8 – Realizations

When the hatch opened, Laura waved in the general direction, “not done with my report yet. Still have ten minutes.”

“Miss Roslin.” Billy practically fell inside, followed by Dee.

“Billy has something you should see.” Dee raised an eyebrow as she shut the hatch. “And here’s more coms.”

“Thanks.” Laura took them and gazed at the man nervously shifting his weight in front of her. “What is it Billy?”

“There’s this guy, Doctor Baltar…” He stammered out.

“Gaius Baltar?” Laura winced. “I met him at a conference last year. He wouldn’t remember me though; I’m a bit too old for him.”

“Yeah, he’s kinda creepy.” Billy frowned. “Twitchy. Anyway, he gave the Sec…President Adar this file, the President just kind of ignored it, handed it to me to review, and when I tried to bring it to his attention, said he didn’t need to deal with it.”

“And?” Laura sighed, “Billy, Richard is the President now, he needs to address these things, I’m simply doing some analysis for the military.”

“It’s important.” Dee nudged Billy. “Give it to her.”

“Here.” Holding out a hand, she waited until he handed the file to her. “Sit.” She gestured vaguely toward a chair.

“I’ve got to get back on the com.” Dee smiled at Billy and opened the hatch.

As Dee closed the hatch again, Laura glanced up at Billy. “The President hasn’t seen this?”

“He saw it, he just glanced at it, said he’d deal with it later.” Billy jumped to his feet and moved to look at the report. “Does it really mean what I think it does?”

“That if we don’t take come fairly drastic measures, we’ll be extinct?” Laura sighed. “Yes. Can I keep this?”

“Yeah, I made a copy for you, just in case he decided he wanted to see it again.” Billy winced. “He named Baltar a special Science Advisor.”

“That’s fine; he does have a brilliant mind.” Laura glanced at him, “Creepy though he is.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I should get back. Told them I was going to the bathroom.”

“Head.” She corrected absently, still flipping through the folder.

“Sorry?” Billy paused.

“We’re on a military vessel, it’s not a bathroom, it’s called a head.” She spared him a slight smile.

“Yeah, well, they’ll believe I got lost. Again.” With a final nod, he managed to open the hatch and step through as she returned her attention to the folder.

Fifteen minutes later, she was standing at a lectern in the Briefing Room, facing Bill and Colonel Tigh, as well as Richard. She’d slipped in during a briefing by a man she recognized as the Crew Chief, his body trembling as he’d reported on the damage to the ship, as well as the deaths that had resulted due to areas being shut and sealed during the fires. Waiting as another man had reported on the amount of ammunition that had been acquired, she watched the others in the room. Billy, along with a few other familiar faces, and that of the scientist she recognized as Gaius Baltar, were seated behind Richard, who would lean back in his chair occasionally to ask one of them a question, or tell them to write something down. He looked like he had just stepped out of his office on Caprica, a direct opposite of the other two men, who had obviously been working up until the moment they’d arrived. At least she was glad to see that Bill still had his bandage on, and that his head wasn’t bleeding any more.

Opening the folder in front of her, she took a deep breath, feeling relatively unprepared with the facts and figures in front of her, few of which had been double checked. “Gentlemen.” She nodded at them. “In short. We’re frakked.” At the bald statement, or at her terminology, Richard’s mouth dropped open, the other two men simply reacting with raised eyebrows. “In reviewing what information we’ve been able to acquire, all the colonies were attacked with nuclear weapons, from the scans…enough weapons were used to render each colony uninhabitable without constant anti-radiation shots. Basically, the people on these ships are what are left of the human race. We have no place to return to, and no definite place to retreat to.”

Taking another breath, she continued. “We have almost fifty thousand people, spread out through what has now become a fleet of ships. We don’t have the luxury of attacking, because, Commander, Colonel, you are all that stands between humanity and extinction. The civilian fleet needs solid leadership, Mister President, you need to convince them that we no longer have endless resources for food and supplies. And,” her eyes wandered toward Baltar, who was watching her speculatively. “And, unless we start surviving and procreating, we will be extinct. And the Cylons will have had their victory.”

“And where, Doctor Roslin,” Richard practically sneered her name. “Should we go? Haven’t you already been working on that?”

“That wasn’t what I was asked to do.” She replied smoothly. “I was asked to listen and analyze information that was available. That is what I’ve done.”

“Thank you Doctor.” Bill interrupted. “We’ll take your information under consideration.”

“What we need you to do is to get out there and take care of the Cylons so we can find somewhere to go.” Richard glared at him. “Once that’s done then we can…”

“I haven’t finished.” Laura cut him off coldly. “Each colony was attacked by no less than fifteen larger vessels, the Captain of the Atlantia described it as a star shaped vessel, that served as a base for other ships, he called it a Basestar. If you multiply the number of those by twelve, the number of colonies, and add in the additional ones that attacked the military and civilian outposts, as well as those that were most likely kept back as reinforcements…we are severely outgunned. That was a strategy they used in the First Cylon War, to do a sweeping attack, coordinated throughout. They didn’t succeed the first time, due to an equal level of technology, as well as our defensive systems. This time however, not only did they find a way through our defensive mainframe, which is the only way that all the defensive systems would have gone down simultaneously, but to also sabotage our technology, using it against us.”

Pausing, she nodded at them. “In the First Cylon War, we depended upon our fighter pilots, on what we would develop as strategies. Since then, we’ve become more and more reliant on technology. The only thing that seems to differentiate Galactica from all the ships that were destroyed is that the systems here, aren’t networked, but on individual frames. And, the only ships that didn’t seem to be sabotaged and still operational were those that were older, in fact, the only fighters that were successful from Galactica were ironically enough, those that had only been deemed good enough for a museum exhibition. The civilian ships weren’t impacted, as they don’t have weapons or military technology. We’ve become reliant on technology, and it nearly eradicated us as a civilization. There won’t be taking care of the Cylons until we can regroup and formulate a strategy. One that doesn’t involve our only military vessel being sacrificed before the rest of humanity.” Her voice had risen as she finished, and she stared at them in the sudden hush before she continued softly. “Gentlemen. We need to find a way to get away. To strategize. And to find a safe place to colonize. Not to sacrifice ourselves out of pride.”

“Very good and well, but…” Richard found himself cut off again as Bill stood.

“We’ll take it under consideration.” He nodded at the man who’d spoken before Laura. “Mister Gaeta, I’d like you to work with Doctor Roslin, find a safe place for the civilian fleet to jump to. If their ships aren’t able to make the jump, they need to relocate to a ship that will. Understood?”

“Yes sir.” He nodded and turned toward Laura, who was still gazing at the men. “Ma’am?”

“Thank you.” Gathering her notes, she glanced at Billy then started to follow Gaeta out of the Briefing Room.

“Wait.” Bill held up a hand. “You said something about them getting into our technology? How would that…could that be done?”

Laura hesitated a moment before nodding at Baltar. “Doctor Baltar would be more of an expert in that.”

“Doctor?” Turning toward him, Bill lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes. Um…” Baltar stood and paced across the room. “Well. We would do well to look…for…for…for any items or objects that would have been planted within your systems. I designed the systems that were corrupted…Unfortunately, from what I understand; you’ve had civilians up here preparing the ship for its decommissioning. During the battle, were there any systems that had…unexpected problems?” He stopped and faced Bill.

“There were.” Saul spoke up.

“Doctor Baltar, if you’ll join us in CIC, you’d have a better idea of what to look for.” Bill looked at Adar. “Mister President, you’re welcome to remain on Galactica for the time being.”

“Thank you.” Richard nodded curtly. “I’d like to review the information Doctor Roslin has presented…”

“I have duplicates of almost all of it.” Laura crossed the room and handed him a folder. “This contains the analysis and breakdown of your civilian vessels. You might want to get started on evacuating the ships that will have trouble executing a jump when we leave.”

“Of course.” He handed the folder to Billy. “We’ll get right to that.”

“Mister President, we’ll return as soon as we finish loading the ammunition and complete our plans.” Bill waited for Gaeta to lead Laura from the room before following him, Saul and Baltar in his wake. Hesitating just outside the hatch, he looked at Saul, who nodded. “Doctor Baltar, since you’re the one who can determine what would be a piece of Cylon technology, there’s something else you should know.”

“Yes?” Baltar looked around the corridor nervously. “Should we be talking without the President?”

“For now. We’ll have a complete briefing for him later.” Saul rumbled.

“You should know, the Cylons…look human now.” Bill stated softly. “We know this because of an encounter we just had.”

“Human?” He blinked at them. “Really?”

“Really.” Bill nodded and continued to explain.

***

“There isn’t going to be anywhere safe near here. Or anywhere else near the colonies, or what’s left of them” Laura sighed as she and the young man accompanying her re-entered the Ward Room. “How far out do the charts you have go?” As he explained the red line concepts to her, she perched on a chair, watching him. “So, basically, if we jump past the red line, we have no idea where we’re going, or what we’re getting into.”

“Couldn’t be worse that what we…” He shook his head, “of course if could. But, from what you’ve said about the colonies…”

“It’s based on the coms we got before ships stopped broadcasting.” Laura frowned. “Can we jump from in here?”

“No Ma’am. We need to get out of the gas giant in order to initiate the jump sequence. Once we’re clear, we can jump within a matter of seconds…” Gaeta frowned.

“But, what if they’re out there waiting for us.” She finished softly. “We need someone to fly reconnaissance.”

“We can have a viper go to the edge, they might be able to get some readings. Commander’s actually probably already taken care of that.” He looked at her. “But, why wouldn’t they just come in here and attack?”

“Because if they stay within the EM cloud for too long, they fall ill.” At his voice, they turned to look at the man who’d just opened the hatch. “At ease.”

“The Cylons fall ill?” Laura frowned. “But…”

“This stays in here.” Saul Tigh closed the hatch behind him. “Doctor, I can’t order you to keep this confidential, but the Commander said you’d understand.”

“Of course.” She nodded slowly.

“When the Commander was trapped, the man trapped with him turned out to be a Cylon.” He stated quietly, waiting for their realization.

Laura blinked at him. “The man?”

“They look like us now?” Gaeta sat down heavily. “So how do we know…”

“If any of us are Cylons?” Tigh shook his head. “That Scientist…Baltar, is now our Cylon expert. So to speak, since it was his technology they used to break through to get into the Defense Mainframe. He’s down watching the autopsy now.”

“Cylons look like us?” Laura stated again, softly this time, her gaze growing distant. “Of course, infiltration. The only tactical method they weren’t able to utilize during the first war.” She looked back at the men. “It really does make sense. When they retreated, they had to realize the only way was to infiltrate and gain access without being noticed. So, they became like us…outwardly. Which takes the balance back to them. We both have weapons, technology…strategies…when they left, over time, the government and military thought it was enough to maintain a distance, thinking they’d been cowed, overcome. But, instead, they’d learned from us…and used that time to plan. They’re machines, they don’t have the limitations of a lifespan that we do…” her voice trailed off.

“You and the Old Man think alike.” Saul shook his head. “He made some of the same points. Has a pilot heading out there now to check out the area to see what are gonna be facing when we head out of here. He’s not going to make a decision on what we’ll do until he has all the facts. Including options for getting out of here.”

“Understood.” Gaeta stood and moved back to the table, pausing to look at Laura. “Ma’am, you all right?”

“We underestimated them.” Laura blinked and returned her attention to them. “Sorry, what?”

“You all right?” He repeated.

“I’m fine.” She reached out for the cup she’d been drinking from before going to the briefing and swallowed what was left in it. “We need to find a place…”

“Make two plans.” Saul stated. “One that involves Galactica and the fleet remaining together, the other that allowed the fleet to get away while…”

“We have to stay together.” Laura stated, gazing up at him. “If something happens, there’s no way that unarmed ships will survive. They are not taking prisoners, Colonel…they are eliminating us.”

“So they are.” They’d been so caught up in their discussion, they hadn’t realized Bill had opened the hatch and stepped through. “However, if the only way to get the fleet out of here safely is for Galactica to stay and fight…”

“Which is short sighted and downright…suicidal.” Laura stood and moved to face him. “Commander, you and the Colonel both have fought them before. What was different this time?”

Bill gazed at her, thinking for a moment before he answered. “They’ve always been focused. That’s a mechanical ability. They seemed to be adapting faster this time, but…they can be fooled. The survival of Colonial One and the ships that were with them proves that. However, the sheer numbers…as well as the fact that until we can do a complete search of Galactica, we won’t be sure that there aren’t any more surprises from them. Add to that the other ships that have been added…we need to do a complete search of all of them…”

“And who’s to say that there aren’t more Cylons embedded with us, or on any of those ships?” She shook her head. “The sheer numbers, the directness…there isn’t any hesitation on their part, Commander. This isn’t a battle, this is an eradication. Of the human race.”