Dislaimers: See Part 1
To Stop Running
by
AJ Marks
Part 5
"Yes Earth!" Starbuck repeated Apollo's echo.
"Are you saying that these people are form earth?" Apollo asked not believing what he was hearing.
"If you don't believe me ask them yourself." Starbuck replied knowing that it was hard to believe, as he was also having a hard time believing it himself.
Apollo turned to the admiral who was still with him. "Is this true?" He asked in a bit of amazement.
"Yes, its true that our planet is called Earth, is there a problem?" John asked not knowing what Apollo was getting at.
"We've been looking for this planet for some time. According to our legends there were thirteen tribes of mankind, twelve settled close to one another, the thirteenth was lost. They settled on a planet called Earth." Apollo quickly explained wondering what this man would think about it.
"Well, there is nothing that tells us about you, or that we came from the stars. But you're very much like us and it looks like we can use some allies. I'll talk with my president and see what he has to say." John said leaving the bridge.
"Not the type of welcome that I was expecting." Starbuck said breaking Apollo out of his trance.
"No, it wasn't." Apollo said agreeing with his friend.
Marcus knew that he had to act fast. Ziers would be trying to push something through right now and no one was strong enough to counter the man. If he could gain some information that countered Ziers' information then he might be able to stand up to the man and gain some support amongst the council. He walked onto the bridge and went straight to Commander Tigh.
Tigh saw him coming and wonder what the council wanted now. He did not really know this councilman and wondered what he wanted. It was then that the communication screen came back to life and Apollo wanted to talk with him.
"Tigh, I have something that I think you should hear." Apollo said not knowing that there was a council member standing close enough to listen in.
"Now's not a good time commander." Tigh said not wanting to give the council any more reasons to try and get rid of him.
"We've found Earth." Apollo said regardless of the situation.
"What?" Markus said not believing what he had just heard as both of them focused on Apollo.
Apollo saw the head of someone he recognized as a council member and mentally berated himself for what he perceived as a slip up.
"Could you please repeat that Commander Apollo." Markus said not wanting to alienate the military support that he could gain right at the moment.
"The group of humans that captured me are from a planet called Earth." Apollo said.
"Hmm." Markus said and went silent while he was thinking. Tigh and Apollo just watched the man wondering what he was thinking.
"I've sent out the patrols, so far there is no reports of Cylons, but that could change in a heartbeat." Tigh said and Markus' head snapped up almost quicker than they though was humanly possible.
"Did you say Cylons?" Markus asked and received an affirmative nod from both men. "That son of a dagget." Markus spat out. "He only said that the Pegasus got captured and that you were doing nothing about it." Markus said looking right at Tigh.
"He didn't say anything about the Cylons at all?" Tigh asked a bit amazed at the news.
"No, I think that its time to give the military back it ability to defend us should the need rise." Markus said with a bit of a grin on his face and in that instant both Tigh and Apollo realized that they had an ally among the council members. "I need to get back to the council before Ziers does to much damage." He told them and walked off the bridge.
"Admiral White, what's happening up there?" President Hiller said from his house in Denver. He had been kept up to date about some of the rapid events that were going on in space, but had not heard anything since the ship had surrendered.
"There are some complications." John said trying to figure out how to put the information.
"Complications?" The president said with a raised eyebrow wondering what the admiral meant by that.
"Apparently this group is looking for us, they are as human as we are, and it looks like we might have come from the stars." John said to the president not knowing how this information would be taken.
"This is a different development. Are they the ones who attacked us?" The president asked.
"No, it appears to be an attack from one of their enemies that forced them to leave their home planets." John said. "They called them Cylons, they are a machine race that only wants the destruction of all of humankind."
""This is not good news John. What do you know of the Cylon's military power?"
"Not to much, just that they are probably as advanced as we are now, but I don't think that they have shield technology like we do." John replied thinking about what type of military was on board the Pegasus and what little he had been told by Apollo.
"There's a possibility that we might be able to defeat them?" He asked.
"There is a always a possibility mister President." John replied truthfully.
"Hmm, then there is a possibility that they may or may not know about our military fleet." The President said thinking to himself before a thought occurred to him. "I need to talk to congress about all of this, I get back to you. For now just keep a high level of alert."
"Yes sir!"
Markus walked back into the council room and noticed that everyone but him was now there. Ziers looked up when Markus walked in and the two men shared a distrustful stare for a few seconds.
"The council has just taken a vote on the courtmashel of both Commander Apollo and Commander Tigh." Ziers said. "There is nothing that you can do to change it."
"Perhaps, but did you tell the council the whole truth?" Markus challenged and several members watched the verbal match wondering what was going on.
"Of course I did." Ziers replied to implied insult.
"Then they know that the Pegasus has found the planet Earth?" Markus said and the room went very quiet.
"Is this true?" One council member said turning to Ziers.
"No, he's just trying to protect the two commanders from the charges against them." Ziers said defensively.
"Its true, I was just on the bridge when the call came in." Markus said and Ziers knew enough to not challenge the man's words. To lie in a council meeting was political suicide.
"It is not enough to dismiss the charges against the commanders." Ziers said and several acknowledged the councilman's words as truth.
"True, but did you also know that they have been attacked by Cylons recently?" Markus said dropping another bomb on the council meeting and he knew that the council did not know about that piece of news.
"No, the good council man failed to give us that piece of news." One member said giving Ziers a hard stare. "When were you planning on giving us that information?" He said as now many of the charges could be dropped.
"An alleged report from a group that may not be reliable." Ziers said trying to defend himself, a position that he was not comfortable with.
"Probably after he had replaced the commanders with friends of his." Markus said putting some of the pieces together. "This is the time when we need our experienced veterans at the helm of our military, not our friends."
Several other members nodded their head in agreement. Ziers could only watch as the council voided his plans and the charges against both Commander Tigh and Commander Apollo were dropped. He was even more disturbed by the council's vote to give the military emergence powers for what everyone appeared to be a fight against the Cylons.
Markus was thrilled with the results of the vote, and he had shown that he was now a power in the council. He had heard of several people who wanted to oppose Ziers but they lacked the strength and support to do anything about it. Now they had some strength and the evidence to support their views.
Ziers walked out of the room but not before giving one last glance back to Markus, who returned the stare with one of his own. Markus knew that the councilman would no longer intimidate him. A few other members who had remained saw the interaction between the two men and knew that there had been a subtle shift in power.
"Senator Mitchell, you have a moment?" A voice of to the right of the man said. He turned and was not expecting to see the President of Earth, Steven Hiller walking up to him.
"Of course Mister President, what can I do for you?" Mitchell said suddenly remembering the time twenty years ago when he first met the man, then a pilot, when he brought the alien into Area 51.
"We have a developing situation, and I want to let you in on it." Steven said.
"What type of situation has come up?" He asked hoping that it was not as bad as the last one.
""It appears that there is a large fleet stationed just outside our solar system and that they are human, and looking for us." Steven said wondering what type of reaction he would get.
"Human?" The man said a bit stunned by what the president had said. "What do they want?"
"I'm not quite sure what they want, but they might want to settle down here, but there is a problem, we lost one of outposts to a new enemy. Apparently their enemy has followed them here and that's what the meeting is about." Steven said knowing that the man would be there now.
"I'll be there." Mitchell said.
Markus walked onto the bridge with a smile on his face. Commander Tigh saw him and wondered what had happened to cause the man to smile like that.
"Commander Tigh, I bring you some good news for a change." The man said as he noticed Tigh's wary expression.
"I could use some good news right about now." Tigh said. So far the patrols have not reported anything and that worried him, he needed information to defend the fleet.
"The council has voted in favor of granting the military emergence powers again, which means you no longer have to have the council's permission to do what you think is necessary to protect the fleet." Markus said seeing the commander's eyes light up.
"What about the charges against Commander Apollo and myself?" Tigh asked.
"Dropped, it seems that Ziers did not tell them the entire truth of what was going on, just what he wanted them to know." Markus said.
"So for now I'm not breaking any council laws?" Tigh said getting a nod form Markus. "That's great, increase level status to condition yellow." Tigh told the bridge crew as the ship went into an alert that an attack could happen at any moment.
"Thanks." Tigh said as Markus walked off the bridge.
"No problem, Ziers needed to be taken down a notch or two." Markus said from the doorway.
President Hiller stretched in his seat as the meeting dragged on. So far they had not been able to come up with any type of plan on what to do with the current developing situation.
"Does anyone have any suggestions that we can bring to congress later today?" Steven Hiller said. They had been talking for several hours now.
"I think that we should tell them to leave." One person said. "That way their enemy, the Cylons, will not come here."
"I have to agree with him, if we don't provoke their enemy then they should have no problem with us and leave us alone." Another one said.
"I have to respectfully disagree with you." Mitchell said from where he was sitting. "The Cylons have already attacked us, and if we send this group of humans away then we lost not only a new influx of people, but information about the Cylons that we could use."
"But keeping them here could be like a magnet for their enemies." The first one said again.
"They already know that we are here, what makes you think that they will listen to us, or even talk to us. What if they don't care for talking then what? The last invaders did not want to talk, are you so confident that they will leave us alone that you're willing to risk our population for your assumption." Mitchell said with passion remembering the laboratory with the doctor and the president in the clutches of the alien mind.
"Then do you have any suggestions?" Steven asked remembering the detail of the time in Area 51.
"We should definable raise our level of alert, but we also should only fire when fired upon. Aside from that, we'll have to take each situation as it develops." Mitchell said wondering how that would go over.
"That sounds like a plan that I can go with." Steven Hiller said ending the meeting. The men got up and walked out of the meeting room chatting among themselves.
Ziers walked onto the bridge of the Galactica and headed to Commander Tigh. Tigh watched him come and wondered what the man wanted.
"I suppose you think that you've won commander?" Ziers said with a bit of resentment in his voice.
"No, I just hope that we didn't wait to long to start the patrols. If the Cylons catch us now, they might already be in a position to eliminate us, is that what you wanted?" Tigh said challenging Ziers.
"That was a trick done by Commander Apollo to keep the council from taking both of your jobs." Ziers said with a sneer.
"Commander, radar contact, multiple inbound." Rigel said from her position. "War book identifies them as Cylon three manned ships."
"Cylon raiders!" Tigh said. "Red alert, have all viper squads ready to launch, and get me the Pegasus. Does this look like a trick, now get off my bridge, I've got a job to do, and that's to save everyone's life, including yours."
"Pegasus on line." Rigel said.
"Tigh, what's going on?" Apollo said noticing the familiar red light bathing the bridge behind Tigh and Regil's voice in the background giving out commands to the viper squads.
"We're being attacked by Cylon raiders. I could really use your help." Tigh said.
"I'll see what I can do." Apollo said setting off to find Admiral White.
End Part 5
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