Chapter 19
Kobol's Last Gleaming Part 2
The Arrow of Apollo
***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***
**Kobol (Orbit)**
*Battlestar Galactica (War Room)*
"They're useless to us?" Adama asked, more than a little off put by the idea of stalling their progress just to go backwards to get something that would allow them to grab a piece of technology they couldn't even use.
"To the Colonials, yes, they're useless. However, we are talking about a technology that, in the wrong hands, can destroy a star system," Oliver replied.
"We've seen it attempted before," Gabi added. "One of our enemies tampered with one such device than gave it to us. Had we used it, the resulting explosion would've destroyed more than half of our solar system and the other half would've been destroyed when our star went supernova as a result of the blast. What should really sell this for you, however, is what the Cylons could do with it."
"Right now, the main limiting factor in the Baseship our friends here captured has been power distribution and generation. The reactors they brought with them from the Odyssey, while smaller than our fighters, produce enough energy to keep a Battlestar flying under its output alone for years. With these advancements, the Baseship's communications, sensors, and FTL range have all been drastically improved. I've ran the numbers, Admiral. The power output of their generators make energy weapons feasible with the proper setup," Baltar explained. "If the Cylons got their hands on one of the Tau'ri's generators, we'd be screwed. If they got their hands on one of these… zero… point… things, the only factor left to limit them would be the power conduits on the ship and those are easily upgraded with a superconductive material like their… 'naquadah'."
"Interfacing the power output of a ZPM with an organic ship is still next to impossible, however. The Wraith, the enemy we told you about in the Pegasus Galaxy, are more advanced than the Cylons. The Cylons, with a boost in power, could possibly begin advancing at a rate that would allow them to become strong enough to take on the dominate powers in the galaxy. We need to keep this out of their hands," Oliver finished.
Roslin nodded at their arguments and thought it all over for a good while. "What did you have in mind?"
"A mission to Caprica with the sole intent of retrieving the Arrow of Apollo," Oliver replied.
"Can we afford to take the fleet that far?" Roslin asked.
"That would be too risky," Adama immediately countered. "Not only would their jump drives be over taxed, but we'd be flying them back into the heart of the enemy."
"Galactica is similarly lacking in the FTL field to make the jump back to the Colonies without overtaxing her drive and being stranded sometime between the going and the coming. Pegasus, with the most advanced jump-drive in the fleet, would be the only viable option for a Colonial ship to be sent back to the Colonies, but her spine is still too damaged to be of much use and an active Battlestar will stick out like a sore thumb. We do, however, have on option that allows for the safe completion of the jumps, a shorter number of jumps, and, to top it all off, they'll never expect a Baseship in orbit of their claimed worlds to be there for any reason other than a patrol or a guard," Gabi said with a knowing smile.
"An infiltration mission," Adama stated with a grim look on his face. "Are you sure it'll work? If it doesn't, you'll be outnumbered, out gunned, and trapped in Cylon territory without any conceivable back up."
Gabi 'huffed' at that. "We've been in worse situations," she replied darkly.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Ba'al's Territory)***
**Third Gas Giant from the Star (Lunar Orbit)**
*Zeta Site (Hyperspace Arrival Chamber)*
The need for secrecy that surrounded the Zeta Initiative's existence had left the teams under the project's Commanding Officer with a level of operational freedom previously unknown to SG teams. However, it came with a price. The Zeta Site was located on the boarder of Ba'al's territory where it met Lucian Alliance-claimed space. That left the members of the Zeta Initiative smack dab in the middle of a war they were tasked with fueling. As such, their ships needed to be undetectable from the moment they were created. Not only did they have advanced jamming and cloaking technology, but they also had a base setup in a way that allowed them enter and exit hyperspace without leaving behind any trace.
The Hyperspace Arrival Chamber was a massive stretch of an even more immense asteroid that had been hollowed out to allow ships to safely decelerate from hyperspace in the confines of the base. This prevented any prying eyes from detecting the subspace radiation burst associated with the opening of a hyperspace window and added another layer of protection to the base. The ship that dropped out of the forming hyperspace window quickly decelerated, a dedicated gravity beam helping to pull the ship to a stop before it had crossed more than half of the massive chamber that was big enough for a Ha'tak to safely decelerate from hyperspace speeds. However, given that the Relentless Fury was roughly the size of an Al'kesh, the space wasn't needed.
From the direction of the heavily reinforced doors that led deeper into the facility, a beam of light scanned over the small ship as it simply waited for their ID to be confirmed. Once they were cleared, the shield over the door was lowered and the massive trinium-alloy doors opened to allow passage into the pressurized areas of the base. The small ship, after passing through the atmospheric retention barrier, settled down in a docking slip next to two more ships of her class, one of which was stripped of her armor and being worked on after having engaged a fleet of Ha'tak and stuck around longer than was advisable.
Bright flashes of light where the welders were working on the damaged space frame lit up the area with sparks flying as the powerful metals used in her design were welded into place by plasma torches. The repair crews looked up to the Relentless Fury as it settled into its perch before returning to their work once they were sure the ship wasn't in need of repairs. The Relentless Carnage, the defacto 'flagship' of the Zeta Fleet, had been through hell and would be under repair for some time to come. Oliver's team, much like their counterparts, SG-1 and SGA-1, seemed to have a way of getting themselves into bad situations despite their best efforts to the contrary.
Andy, the newly promoted acting-commander of the Zeta Initiative, stepped out of his ship with his team behind him and made their way through the halls of the base in the asteroid they had come to call home after nearly three years of actively keeping Ba'al and the Lucian Alliance focused on each other instead of Earth. For the most part, the team split up and went their separate ways. They weren't needed yet and would rest before launching a major offensive like the one that needed planning. To that end, Andy needed to find their resident tactician. Predictably, he was in the lounge playing chess against some poor soul that had lost a bet to another member of the initiative.
"How's it going, Andy?" Jeramie asked without looking up from the game he was playing. He could play the entire game without looking at the board, but people too often accused him of cheating when he did.
"I've been given a promotion for the duration of our current emergency," Andy replied as he sat in one of the chairs and pulled off his boots. The metallic alloy they were composed of made them understandably heavy. "General Landry has authorized a joint strike amongst our teams against a target of interest."
"Being?" Jeramie asked casually.
"A planet with the designs for a fully functional planetary defense shield," Andy replied as he pulled off the gloves that were made of fibers impregnated with the same trinium-alloy as his boots and the rest of his armor. Next to come off were the bracers that covered his forearms. Only then did the chocking feeling leave his body. "As such, I need your advice."
"A scouting party would be wise," Jeramie noted as he moved one of his pieces, said, "Checkmate," then turned his entire attention to Andy. "Aside from that, I can't tell you anything until we have scans for me to base an assault off of."
"I figured as much," Andy said with a nod. "The Flame is currently taking on fuel, the Carnage is still blown to hell and her crew is still missing. That leaves the Destruction as the only ship able to leave right now, but I'm not exactly feeling pressed for time. If at all possible, I want to wait until we can establish contact with Colonel Ry and his team. I'd rather have three ships as opposed to two, especially given the unknown nature of our target's defenses."
"Don't forget about the Ha'tak," Jeramie replied with a nod of his own. Andy's decision to wait was well founded. Attacking Ba'al or the Lucian Alliance was easy enough, their abilities were a known factor, but attacking an unknown party with unknown abilities was not something that either of them took lightly.
"Is she ready to fly?" Andy asked.
"Fly, shoot, confuse, sow chaos, take a beating… they finished installing and testing the last generator while you were gone. The alterations to the hull were finished late last night. The weapons have been installed, tested, and show great promise. Overall, she's not even recognizable as a Goa'uld Mothership."
"Good, we'll need her," Andy mused.
"So what took so long?" Jeramie asked once his opponent had left. "It's only a two day trip from here to Earth. You've been gone for five."
"There a few personal issues that needed to be cleared up," Andy replied. "We ended up staying on Earth longer than I would've liked, but it was necessary. Kade's sister died last week. We happened to be in orbit thirty-two hours before the funeral."
Jeramie sighed and shook his head. "We're all getting homesick," he said.
"Three years down, two to go," Andy replied.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Cyrannus Sector)***
**Caprica (En Route)**
*Captured Baseship (Combat Information Center)*
A Baseship's jump-drive, for reasons that were actually rather obvious, worked by making three consecutive jumps before entering a cool down cycle. With the incredible power boost provided by the Mark II Naquadah Generator hooked up to it and the navigational computers from the 302, getting to Caprica had been as simple as making three 'tri-jumps,' as Gabi had started calling them. The overcharged jump-drive did, however, have one serious drawback. The forces it put on their bodies was enough to make even the veteraned Colonials who were used to jump-drive technology feel nauseous.
"We're ready to perform the last jump sequence," Gabi informed the crew over the ship's internal network.
"Go ahead," Oliver ordered.
"Jumping into Caprican orbit in three… two… one…" Gabi counted down before the distortion overtook them, stopped, overtook them again, stopped, and passed over them once more before the central holo-screen showed a planet below them. Maneuvering thrusters fired across the ship's arms to stabilize their orbit then stopped and allowed the ship to drift in space undisturbed. "Stable orbit achieved, systems are good, FTL is recharging, DRADIS reads three other Baseships in our immediate area, and our IFF is broadcasting. With any luck, they'll just assume we're here to rest," Gabi said.
Outside of the ship, the arms of the Baseship that had been stalled in their regrowth by an order given to that section of the ship's automated systems once again began taking in energy and used it to regrow the damaged hull. The Cylons around them would, hopefully, just assume they were taking up a safe harbor while conducting repairs before heading out again.
"Have you located the museum?" Oliver asked.
Looking over her screens and putting in commands, Gabi reoriented the limited ability of their subspace sensors they had gained from interfacing the 302's computer and sensors core and brought up an image of the surface of the planet. The sensors scanned over the planet like a plane flying over the ground until a city came into view. A few seconds later, Gabi had their target in sight.
"There it is!" Starbuck helpfully informed them as Gabi scanned past the building without stopping.
"Okay, looks like it's still intact," Oliver said with a smile once the sensors had been properly focused. They hadn't come all this way for nothing. "Load up the Heavy Raider and let's get down there. Gabi, maintain radio silence. The last thing we need is the Cylons noticing an encrypted transmission they can't read or an unencrypted transmission that gives you away."
"No regular check-ins?" Kirsten asked.
"The subspace array broadcasts to everywhere all at once. It's not secure and any encryption we put on the normal channels will be detectable to the Cylons as a foreign code element. We can't broadcast anything without giving ourselves away. If we don't use Cylon encryption, they know it's us. If do use Cylon encryptions, they can read it and they still know it's us. We can't take that risk," Gabi replied as the military personnel followed the Colonel out of the CIC.
They made their way through the ship all the way to the Heavy Raider bay where all but three members of the ground team were waiting, the other three having been in the CIC to locate the target. "We're ready to fly when you are," Kimi said as he finished putting her rifle back together and placed it in one of the weapon racks they had installed to hold the heavier weapons they'd be taking with them. Having their pilot burdened by a rifle as large as the one Kimi used was not a very wise thing to do when flying into enemy airspace.
"Let's try to keep this quiet," Oliver ordered as he sat in the back with the rest of his team. Kimi and Gabi were the only ones who knew how to fly the Heavy Raider, but Starbuck was their guide so she took the copilot's seat and everyone strapped in.
"We have liftoff," Kimi said as the Heavy Raider pushed up off of the ground and flew out of the open hangar doors. "We'll be hitting the atmosphere in a few seconds so be sure you've got anything breakable strapped down," Kimi warned them before atmospheric reentry shook the shuttle around them. The Heavy Raider dropped out of the clouds, its hull glowing faintly as it dispersed the heat. "ETA to target, five minutes."
**Caprica (Surface)**
*Delphi Museum of Colonial History (Two Blocks Away)*
Tap, tap, tap. That's all he could hear and it was driving him crazy. Why couldn't the Godsdamned machine just sit still? "Stop! Stop that!" Helo nearly shouted at the annoying 'woman' sitting next to him.
"I'm nervous," Boomer replied.
"Like anything scares you," Helo shot back with a dark look at the thing he would kill if only there was another way off of this damned planet.
"Things scare me, Helo, I have feelings," the robot replied.
"You have software," Helo countered in an unkind voice.
"I don't know if you want to hear this or not, Helo, but what we had between us was important. It was very important," Boomer stressed.
"Why?" Helo asked, his tone making it clear he didn't really care about her answer.
"Because it was the next step. Because it brings us closer to God," Boomer replied.
"Don't mock the Gods, okay? It's a Human belief. I'm Human, they're our Gods," Helo said angrily.
"But, beyond that, I just want you to know that I genuinely feel something for you," Boomer continued despite his mood.
"I don't care!" Helo shouted as he turned on the robotic woman. "I don't love you! I loved what I thought was you!"
"Helo, I think there's something else that you should know," Boomer said in a tone that actually sounded like he had finally managed to hurt her. "I'm pregnant." Helo's response to her claim was cut short when a Heavy Raider flew over their heads and landed further down the street. "Frak!" Boomer exclaimed.
"Let's move," Helo ordered as he started walking away from their landing site.
"We need to go that way," Boomer said adamantly as she stood her ground.
"Why the hell would we go towards the enemy?" Helo asked incredulously.
"Two reasons," Boomer replied. "First, that's the Museum of Colonial History they just landed at…"
"It's a museum, big deal," Helo shot back.
"There's something there that Cylons have to be stopped from getting no matter the costs," Boomer argued. "That, and if a Raider can make an FTL jump, then a Heavy Raider can get you back to Galactica and I know to pilot them," she added when Helo was unimpressed. "We might as well kill two birds with one stone."
"Fine," Helo grumbled, "but I'm getting off of Caprica today, or you die."
*Delphi Museum of Colonial History (Gallery)*
"So, what are we looking for exactly?" Jesse asked as the team exited the Cylon transport and started securing the area.
"One of these," Oliver replied as he pulled one the explosive-tipped arrows from his quiver. Why he still used the outdated equipment he did when Kimi had created a whole new class of bow for him was something only the Italian would ever fully understand. Even Kimi, who had known Oliver since before the formation of the Zeta Initiative, couldn't explain why he operated the way he did.
"Very funny, Colonel," Jesse said as he swung around a corner with his weapon ready. "Clear."
"Clear," Tommy added from his place at the other side of the room. They had landed in what had once been a glass-roofed room with walls covered in priceless paintings. Now it was home to a broken ceiling, a Cylon Heavy Raider, a team of aliens, and a lot of radiation.
"We should take the first dose of the anti-radiation meds now," Starbuck said as she injected herself with a needle, the others following suit. "That'll last us a few hours. We should get moving." No sooner had she said that then they rounded the next corner and entered a large room with a lot of display cases… one of which held the very thing they were looking for. "Sweet!" Starbuck exclaimed as she ran up to the case.
"Stop!" Oliver ordered her as he and his team searched the area.
"Why? What's wrong?" Starbuck asked.
"That was too easy," Jesse said.
"It has to be a trap," Kimi agreed as her right hand inched closer to her left wrist. When a howl filled the air and several objects fell through the ceiling of this area of the museum, she dove out from under a burst of fire and disappeared from sight.
As the Centurions around them unfolded from their drop positions and a Heavy Raider that definitely wasn't theirs lined up its guns with his team, Oliver raised his hands in weapon, but didn't fire, his teammates doing the same. Only then did a blonde female step out of a side room with a smirk on her face. "You must be the Tau'ri I've heard so much about!" the woman said with obvious glee.
"And you must be one of the psycho-bitches that the Colonials created," Oliver replied with a razor edge to his voice. "I'm going to enjoy killing you… again."
"You're outnumbered, outflanked, and even you can't survive a bullet to the head," the woman replied darkly.
"Neither can you," Oliver replied with a shrug. "You may be able to resurrect after the fact, but you'll still die, and, because I'm willing to believe Gabi over the likes of you, I'm inclined to believe you feel the pain of your death. Stand down, or I'll make that pain last for as long as I can."
"You're in no position to be making demands, Human. Submit to my forces, or I'll kill you and just study your bodies after the fact," the woman replied before there was a click beside her ear and she found herself being held in a tight grip, a gun pressed to her temple as a figure appeared behind her from thin air.
"Order them to stand down, or I'll blow your fucking head off," Kimi threatened.
The Cylon woman smiled darkly at her words then drove her mechanical elbow into the Human's ribs. Even with the armor she wore protecting her body, Kimi felt the air leave her lungs before the woman spun around and punched her square in the nose. It was times like this Kimi wished she had worn her damn helmet. Their armor had them for a reason!
Even as she reeled back from the blow, hell was breaking lose around her. Tommy, ever the heavy weapons enthusiast, spun up his man-portable auto-cannon and laid into the thickest concentration of Centurions while falling back into the tight group the team was forming with Jack at the center. As rounds from the Cylons bounced off of or pierced their armor, the woman's body glowed and pulsed before a barrier surrounded the team and the Cylons' bullets were forced away from their bodies.
Jesse, seeing that using a shotgun at these ranges was ineffective, dropped his primary weapon and drew the sidearm he carried with him. Precision was, sadly enough, never one of his strong points. That's why he used a weapon with spread. Still, he managed to put rounds into the thick armor plating of the Cylons and managed to do about as much damage as Starbuck was dealing out.
When the Heavy Raider started hammering away at Jack's barrier with its own cannon, the woman physically flinched under the strain. Tommy was laying out suppressive fire in a great enough quantity on his own to allow them to start moving, so Jack ordered them to start running for cover, and they did just that.
A quick retreat down the hall they had come from and the debris created by the nuking of the planet allowed them enough cover to let the former Goa'uld drop her barrier and collapse to the ground in exhaustion. That was when Jesse noticed that they were missing two people. Kimi was still over by the Cylon woman, and Oliver had moved to help her.
The woman had unnatural strength, which was, in hindsight, to be expected from the robotic humanoid. Still, Oliver had fought tougher enemies. Namely, he had spared with a pissed-off Tommy once, and only once. Two months recovering from that beating was enough of a reason to never try it again.
He ducked under the woman's left hook and brought his fist up in an arc that she side-stepped to avoid. Even with her inhuman reflexes, Oliver had been fighting for decades. Ever since he was young, too young in the opinion of almost every Human on Earth, he had been fighting and killing in the name of his masters. With a simple flick of his wrist, he pulled the thin blade that was tucked up under his gauntlet and lashed out. Even as the Cylon dodged his fist, the knife was carving through her flesh.
It was the Cylon's turn to reel back with a pained look on her now sliced-open face and Oliver used that moment to his advantage. He grabbed Kimi under the armpit and pulled her to her feet before shoving her towards friendly lines. The two of them ran through a hail of gunfire and Oliver activated the electromagnetic repulsion field in his armor.
The Wide Field Array, as Gabi had named it, worked in a similar fashion to the barrier that Jack could produce with her body, but on a less efficient scale. It worked by projecting a magnetic field around the person wearing the emitters that interacted with any conductive materials entering the field. The conductive material, according to the laws of electromagnetics, would generate a current in theirselves that would then create a magnetic field of the same polarity as the field itself. Because a North magnetic pole repels a North magnetic pole, the bullet would be shoved off course by the like magnetic fields pushing against each other. The most obvious downside to this technology was that it could only stop rounds that contained conductors in them. Led lined, coper jacketed, or iron rounds were easily affected, but plasma rounds would pass right through it without slowing down. Thankfully the Cylons didn't have plasma cannons like Ba'al.
Because of this downside, it didn't do anything to stop rocket propelled explosives either. The wrist-mounted rocket launcher on the Cylon Centurion fired off a small missile that hit the wall beside the retreating Colonel and threw him to the ground in a confused heap. His ears were ringing, his head was throbbing, and he couldn't feel half of his body. He could more feel than hear the beeping from his armor telling him that the armor plates had been compromised and the Wide Field Array had been damaged beyond use. How he could feel the sounds more than hear them would later be described to him as a result of the damage to his eardrums.
Through the fog that had filled his mind and numbness that had overtaken his body, Oliver managed to push himself into a sitting position. The world spun around him so he leaned back and let the wall support his weight as he tried to clear his vision. When his eyes finally refocused, he saw the Cylons advancing on the hallway he knew his team was retreating down. The number of rockets being fired at the opening to the hall was enough of a reason for anybody with half a brain cell to retreat further, so the Humans did just that.
With no small amount of effort, Oliver ordered his hands to do as he commanded and managed to grip the bow that hung from his back. With a grunt of yet more effort, he brought the weapon up then reached back and groped around for an arrow. When he finally managed to maneuver the shaft into his line of sight, he almost smiled. It was a combination of desperation, dread, and sadism that lead him to find joy in the last arrow he had left. It wasn't an explosive-tipped arrow. No, it was better than that. It was his 'mini-nuke' arrow.
As Oliver struggled to get the back of the arrow to attach itself to the string through his haze, he mentally noted to himself that, if he survived this, Kimi was going to be pissed. In the corner of his eye he could see her custom-built rifle lying under a pile of rubble, most likely bent and therefore useless. Somewhere in the back of his clouded mind, he noted that he had lost two weapons on one mission. He'd never hear the end of this.
'Focus,' Oliver ordered himself.
He drew back his arm, the act causing his body to scream in protest, but he had learned to work through pain a long time ago. In service to the Brotherhood, he had suffered worse wounds than this. Survival was the only option he had, and he would survive to the best of his abilities. Once he drew the bowstring all the way back, he used his finger to prime the high explosive. Inside of the large bulge at the end of the arrow, one of the greatest creations ever conceived by the Furlings flared to life. They called them protostars. Oliver called them weapons of mass destruction.
Designed as a source of power, the protostar was supposed to be an artificially created star you could control the size of and use to power anything you wanted. The one Oliver was using was about the size of a small marble. That's more than he needed, really.
With a determined grunt, Oliver aimed for gunship hovering overhead and let the arrow fly. In his mind, Oliver heard the 'thunk' of the arrow hitting the gunship and sticking into the armor. He knew it wasn't real, but he was in too much pain to care. Even then, he managed to smile through that pain as he closed his eyes. Above him, the containment unit built into that remarkably small star's chosen method of delivery failed. As it did, that marble-sized star expanded into a ball of plasmatic flames as the explosive more vaporized than destroyed the gunship. Then, as the star began to implode due to instability, a surge of powerful gravity pulled the plasma back in and the star collapsed into singularity that then simply vanished.
As it did, a forth lethal force was unleashed. First the kinetic energy of an arrow in flight, then the vaporizing heat of plasma followed by the crushing gravity of a singularity. Finally, as the last act of violence the weapon offered, the singularity fully collapsing into itself caused a shockwave of force to slam into the museum. The roof then promptly came crashing down on the Cylons and the Colonel alike as it did.
Though he wasn't aware of the time change, the darkness that surrounded him was lit by a blue glow before white light flooded in as the obstructions were removed, but he wasn't even awake to behold the sight. Instead, he was lying there, peacefully. Almost like he was taking a nap on a fine afternoon. Then Jack saw the side of his face that had been exposed to the explosion. It was burnt. The skin either red from the heat or blackened where it had been too much for his body to handle. The left side of his body was burnt pretty badly and his ears were bleeding. Where the armor had given in to the explosive force, the cloth beneath was burned away and the exposed flesh had obviously been burnt as well. Unlike his face, however, the skin on his arm and leg was only mildly red. Clearly the armor had taken the brunt of the blow.
Tommy looked the man over with his eyes before typing a set of commands into the small screen built into his gauntlet. The scanner planted in the palm of his armor's glove scanned the Colonel's body all the way down to his mental state and the heavily built man smiled grimly. "He's alive," Tommy announced to the two women standing over him.
"How bad is it?" Kimi asked, her nose braced, wrapped, and not bleeding anymore.
"He'll continue to live," Tommy replied. "I might have to do a skin graft on his face, but that's debatable. Knowing Oliver, he'll just let it scar over. I need to stabilize him before we can move him." Without any other words of explanation, Tommy set about the business of fixing what he could with what supplies he had.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Ba'al's Territory)***
**Third Gas Giant from the Star (Lunar Orbit)**
*Zeta Site (The Black Bunker)*
The Black Bunker was where everything had gone… strange. The bunker was heavily shielded and located deep within the asteroid that their base was built in. It was Furling in nature, that much they knew, and its existence had eluded them for years. The reason the Zeta Site had been built here instead of on a planet or a moon was simple. When General Landry was brought to the SGC to replace General O'Neill, it was so that a new sub-branch of the SGC could be operated by a renowned black ops General as opposed to a special forces General. This had led to a test.
General Landry sent Colonel Viride on a mission to steal a piece of technology from one of Ba'al's subordinates as a test of the efficacy of such a set up, and, of course, to test the Colonel's skills. He came back with the first Al'kesh to be assigned to their 'expeditionary force,' and a little black box. The box had been the primary target while the Al'kesh was both the exfiltration plan and the first attempt at gaining a ship for the Zeta Initiative to utilize in its missions.
The ship didn't last very long and was destroyed during their second mission, and the map in the box had led them here. The Zeta Site had been built in the asteroid for multiple reasons. Not only was it located right where they needed to be, it was also the location of the Bunker, and, to top it all off, it was the only system left in the known galaxy with any measurable amounts of dark matter ready to be mined. It had taken them months before Gabi finally hacked through the Bunker's advanced computers and opened the door. What lay inside changed her forever.
Upon entering the room with Colonel Ryan Mitchel right behind her, the two being the only ones up that late into their night cycle, a device had activated and the woman was lifted into the air. The Colonel tried to pull her free, but only managed to get between her and the blast that followed. Gabi's mind had been linked to the computer through the use of advanced technology, and the Colonel's body had likewise been connected to it. Similar to the 'Ascension Machine' on Atlantis, the two had their genetics altered on the base levels. Gabi gained all the knowledge of the race that had created the Bunker, and Colonel Ry's body was evolved to a point where he could manipulate dark matter with his mind.
It was not a blessing, however, as the Colonel's body rejected the changes and tumors began to grow throughout his body. While the doctors kept him stable, Gabi's mental aptitude shot through the stratosphere and her IQ went with it. Using the knowledge available to her, she designed the Relentless-class Stealth Frigates they used, implanted the Colonel with a device that would battle the cancer to a stand-still so the doctors could remove it all before finishing what the machine started and altering his genes to be capable of handling the new powers he gained. Then she used that knowledge to decipher the encryptions on the computers, declared the Bunker to be a Furling construct, translated all of the information she could in the time she had, and then had the doctors implant another device in her own mind that would stop the information there from consuming her. Thusly, the Zeta Initiative had gained its single greatest asset…
A partial, yet still extensive, knowledge base of the Furlings.
This led to rapid increases in their understanding of existing technologies and allowed for their armor designs to be produced using a method the Furlings had invented. Using artificially generated high gravity fields, materials were crushed together to create a denser weave of metals. They were also able to duplicate the Furlings' production facilities in the asteroid which allowed for the creation of the radical new designs the Professor would wake up in the middle of the night with. Needless to say, and mostly unbeknownst the General Landry, the entire success of the Zeta Initiative rested mostly within the mind of the one woman who could understand the Furling database well enough to use their advanced technology.
And us it they did.
Cloaking devices for their small ships, anti-proton thrusters for great speed and acceleration, helium-3 fueling systems, weaponized lasers, kinetic energy weapons that put Earth's railguns to shame, ship-grade and personal armor production, compact and very powerful railguns fit into small arms… the list was both extensive and impressive. It was also classified.
Everything that could be used to help Earth had been separated into data packets and uploaded to 'alien computers' that were then left at prearranged drop sites across the galaxy. General Landry sent teams to these worlds on a monthly bases, and, piece by piece, the SG teams were led to believe that they were gathering valuable technology to help defend Earth. Sending the whole database back all at once was Oliver's chosen course of action, but General Landry had, in order to protect Earth from any backlash generated by the actions they took, had Sam rig the Zeta Site's Gate to be incapable of dialing Earth, and Earth from dialing them.
A number of other precautions had been taken to assure that their actions would never be traced back to Earth, the most effective being the invention of races like the Impolans. Needless to say, both the Impolans and Mimner were fabrications to keep anyone but the General who ran Earth's defenses from knowing the truth. The Devastator being dropped off at the Alpha Site instead of Earth had been one such example. Only Generals Landry, O'Neill, and Hammond knew the truth about the Zeta Initiative. They were, after all, the ones who developed the idea.
To help sell the whole thing, the countries who donated troops to the Initiative were told only that their men would not be heard from again for five years. That's how long they were supposed to stay out here before it was believed Ba'al and the Lucian Alliance would be weak enough for Earth to take them on publically.
All this and more ran through Ry's mind as he stood in the Bunker that he so often found himself drawn to. He rubbed the back of his head where the thin line marked where the neural implant had been anchored to his skull and attached to his brain and central nervous system. He should be used to this by now, but he still felt hollow inside. Ever since Gabriella had saved his life, he had just felt… different. His capacity for feeling emotions was still there, but his ability to express them had been traded for an ability to continue living, to continue fighting, to continue making the stars a safer place for those he loved.
"Colonel?" Andy, for the voice had to belong to the man, asked from behind him.
"I have been debriefed on the situation," Ry replied without looking away from the machine that had changed his life. "We will launch the scouting party as soon as the ships have finished refueling."
"We'll wait for you in the War Room," Andy said before leaving. They all knew that, every now and again, Ry spaced out and needed to be alone. They didn't understand it, but they did respect it.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Cyrannus Sector)***
**Caprica (Surface)**
*Delphi Museum of Colonial History (Relics Room)*
Finally, after searching for what felt like hours, Starbuck found it; the Arrow of Apollo. In reality she knew it had barely been a few minutes, but she didn't care about that right now. She knelt down and picked up the Arrow, noting its strange weight. It wasn't made of any type of stone or metal she had ever seen or felt before. Then she heard movement behind her.
"Pretty, isn't it?" the blonde woman asked. Starbuck turned towards the woman, her gun sliding out of its holster as she turned, but the woman was faster. She punched Starbuck in the chest and sent the recently promoted Lieutenant flying back into a wall. Starbuck grunted through the pain, but managed to hold onto the Arrow. "Hello, Lieutenant. Something I can help you with?" the woman asked, half of her face practically melted by the explosion that had brought down the ceiling. Starbuck intended to let her pistol reply for her, but she realized that she'd managed to lose her grip on it when she was hit. "Welcome back to Caprica, Lieutenant. Like what we've done with the place?"
The words were followed by a series of very powerful blows landing on Starbuck's chest. She could feel her ribs on the verge of breaking under the onslaught and tried her best to cover herself, but the robot was both stronger and faster than she was. Needless to say, Starbuck was getting her ass kicked.
"Come on, Starbuck," the woman taunted before kicking her in the ribs, the blow knocking the Lieutenant to the ground. "Got anything left?" she demanded before kicking Starbuck in the head. The force of her inhuman shin impacting Kara's head made her wish that being stubborn had really given her a thicker skull. The daze she was in was complete with stars in her vision, but she managed to see the woman kneel down to pick up the Arrow. From the look on the Cylon's face, she was about to use it to kill her.
The Cylon gripped the Arrow like it was a spear and drew her arm back, but, as she thrust it down, she found her wrist in the equally powerful grip of a Human. The Human, one of the aliens, twisted Six's grip until the joints in her arm were ready to break under the pressure. With no alternatives left, Six kicked the Human in the chest and sent his bulk flying backwards, her shoulder popping out of socket as a result. Despite taking the blow that should've broken his sternum without much protection, because the Human wasn't wearing armor right now, the Human rolled when he hit the ground and was back on his feet in an instant.
With an almost animalistic growl, the Human ran at her, and, after ducking under a haymaker punch, delivered an uppercut of his own. The force of the blow snapped Six's head back with neck-breaking force and lifted her feet from the ground from the power of it, but her Cylon body simply creaked in protest instead of breaking as she retook her feet. She stared at the Human. The Human stared at her. Then the battle really started.
Despite the enhanced nature that her Cylon body had, this Human managed to match her in terms of strength, endurance, and durability if not outright surpassing her. The one advantage she had was speed, and she used it for all it was worth. With a rapid procession of punches and high kicks gearing the Human up for blocking her attacks on his upper body, Six then dealt a blow to his knee. The kick she landed bent the joint backwards and the Human backed off with a shout of pain before he began cursing.
"FUCK!" the Human shouted as he limped backwards. Six smirked at his pain… until he planted his weight on his injured leg, twisted his body, and snapped the joint back into place. Several more curses followed as he fell to the ground in pain. Picking up Starbuck's dropped sidearm, Six walked over to the Human's downed form. What she saw stopped her short.
"What are you?" she asked as she could see the wound she had dealt the man moving beneath the torn skin. The muscles in his leg could be seen reattaching themselves to the shattered joint even as she witnessed the bone repairing itself. Fragments were moved into place by the muscle threads then sealed together seemingly on their own will before the skin itself started to visibly grow back over the breach the bone had created when it was forced out. It was like watching a Baseship heal itself, and it was something she knew no Human should be capable of.
It provided the necessary distraction for Tommy to hook his good leg under her ankle and bring the woman to the ground. He spun up onto his feet, his knee holding his weight well enough, but he wouldn't be running for a while. Planting his weight on the still healing knee, he swung his good leg back and delivered the most powerful kick he could to the woman's face. This time, he had the satisfaction of hearing something snap.
"FUCK!" he shouted again as he hobbled over to Starbuck, rubbing his injured knee and limping on a bruised foot all the whole. Then he looked her over. "Wake up!" he shouted while slapping her face. Starbuck shook off her daze and looked up with unclear eyes.
"Frak!" she shouted before jumping up and running after the retreating Cylon who had the Arrow of Apollo in hand.
*Delphi Museum of Colonial History (Main Entrance)*
When the half-burnt woman ran around the corner with the Arrow of Apollo in hand, Helo drew his sidearm and was just about to fire when the woman skidded to a halt at the sight of him… before being tackled from behind.
"Starbuck?!" Helo all but shouted as he ran up to the hole the duo had fallen through. Down in the darkness, Helo could just make out the Cylon woman who had hunted him for so long suspended in the air by a piece of rebar that had impaled her through a mechanical heart. Next to her, Starbuck was lying on the ground seemingly unconscious. "Move!" Helo ordered while prodding 'Boomer' forward. The woman jumped down into the hole and Helo jumped down after her. When Starbuck coughed up a bit of blood, Helo moved to her side and helped her sit up. "Okay, okay, come here. Okay. I can't believe it. You are like the last person I expected to see," Helo stuttered.
"I could say the same thing about you," Starbuck replied with a smile that showed off her bloodied teeth.
"You okay?" Helo asked with a laugh. The only reply Starbuck gave was a grunt. "Ah…" Helo said with a knowing nod.
"I missed you," Starbuck finally managed. Then she saw the thing standing behind him and reacted faster than Helo thought possible. She had drawn his sidearm from his holster and aimed it at Boomer so fast, he barely managed to shove the gun aside in time.
"Hey! I…" Helo began.
"She's a frakking Cylon!" Starbuck cut her off while trying to shoot Boomer.
"No, no, no! You can't, you can't… She's pregnant!" Helo stressed.
The scream that escaped Starbuck's throat at that was loud, high, and earsplitting. Still Helo managed to hear the voice in the background. "Hold on, Kara! I'm coming!" a male shouted before a heavy body hit the floor above them and weapons fire rained down into their little hole. Helo managed to get his sidearm from Starbuck and returned fire while protecting Kara with his body as best he could.
It wasn't until a sharp pain caused him to double over that Helo finally heard Starbuck shouting over the noise of gunfire. "HOLD YOU GODSDAMNED FIRE!"
Helo, still recovering from the punch to his reproductive organs that Kara had delivered to get his attention, had no choice but to comply. From the lip of the ridge, Tommy stuck his head over and looked down at them. "You've got a Cylon down there, Kara!" Tommy shouted down to them.
"He's with you?" Helo asked through the pain.
"It's complicated!" Starbuck shouted at both.
*Delphi Museum of Colonial History (Gallery)*
Jack let the glow subside and the last piece of their ride out of here fell to the ground. Kimi, who had been collecting what was left that they could salvage while Jack suspended the fragmented hull, came back carrying the medical kit that Galactica had given them before they left. "At least we'll have the anti-radiation meds," Kimi said as she handed Jack one of the needles. "Inject yourself with that in two hours," she ordered before moving back into the Relics Room and handing Jesse another needle with the same orders. When she reached Oliver, she nudged the Colonel and held the needle towards him.
Oliver, with a slight hiss of pain, moved his burnt neck to lift his head and see what she was offering him. "That's not morphine," Oliver said in a disappointed tone.
"That particular part of the ship was the one that got hit by the missile," Kimi replied sadly as she sat next to him. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Kimi," Oliver said sternly. "Don't beat yourself up, that's an order."
"Yes, sir," Kimi replied obediently.
In the privacy of her mind, she smiled at his spirit. It really would take more than a rocket, an exploding gunship, and a collapsing building to break this man. She found strength in that, as she always had. It was that resolve that had drawn her to him when they first met. The fact that they nearly killed each other during the meeting was typical. The House of Gray, now divided, had several issues between the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood. The House of Black, the Brotherhood, and the House of White, the Sisterhood, had once been inseparable. Then a difference in agreement led to the houses splitting and the country they controlled split in two as well. That was ancient history from back when Italy and Greece were one nation united against the rest of their 'flat' world, and that was a very, very long time ago.
Tommy rounded the corner between their current location and where he had gone looking for the Arrow of Apollo with Starbuck. He was limping which had Kimi thinking that something had happened between the duo until she saw the two figures following behind the two she had been expecting. "Cylon!" Kimi shouted as he drew her smaller rifle and sighted down the scope before anyone else could react. The only thing stopping her from pulling the trigger was the Human standing between her and her target. "Move!" she ordered the stranger.
"I'm not touching this with a forty-foot pole," Tommy grumbled before limping past Starbuck and leaning against the wall before sinking to the ground.
"Care to explain?" Kimi demanded.
What she expected to hear was the tale of a Cylon prisoner… not the story of a man in love with a fucking machine! In the man's defense, however, it was impossible to tell them apart. Kimi just never thought that the Cylons would have working reproductive organs. Still, a pregnant Cylon was just asking for trouble.
"Fine," Oliver relented as the arguments continued on for nearly twenty minutes, "but I'm not explaining this one to the Admiral."
"The Admiral?" Helo asked.
"The Old Man got promoted," Starbuck replied casually as she checked her watch. "We should get moving. The Toasters are bound to send reinforcements soon."
"Should we try sending a signal up to orbit?" Jack asked as they grabbed their gear.
Tommy helped Oliver up to his feet and supported the half of his weight that the cooked muscles in his injured leg couldn't handle, once again giving a rather begrudged 'thanks' to the bitch who had altered his genes before injecting him with nannites. Nirrti had a bad reputation when it came to the Zeta Initiative's members. She had experimented on two of them, though Jack was over three-hundred years old and Tommy had only been experimented on in the past seven years.
"I can't exactly advise that," Boomer replied. When Kimi glared daggers at her, the 'woman' explained. "The transmission would be picked up by every ship in orbit. Not only would it give away our position, it would also reveal the nature of the ship you brought. Having an IFF only goes so far."
"It's not an IFF," Tommy countered with a shake of his head. "We captured the entire Baseship."
"How?" Helo asked.
"Right, you weren't there," Tommy said with a sigh. "It's a long story, but we've got time."
"Talk and walk at the same time," Oliver ordered as they set off. "We need to find a vehicle."
"One that wasn't affected by the EMP or the radiation?" Helo asked with a huff. "That's not likely."
"I know where to find one," Starbuck said with a dubious smile.