"I cannot believe that Baltar won!" Diane was in fine form.

Tomas looked up from his desk at the captain who was pacing angrily.

"Didn't win by much," he replied. "Probably the decision to drop the permanent settlement plan." And isn't that putting Adama in a fine mood. Dispatches from the Galactica had ranged from frosty to downright unhappy. Adama knew why they had to do what they did, but he didn't like it. He probably especially didn't like the fact that one of their key demands had also been key to Balter (well, actually Zarek) winning.

"Still-"

Tomas cut Diane off. "Still, we should always ensure that our public attitudes show that we have nothing but confidence in our leaders. Our subordinates pattern off of us, after all."

"Understood sir." Denise subsided. "So, are you ready for our meeting?"

"The first conference with our esteemed President Baltar? I believe I am." Tomas said, hefting a rather full briefcase. "We'd better get to the landing deck for the meet and greet." Because Adama is damned if his ship is going to play host to Baltar as President. That had been defined by Baltar's request that Laura Roslin show up, no doubt to rub his victory in her face. Typical Balter. His little power play had managed to severely piss Adama off.

But when they greeted the presidential raptor, Tomas was in for a surprise. Tom Zarek was there, but not Baltar.

"I'm afraid the president is suffering from something of an illness and will not be attending."

Tomas felt Diane swelling up next to him. She doesn't know, he reminded himself. From Diane's point of view it was a snub of the first order, instead of Zarek preparing the ground. After all, he was going to be president in a a month or so. I wonder how he convinced Baltar not to take a month's worth of lording it over everyone? Probably by pointing out that Adama hadn't said he wouldn't airlock him at some point.

"I hope that he will be feeling up to carrying out his duties," Tomas replied aloud.

"We all hope so, but it appears to be an unusual illness— we've got the doctors working at it, but you know how hard Baltar has worked these past months."

"Of course." Tomas waited while Diane played her role as captain of the Hera greeting the other officers who arrived. Lastly, as befitted the Fleet Admiral, came Adama's raptor. He was with Roslin, and Tomas frowned, looking at how Roslin looked, shadows under her eyes speaking to far too little sleep.

If it's only that. Cancer could be a bitch, even a the best of times. More importantly, Tomas was certain Adama hadn't told Roslin about the Cloud Nine fiasco, so she was assuming that she'd be dealing with Baltar for the next term. Given how vindictive Baltar had proven in the past, Tomas didn't blame her for not liking the thought.

Later, after they had adjourned to Hera's primary briefing room, Tomas listened as the officers reported on the fleet for Zarek's benefit. Nothing he couldn't have learned himself, but the fact that they were reporting to him was an important part of the political process.

"I'm very concerned by the pregnancy numbers," one of the civilian representatives said. For some reason Tomas noticed that Leeland, in his position next to Zarek, looked like he was suffering a sudden headache.

"It's the delegate from the Sam's Dream," Diane mentioned softly. "According to my sources, her crew voted her on to the Assembly so she'd bother someone else. How she got selected for this meeting I don't know."

"That's not a problem," Commander Relan said.

"Not a problem?" Her voice scaled up. "Beyond the moral issue, what about the fact that if this keeps up our population will explode."

"Forgive me," Relan stayed calm. "But growth rates never just 'keep up'. Right now, if you assumed that the current rates hold firm, it is true that our population is growing at a rate of 12 percent. But they never do— we're seeing a spike. It will settle down. As for the moral issue… well, you weren't alive during the immediate postwar years. But 'baby nuke' has sometimes been used to describe the growth rate. It's a natural phenomena.'

"And what if we have no ships to hold them?" She shot back.

"Perhaps we should ask the Commodore about that," Zarek said, easily overriding the delegate. "After all, he's the head of manufacturing and fabrication."

Among the many hats I must wear, Tomas thought as he stood up.

"Well, We've been running population numbers and I agree with Commander Relan. The increase isn't anything we can't handle although we're going to have to make some…adjustments. But that's for other people to work on. We've managed to complete a full survey of all fleet vessels and currently, while we can't find any mints to put on the pillows on the Cloud Nine, every ship is functioning where it counts." There was a sigh at that.

"Now, as for our construction projects, we're going to make some changes based on the presence of the extra foundry ships that came with the Galactica. Lights please?" Tomas asked and as the rating brought the lights down he touched a switch, bringing up the first image.

"It's a box car." Someone muttered.

"Nope, it's a ship," Tomas said. "The arkships are useful and I expect to keep building them, for the psychological benefits if nothing else, but they're not as efficient as they could be. Now with our added resources we can make these." He touched another button and a second image wsa projected. "Each ship will be made out of these "building blocks" they are about the size of a Colonial shipping container, which is what we based the design on. Each one can be made airtight and has its own emergency power supply which will be useful in case of damage. Most importantly, they're very efficient in terms of people per square meter, while not being holes in the ground." Another image appeared, showing a cut away. "As you can see, we'll fit these within a very large framework, where the building blocks will serve as apartments, businesses, fabrication centers— pretty much anything we need."

"What are those gaps in the structure?" Roslin asked.

"Canyons. Living in a cave is hard for most people—so you see here we have several "corridors" designed to act as major residential centers. It's not as efficient a use of space as you might think, but it's very useful for peace of mind." He paused. "That's another reason we're still planning on building the arkships. Having a variety of "terrain" is important to our psychological well-being. People need to be able to go somewhere else and see something else, and that's especially important because some of the children being born today may never live on a planet. We have no idea how far away Earth is, after all."

"It would seem to be expensive in time and resources," Zarek said.

"Not as much as you would think, especially given the fact we'll be building from standard templates and these ships, like the arkships will be tough, not battlestar tough, but honestly, the sooner we have everyone off some of those dinky freighters the happier I'll be." There was a rumble of approval from the military side of the table. "Besides," Tomas continued. "We have no idea how long we'll be able to stay here, so we need to take advantage of it while we can."

"Will this reduce the rate of production of the combat ships?" Zarek asked.

"No. Those are restricted by our ability to fabricate armor, weapons and military grade engines." Tomas shrugged. "Completely different supply and manufacturing pipelines and in any case, the more civilian ships we have the less vulnerable we'll be to destruction." He gestured at the plans. "You'll notice that these ships have light armor and light AA batteries— so that a single raider can't rip them apart."

"What is the major bottle neck for the military ships?" Zarek asked.

"Trained crews. That's why we're still running light on viper crews— you can't just make a pilot."

"You've been recruiting from the civilian fleet," Zarek said. Adama leaned forward to answer that veiled criticism.

"Yes, but that is a strictly limited source— Mr. Vice President, we need trained people for everything."

"I see…" Zarek said and leaned back.

When the meeting was over, Tomas was surprised to see Zarek walk up to Adama and Roslin.

"Admiral, Laura, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time, privately."

"Of course, Mr. Vice President," Roslin said.

"You can use my day cabin," Tomas said. "Bill, I'll move the rest of the mob off the ship."

"Thank you Tomas," Adama said.

Inside the comfortable day cabin, Zarek could feel the tension. He waited a moment, marshaling his thoughts and looking around Tomas' cabin. There were diagrams and blueprints on the walls, and nearly a dozen scale models of various types of ships. Zarek smiled.

Of course. You expected nothing else.

"Admiral, Laura… we have a problem."

"Really?" Roslin asked. "I would think you're on top of the world." Her expression proved that Zarek's initial conclusion was right— Adama hadn't told her anything.

"Not really, you see, President Baltar's…illness is worse than we had expected," he sighed. Let's play out the game to the end, shall we Admiral? "I'm afraid that his … mental fortitude may not be up to serving as the president. There's at least some sign that his illness may be psychological in nature. In fact, the possibility of his resignation has been mentioned."

"Which would make you president," Adama said.

"Yes, and that hands me some problems. At the very least, while I may not be president now, I'm having to handle a number of issues that cannot wait and that brings us to you." He gestured at Roslin.

"A former president?"

"A former Secretary of Education. We've done the numbers. I have maybe 60 trained teachers, including long retired individuals and individuals who never really recovered from their losses in the Colonies. I have no administrators, no principals, nothing like that. To put it bluntly, you're the closest we have to anyone who could establish a functioning education program and we need it. Nobody is going to be able to spend their younger years casually finding themselves…" Zarek shook his head. "If we don't do something we could find ourselves starting education by apprenticeship— beyond the obvious problems in terms of finding the right people, that could easily move us to a caste based society…something that I have a problem with."

"And you want me to work… as your subordinate?" Laura asked.

"Yes. I need you for this Laura. Nobody else can do it. The fact is that I expect the office of education will probably be one of the most parts of any new Colonial government. I know every politician talks about how important the future is but for us, its the Gods own truth. You never had the chance because during your presidency we were usually about five minutes from horrible death."

"What does Baltar say about this?"

"Baltar is currently not paying any attention to a mundane subject like this and you know as well as I do that the Quorum would confirm you in a heartbeat."

"And what do you intend to offer?" Laura asked.

"Full authority in this field, subject to resource demands." Zarek gestured at Adama. "You'll also be working closely with the military, because we'll need people who can take over."

And it gives you an in into my administration, Zarek thought. As you well know, Admiral. People thought of him as either the freedom fighter or the terrorist, but Tom Zarek had to be a politician as well- -and a good politician given that unlike official leaders, he'd never been able to just tell people what to do with the authority of the government backing him up. And right now part of being a politician was working with and not needlessly antagonizing the military.

Because for the foreseeable future, the military is going to be our focus. With the cylons hunting them, literally every other activity was secondary to maintaining the ability of the military to defend the civilians. Zarek had become increasingly worried that Baltar didn't realize that during the campaign.

Zarek did.

"I… accept," Roslin said.

Zarek nodded. "Thank you."

Election +6 months.

"I have to confess, I think I was wrong about the election's outcome," Diane said as she and Tomas stood on the Hera's CIC.

"Or just happy that it's Zarek, not Baltar?" Tomas said. He carefully kept his face neutral but Diane had become something of a Zarek admirer. It had started when unlike Baltar, Zarek had known her name without prompting.

"Gods yes," Diane said. "I mean, I think Zarek actually reads our briefings. He certainly knows what questions to ask. And he actually listened to your suggestions about the training schools."

"That was Secretary Roslin's plan, I believe."

"Yeah, but Zarek put it through." Dropping her voice, Diane continued, "And I'm fraking happy we don't have a lunatic like Baltar or someone who makes command decisions via prophecy."

Tomas nodded. On the other hand, Laura did look much better. The strain must have really been getting to her, and Zarek's appointment let her meet with the fleet commander on a regular basis.

And his reorganization of the civilian fleet's organization… Leeland was singing his praises and Zarek had introduced the Assembly leader into his inner circle— and had even suggested that they could do with a Prime Minister in addition to a president.

Very, very smart, Tom. Six months ago, removing Tom Zarek would have been difficult. Now, it would be impossible. He'd managed to take advantage of the rest that Laura Roslin had never had in order to solidify a power base. Roslin had, in all too many people's mind, been President simply because she was last woman standing. Zarek was now seen as President in the same way as Adar had been.

Which might lead to problems. But one thing at a ti-

"Dradis Contact!" An operator shouted. "Not ours!"

"Where is it?" Diane asked.

"Just came out of jump orbiting the planet." The operator said. "Profile matches a cylon raider— first war design."

"Message from Flag," the com officer said. "Galactica Actual orders all ships to prepare to jump to to take no action as yet. All ships are to go to full EmCon measures!"

"Do it," Diane said. They hadn't been radiating anyway, but now even running lights were shut down. There were several passive surveillance systems mounted in satellites and transmitting to the battlestar via tight beam laser link, but they were far less effective than active systems.

But Active systems reveal our location.

"Ship is at action stations," Diane's XO, someone who would have been entirely too young for her rank before the war reported.

"Good. What about New Caprica."

"Last message was that they were going dark. There were about 2,000 civilians and workers on the planet."

And now they're hiding. Not a single civilian transmitter existed on that planet and the military base was quiet. And a planet was a big, big place. Unless they were very unlucky the cylon wouldn't find anything and would go away so they could pull up their civilians and leave. Like it or not, their vacation had come to an end.

"Captain," the com officer replied. "We're picking up a tight beam transmission from the cylon craft."

"Where is it being beamed?"

"Directly at us, Captain. It's in the clear."

"The hells?" Diane asked. "Put it on." The emotionless tones of a cylon filled the CIC.

"Alpha 1 calling Commodore Markson! Reply on a tight beam on this frequency. I have an urgent message for your force… Alpha 1 calling Commodore Markson! Reply on a tight beam on this frequency. I have an urgent message for your force…" The message kept repeating.

"Well. So much for a boring day," Tomas told Diane.

TBC in: The Greatest Raid.

Note: The reason I didn't go through the election is well honestly, unless it's going to be a major plot point in terms of how the election occurs, it's often better to skip to the result. More importantly, sometimes writing about political affairs for my living, writing about them here can get boring. I prefer to stick to the giant spaceships, bigger guns, and homicidal robots.