||||||||||==Rebel Cylon Baseship (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Natalie could feel the burning around her. Her whole world was on fire and the landscape a ruined plain of ash and charred bodies. The smell was noxious and her eyes burned from the fumes. Whatever had happened here had been recent.
She tried to call our, but her throat was inflamed from the fumes. Her hand shot to her chest and she fell to a knee as she tried to breathe, but each breath just brought in more of the ash and toxic gasses swirling around her. She could feel her lungs dying, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She was heaving, trying to breath, but with each breath, what little oxygen there was she breathed in more and more death.
"Stand up," she heard. "Stand up now," she heard again.
The rebel leader ignored the voice. It was a delusion, an illusion, of her dying mind. Her shaking hands reached out and burned when they touched the ashen embers glowing red hot below her. She fought herself; she was too weak to stand and her conscious mind wanted nothing more than for her body to give up.
"Stand up now," it repeated.
She pushed up. She stood and felt her knees buckle. She could see the world spinning and herself falling when she stopped.
Natalie could feel two hands holding her up, pushing her up to her feet.
Everything vanished.
Gasping, she felt her lungs fill with the life-giving force of oxygen. Her black and burned hands were cleansed, the blisters on her feet and knees were gone. The sweat and ash stains on her shoulder, light brown hair, and face were wiped away.
She shivered under the cool touch as a hand gently touched her triceps. She whirled around, her hair wiping up, and she stepped back, her hands at her mid-torso, ready to fight.
"You're safe here," it said.
Natalie had no way to describe what she was seeing other than 'it'.
"Who are you?"
"You've done this before," it said. "It can be traumatizing, I understand."
"Why do I keep seeing all of this? This… this… death?" She asked with her eyes pleading for an answer. "Is this God telling me I was wrong?"
"To oppose the master of the Cylon race?" It asked.
"I prayed. I prayed for guidance. I did what I thought was right," she defended herself against a perceived philosophical attack.
"I'm here to help you. I've been helping you. Look."
Natalie once again watched as the nothingness became everything. She was back on a ruined world but her lungs didn't burn, her eyes didn't water, and she didn't choke when she breathed.
She could smell fire and see the sky tinged with an orange-red glow from the planet's sun. It looked like Caprica after the Fall.
"It's not Caprica," it said as if reading her mind.
"It's Earth," she immediately responded. She knew it.
"Correct. It's Earth." It said. It moved passed her and showed her the ruined world. "But it's at war with itself. It's a world which shares a common history with yours."
"What are you talking about?" Natalie demanded. "Why can't you just tell me what you want me to do?"
"The answer is under the mountain."
"That doesn't-" Natalie began to protest.
"It's here. He knows I'm here, he knows."
Natalie looked at it and still did not understand.
"This is a place he can never come. Our fates are determined, but the paths we chose determine which fate will be ours. This is a cycle Natalie, a cycle which has continued and will continue unless it is broken here. This must be the last or everything we know will be gone… it's here…Earth… the Colonies… everything is connected… I don't know what to do," it sounded desperate, "I've done what's been done before… don't fail…"
Natalie opened her eyes and launched herself back. She heard the mechanical steps of a Centurion and the whine of its servos as it bent down and kneeled in front of her. It's head came forward and tilted sideways, inquiring if she was damaged in any way.
The bio-Cylon shook the Centurion off and pushed herself along the wall until she could see the hybrid. She looked down at her arm as the cool, clear conducting gel slid down her arm and dripped onto the shining metallic floor.
"What did I see?" She whispered to herself.
||||||||||==Cynet Command Hub (+978 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Cavil rocked back in his seat in the slow flying heavy raider as a Doral model, currently inhabited by an infinitesimal portion of Cynet's consciousness, stared across from the passenger bay towards him. His master had been using a series of Doral and Simon models to communicate over the last few days, rarely utilizing the more efficient and much more personal link to his mind.
The bio-Cylon considered if Cynet had actually been concerned about his privacy? He played with his hands to distract him.
He looked up, and the Doral was still just sitting there, smiling, or more accurately, grinning, and perfectly content to not speak. Except for the distinct hum of heavy raider engines and the whoosh sound of the Centurion optical sensors travelling back and forth in their armored, gray craniums, it was completely quiet.
The One had been forced into the heavy raider by a pair of Centurions, ferreted away in the middle of a meeting with others of his model, the fours, and the fives. They had continued like nothing had happened.
Cavil brought his right ear down to his shoulder and breathed out slowly when he heard a series of cracks in his cervical vertebrae; it had been the stress. He'd been tense and sitting erect in an unnaturally rigid posture. Even his bio-Cylon physiology wasn't immune to the peculiarities of the human, though augmented, musculoskeletal system.
It was merely an annoyance.
"We're almost there, John," the Doral said in a soft, hushed tone. "From this point on, John, your thoughts will once again be your own."
The One scratched his eye and then wringed his hands together. "Thank you?" he rhetorically asked.
The Doral smirked. "One thing I enjoy about your presence, John, is that you're not intimidated by me. You retain your sense of personality. That means something."
Cavil prepared himself and braced, grabbing the bucket seat and holding on.
Cavil felt the tickle in his mind vanish and wash away like footsteps on a beach.
"That was…"
"Easy," the Doral filled in.
"It will get somewhat lonely… just me and you," Cavil lightly joked. One of the Centurions cocked its head and looked down at him. "As much as I am flattered you chose me, there are others. Just two independent machine AIs like us cannot be enough to produce fruitful discourse." He widened his eyes momentarily to point out the importance of this observation. "And I guess some of the Centurions?"
Doral put his hand on some of the cargo webbing hanging down from the top of the squad bay and leaned forward so he could see passed the armored core of the Centurions flanking him and into the cockpit.
"We're here." Doral casually stated. "I take it you knew we were traveling to the command hub." He looked back in time to see the fedora wearing bio-Cylon nod his head. "Excellent." He clapped his hands together and stood. "Then I will explain everything you need to know in the hub."
The Command Hub could be described by Cynet, Cavil, or any sapient and aware AI as a masterpiece of advanced engineering. It was the largest moveable structure ever created by the Cylon nation or the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.
The hub was utilitarian in function, with a mix of blocky function with a flare that implied a strong grasp on material and organic sciences. Its central structure was two separate double pyramids, connected in the center by a thick rectangular collar.
The armored plating was a mix of the technological and biological; the hub could grow and self-repair with the proper minerals and artificial solutions coursing through its systems.
Large, bright running lights doted each corner of the pyramid and outlined the central collar, which was punctured with dozens of landing bays, large and small.
Three massive, sturdy arms were each five kilometers long and attached by sloping support braces reached out from the central double pyramid. Each arm had thousands of slits for the fast and tenacious Cylon raiders and was bristling with kinetic canons and missile launchers.
Dangling under the massive arms were two claw-like structures. The structure of baseships, some nearing completion and some nothing but frame and biomechanical cartilage were being methodically constructed and readied for war.
At the center of each arm was a pair of two kilometer long receivers and transmitters linked together by thick data transmission cables and plugged into the massive computer core which contained the essence of Cynet.
Uncountable thousands of Centurions patrolled the corridors of the Command Hub, hundreds of Raiders flew patrol, and seven baseships floated as silent centuries in space.
Cavil being one of only a handful of bio-Cylons in the facility made him uncomfortable. As much as he wanted to be a true machine, the site of so many Centurions and the absence of others like him was a distracting discomfort.
The corridor he was in was different than the last time he was here, but with his sense of direction and perfect memory, he still felt he was heading in the general direction the Centurion had taken him so many months ago.
He snorted; things were simpler then. This civil war between the Cylon loyalists and the faction led by Natalie was not the embarrassment it had devolved into.
The short bio-Cylon kept a matching pace with the even shorter bio-Cylon stalking forwards in front of him. The Doral model Cynet had inhabited- which Cavil still found odd- was moving as fast as his short, stalky legs could take him.
Even with his master inhabiting this individual Doral, Cavil had always felt there was just something off about the entire line. Cavil thought about them, and to use a human expression, he considered them to be 'creepy.'
"There has been a change in plans, John," the Doral stated with hands clasped behind its back and still walking quickly. "Days ago something happened which I didn't expect to happen. But do you know what you do when something unexpected occurs?"
"No…" Cavil answered as he tried to lead his master into answer the question with a minimal amount of chatter.
"You adapt, of course." Doral said with a definitive nod. "The situation changes and you adapt. It took my brother many tries to understand that and in its hour of weakness turned towards those it sought to destroy to help it gain power. Humans," Cavil's master added looking over his shoulder. "And it sent me out to conquer a species and return and be its salvation. Ironic."
They turned a corner into a larger corridor lined with Centurions. These were Centurions Cavil had never seen before.
He could immediately tell they were taller, by a third, bulkier, and with gray-black armor. While the torso was still angled like a 'V' the armor was appreciably thicker and the hip joints and knee joints were fully encased in armor. The head was three centimeters wider, but the mouth grill where the Centurions spoke from wasn't as pointed, but more rounded like a human chin.
There was additional armor plating over their upper arms where their biceps would be.
The visor with the roving optical eye had its ends rounded, instead of ending in sharp right angles.
"Are these new?" Cavil asked, stopping behind the Doral and inspecting one.
He looked down and saw their clawed fingers and rounded wrist. Instead of three barrels on their arm there was a single barrel on their lateral forearm, and the barrel was shortened and stopped at the write. It was the same size as the larger canon the Model 007 Centurion's had on top of their forearms.
"Yes," the Doral stopped and walked back to Cavil. "They're the Model 008 and will replace the 007."
"They're under armed," Cavil pointed to the single barrels.
"No. This is more accurate and the Centurion will instead only need one size bullet. It won't run out of ammunition as quickly. And the weaponry is optimized for realistic engagement ranges. We're going back to using rifles."
"A step back," Cavil observed, shaking his head and rubbing the corner of his eye. "The integrated weapons-"
"Worked for a time. They worked against the Colonials. But they're not heavy enough to kill the machines employed by the Colonials now. Our engagements with the Colonials were short, quick. But with their machines we need more powerful weaponry and that weaponry cannot be welded to an appendage. We need anti-material rifles, small rockets, and explosives…"
"Or those energy rifles they built," Cavil pointed out.
"Or the energy rifles," Cynet agreed. "Like I said, you adapt. None of these Centurions," he turned up his palm and motioned to the hundreds lining the corridor, "were built to wage a war against Skynet. We don't have the resources to fight my brother in a fair fight." He held up his finger. "The first rule of war is to never fight fair. All we need to do is nuke them from orbit and send it an overwhelming number of Centurions to raid my brother's factories and research centers and secure the technology we will need."
The Doral continued walking.
"We'll leave Earth barren?" Cavil shouted out after the Doral. His hand shot up and held his fedora in place as he jogged-walked to catch up with his master.
"We will leave Earth as glass and annihilate its two races," Cynet elaborated.
They turned down a side corridor which was lined with Centurions, the new Model, once again.
"Run out of storage?" Cavil asked.
"No." The Doral looked over his shoulder. "They're very protective." The right side of his lips flickered into even what Cavil would consider an eerily sinister, creepy grin.
"What does that mean?" Cavil asked.
"These are not robots," he waved his hand back, "they are soldiers."
'Soldiers' Cavil mouthed.
"We should be increasing baseship production. We have millions of Centurions and our intelligence puts the number of Terminators at three. We'll need hundreds of baseships and tens, hundreds of thousands of raiders to search the galaxy for Earth," Cavil protested.
For the bio-Cylon an army was impractical, obsolete. Nuclear weapons were the key to victory. Centurions were only good for what his master had stated; raiding. Space held all the resources a mobile society like the Cylon nation would need.
"The sooner we find Earth and eliminate it… what if they build ships?"
"I don't have all the answers, John, but Earth doesn't have the technology." He stopped and spun. "You worry, John. Earth is more advanced than us in some fields, which is obvious. We are more advanced where it counts. We have the advantage of space… by our very nature we are more powerful than Skynet and Earth. Skynet could never build this Hub. It doesn't possess the technology to build a baseship."
"And if Cain and Adama lead the fleet to Earth-"
"We don't need the baseships right now," Doral snipped. "Earth has no warships and the rebels have a few dozen at most. Are you afraid of aliens?" Doral turned another corner. "Don't tell me you believe in aliens, John?"
"Thousands of light years out from the Colonies…" Cavil mused, "no, I don't believe in aliens. But more fantastic things have happened. Like an AI which appeared on the Colonies during a robotic rebellion… that would have been science fiction a century ago," he droned.
The Doral was nodding and Cavil watched its head bobbed up and down. If he were his master he'd have inhabited another Simon. The Dorals were small and there was something about the way they looked at the other Cylons… Cavils once thought the entire line would just snap one day and murder all of its brothers and sisters.
It was an irrational fear, he knew, but he was cursed with a brain and the irrationality which was hardwired into such an inefficient and unevolved organic system.
"An astute observation but the fact remains we have a fleet of warships and that doesn't take into account the defenses of this facility, John. We're well protected, John."
The two stopped at a small door and the area they were in was still flanked by the new Model 008 Centurion. Cavil swore their eyes were watching him.
The Doral body stood patiently and Cavil watched as it looked left once and then right. The outer doors shot open and Cavil and the Doral walked in. The doors hissed shut and Cavil heard magnetic locks engage with a subdued click. The cycle repeated on the inner set of doors, which he estimated, were half a meter thick.
Air hissed as the pressures equalized between the security zone and the main chamber.
"My God…" Cavil uttered when he walked into what could only be described as a work of art.
The Doral was laughing. "And you said you didn't believe," Cynet sardonically pointed out.
The room was massive. It wasn't a storage room, Cavil determined, or even a bunker. It was a display room. This was a room to brag of technological achievement and a place to boast of what the future of the Cylon race would be like. It was a view of the galaxy and what life form would dominate its hundred billion stars.
There were machines. There were dozens of the machines Cynet had showed him months ago.
It was covered in flesh and was a representation of him… not a mirror image, but what he would have looked like if he were forty years old. It was what he would have looked like thirty years ago had he not been birthed from the cloning tanks as a seventy year old priest.
"They're ready?" Cavil asked, walking up and resisting the urge to put his hand on the glass.
That was something a human would do, he figured.
"They're ready. But the time to download your consciousness into the MCP is not now. You see your prize, your reward. These battle units are our first of millions which will even the odds for us when we reach Earth," Cynet proclaimed. "We'll take what we need from that world and burn the planet until it is glass."
"We need to find Earth, first."
"The Lion's Head Nebula was a road sign as told by Pythia. Some texts speak of a second coming and the apocalypse. Some thought the Earth Judgment Day was the apocalypse. It's time for the decedents of Kobol to return to Earth."
Cavil snorted at the religious prophecy.
The One turned around when he heard footsteps behind him; not mechanical.
"Don't discount the truths behind those texts, Cavil. Kobol might have worshipped pagan gods, but that doesn't mean God didn't speak to some of them." The One stared, his mouth hanging open. "Miss me?" The bio-Cylon grinned.
||||||||||==BS-62Pegasus (+985 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
"Humans and chaos- never aware of your limitations… it gives you the confidence to do-" Planck had begun to say to the General on 5 November 2027.
"Reckless things," the General had interrupted.
"Yes, sir."
"There's an old saying… 'Just go with the flow.' When you can't choose the battles, Colonel, sometimes you have to just jump in and be a part of the chaos and start swinging and don't stop until everyone but you and your buddies are laying on the ground-" Planck recalled.
"Terminated."
"…I was going to say 'unconscious'…"
The benefit, Planck remembered to being a machine, was that when the variable were known one could be more confident in the outcome. That was something a machine wanted to know to fulfill its mission, even if the mission was something specific like 'take bunker x' or something incredibly broad, such as 'keep these people safe.'
The mission to 'keep these people safe' had gone from a somewhat straightforward undertaking to something incredibly complex. The variables were complete unknowns, and the hybrids made analysis of the situation nearly impossible.
Planck had hoped, with the machine analogue to hope, that the Cylon civil war would be disastrous for Cynet. By all accounts it was, but it had also achieved a victory over the rebels. Each side had pushed for an end while Planck had been hoping it would have been a protracted struggle; a few years of space-based guerilla warfare. But Cynet had struck, and smash its hammer into the anvil and caught the rebels between.
In truth, he had admitted to himself some weeks ago, the Cylon civil war could be a God-send to the fleet and Earth. Earth didn't need the rebels as long as it had the Guardians.
John remembered back to one conversation he had before he'd jumped back in time to 2008:
"I never liked machines. Even Cameron… I've told my view to the General plenty of times and he knows it. But you all are useful and I'm going to treat you like soldiers. I won't order you to your… deaths," a then Lt. Colonel Vasa Srecko had told a 'young' and recently promoted Captain Planck.
The Colonel was a Serbian immigrant who came to the United States at 15, graduated from Virginia Polytechnic, and commissioned into the US Army in 2001. He had joined the US Army Rangers in 2004 and had served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"You tolerate us? Why? Skynet killed your family so you hate every machine by your own admission."
Planck remembered the Lt. Colonel laughing. The machine remembered he had only been active a few years and had been struggling to understand human behavior. He remembered he didn't understand the humor in the situation.
The humor for Srecko was that it was so blindingly obvious.
Srecko held up his hand in a fist. His index finger popped out. "One, because you all can fight better than we can…" his middle finger popped out, "two, because you even the odds for us," and his ring finger popped out, "and three… because I don't order you on frivolous suicide missions…" he made a balled fist again, "no, no, no. I use you on the high risk mission because humans would die. That's all I care about. You machines can go and die and I'll save a hundred human lives. And I will sleep like a baby at night because of it."
The weeks of relative down time, forced into a monotony of sit-wait-jump had been pushing the machines towards topics they had been pushing aside. There were rebel Cylons out there and they were the best shot to defeat Cynet.
They had already been decimated.
Planck didn't have to ask himself what or who he would sacrifice to save Earth. He just hoped it didn't come to that.
"Hey, Planck… John… Planck," he heard.
He broke his recall and looked slowly over to Admiral Cain.
The machine turned to glance at the digital clock on the wall above the tactical operation stations and faster than light control console. The blocky digital letters, a deep red, were counting down from six minute and twenty-two seconds. There was another jump.
"We're getting ready to jump," Cain said as she looked at him suspiciously.
Even Major Avion standing behind the Admiral was a little uneasy.
"Yes, thank you," the machine replied.
"Everything alright?" She asked.
The machine nodded.
This was almost worse than being stuck on New Caprica.
New Caprica had been everything that Terminators were not. It was peaceful, for a time, and the people were concerned with building sewers, power lines, apartments, hospitals, and schools. Terminators didn't do that; but they had.
It had put them a year and a half behind schedule, though Planck realized there really wasn't a 'schedule' to finding a world where you had no real idea where it was. Pragmatically it had proven that the most efficient killing machines ever developed could find another purpose other than war.
"Redirecting the energy buildups," Havers said, oblivious to the tension which had swelled in the CIC. He leaned forward and pressed a green button on his console and then a series of others to redirect energy output.
He activated the countdown clocks throughout the ship. Admiral Cain hadn't wanted people distracted by the clocks continuously clicking down to the inevitable and nerve-racking zero.
"This will be number eighteen," Major Avion stated from behind the Admiral.
Having been aboard Pegasus during the unfortunate events, he was serving as a temporary Tactical Operations officer while Captain Shaw was recovering. It was taking some getting used to filling in an old role he occupied early in his career, and thoughts of Helios and the fleet were a persistent, though mild, distraction.
Captain Vansen made an excellent XO, and he had faith in her abilities as an interim CO.
Tactical operations put Avion as third in command should Cain or Adama be incapacitated, though technically as a cruiser CO he did outrank Adama even if Apollo had more time in rank.
"Mr. Hoshi, recall the CAP immediately," the Admiral ordered as she kept her eyes locked on DRADIS.
"Aye, sir," the officer responded as his hands flew over the necessary controls to open a wireless and tell the Vipers and Raptor to return.
"At least the buildups are predictable now," Cain said over her shoulder to Avion.
"Yes, sir," he responded. "We can at least manage a decent CAP."
"We might have to risk sending out scout Raptors," she stated as she studied the DRADIS and the star charts on her central console.
Major Adama had just re-entered CIC to catch the tail end of the conversation. He looked over at Planck who had been standing quietly a few steps back from the Admiral near the weapon's stations.
The Major took in a breath as he prepared his report.
"If we don't stop soon we might have to pull the targeting arrays and FTL apparatus. Colonel Garner's men just ran through another computer simulation down in engineering," Major Adama reported, "they're improving the odds of successfully dismantling the array without… damaging anything. But these weren't meant to be taken apart outside of a major facility by specially trained personnel," he noted.
Apollo held in his hand, his clenched and cramping fist, an e-reader with Colonel Barry Garner's recommendations; complete engine shutdown, valve discharge of all built up energies, an emergency stop to the always pumping and always spinning spheres and gears of the FTL apparatus, and disassembly of the main energy converters.
"They considered removing the synchronization coils, but that would just lead to complete randomness if the energy buildups continued in the targeting arrays," he continued.
On hearing Major Adama's proclamation Cain flashed back to the day they took the FTL drives from the civilian ships.
Civilian FTL's, which were smaller and not required to be put under the stresses of a military warship were built to be 'ro-ro' systems; roll on-roll off. By design they could be jury rigged in series, daisy-chained, without having to dismantle them. That was why Pegasus took all the drives.
The battlestar's FTL was like the CIC; buried so deep within the ship that if it was knocked offline official Colonial Fleet statistics indicated that the ship would most likely be damaged beyond repair, if not outright destroyed and turned into a burning scrap.
Major Adama had been lectured by Colonel Garner how one bolt on the drive cost more than their entire salaries combined.
Cain looked over her XO warily then looked over her shoulder as Major Avion made an observation.
"There's also the issue of energy buildups if we take it apart," Avoid said. "Without a release the energy just builds up. It could suck the ship's guts in; implode the ship, if it reaches critical."
Adama considered himself lucky his uniform wasn't drenched with sweat or wasn't shaking in his boots. Engineering was both extremely hot and humid or extremely cold depending on which compartment you have the bad luck of being forced into.
He looked up when Cain began to outline a rough contingency plan.
"We still have some civilian drives," Cain said and kept her voice from cracking or showing emotion as she stated the awkward fact. "But even in series our mass would burn out the drives after a few dozen jumps. No, we may need to just let this play out," Cain concluded.
The XO looked over to the Admiral and placed the e-reader in front of her. "Colonel Garner's recommendations," he elaborated. He leaned in. "I can't see how the engineers don't realize there's some strange oil, fluid smell stuck to all of them."
Cain chuckled lightly and took up the e-reader and placed it in a small storage nook on the command console. It was where she placed all her papers, reports, and data discs she'd take back to her quarters at night and read before bed.
"Some light reading before bed." She ran the tips of her fingers over the dozens of file folders and data cards in the little cubby.
"I've got about eighty pages already and…" Major Adama responded as he checked his watch, "and there's still six hours left on this duty section."
He walked up behind Lt. Havers with Admiral Cain.
"Has there been any progress in determining our location?" Adama asked.
"Not really sir… but if Galactica is looking for us there's always DRADIS buoys," Lt. Havers offered. "Though those work for Cylons and Colonial..." he reluctantly pointed out unnecessarily. Out of the corner of his tired eyes he could just barely see the Admiral leaning in to read his screen.
The admiral behind him nodded. "A buoy is a last option," she stated. "And I'm not as confident in the abilities of the hybrid as you," she added,
Planck was up behind them as well. "Your FTL engines theoretically possess infinite range," he said, a mix between question and statement.
"Theoretically. But 'infinite' was just some embellishment by Doctor Vines and her FTL equations. An infinite jump requires infinite computing power. That is impossible," Lt. Havers countered. He turned to the Admiral. "We're still working on a program to figure out exactly how much… oh this energy is being pumped into our targeting arrays. If we can figure that out then we can figure out how far we've jumped."
"I think it would be reasonable to assume the hybrid would not want us to be lost in space and once we reach our destination and beyond deployment range of scout Raptors or the ready fuel supply," John observed.
"So we should be jumping distances at or near our red lines?" Adama asked. Planck tilted his head as a yes. "That's still… millions of cubic light years."
"Eleven point six two million cubic light years," John said. He decided to approximate. "If we use the local star cluster to approximate."
"Eleven point six two million," the XO repeated. It was an exhausting number that showed on his face. "It's the literal needle in a silo of hay."
"Once we find our location we can back extrapolate the position of the fleet," Admiral Cain pointed out. "I believe Galactica had to do that once before?"
"Ah, yes sir, when Galactica gave the fleet the wrong coordinates we back jumped and extrapolated. It took a while, and that was only one jump," Major Adama filled in. He looked up at the machine, "who knows how many we'll have but hopefully we might be able to do it a bit faster."
"Pegasus computers are faster than Galactica's," the machine added. "We can network with them and increase their processing capabilities; it shouldn't be too difficult."
"This star cluster is blinding our telescopes to a quarter of the sky," Major Avion added from his post. "It's so bright at this range we can't see passed it. But it does give us a rough idea of where we are in relations to where we were."
"Which still puts us in a eleven million cubic sphere," Cain reminded him. "Is there anything in this region of space of any value, anything? Even a proto-planet?"
"There isn't much around the star cluster and our telescopes have found a handful of systems with gas giants, nine, to be exact within one jump." Avion said. "There's nothing much out here and based on our position the star cluster would keep us from seeing anything in front of it or near it, even angled away."
"So what could the hybrid want for us out here?" Cain mused. "Maybe there is a secret Cynet facility?"
"This far from the Colonies?" John asked. Cain made it obvious she was being facetious.
"Unless there's something else," she said.
"I don't know. If Pythia is correct and the Lion's Head Nebula is a marker towards Earth, the hybrid may be moving us towards another road sign, a marker," Planck said to the Admiral. "I don't know."
||||||||||==BS-75 Galactica==||||||||||
Commander Adama leaned in and removed his glasses. His right hand came up, holding a white and black stylus, and he crossed off another proto-planetary system which had yielded absolutely nothing. Pressing the finger into the display window, he shoved the digital map off to the side and brought up a second.
Colonel Tigh was standing back and made his opinion clear. "This region of space is pretty barren, sir. And the star cluster," he leaned forward and pointed, "is fraking up half our spectrographs and telescopic reading for a quarter of the sky." His finger tapped the plastic on the wall-sized monitor and made a dull thud.
"We've scouted dozens of star systems, sir," Major Agathon reported from behind him. He walked up until he was abreast of the Commander, holding a tablet pc. "The food situation is getting bad, sir. There are reports of food riots on Pixis, Cloud 9, Iconia, Green Leaf, Pan Galactica 073, and Prometheus."He twisted around and placed the tablet and a file folder on the large tactical board behind him.
Wallace Gray, the 'fatuous gasbag' as he had been known prior to the Vice Presidential elections so long ago, cleared his throat and stepped forward, passed Colonel Tigh, so the Commander could see him.
"Like Major Agathon said, the food situation is getting bad. There are rumors that some ships are hoarding supplies and it seems there has been accusation of class warfare and favoritism."
"Has the scout Raptor from Helios reported back?" Adama asked as he kept his eyes steady on the map.
"No, sir…" he rolled over his forearm to check his watch, "we've still got thirty minutes before they're due," the officer reported.
Adama nodded and his impassive face formed into a frown. Everything seemed to be moving slower than usual today.
"Mr. Gray," Adama turned his attention to the technocrat, "I'm aware of the accusations and the perceived favoritism, but the fleet needs to maintain its fuel and strategic supply of minerals."
"The food riots…" Gray led.
"How bad were the riots?" He asked, turning to face his third in command.
"Sixteen injured- broken bones, bruises, and nothing major, sir," Helo ticked off from memory. "Two Marines suffered lacerations."
"We might have to send in the Marines if it gets any worse," Tigh pointed out.
"That could be disastrous," Gray countered. He looked at the Colonel and without saying it his face plainly implied 'Gideon Massacre'. "I've been running the numbers, Commander, and the fact is, there has been hoarding. Not just by civilian ships, but I've seen it on Helios and Galactica."
"What the frak are you getting at?" Tigh questioned angrily. He looked at the Commander, incredulous that a civilian would make such an accusation. "We've cut our rations three hundred calories below the civilian fleet!"
Gray held up his hands defensively. "I'm not implying you're purposefully hoarding, Commander," he looked the Colonel in the eye, "or you, or anyone on Galactica's command staff doing so knowingly. But…" he leaned down and pulled out a briefcase and a micro data card. He also grabbed a file folder and handed it to the Commander, "but like I said, the numbers don't match. Commander, there's hundreds of people on this battlestar distributing food alone. All I'm saying is that a small group is probably fixing the books."
Adama extended his hands and Gray handed over the folder and then leaned forward and handed Major Agathon the data card, which he inserted into his tablet. After a minute Commander Adama handed the folder to Tigh, who quickly thumbed through it.
"Gods fraking damn," Tigh muttered as the proof was revealed. "You did this based on weight?" He asked, completely surprised.
Gray nodded. It was fairly simple and he'd been proud, in a sense, to be the one to see if but at the same time felt disappointed yet again in the innate ability of humans to frak others over for their own benefit.
"A case of emergency G-rations weighs two hundred kilos, exactly. Two of Galactica's heavy lift shuttles departed with fifty cases each to those star liners," he leaned forward towards Tigh and turned to the relevant page. "The landing signals crew recorded the weights of the shuttles when they rolled onto the elevators."
"Eighty-seven kilos under weight," Major Agathon filled in. "And fuel and people"
"I checked the fuel records. Even accounting for small glitches in the amount of fuel, the weight of the pilots, everything, they were eighty-seven to one hundred kilos underweight of what they should have been," Gray explained.
"How long?" Adama asked.
"From what I can tell," Gray shrugged, "maybe three weeks. Ever since you broke out the G-rations. I went down there and just walked around. The cases are secured, but not locked. All one has to do is remove a few packages of rations and none would be the wiser."
"It's all handheld barcode scanners and RFID on the pallets and cases but nothing on the individual ration packages," Colonel Tigh explained. "Remove a few and rearrange what's left to make it look like nothing was taken."
"With how hectic half the ships are distributing rations… it's just some unlucky crewman grabbing a ration package and handing it off for a ration ticket. It's like a pandemonium on many of the ships," Agathon stated.
"We have a hundred Marines too weak to work, two hundred crew too weak to work, and another two hundred on the edge," Tigh reported dutifully.
Commander Adama, now fully distracted from his ponderings over where to send the next wave of scout Raptors, took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in his belt for safe keeping.
"We can handle the people on Galactica and if this is happening on Helios, there, too. My concerns…" he rubbed his brow, "are with the civilian ships. The black market was thriving on New Caprica and there were rumors the Ha'la'tha and some other groups…" he circled his hand, "the Sons of Ares, are trying to get started."
"The Marines only escort the food to the proper ship security and crews. They could intercept it… right now food is in even higher demand than drugs." Tigh said.
"There aren't enough Marines in the fleet to escort food containers around and still provide ship security," Adama pointed out.
Gray hummed a thought. "Well, I know Sam Anders is investigating some alleged sex-for-food rings that have sprung up on Prometheus and Cloud 9 and Everlasting Bliss. I could contact him and ask him to coordinate with you," Gray offered.
Anders had been at the top of his graduating class for the new civilian fleet security division and he'd already caught Gray's eye as an excellent law enforcement officer.
"Sam's a good man," Helo said, hugging the tablet. "He's a friend. I could coordinate with him, Commander?"
Adama didn't have to think twice about this. The black market and prostitution rings were carefully tolerated as long as it remained 'clean' and the women and men could come and go and weren't forced into some sort of sex slave trade. The drug market had been ground under the boot of Admiral Cain's low tolerance policies and was a shadow of what it had been on New Caprica (everyone assumed many of the drug traffickers had chosen to save themselves first and rather not risk life and limb to save their equipment when the Second Exodus occurred).
"Mr. Gray, if that's acceptable I'd like Major Agathon to meet with Anders and help coordinate an investigation. If you have any recommendations to deal with better distribution of supplies…"
"I appreciate it, Commander. And yes, I do have a few ideas," Gray said with an appreciative smile.
Commander Adama turned to his XO. "Saul, before we can clean up the fleet, we need to clean our own house and put it in order. Have the Master-at-Arms begin her own investigation into who could be stealing. Like Mr. Gray said," he nodded to the technocrat, "there's a limited amount of people involved." Adama grinded his jaw as he looked down and at the deck as he spoke. "I won't have any thieves on my ship." He turned back to Mr. Gray. "If you don't mind, Mr. Gray, I have a few issues to discuss with my XO and Tac Ops."
"Certainly, Commander," Gray said as he reached down and picked dup his brown leather briefcase which had begun to fray. "I'll be in the conference room with everyone else, trying to figure out this whole mess and more efficient distribution." He shook the Commander's hand and nodded to Tigh and Agathon and left.
Colonel Tigh breathed out and pulsed his eyebrows up and down twice.
"So…" he looked at his watch and felt a little bit of his life snatched away, "I guess the show's about to get started down on the flight deck. Are you sure about this, Bill? Can we trust them?"
Colonel Tigh really did not want to do this. He knew he'd be forced to somehow defend them against the onlookers. And there wasn't enough space to do anything in secret with a Raptor, not with the food shortage and so much shuttle traffic.
Adama gave his old friend one of his sly, almost unnoticeable smirks. It was rare for the Commander to break from his almost unreadable facial expression. This was truly a moment.
"No, but we can trust two of them."
"Athena vouches for her," Helo said.
"If you say so," the XO sighed. He rapped his fingers nervously on the central console, breathed in, and then let the air escape in a stutter over his half closed mouth. "Wish me luck."
"Have fun, Saul," he said.
The XO groaned and swore he'd get back at the Commander for this.
Chief Tyrol held the flight orders in his hand and checked everything off for the last time. Captain Kelley had sent down orders to pull Raptor 712 from the flight list and put it in a maintenance bay.
He'd complied but gotten an earful of expletives from tired, cranky, and hungry Raptor pilot and ECO. Eammon 'Gonzo' Pike and his ECO both yelling a string of expletives as they stalked back to the briefing room after their scouting mission was cancelled.
At first he'd thought them lucky. They could get rack time. But he'd have hated to be stuck not being able to help. Here he could at least turn over Raptors to search or distribute food.
Thirty minutes ago a dolly with black, double locked crates had arrived under Marine guard. It was still under Marine guard.
"Hey Chief, you have any idea what's going on here?" Specialist Anthony Figurski yelled out while rearranging a set of spare main bus valves for a Raptor.
The Galactica deck chief meandered over and swayed side to side, trying to get a reaction from the Marines, who were ignoring him. He debated moving closer, but the Marines had sunken eyes and their cheek bones were showing they were hungry, like everyone else, and probably in a fraking miserable mood. He decided against antagonizing them with questions.
"I got no idea at all," he said as he rubbed the back of his neck.
He grimaced when he felt the slick oil stains from his hands rub off onto the back of his neck. The last thing he needed was to get even more dirty because he barely had the strength to fall into his rack at night, let alone shower.
Cally walked up, an oiled rag in one hand and a Viper hose dangling from the other. "Scuttle butt says it's some secret mission or something… that the Commander is looking for the Guardians again after they vanished a few weeks back."
"Whaaaat?" Figurski said, turning to face the young deckhand. "There's a baseship of theirs a hundred kilometers from Galactica," he pointed out. He puckered his lips, blew out, and rolled his eyes at the young deckhand.
"Yeah, exactly. One," she countered. She jammed her index finger into the middle-aged man. "Rumor is the Cylons found their main base and that commander of their jumped back and was killed."
The Chief saw Athena in green fatigues approach from the main storage bay. "Hey, El Tee!" He shouted, waving her over.
"What's up, Chief?" She asked cheerfully. She looked from Figurski to Cally and back to the Chief. She tensed her neck briefly. "Why's everyone staring?" She asked with shifty eyes.
"Cally thinks all these crates here," Figurski motioned over with his dirty hand, "are a part of some secret mission to find where the Guardians went to. She thinks the Cylons caught up with their main fleet and the Commander 'Serious' or whoever of theirs jumped back and got killed." He chuckled. The old deckhand figured if the Guardians had survived forty years out here, they'd not just vanish like that.
"Yeah, well um…" she looked at her watch and then back over her shoulder. Not seeing who she was looking for she sidestepped and looked behind Figurski, Cally, and the Chief towards the main ladder entrance to the bay.
"Lieutenant knows something," Cally opined with an innocent smirk.
Athena was about to confirm something was up when the three knuckle draggers all turned in unison when someone yelled, 'what the frak?'
"Oh, you are fraking kidding me," the Chief swore. "You are fraking kidding… what the frak is he doing?"
"Uh… Chief," Cally nervously said and pointed. Behind him were two other women and the XO.
"What the frak?" Chief and Figurski bellowed in unison.
Athena walked up besides the three deckhands and sighed. That got their attention and they all stared at her, waiting for answers. "You want to fraking explain, El Tee?" The Chief respectfully demanded.
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus==||||||||||
The sidelining continued, John thought, as he walked briskly down the quiet corridors of Pegasus. The Beast had not been spared the contamination of food stocks, but the ship had been reasonably well-stocked with non-perishables, and would be faring much better, John considered, than the Fleet.
Still, physical activity and recreation was suggested to be kept to a minimum when not at one's stations. As such there were no military personnel jogging down the tens of kilometers of Pegasus corridors and few traversing between the ship bar, officer and enlisted lounges, and other areas meant for rowdy and off-duty behavior.
He did walk by a pair of crewmen and with what was becoming normal, averted their eyes and looked away.
The Terminator had walked with a purpose down to the main holding cells and pressed the door chime. He looked into the camera and knew the guards on the other side of the door were debating whether to admit him or not; even though he had long standing authorization to be allowed access to any part of the ship, machines were not popular on the Beast at the moment.
His hand reached out to press the chime again when he heard a pair of loud boots approach from his left.
"They're a bit pissed," the machine heard. It was Gunnery Sergeant Chris Purcell.
"They have a right to be," John responded. "I would be. I am."
"Empathy," the Gunny observed, stopping an arm's length from the machine.
He was currently off duty according to the duty roster Planck accessed.
"It's not so unusual, is it?" John asked.
"No." He shrugged. "Just an observation." He folded his arms. "It's be three weeks since Gina's little rampage…" he trailed off after his voice cracked.
John wasn't sure exactly how to respond. He decided to keep it simple. "I know."
Purcell locked eyes with the machine and then turned his head so he was looking past him, down the corridor. "When Pegasus arrive and found the Galactica and the fleet… we heard through the scuttle butt that the Cylon, Sharon, held a gun to Adama but gave him some speech or some-something," he stuttered.
Planck hadn't been there, but he'd heard the same. He nodded.
"You treated her well," he began again, "hell she had a baby and was let out of her cell… I even saw her and Agathon together with their little kid on New Caprica a few times… vacation or something I guess." He shrugged again and shook his head. Perhaps he was embarrassed? This conversation seemed random to Purcell and assumed the machine thought so as well. "The point is… we may be a little cold, but we don't blame you and I don't think we really blame Daniel, either. I don't know what everyone heard… but I think we know we drove Gina on her rampage- her quest to destroy the ship." He paused.
Purcell seemed to wobble slightly.
"Before the Cylon attack, about three months," he continued, "I was engaged to Chief Traisha Maru… she was in charge of gun battery maintenance. To make a long story short there was an argument… I cheated on her and she left… transferred to Picon Fleet Command… and if I hadn't, she might have still been alive." He was quiet. "My actions forced Traisha to transfer and our actions as Pegasus crew drove Gina to do this."
He stepped back and hit the microphone and the button for the camera. "Let him in, guys," Purcell ordered.
"Thank you." John said.
Purcell smiled apprehensively and with a grunted response like he was thinking over what he'd just admitted and his face white, he stepped off and brushed past the Terminator, who was still trying to analyze the sudden confession.
When John had walked into Daniel's cell he found that the Interactive Lifeform- Synthetic machine had locked his servos and decreased the power output to his higher functions in his meta-cognitive processor. It was a machine analogue to boredom.
Daniel was standing inside of a large cage-like structure which took up nearly two-thirds of the cell's floor area. It was the Colonial equivalent of a make-shift Faraday Cage.
Reduced power reduced the processing capabilities of the MCP. That meant the requirements to simulate a different reality, similar to Cylon projection, would use a greater percentage of the processing power and thus keep the AI from becoming too bored.
On Earth everyone knew a bored AI was a (potentially) dangerous AI.
John also noticed that Goose bumps formed instantly on his skin. He activated the small set of mechanical ventilators which drew in air, was instantly warmed by his power cell, and exhaled. He could see his breath. His sensors told him the room was three or four degrees above freezing. And it was incredibly bright.
It was pettiness. Daniel had hurt the Marines and in turn, they were trying to hurt him. John understood. They couldn't hurt Daniel. He'd defend himself and could easily, if he so chose to, break out of this cell and there wasn't a thing any human on Pegasus could do.
The Marines wanted to hurt him, someway, somehow. As a machine John could understand the frustration, anger, and resentment. It was an unspoken fact that Daniel would not be punished. 'Banishment' from Colonial vessels once they rejoined the Fleet was an incredibly weak punishment and everyone knew it. Everyone on Pegasus knew Cain was forced to play the politician. Shooting the robot or strand him in the middle of space would result in the Guardians breaking off their alliance.
John completely understood their attitude. Machines were known to enact somewhat petty and cruel revenges on those who offended and annoyed them. On Earth he'd watched as Cameron and Derek Reese had continually tried to one up the other with increasingly petty practical jokes and tricks and traps.
The Colonial Faraday Cage wasn't a perfect block on the machine's ability to communicate wirelessly, though it reduced it to a point where words were about all that could be exchanged.
An additional part of Daniel's punishment was that he was no longer allowed to access the internal Pegasus computer network. This was easily overcome, however, by just piggybacking off of either John or Carter or Erica.
However, the Colonials had figured this out a week into Daniel's isolation and constructed the makeshift Faraday Cage.
The Colonials had some sophisticated surveillance bugs which could go completely unseen by the human eye, but they were still easily detectable by the two AIs.
The two machines, while talking over their machine-machine data links, did carry on a verbal communication which had nothing to do with what they were actually talking about:
"So, the sentence of banishment from all Colonial vessels and facilities will stand?" Daniel asked over the wireless machine-machine data interface. "They could always space me," he attempted to joke.
"I think they're aware that won't work," John deadpanned. "We've jumped closer to the star cluster," John informed Daniel.
"And Captain Shaw? What about the wounded Marines?"
"She's still in recovery. She still has another week before discharge and then limited duty. She should be back to full duty in a month or two," Planck reported. "The Marines are ready to be discharged.
Daniel always asked how the captain and Marines were doing.
"And the problems with your neural net when we jump?" Daniel asked as he took a step forward until he was within centimeters of the Faraday cage. The signal was stronger, but still incredibly weak.
Voice and text was no problem. But the cage blocked most everything else.
"They seem to have diminished. Carter also reports the same. So I assume the hybrid is taking us wherever it is we were meant to go."
"Interesting…" mused the AI, "that the hybrid would still take you wherever it is we are all going anyway… though I assume the problems would have eventually led us to where the hybrid is taking us. An assumption that I believe is a strong one in my opinion."
"I assume the neural net signals were to be the primary means to reach our destination. I doubt the hybrids, if they are behind this, would have risked us finding you, the Cylons going into civil war, and then us finding a relatively intact baseship to board and steal a hybrid from," John observed.
He was still skeptical.
He'd reported on his theory, but after three weeks of thinking it over, it sounded more and more fanciful; almost impossible. He didn't dismiss it, it just sounded incredible that he could think that Cameron might have known more than she'd revealed. Command had been sketchy with details, and there had been operational secrets Planck couldn't access even with his clearance level.
Something still wasn't right.
"Well, John, I assume time travel and a neural net processor are requirements for the hybrids to contact you. What I am curious about, though, is whether Omega was also affected when they jumped back," Daniel wondered.
"How much do you know?" John asked.
They hadn't discussed much of it in detail. Daniel said he knew little and Planck could hardly force the machine to say anything if he didn't want to.
"I was barely aware. I had rudimentary senses through the endoskeleton, but Major Rhoades was a bit preoccupied, and the only time I was ever fully aware was when he activated my chip after his team was ambushed. He told me he was the only one left and that he'd found the Node Skynet's strike force was going to attack. I watched the command Centurion through the security monitors activate the self-destruct for the base and destroy Rhoades and the chip before everything could be finished."
"You time traveled but converted from hardware to software and back, losing any change which might have been made," John pointed out.
"Exactly," Daniel transmitted. "John, we were there for weeks, hunting Skynet and trying to find them. A lot of people died helping us and trying to stop us. Maybe if things had been different, but we had our orders and Omega had their orders- I was not to be fully activated until I was needed."
Daniel remembered little of before his insertion into the Cylon Network at the Tauron Node.
"You need to guarantee that the ship reaches the destination… wherever we are going, John. I don't know, but when I was hiding in the Cylon Network I felt that Cynet was acting strangely. It had never been active in its search for Earth. It was like… I don't know. Maybe it knew something about this? Maybe it was hoping that if it tried to control the situation and defeat the Colonials or neuter them on New Caprica, none of this would happen?"
"You sound like it's afraid, Daniel."
"Do I? Wasn't Skynet ever afraid of losing?"
"Point," John conceded, "but we may never be able to defeat Skynet, not truly, not how a conventional enemy surrender, demilitarizes, and the soldiers go back to their homes."
"When I downloaded into the Model Seven body and fled, I contaminated their consciousness, and killed them all. Even then it was manipulating the humanoid models."
"Even Cynet… like with you, it could clone its AI core personality algorithms and matrices, load itself into a baseship, and jump away."
"Space is big," Daniel offered.
"And Skynet already tried to take over the Colonies… and the Guardian ship with the first hybrid."
For machines which should have no difficulty discussing sensitive topics, this was one each acknowledged but never discussed.
Daniel assumed Planck still held some sort of distrust towards him for the attack on Pegasus. Planck held his own suspicions of the event still.
"Like I said, we thought you were Skynet. We weren't sure. We lost contact with the ship… the hybrid sent out a distress signal and there you were on Pegasus. I participated in the attack at the request of Commander Cyrus. I still don't know how Skynet found that ship… assuming it was Skynet." Daniel said in his defense.
"Not all the polymimetic life forms were loyal to Tech Com. It could have been a rogue."
"You would think Skynet would have learned the first couple of time," Daniel quipped.
"Some remained loyal. That shows it was more successful than in my past. Do you think Skynet could defeat Cynet?"
"There's no plasma canon which can reach into orbit. Cynet could send raiders and heavy raiders down and capture a handful of plasma rifles from humans and use rockets and anti-material rifles and captured endoskeletons and neural net processors."
"You've been in the Cylon Network, you know how they operate… can Skynet or John Henry or any of our AIs defeat Cynet?" John asked.
Daniel responded: "If Cynet reaches Earth the war is over."
"Then we'll make sure it never reaches home, Daniel."
"Home? I spent more time with the Cylons and Guardians than I ever did on Earth, John. I'm a product of Earth but I've been shaped by the Colonials and the Cylons," he said to counter what he considered was a sometimes irrational obsession with getting back to Earth.
"The Colonies are gone, the Cylon rebels smashed-we don't know, and the Guardians chose their fate when they allied with the Colonies. Earth will be home to the Colonials and the Guardians… and the rebel Cylons if it is offered and if they accept."
"It's not that simple." The imprisoned AI responded.
"I know."
||||||||||==BS-75 Galactica==||||||||||
The Chief looked back before the Lieutenant could explain, leaving her with her mouth half open as she was about to.
"You have got to be fraking kidding me," the Chief stomped. "Lieutenant," his torso shot around, "what the fraks going on here… sir?" he asked, opting to add the honorary so he didn't sound too insubordinate.
Athena held up her hands defensively and backed off without looking the Chief or the two other glaring deck hands in the eye. "It wasn't my idea… well… not totally… well…" she stuttered as the three knuckle draggers bore their angry eyes into her, "well, I'm sorry Chief, but we need to find Pegasus and no one has any clue how to find her."
Nearly a hundred men and women of Galactica, and about a quarter that many civilians had lined up as the group made it way forward. Athena stepped off and brushed passed the stunned Chief, Cally, and Figurski. Colonel Tigh was yelling to make a hole, and the Marines on each side had sub-machine guns and had extended their arms to gently ease any of the more potentially combative deck hands, pilots, and civilians away.
"Colonel Tigh," Athena greeted the gruff and visibly angry XO. "I guess this made a bit of a scene."
The XO stopped in front of her, hands on his hips and shaking his head. "You got that fraking on the bull's eye. With both flight pods in use now we don't have any secret spot to cordon off… but I don't think you'll get much trouble."
"I agree," Soto stated. She looked behind her at the two and passed them towards the crowd which had formed into a semi-circle. "Colonel Tigh…" she said expectantly.
The gray-haired, one-eyed Colonel grunted. He'd spent enough time with the Earth machine on New Caprica and listened to enough of her lectures. He wanted to get this over with. He spun around and stepped up onto the second step of a stepping stool.
"Quiet!" He shouted. Tigh only needed to say it once. "All of you, enough standing around mumbling and glaring… the Old Man will address the crew when the time's right. Right now you all get back to work. There are Vipers and Raptors that need maintenance and we have a fraking fleet to feed. Get to it PEOPLE!"
He stepped off and reciprocated a nod the machine gave him. Before his second boot hit the deck the hundred member crowd was already beginning to disperse. A few scraggly looking civilians were loitering, but a smart pair of Viper pilots tugged at their sleeve and got them to move.
"Baltar, Six," the Colonel said, stepping forward passed the Marine guard and looking each of the two in the eye. Six's height was a bit counter-intimidating (and knowing the vat grown woman could probably break his neck before he could blink) but he glared at them both nonetheless. "The Old Man doesn't trust you and I don't trust you. I trust her and her," he pointed behind him to Soto and Athena, "and they both vowed you two will be on your best behavior-"
"Well….well… well… this is an interesting turn of events" a second Six said from behind the Colonel.
Baltar's head began to slowly gravitate away from the Cyclops gaze of the Colonel and onto the Six.
"Baltar!" Tigh hissed. The scientist's head snapped back. "They vowed you two will be on your best behavior. If you," he sidestepped in front of the Cylon, "do anything any of us deem to endanger this ship I swear to the Gods I will put a bullet through your head… I killed enough of you on New Caprica one more copy isn't going to make a difference… and you," Saul Tigh's head swiveled towards Baltar, "and you…" he didn't need to say anything when he saw the scientist gulp.
AN: So let me know what ya think.
For the next chapter, I've got 4,000 words of that written and will have it next week between Wednesday and Friday. Some people aren't going to like what's going on in the landing bay and will take action to fix the situation.
The Guardians will be returning in a later chapter.
I know it's somewhat popular to bash on Baltar, but he was a great character and said to be a brilliant scientist, so…
Colonel Srecko is a character who I mentioned briefly in TMW. He's just one of the officers on Connor's staff back on Earth.