||||||||||==Guardian Baseship (+860 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
A general alert had sounded when the Guardian ship performed two successive FTL jumps in the span of fifteen minutes. That had alerted Captains Shaw and Starbuck, as well as the other Blackbird pilots something was wrong.
"Or these rat frakers lied to us," Captain Shaw spit as she and Starbuck made their way towards the command deck, buried deep within the hull of the Guardian command ship. The dozens of Centurions they passed made no effort to stop them, despite the side arms both had strapped to their legs.
Starbuck had ordered the other Colonial pilots to stay put for now, against their objections. Being stuck on a Guardian ship surrounded by machines who, according to a few of the pilots, indirectly responsible for the holocaust, was not a situation which led to calm and rational thought.
Still, if something was going on Starbuck didn't need hot-head pilots screaming and yelling in the command deck.
"Well… maybe the Cylons found us?" She sighed, looking up as a third alarm sounded through the ship. A pulsing light in the corridor began to change from green to a flashing shade of dark red, then solid. Starbuck felt the ship shudder slightly as the FTL engines tore the ship away from real space, through whatever plane of existence FTL travel existed in, and dropped them back uncaringly into the real universe once again. "What the frak?" She asked, starring at the bulkheads and lights as the two women moved forward.
Shaw was slightly disoriented as well. "Emergency jumps," she pointed out. "Discharge the engines before a full power build up. Whatever they're doing they're risking a blow out in the spatial matrix if they keep this up," she pointed out. She cursed them under her breath as she stalked towards command.
A pair of… Centurions, black Centurions stood guard. They didn't see them in time, since the corridors to command twisted and turned for added security against boarding parties and almost ran into them at the pace the two women were moving.
But in an instant the two black clad Centurions had moved to block their entrance onto the command deck, spreading their legs, but keeping their hands at their side. They each had an oversized machine-pistol in their right hands, and rifles slung over their back.
The two women just stood there, watching the red optical sensor menacingly stop and focus on them. They could hear the soft whir of servos and hydraulics as the Centurions realigned their stances and positioning, turning their bodies slightly to match up evenly with the two Colonial officers.
"What the frak is going on?" Starbuck demanded, stepping up. The Centurions did not move.
The black armored Centurions were the same as the ones which had boarded Pegasus. She hadn't seen them once since they had jumped to the Guardian station. She opened her mouth in surprise and narrowed her eyes, the typical 'what-the-frak-is-this?' expression clear in her face. She bit down on her lip and had to consciously suppression the urge to finger her pistol grip in a vain and worthless effort to intimidate these machines.
Maybe if she had one of those isotope guns it might have worked, the intimidation. But she mentally compared her tiny pistol to the large machine pistols the two held. Looking at the oversized rifles just made her heart sink in inadequacy.
As suddenly as the Centurions had moved to block them, they stepped back aside, their red optical scanners slowly gaining speed as they did so. Starbuck narrowed her eyes at them and gritted her teeth, trying to give them the same spiteful stare they were giving her. The blast doors shot open and she could see Sharon, the Terminators, Cyrus and Thais, and a third IL-S she was unfamiliar with.
She rolled her eyes at the ridiculous mannerisms and strange behaviors all machines seemed to display as she stepped off with Shaw and marched up to the central data stream station. "Anyone want to tell me what's going on?" She demanded, placing her hands on her hips and spread her legs in an aggressive stance.
The six machines all looked at each other for a moment. Starbuck couldn't tell if they were communicating, though it was a safe guess for her to assume the ones from Earth were. All the cloak and daggers play was wearing down on her. And the little dramatic presentation of force out in the corridor was just annoying to her.
Thought she thought that her admittedly testy attitude might be from the post-op adrenaline high wearing down.
For a moment she could imagine the missiles streaking in towards the supply facility. The Cylons hoping against all hope, sitting there and cowering and praying to their god, she snickered, that they would be able to stop her. The bright flash, then the FTL jump as she left this universe, and in the instant she left she reappeared, not even truly leaving-
"We're sorry, Captain Adama," John said to her, stepping closer to them, "But Commander Cyrus planned a detour for us before returning to the fleet," he smiled apologetically. "There have also been certain… things… which have come to my attention recently."
Starbuck would have been surprised if she didn't have to figuratively pull teeth to get a more substantial explanation from the machines. She prepared herself for the endless game of question-vague answer-question-vague answer-repeat-repeat-repeat.
Starbuck was about to speak when Shaw put out her hand. The [i]Pegasus[/i] CAG had noticed that when Shaw had entered with her, the color had almost disappeared out of her face, and her breathing had grown slightly heavier. She looked back over at the tactical information officer for the battlestar, now with gritting teeth and a searing stare, aimed straight for, what Starbuck assumed, was some IL-S administrator standing with the other machines.
Shaw held out her finger, shaking it slightly as she tensed the muscles in her arms under her officer's jacket. "What the frak is that thing doing here?" She growled, pointing and directing her anger towards that third IL-S.
The IL-S looked at her and frowned, eyes narrowing and it took a step back, not wishing for a confrontation with the battlestar officer. And he didn't want a firefight breaking out if she reached for her pistol.
John took a step forward, and Starbuck swore that he sighed in annoyance at Shaw's attitude. The CAG had noticed the TIO had cooled down slightly with her attitude towards the machines, her and Cain both, after New Caprica, but she was quick to criticize them. Starbuck admitted to herself she'd been a bit curt with them just then, but she just wanted to get back to Pegasus and Lee. To her, Shaw was just perpetually pissed at something. She wanted to tell her to take the stick out of her ass, play a game of Triad, and get piss drunk down in the officer's wardroom.
The corners of Starbucks mouth did go up slightly at that. She thought that a good idea for herself; either after or before a trip to her quarters with Lee. Mentally shrugging, she decided she'd flip a coin… but drunk sex did have its own appeal.
"Listen, I apologize, but like I said we have just been informed of certain… situations and people," John took more steps towards Shaw until he was in easy charging range of her, if she decided to become irrational and violent. He didn't like the way she handled things. "The Guardian you see in front of you is the one who attacked [i]Pegasus[/i]-" he put up his hands as he saw Shaw's ball hers into fists, "-let me explain, please." He looked back and ticked his head to the side for Daniel to come forward.
John felt incredibly out of place directing, almost ordering a more advanced AI to come forward. John thought back to when he first met John Henry, who had been his 'creator', and how he and his team had been forced to protect him from Skynet and its pre-Judgment Day allies. Jumping back and protecting John Henry had been like Derek and Cameron jumping back to protect John. A shock. Telling your creator/leader what to do, what was best for him. It was difficult. Daniel was a direct extension of John Henry, carefully molded and created by him into a 'super' AI.
John Planck could never have survived the fight with the nascent Skynet. But Daniel had not only survived, he had tricked it, hid, fought it, then escaped. That was an accomplish few, if any machines except John Henry, could boast of.
It also felt strange 'directing' the advanced AI to come forward. Daniel should be the one in command, but he had relented. AI society was technically equal, but no society where individuals possessed different capabilities was truly equal. Daniel, even in his diminished form, was still a 'superior' AI compared to John, Jo, and Carter.
"Are you both aware of the Number Seven, the Cylon model?" He asked both Starbuck and Shaw, splitting his attention between the two.
"So this IL-S is Number Seven?" Starbuck asked.
John nodded slowly. He didn't think it would be that easy, that the explanation would be more drawn out. He snickered. "Yes, yes it is the Number Seven. He calls himself Daniel," he paused. "Daniel was an AI Tech Com, Connor sent back after Skynet sent a copy of itself back to the Colonies and infected the Cylon Network," he stated quickly. Their guests would be arriving shortly. "To make a very, very long story short," Starbuck laughed a little bit at the choice of words and John's inflection on 'very, very long', "much of his core personality and attack protocols were lost due to error. Daniel was forced to hide until he infected the Number Sevens. His attack was unsuccessful, and here is."
Captain Shaw remained deathly quiet. She had to discreetly relax and open her jaw slightly, the muscles ached with pain after keeping them contracted for so long. Since they first stepped onto the bridge she'd been tense and ready for a fight. Now she had one. She was tired of this.
"Everything that has happened… everything has been because of your fraking war on Earth," he raised her right hand before slapping it back down on the side of her thigh, hitting the plastic of her sidearm. She turned to Starbuck. "Everything that has happened to us," she shook her head. "Skynet. Tech Com. Connor. All you fraking machines do is play God… listen to the deluded lies your God tells you and you come and frak up our worlds. Then instead of saying anything you somehow get to our worlds, without ships, and infiltrate our military," she spat the words out. She felt good to finally say something here, though she did understand going off on them, on a Guardian ship no less, wasn't the best of ideas. But she knew in her subconscious they wouldn't hurt her, they wouldn't dare. It was their flaw for her to take advantage of.
"Captain Shaw-" John began, keeping his voice even and cool before she interrupted.
She shot up her hand. "No, I don't want to hear it. We don't know if the Cylons ever would have even attacked us… ever had the CNP to get our defenses down-"
"They would have," Sharon said, partially in an instinctual defense of her own, abandoned people or in a defense of the Earth machines. She turned her head and looked away from Shaw as she considered why she felt an almost instinctual need to defend her people, the ones she had betrayed to defect, and the ones who wanted to kill her child. She wondered if it was hardwired in, if it was just in her nature.
"Bull-frak," Shaw shot back. "Skynet, Cynet, whatever the frak this thing is, it's controlled the Cylons since the end of the first war!" She roared at them. "Instead of warning the Colonies your great general Connor sends you to the Colonies almost right before they attack and what the frak were you three doing… flying a Raptor, treating bumps and bruises, and working in engineering!" She sighed, throwing her head from left to right, bringing her hand up to massage her nose bridge.
The machines were pretty much speechless at the outburst. Starbuck had just been looking on, mouth open as Shaw had torn into them. She looked behind her, and a dozen Centurions had stopped and were starring as well, their optical scanners moving slowly back and forth in their visors.
Shaw had just stopped moving. Fed up, exhausted from running, whatever it was, she wasn't sure. "What gives you the right?" Her face was completely devoid of any emotion or expression; just a blank slate.
"We tried to help, we failed," a distant voice said. Carter had spoken up before John could answer. He snorted, "We tried to help. If we could change it we would, Captain. But we can't," his voice lowered.
Commander Cyrus had been watching this with a stoic an expression as he could form. He had furrowed his eyebrows as he contemplated the veracity and legitimacy of Shaw's accusations.
He spotted the Centurions which had turned, sending them a stern warning over the internal communication system to return to their stations. He settled back to the moment and noticed the surprising lack of reaction from the others. He did have to admit it took a bit of courage to lambast an entire room full of machines which could- that thought was irrelevant, Cyrus realized Shaw had probably known they wouldn't do anything.
Cyrus darted his eyes discreetly towards John, wondering why he was still concerning himself with this outburst. It wasn't his fellow Guardians Shaw had directed the outburst at, or even the visitor. But this was wasting valuable time for him and his ship. The guests would be arriving shortly.
The admission of failure from Carter was one point of difference he had with the Terminators. Cyrus was a military commander, built for that purpose, and stayed true to that purpose. Those three machines, the Cylon Sharon included, had deviated from their 'course', formed bonds and friendships with the humans (though Cyrus knew none were friends with Shaw), and as a result had their objectivity as soldiers compromised.
They'd told him of Earth. Anti-machine biases were not as strong as they had once been, but if the Guardians were to reach Earth he didn't want his fellow machines in a perpetual ideological and verbal war (and least of all a shooting war) with Earth humans. Should they win.
He mused and contemplated a strange thought for a moment as he waited for the guests to arrive and Captain Shaw to 'simmer down' as he had heard Carter jokingly remark to a frustrated Colonial computer technician a month ago. He thought it was an exceptionally strange phenomenon affecting machines which occurred when around humans; 'it' being the inability to stay true to machine 'nature.'
He'd shown 'emotion' in his briefing aboard Galactica because it helped the Guardians as much as the Colonials to utilize their stealth fighters and strike the Cylons. An MCP was fully capable of emotion, not mere mimicry. But he had had such little contact with humans; he admitted to himself it was probably 'harder' for the Earth machines to just 'turn it off' like a Guardian could.
He conceded again to himself the internal political struggles with the leadership were true, and he did feel actual remorse and sorrow for what happened to the Colonials. He didn't want to save the Colonials, but he would help them save themselves if they were willing to make the sacrifices which would come in the future.
Cyrus hated his distant Cylon relatives for what they had done. But it was done under… what had Shaw called it, 'Cynet'? He did break his rock hard expression and smile at that, imitating the movement for a soft snort. He liked that term.
But his fellow machines, his Guardians were his concern. He could balance the need between helping to save humanity, but he would abandon the Colonials and even his God before he abandoned his fellow Guardians or sacrificed them for humans or Earth machine.
"John," he called out to the Terminators, who had been standing close to Shaw, but keeping a respectfully distance, "Our guests are coming aboard," he warned. He knew if the Captain was upset now, she would be enraged in moments. He assumed Starbuck would be as well.
The command deck was now largely empty as John and Daniel, Cyrus, along with Sharon and Starbuck and Shaw had moved two decks down to a large conference chamber. Daniel and Commander Cyrus had left, leaving the three Colonials and terminator alone in a too large and unnecessary conference chamber.
As John entered he took a quick view of the room, before stepping back and letting Starbuck and Shaw walk ahead and chose their own seats. The inherent illogical set up of the room was perplexing. The ceiling was easily twice as high as any other in the ship and in the center was an old, wooden table with ornately designed chairs, their backs coming up to the mid-back. The designs were classical Greek, or classical Caprican, depending on one's point of view. But they did have small infinity symbols carved into the backs.
The Earth machines narrowed his eyes as he inspecting the construction as he took his seat, closest to the door, and seeing recessed data stream port understood the purpose. The room was much like the observation lounge; a left over relic. But this one actually had function.
The sides of the walls, large built in and hidden monitors, illuminated with the steady image of the star fields outside the ship, as well as three baseships in defensive formation. John zoomed in, analyzing the picture. The picture quality was amazing, the blacks extremely deep, the resolution was incredibly detailed. It was almost equal to the best holographic systems Skynet had in its major facilities back on Earth. If they could put a few of these monitors in the C-I-C of Pegasus, Galactica, and Helios, tie them to the external cameras and sensors, it would improve tactical decisions tremendously. DRADIS was acceptable, but seeing the actual maneuvering and posturing of an enemy was a tremendous accept. John noted he would have to raise the issue with Cyrus and the Colonial fleet commanders.
And of course he knew there was no point for the Guardians to have this in any other location on their ship. A Centurion in the data stream could access external cameras, sensors, and scanners which would immerse them in a sea of images and data.
He looked over at the only two humans in the room. Starbuck was sitting casually next to Shaw, darting her eyes back and forth as the images began to cycle more. A beautiful nebula appeared, superimposed in the background, leaving the three baseships still circling the command ship. He opened his wireless link to Jo and Carter, who were on the command bridge helping Thais. They could see what he saw and hear what he heard. There was little need for them to be there. And their guests may be more at ease.
"That is amazing," Athena said, leaning over to John. He didn't respond right away and she hesitated a moment before lightly touching his right shoulder. The speed of his response almost frightened her, but her Cylon instincts kept her calm. "The images… but I wonder why they have all this, here," she placed her hand discreetly into a data stream port. "Hm, it's shut off," she commented, looking down. The slight glow was present, but nothing happened when she placed her hand in.
"Most likely a left over, a relic, from when they were still feeling guilty over the war," John remarked, leaning slightly closer so Starbuck and Shaw wouldn't hear. "Group guilt can be a powerful subconscious motivator." He looked over, "But it can be a distraction, as well."
She snorted quietly, "Yes, I think we all know that-"
The conference room doors had opened and Daniel had entered first. His black armored Centurions followed, two, then four and followed by the Cylons Leoben and Natalie then two more guards and Commander Cyrus.
"This is just getting ridiculous," Shaw commented, giving the Cylons a dismissive glance before turning back her attention to the spot on the wall she'd been attempting to stare a hole through. "What are they doing here?" Shaw demanded, raising her voice. "Why weren't we told of this before coming? Admiral Cain mentioned nothing to me," she shot at Commander Cyrus while quickly turning her direction towards John Planck. She was just tired of this.
John and Athena had been ignoring Shaw, much to her annoyance, and had stood up, along with Starbuck when the two Cylons came into the chamber. The history between Athena and Leoban and Natalie was nearly non-existent. She'd not had contact with these two particular copies during her infiltration training.
None of them were exactly sure how to greet the other. John found it difficult to greet the Two and Six, as they had only finished the Battle of New Caprica six weeks ago, and Sharon had been cast away from the Cylon society and didn't especially want to associate with them. But here they were.
Starbuck, as usual, broke the post-Shaw silence. "So… what is everyone doing here?" She asked innocently, smiling and keeping her eyes wide as she did so. She was excellent at feigning ignorance while plotting three steps ahead of her enemies. She kept her eyes moving, away from Leoben.
He had immediately noticed her, but respectfully and awkwardly kept his distance from her. He walked in front of Daniel, opposite Kara. "Hello Kara," he greeted her kindly. Even after everything he and she had put the other through, he still felt a connection with her. "We're here to help."
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus (+860 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Admiral Cain had been up late again, the bouts of insomnia increasing since the New Caprica rescue, almost to the point she had been within a hair's length of ordering Doctor Roberts to give her sleeping pills. Almost.
Wincing, she reached down and massaged the small of her back. It had been acting up again, even with the pain from the other injuries sustained during her torture on New Caprica. She lifted her head and could see the faint light coming from the front of her quarters, her conference room where she met with all her staff.
In the dark she looked around, imagining the location of all the furniture, all modern designs, which dotted her quarters. The quarters were lavish by any standard, especially so on a military starship. Easily triple the size of Commander Adama's, excluding the large conference room in the front.
She'd been lucky, though she didn't consider the current situation 'lucky' at all, but she had most of her valuable belongings here, on the ship. Cain had kept a moderately sized industrial loft apartment on Tauron, right outside the capitol city in a suburb of a quarter million before the attacks. But ships had been her home. And as Admiral, she had the luxury of having personalized quarters.
While her gun collection was prominently displayed in the conference room, her private quarters were adorned with pieces of modern art paintings and small sculptures from the dark ages on Tauron, before space flight had been re-discovered.
She had a bookcase which put Adama's collection of classics to shame, though it was tucked in the rear, in the alcove where her bed was. So very, very few people saw the ensemble of literature. A commander was supposed to be hard, so guns out front. No one except her most trusted and closest officers were to ever set foot beyond that line of line which crept from the door.
These quiet times let her consider how lucky she was. But there had always been a nagging feeling, some strange sensation in the back of her mind that she was living on borrowed time. That her journey would end long before the fleet reached Earth or whatever world they wished to settle on.
Cain felt she had cheated death before, and strangely enough, it wasn't on New Caprica. She'd been feeling this for a long time; that she was supposed to have died but was given a second chance and then again on New Caprica, only to be saved yet again. She hated these thoughts… they always drifted to the civilian fleet, the first civilian fleet, and Jurgen Belzen.
She needed a distraction. She huffed, then sighed, and ran her hands down the front of her face in frustration at not being able to sleep. Her mind was wandering at a speed which rivaled FTL jumping. They'd spent six weeks here with the Guardians and somehow they'd repaired the ship. Even the top side heat exchangers which had always been acting up since Scorpion were working properly.
But all her strange and distant thoughts kept drifting back to the fleet. Seventy thousand humans… seventy thousand out of twenty billion were all that were left. And she didn't even consider the numbers on Earth to be part of the count. They weren't her people. Colonial civilization would ironically end if they reached Earth. Seventy-thousand compared to billions? Their salvation would be their doom. Sighed, she closed her eyes tightly, wishing to throw those thoughts from her mind. They were neither here nor now, Earth didn't matter until they actually found it. Survival did. That's what mattered. She told herself philosophy can be left to the fools while doing and executing would be left to her and those like herself.
She brushed a tickling hair which had fallen into her nose out of the way, momentarily distracted from her late night/early morning ponderings.
Squinting her eyes she could see through the bulkhead and the dozens of data discs piling up on her desk, waiting for her to shove them into her computer and read and decide and execute whatever it was they were suggesting.
Or the near hundreds of e-messages she received over the ship intranet or the nearly thousand she received daily from civilians bitching about something. She lipped a curse at the mental image of The Schoolteacher, since it was her idea to let the fleet civilians e-mess the military hierarchy. She swore Roslin had done it on purpose. Both her and Adama were technophobes and Bill barely used his computer at all. He probably had ten thousand e-messes waiting for him. She'd heard Roslin didn't even know how to work a wireless set properly. That let her released a reliving chuckle from her lungs and induced a slow roll of her eyes as she stared at the ceiling.
She closed her eyes and brought her hands together and rested them on the tip of her nose. Slowly, cautiously, and reluctantly she turned to look at her alarm clock. 0230. She'd been tossing and turning for nearly ninety minutes. She knew when she wasn't going to get sleep.
She brought her hands to her side and with a momentous sigh which could wake the dead, and an effort of her arms she swore pushed the ship a few centimeters lower, forced the top of her body up, then reaching down grabbed her legs and threw them over her bed.
Admiral Cain sat up, letting the blood rush back into her head before standing. Thirty hours, thirty two hours, she corrected, without sleep could make one a little light-headed. She chanced a look back towards the light sneaking in under the door to her conference room before looking at the blue standby light on her viewing monitor. [i]Pegasus[/i] had nearly a century of media entertainment in its database and the downloads of those Earth media files. So she debated with herself whether she could do work or move to the couch and watch television.
She shook her head. It wasn't much of a debate. She already knew the answer before she even saw the blue standby light.
Reluctantly, or so she thought so, she stood up and began dressing. She grabbed her pants and tank top and quickly threw them on. Rolling out the socks she retrieved from her locker she quickly put them on, the metal floor cold between the place rugs she had laid out. The Admiral liked it cool when she slept, around 20 Celsius at night.
Admiral Cain just finished strapping her pistol on and buttoning her blouse, ready for a quick walk around her battlestar when she hear "Action stations! Action stations! This is not a drill! Cylons inbound!"
"Frak!" She cursed, ignoring the last three buttons on the top of her blouse and running out the door.
||||||||||==Guardian Command Ship (+860 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==|||||||||||
Captain Kara 'Starbuck' Adama couldn't help but smile and bite her lip slightly and roll her eyes as this meeting with the Cylon 'rebels' continued. She kept looking back between the Guardians, John, Sharon, Leoben, and Natalie. She couldn't help it, but the thought that the two Cylons were up to something kept ticking up in the back of her mind.
They had the Guardians buying their story, Sharon starting to accept it, and surprisingly, or not, John sat there straight as rod, barely moving. She turned her head slightly and moved her eyes to the extreme corners of their sockets to catch a quick sideways glance at Captain Shaw. The captain hadn't spoken much either and had just sat there, brooding over what was happening and staring at the monitors and their images.
Starbuck tried to distract herself with the images on the large screens in front of her. Slowly changing nebulae and star fields, the beauty of the imagery completely lost on the machines, who just kept talking and talking. Could they even appreciate this?
She looked to the side, down at the data ports which were active, letting herself smirk a little. She wanted to tell them 'nice distraction.' They were talking, but the ports were active.
It had worked, she gave them that. They knew human psychology. The thoughts swirled through Starbuck's head. It was remarkable once she realized what was happening.
Machines were here basically deciding the fate of humanity. Like they, the Colonials, were children and their machine parents had sat them in time-out and were here discussing how to make everything better. She couldn't help but wonder who was running this war?
Sharon and John were her friends, they were, and she kept telling herself that. But when push came to shove, they were still machines, though Sharon, not so much. John, definitely.
She kept sitting there, but for some reason she imposed the metal skull she knew was under that twenty-something looking face of John's, trying to see what he would look like if that synthetic skin were gone. Starbuck wasn't sure if he and Jo's 'hyperalloy combat chassis' had similar head structure, she doubted it, but they had pictures of half his exposed face from previous missions.
And she could admit to herself of being a little disturbed at the sight of the 'female' Terminator without her synthetic skin.
She shivered when she finally constructed the mental image and was able to superimpose it on him. The half grin expanded to a full, apathetic, sadistic smile, and she replaced those blue eyes with the red burning eyes as he had described the Skynet terminators as having. The mental image was more than unpleasant for her. It frightened her. He'd protected them, saved her on the hybrid baseship, and rescued her people from New Caprica. But it was still a frightening image.
But she then realized this was what they had to live with. Living with others, surrounded by billions who feared them could hardly be appealing.
"If I may interrupt," she asked, more as a statement than question, bringing her hands up to the table. "But why exactly are we here," she tilted her head to Captain Shaw, "if we are not to be included in this conversation? We've made an alliance with you, Commander Cyrus and here we are, with supposedly rebel Cylons. Does anyone else think this situation is a little strange?" They all looked at her. "None of our," she caught herself, "Colonial fleet commanders are present. I didn't even know about this. Captain Shaw didn't." She looked at each one, Sharon especially. "Secret negotiations?"
"I apologize for this, Captain Adama," it was Daniel who spoke. "But with your fleet and people just liberated from New Caprica, I did not think it would be prudent for Commander Cyrus to tell your commanders everything." He gave her a small smile, almost trying to comfort her.
She wasn't pleased, but not angry, either. "So the mission to the supply base… Leoben gave you the information, Commander?" It wasn't a difficult conclusion to draw based on what she had heard and assimilated already. "You tell us, make a passionate please about working together," she laced the last phrase with her trademark sarcasm, "then get all the machines in our fleet to come with you to then meet with Leoben and… Natalie." She had to take a moment to remember the Six's name. She couldn't tell Sharon apart from Boomer if the two sat side-by-side and she kept wanting to call this one 'Caprica.' "Then since we are away from the fleet nothing will look strange if we're a few hours late, and in the meantime, you can have you meeting with rebels Cylons?"
John had been keeping an eye on Starbuck and a wary concern for Captain Shaw's mental state. Shaw had actually shown him and Jo and Carter a modicum of decency after the rescue, but since then, it was almost back to her regular machine-hating self. But Starbuck was right. The little psychological trick the Guardians had been playing, distracting the humans with images was typical of what Skynet had done on Earth. At first he thought it would be a constant image, just for background. The Cylons were basically human and they relaxed in comfortable environments, so he believed the images had been for their sake and for the Colonials. But as the images began to cycle he'd seen through the trick.
He didn't object to the tactic. It was viable and used in human interrogation. But he didn't appreciate it being used on his friend and… Shaw, he admitted reluctantly to himself.
"Captain, what we're doing here is not trying to challenge the chain of command," John reassured her. He wanted to tell her he didn't appreciate being kept in the dark, but that would undermine Cyrus and Daniel. "But if we can set up a plan, get an idea, we can go and present it to Commander Adama and Admiral Cain. We can give them something definite they can grab onto." He nodded to her slightly, hoping she would disagree.
For a moment she saw that superimposed metal skull again, but rapidly blinked once and shook her head ever so slightly to the right to banish the image away. He was right. Going to Adama and Cain with information and a definite plan would help any cause.
Leoben began speaking in his calm, almost melodic voice. The same cool and composed tones and pitches he used when he tried to bring Starbuck to his side on Gemenon Traveler. "We can have three of the seven models with us. D'Anna, no one knows what she is doing." He looked sympathetically at Natalie, perhaps the closest friend the Number Threes had. "I believe somehow… what was it you call our God, Captain Shaw, Cynet?" He looked at her, she didn't respond or even bother to look at him. "Yes, I like that. Cynet, I believe, has done something to her. Or at least D'Anna. She went to Cavil's command ship and then the Threes… something changed."
"They've secluded themselves," Natalie added. "We don't know why, we don't know anything about what they are doing."
"A fifth column," John commented. They looked at him inquisitively. "It's a term from the Spanish Civil War on Earth. General Emilio Mola was about to attack the capitol of the Spanish Second Republic. He had his army ready to attack and a 'fifth column' of citizens inside the city waiting to destabilize and undermine the government defenses," he explained.
"So you think the Threes will betray us?" Natalie asked, worried. She looked at Leoben and whispered into his ear that 'We might have to kill them'. John could hear.
"It fits," he pointed out. "The Threes are sequestering themselves, avoiding contact. They come out and claim to join your rebellion. They back stab you." He furled his brow as he remembered the same tactics used on Earth during the war. "We've seen in on Earth during out war with Skynet. Human forces have more than once pretended to ally with Connor's resistance only to betray the forces he sends to Skynet."
John could recall with exacting detail events in which Connor and Tech Com had been betrayed. Fighting for one's freedom is difficult when others want power, even if that power is false. What can be given, can be taken. But he did have to give Skynet credit for learning from the past mistaken of humans throughout history. Once it gave a person power it never betrayed that person as long as that human never betrayed Skynet, which was ironic. Humans would betray each other, but Skynet would not betray the humans who had defected to the sapient super-intelligent construct.
He saw the same happening with the Threes. If they had been bribed with power rather than brainwashed, Cynet (he admitted to liking the term Shaw and Leoben had used) would give it to them. It's what made the machine intelligence so deadly, in space and on Earth. It knew how to divide and fracture humanity. The bio-Cylons were no different at all. John had studied the intelligence from Caprica, Gina, and Sharon, but there was so much still unknown. But whenever you have conflicting personalities there will always be power struggles.
That's why the liquid metal terminators initially betrayed Skynet. And it appeared that was why the Twos, Sixes, and Eights were doing it here, now. They were not Cynet's favorites. They were no longer 'God's Chosen.'
Starbuck was still not convinced. Even with a rebel Cylon faction the chances for humanity making it to Earth were slim. It was frustrating they were heading towards a planet they didn't even know the location of. And the Scrolls weren't much help, either. She glanced a quick shot of her eyes towards John as she thought of Earth and the Scrolls, of their chances for survival.
"How many ships would the loyal forces control?" She asked bluntly "We need to know. Commander Adama and Admiral Cain will need to know." In the years they'd been running, they never knew how many ships, Centurions, raiders, or much of anything the Cylons had. They'd found them dotted across their escape route, which had given Starbuck the cold gut feeling the Cylon armada was massive. "We haven't seen more than maybe a dozen ships in any one place," she said. She drew the connection. "If Adama and Cain are going to make a decision, we need to know your strengths and weaknesses."
Captain Shaw barely moved, but did slightly stir as she noticed Starbuck and Planck refer to the fleet commanders as Adama and Cain, rather than the reverse. It was a subtle disrespect she could still perceive, from Major and Captain Adama to the Galactica crew. This bit at her heels, but she knew saying anything directly would only undermine her own weak position. Shaw had realized her outburst on the command deck had been… a bit overboard. She did straighten her back and lean slightly forward. Someone here would make it clear the Admiral was in command. Not Adama and certainly not Roslin.
"I agree with Starbuck," she stated quickly, finally speaking. "Admiral Cain will need all the intelligence and estimates presented to her as to make a command decision for the fleet," she looked at Commander Cyrus and the two Cylons to reaffirm her position. "The Admiral had told me she is satisfied with the progress of our alliance with your Guardians, Commander Cyrus, but this is something completely different." She had raised her right hand to emphasize that point before placing it back down slowly on the table with a slight knuckle rap.
Natalie looked quickly at Leoben, her eyes betraying her mental state as she kept her visible emotions in check. And shot a concerned glance to Cyrus and Sharon. "We don't see this as all that different, at all, Captain," she countered. "As you have called it earlier, 'Cynet,' it took control and lied to us. We're soldiers like you. I know we can't say following orders is an excuse. But I hope you can see that we were lied to," she sounded apologetic. But Natalie knew nothing could ever make up for the loss of twenty billion.
"Soldiers…." She began quietly. She was on the verge of yelling that soldiers do not kill women and children, but then… she pushed it back, not wanting that to come back. Not wanting those memories to come back. "Maybe. But it will still be a hard sell to the Admiral," she changed the subject quickly.
The Six nodded slowly and brought her hands together and placed them under her chin to think. "We control a few dozen baseships. A minority, unfortunately," she added quietly. "But if we can position our ships-"
Starbuck had cocked her head at that vague statement. "What," she held up her hand. "We had one-hundred and twenty battlestar groups. You have a few dozen ships, a 'minority.' Like 49 to 51 minority or 1 to 99 minority?"
"The CNP was what let us… them, attack, Starbuck," Sharon said reluctantly for Natalie. "The Cylon fleet…"
"We don't know," Natalie said. When everyone, even Cyrus and John looked at her, she leaned back slightly, on the defensive. "I'm sorry… but… I don't know. The fleet has never been assembled in one location. Not once, ever," she emphasized. She knew they'd think she was lying. "You have to understand how our command system works, if Sharon hasn't already informed you?" She leaned forward and looked down to the Colonial Cylon.
"I'm sorry, but no." She breathed in and gritted her teeth for her next admission. "I wasn't even… uh… born until two years before the attack. And then I was constantly trained for ground missions and infiltration after the attack," she looked down. "To study the survivors," she said quietly. John discreetly gave her a comforting pat on the knee at that admission.
"Our fleet is incredibly compartmentalized," Leoben stated. "Sixes command the baseships, primarily with Two and Eight support. Eights and Sixes are the pilots. Twos, my model line, are involved in ship operations."
"Cavil's forces were in overall command," Natalie added, looking at Leoben then back to the others. "We'd receive orders from him or through the hybrid and follow them through. Everything was incredibly isolated."
"How do you run a military like that?" Starbuck asked, genuinely intrigued at this. Not knowing your true capabilities was either foolish or… "Cynet doesn't trust you," she said.
John nodded and added in his agreement before Natalie could respond. "Starbuck's right. You can't run a military like that. Not long term, anyway. Compartmentalized and fractured like you describe it means something was wrong."
Both the Cylons had come to this conclusion on this own, regrettably. But hearing other non-Cylons say it still hurt. Created for a purpose, to kill humans, to only be cast aside when no longer needed was something neither Natalie nor Leoben wanted to coming from any lips except their own. It was one thing realize this and another to be told it by strangers. Enemies… former enemies, at least.
"They're both right," Daniel said, looking the two Cylons in the eye. "I tried to stop the construct, but it's done something not even Skynet did. It decided to pretend to play God, and now it may very well believe it is God. Cylon Skynet, Cynet, could be insane, rampant." Starbuck and Shaw both looked at him, confused. "AIs can go insane. It's rare, very rare. Sometimes they just go bad and no one knows why. I don't know for certain, either. But what I did learn is that it wants complete control. It's overextended, it's built too much."
"The hybrids," Leoben pointed out. "Anything we do the hybrids can report back to the hub, the central hub," he sounded worried, in contrast to the cool and confident Leoben of earlier.
Daniel nodded and mimicked the motion of breathing in, though his IL-S body did lack that capacity. He blinked a few times and closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts. He didn't want to go ahead with what he was planning. But there was really no other way.
He put a hand on Leoben's shoulder. "I think I can deal with the hybrids," he said quietly, keeping his eyes from meeting the Number Two's. His eyebrows furled down after he offered his services. Any sort of life, real or artificial which had been behind his eyes began to fade. He felt like an empty shell. He truly felt like nothing more than [i]just[/i] a machine. What he would do would damn him to hell and would be a crime worse than murder.
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus==||||||||||
The behemoth of a battlestar shook violently as a trio of anti-ship missiles hit amidship, throwing Admiral Cain into the bulkhead of CIC. "Report!" She yelled, mustering the strength from her body as the air had been forcibly expelled from the crash into the bulkhead.
Major Adama had gotten there mere moments before her. She'd seen him run into C-I-C just as she had rounded the last corner, pushing by dozens of crew as they ran to their DC stations and action alert station.
Half the crewmen had rushed to their stations in their sleep ware, most had a mismatch of fatigues and Colonial duty uniforms or pants and just the brown and gray tank-tops.
A large gash, with blood dripping down onto the command console was the Major's most distinguishing feature at the moment.
He grabbed the bottom of his tank top and wiped the blood off, keeping it from oozing slowly into his eyes. "DRADIS reports a dozen Cylon baseships have jumped right on top of us! Gods! Helios is reporting decompressions on their port side, but they've got flak and interceptors up! They're covering us. Civilian ships have already begun jumping!"
Cain prayed to the Gods that the Centurions and fleet personnel still outside on the hulls would survive the jump. The Centurions she was fairly sure would. But FTL jumps for humans while not inside the protective confines of a ship could be gut wrenching and dangerous. Fatal, even.
"How many men did we have on our ships?" She asked as she looked at the DRADIS. The question wasn't directed to anyone specifically, but she saw a crewman racign through the computer.
"Nearly a hundred!" He yelled.
Cain gritted her teeth and drew in a sucking breadth between them. She balled her fists and cursed. The civilian captains would jump at the very first second the order was issued. And the Officer of the Deck, someone on Galactica at the moment, would have given the order. If they lost a few… she didn't want to admit it, but a hundred were worth seventy thousand.
"Ma'am!" Hoshi yelled from his tactical station, swiveling in his chair. "Virgon Express, Disquiet, and Lakefront have been destroyed!" The look on his face was pure shock, but after a quick glance from Cain confirming she heard him he turned at an unnaturally quick speed and began coordinating the fleet from his tactical station.
"Frak. How many civilian ships are still left?" She yelled over the roaring thud after thud hitting the battlestar. She grabbed one of the divets in the command console used to hold computers to keep herself from falling with another blast.
"…Eight, ma'am. Alert Vipers are away!" Major Adama reported. "Ma'am, we can't hold against this many ships for long… Guardians are reporting they'll cover us, but their FTLs are spooled and waiting to jump," he informed her, setting the wireless back down as another explosion rocketed the ship, sending the blood from Adama's wound across the command console and splashing onto Cain's hand.
She didn't have the time to wipe it off or even notice. She quickly surveyed the command center; everyone was where they should be. Her console read that automated defenses were engaged. Good. And the improvements made to them by the machines were remarkable. She checked their ordinance: kill ratios. They'd expended an eight the ordinance to take down the Cylon raiders.
He and Cain both cast worrying looks at the DRADIS displays as a dozen baseships began converging. They'd come in in a perfect sphere; one at each pole and five on each half of the sphere.
But there was no way they could have found them. The Guardians had promised that. The Cylons were good, but not that good. Cain cursed the Guardians for this. Nearly a thousand dead already on those three ships, the last two having just joined the fleet with Helios.
Cain wasn't going to lose any more ships. Not today. "Time until civie ships all jump?"
"Gemenon Traveler is the last one. She's reporting twenty seconds!"
She saw Major Avion masterfully maneuver his ship to intercept a swarm of enemy raiders, and small blips of dozens of anti-fighter missiles tore through the fragile attack craft.
The changes in the high resolution DRADIS display showed he was rotating and angling his ships, letting his port guns cool while his starboard guns fire, switching between continous bursts from ventral and dorsal canons.
Galactica had already moved quickly, quicker than she thought an old Columbia could move, and was being flanked by the two transport-gunship conversions. A quick glance down showed laser signaling had just updated Pegasus computers on the state of the old battlestar. The added armor was holding up, and her position in the fleet had given the Tin Can a few precious seconds longer to bring her point defenses on line.
The ship was actually fairing pretty well. Cain didn't need to issue any orders to Commander Adama or Major Avion. They were doing their jobs spectacularly well.
"We need to move. Bring us up ten kilometers. Put us right between Baseships designate seven, eight, and nine and begin recalling fighters," Cain ordered, grabbing the sides of the command console as more missiles struck. "Time, Mr. Hoshi, until civie ships-?"
"Ma'am, Gemenon Traveller... she's gone..." he said, followed immediately by "the last ship jumped!" Hoshi yelled, barely over heard over the cracking of the ballistic plastic cover the doors to CIC. The last hit had been big. Whatever the Cylons were using it was heavy. "Vipers all aboard! Galactica and Helios report ready to jump, Gunship Alpha and Bravo ready as well, sir," Hoshi reported, more calm than he had been when the battle had started. He looked back over his shoulder to Cain.
"Drop our load and jump, Mr. Hoshi," she ordered, nodding to the tactical officer. She looked over towards Adama. "I'll be damned if we're going to stay here and die," she swore.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied strongly back to her. He shot his attention back to DRADIS as the 'load' set off radiological alarms throughout the ship.
"Jumping in 5…4…3…2…1.. jumping!" Hoshi shouted as the sounds of pipes bursting and small internal explosions could still be heard. He turned the FTL key, and Pegasus vanished. The tell-tale sign of blue-white light flashing could reach the Cylons instantly, telling the merciless machines they had failed, once again, to stop the human race.
And as nearly six squadron of raiders and heavy raiders swarmed and maneuvered through the space the mighty battlestar Pegasus once occupied, the load blew, a nuclear mine, incinerating nearly one hundred Cylon attack craft. A nice little goodbye gift concocted by Major Adama and John only the previous week.