Chapter Text
Admiral William Adama looked at President Laura Roslin, who sat sprawled on the other end of the couch in his quarters. She glanced at him from beneath half-lowered lids.
“What?” he asked curiously. “Do I have food on my face?” The remainder of their humble lunch was spread out on the low coffee table.
He frowned at her barely-touched sandwich; she’d eaten the soup, which he was grateful for, but had only managed a quarter of the frillfish sandwich. Though she’d lost some of that gaunt look from the ravages of fighting cancer, she was still thinner than he’d like and her continued lack of appetite concerned him. That was why he’d started scheduling these working lunches.
The cancer was thankfully now in remission due to Baltar’s unorthodox treatment using the Cylon hybrid child’s blood. Neither Baltar nor Cottle could explain what exactly this treatment had done to his satisfaction and though he was grateful that Laura had not died, William was leery of thinking of it as a cure. Cures often lead to complacency … loss of vigilance and he could not afford to lose vigilance--not where her life was concerned.
She turned to face him, moving with that same feline grace that had captivated him from their first meeting, though he’d hidden it for months.
“We’re going to have to stop these lunches, William,” she said, startling him until he saw her impish smile, “and especially just before a scheduled jump. Rumour has it that Admiral Adama, Supreme Commander of the Fleet and the Battlestar Galactica, has been ravishing the President of the Twelve Colonies in here.”
“Lords of Kobol!” he roared. “Have people nothing better to do?”
Her expression was serious now. “For good or ill, love,” she replied gently. “We are their leaders and much as I hate to admit it, our lives are not our own. People will speculate and we haven’t exactly taken any pains to conceal our relationship.”
“I’m on duty, for Kobol’s sake,” he said. “When would we find time for frakking? We jump in less than four hours!”
“Yes, dear,” she said with that infuriating smile again. “And what do you think most civilians and probably quite a few of your off-duty people are doing right now?” she asked sweetly with a low chuckle. “I don’t have any hard statistics, but I expect that the incidence of frakking shoots up exponentially just before a jump.” She laughed at his sour expression. “It’s only human. Why do you think we had such a spike in the number of births eight months ago?”
He looked blank and she laughed harder.
“What?” he demanded peevishly.
“You men!” she snorted. “Think of the dates, love. The numbers spiked because exactly nine months previously we were running for our lives, jumping every thirty-three minutes. People were scared--any minute the Cylons could jump in and wipe them from existence! They needed something life-affirming, they needed to feel alive,” she said gently as he clasped her hand. “And I know of nothing more life-affirming than making love.”
She scooted closer and laid her head against his chest. He stroked her auburn mane with his free hand.
“And if everyone is doing it, they assume we must be too,” he said chuckling.
He loved this smart, wonderful woman and there were moments when his heart ached at the thought of just how close he came to losing her without ever really knowing her. He had been of two minds whether to object to her running for President again, but there was no choice; Baltar or Zarek would have been a disaster. He was glad she hadn’t allowed herself to be manipulated by Baltar and the Geminese religious brigade into compromising her stance on human rights, and more importantly, women’s rights.
She’d won by only a slim margin, but she’d won and continued to lead them to Earth, avoiding the Baltar’s trap of paradise baited with a--barely-habitable (in his opinion)--planet they could settle on. Laura had pulled every political and rhetorical trick she had in her arsenal to remind their war-weary civilian population of the need to keep mobile and ahead of the Cylons. Through the force of her will, she had shut down the lunatic fringe that wanted to make peace--he grimaced at the thought--with the Cylons and reminded the people what the price would be of letting their guards down where Cylons were concerned; complete extermination of the human species.
William lifted her chin and kissed her gently. As he deepened the kiss, she pulled back, blue-grey eyes dancing with desire and mirth.
“Which is why we can’t,” she admonished gently and he sighed. “Anyway, you’re on duty,” she reminded him, lifting his hand to her lips and planting a kiss on the palm. He felt a renewed stirring of his desire as the tip of her pink tongue darted out licked the sensitive pad of his thumb tracing her lips. “And I’m not about to scramble for a quickie when I can have you all night. Besides, I’m not Starbuck or Dualla, and I’m too old for this couch--we’re both way too old for this couch.”
His laughter was cut off by the klaxon’s blare and she jumped. He squeezed her hand reassuringly; they rose without a word. At the door, he let her hand go and she followed him to the Combat Information Centre.
Galactica's executive officer, Colonel Saul Tigh, looked up as they approached. But as he submerged himself in his XO’s situation report and the activity of the command centre, William spared a silent invocation to the Lords of Kobol to keep Laura safe as she took up her usual position out of the way towards the back of CIC.
Adama studied the updated DRADIS report from Lieutenant Gaeta; a Cylon Basestar had just jumped into the system and was approximately eight minutes out.
“Are all ships ready to jump?”
“Ready as they’ll ever be, Sir,” Tigh replied dourly. “The last of the repairs on Rising Star and Oracle were finished twenty minutes ago and all have been updated on the jump coordinates.”
Adama nodded. “Recall the CAP and start the jump clock,” he ordered.
The minutes ticked down inexorably. Dualla reported that the Viper patrol had landed and gave the all secure on the flight deck as the jump engines spiralled up on a single exquisite note Adama never heard but felt through the deck plates which conducted it through his bones.
“Execute jump!”
William Adama lifted his gaze to meet Laura Roslin’s as the universe winked out.
#
“Status,” Adama requested as they returned to normal space and he felt the familiar disorientation in his gut.
He waited patiently until Dualla gave “the all present and accounted for.” He was about to give Tigh the order to start patrols when Gaeta’s frantic voice stopped him.
"Admiral!" shouted the navigator. "There's some kind of incredible energy wave or … or something bearing down on us incredibly fast!"
Adama’s mind barely had a moment to wrap around the concept of an energy wave when it hit, and there was no time to rail uselessly at the unfairness of the universe. He only had a moment to look into Laura's eyes and mourn, when his world blew apart.
All of it was for nothing, came his last thoughts, I’ve led fifty thousand people to their deaths …
#
Laura Roslin opened her eyes as she felt a pair of strong arms around her and saw bodies sprawled on the deck. As a marine helped her up, she realised that the bodies were moving.
"Report!" Adama barked as Colonel Tigh helped him to stand.
"Only a few casualties being reported so far, Sir," Tigh replied briskly. "But everything has gone into emergency shut down mode; we have no engines--we don't even have reaction thrusters. At best engineering reports that they may be able to get thrusters up within a half an hour, but they'll have to get back to us on that--"
"What about the other ships?" he asked impatiently; Laura steeled herself for the worst.
"I have them on DRADIS, Sir," called Gaeta. "I've got confirmation on sixty-three ships and a possible on eight others. I'm still trying to clean up the data as best I can, but DRADIS is intermittent because of some kind of interference. However, one of those confirmed has to be Pegasus--it looks like we've been incredibly lucky."
Laura Roslin breathed again. "I'd say we were more than incredibly lucky,” she said glancing up at Adama, “miraculously lucky would be a better term.”
“Well, do your best to locate those other ships and scan the area for Cylons,” Adama continued, “and let’s hope this luck continues to hold out." As the young man bent over his instruments again, Adama moved on to communications. "Let's have some good news at communications, Dee," he said. The young woman looked up at her with a hint of disappointment.
"No can do, Sir," she replied regretfully. "Whatever that was played holy havoc with most of the comm system--external ship to ship communications is out until we can get enough power to the transmitters, but we've already got intra-ship system on-line. I have an idea, though,” she said and he nodded for her to continue. “I’d like to head down to the flight deck to see how the Raptors’ systems fared, Sir--they're made for long-distance communication and they were off-line when the incident happened, so they should be okay. But even if we can't get them into space, I hope I can at least get their comms active--their transmitters would be powerful enough. Then I should be able to relay messages to the other ships and hope their comm techs think to use their Raptor and shuttle systems as well."
"I'll consider that good news, Dee," he said smiling. "Get to it and bring me some more good news."
"Aye, aye, Sir," she said with a grin before rushing off.
"Weapons status," he called.
"No power to the guns," Tigh answered with a worried frown. "Damage Control reports that the teams are trying to get the missile batteries on-line--we can’t even get the Vipers out. Chief Tyrol’s teams are trying to bring flight deck ops back on line--"
"Well they'd better expedite, Colonel!" Gaeta called, looking up pale-faced from his scanners.
Laura felt the young man’s despair cut through her like a knife.
"It looks like our luck just ran out, Sir,” he said looking up at Adama; Roslin ventured closer. “Two Cylon basestars just came into DRADIS range. By their course and the amount of acceleration they're pulling, they've detected us. Even if they're only coming to investigate that wave or whatever it was, there’s no way they could not have seen us. And the ones we left behind at the previous co-ordinates may jump in at any moment--"
"Colonel Tigh," Adama said thickly. "Get Chief Claussen on the line--we need those batteries yesterday."
"Yes Sir," Tigh replied soberly as he turned to his task.
Laura looked around the CIC, trying not to let her rising despair show; perhaps she should have left, but she couldn’t. It was selfish, but she couldn’t leave William to face it alone and he would never let his people face this alone. But to come this far, Lords of Kobol--to come this far, to have the directions leading towards Earth and be defeated now by some freak accident--
"Admiral Adama, this is weird," came the pilot’s harried voice. "Lieutenant Gaeta, confirm nav data--"
What now? Laura's mind demanded.
"Confirmed Koros," Gaeta said in an awed tone of voice as he looked at Adama. "Somehow we're moving, Sir."
"What?" Colonel Tigh shouted, losing all semblance of composure.
"We're moving, Sir," Galactica's pilot, Petty Officer Andromeda Koros said hoarsely. "And so are eleven other ships including the one Gaeta painted as Pegasus--that's what caught my attention."
"How is that possible?" Tigh demanded in outrage. "Engineering says that we won't even be able to get the chem-fueled thrusters back up for at least half an hour. Furthermore, he can't get any reaction out of the drives, so FTL is out of the question. We're incredibly lucky to even have enough emergency power for life support and the artificial gravity--"
"I don't know how it's possible, but we are moving, Colonel," the pilot replied. "It's the damnedest thing, because as far as I can determine, none of the other ships have active drives--"
"And you can't find anything out there to explain it?" Adama asked quietly. "What about other ships who have us in tow?"
"It's as good an explanation as any, but we should have felt something, Sir," Gaeta replied in confusion. "I can't find anything out there besides the Cylons. It's not due to drift, because we're all moving along the same vector. In fact there was remarkably little drift between the ships overall in the first place, Sir."
"Well there has to be something out there," Adama insisted in frustration.
"Well, whatever it is, it's just started to move five more ships," Koros replied with an incredulous grin.
Gaeta chimed in, "My best estimate is that we're moving at just under fifty gravities and accelerating, which should bring us into the Cylon weapons envelope in ten to twelve minutes."
Laura stared at Adama in shock, but before she could speak to him, she was interrupted by the comm officer.
"Admiral, I have Captain Thrace calling from the flight deck, Sir," Dualla’s replacement said.
"Go ahead, Starbuck," he replied hoarsely.
"You're not going to believe what we’re looking at down here on the flight deck, Sir," Starbuck said with a note of disbelief mingled with laughter. "The Raptors and Vipers won’t fly--we can't get them through the tubes anyway without power, but Dee’s got a vid transmission on one of the Raptors’ communications systems you need to see."
"What is it?" he demanded. "Don't go all mysterious on me, Starbuck, we've got enough mysteries up here--namely how in Hades we're moving!"
"Well this should explain it, Sir," Starbuck said with an infuriatingly cheerful chuckle. "Dee’s got it patched through now--I believe we've found ourselves some guardians."
#