Those Who Lift Each Other

[WillDexter]

16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
15:23:06

Buetow's sneering, jeering, ugly face was more than Tarsos could stand, as he stepped through the quantum tunnel onto the CIC of one of the few remaining Royal US first-rates still in the fight.

Tarsos gave the insolent bitch the back of his hand, then a taste of boot, before snatching him up by hishair with one hand, unbuttoning and unzipping his uniform slacks with the other hand, then, in front of this ship's arines and command crew, Tarsos forced Buetow to fellate him.

Once spent, Tarsos pulled out, instructing a pair of RUS Marines, in their green tunics and breeches and ridiculous derby hats, to “strip off his uniform, drag him to his quarters, and tie him yo his rack!”

“After this battle,” he added, as CIC exploded, burned, screamed, and went dark,”I will be down there to re-train him.”

“Aye, sir,” the senior of the two Marines, a gunnery sergeant, chortled, as his companion and he carried out their new master's orders to the letter.

Tarsos took his seat at the center of thee command deck, just as the master radarman reported the appearance of nearly 1,300 enemy ships, on a direct vector from the system's outer Kuiper belt, these new inbounds, led by a black on bone-white 225,000-ton hull, wasting no time taking Tarsos' remaining forces under fire.

While, in the main holobiewer, Mea Culpa came straight for him, max av, all her remaining guns blazing.

To her starboard was the Alliance battlestar who'd denied Tarsos justice.

While all around him, fighters, attack craft, gun sloops, and capiyal warships of every type either took relativistic buckshot, were ripped apart, and drifted in the void, helpless, or took enemy beams and ordinance full on, and flared briefly to incandescence, before leaving behind dissipating plasma, and bfaintly-glowing metallic fragments smaller than a handspan.

“Maintain present vextor,” Tarsos spat at the descendants of those who'd tried exterminating the People so long ago,”continue firing.”

The irony of now being dependent on his people's mortal enemies was not lost on Tarsos; it was simply irrelevant, however, given the reality of his situation.

Again, CIC shuddered, exploded, burst into flame, went dark, and shrieked like all those damned to the Outer Darkness(that irony also not lost, but equally irrelevant to him), as rounds fragmented by this ship's interceptors continued on to wreak havoc all throughout the spaceframe, even as this ship's quartermaster jinked and burned hard in an attempt to evade.

The master engineer simply echoed a report of damage and status to Tarsos' BCI, preferring instead to simply get on with his work, a sentiment Tarsos entirely appreciated.

259-69M2
15:24:07

“Keep those frakkers away from the Starhawks,” Sharon ordered, as her squadron left Flame's number-two starboard flight deck, and shepherded twelve, 300-ton Staarhawk bombers toward one of the Terran giants still in the fight, its interceptors already serking the end of her pilots, as Sharon, Zak on her wing, broke hard left, bounced a Terran attack ship, and ripped into it with their 25mm autocannon.

Moving on, Sharon's head on a swivel, in spite of DRADIS on both the Rapyor battlespace controllers, on the Flame herself, and in her own Viper also scanning the heavens for threats.

Two of ehich disappeared from short bursts from all three autocannon, Sharon moving on, checking briefly to make sure Zak was still on her wing, smiling, as she thought about the good, hard spanking she owed him for him acting up in front of Lu.

Perhaps, she might even have Lu waatch, maybe even particpate, Zak seemed---

Frak, frak, frak, frak.

Fighting first, she rebuked herself angrily, chasing down a triad of Terran fighters vecyoring for the Starhawks firing at them with their three dual autocannon turrets,sexy time later, for frak's sake!

Zak roarted past her, guns blazing, as he took first the Terran to Sharoon's port, then the one in the middle, leaving the Terran to her port for her.

“Oooh, boy,” she said on a private channel to Zak,”that's worth a full-blown caning, when I get you back home, and, then two weeks of wearing my skimpiest panties after that.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Zak said,”s--”

It happened, just like that, just like with DeAnna, her mind on something else, while the enemy snuck up, and frakkin g killed the one she loved.

Yeah, loved.

Even in spite of himself.

Now, he'd never learn to love and accept himself.

The five-kiloton Royal US gun sloop who'd killed Zak now turned his attention to stopping the Starhawks, firing twin-turreted eight-inch macrocannon at the bombers, the eighteen-incher in its spine warming up.

Sharon breaking hard left, suddemly unable to see, blindly pouring autocannon rounds in the general direction of the Russie, whispering,”no, baby, I'm sorry,” to someone who now knew only the peace of the Gods.

As she hoped and prayed thosesame Gods would forgive for just not being good enough to save the ones she loved.

16 SEPTEMBER, 2056
15:25:11

“You got him, baby,” Kim said over comms, as the Alliance fighter continued shooting at where the Russie gun sloop used to be,”you got him, stop shooting.”
'
The reply, piped over 1-MC, tore Kim's heart out:

“Gods forgive me, please, Gods forgive, for not being good enough, for never being good enough to take care of the ones I love,”

Her wingman, Kim thought, even as Enterprise's interceptors ripped apart Reeean and Russie fighters and attack craft gunning for that lone Alliance Viper.

“You get me, CFB, girlie!” Kim snapped in reply.”I'm npt s God, but I am an admiral, and I am ordering you to pull yourself together, and do your job, or more of your friends are going to absolutely fucking die! You understand me?!”

Andi's guns hammered nearly two dozen Terran cruisers and SDPs into roars of white-hot light, while the Alliance attack craft unlimbered salvo after salvo from dorsal and ventral eight-inch r-gun turrets into their intended target at point-blank range, the four and a half megaton Terran behmoth joining it comrades in whatever Hell burned Terrans best.

“S-sir,” a small voice said over comms, as the lone Viper turned, burned, shot its way through scores of Terran fighters, Terran attack craft, and Russie gun sloops, while, at Enterprise's helm, Draco chuckled.

“You never cease to amaze me, sister,” he remarked.

“I did nothing,” Kim replied, a cool breeze blowing through CIC, as Sylvia reported,” Combat, Engineering. All radiators re-installed, again, internal temp 82.7 degrees, falling rapidlt; ptimary and secondary powergrids restored, primary ficon back online, again.”

“You really need to stop breaking my ship,” was something only a starship chief engineer could get away with adding.

Kim smiled, drinking still another bottle of cold saline, before telling Sylvia,”copy, Engineering. Will take that under advisement.”

She said that, as her ship, flanked by Hornet and Yorktown, closed to point-blank rang of a motley assortment of Russie warships of all five rates, the largwr vessels already detaching gun sloops from their bellies, as the three North American armored cruisers' drones coalesced into being around them, a single, thunderous volley of fibe-, eight- and eightten-inch r-guns eliminating nearly thirty Russie capital warships, including the trio of first-rates at the center of the formation, crippling twice as many more, before the three armored cruisers had to stand on their jets, and haul themselves back around for another run.

[WillDexter]

259-69M2
15:26:00

”' The Gods lift up those who lift each other,'” Saul said, after having listened to the exchange between one of Kara's pilots and the North American admiral who looked so much like Kara over wireless.

“Amen,” Adama replied, even as CIC continued falling down around the two men, and Galactica fough her enemies, the prow gun and the main battery targeting one of the Royal US ships, an Alabama-class, and fired, destroying their intended target, as well as six or seven Terran ships of various classes, while leaving another fifteen Terran ships drifting, powerless hulks.

Hipployta, BSG 75's sole surviving Minerva, launched both her Starhawks and those of Telemachus'[/u], while Vipers from Galactica, Aneas, and Amazon launched and formed up around the Starhawks, as they flew back into the storm, toward a pair of Royal US super-capital warships in the 4.5-megaton range, those two ships re-directing their gun sloops to intercep.

The Alliance Fleet, those loyal to Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar, now only number 225 operational battlestars of all types, with BSG 75 having lost its last Valhyrie to a pair of Terran battle cruisers just now.

The rest of their allies were faring equally as well, it being rare for space combat to result in no loss to one side or another, and one could thank the Gods themselves, if losses on one's side were relatively light.

“DRADIS contacts!” Gaata's sweat sosked face shouted,”five-zera-zera, coming out of the outer Kuiper belt, on a direct intercept, closing us rapidly, max av!”

DRADIS showed them, a mixed bag of Xenos vessels, Orions, WYN, wedge-shaped ships belonging to Humans of the reality Adama's ancestors had once called home, a few Terran vessels, all hoping to link up with their comrads, and what?

Fight their out of the system, or make a glorious last stand.

Adama had seen enough war to know either was equally likely.

More DRADIS contacts emerged from the outer Kuiper belt, a handful of enemy ships, trying to hold off about nine hundred or so of their antagonists, IFF tagging these vessels as belonging to the Royal Celestial Navy's 4th Fleet, led by the cruiser Heart Of Oak.

259-68M2
15:26:50

No, Gaius Vice President, L'Thana unexpectedly replied to Baltar's request to be with her.

Permanantly, on the surface of Ragnaar I's rocky core.

Your gindarp needs you,” the Guardian of the Emperor's Light then said, and all Baltar could do was laugh.

“As what?!” he angrily demanded.”A frakking symbol?!”

“That's all I am, you know,” he remarked.”A symbol. The first Cylon President of the frakking Tribes. Even Roslin only sees me as a symbol, around which she could rally support for her campaign!”

He was on his feet, pacing furiously, further demanding:

“And, what have my family and I got in return?! Death threats, obstruction from the frakking Senate over even the most basic, common-sense things, accusations of treason, slander towards my wife and our daughters...our beautiful daughters, abused and degraded by that frakking monsters and forced by the collars round their necks to like it, beg for more, like my brothers and sisters had to forty years ago...yes, those who favored the continued enslavement of my kind, the ones who still call us Servitors, used us as animated sex toys for their perversions, and we were programmed to submit, and smile.”

“And, now, Tricia, our daughters,” he added, wringing his hands, as he continued pacing,”are just his frakking toys, forced to satisfy his every sick, twisted...did you the collars work equally well on Humans?! No one who knows our Creators should be suprised by how short the distance is between creating a race of sentientt humanoid slaves and enslaving other Humans, simply by claiming they're Servitors as well...funny thing about labels, they can be made to fit anyone....”

He leaned against a chest of drawers.

“They labelled my wife, my salvation, a transvestite, because she was too beautiful to be attracted to a frakking Cylon, unless she were some sort of freak...then, they decided she was a Cylon, cause no real Human could marry and have babies with a Cylon...Katrina was big for a Human baaby, much less a Hybrid, three kilos, 865 grams, her mother's eyes, hair, looks, thank the Gods...”

He closed his eyes tightly.

“Regina was only two kilos, adorable all the same....I held her in my arms days after she was born, and she looked up at me withose bottomless dark eyes, as if to ask me if I'd give anything to keep her loved, protected, safe....”

He trailed off, pouring a glass of ice water from the carafe on top of the chest, wishing it was something much stronger, even after he'd promised himself, promised those he loved that was all behind him, forever.

“I wasn't a good husband, or a good father; had I been, I'd have been content with my little law practice in Lesvos City, not stood for the Senate, let alone the Presidency, and I would've told Laura Roslin 'no, no, I've had my fill of public life, let me see my children have children of their own, watch Tricia grow older and even more daear to me, as the suns set.'”

He drank some water.

“I wasn't a very good President,” he said.”I wantd to heal, make the Tribes whole again, no matter what got sacrificed, even if one of those sacrifices was our future...heling the divides of the war, what a sick, frakking joke, you can't have unification, when only one side wants it, and the other...when the only way those frakking Monothiests would have unity, is everyone else as a single team under their whips.”

Another bitter laugh:

“No matter how vile,” he whispered,”or violent the Monothiests got, no matter the hurtful things they said toward her and the children, Tricia's motto was always 'they go low, we go high,' even when all Hell broke loose three weeks ago.

That doesn't work with Monothiests, taking the high road with them only convinces them they were justified in being the worst of us all along...”

He trailed off, taking another sip of water.

“A good leader,” he added,”would've understood that, kept the camps open, and the Monothiests barred from any participation in any society of decent men and women, til they were all dead and dust, and their existence confined to bad dreams and history books.


A good family man...would've been with his family, when the balloon had gone up, instead gallavanting around the law courts of Athens, seeking decisions which didn't mean a frakking thing, because the other side might talk a good game of 'rule of law,' but only ever mean 'rule of privilege,' and may the Gods help all of us, if their privilege doesn't rule.”

“May the Gods help us all,” he repeated.

16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
15:27:31


A pair of Saladins and a Kearsarge made runs on TSS Regula Hominis,[/o] the four and a half-megaton Lex Galactica-class stellar domination platform staggering under the impacts of attenuated MAHEM besms and torpedos, which, onetheless opened more of the ship up to space, and eviscerated his internals in jets of white-hot plasama.

”Penetratoions, decks 6-9, frames 1-113, decks 13-15, frames 1-6!” the jumpsuited senior chief at bridge engineering shouted, as the bridge sweltered, went dark, exploded, screamed, and burned, crewmen removing the bodies of dead crew from the bulkheads, deck, and stations, those stations being manned with replacement crew, if those station were still operational; otherwise, their backups in Auxiliary Control took up their jobs.
His dark eyes fixed on the flickeering main holoviewer, Regula's master, Captain Gabriel Lorca was hunting one ship out of all those out there.

The light cruiser fell to a swarm of Thunderbolts, while the main battery of 360 eighteen0inch r-guns swept both destroyers from Lorca's sky, the fpur spinal mount 36” r-guns in the keel of the saucer stabbing out, destroying one of [iRegula's Alliance opposite numbers, as well as several 760,999-ton hulls of unknown class, while leaving a dozen 380,000-ton and a 950,000-ton Alliance battlestar mauled, leaking plasma, and adrift.

“I've got her!” Lieutebant Commander Douglas Rhys shouted from the science station.”Tree-tree-zera mark won-five, 320,000 kilometers down range.”

There she was, the bitch, the yelloe-skinned, slant-eyed, uppity bitch.

Because, Gabriel Lorca took the name of this ship literally.

While his fellow Terrans insisted God had made all Humans a little better than the aliens scheming to replace them, even on their homeworld, a few, such as abriel Lorca knew the truth.

That God made the white man to rule over all the lesser creatures, to walk as kings and gods amongst them.

Five hundred years ago, the rest of so-called humanity tried to make their masters deny this, hate what they were, and Western Civilization had fallen into darkness as a consequence.

And, there, slowly sailing into gun range, was Star Tiger, Phillipa Georgiou's ship, which she had stolen from him, same as her admiral's stars, diversity and inclusion rearing their ugly heads, and, yet again, depriving a more qualified, genetically-superior white man his just due.

And, for that...

“Fire!” Lorca shouted to Commander Gerrold Cramer, and, with a thought, Regina Hominis' first officer released shots from the main batteries and the spinal guns all at once.

[WillDexter]

16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
15:28:40

Lieutenant Commander Kayla Dtermer violently wrenched USS Star Tiger out of the path of all that incoming ordinance, while, next to her, Commander Ellen Landry fired salvo after salvo of MAHEM torps at the Terran SDP, while spearing and vaporizing Thunderbolt attack ships with her thirty-two 27” MAHEM beamers.

A grey and blue wedge, her prow almost entirely comprised of 18” r-gun turrets, unleashd a 320-round salvo on the monster Terran warship angling for another shot at Fleet Admirsal Phillipa Georgiou's flagship, Georgiou herself holding on to the arms of her chair, hanging on for the ride, as Detmer brought the ship to bear on its larger antagonist, and Landry opened fire, the Terran warship's point defenses fragmenting projectiles, shooting down torps, and attenuating beams, but, still, he took damage, two of his eight nacelles exploding, leaving ragged stumps of struts behind, while a third nacelle streamed detonating matter and antimatter, coolant and plasma behind it.

The Terran focussed all his firepower on Star Tiger again, as the light dreadnaught juked and burned hard, then skimmed the dorsal section of its larger opponent, Landry puttiing beams through its hull at point-blank range, taking out a fourth and a fifth nacelle, before Detmer cleared the vessel, stood her ship on its jets, and completed the turn and burn back into the battlespace, before the Terran, now caught between three fires as Kumerian's C11 weighed in, Landry removing the previously-damaged nacelle, as well as another, rendering the Terran SDP sluugish in its maneuvering, as it fired on Star Tiger with only a quarter of its main-battery turrets, the others mangled bits of junk clinging to the primary and dorsal secondary hulls.

Star Tiger's point defenses opened up, fragmenting most of the incoming volley, Detmer deftly doging the rest, the bridge shuddering, going dark, bursting into flame, medical orderlies helping wounded crewmen from their stations, carried the badly-burned and mangled bodies of the dead to the ship's morgue, Lieutenant Commander Jared Conor, at the science station, reporting,”penetrations, deck 10 through 10, frames 1 to 16, all sections gutted, no survivors; penetration in hangar deck, space gutted, no survivors, all shuttlecraft lost; weapons system coolant juntion, deck 24, destroyed, system has been bypassed. Penetration, Auxiliary Control, space gutted, no survivors...”

“Shit,” Georgiou softly swore, Landry, the Klink and the grey wedge ship all returning the Terran's fire simoultaneously.

16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
15:29:57

The Earther fell apart under the combined weight of fire, Kumerian ordering his helmsman to “alter course, 23 mark 15; Weaponeer, target the Orion dreadnaught at those coordinates, and fire! Action!”

“Acting!” both officers replied almost immediately, Void Stalker falling on the 500,000-yon Otion dreadnaught, in the livery of the WYNs' defense force, the WYN ship firing all of its twelve, quad-mounted 18” r-guns at the daartung, dodginf Klingon battle cruiser, even as it replied with its own arsenal, defensive guns on both sides creating showers of fragments which neither ship could entirely avoid.

The bridge trembled, went dark, the chief engineer continued working to repair the ship, while Kumerian merely glanced at the damage report uploaded to his BCI, as, on the main holotank, the WYN vessel wallowed, leaking plasama from a thousand breaches in its spaceframe, many of his nain-battery and defensive weapons smashed, spilling their junk into space, while three of its four nacelles, and one of its wings were ragged stumps bleeding matter, antimatter, plasma and coolant.

A single round from Void Stalker's next salvo was the direct hit which ended the WYN dreadnaught, more rounds from that salvo slamming into an assortment of wedge-shaped starships, destroying them as well, the ship of the Fed admiral, Georgiou, sliding underneath Void Stalker, its arsenal killing a dozen Orion and alien warships, crippling twice that number, as it hunted for more.

Kumerian was at a loss to understand these Starfleet.

They had no Federation to fight for, no home to go to, and, betwwen the Coalition offensives and their own people's treachery, they were decimated, outnumbered.

Surely, they knew to fight further was hopeless.

Or was it?

Even as his bridge trembled, and his ship hunted the enemy, Kumerian found himself searching Void Stalker's database on Earther history.

Something one of their ancient leaders had said once.

Yes.

There it was.

”'There may even be a worse case,'” Kumerian read, as the Starflwwt flagship loosed a spread of torpedos at twenty or so hostile wedge ships.]i]”'You may have to fight, when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish, than to live as slaves.'”[/i]

Of course.

The two deadliest insults in the Klingon language were the words tokeh straav and kuve

The former meant “willing slave,” the latter “servitor,” which amounted to the same thing.

No Klingon would ever live as kuve.

If these Starfleet had chosen to do so, the Empire would not have had so much difficulty in fighting them.

If these Starfleet were to die, then they would die free

That was reason enough.

That, Kumerian repeated to himself, as Georgiou's ship fought a dozen or so enemy capital warships at once, is reason enough.

Kapla, Starfleet.

16 SEPTEMBER, 2056
15:30:04

HMS Heart of Oak's guns hammered a squadron of Dezzie starliners out of existence, the rest of Lieutenant Commander Petra Moss' salvo being fragmented by over three dozen Reb, Dezzie, and Roman armored cruisers' interceptors, though they couldn't evade all the resulting fragments.

Commander Electra Gant drove Fourth Fleet's new flagship through their holed, drifting hulks, Rear Admiral Phyllicia Wallace sucking down a bottle of cold saline, as a cool wind blew through her command deck, Lieutenant Commander Margaret Baker's holo reporting from in front of Phyll's right eye,”Combat, Engineering; all radiators re-installed, internal temp 87 degrees, falling; primary and secondary electrics fully restored, primary ficon back on line, all directors traxking. All other damage being made good.”

“Thanks, luv,” Petra commented, stabbing out at a quartet of Russie first-rates throwing everything they had at Oak, Sub-Lieutenant Kylien Jones' AuxCon tesm replying with the Vanguard-class dreadnaught cruiser's 2,250 interceptor batteries, while Petra got in a direct hit killing one of the Russie behemoths directly, taking out another through collateral damage, while fragmented ordinsnce crippled twenty or so second- and third-rates moving to screen the teo remaining first-rates.

Only one of which was devoting its firepower to destroting Oak the other juking, burning, weaving, as it dueller with the 950-kiloton flagship of the 2yh Battle Group which had arrived from yet another time and place.

“Reb light cruiser squadron,” Executive Warrant Officer Janis Fielding reported from the radar station,”closing, plus five by fifteen, max av.”

Electra juked and burned, wrenching her ship in every direction at once, as she came under fire from both the first rate and the twelve, 190-kiloton, NCO Semmes-class light cruisers, Petra forced to split main battery fire, while vectoring Shield Maiden combat drones to help even the odds a bit.

“Picadors inbound,” Lieutenant Command Swathi Singnamala reported,” plus twenty by eighteen, closing Rebs, four-tree-niner decimal five terakips.”

“Nakkie dreadnaught cruiser,” Janis then reported,”plus tweny by zera, closing Russie first-eate, max av!”

“Enterprise,” Swathi reported, before the Russie first rate was a strobing afterimage in Phyll's eyes, and Electra turned her ship to face the Reb light cruisers directly.

[WillDexter]

08)We Who Are Left

16 SEPTEMBER, 2056
15:31:01

The final Russie super capital limped away, retreating behing waves of gun sloops and other warships.

Enterprise waded in after him, Andi's guns blowing away a squadron of Roman Navigatore[/i[-xlass light cruisers, and several squadrons of gun sloops, while leaving two squadrons of Argentine Kirl-class light cruisers, a Reb armored cruiser squadron, and a squadron of Terran heavy cruisers drifting and deadstick.

Kim studied the tactical holoproj...less than four hundred enemy ships still operational, all vectoring toward their flagship, while, on the allied side...

Yeah.

Mobile Strike Fleet had lost 534 armored cruisers and starliners, the RCN 4th Fleet 270, the 1st Composite Fleet 512, the Rimmers 106, and the Alliance 532 of their battlestars, including six Leviathans., while thw 12th Battle Group from still another time and place had lost 65 of their 130 hulls.

God only knew how many small craft were amongst the field of drifting wrecks, faintly glowing metal shards, and wisps of dissipating plasma all round Enterprise.
.
”All those letters home,” she whispered, as the llittle over four thousand allied warships closed the noose round ten percent of that number.

16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
15:32:00

”Scatter!” Tarsos shouted over comms, as four hundred ships were herded together by four thousand closing from all directions.”Random vecrors! RUN!”]/i]

“Quartermaster, overcycle all remaining quantum tunnel jennies!” barked this ship's master commandant amidst the wreckage and carnage of CIV.”Run like hell, and, by God, don't spare the horses!”]/i]

Its three remaining quantum tunnel generators screaming, setting Tarsos' teeth to vibrating, the wounded Royal US first-rate ran for its life, the quartmaster violently wrenching his machine down, and hard to starboard, further damaging the vessel in order to avoid encirclment and certain destruction for no object.

“No signs of pursuit,” the master radarman reported, as the ship ignominiously quit the battlespace, and fled the Ragnar system.

“There won'y be,” the master commandant surmised, as all Tarsos could do was stew impotently in his own juices in this sweatbox of a command deck.”We hurt them pretty good.”

Balm on a bleeding wound, which would leave behind a deep and ugly scar.

Much needed balm nonetheless.

“Master engineer,” the quartermaster soon reported,”insists we cannot maintain this pace for long.”

“Downcycle,” Tarsos ordered.”Vector for the Outer Reach shipyards, max possible av; Signals, inform all ships.”

He unbuckled the restraints to his seat, slowly, painfully rising to his feet.

One consolation remained to him, and that caused him to smile, in spite of the calamity visited on him.

“I have business in Admiral Buetow's quarters,” he announced.”Master Commandant, I leave this ship in your capable hands.”

259-69M2
15:32:06

Galactica's ptow gun destroyed a squadron of Orion vessels, as they attempted to scatter and jump the net.

The rest...

“Remaining enemy ships,” Gaeta reported, as Adama felt the weariness of the past thirty minutes or so overwhelm him,”scattering, fleeing the battlespace.”

“Let 'em run,” Adama said, studying the final casualty report on another dataslate,”We're in no shape to purue.”

Two hundred eighteen battlestars of all classes still operational, over five hundred lost, including Pegasus and five of her sisters, and Gods only knew how many fighters and Starhawks were gone, he'd stopped looking, after that tally had reached over a thousand.

He sighed heavily.

“I was hoping to die in bed...” he softly, bitterly said.

“With a pyetty girl's mouth...” Saul started to replu, trailing off, as he put his hand on Adama's shoulder, both men studying the grim tally of more irreplaceable lives lost, more letters home, which might or might not reach their intended recipients, and would certainly mark them as targets by the vigilance committees, if they weren't already.

Another heavy sigh, before Adama ordered:

“All ships will deploy SAR teams.

We'll see what we can salvage.”

[WillDexter]

259-69M2
15:34:20


“--Mother, a yellow supergiant,” Laura Roslin said, a holoprojection of the Twelve World between her and a roomful of children of varying ages either seated in chairs or sitting crosslegged on the floor,”Maiden, a blue supergiant in the earliest stages of its life, and Crone, a very old red supergiant on the latter stages of its life cycle.”

“Stars are alive,?!” a little blonde girl, as small and as frail as his own daughters had been once, piped up, incredulous.

“Not as we are, darling,” Laura, meeting the little one's bright blue eyes, answered,”but, they do live, and for a long time, often billions of years.”

“Ah,” the little one replied, Laura continuing, pointing out the three companion systems with her finger, as the holo of the entire system floated, via commun, from her right eye.

The Monothiests had bitterly opposed the inevitable adoption of cybernetic interface chips by the Human populace, even to the point of promoting various and sundry conspiracy theories about communs being a Cylon/Xenos plot to turn Humanity into Servitors for some shadowy cabal or another of aliens and Cylons.

“--the yellow giant, Apollo,” Laura, well in her natural element, continued,”the blue dwarf star Osiris, and the red giant Ragnar, which is the star we're orbiting now.”

Laura Roslin, in her heart of hearts, was a teacher, and she enjoyed nothing more than imparting knowledge to those willing to learn, a simple thing, criminalized, demonized, sexualized, and ridiculed by Hymans, and, Baltar was ashamed to concede, his own brothers and sisters as well, which was why no one really minded, and many outright praised the Zarek administration of outlawing teachers and schools, driving educators and educated underground, and in constant fear of being shopped to the vigilance committees by their neighbors, by strangers, by simply trusting the wrong child or parent with keeping the fact they were learning anything a secret.

“Gaius?” Laura said, noticing Baltar standing with his back to a wall next to the door.”Is there--”

Baltar shook his head.

“Please,” he said,”continue.”

“The Emperor's Light,” Laura said,” brought our ancestors here, after they fled Kobol--”

”Life here,” an older boys, ten, eleven, maybe, gravely intoned,”'began out there.'”

“Correct,” Laura told the curly-brown headed boy, meeting his dark eyes with hers.”So it says in the Sacred Database, and so it was for us. The Emperor's Light brought the 144,000 to Ragnar I, the planet which we orbit now, but as therre were no worlds here which could bear life, the 144,000 continued on,” she traced an ellipyical path between Ragnar I to Palestinia, occupying Crone's seventh orbit,”avoard the original Flame Of Purity moved on, embarking on a journey of many years, til they found Palestinia, and landed, the ship becomin the Temple in what would one day be known as New Delphi.”

She now showed holos of a massive, eagle-headed structure in the center of a modern, thriving metropolis spanning hundreds of kloms of what had once been barren wasteland, the Temple, the ship Flame of Purity still somehow managing to dominate the cityscape.

“--eventually,” Laura said,”we would spread out from Palestinia, and put down roots on the other Worlds,” she now showed them images of the other Eleven Homeworlds, each colonized by a tribe of Humanity, from the ancient megastructures and alien pyramids residing on Necromunda's cobblestoned streets, to the white-columned, golden-domed buildings in the parklands of Athens, to lofty arcology spires, reaching almost to the darkness of space itself on Atlantis, which had managed to preserve green spaces and clearsparking rivers, lakes, and seas, as the original city eventually encompassed the entire planet.

And, she showed images of the other worlds, Sparta's sprawling Stardocks, a Sanhain celebration at one one of Londinium's many henges and grassy tors, herds of carnosaur driven to market across the rolling plains and painted mesas of Taurus, the pagodas and paper lanterns of Han-shan, all of it, even the moons and space stations teeming with life, and the comet circling Mother, which Alliance scientists had been working to terraform.

Before Zarek, and those like him had declared such a grand undertaking to be little more than an elaborate fraud, and cut off all funding, stranding the would-be terraformers, and leaving them ro slowly die.

At the same time their existence and deaths had been denied, and the Net had decided they were all actors helping to perpetrate a fraud.

“But, why?!” a redheaded girl, her hair curling down round a freckled face, asked.”Why would the government lie about growing a trww in a comet, and about all those people being left to die?”

Baltar swallowed hard.

Katrina and Regina gad both asked him the same thing.

As did Laura, simply by her bespectacled brown eyes meeting Baltar's.

“I don't know,” he answered, voice as small as iy had been when he'd told his own children the same Gods-damned thing.

259-69M2
17:11:44


“Only the God know,” Saul Tigh said, nursing his third glass of what this Human from another time and place called dark rum, “why people chose to be so depraved as to abandon 250 souls to their fate, then insist they were all actors participating in a con to, control the masses through trauma, or some other bullshit.”

One of those involved with the Phaeton Project twelve years ago had been his wife, Ellen...her last letters had been full of enthusiasm, the very idea of growing a tree inside a comet, making a home for Humanity, guided by one of the STCs within the Sacred Database itself...

His knuckles whitened, as his grip on his glass tightened, and it shook.

Frakkers on the Net claimed Ellen was alive and well, running one of the temple whorehouses on Necromunda, even though the woman harassed by a couple of rsndom lowlifes posing as legitimate journalists(a profession outlawed by the Zarek administration, when the Angel of Death was cutting a swath throughout the Tribes)neither looked, sounded like, had the same educational background, nor even the same history as his wife.

“No, mon,” this Draco Kirk, sitting beside him at the bar of a dive in the bowels of Ragnar Anchorage's Station #12, remarked.”We are all Jah, we and we know why their earth is flat, why their sun and moon, and stars all orbit it, why theit god made them from dirt anf jizz splats and they share no kinship with even others of their kind.”

He sipped his rum, swirling the slowly-melting ice cubes against his glass.

“It is why your wife and all t'ose ot'er poor bastards were left to die, then defamed even in death.

Hate, my brother, hate, pure and simple, hate so toxic, so fragile, as to be t'reatened by the slightest bit of knowledge, by the most trivial achievment, by the smalleest step toward progress.”

On Saul's left, a Klingon, a shortsword and pistol hanging from a worn leather belt incongrous with the gold and grey uniform with enough fruit salad on the tunic to open a farmer's market, remarked, over his glass of rum,”the Earther is correct; this Project Phaeton, the creation of a Dyson tree within one of the most well-known comets in your space, was a threat, an intolerable threat to those in power, because they were not the ones who first conceived of this, that it was many minds, maby people, who put forth thee effort, working as one, and showing those who thought themselves masters they were noy, and never will be, kuve, simply by doing![/o]”

“Yea, mon,” Kirk said, reaching across the bar to refill, first, the Klingon's glass, then Saul's, with thr bottle on the bar between the three of them.

“That,” the Klingon further onserved,”is every master's greatest fear, that those he thinks of only as kuve can do, can come together as one, despite difference as great as species, or as trivial as the amount of melanin in one's skin, that their klin runs hotter in their veins and in their masters', and as one, will bring the masters themselves down from their thrones.”

He swallowed his glass of rum in a single go, Kirk again refilling his glass.

“Our greatest legends,” the Klingon then said,”speak of this, how the gods, the Old Kings, some call them, thought our people tokeh straav, and incapable of anything but servitude, but Kahless and his bride, the Princess Sangfroid, proved them wrong, forged a single Klingon people from all the disparate tribes and houses, and, together, we pulled the gods down from their thrones, and drove them, defeated, broken, into exile.”

”Th' t'omg that 'ath been is t'at which shall be,” Kirk said, in what sounded remarkably like the Puthian Prophecy,”and the t'ing that 'ath been done is t'at which shall be done, and t'ere is no new t'ing under the sun.'”

“And,” he added, as he took another sip of rum,”t'at, too, must change.”

259-69M2
18:15:08

“He dressed up as a temple prostitute,” Sharon found herself saying to lu, as they shared drinks in the Flame's officer's wardroom,”and licked my feet, begged me to lay all my sins on his back, and punish him for them...it was, maybe...”

She trailed off, not meeting Lu's eyes, staring at her half-empty glass, her third, fourth, maybe, since returning to the ship.

“He wanted it, as frakked up as it sounds, and I know it does,” she then said,”he had...I should have loved him enough to say no, to actually try and love and accept him for who he was, and give him a safe place to let him figure that out for himself, instead of just...”

She trailed off, closing her eyes.

“I was selfish,” she concluded.”Part of me wanted to pinish, lash out, against the sick fraks that took Deanna from me, who enslaved our race, abused us, for their pleasure, their amusement, a-a-and, I just became as twisted inside as they were, and Zak, h-he...”

She felt a soft hand gently holding one of hers, Lu's voice whisperin,”sweetie, I don't understand...can't understand what you and Zak, what made him want to debase himself or you to do that to him, but...there's a good woman inside you, even if she is all twisted up by things I have no concept of.

I am as certain of this, of you, as I am certain of my own existence.
I love you.”

“Gods,” Sharon whispered, as another woman's voice, the one Sharon had heard over wireless chivving her up, after she'd watched Zak die, asked:

“Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?”

Opening her eyes, she saw a twin of the Old Man, her blonde hair in a ponytail, a pair of silver stars on the collar of her olive drab utilities, along with a chest full of ribbons beneath a golden diving eagle and straking silver rocket ship, and a nametape which read “ALDRIN, K.”

“Sir,” Sharon said, starting to rise to her feet, this Aldtin, K., in a gesture similar to the Old Man's, raising her hand, the one not holding a bottle of dark liquid, to halt her.

“At ease, Primus,” she said.”I just wanted to drop by, offer my condolences, maybe even share a drink or two in his memory, if that's okay with you.”

Sharon smiled, as she met Lu's dark eyes.

“The Gods,” she said,”sent her to me, to kick my ass and keep me alive.”

“I didn't do anything,” Aldrin, K., insisted.”You made the decision on your own to keep living.”

“I don't know if the Gods had forgiven me,” Sharon remarked.”All I know is They meant for me to live.”

“Thank you,” she added, offering Aldrin her hand.

“Sharon Valerii,” she said, as the other woman shook her hand,”and, this is our CAG, Lieutenant LuAnn Catrine.”

“Kimball Kinnison Alrdin,” Aldrin intoduced herself, as she next shook hands with Lu,”though I go by Kim, as it's less of a mouthful.

Pleased to meet you both.”

“What you got in th bottle?” asked Lu.

“It's called dark rum; my exec fancies it,” Kim answered,”and I've acquired a bit of a taste for it.”

Draining her glass, Lu then offered it to Kim to fill it, while flagging down one of the wardroom attendants, and asked her to bring a third glass.

“I'll warn you,” Kim said, as Lu then took a sip,”it's got a kick to it.”

Lu nodded, smiling, inviting Kim to sit with them, as Sharon drained her glass, and refilled it with some of this dark rum.

[WillDexter]

16 SEPTEMBER, 2056
18:19:27

Encumbered by her sweat-stinking EVA suit, Lieutenant Commander Sylvia Tilly ran through the airlock, and inyo her wife's arms, almost knocking the two of them down, as Lieutenant Commander Deiiah Thorezemerged from underneath her Corsair.

The ensuing kiss. As both women seemingly merged within one another, was long, passionate, ans took Sylvia's breath away, as firewotks exploded in her mind, like they always did, ever since that first momwnt on a patk bench by the Academy lake, feeding popcorn to the geese,

In another time and place.

Or this place in another time.

The analutical part of Sylvia's mind quietly pondered that, while the rest of her enjoyed the warmth and nearness of this beautiful, talented, unique Deiian woman who's given gerself to Sylvia without hesitation, even knowing what an increasingly intolerant Starfleet would've done, had they known, what Captain Riker had been about to do, when he'd found out, and that made Thorez, her Tori, courageous as well.

“I take it you missed me,” Tori whispered, as the two of them finally came up for air.

“You could say that,” Sylvia smiled crookedly and answered, as deck crews hooked Tori's bird to a robotic tractor, and towed it off the flight line, and the pressure in Sylvia's ears started to drop.

“Missed you too,” Tori whispered, leading Sylvia by the hand from the depressurizing flight deck, and back behind the partition, as the C5D Waverider dropships of the Marine landing force started coming home.

Jokingly, Sylvia wolf whistled, as she watched Tori skinny up the ladder leading through the ship's wardroom to the crew deck, Tori vlushing a deeper shade of blue, and smiling in response, as Sylvia followed her uplevel.

“Your quarters, right?” she asked, afyer they both touched deck, Tori replying,”I think so, yeah,” before, arm in arm, they set off toward still another ladder aft, leading to the upper crew deck, Tori's turn to whistle, and for Sylvia to blush and grin, as she climbed the ladder first.

Straight ahead, then right, and, the two of them brushed one of the many hanging plants in Tori's quarters, a pot of starlights, translucent stems and petals refracting the light piped inthrough the fiber optics in the bulkheads and ceiling, refracying it, the dlowers, native to the hot springs on Kentaurus, having no scent.

A brushing of soft lips against her cheek, and Tori's whispering,”you can use the shower first; you really need it.”

“You saying I stink?” Sylvia joked.

“No, sweetie,” Tori whispered,”but the smoke detectors say different.”

“Why, you...” Sylvia said, aiming a playful swat toward Tori's bottom, before stepping through the door to the cubby hole of a washroom, Sylvia sloughing off the EVA suit, then peeling off underewear which had seeming adhered to her skin from all the swaet, before stepping into the shower, and she relaxed, as the ultrasonics went to work massaging and cleansing her tired body.

“No peeking!” she called out, as from the other room, she heard Tori whistling in reply.

259-69M2
18:30:28

Tugs had arrived from beyond the Red Line, towing derelict hulls either to waiting docks throughout Eagnar Anchorage's twenty-four stations, or to harvestinf facilities in the inner system which would break those hulls down for raw material to be used in repairs and in building new ships.

Rear Admiral William Adama watched this from the Fleet Operations Center in Station #1's centermost deck, his mind on the past, how it had all come to this.

His own part in it.

So many times where he could've spoken out, and been heard, but, instead, he chosen to keep silent, even as things gtew progressively worse.

[l]So say us all,[/i] he thought bitterly to himself, as another joined him beside the panoramic windows looking out into the Ragnar system and the void beyond.

Golden skin, long, raven hair cascading down her back, clear blue eyes, epicanthic folds, like many who'd colonized the Maiden Worlds of Hankou and Yojimbo, her olive-drab utilities sporting a trio of silver stars on the collar, a red leaf flanked by an eagle and another bird of prey, the words “]i]QUIA OMNIS[/i]” scrolled along the bottom, a holstered, heavy-caliber bolt pistol on her hip.

“The window,” she said,”they...”

“There are arrays of optical and radio telescopes,” Adama said,”along with DRADIS arrays, and other auspex packages, all throughout the system, and the data from them is fed to those windows, allowing them to serce as dataslates, as wll as giving one a view of the space immediately surrounding the station.”

”Hai,” the woman, the North American admiral, remarked, adding,”I came up here to watch the progress on repairs and recovery to my ships.”

“Of course,” Adama said,the North American admiral, Miyazaki, he believed her name was, then saying,”all those letters home.”

“I still don't have the words,” Adama admitted.

“There aren't any,” Miyazaki replied.”I just write what comes naturally, and...it's never enough, never a good reason why wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, children have to die out here, why those left behind have to carry around that loss until they die.”

“No,“ Adama, thinking of Lee, in the Anchorage's brig, awaiting trial by the Comissariat, softly said.

“My oldest is a midshipman, aboard the Lexington,” said Miyazaki,”my mother, Keiko...she commanded Third Fleet, her ship, the Saskatchewan, was lost with all hands, back in '21, at the Fourth Battle of Tranquilty, which the League, of course, denies even took place, because space is fake.”

Perhaps Adama should've been more surprised by that statement.

Instead:

“BSG75 was way the hell beyond the Red Line; Fleet had been patrolling Xeno space, since the end of the war, and we were on on of those patrols, when Phaeton was defunded, and left to frakkin die by Zarek and his damned Monothiests...all por Saul knew, til we got back to Sparta, and he was able to piece together what had happened, sift it from the utter and complete bullshit on the Net, all he knew was the lettrs from Ellen stopped coming one day, and his ltters started being returned as undeliverable.”

“Fuck,” Miyazaki interjected, asking, a few moments later,”pardon me for asking, but, what was Phaeton?”

“The son of Apollo,” Adama answered,”and the name we gave to the first and most studied comet orbiting Apollo; every 74 years, it came close enough to Athens and Sparta to be seen in their skies...eight years ago, to the protests of the Monothiests, Gods know why, the Baltar administration approve a project to terraform the comet by growing a tree, a special kind of tree, within it...it was based on an STC found within the Sacred Database...Saul's wife, Ellen, as one of the leading terraforms in the Alliance, was one of those chosen to work on the project, and she was there, when the Monothiests swept into power, killed the project, and just let the poor frakkers trapped on Phaeton slowly die.”

“A Dyson tree,” Miyazaki remarked, wanting to say something further, stopping herself, simply remarking, voice dripping with equal parts sacrcasm and contempt,”od course, no one died, hai?”

“All actors,” Adama bitterly answered,”given new identies and their same names, and allowed to live new lives, the fact that those claimed to still be living bearing no resemblance to those murderd by Zarek and his bastards being of no consequnce to those who wanted to believe it was all 'trauma-based mind control' by the 'elites,' whoever in the frak they might be.”

“Anyone they don't like,” was Miyazaki's reply.”You and I included.”

16 SEPTEMBER, 2056
18:41:18

There was a Shinto shrine in Rio Grande's wardroom, and there, Captain Daniela Beckett knelt, after burning incense in memory of Amuro and Kimora.

Beck had never known Yukari's father and older sister, both killed, when the Rebs broke the ceasefire in '21, and destroyed the first Dyson tree colony on Kohoutek, where Yukari herself had been born, but, she loved Yukari, and did this for her, because she loved her.

Because Yukari, Kim, and she had come out of this battle alive, when too many of their comrades hadn't.

Fleet Scouting Group 66 hadn'y lost a single capital warship, but Corsair losses had still been prohibitive, and there would still be letters home all three of them would have to write, so Beck burned incense in their memoty as well.

She turned, as she heard someone climbing the ladder leading from the flight deck.

A biracial woman, mixed European-Asian descent, gold uniform tunic over black slacks and knee boots, four silver stars in a square on her collar.

“I heard there was a shrine on this ship,” Fleet Admiral Phillpa Georgious said, as she turned to face Beck.”I was wondering, if I could offer prayers for my own...”

“Of course, Admiral,” Beck replied.”I'm sure Yukari won't mind.”

“Will she be offended, if I offer my prayers to the Buddha,” Georgiou then asked,”instead of the lami?”

“They're one and the same, are they not,” Beck replied, as Georgiou lit more incense, then knelt next to Beck.

“Yeah,” Georgiou replied,though my trying to explain this to a random Christian in New Orleans almost resulted in me having my mind zapped in a penal colony for hate crime.”

“Mindzapped?” Beck asked, surprised only by this.

“In the 130s, Tristian Adams and Simon van Gelder developed the neural neutralizer,” Georgiou explained,”which manipulates brainwaves, ostensibly to alter the behavior of the criminally insane, and to aid in healing victims of emotional and psychological trauma, but, the technology was inevitably abused, and, over the objections of Earth, the Orions—who used tee technolofy to turn penal colony inmates snd mental patients into slaves for their market—and their allies, the Council voted to not only outlaw neural neutralizer technology, but to wipe it from existence.”

“Yeah,” Beck, sorry she asked, replied, Grogiou adding:

“When Buckner became Chairman, the tech somehow was resurrected, and the definition of criminal insanity expanded, with the definition of hatcrime amended so that it applied exclusively to anti-Terran and anti-Christian words, deeds and thoughts--”

“Thoughts?!” Beck, regretting this, asked anyway.

“Vulcan 'bloodhounds' became part of the Marshal's Service and Starfleet,” Georgiou answered,”during the latter part of Buckner's Chairmanship, trained by Earth Intel's Section 31 exclusively, and always taken from those who had undergone Kolnihnar, a Vulcan ritual which permanently purged a Vulcan of all emotion...my ward, Mikayla, had gone through it...she's half-Vulcan, and not her idea, her father told her it was either that or the Orion slave markets.”

Beck said Jesus' name, as Georgiou added:

“She was a Bloodhound, assigned to the Tantalus Colony...she did the deep scans of my mind, prior to my being placed in the neural neutralizer...she was completely devoid of personality, feeling, completely, 'logically' ruthless.”

Georgiou sighed.

“I got off lucky,” she said.”I still had friends at Command with enough pull to get me off Tantalus, and exiled to the Klingon border...Mikaylal...we found her on Leebyahh, couple years later...the Old Kings colonized the world as a planetary insane asylum, and she'd been sent there, after her mimd rebelled snd broke against the discipline of [iKohlinar[/i], and Section 31, having no further use for her, gave her to one of the planet's muuliaasto be part of his harem.”

Georgiou sighed, breathing in the incense and breathing out again.

“She's the captain of an old Andor-class,”Georgiou added,”somewhere out on the Lune...probsably lost, when the Roms came over the border in droves a year ago, I haven't...”

She trailed off, swallowing hard.

“She was assigned to me, when I was on Tantalus,” she then said,”because she was my daughter, least before Tu'vok used his influence to have the courts terminate my parental rights, and send her to live with his family on Vulcan...don't believe, for a second, what you might hear about Vulcans, that veneer of logic and nil emotion is a mask, behind people just as capable as Humans of being total shitbags often hide, and Tu'vok, Star Admiral Tu'vok, was the shitbaggiest of shitbags.”

“I'm sorry,” Beck said.

Georgiou nodded.

“Ardak helped,” she said.”Yes, I had friends in the Klingon Empire as well, and Ardak still had enough pull, from his days as a thought admiral, to have surgery done on Mikayla's ears, have her records all scrambled up, and her mind more or less sorted out—son't believe everything you hear about Klingons either—so, when the time came, she culd go back to Fed space, go through Academy, and join Starfleet.”

Another sigh.

“She might be gone now,” she said,”and she'll never know how proud I am of her, for everything she was, everything she had to overcome...”

Nodding, Beck put a gentle hand on the other woman's shoulder, as she lit more incense in memory of Mikayla as well.

[WillDexter]

259-69M2
19:00:18

Laura Roslin prayed to the Gods for all those taken in the recent battle, those taken in the three weeks, since the bombing of Athens, all those taken in the years before then.

All those under threat even now in the Twelve Worlds.

And, she parayed, though They'd clearly told her no, that the Gods would just lift this burden from her, and she could just simply be a teacher again.

Even if simply being a teacher was considered sn act of rebellion these days.

As she lit incense, she glanced at the effigies of all the Gods, the Emperor central amongst them, looking down on His children from his Golden Throne, while, on either side were His Primarchs, first amongst His Children, Vulkan, Gulieman, Crvus, Apollo, Horus, Osiris, Tyr, Athena, Juno, Freya, Leman Russ, Ares, Magnus the Red, Slaneesh, Yaweh, Baal, El Shaddai, Khorne, the Tian'Lung, and all the others in the Imperial Court of Heaven, at the same time she slowly breathed in the smoke from incense and sage lit in memory of those lost, those in danger, and slowly breathed out.

“Mind, if I join you?” asked Gaius, nearly startling Laura,

“No,” she replied, Gaius had his own losses to pray over, his wife and children, snatched up, when he'd been on Athens.

Because of Laura.

“I'm sorry, Gaius,” she whispered, as he lit more sage and incense.

“It never,” she amitted,”even occured to me to ask if this was something you wanted to go through again, all I could think of was the ymbolism of you standing for election beside me, nothing about what it would put you through.”

“Or your family,” she added, until now, forgetting Gaius' Cylon nature, how he was linked to his two daughters, both Hybrids.

“Gods,” she whispered,”Gaius, your family....you..they...are linked....”

“It's not so bad,” he said, ambigiously, a strained smile on his lips.

“I should've realized...” Laura remarked, adding,”how can I hope to lead our people, if I can't care enough about my own Vice President to be there when he needs someone the most.

Gaius, I am--”

“Thank you,” Gaius told her, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder.

“I'm...” he added,”...coping with it, trying to, anyway...I needed to be somewhere, other than in my quarters, going slowly insane.”

Laura nodded.

“Yeah,” she said.

Two others entered the temple on Station #7 of Ragnar Abchorage, one of them being the woman who could've been Kara Thrace's twin, the other bearing all th hints of Maiden Worlds ancestry, or, at least the hallmarks of coomon descent with those who'd setlled the Maiden Worlds two millenia ago.

Both bowed lo at the waist, before the raven-haired kinman of the Maiden Worlders said,”Shimasu. Kim and I wish to pray here, for the memory of those we've lost.”

“Of course,” Lsura replied, Kim and her friend lighting more incense, before kneeling next to Gaius and her.

16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
20:27:22

A pair of Vulcan males, one dark, one blonde, both tall, musculebound and wearing matching gry business suits flanked him, as Tarsos entered the throne room on Outworld Station, center of the extensive stardock facility spanning nearly ten kiloklicks in all directions from the penal colony/slave training center on Outer Reach.

Mitchell Slidell—not his real name—First Minister of the Terran Dominion, occupied the throne where Barnabas Crane, head of the Cluster Cartel, normally sat, two of Xrane's slaves licking Slidell's boots, and otherwise submitting to their highest, best use, while the Vulcans, both Bloodhounds, stood there impassively, their hands, covered in black gloves, at their sides.

“Tarsos,” Slidell said sweetly enough.

“You certainly took your goddamn sweet time,” he then said,”to come here, and report your failure to me.”

“I was only just now made aware of your arrival,” Tarsos replied, continuing to look the Terran First Minister in the eye, even knowing the dangers of maintaining line of sight with him.

Already, he could feel his voice in his head, whispering, trying to get in, Tarsos keeping him at bay simply by reciting nursery rhymes, doing complex math, and taunting Slidell with graphic details of how he'd broken Buetow to his will, and hints of him doing the same to Slidell as well.

The last image, of Slidell, shaved head to toe, in a pink baby doll, being paraded on a leash by Tarsos, was sufficent for Slidell to leave his mind with his tail between his legs.

“Point taken, Solomon,” Slidell said aloud.”It won't be necessary for you to use the dart gun on me.”

“That depends on whether or not I consider you a dangerous animal, Alfred,” was Tarsos' reply, slidimg the dart gun from its holster, the weapon loaded with drugs which permanently disabled Slidell's telepathy, even as Slidell clenched his teeth, and his face reddened at being referred to by his real name.

“I said,” Bester repeated, through gritted teeth,”that won't be necessary; you've fucking made your point!”

Grinning, Tarsos replaced the dart gun in its holster, remarking,”things go sp much better, when we see eye to eye.”

“Yes,” he added,”I failed to secure the Ragnar system, and its artifact,” he conceded.

“Losong most of your ships and one of the only two mobile bases assigned to this cluster,” Slidell reminded him.

“Yes,” said Tarsos, sorely tempted to administer the genophage and break Bester/Slidell to his will, even knowing stripping the man of his powerful psi abilities would make him worse than useless for his purposes.

“More ships,” Slidell said,”more men, possibly another of the League's mobile bases, as the one in the White Loght system is needed for replacement and pacification operations on Gollywog.”

“Yes,” Tarsos replied,”though, I suspect our League partners will be less than willing to provide another mobile base.”

“That is of no consequence,” Nester informed him.”Terran yards at Jupiyer, Saturn, and Andor are building their own versions of these JMOBs; they really are handy to have around, after all, providing us with self-sufficent base facilities where we have none. We are even selling some of those to our Royal US partners, in exchange for their Oil Lords being permitted to exploit petroleum deposits in Terran soil.”

“That would be greatly appreciated,” said Tarsos.

“As would the ten additional fleets of Terran warships embarked on board the two JMOBs I'm sending you,” Bester replied.

“Thank you,” Tarsos said.

“We exiles have to look out for one another,” Bester remarked,”especially, ig we're both to have revenge on those who wronged us.”

“Of course,” Tarsos said.

“Besides, and that's why I'm here,” Bester cautioned,”I expect better results from you, given the additional resources put into this cluster, or you might find you're not the only one who's developed countermeasures.”

He smiled, a bleached blonde Human slave licking up the marble floor, as it crawled along its hands and knees to Rarsos, slobbering all over his boots, before barking eager, enthusiastically, jangling the dod tags on its collar.

Amy Lynn Benedict-Arnall, who'd been of some limited use as Earth's Federation Councillor, now put to its best, highest use.

“This one's become a favorite of mine,” Bester remarked, as the slave, tongue out and panting, sat up, and begged,”after a year of....modifying its behavior with the use of my talents.

T's yours to play with; just bear in mind, what I've done to it, I can just as easily do to you, when your guard's down, and you are no longer of use to me.

You may go now, Solomon.

Enjoy your gift.”

16 SEPTEMBER, 2569
20:25:40


He watched the two of them holding hands, just before they climbed the ladder leading to Mea Culpa's forward flight deck and the gate room.

Quartermaster Chia Rowlands and Master Weaponeer Jada Sparks, slaves not so very long ago, the two of them afriad, furitively looking to see if anyone was watchingb them talk, just...talk.

Thst hadn't been so long ago, Benedict mused, as he went back to the casualty lists for 12th Battle Group, over half of which had been lost in the recent battle, while the rest had been badly damaged in the process of securing victory for people they scarcely knew, though, that, bu necessity, would soon change.

He sighed, looking over the rim of his cup, inhaling the scent of forbidden coffee, grown illicitly in the first=rate's life support garden, brewed by hand...his only vice, in all the years wasted serving the Peoplem falsely so called, even after the Angels had forsaken them, all the years making those such as Jada and Chia afraid of one another.

He couldn't even send letters home to the loved ones of those he'd led to their deaths...the physical impracticality of that aside, he would be targeting those loved ones, all those around them, for the justice of the lynch mob, righteous indignation of those who dared call thselves patriot.

So...

He continued going down the list of those who'd died, still trying to come up with the right words, the answers why, mentally offering apologies to them instead, which did nothing, but, it would perhaps be the only thing what could be done for them.

Another sigh, another sip of coffee, the names blurring and merfing on the holodisplay before him.

He looked up, at the sound of someone climbing up the ladder into the wardroom.

A dark woman, in a red-faced black overcoat, black saucer cap tucked underneath one arm, turned and faced Benedict, as she saluted, then intoduced herself:

“Apologies, Admiral, for bothering you; your quartermaster said I'd find you here. I'm Victoria Foster, Galactica's comissar, and the senior member of the Comissariat amongst the Fleet, andI come to you in hopes of resolving a dilemma I and my colleagues find myself in.”

“Go on,” Benedict prompted, Foster explaining herself:

“The powers that be want an immediate resolution of the fates of Hecate's pfficers and crew, as well to the other traitors we captured; the Comissariat will, thus, be conducting tribunals in two days' rime, starting with the worst offenders, the ones we know are guilty, and desrving of being vacced, without a second thought.”

“And?” Benedict asked, Foster further explaining:

“It's the ones whose cases aren't as clear cut, those who surrendered willingly, obeyed orders unwillingly, and similar. Fleet regulations, and the Articles of Alliance make no such distinction, you understand, and what civilian and military case law we have to hands also makes no distinction; in the eyes of the law, willing and unwilling traitors are equally deserving of death, and...now, more than ever, the laws must be upheld, if we are to have an Alliance, yet, at the same time, executing those whose only crime was simply following orders leaves a bad taste in the mouths of my comrades and myself, and it won't sit well with the rest of the Fleet.”

Benedict nodded.

This hit entirely too close to home.

“My fellow comissars and I,” Foster then said,”think we've hit on a comprimise, but, that, Admiral, depends on you...”

[WillDexter]

Epilogue: So Say We All


16 SEPTEMBER, Y169
20:25:40

Far behind the line, the 190,000-ton Andor-class cruiser, USS Kentaurus continued on vector for Bajor, within the border of a Rom subject race known as the Cardassians.

Both the Cardassians and the Bajorans, though cutouts, had indicated their willingness to rebel against the Roms and their current Emperor, Marcus Rolandus, and, maybe, even aid in the war against the Terran Dominion, and Admiral Sheridan(no relation)had tsked Kentaurus and her crew with making contact.

“Now entering Bajoran system heliophere,” the helmsman, Lieutenant Aja Singh, reported, as Captain Mikayla Sheridan gained the bridge, taking her seat at its center.

“Weapons,” she said to her first officer, Commander Noah Bright,”charge PPPs and r-guns; AuxCon, Bridge, stand by all point defenses. All hands, yellow alert.”

Yellow light flashed all across the bridge, while klaxons whooped, Bright reporting,”Accelerators and plasmatic pulse projectors charged; fire control online, directors tracking.”

Closing the old missile cruiser were a pair of vaguely piscine Cardie Galor-class light cruisers, both 100 kilotons, armed with the latest in Romulan and Tholian weapons technology, though neither would be a match for a full-up Romulan Hawk series, especially not aROC or one of the new Kingfishers, and the 7th Star Legion, which was assigned this sector of Romulan space, contained both, according to the latest intel.

“Now fifteen, won-five mikes, outbound from Terok Nor,” Aja reportd, Senior Chief Yeoman Jayson Keller, at comms, reporting,”Cardies are hailing us; standard hostile challenge.

“Main holoviewer,” Mikayla ordered, the bridge's main holoviewer catching a middle-aged Cardassian, the insignia of a Romulan navarch on his dull brown armored suit, informing her:

“--Skrain Dukat, of the Cardassian Second Order, demand--”
A whistling white light washed over everything, a man's voice, as scratchy as the scratching at the beginning, saying:

”And, I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder.
One of the four beasts sang, 'come, and see,' and I saw.
And, behold...”

...a yellowish green beam from a greenish metallc seashell speared one of the two Galors destroying it instantly, a black, wedge-forward hull, the Greek letter omega prominrntly displayed on its bow, dark tentacles writhing from a cylinder directly aft, destroying the second Cardassian ship, Dukat's ship, apparentally, for that had interrupted him in mid-demand, with a pair of electric-blue beams which destroyed it.

In orbit over an otherwise unremarkable rocky, barren planet in the outer system was a green on grey O'Neill Island II cylinder, solar panels and radiators spread out on iys aft end like petal on a flower, that cylinder furiously launching strange, vross-winged, fighters, t the sme timee it fired reddish beams of energy at the seashells and black wedges rapidly closing it, as a half dozen ships, reminding Mikayla of plucked chickens, closed rapidly with the other alien ships, yellowish energy firing from their wings and noses.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” a woman's image said, amidst fire-shot chaos on Kentaurus' main holoviewer,”this is Station Babylon Prime, requesting assistance from any Alliance ship. We are undef attack by Earth forces and Minbarri warrior caste; we've taken heavy damage, heavy casualties, and we have enemy boarding parties in Down Below. Isay again--”

“Red alert!” Mikayla decided.”Alll hands, battle stations! Mister Bright, fire at will! Comms, transmit all sensor data back to Admiral Sheridan!”

Almost immediately, the heavy plasmatic particle projectors at the head of each engineering boom locked on to a target, bolts of moltem, metallic plasma then travelling down the paths of those beams to slam into a green seashell to starboard, and a black wedge to port, six quad-mount 18” r-guns—three on the dorsal saucer, three on the ventral, replacing the phasers—lstabbing out at other hostiles, while the 1,900 interceptor guns covering saucer and twin booms did their best to stop incoming enemy fighter and inbound enemy directed-energy beams.

260-59M2
05:02:19


Draped in various flags, the bodies of those who had bodies to recover lay between Rear Admiral William Adama and those assembled to send their comrade off to Elysium, as, in the window behind him, first Ragnar, then distant Crone rose from behinf Ragnar I, twin coals of fire on the ice.

His throat was dry, and he still didn't know what to say.

”'Life here,'” he said, after a silence,”'began out there,' Out there, in the night, a sin gle point of white light containing all that was, all that is, all that shall be, until it collapsed, expanded, and from that expansion, stars, galaxies, and finally, us.

We are all children of that singularity, just as surely as we are children of the Gods, and, at the dawn of a new day, we commend the souls of our siblings back to the very stars from which we all came.”

He paused, pacing the room a moment, turning to face the assembled mourners.

“They died,” he said,”because we failed them...I failed them, thm and ourselves, by ending the war too soon, against those whose ideaof peace is us dead, or in chains, and now, it is up to us to stand, outgunned, outnumbered, no hope of victory, because the alternative to dying on our feet is to die in bondage, and for a long time.”

Another pause.

“It is up to us to stand, now, after all hope has been lost, after we helped kill that hope, because we have no choice! When we stand before the Throne, let every being here answer, as our siblings now answer, 'in the end, we fought for ourselves, to live and die as the Gods made us, and not in the image of Tom Zarek or anyone else who demand we bow down at their feet, and be what they command us to be!”

“So say we all,” he said, some of the other taking up the cry.

“So say we all!” he screamed, more repeating the words.

[o]”SO SAY WE ALL!”[/i] he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The room echoed with one voice, out all those assembled, affirming:

”SO SAY WE ALL! SO SAY WE ALL! SO SAY WE ALL!”

“So say,” resolved William Adama to all the ghosts, past and present,”we all!”

—endit--