Chapter One, Part One
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Warmth. Comfort. The faint titter of a child's laughter. And a smell. The smell.
Mark Dayton slowly smiled in satisfaction, as he detected the rich aroma of coffee. It wasn't just any old coffee though, but the intense, utterly decadent, dark roast of Poas, from Costa Rica, with just a whiff of Mayan Black Onyx. He at once thought of the old Turkish proverb:Coffee should be black as hell; strong as death, and sweet as love.Oh yeah, with Yvonne, it was all three. The very ambrosa of the gods! Sadly, she only brought it out on special occasions, not daring to deplete her stores of the precious beans too quickly. He supposed his last dedicated week at home before he had to immerse himself once more in his work, as he prepared to take the Endeavour up for her final mission, before she was decommissioned, to the International Space Station was a special enough occasion. He had seven more days to spend with his wife and kids, making the most of their time together.
Letting out a deep breath, he stretched out languorously, rolling over and moving to Yvonne's side of the bed. There was something decidedly decadent about taking up an entire king-sized bed, he decided, as he pulled her pillow to his chest. The scent of her shampoo lingered there, and he breathed it in, enjoying the familiarity of her scent, and wishing he could call for her like he had in the old days, luring her back to their bedroom for a leisurely morning of making love. However, these days their romantic escapades were more commonly enjoyed in the late evening when the kids were abed, or stolen during a particularly captivating episode of theBackyardigans.
"When's Dada getting up?" a soft voice whispered in the hallway.
"Let Dada sleep. He'll be up soon enough, Jess," her mother replied in a hushed voice that filtered up the stairs from the kitchen.
He could count on one hand how many days he had lazed about in bed since the kids were born. He could count on his nose how many times Yvonne had . . . which made him feel a little bit guilty, until the aroma of bacon frying began invading his senses. Poas coffee and bacon, the porkers fed luxuriously on peanuts and acorns! Mmm! Oh yeah, she was pulling out all the stops . . . which meant that at some point they were inevitably going to have that discussion about what it would mean if he didn't come back from this mission. That old song and dance was particularly painful. It always ended up with him feeling like an utter and complete swine, and her in tears. But it seemed to be cathartic somehow, at least for his wife, and if that was what it took to convince her that his dream job of flying space shuttles was a good thing, then he was willing to endure.
Dayton suddenly grinned, glad to leave those thoughts behind, at least for now. He could sense her arrival, even before he heard the padding of little feet across the carpet. Ever the expert in breaching security, Jess had made it past her mother, probably by sending Lauren in as a decoy. He looked across the bed to see a mass of golden curls begin to surface over the edge of the bed, and then a pair of big, mischievous brown eyes smiled into his.
"Are you awake, Dada?" she whispered adorably, her small fists curled into the quilt, ready to use it to propel herself upward.
"Just for my girl," he replied, feeling his chest tighten with emotion as she pulled herself onto the bed and start scurrying across to him with an impatience that was both familiar, and endearing. It was a tradition, their morning "hugs", and one that he treasured. For some reason he couldn't name, he suddenly really needed to hold her just now. He needed to feel that warm, little body curl into his chest, utterly trusting him to protect her for the rest of her life. Dear Lord, it felt like it had been years . . .
Dada! Dada?
Da . . . day . . . Dayton . . .
Yo! Dayton! Wake up!
Dayton drew a ragged breath as he opened his eyes, his head snapping up. The air was cold, uncomfortably so. Damn, it was never quite warm enough in space, especially on these bloody Cylon ships. Bloody hell, didn't Cylons ever invent heaters? Baltar must have had thermal underwear and battery-heated socks on while he was plotting and scheming to destroy humanity. With a bitter ache in his chest, and a quiet curse, Dayton remembered where he was. Jess' golden curls and mischievous brown eyes faded away, as the gossamer wisps of his dream vanished like mist at dawn. Quickly, he reoriented himself, as he glanced around the cockpit of the Hybrid Cylon Raider. His strike captain was looking back over his shoulder searchingly at him, while manoeuvring the fighter on a final approach for the Galactica. Although some bruising still discoloured Starbuck's face from their mission to Morlais the week before, despite almost being executed by the Cylons, and then being subject to a weird Cylon interrogation technique, the younger man looked well rested and recovered. The resilience of youth, it just wasn't fair.
"What's that look for, Percolator Puss?" Dayton groused, straightening up in his seat, ignoring the urge to rub the sleep from his eyes. He'd been up all night studying the detailed report that Malus, the IL Series Cylon-turned-Colonial, had compiled for "his eyes only" on the Clavis, the device that they had discovered on a planet that had had its entire civilization, a race called the Espridians, destroyed by the Cylons. The Endeavour had used the Clavis to get to Morlais and back again when they'd gone to find Starbuck after he'd been apprehended by an Angylion sorceress, Eirys, from an alternate dimension. From what Malus had surmised, the device opened some kind of portal that transcended dimensions, allowing them to move through space and possibly even time. Although the computations had finally made some sense, he wasn't sure he could wrap his mind around the end result.
Initial studies on the Clavis had turned out to be incomplete. Woefully so. The mysterious Espridian element that the sphere was made of—amazingly dense and inscrutable in its composition, and resistant so far to every analytical technique in the book, Colonial or Cylon—actually turned out to be only the outer vessel of the Clavis. Malus theorized that it was designed to protect the core, and did so most efficiently, since the IL still hadn't found a way to crack the nut, and the commander wasn't all that sure he wanted him to. Malus also wondered if the outer shell somehow conducted the enormous energy force within, perhaps diffusing, controlling and directing the incredible power. The most intense and focused scans had rendered little more than mud, leaving the device's innermost mechanism as mysterious as ever. However, the husk had a strange . . . well, Dayton could only describe it as a life force. He'd wrapped his hands around it only once, on a dare from Baker. Eerily warm, for something that appeared metallic, it had begun to glow when he touched it, and he could feel the weirdest sensation in his fingertips, that he was certain came from the sphere. His fingers and lower arms had tingled for two days, afterwards. In addition, it had an intricate pattern of interlacing metal threads running around and into the ball, seemingly endlessly. He couldn't help but recall that the Espridians referred to the universe as the Infinite, and perhaps the endless metal threads was somehow symbolic of that.
The further along in the report Dayton went, the more he began to wonder if this power source that Malus was scientifically describing could possibly be antimatter? Did the Clavis somehow draw matter into itself, reacting with the antimatter, and producing the power required to trip the quantum strings fantastic? That would certainly produce prodigious quantities of energy, but how did the matter get into the core? And if it was antimatter, how was it replenished? And how could the strange Espridian husk manage to keep the lid on the total annihilation such a reaction would engender? Way too many unanswered questions, but for the moment, no one else had a viable model for the device.
The deluge—seemingly of Biblical proportions—of data that Malus had sent him on it was prevalently complex mathematical algorithms which could make a guy's head split open after pouring over them for a few hours, trying to follow the IL's formulae and logic. What had started out as an incredibly exciting discovery had turned into complex and tedious stuff six hours after he'd started trying to decipher it all. The learning curve to go from mild-mannered Earth astronaut and mission commander, to invincible and sagacious Commander Mark Dayton of the Covert Operations Ship, Endeavour, was a constant challenge. Finally, he'd been left trying to decide what to do with the avalanche of information, how much to raise with Commander Adama, and how much to leave buried in Malus' techno babble. It had been a defining moment in his life, and his brief career with the Colonial Service, and one he still wasn't altogether comfortable with. Still, there wasn't much real choice the way he saw it. He had to let his conscience be his guide.
"Let's just say you were snoring so loud that I thought the ship was breaking apart," Starbuck retorted, with a sidelong look at his co-pilot, Dietra. He seemed totally oblivious to his commander's musings. "I was ready to abandon ship, women and strike captains first." Dietra immediately scoffed in amusement beside him. Like well-oiled machinery, together they brought the ship in for a perfect landing as the Raider set down in the Galactica's Alpha Bay. "Someone has to lead you to safety, after all, Dee."
"My hero," she retorted wryly.
"And who better than Starbuck?" Dayton rejoined simultaneously. "Smart ass. Don't you have something better to do than torment me?"
"Actually . . . mmm . . . no. That's right at the top of my priority list today, Dayton," Starbuck replied, his tone a little less jovial than usual. "Especially on the way to a 'make or break' command meeting with Commanders Adama and Cain, with a commanding officer that keeps nodding off, and could use a shave." Apparently, he wasn't as oblivious as Dayton had first thought of the importance of what was about to occur. "Something keeping you up at night, Old Man? Preying on your mind? Tearing away at your conscience?"
It was just a little too close to the mark for Dayton's liking. He ignored the words, and the assessing look the younger man again shot back at him, instead replying lightly, "Nothing you need to worry your pretty head about, kid. Alright, boys and girls. Let's go." He stood up from the third Cylon seat that generally wasn't used in the Hybrid Raiders, and glanced at his chronometer. "We meet the others in about fifteen centons."