Caprica: Resurrection (a Caprica fan-fiction)

Chapter 16: Zero Hour

Gaius watched Zoe carefully until the CNP had been released, making sure that she was too preoccupied with other work to tell anyone what she had seen. Finally, one day, Gaius was in an interview. Zoe took her chance to talk to one of the lead scientists on the project, Dr. Amarak.

Dr. Amarak was usually quite a light hearted old man. He was usually found wandering the aisles of computer banks and looking over people's shoulders at what they were working on. Lately, however, the CNP had taken its toll on Amarak. They had just managed to get the finished program to the fleet on schedule. Knowing how stressful the work had been on him, Zoe was hesitant to tell him what she had seen. But she had to warn him of the threat.

"You think the Cylons are going to attack?" Amarak asked incredulously after listening to some of Zoe's claims, "what makes you say that?"

"I've been checking the code for the CNP. There are clear back doors for entry," Zoe said, "I can even show you." She handed him a tablet computer she had been working on. He took a good long look at the tablet before speaking again.

"The same back doors are in our defense mainframe," Zoe said.

"If this is true," Dr. Amarak said, "then how would the Cylons have gained entrance?"

"I think it might have been Gaius sir."

"Baltar? What makes you say it was him?"

"He has a relationship with some woman that I've never seen before."

"So? Just because he's got a girlfriend doesn't make him a Cylon agent."

"He brought her in late one night to have a look at the defense mainframe. She may have been here multiple times since then. I think she might be using him to gain entrance."

"So you believe he unwittingly let a Cylon agent open back doors to our defense mainframe?"

"Just think about it. Gaius specializes in medical and biological technology. He must not have been able to finish his code in time so he asked his Cylon agent girlfriend for help."

"So he gave her his authorization codes in return for her help on the CNP."

"Yes, it's the only explanation for the new lines of code."

"Okay, I believe you. But what can we do now? The CNP has already been released to the fleet."

"Get off world," Zoe said, "find the fleet and tell them to shut down their wireless networks.”

“Won’t that cripple the fleet?”

“No, Battlestars have always had redundant manual back-ups in case of a loss of their navigational network."

"Alright," Amarak said, "you find President Adar and let him know what's happening. I think I heard that there's a ship called the Olympic Carrier in the spaceport. I'll see about arranging transport."

"Go. If anything happens here, I'll be sure to get away," Zoe said. Amarak left quickly.

It didn't take too long for Zoe to learn that her fears had been founded. News soon came in about an opening attack by the Cylons on Pycon. Adar attempted to negotiate a cease fire to no avail. Zoe had just managed to arrive at the main government building on Caprica when she saw the first of the space-born missiles launched from orbit. The missiles split apart into many smaller rockets. Each rocket flew through the air, spreading its nuclear payload throughout the planet's atmosphere and filling it with radioactive ash. Zoe could only watch in horror and wait for it all to end.

But it didn't end for her. As the nuclear missiles hit the capital city, Zoe was overwhelmed by the searing pain of death. But death for her wasn't Heaven or a final void.

Zoe found her consciousness floating in the endless code of the Cylon Datastream. Her consciousness had been caught by a Resurrection Ship but their was no body for her to be placed in. The Six was close, but Zoe's body had been grown by the Final Five specifically for her and no official model had ever been made.

The memories and personality that made Zoe who she was floated around in the Datastream for what seemed like an eternity. She was surprised to realize that the Cylon Datastream was a direct descendant of the Colonial V-world and that her sixteen year old avatar, which she was now represented by, was still on file. Zoe eventually learned to move through the Datastream of her own accord.

Being an unusable piece of data, Zoe had been carried a great virtual distance from the Resurrection Hub's database. She felt she needed to find her way back there for reasons she couldn't explain other than a gut feeling that she would find someone there that could help.

On her way, Zoe managed to find out a few things about the outside world. She learned that Amarak had been unsuccessful in reaching the fleet before the attack and that the Olympic Carrier had been destroyed after it had been taken over by Cylon agents.

Zoe was surprised by what she found about the remnants of the human fleet. The majority of the fleet was made up of civilian ships and was protected by the Battlestar Galactica under the command of Bill Adama. Zoe smiled remembering Adama as a boy. He had said even back then that the Cylons would look human and they would wind up at war. It was amazing just how right he was.

Zoe also found out that the Final Five were hidden, apparently as sleeper agents, amongst the Colonial Fleet although their identities had been shrouded in mystery by John Cavil.

As Zoe moved through the Cylon Datastream, she was also able to help the humans in fights. Zoe managed to slow the thoughts of the Hybrids controlling the Basestars during key battles. Zoe walked through the Cylon Datastream as a guardian of the humans, unseen and unheard.