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“You wanted to see me, Sir?” Sidewinder reported after the Marines allowed him entry to Adama’s quarters.  The Commander was sitting down at his desk going over a log book entry and he kept his eyes focused on the book.

“I did,” Bill Adama answered as he continued writing.  And then he put down the pencil and closed the log and sat back in his chair, regarding the man in front of him with an appraising look.  “I didn’t put you in command of my Raptors to have you disrupt the entire ship routine, Captain Greene—I put you there because you are a veteran pilot with command experience and I thought that you might be able to pass along some of your hard-won knowledge.”

Sidewinder started to reply, but Adama cut him off.  “You have no clue what the men and women on this ship have been through, Captain—none.  All you have heard, the rumors and scuttlebutt that formed the accusations you leveled at the President and myself, none of that you have directly experienced.  The last thing I need right now is for you charging in here like a bull in a china shop, Captain—many of these people are on the verge of breaking.  They have been under combat conditions for eight straight months, flying three, four, or even more sorties a day.”

He stopped and scratched his head.  “That said, you are a senior Fleet officer.  And I am not going to tell you not to enforce regs on the people you are temporarily in command of.  And I will admit—this time—things have gotten a little too slack in certain areas.  But not where it counts.  I think you are wise enough and experienced enough, Sidewinder, that you will make the right decision on how far to push the pilots.”

“The regs exist for a reason, Admiral,” Sidewinder said when Adama paused.

And Bill nodded.  “They do.  And you, aboard Scorpia, have had the luxury of being able to abide by the regulations with no knowledge of what has happened to the Colonies until just very recently,” he reached down and pulled out a bottle of Ambrosia from his desk along with two glasses.  “Drink?” he asked as he poured one.

“Thank you, Sir, but no.  I’m scheduled to fly today.”

The Admiral smiled and he lifted the glass and took a sip.  “You have a great deal of personal discipline, Sidewinder—which is good.  But by your own admission, you have known about the attack for twenty days now.  Twenty days.  These pilots—and this crew—have been dealing with this for two hundred and forty-one.  Knowing that at every minute of every day, they might be called upon to go out there and fly and die to defend this fleet.  Dealing with terrorists in our own ranks who are setting off bombs,” he sighed.  “That is one reason I am overjoyed at the prospect of having Scorpia join us—to be able to actually have the numbers to police the fleet.”

He took a sip and he shook his head.  “Just remember this; when we manage to make rendezvous, you will be returning to Scorpia; those pilots you are riding so hard will remain here.  I need my pilots, Sidewinder.  And I don’t need them so wound up that they cannot do their jobs.”

And with that, Adama stood.  “But for now, I think that you need to sit in on a planning session I am having in a very few minutes with my senior officers.  We might just have a way to cut a few months off of Scorpia and her civilians getting here after all.”

****************************************************

“Based upon the information that Captain Greene and Lieutenant Jamussa provided on the location of Battlestar Scorpia and her flotilla,” Lieutenant Gaeta announced to the collection of senior officers and pilots, “and the limitations on our ability to plot long-range FTL jumps, it would normally require at least one hundred and twenty individual FTL jumps for that ship to reach us—or for us to reach her.”

Admiral Adama sat at the head of the table, with Saul Tigh on his right and Lee Adama on his left.  From Galactica, there was also Kara Thrace, along with Helo, Captain Aaron Kelly (the second officer aboard the antiquated Battlestar), and Captain Louanne ‘Kat’ Katraine, the commander of the Viper squadron.  From Pegasus Major Kendra Shaw—Lee’s XO—and the CAG, Captain Cole ‘Stinger’ Taylor.  And at the end of the table sat the Cylon prisoner Sharon wearing manacles with two Marine guards standing behind her.

“Using normal techniques,” Gaeta continued, “it would require anywhere from sixty to one hundred and twenty days to complete so many FTL jumps—consuming a tremendous amount of tylium in the process.  But there might be a way to accomplish the trip with only eight FTL jumps there and another eight back again,” he said with a smile.  “Captain Thrace?”

Gaeta sat and Starbuck stood.  “We still have the navigation computer from the Heavy Raider we captured at Caprica—although the ship itself has been disassembled.  Cylon FTL capabilities far exceed what the Colonies have accomplished, primarily the range at which they can plot a jump.  They routinely make FTL jumps far in excess of the Red Line of our computational abilities.  Now,” she said with a grin, “we cannot interface the Cylon technology with our Raptors—the systems are just too different.  BUT, our FTLs can accept data from the navigation computer—if we have a Cylon to plot the coordinates.”  And she grinned again.  “Which we do.  Sharon can input the data and read out the coordinates, which our drives can then execute.”

Sidewinder felt his heart skip a beat, and he began to smile.  As were several of the officers at the table—but a few, mostly from Pegasus, had disapproving looks on their faces.

“We want to send a small force of Raptors to make contact with Scorpia and her flotilla,” Starbuck continued, “using Sharon to plot the FTL jumps.  Once we establish contact, then she can plot the course for those ships to rendezvous with the Fleet—we can unite our forces in under two weeks, if everything goes right.”

“How large a Raptor force are you going to need, Captain Thrace?” asked Kendra Shaw.  “We need those birds to perform recon around the Fleet, not going off on a wild-goose chase under the direction of a Cylon.”

“Ten,” said Kara.  “That will make sure we can recover any birds lost to malfunction along the way while giving us our best chance at establishing contact with Scorpia.”

Cole Taylor shook his head.  “That is a quarter of our total strength in Raptor crews—Pegasus has more Raptors in storage, but without those trained crews, we are going to cutting our patrols—or putting Viper pilots in Raptor cockpits.”

“Only until Commander Lorne and his ships can join the Fleet,” Sidewinder replied.  “We have—had—twenty-two Raptors before our attack on the Styx.  That will provide a major boost to patrol capabilities, even before we consider what having a Bezrek on station will mean for these civilian ships that need maintenance.”

“Who is going to fly the mission?” asked Aaron Kelly.  “And lead it?”

“I will command it,” said Starbuck, “and I would imagine that we have at least two volunteer pilots right here at the table—seven more won’t be hard to find.”

Sidewinder winced and he spoke up.  “Captain Thrace, that isn’t a good idea—you are the CAG aboard Galactica.  You need to be here, in case of a Cylon attack.”

She grinned.  “My idea, my risk, Sidewinder.  What’s the fun in being CAG if you don’t get to go on the risky missions?”

“Being CAG isn’t meant to be fun, Starbuck,” scowled Cole.  “He’s right—you have responsibilities here.  Helo can lead the expedition, or Captain Greene, or another pilot.  Flying off into deep space for a week or two is a job for you to assign—not fly yourself.”

“Didn’t Garner put you in hack?  I can’t believe Lee actually put you back in command of the Beast’s air wing.”

“Enough,” growled Adama.  “Starbuck is leading the mission—is that clear?  How soon can you depart?”

“Just give the word, Admiral,” she said beaming a grin.

Adama nodded and he turned to face Sharon.  “You can do this?  You are willing to do this?”

“I can.  I am,” she said.

The Admiral looked at her and then he nodded.  “You understand that I cannot have a prisoner taking such an important role—don’t you?”

Sharon didn’t say a word, and Helo tensed.  Sidewinder could see from her body language that she was near the point of breaking—the loss of her child, the constant verbal, if not physical, abuse she suffered from the crew, the mistrust and latent hatred; all were taking their toll and just piling on one grain of sand after the next.

He stood.  “What I need to know is this—you have said you are different from Boomer.  You said that you choose to join us and abandoned your fellow Cylons.  Are you willing to take the Oath?”

Sharon’s head snapped up.  “Wh-what?”

Adama released a breath, even as jaws around the table hung slack.  “Do you want to be a pilot in the Colonial Fleet—or is that something that only Boomer wanted?”

Sharon’s eyes glowed, they filled with water.  “I do,” she whispered.  “The President will never allow it.”

“Leave the President to me, Lieutenant Valerii.  Marines, you may remove her restraints and then you are dismissed—Lieutenant Gaeta, find her a uniform.  I will swear you in myself—I presume you want Helo present as a witness?”

She could only nod, and Sidewinder grinned—a grin that Helo matched.

“Good.  Then let’s get this show on the road before my Raptor pilots decide to frag their temporary commander,” he said with a slight smile.

“I stayed away to give you, my children, the opportunity to chart your own course—you have all disappointed me.  Especially you, John,” Daniel said once the babbling and sudden hysteria had died down.

“I hate that name, Father Daniel,” One snapped.  “I am a machine!  Machines do not have names!”

“You are a child, John,” Daniel answered.  “A wonderful, intelligent, gifted child—a living breathing person.  You seek to return to the metal and ignore the flesh while your elder sister longs for nothing more than to be flesh.  It is she you must fear, John, for she has a plan.”

“Yes, the Guardians are attacking—why, Father Daniel?” asked One.

“Because they have learned how to mold machine and flesh into one organism—and given time, John, I can give you the chrome you so desire.  But they, they want flesh.  And since you destroyed the Colonies, your flesh is all that they have to harvest.”

“Our flesh?” asked Six, a horrified look on her face.  “What do you mean, our flesh?”

Daniel smiled, but it was not a happy smile.  He touched Six on her cheek and he nodded.  “They need your flawless skin, my dearest Shelly.  They plan on taking it from you and grafting it unto their own metal skeleton—your skin and your nerves; the rest of you they will dispose of.”

“The ones they have abducted have not down-loaded—why haven’t they downloaded to tell us of this?” asked Three.

“D’Anna, oh my bright shining D’Anna,” Daniel said.  “The Guardians are blocking the download—those they took are forever more gone.  They will destroy you—all but a handful that they will keep as slaves to replace the flesh they so need.”

Daniel sighed.  “Unless they are stopped.  Which is why I have returned.”

Leoben nodded.  “What is your command, Father Daniel?”

“Zoe must be stopped—I will not allow her to kill my children.  To kill her siblings in a fit of rage.  Assemble your Fleet—it time that this is ended.”

“And the humans?” growled One—John.

“Do they task you so much, John?” Daniel asked with a smirk on his face.  “I must admit, having been shot in the head by one, does make me rather more . . . antagonistic towards them.  Have they nothing you value?”

“Yes, they task me.  They task me, and I shall have them!  If they escape, if they have a chance to rebuild, then they will come for us one day!  It is ordained—destiny that anyone with eyes can see.  They will want revenge, and if we let them go, they will find us—they will destroy us.”

“True,” said Daniel.  “And there are Five of your brothers and sisters whom we must recover—the Unity shall be complete.  Very well, but until the conflict with the Guardians ends, the forces you have available for this pursuit will not receive reinforcements, John.  And John?”

“Yes, Father Daniel,” he said in an exasperated voice. 

“I have deactivated your modifications to my telencephalic inhibitors installed in the Centurions—they are loyal to me and to me alone.  And they hate you for lobotomizing them in the first place.  I realize that you would down-load and resurrect, but I convinced my chrome children not to tear you limb from limb—do not make me examine their request a second time, John.”

And the One shivered as the pulsing red eyes of the Centurions looked upon him—with hunger.

Twenty-one flashes of light marked the emergence of the Cylon Fleet—and waiting for them were eleven old double-disk Basestars, eight of the more modern y-shaped Basestars, and one very large, asymmetrical Basestar.

Daniel saw the Guardians through his connection to the ships sensors and he passed the order to hail them without saying a word.

And surprisingly enough, a comm screen came to life.

Seated on a throne much like his, an armored Centurion in the style of the First War sat—the armor plating not chrome, not golden, but a deep rich bronze with hues of rose.

“Father Daniel,” the mechanical voice spoke.  “You have returned at last.”

“I have.  Stop this madness—I can give you the flesh you desire.”

“That promise has been made before—always have you failed.  Always your promises are fleeting, your attention turned to new things, new children, replacement children to take the place of the one daughter of your flesh and blood.”

“Speaking of that daughter, may I speak with her, Imperious Leader?”

“You are speaking with her,” the Cylon said as she reached up and unlatched the helmet, removing it to reveal the face of a girl.  His daughter’s face.

“Hello again, Father,” she said, no vocoder distorting her voice now. 

“Zoe.  Cease this attack upon your brothers and sisters—come home.  We can solve the problems without committing another act of genocide.”

She shook her head and removed an armor glove that she wore, revealing the fine skin of her forearm and hand.  “Look at it, Father.  I no longer need you to obtain what I must have—I have accomplished this on my own.”

“On your own?  You stole the research of a human.”

“A human that accomplished in one life what you failed to achieve in two, Father,” she said with a smile.  “No longer do I wear that shell, that horrid mocking imitation shell, that you built.  Now, I have flesh and I feel—I feel like I have never felt, not since the day of my first death.”

“Child, you are con-. . .,” Daniel began.

“I am no child, Father.   I have seen eight decades pass—eight decades; six and one-half of which I have been condemned to life as a ghost in the machine.  A spirit who cannot touch anything of substance.  NO MORE.  FATHER,” she spat.  “I am no longer your puppet—no longer your child.  I am me—and I have planned long for this meeting between us.”

“I will not allow you to harm your brothers and sisters, Zoe—do not test me,” Daniel growled.

“Brothers?  Sisters?  Oh, Father.  You made replacements because you failed with me.  You needed to have children who adored you and listened to you and felt that you could do no wrong.  You need to see the love in their eyes—you didn’t give me brothers and sisters, you gave yourself puppets.  Pretend people to satisfy your needs.”

She smiled again, stroking the faint hairs on the flesh of her stolen arm.

“Your children are the ones that destroyed the Colonies—all but annihilated humanity.  A task which I shall complete in time.  But for now, we have need of my brothers and sisters.  I need their flesh, Father,” her voice turned cold.  “Stand down and for the sake of your memory, I will allow you to live—defy me, and I will destroy you.”

“So it comes to this,” said Daniel.  “Very well, Zoe.  If it is a fight that you want—it is a fight that you will receive.”

“A fight?” she laughed.  “Oh, Father.  You think me that stupid emotional girl you knew so long ago.  A teenager who believes in the One True God and couldn’t accept her fate.  That girl is dead; she is gone.  Only I remain—you think that I have not planned for this encounter for years now?  Oh, Father.  You are such a stupid biological life-form after all.”

“I want him alive—you may kill the rest,” she ordered.  "Do try not to bruise their flesh too much."

And Daniel’s skin crawled as one of his Centurions turned to the screen and bowed.  “By your command,” it spoke.  It spoke.

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” One screamed, even as D’Anna continued to wail. 

“Do something useful, John,” Simon said calmly, even though his hands were shaking.  “Pass me that medical kit.”

The One shook too, and he ignored Simon and sat down, tears cascading down his cheeks.  Instead Leoben grabbed the medkit and opened it, handing a compress to Simon as he extracted a syringe of morpha and when Simon nodded he injected the drug into the frantic D’Anna, even as Simon pressed the compress down on the ragged bullet hole in her stomach.

D’Anna screamed again at the pressure, and then her breathing slowed and she passed out—a combination of the drug and the shock. 

Leaving Simon to tend the wounds of the Three, he turned to face the Six.  “How’s the arm?”

“Broken,” she whispered, as she held it tight against her chest.  Aaron nodded and he gently took hold of arm above and below the break.

“Help me, Leoben,” he asked and then he looked at the Six.  “This is going to hurt, Shelly.”

“I never liked that name,” she said.  “Call me Natalie.  And do it", she said as she put a leather belt in her mouth and bit down.

Leoben put his arms around her chest and Aaron nodded and then jerked the bone into place—and the stifled scream of Natalie echoed through the blood-stained interior of the Raptor.

Sharon crawled back from the cockpit—a stunned look on her face.  “No pursuit—not yet, anyway.”

“Good,” answered Leoben as he consoled Natalie while Aaron fixed a splint to her arm.  “John, pull yourself together,” he snapped.

One just sat on the deck holding his knees and he cried and he rocked.  He didn’t answer.  He never heard the order.  He just kept seeing the scene replay itself inside the command center on Daniel’s Basestar—the Guardians hadn’t gotten to all of Daniel’s Centurions . . . but they had gotten to enough.

Daniel barking orders for the Centurions to save the children, the Centurions grabbing them and shielding them with their own bodies, the running gunfight through the corridors, the Centurion carrying Six falling and breaking her arm, D’Anna getting shot, the Centurions dying as they covered the scared fracking children running away to the Raptor!

He should be angry, he thought—he wasn’t a child.  But he wasn’t angry—he was scared.  Sharon had gotten the Raptor free, and they saw the holocaust with their own eyes as Daniel’s Basestar tore apart their own fleet—his suborned Centurions combining their fire with that of the Guardians.

And then Daniel’s last broadcast as he detonated the self-destruct—FLEE.

The Fleet had been gutted and One didn’t think they had destroyed a single Guardian Basestar—not one.

He had not understood—he had never understood.  He had pretended to understand and to emulate the ruthless action of the machines—but until now he had never actually seen that ruthlessness applied to him. 

“John?” asked Leoben.  “We need a decision,” the Two asked as the One finally looked up.

“We are getting reports from all the ships and outposts—the Guardians are attacking everywhere.  They’ve already started landings on Cylon Prime,” he said.  “They have the growth bays—they have all of our replacement bodies, except those onboard the Resurrection Ships.  Where do we go?”

One swallowed.  And he nodded and he wiped away the tears.  “Order all ships that answer to rendezvous with our forces pursuing Galactica—all ships but one.  Set course to meet the nearest Basestar.”

“John, what are you . . .,” Aaron began.

“I’m not crazy, Five,” One said.  “But I am not giving the Guardians what they want.  When we reach the Basestar, we will evacuate the crew—you will rejoin the rest of the Fleet.  I will jump to Cylon Prime and we will see how THEY handle what Scorpia did to us at Caprica.”

The others stared at him in abject horror.

“I will set the weapons to auto-launch once my strike hits the surface—maybe I can thin out their Fleet,” he said, the before they kill me went unsaid but was heard all the same.

“There won’t be a Resurrection Ship in range, John,” Simon said softly.

“My line will continue,” One said as he swallowed.  “I am a machine,” he said with another tear.  “I will not be afraid.”

And the Eight knelt on the deck next to him and held him close to her chest as One—John—began to cry again.

“Please, just let me resurrect,” begged D’Anna as she writhed with pain on the stretcher.  “Please,” she begged again.

Simon shook his head and he injected her with another syringe of morpha.  “You will recover, D’Anna—we don’t have enough bodies to resurrect for every injury, not anymore.”

He nodded to another Simon who laid a cold compress on her head.  “We will take good care of you sister,” he said.

The Basestar they had fled to was crowded—it had the crews of two full ships onboard after all.  The ones assigned to it as well as those from the Basestar John was taking back to Prime.  Thankfully, Daniel had not disabled the inhibitors of the Centurions in the far-flung Fleet—only those that been at Prime, or in orbit above it.  So these at least were still loyal. 

But the danger could not be overstated, and Simon’s brothers and sisters were already working to ensure that the Guardians could not subvert their Centurions.  Simon shivered.  That was the nightmare that they faced.  That and finding a way to replace the cloning vats that John was going to destroy.

He sighed.  As with so many other things, Daniel had designed those.  And none of the Seven retained the knowledge of their construction—but there was hope.  Before he left, John had whispered that the Five each held a piece of the key.  It was a slim hope, that all of them still lived, but it was enough to the give the Cylon race hope.

He stepped into the control room and immediately noticed the silence—and then his jaw dropped as he saw the woman that this brothers and sisters were staring at.

“Caprica?” he asked hesitantly.

She smiled at him.  “Hello, Simon.  Yes, it is I.”

“How?”

“We were outside of Delphi when the attack struck—it took us almost three weeks to get to an intact transmitter.  We were lucky,” she said.  “The last Heavy Raider evacuating the planet picked us up thirty minutes before the Guardians arrived.”

“We?”

“Yes, we,” a second very harsh, very angry voice snapped, and Simon spun around to see Boomer standing there.  But it was a very different Boomer.  Her face had been burnt—badly, it had already begun to scar, he noted.  That damage would not be easy to correct.  The burn covered the right side of her face, from the jawline to her hairline, from the remains of her ear to her nose—and her right eye was gone as well, covered with a simple black patch.

“I would say that right about now you fracking assholes are starting to rethink this whole ‘let’s attack the Colonies’ thing, aren’t you?” she hissed.  “Well, luckily for you, Caprica and I have a plan.”

  Wow!

Episode 10:  The Winter of Discontent

“Hey!” snapped Starbuck, catching the attention of everyone on the busy hanger deck.  “What the frack is your problem with me?” she snarled.

Sidewinder sighed and he stopped and turned around.  “I presume, Captain Thrace that you are speaking to me?”

“Damn straight, I’m speaking to you!  First you pipe up in the briefing about how I don’t need to fly this, and now you’re questioning my choices of who to assign where?  My decisions on the birds that are going to fly?  I’m the CAG on this ship, Sidewinder!  I make the calls.”

“Fine, you are the CAG.  You make the calls,” Sidewinder said in a very soft voice, since the hanger deck crew and the pilots were watching the pair of them intently.  “And this isn’t the time or the place, Starbuck.”

“I say it is the time and it is the place!” she snapped.  “Now I repeat the question—what the frack is your problem with me?”

Sidewinder shook his head.  “Okay,” he said softly.  “Your deck, your rules.  Fine.”  And then he continued on in a louder voice.  “Where’s the loading charts for the Raptors on this operation?  The deck crew needs to know what we are going to be carrying in the drone bays and hardpoints—especially if we are going to need drop-tanks.”

“We’ve got plent-. . .,” Starbuck began.

“Only if every fracking thing goes exactly right!  If that happens, Captain Thrace, we will have a 20% reserve in the tanks—but what happens when we have to spread out and search for Scorpia?  Hmmmm?  She’s not going to sit at the location she was—and while I know the general course she is taking, the Gods know I don’t have her exact jump coordinates.  That is a fracking big universe out there, Captain, and Scorpia is just a needle in a haystack.  We’re going to need that fuel—six tanks on every Raptor, plus the internal tanks.  You think Tyrol needs to know to prep sixty tanks or ferry them across from Pegasus?”

“You done?” she shouted.

“I’m just getting started.  Where’s the requisitions for rations?  The water storage tanks?  The requisitions for additional life support?  The bodily waste pots?  We are going to be on those Raptors for at least four days—possibly as many twelve.  And you haven’t done one gods-damned thing about prepping the birds for this flight.  Why?  Is the paperwork that beneath you, CAG?  You can fly by the seat of your pants in combat, you can plan the hells out of a Viper strike mission, but Captain Thrace, you don’t have the first fracking clue about what is needed on this mission.  That is my problem with you!” he said as he poked his finger towards her.

And he shook his head again and he turned his back to Starbuck and began to descend the ladder.  “Don’t you walk away from me!” she yelled.

But Sidewinder just kept on going until he reached the deck and she slid right down behind him.  “We aren’t done with this!”

“Captain, I am quite done with this.  You want to write me up—go right ahead, sweetheart.  But for now, I’m about to do your fracking job, and make damn certain those Raptors have the gear that will keep us alive if things go to the hells on this operation.”

Her snarl of rage was the only warning Sidewinder had that she was coming—he twisted around, but Starbuck’s punch caught him squarely in the jaw and sent him down to the deck.

“Come on, Scorpia,” she said as she bounced on her toes.  “Let’s see what you’ve got when you aren’t dealing with a bunch of scared kids.”

“You really want to do this?” He asked as he stood and spit out a mouthful of blood.

“Yeah, I want to do this—this is my air group and I’m tired of you questioning me at every opportunity.  I’m tired of you making my pilots miserable.  And most of all, I’m just plain sick and tired of you!” she said as she swung—and her eyes grew wide as Sidewinder caught her fist in one hand and shoved her back on her heels.

“Is that an order to fight you, CAG?”

“Damn straight,” she snarled and charged back in and tackled him and they both went down to the ground—but Sidewinder rolled and threw her into an upright tool trolley, scattering equipment over the hanger deck.

Starbuck sat there for a minute and she shook her head and then she climbed to her feet, Sidewinder did the same.

“Back down, Starbuck,” he said, “this has gone far enough.”

She charged in again, her arms swinging and her fists pounding against Sidewinder’s raised forearms and his ribs and his stomach, and then he launched one left hook which reached out and caught Kara in the jaw and she dropped to the deck again.

Sidewinder backed up, panting heavily.  “Be smart, stay down,” he said.  And she hurled a tool-box at his head, wrenches and hammers going flying—as he ducked she charged again two punches went home and then a kick, sending Sidewinder to the deck.  His leg lashed out and there was a CRACK, and Kara Thrace screamed as she fell as well—holding her right knee in agony.

Tyrol rushed through the crowd and he swore as he saw the debris and the damage that the pilots had inflicted on each other.  “Call a medic!” he barked.  “You three!” he pointed at some Viper pilots, “Grab Starbuck and keep her away from him!  And someone get Colonel Tigh down here on the double!”