ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

FIRST ENDING, LEADING INTO THE BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SERIES

“GO TELL THE SPARTANS”

On the upper screen, Adar was looking over his shoulder for Baltar. He had disappeared.
“Stand by to launch two squadrons of vipers and one of our armed flights of strikers,” Aeneas ordered. “Colonel, lay in a course for Sagitara, best speed. Stand by to execute.” Klymene nodded, reached up behind her right ear to touch the contact concealed under the skin, and activated her augmentor.
Aleksandros was beside himself. “What in hades are you doing?”
“Trying to salvage something from this. Security!”
The two lit screens flickered with sudden interference. “What was that?” Adar wondered fretfully.
“That was my son, Mr. President,” Adama said with devastating finality.
Not Apollo, Aeneas thought, hurt. He was distracted from that line of thought as the Security officers who had come in response to his order arrived. “Arrest this man and confine him in the brig,” he told them, indicating Aleksandros. They took hold of the Council member and hustled him, speechless for once, off the bridge.
“And good riddance,” muttered Akamas. “My lord, something very odd. We’re not detecting any incoming baseships.”
“No baseships?”
“Just fighters, I don’t know how many phalanxes yet. More than I’ve ever seen.”
“Has that flight of strikers launched yet?”
“Not yet. They’re waiting for the vipers to go to give them some cover.”
“Keep them on board. Navigator, is that course for home laid in yet?”
“Not quite,” Klymene replied, her expression abstracted as she finished her calculations. “Almost.”
“My lord, we’re beginning to come under attack,” the weapons officer reported.
“Two squadrons of vipers launched,” Akamas reported.
“How about the other ships?” Aeneas asked.
“Galactica got off a full spread. The other ships….” Akamas shook his head. “My lord, with all respect, why are we laying in a course to leave the fleet?”
“I suspect an attack on our home planets.”
Akamas paled, but said, his voice perfectly controlled, “We may not be able to do anything.”
“We can die trying.”
“Galactica and the flagship are on ship-to-ship again but I can’t pick it up,” the flight officer reported. “Too much interference.”
“Atlantia is under concentrated attack. She’s already heavily damaged,” the weapons officer said.
The bridge crew felt their own ship shudder under them. The lights flickered momentarily, then returned to full power.
“Hits on the port side,” Akamas said.
“Get damage control down there.”
Aeneas was concentrating on the damage reports when a shocked hush fell over the bridge. He looked up, asked apprehensively, “What was that?”
“The flagship, my lord,” the flight officer said simply. On the scanner readout, where the Atlantia had been was only an expanding pattern of gas and debris.
“Course laid in and ready,” Klymene reported.
“My lord, the Galactica is leaving fleet formation. Her destination appears to be Caprica orbit,” the flight officer said.
“Get us the hades out of here,” said Aeneas.

As Columbia closed in on Sagitara, Aeneas asked the communications officer, “Are we picking up anything from home?”
“I’ve been monitoring a civilian broadcast, my lord, from the Presidium on Caprica. Everything appears to be normal so far.”
“Put it on the screen here.”
The upper right hand screen lit. Akamas remarked, “That’s that Serina woman. When we were home for Hector’s funeral, I watched some of her broadcasts. Another one of those peace enthusiasts.”
The two men had not watched for a more than a few centons when the picture erupted into flames and death. A chill ran across the bridge as some of the other crew tuned their monitors to the broadcast.
After a centon, Aeneas looked away. “Turn it off,” he ordered. Someone touched his arm. Looking up, he saw Colonel Klymene at his side. “What is it?”
“We’re picking up attacks on all the inner planets. Virgon, Caprica, and Sagitara.”
Akamas came up on his other side and said softly, “Is it possible they have enough force to attack all of the Colonies? Maybe they’re just hitting the fleet and the main….”
Aeneas shook his head. “No. They have enough force, Colonel. Elsewise they wouldn’t have attacked. The Cylons don’t believe in half-measures.”
“They’re going to be spread awfully thin,” said Klymene.
“True, but it doesn’t matter. We were spread even thinner…and we were unready. They’ve been whittling us down for twenty yahrens, all building to this moment.” He smiled bitterly. “A thousand yahrens of war and we lose it in the course of one afternoon. How long till we’re in range of Sagitara?”
“About half a centare, my lord,” said Klymene.
“Have our remaining vipers ready to launch, and all our strikers, however they’re armed.”

Aboard the Galactica, Adama did not order his communications officer to switch off the scenes of disaster. Instead, they were multiplied a hundredfold on every screen on the bridge as the crew looked on in horror, all save Omega, who quietly turned his back on it. Even then he could still hear, as they all could, the desperation in the voices on the transmissions. One in particular would remain with Adama for the rest of his life, a woman’s voice crying out that there was a second wave coming in, and that they had no defenses.
We have come to this, Adama thought. And what’s worse, we permitted it to happen. But was there any alternative? The people wanted peace…I believe in democracy, that the government should carry out the will of the people. But should it do so when that will is so obviously wrong? Who should govern and how? The military could have overthrown the civilian leadership…or the Scorpians and Sagitarans might have broken away, gone it alone, and maybe, just maybe been in a position to blunt this attack…but would it have been right? It was a moral dilemma Commander Adama knew he would never solve.
The Galactica closed in on Caprica orbit even as the Cylon attack waves were beginning to pull out and return to their baseships—wherever those were—to refuel and rearm. Omega looked up at him and said quietly, “Commander, Cylon baseships on long range scanner. Launching to all outer planets.”
“No hope, Commander,” Colonel Tigh said, putting into words what they all knew to be the truth.
Adama looked at Omega and asked, “What about Sagitara?”
“The planet’s in flames, Commander.” Their eyes held briefly, sharing misery for their respective homeworlds, then Omega bowed his head and went on up the stairs to the command level.
After a centon, Adama pulled a little awkwardly at Tigh’s sleeve and ordered, “Have my shuttlecraft prepared, please.”
Tigh stared at him, uncertain he’d heard Adama correctly. “Shuttlecraft?”
“I’m going down on the surface of Caprica.”
Alarmed, Tigh said, “Commander, that is out of the question! If Cylon scanners should pick you up….”
Oblivious to his exec’s concern, Adama went on, “You will continue to rendezvous with the survivors of the fleet.”
Apollo had overheard the discussion and, forcibly dragging himself out of the state of shocked suspension he had been in since learning of Zac’s death, said, “I’ll take you in a fighter. You’re the last surviving member of the Council, Father. If we should run into a Cylon attack ship, at least you’ll have a chance.”
“I insist on that, Commander,” Tigh said, knowing that Adama was set on his course and all he could do was modify it slightly.
“Very well,” Adama consented.

Sagitara was in flames. The fires were so vast that, as the Columbia made orbit, they could be seen clearly from space. The cities burned, the forests, the fields, pouring out massive clouds of choking black smoke into the atmosphere, clouds that would soon conceal the planet’s wounds from the eye, if not the memory.
“How many strikers are up?”
“All of them, my lord. Forty strikers up and ready, armed for anti-ship action,” said Akamas.
“My lord, we have Cylon baseships on our scanners now. At least two at low level over the planet,” the flight officer reported.
“Give the strikers the coordinates. We’ll launch twenty now and hold the rest back in case we run into more baseships. Launch our last viper squadron to cover for them. Put me through to the strike leader.”
“Done.”
“Colonel?”
“My lord?” Dirce replied.
“Divide your strikers into two groups. One on the first base ship, the rest on the second. Try to take them out. If anything happens…if for some reason you can’t rendezvous with us, the Galactica appeared to be making for Caprica orbit.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Success, my lady.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Launch strikers and vipers,” Aeneas ordered.
The bridge crew watched as Columbia’s vipers exploded down their launch tubes, and the strikers neatly filed out through the hangar opening. Once they were gone there was a brief silence, broken by Colonel Klymene.
“Commander?”
“Colonel?”
“We have three more base ships coming around the planet,” she reported quietly.
Aeneas felt faint, hating his sudden weakness but unable to force it down. He had been a warrior for a long time, had been a strike fighter pilot—a terrifyingly dangerous job—and then a command officer. He had fought at the Cosmora Archipelago, had thought nothing could be worse than that. Often he had been afraid. Never had he known for certain that he was going to die. He did know that now. We could turn and run. It would make no difference to the final result. But I could never do that.
He felt Akamas put an arm around his shoulders. “Commander,” Akamas said, “it has been a privilege.”
“Yes, it has. A commander could never have had a better ship. Or crew. Or friend,” he added. Raising his voice, he said, “Colonel!”
“Sir?” Klymene replied.
“Give me an attack vector.”
“Coming up, my lord,” she said.

I grew up here, thought Apollo. I grew up here. Only by repeating the phrase in his mind could be reconcile the devastation around him to his memories. The beloved house was in ruins, the once tidy grounds torn by laser fire and bombs. In the distance, along the shore, the nearby town burned as Caprica’s two moons settled behind the hills. And a line of lights was crawling down the slope in his direction.
Worried about his father—a welcome distraction from his own misery—he moved towards the burned-out wreckage of their home. Adama was there, stirring about in the rubble, and he went to him.
Adama did not hear his son’s approach. He had been looking at some family holograms that had somehow survived the destruction. Tears running unchecked down his cheeks, he focused on one of his wife. “I’m sorry, Ila,” he whispered. “I was never there when it mattered. Never.”
Not wanting to disturb his father’s grief but knowing it was necessary, Apollo approached and said gently, “Father, there are crowds coming. They probably saw our ship land.”
“I was just gathering a few things here,” Adama replied, shuffling through the images. “This likeness of you and Zac….”
Apollo caught a glimpse of the hologram, taken on the occasion of Zac’s graduation from the Academy. He didn’t want to be reminded of Zac now, didn’t think he could function properly if his bother’s death was in the forefront of his thoughts. There would be time for grief and guilt later, but for now all he could do was survive and keep his father alive as well. “Father, we can’t stay.” Adama showed no inclination to leave. Apollo came up and put his hands on his father’s shoulders, offered, “Maybe Mother wasn’t here.”
Adama looked up from the holograms and replied, his voice certain, “No. She was here. She was here….”

“Coordinates loaded,” Sarpedon reported to Miriam as the strikers headed down towards their home world. “One base ship near Tiryns. The other near Wilusa. They’re refueling and rearming their raiders now.”
“Then we’d better get them before they start relaunching.” Switching to ship-to-ship, she called, “Gamma leader to Epsilon leader.”
“Go,” Dirce replied.
“Submit we take the one over Wilusa. You take the other one.”
“Concur. On our way. Watch yourself, little sister.”
Seems a hell of a way to say goodbye, Miriam thought, but there was no time for more. That was a good way to get distracted and killed. She’d always been good at being focused, and that did not change now, and she thrust all thoughts of home, child, family aside, and set up for the attack.
Shields up, the strikers plunged down through Sagitara’s atmosphere, glowing plasma streaming back from them in sheets. Once low and slow enough, Miriam switched off the gravitic drive, opened the intakes, let the incoming air spin up the turbines, and pressed the igniters. The engines came to life as the striker went to full atmospheric mode, relying on the lift of its wings and the power of its engines to fly rather than on gravitic manipulation, the way it flew in space.
“Looks nominal,” she said, running an appraising eye over the screens.
“You hear that buzz?”
She cocked her head, listened for a centon, then said, “Yes. Sounds like something going bad in the accessory drive section.”
“Just as long as it’s not a main bearing.”
“No, that makes a lower frequency noise. We can have it looked at when we get back.”
“Oh, sure,” muttered Sarpedon, then was sorry he’d said it.
Miriam didn’t seem to notice. “Master arm on,” she said.
“Master arm on,” he confirmed. Around them the flatscreens reconfigured and the holographic displays appeared, giving information on the terrain, possibly enemy threats, and likely flight paths.
“Gamma leader to flight, we’re going to go in low and I want to hit him from five different vectors. Split up and redeploy. Our time on target is ten centons, mark.”
“No sign of Cylons yet,” Sarpedon said as the ten strikers split into pairs and turned onto their separate attack vectors.
“Let’s get down low. They won’t be able to find us in the clutter.”
Miriam put the striker right on the deck. It was late afternoon in the part of Sagitara she was flying over, the sun was to her back, and the long shadows picked out the ground relief in fine detail, making manual flying at low level no problem. Pockets of rising air, heated by the sun, jounced the striker heavily and she knew she was going to be black and blue when they landed from being bounced between the seat and the tight safety harness. Assuming we land, she appended to herself.
“Enemy baseship coming up, range seventy maxims,” said Sarpedon. “Still no sign of enemy fighters. He must be right on the deck; I don’t have anything on scanners.”
“Deploy the missiles.”
Underneath the striker the weapons bay door rotated to present the pair of nuclear missiles to the airstream. That done, Miriam eased the throttles all the way forward and pushed the striker past the speed of sound. The ground fifty metrons below was a blur. A normal person would have found the run-in terrifying, but Miriam had always thought it exhilarating in an awful way, the raw joy of playing with death and cheating it.
Then the Cylon baseship was visible ahead of them, hovering over open ground like a vast insect. The ability of Cylon baseships to descend that far into a planet’s gravity well was impressive, and protected the baseship from attack by battlestars, which were limited to open space. Only strike fighters could come down like this and take the enemy out.
“Countermeasures active. They haven’t detected us yet,” said Sarpedon, attention fixed to his displays.
“Aren’t you glad you don’t get to watch this?”
“I leave all the fun to you,” he agreed, smiling. “OK, they have us…their weapons direction radar is trying to get a fix. I’m jamming it.”
Miriam saw lasers open fire from another side of the baseship, presumably at one of her strikers that had not been so lucky. In the distance there was a brief, brilliant explosion. Lost one, she thought, but had no time to wonder who it had been, no room for sadness. Later, later….
The striker shuddered as it hit an air pocket and the bottom seemed to drop out. She pulled back hard, kept it off the treetops.
“Coming up into maximum range,” said Sarpedon.
“I want to make sure of this one. Get us as close as you can.”
She saw another smear of flame in the distance. Two down. Judging from the holographic combat display, a third striker had pulled off the target with damage. Seven left now…no, six, there went another…but it only takes one, if you get close enough, if your missiles get through….
New images formed on her combat display. For an instant she thought they were attacking Cylon fighters, but then realized they were six of Columbia’s own vipers, making diversionary strafing runs on the base star. It was suicidal, but because of it they might get through.
The baseship grew ahead of them until it seemed to fill the windscreen. The targeting indicator blinked frantically at her; the missiles wanted to go, wanted their freedom, and she let them have it.
The two missiles streaked away, followed by two more from her wingman, and she and the other striker hauled around and up hard, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the inevitable as possible.
“We had two good locks, and those vipers have their guns occupied,” Sarpedon reported. “Leliane’s missiles look good too.”
The two warriors pulled down their gold-coated visors but the flash, when it came, was still eye-searingly brilliant. They looked around, saw only a gigantic fireball where the baseship had been.
“Beautiful,” exulted Sarpedon as the fireball faded and a great purple cloud rose into the heavens.
“Nicely done,” Miriam agreed. Shortly, their wingman’s striker joined formation with them, its missiles expended, belly stained by the efflux from their rocket motors.
“Nice shooting, Miri,” the pilot, Lieutenant Leliane, Miriam’s usual wingman, said. “What now?”
“Stand by…do you have a fix on Columbia?” she asked Sarpedon.
Sarpedon studied his readouts, made some adjustments. Then he said, “We do not have an uplink…I don’t have a fix. I…I think there may have been other baseships around.”
“Do you have the Galactica?” she asked finally.
As they climbed up through the atmosphere, gravitics taking over from the turbines, Sarpedon said, “Yes. She’s in Caprica orbit. Do we have the fuel?”
“Barely. You don’t have the Columbia?” she asked again.
He hesitated, then said, “I’m picking up ion trails, a lot of electromagnetic noise…and wreckage.”
They looked at one another.

Colonel Tigh studied the scanner readouts, his usual efficiency masking his grief for the centon. Omega leaned over him and reported, “Ships coming in on both decks, sir.”
“What’s the count?” the exec asked.
“Sixty seven fighters in all, sir. Twenty five of our own,” Rigel, the launch officer, reported.
Twenty five out of a hundred and fifty…! Tigh forced the horror aside. “How many battlestars?”
“None,” Omega reported flatly.
“What?” Tigh did not want to believe what he’d just heard, but Omega’s next words confirmed it.
“We’re the only surviving battlestar.”
“My God,” Tigh whispered, knowing that if he had once believed, he didn’t anymore. Not after this.
“We have some strike fighters coming in as well,” Rigel added.
Tigh didn’t hear the bridge doors open. He told Omega, “Make the pilots from the other ships as welcome as you can.”
Starbuck’s acerbic voice broke into the somber mood. “Little late for that, Colonel.”
Tigh turned slowly, saw a haggard Starbuck approaching with a nervous Athena trailing him, clutching at his arm, trying to calm him down and not succeeding at all. She explained, “He doesn’t know what happened, Colonel. I don’t think any of them know.”
Boomer and Jolly were close behind Starbuck and, judging by their expressions, Athena was right. Tigh wished he could find some sympathy for them; he had been a viper pilot himself, and the sight of their baseship pulling out, leaving them to fight and die without support and then somehow make their way across the system in pursuit, must have been traumatic. But he had no time for that now. Some things, after all, were worse. Shock treatment was in order. Tigh told Rigel, “Put the transmissions we monitored back on the scanners…for our young patriots here.”
“If this is going to be some kind of a lecture…,” Starbuck began, but halted abruptly when the screens lit with the scenes of blood, fire, and death. His face went white, and then he knew what Athena had meant when she had told him that the Colonies were gone. The unbelievable was a fact.
And the war was over.

Apollo went down to the hangar deck of the Galactica to meet some of the incoming pilots. They were still arriving, nearly a hundred vipers now, some from the Galactica, a scattering from the other battlestars-none from the Atlantia, though-and most of the rest from Caprica’s planetary defense squadrons. The ground crews, operating on pure adrenaline now since they had had no time for rest or food since the attack, were hard at work getting the vipers parked and turning around the undamaged ones to be ready for launch in case of further Cylon attack waves, although it appeared for the centon that the Cylons had pulled back to regroup. The pilots climbing out of the vipers were listless. They staggered about as if drunk, but in reality were only exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally by what they’d been through, what they’d seen. He spoke to some of them, trying to find encouraging words, but mostly only able to indicate silently that he shared their grief.
Near the bow end of alpha bay he came across two parked strike fighters. By their markings, they were from the Columbia.
Under the nose of the nearest one, two figures clad in black flightsuits waited, one sitting on the deck, the other standing uncertainly over her. It was Miriam and her weapons officer, Captain Sarpedon. They, at least, had survived.
Miriam ached. It was not just physical pain, though that was present as well. Now that the fighting was done and she no longer had to concentrate on flying and survival, she had time to consider what had happened. She shed no tears, not with other people around. Her inhibitions ran too deep. Later, perhaps.
Gradually she became aware that Apollo was kneeling on the deck beside her. He reached out and touched her arm, asked, “Are you all right?”
“The Columbia is gone,” she said.
“I know.”
“Amala….”
One more death out of how many? Apollo wanted to weep. He couldn’t, not yet. Later, perhaps.
“Zac…my mother….”
Sarpedon cleared his throat, breaking into the awkward silence and asked, “What are we going to do now, Captain?”
Apollo looked up at him and said, “Survive, Captain. We are going to survive.”

(In 480BC, the Spartan king Leonidas and his men held the pass at Thermopylae for two days against the entire Persian army led by Xerxes. When outflanked, he and 300 companions held out to let the others and the Greek fleet escape, leading eventually to Greek victory over the Persians at Salamis. Leonidas and his warriors fought to the last man. The Greeks erected a memorial there, and, according to legend, on it were these words:
Go tell the Spartans, passerby,
That here, obedient to their commands we lie.)

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