Battlestar Galactica

Past, Present, Future

Chapter 32

The Final Solution

Aboard Daemon's command Baseship, bedlam reigned.

Reports were coming in from both task forces, reporting on their situations.

The reports were not favorable!

Daemon had plugged himself into the central communications network so that he would receive the messages directly, not wanting to wait for some Centurion to make the reports in their usual, slow, droning manner. It was his hope to be receiving reports of great victories on both fronts of the destruction of the human fleets.

But this was not the case.

The reports he was receiving told of the destruction of one task force and the defeat of the other! Both fronts were disasters! An entire task force completely destroyed and the other in full retreat. The losses were staggering! The group led by Mortis had been completely decimated; the only ships from that group to survive were the empty tankers that had turned back after they had refueled the warships of the Centurion fleet. All four thousand plus Baseships had been destroyed along with several thousand smaller warships.

It was a complete disaster!

The other task force under the command of the Centurion, Exitium, had faired only marginally better. True, Exitium had lost ONLY 634 ships, but his task force never got close enough to even open fire on the humans. It appeared that this group of humans had developed some new weapon that made it impossible to get close enough to engage them.

Then to make matters even worse, it seemed that these humans were in league with ORGANIC Cylons. Real, live, flesh and blood, reptilian Cylons!

The amount of information Daemon was trying to absorb at that moment was staggering! Daemon's "brains" were almost overloaded by all the information he was trying to process. What was he going to do? And even more pressing an issue was ….. how was he going to explain all this to the Imperious Leader? There was no way possible to explain how, after being given command of the entire Cylon battle fleet, he could be defeated so thoroughly! Daemon was sure his cycles were numbered.

And, just when Daemon didn't think things could get any worse …..

"By your command" a Centurion droned.

"What is it?" Daemon said in a loud voice that had he actually had emotions, would have sounded both angry and frustrated.

"The Imperious Leader is trying to contact you."

"Oh frak!" Daemon said in a low voice. Then to the Centurion he said, "Put it thru"

Almost immediately, the face of the Imperious Leader of the Cylon Empire was staring at Daemon from the giant main view screen.

"Report!"

"Greetings illustrious one. I'm afraid I have bad news."

"Is that so?"

"Yes your eminence. I beg to report that both of the task forces I sent to intercept the humans have been ….. less than successful."

The Imperious Leader said nothing for nearly a centon before speaking again.

"I'd call the destruction of over twenty thousand ships a bit more than just being "less than successful, wouldn't you Daemon?"

Daemon hesitated for a moment, knowing he may not survive his next statement.

"Yes your eminence, it is much worse." Daemon said softly.

"I am very disappointed in you Daemon." The Imperious Leader said. "I expected total victory from you, instead you give me total destruction."

"Not all of our fleet has been destroyed your eminence. Most of those ships I sent with the Command Centurion Exitium survived and are on their way back to the Cyrannus star system to join with the more than twenty thousand ships I held in reserve. I believe we can still defeat the humans your eminence!"

"I agree with your assessment Daemon." The Imperious Leader said.

This gave Daemon a small glimmer of hope that he may yet survive this debacle.

"But it will not be under your command that this happens." The Imperious Leader continued. "You have failed me Daemon in the worse possible manner. This I cannot allow to go unpunished"

Suddenly, the Centurion standing beside Daemon drew its sword and cleaved Daemon in half.

The two halves of the IL series Cylon smashed against the control console where he had been standing and then crashed to the deck, sending sparks and fluids in all directions. Daemon was still aware of all that went on around him. He felt no "pain". He was a machine after all. But he knew that his time had come to an end. He turned his face toward the huge view screen where the Imperious Leader could be seen staring down upon his broken form.

"Before I have you finished Daemon, know that I have already given orders for the remainder of the fleet to return to Cylon, all except fifty baseships. Those will align themselves around the remaining worlds that the humans seem intent on reclaiming."

"They will, upon the humans entering the system, unleash every missile in their arsenal, thereby destroying the worlds that the humans had hoped to reclaim. When the humans see what we are doing, they will rush in to stop us, but it will already be too late, and the humans and their precious planets will be destroyed."

"After that, I will have MY fleet return and finish off any survivors of that disgusting species. We will have final victory over the humans!"

Daemon could imagine all of that happening just as the Imperious Leader had said.

It was unfortunate that he would not be there to witness it, for just as Daemon realized that, the Centurion that had struck him down raised the huge chrome sword and drove it thru Daemon's head. He experienced only a few more microns of cognizance before everything faded to black.

His last thought was, "So this is death!"

Out in space, the remains of Exitium's task force altered course, changing its heading from the Cyrannus system to that of the Cylon homeworld. Exitium did not question the order, nor did he care that the order came from the Imperious Leader himself. He also did not wonder why Daemon did not give the order. The order was given and Exitium obeyed.

In the Cyrannus System, over twenty thousand Cylon ships that had been orbiting the planets of that system or sitting in space around the planets suddenly came to life and began moving out of the system and back towards their homeworld.

Only fifty Baseships were left behind.

These Baseships took up positions around each of the ten planets of the old human colonies and prepared to carry out the instructions given them by the Imperious Leader.

The Imperious Leader sat on the throne of his command center, monitoring all this with great satisfaction. He knew that the final victory over the species called, "man" was close at hand. All that was needed now was for the humans to show up and try to stop the inevitable!

At that thought, the Imperious Leader actually smiled!