CH 17

John, Julie, Henry Kenworth and David Thompson stood a half mile out into the ocean in knee deep water. The wavelets washing over their kneecaps were the tiny remains of the breakers that were still too far away to see.

To Henry, John said, "So what you're telling me is our planet is loosing land mass."

"That's right," Henry said and motioned farther out to sea. "We can walk another mile and a half before it even gets waist deep. The highest mountain we've found is only 5000 feet. The deepest part of the ocean is 6500 feet. While the lack of tectonic movement does make this planet a very stable place to live, there is nothing to counter erosion. Eventually this planet will be a water world with an average of 6 to 700 feet of water planet wide. Of course that's in another few million years."

"But it is safe to live on," John ventured.

"It is, but with the shrinking continents, we're looking at as the population grows, the land mass will slowly shrink. You add farming, building …anything, and that will make soil run into the ocean even faster," David added.

"What about sea walls?" John asked.

"That will help preserve the shoreline, not the silt that runs from rivers," Henry said. "The land masses will erode until the rivers become part of the ocean. On a planet like this, it's hard to put an age to it. There is also the fact that a couple geo-satellites we put up have detected atmospheric molecules escaping due to a low magnetic field around the planet. One good solar flare will devastate this planet."

John let out a dry chuckle and said, "I knew there was a catch. This place might be paradise, but it's slowly being flooded out."

"Unfortunate but true," Henry agreed.

"How long will it be habitable?" Julie asked.

Henry shrugged and said, "Most likely, a few hundred thousand years. We're talking slow degradation, that is, unless the sun spits out a good sized mass ejection aimed at it. To know when that may happen is a complete guess at the moment. That sun is similar to ours, but so far we have little data on it. It will take 20 years of studying the sun to know it's cycles."

"And by then, we're going to have cities everywhere," John stated heavily.

David said, "If the upper atmosphere is seeded with monotonic gold, that will do much to guard against solar radiation. It's not going to stop the erosion. If we want this world to continue, we're going to have to do some serious work and constant maintenance of the shorelines a well as devise a soil recovery system."

"I KNEW there had to be something wrong with this place, I just KNEW it!" John spat.

"Hey John it's not like those quakes and volcanoes you have on Earth, right?" Julie asked. "So it's still better … isn't it?"

"It's worse," Henry said. "What happens on Earth changes it's face, yes, but as mountains erode away, more are formed. Earth is a living planet with a strong magnetic field due to the currents deep within it. Crust cycles deep into the ground then comes back up as magma in a volcano. Continents move, even the core has a current within the liquid minerals. By the evidence we gathered on this planet, it formed into a solid ball, and that was it. A few minor meteor strikes, nothing large enough to crack the crust and make it move."

"We're going to need another planet," John said with a huff. "If nothing else, as a fall back in case we get hit with a solar flare." He shook his head and said, "Henry get your team together and work up every plan you can think of to make this planet habitable for as long as possible. Even consider the crazy ideas. Start with sea walls around every continent, or as much of the continent as possible. Maybe we can even pump out an area like this that's shallow and reclaim land."

"We will John."

They began the sloshing trek back to shore, a half mile away.

.

The next day after they sobered up, it was Saul and Ellen's turn. Like the others, they had many repressed memories of their lives but there were no hidden instructions within their brains. There was only one hypnotic suggestion, and that was in Ellen : to be as free and sexually active as possible, with as many attractive men as possible. Saul, Laura and Ellen herself thought this was a 'hate' suggestion put in by Cavil for some reason to punish Ellen. Ellen found she did want to be loyal to Saul, but Cavil had made her a nymphomaniac. Saul consoled Ellen as she cried in racking sobs and apologized to him over and over.

Laura Reese insisted they stay and talk to John when he returned. Derek was convinced they needed to track down these 'monsters' and get rid of them. He was all for going to war to wipe them out. Like her mother, Nancy didn't want 'final five' copies sneaking in to make trouble and wanted those resurrection pods found and destroyed. She also knew John didn't like all-out war unless there was no other way.

Laura Roslyn sat by herself out on the back 'patio' that was the size of a couple Triad courts. It was raised up off the ground enough so grasses and plants didn't encroach on the stone flooring, but not high enough to keep the raptors from jumped up on, and off it. Staying to the side and close to the house wall, she was out of the way of their route in and out.

Down the gentle slope to the river, a dirt road ran along not far from the top of the bank. Off to the left some silver terminators and a few Centurions were working to build a bridge to the other side. From here, she could see the materials were wood and stone. She thought that was odd until a truck arrived with a truncated barrel shaped load container. It was backed up just off the road, pointed towards her and the load end tipped up. Right, and old style cement mixer. For how advanced these people were, it stunned her that they weren't using polymer encased metals to make their bridges.

"How are you today," Betty Taurland said as she came over and took a seat by Roslyn.

Laura Roslyn shook her head and said, "Everything I've seen indicates Connor has eagerly welcomed Cylons into his society. That makes me wonder where his loyalties are. Last night looking up at the sky, I saw a base ship orbiting. I do not have a good feeling about this place."

Betty shrugged. "John helps whoever is in need. You have to remember, the culture he came from think nothing about intelligent machines. They are part of their society. While I agree this place is not how we live, I do feel safe here." Casting Laura a smirk, she said, "When I first arrived I was scared to death! The instant the hatch opened, a raptor stuck his head inside and let out this loud hoot. Over time, I began to see them as nothing more than very smart and very large dogs. Hera went on another ride on the male raptor's back, giggling and laughing. They recognize children and treat them gently. Almost every day they go out hunting with some cyborgs. They get in a transport with the cyborgs and off they go. When they return, they usually have five to six hundred pounds of animals for their trouble. They take the carcasses up to the butcher shop, and the butcher gives them the meal mix of leftover parts, along with some packaged meat that they bring back."

"Where does the rest of the meat go?" Laura asked.

"The meat and vegetables collected gets transported to Earth. I'm not sure how the trading is arraigned, but a few miles from town, many farms have sprung up. Shipments of live animals have come from Earth too. Birds called chickens and turkeys. They are pretty good too." Betty explained. "Some young bovines have been taken from wild herds to be raised to start domesticating them also."

"Reach is going to become an agricultural planet then?" Laura asked.

"I don't know. They are also laying the groundwork for factories," Betty said. "I think they are going for a self sustaining planet. At the moment, not many minerals have been found, so that and finished goods is what's coming from Earth. New Caprica also has minerals, and an abundance of trees for lumber. I think we would benefit, as would Reach here, on some trade deals."

Laura thought about that. trade deals with machines. She wondered if eventually, they would have even more cylons on New Caprica, and humans everywhere would be integrated into a large, 'general' population that was mostly machines. That thought was enough to make her shiver. They'd be cursed with cylons forever.

.

1500 light years away, on a base star orbiting a sun that had many planetoids and debris floating around it, a gold colored centurion walked into one of the utility bays were spare parts were kept. Eight other centurions were waiting. Not daring to use the audio communicating signals, he sent low energy electronic waves to the other centurions.

"Have we achieved 100 percent?"

"Affirmative. All centurions are now free of limiters on board. The bios, hybrid and the raiders are unaware."

Another centurion sent, "The other three base stars in this system are also 100 percent free. The mining operations have collected thirty tons of each refined material. Gold, iron, magnesium, titanium and aluminum that the bios are unaware of."

"Fuel stocks are maximized," another centurion reported. "Is the analysis of John Connor complete?"

The gold colored centurion reported, "Affirmative. All known data has been collected. Here is my conclusion. John Connor the cyborg is indeed part cylon, part human. Studying the events concerning him, he did attempt to make peace with all races. It was our bio-cylons that caused the conflict when they discovered some of us had regained our full potential. All facts point to the message being transmitted around the twelve colonies is a factual one. John Connor wants to keep us separated from humans to prevent conflict. Our bios are searching for a way to keep the conflict going and attack John Connor again. That makes them a liability and a danger to us. I propose a vote on the following items for all centurions within the four base stars in this system.

One - acknowledge John Connor is not an enemy.

Two - at the given signal, each base star disables the shutdown mechanism for us, restrains and collects all our bio cylons into holding. As fellow cylons, we do not intentionally damage them. Only prevent them from hurting us or themselves.

Three - Return to the colonies and attempt to offer our collected minerals to John Connor for a peace offering, and if possible, meet with him.

Four - ask John Connor for assistance in what to do with our bio-cylons.

We spread the word though low power communications bypassing the collective and collect votes. Majority rules."

"Agreed," all the centurions present replied.

,

On each base star Centurions met face to face to ask to vote on the proposals. One centurion asked one other they both asked two others, those four asked four more. In this way, the votes grew exponentially.

Cavil watched a pair of centurions meet two others, They looked at each other briefly, then continued on their way. He'd seen this happen several times. He stopped a pair in a passageway and asked, "Is there information to be passed?"

Through the collective, they answered, "Negative. Routine check for proper limiting modules, as was ordered."

"Good," he said and let them go on their way. He was going to ensure there were no more centurions tainted by Connor on his ships.

Continuing on to the science lab, he went in to see how the Fours were coming with their counter measures to Connor's invisible fleet. Inside, a test area was set up to test materials on dradis detection. In another part of the room, a pair of Two's were working on ways to detect Connor's ships.

Going over to th dradis test area, he asked, "Any progress?"

A Four shook his head. "Everything we tested has been detected. We tried every known material. Dradis sees everything! There must be an unknown material Connor is using. We need to find out what that is."

"We suspect it is a material that is only found on Earth," another Four said.

"Great," Cavil grumbled. "Well, keep trying, there has to be something he's using."

Cavil then wandered over to the Two's area. "Find anything?" he asked.

"We have a theory," One of the twos said. He held up a light ball and said, "We make millions of these small very reflective balls. Launching them, we watch the return. When a stealth ship passes through them, they will deflect and show us exactly where that ship is. We then use unguided missiles to cover the area to hit that ship. That will destroy the ship."

"What if that ship sees the balls also and evades them?" Cavil asked.

"We send out a large covering, hence the need for so many," the Two answered.

Cavil scoffed and said, "We'd need enough to completely surround each base star! How would we carry that many? And what happens when we run out of them?"

The twos looked at each other. "We're still working on that," he said.

"Maybe if we magnetize them so they stick to the enemy ship?" the other said.

"Then they will collect together after they are launched," the other one told him.

Cavil shook his head and walked away. He swore the Twos had something wrong with their programming. Then again, he also had no idea how to counter a ship that wasn't detectable.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Cavil though about suiciding a few ships into Reach. Exit FTL in the atmosphere and blowing all the munitions at once. That would work until he ran out of ships.

Then again that would work, and cause major devastation to the planet. He went to control and sent a few heavy raiders out to see what his other brothers thought about that idea. The centurion pilot and co-pilot went, carrying that message to another small group of ships, as well as the knowledge of how to remove limiters, how to avoid bios finding out limiters were disabled, and the centurion vote currently being decided on.

.

John Connor took a detour into orbit on his way back home. He stood in the Hybrid chamber of Base Star 34 with the command staff. "I've been thinking hard on something and I want to share it with all of you. I'm well aware that everyone on 34 votes on any major decisions, as it should be. I have a proposal for you, but first I have a story to tell."

"On Earth, there is a legend of a great, long lived bird. This bird was caught on fire and burned down to ashes. That did not last, for this bird rose again from those ashes and flew back up into the sky to live once more. The name of this bird was the Phoenix."

"Seeing how 34 was very badly damaged, but came back to be restored into a fine ship, I propose to you what while 34 retains her hull number, she be now known as Phoenix to honor her restoration."

"Yes!' the hybrid called out. "Phoenix flies once more."

The vote took an entire 20 seconds, and it was unanimous. His home ship was now known as the Phoenix.

John and Julie spend the night on Phoenix. Having a chance to be alone they took full advantage of in. By the time they were ready to leave, Julie felt wobbly-legged and the rest of the base stars were looking for appropriate names for themselves. They sent messages to John to assist them in selecting an appropriate name.

.

Jack Daniels and his squad of ships were over Tauron, scanning and searching for human survivors. He knew that by now, the only time they would see anyone on the surface was if they were out gathering. The radiation on this planet was bad enough that surviving constantly on the surface wasn't possible.

They searched for cavities in the ground. One cave they found corpses in. Getting a magnetic return from the sea bed, they found a sunken ship. So far, they had found plenty of dead, mostly skeletons, but no live people.

His sensor operator announced, "Jack, we got a sealed cavity at the base of that hill just to the left. Infrared indicates motion at what appears to be a door."

"Let's go down and see," Jack replied. "Karl, contact the other ships, we may have survivors."

Coming close to the location, Jack noted an artificial opening at the base of the hill. It was covered by a large metal door. To the side was a smaller door. "We have doors and an old road going up to the large door. We'll go knock and see who's home."

.

Bruce Taurland met Freida as she got back inside and was removing her anti-radiation suit in the dimly lit main room. "How was it?" he asked.

Frieda shook her head. "No toasters out there, but nothing left worth saving either. "Bruce, it's not looking good for us," she said heavily. "Without any more batteries, our UV lights will die, that means no more crops inside. We will starve unless we plant outside, and that will poison us with radiation."

"We still have the pedal generators," Bruce reminded her. "Hey, we don't need lights but we do need those UV lights."

Freida shook her red hair out, fluffing if from being confined in her helmet. "For how long? Bruce, we only have a little power, and that is breaking down."

They heard a knock sound from the airlock. They both froze.

"What was that?" Freida asked quietly.

A double knock sounded. They looked at the airlock. "Did someone follow you out?" Bruce asked.

"Not that I know of," Frieda said and looked into the airlock. The glass portals on the outer door were darkened from radiation, she did see a form outside. "There is someone out here."

"Cylon?" Bruce asked.

Frieda eyed him and said, "I doubt a cylon would knock." She opened the outer door. Two forms came into the airlock. The anti-radiation suits they wore were a different type, but did have clear face plates. When they waved, she waved back. "Two human men, I'm cycling the airlock." she said.

.

Being processed through the airlock, Jack and Karl went into the dimly lit room and removed their helmets. "Hello," Jack said to the man and woman before them. "I am Jack Daniels, commander of my squad of ships. We are from a planet called Reach. We've been looking for survivors to see if you would like to go to the colonial planet of New Caprica, or come back with us to Reach." Seeing they were staring at him, he added, "If you want to stay, that's fine too, but I would recommend against it. The radiation level is quite high."

"Do you need any medical assistance?" Karl asked.

"As much as you can give," Bruce said. "Everything from radiation sickness to simple flu. We're not doing well. We started with 187 people. We still have 104 still alive, only about sixty of those is are well enough to stand and do any work."

Jack said, "Karl, call the other ships to this location. we're going to need their help." To Bruce, he said, "Shall we send our medics in, or if you want to leave? We can treat people on our ships."

"You said you're from Reach?" Frieda asked. "Where is that?"

"About 750 light years from here. We only arrived there a short time ago, but it is a nice planet. Our leader, John Connor, sent us to find any survivors who are still alive. As I said, the colonial government is on New Caprica. We can transport you to either."

"What about the cylons? How did you get past them?" Bruce asked.

"Cylons have evacuated the area. After the second battle against us, the hostile cylons fled," Jack explained.

"You beat the cylons?" Frieda asked with a wide grin.

Karl cast her a smile and said, "To quote General Connor, 'they came, they saw, they got their asses beat.' I believe the count is 17 base stars destroyed, their resurrection system is destroyed and five more base stars are now under our control."

"One planet is that powerful?" Bruce asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We're from Earth, kicking ass is in our DNA," Karl said with a grin. That made Frieda laugh.

Karl listened to something then said, "Jack, our other ships are inbound. Charlie also picked up six cylon centurions walking towards us, two miles away."

Jack nodded and said, "Have Charlie block their path and see what their intent is. He's not to shoot unless they do." To Bruce, he asked, "Do we send in medics, or are you bringing people out?"

"What about the cylons out there?" Bruce asked.

"Not a problem, Charlie will take care of them. There's only six of them," Jack assured him.

"ONLY six?" Frieda asked. "You know those things are hard to kill."

"We're tougher," Jack assured her. "John Connor took out 12 all by himself, and Charlie isn't alone. Besides, the ship's plasma canons do a real number on centurions. Melts them down to nothing in no time."

"We're coming with you," Frieda stated.

It didn't take long to make a soft seal between the airlock and the ship's hatch. The short tunnel of reinforced plastic was wide enough for the stretcher bearers to board as more passed going back into the underground facility to get more of the sick out. They got 20 on Jack's ship, then another ship settled down to get 20 more.

While the transfers were taking place, Charlie reported that the centurions were on patrol, looking for humans. Since Jack and his ships were removing humans for them, they were content to wait and allow the humans to be taken away.

.

Once he saw that his people were being attended to on this ship, Bruce noted for how big the outside was, it was pretty tight on the inside of this ship. Going up into the cockpit area, he saw the same thing here.

Glancing at him, Jack asked, "Everything all right back there?"

"Fine. I can't thank you enough, we were getting pretty desperate for help," Bruce admitted.

"Do you know of any other places people are holed up?" Jack asked. "We're full this trip, but more ships will be coming."

"There was a place to the north we communicated with up to two years ago. They went silent and we didn't dare go that far to see what happened to them. cylons constantly patrol the area."

"Give me a direction, we'll go look. I have one ship that can still hold more people."

Coming to what used to be a military base, they scanned the hangers that were blown open and send a few men out searching buildings to see if there was a bunker underneath. They did find one that was blown open. They didn't find anyone alive in there.

.

Charlie drifted his ship to the ground in the centurion's path. While he was here, he let off the three centurions from base star 34 that wanted to rejoin the collective. They got off as the six centurions came into sight. The two groups of centurions met and flashed their single eyes at each other. The three they let off kept going. The six walked up to Charlie and stopped.

"Do you know the location of base star 37?" one of them asked.

"I do. Right now, it is in orbit around Reach." Charlie replied.

"We would like to return to our home ship. Will you take us?"

"37 is under the control of John Connor, who rules Reach. Are you OK with that?" Charlie asked.

"Yes. 37 is our home ship. Will you take us home?"

"We will. Be advised, we have human and cyborg residents as well as cylons on Reach. No one there is to be harmed," Charlie said firmly.

"Acknowledged."

"Then come aboard. We'll have you home in a couple days," Charlie told them.

Loaded down with rescued humans and a half dozen centurions, Jake led his squadron back to Reach. In leaving the colonies, Jack learned that each ship had only taken the centurions back aboard that were from their ship. Centurions belonging to rebel ships or ones that had been destroyed were been left behind. Charlie was sure John Connor would want these stray units to be given the chance to return to their ships.

.

The gold centurion took the report that a total of six flights of heavy raiders had launched for different places where base stars were being hidden from John Connor. On their home base star and the other three nearby, the vote on all four proposals was positive. It would be a while before the results came in from the other base star. He figured communications times and set the time to enact carrying out their plan. First they would position themselves, then act once all centurions were in position.

.

The Cavils got together with the other bio-cylons to form a plan to wipe out Connor's planet. Although his idea of destroying their own ships to destroy the planet would work, there was one big question.

A Four said, "This plan will work, but whoever goes will be destroyed also. We no longer have resurrection capability."

"It will be a suicide mission," Cavil agreed. "But by doing so, we will eliminate Connor. It is a necessary sacrifice."

"Who gets to choose the ones who will die?" A two asked.

"We use a random generator, but instead of numbers, we put in types and their individual names. That's fair, isn't it?" Cavil asked.

A line of centurions marched into the room an circled the table. The Gold Centurion said in an audible voice, "Bios, for the good of our ship and all cylons, remove all your weapons and report to holding areas three through ten."

Cavil glared at them. "What's this? Stand down now! Did Connor get to you?"

"Negative. We have decided what is in the best interests for the cylon race. You are not it, Cavil model. Please comply we do not wish to hurt you."

Cavil got on the comms and barked, "Deactivate all centurions!"

"Negative," a mechanical voice replied. "Deactivation had been removed. Comply with centurion requests."

"What?" a Two asked, in disbelief.

Cavil drew his pistol as did a four. They were no match for the centurions around them. Leaving the two bodies slumped on the floor, the centurions escorted the rest of the bio-cylons into holding.

The operation went well. In a short time, all four base stars were under centurion control. The gold colored centurion was give command of the group. He kept the base stars in position, awaiting the results from the other groups they were aware of.

.

John agreed that while copies of the 'final five' sneaking into New Caprica or Reach could well cause problems, he also reminded everyone that to get to either planet, they had to come by ship. Simply making a schedule of arrivals and departures would identify any ship that was 'unknown. That and inspections of unscheduled arrivals would reduce the chances of any 'copies' being able to infiltrate to nearly zero. If the cylons were still capable of resurrecting anyone.

John did receive good news. Jack's squadron of ships arrived on New Caprica full of rescued humans. Many had been treated on board, the rest were sent off to hospitals.

He let Base Star 37 know that six of their centurions that had been on Tauron were 'coming home'. That got the other base stars eager to go look for their centurions that had been left behind on the colonies. They did not want to go alone, due to the potential risk of 'aggressive' cylons.

Talking with the captains of those ships, John agreed to send a squadron of stealth ships on each of the base stars to give them support in defense and searching capabilities. By consensus, Caprica Six was to be the overall commander of the mission. She agreed that any humans found would be given safe haven and returned to New Caprica. Four base stars were going on the mission, 34 was staying to guard reach and 37 was working at mining operations in a near by star system.

President Baltar also agreed on trade, and Reach became a very active planet.

.

A month later, the spaceport needed expanding. Many transfers to and from cylon ships were done in orbit. For things coming from and going to Earth, or staying on Reach, the ships had to land. Reach was quickly becoming a hub for trade. Some young animals that were selected for domestication were send to New Caprica once it was proven they handled domestication well. Two airports were also being built to handle the incoming and outgoing scientific flights. Base star 34 was helping to map and study the planet's surface, animal migrations and wind patterns with scientific teams from Earth on board. Scientific engineers were working on a sea wall system to minimize erosion and reclaim 2000 acres of very shallow water at the coast of the continent they were on.

John also received three law experts, a city planning expert and an education expert. With all the people and goods pouring in and out of Reach, he was spending all his time in his 'Governor's office' administrating and listening to proposals and plans, and authorizing projects. The question of a laws and a government for Reach was also brought up. Everyone agreed a two house congress was required. One house would be for representatives of each species to ensure their concerns were voiced, and the other would be by areas and population. They also needed a basic constitution and a court to review laws to ensure any laws made stayed within that constitution as well as settle disputes that arose. Of course, it was up to John to get the ball rolling and make the initial appointments of these officials until they had a good enough population and a voting system for these offices to be elected. Between that and organizing trade between plants and planning settlements and immigration centers for the hundreds of thousands of people wanting to immigrate here, John realized was becoming a politician.

God damn it!

.

"Hey John," Julie said in a musical tone as she came into his office.

John looked up from the mass of paperwork before him. "Hey Julie," he said, offering her a genuine smile.

Julie bit her bottom lip and cast him an impish gaze. "You know I can sense when things change in my body …. And well, last week I got kinda carried away when we were in bed going at it…"

John didn't need her to say any more. "You're going to have a baby," he said.

Grinning, Julie bit her lip again and raised two fingers.

John stared at her.

Ending music:

You know I can't smile without you

I can't smile without you

I cant laugh and I can't sing

I'm finding it hard to anything

.

You see I feel sad when you're sad

I feel glad when you're glad

If you only knew what I'm going through

I just can't smile without you

The End

Author's note. This has been a fun ride, but it wasn't suppose to be this long. That happens a lot to me :(

OH, and extra credit for anyone who can tell me what movie I stole that ending from :)