Chapter 5

Unknown Planet Outside the Edge of Neutral Space

"How in the frak did these humans come to be on this One-God-forsaken planet out in the middle of nowhere?"

Diana Biern, a Number Three Cylon blessed with long brunette hair had posed the question to the other members of her scouting party. She was designed to pass for a tall and athletic looking human female. Now, she stood alert at the head of her team on the top of a large hill. At that moment, she gazed down into an open pit mine protected from the harsh light of the system's orange star by a gigantic canopy. Inside the huge crater in the surface of the planet were hundreds of humans digging with hand tools powered only by their sinews.

"Is this some kind of…Colonial penal colony?" a lost at sea Leonardo Conoy asked. "Do you think the Valhalla came all the way out here to check on these people?" Leo was one of the Number Two models. He looked like a ruggedly handsome, fairly tall human with spiky blonde hair.

Diana frowned. After the loss of a platoon of Centurions to the crew of the battlestar Galactica in Neutral Space a year ago, the Cylons had been determined to track any ship the Colonials had sent into that sector to see if the humans had established new colonies that needed to be accounted for in the list of targets once the Cylons implemented their 'Plan' to erase humanity from existence.

A month ago, their base star had begun to shadow the Colonial's Valkyrie-class scout ship and had done so for nearly the entire time the battlestar had prowled through Neutral Space. However, somehow, the Valhalla had eluded them during her last jump.

Even after their base star had jumped along the missing ship's last heading as far as their hybrid had dared, there had been no sign of the Colonial warship. Instead, the Cylons had stumbled across a star system which had a planet in the habitable zone for human life forms. After the base star had achieved orbit above the planet, its scout Raiders discovered signs of human habitation on the surface.

Then her train of thought was suddenly derailed when Simon Bell observed, "I don't believe so, Two. There's no indication the battlestar has even been to this system. Besides, the settlement nearby appears to have been here for centuries. Also," the Number Four who could have passed for a Gemenon native noted, "these people appear to be quite primitive. Could it be that these people are the predecessors of a portion of a Kobolian tribe that had been separated from the others during the Exodus and had lost all of their technology when they'd settled here?"

Diana had no answer for her brother. "Perhaps," she murmured.

"What now?" inquired Naomi Valeris. She was a Number Eight, a model created to pass for one of the more exotic natives of Aerilon. On this mission, she was their pilot.

Naomi had flown them down to the surface and had landed the Heavy Raider in a clearing amidst a grove of trees close to a large pyramid-shaped building that seemed to be far less primitive and more substantial than the structures they'd seen in the settlement. After they'd landed, the four humaniform Cylons had armed themselves with assault rifles, side arms, and communicators. Then Diana had ordered six of the Centurions that had accompanied them to enter and examine the pyramid while the other six were directed to remain with the Heavy Raider.

Now Diana silently regarded the other woman for a moment. Then she shrugged. They wouldn't get any answers if they simply stood on the top of this frakking hill all day, she mused to herself. "Well…" she drawled, "I think we should just go down there," she indicated with a sweep of her hand toward the pit, "and say 'hello!'"

Now the landing party jogged down the slope and when it approached the mine, everyone in the pit stopped working. At first, no one moved. Then a heavily soiled young man strode toward the Cylons, appearing to be enthralled by their appearance.

Diana studied the man, actually, practically a boy, for a moment before she forced a smile for the disgusting creature's benefit. He's human, after all, she observed as she buried her hatred for their former Colonial masters deep inside her cognitive processors.

"Hello," she said, attempting to sound amiable.

In response, the young man grinned broadly then turned around and shouted words to the other workers in a language the Cylons struggled to comprehend. Immediately after he'd finished speaking, all the men prostrated themselves on the ground, shortly followed by the young man who flung himself down at their feet.

"Diana," Leo asked, "what in the frak did he just say to these men? I only caught fragments of it."

Diana and her sisters were designed to be both interrogators and the historians of their race. And as a historian, she recognized ancient Kobolian when she heard it.

"He said, we're the 'Sky People,'" she interpreted for her comrades.

The four gobsmacked Cylons stood frozen in place for a minute or so. Then she murmured in his language, "Please…rise and face us."

Moments after he'd stood up, an elder man garbed in a simple robe pushed through a crowd of men an approached them. When the young man saw the elder man, he pointed to the old man, apparently indicating that Diana should converse with the newcomer. While the three talked to elder, the boy shot a lingering glance at Naomi. When the Eight studied him intensely, he blushed.

Meanwhile, both Leo and Simon tried yet failed to suppress their chuckles when they noticed the effect she had on the young human male.

In response, Naomi glared at her two brothers then turned to the young man, smiled at him, reached into her jacket's breast pocket and drew out a ration bar. Then she unwrapped it and offered it to him.

At first, he seemed confused. Yet, moments later, he took the proffered bar and sniffed it before he tasted it. Almost immediately thereafter, he smiled back at the Eight.

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Diana then approached her sister and smirked. "Isn't it common knowledge that you shouldn't feed the animals, Eight? If you're not careful, they could turn on you and eat you alive!"

Naomi narrowed her eyes at the Three. "I'm surprised at you, Diana. Don't you think it's better to put our best foot forward at the moment since there's only four of us and hundreds of them?"

The other woman studied her for a moment before she sighed. "You're right, Naomi. I'll follow your example…for now." Then she shot a look at Simon, Leo then her. "The old man wants us to follow his people back to their settlement. I've notified the Centurions to remain in place but to maintain wireless contact with us."

Moments later, they were marching with all of the people from the pit across a broad grassy plain. While Diana walked beside the elder and a young woman who'd given them all a ladle of cool water strode alongside Leo, the young man ambled in step with her.

After they'd traveled on foot for thirty minutes, the mass of people approached an impressive stone wall nearly five meters tall. Behind the wall, she could see the tops of many stone buildings.

Soon the procession passed through a square portal in the wall into the settlement proper. Several minutes later, they came to a halt in an open section of the town where a crowd of people had seemed to be waiting for their arrival. The elder then presented them to the crowd. Shortly thereafter, everyone prostrated themselves in homage to the four Cylons while they all chanted the same words over and over.

"They're all saying…'praise be to Dias,'" Diana murmured lowly.

She shot an uncertain look at the Three. "Who or what is Dias?"

Her normally confident, bordering on arrogance, sister appeared to be unnerved by their current situation. "That's the old name for Zeus, the Kobolian Lord of the Sky, long before the Thirteenth Tribe had ever left the Kobol."

"So," Simon observed woodenly, "if they believe us to be the Sky People…"

"They think we're the messengers of Dias," Leo said, finishing his brother's thought.

"They think we're angels?!" Naomi exclaimed.

An uncomfortable looking Diana nodded.

The Eight and her companions began to grow very unsettled by the humans' genuflecting when Diana's communicator chirped. The tall brunette drew her device from her jacket pocket and studied its view screen. "The centurions say a massive rain storm is blowing over our Heavy Raider at this moment. It'll get here soon so we probably should find some shelter."

"We probably should remain here then," Simon said.

"Agreed," the Three snapped, fully in command of the situation.

I see my sister's confidence has returned with a vengeance, Naomi mused to herself.

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Things again began to move fast, Leo noted, as the now standing crowd of people motioned for his team to follow them into a large building. Once they crossed the threshold, he caught sight of a large table that was very low to the ground. Situated around the table top were a multitude of pillows while on the long wooden slab were many dishes that contained bread, meats, fruits, and cuisine that reminded him of something out of the royal Virgon court from a thousand years ago.

The people led them toward the table and bade them to be seated. As Naomi took her seat on one of the pillows, several young men rushed to serve her. Suddenly, the young man who she'd given the ration bar back at the mine snapped at the other boys. As they backed away from his obvious displeasure, he turned back to the Eight, smiled brightly, and poured a drink into a simple goblet for her.

Leo grinned and said to his sister, "Naomi, don't look now, but I think lover boy just called dibs on you."

When she narrowed her eyes at him, his grin broadened.

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An hour later, after the meal was completed, the elder women in the hall rose from their pillows and congregated around Leo. Suddenly, they gently grabbed him and started to whisk him away. When he saw his sisters reach for their weapons, he signaled to both of them with his eyes to stand down. He wanted to see how this played out. Besides, they weren't really in any danger. The base star in orbit had four emergency resurrection vats online with replacement bodies for the members of the landing party ready and waiting. So, he put up a token resistance and allowed the chattering women to guide him into a bedroom in another part of the building.

Once they threw him onto the bed, they removed his jacket and shirt, washed his torso using cloths soaked in a basinet, brushed his teeth with a plant that had a minty taste, and combed his hair.

When they finished their task, they bowed to him and rapidly exited the room.

For several minutes, he sat quietly on the bed wondering what in the frak was going on in this strange place. Then he heard the sound of soft footsteps outside the door.

When the crude wooden door swung open, Leo saw a woman standing there. She wore her dark curly hair like a crown on her head and her coif complimented her dark eyes and bow-shaped lips. Her slight frame was cloaked within a pure white robe made out of thin material. He studied her while she did the same before he recalled that she'd been the one who'd brought them water at the mine and had escorted him to the settlement.

Now Leo believed he was as devout and pious as any Two. However, even he had to admit that seeing this innocent-looking, beautiful young woman standing there where the light from the hall revealed the shadows of her lovely curves through her ethereal robe was almost too much for most males, human or Cylon, to resist.

Then, without uttering a sound, she stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and faced him. A moment or two passed as she appeared to gather her courage before she gazed resolutely into his eyes and shrugged the robe from her shoulders. When the garment pooled at her feet, she faced him, completely nude, yet standing proud and regal, holding her head high like a queen.

Although he ached to touch her, to hold her, something didn't feel right about this. Then it hit him. "You," he struggled to speak because his throat was dry. "You're a gift for me, a gift for one of the Sky People."

She said nothing. She simply peered at him.

Leo shook his head, stood up, and approached her cautiously. She never flinched; she simply continued to regard him with courageous eyes. Then he knelt before her and lifted the robe off the floor, careful not to touch her inappropriately. He drew the robe over her shoulders and said softly, "Please, you don't have to do this. You don't have to sacrifice your innocence to me."

She blinked furiously and appeared to be confused as he led her to the door and opened it into the hallway where he was greeted by the town elder and puzzled looking Diana. When the old man saw the girl precede him out into the hall, Leo saw the look of terror on the man's face moments before the elder flung himself down onto the floor.

As the old man quaked in fear, Leo noticed that several other men who stood nearby looked at him as if he was the Angel of Death himself.

At that moment he finally had realized that these people weren't in the grip of some silly superstition concerning a nonexistent Lord of Kobol. Whatever had frightened them was both terrifying and real. Every Cylon knew that kind of fear. After all, that's how slaves felt when their masters wielded the power of life and death over them.

He could tell his brother and sisters about his insight later. Right now, though, he had to salvage the situation and keep it from turning into a clusterfrak of epic proportions!

Suddenly, Leo plastered a big smile on his face and announced, "Hey…um everybody? Look everything's fine. We're good here…really. Er…we'll just go back inside now, okay? Okay!" he chirped brightly. Then he quickly took the young woman's hand and gently drew her back into the bedroom.

Once inside, he closed the door behind them and led her over to the bed. Then he indicated that she should sit on the edge of the divan while he looked for all the world like a deer caught in the headlights.

Once she was seated, she quietly regarded him as he sat down as well, careful to keep a respectful distance between them. At first, he didn't know what to do. Then he decided to try and communicate with the young woman.

"Leo," he said, as he pointed to himself.

She gave him a puzzled look for several moments before she parroted back to him, "Leo."

"That's good," he said with a gentle smile. He pointed to himself again and repeated, "Leo." Then he pointed to her.

She appeared to comprehend what he desired from her. She now pointed to herself, graced him with a generous smile and whispered, "Airla."

He smiled. "Airla," he breathed. "That is a very lovely name."

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