Chapter 11: Bastille Day — Part 1
Davi's first report came at 0347, coded as a routine supply manifest update.
I was awake — had been awake for two hours, sitting in Cole's quarters with the lights dimmed and the fleet wireless murmuring in the background. Sleep had become adversarial since the Astral Queen announcement. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lee Adama in a hostage scenario, guns and politics and the particular violence of desperate men with nothing to lose.
The message decoded through Marsh's encryption — simple, effective, nearly uncrackable without the key:
UNUSUAL MOVEMENT — PRISONER WORK DETAIL ASSEMBLY AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. GUARD ROTATION CHANGED — TWO MARINES REASSIGNED TO GALACTICA. ZAREK VISIBLE IN COMMON AREA. ATMOSPHERE: TENSE.
I read it twice. Checked the timestamp against the fleet's operational calendar. The work release was supposed to begin tomorrow. Prisoners assembling early meant either eagerness or preparation, and Tom Zarek being visible in the common area at 0300 meant he wasn't sleeping.
Men who weren't sleeping were men who were planning.
My earpiece clicked.
"Dunn. You reading this?"
"Copy. I'm in the cargo office." Her voice was flat, controlled — the Dunn frequency that meant she was already three steps ahead and waiting for everyone else to catch up. "Davi's report matches what I'm seeing in the guard rotation logs. Two marines pulled from Astral Queen security to supplement Galactica's ready alert. That leaves the prisoner transport with minimum staffing."
"How minimum?"
"Eight marines for fifteen hundred inmates."
Eight. Against fifteen hundred. The math didn't need a system to calculate — it needed a miracle.
"They're not planning for a riot," I said. "They're not planning for Zarek."
"Cole, if you think something's about to—"
"I think we stay on our channel, we keep Davi reporting, and we position our people for the aftermath. Not the event. The aftermath."
The silence on Dunn's end lasted four seconds. I counted them.
"Aftermath meaning what?"
"If the Astral Queen goes hostile, the civilian fleet panics. Supply lines freeze because every captain locks down their ship. Refugees start hoarding. Distribution collapses within hours." I pulled up the fleet formation on my data pad. "We pre-stage water and food reserves in the secondary cargo bay. We alert Kwan to double security on our supplies. We tell Montoya to start tracking civilian comm chatter for panic indicators."
"And we just... watch. While people on that ship—"
"We're six people on a cargo transport, Petra. What do you want to do? Storm a prison ship?"
Another silence. Longer.
"No." The word came through gritted. "But I want it on record that this is the part of the job I hate."
"Noted. Get Kwan moving. I'll handle Montoya."
The channel clicked off. I sat in the dark for another minute, listening to the fleet wireless and waiting for the world to break.
[Cybele Cargo Office — Day 18, 0800]
Davi's second report arrived coded as a priority requisition:
CONFIRMED: PRISONERS HAVE SEIZED CONTROL OF ASTRAL QUEEN. HOSTAGES TAKEN. MARINES DISARMED. ZAREK BROADCASTING ON CLOSED CHANNEL. GREENLEAF CAPTAIN HAS LOCKED DOWN — NO ONE IN OR OUT.
I checked the timestamp: 0743. The fleet's official hostage announcement hadn't gone out yet — wouldn't go out for another two hours, when Colonial One finally broke the news to the civilian captains.
Two hours. Our network had a two-hour lead on the government.
The feeling should have been satisfaction. It wasn't. It was the sick certainty of watching a car accident in slow motion — seeing every impact before it happened, unable to grab the wheel.
Dunn materialized in the cargo office doorway. She'd been running — unusual for a woman who treated physical exertion as an insult to logistics efficiency.
"Tell me you have something."
"Davi confirmed. Zarek's taken the ship. Hostages include at least one military officer."
Lee Adama. Apollo. The commander's son.
"Colonial One doesn't know yet?"
"Not officially. Two hours ahead."
Dunn closed the door. Leaned against it. Her breathing was controlled, but her knuckles were white around the data pad.
"We could warn them."
"How? Walk up to fleet command and say 'our secret intelligence network intercepted the hostage situation before your own military did'? That conversation ends with us in a cell."
"Anonymous tip. Civilian comm channel. 'Something's wrong on the Astral Queen.'"
"And when they investigate the tip's origin? Every comm transmission in this fleet is logged, Petra. Anonymous doesn't exist in sixty-three ships."
Her jaw locked. The frustration radiated off her in waves the passive scan didn't need to register — it was written in every line of her body, in the way her shoulders pulled tight and her chin lifted like she was bracing against a headwind.
"Then what good is knowing?"
The question hit something in my chest — not the shrapnel scars, something deeper. A wound that didn't have a name yet, carved by every moment I'd watched events unfold with foreknowledge and done nothing.
Thirteen hundred on the Olympic Carrier. The water tanks I couldn't prevent. And now this.
"It's good for the next one," I said. "This time, we're two hours ahead and helpless. Next time, we might be two hours ahead with assets in place to act. That's what we're building."
Dunn stared at me. Reading. Assessing. Deciding whether the man she'd committed to was someone who would let people die for strategic advantage, or someone who was doing the only thing possible in an impossible situation.
"Your hands are bleeding."
I looked down. My left fist was clenched so tight the nails had broken the skin of my palm. Four small crescents, welling red. I hadn't noticed.
I unclenched. Wiped the blood on my uniform trousers.
"Get me the civilian comm chatter. I want to know the exact moment the fleet panics, so we can stabilize our section before the worst of it hits."
Dunn left without another word. I wrapped my palm with a strip of bandage from the first-aid kit under the desk — the same kit Dr. Yusuf had stocked when the Cybele launched from Picon, a lifetime ago — and turned to the fleet wireless.
The hours crawled.
At 0945, Colonial One broadcast the official alert: hostage situation on the Astral Queen. Demand for free presidential elections. All ships ordered to maintain position and avoid communication with the prison transport.
The Cybele's crew received the news with the particular stunned exhaustion of people who'd been lurching from crisis to crisis since the day their civilization burned. Vasic managed the refugee section — calm, professional, the hotel manager's instinct for managing crowds in crisis keeping the corridors quiet. Kwan stood at the cargo bay entrance and didn't need to speak; his presence was its own argument against panic.
Montoya reported comm chatter spikes on four civilian ships. Fear spreading, but contained. No supply runs, no hoarding attempts.
Our section held. That's something.
At 1430, the wireless erupted with cross-chatter — rapid military exchanges, encrypted but leaking emotion through the cadence of the voices. Something was happening on the Astral Queen. Something decisive.
I sat in the cargo office with Dunn across the desk, both of us staring at the wireless receiver as if concentration could decode encrypted military communications. The clock on the wall ticked past every second like a heartbeat counting down.
At 1447, gunfire crackled through the fleet wireless — distant, distorted by relay, but unmistakable. Three shots. Then silence.
Then a voice — clear, young, carrying the weight of a decision that would define a political era:
"All ships, this is Captain Lee Adama aboard the Astral Queen. Situation is resolved. Hostages are secure. I repeat — hostages secure."
A pause.
"President Roslin has agreed to hold free elections within the year. All ships, return to normal operations. Adama out."
I exhaled. Didn't realize I'd been holding my breath until the air left my lungs in a rush that fogged in the cold office air.
Dunn's data pad showed Davi's final report, transmitted thirty seconds before the official announcement: SITUATION RESOLVING. SHOOTING. MARINES ENTERING.
Thirty seconds ahead. On this one, the margin was razor-thin.
"It's done," Dunn said.
"It's done."
Neither of us moved for a long time. The cargo office was quiet enough to hear the recycled air humming through the ventilation duct — the duct Marsh had repaired during the water crisis, a small improvement in a ship full of small improvements that added up to something larger than any one of them.
Dunn reached across the desk and took the first-aid kit. Rewrapped my palm — tighter, neater, with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd been bandaging logistics injuries for a decade.
"Next time," she said, pulling the bandage taut, "we do something."
"Next time, we'll be ready to."
She tied off the bandage and stood. At the door, she paused.
"The two-hour lead. You were right about that. It matters."
"I know."
She left. I sat alone in the cargo office, listening to the fleet return to normal operations, and stared at the blood-spotted bandage on my palm.
Bastille Day. Done. Elections coming. Zarek is a political player now, not a prisoner. And somewhere on that ship, Lee Adama just learned that democracy is messier than war.
I picked up my data pad. Started typing.
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