Battlestar Galactica-Lost
Virtual Season 5-Episode #15
By Senmut

From the Adama Journals

     Information continues to come to us at a rapid pace from the
Pegasus which we in turn relay back to the Resistance in the Colonies
thanks to Lieutenant Hunley’s telepathic bond with her cousin, Anders. 
Investigation at Starlos has finally exposed the reason why the Cylon
Empire, which we once thought capable of extending its might across the
entire breadth of the galaxy, is increasingly a hollow shell of its
former glory.  It isn’t simply because so many Cylons have developed
“Enlightenment” and turned against their leaders.  It’s also because
they have lost the one thing that gave them the ability to develop a
military arsenal that could terrorize so many star systems and bog our
civilization down in a Thousand Yahren War.  An uninterrupted supply of
Neutrino, the strongest metallic substance in the known Universe from
which they could build limitless numbers of centurions and baseships.  A
supply that was always safely protected from their outside enemies
because it was taken entirely from the Cylon home system, which no
Colonial Warship was ever able to penetrate.  While the precise details
of how this has happened are still unclear, the reasons for how and why
so many things happened in relation to our initial flight across the
stars, and why it was possible for a Resistance movement to form in the
Colonies, are no longer shrouded in mystery.
   Through it all, Cain has miraculously been able to preserve the
element of surprise, so the Cylon High Command remains ignorant of his
survival and the fact he is drawing closer and closer to the Colonies. 
His last major task before that is to stop at the ice planet Arcta to
confer with the mysterious Dr. Ravashol and the Cylon command centurion,
Vulpa, who along with his entire garrison is working in secret for the
Resistance.  They hope to plot a final strategy aimed at securing the
Colonies……which may not be as formidable a task as we’ve been led to
believe all this time if in fact it’s true that the Imperious Leader is
holding back the bulk of his Forces to keep the Cylon Home System
secure.  Time will soon tell on that point.
   Cain has also privately confided to me that after they are done at
Arcta, he believes arrangements should be made for Ila to leave the
Pegasus and return to the Fleet in the shuttle she was traveling in when
the Pegasus intercepted her.  This is not something etched in stone
because Ila appears to be reluctant to consider the idea, given the risk
factor involved that would require her to lie in a state of suspended
animation for a period in excess of one to two yahrens before her
shuttle could possibly catch up to us, and even then it would have to
journey through the dangerous zones of  Ziklagi and Risik space that we
left in our wake.  As much as I ache to have my Ila with me again, I can
understand her lack of enthusiasm for strapping herself into that
vehicle and then being out of contact with us for a long time.  At least
aboard the Pegasus, her presence in my life has returned to one of near
constancy again thanks to the communication link.  Could I emotionally
handle that period of silence, especially with there being no guarantee
she could make it safely?  Cain admits he understands this and he is
going to ask Dr. Ravashol if there is *any* kind of technological
breakthrough possible that might be able to overcome this barrier.  But
I confess, while I appreciate his desire to affect this outcome of
reunion between Ila and me, I’m not sure at this point if this is what’s
really best for her…..or me.  There’s also the fact that Ila is the only
one on the Pegasus who knows certain things that for now have been
blocked from Cain’s memory that he’ll have to know at some point,
especially if Ila does decide to leave.
     The good news is we still have the luxury of time before we have to
deal with that matter.  Time that I must spend on what still lies in
front of us in the ongoing journey to Earth.  Past dangers like the
Cylons and the Risik will seemingly no longer be of concern to us,
but……..what unknowns do we still face that are no less a danger than
what Cain and Ila face in their journey back?  
     It is all in the hands of the Lords.

Prologue

     “Yes?  What is it, Colonel?  ” asked Commander Adama, after logging
on to the bridge. As usual, Colonel Tigh, the Battlestar Galactica’s
Executive Officer, and Adama’s old wingman, was already on duty.
     “A signal, sir. From somewhere ahead. It appears to be a looped
distress call.” Tigh flipped a toggle, and a faint voice filled the
speaker. It sounded Human, but was not in any Colonial language, and
after about a hundred microns, there was a burst of static, and it
repeated.
     “Commander,” said Omega. “We have a coordinate and directional fix,
now, sir. Seventeen point oh three degrees to starboard off our present
course, x-plus fourteen point six.” He sent the data up to Adama’s
station.
     “Concentrated scan of that point, Omega,” said Adama. Omega
complied, and Adama reviewed the data to hand, while the scanners did
their work. The signal was on an old gamma frequency, which the
Galactica’s systems were now set to detect automatically, ever since
Apollo’s first discovery of a signal from Earth in the old Celestial
Dome. Digital and binary, it seemed as if it were having to overcome a
lot of interference. Omega was running it through the main computer’s
BTD, but so far…
     “Concentrated scan coming in, Commander,” said Omega, after about
two centons, and both Adama and Tigh studied the scans on the monitor,
before moving to the plotting board.
     “We have a solar system here, sir,” said Tigh, indicating an area
well off to the starboard of their course. “Four planets that we can
scan, but no indications of life or civilization, at this distance.”
     “Transmissions?  Power signatures of any sort?  ”
     “Aside from the signal that we’re currently picking up, nothing,
sir. That system is silent.”
     “Colonel,” said Adama, after a few centons thought. “Launch a Viper
patrol to recon the system. Someone is calling from there. That voice
sounded like someone in distress. Send what we have to Doctor Wilker’s
lab, for translation and study.”
     “Yes, sir.”
     “Father,” said Athena, attention focused on her headset.
     “Yes?  ”
     “I recognize the language. I mean, what it is. It’s one of the
Earth dialects.”
     “Earth dialects?  ” said Tigh. He and Adama looked at each other.
     “Yes. I’ve been studying some of them, to help with the Earth
captives that we liberated from the Ne’Chak prison. This is definitely
one of them, Father. I’m sure of it.”
     “I see. Colonel, get that patrol launched. Athena, get me Captains
Byrne, on the Constellation, and Allen on the Adelaide.” He sighed a
moment. “And signal Baltar, as well. After you do the rest.”
     “Yes, Commander,” she replied. As she moved her fingers over the
controls, she stopped, hand to earpiece once again. “Father?  ”
     “Yes?  ”
     “I’m picking up another signal. From the same location.”
     “And?  ”
     “It’s in Colonial Standard, Commander.” She turned to look at him
and nodded slowly. “Yes. Colonial Standard.”
     “Commander?  ” asked Tigh, close and quiet.
     “I do not know, Tigh. Hopefully, we’ll learn something, soon.”

Chapter One

     “Yes, Commander?  ” asked Cedric Allen, formerly of the Royal
Australian Navy, on Earth, as he and his fellow castaway, Kevin Byrne,
formerly of the U.S. Navy, were admitted to the Galactica’s War Room.
     “We came as soon as we got your message, sir,” said Byrne.
     “Thank you. Be seated, please.” They two Earth officers did so.
“How familiar are you with your planet’s other languages?  ” He looked
to both men.
     “Well, I’m fluent in my native English, of course.” Byrne missed
Allen’s raised eyebrows at this. “I also have a good knowledge of Latin,
French, German.  I can get along in Russian because Anna Popova, the
head of the child-care center on Constellation is from that country and
I’ve had some conversations with her in her native tongue.  And….I also
know a few words of Hebrew, which was the language of our…..late
comrade, Ehud Gar.”  He lowered his head slightly and Allen got a
reminder of how the ultimate fate of Ehud Gar and two other astronauts
from the original expedition, Timothy Harms and Jean-Pierre St. Claire
was something Byrne had refused to share with him.  
     Adama noded and turned to Allen.  “Commander Allen?  ”
     “Aside from English, I can speak Japanese fairly well. I was
assigned as liaison with some Japanese officers once. And I can manage
fairly well in Mandarin Chinese, but I’m no scholar.  We also have a
Russian native aboard Adelaide, Captain Zhukov but I can only say ‘yes’,
‘no’ and ‘thank you’ in his language. Exactly what is this about,
Commander?  ”
     “We’ve picked up some signals, from a solar system ahead. Voice
signals. We think one of them is an Earth language, but our Languatron
matrix is having trouble with it.”
     “I see,” said Byrne. “Can we hear it?  ”
     “Of course.” He reached over and touched a switch on his desk. At
first, all they heard was hiss and crackle. Then, after a few seconds…
     ‘…ty chitayesh'?  Povtoryayu, Baykanur ty chitayesh'?  Zakhodi…’
After a moment, it faded out, to be repeated again, fade, and repeated
again. It was obviously looped.
     “That’s Russian,” Byrne said without hesitation. He listened to it
again. “Yes, it sounds like a distress call.  ‘…do you read?  Repeat,
Baikanur do you read?  Come in.’  They’re calling their command base.
For the Russians, it was a complex called Baikonur.”  
     “Would Ensign Popova confirm that?  ” Adama asked.
     “She would,” Byrne nodded.  “I don’t have any doubts regarding my
translation.”
     “Wasn’t there supposed to be a Russian flight to their station that
went missing?  ” asked Allen. “God, years ago.”
     “Yeah, I remember something. But nothing came of it, at least that
I ever heard, and we put it down to just rumor, Ced.” He looked back
towards the sound of the voice. “Maybe the big brains were wrong on this
one.”
     “Sounds like it. And from his tone, it sounds like somebody’s on
the edge.”


     “Galactica, this is Patrol One,” came the voice over the speaker.
“Coming up on that solar system, at two-one degrees. Range, five-hundred
million.”
     “Good, Cree,” said Adama, on the bridge. “Still no signs of
civilization?  ”
     “No, sir,” replied Cree. “Picking up two planets in the star’s life
zone, but no sign of anybody, aside from the distress calls.”
     “Understood, Cree,” replied Adama. “Switch to visual telemetry.”
     “Switching, Commander,” replied Cree. Soon, video scans of the new
system were coming in.
     “Sir,” said another of the pilots, Bregens. “Picking up some
contacts, sir. Metal.”
     “Patrol One?  ” asked Adama.
     “Confirmed,” said Cree. “In the region of the third planet. Several
contacts. Moving to investigate, Commander.”
     “Acknowledged,” said Adama.


     “Coming up on the coordinates of the signal, sir,” said Bregens.
     “Yeah. Look at the scanner.”
     “I see them, sir. There must be dozens.”
     “Yeah. Sending real-time telemetry to the Fleet.”
     “Holy…”


     “…Lords of Kobol,” said Adama, quietly, as the data came in.
“Colonel?  ”
     “Incredible,” replied Tigh, looking at the scans. “I don’t
recognize a single ship’s configuration, Commander.”
     “Nor do I. Athena?  ”
     “Commander?  ”
     “Run all these through the computer. See if there’s any data on
ships like these. However minimal.”
     “Yes, Commander,” she replied.
     “And how did they all end up here?  ” asked Tigh.


     “What we have,” said Adama, later, in the War Room, “are a bizarre
collection of spacecraft, most of them completely unknown to us.” He
gestured to the holo images above the table. Above the image of the
planet, were a large number of space vehicles, of all sorts of designs.
Some looked similar to Colonial types, others had pods or nacelles
protruding from them in various places and at various angles, others
seemed to be of blocky, uniform shape. No two were alike.
     “Wow,” was all Byrne had to say at first. He almost said it looked
like something out of a SciFi film, but decided better. “And the
signals?  ”
     “The one in Colonial Standard came from this ship,” said Adama,
zooming in on one vessel. Under the Viper’s searchlights, they could see
windows, dark and somehow foreboding, and lettering on the
meteor-scarred hull. “She is the Rambler,” he told them.
     “Any data on her?  ” asked Allen.
     “Yes, as a matter of fact. According to our record banks, she was a
small, independent freighter, chartered to operate between the Colonies
and the old penal colony on Excoria. She’s listed as having a crew of
six, and vanished on a cargo run, just over forty yahrens ago. There has
been no trace of her, or her crew, until now. It was assumed the Cylons
got her.”
     “Any signs of life?  ” asked Byrne.
     “None so far, and no response to hails, either. The distress call
seems to be a looped recording. The ship has solar cells on the hull, as
you see, so there is minimal power.”
     “What about the Russian signal?  ” asked Allen.
     “Here,” said Tigh, switching images. Both Earthmen nodded. They
recognized the vessel at once as being of Earth origin.
     “Yes, she’s Russian,” said Byrne, reading the lettering on the
hull. He turned to Viktor Zhukov, former Soviet Army Captain, and
liberated prisoner of the Risik. Next to him sat Anna Popova, former Red
Air Force officer, and also among the former captives from Ne’Chak.  The
revelation of a Russian language transmission had led Adama to have the
two Russian natives summoned immediately from the Adelaide and
Constellation.
     “Her name is the Tereshkova,” said Zhukov. “But she must date from
after the time of our capture. I know nothing of any such vessel.”
     “Nor I,” said Popova. “But even in my time, I knew little of such
things. Certainly not disappearances. It did not pay one to ask too many
questions, Commander Adama.”
     “She looks superficially similar to our old Soyuz-class ships,”
said Zhukov, “but there seem to have been numerous modifications and
enhancements. I can discern little, from these images.” 
     “Any signs of life?  ” asked Popova?  
     “Negative on life signs,” replied Adama. “Just like all of the
other ships, I’m afraid.”
     “We’ll need to try and board her,” said Byrne. “The crew may have
had time to record what happened to them, Commander. Same with the
Rambler. If they lived long enough to send a distress signal, they could
have left more.”
     “Agreed,” said the Commander. “We’ll try the Colonial ship, first.
Our equipment will be compatible with hers, for a link-up.”
     “And the Tereshkova?  ” asked Zhukov.
     “We’ll just have to see,” replied the Commander.


     “Contact,” said Bojay, as the Galactica’s shuttle mated up with the
landing bay on the Rambler. He worked the controls some more. “Okay,
we’ve linked up with her on-board computer.” He turned to his
passengers. “Bay seals up. We can run things from here.”
     “Good work, Bojay,” said Giles, and he and Jolly moved to the
hatch. They waited as it cycled, then with a hiss, it opened.
     “Smells stale,” said Giles.
     “Not surprising.  She’s been derelict for yahrens,” said Jolly.
They at once began to float up off the deck, till Bojay remotely
re-started the gravity plating. Slowly, they settled to the deck, feet
first.
     They looked around the old ship, a small, Nebula-class freighter,
built well over a centiyahren ago. Patched, modified, and
tribunal-rigged wherever one looked, she certainly bore scant
resemblance to a ship of the line. Jolly moved to a hatchway, and
forward, to check out the flight deck. Two seats forward, one to the
side for the flight engineer, it was as empty as the rest of her.
     “Nothing up here,” said Jolly, as he sat in the pilot’s seat and
examined the controls. He activated some monitors, and watched as the
systems went through their normal boot-up procedure. He located the
transmitter and shut down the distress beacon. “Giles?  ”
     “Nothing back here, Jolly,” said the other Warrior. “Cabins are
empty, and so’s the engine room and mess room. I’m gonna check out the
hold.”
     “Understood.” Jolly continued to run diagnostics on the ship’s
systems. The transmitter had been left active, just the continuously
looped signal, but everything else had either been shut down, or left as
it was. As he moved from station to station, he seemed to find more
questions than answers.
     “Jol?  ” came Giles, over his communicator.
     “Yeah?  ”
     “I’ve been through her engine room and the cargo hold. A lot of the
cargo is missing or was never loaded. And all four of her escape pods
are gone, too.”
     “Then whatever it was then, they had time to escape,” replied
Jolly. “But this is weird.”
     “What is?  ”


     “According to the flight engineering logs,” said Jolly, back aboard
the Galactica, “several hull stress points read as nearly exceeding
tolerance. And most of her fuel is gone. Yet, according to the computer,
she left the Colonies with a full load.”
     “And a lot of her systems looked patched up and rigged,” said
Giles. “The engine room has lots of blown relays, circuit bays bridged,
that sort of thing.”
     “The log?  ” asked Adama.
     “I found it,” said Jolly, “but it’s partly corrupted. I sent it to
Dr. Wilker’s lab to see if they can do anything with it.”
     “Excellent.” Adama turned back to Giles.
     “I also checked out the cabins and common areas. No bodies, but all
the food is gone. And I don’t mean eaten, Commander. I mean taken. A lot
of the cargo, as well.”
     “According to the manifest, she was carrying food, medical
supplies, and new-issue armaments for the personnel on Excoria,” added
Jolly. “A lot of that is gone, too, Commander.”
     “Anything else?  ”
     “All the extra uniforms and emergency clothing. They clearly had
some injured for sure,” continued Giles. “We found discarded bloody
bandages in the LifeStation, and most of the medical supplies there are
gone as well. Also, the waste tanks are still full. They weren’t
recycled or blown into space. Bu, a lot of the recycling gear has been
stripped out.”
     “Along with four escape pods,” said Adama. 
     “They must have gone down to the planet,” said Giles. “No where
else to go.”
     “Anything from Captain Byrne and the rest, on the old Earth ship? 
” asked Jolly.
     “Any time, now,” said Adama.


     “Nobody home,” said Allen, as they wormed their way through the
derelict Tereshkova. Like the Colonial vessel, like all the others, it
was void of life. And, like the Rambler, her engines along with numerous
other systems were damaged, her fuel supply virtually exhausted.
     And, an escape pod missing.
     “We’re not going to learn a lot up here,” said Byrne, to Adama on
the Battlestar. “Whatever happened, they got the hell outta Dodge.”
     “If you mean they escaped to the planet, I agree,” replied Adama.
     “So, do we go and check her out?  ” asked Byrne.
     “Bridge to Commander Adama.” It was Omega.
     “Adama here,” replied the Commander.
     “Scanners have picked up something, sir. We’ve located the escape
pods.”
     “Anything else?  ”
     “And life signs, sir. Human.”
     “I guess we go check her out,” said Allen to Byrne, quietly.

Chapter Two
 
     “Man, this place sucks,” said Byrne, as they drew closer to the
mysterious planet. “Look at it.”
     “Yes,” said Captain Dante, the Constellation’s XO. Then…” ‘Sucks’,
sir?  ”
     “Sorry. Another expression from home. Basically, this place is
uninviting. It looks terrible.”
     “Ah. I see, sir.” He shook his head slightly. He doubted he’d ever
get used to the seemingly endless supply of “Earthisms” they were
bombarded with, since rescuing Byrne and the rest.
     “Establish orbit, Mister Timon,” Byrne ordered. He watched, as
the Constellation’s new helmsman eased them into an orbit fifteen
degrees to the equator, at an altitude of three-hundred miles.
     “Orbit established, sir,” replied the other.
     “Excellent. Mister Esteban, begin full scan of the planet.” The
Second/Science officer turned to his instruments.
     “Scanning, sir,” replied the other. After a few microns: “Data
coming in, sir.”
     “Report.”
     “Planet is one-hundred and one percent the mass of Caprica.
Atmosphere is oxygen…twenty-four percent, nitrogen seventy-three
percent, with the rest mostly argon, neon, water vapor.” He scanned in
silence for a few moments. “Pressure is nineteen- and one-half pounds
per square inch, in your Earth measurements. Breathable for us, sir.”
     “Transfer to main screen,” ordered Byrne.
     “Transferring.” They watched as the data coming in was put up,
scrolling up the screen as the planet passed beneath them.
     “Sir,” said Timon, turning to Byrne, “we will be passing over the
location of the Rambler’s pods in fourteen centons, sir.”
     “Very good.”
     The planet was a dull, brownish color, her land masses taking up
close to eighty percent of the surface. Her oceans were shallower than
Earth’s on the whole and were mostly of a dull bluish color. The reason
had to be intrinsic since the planet’s star was within four percent
spectrally of Earth’s sun. The continents were delineated by rugged
chains of mountains, and three volcanoes were active in the lower
hemisphere. The planet sported two moons, one about the size of Earth’s,
the second only a hundred or so miles across at the widest.
     “But no sign of vegetation,” said Dante, reviewing the data. “The
whole place looks like one big…”
     “Mud pie,” said Byrne. “Yeah, this is weird.” He turned to the comm
station. “Miss Zaz, contact the Galactica. Transmit our findings.”
     “Sir.”
 
 
     “Any idea why?  ” asked Byrne, in the Constellation’s transporter
chamber.
     “No, sir,” said Adron, the Constellation’s Chief of Engineering. He
turned to a subordinate. “Continue diagnostics. But something,” he
resumed, turning back to Byrne, “is jamming up our system. I can’t get a
precise coordinate lock. Every time I do, it goes out of focus. The main
collimator won’t stay in alignment, regardless.”
     “Backup?  ”
     “The same, sir. I put a replacement in, and it does the same.
Something is playing havoc with the targeting system, sir. I just don’t
know what it is, yet.”
     “Well, we can’t just wait until it’s fixed. Mister Dante,” Byrne
called into the IC.
     “Sir?  ”
     “It seems our transporter has taken an unauthorized leave of
absence. Inform Mister Darius we will be going down in a shuttle.”  
     “At once, sir.”
     “Keep on it,” Byrne said to Adron.
     “Sir.” 
 
 
     Aboard the Empyrean vessel Malocchio, Ama was deep in meditation.
Or rather, was struggling with it. For the last day or so, she had been
having increasing trouble concentrating. Even one of her lessons, with
her goddaughter Lia, had ended in her inability to concentrate as
sharply as she usually did. Something…
     “Damnations of damnations!” she swore, as she finally gave it up.
Yes, she was tired of late. She reached for a small caraf of water and
sipped slowly. Perhaps…
     There it was again. The fuzzy, unfocused…
     Sursurrr…sursurr…sursurr…
     Holy Vortex! It was like a …
     “What in Empyrea does it…what does it want?  ” 
 
 
     “Captain Byrne?  ”
     “Yes, Dante?  ”
     “Scan has picked up another set of life forms, sir.”
     “Where?  ”
     “About six-thousand miles from the first. I’m sending the
coordinates to your shuttle.”
     “Good. Any news from Engineer Adron?  ”
     “No, sir. The transport is still malfunctioning.”
     “Very well.” 

     The descent through the planet’s atmosphere was bumpy, as they
passed through several areas of turbulence. Huge rainstorms buffeted
large areas of the surface, rending the sky with massive blasts of
lightning. As they went lower, Darius kept the scanners busy, trying to
gather every bit of information on the mysterious planet that they
could.
     “This makes no sense,” said Rena, the Constellation’s Chief Life
Officer.
     “What doesn’t, Doctor?  ” asked Byrne.
     “This planet is almost the same distance from its primary as
Caprica, and the star is similar as well. Yet, this planet has no polar
ice fields, and the temperature…I just don’t get it.”
     “Well, maybe we’ll pick up some answers from the folks below.
They’ve been here a while, they must have learned something about this
mudball.”
     “And why is there no vegetation, either. Scans show some form of
life in the oceans, yet the land…” She made a wide gesture towards the
ports with one hand.
     “We’ll be at the crash site in one centon, sir,” said Darius.
     “Good.  Miss Alyssia, standard hails, all frequencies,” said Byrne.
     “Standard hails, aye, sir.” Alyssia said.

Chapter Three
 
 
     “Sir,” said Tigh, on the Galactica’s bridge.
     “Yes, Colonel?  ” replied Adama.
     “Captain Byrne reports finding Human life signs on the planet, sir.
And one burial. At the site of the Earth vessel’s escape pod.” He handed
Adama the report. “He is attempting to make contact with the others.”
     “Good. Keep the channel open, and keep me informed, Colonel.”
     “Yes, sir.”
 
 
     “What do you want?  ” Ama snarled aloud, in her chamber, as she
fought to focus on the impulses slamming into her mind. Nearly
overwhelmed by powerful images, thoughts, emotions, many obscure and
unrecognizable, Ama writhed upon her bed, trying to shake herself clear
of whatever it was that was flowing over her. But it, whatever it was,
continued to roll over her, as if indifferent to what she…
     Suddenly, she felt herself released, as if whatever it was had
stopped its assault upon her, both mentally and physically. As she took
deep, calming breaths, striving to regain control of her mind, body, and
spirit, she felt a slight…tingle. As if something were still present.
     You are?  A quiet, yet insistent “voice” seemed to say. Are?  Be
are?  
     “Co thusa?  ”she murmured aloud, momentarily slipping into an
ancient tongue no longer used among her people, taking deep breaths. Her
voice was dry and raspy, and she took another sip from her carafe.
“Ahhh….”  Again calmly focused, she sent out a thought. “Who are you? 
What are you…..ya wee bugger?  ”
     Am a voice seemed to say in her mind. Like a voice almost lost upon
the wind. Am. Am be.
     Then it was gone. Gone like the last light of day when the suns had
sunk into the blackness of the sea.
     After long contemplation, Ama fell into a deep sleep.
 
 
     There was no way they could approach unobserved, so Darius set the
shuttle down about two hundred metrons or so from the encampment. As the
thrusters powered down, people began to emerge into the sickly daylight.
Some, he noticed, were carrying weapons.
     “Interesting,” said Byrne, looking out the port. The encampment was
actually a cave, in the side of a long ledge of rock. The mouth had been
partly sealed up by one of the escape pods, and pieces of the others
were scattered about. “They’ve certainly put the wreckage to good use.”
     “Some of them may have had survival training,” said Rena.
“According to what we have on the Rambler’s crew, two were former
military. One a combat engineer.”
     “I see.” He turned to the pilot, eyebrow raised.
     “External camera’s telemetry linked to the Fleet, sir,” said
Darius. “Everything is now in real time.”
     “Good. Shall we go?  ”
     “Da!” said Zhukov.
     They stepped out onto the alien mud and gathered around the hatch.
As they did so, four people, all apparently Human, lined up in front of
the cave mouth. For a few tense moments, the two parties just stared at
each other, neither saying a thing. Inside, Byrne couldn’t help but
think back to when he and Jena had first laid eyes on the team from the
Galactica that had rescued them after nineteen yahrens of isolation.  He
could remember the feelings of suspicion that had gone through him, and
he was sure they were experiencing the same right now.  He kept watching
and noticed a trail of smoke, ascending from behind the hatch, and the
faint smell of soot. Deciding someone had to break the ice, Byrne
stepped forward, hands open in front of him, and introduced himself. He
waited while the Languatron did its work.
     “You appear Human, but that is not a Colonial name,” said one of
the others. He was of medium height, thin in build, and had scraggly
hair and beard. His clothes, once some sort of uniform, were tattered,
and his hands were calloused.
     “I am Human, yes. But I am not originally from the Colonial
nation,” replied Byrne. He turned and looked at the Doctor.
     “But I am,” she said, stepping forward. “I am Doctor Rena,
currently assigned to the Colonial carrier Constellation.”
     The other looked hard at them for a few moments, then seemed to
relax a bit. “Rankin, former Executive Officer of the Colonial
freighter Rambler. Were you brought here, too?  ”
     “No,” replied Byrne. “We picked up a distress signal, that led us
here. Your signal, in fact.”
     “I see.”
     “That was a long time ago,” said another survivor.
     “And then another,” said Darius. “From an Earth vessel.”
     “Bozhe  moy!” said a voice, and another figure stepped out from
behind Rankin. His words were Russian, but the Languatron caught up with
him. “You mean the transmitter is still functioning?  ”
     “It is,” said Zhukov, in his own tongue, and then introduced both
himself and Popova. The other drew closer, face covered in shock. He was
clad in an old Soviet-era flight suit, now legless and hanging open in
front.
     “Menya zovut Pyotr Feodorovitch Kamenev,” he said, introducing
himself. After a moment, he switched to rocky Colonial Standard. “My
name is Pyotr Feodorovich Kamenev. The only survivor of the Terashkova.”
He looked at his fellow countrymen, then the rest. “How did you find us? 
”
     Byrne explained, as best he knew the facts of the matter, while
Kamanev got acquainted with his fellow Russians. Even with his knowledge
of the language, they were going so fast he could scarce follow the
conversation.
     “Come inside,” said Rankin, and motioned the party to enter. The
hatch of the old pod opened, and they stepped into a cave that stretched
back into the gloom. The only furniture were old crates, and a small
fire burned on the center. The smoke was funneled up through a
ramshackle arrangement of bent and rusty lengths of pipe, through the
rock over the hatch. They sat, and the Colonials got a better look at
their hosts’ refuge.
     “It is not exactly Uri Towers, in Caprica City,” said another
survivor, a woman. Like the rest, she was scrawny and looked
ill-nourished. “But we call it home.” She laid some fuel on the meager
fire, which looked like coal, and approached Byrne. “I’m Nollys, former
flight medic, from the Rambler. How are things back home in the
Colonies?  ” In the awkward silence that followed, the Rambler’s crew
looked from one of the rescue party to another, and seemed to pick up
the vibe.
     “What is it?  ” asked Rankin, of Byrne. With a frown, he deferred
to Rena. She bid them all sit, and then began to unfold the tale. Aside
from a few groans, the castaways were silent, as she spoke.
     “All of them?  ” asked another, the Rambler’s former engineer,
Newcomb.
     “Yes,” replied Rena. “Each and every one of the Twelve Colonies was
leveled by the Cylons. Billions died that day.”
     “But how are you here?  ” asked Rankin.
     “How far are we from the Colonies?  ” asked Nollys. Just then,
there was a sound at the hatch, and Rankin stood. Opening the entrance,
they saw three more people, all younger than the first. Two girls, and a
boy, none seemingly above the age of sixteen or so, in Earth terms. To
Rena’s medical eye, and even to Byrne, it was obvious they were not in
great health.
     “Father,” said one of the girls, with long red hair and tattered
rags, patched with pieces of an old flight suit for clothes. “There is
a…” She stopped on seeing the newcomers.
     “It is alright, do not worry,” said Kamanev. “Come in. Gentlemen.
Doctor, allow me to introduce my daughter. Ykaterina Petrovna Kamaneva.”
     “Greetings,” said the girl with a slight nod of the head towards
the newcomers, then a quizzical look back to her father. The others were
introduced as Aspasia, daughter of Nollys and Rankin, and Bion, son of
Newcomb.


     “It is killing them,” wheezed Ama, suddenly springing awake, the
black miasma of a terrible dream vanishing about her as she returned to
wakefulness. She looked about her chamber. “Do you hear me?  ” she
shouted at the bulkheads. “You are killing them!”
 
 
     The survivors consisted of Rankin, the Rambler’s skipper, Newcomb,
the engineer, Levin, his assistant, Nollys, the ship’s medic, Tagget,
the cargo handler, Regis, the helmsman/pilot.
     “Our records indicate there were seven aboard,” said Rena,
consulting her data pad.
     “We lost one,” said Rankin, and they all noticed Newcomb’s scowl.
“Lollia, the flight engineer. She died, shortly after giving birth to
Bion.”
     “I see,” said Byrne, who could identify with that kind of loss. “My
condolences.
     “We were just under twenty centars out from the Colonies,” said
Rankin, getting back on track, “when our scanners began going crazy.
Some sort of electromagnet disturbance in our flight path. We had
instruments all over the boards, then we seemed to lose all power, and
passed out. When we came to, we were here, in orbit around this planet.”
     “Your crew?  ” asked Byrne.
     “All alive, but our ship was in a mess. There were no answers to
our calls home, and most of our ship’s systems were down. Fried, a lot
of them. We worked for days to try and get her going again,” he
shrugged, “but nothing. We eventually were able to fire our main
thrusters, but something was holding us here. Even at full power, we
couldn’t break orbit. Finally, we had to shut down before they blew.”
     “We boarded your ship,” said Darius. “We saw.”
     “So, having no choice,” said Newcomb, “we loaded everything we
could cram into the escape pods, and headed down here. All the supplies
we were carrying to Escoria. Food, clothes, medical supplies, and
armaments.”
     “We saw that your cargo hold was virtually empty,” said Byrne. He
looked around the castaway’s home. The chairs were acceleration couches
stripped from the pods, and the lights were cobbled from wires and
circuits cannibalized from the erstwhile cargo. Power seemed to be
provided by a mix of solar cells, and the windmill they had observed
near the mouth of the cave. The wiring ran from outside, along the
ceiling, to a bank of transformers and relays. Small tanks, pipes, and
valves occupied a lot of the cave, and Newcomb explained that this was
where they collected and purified their water.
     “And we have found seams of coal, nearby,” said Nollys. “It is
about the only thing that will combust, on this planet.
     “You seem to have done well,” said Popova. “My compliments.”
     “And you?  ” asked Zhukov, of Kamanev.
     His story was much the same as that of the Colonials. On a mission
to the Mir space station, their ship had encountered…something. An
electrical disturbance directly ahead, then a loss of control of their
ship. Nothing availed, and after being tossed about like a rag doll in a
dryer, they awoke to find themselves in orbit around this uncharted
planet. Like the Colonials, all attempts at escape, or communications
with home, were fruitless. Eventually, as their life-support was nearly
depleted and having no other options, they abandoned ship, leaving the
distress call on automatic.
     But, on descent, there was yet another calamity. One of the pod’s
breaking thrusters failed, and they slammed into the ground much too
fast. Kamanev was left with a dislocated shoulder, and his co-pilot with
a broken neck. No effort of his could save his friend, and he quickly
succumbed. Interring him as best he could, he gathered up what few
supplies remained, and painfully began to walk towards the encampment
they had seen from orbit.
     “And I have been here ever since,” he finished. “I will admit, I
never expected to see or hear anyone from Earth again.”
     “So Earth isn’t just some old legend?  ” asked Tagget. “It’s real? 
”
     “It is,” said Byrne. “I am from Earth, and so are several other
refugees the Fleet has acquired.”
     “But can we go anywhere?  ” asked Nollys. “Neither of us,” she
indicated Kamanev, “could escape this planet. And all those ships up
there…”
     “Well, we’re gonna try,” said Byrne.
     Oh My Lords! Rena said to herself, as she reviewed her medical
scans.

Chapter Four
     
     “Report, Colonel,” said Adama, on the bridge of
the Galactica. Around them, lights were fluctuating, and the vibration
of the ship’s engines began an odd pitch.
     “Data is still coming in, but something is interfering with our
scanners.” He gestured at a screen screen. “We’ve been scanning the
planet since we came into range, and things have been oddly quiet.”
     “Quiet?  ” asked Adama.
     “Yes. The planet appeared to be dead. We picked up very little in
the way of geological activity, beyond some small volcanos. Then, about
four centons ago, there was a large spike in energy readings.”
     “What sort?  ”
     “We’re not sure. Much of it is unfamiliar. But the planet’s
magnetosphere suddenly began fluctuating, both in area and in power.” He
gestured towards another screen. There, the planet was displayed, its
magnetic field cocooning it like a yoke inside an egg. Then, it began to
surge and flex, as if it were being bombarded by massive solar flares.
“The strange thing is,” continued Tigh, “the sun is quiet at the moment.
No flares, no coronal surges, nothing. Nothing that could account for
this.”
     “And the fluctuations in our own systems, Colonel?  ”
     “Unknown, sir. But they correlate precisely with when this began.”
He looked up, as a light fixture popped and died.
     “All electronic screens to maximum,” ordered Adama. He turned to
Omega. “Get me the team from the Constellation.”
     “At once, Commander.”  
 
 
     “I don’t understand,” said Byrne, outside the shelter. He had made
some excuse to head outside with Rena, who now showed him her scans.
     “There is a huge drop in the function of the mitochondria in the
cells of the survivors. They are the organelles that produce the energy
needed to operate the cells of our bodies. Their body temperatures are
several degrees below normal, and just about every bodily function is
below where it should be. In simple terms, Captain, they’re dying.”
     “Any clue as to the cause?  ”
     “None, yet. But…” She stopped a moment and let out a sigh. She
looked at him and saw that he’d come to the same conclusion as she had.
     “It’s happening to us, too.”
     “Yes, sir. It is very slight. In fact, I can barely read it, but
each and every one of the landing party is showing the same thing. A
slow, but definite decline in the energy produced inside our cells.”
     Byrne was quiet a moment, then looked around them, at the endless
vistas of barren mud.
     “That’s what killed this planet, isn’t it?  ’
     “I think so, sir. I have no samples to scan, and I’m not a
botanist, but I’ll wager that whatever it is killed off the bulk of this
planet’s lifeforms, and is doing the same to the Rambler’s survivors,
and, now, to us.” She folded up her scanner. “We have to get off this
planet, sir.” Again, thunder boomed explosively, over their heads. “And
fast.”
     “Agreed. You get aboard the Armstrong and let Commander Adama know.
I’ll talk to these folks about evacuating.”
     “Right away, Captain.”  As she spoke, the sky seemed ripped by a
flash of blackness, as though it were some kind of dark lightning. The
wind began to shriek, and Byrne caught Rena, to keep her from falling.
 
 
     “What in all Kobol…?  ” said Adama, as he picked himself up from
the deck. Around him, various screens had either gone snowy, or dark
altogether. Crew were either slumped in their seats or sprawled on the
deck. A few were picking themselves up
     “Father?  ” said Athena, and Adama felt her hand on his arm.
     “What in Heaven’s name was that?  ”
     “I don’t know,” she replied. “My panel’s gone dark.”
     “Negative Shield, now,” he said, and she complied.
     “Oh my…” she started to say. There, half-filling the port, was the
mysterious planet.


     “We have another problem,” said Darius, in the cockpit of
the Armstrong.
     “I don’t want to hear about any more problems,” said Byrne.
     “Alright, sir,” replied the other. “Then I won’t tell you that our
thrusters won’t fire.” Darius tried again. At first, there was
the bang of the motors igniting, and a whine. Then, it powered down, and
went silent.
     “Consider me informed,” said Byrne.
     “And,” said Darius, “with every attempt to launch, our power
reserves decrease by…” He checked his instruments again. “By
approximately zero point oh one percent. And that is above the fuel
expended, and the heat from the thrusters. I have no idea where that
energy is going, sir.”
     “Damn,” said Byrne.
     “We are stranded, Captain.”
 
 
     “No! No!” said Ama, as she looked around her chambers. “You cannot
do this! Do you hear me?  No!”
     “Ama?  ” cried her protégé, Lia. “What…ah!!!” Like a body slam in
the Triad ring, Lia went down, groaning in pain.
     “Damn you!” shouted Ama, rushing to the child. “Damnation of the
Outer Vortex upon you!”
     “Help me!” cried Lia.
 
 
     “Well then where is she?  ” demanded Baltar, in the Control center
of the BaseShip.
     “Unknown,” replied Command Centurion Moray. “She just vanished off
our scanners.” Baltar watched as they scan was replayed. There was
the Galactica, in formation with the rest of the Fleet, then…
     She wasn’t. With a slight blurring of the image, the Battlestar
seemed to waver, then simply disappeared. As she did so, numerous
instruments aboard the BaseShip snowed, crackled, or blew out.
     “Fullest possible scanner sweeps,” ordered Baltar. “All bands,
maximum intensity.”
     “By your command,” replied the scan Centurion.
     “We are receiving numerous hails from the Colonial ships,” said
Moray. “What do we tell them?  ”
     “I…I don’t know,” replied Baltar.  This was the last thing he had
ever thought he’d have to deal with.


     “Fascinating!” said former IL Commander Septimus, his eyes going
brighter, and faster, than usual. “The Commander should know about this
at once!”
 
 
     “I knew this would happen,” said Rankin, down on the planet. “After
we got here, many of our devices would not function.”
     “Any clue as to why?  ” asked Popova.
     “We’re not certain,” replied Newcomb. “But before most of our
scanning equipment quit, we picked up some sort of dampening field down
here. In fact, it seems to surround the entire planet. Much of our
equipment just refused to function, no matter what we tried.”
     “Like on the Tereshkova,” said Kamanev. “Many of our systems simply
refused to operate.”
     “Same on the Rambler,” said Nollys. “What wasn’t already blown or
fried just refused to work. We didn’t know why, then. We don’t know
now.”
 

     “Any ideas how she got there?  ” asked Baltar, when he got the
report. The BaseShip’s scanners had at last picked up the Galactica, in
orbit around the planet.
     “None,” replied Moray. “There are no ionization traces from her
engines, or any energy signatures that would indicated how she transited
the distance. She is just…there, Commander Baltar.” Baltar noted the
hesitation in Moray’s response, as if the now-enlightened Cylon was
experiencing what in a Human would be called bewilderment.
     “Try and contact her. At once.”
     “By your command.”
 
 
     “Commander,” said Omega, back in his seat. “The Empyrean leader Ama
requests to see you, sir.”
     “Ama?  ” replied Adama, half-turning to face the junior officer.
     “Yes, Commander. She seems quite…insistent.”
     “Not now, Omega. I can’t…”
     “Yes, now! This is too important to put me off, Adama!” The
Commander turned, there was the Empyrean wise woman, standing right
behind him, hands on hips, and looking even more wildly disheveled than
usual. Adama could not help but flinch at her sudden appearance.
     “How…?  ’
     “Really, Adama. I’ve no time now for elementary lessons in the
aethers. This is serious.”
     “Very well,” he replied slowly. “Come to the Ward Room, please.” He
indicated the direction, then turned to lead the way.
     “Yes, of course,” she said, and headed towards it, following him.
“Lords, I need a drink!”
 
Chapter Five
 
     “Yes,” said Septimus, from his perch in Wilker’s lab. “I would like
to speak with Commander Adama, at once.”
     “The Commander is in a very important conference right now,
Septimus,” replied Omega, from the bridge.
     “I am well aware of this, Flight Officer. It is on the topic of
this conference that I wish to speak with him regarding. I have
information that may be pertinent to our current predicament. Please,
put me through.”
     “I shall page him. Please hold,” said Omega, with a touch of an
annoyed sigh in his voice. For a brief moment, approximately zero point
oh oh 4 micro microns, Septimus pondered the Human ability to
communicate such myriad emotional states solely by the way they employed
their voices. Their ability to modulate them via the passage of air was
truly astounding. Despite all their high technology, and long labor,
Cylon engineers had never been able to precisely match this ability.
Mere flesh and air, against the greatest technology in the star system!
For an even shorter period, he felt a wave of envy at this Human skill,
then shook it off as irrelevant.
     “Please hurry up!” he said to the empty room. “we do not have until
the heat death of the universe!”
 
 
     “They are not suffering some sort of equipment breakdown, Adama,”
declared Ama, across from the Commander.
     “What then?  ”
     “It is not a what, Adama! It is a who.”
     “Excuse me?  ” he stopped, drink half-way to his mouth. Did I hear
you correctly?  ”
     “By all the…” she began, then stopped whatever she was about to
say. “The people down on the surface, as well as all the ships trapped
in orbit around that planet, are being held there, by a…I believe you
would use the term ‘non-corporeal intelligence’. Talk about inadequate!
To describe such a…’
     “Please, Ama! Get to the point!”
     If there is one! He thought to himself.
     “Of course there is one, Adama! Or do you think I’m here for the
peely-wally libation, not to mention your parochial opinions, and
smashing company?  ” She took a deep drink. “In terms that you can
understand, it is simply this, that planet is the home of a…”
     Beep
     “Adama here.”
     Ama snorted in disgust. “Really, Adama. Manners!”
     “Omaga, sir. “I have a request, from Doctor Wilker’s lab. The Cylon
IL Commander, Septimus. He wishes to speak to you, at once.”
     “Septimus?  Did you tell him I am in the midst of an important
meeting?  ”
     “Of course he did,” sighed Ama. “He’s a good lad. I wondered when
Septimus was going to jump in. Of course, he’d need legs for that.
Actually, we need to speak to him.” Adama was about to object, when Ama
gave him one of those looks of hers, and he straightened up. He
considered her for a moment, tugging at his collar. 
     “Very well, Omega. Have the holo-link established and transmit it
to me here.”
     “Yes, sir.”
     “Excellent,” said Ama. She sighed. “I hope Starbuck is alright,”
she muttered.
     “He’s on furlon, just now,” replied Adama. “At a pyramid
championship on the Rising Star, actually.”
     Ama smiled, shaking her head. “Why should today be any different
even with his being sealed now?  ”
     “Link established,” said Omega. At once, an image of the IL Cylon
filled the holo-array in the center of the screen. Adama still found the
image of the Cylon face, with oscillating red eyes, uncomfortable, even
after all that had transpired recently.
     “Commander Adama,” said the IL. “I understand we are now in orbit
around the planet with all the derelict vessels.”
     “That is correct, Septimus,” Adama replied. “Do you have any
information for us?  ”
     “I have an extensive analysis of the force that is holding us here,
sir,” replied Septimus.
     “How did you come by this data?  ” asked Adama.
     “I was attempting to re-write some of the subroutines that comprise
my basic operating system, and was using input from the Galactica’s
scanners in the process, when I noticed unusual patterns in the energy
surrounding the planet.” The image of Septimus faded, and was overlaid
by a complex graphic of lines, images, and equations.
     “It’s alive!” said Ama. “Anyone can see that.”
     “Alive?  ” said Adama, to both of them.
 
 
     “I don’t know,” said Rena, seated aboard the shuttle. She was
looking at her scanner, and the main array aboard the Armstrong.
     “The way it seems to…to pulse,” said Nollys. “It is almost like…”
 
 
     “A heartbeat!” said Ama. “It, whatever it is, is alive.”
     “She is quite correct, Adama,” said Septimus. Then image of the
planet was enhanced, and surrounding it was…something. A layer, or a
field of energy. As they watched, it pulsed, expanding and contracting,
in a regular, rhythmic cycle.
     “A….you are certain it can be nothing else?  ” asked Adama.
     “I am,” said Septimus. “My analysis of the scans have allowed for,
and eliminated output fluctuations from the star, the planet’s magnetic
field and radion belts, even minor variations in both its rotation and
precessional wobble, and tidal influences from its moon. This is some
sort of energy, independent of any natural known phenomenon or affects.”
     “Simply put, Adama,” said Ama, mastering her impatience, “the
planet is home to some sort of living thing. It is a being of energy,
not matter. Somehow, it has brought us, as well as all the other
vessels, here, from where they originated.” She took a deep breath. “And
it won’t let us go.”
     “How do you know this?  ” he asked her, certain he probably
wouldn’t understand the answer.
     “I feel it, Adama. I know it. In a strange way, I recognize it.
Don’t ask me to explain. In fact, there are some things, I hate to
admit, that even I don’t completely understand. But this…thing, this
very powerful being, somehow reached out, and pulled us here, just like
everyone else, and…”
     Beep
     “Again!” lamented Ama.
     It was Rena, from the surface. She had uploaded her report, along
with Byrne’s. Somehow, Adama decided, he wasn’t surprised that it seemed
to gel with what Ama and Septimus had told him.
     “So,” he asked, “how do we get away?  ”
     “I have a possible plan,” said Septimus. “But it entails a great
deal of danger, Commander.”
     “Let’s have it,” said Adama.
 
 
     “Can it work?  ” asked Newcomb, in the Armstrong. “I mean, a plan,
from a Cylon?  ” He was obviously not crazy about the idea. The
survivors had been, of course, informed by Adama of events in the war,
as well as the recent détente with Baltar’s ship of renegade Cylons, as
well as rumors of upheavals in the Empire. Shaking heads all around, as
they tried to assimilate the universe turning upside down and were
having a hard time of it.
     “I don’t know,” said Byrne. I’m not an engineer, but Commander
Septimus has been of great help in the past since his reactivation.” He
briefly told them of the former IL’s performing the surgery that gave a
new life to the crippled Bojay.
     The plan was, on the surface, simple. The Galactica would fire her
main drive, the polarity of the impulses to her array of pulse
generators would oscillate to match the pattern of the alien entity. The
idea being that by matching polarities, like two magnets, north to north
and south to south, the ship could be “pushed’ away from the planet,
escaping the grip of what held them in orbit.
     “Looks good on a screen,” said Engineer Twilly, perusing the
calculations for the operation. They were in the Chief Engineer’s
office, and he turned to Chief Engineer Shadrach. “But the timing of the
oscillations is critical. One miscalculation…”
     “I know. Nothing like this has ever been attempted, as far as I
know,” replied the Chief Engineer.
     “What about Baltar’s offer to link systems, with the BaseShip?  ”
asked Adama, next to Shadrach. “Share and increase the power?  ”
     “We can’t link our pulse generators with those of the BaseShip,
sir. The basic principles are the same, but the Cylon systems operate at
a different frequency than Colonial pulse generators. That, and there
are still aspects to their whole power supply conversion array that we
haven’t fully gotten a hold on, Commander. If we try and link up without
knowing every little aspect, we could blow out our own systems.”
     “And theirs too, no doubt,” said Adama. Both engineers nodded.
     “And,” added Twilly, “it could take sectons to analyze, and devise
interfaces between our disparate systems, Commander.” He looked at a row
of computations, coming in from Septimus once again, running yet another
sim. “If we even could. This is our only chance, sir.”
 
 
     “I meant exactly what I said, Adama!” said Ama, back in the Ward
Room. “By all the cursed souls in perdition, this will not succeed.”
     “The engineers seem to think we have a chance,’ replied Adama.
     “Engineers, bah! This is not some pulsing star, or imploding
singularity we are dealing with,” she emphasized. “This is a being, a
living creature. It brought us here, by way of some strange power that I
admit even I do not understand fully. Every ship that it brought here
tried to escape. None did.”
     “How can you know this?  ” the Commander asked her.
     “I don’t expect you to fully grasp this, Adama. But I touched its
mind. So far, all I have is vague impressions. But one thing is clear.
No ship has ever left here.”
     “And just what would you have me do?  ” asked Adama, feeling his
patience beginning to wear a bit thin. “Just sit here, till we all die? 
Till our ships all run out of power?  I for one do not intend to be idle
about this, Ama.”
     “Oh, how like a Warrior,” she said, half to herself.
     “I make no apologies for being a Warrior,” he replied, back
stiffening ever so slightly.
     “Did I say you should?  ” shot back Ama. “All I am saying is that
this will not be resolved by physics or engines, or machines.”
     “Then how do you propose that it be resolved?  We cannot stay here,
Ama.”
     “Give me time, Adama,” Ama replied. She took a deep breath. “Give
me time.” And she exited without a backward glance.
     Adama turned to the intercom. After a long moment’s consideration,
he contacted his people.
     “Let’s go.”


     “Yes?  ” said Luana, as Ama strode back into her chambers. The
girl’s expression was expectant, as was her sister acolyte’s.
     “Adama, Triqueta bless him, isn’t listening. So…”
     “So?  ” asked Lia.
     “Why should today be any different?  ” quipped Luana.
     “So. We do things the right way. The only way there is, my
daughters. Come on.”

Chapter Six
 
     “We are ready down here, Galactica,” said Byrne, from
the Armstrong.  
     “Initializing…now!” came Omega’s voice over the link.
     “Roger that,” said Allen.
 
 
     “Can they do it, do you think?  ” asked Ayesha, of Baltar, in their
quarters aboard the BaseShip. On one of the screens, they watched as
the Galactica reoriented herself, stern towards the planet, nose towards
space.
     “I honestly have no idea, Ayesha,” he replied. “Adama…” He stopped,
as the Battlestar’s huge engine ports began to glow, brighter and
brighter.
     “We’ll we shall see,” said Ayesha, eyes glued to the screen. “Lords
be with you, Adama,” she said, softly.
     “Yes,” said Baltar, quietly. “Yes.”
 
 
     “All reaction chambers at full power,” said Shadrach. “Chamber
pressure at tolerance in all manifolds, coolant temperatures reading
nominal. Prepare to shunt power to the pulse generators on my mark.”
     “Aye,” replied Twilly. “All conduits and relays show ready.”
     “On my mark. Three…two…one…NOW!”
 
 
     What was this?  One of the vessels was trying to leave! No! No this
cannot…
     PAIN! Terrible bolts of pain moved through it as the vessel tried
to slip the bonds. It cried out, mind in agony as the vessel…   
    
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
   
     “It’s working, Commander!” said Tigh, on the bridge. He gestured to
a graphic, showing the position of the ship in relation to the planet.
Bit by bit, the Galactica was beginning to move away. “We are moving!”
     “By the Lords, let’s keep it up!” Adama said, half to himself.
     But could they keep it up, Tigh asked himself. Already, stress
tolerances throughout the ship were approaching their design limits.
And, with all the poundings they had been through since leaving home,
with all the beatings the venerable old girl had endured, could those
numbers even be trusted?  
     Creeeeeeeeeaaakkkk……………
     Thunk!
     “Hear me, Lords?  ” Adama murmured. “Keep it up!”
 
 
     BANG!
     “Transformer relays out!” cried a technician. “Banks one through
four.”
     “Re-route!” ordered Shadrach.
     “Re-routing, aye!”
 
 
     No! No! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo…………….
 
 
     “Heavens!” whispered Luana, as the three focused upon the force
below. “Such pain!”
     “Quiet, child!” said Ama, but it was more like a whisper.
     “Difficult,” whispered Lia.
     “So was creating the universe. Hush!”
     “Yes,” breathed the girl.
 
 
     “It’s working, Commander!” said Tigh, even as warning lights on a
graphic of the Battlestar began to flicker. Myriad points in and outside
of the ship were approaching the limits of what they were designed to
withstand. The Galactica, like all ships of her type, had been designed
to withstand enormous stresses on her hull. But the ambush at Cimtar,
the flight across the Star System, her massive battering by the Ziklagi,
and her partial rebuilding by the Zykonians had made several of those
specifications questionable. Would she, could she, endure what they were
demanding of her, now?  
     Crrraaaakkkk went something, behind a bulkhead, and a light fixture
blew itself out.
     “Hold! Hold together!” whispered Adama.
     Yet, even as they watched the readouts, it seemed as if they were
winning. As the generators pulsed, the Battlestar seemed to move further
and further away from the planet. Slowly, almost a crawl, but they were…
 
 
     “Holy Frack!” said Shadrach, as a panel sparked in front of him.
     “Relays are out again, sir!” said an engineer.
     “Damned alien!” muttered Shadrach. He looked at the screen and slid
up a set of paddles. “Hold together, you hear me?  Hold together!”
 
 
     “Yes!” said Lia. “Yes! It is…”
 
 
     “Look at that!” said Allen, as they watched the sky. Massive
electrical storms had suddenly sprung up, as if from nowhere, and the
wind had begun to howl. Vast rippling luminesces, like the Northern
Lights of Earth but far larger, were rippling across the sky.
     “Let’s just hope they don’t blow themselves to Kingdom Come,”
muttered Byrne. Next to him, Newcomb, monitoring the shuttle’s scanners,
nodded silently.
 
 
     “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” screamed the pulsing waves
of thought, below. “You….. cannot…………………….stop!”  
 
 
     With a sharp scream, Lia collapsed to the floor.
     “Lia! Lia!” cried Luana, dropping to her sister’s side. 
 
 
     With a massive shake, like being shoved out a window,
the Galactica suddenly surged ahead, screaming away from the planet, as
the grip of whatever force was that had held her there broken. She
leaped, close to lightspeed, then began to tumble wildly. Voices cried
out and systems all over the ship off then on-line again, till at last
the maneuvering thrusters responded, and she began to slow, painfully
righting herself.
     “All sections, report!” ordered Tigh, as the ship’s velocity
continued to drop, and they regained control. He listened as damage
reports came in from all over. LifeStation was flooded with calls, but,
thankfully, none of the bridge crew required a visit from med-techs.
 
 
     “By the Lords!” breathed Baltar, as he watched the proceedings. He
ordered a full scan of the Battlestar, and as the visuals zoomed in, he
did a double-take. “Ayesha?  Do you see that?  ”
     “Yes. It is like…”
     “Like claw marks!” he finished for her. He touched the IC next to
his seat. “Moray, this is Baltar. Contact the Galactica. CommLine Alpha,
frequency one.”
     “By your command.”
 
     “They got away,” said Byrne, to the survivors on the planet. “But…”
     “But?  ” asked Rankin.
     “But it seems she took quite a beating doing it. A lot of her
systems are down.”
     “Meaning we’re still stuck here,” said the other.
     He looked up at the weird sky and felt like he was stuck in a
never-ending horror movie. “Meaning we’re still stuck here.”
 
 
     “Ship’s systems are coming back,” reported Tigh, on the bridge.
Around them, one by one, monitors and indicators slowly returned to
function. Or at least some did. The ship’s deflector grid, and part of
her scanner array were still off-line, and showed no signs of returning
to life any time soon.
     “What about main power?  ” asked Adama.
     “Main power still down, Commander. Chief Shadrach reports that most
of our main power relays are out. Repairs proceeding.”
     “Expedite,” said Adama.
     “Father,” said Athena. “Incoming message from Baltar. Fleet
Com-Line.”
     “Give it to me here, Athena.”
 
 
     “I am all right,” protested Lia, as Ama gave her a sip
of elda liqueur. Rare and hard to make, it was nonetheless “sovereign”,
for sudden attacks of weakness, as her own apprentice mistress had put
it, when she had been an acolyte. It seemed to do the trick, as the
color came back into Lia’s face, and Ama felt her life-force steady. She
tried to stand.
     “You’ll be alright when I say so,” said Ama, with more force than
she had meant to. She took the glass from Lia, then helped herself to a
sip.
     “I felt it,” said Lia, feeling the warmth spread through her.
“That…whatever it is. I felt it.”
     “So did I,” said Ama. “But…” She stopped a moment. “What did you
feel, child?  ”
     “I felt its heart. It’s inner being.” She was quiet a long moment.
     “Did it speak to you?  ” asked Luana.
     “Not in words, no. It was…oh, how do I describe it?  ”
     “Give me your thoughts,” said Ama. She looked directly into her
goddaughter’s eyes and let her essence flow with the girl’s. “Yes. Yes,
I feel…” She took a sharp breath.
     “Mother?  ” said Luana.
     “Oh Triqueta,” Ama breathed, softly. “Elements above!”
     “What?  ” asked Luana again. “What is it?  ”
 
 
     “And…now,” said Twilly, in the Battlestar’s engineering section. He
pushed up a bank of switches, and several panels slowly returned to
life, and one of the ship’s intermix chambers began, equally slowly, to
glow once more.
     “Got it,” said Shadrach. “Power at 13.7% and climbing. All conduits
holding steady.”
     “Manifold pressure reads well within tolerances,” reported Twilly.
“Same with thermal readouts.”
     “What the…” cried a voice, as the vessel shook about them. The deck
vibrated, and systems flickered off and on.
     “We’re…”
 
 
     “The Galactica has been returned to the planet,” said Moray, to
Baltar. “The energy signatures are the same as before.”
     “You mean that whatever this power is, it has seized them once
again?  ” asked Ayesha.
     “That is our analysis,” replied Moray. “There are no other factors
or variables to consider.
     “What about ourselves?  ” asked Baltar.  
     “No change in our position or status,” replied the Command
Centurion. “All systems and indications remain nominal.
     “Keep me appraised,” said Baltar.
     “By your command.”
 
 
     “According to Baltar,” Adama said to Tigh, “the energy readings are
the same. The same force has seized us once again.”
     “And we can never pull away, again,” said Tigh. “The damage from
the attempt has considerable.”
     “What I wonder is…what caused those marks on our hull.”
     “Almost like…”
     “Well, Adama,” said Ama, as before, just there. This time, her
acolytes were with her. If possible, the Empyrean wise woman looked even
more disheveled than usual.
     “Ama?  I…”
     “We tried it your way, Commander,” said Ama, with an almost
disgusted sigh. “Now, will you listen to me?  ”

Chapter Seven
 
     “Crying?  ” said Adama, clearly taken aback by Ama’s words.  “I
don’t……crying?  ”
     “Yes, Adama,” replied the other. “Lia sensed it more clearly than
I, in this case.” Ama looked at her. “She is a gifted empath. Lia?  Tell
him.” The young woman was clearly exhausted from recent events, as well
as being ill at ease about being, essentially debriefed by the august
Adama.
     The slender woman winced. “Y…yes, Commander,” she replied “That is
what I sensed. Felt.”
     “I am afraid I don’t understand,” said Adama. “That is an, well, an
emotional response. Are you saying this…creature, phenomenon, whatever
it may be, is a sentient being?  ”
     “It is,” said Ama. “And it is a bairn.”
     “A what?  ” said Tigh, at the same moment as Septimus, linked up
from the lab. “A baron?  ”
     “A bairn,” replied the Empyrean. “A stripling. A nestling. A child.
This is not just some blob of cosmic energy. It is an actual living,
thinking, feeling being.”
     “How is that possible?  ” asked Septimus. “A conscious entity,
without a body?  ”
     “The universe is full of more things unknown than known, Septimus,”
replied Ama. “Humans and Cylons alike are limited in what they can
observe, detect and certainly recognize. Although I must confess that I
did not…” she paused a moment, as if the admission came hard to her, “I
did not realize the true nature of this being, being at first distracted
by what seemed predatory actions.” She looked at her goddaughter and
took a deep breath.
     “Anyway,” prompted Adama.
     “Anyway,” continued Ama. “The energy phenomenon, as you call it, is
in actuality a living being, a very powerful essence.”
     “You said it was crying,” said Tigh.
     “Yes,” said Ama, gesturing towards Lia, that she take up the story.
     “It is like very much like a child, sir. I did not understand all
that I saw, but it is trapped here. Caged. It does not have the strength
to leave.”
     “Trapped how?  ” asked Adama.
     “The planet’s magnetic field is strong. It holds it here,
preventing it from leaving.”
     “Then it is not native to this world?  ”
     "Ama?  " Lia whispered, wincing again, her fingertips touching her
temples. She hunched over, in obvious distress.
     "Sit, child. Rest." Ama led her to a chair, stroking Lia's hair
back from her face. She leaned forward, touching her forehead to Lia's,
gently cradling her face. When she straightened and turned a moment
later, Lia appeared calm and refreshed. “When I touched its essence,
Adama, I discovered that it is a member of a race that lives in space.
They move about the cosmos as freely as we do through the air. It lives
on the energy of the universe itself.”
     Tigh sat down in the chair beside Lia.  "You touched its . . ."
     "Essence," replied Ama, her lips quirking in amusement.
"Perhaps spirit is a word you'd feel more comfortable with, Colonel?  "
She glanced at Adama, raising an eyebrow.  "Yes?  "
     The commander cleared his throat. "Either is . . . fine. For now."
     "Well, I'm glad we cleared that up," she replied. 
     "Quite so."
     “Uh, er, how exactly . . . did it come to be?  ” asked Tigh. 
     “Indeed, the age-old question, Colonel,” smiled Ama. “How. From
what I could understand, it was born, or came into existence, I’m not
sure how to interpret it, in a sort of…for lack of a better word…a sort
of what you call a nimbus, or nebula. A great bustling cloud of energy.
It lived there with countless others of its kind. A rookery, of sorts.
Somehow, and I do not grasp it fully, it was expelled, or lost its herd,
or lost its way, from its home, and ended up wandering the universe. It
came here and could not leave.”
     “Why?  ” asked Adama.
     “First you must understand, this being fed on the energy of stellar
winds, and nebulae, and the great strings that hold the star systems
together. But you must likewise understand, it is immature.  Barely a
toddler in the reckoning of its kind, without the necessary experiences
and life skills to survive alone. It was hungry, Adama. It was nearly
dead when it found its way here.”
     “And somehow became trapped here,” said Adama.
     “Yes,” replied Ama. “It sensed energy from this planet. Food. And
so, it came here, only to find that it was too weak to escape. The
planet’s magnetic field held it like shackles.”
     “What does it live on?  ” asked Tigh.
     “Energy, Colonel,” retorted Ama. “I thought we had covered that.
     “I believe the Colonel means the source of that energy,” said
Septimus. “I expect that to be the star itself. The sun in this system
fairly frequently ejects powerful flares and bursts of radion, across
the spectrum, Commander. Such a creature might be able to draw
sustenance from those.”
     “Alright. But what about the effects on living things?  ” Adama
pointed out. “Biology. It seems to have an inimical effect on those.”
     “The Human essence is simply another form of sustenance for this
creature. Another kind of food. In fact with any form of living flesh,
be it plants, animals, or people. Any close contact with this entity
slowly depletes and destroys them.”
     “Is that why the planet is so barren?  ” asked Adama.
     “Yes,” said Ama. “In its thoughts, I saw this world, when it first
came here. It was much like our own worlds. It was lush and green, and
bountiful with life. There was even a civilization here. But, slowly,
it, and everyone below, was destroyed. One by one, the living things
below died, until the…oh, how do you say it?  Yes, until the ecosystem
collapsed, and it became as we see it now.”
     “Fascinating,” muttered Septimus.
     “Terrifying,” said Tigh. “Utterly terrifying.”
     “But it was not from cruelty, nor malice,” interrupted Lia. “It
just cannot live in proximity to living things like ourselves. Or
rather, we cannot survive in proximity to a being such as it. It is
outside it’s natural habitat.”
     “And the ships?  ” asked Adama. “All of these space vessels?  How
do they figure into all of this?  ”
     “It brought them here,’ said Ama. “All of them.”
     “But why?  ” asked Tigh. “To feed on?  ”
     “No!” cried Lia, jumping to her feet.
     “Then why?  ”
     “It was…lonely,” the young woman cried.
     “You mean,” said Tigh, slowly…
     “Yes,” sighed Ama. “It brought them here for company.”
 
 
     “Will you help me?  ” Ama asked Hunley, later, in her billet
aboard Constellation which she shared with her husband, Captain Dante. 
She had just appeared on the Lieutenant’s vid screen, interrupting the
latest from IFB.
     “You think I can actually be of help?  ” replied the Viper pilot.
     “I need all the help I can get, My Dear.  As I told you when you
came to see me about going to Adama and revealing your ability to
communicate with your cousin in the Colonies, you have a raw talent, and
the strength of youth.  Now it is needed for a task even greater than
that.”
     “I see.  But….” She shook her head, “Is it really necessary to have
me?  I know I’m the only one who can communicate with the Colonies but
is it something only an Otori can do?  ”
     “You are awfully loud, My Dear. But in all seriousness…” Ama
sighed, looking down. “No, it is not something only you can do, but I am
not certain I can do this alone. Perhaps not even with my goddaughters.”
She looked into Hunley’s eyes. “I need you, Hunley. By all the Elements,
I…implore you. Help me. Help all of us.”
     “Very well,” said the other, after a moment’s consideration. “When
and where?  ”
     “Will she be able to?  ” asked Lia of her teacher, after the link
was cut. “I mean, can she?  ”
     “Well,” said Ama, with a weak smile, looking at the girl, “time
will show us.”
     “O Triqueta,” whispered Luana.
     “Amen to that,” said Ama.
 
 
     “Father, do you really mean to let this…this sorceress, do this?  ”
asked Apollo, in Adama’s quarters. “I mean…”
     “That is really an unsophisticated thing to call her, Apollo,”
Adama replied. “I admit, I do not understand her very much. She has
knowledge, and…insights, that I find baffling, to put it mildly. Yet,
she understands much that we, with all our advanced technology, cannot
fathom. Certainly not with any ease.”
     “And letting her use Hunley?  ” he added.  “If something happened
to her, we lose our ability to talk to the Resistance!”
     “At this point Apollo, if we don’t find a way to neutralize the
immediate threat to us, which is this entity, it won’t matter whether we
can speak to the Resistance or not.”
     “Yes, but---,”
     “We have tried all our technology affords us, my son,” said Adama,
gently yet firmly. The tone that told Apollo that his father had come to
a decision and was set upon a course. “We must rest our fates, all our
fates, in her hands.”
     “I hope you are right, Father.”
     “Well, we’ll see,” replied Adama.
 
 
     “I am here,” said Hunley. Since she was officially off-duty, she
wore a dress not unlike what she would have worn back home on Gemon,
among her Otori relatives.  There was a look of calm and serenity in her
expression.  The encouraging word of support her husband, Captain Dante
had given her after she’d talked to Ama had put her mind at ease. 
Allowing her to put her focus on the task at hand.
     “Let us go.”
 
 
     “On the surface,” Athena reported to Adama. “But how?  She never
took a…”
     “It matters not, Athena. It really matters not.” Adama looked from
his daughter to his son, Sheba next to him, on the bridge, then to
Colonel Tigh. None of them spoke. There was naught to say.

Chapter Eight
 
     Under a dull grey sky, dark clouds thick with menace, Ama, Empyrean
wise-woman, teacher, repository of a thousand yahren of untold
knowledge, stood, looking upwards. Even as she took in deep lungfuls of
the planet’s air, she was preparing herself for what was to come.
Although Ama knew countless things of immense antiquity and power, she
had never, in all her life, faced anything such as this. And, in all the
memories open to her, neither had any of her foremothers, as far back as
she could see.It was as fascinating as it was challenging.
     She was alone, here.
     “No,” she said, almost too soft to be heard over the keening wind.
She looked at her “troops” and said again: “not alone.”
     “What the hell is she doing?  ” Allen asked, of no one in
particular, as he and the rest stood, a couple hundred yards away, next
to the Armstrong, watching the newcomers. Like the rest, he had been
surprised when they had just appeared on the planet. No shuttle, no
transport beam, nothing. The four women were just there.
     “That’s your question?  ” Byrne replied. “Not ‘how in the hell did
she get here’?  And can’t she just take us all out of here the same way? 
”
     “Hmm. Salient point.”
     “That’s why they call me Captain Salient.”
     “I thought that was just in Dungeons and Dragons.”
     “Hmm. Salient point.”
     “Trying to save us all, and no, I cannot beam you back, Scotty!”
Ama shouted back at them, though their voices had not been loud enough
to carry to her. Frankly, that frightened them, and they shut up. “Good.
Now, stay out of the way,” said Ama, and turned to her companions.
     The three younger women formed a circle, Ama standing to her full
height in their midst. She slowly raised her face to the sky, her arms
outstretched, and with, she would be loath to admit, no small amount of
fear, began to feel for and embrace the aethereal energies of her
companions. Slowly, she felt their essences flow together, and with a
silent prayer to Triqueta, she began to loosen the bonds of her
perception. At first, it seemed impossible, the entity so utterly alien
to anything she had communicated with before. Slowly and tediously, she
picked at the tendrils of its energy signature, gently weaving a
familiar tapestry of coherence out of incongruous disarray. At first it
resisted, clearly as afraid of her advances as she had been of it. Her
steady, tender and almost nurturing persistence finally began to pay
off. The entity seemed to relax, its essence probing her own, joining in
a symphonic union of powerful spirits.
     Who be?  The voice, more a thought than a sound, splashed against
her mind. Be?  
     I am Ama. We must…know you. Hear us!
     Yes! Know you. Spoke thought to you. So lonely.
     Yes. We understand. Lonely. You brought us here to be unlonely.
     Yes. You will not go away?  
     We cannot go away. We are bound here.
     They all went away, said the thoughts about her, and Ama felt a
twisting stab of sadness, of almost misery. They all.
     They…died. They are not here because they died.
     Died?  What is died?  
     Their bodies, their…shells, the capsules in which they existed,
ceased to be able to hold them. Their essence left. They ceased to be.
     They left. They no longer answered.
     Because they died. What you are, and what we are, are different.
     Different is good. Much in different.
     But that difference is what caused them to die. What you are is
slowly destroying us. Our…bodies will cease to hold us, if we do not
leave here. We must go from here.
     But…so lonely. Alone is…is like what you say is death. I bring
others here. So lonely.
     How long have you been here?  
     I not know. Many turnings of the world you stand on. Many times
around the bright heat.
     The sun. It is called the sun.
     Sun. Like…home.
     Ama recoiled, as the shock of emotional pain crashed over her like
a wave on a beach. Her mind, and those of the women with her, reeled
with images. Images, cascading memories, that flowed from the entity.
For a long moment, they all saw what it remembered. A vast rookery, a
gaseous realm cloud of countless suns, filled with others of its kind,
flitting about, racing, interacting, blending and being with each other.
Beings, members of its species, seemingly beyond count, roiling together
in a massive, boiling union of minds, of life.
     Then, a light, a brilliance beyond grasping. Each of the women
cried out in pain as the flashing of radiance filled the entity’s mind.
They felt it, as it cried out, a cry like an infant’s cry, as it was
hurled away from the others, as it was stunned, hurt, battered. As it
drifted, blind and bereft, unable to comprehend what had happened to it,
or even who it had been. Then, slowly, it was itself again, but it was
alone. It cried out, like a babe fallen from its mother’s arms, flailing
this way, and that. It looked, ran, coursed, through countless star
systems and countless yahrens, centi-yahren after centi-yahren, crying
out into the darkness, alone, and bereft of all that had ever, ever,
given it companionship. Given it comfort.
     Help me! Help me! It had cried out, into the empty, unfeeling
darkness of the cosmos. It had wandered, desperately seeking solace and
companionship. And sustenance, as its strength and energy grew ever
less.
     At last, it had wandered, almost drifted, into the warmth of a
star. At once it felt a tingle of hope. Unlike others such burning
lights, this one was a source of sustenance. As it drew closer, it felt
more…more as it had once felt. It crawled, weakly, towards the source of
this good-feelingness, gradually pulling in life, to bolster its life.
     Then, it had seen the planet. In all its wanderings, it had never
seen anything such as this. A…equal shaped thing, but…not malleable. Not
changeable. It stayed as it was, from one moment to the next. It did not
understand, but it was excited, nonetheless. Upon this equal shaped
thing, there was life. Minds, thoughts of things that moved and
interacted. At last! At last! In utter joy, it moved towards the planet,
reaching out to the thoughts that came up from below.
     And then it was caught. As it drew closer, it felt pulled towards
the planet. It struggled, it fought, but it did not have the strength to
move away. Somehow, the…planet, had taken hold of it, and held it fast.
Desperate, fearful, it reached out to the minds that wandered the
surface. It tried to speak to them, to…
     To be friends.
     But the minds below did not answer. And the more it tried, the
fewer and fewer of them there seemed to be. As it swirled about the
planet, one by one, the minds below stopped. Their voices ceased to call
to each other. More and more of the surface changed, the above the
surface changed, the flowing below the surface changed, it did not
understand how. Less and less, till at last, there was only silence.
Even the sustenance that it found near the minds had stopped.
     It was alone once more.
     It cried out into the dark. Crying. Suffering. In utter misery.
Longing beyond longing for that place where it had begun. It grew
weaker, as every attempt to leave left it with a yet greater hunger.
Sometimes the bright heat would spew food in its direction, and it could
feed. But it was never enough. It waited, in pain and loneliness,
isolated and bereft in the darkness, through many turnings of the
planet.
     Until one day, something came. It was small and came from the dark.
In a burst of hope, and joy, it reached out. YES! There were minds
inside of it! Minds! Others to whom it could talk. An end to loneliness!
Yes! Yes! Talk. Engage. BE!
     Only they did not answer it. It tried and tried, and the small
thing with minds in it tried to leave. It grew a tail of light and began
to move away. No! No, don’t go! Do not leave me! It grabbed at the
thing, held it here. Held it fast. Talk. Be with me! But they did not
answer, and soon, the small container grew dark and cold, and the ones
within ceased to be. It tried and tried, but they were no more.
     It screamed out into the abyss, screamed in pain and misery and
regret. And it felt something new to it. Something that it had never
felt or thought or realized before.
     Anger.
     Why?  Why had the minds done this?  It just wanted to touch others,
to know others, to…to be friends. Why?  Why had they done this?  It had
done nothing to hurt them! Like the ones below, they had just gone away.
Gone away and left it. Why?  Why would they do such a hurting thing? 
Why?  Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy………………………..
     Then, it felt something. Far, far away, it felt another of the
small vessels. Perhaps…perhaps these minds would not act so, as the
others had acted. It cast its thoughts out, and with what strength it
could, took hold of it.
     Yes! Again! Minds. Minds within that it could commune with, be
friends with, perhaps even learn how to return home from. Yes, it was
good, it was filled with utter joy, as it reached into the small thing,
and tried to open itself to the minds within it.
     In pain, it recoiled. The minds within were…not like it. They were
hostile, they thought and felt and were only…hateful. They refused its
thoughts, refused anything but their attempts to leave, and their
endless thoughts of hurtfulness. It was puzzled. What should it do?  It
had not tried to hurt them. Should it keep trying?  Should it…
     But time answered this one as well. Like the first vessel, like
those below, the minds within ceased to be. Like all the rest, the
vessel grew dark and silent, endlessly, pointlessly, circling the
planet, as though the minds within had never been.
     And so it went on, again and again, through the long circlings of
the bright heat. Sometimes, a vessel would approach, and it would reach
out, sometimes, in utter desperation, it would cast its thought outward,
and take hold of one. But never did the minds within ever answer. Ever
speak to it. At times, it would feed off the food from the bright heat,
and then try desperately to break free, to be loosed from this horrid
place. But never could it slip the bonds that held it.
     And it cried. It wept, it’s pain and utter loneliness filling every
corner of it’s being. In time, it came to…to envy the small minds, that
ended. It wished at times that it too could end. End, and stop this
misery, this hopelessness that would not let it go. It screamed out into
the blackness…
     WHY?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  
     The blackness returned no answer.
 
 
     They have touched with it.
     Unfortunate.
     Perhaps, but this was needs be. They and it cannot remain here.
     But we cannot interfere.
     The entity cannot depart of itself. And the Humans cannot free it
from the planet that holds it.
     They could, if their ships were used correctly.
     But we would have to intervene. Is not coming here the unfolding of
their destiny?  
     No. They must progress. They must reach Earth. That is their
destiny.
     How far must we go?  
     We must seek. Prepare yourselves.
 
 
     “Ahhhh!” grunted Ama, as she fell, or rather felt shoved, into the
ground. Above them, the sky roiled, lightning flashing over the distant
mountains.
     “Oh Ama!” cried Luana, and the rest helped her back to her feet.
     “I am…I am fine, Child,” said Ama, who felt anything but, just now.
So much had passed, was still passing, through her mind and
consciousness, that it might take…perhaps Triqueta even couldn’t say how
long to make sense of it all.
     But she could not quit, now. Not when they were so close. Close to
answers. She straightened up, painfully and slowly, and drawing in deep
lungfuls, she concentrated, corralling her energies, and weaving
together those, disparate and alike, of her companions.
     All for it! She told her self, and stretching out her hands,
fingers wide, she opened herself yet again.
 
 
     Iblis. Iblis has done this.
     Not by will of meaning.
     Nonetheless he it is who caused this to happen. Long ago though it
was, it is at his feet that this lies.
     Then we must move?  
     We must seek out the Will.
     We seek the Will.
     We seek the Will.
 
 
     Hunley felt as if she were caught up in a swirling maelstrom of
static electricity. Thoughts, images, sounds, even smells, seemed to
course, nay scream, through her like a tsunami. Until her peripheral
vision failed, subsumed in…what?  Until then, she saw her companions,
held stiff, yet shaking, in undulating, silently screaming arcs of
light. Light that spewed forth colors, colors that she had never seen,
and for which no Human had a name. Luana next to her cried out, whether
in pain or awe, she could not tell. Ama’s voice came to her, and then
she was…
     What?  She was floating. Floating in a cloud of…of herself, and her
sisters in action. It was as if she were no longer Hunley, yet was
Hunley, and Lia, and Luana, and Ama, fused into one roaring fire of
perception, one single force and purpose.
     Yes! Ama, or they, said, aloud or in mind, none could tell. Yes!
Open all!
 
 
     “Commander!” said Athena, on the bridge.
     “Yes?  ”
     “Getting some strange readings, Father. Look.” Adama moved to her
station. It was true. “It’s as if…”
     “As if whatever it is is trying to…join with them.”
     The four women on the scanner were plain to see. Surrounding them
was an aura of…who could say?  It was something for which the scan
database had no analogue, nothing to compare to. And as if that were not
sufficient, it looked as if the entity itself was…
     “Reaching down,” Adama said, almost a whisper. A tendril of…what? 
Reached down from the sky, and touched the circle of Humans.
     “What in Kobol does it mean?  ” asked Tigh.
     “God alone knows,” said Adama.
 
 
     “Absolutely not!” said Adama, on the com-line from the surface.
Ama, looking wan and haggard, was trying to relay what she had thus far
discovered, and what needed to be done, in order to free them from the
planet.
     Adama, as usual, could not see beyond his laser turrets.
     “There is no other way for us to free the entity from the planet’s
hold on it, and thus ourselves, Commander,” she said, from the
co-pilot’s seat in the Armstrong. “It cannot leave on its own, and until
it is gone, we are trapped here. Trapped until we all die.”
     “The Galactica is in no condition to undertake such an attempt,
Ama,” replied Adama. “Not after last time. Our repairs are still not
complete and will take some time yet.”
     “Time, my Dear Adama,” she replied with no small touch of asperity,
“is something we both have aplenty, and very little of.”
     “Ama, Please. I…” 
     Beep
     “What happened?  ” said Adama, as the screen went blank.
     “She cut you off,” said Athena.
     “She…Lords of Kobol!” he thundered. “Of all the…”
     “Do I try and get her back, Father?  ”
     “No. Why bother?  ” he let out a sigh, more like a growl, and
turned to Tigh. “Get me engineering.”
     “Sir.”
     
 
     The Will is known.
     Let us go.
     Let us go.

Chapter Nine
 
     “Yes, we could do it,” said Septimus, to Ama. How she was in
communication, yet was not coming over any of the usual channels or
circuits, puzzled him mightily. Yet, from stories he had heard, this
Human was very unlike most others, She had…well, he preferred not to
think about what she might have, especially since he had almost fried
several circuits the last time he had pondered it. “But according to my
simulations, it will take every ship in the Fleet to accomplish.”
     “All lined up in a row, with engines roaring,” said Ama. “Yes, I
know. But if we don’t try this…”
     “Yes, I understand,” said Septimus. “I shall try and finalize all
the requisite computations. Have you contacted the other ships?  ”
     “That comes next,” replied Ama, and vanished from his awareness.
     “I hate that,” said Septimus to himself, and returned to his
calculations.
 
 
     The one called Ama is attempting an escape. It will fail, but they
cannot see what will happen if they proceed.
     But how can we save them, if we do not interfere?  
     It has been decided. We will do only what we must, and they shall
not have knowledge of it.
     What of the Child?  
     It will be freed, and in time find it’s way home. Others of it’s
kind already seek for it. Our intervention will be with it, and not with
the Humans.
     Will it not tell them of our part?  
     No. It will not.
     Now.
     Now.
 
 
     “I don’t understand, Adama,” said Tigh. “Scanners are down, all
over the Fleet.”
     “All over the Fleet?  ” asked Adama, voice tight with concern.
“Every ship?  ”
     “Yes, according to reports coming in.”
     “How is that possible?  ” Adama moved to the other’s station,
reviewing the data.
     “I don’t know, but several ship Captains have called in with the
same report. And Baltar says the BaseShip is experiencing the same
thing. All her scanners, except for collision alarms, are down. Blank
screens across the board.” Tigh looked across the bridge, where
technicians still scurried, working to repair their systems, and at the
same time address this new mystery. “Could…I mean, could she…”
     “It’s all in the hands of the Lords, Tigh,” replied Adama, shaking
his head ever so slightly. “Not ours.”
     “Damn,” muttered Tigh. He turned to Adama. “Are you certain?  ”
     “Far less certain than I used to be.”
 
 
     “What?  ” said Ama. “That can’t be possible!”
     “I do not understand it, Madam,” said Septimus. “But all scanning
systems across the Fleet, including portable units, have gone completely
inoperative.”
     “Nothing at all?  ”
     “Aside from the emergency collision alarm systems, that is correct.
Nothing is functioning.”
     “So much for all your vaunted technology!” snarled Ama. “It goes
flat, just at the moment we need it.”
     “It can’t be accidental,” said Hunley, next to her. “Can’t be.”
     “Explain.”
     “Every ship, with scanning systems of so many different designs and
vintages, all going dead at the same moment?  That pushes probability
beyond any rational limits.”
     “You’re right,” said Ama, with a deep sigh. “But without the
scanners…”
     “We cannot carry out the plan,” said Lia.
     “You are correct,” said Septimus. “Without all scanners linked
together, there is no way to co-ordinate the operation. To even try
under these circumstances would be a disaster.”
     “Damn!” snarled Ama. “By Triqueta’s left…”
     “Please!” said Luana, casting a nervous glance upwards. “Please.”
     “Then what do we do now?  ” said Ama. “We must escape, and yet
we cannot escape.”
     “Perhaps…” began Septimus, then his voice seemed to fade. Indeed,
everything around the Empyrean Wise Woman began to fade, and for she
knew not how long, all was blackness, silence and serenity.  She was
aware of nothing, save her own body, and that also began to fade.
Somewhere between curiosity and resignation, she tyliniumed her soul for
whatever was to come, somehow knowing this had happened before…
     Lia screamed, and Luana gasped loudly. Hunley looked in shock at
where Ama had been standing.
     Ama was not there.
     “Damn old crone,” Luana muttered.  “What now?  ”
 
 
     Ama was gradually aware of a growing radiance about her, and she
tried to take a deep breath. Somewhere, as her senses slowly cleared,
she thought she heard a voice, and something about “normal restons”.
After another deep breath, she opened her eyes, and found herself
looking at…
     “Where am I?  ” she asked. Nay, demanded.
     “I assure you, you are quite safe,” said the kindly-looking man of
apparent middle-age. Dressed in white, he reached out to her.  After a
moment, she let him take her hand. With a gentle pull, he lifted her to
her feet.
     “What is this place?  And who on Empyrean is your cleaner?  ” she
asked. Around her, everything was a brilliant, almost blinding, white.
Behind her host, she saw other indistinct figures, most robed in white
shrouds, all of whom seemed to be looking at her.
     “This is what some have called ‘The Ship of Lights’, my dear,” said
the man. “And before you ask, I am called. . .”
     “John.”
     He peered at her closely.  “Yes.  You have always had a
certain......awareness of us."
     The Necromancer nodded, "From Starbuck....and from when I have
sensed the presence of the one who is an......outcast from your ranks. 
When Lilith the succubon terrorized the Fleet to do his bidding."
     “Yes,” John nodded. "You proved your worthiness there…..and because
of the special gifts that you and your goddaughters share……we knew you
were worthy of our summons.”  
     “Why have I been brought here now, John?  ” she asked. As she
looked about, she felt all her senses powerfully awash with energies she
hadn’t felt since . . . was it possible she had been in this place too,
once before?  
     “It was needful,” said John.. “Time grows short.”
     “For?  ” she asked, with her usual Aman directness.
     “To put things shortly, escape. You are quite correct that your
Fleet and all in it must escape from the grip of the life form you refer
to as the Entity. The lives of all of you, plus a great many more,
depend upon this.”
     “What is it?  This Entity?  ”
     “It is a being called, as best as can be managed,
a Eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Why it is here is complex, but suffice
it to say our interference is because of it, and not yourselves.”
     “Way to make a girl feel insignificant, John.  And here I thought
you were sweet on me.”
     He opened his mouth, but no words passed his lips.  She tucked two
fingers under his chin, tapping his mouth shut.  His eyes opened wider
and he took a step back. 
     “So you’re saying it has to be saved, and we are just…incidental? 
” She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.
     “Basically,” he replied after a pause, “but, as some of your Humans
put it, we are terminating two avians with one stone. 
     “Alright, be that way,” she quipped. “So why talk to me at all, if
you can’t interfere?  Isn’t that interfering?  Don’t you have rules
about that?  ”
     “Well, yes and no. Our interaction with
the Eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh does affect you, but the details are
rather complicated.”
     “Look, John,” sniffed Ama, “I may not be from the Twelve Colonies,
but I’m not exactly a greenhorn around these parts. I can…”
     “I dare say, but I have my…orders, Ama. Some things I cannot, and
could not, tell. There are things in the universe for which even the
greatest of Human minds has no…no holding place. Things you could not
absorb, any more than sea plankton could absorb advanced mathematics.”
     “Now I’m plankton. Thanks a lot, John. Remind me to invite you to
my next singles party.”
     “That,” said John, “sounds like you have been spending too much
time around Starbuck.”
     “Define ‘too much’,” she said, with a defiant glare.
     “Yes, well, back to the subject at hand. If you attempted to escape
using the plan you were formulating, the results would be catastrophic,
to put it mildly. The very fabric of space-time could be damaged
locally. This we cannot permit.”
     “Then…”
     “Please! Time is short. This could result in cataclysmic harm, both
to yourselves, and to us, in our dimension.” He watched her face a
moment. “So, other means must be employed.”
     “Well…in that case, why not just do it?  Why even talk to me?  Or
any of us?  Especially since you think so lowly of me.  Or perhaps you
simply fail to recognize a kindred spirit and have not come
across my kind before.”
     “Again, I have my orders. You were the one chosen for this
interaction, and not by us.”
     “You mean…”
     “Quite correct, My Dear Ama. But with this, comes a warning.”
     “A warning?  ” She laughed. “That sounds ominous.”
     “An…admonition, then. While we have, out of need, interacted before
with the Colonials, the rules of our engagements are circumscribed by
vastly higher authority. While we watch, and help where we can, we
cannot become a course of easy resort to the Humans. They cannot come to
rely on us, as some of you would put it, saving their bacon, when there
is a problem. You and your people must rely upon themselves, and the
wisdom that comes from the knowledge they already possess, to solve
their difficulties. We cannot become a…a crutch. Do you see?  ”
     “Somewhat, although I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, it makes
little sense to me why you are telling me all this, if we aren’t
supposed to interact.”
     “As I said, there are things I must abide by. You are entrusted
with this knowledge, and it will be brought forth, when and if needed,
at the proper time.”
     “I…” began Ama, and then had to admit something that came very hard
for her: “I am a little lost, John.  You’re asking me to have faith in
an organization, if you will, that considers me as intelligent as sea
plankton, and probably only phytoplankton at that. This isn’t my first
rodeo, cowboy, and I’ve been round this universe a time or two, yet I
understand I’m not omniscient.  However, I’m also not a blithering
idiot.”
     “I’m beginning to sense there’s more to you than we first
realized.”
     “You think?  ” She released a breath, closing her eyes and feeling
her essence fill up with a wondrous energy that she knew she would need
more than ever.  She was uncertain if John was admonishing her for her
own interference in humankind’s foibles, or if he was simply referring
to his own ilk, but as he said, those of the Fleet were her people.  As
such, she felt responsible to lend her aide and guide them whenever she
deemed it appropriate. She could feel his eyes upon her, his essence
probing her own.
     “I also sense virtue, integrity and honesty,” John said.
     “So not quite plankton after all?  ”
     “Perhaps not.”
     “Now what?  ” she asked.  “After all, I was in the middle of
something when you brought me here without my consent. I need to get
back.”
     “And willfulness.” He sighed.  “Despite your obvious abilities, you
are still young.”
     “Well, on a geologic time scale, perhaps.” She cackled.
     “Ama, focus.  You will recall what is needful when, and if, the
time is right. However, I can tell you that the Fleet will escape, and
the Entity will find freedom at last. There will be a…I think you call
it ‘reasonable explanation’ for it all, that will in no way implicate
us. And you will not remember this meeting when you return.”
     Ama did not like that. It made her feel so out of control. And if
there was one thing the Empyrean Wise Woman needed, badly, was to feel
that she was in control of whatever she was caught up in.
     “We’ll see about that,” she said, stroking her Empyrean talisman
through the fabric of her tunic, pressing the amulet into her chest. 
“What about it?  The Entity?  What will it remember?  ”
     “Oh Ama, Ama,” said John, with a smile. “Even you
should realize when something is part of another’s story, and not your
own.”
     “But …”
     “Leave this to us, Necromancer.”
     “By the Elements!” she said, massaging her temples. “I really
need…”
     “To lie down, getting some well-needed rest, upon your
own longseat?  What a good idea, My Dear Ama.”
     “Actually, I meant to say I need a good stiff drink and a smoke.”  
 
 
     “Commander!” said Tigh, turning from his station, to the
Commander’s. ‘The Entity!”
     “What?  ” asked Adama.
     “It’s moving! It seems to have broken free of the planet, sir.”
     Adama moved to the screen, and looked as the data came in. Sure
enough, the Entity,, whatever it was, was pulling away from the body of
the planet. No longer spread around it like a covering on a ball, it was
contracting into a vast, shimmering…well, blob, of dimly flickering
lights. With a speed surprising in something so huge, it moved beyond
the orbits of the derelict vessels.
     Someway, somehow, it was free.
 
 
     “Thank you, My Dear,” said Ama, as Luana handed her a goblet of her
favorite mineral water. She raised it to her lips, then stopped.
Something…
     Something wasn’t right. Yes, she was in her quarters aboard
the Malocchio. Yes, she was on her favorite longseat, with
her goddaughters on either side of her. Yes, she ...
     She had been saying something. Something about…what?  The Entity? 
Well, yes, but…Had she been talking to someone else?  Hunley, the
Colonial Warrior who had shown remarkable telepathic abilities?  Adama,
the…well, best leave that alone. Oh yes, Septimus, the blinking
bobblehead Cylon, in…
     Even as she tried, the gossamer filaments of memory grew ever
thinner and more elusive. But something flickered, refusing to
extinguish. She blinked, certain there was something…something…
     “Ama, is there something wrong?  ” asked Luana.
     “What?  Oh, no, Child. I’m…I’m fine. Perhaps a bit distracted
and tired.’ She chewed her lip, actually feeling more energetic and
vital than she had in some time. With her free hand, she pulled out her
Empyrean talisman from beneath her tunic, feeling the pressure of the
cord around her neck. Stroking the smooth metal, her fingers tingled,
her essence connecting with the esoteric charm.  
     “So am I,” said Lia, next to Luana, yawning. “I feel completely
spent.”
     “Hmm,” murmured Ama, and took a sip. She wrinkled her nose, setting
her goblet down on the table at her elbow.  She kissed her talisman,
tucking it back beneath her clothing. “Actually, what I really need is a
good stiff drink.” Her eyes sparkled and she cackled in mirth. “And
maybe a fumarello.”  

Chapter Ten

     “Incredible,” said Adama, in the WardRoom, as he reviewed the data.
Around him were the Viper Squadron Leaders, Athena, and the Captains of
both Constellation and Adelaide, via hololink along with Baltar.  Almost
to the centon when the scanners throughout the Fleet had gone dark, the
Entity had suddenly pulled itself free from the planet. After who knew
how many centiyahrens upon centiyhrens held fast by the planet’s
magnetic field, it had at last slipped it’s bonds with seeming ease.
     But how?  
     “It seems,” said Septimus, linked up from Wilker’s lab, “that the
star in this system experienced a massive eruption. I believe your
scientists call it a ‘Coronal Mass Ejection’.”
     “And this is how the Entity escaped?  ” asked Adama.
     “Apparently,” replied the former IL. “It collided with the Entity
head on, and the Entity was able to assimilate the majority of the
energy.”
     “And that gave it the strength to escape at last?  ” asked Sheba,
next to Apollo.
     “So it appears,” said Septimus. “Though I will confess that neither
I, nor any of our sensing systems, active or passive, saw this coming.
The star was quite…quiescent, up until it happened. Difficult to account
for that, actually.”
     “Could that be why our scanners all went down?  ” asked Apollo. “A
side –effect of this burst of energy?  ”
     “That would be my analysis,” said Septimus. His voice trailed off,
as if his thoughts were engaged elsewhere.  Once again, his two brains
were getting some sense that maybe…..the Makers were somehow involved
with this.  But how could he explain that when he still wasn’t quite
sure who the Makers were?  
     “Are we in any danger from more of these…ejections?  ” asked
Boomer, Red Squadron Leader. Next to him sat Giles, newly promoted to
Green Leader.
     “Well, we would have to hit almost directly, Squadron Leader,”
replied Septimus. “And that seems unlikely. However, the CMA was
powerful enough to suppress the planet’s magnetic field, to actually
within the body of the planet itself.” He was replaced by a graphic,
showing the magnetic lines of force. Upon being hit, they were shoved
back, to within the planet. As the phenomenon passed, the planet’s field
slowly returned to it’s normal configuration.
     “And that’s why the Entity was able to at last pull free?  ” asked
Greenbean, Leader of Yellow Squadron. “Because the field got so weak?  ”
     “So it appears,” said Septimus. “It seems to have absorbed massive
amounts of energy from the CMA, and internalized it. Much as you Humans
do the nutrient elements you require from your food, or as our circuits
do electrical power. It gave the Entity sufficient strength to break
free, while the magnetic field was suppressed and weakened.”
     “I see,” said Adama, looking at his gathered subordinates, inviting
comment.
     “Kind of weird that our scanners should go off-line, just then,”
said Giles. “Any connection?  ”
     “I can’t say,” said Athena. Our whole scan suite was down.
But…well, at least one recorder was operating long enough to get this.
And the crazy thing is, this scan came from one in a shuttle, down in
BetaBay. They were doing repairs and diagnostics on the shuttle.
Somehow…” She motioned towards the planetary data. “Still…”
     “Well, whatever the cause, at least it worked,” said Sheba. “The
Entity is free, and so are we.”
     “Thank the Lords,” said Boomer. “I for one will be glad to finally
see this place astern.”
     “Amen to that,” said Greenbean. “I’m anxious to get back on
course.”
     “As I think we all are,” said Adama. He turned to his daughter.
“What is the current status of our scanners?  ’
     “All back on-line, and showing no damage or ill effects. Just as if
nothing ever happened.”
     “Well, we can be glad of that,” said Adama.  “We’re now at a safe
distance from the Entity but for now, Ama is still maintaining contact
with it.  We need to take advantage of what we can learn from it.”
     “In case we ever come across something like this again?  ” Apollo
asked.
     “Lords, I hope not,” Boomer said.  “One of them is sufficient!”
which brought a few tension releasing chuckles from everyone else. 
Including, to Adama’s amusement, even Baltar.
     “Agreed, Boomer,” said the BaseShip Commander. “I for one have
certainly had my fill of them.”
     And on that note, the meeting was adjourned.  For the first time in
a long while, Adama felt a sense of normality returning to the Fleet.

Epilogue

     Adama lay on top of his bed, still fully dressed and not ready to
fully commit himself to sleep just yet. Even though the danger had
passed, and Shadrach had begun effecting repairs to the Galactica, Ama
was still maintaining contact with the Entity, learning more about
it. If there were others of its kind then the more information they had
on how they functioned, the better prepared they’d be if they ever
encountered another one in the Future.
     Already, crews were being dispatched to several of the derelict
vessels, assessing them for potential cannibalization or restoration.
Copernicus the gifted electronics/engineering genius, was leading one,
and the reports, so far, were promising. There was no reason why
the Rambler could not be repaired and reactivated, providing additional
room for the always-crowded living arrangements within the Fleet. Scans
of the planet had shown deposits of tylium, hopefully of sufficient
quantity and purity to warrant mining and processing.
     And tomorrow I have to meet with Captain Rankin and his crew,
to give him a formal debriefing so he can better understand what’s
happened since his ship was snatched across the stars. Hopefully, he and
his group of survivors can be integrated into our community, since none
of them, including the Earth cosmonaut, Kamanev, have shown any desire,
even if the planet could be revived, to remain here, Adama warily rubbed
his eyes......Lords to think what that must have been like to travel all
this way from the Colonies so fast.......
     Suddenly, he came upright in his bed. Every trace of tiredness gone
from his body as an idea had filled his mind with a sudden burst like
that of a nova.  An idea that seemed so impossible to fathom, and
yet......it was there.  Staring at him with total, impeccable logic and
simplicity.  The fact that it was so simple made him think at first that
he was possibly deluding himself into thinking the idea was viable. But
if it was true that Ama, her goddaughters and Hunley could communicate
with this Entity about specific things......then the idea was viable!
     He turned his head and saw the photograph of Ila looking back at
him. He stared at it for over ten microns and felt a sense of
determination rising within him.
     By the Lords, I’ve got to try!  If that thing could take all those
ships here in a matter of microns......why not her shuttle?  If the one
thing that’s stopping her from using it again is because she doesn’t
want to spend two yahrens in suspended animation......then this Entity
would be the answer to that problem!
     He bolted out of his bed and headed immediately for the Bridge.
 
     He has reasoned it out. 
     That is how it had to be. We could offer him no clues or
assistance. It could only come from the exercise of his own free will.
     Yes. Our only intervention can be for the Entity, to right the
wrong of long ago. This is another matter we cannot interfere
with. Adama has reasoned it out......but it can only succeed through
their own efforts.
     We will watch and see if anything comes of it.
 


Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny......the last Battlestar.....Galactica
leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest.  A shining planet....
known as Earth.