The planet was swallowing itself.
Kobol's surface and its underground miracles had vanished, falling down vast seams and fissures of the planet's crust, being devoured by the molten core. Volcanoes as big as the city itself rose and wept flowing lava before they, too, were swallowed by the rising tide of fire. For a moment, only the beating, magma heart of the world remained, beautiful and terrifying, and then, the heart exploded. A force like a mini-nova spread out in an ever-widening ring, traveling faster, vaporizing the space-borne Cylon and Chitain fighters, slamming like a flaming tsunami into the basestar. The burning wall lapped at the mothership, reducing the forward-facing hull to slag. The basestars were built considerably tougher than the fighters, but that just made the mothership's destruction that much longer and torturous.
The destructive force washed through the ship, nothing slowing its progress. The superstructure collapsed inward upon itself, into the molten wave, and vanished. The ring of fire continued to expand, devouring moons and asteroids, until, at last, the fury of the dying world subsided, the wave dissipated, and the void was calm and still once more.
A ball of burning gas remained in space where once the proud Kobollian world had stood, and from the fiery heart, there rose a luminous Light Ship, like a phoenix, or a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. The ship was as beautiful as the destruction of the world was complete and awesome, and, on new wings, the Light Ship soared away from the inferno, joining the other two ships that awaited it, and, together the three of them accelerated into space, and then were gone.
Aboard the Galactica, as the fleet was making its leap into hyper-space, the monitors showed the Light Ships rising from the flaming corpse of Kobol. Athena, aboard the Daedelus, saw them, too.
It was just a momentary thing, so quick as to be nearly subliminal, but anyone who saw them felt an overwhelming sense of peace, and awe, and wonder.
"What the frack is that?" Cassie asked, staring at the monitor long after the Light Ships had gone. At last, she had to look away.
Apollo smiled, knowingly, and steepled his fingers together against his chin. "Our destiny, of course," he answered.
EPILOGUE
Life goes on.
If they had learned nothing else from their return to Kobol, the colonials had learned that necessary lesson. Sometimes the ending of the old life overlapped the beginning of the new, but that was all right; it made the transition easier, and made letting go of the past not quite so hard. Sometimes, it was not until we looked back that we even realize that we have set something down, perhaps only for a moment, and then moved on, without it.
We seldom find again what has been lost, as if it were something that had been swept away down the ever-rolling river of time. But sometimes the river bends, and for a moment, we are faced again with that which we cherished and lost. The problem then becomes, whether to let loose of everything else we've gathered and grab for that which we've lost, and hope this time we do a better job of holding it, or hold tight to all we have, and let the past claim its own.
Apollo sat in his sanctuary, feeling the tug on his heart, like gravity, of the memory of Serina. He had loved her, and she had loved him, but she had moved on and he had not. He still clung to her, the way a man will cling to a slippery handhold in the middle of a raging river or be swept away, but he had begun to realize at what horrible cost he had done so. Life and love had come and gone, come and gone, while he held fast to the past and refused to let go long enough to reach out. He could not bear the thought of Serina fading into the distance. If he forgot her, then she was gone forever.
But that was not so, and he knew it now.
As with Kobol, Apollo knew there were different levels of existence, spiraling like the streets of the cities had done, carrying the traveler ever onward, ever upward, toward places he could only reach in their appointed time. Apollo smiled, running the ball of his thumb over the shallow nicks Adama had worn into the arm of the chair, and Apollo supposed, one day, wherever the fleet ended up, his son or daughter might sit here and also trace the scars that life leaves on one.
"Thank you, Father," he said, softly. "Thank you, Lords of Kobol." Apollo stood, looked at the meditation womb as if seeing it with new eyes, and, still smiling, left the room and went down to the celebration in the ODOC.
The party was in full swing when Apollo arrived, but he thought, this time, he would stay to close it down. He felt like being with these people, among the living once more. Identical parties went on across all the ships of the fleet. Despite their terrible losses, there was still much to celebrate. They had been able to replenish their depleted Tylium reserves, stored away a veritable treasure trove of foodstuffs, and, best of all, they had been judged worthy by the Lords of Light.
They had been sorely tested, by the powers of darkness and the forces of light, and it was hard to say whose test was the more arduous, but they had passed both tests, and had been rewarded by the ancient Kobollians with modified QSE technology. Apollo understood how necessary this technology was; without it, the fleet could travel at the speed of light and still not reach their unimaginably far-off destination, but, with the dimension-warping capabilities of the QSE engines, their journey, although perhaps twenty-some yahren later, could at last begin. They had had to go home to wake up, step back to go forward, but now, at last, they were truly free to move on.
How foolish they had been, how vain, how proud, to think they could have made the voyage without the help of the Lords of Kobol. How foolish to believe the Thirteenth Tribe had not used the same QSE technology millennia ago, when they spread the seed of humanity throughout the farthest galaxies.
Apollo squeezed in at the table between Tigh and Starbuck, and, as if by magic, a flagon of ambrosa appeared before him. He glanced up and saw Cassiopeia standing there, smiling, a matching mug in her hand. She had to shout to be heard over the music and the laughter; instead, she bent close enough for Apollo to feel her breath on his skin, and spoke into his ear, "It was touch and go, but I think Gar'Tokk is going to make it."
She started to straighten up, but Apollo took her hand in his, and kissed the back of it, surprising her. "What's that for?" Cassiopeia asked.
"Why ask why?" he answered.
"As long as you're in the mood," she said, and set her mug down. Standing behind him, she gripped the sides of his face and bent his head back, so he was looking directly up at her, and leaned in to kiss him deeply on the mouth. He was no more surprised than she had been, but reached up, placed his hand on the back of her head, and returned the kiss. She pulled away, blinking and smiling.
"Okay, who are you… really?" Starbuck asked Apollo. "You look like my best friend, but you sure don't act like him."
Apollo laughed and took a drink of his ambrosa. "I've been away for a while," he said, "but I'm back now."
He looked around the table, at Starbuck, Tigh, Athena, Sheba, Boomer, Phaedra, Bo jay, and Cassiopeia. They all looked at him as if he were Count Iblis in a very cunning but flawed disguise.
"What?" he asked, and sat back in his chair, smiling bemusedly.
Bo jay shrugged, and drained his grog in three quick swallows.
"I know what that's like, Apollo," he said. "It's hell not bein' yourself."
They all laughed at Bo jay's ability to cut to the heart of the matter, and, while everyone was gathered there, Apollo stood up, wincing at the pain in his casted leg, and raised his flagon. "We should take a moment to remember someone who can't be here tonight," he said. "A man who wanted the best for the fleet, and was not afraid to fight—and die—for it. To Commander Cain. The last of our generation's great battle commanders, and the last of the great men."
"To Cain," President Tigh said, and stood, holding his own flagon high. "And his great, selfless sacrifice."
"To Cain," they repeated, and raised their drinks in toast. They drank to his honor and his memory, and then, because it was a celebration of life and not a wake, Dalton grabbed Troy and kissed
him fiercely, before he could react. The Warriors laughed, and pounded their approval on the tabletop. Troy, smiling, pulled Dalton down onto his lap, and, cupping her face in his hand, kissed her. Trays, watching from his table with his cadets, sighed, and drank his grog in silence.
Athena?
She looked across the table at her brother, her eyebrow raised in question. Yes, Apollo? Are we going to "talk" about someone behind their back, or was there something you wanted to say?
Apollo had to chuckle, but that was all right; no one noticed. Everyone else was having a good time, too. I wanted to tell you I'm proud of you, and that you did a fine job today. I just didn't want to have to shout it.
Athena looked down at her ambrosa, but when she looked up again, she was smiling. Thank you, Apollo.
Something else I wanted to say… or think…
She waited, mug of ambrosa at her lips, her dark eyes staring at him over the rim of her flagon.
I learned… or accepted … today that I'm not going to be
happy just commanding the action from the bridge of a battlestar. I need to be a part of it. I also realized we were meant to share command, when you received the second half of the coordinates. Individually, we're halves of the whole; together, we're so much more than the sum of our parts. I think this is what the Lords of Kobol want… It's what I want.
Athena considered her brother's request, and decided it made sense: while he was on the bridge, Apollo would be supreme commander, but when he was flying a mission, she would command the Galactica.
She mouthed the words, Thank you, and raised her mug to him in a salute. He smiled, and raised his own to her.
"What are you drinking to?" Starbuck asked, noticing their salute.
"Beginnings, of course," Apollo answered. "What else?"
Starbuck shrugged, and drank to the future. It was all they had. Athena looked over Starbuck's shoulder at Cassie, who understood that look and nodded. Athena took another drink, and turned to Starbuck and took him by the hand. "As the fleet's new co-commander," she said, "my first order is that you give me a big, sloppy kiss and then take me out on that floor and dance every dance with me."
Starbuck laughed, looked at Apollo. "Sorry, old buddy," he told Apollo. "But orders is orders."
They all laughed, and Starbuck stood and swept Athena into his arms, and kissed her with all the fire and passion she had expected, and more. She blinked, her mouth open wide, as he led her onto the dance floor and pulled her close.
"Any further orders, Commander?" he asked, her head resting on his shoulder.
"Plenty," she said. "And you'd better follow every one of them. Pretty boy like you wouldn't last ten minutes in the brig."
Cassiopeia, standing behind Apollo, her hands resting on his shoulders, felt an odd chill, and hear a voice slithering in her ear, as softly and as horrible as grave beetles: I will always be with you, the voice said, oily-slick; Our child will be a very, very special child.
Cassie brushed at her ear, as if the source of that rasping voice were there, and turned to see who had spoken to her, but there was no one. No one at all. "Did you say something?" she asked Jolly, who was standing nearby. She thought it might have been one of his jokes. Jolly looked at her and shrugged.
"Everything all right?" Apollo asked her, looking back over his shoulder.
Cassie thought about it, and realized she didn't know. But, she supposed it was. After all, they had left Kobol and its hidden evils far, far behind them. What could harm them here? "Everything's perfect," she said, but she found herself thinking of a hooded man with red, glowing eyes. She wrapped her arms around Apollo's neck, and he placed his hands upon her arms, and for a moment, she could forget the man of darkness.
Sheba, with just enough grog in her, stalked boldly to where Bo jay sat at the table, gripped the collar of his shirt, spun him around to face her, and kissed him. "A promise is a promise," she told the astonished onlookers, and none was more astonished than Bo jay. Sheba took him by the hand and pulled him to his feet, and led him from the party.
"If I'm not back by tomorrow, declare me missing in action!" Bo jay called back over his shoulder, and followed Sheba from the room, chased by the sound of applause and good-humored cheers.
Boomer shook his head, and pushed his mug away from him. "Obviously, I'm altered, because I couldn't have just seen what I just saw," he said. He sat quietly a moment, then pulled the mug back and took a big draught from it. "But, just in case I really did see it, I think I'd rather forget it."
Phaedra smiled, and her hand absently strayed to her belly, heavy with child, and her other hand sought the circle of Boomer's. He gripped her hand in his, and they all sat and talked, and laughed, and drank to absent friends, and sometimes wept— because endings overlap beginnings—all that night and far into the next morning.
* * *
Alone, Baltar sat in his quarters, once more the traitor, even though he had honestly tried to do the right thing. Every choice he made seemed to be foredoomed, destined to turn into betrayal. He would never be trusted again, but he could not understand why this was so. In the story of his life, Baltar was the hero; no one ever sees himself as the villain of the piece, and Baltar, greatest traitor the human race had ever known, was no different in that respect.
All that remained was to decide on which path he would travel, but in the darkness of his quarters, as the shadows closed in and took him in their velvety embrace, Baltar was sure he heard a voice he knew well. It was weak and injured, faraway and small; a voice of the past, easily enough ignored.
In the Xeric star system, word reached the Chitain homeworld of the Cylon and Chitain defeat at Kobol. Lord Schikik had apparently been killed in the same fiery armageddon that had claimed Lucifer and the alliance armada. There would be another who would replace Lucifer, just as there would be another to replace Lord Schikik.
But to anyone who replaced Lord Schikik, the course of action the Chitain must follow seemed quite clear: they would continue to lick their deep wounds, all the while accelerating the rebuilding of the fleet and home world. They would plot to avenge their humiliating defeat at the hands of the humans, both here and in the Kobollian system. But the Cylons would also be greatly weakened with the destruction of the armada, and the Chitain would look with great hunger at the map of the Cylon empire.
Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last battlestar, Galactica, leads a ragtag, fugitive fleet, on a lonely quest—for a shining planet known as Earth…
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