||||||||||==BS-75 Galactica (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Civilizations clung to what they knew when faced with calamity. The Colonies had been insistent on carrying on their democratic traditions while on Earth, many of the leaders in office during Judgment Day remained in office until killed, natural death, or they had stepped down. Political bodies still existed on Earth and for the most part, governed the civilian refugee centers well. But machines avoided politics like thermite.
Unfortunately, Jo Soto was embroiled in the current political discussion gripping the Colonial remnant. She was facing everything from accusations of species-ism (she was perversely flattered the anti-machine delegates considered the machines a species, but had no doubt the irony would be too much for them to understand), to sabotage of the food supply, to collusion with the Cylons or Guardians.
She had her defenders. The Caprican, Scorpia, and Tauron delegates were generally the stalwart defenders of the machines, and ironically, allies of President Roslin. The Picon delegate had recently been more quiet in support, but was fairly reliable.
Surprisingly the Virgon delegate, Marshall Bagot, was cautiously supporting Soto as well. The others, with the exclusion of Leonis and Aquaria, were hostile to the machine.
The terminator had access to a staggering amount of data concerning politics. However, an academic understanding of politics often failed when put into practical use. Soto knew humans were very unpredictable.
"What we need to concentrate on is how we are going to get out of this situation!" Marshall Bagot declared, gesturing forcefully with a knife-like hand. He turned to Commander Adama. "Commander, I know you want to look for Pegasus, but as the ranking officer in the fleet, we need to search for food. Every Raptor is needed, Commander."
Over at the podium Colonel Tigh leaned in to Commander Adama and whispered, "We could alleviate he food shortage if we blow the politicians out the airlock."
Commander Adama smirked, blowing out through his nose to hide his chuckling. "I think that's my cue," he whispered back.
The stoic commander took a step to the podium, excusing himself as he slid behind Zarek and beside the president.
"The foot shortage is being addressed. We were just briefed on it a few hours ago… Doctor Cottle also believes any of the medical symptoms," he leaned back and pulled out a yellow sheet of paper, "…we have outlined here and distributed to all of you… if the symptoms appear it is imperative to seek medical treatment. A simple shot. If the infections spread it could be much worse and treatment would be much more invasive and unpleasant," he warned.
The Sagittaron delegate, Jeremiah Runes, shook his head. "Before I came over there are already half a dozen Sagittarons affected."
Commander Adama mentally rolled his eyes. "Then see Doctor Cottle and he will send a nurse to distribute the medications."
Runes glared at the Commander with a knife-like gaze. "A shot… modern medicine? No," he shook his head.
Colonel Tigh could be heard grunting something about 'supertitious frakers', but Commander Adama discreetly kept his XO from making a scene by touching him on the elbow.
"Doctor Cottle says the risk of death is increased fifteen fold without the medication. The medication will save anyone as long as it is taken in a timely manner."
The Commander was considering forcing Sagittarons to take the medication. He didn't care what their religious beliefs were. He wouldn't sit by and led hundreds die in a worse case scenario.
Before Runes could speak, the Picon delegate, Jiri Martin spoke. "We're down to only a month or so of rations, correct?" Adama nodded at the approximation. "So what are we going to do? My ship captain told me we are in a fairly barren region of space… no planets for dozens of lights years in any direction. Are the Guardians going to be helping us?" He asked expectantly.
Adama breathed in and slowly released. It was unlikely the Guardians would help.
"I don't know at this point in time. We're still assessing the situation…" with an attempt to not sound patronizing he added, "and since they don't eat they don't have food on their ships."
Runes half-heartedly nodded at the obvious explanation.
The Caprican delegate, recently appointed, Evzan Mikos raised his left hand, waiting for the Vice President to call on him.
The man was a stickler for procedure and courtesy. Mikos had been the executive officer on one of the ships which had accompanied Helios, the heavy liner Sunshine. Before that he had served seven years in the Colonial Fleet aboard the destroyer Kremasta and the cruiser Stratos.
Sunshine was a tightly run ship with high morale. He kept the ship occupants busy and cycled them through jobs on the liner to keep them occupied and to allow his deckhands and technicians time to rest. He had taken a proactive approach to retraining many of the well-off passengers into learning new technical skills.
"Thank you, Mr. Vice President," Mikos began. He rose and buttoned the middle button of his black suit and patted back his brown, gray streaked hair. His appearance was, as usual, immaculate. "There have been concerns from my constituents about what will take priority… finding Pegasus or finding food? How are we going to deal with that?"
President Roslin and Adama exchanged concerned glances, and the brown-haired president nodded to defer to the Commander. This was a military decision.
"Pegasus was conducting Viper and Raptor training exercises when she jumped away. We have a Viper squadron and half a Raptor squadron from her in Galactica's landing bays." He looked them each over slowly. "My staff is already reviewing the astrometrics data we've collected and will be coming to me and the President with suggestions shortly. Our priority is food."
Mikos nodded quickly to the Commander and sat down.
Adama wanted to search for Pegasus, just one or two Raptors, but he couldn't. Seventy thousand refugees took priority even over his family. It tore him up inside to think he might once again lose his son but Pegasus was still the most powerful ship in the galaxy and if a lost ship could find its way back to the fleet, it was Pegasus and Cain.
She'd survived for six months on her own. Adama knew she could pull through again.
"Well… what about… I know… New Caprica?" The Libran delegate, Amanda Ibin asked. "I know it's risky…"
The Quorum erupted in half a dozen separate conversations and borderline shouting matches.
"Out of the question," Adama gruffly replied.
That ended the argument.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Billy and Tory have with them folders to outline the plans we've already drawn up for the emergency distribution of rations." Roslin motioned for Billy and Tory to begin handing out the manila file folders. "As you can see-"
"This cuts rations down to thirteen-hundred calories a day." Delegate Runes interrupted. He looked down at the numbers and then back up scornfully at the Commander and Colonel Tigh. "Surely the Galactica and Helios have provisions. What are you not telling us?"
"Is that true?" Safiya Sanne, the Leonis representative demanded. He rubbed his gray goatee as he tapped his pencil. "If this is true, then the people of Leonis would demand you distribute your emergency rations."
"Here, here," Runes called out in support.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Mikos shouted, pounding the table. "If Galactica had emergency supplies they wouldn't keep it from us!"
"Galactica and Helios are distributing supplies," Commander Adama grumpily stated. "I won't tolerate accusations that the military is hording supplies."
Delegate Sarah Porter sneered. The fiery woman just looked at the Commander with contempt and took his return stare as a challenge. "Just like you didn't tolerate dissent over Kobol?"
"That's enough!" President Roslin shouted. "This fleet will not be torn apart by this crisis. We will find food. Read the papers. We're using our resources to distribute food-"
"Will Marines be deployed once again in the fleet?" Porter interrupted.
"As long as no riots occur, no," Adama stated. "We are coordinating with the civilian law enforcement authorities."
Runes rudely flicked the paper onto the table in front of him. "Whatever," he waved. He leaned over to whisper to Porter and Wenutu.
"And we will be coordinating with the Guardians?" Jiri Martin of Picon asked.
"Ha, more reliance once again on the machines," Wenutu threw out. She glared at Soto, who was standing to the side quietly.
"Machines who have helped us," Martin shot back. "We got off of New Caprica thanks to them… after being forced to settle there no thanks to Baltar's supporters!" He hissed back.
Half the table nodded and half the table sneered and the entire table erupted once again into two to three person arguments.
"How do you explain all this?" demanded Canceron Delegate Robin Wenutu. The short woman pushed up her small rimmed glasses and then pounded her fist on the U shaped table in Galactica's conference room for added effect. "Pegasus goes on some mission to the Cylon fleet… there's rumors they picked something up… and of course 'military secrecy' keeps the government from being informed-"
"I certainly wouldn't tell us if I were the Commander or Admiral," Mikos said off-hand, but just loud enough so everyone would hear and Wenutu would have to pause.
She resumed and ignored him. "-and now it jumps away, leaving us without our most powerful ship and, and our food stocks have been tampered with! How do we know they were not involved?"
The delegate had no need to point. Everyone knew who 'they' were.
"Here, here!" the Gemenon and Sagittaron delegates echoed in unison. The Leonis delegate, Safiya Sanne, the Aerilon representative, Danielle Virchow, and the Aquaria representative, Miksa Burian, all nodded silently.
As if a switch was flipped, the entire Quorum went from silent nodding and silent disagreement, mouthing their disgust with Wenutu, to open argument with one person shouting at four or five and then someone else shouting and another and another.
"I hate politics," Commander Adama whispered as he leaned towards Roslin, his hands clasped and hanging in front of him as usual.
"Sometimes I wish you kept the military dictatorship," she looked over and winked. "Are you certain you don't want to look for Pegasus?" She whispered.
Commander Adama leaned closer. "I want to, but the fleet comes first. Pegasus is a powerful ship and survived on its own for six months. It can do it again."
"Order! Order!" Vice President Zarek shouted. He slammed his fist into the podium the President was standing behind. Slamming it down a second time he winced- he'd used too much force. "Order!" He yelled a final time.
The rowdy delegates calmed.
President Roslin was about to speak when Jo, standing to the side with arms folded, stepped forward.
"The accusations that tampered with the food or sabotaged Pegasus are ridiculous… pathetic delusions!" She growled.
The Earth machine had to consciously fight the reflex-like signal to flash her eyes at the woman.
Wenutu tried to make herself smaller and she succeeded in only looking weaker to the machine.
"We can solve the problem of whether or not the machines tampered with the food fairly quickly," Zarek immediately interrupted as he saw the tension build between Soto and Wenutu. He held up a small PDA. "Bishop went to the agro ships but I asked the captains and none of them went anywhere near the growth and maturation chambers for our foodstuffs."
Evzan Mikos cleared his throat, stood to his full one point six five meter height and spoke up. "This bickering between human and machine and machine and human has gone on long enough- too long."
"I agree!" Eladio Puasha of Scorpia intoned. "They are our allies." He nodded to Soto. He gave her full support.
Mikos looked at Wenutu and her allies, the Sagittaron delegate Jeremiah Runes and Gemonese delegate Sarah Porter. His head tilted and his eyebrows came down in a worried and curious look when he saw them passing some sort of picture between them. Grunting in annoyance he ignored their little click and continued to defend the machines and this alliance.
Mikos narrowed his eyes, opening his mouth to speak. "The Guardians saved our lives and invested heavily in our ship defenses… they upgraded our ships and gave us provisions." He looked at Soto and nodded. "To suggest that Ms. Soto or her compatriots are somehow responsible for this… disaster is ridiculous. You have no proof, no proof at all. Ms. Soto was in fact the target of a human suicide bomber, how do we know this may not be human sabotage?"
Porter rolled her eyes, scoffing at the man's apparent devotion to the machines. "Evzan… would you put your life in their hands?"
He immediately nodded. "Yes. I did before. They defended us, saved our lives." He stressed the last sentence. "And apparently they also saved your lives on New Caprica."
"I seriously doubt that," Porter shot back as she ignored the New Caprica example. Not wanting to pull any punches she added, "You would just use them for your own benefit," and rolled her eyes. "If it were up to me we'd have put it," she pointed at Soto, "out an airlock." She flicked the paper to the center of the room onto the floor in front of the U-shaped table. The delegates leaned forward to look.
It was one of the pictures that had somehow been taken and smuggled from Pegasus after Jahee had attempted to kill Soto. It was blown up and enhanced, showing her from her torso up. Porter threw out another photo, a headshot, showing what was described on Earth as the demonic terminator grin.
She then threw out a few more of John and Carter. For added affect she tossed pictures of the Centurions on Pegasus on to the floor and of the IL-S model Guardians.
"There's almost more machines on our military ships than humans," she said. Her obvious over exaggeration only added fuel to the fire.
"Everything there is for public record, Robin," Roslin answered. "Your need for theatrics-"
"Is pointless," Commander Adama finished.
Soto took a step forward and kindly smiled at the woman.
"If you want to put me out an airlock, you can try…" she tilted her head, "and you can bring whoever you want with you to help." Her head and eyes shot towards Wenutu. "You wish to volunteer, Robin?" Then her eyes darted towards Runes. "How about you, Jeremiah? Sifya, Danielle, Miska… You sit there and criticize us but this fleet would be dead. How many Cylons did each of you kill on New Caprica?"
"That isn't at issue," Sayifa Sanne countered.
The machine tilted her head. "Oh," she stepped forward until she was standing over the pictures and in one fluid motion bent down until she was sitting on her heels. She sorted through them and found one of her, John, and Carter. She handed them to the anti-machine delegates. "All of those injuries we sustained defending this fleet. John saved six people on Kobol. John and Carter both helped rescue dozens from New Caprica and John's finding there led to the alliance with the Guardians. We all defended Pegasus when it was boarded." She leaned closer to Porter and Wenutu over the sides of the table. "What did you do on New Caprica?" she turned. "Some of us killed Cylons- took the fight to them, some of us helped the resistance either directly or indirectly… what did you do?"
"Madam President… this thing," Isoef Karp of Libra, shot his chin out to Soto distastefully, "has been manipulating us and leading us on a wild chase throughout-"
"Mr. Karp," the President began softly before she was interrupted.
"The same accusations over and over!" Soto raised her voice. "Can you not think of something original!" She laughed at him. She modulated her voice to sound exactly like Karp. "'Madam President… this thing… has been manipulating us and leading us on a wild chase throughout," he looked at her shocked. "Or how about exaggeration: 'There's almost more machines on our military ships than humans,'" she mimicked Porter.
Porter bared her teeth to the machine and stood and held out her fingers. She began to tick off each of her examples of manipulation. "You were discovered on this very battlestar," she raised her index finger. "You remained hidden after the first was discovered," she raised her middle finger. "You-"
"We have names, Sarah Porter," Jo interrupted. "If you want me out of the fleet, you are free to try," she hissed. Baring her teeth slightly she turned, her side presented to the delegates, and very subtly let her eyes pulse a discreet light blue. "Just remember we fought for you on New Caprica and if it were not for us, these ships would have been destroyed."
The terminator, knowing this argument would only reinforce the views of the anti-machine block of the Colonial remnant, stopped talking and looked for a short second at Porter. Her eyes glided across the table, gauging the reactions of the delegates who supporter the machines. Mikos and Puasha were firmly on her side, but the other delegates from Tauron and Picon were uneasy with her verbal lashing and imitation of Porter and Karp.
Soto suspected the support from Tauron and Picon was tentative; she had seen they were apprehensive when they saw her endoskeleton or John or Carter's endoskeleton in the pictures. She knew it was much easier for humans, on Earth or in this fleet, to support the machines as long as they didn't look like machines.
Deciding the time was right to leave, Soto stepped off and turned. The Marines guards smartly opened the door for her, and she left.
The female machine had barely made it down the corridor when she heard a voice yell at her.
"Soto!" She heard a male voice yell from behind her.
She continued on but heard two distinct sets of steps coming quickly behind her. On a dime she spun around on her heels, her hair flying behind her and onto her shoulder. The machine cocked her head.
"What?" She said with obvious annoyance. Helo and Athena stopped and stood back and Athena put up her hands palm out defensively.
"Whoah," the bio-Cylon said.
The machine would have sighed, if she breathed. Instead she straightened up and took a small, friendly, somewhat timid step towards them.
"I apologize. The Quorum is half-full of idiots." She spoke bluntly. "John has said I am not very diplomatic."
"Um… yeah," Helo rubbed the back of his neck. "Whatever they said, Commander Adama stands behind you."
Jo smiled her appreciation. Her head turned swiftly to Athena when the machine heard the faint vibrations in her vocal cords indicate she was about to speak.
"Jo, the President… God, you know I'm not a fan of her," she laughed, "but let the Quorum rant and rave and in a few days it will be blown over. Whatever happened… it happened after the hybrid was brought aboard."
She tilted her head in acknowledgment. That was the most likely explanation; the hybrid. Jo had been running probabilities in her neural net for the last few hours and had devoted a significant portion of her neural net to analyzing all the sensor readings, DRADIS data, and what little they knew of the hybrid since Pegasus jumped.
"Do you believe Caprica Six may be of any help?" Soto asked. "Baltar indicated he saw something, but Pegasus jumped before I could… press the issue," she smirked.
"Um… maybe. She hasn't been entirely forward with what her assignment was on the Colonies… it' like me… in that, if you want help maybe figuring out if the hybrid did this… I wouldn't know. My job wasn't really technical. Hers might have been," she lifted her shoulders in a slightly exaggerated manner and let them drop slowly. "I can ask her."
Helo agreed. "I think you two might want to do that. She's been more cooperative with you two… maybe she'll open up a bit like Gina did, spill something vital?" He offered. "Colonel Tigh was interrogating her for a time but stopped a while back… I guess he figured he got everything he could from her. I don't know."
Soto was about to speak when two crewmen began walking towards her, staring daggers. She returned the icy stare and lightly pulsed her eyes. A smile creased her lips when they, seemingly in shock, turned down the immediate side corridor.
Helo and Athena laughed. Athena reached out and rubbed the machine's arm.
"You need to unwind a little bit, come to the rec room and play cards some more." The friendly bio-Cylon said.
"There is no WD-40 here," Soto stated.
The two Colonials looked at each other, confused, and exchanged shrugs.
"What?" they both said in unison as they turned back to the machine.
"Inside joke…" she explained.
"Yes… but…" Helo stressed, "we need to find Pegasus. The food situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Before you all went into the meeting I," he lowered his voice, "I received a message from Everlasting Bliss and Helios and their entire food stocks were contaminated. That hits our reserves hard. Without Pegasus we've lost nearly half our firepower."
"There is still a Guardian baseship," Soto stated matter-of-fact. "I know after Gemenon Traveller was lost the fleet suffered a hit in its food production capabilities."
Helo nodded.
"We need to find Pegasus and figure this whole thing out. Did you get anywhere with Baltar at all?" Helo asked hurriedly.
He had been in the Quorum meeting when it had first began but had been forced to leave for CIC. On his return he had seen Soto storm out.
"Like I said… I think if I can press the issue I might get him to tell me more," Soto said. She looked away in thought. "He is a difficult man to work with. I need to try another tactic. Force may not work," she said, almost talking to herself.
She remembered to her first interrogation of a human on Earth. It was a man named Fredrick Nichols and he had been a member of a 'rover gang;' small gangs of humans who were nomadic and preyed on those weaker than themselves in the wastelands and lawless areas of North America.
The gang Nichols had belong to, the 'Night Daggers' (a name Soto rolled her eyes at as the memory replayed in her neural net) and they had been pillaging the small refugee centers which dotted northern New Mexico. The civilian authorities wanted a message sent and Planck had assigned Soto the task of taking a machine platoon and killing the 'rovers'.
Nichols had been captured and all she had to do to destroy the smug, arrogant attitude of the man was a small display of strength by putting her hand through a concrete wall. Perhaps a few dented jail bars would entice Baltar to speak?
"He's a smug fraker," Athena said. Soto looked at the lieutenant and nodded. "Before I was deployed we were trained extensively in recognizing human emotions and analyzing psychology. He has a connection to Caprica Six."
"She always knows how I'm feeling," Helo interrupted with a slight smirk.
Athena winked back at him. "He knows something."
"I agree," she nodded once, very quickly. "Major Agathon, I would need your permission to be able to be slightly more… free in my interrogation tactics of Dr. Gaius Baltar."
Helo didn't even have to think about it, but he did throw in a condition. "Fine, granted. But nothing permanent and nothing too harsh, use your discretion, I trust you." He turned to Sharon. "Sharon… maybe instead of your and Soto talking with Caprica you could do it alone? I've watched a few of the tapes for intelligence and it seems she trusts you quite a bit… Cylon sister and all I guess?"
"She is my sister, Helo," Sharon pointed out. "I can do that. I'll let Kat know I'll need to skip out on my Raptor patrol… Racetrack won't be disappointed- she needs some sleep after going half the night playing cards with Skulls and Hotdog."
"Alright you two," Helo said as he puffed out his chest and gave the orders, "let's figure out where Pegasus went to. You two get down to the brigs and I'll return to CIC." He looked Jo in the eye. "Don't worry, I'll tell the Commander and handle the President if I need to."
Helo nodded to the two women and left.
"Athena… when I was with Baltar, he was acting… strange... slightly more strange than usual." She grinned and looked down the corridor. "I have a computer in secure storage, Gamma Seven Three storage locker. If you can retrieve it on your way I will connect to it… I want Caprica to see what I'm observing with Baltar.
The dark haired bio-Cylon looked at her questioningly. "Yeah, I can… what do you suspect?"
The machine looked off, towards the bulkheads. "I don't know… by my psychological database keep sending minor alerts to my neural net something is just off with Doctor Baltar… he looks away, almost like he is talking to himself."
"I'll see what Caprica can tell us."
"She's coming back for you, Gaius… so be careful," the Six whispered into Baltar's ear.
He felt his body shiver and a torrent of euphoria wash over him as he felt the warm breath of the Cylon in his ear.
"Why do you keep doing this?" He turned to her. "I told you I love Caprica."
"Oh, yes, I believe you, Gaius," she said through a fake smile. Baltar's face fell and he looked up at her from the corner of his eyes. "Aren't we the same, her and I?"
Baltar scoffed. "She wouldn't have hurt me like you did on New Caprica," he whispered. His eyes darted back and forth from the beautiful blonde in a tight blue, revealing dress to the Marine in the corner doing paper work, occasionally looking up to watch him. "That transmitter I built put me in this cell."
"That transmitter corrected an error which never should have been made," she stated confidently, her back to him. Without looking she ran her finger from cheek to cheek, over his chin and lower lip. "You need to ask yourself what you want from this, what God wants from this."
He turned and buried his face in his left shoulder and when he looked up, she was gone. Instead the Marine was standing at his cell door, staring at him oddly.
"You have a visitor coming," he stated as the hatch wheel turned quickly and the Earth machine walked in.
Gaius watched as the machine smiled a beautiful smile at the guard and marveled at how perfectly the machine could imitate a young woman. A beautiful young woman. He blinked hard to wash away the thoughts racing through his distracted mind and coughed, then stood up and patiently waited for her to enter.
She was holding a small computer and file folders in her hands. Baltar assumed it pertained to the hybrid.
"I can handle it from here, corporal. If you could please wait outside I would be very grateful?" She requested in a sweet, quiet voice.
She sounded so innocent. She didn't sound like a machine built to destroy.
The corporal looked at her questioningly and then back at Baltar and grinned. "Sure," he said all too happily. "If you need anything, just knock on the door hard… sound doesn't travel too well out of the room." He unlocked the cell door and slid it open.
He smiled quickly at Baltar and then stepped to the side, letting Soto stand abreast of him at the entrance to the cell. He excused himself and shut the door and spun the latch closed.
Soto nodded and stared straight ahead at the patiently waiting scientist and ex-President. The smile was plastered on her lips, and her eyes seemed to shine in the light, and for Baltar, even in the depressing and dim lights of the brig, he saw a young woman. His own expression betrayed his thoughts and the 'young woman' saw her opening.
The machine was on him in an instant, lifting him off the ground by the scruff of his collar, his feet dangling in the air. She threw him on his cot and was standing menacingly over him. Her shin pinned his legs which were hanging over the bed.
"Earlier today you seemed to indicate you knew what was happening with the hybrid." She said as she faced him. She looked him up and down. "Tell me now."
"And how come you cannot figure it out?"
"I already explained." She leaned down and put her hands on each side of the scientist. "Tell me."
The scientist shook his head. "Explain again."
Soto reached out to her side and brought her fist into a jutting portion of the bulkhead above Baltar's head. She pulled back at the last second to reduce the bang and the noise, but she put a sufficient dent in the metal to make her point clear.
Baltar, shaking, turned his head to look up at the dented bulkhead, an imprint of her fist visible. He glanced back to her. She was open and closing her fist. A thin strip of skin was hanging loose on her middle knuckles. The scientist watched as she tore the small strip loose and flicked it onto the foot of Baltar's bed.
"She's going to intimidate you again," the invisible blonde said to him.
Baltar felt the Six's hands on his abdomen and he slowly brought his hands down to grab hers. He shivered; they were cold. His eyes closed and he felt at peace.
"I know," he whispered.
"Then tell me if you know," Soto demanded, though calm, she was forceful.
The scientist's eyes shot open and his head snapped to look at her. He could feel his bed beginning to bend as she pressed her knee and hand into the frame.
Baltar jumped off his bed. His mouth quivered to speak, but his head and eyes followed the Six who was slowly walking around him and around and behind Soto.
"No," he finally managed to say. "No!"
"Quantum wave fronts, Doctor Baltar… you were about to connect them with the hybrid." She threw the papers at his feet and tossed a PDA from her pocket onto the bed. "Unfortunately our science has not reached that level."
He snickered. "Yes, you perfected war- the most efficient killing machines ever invented, but unless it had immediate practicalities for your war effort, you ignored it." He lazily leaned over and took the PDA, in part due to his nature as a scientist and in part to find out the answer so he could taunt her with the information he would never reveal. "And like all AIs your kind sought genocide, how expected," he mused.
"Be very careful… Gaius," Six stressed, putting her hand on his shoulder and squeezing.
"Ah," the scientist winced. He caught himself and began rotating his shoulder, using the excuse of an 'old injury' bothering him.
"Are you damaged in some way?" Jo asked. She looked at him almost like he was meant to be pitied. "Are you distracted?"
"N-no… and why do you care, anyway?"
She spoke softly. "I care. You said my kind sought genocide… maybe… do you know how it feels to always be looked at with hatred and derision? That you have to hide who you are?"
Baltar looked at the invisible Six, who was staring with a fierce intent at him, almost as a warning, and then back at the terminator.
The former President of the Colonies looked at her and then down. "What did everyone expect me to do? Adama jumped the fleet away… what were we supposed to do? Throw rocks at the baseships?"
"We all do what we have to do." She put her hand on her chest. "I do what I have to do. And you do what you have to do. Our motivations are always suspect- you were right, there was nothing you could have done. The Cylons would have wiped out the entire city of New Caprica."
"Instead they what… studied us?" He scoffed.
The Six began to pace slowly and deviously she walked towards Jo and studied her distrustfully. Gaius watched as the tall blonde circled the Earth machine.
"Doctor Baltar…. Doctor Baltar!" Jo shouted. He looked at her, surprised. "You've been staring for forty-three point two seconds."
"Oh." He sat on the bed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "I shouldn't even be talking to you without my lawyer here."
Jo moved to sit next to him, the bed foam deforming slightly under her weight- she weighed more than Baltar.
"What you did on New Caprica was required. The Cylons would have destroyed the city. You saved many people."
"How sweet of her to say that, Gaius… ask her if she'd have killed you, had you in her gun sights. She's a terminator. She's built to kill." Six said, sitting on the bed next to him, her hand draped around his shoulder. As a final reinforcement she leaned over and kissed him on his left cheek.
He twisted his neck as he felt her hand glides across his shoulder blades.
"And look where I ended up. Roslin said I just should have killed myself… maybe she was right."
"I heard of your attempt at self-termination." Jo looked at him, confused. "I do not understand why humans self-terminate. It's something I've never understood."
Baltar hummed an acknowledgment and began playing with his fingernails.
"That's a lie," Six snorted.
"Heh, I doubt that." He licked his upper lip and leaned back, angling himself so he could look at the machine. "I'm sure the Cylon occupation wasn't that bad for you."
"I terminated many Cylons and NCPers."
"You almost sound happy."
There was a light shrug of a brief silence.
"It's one of our purposes." She faced him. "You don't build bulletproof machines a hundred times stronger than humans unless you're building them for war."
"Would you have killed me if you had the chance?" He managed to ask.
She nodded definitively and answered immediately. "Yes. Without hesitation."
"See Gaius. Everyone-"
Baltar looked at her and she stopped speaking. "At least some people are honest with me," he said to Jo, while staring icily at the Six.
"Do you love Caprica?" Baltar's eyes widened and slowly he pushed himself away from the machine. "Do you love her?" She repeated.
"Love her… she's a machine."
Jo tilted her head, looking at him from the corner of her eye. "No. I'm a machine, Gaius. Caprica is not a machine. Artificial, grown in a lab… maybe, yes. She's definitely not a machine," she shook her head to reinforce her point.
"Why would you ask me that?"
"If I can get you to see her… will you help me?"
"She's a Cylon… that's… that's no, it's wrong." He insisted.
"Why? It's happened on Earth. And do I need to state the obvious with Major and Lieutenant Agathon?" She asked, her brow rising. She gave him a minute to digest that. "I need your help Gaius. Caprica needs your help as well… and I think she wants to see Earth, even if it is broken, just as much as you do. Stop running. If I can get you to see Caprica, will you help me? Help me find John and Carter."
Six was now standing a meter from the bed, her arms crossed, shaking her head and grinning as she scanned Jo.
"She can't be serious, Gaius." Baltar didn't answer. "Gaius!"
"She is serious," he snapped at her. He coughed and turned to Jo. "I mean, you are serious… she's serious, you're serious."
"Gaius…"
The scientist ignored her warning and looked away from the beautiful blonde.
"You know what the right thing to do is. If you can help me…" she trailed off, leaving any sort of promise up to his imagination.
He looked at her, feeling joy, but defeated at the same time. He couldn't have anything without another demanding something in return. He still felt he hadn't done anything wrong.
"How soon can I see Caprica?" A lingering doubt was that she could never make that happen.
"Soon. Sometimes you need to trust others." She stood up and went to his cell door, leaving the papers and PDA. "Please look over the data, Doctor Baltar. The sooner we find John and Carter the sooner we will be able to find Earth."
"So… Pegasus is gone and you have no idea where it went?" Caprica repeated. "Maybe we chose the wrong side?" She smirked, laughed, and became visibly sad all in the span on seconds.
Athena, sitting across from her at the table nodded solemnly. "We were much safer with our people. But I left because I love Helo, and Cavil would have killed Hera… I've often thought about that- my mission to fall in love with Karl," she mused. "I think it was one of the One's twisted experiments… see what I would do if he took my baby."
Caprica, her hand in front of her mouth, nodded softly to acknowledge that.
"I can't believe you actually went and stole a hybrid… do you know what you've done?" Caprica asked. She could read the Eights like a book- they had obvious tells and were horrible liars. The blonde bio-Cylon could see the humans had changed this Eight, Sharon, and could see some of what she had leaned of Helo from her Six sisters on Caprica in her as well. She seemed stronger. Devoted.
Athena looked over her shoulder, double-checking that the Marines had left their observation post. She was nervous.
"No Cylon would ever think to steal a hybrid… it's just… it's not something we could do. The terminators did it… with suggestion from their AI… Daniel."
Caprica Six closed her eyes at the mention of the line. A line completely destroyed and never resurrected. The secret had been hidden but later shared with her by Athena.
"I wasn't a scientist, Athena. I was an infiltrator, a soldier-"
Athena held up her hand. "We were both soldiers…" She paused. "And you were given extensive skills in computers and engineering," Athena pointedly observed. "You were a legend to all of us as we went through our infiltration training. Don't underestimate yourself."
The blonde bio-Cylon tapped the table slowly and a proud smile flashed across her lips. The small dimples in her cheeks were accentuated by the motion. "A different life," she said, "and once they have Gaius on trial, found guilty, and executed, they will do the same to me… I guess that's how it works."
"Why?"
"Why?" She echoed. "What I am is enough for them… I was part of the governing authority on New Caprica… or what I did…"
Athena held up her hand. "I knew you were a high level infiltrator, an elite infiltrator, but I don't know what you did…" she hesitated, but was sure, "And I don't want to know because we have all done things we've regretted… two days before I was to meet with Helo, I saw two Colonials… survivors, on Caprica…" She looked down, her eyes, normally filled with lift began to grow hallow and cold.
Caprica got a good look of the hurt in Athena's eyes. The guilt she was carrying. She could see how her eyes darkened and grew cloudy and distant as the young bio-Cylon remembered what was she had done to the two survivors. A bio-Cylon never forgot, their mind would retain every second of their lives in total detail- Athena was reliving the memory. Caprica could tell and it didn't need to be said what Athena had done to them.
Out of the corner of her eye, the dark-haired Cylon saw a small, flashing blue light on the edge of the computer. She followed the light and it brought her back from the living memory she had once again witnessed. She reached over and pressed the 'accept' button and the screen flickered, blacked out, and then displayed a machine's view of Baltar and the cell he was in.
Jo was streaming what she was seeing into the laptop.
"Jo wanted you to watch… she thinks there is something strange about Baltar," Athena instructed. She slid the tablet over to Six, who, upon seeing it, grabbed it tightly and went to sit on her bed. Athena moved so she was behind her and standing.
The two watched in silence, Athena watching Caprica more than she was the video feed. She saw the behavior, Baltar staring for those forty-three seconds and how he yelled 'she is serious'.
Caprica leaned forward and slid the tablet back onto the table and Athena came back around, taking the chair the prisoner had been sitting in and turned it around, facing her Cylon sister on the thin cot. She let her sister speak first.
"I noticed… things… on New Caprica. D'Anna told me, when she had witnessed the… Doral had a gun pointed at his head, at Gaius's head and D'Anna told me it was like Gaius vanished, tears in his eyes," she choked, hating herself for not being able to defend him against signing the death warrants, "looking at something, almost like he was talking to someone."
"Like now?"
She nodded. "Hm… and other times I noticed a few instances here and there but never gave them much attention… he loves me?" She asked, not believing she had heard correctly. Athena nodded and told her yes, he did. "I think I might have done this to him…"
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
"I can't believe she did this," Major Adama slowly and quietly stated as he looked at each of the black body bags in the chilly, impersonal morgue.
Starbuck wrapped an arm around his and leaned into him. "She wanted revenge." She looked over her shoulder. "What this crew did to her was inexcusable and so was this."
Apollo nodded. "She saw an opportunity and took it."
With Starbuck he walked over to the body bag of Corporal Gerhard Hollins.
Starbuck cocked her head and placed her hand on the body bag, reading the name out loud. "He was in your combative class?"
The Pegasus XO smiled remorsefully. "Yeah, he was a good guy… always on time, attentive… he was engaged to Specialist Elisha Fredericks." It was his turn to lean into Starbuck.
"You worked with the Marines a lot."
"Yeah, one of the extra duties as XO… coordination with their operations department," he shrugged.
"A couple of the pilots want to use Gina's body as target practice for the Vipers… I considered suggesting that to the Admiral," she said softly.
Apollo snorted. "I'd rather throw Daniel out the airlock and use his body as target practice for the axial canons." He wasn't smiling.
He looked over to the shining metal door he knew Gina's body was in. It padlocked with a magnetic sensor on it- to prevent desecration. Apollo sighed as his eyes wandered back to Starbuck. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the side of her head. Her armed tightened around his.
"What are we going to do now?"
"I don't know… the Admiral is trying to keep a lid on this but people will ask questions. Why was Gina out of her cell, who was she with, you know? The truth always comes out… eventually," he sighed.
Starbuck could hear the burden as ship XO taking its toll on him and weighing him down. She admired Admiral Cain for her accomplishments and knowingly ignored some of the worse things she had done, but was relieved that as CAG her dealing with the Admiral were, compared to Lee, minimal. Morning and evening briefings, status reports, and she wasn't in CIC for ten or twelve hour shifts with the Admiral like Lee.
"Especially with the past between those two… I mean… we both heard the rumors when Pegasus was re-united with us," Apollo continued. "There's only so much a person can take- even one like Cain."
"It'll be bad," Starbuck answered. "There's enough tension on this ship. The food situation was bad enough, and-"
"We're still not done jumping…" Apollo trailed off when he heard the magnetic locks on the morgue doors click and open with a gruff whooshing sound. He turned around and a thick scowl was instantly on his face. "What do you want?"
Planck had walked in and Apollo could see a pair of Marines standing by at the door. He motioned for the Marines to wait outside.
Starbuck turned and kept her eyes low.
"I'm sorry for you loss," the machine began. "I know you both knew some of the Marines who died. It can be difficult to lose those we know or care about."
Apollo held a cool gaze on the machine, his ice-blue eyes meeting the deep cobalt blue orbs of the machine. He reminded himself he wasn't looking at eyes, but 'optical sensors.' He sneered at the thought.
"Apollo, why don't you leave John and I to talk for a minute?" Starbuck requested, putting her hand on the small of his back and pushing him forward a little.
He looked at her questioningly but relented.
"I'll be in medical," He said softly. He turned back to the machine. "I'll be in medical where Doctor Roberts is operating on Captain Shaw," he venomously hissed at Planck.
Apollo stepped off and brushed his shoulder into the machine- Planck rolled his shoulder back with the motion.
Starbuck waited until Apollo left and the magnetic locks re-clicked. "This is one fraked up, Gods-damned mess," she immediately said.
"It's cold in here," John said.
"I think I can manage," she flatly replied. "It looks like you have an escort once again." She motioned to the door. Her eyes looked down at his left ankle. "No ankle tracker though." She shrugged.
"Yes and no." He shrugged. "Pegasus computers will be tracking us again."
It took Starbuck a minute to understand he was replying to her two observations. She shook her head.
"So what happened?" She lowered her voice. "We're friends, John, good friends. I trust you with my life-"
"Thank you, I trust you with mine as well," he replied.
She smiled her appreciation. "So tell me what happened." She closed the distance and stepped closer. "Daniel," she whispered, "Daniel held a gun to the Marines… Erica too," she looked to the side with a confused look, "which actually kind of surprises me…" she shook her head and waved the observation away. "Back to the point… they said you were knocked out or something and so was Carter when Avion and I found him… you two were the only machines affected on the ship."
"That is true."
"Is this going to be like pulling teeth?"
John shook his head- he was familiar with the expression. "No."
"So what happened?" She asked expectantly.
"I don't know… somehow the hybrid projected some image into my neural net… I collapsed because the hybrid somehow isolated the neural net from my chassis."
The fighter pilot bit her lip, understanding. "So no signal to your bo-, er, chassis, and you collapse."
"Correct," he affirmed. "It is a safety measure- if our connections are severed we collapse so on the battlefield we are not left standing, with our chips and skull exposed… But we have safeguards on our wireless transmitters. It is impossible to establish a link without reciprocation…. Skynet could continuously attempt a link and it could never take us over remotely unless we allowed it to."
To Starbuck the machine sounded tired.
"We can't blame you for that or what happened."
"No, you can," his head turned side to side in disagreement. "I'm the commanding officer and proposed this mission. The jumps Pegasus is still going through, the deaths, the escape, everything is due to the hybrid being brought aboard. That is my responsibility."
"No one could have seen this; no one could have predicted this." She ran her hand through her hair. "Admiral Cain is pretty fraking pissed at Daniel and does blame him for the deaths… only a few know of his involvement with the boarding of Pegasus a few years ago… but Apollo said the truth always finds a way out."
John cocked his head. "Personal secrets are the most efficient means of control," he observed. "Is this what Cain or others plan to do?"
"No," she strongly denied. "Blanks, Lee wouldn't and I'm pretty sure Shaw wouldn't. Admiral Cain, you know she uses you for her own benefit…" she looked him in the eye, "and let's not lie to ourselves… you all are using her as well. She wants something, you want something and up until two hours ago everything was working out just fine. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. You know?"
"That is true."
"Something seems to be worrying you?" John looked at Starbuck suspiciously. "We've hung out enough, played enough cards, and I've guzzled enough booze while you're sipping like a girl on the drinks to know when something wrong," she grinned.
"You certainly do drink enou-"
"Hey!" She punched him playfully on the arm. Her expression immediately reverted back. "But really…"
"The hybrid alluded to a few things… suspicions I have had since Crashdown and I found Erica and then went to the Guardian facility on Landros."
The blonde-haired pilot nodded slowly, opening and closing her mouth slowly. She rubbed her chin. "I think I know… you were surprised when you found out about that team… that terminator team sent back."
John shook his finger. "That wasn't only it. I wondered why I was told to go fly planes back on Earth…"
"We're grunts, right?" She offered with a shrug, "We do what we're told."
"No… I wasn't a 'grunt.' I was the one telling them what to do." Starbuck eyebrow rose. She wasn't sure what John's position had been on Earth and he'd rarely talked about it. "They also didn't tell me about the team you mentioned."
"So Blanks, not a grunt… so… it was a bit weird to be flying the…?"
"Yes, A-10." John answered.
"Why?"
He shifted his weight and shook his head, looking towards the ground.
"I was commander of our machine special operations forces so it was strange when they told me to fly… even stranger when they took my chip and put it into another chassis." He breathed out, frustrated. "But I accepted it, because we take orders from General Connor without question."
Starbuck's head went back in a double-take. "What… changed body, what?" She guessed it made sense, but none of the Terminators had ever mentioned it.
She did remember that Commander Cyrus and Thais sometimes switched between the IL-S and Centurion bodies.
John tapped his skull where the chip was. "We're not a body, we're the chip. This body is just a chassis for me to interact with you. I'm the neural net chip. Even if I have grown attached to this body over the years, we're the chip." He hesitated for a moment. "The bodies or chassis we inhabit plays a role in our… psychology or personality, for lack of a better description- that is one reason why Tech Com terminators maintain our infiltration skins. But like anything, from religion to our status with the humans, the views many terminators take about our chassis is mixed. Some use and discard them like you would a broken Viper. Some protect them and mourn their loss."
"So… you could," she smiled devilishly, "like put your chip into a female terminator body." John stared at her. "Kinky." She shot her eyebrows up twice.
He put his palm up to his face and rubbed his eyes, but smiled at the fighter pilot's strange sense of humor.
"It's happened before." Starbuck looked shocked. "Not to me," he chuckled. "Sufficiently advanced chips could even store multiple AI personalities."
"Hm, a machine with multiple personality disorder with a chassis capable of crushing blast doors… nice," she sarcastically threw out. She mouthed 'I'm kidding' and smiled again.
"So you were the commander of your spec ops forces…" Starbuck began again. She wanted answers, even if she had to stand in a chilled, somewhat creepy morgue for a little while longer until she got them.
"That is correct, I was the commander. So being 'left out of the loop' on the team sent to the Colonies… it tells me they knew something and they didn't tell us." His jaw clenched shut tightly. "I would like to amend what I said earlier."
Starbuck's eyebrow rose. "Oh?" She said lightly. She turned her head so her right ear was slightly closer to the machine, signaling she was ready for him to tell her anything. She was hoping everything.
"Yes," John gave an exaggerated nod. "We follow orders without question but expect to be briefed on everything pertinent to the mission. We were not." His eyes wandered over the dark body bags. He could see inside of them. "And because of that, Starbuck," he looked at her, "more people will die."
"I was told by Leoben I had a destiny, that I would find Kobol," she said. She looked hesitant. "He often talked with the hybrids. I guess he still does, I don't know." She shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms. She'd changed out of her flight suit and was wearing the regulation green cargo pants and brown and gray tank tops.
The shiver was partly from the cold, but mostly from the thought of Leoben. He was still an enigma to her, a cold and calculating enigma who had fed her mind poison and tainted her thought for months. She'd had minimal contact with him after Gemenon Traveler, but his personality was so strong, their brief time together was still so clear to her.
"Are you cold?"
Starbuck shook her head. "No… I don't know, you ever get a feeling when something isn't right… like a shiver runs through your body?"
"Errant electrical signals can produce that," he smirked. "In other words you're asking about… human intuition… a gut feeling?" He bit his lip. "No, those two things are very difficult for us to experience."
"I heard what the hybrid told you… it's a coincidence that you're John, Cavil's name is John, and Connor's name is John, isn't it?" She led.
"Your religion believes in Oracles." He stated. "Fortune telling."
She nodded. "I know you're religion has said the opposite."
"On Earth there is a popular saying that there 'is no fate but what we make'…"
"I think I watched that in one of the recording you downloaded about Connor," she responded.
"The hybrid also said 'she sent you here, your commander, the first to break free, on this mission.' I think…" he looked at her, "I think I may know how the hybrid is doing this."
Starbuck looked surprised, happy. "That's good. Maybe Admiral Cain will back off; maybe she will understand what happened if you can explain it?"
"Maybe… we need to see her."
Admiral Cain stood behind the plexiglass observation window, intently watching Doctor Roberts operate on Captain Shaw. The loyal aide, supremely competent tactical officer, and perhaps the only friend Helena Cain possessed was laying, intubated and anesthetized, on the operating table five meters belong the observation window.
She could see the steady rate heart signs on the monitor beeping quietly and her eyes drifted down towards the small circular patches placed on the sides of Shaw's skull, monitoring brain activity, just to be safe.
Fifty years ago the surgery would have been dangerous and complicated, with a high probability of Shaw bleeding out if it wasn't for the foam, adhesive, and biological tapes the Colonies had developed during the First Cylon War.
Doctor Roberts had repaired most of the damage, cleaned out the destroyed tissues, and applied a biological tape over a damaged renal artery.
The Admiral tilted her head as she watched Doctor Roberts work. His hands were completely clean and there was no blood on his gown- he hadn't even touched Captain Shaw.
Resting comfortably on his nose, with his eyes closed was a large visor- legacy technology from Daniel Greystone's holoband, banned after the Cylon War, but allowed to develop as a surgical aide. It allowed the Doctor control over the robotic arms hovering over the injured captain and let him view the insides of Captain Shaw using the tiny cameras attached to the ends of the surgical devices currently inside the captain's body.
The surgeon's hands moved slowly in the air as he grasped two short rods, which helped serve as control mechanisms for the robotic arms.
Behind him, the arms of the robotic surgical units made tiny incisions and lacerations into Captain Shaw's body with low powered laser scalpels. They inserted small, snake-like tubes- with powered clamps, laser cutters and cauterizers, and spreaders- which would move in, with a minimum of cutting, and repair the Captain's internal injuries, apply biological tapes and adhesives, and clear away dangerous debris from the gunshot wound.
Cain looked down and to her left, the image of what Doctor Roberts was seeing displayed on the monitor below the screen.
"How is she doing?"
The Admiral almost jumped, any other woman would have, but she calmly turned to see her XO.
"She should survive," she curtly replied.
"What are we going to do about Daniel?" Apollo asked.
Cain nodded her receipt of the question and took a moment to think. "This is one of those moments, major, where I don't know the answer… and where I have to play politician." She rested her hands on the sill of the observation window.
"If we do anything to him, the Guardians would break their alliance."
Cain stiffly nodded. "If he, it, were any other… man," she scoffed, "I'd try him and lock him in the brig… and that would be if he were lucky." She pushed off. "I know the machines value him because he's supposed to be some advanced AI developed from one of their leaders or something like that, I don't know." She waved her hand, frustrated. "After today…" she trailed off as she focused again on Doctor Roberts.
"The crew will find out about this. It's only been hours and even with the jumps on everyone's mind the crew is talking, Admiral. If rumors spread… and that's not all there is. Planck put some sort of override on the weapons he designed for us."
"That… major, was… shrewd…" she grunted an odd approval of the move. She had to admit she would have done the same. The machines were immune to everything the small arms and rifles could shoot out, probably even grenades. She knew it would take anti-material rifles or rockets to take out the machines.
Major Adama's brown came down, his eyes narrowing slightly in confusion over her words. Did she admire or approve of what they did?
"He misrepresented-"
"They built the weapons to destroy Cylons. I just didn't figure they were going to be quite so literal." She couldn't help but grin a little. It was something to get her mind off of this.
Apollo shrugged. He remembered their briefing presentation on the isotope weapons. They could cannibalize the radioactive cores form a nuclear ship-to-ship missile and build some sort of crude plasma rifle. To kill Cylons, he recalled.
Both the Admiral and ship's XO turned slightly when the locks clicked and the door to the observation room hissed open.
"What do you want?" Admiral Cain asked the machine.
The machine was slightly surprised to see the two there, but didn't show it. His face was impassive as ever.
"I came to see the progress Doctor Roberts was making," Carter answered, stepping up and between the two, ignoring them. He looked down at the monitor showing the progress of the robotic probe arms and tilted his head, studying the images. "John also wishes to see you," the machine stated, "He believes that he may know how the hybrid took control of the ship."
Apollo folded his arms. "Really? Assuming it was the hybrid and not something you or Daniel did… why wouldn't the Cylons have done this a long time ago?"
Carter looked at him. "You are being irrational and paranoid." Apollo returned the look and shifted his weight- annoyed. "You are not an irrational and paranoid executive officer. You know we had nothing to do with this."
Cain sighed. "Where is he?"
She wanted to stay and watch and be here, but her duty was to Pegasus and the entire crew, not just one officer.
"He said he would meet the both of you and Lieutenant Havers in the Cave with Captain Adama, where he is compiling a graphical representation of his explanation."
Admiral Cain looked once more at the machine and then to her XO. She flicked her head to the door and stepped off, Major Adama right beside her. She wanted answers.
"I think that should be about right," Blanks said over his shoulder to Starbuck and Erica, who were hovering over him. He disconnected from the computers and typed in one last command and then stood up.
RC, standing back, walked forward in the typical Centurion forward lurch. The Centurion's neck servos were audible in the quiet lab as his head moved left and right, watching the display.
"Did you ever see a hybrid before, RC?" Starbuck asked.
The Centurion twisted his head and jutted it out, looking at Starbuck. "No. I was a soldier on Caprica. There were no hybrids on Caprica- we were evacuating the planet when you returned."
RC turned around and stalked off to another side compartment, Starbuck staring off after him and shaking her head.
"He's not much of a talker?" She quipped.
John, working on something else, just shook his head.
"There are theories on Earth that an AI sufficiently advanced could achieve a level of consciousness which would allow it to exist outside of our perception of space and time. There would be an integration of time travel and temporal displacement technology with AI- giving it incredible abilities. Those were just theories. Our two top scientists, Dr. Carwin and Dr. Wells, dismissed the notions as fanciful. Some of the… AI scientists were more open to the idea," the machine explained.
"So why not time travel and figure it out?" Starbuck asked. "Seems pretty simple," she said. The sarcasm was not lost on the other machines as Erica laughed and Blanks ignored it.
"The temporal scientists considered it, but dismissed it. Time travel requires a minimum on the time displacement…" John said. He hoped that was still a theory. No one knew how the distance to the Colonies would factor into the time displacement event. "You can't travel back in time a day, for example. Something about temporal stability Wells and Carwin hypothesized on." John looked back down and checked his calculations and programming one last time. "They were the first to see the technology for long-distance displacement, which had been limited to a thousand kilometer diameter."
Starbuck, Planck, and Erica heard a faint click and hiss as the doors opened. Admiral Cain and Major Adama and Lieutenant Havers came in, and the Admiral motioned for the three black armored Marines to stand fast outside the door.
Admiral Cain walked up quickly to Planck, almost chest to chest.
"You have a lot of explaining to do, Planck," she said. "A lot of good Marines and sailors died today."
The Admiral held her voice firm, and kept her body tensed. The events were still shaking her and she did everything she could to keep her voice from cracking or her eyes from betraying her emotions. Ordering people to their deaths, ordering others to kill was easy compared to pulling the trigger yourself and looking into the eyes of someone as they knew you were about to kill them. Colonel Belzen hadn't realized his death was imminent. Gina had.
"What happened today was… inexcusable." Planck said. He wanted to say more, but expected the Admiral would take offense to anything else. When she sneered his suspicion was confirmed.
"What is this?" She shot her chin out to the computer display Blanks and Erica were standing next to.
Starbuck maneuvered herself to stand beside Apollo.
"It's a graphical representation of what I believe is happening." He hit the 'enter' key on the side of the keyboard and a schematic of the known components of the hybrid's chamber came up. Lt. Havers moved so he could get a better look at the display. "In 2023 Tech Com discovered a crashed ship. Skynet had control of the site for months and removed much of the equipment from the ship… it was a ship, we believed, to be from the Thirteenth Tribe."
Cain, Apollo, and Havers nodded. Havers, however, who had just had his security clearance bumped up for this briefing, hadn't been told any of this before.
"I'm sorry… but our sacred texts say the Thirteenth left in a fleet of ships… hundreds. You only found one?" He asked, confused.
"Yes. It is complicated, but Earth is not the home of the Thirteenth tribe… at least, not in the capacity you believe it to be." He looked at Cain and back to Havers. "We found the ship and took the technical readouts and information. Unfortunately I was not told of everything we found. However, before the self-destruct was activated we saw that there was a device within the ship similar to our temporal displacement equipment."
"We knew the Thirteenth was the most advanced tribe, and when they left Kobol, they took much of their technology with them," Cain said. She bit down. "So is Earth temporal technology based on ancient Kobolian technology?"
If it was she would have to resist smirking.
"No. The foundations for temporal displacement were established by Doctor Carwin and Doctor Wells from their work on tachyon communication theories and null logic keys and later expanded upon by Skynet. No, temporal displacement as we knew it prior to 2023 was Earth derived. But… the ship… I don't know," Blanks admitted.
"What's important now is how did the hybrid take control of the ship and how do we stop it?" Admiral Cain demanded.
"I think it's somehow feeding energy into the targeting arrays and the engines were sucking in energy from somewhere," Lt. Havers offered. He looked to the machine for confirmation. "I mean… our tyllium reserves are not depleting at the rate they should be… slower in fact. It's like something is giving us the initial 'boost' into an FTL spin up."
"I think that was why the hybrid had the inhibitors or whatever you would want to call them placed on them," Blanks said. "I was explaining to Starbuck earlier that there is a theory on Earth among AIs that eventually AIs will become so powerful they will develop technology which will allow them to basically exist outside of normal time… knowing the answer before it is asked. I think this is what has happened to the hybrids to a limited degree and as a side effect, they can manipulate technology based on the realm their consciousness is in. Cynet needed the hybrids for instantaneous communications with its baseships."
Lt. Havers shook his head. "We know that's impossible. Not even our quantum entanglement theories could explain what the hybrid did."
"I agree," Planck said, nodding. "But did you know time travel was possible?" Lt. Havers gestured a concession to that point. "When the hybrid had me… wherever I was… it felt familiar. It felt like I was back on the ship that crashed on Earth. The hybrid also knew about that… it knew about the hybrid on the first Guardian ship." He would have taken a breath. "The time the hybrid spoke it contradicted what the male hybrid said on the Guardian ship."
"That was the original hybrid," Erica explained. "The one originally created by the Guardians."
"What do you mean… what the hybrid…" Apollo trailed off.
John accessed the computer and they watched, through his eyes, what had happened in the last minutes before escaping from the rusting Guardian ship. The image became fuzzy, on purpose, when the figure the Centurions had attacked by the hybrid's order materialized.
"You felt the need to not inform us of everything that happened on that ship?" Admiral Cain stood with her hands on her hip and pistol, as usual. "We trusted you."
"No you didn't. And I didn't fully trust you," John honestly responded. "I still don't completely understand what happened or how that happened. I do know somehow it's linked. The hybrid here," he gestured off to the side, "knew about what the hybrid there had said."
"As much as I want to play this game, I need to get Pegasus back to the fleet. I know you all do not eat," she looked quickly at John and Erica, "but our food was also contaminated and our supplies will run low. We need to get back searching for food… but I can't even deploy a CAP because the ship may jump." She gestured at the computer, frustrated. "So, get on with it. How do we stop this?"
John held back any urge to get into a verbal sparring match with the Admiral. In a way she reminded him of Sarah Connor; direct, to the point, and no bullshit. That was where the similarities ended. Sarah and Planck had never gotten along, but had an understanding. She was also honorable and moral and would never have done what Cain had done early in the war, even with her back pressed against the wall.
"The hybrid took limited control of your computers, quantum particles could change a zero to a one for example, and could authorize an energy dump into the FTL sinks, the targeting arrays, and that is why you're jumping. If you want to stop the jumping you need to disconnect the entire FTL assembly down to the last spatial converter." John would have paused to take a breath at that point. "The way the hybrid reacted to Cynet… somehow Cynet knew the hybrid was talking to me, that the hybrid was in that… other 'plane' of existence or however you wish to classify it. Cynet was drawing it back. I think the hybrids are afraid of Cynet- they're bound to it, enslaved by it much like Skynet enslaved its machines to its will in our prior time line."
"That's makes sense… sort of," Havers informed the group and he rubbed his chin. "May I?" He asked John and gestured to a computer. John nodded and Havers brought up another diagram of the ship FTLs. "Like I said on the bridge we're still not completely sure of how FTL works exactly. We know the very basic theory behind it- enough to move a ship from point A to B, build the drives, repair the drives, et cetera. We don't know what happens inside wherever it is we go to… and we definitely go somewhere. Science claims FTL is instant, but nothing is instantaneous- near instant, yes, not instantaneous. That means we go somewhere into like a 'jump space'." The elderly lieutenant nodded and bit his lower lip. Clicking his tongue he kept thinking of a new theory. He didn't have much to go on. "If Cynet is communicating with the hybrids and using jump space, whatever 'jump space' is… it could mean the hybrids partially occupy that plane."
"Their minds… while their bodies stay here?" Starbuck asked.
Blanks nodded. "And your FTL assembly has a link to that 'jump space' realm," the machine filled in.
Lt. Havers nodded and snapped his fingers. "So that's how the hybrid could manipulate our jump drive. The entire system is interconnected as a safety protocol. If computers go down and the drive is spooled the entire assemble interconnects so it is independent of the computer in emergency. If one piece is damaged the other pieces can bypass and still operate."
"We can't stop the jumping- we shouldn't. I think…" Blanks didn't want to come to the conclusion which he had pressed into the recesses of his neural net, but it was becoming more obvious. "I think wherever the hybrid is taking us is important. We need to go there… it just feels like we have to do it," John said. He added more emotion to his voice than he was accustomed to.
"I should listen to a machine with difficulty understanding intuition because it just 'feels' right?" Cain patronized. She was shaking her head; her right lip had curled up in dissatisfaction. "Why?"
"I don't know… isn't that what a 'gut feeling' is?" Blanks asked.
Cain rolled her eyes.
"Hold on," Starbuck interjected. "The Thirteenth left Kobol two thousand years before the rest of the Twelve Tribes. From what we know there was never any contact… unless Pythia was a time traveler or something," she quipped. John looked at her. "Wait… Blanks, you're not saying…?"
The machine commander shrugged his shoulders.
"I think it might be something else… the training- myself as a pilot on Earth, Jo as a physician, Carter as an engineer… the changes to our neural nets- something is affecting them."
"It's not entirely strange," Apollo countered. "Pilot, physician, and engineer are fairly prestigious positions in the Fleet."
"And being a pilot is what exposed us." He didn't fill in that Jo manipulated medical records to keep them secret and Carter installing backdoors onto Galactica's engine computers to hijack the battlestar. "Then only a few months later we're on the Guardian baseship," John observed. "I was not going to come forward unless absolutely necessary." He looked at the Admiral, Apollo, and Starbuck. "If it wasn't for Kobol we may not have ever revealed ourselves… I… I don't know," the machine stammered. "Except if we hadn't assaulted the Guardian baseship the Guardians never would have attacked and nothing would have happened like it did."
"A coincidence," Starbuck said.
Erica looked at John and shook her head. The Colonial AI didn't believe in coincidences. Things happened for a reason.
"I told you, Admiral, that our neural net chips were being affected by jumping. A link between jumping and time displacement is plausible. A link between jumping and the ship we found in Athens is also plausible. Either the time jumping or the mission to the ship began the changes in our chips," Blanks said. "If FTL has a minute link to the same properties of time displacement, over time… maybe all the jumping was additive and, I don't know, added up to another time jump?" The machine asked himself. It was something to consider.
The conclusion and revelation which had been pushed to the far corners of John's neural net finally began to break out and escape into his conscious though processes. Once again that 'feeling' came over him. It felt like there was a spike in energy output from his power core in his chest and errant electrical signals firing in his neural net. If that was human intuition, 'gut feelings' then that is what he was feeling.
"This mission was authorized by the highest ranking machine in the resistance; Cameron. She brought the mission to General Connor and she pushed for the mission… Athens… everything, even this mission… she had time travelled more than any other terminator. Carter, Jo, and myself have time traveled twice; once to our past on Earth and once to the Colonies," Planck stated. He continued. "Somehow Cameron knew…." Planck realized, looking passed the group as his eyes turned glassy. "If time travel and jumping is affecting our chips, then hers would have been affected. Hers was the precursor to ours- our chips on based on her chip's architecture. She knew. If what the hybrid told me about the first, our commander… somehow, I think, the hybrids communicated with her… the hybrid said she had been there before."
A/N 1: I had a clarification. The armor and stuff the Marines wear and their battle equipment… I guess the closest example to visualize it, is the computer game Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Their 'tactical visors' would be similar to what you see on the box for the game. I know nothing like that was on the show… but neither were terminators. ;)
I hope the robotic surgical suite wasn't too much… but surgeries today, in 2009 are even being done with crude AI. So going with the subtle changes in technology (slightly more advanced than in the show) I've thrown into the story, I hope that went well.
I also hope the SCIENCE! was acceptable… the bit with quantum particles changing ones to zeros and vice versa was an explanation Geata gave in the Face of the Enemy webisodes on why the Raptor misjumped. I just didn't want it to get too technobabbly, which is where I was afraid it was going. As Part 2 ends the explanation for the hybrids will get expanded on. They're still working with very limited information and just going by guesses and theories for the most part. They'll figure it out a bit more later on. The mission to Athens was in Future War: Enemies and Machines. The story of Carwin and Wells doesn't fit with The Tin Man's War. I wrote FW:EaM before deciding to write those Earth "prequels", so it's sort of a retcon on Carwin and Wells's capture (who I hadn't actually planned on using again, to be honest).
A/N 2:
So please review and let me know what you think. It's been 4 months and 25 chapters and I've only gotten 1.6 reviews/chapter….. I'd really appreciate it if I could get some more, and definitely saying what you all want more of in Part 3… more Cylons, more terminators, less of something or more? Let me know. If there is some very popular thing (like more Starbuck or more Carter-Shaw interaction let me know). I just want to make sure the story doesn't lose its novelty or gets boring. The chapters are getting hundreds of visits… so a few more reviews would be very motivational.
And suggestions and constructive criticism is always welcome. If there is an idea I really like (like Grace suggested some more Starbuck, so I expanded the scene on Pegasus) or a suggestion I will try and put it into Part 3 as long as it works with the plot.
A/N3: I am also trying to gauge interest in a spin-off story where Omega Team goes to the Colonies and tries to stop Skynet from uploading itself. While the end result is known, there is plenty of material there to write a story prior to their displacement to the Colonies, and the attempts while in the Colonies to stop the Skynet Terminators. Let me know if you all are interested in reading something like that and if there is enough interest, I'll get one written up. I've got a rough outline and the first chapter written... and a few BSG characters could make a very, very breif cameo appearance. Just let me know if you all would be interested in such a story.
Thank you, please review.