"He can't be trusted sir." Cree regarded Cronus seriously, exhausted, and drawn, she sat in a small conference room just off of Starboard Pod Alpha. A corpsman was packing up his bag after her examination, and a pair of marines stood ready at the door. Another corpsman took an empty gel packet from Cree and handed her a water, which she cracked open. "The Cylons had him under for most of the time we were captured. He was ranting incoherently whenever they would return him to our cell and he couldn't look at me."
"Doctor Baltar had claimed that it is you, that can't be trusted." Cronus replied. Two Marines stood behind her as well as the two behind Cree, she wasn't inclined to trust either, Cree has been subjected to a thorough search, as had Baltar, despite his objections . "According to him, you were repeatedly mutilated by these Cylons but they used advanced technology to heal you." She folded her hands. "Now our doctors revealed no proof of either of your stories, but it certainly casts doubt on any other information you can give us."
"I don't know what to say sir." Cree said "We were both in enemy hands."
"Doctor Baltar feels they can be reasoned with." Cronus stated, "despite his abduction and treatment at their hands, he believes they don't really hate us, that we were mistaken for the humans the 13th colony created." She leaned forward, "Baltar thinks we should sue for peace."
"Commander thats felgarcarb. They know what they are about, they know what we are, and even if they didn't, we've got skin jobs from the 13th tribe aboard this ship." Cree protested then stopped.
"But do they know that Sergeant?" Cronus asked, "Did you tell them that Sergeant?"
Cree shook her head.
"I did not give them any information Commander." She replied lifting her chin. Cronus nodded.
"At least not knowingly, I'm sure." Cronus replied, she changed tack. "Our Cylon…" she almost choked a little saying referring to Cylons as "ours", that kind of thinking had started all of this "'allies' may be able to find something we can't." Cronus stated. "They've got examination equipment in their base star that-" She looked at Cree who had gone pale and stopped. "I'm not going to order you to do anything you don't want to Cree, not after what you've just been through, but it would help if we could get to the bottom of this."
"I'm sorry Commander." Cree said, "Its not even that, our so called 'allies' murdered billions of us just a year ago, and frankly sir I don't trust them. These new Cylons don't seem all that different from the ones you want to hand me over to."
"Thats unfortunate, but understndable.' Cronus said rising. "Take some time to recover Sergeant, but remember that we still have people out there, and we are still in danger. Doctor Baltar had agreed to be examined, so for the moment that will have to do."
"What will you do about these so called 'peace talks' ma'am?" Cree asked, "Do you trust them?"
"I don't trust anyone, Sergeant." Cronus told her, "But I will buy us time." She looked up at the ceiling and reached up to adjust a light that had just flickered. "I was assigned command of a battlestar we thought we could afford to lose, first to test out this new space warp system and then to set up an archaeology dig on a world we'd all but forgotten. Fighting off a hostile armada wasn't something we were fully prepared to do here, so I'll do whatever I have to, to keep us alive, until Admiral Adama arrives."
. *. *.
"Hey Boss." Starbuck said, "Haven't seen you like this in quite a while." Suddenly the world changed and Adama blinked. A snowstorm whirled through the night around him, yet it did not move, and he did not feel cold, despite wearing his standard colonial uniform. He glanced around him and found that Kirk, Sisko and the others were gone.
"Over there." Starbuck pointed, up a hill, Adama saw a wooden stockade around a cabin on a hill. Small lashed together watch towers surrounded it and torches seemed to be sputtering in the dark storm. There were creatures around them, huddled menacingly in the snow, covered in hides, and carrying a variety of wooden spears and sharpened bone.
"What are these? What is this?" Adama whispered, drawing his sidearm "you're not Kara Thrace."
"They can't hear us Admiral they can't hurt us, either, at least not now." Starbuck told him. She frowned, "at least not in our now.. ." Adama grimaced at her.
"I've had more than enough of the temporal double talk." He warned.
"Remember that book you found in the federation database?" Starbuck asked, "I'm the ghost of Christmas yet to come."
"You're a Seraphim, an alien entity meddling with humanity." Adama declared, "I'm not interested in your visions or prophecies."
"This is a memory." Starbuck corrected, "and I'm very real, Bill. "
"Starbuck pull up! Pull up!" Lee's panicked voice sounded in the frozen night, then his own voice answered,
"Starbuck abort damnit, abort! Starbuck!" Suddenly Adama was experiencing that moment, and other moments even as he stood in the vision of a frozen future.
"Limited supplies, limited fuel. No allies, and now, no hope? Maybe it would have been better for us to have died quickly, back on the Colonies"
"I flew into the maelstrom." Starbuck said, shrugging with her hands in the pockets of her green fatigues, "Like I always do, but this time, it took me somewhere else. It took me to Earth." Adama gasped and clutched his head as images of a viper hurdling through space filled it, warning alarms, screams, shattering glass and a roads
"I know where it is!"
"Flung at a dead planet, and something awoke, call it a miracle or call it destiny." Starbuck mused, "Now we have a refuge!" Adama saw a bleak wasteland, a shattered city a crumbling bridge… at last it was too much, he fell to one knee.
"I know I died." Starbuck continued, "But then I returned."
If that's me lying there than what am I? Adama's head jerked up as he heard the voice and realized it wasn't the woman before him speaking.
"What are you doing to me" he growled. Shakily he stood up again.
"Nothing." Starbuck said, "This is the road not taken. Another time, another place, the opera house, the celestial temple, whatever you want to call it, is a crossroads. You wanted answers, here they are, you wanted the why, hear it is, from the only man you'd believe." She put a hand on Adama's shoulder, "The problem is, sometimes when you are this close to yourself in time there's overlap."
"What does that even mean." Adama demanded as he stumbled upright.
"Well it means we better get in there before it happens again." Starbuck pointed towards the cabin on the hill, and the flickering stockade around it.
.*.*
"What happened to Adama?" Kirk demanded, he looked at Dehner.
"A surprisingly complex question." She replied, with the ghost of a grin "suffice it to say he is getting the answers he demands."
"He is safe, for the most part, and he is where he needs to be." Sisko said after a moment, "as are we all." He looked at Dehner, "Not exactly how I would have played it, but I suppose she knows him better." Dehner nodded.
"You're just going to tell him his fortune after all?" Raven demanded, "can you even do that?"
"If we carry with us knowledge of the future we cannot help but act upon it." Sisko stated, "Kirk had to abandon it in order to remain free to choose, Adama rejects it for the same reason," he explained, "But we can show him what might have been, might still be, and pray that the insight makes the difference."
"That seems like a pretty shoddy way to ensure the future, but who am I to argue." Raven threw up her hands. "I've been cobbling together miracles since day one."
"I knew a man who made a living that way ." Kirk chuckled putting a hand on Raven's shoulder.
"But Raven is different." Clark spoke up "She can parition knowledge from her conscious mind." Raven looked at her, "Like Lexa."
Raven's face twisted.
"Clark… there really wasn't a good time to tell you and then we were separated." She began Kirk and Sisko watched with confusion as she picked up Clark's hands and faced her. "Lexa is gone. The others were able to uplift the commanders once the chip was repaired."
"They… were passed on to Maddie… and then back to the chip…" Clark said, Raven nodded, "And then they were able to ascend?" She looked around her for a moment. Dehner reached out to her, her face reflecting empathy at the sense of loss that Clark seemed to convey. She embraced Raven while Kirk and Sisko exchanged glances quizzically. Dehner spoke up.
"She lost someone dear to her, once carried in the flame of the Commander."
"The biological implant in her neck?" Kirk asked, Dehner nodded, as Raven released Clark, he said ,"It contained the personality imprint of those who carried it before, she knew one of the previous Commanders." He nodded to himself.
"May we meet again." Clark whispered."
"You're not really… ascended… are you." Sisko examined her, "not like Raven was."
"She enabled me to access the knowledge I needed." Dehner explained, "and in turn I brought her with me, Kara was the key."
"You cannot leave this domain, now." The Six, who had largely been observing until now, spoke. "The reflection is part of the mirror."
"I.. died." Clark said, "I remember growing old.. and dying.. she blinked, "but it wasn't me, I saw from afar.." she looked Raven stunned, "I don't know who I am.. what I am."
"That is something we will have to uncover at another time." Sisko said "You were saying something about Raven?"
"Becca's chip the Flame." Raven explained, "The reason I am here right now, and not sitting in a shuttle with Shaw, waiting to blink, is because I ascended, and part of me will always be ascended, but the physical me.." She patted the back of her neck, "Has Becca's mind drive, and the memories, if not the personalities, of all the commanders."
"You believe we can smuggle.. higher knowledge… to Raven through her moment of ascension, via this… mind drive?" Kirk said confused but hopeful, "Is that even possible?"
"I have no idea." Raven admitted, "I don't think I tried to bring any cosmic knowledge back with me but I didn't have it with me then." She considered and looked cautiously at Kirk, "But the chips was designed to provide generational guidance to restoring humanity, after A.L.I.E. brought it crashing down, it was based on the mind drive technology designed for the Elegius Colony scouting expeditions. Originally it was meant to contain memories but with some alteration, it can carry the essence of a person's consciousness."
"And when these mind drives are put into other living beings?" Kirk demanded sharply.
"Then there is a battle." Clark said looking up, "Unless the host is erased entirely."
"They caused us a lot of trouble, Captain." Raven warned, "But the Flame is different, it was designed to be different. It could store multiple minds, but as advisors, supports, not parasites."
"I've seen this before." Kirk said flatly, he turned to Sisko "What was it you thought we could use?"
"We already have." Sisko said enigmatically, he nodded to Raven. She spoke considering,
"if we did, or do, leave some kind of… subliminal prompt for me to find I might be following the clues without knowing but for that to work I'd have to actually..."
"Ah." Sisko said, he began to laugh.
"You'd have to barge into a higher dimensional plane to recieve an update." Kirk finished wryly.
"And the update in turn becomes part of your moment of ascension." Clark finished recovering enough of herself to participate. "Do you think the others know about all of this?"
"A million years ago, I was part of something greater, we all were, except you, Clark." Raven said, "I think they, and we, probably did know, and maybe that was part of our decision to come back and stay with you. It wasn't a mass suicide, we knew there was more to the story, ours, and man kinds." Raven considered, "I told them humanity just needed more time."
"It sounds like they gave you a million years." Said Kirk, he turned to Dehner, "and what about you, Doctor."
"I spoke to your security chief, Captain, I told her that presence within me was gone, but the knowledge remained." She replied, "I used it all and more, just to get here, though, to bring you the final pieces you needed here."
"You've given us a tool, a trojan horse." Kirk said speculatively as he considered it, "an adaptive intelligence that could adjust to the circumstances around it, even as it affected them?" He frowned, "Or another Monkey's paw, like the Seraphim."
"I don't follow." Sisko said
"As I understand it the Seraphim live in an ethereal domain, interacting with space time only through unwitting pawns." Kirk said, "Adama said it was their plan that called for the devastation of the twelve colonies."
"God's plan… " the blond woman interjected, Kirk gave her a look.
"You're not far off." Sisko told Kirk, "They are symbiotic, but somewhat parasitic as well. The being with the intention, interacting with humans posessing certain genetic traits."
"Called it." Raven crowed. Now it was Kirk who looked confused. Raven began pacing as she tried to convey to others the intuitive leap she'd had "See Lee's been after me for days to allow the hosts to update themselves wirelessly, but we've kept it locked down. Every night they are designed to power to stand by, sort their daily logs and accept new updates during which they experience a whole virtual simulation, a simulated life. It's like sleep, for us, except for us, life is not a dream."
"Row faster Ensign." Kirk said dryly. Raven caught the pun and acknowledged it while continuing to pace.
"Well according to A.T.H.E.N.A. the thirteenth tribe are descendants of hosts." Raven said, "And according to the Cylons, they were upgraded by survivors of the 13th tribe, human form Cylons."
"So Cylons dream." Kirk replied, he looked at Sisko, but Sisko looked thoughful.
"The Seraphim interact with humans as though they were a dream." Sisko said slowly, "they take on the form of one familiar to the individual in question, and over time appear capable of developing a sophisticated identity, independent of their host."
"Cylon projection is an evolution of host networking, and it allows a Seraphim with a mission to interact with and manipulate receptive targets." Raven told Kirk. He looked at the Six.
"She was a projection from Gaius Baltar." Sisko told Kirk.
"Was he a Cylon?" Kirk asked, Sisko shook his head smiling, while Raven pointed to Kirk and nodded. "So the Colonials, at least some of them, have an ability derived from Cylons, and ultimately hosts."
"All this has happened before." The Six explained. Sisko sighed.
"Baltar is perhaps one of the most far reaching examples of a grandfather paradox we are ever likely to see." Sisko told them, "When Doctor Bashir examined him, and Kara Thrace, he confirmed some truly ancient genetic markers, we found them in all of the Colonials, but in an infinitesimal fraction, those recessive markers would interact, in a manner distantly removed from, but clearly relating, to Cylon DNA." Sisko paused recalling, "He noted a temporal discrepancy as well which might be explained by the gap in time between when Clark's people left the time dilation of the Elegius system, and Earth's second apocalypse. We left an encrypted copy of his notes in the files we gave to the Colonials, hoping that some day, they would be ready for his findings."
.*.*
"These people are under siege." Adama said as they picked their way around the sharpened stakes protruding outward. They came to a section of the wall that bore out his conclusions. The humanoids covered in hides had managed to dig beneath fortifications near one of the watch fires and a section of wall was in the process of collapsing. "When that goes, the rest will come pouring- he froze in shock "What The Frak." He snarled.
A young man struggled with a pair of the savages to a spear protruding from his chest his eyes wide in shock, but his mouth covered by the other hand of his murderer. His furs had opened to show a tattered, but recognize able Viper flight suit. Adama read the name "Constanza" on a faded patch "Who is this man?" Adama demanded. He stooped to examine a mangled girl and found the orange tatters that might once have been the uniform of a deckhand.
"The son of a good friend." Starbuck said sadly, "He put on his father's uniform for this final battle." Adama glanced at the dozen or so savages advancing on the scuffle.
"How did colonial warriors, viper jockeys and deck hands, end up here with nothing but pointed sticks to defend them against these savages?" He asked as Starbuck lead him through the final wall of staves and a trio of figures seemingly unaware of the danger on the other side of the wall from them. Starbuck rapped on the door, but Adama grabbed her hand,
"Answer me!" He demanded, "How could these people come to this ?" The door creaked open to his surprise, but the face that greeted him surprised him more.
"Easy." His own older voice rumbled back at him, "We brought them to this end."
.*.*.
"So God's plan .." Kirk turned to the Six, "must express itself through the humans and Cylons that can… receive it?"
"God is in each of us, his message carried on our lips." The Six said. "All things that happen are according to his will."
"Unless there's a problem with the receiver." Said Kirk, he turned to Raven, "But this program, the Commander, is different?"
"It didn't evolve, through cultural selection by species at war, it was purpose built, to allow human sensibilities to guide advanced AI." Raven explained, "The flame guided the grounders through generations of apocalyptic competition, into a society that retained a reasonable amount of societal structure. A few more generations and they'd have started rebuild if the planet's mega reactors hadn't melted down." Kirk looked at Sisko.
"You didn't foresee Raven's presence here " he pointed out, "Is she the way forward?"
"And backwards, yes." Sisko said thoughtfully. "As we are in this linear space together, I couldn't say with any more certainty than you, but I would take Adama's absence as a sign that we are on to something, at least, and at the very least, " he spread his hands "I don't see how it could hurt."
"I'll take a chip with a heart over a bloodthirsty projection any day." Kirk said, then amended, "no offense."
"God's will be done." The Seraphim said.
"This is not what I was expecting." Raven said, "Ro reveres this place, she actually prays to it, and the Colonials thought it was a portal to the Lords of Kobol," she looked at Clark, "Which was apparently just you and Murphy, now that I think about it," she looked to Sisko, "And you are the legendary starfleet captain who saved the colonies, rediscovered Earth, revealed the Seraphim, sacrificed yourself to the greater good of your crew and the universe and dispense from this temple the new prophecies to the President of the twelve tribes."
Sisko opened his mouth to say something but Raven continued,
"Except your great revelations were de-railed from the start because you didn't know I would be here, and if we are being honest I didn't know I would be here, except maybe I did, because by showing up, I sent cliff notes to my past self telling me to show up.. " Kirk joined in,
"We also didn't know that one of our refugees from Lore's ship would wake up and join us here, that another one was a being posing as Kara Thrace, and that the A.T.H.E.N.A. hologram somehow contained the personality of someone who died a thousand years ago." He glanced at Clark. Raven shrugged at that,
"Clark is actually almost..plausible." Raven replied earning a cocked head from Kirk. "Well Sisko is telling us, his doctor found genetic material from Cylons in the DNA of the colonials.. Because it was somehow introduced into the baseline genetics of humanity itself and if that's what this is all supposedly really all about.. The beginning and the end of humanity all at once… then any of us probably have those similiar markers, possibly you Captain, or Captains," she said remembering Sisko, " and most likely Clark, Maybe she inherited it naturally or maybe it is a result of the night blood serum required for the mind drive compatibility. Who knows. Either way, if Clark was living on Kobol with a large population of hosts, and had this latent ability it was probably being triggered periodically without her knowing and when they built the holographic AI system to run the mountain.. she might have somehow connected with it. It had her image, and seemed to be based on her personality.. I'd want to study it more I think but I can sort of see how that could all come about."
"In my travels I have encountered a number of ways in which a mind can be transferred, even into my own body." Kirk grimaced, he turned to the Six
"But what about your friend… Starbuck?" Kirk demanded, "She was real enough to beam aboard my ship, but she managed to get herself here, too, whose dream is she?"
"She isn't a dream." Dehner explained "She was a harbinger of death."
.*.*.
It was unmistakeably his older self. William Adama was approaching sixty when the Cylons attacked the 12 colonies, the man before him was likely nearing 80. He was gaunt and haggard, but his face was shaved and his eyes hard. Deep lines were carved into his face, Adama took in a heavy woolen jacket and the man held a spear adorned by a jagged piece of metal.
"Out here." He murmured, Adama caught a glimpse of dozens of children and elderly men and women packed inside a small room nearly on top of each other. "We're expecting the final attack when the storm clears and they'll need the-" he stopped when he stepped outside. He had spotted the empty tower.
"Nicholas should have been up there with Starla." He said frowning.
"They're dead." Adama told him, "Those things are inside your perimeter. You people are in trouble." The urgency he meant to convey to his older self didn't seem to have been received. The older Bill Adama nodded to himself.
"No, we're finished." He said. "And we had marines, to answer your earlier question, for the first few years things were going relatively well, but then we had a series of outbreaks sweep through the tribes on the western and southern most continents. They used up a lot of our remaining raptors trying to relocate back here for survival. When the natives started getting organized, Nowart and Sykes put together a defense team with the Agathons and they flew a few sorties, but there was some kind of malfunction and they went down. That was the last time we were able to mount an offensive."
He gestured to the frozen tableau around them, "This is just a last stand. Some ran, they'll be hunted down and and enslaved. Kara tells me a few will escape and try to work together, and the same thing will happen to them. This-" he he nodded to Adama's uniform, "this is the end of that, of us."
"The final fall of the 12 tribes." Adama breathed.
"Hoshi will sound the alarm, he and Leoben will hold them off while Kelso barricades the door. They'll break through anyway, they take the children and most of the women and kill most everyone else."
"You're telling me this is where we… this is where it ends?"
The elderly Bill wasn't listening he was scrabbling down the hill side. At last he seemed to find his destination, a lonely circle of stones half covered in snow.
"It doesn't end for you here, junior." He replied to Adama. The man began kicking loose snow away from something. "You became something of a legend to the Indies… that's what we call the indigenous people. They saw you land in a raptor once and told stories. You made nice with them.." he looked up "Sea Rider Falcon, you remember that? You try to teach them to farm and build homes, use tools."
"Sounds very productive." Adama grunted back becoming irritated.
"Well some of them remember it, and appreciate it, but the next valley over gets hungry." The elder Adama replied, digging in the snow clearing something on the ground, "they make war, they kill the local indies and take their women and children and someone gives them the idea you're some kind of God. That inspired the group that lead all this, they keep you on as something of a trophy."
"What about the men and women that were with you?" Adama asked the older man.
"They were hunted." He was told, "A nomadic life style was the only choice with thirty thousand mouths to feed, when the fleet arrived we broke into five main groups on different continents."
"Spreading out the risk." Adama noted.
"Lee convinced us to abandon our ships and our technology, We didn't even know if the enemy Cylons were still following us or where or when we were exactly and we had had enough." The older Adama explained, "Each year after the colonies fell, we lost more and more of ourselves. So we sent the ships away and we scattered ourselves,
but it made us vulnerable. Tigh and the Agathons did there best, Lee travelled between the different factions until he disappeared. New leaders emerged, younger leaders." He sighed
"I had no idea what was happening out there until they started showing up, looking for shelter, for protection."he looked up at his younger self with such a forlorn face Bill could hardly have believed it was the same face that showed such ferocity a few minutes before.
" I was done with it all. I retired here to Laura's Mountain."
Adama watched the man sit back and look at what he'd uncovered. "When Saul came for me months later, and rescued me from that mob, we couldn't come back here, they had turned it into some kind of… holy site." He sighed. "I couldn't have looked at her anyway after what I saw them do to her people."
Starbuck knelt behind the man sitting on the dirt and put a hand on his shoulder. He patted it.
"Kara came to me. Visited me" He nodded at Starbuck, "While they held me there, trying to.. learn my magic." He spat the words out. "She could only offer me refuge in my memories but they were enough. I'll even relive this memory, if it lets me be with her one more time."
.*.*.
Many, many emotions warred accross Kirk's face as he studied the image of the woman before him. He settled for saying "So the Doctor is in." Dehner 's mouth quirked.
"I'm sorry Captain, I don't know what to say." She said. "I understand your mistrust, maybe even your fear." She looked suddenly forlorn, for his part, Kirk realized for all the changes he had experienced since returning from thr Nexus, experiencing a younger body, months of brutal conditioning to survive the Hirogen, the renewed sense of purpose at finding family, finding Saavik, leading a new crew m, and doscovering a new mission, he suddenly felt... young again. He frowned. Young and unsure.
"Elizabeth, I'm sorry." Kirk said at last, he approached her slowly,"As your captain I should have been able to do… something." He struggled to voice his thoughts, "I was.. new.. to command.. young, brash." He let out a breath. "I should never have let that happen to you... to Gary... to Kelso ..and I should have found a way to save you all."
"We went boldly into the unknown." Dehner replied, "Is that not what the young do, Captain? You risked yourself to save your friend, that cost you a part of yourself, but you tried to save me too, a near total stranger, I could never expect more from my Captain."
"You were my crew. I failed." Kirk said solemnly. He put a hand on her shoulder gently. Dehner laughed and he looked up surprised.
"So did I." She pointed out, "And I was the trained psychologist, Captain." She sighed deeply shaking her head, "In a way, like Kara Thrace, my journey began with my death as well." Kirk stepped back and put his arms behind his back, acceptong the perspective she chose to adopt.
"Then continue your report, Doctor." He said gently, Dehner let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding and stood straighter.
"She is soentbing like a memory, captured in her dying moments by a dreamer. A poor soul in communion with a Seraphim at the time of her death. She passed over into it unknowingly, and she lingered." The others considered this and Kirk said,
" Is this something like a Katra, like what Spock passed on to McCoy when he died?" He turned to Sisko, "can she be restored?" Sisko slowly shook his head in doubt.
"Her Pagh is very old." He said, "I don't know."
"She has been a just Traveller for some time now." The Six spoke up, "It is through her that we have seen the path that humanity must walk." The young man who had joined them nodded, the Six looked at Clark, "And perhaps that will be her fate as well, in time, but the echo of Kara Thrace carries the legacy of those lost to wander. She is a memory now."
"Or a prophet." Sisko said, and the Six nodded,
"But regardless, this Kara Thrace is not the one you know, and both have had their paths taken by Lore."
It replied
"That's the most direct statement I have heard you make here." Sisko mused.
"He drinks our wine." The Six said bitterly, and she looked at Raven, "As the plowmen dig out earth."
"Now you're doing that on purpose." Sisko said to it.
"Back to square one I see." Kirk said with amusement, Sisko eyed the messenger a quirk in his expression. The messenger raised an eyebrow at him.
"So there's really another Starbuck out here?" Raven said clearing her throat, Kirk sighed, and she looked at him. "Like a third one? They seem to turn up everywhere."
"The woman posing as Helena Cain was captured by Lore and tortured." Sisko explained, "But when he fought your ship, Lore eliminated her from the timeline to alter the timeline of the ship around him."
"And the Starbuck that we just saw has been something of a temporal refugee for a million years after she and survivors of the Cylon attack were sent back in time to land on earth." He explained. " The cycle they keep talking about was supposed to include the annihilation of the 12 colonies except Captain Siisko and his crew arrived in time to stop it and the chain of events that resulted in them all being in the past."
"And so there is still the native Starbuck in this timeline, that Sisko's intervention altered the future for, but that creates a paradox, how did she get to the past if her future has changed." Raven asked. "Don't those destroy the universe?"
"Her future is still her future, even if it is to end in the past." Sisko said with a grimace "Trust me, it's confusing, it kept the Vulcans confounded for centuries."
" A true paradox can force events to self correct, It can cause, ripples and changes to the temporal topography." At last the traveller spoke, "But as Captain Sisko would say, 'not everything is linear'. Looking at events as a necessary sequence is a conceptual starting point, but many events have to happen in specific ways to produce results that happen every moment, and so one disruptions, while causing a ripple, has an effect, the effect isn't necessarily unravelling destruction, where thought and energy, space and time intersect, new realities unfold."
Raven found her mouth hanging down and shut it.
"You have a singular grasp of these concepts." Sisko told the traveller, "Captain Kirk and I have studied temporal Mechanics, and Raven is certainly no slouch, but you have just expressed a great deal of information, very succinctly."
" I have had to travel many paths to get here." The traveler explained, "I have further to go, still to get where I need to be."
" And where is that?" Kirk asked, " I get the feeling you're trying to hitch a ride here, and if what you say is true then presumably you know where we are going."
The young man sighed and shook his head.
" l'm afraid I can't give you an itinerary, Captain, a traveler, travels." He said, " the intersections of thought and space matter and energy, they are not the separate things that they seem to be, in order to get where I wish to go, I have to be part of the journey."
" Then where are you trying to go and why? I don't believe for a second that you're just some kind of aimless wanderer. Why should we take you with us." Kirk snapped, again the young man sighed, and Kirk crossed his arms expecting what came next.
" I am trying to deliver a message to someone who very much will need it, I am hoping to guide them, I need to reunite my family, for the sake of it's future." The traveller said, " I can't really tell you more than that and I don't know if it would be meaningful for you anyway. What I CAN tell you, is that I am from your universe, originally, not this one, and the only way to travel a great distance, while arriving at the moment I need to, is this." He spread his hands, "Attempting to do so in my own universe will change it fundamentally and the people I am trying to save will be changed."
"The multiverse." Raven said in understanding, she put up a hand as the Traveller began to reply, " No, don't worry I get it, and let me get you off the hook here with the Captain." She turned to Kirk, " The whole 'ripples in a pond' metaphor, limitless actions and reactions over time, time is a perceptual filter for us to navigate our existence, I get it, but what's relevant here, is that we have at least two universes interacting, too. The Enterprise C came from this universe to Captain Kirk's and Sisko's past. An Enterprise C from there universe came here, both interacted with pocket timelines and had some kind of end result which in Captain Kirk's timeline restored the federation of his future and Captain Sisko's past, and presumably did something similar here. So if that can happen…" she looked at Sisko, " and this universe could receive refugees from a pocket timeline in your universe that results in the creation of the 12 colonies and then their destruction and then the refugees that are part of the history we all know and love."
"Except.. now there isn't necessarily anyone from this universe who will be travelling to Kirk's to restore his timeline." The traveler pointed out.
"I had an idea about that." Sisko admitted, "I'm working on it."
"But do you have to?" Raven asked, "what if there is an alternate version of you who already did it?"
"I choose to act." Sisko said, he looked at the Traveller, "and that is where thought and reality intersect."
" That is also why the destiny of Kara Thrace cannot be clouded by the legacy of her other self." the Traveller explained, " proximity to each other will cause a kind of resonance, and as the Kara you saw here is from another quantum reality, it could tear her from the timeline entirely, while causing her counter part to lose her mind."
"Resonance?" Kirk asked sharply, "Is that something that might jeopardize The other members of my crew that are from my native universe?" Raven looked from Kirk to the Traveller, " I'm aware that the route that I took through the Nexus has certain... advantages.."
" You were able to take the place of the Kirk from this timeline that resides in the nexus." Sisko noted, "but the survivors of the Val Jean took a more conventional route "
" They will be fine for the foreseeable future." The traveler assured him, " just as Captain Sisko's crew were, durinf their time here, but we are far, far from our native timelines and there is the possibility of a similar ressonance unless the future of both realities can be woven back together as they were."
"This is.. the nature of the greater problem here." Sisko explained a bit wearily, " why I stayed behind. The resonance cascade would tear at the foundations of much of what has transpired in both universes. What Kara Thrace would experience, would have implications at the genetic level of humanity and ultimately the progenitors in both universes. Yhe great cosmic instutions that are woven around them would unravel, and this is why those entities do not interfere directly." He placed his hands behind his back, " They have sought.. refuge.. in the timelines that are less affected and it is only the messengers who can truly act in the manner that they do."
"Not all who wander, are lost." Said the Six.
"In the moment as you wander, where you surrender where you thought you were, " Dehner said, "and you realize that you have found yourself somewhere new.." she looked at Raven, "Thats the moment of revelation, of inspiration."
"The nexus point." Kirk said knowingly, Sisko nodded.
"The glimmer." Dehner stated.
Raven grew very silent. She looked at Clark.
" If I had chosen differently at the final test, let go of where I had been and what I thought I needed to do.. " Clark said, " You might not have taken it and we would all be statues. My failure bought enough time for humanity to show its capacity for redemption."
"When I left the Nexus," Kirk said," I created a path where my great-granddaughter would arrive on a planet with people fighting the Hirogen, and a ship to escape to." He smile wanly at her expression as she struggled to consider the scope of implications "It's not my first time with mirror universes, I've made a career out of beating the odds and finding choices where there appear to be none. As eloquent as our young friend here explains the timeline." He clapped an arm on the young man's shoulder, "a dear colleague of mine said it far simpler. 'there are always possibilities'."
"That sounds like something of a blessing and a curse." Dehner said, "possibilities can distract us from what is real, yet possibility is the nature of reality as we see it."
"Those possibilities... were.. enthralling." Kirk admitted. "In life I've always had pain to push me forward, and mission to chart my course. In the Nexus I had neither, and I- I found myself adrift."
"But the Listener heard you, and Sisko moved you." Dehner said as she began to understand, " You were able to set in motion the events that will change everything, but when you left the Nexus you realized you were still lost."
"I had figured being a million years in the future might make things simpler." Kirk told her ruefully. "The pain returned, the mission resumed, and the fate of the galaxy is in peril once again." He made a face, "McCoy used to say I was two steps from any disaster, either an angel of mercy or a harbringer of doom." he frowned, "Hw also said in all rhe universe and all the galaxies there is only one of us. while that may be true enough i. iur own universe, out here.." he gestures around them, "well beyond the final frontier, we are as lost as poor Kara Thrace."
"I understand how you feel." Sisko said wryly, "and in point of fact, there is another Kara Thrace, even now, fighting to survive."
"With Galactica, at Earth." Kirk finished his resolve returning. "This has 'destiny' written all over it, you know."
"It was in some part, your plan too." Sisko chided Kirk. Kirk looked at him.
"I'm not sure exactly what that means " Kirk said, "but I think it's about time we put our cards on the table."
"I agree." Sisko said looking at the Six. "The hour is getting late."
. *. *.
"So this is the future you want me to avoid?" Adama demanded, looking at Starbuck, "You and your so called messengers?"
"This is the future you wanted yourself to avoid." She said rising. The ancient Adama stayed frozen on the ground staring at the grave before him. "I didn't make this memory, he did. He didn't think he would hold on throughout the ages." She looked down at the man sadly. "Even a God can fade away, if his heart is broken."
"I thought he was my future." Adama said frustrated, "Now you're saying he's my past?"
"He's my past Bill." Starbuck said. She looked up. "Message in a bottle, sir, care of Kara Thrace."
"Sisko said the Seraphim wanted us to go back in time " Adama realized, "The survivors of the 12 colonies."
"One final jump in a moment of crisis." Starbuck told him, "Through a wormhole bent in time. We brought the fleet back through it to Earth at the dawn is all humanity." Adama shot out a pointing finger.
"Those… things are humanity?" He demanded. Starbuck shook her head.
"Almost." She said, "They were primitive but they were many. When the survivors of the fleet spread accross the Earth they sent their ships and most of the technology into the sun. They knew it would be hard but they didn't know how hard." She shook her head.
"Who survived?" Adama asked finally.
"Lee survived." Starbuck told him, understanding the question, "So did Tyrol, because they wandered, alone. The groups were too visible, too noisy. They made some friends, but life here is harsh. They were weakened by disease, famine, winter and eventually war." Adama grunted. "The survivors tried to rally, tried to come together in places like this to help each other survive, but they just became the focus for new holy wars." Starbuck snorted in disgust. "The messengers who 'guided' the fleet didn't bother to stay. Their job was done, all they needed was poor Hera to introduce her genetic makeup into the new population." Adama was lost, but said nothing. Finally he asked,
"Are you really Kara Thrace?"
"For a time I thought I was an echo." Said Starbuck. Suddenly they were in the CiC of Galactica.
"Somehow I projected when my viper flew into Earth. A Seraphim had visited me just before, and it sort of… woke something up." She explained, "It's this thing I thought only Cylons can do, but you were able to do it in the camp, Lee did it once and.. I think Kara could do it too."
"Are you saying I'm a Cylon?" Adama demanded.
"No more than Lee is, or I am…was." Thrace replied. She stopped and shook her head, "Gods it really is all happening out there again isn't it, the colonies… Lee.." She stared wistfully up at the Dradis screen. "I'm out there somewhere, probably in a Viper, or playing pyramid or.."
"You're probably in hack." Adama said flatly. Starbuck looked up with first a startled, and then relieved look, and she suddenly teared up as she realized that teasing her, was Adama's way of acknowledging her. Adama put his arms out. She accepted the embrace gratefully.
"You are Starbuck." He said into her shoulder as she sobbed, "I don't know how, but it's you."
"Zack." She said pulling back, and speaking quickly, "I found him, he called out to me, I tried to help him, but I couldn't stay, I had to leave him on their ship but he's with family…"
"I know." Adama said continuing to embrace her, "I know."
"You have to help him." Starbuck said, "He's not our Zack, but he's Zack, and he's been through so much…"
"I'll find him." Adama promised.
"And the other me, the younger me, I was such a screw up, but it was partly to try to make up for it all." She said, "I wish I could tell myself to forgive myself…"
"Kara you might be the only person in the universe who actually could." He released Starbuck and his face was as tear streaked as her. "You don't have to go."
"I don't think I can stay." Thrace answered, "I'm just an echo and the closer I am to myself the more…" she shusdered and Adama nodded.
"What happened to me before." He said. She nodded.
"But I carry almost thirteen hundred thousand years of memory." She said, "I couldn't stay attached, I drifted, I wandered, but this time, this now, has helped to anchor me, and now it would be too much for her. I feel her passion, burning so much brighter than I ever remembered, and it consumes me I…" She looked around, suddenly Adama was gone, and she was in an alleyway behind some kind of kitchen. Music drifted on the air.
"Rest, Kara Thrace." An older dark skinned man told her, he was dressed as a chef. "Benny told me to watch out for you. You can rest here, for a while." Thrace struggled to take in her new surroundings.
"You brought me here." She said.
"Not me." The man said, he raised the peeling knife for emphasis. "My wife. You've got to learn when to listen to your partner, I'll tell you that much, or eternity is a long, long time."
"Did I say too much?" Kara asked, " Did I do something wrong?"
"Peace, girl." The man said. "This is a not a punishment, it's an opportunity. Peel some potatoes. Lay down your burdens." Starbuck cocked her head.
"Peeling potatoes doesn't sound like an opportunity, it sounds like a chore." She said suspiciously. The man chuckled. A few steps away, unseen, Adama watched.
"They say chores and opportunities are often the same thing." Benjamin Sisko said, Adama looked around himself. They stood at the end of the alleyway and watched as Thrace followed the man in. Adama looked up at the stars, wondering if they were the same as that world where his future ended.
"There but for the Grace of God Go I." Sisko intoned. "Now do you see the burden of knowing?"
"How could you let any of that happen?" Adama asked quietly, as he was staring up at the heavens, he clenched his fists "You call yourselves Gods? Messengers? How could you let that poor woman suffer."
"Bill." Sisko said gently, "They aren't Gods, and they aren't listening. You see they've told themselves that what they know came to pass- must always come to pass."
"That's not good enough." He snapped. "No one has the right to mess with people's lives."
"Don't give me that." Sisko argued, his patience wearing thin, "You're a soldier, a Commander, you've sent men to their deaths, or do I have to drag Bulldog in here to tell his sad sad story." Adama looked up sharply and then quieted. "That woman, that remarkable woman, has held onto her identity for over a million years just to pass you a message and did you even stop to hear what it was?"
Adama blinked, "Oh Frack me." He whispered, "I didn't even get to ask her what it was!"
"Yet the message was received.." Sisko told Adama. He grasped Adama by the sides of his head and in the startled Admiral's ear he whispered "Remember."