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Chapter 13

Jack O'Neill climbed down from his viper to the landing bay floor of Galactica. As soon as his feet touched the deck, Chief Tyrol saluted. Jack took off his helmet and put it under his left arm. In his right, he held a ring of keys. He saluted Tyrol, then held out the keyring to him. The chief was surprised, but hesitantly took it.

"Gas her up, and clean the windshield," O'Neill told him, then pointed a finger at him. "No taking her out for a joyride."

"Yes, Sir," Tyrol said, thoroughly confused.

O'Neill left the landing bay, and a moment later, the keys disappeared from a very surprised Tyrol's hand. The chief gazed at his empty hand for a moment, then started chuckling.

Jack made his way to Guinan's, where he sat down at the bar.

"Adama's waiting for you," his mother-in-law said as she handed him a beer.

"I know," he answered.

"What are you going to tell him?"

Jack sighed. "It's time for me to go back to Iconia Prime."

"You've got a lot of friends here," she said, playing devil's advocate.

"I've got a lot there too."

"Do you want my advice?" she asked, smiling.

"No," he said firmly.

"I didn't think so," and she walked to the other end of the bar.

"Hi, Jack," said Fargo as he sat down beside O'Neill.

"Really? Can't I have a beer in peace?"

Fargo looked around, then shook his head. "Apparently not. Anyway, I understand you're thinking of leaving us."

"Not permanently," Jack said, scowling at the younger man.

"No, I understand that. You've built a home here, Jack. Why do you want to leave?" Fargo wore a puzzled expression as he asked the question.

"Look, Fargo. Everytime I talk to anyone, they treat me like I'm some sort of … I don't know … god, maybe. Well I spent a long time fighting people who pretended to be gods. I sure don't want to be one of them."

"Of course not. I understand perfectly. I've had to work hard to get people to not treat me that way. In a few years, maybe I'll succeed," Fargo said.

"Well, I don't have the patience you do," O'Neill said with finality, then, he chugged the rest of the beer and left the bar.

Adama's cabin…

"Why do you want to leave, Mark?"

"Commander," O'Neill said, exasperated, "there are times when you just want to, you know? Why won't anyone just take my word for it?"

"Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I need you here," Adama told him.

"They need me in the alpha quadrant too!"

Bill shook his head. "I remember what The Commander said when he left. 'Take however much time you need, Jack.' It didn't sound like they were desperate." He paused for a moment and eyed O'Neill speculatively. "What's really going on, Mark?"

O'Neill didn't say anything but just sat and looked at his feet.

Bill watched for a time, then said, "Obviously, Jack, I can't stop you from leaving. There's no power I have that would hold you here. Can you at least tell me the real reason you're leaving?"

For a long time, O'Neill didn't move. He kept staring at his feet, but then, he seemed to come to a decision and looked Bill in the eye and said, "Ever since I got my memories back, I have known that my home is out there, in the alpha quadrant. I've got a little cabin where it's just me and Sam and a fish pond. After the cylon war, that appeals to me."

Bill held his gaze for a time, then said, "I can understand that. I know how much I enjoy getting to the planet's surface and relaxing. The problem is, the Borg could return at any time. Baltar could come back. We're not out of the woods yet, Jack."

"If you need me, I'll be back."

Again, Adama said nothing for awhile, then told O'Neill, "I guess that's all I can ask."

The Pegasus…

Back on board Pegasus, O'Neill was in his cabin, packing things. He knew he could simply snap his fingers and they would be packed, but he wanted to do something to keep his mind off of what Bill had said to him.

He was looking at a picture of Helena and Lucy, taken right before the cylons attacked, when there was a knock on his door.

"Come in," he yelled.

The door opened, and Thor entered. "Hello, O'Neill."

"Hey, Buddy," he answered. "Are you getting ready to take over?"

"Actually, O'Neill, that is what I want to speak with you about."

Something in his tone made O'Neill put down the picture and turn to face his friend. "What's up?" he asked.

"Since you are leaving, my job here is complete."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to leave," Jack told him.

"No, however the people on Pegasus know who I actually am now. They are not comfortable with that reality."

"Yeah, but you're kinda used to that, aren't you?"

"O'Neill, I do not wish to minimize what you are feeling, but consider: you are treated differently now, because the people realize that you have power beyond what the Olympians have. I am treated differently now, because my name was on an even keel with those same Olympians that the people have worshipped. In short, I am a hero who no one is willing to command. I have found Adama asking me to do things instead of commanding me to do them. If I were to take command of Pegasus, where would I be?"

O'Neill sat down and invited Thor to do the same. "That's my problem too, Buddy. Bill doesn't even realize he's doing it. Neither does Laura. If I tell Bill he's got to stop, he'll promise me he will, and he would try. In time he'd be right back to where he is now."

"Who will take command of Pegasus?" Thor asked.

A little while later in O'Neill's quarters…

Helena knocked on her father's door, and didn't even wait for an answer. She entered the room and planted herself in front of him.

"Come in," he said to her.

"I want command," she told him.

He nodded and said, "I kinda figured you would. I've heard through scuttlebutt that you've made it known you want it too."

"That's something you taught me. Make it known what I want, then fight to get it."

"But in this case, Helena, you're not gonna get the job."

Her face, which had just been disagreeable before, took on a furious look. "Why?" she asked crisply.

He gazed at his daughter for a long moment. He loved her very much, but he knew that she still harbored anger towards him and Sam. "Helena," he said, hoping she would listen this time, but knowing she wouldn't, "you're still angry."

She didn't deny it, but said, "My anger gives me an edge. It keeps me focused."

He knew where it would go. He would say that her anger made her reckless, and she would deny that it distracted her. "I'm not going to argue this again," he told her.

"Good," she said. "Acknowledge that I'm right and give me command."

He shook his head and told her, "No."

The furious look reasserted itself on Helena's face, and she turned on her heel and left his cabin. O'Neill looked around the room at everything left to pack and shook his head. He sat down in his favorite armchair, held out his hand, and a bottle of Fat Tire appeared in it.

"Got any more of those?" Sam asked, appearing on the sofa.

"Why weren't you here when I needed you?"

"Sorry, Jack. Who takes command of Pegasus is up to you," she answered.

"Do you agree?" he asked her.

"About Helena's anger? Of course!"

"At least you could have told her that," he suggested.

She sighed, and held out her hand, making a bottle appear herself. "Then she'd be mad at both of us," she said, twisting off the cap.

He watched as she took a sip, then said, "I thought we were in this together."

"We are, Jack."

He stood and walked to the sofa. "Do you understand my reasons for leaving Pegasus?" He sat down beside her, and she put her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, and I understand why you don't feel you can tell Bill the real reason." She looked up at him and smiled. "You know you're going to have to invite him to the fish pond sometime."

"You're right," he said chuckling.

The next morning, Jack strode into the command center and looked around. He saw that people were studiously trying to ignore him.

As usual, Thor was there before him, and he took the Asgard aside and asked, "Is anyone requesting command other than Helena?"

"No one." Jack grimaced and Thor continued. "It would appear that no one wants to make her mad."

"Who can blame them?" O'Neill asked.

Thor only nodded, and continued, "I suspect that people expect her to get the position anyway because of who she is."

Jack was indignant, "I wouldn't promote her just because she's my daughter!" Now, people weren't trying to keep up the appearance of ignoring him. They were openly curious about his outburst. Quietly, he continued, "I hate nepotism!"

"I am aware of that, O'Neill; however, some people are not."

"What about someone not from Pegasus?" Jack asked.

"I have considered that possibility as well, O'Neill," Thor said, hesitatingly.

"What?" Jack asked, suspicious.

"The best candidate for the position is Lee Adama."

Jack stared at his friend for a long moment, then said, "I hate nepotism!"

"Agreed, O'Neill, but he is the best candidate."

Later…

Bill Adama had come aboard Pegasus, flown there in a raptor by Kara and Lee. They met with O'Neill and Thor in a conference room outside the command center.

"So are you going to recommend Helena for command?" Bill asked without preamble.

"Why would I do that?" O'Neill asked.

"Scuttlebutt says you will," Bill explained.

"I'm not in the habit of obeying scuttlebutt," Jack countered.

"Ok," Adama said, accepting his denial, "who then?"

In answer, Jack turned to Lee Adama, "Have you considered requesting command?"

"I've considered it," Lee answered, "but I'm hesitant because I know there are others more qualified."

Thor shook his head, "I very much doubt that, Lee Adama."

Bill looked studiously at one of the walls. He refused to get into this conversation. He had gone through the records of much of the fleet, and he agreed with Thor. His son was the best person for the job, but he was uncomfortable promoting him. He remembered the charges of nepotism early on in their journey, and didn't want to go through that again. The specter of Tom Zarek loomed its ugly head every time he thought of it.

"Who is more qualified?" O'Neill asked, genuinely curious who Lee thought could command his battlestar.

Lee thought about it for some time, but when he could name no one, O'Neill nodded. "That's kinda what I thought."

Jack turned to look at Bill, and could feel what the man was thinking. "You're not comfortable with this, are you, Bill?"

Adama turned back and shook his head.

Lee understood completely, but Kara asked, "Why?"

Adama smiled at his daughter -in-law, and said, "While I don't owe you an explanation, I'll tell you anyway. We're finally through with the charges that our family is the one in control of everything. I don't want to open that can of worms again."

"But you agree, don't you? Lee is the most qualified."

"Of course, I agree. He's earned this command!"

"Then why shouldn't he get it?" Kara was incensed that her husband might not get his own battlestar because of people's jealousy.

"Tell you what," Jack said, then he closed his eyes.

After a few seconds, a glowing ball of light appeared in the room, over by a wall. In the center of the light was the face of Zeus. Quickly, the energy coalesced into matter, and the man himself was standing in the room, dressed in his white and gold robes. He joined the group and said, "I will stand behind this decision, Commander Adama, and I will do it publically."

"Very well," said Bill, finally. "I'll promote Lee."

"Uh, does anyone see a problem here?" the soon to be commander of Pegasus wondered.

"What's that?" O'Neill asked.

"Permission to speak candidly, Sir?" Lee asked Jack, coming to attention.

"Granted," O'Neill answered.

"Your daughter, Sir. She doesn't like me very much anyway. What's going to happen when I'm her commanding officer?"

"She'll have to follow your orders," Bill spoke up. He was wondering now, if his son could handle things.

"I think I know what he's getting at, Bill," Jack said. "Like you said before, there's no power you have that could keep me here. Helena isn't a terribly powerful Q. Her anger distracts her, but she is Q. That makes her considerably more powerful than a normal human."

"Do you think she might take things out on Lee?"

"Not intentionally," Thor stepped in. "her anger makes her less powerful than other Q, but it makes her more dangerous in certain situations. Because it distracts her, she can be a 'loose cannon'. When her anger flares, she might accidentally do something she wouldn't normally do."

"So I'll have to watch my step?" Lee asked.

"No," Bill told him. "You don't need that in your first command. Give her to me. I was going to suggest Kara be my CAG, but she should be with you anyway."

"So we trade CAGs," Lee mused. "That sounds like it might be a good idea."

"I'll keep an eye on her too," Jack promised.

"Might I make a suggestion, O'Neill?" Thor spoke up. "Amanda trained her. Could she not watch out for her until she acclimates herself to the new situation?"

"All I can do is ask," Jack answered.

Two weeks later, at the outer edge of the Jord system…

Helena Cain was in her viper, leading a squadron. She was incredibly frustrated with the way things had turned out. Her father had resigned his commission as commander of Pegasus, and what was rightfully hers, had been given to Lee Adama.

Not that she begrudged Lee the command. He did deserve a command, just not hers. They had spent time together, strategizing the best ways to utilize their fighters in protecting Jord as well as the fleet. During that time, she had developed feelings for him. If someone else had to get the command, she was glad it was him. Nevertheless, she had wanted it, herself.

To add insult to injury, she was now CAG of Galactica, which wasn't a bad career move, but she knew why. None of the normal humans could keep their thoughts from her, and she had sensed what Adama was thinking. He wasn't sure if she could keep her powers under control, and figured if she was going to get mad at a commander, far better if it was him.

She was about to widen her patrol, when something appeared on her scanners. It was on the other side of the system, and it was big. She watched, ice forming in her gut, as a cube resolved on her screen. A moment later, "Galactica to CAG. Return to home. I repeat, return to home."

"Affirmative, I see it. All right, people, you heard, let's move!"

She pulled back on her stick and reversed course, her squadron following. A few minutes later, they were landing in Galactica's bays.

Pegasus…

Lee Adama had been in command of Pegasus for all of a week. He had brought his executive officer from Galactica, and it appeared as though Boomer would work out just fine.

Kara had, of course, transferred to Pegasus with him, and become his CAG. He was not happy that Karl had not been able to come with them, but he figured those were the breaks.

"I'm picking up an odd signal," Mendez, his tactical officer, announced.

"What is it?" Boomer asked, hurrying to look over the man's shoulder.

"Very large. Cube shaped, three kilometers per side," the man said.

"Frak," someone exclaimed.

"Inform Galactica," Lee ordered, then; "Set course to intercept!"

"Recall all vipers," Boomer told flight operations.

"As soon as they've landed, execute course change," Lee told the helm. He was not happy about this at all. This battlestar had destroyed a Borg cube before, but at great cost. It wasn't turning out to be a good first week.

At the cube…

Two more battlestars had also detected the cube, and they were much closer to it. Their commanders had changed course, and rendezvoused just before engaging the monstrous ship. The Commander of the Olympus, Admiral Keegan was, until recently, one of the only three admirals in the fleet.

Now, with Cain gone, there was just Adama and him, although Commander Jonasson of the Triton was due to receive a promotion to Rear Admiral.

By coincidence, Triton was the battlestar he was about to engage the cube with. He wasn't sure what would happen, as both ships were small Valkyrie type battlestars. He supposed that was better. If they were to be destroyed, at least there wouldn't be as many people killed.

"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your technological and biological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."

Keegan had heard the announcement before, when Pegasus had destroyed the other cube, and hated the arrogance of it now, even more. Before he could fire, however, his ship was caught in a tractor beam.

"Destroy that emitter," he ordered, and he watched as their primary batteries started firing.

Amazingly, they got through and were released. The next thing he knew, however, his ship was spiraling away from the cube, with the starboard fighter pod destroyed. Power was down, and fires were breaking out all over the ship. Then, a massive explosion ripped the hull open, venting the interior to space.

Triton was caught a moment later in another tractor beam, and tried to destroy its emitter as well. Unfortunately, the Borg had adapted their defenses to the weapons of a Valkyrie type battlestar.

They could see the shields flare up with the explosions of their ordinance, and a moment later, another beam erupted from the monstrosity. It started defining a circle on the armor of Triton just above the command center. Jonnason watched in horror as a glowing circle appeared in the ceiling of his bridge, just above the head of his XO. He dived toward the man, arms outstretched to push him out of the way, and was caught in the beam as it broke through the ceiling. It cut his body cleanly into two pieces just below his heart, and went on to slice all the way through the alligator head to the bottom. A moment later, a tractor beam lifted everything within the circle out of Triton, and carried it into a storage bay on board the cube.

Normally, in the case of a hull breach, the crew would seal off the sections compromised. Here, however, there was a hole cut all the way from top to bottom of the alligator head. There was no way to seal it in time, and the relevant controls to do it quickly, had been lifted out of the ship.

The tractor beam released Triton and the battlestar drifted away, it's commander's head and upper body blown out of the ship by explosive decompression.

The cube continued on its way, but was suddenly set upon by three vessels. Prometheus had also detected it entering the system, and had arrived too late to do anything for the ill fated battlestars. Now however, fully separated from the rest of the ship, Valjean began to use its watermelon gun.

The first shot from the powerful weapon showed that the Borg had managed to adapt to it, but barely. They stopped their forward motion, and the cube's shields flared so brightly when the projectile hit them, that the cube could not be seen beneath.

A moment later, Pegasus entered the area and fired a miniZPM at the Borg. This had much the same effect as the watermelon projectile, flaring the shields brightly, but doing no more damage.

Valjean fired another slug at the cube. It seemed that the Borg could only just hold off the attack. They were not launching a counterattack on the Iconian and Colonial vessels, but seemed content to wait.

The two ships continued the volley for almost a minute until one more battlestar entered the fray. Galactica moved into weapons' range at high speed and launched a miniZPM. The crystal was moving so fast when it hit, that the shields glowed nearly twice as bright as they had under the previous onslaught. When the flare faded, the cube could be seen moving in the opposite direction. They had it on the run!

Adama contacted his son and Chakotay. "How are we doing for ordinance?"

"We can keep this up for only another few minutes," Chakotay answered.

"Same here," Lee confirmed.

"Let's hit it with three at once," Adama suggested.

"Say when," Chakotay agreed.

All three ships fired, but a moment later, the cube was gone.

"It entered warp," Paris announced on Valjean.

"Heads up," Chakotay warned. It's liable to be back"

As if to confirm what he had to say, all three ships were suddenly caught in tractor beams from the cube that had circled around and was now almost on top of them.

The cutting beams started to tear into Galactica, slicing a neat hole in the armor of the battlestar, but then, everything stopped and was peaceful. The cube was gone, and the five separate vessels were alone except for each other.

"The cube has disappeared," Gaeta announced.

"What happened," Tigh asked as he watched the red lights show where the battlestar's hull had been compromised.

"Unknown," was the response. "It just disappeared."

"Get a raptor out there to look at our damage, now!" Adama told flight operations.

"We're getting a signal from Le-Matya," Gaeta called. "They're showing us our battle damage."

"Cancel the raptor," Adama said, as he and Tigh hurried over to Gaeta's console where they could see the screen. It showed a circular section cut through the armor and into the hull above the command center.

"If that had been allowed to continue," Gaeta said solemnly, "we'd be dead now."

Another signal asked for his attention, and he put it on the screen. It showed Triton and the damage that had been done to her.

"Voyager reports that they are beaming aboard the remains of the people from both battlestars."

"How many were on those ships?" Adama asked quietly

"Eight hundred seventy-three on Olympus, and eight hundred ninety-one on Triton," Gaeta said. He listened intently to his headphones for a moment, then said, "Valjean reports no Borg cube showing up on their scans."

"Did it go to warp?" Tigh asked.

"Unknown," Gaeta answered. "Valjean says they've checked for a warp trail, and have found nothing."

"Damage control parties are onsite now, sealing the hull breaches," Tigh announced after checking his board.

"Acknowledged," Bill said. He was concerned. Until they knew where the Borg went, he wouldn't relax. Suddenly, he sensed a presence behind him that shouldn't be on the bridge. He turned, and saw Guinan standing there. His first reaction was to tell her to get off the bridge, but knowing who and what she was, he held back. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I got rid of the Borg," she told him.

He nodded. Without any questions, he knew that she was telling the truth. "You used your powers as a Q?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Won't the other Q take exception to that?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

"Yes, they will. As a matter of fact, they're allowing me to tell you this before I have to leave."

"You'll be fobbed?"

"Yes."

"Why?" he asked indignantly. "You were saving lives!"

"I consigned several thousand Borg to oblivion," she said simply.

"And they would have gladly done the same to us!"

"Yes, but it doesn't make my actions right," she said to him.

"That's debatable." Then, resigned, he said, "Before you have to leave, thank you."

She smiled as she spread her arms wide. "My pleasure."

There was a bright flash of light, and she was gone.