Chapter 5: Before the War

"We are Borg."

Doctor Crusher froze. She knew it was just her imagination but she could have sworn the room got cold. Anders suddenly dropped her arm and she jumped away and on instinct turned to Captain Picard and saw that he hadn't moved a muscle. His face was blank. That's when it happened, the room erupted into chaos. Everyone began talking over each other, asking questions; demanding answers. Doctor Crusher was about to demand everyone leave when the lights suddenly began blinking off and on. Every computer started going haywire.

"What the fraking hell?" Saul Tigh said more then a little startled.

"Now what?" Will said exasperated.

"Error. Error. Does not compute. System shutdown not recommended. Rebooting. Downloading from outside system. Please stand by." Roslin began to speak still unconscious the same way Anders had before.

Everyone suddenly grew quiet. A room that was once erupting in chaos was now deathly quiet. Everyone in the room stared at Roslin's unconscious form as she spoke.

"Locutus of Borg holds the key. The dying leader will lead them to Earth. The hub must be destroyed. We are Borg. Kara Thrace is the harbinger of death. The circle must end. The beginning must end at the beginning or the end. The dying leader will lead them to the end. We are Borg."

"Oh this is not good." Lee was the first to speak.

"Laura Roslin is the Final Cylon." Saul Tigh said in awe.

"The old man's not going to like this."

"What makes you think he doesn't already know."

"Frak. This is not good."

"Laura Roslin is the dying leader. The dying leader will lead them to Earth. The One will bring the Hub and the circle will be complete. Locutus holds to the key. The hub must be destroyed."

"Someone get the old man, now." Saul Tigh shouted at no one in particular "Why the hell isn't he here?"

One of the cylons left the sickbay in search of the Admiral who came in a few minutes later. Almost as soon as he did Roslin's eyes opened. She looked directly at Adama and chuckled, "Well we know who the Final Cylon is now Bill."

"Apparently."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. It seems I'm a cylon magnet." He looked at Saul Tigh and shrugged, "I've gotten used to it. It seems that's not the only interesting news today."

"I hate to put a damper on things, but can someone explain what is going on?" Picard spoke.

"I think I owe them an explanation Bill."

"Yes, what the hell is a Borg?" Saul asked Laura.

"We are Borg." Laura paused as all the Federation officers in the room flinched, "Ok the sounded wrong even to me. By the way, tell your engineering staff that the port cells need to be fixed in the lower decks something called a hollow deck is broken on deck four."

Picard smiled at some of her mispronunciation but then frowned, "How do you know this?"

"Your computer told me." Roslin smiled, "Oh boy this is going to take some getting used to, ok I have some explaining to do. The Borg were not always the Borg you know. About five thousand years ago give or take a century they were humanoid. They discovered computer technology but unlike earth or even the twelve colonies they didn't go outward with the technology they went inward. They put chips into their skin." Roslin turned to Doctor Crusher, "Think about it Doctor, a chip with a patients medical history, the history of their entire family. It would simplify things if you didn't have all these medical doodads."

Doctor Crusher thought about it. Roslin was correct. Technology had jumped by leaps and bounds but it hadn't always been that way. There were times in the past where getting accurate medical information had been difficult if not impossible. It might sound barbaric to her but a chip under the would be practical for societies without federation technology.

"As time went on, not only medical information was on the chip but financial as well. Soon everything you ever wanted or needed to know about a person was there at your fingertips." Roslin paused, "All this happened in a few generations. Each generation improved on existing technology. Then something happened children were born….different. They were born adaptable to the technology. The chips became outdated, obsolete. Suddenly other methods were far simpler. Less invasive methods. "

Roslin paused again and saw that everyone was listening to her with rapt attention, "And then the great technology that was supposed to make our children's lives easier….." Roslin paused, "We discovered….there were no children. None at all. Of course we panicked. We tried everything and anything to make children. Soon our methods fell into two major groups. Oh of course there were fringe groups but in the end there were two main sides. The Borg and the Cylons. They weren't called that of course; honestly I don't remember what they were called anymore but for the sake of argument let's call them that."

"Ok I'm assuming you were on the Cylon side." Doctor Crusher said simply.

"Yes, the five of us were." Roslin paused as her head began to hurt. She tried to will the headache she was feeling away. She knew she had to finish the story, "The war was going badly; there were more of them. Their strategy was better: Strength through unity of thought. One mind. There was no doubt. No hesitation. They just did." Roslin paused, "With us there was all doubt. Our strategy wasn't very well thought out; Live until we have children. We created "downloading." Our entire lives. Our entire personalities transferred from one body to the next but it was imperfect. It didn't always work the way it should have. It didn't always work at all. We were losing. Then the five of us agreed to what was basically a suicide mission."

Laura paused again and looked directly at Saul Tigh "When you're not drunk you're actually a pretty smart guy. You got our chance to download up to fifty percent. We didn't tell the others that, of course. The mission was supposed to be a suicide mission and we didn't tell the others that we had a chance to survive it. Tory secretly built a ship with the help of Galen and we set it off a few months before the mission."

"What mission?" Bill asked.

"We were sent to destroy the hub." Roslin said simply.

"Obviously we failed." Tigh snorted.

"We miscalculated." Roslin corrected, "We didn't know the hub was a person."

"The Queen." Picard put the pieces together.

"Ahh you've met." Roslin snorted.

"We've been introduced." He said simply.

Roslin snuck passed the fallen drone hoping it was dead. The plan had gone off better then she had hoped. She could hear Sam and Saul behind her. She had no idea where Tory and Galen were. She hoped they were still alive. The plan was actually working. They might just get out of this alive.

Roslin looked up. If the intelligence was correct this was the door to the hub. Once she got in all she had to do was download the virus into the hub and the drones would be on their own. No longer thinking with one mind. She opened the door.

"Hello Laura….."

"We miscalculated. And when we downloaded we tried to go back but….downloading was still new…..what seemed like minutes to us was years. The war was over." Roslin paused, "We moved on. Our ship traveled at sub light speed, time stopped for us but moved for everyone else. Two thousand years it took us to get to the Twelve Colonies. We convinced the Cylons to end the war in return for technology to make the seven human-form models. The first was the Cavils. He grew angry and hateful. He eventually decided he didn't like the deal the centurions made and killed us and erased our memories and gave us all front row seat to the Apocalypse, He wanted to punish us. To teach us that humans are evil. I don't know why, but he hates us, almost as much as he hates them."

Laura sat on the bed she shared with Bill and watched him as he drank. She hated to see him like this but she understood. Finding out the two people he loved most were both Cylons was a bit much.

"I can leave."

"No."

"The baby is yours."

"I know." Bill paused, "You're a lot of things, unfaithful is not one of them."

Laura smiled, "I didn't know."

"Neither did he."

"This stopped being funny a long time ago."

"Another magic baby." Bill laughed.

"What?"

"This makes four now."

"What?"

"Four magic babies." Bill laughed, "This is very funny or maybe I'm just very drunk. Saul and me are going to be changing diapers for our magic Cylon babies."

Laura laughed, "Ok it's a little funny."