01 - Battlestar Galactica (33 page)

Adama stood up slowly and began buttoning his coat. He looked down at the
books, then slowly raised his eyes to her. “Run by the president, huh? So you’d
be in charge of the fleet’s civilian concerns. Military decisions would stay
with me. Is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Finished neatening up his jacket, he took off his glasses. “Then… I’ll
think about it… Madame President.” And he extended his hand to her, and after
a moment, she extended hers in return.

Deck C Starboard Corridor

Gaius Baltar strode along, not really sure where he was going. He was still
waiting for his heart to slow down. He still couldn’t believe that the fleet had
escaped the Cylon attack. Whatever happened now, it would have to be better than
what
almost
happened, back there at Ragnar.

Of course, they would still be expecting him to come up with a Cylon
detector, which was not an easy problem, not an easy problem at all…

Rounding a corner, he found Six waiting for him. His heart sank. She was, of
course, dressed in the red outfit that was clearly calculated to drive him mad
with desire. Not this time, though. He was too tired physically, and too tired
of her games.

She greeted him with a smile that seemed more sardonic than usual. “Your
escape is a temporary one at best,” she said, in a tone that now seemed
insufferable. “We will find you.”

“Yeah, you can try.” He pushed past her. “It’s a big universe.”

She followed him. “You haven’t addressed the real problem, of course.”

“Yes, yes,” he answered with an impatient glance back. “There may be Cylon
agents living among us, waiting to strike at any moment.” He kept up his pace.

“Some may not even know they’re Cylons at all,” she said. “They could be
sleeper agents programmed to perfectly impersonate human beings until
activation.”

He wheeled to face her. “If there are Cylons aboard this ship, we’ll find
them.” He nodded and turned to continue on his way.

“We?” She came around in front of him, causing him to stop. “You talk like
you’re one of them, now. You must know that you can never be one of them—not
really. Not anymore.” She reached out, as though to touch him, but didn’t quite.
“My sweet Gaius, you have no idea how important you are… how important your
mission
is.” She lowered her head slightly, and her voice became a little
sterner. “You’re not on their side, Gaius.”

He tensed at those words, and as she moved as though to embrace him, or maybe
even kiss him, he answered through clenched jaw, “I am
not
… on
anybody’s
side.”

That seemed to take her by surprise, even to hurt her. He walked past her
again. But this time she made no attempt to answer, or to follow, as he
continued on his way.

Galactica,
at the End of the Day

Colonel Tigh strode into his private quarters, grim determination on his
face, determination fueled by rage. Indignation. Shame.

He loosened his jacket, taking the familiar steps over to the top right
drawer of his desk. As he had done so often in the past, virtually every day of
his life for years, he lifted out the bottle of whiskey and raised it to the
light. It was a fairly new bottle, three-quarters full. If he were going to
follow the usual pattern, he would take out a glass and pour. And the fire as it
went down would dull, somewhat, the pain of all the years, and the pain of his
absent wife, now almost certainly dead.

This time, to his own surprise, he did something different. He carried it
over to the wastebasket, half full of crumpled papers—and he dropped it in. It
hit the bottom of the basket with a
clunk.
He walked away from it,
scowling. But he felt a little happier, a little prouder.

* * *

Boxey Wakefield still felt uncertain, finding his way around the area of the
enlisted quarters. He really didn’t know where to go, or what to do with
himself. But there was one room he knew how to find, and that was the pilots’
lounge. He hesitated outside in the corridor for a minute, peering in through
the open hatch. He could see Sharon in there—Boomer, they called her.

She glanced over and caught his eye with a wisp of a smile. She was playing
cards with some of the other pilots. With a motion of her head, she invited him
in. He entered, feeling his heart pound, his shyness suddenly overwhelming.
These looked like serious people, these pilots—and they were all looking at him
with what seemed like amusement. Never mind that, Sharon’s expression seemed to
say. She gestured to him to come around and take a seat beside her.

Sharon put a hand on his shoulder, and passed him a plate of cookies. Or
rather a plate that
had
had cookies, and now had just one. He reached out
for that last cookie and took a bite.

Sharon grinned at him, and he grinned back. Suddenly, for a moment anyway, he
didn’t mind being just a kid here.

Kara Thrace was finally unwinding, hanging her uniform shirt in her tiny
closet. As she did so, she noticed once more the photo of Zak and her, with Lee
folded behind, tucked into the mirror frame. When she’d thought Lee was dead,
she’d flattened the picture so that she could mourn the two brothers together.
When he’d come back to life and become her senior officer, she’d felt funny
about it and had refolded the picture. Now, she flattened the photo once more
and replaced it in the mirror frame, smoothing the crease with her finger. That
felt right now, and she didn’t think she’d be changing it again.

She reached up onto the shelf and felt around until she found one of her few remaining cigars. Lighting it, she flicked her lighter shut
and puffed a few times in satisfaction, gazing at the photo. Then she walked
over to her bunk and stretched out, puffing, contemplating the day.

Not a good day, certainly. But she, and many of the people she loved, had
come through it alive. There was that to be said for it.

And there was Earth, somewhere in their future, and so there was that, too.

For a long time she lay there puffing, surrounded by a thick cloud of pungent
blue smoke.

Throughout the ship, life was returning to… not normal, because normal
could never again describe the lives of these people of
Galactica…
but something that
felt
more like life, something sustainable.

Repair work proceeded everywhere throughout the ship. In the landing bay,
Captain Kelly was overseeing the removal of Vipers from the landing area, in
some cases untangling craft from each other before they could be moved to the
elevator pads and lowered to the hangar deck for servicing. The landing pod
itself needed substantial repairs—not just from the Ragnar battle, but from the
nuke that nearly took the ship out in the first engagement.

Below decks, Chief Tyrol was hard at work pulling together a flyable squadron
of Vipers. They’d lost eight fighters at Ragnar, and another fourteen were
seriously bent, bashed, or busted up. The CAG’s Viper, Apollo’s, was the worst
trashed of any that had come back; but Tyrol was damned if he was going to let
the CAG lose his ship. His crew was working industriously—some, like Cally,
working extra hard to fill a space in themselves that would otherwise be
devastating.

In the Combat Information Center, Lieutenant Gaeta was gearing up to juggle just about everything: repairs to the battle-shattered
CIC, formation operations with the fleet, constant vigilance for Cylons, and
plans for the next Jump. He was tired, but he figured he could manage a little
longer on caffeine; let the ones who had been on the first line of the fight get
their rest first.

Dualla, on the other hand, knew she needed a break, and she wisely took it.
Let the superheroes be the superheroes. She walked the corridors of the ship,
just glad to be alive. Still, she was definitely surprised to find Billy in the
passageway, surrounded by eager female crewmembers, a big grin on his face. D.
didn’t stop to say anything; she just walked by with a beaming smile. And her
smile grew broader when Billy saw her, and came running after her, calling her
name.

Colonel Tigh sat in his quarters, studying the three-quarters full bottle of
whiskey that he had retrieved from the trash can. He hadn’t drunk any. But it
was a damn good bourbon, and who knew when he would have a chance to acquire
more. It seemed a sin to waste it. To waste his fine whiskey—his poison, the
thing that would destroy him if he didn’t destroy it. He stared at it, his hands
clasped over his belt, his thumbs twitching nervously. He had done pretty well
this last day without it; the XO had returned. But would he stay?

Didn’t he, after all, deserve a little reward?

Commander Adama and Lee walked together toward Adama’s quarters. They were
both bone-tired, but this was a good end to the day, to talk with his son whom
he thought he had lost—twice in the space of twenty-four hours. It was good to
talk, even if the talk was entirely about the work, the ship, the command. As
Adama opened the hatch to his quarters, Lee concluded his report: “Tomorrow I’ll
begin a formal combat patrol around the fleet.”

“Good,” Adama said, turning to say good night. “I’ll see you in the morning,
then.”

Lee hesitated. He clearly wanted to say more, but it just as clearly was very
difficult for him. “I—listen, it’s just I—it’s been so long—”

Adama gazed at him feeling emotions he had practically forgotten. How long
had it been since he had looked his son straight in the eye? So many thoughts in
his mind, and too much weariness to sort it all out. He finally just nodded.
“Let’s save this for another time, son. I think we’ve pulled off enough miracles
today, don’t you?”

Lee took a moment to react to that, and returned the nod. “Maybe so. Good
night, Commander.”

“Good night, Captain.”

As Lee turned away, Adama closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief and
satisfaction. He was finally ready to think about sleep. He didn’t think he had
ever felt so ready.

And then he saw the small, folded piece of paper on his side table. Someone
had left a note for him. He put on his glasses and picked it up. It was a single
sentence, typed on
Galactica
printout paper. It was unsigned. It read:

THERE ARE ONLY 12 CYLON MODELS.

Adama stared at the note for a long time, stunned.
Twleve Cylon models—and
all indistinguishable from humans?
Who would have left such a note? And why
anonymously? And what could he do about it?

Not a damn thing that I can think of.

In the end, he refolded the note and put it away in his wall safe, all
thoughts of sleep effectively banished.

We haven’t escaped from them yet.

The gaseous green storms of Ragnar continued to swirl, as they had for
millions of years, and probably would for millions of years more. But around the
Ragnar Anchorage, a fleet of ships had gathered: a looming Cylon base star and a
buzzing horde of its attendants.

Inside the station, in a large storage room, a man sat huddled in misery. He
was not lacking for food, or air, or water. But he
was
lacking for
company. And he was lacking for even the remotest semblance of comfort.

The place smelled of rust, dankness, emptiness, and fear. Most of the gloomy
light, such as it was, came from a weird shaft that went up through the ceiling
of the room at the end where he sat. It looked a little like a gigantic coil
spring, or a cylindrical cage, with a vague column of orange light going up its
center. It was the most prominent feature of the room, but he had no idea what
it was, nor did he care. Aaron Doral just sat in front of it, right where the
soldiers of
Galactica
had left him to rot.
The bastards. The inhuman
bastards.

He was sweating profusely, though the room was, if anything, chilly. His skin color was pallid—greenish—and he was shaking. Something
about this place was making him ill.

He started at the sound of a sudden crash at the other end of the room. A
flare of light blazed through the crack in the heavy doors. Another crash, and
more light. Smoke and steam billowed out into the room. Someone on the outside
was using explosives or torches, or both. Finally the doors began to spread
apart, with a screech of metal on metal. Outside he saw only bright light and
fog. It was difficult to focus, but he squinted and finally saw what was coming
in.

Two late-model Cylon centurions clanked into the room, shining stainless
warriors with clawed hands and red-glowing Cyclops eyes scanning side to side.
Doral tensed, feeling a strange confusion. He didn’t quite understand what was
happening to him. He should be terrified. Why wasn’t he more frightened?

The centurions strode forward only a little way, then stepped aside.
Apparently, they were here to guard the doors. So more Cylons would be coming.
Yes, of course. It was starting to become clear. Even through the haze of the
fog and the sickness, he was starting to understand.

A series of figures emerged from the light-haze, following the centurions
into the room. They slowly became clear to him as they approached. There were
three Cylons who looked exactly like Leoben, the agent whom Adama had killed.
They were dressed identically in casual, almost sloppy shirts and pants. There
were three of the… Number Six model. Yes, he recognized them now. Blonde,
gorgeous, all three dressed in crimson skirt-suits. And there was one of the… Aaron Doral model. Him. His double. Dressed in an electric-blue suit, the way
he often had dressed, when he was working on
Galactica.