The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before … Chapter 16
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 16: Everything That Rises Must Converge
Word Count: 2,310 words
Rating: T (PG-13)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my craziness in this nBSG/Voyager crossover story. Battlestar Galactica belongs to Glen A. Larson, Ron D. Moore, David Eick, the Sci-Fi Channel, various and sundry companies and whoever owns them. Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, Paramount Studios, UPN, Viacom and whoever else owns pieces of the Star Trek franchise.
Spoilers: For nBSG - to Crossroads Part 2; for ST:V - to Endgame. Everything beyond is definitely alternate universe and a fairly cracked one at that!
Summary: The survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and the crew of the intrepid starship Voyager must find a way to break the cycle …
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 16: Everything That Rises Must Converge
“Hi Lee.”
Lee Adama stared at the apparition in shock, as the gleaming Viper pulled up alongside him.
“Kara?” he cried in disbelief.
“Don’t freak out, it really is me,” she replied laughing. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve been to Earth. I know where it is; and I’m going to take us there.”
She smiled at him, a serene, gentle smile, quite unlike her patented, cocky Starbuck smile. And then the devil flashed into her eyes.
“But right now, let go kick some Toaster ass!” she crowed. “Don’t lose me this time, Lee!”
“Apollo,” his father’s voice growled in his ear. “Get back to the battle, but if she does anything suspicious, blow her out of the sky!”
“Understood, sir,” Lee replied.
As he and Kara got their Vipers into formation with the other Colonial fighters, Cylon raiders bore down on the fleet.
“Apollo … St-Starbuck?” Captain Marcia Case, call sign Showboat, did a double take before shaking her head. “Both of you-form up on me,” she ordered briskly.
Both pilots acknowledged Galactica’s new lead Viper pilot. The two groups of fighters collided like two behemoths sliding inexorably towards each other in an inevitable crash!
Into the melee Lee shot, pinwheeling madly as he chased down Cylon raiders, Starbuck on his wing, a whirlwind of destruction-as if she’d never left. But in the back of his mind, as he killed another Cylon raider, he knew that she couldn’t be Starbuck.
He’d watched Starbuck die more than two months ago-but this was not the time to consider that. They needed to keep the raiders away from Galactica until she could get her guns firing.
A Viper blew up-and then another.
“There’s just too many of them!” a panicked cry came as a fourth and fifth Cylon basestar launched flights of fifty raiders each. “There’s one on my tail-I can’t shake him!”
“Hold on, Charmer!” Hot Dog shouted, as he raced after the enemy fighter. “I’ve got your six.”
“Catman!” The scream came as yet another Viper blossomed in a terrible fireball.
“Keep it together, Narcho!” Showboat shouted to Catman’s wingman.
The voice of Lieutenant Sharon “Athena” Agathon sang out over the Vipers’ wireless. “Galactica’s got her guns back, but the fleet needs at least another fifteen minutes to bring up jump drives,” the Raptor pilot reported.
“Okay, everyone, that means the Cylons will probably be getting power back to their big guns any time now,” Showboat said. “So it’s up to us to make sure that nothing gets through, and stay the frak out of Galactica’s firing solution!”
“Heavy raider, nine o’clock, Apollo!” Starbuck shouted, streaking past Lee’s Viper to run it down.
Lee kicked on the afterburners and raced after the heavy raider, guns blazing.
“Radiological alarm!” Athena shouted as two missiles streaked out from beneath the raider. “Apollo, he’s got nukes!”
While Starbuck concentrated on destroying on the raider, Apollo flipped his Viper end over end and raced after the nuclear missiles, trying to shoot them down before they reached Galactica.
Desperately he chased down the missiles. Finally, he got a bead on the first and fired. It exploded, causing him to veer wildly to avoid flying shrapnel.
“Galactica-Apollo!” he shouted down the wireless as he turned to head back into the fight. “You’ve got an incoming nuke!”
Suddenly, something flashed out in the corner of his eye and the nuke exploded spectacularly an instant later, just a few hundred metres shy of Galactica’s hull.
“This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager,” a husky female voice boomed from the wireless, “to the two factions currently engaged in battle. Cease hostilities immediately, recall your fighters, and explain your presence in this nebula.”
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“… explain your presence in this nebula.”
Admiral William Adama stared at President Laura Roslin for one long, flabbergasted beat before prudence won out over disbelief, and he picked up his battle phone.
Nodding to his communications officer, Lieutenant Dualla, he said, “Give me all ships.” When she acknowledged that the channel was open, he continued, “This is Galactica Actual; all Colonial fighters cease fire immediately and fall back to our defensive perimeter.”
“You heard the old man!” Showboat said. “All Vipers--cease fire and fall back. Move it!” On the DRADIS screen, Colonial icons raced towards the Fleet. One Unknown icon blinked steadily on the screen, positioned between the Fleet and the Cylons.
“I’ve got one on my tail and I can’t shake it!” cried an all too young-sounding voice.
“Me too,” Anders cried frantically.
“Showboat-Stinger; the Cylons aren’t stopping!” came the angry shout.
And then the Cylon raiders did stop dead in space, as the Colonial Vipers raced towards the Fleet.
“Voyager to the entities known as Cylons,” Janeway’s voice came again, sounding rather annoyed. “Will you recall your drone fighters, or do I have to destroy them?”
Adama held his breath, watching the DRADIS as the swarm of enemy icons changed directions and convirged the unknown ship’s icon.
“Galactica-Athena; the raiders have opened fire on Voyager,” Showboat reported. “But they’re not getting through. There seems to be some sort of barrier protecting the ship. Now she’s just swatting them with some weird energy rays!”
“Radiological alarm!” Gaeta shouted. “Sir, there are three nukes tracking on Voyager from the Cylon baseships.”
“Dee, open the channel,” Adama ordered urgently. “This is the Battlestar Galactica to Starship Voyager. Captain Janeway, you have incoming nukes-get out of there!”
The ship didn’t move. “This is Janeway to Galactica,” the strange woman replied calmly. “Forgive my rudeness, sir, but we’re a bit busy at the moment; please stand by.”
The nuclear missiles converged on the ship; it made no move to evade them.
“By the Lords of Kobol!” Adama heard his son’s voice say reverentially.
“Galactica-Athena, the nukes aren’t penetrating Voyager’s barrier,” she reported, voice laden with disbelief and awe. “It seems to form a bubble around the ship-it flared up on DRADIS each time a nuke hit it. And they used their energy ray to destroy the third nuke.”
“We call them shields, my dear, and the energy rays are called phasers,” Janeway said. “Cylon ships, if you’re quite done, allow me to introduce you to a little item that we call a photon torpedo. For demonstration purposes, it will be only one quarter normal yield-anything more would be a waste of anti-matter.”
“Galactica, a glowing missile is moving incredibly fast towards the lead baseship,” Athena dutifully reported.
An icon representing a Cylon baseship disappeared from the DRADIS. There was sudden silence in the CIC.
“Galactica-Athena,” the Colonials’ Cylon defector said hoarsely. “The baseship is gone, Admiral Adama … just gone, sir-completely vaporised.”
“Cylon ships,” the captain of Voyager said again. “It seems that I under-estimated the destructiveness of our torpedo’s nominal yield on your ship’s fragile construction. I don’t know why you were fighting with Admiral Adama’s people, but quite frankly, considering your actions towards my ship, I really don’t care. You interrupted my coffee break, which tends to leave me quite annoyed. Know this-I don’t like bullies. So before you make me any more annoyed, I would suggest that you find somewhere else to be.”
Adama met Laura Roslin’s flabbergasted gaze, and read the knowledge there. A friend-they could make a powerful friend if they played their cards right; perhaps even a friend from the legendary Thirteenth Tribe.
“In case your cybernetically-grafted brains are having trouble processing that little rant,” Janeway continued as the basestars simply hung there. “That was Federation Starfleet jargon for get the hell out of my sight before I blow the rest of you away!”
Her voice became infinitely more menacing. “Oh, and take that cryo-stasis ship with you when you leave-you know, the one with all the cloned cyborg bodies and that very conspicuous neuro-plex subspace array. I regret to inform you that whatever information you were expecting to download from the ship we destroyed won’t be very coherent. I’m afraid that matter/anti-matter annihilations play holy havoc not only with normal matter and space, but with unsheilded signals as well, unless of course, one is able to shield against it-which from our analysis, you haven’t the first clue.
“Oh, and one more thing before you leave, my dear Cylons,” Janeway said in this increasingly unbelievable monologue. “My head cyberneticist wanted me to thank you for the little gift you tried to insert into our computer system via our sensor ports. It seems that she hasn’t seen anything so laughably primitive in a very long time. It gave her quite a chuckle-which, take it from me, is a very hard thing to do-and she hopes you will have just as much fun scrubbing her return gift out of your systems.”
The remaining five Cylon baseships, as well as all the icons representing the raiders disappeared from the DRADIS screen.
“Admiral Adama, as far as I can tell, all Cylon ships have jumped away, sir,” Gaeta reported. CIC burst out into a pandemonium of cheers.
Adama turned to his XO, Colonel Saul Tigh. “Abort jump, but keep the Fleet at condition one,” he ordered.
“All right everyone, settle down and get back to work!” Tigh bellowed, and as the CIC calmed down, he set about carrying out his best friend’s orders.
Adama took the chance to move over and stand next to Laura Roslin. “Are you all right, Madam President?” he asked gently.
Just as they’d jumped into the nebula, she’d looked distinctly ill, as if in agonising pain. Since the resurgence of her cancer, he was helpless to do anything but watch as the disease, as well as its treatment, took their toll. Yet, this wasn’t even the worst of it; he shuddered to think of what the intensive diloxin treatments she’d just started would do to her.
To make matters worse, it had only been a short time since she’d realised that he had delivered the “not guilty” verdict on a man who had, most likely, been responsible for her incarceration and probable torture at the hands of the Cylons. He couldn’t give her the justice she craved; the circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecutor was insufficient to render a guilty verdict. So Gaius Baltar, perhaps the greatest traitor known to humanity, had walked free.
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered. She didn’t look at him, but rested her hand on his for a moment.
“This is Voyager calling Galactica,” Janeway said. “Admiral Adama, please acknowledge.”
Adama gave Roslin’s hand a gentle squeeze as he picked up the battle phone once more, pressing the button for speaker function.
“Captain Janeway,” he saidd. “This is Admiral Wiliam Adama speaking. On behalf of President Laura Roslin and the people of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, thank you for coming to our aid.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” she replied. “But, to tell you the truth, we didn’t so much come to your aid, as we acted to prevent hostilities that could potentially have serious repercussions for you as well as the inhabitants of this area of space. May I ask why, no sooner did you and the Cylons show up, you started throwing around nuclear weapons?”
“That’s a long story, Captain Janeway,” Adama said, trying to keep the fatigue out of his voice. “One that’s better suited to a face to face conversation.”
“I see,” Janeway said quietly. “Well, I don’t know how much scanning you’ve done of this area, sir, but I feel that I should warn you-this is a Class Twelve Advanced Proto-stellar Nebula, rich many fissionable materials.” Adama looked at Roslin, mouth agape with shock. “In addition, there are stellar core fragments and pockets of proto-stellar plasma floating about, although not in the immediate vicinity because of the supernova remnant. As well, this is a rather old nebula and not very volatile anymore. However, throwing around nuclear weapons is generally a very bad idea in any class of proto-stellar nebula.”
“Understood, Captain Janeway,” Adama replied, pushing down his shock to keep his voice steady. “Thank you for explaining. Is this your people’s territory? If so, then we apologise for trespassing.”
“Explaining the territorial boundaries and our affiliation to the people in this area of space is a bit … complicated at the present time,” Janeway replied. “As you said, it’s something that is perhaps best suited to a face to face conversation.”
“Then, might I invite you to come aboard Galactica to discuss our pasts, our complicated present,” he said holding Laura’s approving gaze, “and perhaps together with our president, we can figure out where we go from here?”
“That sounds like a very good idea, Admiral Adama,” she said. “My officers and I can be ready immediately. When would you like us to come aboard?”
“Would one and a half hours be convenient?” he asked.
“Sounds perfect, sir; we’ll see you then. Janeway out.”
Bill nodded to Dualla to cut the channel and returned the phone to its cradle.
Silently, he and Laura held each other’s gaze for long moments, until … very un-Presidential giggles filled the CIC, and then he couldn’t help his own laughter. She grabbed and held on tightly to his arm; a great weight seemed to lift off her shoulders.
Soon everyone in the CIC was laughing and Bill could hear the relief in it.
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To Chapter 17