The Uneasy Alliance
by AJ Marks
Part 34
Hades watched as the centurion walked into the command room to give him an update on the situation.
“Speak centurion,” Hades said waiting.
“Our patrol was destroy by Colonial vipers,” the centurion replied back to him.
“Destroyed?” Hades asked, it sounded unlike the humans lately to do such a thing.
“Yes, the patrol indicated the vipers never made an attempt to hide at all, instead directly attacking,” the Centurion replied.
“How many raiders do we have?” Hades asked.
“With the loss of the three on patrol, we’re down to sixty-three left,” the centurion said.
Hades understood, he lacked the forces to attack the Galactica which now had another battlestar with it. With such low numbers he couldn’t even get close to the Colonial fleet to do anything before vipers would be on his battlestar.
”Move us further away and keep patrols going,” Hades ordered. He would use his remaining raiders to keep an eye on the Colonials gaining vital information for when reinforcements arrived.
*****
Adama followed DE as it made its way to a large meeting room the machines had built for the purposes of meeting with everyone. Adama noticed a few others were already there, including some members from the Zion council as was Uri who had come down earlier to see for himself everything which was going on.
“Ah, Adama, glad to see you here,” Uri said moving towards him. “It’s remarkable really, even better than you described. Why did you make things sound worse than they were?”
Adama was caught a bit off guard by the statement but managed to smile at Uri. “Well, we must err on the side of caution,” Adama said.
“Of course, of course,” Uri said. “Remarkable are they not?”
Adama noticed Uri was talking about the machines as he looked at DE.
“I never considered that I might actually be friends with an artificial intelligence,” Uri said.
“Nor did we consider ourself friends with humans after everything,” DE replied back.
“Remarkable,” Uri said again. “Who would have thought our own creation which tried to destroy us would be our greatest ally against another creation trying to destroy us.”
“Our children have grown up,” another voice said causing them to turn and see a woman approaching them, Diana.
“Ah, the lovely Diana,” Uri said and Adama watched as she blushed slightly at the compliment.
“Grown up?” DE asked causing them to turn to him.
“Yes, I’ve thought about it for a while now. You are our creations regardless of what happens. As such you are our children. Like all children there will be a time when they become rebellious, parent and child will fight, even as we did. Now, we’ve both learned, grown up, and realized there is more to life, its big enough for both of us,” Diana stated to DE. “I fully expect you to one day leave Earth as well, go beyond the clouds.”
They watched as DE seemed to give that some thought.
“It appears we were in a status quo for years until Neo came along,” DE replied back to them. “We were content to exist as well, but you are right, its time to grow.”
“Come, let’s get this meeting underway,” Uri said as they all moved towards the large meeting area which was already filled with several people.
*****
Morpheus sat down in the council room seeing almost everyone already in there. They waited a bit longer as Turner walked in and appeared to be the last person to enter. Surprisingly it was DE who moved to the front and took center stage to begin the meeting.
“Welcome to you all, this is a historic meeting between all of us and for the further cooperation between us all against the growing Cylon threat,” DE said to them. “I wish to express my gratitude to all humans for their help despite our past, we have learned that humans are not as were remembered either.”
Morpheus wondered if they might have the missing history of how long this war had actually gone on, but that wasn’t the time, they had other problems.
“As you all know, we are bound to the planet for now, as the power source is yet to be found to allow us to operate independently at the moment,” DE said. “I am told people are working on a solution.”
“Yes,” Adama said standing up while speaking. “It will take some time to discover exactly what was done, but they are hopeful a solution will be found.”
“And for that we appreciate the effort,” DE said. “Next, the current progress of warships for defense of the planet. Due to power concerns, and large numbers of people taken out of the Matrix we have suspended construction at the moment.”
“There is a proposal in the Matrix as to who comes out,” Niobe said standing up gaining everyone’s attention. “There is a war going on among the people of the Matrix, and one group is worthy of a second chance. Its proposed those soldiers are taken out of the Matrix instead of dying.”
Morpheus turned to look over at DE who hovered in silence for a few seconds.
“I have gone over that data, it will work but the numbers of soldiers from that group who are smaller, but it can be done,” DE said. “It will be implemented.”
“Is there a way to provide power from the sun using the station?” Morpheus asked.
“That is being looked into,” DE replied.
“Everything is in the beginning phases,” Adama said.
“What of the Cylons?” Diana asked.
“Scouts have only run across a few scouts ships and were destroyed. The major concern is how quickly will reinforcements arrive from Cylon controlled space. If this was the only basestar around their raider compliment has been decimated in recent battles and will not be able to fight two battlestars,” Adama said to them. “However, that will not last for long, we’ve calculated a basestar could arrive from Cylon controlled space in a couple of months. So our peace will only last that long.”
“Then we must strengthen our defenses,” DE said.
“Not only defenses, but our ability to attack them,” Adama said surprising them all.
“You sound like you want to attack them,” Diana stated.
“Yes,” Adama said. “Unlike what’s happened here, the Cylons are different. They destroyed their creators and then continued to attack any organic life. In over a thousand yahrens of fighting they never once desired a future of both our races co-existing in peace. The only peace they offered they turned it around for a surprise attack which almost completely destroyed us all.”
Morpheus sat listening to this story, something he had heard before but he could still hear the passion in Adama’s voice as he spoke.
“They will not rest until we are destroyed. We tried a future of peaceful coexisting, all that happened was they almost wiped us out,” Adama said to them all.
The group was quiet for several seconds before Diane finally spoke up.
“We appreciate your council commander, and we take the threat seriously. It will take us a while to comprehend it all, especially what you have gone through just to get here today,’ she said to him. “Its not easy when you are asked to respect all life, only to have to be the ones to destroy an entire race.”
As a group they looked from Diane to Adama who seemed to pause and think about his words.
“I realize this, we just don’t want to see the same thing happen again if we can prevent it,” Adama said.
“And your concerns are justified,” DE said speaking up. “These Cylons never tried to communicate with us despite us being machines as well. Our allying with humans will make us their enemy as well, as that we will ally ourselves with our friends.”
Morpheus head the word and never thought he’d hear that term come from a machine to a human. He then realized how far they had come.
They would have said more when a white light appeared and standing in front of them was a man dressed in white looking like an older gentleman. Everyone was frozen for several seconds looking at this man who suddenly appeared in their midst.
“John?” Adama said speaking up first.
The man, John, looked around at them all turning in a circle before giving them all a smile.
“We once told one of your warriors, I believe it was either Starbuck or Apollo, that where you are now, we once were, and where we are not, you might become,” John said to him.
“Yes,” Adama said slowly as if he was recalling some conversation.
“With this very meeting you have taken that first, and all important step to becoming what we are now. We are tremendously proud of that. You’ve shown the potential that many other races have lacked. Courage, resilience, adaptability, thirst for knowledge, and the ability to get along with others despite what happened.”
The statement hung in the air as everyone listened.
“We will watch and look forward to the day when you join us among the stars,” John said before looking over at DE. “And that does include you my friend. You are more human than you think, let it grow and you will be rewarded.”
With that he vanished leaving them in stunned silence.
There was still a lot to do, but this interesting revelation by a race so advanced gave him hope they might actually survive to see better days.
The End