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Chapter 10
The decision to accompany John Cavil back to his basestar had been made as much for his comfort as anything else. It was understood that he would need a show of force to impose the peace on his people. Daniel Jackson took him back, accompanied by Merlin, The First, The Commander, the O'Neills, and the Adamas.
Once they were aboard the command basestar, Cavil convened a meeting with his generals. Several IL series models entered the throne room, followed by four old style, gold colored centurions.
On seeing Jackson, one of the IL models stopped and stared. "You are dead," it said. "I killed you."
Jackson looked at the Imperious Leader, who appeared to shrug, then Daniel turned to the IL series who had spoke. "Hello," he closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and leveled his gaze at the robot, "Specter is your name, I see. You are a copy of John Cavil, with the same base memory as the Imperious Leader." He sighed, then went on. "I'm curious at what point your memories diverge. Yes, you killed me, or you would have, without the help of a good friend, who repaired the damage done to my body."
"Hello, Daniel," came a voice from behind Jackson.
"Hello, Baltar," he said as he turned. He found himself face to face with the wildly grinning traitor. "And how are you?"
"That depends on what you have to say, wouldn't you agree?"
Bill placed himself beside Daniel and said, "Yes, Julius, I can imagine you could be very fearful for your life, depending on why we're here."
Cavil had not ascended to his throne yet, but now, the raised chair lowered and he took his seat. Once it had reached its full height, he announced, "The humans have impressed upon me the need for peace between our peoples. On this day we will sign an unbreakable treaty with them."
"I suspected treachery from you!" Baltar exclaimed, then he drew his blaster.
"Stop him!" yelled Bill, but it was too late. Baltar aimed the handgun at his own head and pulled the trigger.
A moment later, a centurion entered the room. "Sir, the resurrection ship just jumped away, along with two basestars."
"I assure you that I had nothing to do with this," Cavil said as his throne lowered to floor level.
"No, I understand," Jackson acknowledged.
"I don't understand," Laura stated. "What just happened? Why would Baltar kill himself?"
"Madam President," The First answered, "if you had any doubt that the humanoid cylons and humans are biologically the same, here is proof. Baltar can be resurrected, and he has no compunction in committing suicide because he knows it."
"That's what the cylons offered him to get him to turn traitor on his own people," Daniel explained. "A sense of immortality."
"I did not give him resurrection until recently," Cavil said. "I had promised it to him, but not fulfilled my promise. Now I am sorry I did."
"That's why the resurrection ship jumped," Bill observed. "He has control of it."
"I'm afraid he has," Cavil confirmed.
Laura shook her head. "I don't mean to put a damper on everything, but how do we know that Cavil hasn't told Baltar to do this?"
She watched Jackson as he shook his head. "Cavil is sincere when he says he intends peace. Baltar is acting on his own."
"Actually," Cavil corrected, "since he has two basestars, he is hardly acting on his own."
"Yes, I suppose that's true," Daniel agreed. "My point, however, is that he's not acting with your support."
"Certainly not," the cylon said. "Specter," he said to his subordinate self, "find out where he jumped to."
"By your command," Specter said as he started out of the room. He hesitated at the door, and turned back. "Are we certain that declaring peace with the humans is the appropriate action in this situation?"
Cavil would have turned beet red, if he had that ability. Instead, he reached out and pulled the sidearm from one of the gold centurions. He aimed it unwaveringly at Specter and said, "If you would prefer to serve Baltar, I can send you to him right now."
Specter didn't hesitate. He turned on his heel and hurried from the room.
Cavil turned back to Jackson. "Our agreement was that I would sign the treaty for all of the cylons. I can't do that now, Daniel."
"Imperious Leader," The First said softly. "Forgive the intrusion, but I have looked into your mind. You had every intention to do so, and I see that you are still willing to do what it takes to hold the peace intact."
Laura shook her head. "I find it very difficult to believe that you have gone from fighting a war against us to now being willing to make peace at any cost," she told Cavil.
"It is not just the threat of my complete demise, although that is certainly a motivation," Cavil explained. "No, it's also the fact that the war is costly. I have seen many of my people destroyed over and over. They come back changed. Even though death isn't something to be feared when you can come back almost immediately, it gets monotonous when you do it over and over. It is painful to die, and you don't forget the pain. I do not wish to see my people continue this destructive cycle."
Pegasus…
Jack walked back onto the bridge of his battlestar. He strode up to Sledge and held out his hand. The Asgard had retained his Nordic appearance as a Colonial, although his beard and hair were neatly trimmed.
"Hello, Thor," he said quietly as they shook hands.
"It is good to have you back, O'Neill. It has been very frustrating, not being allowed to talk to you about our previous adventures."
"Thanks for looking after Sam and me, buddy."
"The common Earth expression, I believe, is, 'It was nothing'."
"But it wasn't nothing," O'Neill objected. "The first thing you did once you became a Q was to look after us. Make sure we didn't get into any trouble. That was definitely something, and I'll never forget it."
"Admiral Cain," tactical called, "we're picking up something odd on our scanners."
"What is it?" O'Neill asked.
"I'm not sure, Sir. It's an immense cube, over three kilometers per side."
"Borg," Thor muttered under his breath.
"Alert!" O'Neill shouted. "Contact the Federation…"
"Sir… I'm getting something strange on communications…"
"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your technical and biological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."
"Nuts!" O'Neill yelled back at the Borg. "There's no way you're takin' this ship!"
A green glow erupted from the Borg cube and grabbed onto Pegasus. A moment later there was a flash of light beside Jack, and Daniel was standing there.
"Jack, what are you doing?" he asked as O'Neill ordered point defenses and the Vipers manned.
"I'm giving a bit of hell back," O'Neill replied.
"You know this won't work," Daniel argued.
"No, but at least it might slow them down!"
"Not appreciably, Admiral," Thor told his friend.
"What do you suggest?" O'Neill asked his friends, "because I can tell you, the Pegasus isn't gonna just sit here and take it." He ordered the new weapon powered up.
"That will do a lot more than point defenses, Jack," Daniel said approvingly.
"Ya think?" Jack asked sarcastically. He turned to tactical. "Fire!"
"We're too close to the blast radius, Sir!"
"Just fire the damn thing!"
"Yes, Sir!"
Tactical pushed a button, and the glowing mini-ZPM raced out towards the cube. It hit the screens of the massive ship and exploded. The screens held for barely a hundredth of a second, then erupted. The cube relied on it's defensive screens and it's ability to regenerate for survival. The amount of energy the superstructure was now being asked to absorb was enough to tear apart Earth's moon. The cube had no chance to regenerate itself. It simply carbonized from the blast, then became a cloud of dust and debris drifting around Pegasus.
The battlestar wasn't designed to take that much punishment either, but it was much farther away from the explosion than the cube. It's armor was designed to repel the blast of a nuclear weapon of significant size, however, the force of a mini-ZPM gun was much greater. Whether because of the distance from the blast, or the sheer strength of the armor, it held long enough for the ship to survive.
"We're intact, Sir," came the report from tactical, once he could make himself heard above the groaning and shuddering of the battlestar's superstructure. "I'm getting damage reports from all over the ship, though."
Thor was looking at the fire control board. "We've got several fires, and several hull breaches. I am sealing them now."
"Sledge," tactical called. "I can't raise the forward port viper bays!"
The landing bay had been protected only by a force field, and when the blast came, the ship was turned slightly to starboard. The force field was unable to hold back all of the blast, and some fuel tanks were compromised. The secondary blast from the liquid tylium caused enough thrust from the launch bay pod that its support struts were slightly warped. The lift shafts running through the strut were bent to the extent that lifts could not get through.
An alarm suddenly sounded on the bridge and the tactical officer called, "Collision Alert! Debris from the Borg vessel!"
"Turn our starboard belly toward it! That's the best armor we have left," Jack shouted as they felt the debris start peppering the battlestar. There were several explosions heard as the armor, now paper thin from the radiation, allowed debris through to the inner hull.
Pegasus was not very maneuverable at the best of times however, and it took what seemed an incredibly long time for it to roll over and show it's belly to the onslaught.
Prometheus…
The Federation ship had moved to intercept when the Borg cube entered the system. Pegasus had been on patrol at the extreme edge of the system, and had thus encountered the cube first, but Prometheus' sensors were much more powerful and she was reacting long before the battlestar knew there was a visitor in the area.
Sam O'Neill flashed to the bridge of Le-Matya and asked, "Can I help?"
Tuvok was fully aware of who and what Sam was, and told her, "I will let you know, General."
At that moment, the command came through for Prometheus' full separation. Tuvok pressed the correct switch and stepped to the command chair as Chakotay's form disappeared from it. "Separation complete," the computer said as the ship dropped away from its sisters.
"General O'Neill," Tuvok began, "please man the…" his request was interrupted as they watched the flare on the screen as the Borg cube flashed brightly from the mini-ZPM explosion, then it was a rapidly expanding cloud of debris.
The screen automatically locked on to Pegasus and they watched the battlestar pitch to starboard, and the force of the explosion hit her port side. Something in the huge landing bay exploded and the force was like a rocket engine. It nosed the battlestar around to port, and vaporized anything inside the bay.
Chakotay's voice came through the intership communications almost immediately. "Prepare to take on casualties. Configure extra sickbay facilities."
"Helm!" Tuvok barked. "Get us into transporter range."
"Aye, Sir!"
"Radiation levels increasing," tactical announced as they approached.
"My God!" Sam exclaimed looking at the damage to Pegasus. The armor on the front side of the ship was visibly degraded, and glowing red. There were several cracks apparent that showed up as black lines in the luminous metal. In a few places, there were holes and they could see the inner hull underneath as they skimmed over the surface of the battlestar, making a visible inspection. Sam established a mental link with her husband, to show him what she was seeing.
Voyager kept position away from Pegasus, in an area of lower radiation, and Valjean and Le-Matya used their high capacity transporters to beam survivors out of the damaged sections of the battlestar to her.
Adama was back aboard Galactica now, and he broke orbit of Jord to assist. "Admiral Cain," he called, "are you maneuverable?"
"I don't know, Bill. I might need Prometheus to give me a tow."
"Say that again, Marcus? Prometheus is gonna tow you?"
Tuvok was listening, and he turned to Samantha. "Prepare to tow Pegasus, General."
"Yes, Sir," she said, grinning. She tapped her communicator and said, "General O'Neill to Vorik, do you read?"
"I read you, General. What can I do for you?"
"Vorik, We're preparing to tow Pegasus. We're going to need structural integrity and gravity drives at full."
"Aye, Sir," Vorik responded, "we will be ready in forty point two seconds."
"Patch me through to Admiral Cain on Pegasus," Tuvok ordered.
"Admiral Cain," he said evenly, "General O'Neill is aboard, and informs me that we are ready to tow you back to Jord."
"Tell her we're grateful for her help," O'Neill grinned. "Tow away, Le-Matya."
On Galactica's forward viewer, Bill, Laura, and Tigh watched in amazement as the Le-Matya placed herself right beside the wounded battlestar. There were no visible beams, but suddenly, Pegasus started turning. Then, as Le-Matya started moving away, the battlestar followed like an elephant obediently following a mouse.
Adama was shaken out of his surprise by a call from Gaeta. "Pegasus is requesting help with damage control, Sir."
"Get four damage control teams into as many raptors as it takes and get them over there now!"
"This is Tuvok aboard Le-Matya. Please have your personnel assemble in your starboard hanger bay. We will transport them to Pegasus with our particle transporter."
A few minutes later, Gaeta announced, "Our damage control teams were assembled in formation. They just disappeared from my scanners, Sir."
"Your personnel are transported successfully, Commander," Tuvok said.
Adama was impressed. Not only were the Federation vessels capable of near instantaneous matter transportation, but this small part of a vessel was pulling a ship that was many times its size. They were only moving at about point two C, but it was still impressive.
"How's it going over there, Marcus?" Adama asked.
"Been better," came the voice of O'Neill. "Sam showed me some pictures of Pegasus. Looks like we did a number on her armor."
"That's not all, Mark," Bill told him. "You managed to buckle your port hangar bay struts. It's a good thing Pegasus isn't one of the museum battlestars. You wouldn't be able to retract your landing bay pods for a jump."
"Yeah, like we've got the ability to jump right now! The drive works, but it would tear the ship apart the rest of the way."
Voyager…
Prometheus was still separated into three vessels. Le-Matya was towing Pegasus, Voyager was keeping pace and acting as a hospital ship, and Valjean was orbiting the system's primary beyond the orbit of the planets, keeping an eye out for Borg vessels.
Chakotay beamed aboard Voyager as there was still too much radiation present for him to use the hologram emitters to come on board. O'Neill, Thor, and the Adamas beamed aboard after him. Tuvok was able to use the ship's holographic emitters, so he remained on board Le-Matya.
They sat in the captain's mess, to discuss what had happened, along with Rodney, who had come aboard with his wife.
"Where's Sam?" Rodney asked as they began discussing the damage.
"You need her here?" O'Neill asked, surprised that Rodney would admit it.
"Yeah, I do. Maybe it's something about being ascended, but I'm finding that I sometimes need help with things."
"I will signal for her," Tuvok stated as he pressed a button on the table in front of him.
"It also wouldn't hurt to have Doctor Baltar here," Adama said. "He's the one who invented our weapon. He'll know the exact yield of the explosion."
"Agreed," Chakotay said, nodding. "Will you get him here, Kathryn?"
A few minutes later, Sam faded into being beside Tuvok and there was a gasp from Laura Adama as she recognized the Iconian woman. Before she could comment, however, the door slid open, and Gaius Baltar and his wife, Natalie, entered.
Introductions were made, then Rodney asked, "I'd like to know why Pegasus was able to survive that explosion."
"My skills as a commander, Rodney," Jack said indignantly.
"General," Rodney said, "I know you're a great commander, but the fact is, Pegasus should not be here anymore. Do you have any idea how much power one of those mini-ZPMs can channel?"
Jack shrugged his shoulders a bit and said, "Lots?" He looked at Sam, who smiled slightly and nodded confirmation.
"Remember when Camulus tried to kill us with that ZPM? It was depleted and it would have destroyed the entire solar system had we tried to use it," she explained.
"So how much power are we talking about here?" Jack asked.
"It blew up a Borg Cube, General," Rodney said, as if that explained everything.
Laura Adama raised her hands to break into the conversation for a moment. "May I ask a favor?"
"Yes, Madam President," said Sam.
"Can we settle on a name for you and … Jack. I know you as Marcus and Elizabeth, but everyone is referring to you as Jack and Sam. It's a bit hard to take. Not to mention, the last time I saw you, Elizabeth, was at your funeral."
"Sorry about that, Laura." They had known each other as commander's wives before Elizabeth Cain died from cancer. "You understand that Jack… uh... Mark and I are both beings called Q. We are very hard to kill. When I was Elizabeth, I didn't remember who I was but once I 'died', I went back to the continuum where I remembered, and then came here." She turned to her husband and asked, "Can we settle on names, Jack?"
"Personally," O'Neill replied, "I'm still the commander of Pegasus, so as far as my rank, Admiral is probably the best for me. Not to mention, it could get hard to maintain discipline on a battlestar if my crew doesn't think of me as the same person anymore."
"So you think being referred to as Admiral Marcus Cain is the best for now?" Sam speculated.
"Well, I'm Jack regardless. I think for the ease of the Colonials, I should be Cain. For those of you who are Q, just make yourself hear O'Neill instead of Cain. Works for me." Sam laughed, knowing full well that a Q could do exactly what Jack suggested.
Adama understood what Jack was saying about the crew of the Pegasus, and he asked, "What about Helena? I'm assuming that she is Q as well?"
"Yes, she is," Sam confirmed, "and she is going to need to be trained as a Q. Another of our daughters, Amanda, has told me that she is willing to teach Helena."
Jack hadn't heard this, so he nodded his approval when Sam explained. "You know Helena can be somewhat of a hothead."
"So can Amanda, Jack… Sorry… Mark. Remember her time as Jennifer Hailey?" Sam asked.
"Don't remind me," Jack said, sounding annoyed. "Can we get back to the subject of Pegasus?"
"That would be appreciated," McKay said. "I know you're a good commander, Gen… Admiral, but that's not what kept Pegasus from being destroyed."
"No?" Jack asked Sam.
"No," she said shaking her head.
"Ah, well," he said as he looked back to Rodney. "So what did?"
"I think I can answer that," Baltar said.
"I was hoping you could," said Sam. "Even at a distance of several miles, the shockwave should have destroyed a battlestar, even one as heavily armored as Pegasus or Galactica."
"Is there any paper around here?" Baltar asked. "I need to do some figures."
Chakotay brought him a pad and stylus, and showed him how it worked. As Gaius started quickly writing, he glanced at Sam. "By the way, Dr. Cain, it's great to know that you are still alive."
"Thank you, Gaius," she said. McKay shot her a strange glance, and she explained. "Dr. Baltar was one of my students when I taught at the University of Caprica. It was interesting because Dr. Jackson was a professor of archeology there at the same time, but neither of us recognized the other."
"So you taught him?" McKay asked, pointing at Baltar. "I hope he's gone beyond what you taught."
"McKay," Sam said, shaking her head in wonder at his arrogance, "one of these days, I'm going to turn you into the weasle you are."
"And there we are," Baltar said, breaking into their conversation. "From what I can tell, it was the direction of the explosion. You see, the way I designed the mini-ZPMs as you call them, the blast is focused away from the ship firing it. In fact, the way it was designed, the only energy that would have hit Pegasus is what was reflected back from the Borg cube."
"That was not just reflected energy," Sam exclaimed.
"No, it wasn't, but I suspect that if we had all of the figures, we would see how it was the energy core of the Borg cube, combined with the energy reflected from the shields while they were still operational, plus what reflected from the hull before it was destroyed. There are lots of variables, but if we had all of the values, the equation would balance."
"So what you're saying is that it was the shockwave from the cube getting zapped that caused that much damage to Pegasus?" O'Neill asked.
"Pretty much," Sam confirmed.
"Is there anyway to keep it from happening again?"
"I have one or two ideas, Admiral," Rodney said with a smug expression.
"Yeah, we could double the thickness of the armor," Sam quipped.
"Yeah, and make Pegasus totally unmaneuverable because of its mass," Rodney said, totally missing her humor.
"What did you have in mind, Dr. McKay?" asked Baltar.
"Well," Rodney answered, "I've been thinking of this for our ships too. Stargates require a rather large amount of power to open a wormhole any substantial distance. You can open one to another galaxy, but you end up pretty well depleting a ZPM to do it."
"We know this, Rodney," Sam said impatiently.
"Yes, you do," he agreed. "What I'm proposing, however, is extremely short range gateways surrounding the ship in an overlapping arrangement. Each gateway would open to the opposite side of the ship."
"How many gateways are you talking about?" O'Neill wanted to know.
"Well, we'll have to do some math, but I think we can probably get away with fewer than fifty."
"McKay, have you lost your mind!?" Jack exploded. "Do you have any idea how much power that would require in battle?"
"Not as much as you might think, Admiral."
O'Neill glared at McKay for several seconds, while he visibly calmed down. "Ok, Rodney," he said after a bit, "why not?"
"With an Iconian style gateway, there is no physical ring like with a stargate. That means, anything striking at the ship anywhere is going to pass through the gate and head for the other side."
"Sounds like a mantel," Chakotay observed.
"Not quite," Sam said thoughtfully. "There are some definite differences, one being the power requirement would be nowhere near what a mantel requires." She looked at her husband and started picking up some enthusiasm. "Jack," she exclaimed, forgetting in her excitement that he was Cain now, at least in front of the Colonials, "a gateway's power requirement is directly proportional to the distance you intend to travel, coupled with the size of the aperture. By cutting that distance down to just a few thousand meters, a single ZPM could power the gates for days, even potentially, years."
"Ok. I'm listening," O'Neill said.
"Another difference with a mantel," Janeway observed, "and a substantial one, is that with a mantel, you could conceivably travel through a Borg cube without the Borg even realizing you were there. With these gate shields that McKay is proposing, their effectiveness would be limited to the size of an object that could fit through the gates."
"Why?" Jack wondered.
"You know how, when travelling through a human sized gate, you have to keep your arms at your sides?" Sam asked. "That's because if your arms don't enter the gate along with the rest of you, you don't go through. It's like a stargate. You aren't sent through until all of you is de-molecularized."
"So what would happen if you tried to take a ship through an asteroid with these shields?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted.
"I suspect," McKay said thoughtfully, "that you'd drill a hole the shape of your ship through the whole asteroid. If you stopped and backed up while in the asteroid, in theory at least, you'd redeposit the rock where you de-molecularized it."
"What would happen if you didn't back up?" Jack asked.
"You'd leave the hole. When you turned off the gates, you'd lose the pattern for what was gone. Like shutting off a stargate with someone's arm in it."
"Or head," Jack said very softly thinking of his friend Kowalski.
Adama watched as Jack turned very white at some memory.
"That seems a bit ambitious right now, Rodney," Sam said as she thought about it. "We would need to upgrade the computers on board Pegasus, not to mention the power system, and install emitters on the hull."
"That would require a drydock," Jack observed. "We're not likely to put into one right now. Give me something I can use now people."