Chapter 16

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA – CONFERENCE ROOM – COLONIAL FLEET

Jackson and Stenger slipped past the Marine who guarded the entrance into the conference room where his party had first met President Roslin, Lee Adama and Colonel Tigh the day before. The Fleet Intelligence officers then proceeded to the conference table where Margaret Edmonson, Ian Dalle, Hamish McCall and four other Colonials in civilian clothiing were already seated. After they'd seated themselves, Edmonson said, "Captain, Commander, let me introduce you to the rest of the officers Admiral Adama has assigned to this mission. This," she indicated an attractive blonde woman with a no-nonsense expression on her face, "is Captain Marcia 'Showboat' Case. The woman beside Showboat," Racetrack indicated with a nod toward the dirty blonde with stringy hair, "is Lt. Nora 'Blondie' Farmer. The dark haired gentleman across the table from me," she said as she glanced at the man, "is Lt. Steve 'Red Devil' Fleer and the young guy beside Red Devil is his ECO, Ensign John 'Atlas' Proctor."

"Thank you for the introductions, Racetrack," Jackson said before he began his briefing. "People, I must impress upon you all that everything we discuss from here on out is classified top secret. You are not to discuss it with anyone other than the people in this room and Admiral Adama. Now, we have a serious challenge ahead of us. The Admiral has informed me that one of his nukes has gone missing. I probably don't have to tell you that the Admiral is extremely irked about that, so I need you people to help me get it back for him. Of course, the device could be anywhere; however, we believe it's more prudent to search high value targets initially before we start tearing through every ship in the fleet. So, we've prioritized Colonial One and the Cloud 9 as our first targets. While we search these ships, I don't want to draw undue attention to ourselves. That's why you're all out of uniform. Each of you will be assigned to four two-person teams. Skulls, Blondie, you're with me on Racetrack's Raptor bound for Cloud 9. Lena, Showboat, and Atlas will be aboard Red Devil's boat heading for Colonial One. Once we're aboard your respective target vessels, you are all to carry sidearms concealed on your persons and proceed to opposite ends of the vessels in two person teams. Each team will be assigned a portable radiological detector. According to your weapons officer, the detector will sense the neutrons from a nuclear weapon, radioactive source or fissionable material if it is present on your target vessel."

"If we detect any neutrons at all," Lena said, "it's probably coming from something that shouldn't be on that ship. By employing two devices as we proceed from each end of the ship, we should be able to narrow the location of the weapon to within a few feet."

Jackson then continued the thread. "If we find any neutrons on our target vessels, the teams will move toward the source and secure the device. If the device is stashed in someone's cabin, you will coordinate with either Lena or me depending on the ship and follow our instructions to the letter. If possible, I want the person responsible for taking the device alive. However, if the person is armed or attempts to move toward the device, take them down as quickly as possible, understood?"

After there was a chorus of 'yes, sirs!' from the Colonials, Jackson smiled. "All right then. Any questions?"

"Captain," Dalle asked, "what do you want me to do while you're hunting for the device?"

Jackson smirked at the physician. "Ian, I need some of the large zip-ties you carry in your kit, a pair of lifesign monitors and two hypos filled with a fast-working anesthetic that could drop that big lady corporal, you know, the muscle for that Marine Reaction Company captain who worked with us on Dunholme."

Dalle's eyes opened wide at Jackson's reference. "Do you mean the huge Amazon who's Nick Glakos' shadow?" At Jackson's nod, Dalle nearly shook his head when the image of that woman had popped into his mind. Corporal Florczyk surely was the modern version of the ancient Peloponnesian warrior women. Although her face was very pretty, perhaps even lovely, most people failed to notice it because it was overshadowed by her sleek, muscular six foot six inch frame. Florczyk was so strong she single-handedly wielded a two-man crewed plasma cannon as her personal weapon during combat!

Jackson nodded. "Yeah, that's the one. Oh, and Doc? Just in case we run into one of those infiltrators, I want to know if there are any appreciable physiological differences between them and us."

Dalle shook his head. "Other than their silica pathways and perhaps a slight advantage in strength and speed, they're remarkably designed along the base human structure, including our vulnerabilities."

"So, if I strike certain pressure points on them, it should work the same as it would if I struck a normal person?"

"I'd say so."

The Fleet captain grinned at the physician. "I can work with that, Doc. Now while we're gone, I want you to stay here and keep working with Dr. Cottle on the protocol to detect the infiltrators. Ian, I know I'm asking a lot of you because, if I were in your shoes, I'd rather face a bomb than work with that guy any day of the week."

After everyone in the room had a good laugh at the battlestar's CMO's expense, Jackson glanced at the others and asked, "Anything else?" When no one said anything, he nodded. "Okay…let's do this."

#

While five Colonials and the pair of Fleet Intelligence officers moved toward the hatchway, Margaret Edmonson hung back and turned to Dalle. "Ian?"

"Yes, Maggie?" he managed to say, his voice hoarse.

"I…I—"

He smiled sadly, reached out and drew her into a tender hug. "I know, Maggie."

"I'll take good care of Captain Jackson for you," she murmured as she cradled the side of her face against his chest.

"Hey," he joked, "that son of a bitch can take care of himself! Just make certain you watch your own ass, all right?"

She glanced up at him, smiled, grasped his shoulders with both hands, pulled herself up onto her tip toes and brushed her lips against his. When she spied the startled look on his face after her feet rested firmly back on the floor, she grinned at him. "Actually, I think you'd enjoy watching my ass more than I would, Doctor!" Then she withdrew from his arms and he ogled Maggie's swaying walk, which her tight pants showcased to their best effect.

"Oh, boy," he muttered to himself, watching her shapely muscles play under the fabric of her clothing. Worse, when she tossed a smile at him over her shoulder before she exited the room, he had an uneasy feeling she'd known exactly where his gaze had been focused.

#

Cloud 9 – Colonial Fleet

After their Raptor had been secured in the Cloud 9's hangar bay, Jackson and Racetrack proceeded toward the aft section of the ship while Skulls and Blondie had gone to the opposite end of the vessel. Once each team had reached their respective positions and contacted each other via the portable wireless transceivers they carried, Racetrack frowned down at the radiological detector she held in the palm of her right hand. Moments later, all the blood drained from her face. "Frak me!"

Jackson shot a resigned look her way and muttered. "Damn it! I'm getting too old for this crap!" Then he gave her a wry smile and said, "I'm sorry, Margaret. I was hoping Lena's teams would be the 'lucky' ones. She's way better at these kinds of missions than me."

She returned his smile with one of her own. Margaret hadn't fallen off the turnip truck. She'd seen ample evidence first-hand of the man's skills. Both Stenger and he had field stripped their borrowed sidearms faster than either Starbuck or Apollo could do so even though it was the first time either of the Fleet officers had ever laid eyes on the weapons. Then after sighting in his weapon and adding a little weight inside the handgrip, Jackson had fired six shots that had formed a perfect circle around the very center of the target on the Galactica's firing range. However, she was touched by his concern for her well-being and his attempt to calm her fears. "Actually, sir, I'm glad we're the ones with our hands on the stick. If some frakker plans on taking out the one thing left in the whole universe that reminds me of my homeworld then I've got a score to settle with him."

He smiled at her. "I couldn't have said it better myself, Racetrack. Why don't you call it in to the Admiral then we'll go locate that device, all right?"

"Yes, sir!" she snapped before she placed the detector into her jacket pocket, took out her transceiver, switched it to the Galactica's CIC channel and transmitted, "Galactica Actual, this is Racetrack. We have neutron traces on the Cloud 9, over."

#

CIC of the Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet

"Racetrack, this is Actual," the Admiral said. "Message received and understood." Although Edmonson's call had almost caused the elder man's heart to skip several beats, frankly, he was kind of relieved they'd found the device on the liner rather than aboard Colonial One. Although his relationship with the gods damned schoolteacher had been rocky from the start, after they'd made their peace on Kobol and the fleet had almost lost her due to her illness before the blood of Helo's child had healed her, he understood how much she meant to their remnant of the Colonies. Now, his mind back to the business at hand, he transmitted to Racetrack, "EOD is en route to Cloud 9."

"Copy that, Actual. Both teams shall proceed and pin down the location of the package. Racetrack, over and out."

While he sent a silent prayer to the gods for his pilot's safety and racked the phone into its cradle, Tigh took two steps toward Adama and drew close to his old friend. "Bill, should we evacuate the members of the Quorum from that gods damned ship?"

The Admiral exhaled deeply and glared at the DRADIS console while his mind raced to make the right call. Several seconds later, he shook his head and locked his gaze on the eyes of his XO. "No. If we tip off anyone on that ship, the saboteur may find out and detonate the device if they've somehow managed to rig an explosive trigger. However, it would be prudent to have that vessel's commander move her away from the vulnerable ships in the fleet." Adama shot a hard look at Lt. Hoshi, a recent transfer from the Pegasus to Galactica's CIC. "Lieutenant, get me Commander Adama on the horn."

"Aye, sir," the young man answered. A moment later, he glanced at Adama and said, "He's on the horn, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Adama murmured. Then he lifted the phone from its cradle and pressed the send button. "Lee, I want you to move the Pegasus away from the fleet on a heading of 092 carom 11 and go to 1/5 speed. Maintain that heading until I contact you with further instructions."

"Understood, Admiral."

"Good, son. Carry on."

After he hung up the phone, he turned to Tigh and said, "I want you to have the Cloud 9 play follow the leader with the Beast but I don't want her to get too close to Lee's battlestar."

"I'll handle it, Bill," Tigh said. Then he turned to Lt. Hoshi and barked, "Lieutenant, get the commander of the Cloud 9 on the horn. Tell him to alter his course to heading 092 carom 11 and to go to 1/3 speed. Tell him he's to proceed toward the Beast to top of his tylium tanks."

"Aye, aye, Colonel," Hoshi answered and transmitted Tigh's instructions.

"Oh, and Hoshi? When the Cloud 9's a hundred kilometers away from the rest of the ships in the fleet, let them know the Beast has a problem with her tylium pumping system and she's to remain at her then current position until the pumping system has been brought back online. Do you understand me, Lieutenant?"

"I understand, sir," Hoshi responded.

Tigh nodded at the young man before he turned back to Adama and spoke so lowly only his commanding officer could hear him. "Bill, what happens if that device goes off and Jackson's aboard that ship? How will the Thirteenth Tribe react if we lose one of their officers because he was dealing with a weapon that was taken right from under our noses?"

"I don't know, Saul," Adama admitted. "Hopefully, it won't come to that. If it does, we have to hope Commander Stenger and Doctor Dalle will tell them Jackson volunteered to help us. Right now, though? I'm praying to every god I can think of that man will come through for us and save our collective asses."

#

COLONIAL ONE – COLONIAL FLEET

"Madame President?"

Laura glanced up from the paperwork on her desk and sighed. "Yes, what is it, Tory?"

"Captain Case from the Pegasus and Commander Stenger, the Thirteenth Tribe's officer, are here to see you. They say they must speak to you about an extremely urgent matter."

She blinked twice before she said, "Please, show them in, Tory."

Moments later, the two women rushed into her office. "Madame President," Stenger said, "we have a sensitive matter we need to report to you per instructions given to us by Admiral Adama. May we speak to you in private?"

She regarded the female warriors silently for several beats before she turned to her assistant and said, "That will be all, Tory. Thank you."

Once the president's personal assistant had left the room, Case said, "Madame President, the Admiral wanted us to report to you that the nuclear device that he'd given to Baltar for his Cylon detector project is missing."

Roslin's eyes flew wide open. "What?!" Gods damn that frakking traitor to hell! she railed inwardly. She knew it deep down in her soul that bastard had probably given the device to one of the Cylon models who looked like the 'thing' she'd seen him with when they'd been on Caprica before the Cylon attack.

"Ma'am," Stenger said, "Admiral Adama requested that Captain Jackson and I assist in reacquiring the device. Both the captain and I agreed to assist him in this endeavor both for the safety of your people and ours. The Admiral believes we possess certain…skills that would help us find the device."

So, Laura thought with the little presence of mind she'd managed to possess after learning about the missing weapon, Bill was right about these people; they are 'spooks.'

"Madame President," Case added, "we were assigned to search your ship for any signs of the device and to evacuate you if we'd found any traces of it being here. However, we've just learned that Captain Jackson's team has found traces of the device on the Cloud 9. However, so as to not tip our hand to the saboteur, the Admiral has decided not to call for an evacuation of that vessel. While the Captain and his people pinpoint the location of the device, the Admiral has directed the liner to move away from the rest of the ships in the fleet in case the device is…detonated."

Roslin's gaze flashed between both women several times before she managed to find her voice. "Commander Stenger, I hope I'll be able to thank Captain Jackson personally for his selfless heroism in agreeing to help my people. For now, I shall pray that he and the members of his team are successful in safely recovering the device."

Stenger nodded to the Colonial leader. "Thank you, Madame President. I suppose that's the best we can do for the moment."

"Yes," Laura agreed. "I suppose it is, Commander."

#

Cloud 9 – Colonial Fleet

Thirty minutes after they'd begun tracking down the neutron traces, Jackson and Racetrack met Skulls and Blondie in the corridor outside of one of the liner's luxury suites. Both teams' detectors definitively indicated the device was somewhere behind the door leading into that room. Jackson lifted his index finger to his lips and gave them all the universal sign to not make a sound. He then retrieved the lifesign monitor from his jacket pocket and activated it. Skulls saw there were seven red dots on the machine's tiny screen. Jackson indicated with gestures which of the dots belonged to them, leaving the other three as being inside the suite.

Jackson then led them all back down the corridor until they'd turned the corner. Then he said lowly, "Okay, here's the plan. The monitor shows two of them are in the living area while the last one is in the bedroom. Skulls, you go in first. You're basically there to draw their attention, so engage in a bit of friendly small-talk. Now when you go inside, I want you to step toward the person closest to the door. That will force him or her to take a step back, allowing Racetrack and Blondie to enter the room on either side slightly behind you. Now ladies, you need to make certain you don't move alongside Skulls because he needs to be free to move to either his left or his right. Skulls, if someone in the room is armed, slide to either side to give me a lane to fire. If I'm forced to kill someone, I want you and Blondie to restrain the other person in the living area while Racetrack draws her weapon. She and I will go after the person in the bedroom. Racetrack, I want you to cover me; I'm going to assess whether we can capture that last target or not. Follow my lead, all right?" Skulls' pilot nodded her agreement. "Good. Any questions?" When no one offered up anything, Jackson grunted. "Let's go."

Once they'd reached the door and had sorted themselves out, Skulls gingerly tested the door knob and found it was unlocked. He gently turned the knob and pushed the door open. As he stepped through the threshold, he was confronted by a bespectacled, overweight man standing right in front of him. As the man shot a questioning look at him, Skulls glanced over the man's shoulder and scanned the room.

"So," the ECO observed as he spied a stack of pamphlets on a side table, "this is the headquarters for Demand Peace? Well, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Hamish McCall and these," he said while stepping forward, forcing the other man to retreat, and allowing Racetrack and Blondie to slip into the room, "are my associates."

At that point, Skulls' gaze shifted away from the other man's face to a tall, heavily tattooed woman clothed in combat fatigues. She wielded a Marine assault rifle, which, under normal circumstances would have probably intimidated the hell out of most people. However, she wasn't actually aiming her weapon at anyone, a fatal mistake, Skulls suspected, that Jackson was prepared to exploit. When he nonchalantly slid a bit to his right, he heard the sharp retort of a sidearm firing. Immediately, a small hole formed in the center of the armed woman's forehead before she'd even been aware of Jackson's presence. The bullet shattered the back of the woman's skull and splashed blood and gray matter all over the wall behind her. While the woman's dead body collapsed to the floor, he and Blondie wrestled the apoplectic man to the carpeted floor while Jackson and Racetrack raced toward the bedroom.

#

Racetrack had heard a startled gasp coming from the bedroom right after Jackson had killed the armed woman. When Jackson and she reached the opening to the other room, they spied a tall woman with dirty-blonde hair reaching to open the drawer of a night stand on the left side of the bed. "HALT!" Racetrack screamed as she raised her sidearm into firing position. "DON'T MOVE A FRAKKING MUSCLE!"

The woman flinched and half-turned just as Jackson's frame hit her like a freight train barreling into a sleek roadster.

His momentum smashed the frail-looking woman through the lamp on the night stand then into the far wall. Astonishingly, instead of slumping in agony on top of the night stand, the woman somehow managed to shake off the impact and threw a vicious right cross at the Fleet officer. However, before the blow could connect, Jackson launched his right forearm into the woman's left bicep, deflecting her attack and forcing her arm to swing up and back toward the wall with the headboard attached to it. Suddenly, he took a step toward his foe and used the back of his right fist to strike the rib cluster on the woman's right hand side. As the woman's body crunched forward from Jackson's blow, his open left hand whacked against her jaw bone, sending his opponent's eyeglasses flying across the room while the woman's seemingly boneless form crumbled down on top of the bed.

He, though, was still moving. He drew the hypo that Ian had given him from his jacket pocket, placed it against the senseless woman's neck and activated the device. Moments later, his opponent was completely down for the count.

As he prepared to restrain the anesthetized woman, he murmured, "Well, I'll be damned!"

"What is it, sir?"

He smiled slyly and shot a look of irony her way. "This woman, she's a Model Six Cylon!"

"She is? How the hell did you bring her down like that?"

He smirked at her. "Pressure points. Fortunately for us, they modeled these human form Cylons too closely to humans for their own good. It doesn't matter how strong you are, if a martial artist who knows how to strike pressure points can apply a series of strikes to those points before you can protect yourself, you're going down."

Keeping her gun on the apparently sedated woman, Racetrack moved a bit closer and studied their opponent's face. "Capain, I think she's the one who was imprisoned on the Pegasus!"

The smile ran away from his face then. "So, she's the prisoner who was sexually assaulted and tortured?"

Perhaps before she'd accepted Helo's relationship with a Cylon, Racetrack might have said it was impossible to sexually abuse or torture a frakking machine. However, after seeing a Cylon give birth to a child, she couldn't ignore the truth any longer. "I believe so, sir."

He simply stared at her for several moments before he said, "Then we'll take both her and the man out there and confine them in the Galactica's brig."

After he'd restrained the Six's feet and zip-tied her hands behind her back, they began to toss her room. When they opened her closet, they spied a sole piece of luggage inside. Jackson knelt down and carefully unzipped the bag. Then he sighed heavily. "Well, Racetrack, I think we've just found the Admiral's missing nuke."

She nodded woodenly. "Yes, sir. EOD should be here to take it home and put it to bed."

#

CIC of the Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet

"Galactica Actual, this is Racetrack. We have secured the package, over."

A relieved William Adama smiled while a broad grin dawned on Saul Tigh's face. The Thirteenth Tribe's spook had done it. That gods damned spook had come through for them! It was almost enough to make Adama believe the gods actually did exist!

"Racetrack," he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. "Please give my compliments to Captain Jackson and the rest of your team. You all did one hell of a job."

"Thank you, Actual," she said and paused for several moments before she continued, "Actual, we found the package in the hands of Demand Peace. And Actual, one of the people we've detained isn't a Colonial."

His eyes flew wide open at that. One of those terrorists was a frakking Cylon?! Now shaking his head, he growled, "Message received and understood, Racetrack. EOD should be almost at your location."

"Actual, they've just arrived."

"Good. Hand the package over to them and bring your 'guests' home, Racetrack. I'll make certain Tigh will arrange a warm welcome for them, over."

He heard the smile in her voice. "Copy that, Galactica Actual. See you back in the barn. Racetrack over and out!"

As he settled the phone back onto its cradle, Adama realized he needed to give that girl a promotion. First, she'd found a ship that had belonged to the Thirteenth Tribe. Now, she'd helped save the lives of thousands of their people and had kept a ship that produced most of the food for the fleet intact by finding the nuke before a Cylon infiltrator had used it.

And as for Jackson…well the Admiral hoped a vintage bottle of ambrosia would be a good start toward paying the debt of honor he owed the Thirteenth Tribe's spook.

#