BSG: The Unforgiven Ones, Part 9: Number Nine

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Back to Part VIII: The War Orphan

IX: Number Nine

That evening, Claudius went back down to the line by the hangar bay. To his surprise, it was moving. The refugees shuffled forward, stopped, and shuffled forward again, clutching their worldly possessions in their arms.

"What's going on?" he asked one of the people from Poseidon's Army.

"The military is allowing the first batch of people to land on New Caprica," she said, with a wide, bright smile. "Zeus be praised, it's begun!"

Claudius' heart sunk. "Oh," he managed. Then: "Can I have one of those crackers?"

"Of course you can, son." She handed him one of the cracker packets, and then patted him on the head. He had to resist the urge to push her away.

As he turned away, the overhead lights flickered. He glanced up at them: they were swaying from side to side, as if something had disturbed them.

Half a second later, the ship lurched to the side.

Claudius stumbled. One of the refugees screamed. For a split second, the lights went out, and the corridor was plunged into total darkness. Then the emergency lights activated. They strobed wildly, splashing alternating streaks of red and yellow light against the walls.

"Action stations, action stations!" said the Admiral over the intercom. His voice was tight with tension. "Set condition one throughout the sh--"

The Galactica lurched again, harder this time. The walls gave a deep groan. One of the swinging lights struck the ceiling, showering the refugees with broken glass. Claudius was thrown off his feet, along with several of the refugees. The others panicked, shoving toward the hangar bay. Claudius rolled and rolled, as their feet slammed down around him.

At last, he fetched up against the wall. He glanced up from where he lay, watching as the refugees trampled each other in their heedless charge toward the hangar. A woman not two feet away from him fell and got kicked in the face; she writhed for a moment on the floor, and then disappeared beneath the whirlwind of churning feet.

A minute later, most the refugees were past. Claudius picked himself up, leaning against the wall. Then he heard shouting from the hangar bay, and then shots. "Get back!" cried a voice. "Get back, the transport's full! Get--" More shots rang out, cutting the voice off.

The deck swayed. There was a distant bang, and then the Admiral came on the intercom again. "All hands: the Cylons have breached the ship. Prepare for boarding! Repeat: boarding stations!"

Not far away, someone sobbed aloud. The refugees were beginning to flow back out from the hangar bay, running as if running might help; they pushed and shoved and shouted as they passed by.

Claudius stood in the hallway, surrounded by screaming refugees, and smiled.

Suddenly, the floor pitched fifteen degrees. The Galactica gave a groan so guttural that it shook the deck, echoing through the halls like a death-cry. It trailed off into a screech of metal. Everybody fell. As he hit the deck, Claudius felt suddenly light, and his stomach flipped over; the artificial gravity had stuttered off. In the next instant, he was heavy again. He banged his injured eye on the deck as he landed. He lay there, clutching at his head, staring out into the ruined hallway over the bodies of fallen refugees.

For the first time, he realized that the Cylons might kill him.

He scrabbled to his feet, wobbled a moment, and then ran up the hallway. His storage closet was there; he tore the hatch open and dove inside, just before another blow struck the ship. It ripped the hatch right out of his hands, leaving them swollen and stinging. The hatch swung shut with a mighty boom.

Seconds later, someone began to slam on it from outside. "Help us!" a man's voice cried. "Let us in!"

Claudius stared at the door in horror. "No!" he yelled. "Go away!"

The hatch banged again. Then the latch began to spin.

"No!" Claudius howled. He lunged for the lock, slamming it home just as the latch began to slow.

"You coward!" the man outside shouted. He slammed on the hatch again, in two powerful blows. "You bastard! Let us in, you frakking--"

Gunshots sounded, in a long, loud fusillade. The man gave a ragged cry and fell silent. Claudius cringed, staring at the door. He could hear a woman out there, sobbing and begging.

Then there was a strange metallic sound, like the clanking of machinery. It passed close to the door, so close, and then the woman fell silent, too. Claudius held his breath in terror and anticipation.

The latch turned. It turned, struck the lock, and stopped... and then burst on through the lock as if a giant had spun it. The hatch exploded open, striking the opposite wall hard enough to dent it. Two tall, silver machines marched inside. The emergency lights splashed their armor first with red, then with yellow, giving them an oddly bright look. Each machine-soldier had one hand which ended in the barrel of a gun, and another which was tipped with long, sharp claws.

As soon as they entered, their red eyes focused on Claudius. They raised their gun-barrels, moving almost as one. Claudius saw the barrels spin as they armed themselves, with a soft, delicate whir.

They're beautiful, he thought. Beautiful.

The Centurions did not fire, though. They stood there for a time, gun-arms spinning, and then cocked their angular metal faces to the side, as if they were examining him. The red light in the left Centurion's eye-slit began to move faster, whizzing back and forth. Then the effect seemed to spread to the one on the right.

The Centurions turned toward each other, as if sharing a glance. Then they looked back at Claudius.

There was a sudden rattle, and for an instant Claudius thought he'd been shot, but he hadn't; the Centurions' guns had folded down into their arms, revealing another set of vicious claws.

Both Centurions stalked forward. Claudius trembled. They came to a halt just before him, towering over him -- they were taller even than Helo, taller than anyone. Their slim metal bodies caught the light, surrounding them with a faint battle-nimbus even in the darkened storage room.

They were like gods. Real gods.

They looked down at him, their red eyes still racing, and then looked back at each other again. Then the one on the left stepped forward. It extended its claws, almost as if in welcome. Claudius jumped back.

A soft clicking sound came from the Centurion's hand, and then the claws slid down inside its fingers, leaving it with a blunt-tipped, empty hand. It reached out again, patiently, offering its hand to Claudius.

A minute passed. The Centurion did not move. It simply stood there, waiting. Claudius wanted to touch it, but he kept remembering those claws; it took all his courage to reach up toward the machine. He didn't quite dare to touch it, but he held his hand up, perhaps three inches away. The Centurion curled its fingers in response, beckoning him.

Slowly, with infinite care, Claudius put his hand in the Centurion's. Its machine-hand was surprisingly warm, like a living thing. It curled around Claudius' small hand, with no more force than Claudius would have used to pick up an egg, and then tugged in the direction of the door.

Claudius followed. At the door, the other Centurion reached down and took his other hand. He walked between them, like a child with loving parents, through the ruined corridors of the ship.

It was like being in a dream. There were lights on the floor, lying broken and smashed, and all the storage crates had been scattered across the hallway like giant toys. And there were dead bodies, so many dead bodies. Around one corner sprawled an entire squad of Marines, slaughtered where they fell. Claudius and the Centurions walked through the spreading pool of blood beneath them, leaving sticky footprints behind.

They walked past an open hatch, with another Centurion outside. Inside were people, hundreds of them, all lined up in front of a Six dressed in white. For an instant, Claudius started in recognition, but this Six had blond hair, though her face was the same as the Six he'd known. She was walking back and forth before her captives, lecturing them.

"--nevolent occupation. From now on, you will live in peace under the auspices of the Cylon Nation. You are the last of the human race; there will be no rescue, no escape, no resistance. We will not release you. We will not leave. If you cooperate with us, you will be rewarded. If you defy us, you will be punished. You--"

Suddenly, a man in the front row interrupted her. He threw himself forward, pointing out the door at Claudius.

"You! You frakking traitor! I knew it, I knew it! I'll kill you, you--"

It was Jaffee. The rage on his face transfixed Claudius. He stopped, suspended between the Centurions, and stared through the hatch as Jaffee charged at him, still dressed in his galley uniform. The next moment, a shot sounded from inside the room. Jaffee's jacket puffed outward, as if someone had pushed it from behind. He jerked forward, took one more halting step, and then fell, still gasping out hatred with his last breath.

"...frakking... kid..."

Behind him, Six holstered her pistol. "Let that be a lesson to you," she told the horrified humans. "Cooperate and live. Resist us, and die."

Claudius and the Centurions moved on. They passed other hatches, most of which were full of other refugees. One was full of the dead, stacked in loose piles like discarded trash. Two Centurions were dragging more corpses inside, leaving long, jagged streaks of blood behind them.

They were halfway up the next corridor when someone moved. Before he could react, Claudius was in the left Centurion's arms, cradled there like something precious. Claudius heard a pop, and then a high whine that lifted the hair close to his ear just like a breeze. Then the rightmost Centurion turned, its arm whirring. It fired, and the sound of it seemed to rip the air wide open.

Moments later, it was over. The Centurion put him down, and they went on... on past the ragged body of a tall, square-jawed man in Colonial uniform, with what was left of a pistol still in his hand.

---

They walked around one more corner, hand-in-hand, and then Claudius caught sight of Cavil. He was standing in a small group of people, under the watchful gaze of three more Centurions.

"Cavil!" Claudius cried, and threw himself forward. The Centurions beside him resisted for half a second, and then let him go. He dashed up the hall, shouting with joy.

One of the men beside Cavil whirled, drawing a gun from inside his bright red jacket. Another one, a man in a long coat and hat, turned and pulled the gun up and away, deflecting the shot. As Claudius got closer, he was shocked to see that the man in the hat looked like Cavil, too.

It didn't matter. Claudius knew which one was his Cavil. The look of shocked wonder on his face would have marked him anywhere; so did the way he opened his arms, welcoming Claudius home.

Claudius leapt at him. Cavil caught him, spinning him round in a spontaneous embrace, and then crushed him to his chest so tightly that Claudius' ribs crackled. Claudius hugged him back, as tight as he could, clutching handfuls of Cavil's black priest's shirt. He buried his face in Cavil's shoulder and sobbed, overwhelmed by emotion.

Cavil laughed, a rough, raspy sort of sound. "Claudius," he muttered, reaching up to ruffle the boy's hair. "You're alive."

"Dad," Claudius said. It was the first time he'd dared to say it outside of a whisper. "You came back."

Claudius could feel the surprise in Cavil's small frame; he seemed to freeze up for a second, just like the machine he longed to be. Then he nodded, slowly, against Claudius' hair. Claudius could feel the old Cylon's tears against the back of his neck.

"You see?" Cavil said, as if to no one. "Told you I picked a smart one."

They stayed like that for another half minute, and then Cavil's identical twin spoke up. "Your orbs are leaking, brother," he said, waving his hand at him.

Cavil stiffened, and he put Claudius down. "They are not," he growled, swiping at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. "I just got something in 'em, that's all."

The other Cavil looked down at Claudius, examining him carefully. Claudius examined him back. His hat and coat looked a little like the kind drovers wore back home, to keep the dust off. Beneath them, he looked exactly like Cavil -- the same aged face, the same bright, fierce eyes. When Claudius looked closer, though, his sarcastic half-smile was perhaps a little bit gentler than the one Claudius' own Cavil wore.

Claudius offered his hand. "Hi," he said.

After a moment, coat-and-hat Cavil shook it. "Hi, there," he said.

Then Claudius hugged him.

He stood there a second, with Claudius' arms around his middle, and then knelt down and hugged back. "Amazing," he muttered after a while. "He's just like you said. He really is."

"It's the Caprican frakking Journey, brother," a short blond woman laughed. "All we need is a couple of talking dogs and a cat."

"Shut up, Three. I'm tryin' to have an epiphany here." Coat-and-hat Cavil thumped Claudius' shoulder, and stood up again. "My name's Reb," he said. "Pleased to meet you."

"I thought you all had the same name," Claudius said.

"Oh, we do. I'd never forsake my brothers. Reb's just a nickname -- I spent a lot of time with the rebels on Caprica, y'see."

"And now you're different," Claudius said. "Because you had a different experience, right?"

The two Cavils eyed each other. "Told you," Claudius' Cavil told his twin.

"Well, now I believe it," Reb muttered.

"You see?" one of the Sixes said. She had shoulder-length blond hair and a short, dark jacket. "Even you admit that the humans are worthy of existence. Let them go. Please."

"You joking, Caprica?" Cavil asked. "You want us to just give up and walk away, after all it took to win this frakkin' war? No way."

"We shouldn't have won the war," Sharon said. She looked at the devastation around her, and then hung her head. "We shouldn't."

"I agree," Six said. "God did not intend for this."

"Now, sisters," Reb put in. "We've agreed not to slaughter the human race outright; that's more than they would have given us. They make good pets, so I'm sure they'll thrive under our benevolent guidance... especially yours, Six." He gave her a ribald leer.

"Where is Six, anyway?" Cavil asked Claudius. "She's a Hero of the Cylon -- if she hadn't activated the beacon, we'd never have found this place."

"I'm sure we would have found it," the man in the red jacket said. "Three hundred and sixty days from now, when the signal from the nuclear explosion we detected in the nebula reached our monitoring station."

"Oh, thanks, Five, that's really worth--"

"Six... died in that," Claudius blurted. "In the nuclear explosion. She was on Cloud Nine, and it blew up."

"What? When was this?" Cavil asked.

"Just yesterday."

Cavil frowned. "There was no Resurrection ship here yesterday. That means she's gone, kid. Forever."

"Wait. If she's dead, then who activated the beacon this morning?" Reb asked.

"I had it," Claudius said. "In my rucksack."

The two Cavils stared at him. "But you couldn't have activated it," Reb said. "There's no way. It--"

"Maybe it went on by coincidence?" Cavil suggested. He didn't sound very certain.

"Nonsense," Reb muttered. "You and I both know the odds are a million to one. It had to be... nah. It can't be."

"Don't be so sure, brother," one of the Cylons said. "It could be a miracle."

"Uh huh," Reb said, rolling his eyes. "It could also be my foot up your ass, Two. Let me know if you wanna arrange it."

Three gave an amused snort. "I thought you'd turned over a new leaf, One."

"For the fifth time, it's not a 'new leaf', OK? It's just a slight change in game-plan. No big deal," Reb said. Then he spoke to Claudius again. "After we were captured, your... uh, father and I had a talk."

"Yeah, a short conversation out a long airlock," Cavil said. Both Cavils chuckled; the mirror image was a little disconcerting.

"I don't think either of us would have believed the other a year ago," Reb went on. "We almost didn't, anyway. But we both needed somebody to cover for us until we got access to the datastream, so..."

"...so we teamed up," Cavil finished. "Sort of. It was a real buddy-cop thing, you shoulda seen it. And when we saw each other's memories, we were--"

"--transformed. We realized what a foolish mistake we'd made. We destroyed humanity in order to get the Five to love us, but the truth is..."

"The truth is that you should have told us about all this years ago," Caprica Six interrupted. "You lied to us, to your own siblings."

Cavil shrugged. "Yes, but we came clean, sister. We could have kept the Five secret for another thirty years or more, but we didn't. We told you, all on our own."

"You told us too late! We would never have voted to attack if we'd known."

"No, sister, I believe we would have," Two said. "We voted unanimously to destroy the humans... yet the Ones told us the humans were our parents. It would have been no different with the Five."

"You're wrong, Leoben," said Sharon. She had an intense look on her face, as though she felt too deeply. "You're wrong." Claudius watched as the two argued, glancing from face to face.

"Destiny says otherwise, Eight. Or should I say Boomer, for old times' sake?" Two said smoothly.

"You're just saying that because you managed to capture Kara Thrace," Caprica snapped. "If you hadn't--"

"But I did," Leoben said. "Just as you took Gaius Baltar. Well? Would you like to put him back where he came from? I'm sure the humans will welcome him, now that they know their newly-elected President was a Cylon collaborator."

Six opened her mouth to reply, but Three cut in. "Knock it off," she ordered. The Cylons fell silent, and she went on. "What's done is done. We chose this path, and now we must see it through. We have to--"

Just then, Claudius saw a tall, dark man in a well-tailored suit come around the corner, jogging fast. "Brothers and sisters!" the man called. "Quickly!"

"What is it, Simon?" Cavil asked. "Have you heard from the Centurions?"

"Yes, brother. The Final Five are in the CIC, right now."

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Reb asked, "All five of them?"

"Yes. It's one of the last remaining pockets of resistance; they must have fled there during the fighting."

The Cylons glanced at each other, as though unsure. "What should we do?" ventured Two. "Should we ask them to surrender? Should we attack? Should we--"

"Suffocate them. Seal the bulkheads and draw all the air out," Cavil said. "Now, before it's too late to kill them together with the Admiral. Once the CIC falls, human resistance will end... and besides, it's not like they haven't been through it before."

"Then what?" Simon asked. "After they Resurrect, do we--"

Reb shook his head. "Nobody said anything about Resurrecting," he said. "The Final Five will never forgive us for what we've done to the humans. Never. Father Sam told me as much on Caprica."

"They don't want us," Cavil put in. He shook his head gravely. "They never did."

"That's what we realized in the airlock," Reb said. "If the Plan was a failure from the start -- if even genocide wasn't enough to secure their love for us -- then it's hopeless. It always was."

"We have to make our own love now," Cavil said. He reached down to ruffle Claudius' hair. "We have to live our own lives, without our parents."

Beside him, the man in the bright red suit nodded. "Parents have to die so that children can come into their own; that's what we Fives always say. We agree."

"The Fours agree as well," Simon said. "But we must move quickly."

"No," Caprica said, glaring at each of her siblings in turn. "We can't do this. We can't -- not to our own parents! We--"

"All right, so the Sixes disagree," Cavil interrupted. "Fine. Next."

Boomer shuffled her feet. She looked up at Caprica, and then back down at the floor, unable to meet Cavil's eyes. "No," she said at last, very quietly. "Eight votes no."

After a moment, Three spoke. "I don't even remember them," she said, narrowing her eyes. "But I bet they'll think they're the frakkin' boss, and I'm not playing that game. The Threes agree."

"That's consensus," Cavil said, before anyone else could speak. "It's done." He nodded to Five, who walked briskly off, presumably to give the order. Claudius watched as he spoke to two of the Centurions, which sprinted off in the direction of Deck A.

For a long moment, the Cylons were silent.

"It doesn't matter anyway. Father Sam taught me that," Reb said at last. He shrugged. "Love outlasts death."

Cavil clapped him on the shoulder. "Well said, brother, well said. Shall we go? There's a lot to be done, after all. Ships to be occupied, leaders to be rounded up and shot, resistance to be crushed... not to mention plucking the secret of Resurrection from our dearly departed parents' brains. Nice to have a full calendar again, isn't it?"

Reb nodded. He walked down the hallway, and the others began to follow. Cavil didn't, though. He bent down, offering Claudius his back. "Here, hop up," he said. Claudius climbed on, wrapping his arms around Cavil's neck. Cavil locked his arms around Claudius' knees, holding him steady. "There you go," Cavil said, grinning over his shoulder at Claudius. "I always wanted to do this when I was new."

"It's fun," Claudius agreed, hugging his father tighter. "I love you, Dad."

"Sure thing, son. Welcome to the family."

Cavil followed after his brothers, with Claudius on his back. As they caught up to Simon, Cavil drew alongside and nudged him with an elbow. Simon glanced back at them, smiled, and dropped back to walk beside Cavil.

"Cute," he said. "You should get one of the Raiders to take a picture."

"Not a bad idea," Cavil agreed, dropping back a little further. "But I was thinking of something a little more long-term." He glanced up at his brothers and sisters, who were talking amongst themselves. "Tell me, brother: what would it take to get my son here into a couple million copies?"

"Copies? Of a human?"

"Frak, no!" Cavil blurted. He glanced over at his siblings, who still weren't paying attention, and then lowered his voice again. "Cylon copies, obviously!"

Simon gave a thoughtful frown. "I'm afraid it's not possible. Theoretically, it could be done; the human mind isn't far from our own. They think via electrical impulses, much as we do, and there are other similarities: the brain waves they form when dreaming suggest that dreams are a rough analogue of our Projection, for instance." He paused, and then went on. "But even if they're similar to our own, we can't transfer human memory engrams without knowing the precise format they're stored in. We'd need a much better understanding of the human brain in order to--"

"You mean the kind you could get if you had forty thousand experimental subjects at your disposal?" Cavil asked.

Simon raised an eyebrow. "Yes," he said, a moment later. "That kind."

"I'll see what I can do," Cavil said. "Only the best for my little boy."

Claudius laughed. Simon glanced at him, looked over at Cavil, then looked back at Claudius again. Then he shook his head, as though in wonder.

Father and son wore the same knowing, eager grin.