"What fleet? Who else is there?"
Sharon hesitated, struggling to voice the awful truth. "Everyone who's left."
* * * *
The Gathering Fleet
There were now fifty-some ships gathered in formation around Colonial One, five hours out from Caprica at normal flight speed. The ships were of every shape and size, from private yachts and couriers to the massive, multi-domed botanical cruiser Space Park, which President Laura Roslin and Billy were presently visiting. Under a beautiful clear dome, they walked through a lush garden with the skipper of the Space Park, a large, soft-spoken black man with bright, kindly eyes. He was dressed in a short-sleeved, white uniform shirt with gold bars on the shoulders.
"Most of the passengers are from Geminon and Picon, but we've got people from every colony," he told Laura. They were threading their way among crowded groups of passengers, who were either moving nervously through the garden, or huddled together in shock. Many of them looked as if they had gathered here under the dome for no reason other than the hope of finding comfort in numbers. Everywhere they walked, people could be heard asking one another if they knew of any word from this homeworld or that.
"Give Billy a copy of your passenger manifest and a list of all your emergency supplies," Laura said to the captain.
"All right. What about the power situation?" the captain asked. "Our batteries are running pretty low."
"Captain Apollo will be making an engineering survey of all the ships this afternoon," she replied.
"Ah—" said Billy, behind her, causing them both to turn. "Actually the captain said it would be more like this evening before he can coordinate the survey."
"All right—this evening, then," Laura said. "But you will get your needs tended to, Captain. You have my word on it."
"Thank you, Madame President," the captain said, shaking her hand.
"You're welcome."
They continued to stroll through the gardens, savoring a moment of respite. It might well be her last chance, Laura thought, to enjoy such a moment of tranquility. They came upon a young girl, seven or eight years old, sitting by herself on a long, unfinished wood bench, beneath a canopy of low, tropical trees. The girl was holding a rag doll in her hands, twisting and kneading it. She looked up at their approach, but did not speak as Laura sat down on the bench beside her.
"Hi," Laura said, pulling off her glasses to gaze at the girl. "What's your name?"
"Cami," the girl said, in an untroubled tone.
"Hi, Cami. I'm Laura." She studied the girl with a soft smile for a moment. "Are you alone?"
Cami nodded.
The captain spoke up. "She was traveling with her grandmother. But the grandmother's been having some health problems . . . well, since the announcement. Not to worry," he emphasized, gesturing toward the girl with his hand, "we're taking care of her."
Cami seemed to have decided that Laura was trustworthy. She suddenly spoke, in precise syllables. "My parents are going to meet me at the spaceport. In Capri-ca City."
"Spaceport. I see," Laura replied, swallowing back a hundred things she might have said.
"We're going to dinner," Cami continued. "And I'm having chicken pie. And then we're going home. And then daddy's going to read to me. And then . . . I'm going to bed."
Laura reached out with a smile, and gently smoothed Cami's hair. Then she nodded to Billy and the Captain, and rose. "We need to be getting back," she said softly.
* * * *
Colonial One
The cabin was quiet, for which Laura was profoundly grateful as she leaned back against the headrest of the leather seat. She needed time to think, to rest. So much to be done. So few resources. Fuel shortages, food shortages, thousands of people on the thin edge of despair and panic. The weight of her responsibility as president was like nothing she had ever felt, or imagined. I need time to absorb it all. Time to come up with answers. But instead of answers, her thoughts were full of memories of that little girl in the park. So young, to be going through something like this. As if it's any better to be old. Old and dying of cancer.
"Madame President?"
She focused her eyes. "Captain—"
Lee Adama sat in a facing seat, holding a piece of paper. "We got a message from Lieutenant Valerii. She's found a fuel refinery ship. Filled with Tylium." A big smile cracked his face.
Fuel for the spaceships? Her heart lifted, though she was too tired to show it. "Oh. Good. About time we caught a break. That brings us up to about what—sixty ships so far? Not bad for a few hours' work."
Lee grinned briefly. "No, sir." He quickly became more sober. "But only about forty of those ships have faster-than-light capabilities. We should start transferring people off the sublights onto the FTLs as soon as possible."
"Yeah." She closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them again, sensing that he had something more to say.
He did, and there was urgency in his voice. "I don't think we should stay here much longer, sir. Sharon reports picking up signs of some Cylon sensor drones, probably looking for survivor ships."
That brought her back to the present. "They're . . . mopping up?"
"It looks that way, sir."
Laura considered. "Am I right in assuming that they wouldn't be . . . mopping up . . . unless they'd already"—she swallowed back her horror at the thought—"finished off the colonies?"
Lee grimaced, and did not hide his feelings. "That would be my assumption as well. And certainly consistent with the reports we've gotten. We know all twelve of the colonies were hit."
Laura nodded. Twenty-three billion people, at last count. Twenty-three billion. . . .
Chapter 36
The Survivor Fleet
Sharon came out of Jump with a flash, and was stunned to see the size of the fleet that had gathered in her absence. Large ships and small. It was practically an armada. She checked for the refinery ship Tauranian, and was relieved to see that it had come out of Jump just ahead of her. She keyed her wireless. "Colonial One, Raptor Three-One-Two. I'm back and I brought a friend."
The answering voice was that of Captain Russo, on Colonial One. "Welcome back, Boomer. Got a lot of thirsty ships here eager to make your friend's acquaintance. Did you pick up any other contacts out there?"
"Negative," she answered. "There's no one left." No one that we can spare the time and fuel to find, anyway. She piloted in silence for a few minutes, leading the refinery ship through the jumble of vessels toward Colonial One.
As she scanned her instruments, something caught her eye—a new blip on the dradis screen. It was a fast-moving craft on the outside of the fleet. Fast-moving like a Cylon raider. "Got a visitor!" she announced sharply.
"I see him. Can you jam his signal?"
"Trying," she said, snapping switches on the panel. Helo, I need you! Nothing she did seemed to have any effect on the incoming craft.
The Cylon sped into the midst of the fleet, then back out—and vanished in a flash of light. Frak! FRAK!"It's gone. Colonial, I'm pretty sure it scanned us . . ."
Laura stood in an urgent meeting at the forward end of the first-class compartment, with Lee Adama, Billy, and Captain Russo. Russo said flatly, "It definitely scanned us before it Jumped."
Lee tensed, and when he spoke, it was in a strong voice. "We have to go. Now. The Cylons will be here any minute."
"Can they really respond that fast?" Laura asked.
"They can, and will. They are almost certainly mustering a squadron at this very moment."
"Will they be able to track us through a Jump?" the President asked.
"No sir, that's impossible."
"Theoretically impossible."
"Theoretically," Lee conceded.
Aaron Doral had joined the group, scowling. "Madame President, there are still thousands of people on the sublight ships. We can't just leave them."
"I agree," said Russo. "We should use every second to get as many people off the sublights as we can. We can wait t
o Jump until we pick up a Cylon force moving—"
"No! We're easy targets," Lee said sharply. "They're going to Jump right in the middle of our ships with a handful of nukes and wipe us out before we have a chance to react."
"You can't just leave them all behind!" Doral protested. "You'll be sacrificing thousands of people!"
"But—we'll be saving tens of thousands," Lee responded, and his voice became fast and urgent. "I'm sorry to make it a numbers game, but we're talking about the survival of our race, here. We don't have the luxury of taking risks and hoping for the best—because if we lose, we lose everything."
He looked squarely at Laura. "And Madame President, this is a decision that needs to be made right now."
She gazed back at him, remembering the last time she had faced a decision like this. That time she had followed her heart, not her mind. She'd opted to stay with the disabled liner, despite the fact that they had no way to defend it—and only through Lee's fast thinking, and the grace of the gods, had they come out of it alive. She dared not make that mistake again.
With a soft voice that belied the knot in her stomach, she said, "Order the fleet to Jump to Ragnar immediately."
If it weren't for the buzzing in her head, she would have sworn that time had come to a stop. Everyone had walked away from her—with urgency, with sadness, with anger. She was scarcely aware of their departure. Billy was still here. He must have something he wanted to say. The buzzing, though, was all she could hear.
Finally, Billy broke through, his words sounding distant, then drawing near. "Madame President, something else you should be aware of . . ."
She stared across the cabin, seeing nothing. "I have cancer," she said suddenly.
For a moment, there was no answer. Then: "I know."
She turned her head to look at Billy in amazement.
He looked ready to explode with tension, fear, sorrow. He was carrying burdens someone his age should never have to carry. "Little things you said or did," he explained with difficulty. "A couple of comments you made. I don't think anyone else knows; I haven't said anything to anyone."
She looked away again; she could not bear to face another human being as she said, "My prognosis is doubtful." She paused for a heartbeat. "I wish I could say it was the least of my worries. But the world is coming to an end, and all I can think about is that I have cancer and I'm probably going to die." Another heartbeat. "How selfish is that?"
Billy scarcely breathed. "It's not selfish. It's human." After a moment, he turned sadly and started to walk away.
Laura watched him, her gaze narrowing. "Is there something you wanted to say to me?"
He stopped in the doorway leading to the next compartment, then turned. "Well, I—I just thought you should know. That little girl you met earlier, Cami?" His fingers tugged nervously at the book he was holding in both hands. "Her ship can't make the Jump."
She heard his words, and yet did not hear them. She stood frozen with regret and remorse . . . and she could not breathe, or even change the pained smile on her face, until something in the back of her brain was able to take those words and put them into a container where, at least for a little while, they could not hurt her any further. "Thank you," she said at last, with a slight nod, releasing Billy from the awful spot he had just put them both into.
She turned away, then, to take a seat alone at the back of the first-class compartment. There was no room in her thoughts now for the living; there were too many dying, and she could only be with them just now.
In the cockpit, Lee was in the right seat alongside Captain Russo, with Eduardo on the comm and nav panel at the rear. They were going through the pre-Jump checklist with grave efficiency. From the overhead speakers, voices were coming in from all over the fleet. Voices crying for help, for mercy . . .
Captain Russo gave Lee one last look of regret before letting a shield slide over his emotions: "Set the SB trajectory."
"Colonial One! For God's sake, you can't just leave us here!"
Lee determinedly ignored the voices. "SB set."
"Cycle cryo-fans."
"Colonial One, this is Picon Three-Six-Bravo. I can't believe you want to leave all these people behind . . ."
Lee's fingers worked the board. "Cycled."
"At least tell us where you're going! We'll follow at sublight."
Captain Russo glanced at Lee, then reached up to the comm panel to send a reply.
"No," Lee said, reaching as though to stop him physically. "If they're captured, then the Cylons know, too."
"I've got fifty people on board! Colonial One, do you copy this?"
Captain Russo struggled for a moment with indecision, then lowered his hand, realizing that Lee was right. "Spinning up FTL drive now."
Lee: "All ships—prepare to Jump on our mark. Five . . ."
The time stretched . . .
"Colonial One, please respond!"
"Four . . ."
"May the Lords of Kobol protect those souls we leave behind."
"Three . . ."
Alone in the passenger compartment, Laura sat listening to the comm exchanges. Her thoughts had nowhere to go, her feelings were spun into a suffocating web, her ears were ringing with the sounds of desperation and fear, her gut was tied into a knot so tight she feared if she moved so much as a muscle, she and her world would spin apart into a thousand pieces. Why me . . . why me . . . ? And why them . . . the innocent . . . ?
Aboard the Space Park, it was a little before dinnertime, and young Cami sat on her favorite bench under her favorite tree, whiling away the time with her rag doll. A lot of the people had left the park, but she liked it too much to leave. "Don't worry, Jeannie," she reassured her doll, dancing her on her head. "They'll come and get us when it's time to eat . . . they'll come and get us . . ."
In the dark of space surrounding the shifting fleet, there was a sudden change. With a series of flashes, half a dozen vessels popped into the local space. They were moving at high speed, directly on a course that would take them into the fleet.
"I've got dradis contact—inbound targets heading this way!"
Lee kept the count steady. "Two . . ."
"I see them, too. Are they Colonial?"
Lee knew exactly what they were, and there was no way he could accelerate the count; he could only sit tight and pray. "One."
"Oh my God, they're Cylons!"
"Mark."
"I hope you people rot in hell for this—!"
Laura felt the tears rising into her eyes, against all her inner bulwarks. There was no turning back.
It was done.
She could feel space begin to fold inward around her . . .
Throughout the fleet, dozens of flashes of light marked the Jumping of ships away from the fleet, away to somewhere else in space. At the same moment, a rapid-fire series of flashes came from each of the Cylon fighters. Long white streamers arced out in great, spreading bundles as the missiles painted their pretty, deadly tracers across the sky. It took only moments for each and every one of them to find their targets.
The sky began to light up with exploding spaceships.
In the garden, Cami gently smoothed out Jeannie's hair. She had noticed some flashing out in space, through the overhead dome. That probably meant that some of the ships were going home. She was happy for them; it was about time. Maybe, she hoped, her ship would go home soon, too.
And then her sky turned white, like the sun up close. And she felt nothing, nothing at all.
Part Three
The Final Gathering
Chapter 37
Somewhere In Ragnar Station
The passageways seemed to be getting narrower and narrower the farther they walked, with Leoben leading the way and Commander Adama close behind. Rows of pipes and ductwork lined the walls, from deck to ceiling. The deeper into the station they went, the more claustrophobic it felt. Adama couldn't be sure he wasn't being taken on a long walk to nowhere. Although he had questioned Leoben abou
t the route they were taking, it was nearly impossible to keep his sense of direction here; there were too many little jogs and turns.
They had been walking for maybe twenty minutes, when Leoben suddenly doubled over, gasping. Adama came up behind him. "You all right?"
Leoben stood up, shaking his head. He was dripping sweat. "Fine. It's just something about this place . . ."
He looked as if he meant to continue, but he didn't. "What about this place?" Adama asked.
"Ever since I got here, something in the air"—Leoben gestured with his hands—"affects my allergies." He let out his breath and started walking again. "You always keep me in front, don't you—military training, right? Never turn your back on a stranger, that kind of thing?" He ducked through a bulkhead opening. "Suspicion and distrust, that's the military life, right? War? Hatred? Jealousy, revenge, cruelty?"
"So you're a gun dealer/philosopher, I take it, right?" Adama answered.
Leoben stopped to lean back against some pipes, laughing. Then he lurched off again, still breathing hard. "I'm an observer of human nature, that's all. In my line of work, I see things that don't get mentioned in polite society. When you get right down to it, humanity is not a pretty race. I mean, we're only one step away from beating each other with clubs—like savages, fighting over scraps of meat." He glanced back at Adama. "Did you ever think, maybe we deserve what's happened to us? Maybe the Cylons are God's retribution for our many sins. Hubris—that's Man's greatest flaw. His belief that he alone has a soul, that he's the chosen of God."
Adama grunted. "You told me a little while ago you were a Geminon theist. Don't you believe God gave Man his soul?"
"Maybe. But what if"—Leoben paused to lean against the wall and wait for Adama to catch up—"what if God decided he'd made a mistake—that Man was a flawed creature, after all? And he decided to give souls to another creature—like the Cylons." He chuckled and lurched back into motion.
That made Adama flare with annoyance. He called after Leoben in a harsh voice. "God didn't create the Cylons! Man did." Leoben paused to hear him out. "The Cylons are just devices. Technology that's gotten out of control. And I'm pretty sure we didn't include a soul in the programming. So there's no loss if we kill every last one of them. Let's go."
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