Title: "Parting Shot"
Author: Padawanmage
Rating: PG-13 (swearing)
Time Period: 2003 Miniseries
Summary: The war with the Cylons may be over, but not before Commander Adama tries to even the score a little.
Author's Notes: As a reference, this fic takes place just after the 'They better start making babies' scene in CIC. Lee has already left and the Commander is talking with Tigh. In case anyone is interested as to where some of us authors get our crazy ideas, I was watching the first episode of Robotech (I can't give the title since it would be a major giveaway) and I thought, "Why didn't Adama do something similar?".
My thanks, as always, go to Lona and Kathy for their reading and comments.
Enjoy and Review!
Commander William Adama glanced up at the tactical view of the Ragnar Anchorage, with the blinking telltales of the Galactica and the fleet of civilian ships surrounding it. His eyes followed over till they came to the entrance of the Ragnar storm, with the telltale red lights signifying the Cylon Basestars and (at least) 10 fighter squadrons holding station, waiting the fleet out. 'Bad tactical position', my ass, he thought A part of him seethed that they were running away, never to return, but he grudgingly understood that he had to look at the big picture: the war was over & they lost.
Now the best plan they could come up with was to put a huge 'Shoot Me' sign on the Galactica and wait till the last civilian ship jumped away. Adama could only sigh inwardly. But, it was the best they could come up with. He only wished he could get just one lick in against the Cylons. Colonel Tigh, who was still behind him, spoke up:
"So, what do we do about our prisoner?"
Adama looked back at his second-in-command. "Any other time, I would've said let's hold on to him. Dr. Baltar could have a field day carving him up. Now?" He shook his head. "It's too much of a gamble."
"The Anchorage ?" Tigh suggested.
Adama nodded. "Do it." He was about to turn back to the plot when he noticed Tigh looking annoyed.
"It's a damn shame," he murmured.
"What?" asked Adama.
Tigh blinked and shook his head. "It just a goddamn shame that we're packed to the gills with all the armament we need and there's still plenty of hardware back on the Anchorage that we can't use against the Cylons. When we're long gone, the Cylons will be all over this place, even if the storm affects them."
"Yeah, it's a shame - ," Adama started to say, but trailed off. His eyes narrowed and he looked back at the tactical plot. He traced a single finger around the space between the Anchorage and the seething storm around it. It's not a super-bitch to move around here for nothing. He looked over at Tigh, who frowned at the expression on his commander's face; one he hadn't seen in years. "It is a shame, isn't it?" Adama said lightly. Tigh looked confused, but, after looking at where Adama's finger was, his eyebrows rose at a thought.
"Oh," was all he said.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"If I think what I think you're thinking, then you are not only a surprising son of a bitch, but a sneaky one at that," Tigh said with mild admiration.
Adama leaned over so no one could hear. "Can you do it yourself?" he said quietly. The less people who knew, the better.
Tigh glanced surreptitiously around. "I'm going to need your access code sequence, then," he said quietly. "I'll need your as well as mine for what I have in mind."
"Do you know Zac and Lee's birthdates?" Adama asked.
Tigh opened his mouth, closed it, and then frowned at his friend. "You unoriginal bastard!"
The Commander smiled as he wrote a number sequence on a pad. "Would you have gotten it the first time?"
Tigh rolled his eyes and took the proffered pad. "I'll handle this. Anything that means giving the Cylons a kick in the nuts – now that they have them, of course – I'm definitely getting involved in it."
Adama nodded and a determined Tigh left CIC. He looked back at the plot and felt a little better.
"What?!...you can't!….you can't!...you can't do this!…you can't just leave me here!" Aaron Doral sputtered as he was dragged into the main hub of the Anchorage by Colonel Tigh and several armed guards.
"You've got food, water, all the luxuries of home," Tigh explained as several large containers were set down in front of the man.
"No! I'm begging you! Don't do this! I'm not a Cylon!"
"Maybe, but we just can't take that chance," Tigh said, already heading out with the guards holding off Doral in case he tried something desperate.
"I'm not a Cylon!" screamed Doral. "What kind of people are you?!" The main hatch closed with a clang in front of him. "Don't leave me!" he screamed one last time, his voice muffled behind Tigh. Tigh nodded to the guards who went ahead to prep the shuttle. When no one was looking, his hand went into his pocket. When it came out, he looked one last time at the hatch and then headed out, his lips twitching into a smile.
Doral leaned on the hatch, his breathing heavy. With no humans around, he didn't have to keep the act up. He looked over at the crates with rations and water that the humans had 'generously' left for him, and snorted. He could go days with no food or water since he had better control of his body's functions.
He started to walk over…and nearly stumbled. His hand grabbed a railing and was surprised when it spasmed a bit uncontrollably. Doral steadied his hand with the other then walked over to the crates. He picked the largest one and sat down.
And waited.
Galactica rocked violently as another missile rammed its side. Sparks and glass from broken displays showered everywhere.
Adama gritted his teeth over the pain in his side from colliding with the tactical table. He looked over at the plot and willed Starbuck's Viper – together with Lee's – to go just a bit faster.
"C'mon!" he breathed.
Galactica's suppression fire was holding off most of the incoming missiles, but several were getting through. Slowly, her pods started to retract for the jump.
"They're coming in!" Dualla said from her console. "They're aboard!"
"Stand by for jump!" ordered Tigh. He could see scores of enemy fighters and missiles now heading their way. He heard the distinct thump of the pods closing fully.
"Landing deck secure!" Lt. Gaeta announced.
"Jump!" ordered Adama.
Galactica shimmered, then disappeared just as the missiles passed through the space she recently occupied. The Basestars stopped firing and the fighters regrouped around the ships. Some time passed before the two motherships, and their fighter escorts, slowly moved towards the entrance to the Anchorage .
Doral sat there, shaking; face ashen as he breathed unsteadily. He'd been sitting there for hours waiting for his brothers and sisters to arrive. A noise roused him to look up at the locked hatch. He closed his eyes as blaster fire ripped the locking mechanism to pieces. It opened and two Centurions came in, red scanners glimmering in the smoke. They came to a point and parted, allowing those behind them to come forward.
Doral shakily rose as several copies of Loeben, Six and himself walked up to him.
"We have to get out of this storm," he said weakly. "The radiation…affects our silica relays." They all looked at one another in concern.
One Loeben asked, "Where did they go?"
Doral shook his head. "I don't know. They were preparing for a big jump."
"We can't let them go," the other Doral stated.
One Six sighed. "Hmm, unfortunately I agree."
Another Loeben looked thoughtful. "If we do, they'll return one day and seek revenge."
"It's in their nature," A Six next to him said confidently.
The second Doral frowned. "We have no choice."
"It may take several decades to track them down," offered another Loeben.
All paused as another figure walked into their midst.
"Don't worry," Sharon Valeri said. "We'll find them."
The Six model closest to her said, "By your command."
The original Doral, now shaking uncontrollably, sank to the ground next to the crate he'd been sitting on. Loeben bent down and pulled him up.
"Why didn't you terminate all body functions?" he asked, holding Doral steady. "You'd have a new body in no time."
Doral shook his head. "This storm….prevents that as well….found out…from one of us. I would've…truly died."
"We should go," Valeri ordered. All started walking out, Loeben giving his shoulder as support for Doral. They just got past the blasted doors when Doral squeezed Loeben's shoulder, making him stop.
He cocked his head. "Do you hear that?" Everyone stopped and looked at him.
"I hear nothing," Loeben said, glancing quickly at his compatriots and wondering if the storm had taken its toll on Doral.
"Wait," he whispered, holding a hand up. Frowning, he staggered away from Loeben's grasp and went to the nearest crate that was dropped off. He opened it, but all it held were emergency supplies. Another crate held standard rations. Yet a third held sleeping gear. He looked around, running a hand through his hair till he looked back at the largest crate that he'd been sitting on. He dropped down to it and opened it up. Odds and ends were thrown in that had nothing to with survival, which Doral chucked out. The bottom of the crate came too quickly and Doral began to get a sinking feeling.
He found a catch, opened it up and his eyes widened at what lay there.
The others, several feet away, looked at one another, unaware of his discovery. Valeri looked annoyed and looked at the two Six models.
"We don't have time for this," she said, nodding towards the obviously damaged Doral. Both blondes nodded and walked over to either side of Doral.
One lay a calming hand on his shoulder. "Shhh, it's okay it's - " she glanced at what Doral was staring at and her jaw dropped. The second Six looked from Doral, to Six to the box and did a double take.
A rather large and lethal looking cylinder lay there, quietly beeping. On one side was the universal symbol for radiation and on the other a digital timer, which read less then 10 seconds to go.
A single note card lay on the side which Doral picked up. He read it and numbly gave to Six, whose face, upon reading it, turned uncharacteristically ugly.
"Humans!" she spat out, using the word as a curse. The other Six looked at it as well and sneered while clenching her fists. The card had a single word, in big blocky letters:
SURPRISE!
"As I said," she hissed in a frosty voice. "It's in their nature."
The counter reached zero.
The others didn't even get there in time before all were engulfed in vengeful fire.
The blast rocked the whole length massive space station, with secondary explosions lighting up on every section from munitions detonating. The counter-rotating sections, essential for simulated gravity, began to ponderously grind on their precisely balanced bearings. The superstructure groaned and shuddered as more and more of the station's ordnance went up.
The main docking hub – near where the initial explosion occurred - sheared away from the main structure and slowly began to spin in its own direction. Unfortunately, its momentum pitched it - as well as the Basestar still docked to it – into the still spinning sections of the Anchorage . The radial spines that held the spinning rings tore into the stabilizing 'arms' of the Basestar. One ring, grossly unbalanced, tore away from its support and collapsed onto the ship, crushing it.
Huge pieces of debris were flung away and cut whole swaths through the orbiting fighter squadrons. The ships tried to escape the flying wreckage in the only direction available – into the storm. Those that weren't fried from electrical discharges were torn apart from the cyclopean fury of the storm.
The remaining Basestar, in a panic, tried to escape into the Ragnar storm as well, but stopped half-way and then began to come back into the relative calm of the eye. It almost got back in when a kilometer long bolt of lightning slammed into one of its arms. Damaged and trailing debris, it was drawn back into the storm. It started to tumble further and further into the planet until it was crushed by the mounting atmospheric pressures.
The last remains of the station went up in a titanic fireball when its fusion reactor lost its magnetic containment. The blast took in almost the entire eye of the storm. When it dissipated, nothing remained of the Cylon Taskforce.
Light-years away, Adama tossed and turned in the dark. Finally, with a growl, he flipped the light on and lay there on his bed. He didn't have his reading glasses on, but he knew the slip of paper was on his bed side table.
"There are only 12 Cylon models…"
As if he didn't have enough to worry about. Adama took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it go. He brought his hands up to put them behind his head, when he frowned at his wristwatch. Reaching over, he grabbed his reading glasses and then took a better look at the time. For a moment, he simply stared at it, marking the time. Then, slowly, a tight smile graced his rough features.
He honestly didn't know if it had worked, but he'd like to believe that they'd given the enemy a bloody nose. If it did, it certainly did not balance or even tip the scales on all the losses they suffered. He had a feeling though, that they'd get more chances to add to the tally in the future, no matter where they went.
Adama slowly took off his glasses and began to fold them.
The war was over; that much was painfully sure. But he'd be damned if he didn't get in one last shot for humanity.
He shut off the light, and slipped into a restful sleep.
-Fin-