Summary: 'Hero'/'Miniseries' AU. After years of waiting, the Cylons finally visit the Armistice Station with one demand; Answers.

Disclaimer: Glen Larson, Sci-Fi Channel, etc. - These are the ones who own "Battlestar Galactica", not me. I am merely writing this story for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit. To the best of my knowledge, I am not a Cylon.

-o0O0o-

"Answers"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

-o0o-

"Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer."
- 208th Ferengi Rule of Acquisition,
'Star Trek' franchise.

-o0O0o-

Armistice Station
Treaty Armistice Line
Forty years after the Cylon War.

He had missed the Cylon War, graduating from the Colonial Military Academy just before it ended, he had been waiting to be shipped out to his first assignment on the Battlestar Pegasus - the old one, the Jupiter-class ship, not the new Mercury-class one that had replaced it - when the Armistice had been signed. He had missed the Cylon War, but it had shaped his life and career ever since; instead of being assigned to the Pegasus, he was instead given the duty of Armistice Station Officer. For the better part of every year, he sat in an office at Kobol (Combined Operations) Headquarters on Picon trying to pretend that there was actually a purpose to anything he did. It was only when Armistice Day arrived and he shipped out to Armstice Station itself that there ever was a purpose, though not one of note as every year he arrived and took his place at twenty-three-fifty the night before and stayed on duty until oh-zero-ten the day after Armistice Day and every year he was alone on the station, no Cylons had ever arrived. After the first few years had passed with no contact, he had even begun to think that instead of merely remaining on their side of the Armistice Line, the Cylons had turned their backs on the Twelve Colonies and set off into space in the opposite direction, determined to seek existance elsewhere, away from the humans that had created them as weapons of war and then were surprised when the war ended up being between creators and creations...

If they had, he couldn't blame them; it's what he would have done, he was thinking as he fingered the cruciform medallion hidden under his uniform away from casual eyes and formal inspections.

"Atmosphere confirmed, sir," the shuttle's pilot announced, "You're free to depart."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," the officer said as he stood up and picked up his briefcase, "I'll see you in twenty-four hours."

"We'll be back and waiting. Let us know if anything happens."

"By this point, Lieutenant, I'm doubting anything will," the officer saluted the pilot, "Safe trip back to the ship."

The pilot returned the salute, "Thank you, sir, safe waiting."

With military precision, the officer exited the shuttle, then quickly dashed away so that he was clear for the pilot to take-off again before stopping to look around at the hanger bay of Armistice Station for the seventy-nineth time since he had been assigned to Armistice Station Officer duty; it hadn't changed, it never seemed to change. That thought fixed firmly in his mind, he started walking across the hanger bay to follow the route to the conference room where he had waited ever since the end of the Cylon War.

-o0o-

For the fortieth time, he finished arranging the items he had brought with him - documents, blank paper, writing instruments, data discs and so forth - by removing the picture of his family from his briefcase and placing it on the table where they could watch over him for the next twenty-four hours. At the exact moment he snapped his briefcase shut and set it on the floor beside his chair, the room's chronometer chimed zero-hundred hours, the start of Armistice Day. Back in the Colonies, there would soon be celebrations and parades, a formal assembly and review of the Colonial Fleet and all of it to be capped off with the decommissioning of the last surviving Battlestar from the War still on active duty, Galactica, and its conversion into a Fleet Museum and memorial to the Cylon War. That was there; on Armistice Station, there would simply be waiting.

As he had thirty-nine times before, the officer picked up a data-reader and loaded a disc into it, waiting while the device booted up and loaded the contents of the disc. He was sure that there would be no reprimands if he chose to pass the time with a fiction novel or some other form of entertainment, especially after so many years with no contact, but he was just never able to do so. When he was on Armistace Station he was on duty and he just couldn't bring himself to stand down like that when he was on duty. Instead, he read various documents from the time the first Cylons were created up until the Armistace had been signed and human and Cylon had went their seperate ways; civilian newspaper articles, military operations plans and After-Action Reports, blueprints of the Cylons and the mining and transport ships that they had turned into their fighters and 'Basestars'. Despite doing this to refresh his memory on the known information relating to the Cylons, he always remembered that it had been forty years and it could just as well be completely outdated and useless as it could have remained accurate to any degree. It was that lack of knowledge of those whom he waited for that both worried and excited him every year. It meant that even if the Cylons did, after so many years of silence, arrive on Armistace Station, he couldn't be entirely certain of what might happen. It was this one day of uncertainty, of mystery and curiousity that got him through the rest of the year each year since his assignment as Armistice Station Officer had begun.

-o0o-

Eventually, a chiming of a clock led the officer to look up from his data-reader to see what time that it was chiming. A slight frown passed over his face as he realised that, over Caprica, the last active War-era Battlestar was now officially decomissioned, now forever condemned to be little more than an orbiting ghost, carrying memories of a history that was fading faster with every year passing and every soldier retiring or dying. Pressing his hand to his chest over the cruciform medallion he wore, the officer bowed his head and offered a prayer of thanks to the Galactica and all of the other ships and men that had fought in the war, not even bothering to blink away the tear that formed in the corner of his eye as he softly spoke the words.

Finally, he finished with, "In the name of God, so say we all."

"Interesting," a female voice noted from the direction of the doorway, the unexpected sound causing the officer's head to jerk up in surprise.

Tradition and protocol dictated no communication between the Armistace Station Officer and the ship that transported him during Armistace Day to preclude the possible suspicion by the Cylons of walking into a trap of any kind, so the lack of warning wasn't unexpected. The unexpected factor was that, instead of a voice with the characteristic metallic ring and electronic buzz of a Cylon, the voice had been that of a female; the kind of smoky voice that he would always associate with the singer in a certain Queenstown lounge where Kobol Headquarters staff gathered after duty shifts. Interestingly, he noticed, the woman who had spoken even looked like her with blonde hair and a heart-shaped face, though he had never seen the lounge singer flanked by a pair of Cylons - newer designs than those in the records he'd only recently been reviewing, but still featuring the distinctive chrome finish and visor with sweeping red light. With a faint sway to her hips that proved she knew how attractive she was and how to use it - and he reminded himself firmly that he was a married man, married and a father of two - she crossed the room from the doorway to the table, pulling out the chair on the opposite side and seating herself without formality.

"'God'," she continued, a hint of what almost seemed like acceptance in her voice. "Not 'gods' or 'Lords'. One singular God."

With a precision that any parade ground Drill Sergeant would have been pleased to see in their recruits, the two Cylons turned a quarter-turn, took one step to either side of the door, and then turned back to face the conference table.

Confused as since, according to the Armistace Treaty, there should have been no contact between humans and the Cylons, much less a human arriving on Armistace Station with them, the officer frowned ever-so-slightly before asking an obvious question; "Who are you?"

"A representative for the Cylons," the blonde woman answered, "That is all you need to know at this time..."

She leaned over the table to look at his rank insignia, "...Colonel."

"Wakefield, Colonel Ryan Wakefield, miss...?"

"If you must have a name, you may call me Senio," the blonde informed him.

'Ancient Caprican for six', Wakefield mentally noted, not sure what had prompted the thought. "Very well, Ms. Senio. And... I suppose you understand this is new territory."

Wakefield spread his hands to encompass the table, "The first meeting, post-Armistace, between representatives of the Cylons and the Twelve Colonies. To be honest, now that it's happening, I'm not entirely sure how to handle it."

"I'm sure you don't," Senio remarked. "This meeting - or any meeting with the Colonies - was not the Cylons original intent after the Armistace. Situations, however, have changed."

"Changed... how?"

"The Armistace agreement has been violated. There are those among the Cylon leadership who consider that violation reason to return to war, even after all these years, but there are enough who feel that... diplomacy... should be attempted that I was asked to attend this meeting."

Wakefield froze, except for his eyes that widened slightly, "I'm sorry, Ms. Senio... but... 'violated'? I wasn't made aware that anything has happened that could be considered a violation of the agreement. Would you mind elaborating on the violation you say has happened? Not that I'm doubting your claim, but..."

"But the Colonies sent you out here as a lamb to be sacrificed for their sins if we were vengeful," Senio finished with a knowing expression. "You could be killed and no one would know until you failed to leave. Tell me, how does that make you feel, knowing those you swore yourself to see you as disposable?"

"Not the point," Wakefield answered, doing his best not to show how shaken he was by the accuracy of her statement.

"Then tell me... Colonel... what is the point, hm?" The blonde knit her fingers together in front of her, amusement seeming to flash in her bright blue eyes. "Is it the violation? The potential for deceit? The idea that there are those of your own species that might be the ones to renew conflict between human and Cylon? Tell me, Colonel, what would God say about that?"

"'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us' comes to mind. There's also 'love thy neighbor as thyself', and I believe one about forgiving not seven times a day but seventy-times-seven times, as well..." Wakefield was not usually so overt about his religion; monotheists were tolerated only in the sense of the Colonies not wanting another civil war, and certainly not accepted - the general opinion of most Colonials was that there was something 'wrong' with Monotheists that needed to be 'fixed' - but under the consideration that he was now 'outed' anyway and the Cylon representative's reaction to catching him in prayer, there was really no point in holding back at this juncture.

The blonde woman looked at him with a thoughtful expression, considering the fact that the man before her seemed to be a true believer in the One God and His ways, not merely someone paying lip service to those beliefs.

"Can everything be forgiven, though, or does it reach a point where the only option is to put on the armor and draw the sword?" She asked. Not waiting for an answer, she turned to one of the Cylons flanking the doorway, "Centurion, retrieve our 'guest'."

The Centurion bowed its head, "By your command."

Without further comment, the Centurion spun in place, took a step, turned and exited the room.

"'Guest'?" Wakefield raised an eyebrow.

Senio smiled at him, a slight condenscension visible in the expression, "Patience is a virtue, Colonel."

Several minutes passed and Wakefield was beginning to grow tense, wondering if this was going to turn out to be a trap, considering the possibility that the ship outside had been destroyed and that this was the beginning of a new war. It wasn't likely, he was certain, but the possibilities were there and he couldn't keep himself from thinking about them as the silent vigil drew out. He was actually beginning to consider the chances of him being held hostage when the door opened again. The Centurion that had left returned, not along, with it was another figure, a human one dressed in a worn flightsuit, which entered the room before it and almost automatically walked to a point three feet from the table and one foot to Senio's left while the Centurion entered and returned to its former position. Wakefield, for his part, suddenly found himself hoping that his eyes had not 'bugged out' and his mind racing as he tried to figure out what this might mean.

Senio leaned forward slightly in her chair, "Now, Colonel, would you care to repeat your statement that the Colonials have not violated the Armistice Line?"

"I... would... need to know who this gentleman is before I say anything further," Wakefield said, slowly, gesturing towards the newcomer.

As though he were acting on instinct, the other man recited, "Novacek, Daniel; Lieutenant, Colonial Fleet; service number 111706."

Wakefield gave the man claiming to be Novacek a searching look before turning his attention to one of the data-readers littering his side of the table and entering in the given information. After a moment for the device to work, he read the results and frowned, "According to Colonial records, Lieutenant Daniel Novacek has been listed as 'Missing, Presumed Dead'... for six years."

"Novacek, Daniel; Lieutenant, Colonial Fleet; service number 111706," the man said once more, somewhat automatically. There was a pause, then he repeated himself again, "Novacek, Daniel; Lieutenant, Colonial Fleet; service number 111706."

The Colonel froze; that kind of mindless repetition of name, rank and service number was something he'd seen before and never in good situations. While it was kept quiet from the general populace, most of the Colonel Fleet knew that there were pirates, renegades and criminal in nearby asteroid belts and other places; most of the Fleet's activity in the decades since the Cylon War had been policing actions against those groups. Occasionally, pilots doing reconnaissance were shot down and captured, interrogated by the more violent groups to find out what the Fleet knew and what it planned. Wakefield himself had been assigned to one such policing action because the criminals - a group of claimjumpers mining an asteroid field near the Armistace Line - were impersonating the Cyclons, it was later discovered; though when the expedition had been sent out, he'd gone because of the possibility that it might encounter actual Cylons. A Raptor had been sent in a week ahead of the main task group and communication had been lost. When the claimjumpers had been defeated and taken into custody, the Raptor's pilot and Weapons Systems Officer had been found as prisoners; the WSO had been in relatively good condition still, but the pilot had been forcibly questioned and beaten to where they had mentally retreated to protect themselves from the experience to the point where all they could do was give their name, rank and service number. It seemed like almost the exact same thing he was seeing here.

Wakefield's expression was cold and his eyes hard and narrow as he turned his attention back to the woman across the table from him, "Lieutenant Novacek sounds like a survivor of torture; I hope you have an explanation."

One of the Centurions stepped forward and guided the Lieutenant into an empty chair at the table, the action seeming to quiet the man as he no longer kept repeating his name, rank and service number. As the Centurion returned to its position by the door, Wakefield mentally frowned as, despite the expressionless metal face and single sweeping light for an eye, the Cylon seemed to portray an air of pity regarding their prisoner.

"Your Lieutenant has been held prisoner and interrogated, yes, but nothing beyond that," Senio corrected. "Six years ago, a Colonel fighter crossed the Armistace Line and when Cylon vessels moved to respond, the fighter was fired upon by a Colonial Battlestar - presumably the ship he had came from - it is believed in an attempt to prevent his capture and destroy the proof of the Colonials' Armistace Line violation."

It was a fight for Wakefield not to react; he wasn't sure which part of this story was worse, the possibility of the Fleet violating the Armistace Line or that of the alleged violators firing on one of their own to try and cover it up. He was fairly certain, however, whichever of those was worse, that the worst part was that she didn't seem to be finished. After all; if Novacek had simply been taken prisoner and questioned, it wouldn't necessarily have been six years before the Cylons would have confronted the Twelve Colonies with him.

"The vessel that attacked the Lieutenant's craft was nearly successful," Senio continued, knitting her fingers together and leaning forward to put her elbows on the table. "Lieutenant Novacek suffered life-threatening injuries that put him in a coma; the first eighteen months involving multiple surgeries and other treatment just to keep him alive. Even after it was certain that he would survive, the Lieutenant spent the next four years in his coma. He only woke up and has been being questioned in the last six months."

The blonde woman frowned slightly, "Unfortunately, it seems that the experience has caused the Lieutenant a great deal of mental trauma. Besides his name, rank and service number, the only information our questioning was able to gather was that he'd been assigned to the Battlestar Valkyrie - which may or may not have been the vessel which fired upon him - and he seems to have known who gave the order to fire since he keeps asking the same question; 'Husker, why?' Tell me, Colonel, what does that do for your claims of Colonial innocence?"

Instead of immediately answering, Wakefield returned his attention to the data-reader that had provided the information on Novacek, this time with a different request for it to search for an answer. It took a few seconds longer than the previous search before the data-reader displayed the results; or rather, the result. The one, singular result for 'Husker' was the callsign of one William Adama, formerly a Commander in the Colonial Fleet, service number 204971. According to records, his retirement had went into effect that very day less than an hour beforehand at the exact same time as Battlestar Galactica, his last assignment where he had served as the ship's Commanding Officer, had been decommissioned. The important part of Adama's service record, though, other than his callsign, was his assignment prior to being transferred to Galactica; before taking command of Galactica, Adama had been the Commanding Officer of Battlestar Valkyrie. He'd been transferred from Valkyrie to command Galactica six years prior, according to records, after a mission to end an illegal Tauron mining operation near the Armistace Line had went wrong. Strangely, the records didn't specify exactly what had gone wrong with the mission, only that it had and the Valkyrie's command crew had all been reassigned to relatively dead-end posts like Galactica's decommissioning crew.

While Armistace Station Officer was considered a dead-end post itself by many in the Colonel Fleet, it had certain benefits; a relatively high security clearance, access to Fleet-wide documentation and the fact that most officers ignored him were among those benefits. The last of those three meant that it wasn't uncommon for him to hear things at Kobol Headquarters which he wasn't technically supposed to simply because people didn't bother paying attention and talked where he could hear them. That was how he had learned that standard procedure for a failed black-op involved breaking up the Marine unit or Fleet command staff involved and scattering them so that they would be unable to support each other if any of them attempted to 'out' what happened. A mission with few details - abnormal for the type of mission it was supposed to be - where the Battlestar involved's command staff was transferred to other postings afterwards in the same region and at the same general time as the alleged incursion into Cylon territory fit a black-up gone wrong and with the additional evidence of Lieutenant Novacek himself certainly seemed to support the Cylon representative's claims.

Wakefield gave a slow sigh, trying to delay the inevitable as much as he could, "It seems that my 'claims of Colonial innocence' as you put it, Ms. Senio, may have been premature."

"Of course," Senio smiled, somehow managing to sound more forgiving than condenscending.

"I doubt it will surprise you that there are no procedures for this situation," the Colonel admitted.

He wasn't even sure it was possible to have a procedure for a situation where it seemed that the military tried to start a war, apparently - hopefully - without the government's knowledge or consent, that didn't involve charges of treason and a potential military coup attempt.

"Of course there's not," Senio acknowledged. "That leaves the question, Colonel, of what will you do?"

Wakefield wasn't sure why, but it almost seemed as though the 'you' in that sentence was being used to mean him, specifically, and not the Colonials in general. Even though, like every Armistace Day before, there had been the possibility of something happening, he hadn't arrived on Armistace Station that day expecting anything like to be caught up in a situation such as was developing, he'd actually been expecting his fortieth completely uneventful day of waiting. That essentially meant he had no idea of what he should do, having been taken completely by surprise. The only solution of which he could think was to go back to basics; they worked and provided a starting point for further planning, that was why they were the basics.

'What are the basics of this assignment?' Wakefield asked himself. Almost immediately, he began to go over in his mind the orders he'd been first given forty years before and reminded himself of each year since; '"As per the treaty, you will be present on Armistace Station each anniversary of the armistace to be contacted by the Cylons if they so desire. Furthermore; you will investigate reports of possible Cylon contact within Colonial territory. In either event, upon contact, you will endeavour to open and maintain lines of communication between the Cylons and the government of The Twelve Colonies through whatever possible means in line with Colonial law and morality. You will provide for and ensure safe passage for any peaceful embassy the Cylons seek to send to meet with The Quarum of Twelve. Above all else, you will do your utmost to make sure that the hard-won peace between human and Cylon continues".'

It was a strange sensation to realise that the fate of The Twelve Colonies and every man, woman and child therein rested on the shoulders of a man whose promotions over the years had come about simply because of time-in-rank and who now found himself solely responsible for the most difficult and wide-reaching decision to be made in decades. It was not just a strange sensation, but a frightening one if he was going to be honest with himself. Unbidden, a repeated line from The Book Of The One God came to Wakefield's mind; 'Fear not'. It appeared in The Book many times, most often when God sent a messenger to humanity with instructions to go to a place or do a thing in accordance with His Will. In most cases, the human to whom the messenger appeared reacted in fear and the first thing they were told was to 'Fear not', for the messenger came in the name of God who loved them and had cause for them.

At first, Wakefield couldn't help but think that he could do with a visit by a messenger from God at the moment, someone to help him make the right decision in the present situation, then he had a realisation. While the consequences that would come may rest on him, the decision didn't necessarily do so and he didn't need a messenger to come to him; he could turn to God himself. In full view of the Cylons, he bowed his head and began a silent prayer for guidence and wisdom.

-o0o-

Less than twenty-four hours after the Armistace Station Officer had arrived, the representatives of Humans and Cylons were preparing to depart. Unlike how they had arrived, however, they would be leaving together. For the first time in forty years, the 'contact' signal had been sent from Armistace Station to the Battlestar that was on transport duty; something that the Battlestar crew had been unimpressed by as they'd been there to see the unidentified craft with the faintest hints of the twin-hull design of Cylon Basestars Jump in and a small craft travel from it to the station. The ASO letting them know that contact had been made was like a junior officer informing a senior one that the enemy was shooting at them while the senior was examining the hole in their uniform cover.

It was the message that had been included with the contact signal that had drawn attention. The message had informed the Commander and staff of the Battlestar that they would be returning Colonel Wakefield directly to The Quorum of Twelve on Caprica; accompanying him would be one representative of the Cylons, two Cylon military personnel as protection and one other person. The fact that the other person wasn't identified was concerning, but there wasn't anything the Battlestar's Commander could do about the situation, his orders were to transport the ASO to Armistace Station and then return them to the Colonies, without or with any Cylon representatioves. Fleet Command and the Quorum could handle any abnormalities once they got back to the Colonies, after all. The Battlestar's crew couldn't know - and Wakefield had no intention of informing them - that the 'one other person' was Lieutenant Novacek, who would remain in Cylon custody as a Prisoner-of-War and a show of good faith until Senio had the opportunity to meet with the Quorum regarding the events surrounding his capture.

Across the black void of space, the Cylon Basestar - distinctive from those of forty years before by its smoother, almost organic-like construction and its double hulls each being divided into three arms instead of complete circles - was slowly moving away from Armistace Station in preparation to Jump back deeper into Cylon territory, leaving Senio and her companions to begin their journey to The Twelve Colonies. If a Colonial were to see inside the Basestar's hull, they would be shocked to see apparent humans making up a significant number of the vessel's occupants, never knowing that these 'humans' had nerves of fiber-optics and brains with silica pathways, that they were Cylons made to look human. Were that Colonial seeing inside the Basestar to be Colonel Wakefield, shock would be accompanied by a realisation and understanding, as well.

One of the 'Eight' series of humanoid Cylons smiled at the last transmission from the delegation sent to the Armistace Station before they boarded the Colonial shuttle, "Now all we have to do is wait."

"I'd prefer destroying them ourselves," A member of the model designated Number One huffed.

A Number Six, identical in appearance to 'Senio', shook her head, setting her blonde hair swaying, "Destroying them ourselves would be too easy. Give them a reason to suspect and mistrust each other, let that suspicion turn to fear and the mistrust to hate and they'll turn on each other. The civilians on the military, the military on the government, every Colony will turn on every other Colony. They'll use past grudges and unsubstantiated beliefs as excuses to go to war. We'll never have to fire a shot."

"I appreciate the irony," a Number Three remarked, "Our precursors were created partially to fight one of the humans' civil wars and now we're going to cause one."

"In the end, humanity is its own greatest enemy," a Number Two agreed, just as the ship Jumped.

-o0O0o-

Author's Note: I'm not sure where I got the idea to make the Armistace Station Officer a Monotheist from, but looking at it now, I like the idea and the irony that the first fatality of the Second Cylon War in canon could have been a Monotheist like the Cylons themselves... Okay, I know that a Colonial Monotheist wouldn't necessarily be quoting from the modern Bible, so it's apocryphal in that sense. Though, keep in mind, 'all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again'...

As for Bulldog, I always thought it odd that it was never explained why the Cylons kept him alive, in a cell, for at least three years. There was no hint that they used him for their reproduction experiments like they did other prisoners or similar (Starbuck and Helo, for examples), no real proof of interrogation - in fact, we find out that they wouldn't have needed to interrogate Bulldog because they were already on the Colonies and had infiltrated Colonial society at least two years before the Valkyrie Incident and that with Fours, Sixes and such - not even counting the Final Five... so the question remains; why did they keep him alive for so long?

For the curious, Bulldog's service number wasn't given in the actual episode, so here I used the date 'Hero' aired in the U.S. as his SN.