Natasi allowed no emotion to show. "Get out," she said.
"Gaius, who is this woman?"
Stammering, he managed, "She's just a friend." And immediately realized that that was the wrong thing to say. "Well—more than a friend—when I say friend, what I—"
"Get—out." Natasi raised her voice only a little, but it was enough to cause the other woman to rethink whatever might have been on the tip of her tongue. She turned to Gaius for support. Spineless. He gestured helplessly.
With a sigh of disgust, the woman rolled out of bed. "This is just . . . great." She gathered up her clothes and stalked from the room.
"Bye," Gaius called after, in a little boy's voice. A moment later, there was the sound of the front door shutting.
Gaius turned slowly and looked at Natasi guiltily, shamefacedly. He made another helpless gesture. He'd been caught red-handed, and he clearly felt—for the moment—bad about it. Natasi could see the wheels turning in his head. He was obviously trying to decide on a strategy, and his decision was to plead for mercy. "Look, it's me. It's me, all right?" He rolled out of bed on the other side. "It's totally me. I—I screwed up." He pulled on a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and stood up. "I am screwed up. Always have been." He shrugged on a robe. His gaze became very thoughtful, as though he were peering deep into his own soul. "It's a flaw in my character that I have—I've always hated, and I've tried to overcome—"
"Spare me your feigned self-awareness and remorse," she said sharply. You're such a child, Gaius. Is that why I love you? "I came here because I have something to tell you."
For a moment, he looked startled, then relieved. Then scared. "Oh." He sat back on the edge of the bed, his voice very small. "Okay."
Natasi gazed at him pensively for a few long moments. Then she stood and turned to the window, staring out at the daylight creeping over the sound, illuminating the tops of the trees. "Gaius," she said without looking at him. "I'd like you to consider something."
"What's that?" he asked.
"I'd like you to consider the relationship of a child to its parent." She turned back to him.
Gaius rolled his eyes with a sarcastic laugh. "Philosophy—at five in the morning?"
She said nothing. She simply looked at him.
"Which is fine," he said hastily. "Great. Fine. Absolutely."
She continued, very quietly and seriously. "Children are born to replace their parents. That is God's plan." She waited a moment to see if he would react, or make some crack about God and his plans. No? Good. "God plans the death of a child's parents, the very act of death itself, to be a critical part of a child's development into adulthood."
Gaius was looking very nervous now. He reacted, as always, with a bad attempt at humor. "Nothing worse than parents who hang around too long," he said, clapping his hands together. "Mine certainly did."
Again, she said nothing. But her gaze was withering.
"Sorry," he murmured.
She would keep trying. "God wants children to grow and develop on their own. He wants them to reach their fullest potential. And so . . . it is . . . that all parents must die." She paused to let that sink in. "But parents who stand in the way of God's plan, parents who defy his will . . ." She paused again and gave him half a smile. "They don't just die. They must be struck down."
That hit a nerve, and he jumped up, twitching. "Where the hell are you going with this? Natasi, what are you talking about?"
Her smile was full now. "The world is changing, Gaius. The world is changing. . . ."
Chapter 11
Galactica, Officers' Wardroom
The wardroom was crowded with photographers and people with microphones, and the PR flack Aaron Doral, who was in charge of keeping order. Commander William Adama, stiff and uncomfortable in his full-dress uniform, waited in the shadows in the back of the room, glancing around, trying not to think about a lot of things. This room was usually used for briefings and planning sessions—not photo ops. The walls of the wardroom were lined with pictures, plaques, flags, and other mementoes of Galactica's long service to the Twelve Colonies. Several of the photos included Adama himself.
Usually the commander derived a feeling of family from looking at those pictures—the family of his brothers and sisters in uniform, those he had served under and over and with, those who had moved on to other lives, those who had stayed, those who had died. Right now, he didn't get much of that feeling. Because right now, a member of his real family was approaching, and he didn't get much of a feeling of family out of that, either.
At the other end of the room, Doral suddenly called out to the photographers to spread apart, and make room for the approaching officer, also in full-dress uniform. "Captain—thank you. Aaron Doral." There was some awkward shaking of hands, before Doral turned and pointed in the direction of Commander Adama. "If you'd like to stand up there, we'll get a few shots of you and the commander. Thanks."
Lee Adama stoically stepped past the photographers and into the center of the room, and Commander Adama stepped forward to join him. "Captain," he said, without making eye contact. Lee said nothing.
Doral came forward, effusive. "Great! Okay, gentlemen, could you maybe stand a little closer?" Disguising his emotions with full military bearing, Adama edged sideways toward Lee. "Fantastic. Commander, could you put your arm around your son?" Without a word, Adama encircled Lee with his arm, barely resting his hand on Lee's far shoulder. The photographers jockeyed for position. The camera lights flashed. The happy family reunion was captured for broadcast to the public. "Great! Perfect. Thank you very much," said Doral, cutting it short as quickly as he could. "See you both at the ceremony."
With that, Adama's arm came down, the tableau dissolved, and the photographers crowded through the door on their way out. Commander Adama turned away from his son and walked over to the refreshment counter.
He was aware of Lee reacting with a cynical, near-silent laugh at his abrupt move away, and of Lee then starting out the door after the photographers. Before his son could make it past the threshold, Adama turned to him and said, "Do you want some . . . coffee? We make a really awful cup of coffee here."
Lee stopped. "No, sir," he answered. "Thank you, sir." He had stopped, but clearly had not committed to staying for conversation.
Adama's gut was knotted like a waterlogged rope. He fiddled with the glasses and water pitcher as he said, "Why don't you . . . sit down."
Lee repeated his half-laugh, the bitter expression still on his face. He turned back into the room, gazing around at the long tables with empty chairs. It was a place for military talk, business, planning, he seemed to be thinking—not this. He remained standing, only half facing his father.
"Congratulations on making captain," Adama said, pouring himself a glass of water. "Sorry I wasn't there."
"Thank you, sir," Lee said stiffly.
"How's your mother?"
"Getting married."
Adama absorbed that for a moment, let the inevitable pain wash over him and fade away. Finally he nodded, raising his glass of water and turning it in his hand—his back still turned to his son. "Good for her," he said, sincerely. "We spoke about a year ago, had a real heart to heart. It was good." He drank half the glass of water, a little too quickly.
Lee's words came even more quickly. "I'm glad to hear that, sir, will that be all?"
His defenses finally broke, for a moment—but he still couldn't turn toward his son. "Why don't you talk to me, Lee?"
"Wh—" Lee began to laugh openly. "Well, what do you want to talk about?"
"About anything. You've been here for an hour."
"Well, I don't have anything to say." He began walking toward Adama, but his posture was anything but conciliatory. "My orders said to report here for the ceremony. So, I'm here." He produced a pained smile that was bursting with anger. "And I'm going to participate in the ceremony. But there wasn't anything in my orders about having heart-to-heart chats with the old man."
Adama tried to c
onceal his wince of anguish. "Accidents happen . . . in the service," he said quietly, looking up at the wall. And there it was, the inescapable memory: the ruin of the Viper, the flag-draped coffin, the utterly distraught Kara grieving for her lost fiancé. Adama and the boys' mother—already divorced—grieving separately for their dead son. And Lee, not grieving so much as bitterly angry. And he'd been angry ever since.
"Dad. Listen, I—"
"You know, all the things that you talked about, the last time we were together—" The things that practically killed me, then and now . . .
"I really don't want to—"
"—at the funeral—" Words that still echo like gunshots.
"I really don't want to do this."
"—they still ring in my ears, after two years."
"Good!" Lee barked, fire flashing in his eyes. He hesitated, gathered himself a little. His face was still drawn taut as he said, "Good, because . . . because you know what? They were meant to."
Adama allowed no reaction to surface. He couldn't; the pain ran way too deep. "Zak had a choice, you both did." He raised his chin and scowled at the wall.
Lee snorted, gesturing angrily. "A man isn't a man . . . until he wears the wings of a Viper pilot. Doesn't that sound at all familiar to you?"
Stung to the quick, but unwilling to show it, Adama raised his glass and answered stoically, "That's not fair, son." He took another sip of water.
"No, it's not fair." Lee stood close now, making his points like rapier stabs. "Because one of us wasn't cut out to wear the uniform."
"He earned his wings just like we all did."
"One of us wasn't cut out to be a pilot. One of us wouldn't have even gotten into flight school if his old man, his daddy, hadn't pulled the strings!"
"That's an exaggeration," Adama replied. "I did nothing for him that I wouldn't have done for anyone else." Did I? Lords of Kobol, did I?
Lee appeared dumbstruck. He struggled to find words. "You're not even listening to me! Why can't you get this through your head? Zak did not belong in that plane!" Gesturing futilely, Lee paused for breath. "He shouldn't have been there. He was only doing it for you." Lee collected himself and delivered his words coolly, with a tiny, deadly smile. "Face it. You killed him."
The words hit Adama with the force of a physical blow. He grimaced very slightly, but refused to allow the pain to show on his face. Did I? No, damn it, I didn't. But if that's how you really feel, there's nothing more to be said, is there? Without turning to face Lee, the commander dismissed him in his gravelly voice: "That'll be all, Captain."
Lee stood for about ten seconds, stunned by the dismissal, struggling with his own pain, perhaps trying to think of something more to say. Perhaps wishing he could take it back. Adama remained unmoved. Lee finally turned and strode from the room. Adama stood silent for a long time after that, head bowed in grief and pain, and in regret for all the words. He had never felt quite so . . . old . . . as he did now. Old, and used, and wondering how his life had gone so terribly wrong.
Chapter 12
Master Bedroom Of Gaius Baltar
Baltar sat rigidly in his upholstered reading chair and tried to keep his thoughts on a rational, safe, analytical level. Which was very hard to do, given what he had just been told. "So . . . now you're telling me . . . now you're telling me you're a machine."
Natasi sat in his recliner, a few arm-lengths away, her bare legs outstretched on the raised foot of the chair. She crossed her legs, and he could not help but follow the movement with his eyes. "I'm a woman," she said.
"You're a machine." He let out a frustrated breath. "You're a synthetic woman. A robot." He let out another breath, which sounded like a laugh but was a cry of pain. I've been sleeping with a robot. A Cylon. No, that is not possible.
She calmly answered, "I've said it three times now."
His answer was anything but calm. "Well, forgive me, I'm having the tiniest bit of trouble believing that, especially since the last time anyone saw the Cylons they looked like walking chrome toasters."
"Those models are still around," she said dismissively. "They have their uses."
He looked away, looked back. "Prove it," he said. "If you're a Cylon, prove it to me right now."
"I don't have to. You know I'm telling the truth."
Do I know that? I know nothing of the kind! Flustered, Baltar struggled to bring himself back to the analytical state of mind that he prided himself on being able to achieve. He failed. But he argued nonetheless. "You see—stating something as the truth does not make it so, because the truth is, I don't believe anything you're saying—"
She leaned forward. "You believe me because deep down you've always known there was something different about me, something that didn't quite add up in the usual way." A coy grin played at the corners of her mouth. "And you believe me, because it flatters your ego to believe that alone among all the billions of people of the Twelve Colonies, you were chosen for my mission."
That sent a shock through his system. "Your mission? What mission?"
"You knew I wanted access to the Defense mainframe."
His heart nearly stopped. "Def . . . wait a minute. The Defense mainframe?" A terrible ringing was starting in his ears. He could hardly think, and could not breathe. "What exactly are you saying?"
"Come on, Gaius." Her delight in her accomplishment spread across her face. "The communications frequencies, deployment schedules, unlimited access to every database . . ."
The ringing was growing louder. "Stop it!" Baltar shouted. "Stop it right now!"
She smiled seductively. "You never really believed I worked for some mysterious 'company,' either—but you didn't really care."
"No! That's not—"
"All that really mattered was that only you could give me that kind of access. You were special, you knew you were. And powerful . . ."
"Oh my God!" Baltar jumped to his feet and walked slowly away from her, as he absorbed the full enormity of what he had done. He turned and spoke as forcefully as he could. "I had nothing to do with this! You know I had nothing to do with this!"
Natasi got up, shaking her head with a smile. "You have an amazing capacity for self-deception. How do you do that?" She walked toward him, and she had never looked so sexy—or so frightening.
Baltar could feel panic rising like bile in his throat. "How many people know about me? About me—specifically? That I'm involved?"
"And even now," she said, touching his chest seductively, her voice low and sultry, "as the fate of your entire world hangs in the balance, all you can think about is how this affects you."
"Do you have any idea what they'll do to me, if they find out?" he cried.
"They'd probably charge you with treason."
"Treason is punishable by the death penalty." His voice was shaking now, and he could feel himself sweating. "This is unbelievable." He crossed the room and snatched up his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Phoning my attorney."
"That won't be necessary."
"He'll know what to do. He'll sort this out. He's the best in the business." He finished punching in the number and pressed the phone to his ear.
"It won't be necessary, because in a few hours, nobody will be left to charge you with anything."
Baltar froze, and slowly lowered the phone from his ear. "What . . . exactly . . . are you saying?"
She gazed at him evenly, unsympathetically. "Humanity's children . . . are returning home." She paused a beat to let that sink in. "Today."
Baltar stared at her uncomprehendingly, unbelieving, unwilling to believe. He turned to look out the window toward the seaward end of the sound, northwest toward Caprica City. At that precise moment, a burst of blinding white light expanded on the horizon. A light as bright as the sun, but rising to a full brightness, and then fading away.
Chapter 13
Galactica, Starboard Landing Bay Decommissioning Ceremony
The ceremony was proceeding p
retty much as these things always did, with too many minor speakers, each one followed by polite applause. The priest, a dark-skinned middle-aged woman named Elosha, was by far the most interesting to Laura Roslin. But though Elosha spoke eloquently of the service Galactica and her crew had given, both in war and in peace, she received polite applause just like the minor dignitaries before her. Just as Laura herself had, when she'd presented her own speech as Secretary of Education, as the one who ultimately would oversee the conversion of this magnificent ship into a vessel of history, a tool for education.
The master of ceremonies, Aaron Doral, following Elosha onto the podium, moved the ceremony briskly along.
"Thank you so much for those words of inspiration. And now it's my great honor to present to you a ceremonial, precision-formation flyby of the very last squadron of Galactica fighter pilots, led by none other than Captain Lee Adama."
This could not help but be a crowd pleaser. The aft end of the landing bay had been outfitted with an enormous video projection screen, giving a marvelous illusion of being an open window into space. The landing bay could not, of course, actually be open to space; that would make it a little hard for the audience to breathe. But gazing at the lifelike image of the approaching squadron of Vipers, one could easily forget that.
For a few moments, the squadron hardly seemed to be moving. That illusion vanished as they drew closer at high speed. The squadron team zoomed toward the ship in an arrowhead formation, eight Vipers swooping up from below to pass directly before the onlookers, and then splitting apart to fly off in four different directions. Then came the leader, spiraling up, piloted by the younger Adama, the one known as Apollo. Laura watched with heartfelt admiration and amazement as the pilots showed off their training—flying in perfect, tight formation, rejoining and breaking apart, again and again. It was a demonstration as old as aviation itself—daredevil flying joined with the artistic flair of a great dance performance. In space, it was even harder than in the air. Each of those maneuvers required each pilot to time perfectly a complex sequence of thrusting and turning, and braking and thrusting again—all carefully choreographed to look nearly effortless.
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