Day of the Cylon Attacks
William Adama age 64 – Laura Roslin age 51
Location: Galactica – Colonial One
"I'll think about it. Madam President."
Madam President. For some reason the weight of that phrase had failed to sink in until Commander Adama had said it. Even though he had been hesitant, he had granted her legitimacy in those two words and, with his handshake, a certain measure of respect. Bargain struck, Laura wanted nothing more than to leave Galactica. It was too easy to get lost in the twisting corridors and being one of the few civilians in the midst of all the Colonial uniforms made her uncomfortable.
When she returned to Colonial One, Billy busied himself trying to set up an office that, so far, amounted to a table intended to be used as a desk. He also cleared out a small curtained off section to provide her some semblance of privacy. Then her new aide insisted in that quiet way of his that she take a moment for herself while he finished gathering updated passenger counts from the ships in the fleet. She didn't have the heart to tell him that she didn't want a break. Time away from answering questions and giving orders simply encouraged her thoughts to drift to unpleasant places…
I'm going to die.
It was a litany that had followed her all day, ever since the doctor's visit. "I'm afraid the tests are positive." It was with her through the attacks that had destroyed everything, through decisions of whether to stay or escape. I'm going to die. Through arguments with that stubborn commander and his even more stubborn executive officer. "The war is over, and we lost." It's all over. I'm going to die. And it was with her through her last conversation with Richard where she'd almost told him. "Richard, I—" The rest wouldn't come. I'm going to die.
He hadn't noticed and so got it wrong. "I know, you've been thinking this is a mistake for a while now." Even that had been wrong. She hadn't been thinking it. Not until the words that pulsed in her mind with every heartbeat had made everything as sharp as a razor's edge. So sharp that even the past took on a new clarity that had always been missing before.
Before, she hadn't seen any of it coming.
-x-
"I miss you."
Richard's blurted admission took her by surprise as she stood just inside the door to his office, about to leave. His words had the desired effect of stopping her.
"Laura."
She turned back to face him.
"I miss you," he repeated.
"I doubt that," she replied once the shock had worn off. "You haven't exactly spent the last three years by yourself."
"Neither have you. I'd wager that your list is longer than mine." He broke eye contact with her by stepping out from behind his desk. "I learned a long time ago that there's no replacing you." He moved toward her steadily, but with discernable caution as he spoke. "I think that, whether you want to admit it or not, you've learned the same thing about me."
She smiled in order to hide her unease about the direction in which the conversation was heading.
"You still don't understand why, do you?"
"I don't need to." He always had relied more on his instincts than anything else. She envied him that.
When he was close enough, he slid an arm around her waist and the fingers of his free hand traced a slow line down her back through the thin fabric of her blouse. She didn't protest.
"It may not be love, but we're a pair, and I'm tired of waiting." He kissed her, gently at first. When she didn't push him away, he grew bolder. Their history together gave him an advantage, a kiss here, a touch there and already her heart was racing.
"Laura," he whispered, his breath warm against the side of her neck, "if you think is a mistake, tell me no and I'll stop."
It was a mistake. She knew it was. But there weren't enough reasons to prevent the press of his body against hers, the sensation of his lips on her skin, from reminding her of their first kiss, of the faint taste of whiskey and zivania from their first night together, of the way she used to worry about the lingering scent of his cologne…
"Kept telling myself I was getting out, but..."
She missed it all. "He had this way about him." She missed him.
So she didn't tell him no. She didn't want him to stop. And for nearly a year she didn't see that he'd changed. "You expected me to fail." That by then, he was no longer the same man she remembered him to be. "I expected you to hold the line." She hadn't seen any of it until after she had found the lump, received the test results, and thought for the first time that she was going to die.
"This doesn't have to be the end of the world."
Except that it was, and the illusions had vanished as it ended.
It was over.
-x-
Laura allowed herself a moment to wonder what Richard would have done if she'd told him about the cancer when she'd had the chance. Would it have made any difference? She wanted to think so, but it felt like a lie. It doesn't matter. He's gone now.
"This isn't about you and me anymore."
Everything was gone now. Everything was gone and she was alone, with no one that she could trust with the knowledge of her cancer except for an aide that she had just met a little over a day ago.
What authority she had as President of the Colonies was tenuous at best even without the added complication of her illness. If Commander Adama knew that she was dying, he might change his mind and attempt to forcibly remove her from power. Lee, Captain Apollo, was her only other potential ally and she was uncertain as to where his loyalties lay. It was a shame. They both seemed—
"Madam President?" Billy poked his head in through the curtain. "I have that update on the survivor count ready."
"Thank you, Billy." She got up to follow him. "I've been thinking, we should have something permanent that we can use to keep track of the numbers…"
"Already taken care of." He gestured toward the corner of the ship he had arranged as a workspace. On the wall above her desk was a whiteboard. As she read the number, a new litany formed to take the place of the old one; 50,783 survivors—
Is it enough?
-x-
Bill Adama secured the hatch to his quarters and crumpled the note in his hand. There are only 12 Cylon models. The information could be from any source, trustworthy or false and he had no way of telling which. "You always keep me in front of you, military training right? Never turn your back on a stranger?" Suspicion and distrust, it was no longer just a part of military life any more. When the secret got out that the Cylons looked human, it was going to be everyone's way of life.
He moved away from the hatch to relocate a pile of books on one of the tables. He had already reorganized his quarters once, after everything shifted in the wake of the nuclear strike, but he needed something relatively mindless to do. A little precision and order, to keep him functioning despite his fears. Anyone could be a Cylon.
What if the Cylons didn't just have infiltrators, but could replace people? Celebrities like Dr. Baltar, and government officials like that frustrating Secretary of Education turned President of the Colonies, people who had verifiable histories, wouldn't necessarily be exempt from suspicion. If that was case, then even his own friends, or his family—
A book slid off the stack in his arms and dropped to the floor. He sighed, set the pile back onto his coffee table and bent down to retrieve the fallen volume. If Lee had been replaced by a Cylon duplicate he'd probably be easier to deal with he thought as he remembered his son's painful hostility during their conversation this morning. "Accidents happen…in the service." It had been their first since the funeral. "Zak did not belong in that plane! He shouldn't have been there, he—he was only doing it for you. Face it. You killed him."
Bill gave up on relocating his books to ever less useful places and wandered over toward his rack where he caught sight of the framed picture that Tyrol's deck gang had given him. He didn't know how a copy of it had found its way into the Colonial Fleet Archives, but Tobias had taken it on Colonial Day, not during anything that Fleet Intelligence would have considered classified. Frak, if they had known how often that kid had been wandering around with a camera, taking pictures after covert ops, keeping still shots from his gun camera footage…
Adama smiled and cleared a corner on his desk where he could put the picture. It reminded him of a time when he had been certain of so much, of how he loved his family and flying, but mostly that the choices he'd made were the right ones. Bit by bit those choices had proven themselves failures. "Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done."
The evidence was in the desk drawer that held the commendation from the Cylon War that was supposed to have been the start of a glorious career. The collection of photos of wing mates and friends, all dead. The black and silver Colonial seal from an organization that hadn't kept the Colonies safe after all. The photos and the wedding ring from his marriage to the woman he loved that had ended in divorce.
"How's your mother?"
"Getting married."
He ran his thumb across the empty spot on his finger where his ring used to be. It was hard to think that Carolanne was dead. Their history together hadn't ended when he left. On the rare occasions that he had visited her and not just his sons, it had been hard for him not to act on his desires for everything to go back to the way things were before. A few times he'd slipped. "I miss you." But his first priority had always been the service and the Colonies. "I'm a soldier Anne. It's all I know how to do." She never forgave him for it. "You miss everything." He had loved her anyway.
Bill reached, opened the drawer and retrieved the ring. He held the cold metal in his hand and then on impulse, put it back on. He didn't give himself a chance to rethink the gesture. Instead, he closed the drawer and went back to his rack with the intent to finally get some rest. No sooner than he started to unbutton his jacket, Galactica went on alert.
"Action stations, actions stations. This is not a drill."
He turned and headed for the hatch.
"Sitrep!" he demanded the moment he crossed the threshold into the CIC.
"Cylons found us," replied Tigh. "Raiders are inbound, fifty plus. Alert Vipers are away and Fleet's commencing an emergency jump, but not all of the civvies had their drives spun up, so we're sitting ducks until they get their heads outta their asses."
Adama tried to ignore the frenzied transmissions over the wireless from the Viper squadron as they engaged the enemy. It sounded like a bloodbath.
"Colonel, when we're on the other side I want standing orders put in place that all ships are to keep their drives spun up indefinitely. Tell them, anyone who violates those orders will be left behind."
"Civvie ships weren't designed to run hot like that. It's gonna wear them down fast. If one of 'em blows a drive during an attack…"
"No choice. Not until we know what kind of interval we're looking at."
"We don't even know if the Cylons'll find us again—"
"They'll find us and I'm not gonna use our pilots to buy time if I don't have to." Rather start running out of ships than pilots… Adama glanced back over his shoulder. "Dee!"
"Last civilian ship is away, sir."
"Recover fighters. Standby to execute jump."
"All fighters aboard, sir."
"Execute jump."
Adama tensed at the momentary feeling of disorientation induced as Galactica shifted in and out of the jump.
"Report."
"All ships present and accounted for, sir."
Tigh was already relaying Adama's orders for the fleet to Dualla.
Bill watched the Dradis screen above him and counted the green icons just to be sure. He kept an eye on the screen until he was satisfied that the Cylons weren't going to immediately reappear.
"Mister Gaeta, start a count. I want to know how long it takes for them to find us."
"Yes, sir. Clock is running."
Tigh frowned from across the command table. "I hope you're wrong about this Bill."
"So do I."
"Commander? I have the president on the line. She wants to speak with you."
He nodded and picked up the nearest phone.
"Madam President."
"The Cylons, how did they find us?"
She went right to the point. He liked that.
"I don't know, but now that they have, I don't think we have much time."
"This order, to keep our FTLs ready, isn't that dangerous to keep up for long?"
"Yes, it is, but now that the Cylons can find us they're gonna to try and run us down and they're gonna keep coming until one side makes a mistake."
"And if we're the ones who make the mistake, then—"
"We all die."
"All right then, Commander, we are in your hands, but I expect to be kept informed as to the situation. And also, I want to make it perfectly clear, we will not leave anyone behind, is that understood?"
His jaw clenched momentarily before he answered.
"Understood, Madam President."
"Thank you. That will be all."
Bill returned the phone to its cradle and looked over at Tigh.
"She is gonna be a pain in the ass," intoned the Colonel.
"Yeah," he sighed, "but with her keeping the civvies in line we might not all die after all. Let's get to work."
AN: Reviews welcome as always. Thanks for reading. -SVR