Section 1.4 : Ethical Theory

26 Quartus 6490
Colonial Military Headquarters, Caprica City


There were four other captains waiting in the outer office under the jaundiced eye of the current office boy—still the Fleet Colonel with the nervous tic—all of them looking a touch apprehensive about the impending close-up view of the Management. Apollo knew one of them slightly: Van Trion, the Captain of the Shield ship Dhow. She smiled at him as he came in, looking faintly surprised to see him. The other three—one Fleet captain and two from the Transport Directorate—were strangers. He knew who they were, but they'd never met.

The Colonel glanced at him and Felix. "He said to send you straight in when you got here. Take them all in with you." She touched the com unit on her desk. "On their way, sir."

Apollo hadn't seen the Supreme Commander since getting back and wasn't entirely sorry. He wasn't looking forward to the day's briefing. He let Felix be the kind shepherd gently shooing the other captains in ahead of them, while he trailed along in everyone's wake.

The Supreme Commander's greeting was a little less fulsome than Siress Ila's. He was already seated at the conference table, flanked by Shield General Martens on one side and Commander Cain of the Battlestar Pegasus, Fifth Flotilla, on the other. The glare he turned onto the gaggle of captains saluting him was... inimical, Apollo decided. That was the word. Jak didn't like this particular job any more than Apollo did, he realised. Protocol demanded that the Supreme Commander accept and return their salutes but his response was perfunctory. Instead, he waved everyone into seats at the table with scant regard for ceremony.

He turned the fierce blue gaze onto Apollo. "Well, I hear that you didn't crap it up too badly on the Columbia."

Apollo, who had a copy of the glowing report from Dalton in his kit bag, said, mildly, "I didn't want to disappoint you, sir."

Jak snorted, eyes gleaming with sudden amusement. "Very laudable. Well, sit down. We've waited around long enough for you prima donnas to join us without you holding us up any longer."

That was rich, considering they'd all been held up for almost a centar because Cain and the Fleet captain had been late and then another ten centons while Cain was given a fast, personal briefing by the Supreme Commander and General Martens. Apollo took the seat at the conference table beside the presentation system, putting the data crystal that he and Felix had prepared into the slot, ready. Felix, eyes rolling at the Supreme Commander's heavy handed jocularity, sat opposite him.

Martens smiled thinly at Apollo in what he hoped might be approval; Cain stared in recognition and with what appeared to be dislike. The archaic swagger stick that every other officer in the Fleet had abandoned generations ago as a mark of office but to which Cain clung with traditionalist obstinacy, was placed on the table in front of him. Every now and again the Commander touched it with his fingers, clearly finding it reassuring.

" Everyone knows the General and the Commander," said Jak with a casual wave of the hand. "These two are Captains Apollo and Felix, from the Strategy Unit. This is Shield Captain Van Trion, from the Dhow; Captain Illych from the Fifth Flotilla's destroyer, the Hertford ; and Captains Willem and Mione, who are with the Transport Directorate and who'll be driving the buses for you." The Supreme Commander paused to allow the nods of greeting. "Right, Captain Apollo, this is all down to you. Get started."

"Sir." Apollo tripped the switch of the computer set into the tabletop, projecting a star map onto the screen at the end of the table. He shifted his chair slightly so he could see the screen better. "This is the target—the Molecay system in the Firenze quadrant, about seven days' journey into Cylon territory. Epsis-Acteon is the nearest frontier system, within, as you see, the Fifth Flotilla's demesne—" Apollo glanced at Cain and Illych "—which is why you're here of course, Commander. Fifth will be critical to this particular job."

He returned his attention to the screen, the bare outline that was all he was going to tell them, clear in his head. They had to have enough to understand what this was about, but not the detail that could compromise security.

"So that you fully understand what the target here is about, forgive me if I take you through a history lesson. Molecay wasn't always in Cylon territory. A couple of centuries ago it was in ours. It was a Sagittarian agricultural colony, but it was never very important. So far as Captain Felix and I can work it out from the Colonial records, Molecay doesn't have extensive deposits of useful minerals—although there is evidence of some tylinium and selenium, it's not in commercially viable quantities—and it didn't sit on any of the major trade routes of the time. It was a bit of a backwater, really. When the Cylons overran it, the Colonies didn't put up much resistance. There were some light skirmishes, but mainly diversionary, to allow us to evacuate the planet's civilian population and fall back to more defensive lines."

"Without a fight?" asked Cain, in the tone of voice that proclaimed he would, as ever, have stood alone against the forces of the night and that every other member of the human race was a lily-livered coward.

Apollo liked his Fleet commanders to be predictable. Cain just showed a typical lack of finesse about it, and it was enough to hearten Apollo. Even thinking about this job was enough to give Apollo nightmares, depressing spirits that weren't, in any event, naturally high. Cain's reaction cheered him up at once, although after one joyous micron where he met Felix's equally delighted gaze, he hoped that he hid it well.

"As I said, sir, light skirmishing," said Apollo. "It was the Pegasus's territory even then, but although some of Fifth were involved, I couldn't find any record of the Pegasus herself being there. I think the Sagittarian member of the Council made a ritual protest about giving up the Colony so lightly, but the Council's view was that there wasn't anything there worth fighting for."

"But they were wrong," suggested Mione.

"The situation's changed, I think. Three yahrens ago we got hold of a significant amount of intelligence on the Cylons, everything from weapons systems to baseship schematics—"

"We've noticed," said Illych, enthusiastically. "It's helped nail quite a few of the tinheads. Our kill rate went up by thirty percent. How did we get hold of it?"

"That's not really relevant."

"A Shield operation," said Cain, with a nod to Martens.

"Of course!" Illych turned to Van Trion. "Yours?"

"Shield Captain Apollo's," said General Martens. "And, as he was trying to say, apart from giving us the initial data, it's not really relevant to today's briefing and is still covered by security restrictions so secret that only four people at this table are cleared for them. Please continue, Captain."

Cain scowled. He wasn't one of the four, of course. Felix smiled across the table at Apollo, sharing the micron of pleased superiority.

"I'm on my rotation out," explained Apollo, catching Illych's glancing frown for Apollo's Fleet battledress. He'd decided that to wear his Shield uniform would be to tempt Fate, in the irascible form of the Supreme Commander, one time too many. All Illych would see was a Fleet officer, like himself. And before Jak could remind him that no-one was interested in his bloody life history or his fashion choices and to just get on with it, he went on quickly: "Most of the information we got from the intelligence is hard. Like I said, it's weaponry, technological systems and schematics. There was very little soft data and what we did get has taken a lot more translation and analysis than the tech stuff. It was worth it. It's fascinating. About a yahren ago, I went over some of the data again, working with Captain Felix. I was interested in the indications that organic life-forms are being utilised on Molecay."

"Prisoners?" said Illych, quick on the uptake.

Apollo nodded and flicked onto the next scan image. "We believe that there's a substantial number of prisoners being held there. These scans were taken by Van's scouts, from the Dhow. They show the complex where the humans are being kept. We can only estimate, but we think that there are maybe two hundred of them. We can't be absolutely certain whether they're the descendents of the original colonists who got left behind or recently shipped in or a mix of the two. It looked to me from the T18 intelligence that a large proportion of them, at least, had been moved there over a period spanning the last twenty or so yahrens."

Willem said, speaking for the first time, "And you're planning what, exactly?" He added, almost instantly, "Scrub that question. With Mione and me here, I guess that points to a rescue operation."

"Why us?" asked Mione. "Why involve Transport? Why not just load them all onto the Pegasus? There's enough room, surely."

"We don't allow returned prisoners anywhere near our warships," said Felix.

Cain snorted. "Damn right."

"Of course." Mione had two angry spots of colour on her cheeks. "It doesn't matter if they sabotage a mere transport."

"We hope they won't do that, of course," soothed Felix, a quirk of his eyebrow for Apollo only.

Jak spoke with great authority, drawing all eyes to him. "Captains Apollo and Felix have been working on the infiltration plan for the last two sectars. They'll take us through it now, and then throw it open for discussion. It is not set in concrete, and you are all experts and warriors so your views will be welcomed and will help refine the plan." Jak looked steadily at them all, then shed the irascible old warrior pose that he delighted in hiding behind. He was suddenly very cold and threatening. "You are all co-opted onto this mission. It is not voluntary and I want you to be clear about several things. This is a Shield mission and covered in its entirety by the Official Secrets Act. The job is not to be discussed in detail with anyone, even your seconds, who may be told only enough to enable them to carry out their duties efficiently. For the entire duration of the mission, your ships will be on communications silence except for military channels and your crews will not be allowed emails home or contact of any sort. Understood?" They all nodded. "Good. Captain Felix, I believe you're starting this part off."

"Sir."

Apollo turned his head away and looked briefly at the screen as Felix started on explaining the mission plan proper, only glancing at the familiar maps and diagrams. He turned his attention to the audience, watching them as they were taken through the infiltration plan. He didn't feel guilty about not telling them everything. But as he watched their reactions, he wondered what they would say if they knew the truth about the horror that was Molecay.




Jak called a short halt after a couple of centars of discussion. Apollo and Felix had gone over the infiltration plan twice and the discussions had been endless. Apollo was mordantly amused at Cain's increasing displeasure at what he evidently saw as the secondary role assigned to Pegasus and the Hertford. The Juggernaut was not at his best supporting a ground operation, not content to let the Dhow and her Shield Warriors take all the glory while he, in his own words, tootled about in close orbit minding the shop.

Apollo was impressed by the way that Jak handled Cain. The Supreme Commander listened to the Juggernaut with every appearance of complaisance but whenever he summed up the discussion so far, somehow Cain's suggestions for putting the Pegasus at the forefront of all the action slid away and they got back onto the existing plan that was mainly Felix's: a sneaking run in from Epsis-Acteon with Pegasus and Hertford escorting the two slower transport ships, the Dhow doing what Shield did best and ranging ahead to scout their way. It would be the Dhow's warriors on the ground too, either to destroy the base or to shepherd the prisoners onto shuttles up to the transports and then destroy the base. And then a fast run to Colonial space, this time with Fifth's vipers surrounding the transports like wasps around a honey pot, sneaking secrecy put aside in the need to get home.

Just like T18, but with prisoners and Cain instead of his father and... and other people. Maybe not so much like T18, after all.

Jak's office staff brought lunch in to them. The Supreme Commander tucked in with gusto, talking to Martens and Cain in a corner of the room.

Apollo picked listlessly at the plate the orderly had pushed into his hands, his appetite gone. He wasn't entirely convinced about having to use Fifth for this, thinking that Cain was... well what? Wrong for this sort of job? Too bullish to sneak? Too independent to follow a plan other people—and those other people a pair of mere captains—had devised? And was it worth his career to say so? He almost wished it was the Galactica, even with all the disadvantages that would have. At least his father had a more realistic political grasp and no desire for personal glory. Adama wouldn't be looking at every plan put to him for signs that he was being cheated of greatness or for opportunities to enhance his heroic reputation.

The little group of senior officers drifted apart, and he found himself near Cain. The Commander nodded to him, evidently prepared to be sociable. "Your father never told me you did this sort of thing. I knew you were SSI, of course, but I'd not realised that you were involved in the Strategy Unit."

"I'm not allowed to talk about it much, sir."

"No. No, I suppose not. Jak was pretty explicit about that." Cain's expression still spoke of resentment at Adama's discretion. "I haven't seen you since last yahren's Graduation Day. You're on the Columbia, aren't you?"

"I was, sir. I'm waiting for another posting right now."

"She's a good commander, Dalton."

"Yes, sir."

"Zac's turn this yahren, is it? He'll be going to the Galactica, like Athena."

"Next summer, sir. He's just finishing his third yahren." And if they were onto discussing family, Apollo hadn't seen Cain's boisterous daughter for several yahrens but he thought he ought to show willing and ask after her. "How's Sheba, Commander? She's been with you for a couple of yahrens now, I guess. Didn't she graduate the yahren before Athena?"

"Class of '88. She's fine, just fine. She's a damn good Viper pilot, one of the best I've got." Cain coughed and added, his voice slightly thickened, "She misses her mother."

"I was really sorry to hear about Aunt Bethany," said Apollo awkwardly. "I'll miss her."

Which was true. He'd liked Bethany, and if nothing else, he'd miss the restraining influence on the rest of Cain family. He thought that it was only Bethany who'd kept Cain even half-way tamed.

Cain nodded and put on what Apollo, unkindly, thought of as his troubled-but-dealing-with-it-in-a-manly-fashion face. "Yes, you wrote to me, didn't you?" Cain faltered just long enough for Apollo to register it as at least as accomplished as anything his mother could have done in similar circumstances. "I'm sorry not to have replied. Things were very difficult."

That would be difficult as in your-daughter-finding-out-about-the-socialator difficult, surmised Apollo. He decided that he was getting far too cynical for his own good. Twenty-five centars with his mother and he was developing her sense of irony. It was uncanny. It was also time to stop thinking with hyphens. They were giving him a headache, just keeping track of them.

"Of course," he said, at a loss to say anything more. "I wasn't really expecting a reply." Which was true enough. He wasn't in the market for opening up a correspondence with Cain. He wasn't in the market for continuing this strained conversation, either, and he was delighted when Illych joined them.

"You know," said Illych, "I'm almost looking forward to this. We spend too much time falling back and being defensive. It'll be wonderful to take the fight to the enemy for once."

"I know what you mean." Apollo didn't really see how anyone could look forward to Molecay but was willing to be open-minded with someone who'd just rescued him from a tête -a-t ête with Cain.

"You Shield lot do it all the time." Cain was abrupt and gruff again. "I remember when you graduated from SSI and took Shield. Your father's face was a picture."

Illych raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"Commander Adama's my father," said Apollo, angry at being cornered.

"The Galactica." Illych nodded. "Of course. A damn good ship."

And just what was Apollo expected to say in response to that? He fought his baser nature into silence and said nothing at all.

"He'll be pleased you're in Fleet now," said Cain.

Apollo shrugged, irritated, trying not to show it. "Only until this time next yahren, sir, when my rotation's finished. Then I go home."

"I always envied Shield." Illych was making quite the effort to be conciliatory. Being under Cain's command, he probably got a lot of practice. "Getting all the excitement."

Excitement? Apollo shrugged. "We mostly get the crap."

"No. Illych's right. We spend all our time on the defensive, falling back, giving up system after system without a real fight. You people are out there all the time, taking the fight to where it matters, kicking those tinheads right in the balls."

Apollo hadn't ever noticed that Cylon centurions had balls. He didn't think that the original organic Cylons had carried their metallic imitation of humanity to such a level of verisimilitude, but all he did was murmur something inarticulate, aware that Cain would roll Juggernaut's Car straight over him anyway.

Cain's voice was low and intense. "We get pushed and trammelled by those god-damned politicians, more every day. Jak does what he can, but at the end of it we're hamstrung by the timeserving weasels. They never let us do what we need to do – go out there and attack until we grind those mechanical bastards into the dirt. They too worried about casualty figures, finance, taxes, their PR, their public, getting elected, staying elected, getting a foot higher on the Council. They're going to get us all killed. They're—" He stopped abruptly, gave Apollo a hard look and stalked away to rejoin Jak and Martens.

"Strewth," said Apollo.

Illych looked uncomfortable. "Sorry. He's got some strong views, you know, on the conduct of the war."

"You don't say."

"He's not really been himself since his wife died."

Apollo looked to where Cain was standing with Martens, and said, thinking of his mother's acid comments on Cain, now that Bethany's calming influence was gone for good, "I dunno. I think it's the opposite. I think he's more himself now than he ever was."




When Jak dismissed the junior officers at the end of the meeting, he held Apollo back. Felix played sheepdog again, ushering out the other captains ahead of him. He winked and, Apollo thought, basely left him to it.

"Time for a more detailed briefing." Jak turned to Cain. "I'm sorry that there wasn't time to do this before the main meeting, Cain."

Cain waved a lordly hand. "Shuttle problem. I didn't intend to get here so late."

"You need to know what's really going on, more than the little I was able to tell you before we began. Besides, it's all this one's fault and he knows it better than anyone." Jak grinned at Apollo, fierce and unamused. "You can tell him the lot, Captain. I've given him the statutory warning about secrecy."

Cain merely smirked, so Apollo assumed that the warning had been applied with a fair amount of ego stroking.

Apollo nodded. "Everything we just told you, Commander, was accurate." He paused. "So far as it went."

"It didn't go all the way, I take it?"

"No, sir. I mentioned, earlier, that we'd had more difficulty deciphering some of the softer, social data. I wasn't joking when I said that the data was fascinating. That's an understatement when you come to the detailed processes they go through when they're growing and creating centurions—"

Jak held up his hand. "No details. It puts me off my feed."

"Yes, sir. The key thing that we didn't want the captains to know concerns some of that data, relating to the people being held on Molecay." Apollo paused again, not so much for emphasis but to find the words. "No, they're not being held. They are being bred on Molecay. The data uses the same terminology that it uses for the programme for creating Cylons."

There was a short, but profound silence.

"Fucking hell," said Cain, devoutly.

"You never said a truer thing." Martens nodded, grim.

"You're implying... what the hell are you implying, Captain?"

"You have to understand, sir, that we don't really know. We don't know anything for sure."

"Some sort of breeding programme or experimentation or what?"

"Or all three, sir, or none. The data isn't that specific."

"As the Captain said, our understanding of Cylon coding is still rudimentary when we get into, what in our terms, would be social data," said Martens. "That's why it's taken so long to decode. What Captain Apollo brought back from T18 three yahrens ago is rich in technological information and we've got the lexicon for translating that. That was relatively easy. This wasn't."

"The softer stuff is more problematic and more sparse," added Apollo. "The Cylons themselves don't seem interested in recording the things that anyone looking at our computer systems would find out about human society. I don't think they see themselves in the same terms at all."

"What do we know?"

Apollo tapped one finger on his datapad. "Well, we can eliminate all the things we're sure Molecay is not, sir. It's not mining, even though the Cylons have been known to use human labour in unshielded mines that would otherwise incapacitate their centurions. Molecay, though, has limited mineral resources and Van's done half a dozen scouting runs over the last yahren and seen no sign of any kind of mining or other industrial activity. Molecay was a rich agricultural colony but the Cylons don't need food, just enough power to recharge individual centurions. There's nothing to account for the human presence there."

"And then there's the commonality with the centurion terminology." Martens sounded serene, and Apollo envied her that. But then she was a member of the Intelligence Committee that had been considering this project report for almost the last half yahren. She was familiar enough with this now to have recovered her serenity.

"Yes, ma'am. Indicative, to say the least."

"What do you think, Captain?" asked Cain.

"I think," said Apollo, slowly, "I think that the terminology is too much to ignore. They create Cylon centurions by implanting a few stem cells into the mechanical bodies, enough cells to grow a rudimentary brain, we think, that is completely subservient to what may be— may be —a collective Cylon will dominated by the Imperious Leader. The rudimentary brain... it's just a neural node, really. The brain seems to be all that's left of whatever the organic Cylons were, although there's evidence the higher level Cylons, Gold commanders and the IL series who seem to be candidates for future Imperious Leader, have a correspondingly higher proportion of organic material. The Imperious Leader itself has even more."

Sometimes, in his bitterest centons, Apollo could laugh at the supreme irony, that the higher you went up the Cylon evolutionary scale, the further away the Cylons got from the pure machine perfection they yearned for. He watched for Cain's reaction. Jak and Martens knew all of this backwards, and both were impassive; like Apollo, they were watching Cain. The Commander looked more than faintly disgusted, his bluff straightforwardness, as Cain would doubtless describe it to himself, having a hard time coping with something so patently un-straightforward.

"There's no firm evidence for what they're doing. But there are several options... " Apollo glanced at the Supreme Commander for permission to continue.

Jak nodded. "Not details. Just the bones of it, Captain."

"Yes sir." Apollo stared down at his hands, resting them lightly on the table top so that his fingers wouldn't tremble. "There are two possibilities, Commander, each with more than one possible variant. Either they're trying to modify themselves or they're trying to modify the human prisoners."

Cain stared. After a micron he shook his head, like a man trying to clear the last remnants of sleep from his brain. "Either sounds incredible. This is hard to accept, Captain."

"I know, sir." Apollo felt himself slipping into tutorial mode, as if he were perched on his desk in the classroom back at the Academy, looking at the young faces, ranging from bored to attentive to (in Zac's case) bright-eyed wickedness, as he explained the reasoning behind some strategy theory to them. "Let's take the first possibility, sir; that they're trying to introduce some changes into Cylon production. As I said, they create centurions by implanting a node of live tissue, mostly neurones, into the metal body. One possibility is that they're taking human brain tissue as a source for the node."

"Is that likely?" demanded Cain, frowning.

"The Intelligence Committee considered that it's difficult to reconcile this possibility with what we know about the Cylons," acknowledged Martens. "The Cylons' entire ethic is about their own racial purity"

Apollo nodded. "But all of the theories compromise that purity, Ma'am, to some extent. I don't think that it's a real issue."

"But that's why they created the cyborg form in the first place," she argued, "to protect their DNA inside less destructible bodies. They despise humans."

"I know, Ma'am. But when they built those less destructible bodies, let's not forget that they mimicked human form to do it. And it's possible that they'd be less affronted by the idea if the node is made of hybridised tissue. And also if the Cylons who are created are seen as something separate and apart, not mainstream; a special force of some kind."

She frowned "Perhaps."

"I'm reluctant to rule it out." Apollo glanced at Cain. "That they may be using hybridised Cylon and human tissue for a node is the second possibility within this option, Commander."

"What would they get from it?" countered Jak. Playing Devil's Advocate, thought Apollo, and enjoying every micron of it. "Where's the advantage in using human tissue in any form?"

"We don't know what they were like when they were organic, so it's hard to speculate, sir. But in all these centuries, they haven't been able to destroy us, for all their machine perfection. Perhaps because we're faster to respond to change, more prepared to take risks to win that a machine would rule out as illogical, because we'll sacrifice ourselves for something bigger. Spirit over matter, maybe."

"Dear me," said Jak, pensively. "We are like our father."

Apollo twitched. "The point is that they know they haven't been able to defeat us and that offends their sense of order—"

"Humanity offends their sense of order." Martens leaned back in her chair, her calm eyes on Apollo with something he thought might be approval.

"Yes. But that doesn't mean that they've not decided, in that machine-perfect way of theirs, to see what... what system enhancements human tissue might give them."

"It's a disgusting concept," said Cain.

"Yes." It was less disgusting than its counterpart. "Of course the General may be right when she touched on their notion of racial superiority. That may militate against them absorbing human tissue into themselves. The taint, the hint of passivity about it, the unconscious acceptance that there may be some superior factor in the despised race... well, those issues wouldn't sit well with an emotional human. I don't know what the Imperious Leader may think, but—" Apollo shrugged.

"Are you arguing yourself out of a theory?" Cain was still snapping, like an angry daggit on a leash.

"No sir. I'm doing my job. I'm giving you the pros and cons of every option."

Cain glared.

Apollo moved smartly on. "So, that's the first option, with two variants: that they're harvesting humans for neural tissue to make centurion nodes or maybe to contribute to them. The section option is that they're putting Cylon material into humans, making humans the receptive vessels for Cylon superiority, if you like." He realised that the imagery had unpleasantly sexual aspect to it. "We create a sort of cyborg ourselves, you know -"

"We do not!" said Cain.

"In a sense, we do, Commander. We can't do what they do, putting an organic node into a metal body, but we can do it the other way around. I've got an artificial knee joint myself. It's mainly titanium, grafted into what's left of my right leg."

Cain grunted.

"So, as I say, the second option is that they're trying to modify the human prisoners using a variation on the techniques that produce centurions."

"Why?"

"To allow them to control the human prisoners, Commander."

Cain grunted again, looking very sour.

"Again, there's two possibilities for how they might achieve that – a hardware solution, if you like, or a cellular change."

"I don't like," said Cain.

Martens smiled faintly. Jak was studying the distant skyline. Neither of them seemed inclined to join the conversation.

"Nor I, sir. Okay, the hardware solution: they could be trying something similar to my knee, grafting in some technological components into living humans that will over-ride human reactions and thought processes. We couldn't do that, but who knows what thousands of yahrens of creating cyborgs has given them in terms of micro-technological techniques?"

"You're saying they might be able to do it." Cain's hard eyes glistened with something that may have been anger.

Or it may have been fear.

Apollo met the glare squarely. "Nothing is certain, Commander. They also have real expertise is at the cellular level. After all, they've found a way to make those few Cylon cells in the centurion node functional. The alternative to the hardware theory is that they're implanting Cylon cells or some hybrid of human-Cylon stem cells into the prisoners."

"That's disgusting!"

"Either process - hardware or cellular modification - would have one clear goal: to develop a host of subservient cyborgs that are human in appearance. The end products would look human."

We won't be able to tell, he thought, gut clenching once more with the fear this knowledge brought in its wake. It could be Cain or Martens or Jak or anyone. No-one would be able to tell from the outside.

"Fucking hell," said Cain again, and this time he looked nauseous as he realised the implications.

"Yes sir. It's a frightening prospect." And that was a zillion cubit understatement. Apollo didn't sleep too well these days, thinking about the potential consequences if ever there were outwardly human-looking Cylons. He hadn't slept too well since the previous Decimus when he'd finished the analysis.

"You don't say."

Apollo's mouth tightened at the tone, but he kept dutifully respectful. "While none of the possibilities is... benign, this is the most dangerous outcome in terms of impact on us and on the course of the war. There are arguments against it, of course. A human is more than just how we look. It's how we think, how we behave, the way we react to others around us. The social conditioning, if you like. Altered humans who've never lived in a real human society won't have any of that, and they would stick out, be eccentric, abnormal. But if the Cylons can overcome that problem, then controlled human cyborgs would give them an infiltration force to destroy us from within."

Cain just shook his head, his mouth in a hard line, eyes full of anger. And yes, fear. Apollo was sure it was fear.

Apollo took a deep breath. "In sum, Commander, we're looking at five distinct possible combinations of human and Cylon. A node composed of human neural cells, a node composed of hybridised Cylon and human neurones, a hardware implant into the humans, a Cylon cellular implant into the humans, or an implant created by hybridising Cylon and human tissue. It could be any one of these." Another pause, another deep breath. "Or all of them."

"Is it even possible?" Cain appealed to the Supreme Commander.

"Yes," said Jak. "It all is. Theoretically."

More than theoretically, if half what Felix had done in the laboratory was true. Apollo kept his face downcast, knowing that Cain mustn't even get an inkling of that terrible truth.

"They'd look like us," said Cain. "Your second option. They'd look just like us."

Can't fault the man's analytical ability, thought Apollo, sourly. He nodded. "Ideally, they'd retain enough humanity to be able to blend in and act with reasonable normality."

"Ideally!"

"In the context of the theory, Commander." Apollo looked out over Caprica City. It was very beautiful. It was a very human city, teeming with people who for all their unknowability had at least a lot in common with him. It had been safely human, once. Now he'd never be sure that even here, even in the heart of the Colonies, anything was safe.

"And we're going in to get these... these things out?"

"You're going in to take a look," said Jak. "Captain Apollo offered the Council two courses of action. Option one is to: treat it as a normal rescue operation: go in and try to rescue as many as possible and hope to God that the Captain has an overactive imagination, and there's some less terrible explanation. Option two: destroy the installation and everything we find in it."

After a pause, Cain said, "That's why you need the Pegasus."

Apollo stirred, looking away from the cityscape that was becoming inimical and unfamiliar. "Not for blowing up bases, sir. Shield does that every day of the secton. But for firepower to protect a ground operation of this magnitude... yes, most certainly."

"Given you're sending the transports along, do I guess which option we're going for?"

"Actually, a special Council subcommittee that met to consider this didn't decide one way or the other," said Jak.

Apollo looked away again to hide his irritation. He'd been pulled back from the Columbia for three days for the meeting, and a frustrating experience it had been.

"They came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough evidence to make a decision from this distance." Martens' smile was thin. "We're tasked with going in and making the decision on the ground, when we're sure about what's really going on."

"The elections at the end of the yahren," said Cain, mostly to himself. "Pfft. Politicians." The contempt would have stung even a political hide.

The Supreme Commander was smooth. "They are in an impossible position, of course."

Apollo said, quietly, "Whatever happens, sir, we're destroying that installation. What we find there will govern whether we bring back any or all of the prisoners."

"Worse than Rets even usually are," said Cain.

Apollo nodded, disregarding Cain's use of the derogatory term for returned prisoners. It wasn't a term used by the liberal-minded, certainly one that Apollo tried to avoid, even in thought. But there were many in the Colonies who regarded anyone who had been a Cylon prisoner with suspicion, as Captain Mione had demonstrated earlier; and it was certainly true that a returned prisoner wouldn't be allowed on a warship until well after the security debrief and clearance, if ever.

"Quite a hornet's nest you've stirred up, Captain." Cain's eyes were cold, calculating. "Even if you're wrong, we could never take the risk of letting those people live amongst us. We could never let them out of a high security compound."

"No," agreed Apollo, rather sadly. "Probably not."

"We aren't bringing them back here," said Jak.. "Or anywhere near the Colonies. The transports will take them to a former penal colony in the Boeotian sector. It's been evacuated and a special holding facility is being built to receive them. Highest possible security."

"Even that's risky." Cain scowled at Apollo. "What if one of your theories is right? Can we bring any of them back, then?"

"Some of them have to be brought back," said Apollo, slowly. "For investigation."

Cain blinked. "Hell's teeth!"

Apollo avoided Jak's fierce gaze. "And as many Cylon nodes as the ground team can carry."

"For investigation," said Cain, flatly.

"Yes, sir."

"I don't give a bent cubit for the Cylon nodes, but the rest... that's unbelievable!"

"Immoral," murmured Apollo.

It didn't draw a reprimand his way, although Jak gave him a sharp look. "It has to be done, Captain.".

When Apollo looked up, he could see that there was something like a rough sympathy beneath the fierceness. He nodded.

Cain huffed to himself, disgruntled, staring at Apollo as if it were all his fault. Well, in a sense it was. "One helluva hornet's nest! But the Council committee that's authorised this raid has left the outcome up to us, yes?"

Jak nodded. "Yes."

"But what was your recommendation, Captain? What did you advise the committee to do?"

Apollo moistened lips that were suddenly dry, the arguments he'd employed running through his head, flickering and fast. His stomach twisted into a knot again as he thought about Molecay and everything it could represent, everything it threatened. He wasn't a very religious man. The church's reaction to his relationship with Joss had seen to that. He went to Chapel only very occasionally, usually for Midnight Watches for a fallen warrior, but he had never forgotten his upbringing in the Kobolian faith and, as well as he could, he lived by what he thought was the best of it. He didn't think he was an evil man, a bad one or a cruel and pitiless one, but Molecay had made him wonder. The immorality of every choice hit him in the face every way he turned.

The Council hadn't taken his advice. As Cain had noted, elections made the politicians cautious. They hadn't taken his advice.

"Captain," said Jak, quietly, giving Apollo permission to tell the Commander.

Apollo nodded. "The thought of what may be happening there scares me silly, sir. The Supreme Commander will tell you I've no sense of adventure, and my recommendation reflected that. They took another view." Apollo considered it. "I guess I can see that they were caught on the horns of a very painful dilemma. Either choice carried huge political risk, could cost votes and political influence in the planetary senates and the Council itself. Leaving people at the mercy of the Cylons against the risk that these people mightn't be human now, might be the Cylons' most terrible weapon... a nasty choice to make. They didn't think they had enough information to make a decision, and risk doing what I suggested; because the political fallout from that might be even worse. Too many variables, too many unknowns."

"And what did you suggest?" persisted Cain.

Apollo stared out to the city skyline beyond, thinking again how very beautiful it was, this outward manifestation of everything he was fighting to preserve. "I advised them to fry Molecay, sir. From space."




"I'm feeling quite well disposed towards you at this centon, Captain," said Jak. "I'm sending you along on this little job."

Apollo looked up, filled with hope. "You're letting me go back to Shield? That's wonderful!"

"I didn't say that. I said that I was sending you on this job." Jak waited until Apollo had subsided again. "Your lot are always so bloody keen to get back, Martens. Do you bribe 'em or something?"

"Something." The General's thin smile warmed a fraction. "I'd rather like the Captain back some time, though. I have plans for him."

Jak nodded, not taking his fierce blue eyes off Apollo. "Another yahren, and you can have him." To Apollo, he added, "You've done well in Fleet, but Martens seems to think you're a natural Shield. You'll get back, but I warned you, son, I'm not breaking the Regs for you. Three yahrens out."

"Yes sir." Apollo hid the sigh. He wanted the Hyperion back so badly he could taste it. So much for the vague promise that Jak might try to find some way to shorten his exile.

"I do have something in mind for you, and all things being equal, I'd send you there tomorrow," said Jak "But I want you on this job."

Unsurprised, Apollo nodded. He'd expected that he'd be required to see it through.

"Commander Cain has overall command of the Molecay mission, of course, but we've agreed that you will be in command of the ground operation."

When? thought Apollo. When did they agree? He knew Jak well enough to know that the Supreme Commander would have just presented Cain with a decision that the Commander was now making the best of, but Cain didn't look surprised. Well, maybe it hadn't been social chit-chat over the sandwiches at lunch. Maybe that was when Cain was forewarned that he was going to have Apollo with him on this little job.

Jak went on, "I want you to be the one making the decision on the ground, Captain."

"Oh." Apollo was hit by all the moral ambiguity again, that had plagued him for the last half yahren.

"You know this material best, better than anybody," said Martens. "And it means I don't have to brief Captain Van Trion about what may be really happening on Molecay." Martens' thin smile appeared again. "The fewer people who know, the less likely it is that we have a security breach."

"She'll have to know when we hit dirt, Ma'am."

"She'll have to know some of it," agreed Martens. "As much as she needs to know to help you do the job. No more."

Jak gave him a long, considering look. "It won't be an easy decision, Captain, but I trust you to make it on the basis of the data you get on the ground. I think you've as good a grasp of the consequences as any one."

"Yes, sir," said Apollo. "I think I have."

Jak's gaze sharpened. "And you can deal with it."

It wasn't a question. Apollo knew what was expected. Whatever needed to be done, he'd do: it was his project, his theory, his mess to clean up. It was only fitting.

Apollo nodded. "Yes, sir." He glanced at Martens. "Do I go out with Van Trion today, then, Ma'am? It's just that Captain Felix and I are still working on some issues."

"No." Jak relaxed into his chair. He looked old, suddenly. "We need to get the Dhow back out there to watch Molecay for you until you get there, but you and Felix still have work to do. You'll be going out on the Pegasus."

Apollo let his gaze slip sideways, trying to see Cain's reaction.

The Commander nodded to him. "I'll be delighted to have you on board, Captain."

Be damned if he didn't sound as if he meant it.

Apollo nodded back. "Thank you, sir. The pleasure's mine."