The Uneasy Alliance
by AJ Marks
Part 16
Niobe watched as the ship came to halt in front of her, along with the other two ships which looked very much like fighters, sleek, futuristic fighters, but fighter none-the-less. She watched as the doors opened allowing two men to walk out, both dressed in identical uniforms, brown and tans, and both wore weapons which looked very similar to the ones the robot had.
“I’m Captain Apollo of the Battlestar Galactica,” the dark-haired said, introducing himself to the group as they probably already knew who he was. “This is Lieutenant Starbuck,” he said motioning to the other man.
“I’m Niobe,” she said, her reply in a friendlier voice than before.
“We’re looking for a friend of ours, perhaps you’ve seen him?” Starbuck asked getting right down to why they were there.
“Yes, we saw him, he went underground and is probably at Zion,” Niobe replied looking at the group in front of her as two more exited the shuttle and the other two from the fighters joined them. Six people, all dressed in uniforms and she figured they were probably soldiers of some sort. The only one who stood out was the blonde woman, who had a dress instead of the uniform the others wore, but it was the same color and seemed to be of the same material.
“If it’s not a problem, we’d like to pick him up and be on our way, we mean you no harm,” Apollo said to her.
“Zion, it’s a good distance walk from here, several hours” Niobe replied to them wondering if they would walk all the way to Zion, and what type of reaction they would get upon reaching the city.
“An hour,” Starbuck said, frowning. “Doesn’t that sound familiar to you Apollo?”
“Terra,” Apollo said confusing Niobe. She had never heard of this group before and wondered who they might be. “Are you in trouble with, or with the Eastern Alliance?”
“The Eastern Alliance? Never heard of them,” Niobe replied feeling unnerved by the questions coming from the men. Who were the Eastern Alliance, more humans? If so, how many left Earth that they didn’t know about.
“I doubt it,” Apollo finally said after several seconds.
“Are they enemy of yours?” Niobe asked, wondering if they might have a name for the group who was attacking them.
“Not exactly,” Apollo said.
Niobe was about to reply when five weapons were drawn and visitors quickly backed up a step causing her to wonder what had changed in the conversation so quickly.
*****
Sheba awoke looking around in a strange place, not what she expected to see. She looked around seeing that everything was white, including her own uniform. She suddenly recalled that she had been here before but could not fully recall when or why she had been here. The whiteness almost seemed overwhelming to her senses as it was everywhere.
She looked around for a door or something which might indicate where she was. She made a circle around the room but saw nothing other than the typical furnishings of a room, except it was all in white. She also had a feeling she was being watched.
Welcome a voice said making Sheba spin around looking for the source of the voice, but saw no one in the room.
“Who’s there?” she asked, assuming that someone was in the room with her.
“Friends,” the voice said as a hand touched her shoulder.
She spun around to see an elderly gentleman standing beside her also dressed in white. He had white hair and a fatherly look in his eyes. He looked familiar to her as well but couldn’t place when or where she had seen him before.
“Who are you?” she asked, hoping to get to the end of the mystery that had been plaguing her since she woke up.
“Right,” the man said, placing a hand on her shoulder again. “There, now you can remember.”
Memories filled Sheba’s mind of the last time she had been on board the ship. Apollo had challenged Count Ilbis and lost. On the way back to the fleet they encountered the Beings of Light again and they healed Apollo. Now they had returned once more.
“Why am I here,” Sheba asked, wondering if she would even get an answer to her question. She recalled all of Apollo’s encounters with this race.
“My name is John, and you are here to keep Apollo from making a mistake,” John said to her.
“John, that name sounds familiar,” Sheba said going over everything Apollo had said of his last encounter with them. “Of course, Terra, you were the one who spoke to Apollo on the planet.”
“Yes, but this time it is imperative that Commander Adama and Doctor Wilker go to the planet’s surface,” John said to her.
“Doesn’t make much sense to me,” Sheba answered thinking about the request. “It appears that this group is at war with someone else, and we can’t go around getting involved stopping every war we come across to satisfy your whims.”
“There is no war going on down there,” John said to her. “But if you don’t have Commander Adama and Doctor Wilker go down to the planet’s surface, it will be a disaster for all involved.”
“What,” Sheba asked trying to figure out what was going on.
She wanted to say more but suddenly felt a bit disorientated and found herself back in her viper headed back to the Galactica. She wondered if she had imagined it all, but it all made no sense. She would have to tell Commander Adama about what happened and let him make the final decision on what to do next.
“Viper one to Galactica, permission to land,” Sheba said as she lined up to land in the landing back.
“Permission granted,” she heard Athena’s voice reply as the landing instructions were received.
*****
The black armored centurion entered the command room and waited for the basestar commander to instruct him. The platform swiveled around and Hades looked down at the centurion standing before him.
“By your command,” the centurion said automatically.
“Report centurion,” Hades ordered hoping to receive information on what had been happening lately.
“Three vipers and a Colonial shuttle craft were reported heading towards the human planet. Five fighters were orbiting the planet and scanners indicated a brief skirmish with no ships damage,” the centurion said.
“Then what happened?” Hades asked.
“One of the vipers broke away while the rest headed down towards the planet’s surface,” the centurion stated.
“What of the lone viper?” Hades asked not concerned with what was going on down on the planet’s surface. The lone viper could lead him straight towards the Galactcia, the biggest prize in all of the Cylon Empire.
“We lost contact with it shortly after it broke away from the group,” the centurion replied back to him.
“What do you mean lost contact?” Hades asked wanting more information about the situation.
“It disappeared from our scanners,” the centurion replied.
“Very well, we shall wait then until the shuttle leaves the planet and then track it back as well, then we’ll know where the Galactica is,” Hades said.
“By your command,” the centurion said turning and walking out of the room.
Hades knew he could send out patrols but he didn’t want to alert the Galactica by doing a random search in the direction which the vipers and shuttle came from. He wanted accuracy the first time. For now he would wait.
*****
Niobe turned around to see what had startled their guests. The only thing she saw was DE coming towards them. The machine had not slowed down at all despite the fact there were several weapons drawn and pointing against it. Of course between it and the visitors were her group of humans and she wasn’t sure what they might do.
“Ah, DE, perhaps you should wait a second,” Niobe finally said motioning to the machine to hold off until she could figure out what was going on and turned back to the group.
“You know this thing?” Apollo said sounding wary of what was going on. Niobe could tell his entire body language was very tense and wondered what had happened.
“Its name is Deux Ex Machina, or as we call it, DE,” Niobe replied to him. “Right now you are guests in his city.”
“This is Zion?” Starbuck asked sounding confused
“No, that is the underground human city,” DE replied from where it hovered not that far away.
“Human city?” another asked, and Niobe could see they were all very confused by what was going on.
“Yes and no, this is the Machine City, and up until a year ago the machines and humans of this planet were at war. We’ve been at peace now for a year and it’s been holding up quite well,” Niobe said giving them a shorten version of what history she knew.
“Peace with machines, sounds skeptical,” Apollo said making Niobe wonder who they were.
“It’s a long story,” Niobe replied back to them. “I can explain while we walk down to Zion.”
“Why walk when we can drive,” the one called Starbuck said.
“Quite right Starbuck,” Apollo said. “Jolly, Brie, Bojay, stay here with the ships, Cassie, Starbuck and I will head on down and see if we can get Boomer back.”
Niobe watched as Apollo gave out orders and realized he was the one in command, and the rest were used to carrying out orders with efficiency. They were obviously soldiers but why did they have such a negative reaction to DE? Even as she watched a vehicle came out of the shuttle, and it looked armed as well. This vehicle was designed for war.
“Shall we go?” Apollo said to Niobe.
“Give me a second,” Niobe said holding up a hand and turning to the others. “Do any of you have any problems?”
“Yeah, be sure to return,” Rick said to her, as the others also agreed.
“Remember, Morpheus and Ben were arrested on sight, I doubt the orders have changed at all, and probably are worse,” John said. “I have no idea if their guy could talk any sense out of them. He’s probably also in jail with Morpheus and Ben.”
“Yeah, I’ll be interesting for sure,” Niobe said. “Perhaps their vehicle will help.”
“I hope so,” John replied.
Niobe walked over and climbed on board behind Apollo as the blonde woman climbed in as well and figured she was Cassie.
*****
Commander Adama waited on the bridge along with Tigh and Omega who were waiting to hear what happened. He hoped nothing else had happened with the rescue mission to recover Boomer. If anything happened he wasn’t sure he could afford another rescue mission despite the fact it was his son on the mission. He looked up as Sheba walked onto the bridge knowing he would find out soon.
“What happened Sheba?” he asked her as she walked up to him.
“We encountered a group of fighters on our approach to the planet. The pilots were human, had a brief skirmish but no one was hurt,” she replied to him, not helping his stress about the situation. “We managed to calm the situation and Apollo asked me to head back and report while they headed down to the planet’s surface.”
“Did he have any special instructions?” Adama asked watching as she suddenly stiffened and seemed conflicted.
“Ah, well, that’s complicated,” Sheba finally answered.
“What do you mean,” Adama asked, looking over at Tigh then back to Sheba who seemed nervous which was out of character for her. “Go ahead.”
“Well, Apollo wanted me to ask that you and Doctor Wilker head to the planet as well, we might need your help in diplomacy,” Sheba finally said.
Adama thought about it for several seconds. “Why would he need my help?” he asked her.
“I’m not sure what he was thinking, only that he had a feeling you might be needed,” Sheba replied and Apollo had a feeling something else was up. He felt sure it wasn’t a hostage situation and turned to Tigh.
“Perhaps he feels someone with authority will help?” Tigh supplied logically.
“Perhaps, inform Doctor Wilker he’ll be going on a mission with me, you’ll be in charge of the fleet until I return,” Adama said to Tigh before turning to Sheba. “Let’s go.”
Tigh went to work and Adama left the bridge with Sheba and waited until they were on the elevator. “So, what’s the real reason we’re going,” he asked her, looking at her and waiting.
She fidgeted for a second before finally speaking up. “I uh, have to,” she finally said.
“Tell me everything so we’re not walking into this blind,” Adama said to her.
“Apollo didn’t ask for you to come, but did send me back. On my way back I encountered the Beings of Light,” she said to him.
Adama nodded knowing that they were involved. “I guess we play along and see what they want this time.”
End part 16