equipment sat in the corner of the main room, unused. They didn't even have any way of knowing whether any of the fleet had survived the Cylon attack. In truth, it seemed unlikely, and Tyrol had insisted that they shouldn't use the radio and risk giving away their position to the Cylons unless they had something useful to report on the off chance that they did manage to contact Galactica or Pegasus.
So the radio sat there collecting dust. As far as Kara was concerned the entire resistance movement was just sitting there, collecting dust. It wasn't what she'd had in mind. She wanted to accomplish something. She wanted to feel like she was doing something to save humanity. What she didn't want was to just hide in a cave and wait to be rescued.
But the resistance was polarized. Tyrol had a lot of support for his position. Many of the resistance members had also belonged to the Worker's Union. Not to mention that no one wanted to rock the boat now that it looked like the Cylons were being friendly conquerors. People were starting to reconsider the views that they'd help about their robotic enemy for so long. Starbuck didn't want to let that happen. She knew the old view was the right one. She'd stared those soulless bastards right in the face and she'd experienced the hospitality of a Cylon- controlled planet. She wasn't interested in reliving that.
Starbuck and Tyrol had been butting heads for a month, and the arrival of four mysterious strangers had finally brought everything to a head. Kara was sure that the newcomers weren't Cylons. She didn't even know how she was sure, but she was. Galen, on the other hand, as usual, didn't want to take any chances.
"So we're just going to start murdering people now because we think they might be Cylons?" Starbuck asked. "And what happens next week when you accuse me of being a Cylon? Do I get executed too?"
"You know that's not what I want, Kara. We just can't take the chance that they're Cylons. They know where our base is now."
"Oh, yeah," Starbuck said, "our big secret useless resistance base. You mean they know what hole we've gone and hidden in until the Cylons leave on their own."
Tyrol refused to be baited. "Fine," he said, "if they're not spies, why did they sneak in here and hide in a closet?"
"A better question is how," Demetrius noted, speaking for the first time.
"That is a better question." Starbuck acknowledged.
As much as he was enjoying the show Jack felt like he needed to try talking to them again. He cleared his throat loudly. "If I could say something."
He fully expected to be censured again. Instead the two resistance leaders looked at him for a second or two. "Make it good." Starbuck said finally.
"Now we're getting somewhere." The colonel said. He made a move to stand, but a look from Demetrius told him he'd be better off staying on the ground. "Well, ok." He said, accepting the unspoken recommendation. He addressed Starbuck and Tyrol again. "I don't know who these cyclone guys are that you're so scared of."
"Cylon." Daniel corrected.
"Whatever. The point is, we're not them. I don't know who the Cyclons are. I've never met one. I'm not especially interested in meeting one, and apparently," he motioned toward Starbuck, recounting her comment from earlier, "I don't even look like one."
"Cylons can look like anyone." Tyrol noted sourly. O'Neill wasn't convincing him.
"Well, good for them." Jack said. "I'm stuck with the one face myself. It's got a few miles on it, but it gets me where I need to go. The message I'm trying to convey here is that we're not them."
"And why should we believe you?" This time it was Starbuck's question. She didn't think they were Cylons, but if they could provide her with an alternate explanation it would go a long way towards helping her case.
"One simple question." Jack said.
"And what's that?"
"How did we get in here?" Jack had been listening to the conversation and had come up with the one question that the two both seemed to be avoiding, mainly because neither had an explanation.
"'How did you get in here'?" The former chief repeated. He had to admit to himself that he had no answer, not even a theory. They'd all been in the room playing cards for over an hour, and during that time they'd opened the storage closet at least twice. There had definitely been no people or Cylons in it.
"Exactly." O'Neill said. "If we're Pylons, how did we get in here? You've obviously got," he inclined his head toward Demetrius, "very effective security on this place. So unless these enemies of yours have some sort of magical transportation power, how could we have gotten in here┘ if we were them?"
The resistance leaders considered this question for a moment. Carter leaned in to whisper something to the colonel. "Sir, what happens if they do have transportation technology." It definitely wouldn't be the weirdest thing that had happened so far that day.
"Then we're pretty screwed." O'Neill whispered back. At this point he was out of options.
"Ok," Tyrol said, "I give up. How did you get into our base?"
"I thought you'd never ask." Jack replied, sounding as cheerful as he could, under the circumstances. "We're explorers from a planet called Earth." The pronouncement seemed to have an unexpected effect on the entire room. "I see you've heard of it."
"We have." Starbuck confirmed. "Go on."
"So like I was saying. We're explorers from Earth, and we were checking out this planet called P3X-725. Ever been there?" They stared at him blankly. "Small place." He prompted. "Kind of dusty." They continued staring. "I'm not surprised. Anyway, we're looking around and we find this quantum mirror thingy. I can't tell you exactly how it works, although Carter here probably could if you're interested, but I do know that when you touch it it takes you to alternate universes. They're places that are like home but a little different. Like in one I was a general, and in a couple I think I died. The point is that when you touch the thing it transports you to the same place but in another universe, and you're touching the same mirror. So Daniel here," at this point in the liturgy Jack elbowed Daniel in the ribs, "decides to fall all over everyone and we end up falling on top of the mirror and into your closet here. So you see, it's all really just been a big misunderstanding."
The resistance members looked on, awestruck at the incredible recitation they'd just heard. If Kara had been hoping for an explanation that she could use to strengthen her case for not killing the strangers, she hadn't gotten it except that maybe she could claim that they were too insane to be Cylon spies.
"So what you're saying," Tyrol began, trying to fit his head around what he'd just heard, "is that you're from Earth, but you were on a different planet."
"Right." Daniel confirmed.
"And that you got here by touching a magic mirror?"
"Right." Jack affirmed.
"Well," Daniel began.
"Well," Jack said, exchanging a glance with Daniel and picking up his addendum, "not like a 'mirror mirror on the wall,' magic mirror, but that's the basic idea."
Tyrol had no idea what the prisoner was talking about, but he was still too amazed at the story that they were expecting him to swallow. He couldn't believe that a Cylon agent would try a cover story that ridiculous. He began to consider that maybe they weren't Cylons after all, but if that was the case, who were they, and where had they come from?
"Can I say something?" Carter had asked the question from her position behind Colonel O'Neill.
"Please do." Daniel said. He could see that things were not going well. Sam might have an idea.
"We are not your enemy. We came here by accident, and if you'd give us the chance we'd like nothing better than to go home and get out of your way."
"Oh, I'm sure you would." Tyrol agreed. "I know you'd love to go home and tell your toaster friends exactly where we are. That's not going to happen. I won't let it."
Jack looked at Daniel. "Toaster?" He mouthed. Jackson just shrugged.
"Speaking of which," Starbuck said, finding a loophole in the Chief's plan, "if they are Cylons,"
"Which we're not!" Jack threw in. A look from Demetrius let him know that it would be best if he didn't interrupt again.
"If they are Cylons," she continued, "then we can't kill them. If we do they'll just be reincarnated at Cylon HQ and tell the others exactly where we are."
"Believe me," Daniel said from the ground a few feet away, "if you kill us we won't be getting reincarnated anywhere." Jack elbowed him again. "So," Daniel added, in response to Jack's prodding, "So, we'd really rather you didn't┘ kill us, that is."
"How about you, big guy?" Demetrius was addressing Teal'c. "Everyone else has had their say. You got something you want to throw in?" He motioned to the large Jaffa with his weapon.
"I have nothing to say." Teal'c replied coolly.
"Well," Demetrius commented, leaning back in his chair, "at least one of them is smart."
"Hey!" Daniel and Sam objected in unison.
"Hey!" Jack added a second later."
The two resistance leaders ignored them. "Ok," Tyrol said, seeing Starbuck's point, "we can't kill them. Then what do we do?"
Before anyone could suggest an alternative someone came through the door that led to the outside. Outside the door was a long tunnel leading up to the cave entrance. Sara came through. She was a young woman, younger than Starbuck even, but she'd been a viper pilot aboard Galactica for a good while and was as tough as anyone. She was one of the two resistance members currently taking a shift watching the cave entrance.
"Simon is here." She told the occupants of the room. Suddenly everything else dropped. Simon was one of the main suppliers of information to the resistance. He collected it from their network of agents in the city and then took on the all-important yet most dangerous step of actually delivering the news, himself. A veteran of the Caprica resistance himself, he knew the risk he was taking, and did it willingly, even cheerfully.
"Get him in here." Starbuck said. For once she and Tyrol were in agreement. It had been almost a week since they'd gotten news from New Caprica City. That wasn't unusual, but it was nerve-wracking.
The man entered just behind Sara. Then the young woman turned around to head back to her post, closing the door behind her. Simon was a short man and very muscular. Despite his fearlessness when thrown into dangerous situations, or maybe because of it, he usually wore a perpetually nervous look. This time, though, he looked on the verge of desperation.
"What's the matter, Simon?" Tyrol asked, offering the man a chair.
Simon didn't waste any time getting to the matter at hand. "They're taking people!" He exclaimed.
"The Cylons?" Starbuck asked.
"Yes!" He said with exasperation. The thoughts going through his head were obviously weighing on him heavily. "It started three days ago. They began taking people. No one noticed at first, but after the first night word began to spread. At first we thought that they were reopening the breeding farms." This struck Starbuck hard. She'd been in one of the Cylon farms where they were attempting to create a human-Cylon hybrid. She didn't want anyone else to have to go through it. "But they're taking everyone, men, women, children, almost indiscriminately." Starbuck was relieved that it didn't look like the farms were coming back, but this new news was even more unsettling. Why would the Cylons be taking people at random?
"No one has seen where they're going?" Tyrol asked.
"They take them into the citadel." Simon answered. "And no one ever comes back out. There must be at least 300 missing already."
"Slow down a second." Starbuck said. "'The citadel?'"
"Yeah." Simon answered. Then he looked up at the two resistance leaders and realized from the looks on their faces that they had no idea what he was talking about. "I thought for sure you would have heard about the citadel by now. It's been up for nearly six days."
"We haven't." Tyrol said. "So explain it to us."
"Ok, you remember where Colonial One was?" They nodded. "Well, it's gone." A shocked look ran around the room. Even Demetrius who was still holding his weapon on the prisoner's showed his surprise. SG-1, not having any idea what was being discussed just watched the whole thing play out, looking for their opportunity to run. "We all turned in one night at curfew," Simon continued, the Cylons had established a curfew for the human population, "and when we got up the next morning Colonial 1 was gone and in it's place was this giant building. No one knows how the toasters put it up so fast, but there it was."
"So this citadel is where they've been taking all the people they abduct?"
"Exactly. People think all of it must have something to do with that woman."
"What woman?" Tyrol asked.
"The one who showed up in the weird ship nearly a week ago."
"Wait, what?!" Starbuck exclaimed. She was really tired of having no idea what was going on.
Simon looked back and forth between their two faces again. "Wow," he said, "you guys really have been out of the loop. Nearly a week ago this woman landed in a ship like no one had ever seen before, and she walked right in to Colonial One where the Cylon leadership is camped out. That's when all this weirdness started."
"What did she look like?" Tyrol asked.
Simon had relaxed slightly since his arrival. He leaned back in his chair. "She was a blonde." He said. Fortunately her landing had attracted a crowd and he'd gotten there in time to get a good look at her before she went inside the ship. "Great body." He added. "She was wearing this crazy black suit, like nothing I've ever seen before, and she really looked like the kind of girl you didn't want to mess with."
Simon was looking around the room, and for the first time since he'd entered he noticed Demetrius near the open closet. When he'd arrived Demetrius had been blocking the view of what was inside, and Simon had been too agitated to notice. Now he could see clearly, and what he saw surprised him. He stood up to get a good look at the four people apparently being held prisoner in resistance headquarters. "What's going on here?" He asked.
"Oh," Starbuck replied. In all the excitement she'd forgotten about the prisoners. "We found these four in that closet, no idea where they came from. The chief thinks-"
"Oh my gods!" Simon exclaimed, looking at the four members of SG-1.
"What is it?!" Tyrol jumped out of the seat he'd taken. "What's wrong?"
"It's her!" His hand extended out, pointing at Major Samantha Carter. "It's the woman I told you about!"
At the exact same moment three people said "What?!" Starbuck said it because she couldn't believe it. They'd captured the woman with the strange spaceship that Simon had described. Carter said it because she was relatively sure that she would have remembered landing in a spaceship and having a conversation with a Cylon, whatever that was. O'Neill said it because he had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Written by Data laughing
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227
Thanks for reading Part 4. If you have any feedback positive or negative, leave me a review.