01 - Battlestar Galactica (29 page)

The young aide was sitting at the conference table with his back to the door,
apparently going over a list of concerns with the president. Roslin herself was
behind the table, facing the entrance, with a lot of papers spread out in front
of her. Her eyes shifted enough to note Adama’s entrance, but her attention
never wavered from her aide, who was in the middle of a report: “Medical
supplies running low in the outer half of the fleet. The disaster pods never
made it that far, Madame President.”

“Not surprising,” she said. “What else?”

“Three of the ships are reporting engine trouble and want to know when they’ll be getting engineering assistance from
Galactica.”

Roslin’s eyes shifted to Adama. “That’s a good question. Hello, Commander.
Have a seat. I’ll be with you in a moment.” To the aide, who had started to rise
to give up his seat, she said, “Keep going.”

The young aide—Billy?—looked uncertain for a moment, then sat back down.
There was a certain tension in the air.
Is she trying to make a point?
Adama wondered. He said nothing, but took a seat beside Billy
All right. I’ll
play along.

Billy cleared his throat. “Ah—the captain of the
Astral Queen
wants
you to know he’s got nearly five hundred convicted criminals under heavy guard
in his hold. They were being transported to a penal station when the attack
happened.”

Roslin’s face clouded. “Oh, great.”

“He wants to know what to do with them.”

Roslin leaned forward. “What to
do
with them?”

Billy shrugged, twitching his pencil. “Well, with food and medical supplies
being what they are, I think he’s considering just—”

“No—
no.”
The president’s gaze sharpened. “We’re not going to start
doing
that.
They’re still human beings.” Roslin drummed her fingers for a
moment, glancing only momentarily at Adama, who was doing his best to maintain
an impassive expression. He didn’t appreciate being placed on hold, but neither
was he going to reveal any annoyance. Nor did he have any intention of being
drawn into a political debate.

Roslin continued, “Tell the captain I expect daily reports on the well-being
of his prisoners. And if there are any mysterious deaths, the
Astral Queen
may find herself on her own, without
Galactica
’s protection.” She
glanced again at Adama, perhaps checking for a reaction; he refused once more to
betray any emotion.

“Yes, Madame President.”

“Thank you, Billy.”

The aide rose to leave, taking a sheaf of papers with him. Roslin tapped a
pen against her hand, following Billy with her gaze until he had left the room.
The hatch clanged shut. President Roslin turned at last to Commander Adama.

Laura Roslin knew, as she and Commander Adama met each other’s gazes across
the table, that the power struggle was not over, just because he had acquiesced
to waiting while she finished less urgent business with Billy. But neither of
them wanted to say so. There was a dark suture line near his left eye, but the
wound was no longer bandaged; he looked strong, recovered, and fully in command.

Maybe the best thing was to come right out with her biggest concern. “Are you
planning to stage a military coup?” she asked.

Adama was no doubt taken aback, but he hid his surprise well as he studied
her. “What?”

“Do you plan to declare martial law? Take over the government?”

Adama maintained an expression of military dignity. “Of course not.”

“Then”—she hesitated to be so blunt, but she really had no choice—“you do
acknowledge my position as President, as duly constituted under the Articles of
Colonization?” It was a mouthful, but it needed to be said.

Adama, to her disappointment, didn’t answer the question. Instead he looked
exasperated. “Miss Roslin… my primary objective at the present time is to
repair the
Galactica
and continue to fight.”

How noble. And how futile.
Roslin pressed him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Commander, but isn’t
Galactica
the last surviving
battlestar?”

“We don’t know for sure how many other elements of the fleet may have
survived,” he said.

“Come on now. Do we have any reason to think there are
any
other
survivors? The rest of the fleet was being systematically destroyed, was it
not—because the Cylons were infiltrating their computer networks?”

Adama stirred, his eyes betraying nothing. “That was how it appeared, yes.”

“Commander, the only reason this ship survived—the only reason
any
of
us survived—is that
you refused to allow any computer networking on
Galactica. Despite the efforts of some people to change your mind.” Roslin
paused, allowing a hint of genuine chagrin on her face. “For which we owe you
incalculable thanks. But at this moment, there
axe fifty thousand
civilian refugees out there who won’t stand a chance without your ship to
protect them.”

“We’re aware of the tactical situation,” Adama insisted. “I’m sure that you’ll
all be safe here on Ragnar after we leave.”

“After you leave?” Laura cleared her throat and suddenly felt very much like
a schoolteacher once again—trying to help a student who misunderstood a
question. “Where are you going?”

“To find the enemy. We’re at war. That’s our mission.”

She struggled to keep her expression neutral—resulting, she knew, in a
strained smile, more like a grimace. “I honestly don’t know why I have to keep
telling
you
this,” she said with painstaking deliberation. “But the war
… is over.”

He narrowed his gaze, and she could see an iron hardness settling into his
craggy face. “It hasn’t begun yet,” he growled.

She refrained from throwing up her hands. “That’s insane.” It’s
your
testosterone talking. I wish you could see that.
“You’re going to fight a war that’s already been lost… with one ship? Our
last
warship?”

“You would rather that we run?”

She answered instantly. “Yes. Absolutely. That is the only sane thing to
do—exactly that. Run. We leave this solar system and we don’t look back.”

Adama looked down for a moment, then back up at her. “And we go where?”

“I
don’t know. Another star system, another planet. Somewhere the Cylons
won’t find us.”

His back was clearly up, despite his calm, military demeanor. “You can run if
you like. This ship will stand, and it will fight.”

Lords of Kobol,
she thought.
Right sentiment for another time.
“Commander Adama, let me be straight with you here. The human race is about to
be
wiped out.
Yesterday we numbered in the billions. Today we have fifty
thousand people left, and
that’s it.
Now… if we are even going to
survive as a
species
…” She paused to let that thought sink in. “Then
we need to get the hell out of here, and we need to
start having babies.”

Adama raised his eyebrows.
Start having babies?
she could see him
thinking. He didn’t seem to have an answer—but it was clear that this
conversation had gone too far for his taste. He pushed himself up from his seat.
“If you will excuse me,” he muttered.

Laura nodded. “Think about it,” she said, as he pushed the hatch open.

After he was gone, she sat a while and wondered,
Did I get through to him?
Or did I push too hard—again?

Combat Information Center

The signal from Starbuck was coming out of the overhead speakers with a lot
of static. Adama had to listen carefully to make out her words:
“I didn’t get
an accurate count, but it looks like two base stars with at least ten fighter
squadrons and two recon drone detachments patrolling the area.”

Colonel Tigh was on the comm with a headset and mic. He replied,
“Starbuck—were you followed?”

“Negative. No sign of pursuit. By the way they’re deployed, I’d say they’re
waiting for us to come to them.”

Adama called to Dualla, “Bring her home.”

Dualla’s voice came from the speaker much more clearly,
“Thank you,
Starbuck. Continue present course. Return to visual contact, then stand by for
instructions.”

“Roger,
Galactica.
Starbuck out.”

“Captain,” Adama said, beckoning to his son, who was also listening closely.
“Lieutenant Gaeta, stay, please.” Adama, Tigh, and Lee joined Gaeta at the
plotting table, where the most current chart of the Ragnar storm was laid out as a backlit transparency.

“How the hell did they find us?” Tigh growled as they gathered around the
chart.

“Maybe that thing we found on the dradis display was some kind of
transponder,” Gaeta said darkly.

“Or,” Lee suggested, “either Leoben or Doral might have gotten a signal out.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Adama said. “They’ve got us.”

“Why aren’t they coming in after us?” asked Gaeta.

Tigh answered in a cynical voice. “Why should they? They can just sit out
there and wait us out. What difference does it make to them? They’re machines.
We’re the ones that need food, medicine, and fuel.”

Adama turned from looking at the nearby vertical situation board and looked
around among the three of them. “I’m not going to play their game. I’m not going
to go out there and try to fight them.” He paused for a moment, then looked at
Gaeta. “Can we plot a Jump from inside the storm?”

Tigh looked incredulous. “With all this EM interference mucking up the FTL
fix?”

“I tend to agree, sir,” Gaeta said. “I don’t think we should even attempt a
Jump until we’ve cleared the storm threshold.” He indicated one of several
concentric circles on the vertical board.

Lee spoke up. “If we’re going outside the storm, we’ll have to be quick about
it. They’ll launch everything they have, first glimpse they get.”

“We could stick our nose out just far enough to get a good FTL fix, and then
Jump,” Tigh said. As the colonel spoke, Adama was momentarily distracted by the
sight of the young presidential aide, Billy, crossing the CIC and speaking to
Dualla. It didn’t look like a business conversation; he looked like a shy
teenager approaching a girl to say hello.

“And what about the civilians?” Lee asked, drawing Adama’s attention back.

“Oh, they’re probably safe for the time being,” Tigh said.

This time it was Lee who looked incredulous. “You mean leave them behind?”

“The Cylons might not even know they’re here in the first place,” Lieutenant
Gaeta said. “They’re probably only after us.”

“Now, that’s one hell of an assumption,” Lee retorted.

As Adama listened to his officers arguing the possibilities, his gaze
wandered back across the CIC, to where Dualla and Billy were, quite obviously,
attracted to each other…

Billy, whose heart rate had doubled when D. smiled and said hello, was trying
to put words to a very awkward situation. “I—I’m getting ready to head back to
the transport.” He cleared his throat and shrugged, feeling that he should say
something more than just
that,
but not sure what.

Dualla’s eyes conveyed disappointment, but with a heart-stopping intensity.
She could not have looked more beautiful. “Oh,” was all she managed.

Billy struggled to muster the words. “I know this is awkward… but what
happened in the passageway…”

“Yeah,” Dualla said, with a sheepish grin. “I don’t know why I did that.
Sorry.”

Sorry for what?
Billy thought.
Don’t he. Don’t ever be…

Colonel Tigh responded somewhat indignantly to Lee’s persistent questions
about the civilian fleet. “We can’t very well cram fifty thousand men, women,
and children aboard this ship,” he growled.

“I’m not suggesting that, sir.” Lee was adamant in making his point. “I’m
just saying, we cannot leave them behind. They should Jump with us.”

Gaeta replied, “I just don’t see how we can manage that without jeopardizing
the ship.”

Lee looked impatient. “We pick a Jump spot. Far enough outside the combat
zone that—”

“What the
hell
is outside the combat zone at this point?” Tigh
interjected.

Adama, only half listening to his senior officers, had been watching Dualla
and Billy. He couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but everything about their
demeanor and their body language suggested that he was watching two young people
falling in love. His thoughts flashed back to his recent conversation with
President Roslin, and in that moment he realized what a fool he’d been. “They’d
better start having babies,” he said suddenly.

That drew a startled gaze from Colonel Tigh, and then from Lee and Gaeta. One
by one, they turned to look across the room to see what Adama was watching. Tigh
asked in a dry tone, “Is that an order?”

“It may be before too long,” Adama said wryly. “Okay, we’re going to take the
civilians with us. We’re going to leave this solar system and we’re not going to
come back.”

Tigh shot him an accusing look. “We’re running.”

Adama drew a deep breath and faced his old friend. “This war is over. We
lost.”

“As far as we know, we’re the last surviving battlestar,” Tigh said. “If we
flee from the system, the people left behind don’t stand a chance.”

“They don’t stand a chance anyway, Colonel,” Adama replied. “We can’t save
them.”

In the face of Tigh’s disbelief, Lee suddenly said, “My father’s right. It’s time for us to get out of here.” His assertion was clear and
firm.

My father’s right.
Adama could scarcely believe he’d just heard those
words. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He had just proposed a bold move,
and he wasn’t entirely sure how to pull it off.

Colonel Tigh clearly knew he was overruled. “So where are we going,
Commander?”