Part 5: Check, Please!
"Tactical analysis, Mr. Worf." Picard ordered.
Worf worked the controls for the sensors. A moment later, "Primary weapons appear to be missiles, Captain, armed with conventional and nuclear warheads. I am also detecting several hundred fighter-size vessels inside. Without our shields we are completely vulnerable to their attacks."
"Thank you, Commander." Picard didn't need to be reminded of how defenseless his ship was. If the Enterprise's shields and weapons were functional the Cylon ship would be no match for them. Without them his ship was easy prey for the larger vessel and her fleet of fighters. Picard made his decision. "We accept your proposition, Admiral." He said, turning to Adama, who was anxiously awaiting the decision that he knew was coming.
"Excellent." Adama said. He knew that Picard had no choice, but that hadn't made the wait any less nerve-wracking, not with a Basestar staring him in the face. He was surprised that it wasn't unleashing swarms of Raiders already. "I need to get back to Galactica."
"Of course," Picard replied. "Mr. Data, escort the admiral back to the transporter room."
Data motioned towards the turbolift, and the two officers from Galactica moved to follow. Suddenly Adama paused and turned back toward Picard. "I'll leave Lieutenant Agathon here," he said, "both as a show of good faith and to help you with any further information you need about our situation or our enemy." Adama glanced at the Basestar on the viewscreen one more time. Then he turned to Helo who seemed somewhat put off by the unexpected declaration. "Help them however you can, Helo. They're our allies now."
"But, sir-" Helo began.
"Look at it this way," Adama said, "you're our first ambassador to Earth. You couldn't ask for a more important position. Besides," here he lowered his voice somewhat, despite the fact that the Enterprise officers watching them could undoubtedly still hear what was said, "if Galactica doesn't make it through this I need someone that I can trust here to make sure that our new friends hold up their end of our agreement." With that the admiral turned and walked into the turbolift, with Data following close behind.
A reassuring look from Adama as the turbolift doors shut did little to comfort Karl Agathon. Make sure they hold up their end he thought to himself derisively. He glanced at Worf. Yeah, that'll be real easy.
The Basestar hung in space, observing the impromptu gathering of three vessels in this usually empty plot of space. Two of them were recognized instantly. Every Cylon knew what one of the human Battlestars looked like. The two ships were also exactly what the Cylons had expected to find when they jumped into the area. The other ship, however, was completely unfamiliar. The Cylon vessel paused for a few moments, examining the strange craft. Adama had thought the Basestar's inaction unusual, and he was right. The Basestar was unsure what to make of the situation. So it paused.
Often the Basestar might have begun its attack by bombarding the enemy ships with nuclear warheads before deploying its Raiders. This time, however, the decision was made that the complete destruction of the new ship without a chance to study it (or its battle-damaged remains even) more closely was a bad idea. So, just as Admiral Adama arrived in the transporter room to beam back to his ship, several minutes of inaction ended when the Basestar began releasing Raiders to attack the other ships.
On the Enterprise's viewscreen the crew watched as the smaller ships began to pour out of the massive Basestar. At Picard's invitation Helo had seated himself in the seat customarily occupied by counselor Troi. Troi was seated at the vacant engineering station at the back of the bridge with her chair turned to watch the viewscreen with the rest of the bridge crew.
"The larger ship is deploying fighters, Captain." Worf said.
"Those are Cylon Raiders." Helo informed the bridge crew. "A single Basestar can carry hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. No one really knows."
"Mr. Worf." Picard prompted.
"We are detecting approximately eight hundred fighter craft within the Basestar, sir."
Helo glanced at the Klingon. "And now we do." He said to himself.
"The Cylons certainly must have a large compliment of fighter pilots on board their ships." Troi observed from her position at the rear of the bridge.
"No." Helo said. "These Raiders pilot themselves. Those ships are as alive as any Cylon, and they learn from experience, even death." In his recitation in the conference room, Admiral Adama had already explained how Cylons who were killed were able to transfer their consciousness and be resurrected. From Helo's statement it was apparent that the Raider's shared that rather useful feature.
"Death becomes a learning experience." The Admiral had said. It certainly was an interesting concept. However, Picard had no time to mull over the ramifications.
"Picard to LaForge." The Captain said, tapping his combadge. "Where are we on shields and weapons?"
The chief engineer's voice came back, "We're doing our best, Captain. I may be able to give you phasers in a few minutes, but torpedoes and shields are going to take longer."
"Commander," the Captain replied dourly, glancing back at the Raiders on the viewscreen, "we may not have a few minutes."
LaForge sighed to himself. They never did. "Understood, Captain. We'll do what we can. LaForge out."
Adama materialized in the middle of the command deck, surrounded by the same incandescent blue light that had ushered him away. The crew looked on in amazement. For a moment after the light had faded, leaving the Admiral in its wake, no one said a word.
Then the moment broke, and someone decided that they needed to get down to business. "Admiral," one of the crew said, "Pegasus Actual on Wireless."
Adama picked up the receiver. The Admiral's son, Commander Lee Adama, was on the other end. "That Basestar is beginning to deploy Raiders." The younger Adama said. The Admiral had picked up on that during his first moments back aboard his ship. "Should we jump?"
Under normal circumstances that was the course of action that the colonial fleet would take. These were not, however, normal circumstances. "No." The Admiral replied firmly. "Keep us between the Cylons and the Enterprise, and get the Vipers in the air."
"Admiral?"
"I've made an agreement with Captain Picard. We're going to protect that ship for as long as we can." There was a note of finality in his voice, and the Cylons weren't giving them time to discuss the situation anyway.
"Yes, sir." Commander Adama replied, cutting the connection. The Admiral could tell that his son wasn't happy about the orders, but he would still follow them.
Grant Apolinar, callsign, "Archer," was in the cockpit of his colonial Viper Mark VII, waiting for word on whether or not they were going to engage the Cylons. As soon as the Basestar had appeared the Pegasus Viper pilots, those that were left, had scrambled and prepared for launch. The waiting seemed interminable.
In the last two months Archer had undergone training and trial by fire. Before that he'd been a civilian navigator on one of the ships in the fleet. Grant loved space. So when the opportunity had come along to settle on New Caprica he'd been one of the few who opted to stay with the ships in orbit.
A solitary man, with no one to worry about but himself, he'd initially been relieved when the fleet had jumped away from the Cylon's invasion of the new colony. He felt he'd made the right decision, and thus avoided whatever horrible things were happening to the thousands of colonists left behind on the planet. However, before long, Admiral Adama had needed "volunteers" to supplement his small (and shrinking) supply of Viper pilots. Grant had been of the right age and had some flight experience, which made him a perfect candidate. Since then, he had, through a strange series of events, become one of the more experienced Viper pilots in what remained of Pegasus' red squadron.
Archer had never gotten over the extreme nervousness before a battle, he often wondered if anyone ever did. It often got so bad that his hands shook uncontrollably, but as soon as he was out in space it always disappeared. Somehow, even amidst flying bullets, enemy ships, and the occasional explosion he felt somehow at peace in the vast soundless vacuum.
His hands were shaking now. He'd heard rumors about an alien ship, but that wasn't what concerned him. Almost every engagement he'd fought in so far had been a surprise attack on the Cylons, jump in, hit them, jump back out. Suddenly that wasn't the case, and it made him even more nervous. The waiting had to be the worst of it. Once he was out and in control of a ship he would have a purpose. Here there was no purpose, just waiting.
Then the word came. They were deploying. Within a few minutes Archer was in space, in control of his own destiny, as it were. If being in space relaxed him, the fleet of Cylon Raiders heading his direction had the opposite effect. The force that the colonials could mount against them suddenly seemed pitifully small. His orders came. All Viper pilots from both Battlestars were given the order to hold. They were to hold their ground against the onrushing storm of mechanical fury, and they were to protect the alien ship at all costs.
So there really is an alien ship. Archer thought to himself. He understood the importance of that revelation. It would change everything. If they could befriend the aliens their technology might even give them a chance at beating back the seemingly indomitable advance of the Cylon war machine. The logical part of his brain quickly squashed those hopes. If these aliens were that powerful they wouldn't need the paltry fleet of colonial Vipers to protect them from the Cylon ships.
Really, none of it mattered. He'd become accustomed to his role as Viper pilot. The officers sent the orders, and the pilots did the hard work. Every time they flew out fewer of his friends returned. The Viper pilot's duty was to do what he/she was told and, in all probability, to die in fire. Sitting on the flight deck this truth was nerve-wracking, but while he was flying his ship it was a fact of life, and his fate was in his own hands.
Archer began accelerating towards the oncoming Raiders. He looked for the best place to start. Spotting a group of three ships Archer altered his course and made right for them. Three Cylon Raiders were flying in a wedge formation. They must be new at this, Archer thought to himself. Well, he'd teach them their lesson soon enough.
Soon his Viper and the three ships were speeding directly toward eachother. As soon as he was in range he opened fire on the lead Raider. They were already firing back. Trying to avoid the fire from three ships was hard enough, but he had a specific spot that he wanted to hit. So he weaved while training his fire on that spot. Then his fire found its mark.
Grant hit the lead ship on one of its wings. Suddenly out of control, it careened into one of the other Raiders, flying in the tightly knit formation. Both erupted, and then blinked out of existence. Before he could even acknowledge what had happened the third raider passed him on the left, just meters from a collision. "Woooo!" He let out a yell. Archer had never quite gotten over the excitement of victory or that of a near collision, and this had been both. He briefly considered turning back and pursuing the third Raider, but he decided against it. There was no need to risk firing in the direction of his own ships. He knew that he would have more targets than he'd like before the day was through.
"Those are our Vipers." Helo pointed to the screen. The two Battlestars had moved into position directly between the Basestar and the Enterprise, effectively blocking their view of most of the battle. However, they could still observe what happened on the fringes of the battle.
The Basestar hung there, motionless, surrounded by a cloud of Raiders ready to defend against any human ship that might be bold enough to mount an attack. The colonial ships, however were taking a defensive posture, remaining close to their capital ships and dealing with the oncoming enemy as they approached.
"We've been very short on pilots since we arrived at New Caprica." Helo continued. "Some of our best settled on the planet, trying to make a life that didn't involve war, for all the good it did them." Bitterness pervaded his statement. "Truth is, half of those pilots are just kids, hardly any time in the seat at all before they were thrown up against the Cylons."
Captain Picard took in Agathon's words. He watched and considered the people out there who he didn't know, living in a universe so different from his own, so hopeless. Yet they were fighting and dying to protect his ship and his crew. True, they expected quite a bit in return, but that didn't make their sacrifice any less noble in the Captain's eyes.
The fight had been going on for nearly fifteen minutes, and, to Picard's surprise, not a single Cylon ship had made it past the defense line that their new allies had erected. Not a single threat to the Enterprise had presented itself. The Captain knew that it couldn't stay that way for long. The combined fighter fleet of the Battlestars, though dedicated, was hopelessly outnumbered by the, seemingly inexhaustible, supply of Cylon fighters.
Picard resisted the temptation to call his chief engineer again. He knew that LaForge and his people were working as quickly as they could, and there was no way Picard could accelerate their progress. He'd been forced to do nothing and wait before, and he'd always abhorred it. However, he found that it was eminently worse to sit and wait while every minute was bought with the blood of others.
"LaForge to Picard" the Captain's communicator chirped.
"Go ahead" he replied, after giving it a tap.
"The phasers are back online, Captain." The chief engineer proclaimed proudly.
"Excellent, Commander. What about shields?"
"Shields will take maybe another hour, Captain."
"Understood. Picard out." He turned to his first officer. "Hopefully there will be something left to shield."
"Do you mean?"
"Yes, Number One." The Captain replied. "We're going in. I won't watch others die to protect us for one minute longer."
Data, who had reclaimed his position at ops after seeing Admiral Adama safely to the transporter room, turned to face the Captain. "Sir, without our shields we will be vulnerable to their weapons."
"I am aware of that, Mr. Data." The Captain didn't care. "Helm, take us in."
"Aye, sir." The nervous young ensign replied.
Archer had just finished off a particularly annoying Raider that had attempted to come up behind him and was scanning for a new target when he saw something. From above Galactica came a ship like he'd never seen before. "Oh my gods." He said to himself quietly. It was about half the size of one of the Battlestars, but it had a sleek beautiful look that he couldn't take his eyes off of. It had to be the alien ship he'd heard about. What else could it be?
Then, as he looked up at the strange ship, a beam of red light shot out from the underside of the rounded section at the front. His eyes widened, what was it? Fortunately for him the light turned out to be some sort of energy weapon which immediately vaporized the Cylon Raider that had begun advancing on his position while he was distracted. This was enough to shake the Viper pilot out of his incredulous daze, and send him back to the work at hand. Aliens or no aliens there were still a whole lot of Cylons just begging to be scrap.
The Enterprise managed to save a few more Viper pilots who were in imminent danger of a rather unpleasant death, but its captain had a different goal in mind. If they were going to end this before the ship was riddled with holes they had only one option.
"Mr. Worf, fire as soon as the Basestar is in range." Fortunately the Enterprise's phaser range proved to be much greater than that of the weapons used by the Cylon Raiders. So the cloud of Raiders protecting their mother ship was completely unable to fend off the initial assault from the Federation ship, those that weren't immediately destroyed when the ruby beams of Starfleet phasers lanced through the cloud to strike at the heart of the Cylon capital ship, that is.
In a matter of moments the barrage of phaser fire was slicing the unprepared Cylon ship to pieces. One of the large spines, itself almost the size of the Enterprise was cut off and began to float silently away from the huge ship. Then, suddenly, the Cylon behemoth was gone.
"Mr. Worf?" Picard inquired urgently.
"It's gone, Captain. It just disappeared."
"It jumped away." Helo said with not a little amazement in his voice. Since the Enterprise had begun her attack run he had been completely silent, flabbergasted by the incredible power that the ship displayed, not to mention the firing precision, picking off Cylon Raiders in mid-flight with their beams, phasers they'd called them. He'd had some doubts about the bargain struck by the Admiral. He didn't think that these strangers could offer anything that would justify the tremendous risk that Adama had taken. Karl "Helo" Agathon doubted no more. The ease with which the Enterprise had dispatched the dreaded Cylon capital ship was enough to convince even the most skeptical that they finally had a chance. With Picard's ship to help them, the Cylons didn't stand a chance.
"What about the fighters?" The Captain asked the Klingon.
"They are beginning to disappear as well, sir." Picard could already see that the Raiders that had made up the protective cloud around the Basestar were almost completely gone, with very little help from his ship. When the Enterprise had first opened fire on the larger ship many of the Raiders protecting it had begun an attack run on the Enterprise. However, the rapid retreat of their mother ship discouraged most of them, and Worf used the phaser banks to permanently discourage the more persistent ones. Now there were very few left, and those were disappearing from sight rapidly.
"Excellent." Picard proclaimed.
Commander Riker took the liberty of deciding what to do next. "Mr. Worf, bring us around. Let's help our new friends clean up any stragglers."
An hour later another meeting was convened in the Enterprise's conference room. This time Lee Adama was present, seated across from his father. "Your ship is quite impressive, Captain." He said. His tone was sincere, but it betrayed a small amount of trepidation.
"Thank you, Commander." Picard replied earnestly.
"That it is," the Admiral agreed. He was not however in the mood for small talk. "I take it," he continued, "that you would agree that we fulfilled our part of our arrangement, Captain."
"Indeed you did, Admiral." Picard replied.
"We readily admit that your ship is more powerful than ours." Admiral Adama stated. "So, the question becomes, will you fulfill your part?"
"You don't have experience with the Federation, Admiral." Picard began. "So I will explain something to you. We are a people of our word." Heads around the table nodded in agreement. "We made an agreement, and we plan on seeing it through."
Admiral Adama allowed a rare smile. "I expected as much, Captain." He reached out his hand to Picard who took it amicably.
"My chief engineer has informed me that all of the ships systems are now online." Picard said, indicating LaForge who was now seated near the end of the conference table. "So, we are ready to begin as soon as you give the word, Admiral."
"The word is given, Captain."
A discussion followed about how the attack on the Cylon fleet orbiting New Caprica would be staged. It would take the colonial ships several FTL (faster than light) jumps to reach the coordinates, with breaks of a half hour between jumps for the engines to be ready to jump again. Oddly enough the distance that the Battlestars were capable of jumping would take the Enterprise approximately a half hour to cover.
It was decided that the two colonial ships would wait another half hour before the final jump and thus arrive there at almost the same moment as the Enterprise. As the planning session ended and the guests began to board to turbolift to head back to their ships, the Admiral took a moment to speak to Picard privately.
"I would like for Lieutenant Agathon to remain here." He said, "as a liaison between our ships."
"Of course, Admiral." Picard said. "I was actually going to suggest the same thing."
Adama explained the situation to Helo, who accepted the assignment, although not with the degree of fervor that the Admiral might have hoped for.
After the short conversation Adama headed toward the turbolift door where his son and Counselor Troi were waiting to head to the transporter room. Data's voice rang out across the bridge. "Captain, Admiral, I have discovered something that may be of interest." Both of the officers turned toward the ops station where Data was inputting commands into his console.
"What is it, Commander?" Picard asked curiously.
"I have detected a non-human life-sign aboard Galactica."
Everyone was taken aback. The colonial officers had been very clear on the fact that before today they'd never encountered an alien life form. "Where?" The Admiral asked quickly.
A cross-section of the Battlestar appeared on the viewscreen with one small spot blinking red. "The holding cells?" Adama quietly asked himself. Then he exchanged surprised looks with Apollo and then with Helo who appeared to be in complete shock.
"Sharon." Helo said to no one in particular.
Picard glanced curiously at the colonial officers. "Do you know who it is, Admiral?"
"We have a Cylon prisoner in the holding cells." Helo seemed to chafe somewhat at the word prisoner, but Adama took no notice. "Captain, do you mean that your scanners can differentiate between humans and Cylons?"
"So it would appear." Picard replied. The Admiral had told him about their infiltration problem, but it had never occurred to the Captain that his ship's sensors could solve the problem so readily.
Lee Adama lit up. "Could you scan both ships for any other Cylons?"
"Of course." Picard nodded to Data who began the scan.
A moment later it was done. "No other non-human life-signs detected." Data declared. The three colonials looked at each other, and it was as if a giant weight had suddenly been lifted from their shoulders. All this time they'd been forced to look at every person with suspicion. The Admiral, especially, knew the horror of finding out that someone was a Cylon too late. Now, in an instant, all the worrying was gone.
Both of the Adamas felt better than they had in months. "Captain Picard, Commander Data," Lee said, looking from one officer to the other, "you have our heart-felt thanks." He extended his hand to each of them in turn.
"Let's all hope," Riker chimed in from the rear of the bridge, "that you have more to thank us for before this is all said and done." This brought the colonial officers back to the task at hand, and they nodded in agreement before the two Adamas, in the company of the lovely counselor, boarded to turbolift to return to their respective ships.
Picard stood next to his chair and looked at the viewscreen. "Helm," he said, "as soon as the Battlestars have jumped take us to the first set of coordinates, warp five." Then he turned to his first officer. "Number One, it will be several hours before we reach New Caprica. I think we could all use some rest. See to it that Lieutenant Agathon is assigned suitable quarters for the remainder of the mission."
"Yes, sir." Riker replied. Helo said nothing, wondering what sort of quarters the Enterprise had for its guests. He was in for a pleasant surprise.
Several hours later the Enterprise found itself moving through the nebula that surrounded New Caprica. At one time the colonists had hoped that it would keep the Cylons from finding them. In reality it kept them from seeing the Cylon invasion fleet approach until it was far too late.
"As soon as we're clear of the nebula, open fire on any Cylon targets of opportunity, Mr. Worf."
"Aye, sir." Worf said, only too happy to comply.
The battle was short. The Enterprise encountered a large Cylon fleet in orbit of New Caprica, but once they opened fire on the nearest Basestar with a full spread of quantum torpedoes and phasers, it was destroyed completely. The other ships, surprised at the sudden appearance of this completely unknown, yet incredibly powerful ship, disappeared into the cloud, which the Federation ship's sensors were unable to penetrate. Data was quick to note that the ships appeared to have retreated, but not jumped away using their FTL drives, which indicated that they might intend to return soon. By the time the two Battlestars arrived, it was all over.
"Mr. Data," Picard ordered, "scan the planet's surface."
Data's fingers danced across the console while the rest of the bridge crew waited, still on alert for a possible Cylon counter attack. "All of the human life-signs seem to be centered on one small area of the planet." This confirmed what the Admiral and Helo had told them about the colonization. "I am detecting approximately 39,000 humans, as well as several hundred Cylons, of various configurations." Helo had spent the last half hour before their arrival going over the different known Cylon types with Data. "Also picking up several structures, most appear to be makeshift dwellings and landed spacecraft. One is ... unusual."
"Unusual?" Riker asked.
"Yes, Commander. It is composed of a material that I am unfamiliar with."
"Onscreen." Picard said.
Data tapped a few controls and before them appeared a monolith, in the center of several small building and the remains of spacecraft that appeared to have been cannibalized for use in the construction of the other structures. It appeared to be a building of massive proportions, standing in stark contrast to the make- shift structures that surrounded it.
"I am encountering difficulty in scanning inside the structure. There appears to be a signal of some sort moving through the material that the building is composed of, making our scans imprecise at best."
"Can you get any sort of reading?" Riker asked.
"I am changing the sensor frequency." Data responded, as if that answered the question. A moment later, "That appears to have negated most of the interference. I am picking up several human life-signs as well as humanoid Cylons. I am also detecting ..." Data did the android equivalent of a double-take. "Oh shit." There were times, thanks to his emotion chip, that even Data's professional composure slipped. This was one of them.
Written by Data laughing
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227
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