XAVIAR'S REPRISAL
By Matthew Wharmby
June, 2000


SETTING; Five years after the Galactica's arrival into the Earth
system.
LOCATION; Southern California
MOTIVATIONS; I never had a problem with Galactica 1980, seeing it as
more of a spin-off than a legitimate successor. Therefore, it's on us,
the writers of fanfic, to repair the damage caused by ABC and the
Nielsens. Here's my take on what Xaviar's problem was.

     Captain Troy gunned the viper as soon as he was over the Pacific
Ocean. The sleek yet powerful fighter glided easily into the Earth's
atmosphere and out into space. 
     "How long till we reach the Galactica?" asked Jamie from the
second ship. "I still haven't got the coordinates figured out yet."
     "No more than twenty centons - excuse me, twenty minutes. Maintain
radio silence for the moment, Jamie, I'm picking up some static from
across the quadrant."
     Captain Troy rolled his ship, Jamie Hamilton following uneasily.
Her viper assumed the clip set by the computron but the young Earth
woman's grip on the control stick was a little too nervous as yet. 
     Troy broke the silence. "Jamie, watch it, you're drifting too
close; ease back a little."
     "Can't keep my hands off you obviously," she quipped.
     Troy smiled despite himself. His relationship with the former
reporter was extremely satisfactory, especially since she'd quit her
unfulfilling job to join the service full-time. Now, after six months
of training she was as good in a viper as many indigenous Galacticans,
a fact Troy held with pride. It had been his suggestion that she become
the first Earthling to undergo Academy combat training.
     Only five years since they had found the beautiful, shining planet
they'd been searching for for many generations, and already things were
coming along magnificently. The fleet had managed to settle several
hundred refugees inconspicuously on Earth, while sympathetic scientists
were subtly introducing advanced technology into service, preparing the
planet for the inevitable war with the Cylons. The fleet had held them
at bay for five years now, but even Adama knew that their camouflage
would not last forever. 
     "Transmissions seem to be bouncing off Proxima Centauri," Troy
said, flipping dials and checking readouts. 
     "Perhaps it's intership communications," Jamie suggested. "Those
guys on the Adena can't seem to stop talking."
     "Patching it through - oh God, no," was the strangled reply. 
     "Got it - Christ, a Cylon scrambler. Coming onto my screen, four
of them, ten o'clock high."
     Troy banked in the direction of the Cylon fighters. "Jamie, I'd
head back in the other direction if I were you."
     Jamie huffed indignantly over the comm. "Troy, I've never even
SEEN a Cylon. Hell, I've been in simulator for six months. It's just
like Nintendo. Come on Troy."
     "Too late to argue, they've spotted us. Remember your training
Jamie."
     Troy veered to the left as the Cylon raiders began to split up.
Jamie gunned the viper straight at one. She rolled the ship, firing
rapidly. To her delight, the shots were true and the raider blew up in
a cloud of flame. "Piece of cake!"
     She saw the other one zip from scanner sight as Troy took care of
him. 
     "On my tail," Jamie said uneasily. She was still on the Nintendo
as far as she was concerned, the only difference being the high gees
she was pulling. A shot pinged by her viper, far too close. The
offending Cylon was trying to position himself for a clear shot but
could not anticipate Jamie's erratic flying.
     The raider found his mark and fired again. Right at that time the
fourth raider hurtled downwards, straight at Jamie's viper - and was
blown into pieces by his fellow's weapons. By that time Troy had
returned and locked onto the Cylon. The last ship attempted to bounce
out of range but was hit on the aft side, spinning and breaking up. 
     "Too close," Jamie said. "They're not very good, are they?"
     "That's of no concern when you're fighting a thousand to one,"
Troy said glumly. "We're going to have to scout out where they came
from before we return to the Galactica. There could be a base-star
sitting there ready for an offensive."
     Fortunately there were no further signs of Cylon advance four
million metrics from the skirmish, and the two warriors headed back for
the Galactica.

     "Your first combat mission, Jamie!" said Commander Adama with some
sense of pride. "You're shaping up even better than our cadets in that
stage. But it doesn't bode well for our present position. The Cylons
will miss their comrades, you know."
     Jamie laughed. "What, their wives are at home crying over
yellowing pictures? And I thought your boys were weird."
     Colonel Boomer smiled. Adama continued. "After sleep period
Captain Troy will introduce you to the staple of our existence, the
deep space probe."
     Troy groaned, a little too loudly. Boomer laughed and shook his
head in sympathy. Centares on deep probe could drive a man half mad;
nothing but blackness and the ever-present possibility of ambush unless
you had a wingman to keep you from going crazy. Jamie looked round, a
little nervously.

     Xaviar climbed out of his viper and looked it over irritably. The
vehicle was scarred and battered from coming through the asteroid belt.
Several sectars without regular maintenance was starting to take its
toll; when the computron had malfunctioned microns before entering the
belt Xaviar realized with horror that he'd have to take it through
manually. Additionally a fuel line was leaking; the next trip into the
air would have to be to steal some more fuel from sources as yet
unfigured out. Or better still, acquire a new ship.
     Thank the Lords of Kobol the invisibility field was still working.
He'd made the cadet he'd stolen the viper from at gunpoint in the
Galactica launch bay show him before he'd turned his weapon on her.
     Xaviar pulled a Thomas Guide from the viper seat and figured out
where he was. Somewhere between the dirty settlement of San Bernardino
and Los Angeles itself. Forty metrics walk - no thanks, grimaced Xaviar
to himself. He would have to 'hitch a lift,' as these Earth peasants
put it in their apelike chatter. Food would not go amiss either, even
if it was the American muck called hamburgers, a barbarically unhealthy
concoction of ground cattle and refined bread. Delicious actually,
nearly as good as those taco things the locals funneled down themselves
in these parts. Xaviar rubbed his growing stomach in hunger and eager
anticipation. 
     Ten minutes of standing beside a busy road produced no results,
damn it, Xaviar cursed to himself. It had worked fine when some idiot
selling newspapers had given him instructions on how to solicit
transportation in LA not that long ago. Xaviar remembered with a smile
blasting him with a stun charge anyway. He was deep in that thought
when a voice shouted to him.
     'What are you waiting for, then?'
A black pickup had pulled to the side and a blonde female head popped
out of the driver's seat. 'Get in, dozy!' Xaviar wasted no time. The
dust from the truck as well as the grime in the air stung his eyes as
he went.

     She did all the talking. Xaviar was in no mood, but listened
anyway. It seemed to cement him with his present surroundings. It had
been so long since he'd actually lived on a planet that many natural
landmarks were still unfamiliar to him.
     'So where ya going?' she said after some unmemorable small talk.
     'Los Angeles,' he replied flatly. 'Have you got anything to eat in
here?' he added, looking around the cab and making certain to sneak a
look down the woman's cleavage on his way. He could well as eat those
if all else failed.
     'Well now, mister stranger, looks like you're in luck, doesn't it?
That's just where I'm going.'
     'Excellent,' Xaviar agreed. 'Please continue.'
     'They call me Cindy,' the woman said, taking her hand off the
wheel and offering it to Xaviar, who took it. Shaking hands the way
this Earth mob did it was most peculiar, but he conceded her skin felt
very nice. Had it been that long? He dimly remembered a bar in LA, too
much beer, a fight and a tumble with some faceless creature, in no
particular order. 
     'Nash,' he introduced himself, recalling an identity he'd
appropriated in the past.
     The Toyota bent a corner into a mini-mall and turned into the last
of an unoccupied series of parking spaces. They got out. Cindy seemed
nervous, Xaviar noted. Almost the same crazy look in her eyes as Xaviar
had noted on himself when he was about to rip someone off, or shoot
them. 
     'Is this a food vendor?' Xaviar asked, seeing no such place. 
     'You're really funny,' Cindy said with obvious amusement. 'You
from another planet or something?' 
     Xaviar looked horrified. How could she possibly - ? 
     'Calm down! I won't tell anyone,' she chuckled. 'If you keep my
secret, that is.' She looked at him. 'Come with me into the bank,' she
followed up. 'I need to get some money.'
     Xaviar assumed she needed to draw personal finances. A minor bore,
but he was becoming used to the grueling slowness of everything on this
hole of a planet. He'd sleep on the way to LA.

     Cindy stood in line, shuffling from foot to foot and growing more
jumpy by the micron. What was her problem?
     'This is a holdup! Give me all your money or I'll blow this fool's
head off! I mean it!' she yelled suddenly. Xaviar found himself yanked
off his feet and a projectile weapon shoved into his face. The woman
was using him to effect a holdup!

     'Put the money in the bag. NOW NOW NOW!' Cindy shrieked
apoplectically, now blue in the face. Her gun jammed deeper into
Xaviar's cheek, twisting it. The nerve of this miserable ovine, he
thought, taking in his situation, looking for an out and not seeing it.
To die like this after the long haul across space. Not even a
Galactican could dodge a steel bullet at pointblank range. 
     The terrified teller stuffed bills into a cloth sack at breakneck
speed, praying and sobbing to herself. Cindy berated her with American
curses even Xaviar hadn't heard before. At that moment the Galactican
realized something. He'd counted tens of thousands in that bag and more
being filled. Enough to buy him passage out of town. Enough maybe to
get black market fuel for his ship. And from there to realize the one
ambition he'd had since arriving on Earth - to kill Doctor Zee. He
almost smiled to himself. Once this ridiculous woman pulled her gun out
of his face he'd turn on her as he had nearly all the Earth people he'd
come to know. 
     Cindy jerked on his arm, snapping him into the same run she was
making for the bank doors. The two of them tore out of the building as
an alarm started to bark, galloping round the corner to the truck.
There Cindy changed her tack completely. She dropped her gun hand and
grabbed Xaviar in a hug. 'I love you! My wonderful accomplice!' 
     Xaviar shot out the heel of his hand and smashed her so hard in
the chin she was catapulted five feet into the air, bouncing off the
hood of the truck and coming to rest on the asphalt. Her gun fell out
of her hand, where Xaviar snatched it. 
     'Don't ever do that to me again,' Xaviar snapped, ice-cold. He was
tempted to swing a kick into her at Galactican speed, but held back
when he saw the admiring smile on her split lip. 
     'What in Hades' Hole do you think you're doing? Don't you know who
I am?' he started to lecture her. She smiled at him, increasingly
prettily, he observed.
     'Nash!' she pointed behind him. Security guards were rushing up,
handguns drawn. 
     What a time to impress her. Xaviar swung the lapel from his long
trenchcoat and pulled his service pistol. With three blue streaks of
laser fire the guards were downed, every shot true. 
     'Christ almighty,' Cindy breathed, getting to her feet. 'Get in!'
she yelled, opening the truck door and throwing her three bags of money
into the stepwell. 
     To seal their escape Xaviar bucked off a shot at the parking lot
they were leaving behind, bursting two adjacent automobiles into flame.
Yes, he was showing off, but what the hell? Finally, after all these
yahrens here on this planet, Xaviar had found a soulmate.

     He was so excited he couldn't help but start kissing her before
she had time to get out of the truck, now parked in a warehouse in a
particularly crummy section of LA. She acquiesced eagerly. Afterwards,
as they caught their breath, she had a cigarette. He took one and tried
to look like he knew how to smoke it.
     'You steal from financial establishments for a living,' he
surmised with approval.
     'And you. I don't know who or what you are,' Cindy smiled. 'But I
really don't care. Look at all this money!' she crowed, digging in a
bag and pulling out a handful. She started to scatter it about the
building, dancing gleefully. 
     'Is this a lot?' Xaviar asked uncertainly. Cindy looked at him.
     You really aren't from here, are you?' she mused curiously. Xaviar
looked suspicious. 
     'I'm not worried.' she said, grinning. Then, without asking, she
started talking again. 

     'Born, 1958 in Durango, Colorado. Abuse, more abuse, that is when
my dad was around to do it to me. Mom not much better, 'cept the booze
numbed her most times. School, much the same actually, so got out of
there when I was fifteen. I wanted to be an actress, can you believe
it? So hitched my way to LA. That was five years ago. Was up for a part
in some crummy space series but it got canceled after a season; bummer
or what? No way was I gonna be a waitress the rest of my life, and I
saw too many friends take the slow snow ride to hell via cocaine, so I
tried this bank robbery schtick instead. And, surprise, surprise, it's
the one thing in my whole life that I'm actually any good at, or that I
love. I've never been caught, never positively I.D'd, never made a
mistake. Yet in all this time,' she turned wistful, 'I never found
anyone as good as me. Not that I didn't try or anything, they just kept
getting killed. Had a boyfriend once, he didn't last long either by the
same means. And now here you are, out of nowhere. Could be any road in
the whole US of A, but you had to be standing on this one...'
     Soon enough Xaviar couldn't keep from falling asleep. But he knew
the odds were good she'd try to appropriate his weapon, and sure
enough, when he felt her hand snake over his chest towards his coat
pocket, he gripped her wrist and began to squeeze. In microns he'd
break it, and then rip her hand off at the wrist. 
     'Don't ever try to steal my gun. I'm warning you now.'
     'You're hurting me!' she squealed, but not without an undercurrent
of pleasure. Xaviar squirmed. He'd never heard of humans who derived
pleasure from pain, even in this most degenerate of cities where all
manner of perversions was practiced. He let her go with a push, which
with his strength sent her flying. He smiled. Awake now, he thought
he'd give as good as he got. He'd understood almost none of her ramble.
The places and situations she'd described meant nothing, and she had
told him in good faith, so he told her his own story. Things he'd never
said to anyone before. Things to which nobody had ever listened.

     'I'm forty-five yahrens old. Or at least I think so - by the way
we measure time, and it's been so long since we had anything to measure
it by. I was born on Caprica, in Soleus. Life. Instruction amid
constant Cylon attacks until the final day. My family was killed. I saw
them die, all of them. I huddled into a corner and prepared to die
myself, but the next thing I knew I was aboard the Gemini freighter,
and that was the last time I saw my home. 
     Huddling like animals aboard that stinking, filthy ship! No food
for sectons at a time, awash in our own shit for lack of evacuation
facilities, and cold, always cold. I could bear that, by God, but not
the guilt! My people were smashed like dead wood, but would they let me
mourn them? No! Everybody's lost someone. Forget the past and look to
the future. There is no safe place anywhere in the fleet, for any of
our people!! My mother and father! Nobody cared what they were, what
they stood for, and above all nobody cared how I felt!
     Joined the service of course; the only way out for someone in my
position. Did quite well out of it in fact, rose through the ranks till
there was no further to go. Killed more Cylons than I care to count,
but all the while wondered who were the real robots? Them or us? So
once we got here I decided this time MY decision would count for
something. Once that freak Doctor Zee invented time travel I had the
chance to change things, to put MY signature on history. But you don't
want to hear about that. What I do know...' by now he was sweating, and
had to wipe his brow with his sleeve, 'is that with you, like no time
ever before, anything is possible. I can't explain it. I just know
anything is possible.' 
     He reached out to hug Cindy and found himself bursting into tears.
He was holding her so hard she could barely breathe. 
     Xaviar had not cried one tear, one sob, since the destruction of
Caprica. When he stopped, he felt like a new man. He couldn't help the
words from tumbling out. 'I think I love you,' he said, unable to
explain it in any other terms. 
     'Nobody's ever said things like that to me,' Cindy stammered,
herself crying.

     Troy got the recall signal as he and Jamie were about to launch on
their deep space probe. 
     'Captain Troy, this is Adama. You are to abort mission immediately
and report to my quarters. Lieutenant Dante's patrol will take your
place.' 
     On their way through the gunmetal corridors of the Galactica Troy
and Jamie passed Dante, suited up for battle, swinging his lucky
necklace made out of Cylon components.
     'What's this in aid of, D?' Troy asked the crack viper pilot, who
was rumored around the fleet to be clinically insane, but who had the
biggest Cylon body count since the legendary Apollo.
     'No idea, man,' said Dante, juggling his combat helmet. 'I'm gonna
mess you up for this later though,' he said, mock-threateningly. It
would never happen. Troy knew Dante carried on epic running
conversations with himself while on patrol, and would appreciate the
opportunity for a few centares alone. 

     Adama was pacing around his quarters nervously. Dillon stood up as
his friends entered. 
     'Commander. What could be so urgent to cancel our long range
patrol?' Troy asked.
     'Something grave has happened,' the stoic commander of the
Galactica answered, fingering his chin, once more shaven. 'Xaviar has
been sighted again. Our teams have, as you know, been instructed to
monitor as many appropriate Earth transmissions as possible, in order
to ascertain her developing readiness for defense against the Cylons,
in addition to our continuing process of learning their myriad of
confusing cultures. You will, I'm sure, want to look at this.'
     Adama swung his desk monitor towards the assembled warriors and
punched up a series of keystrokes. A midday local news bulletin
appeared, breaking into a daytime soap opera.
     'Damn it, that's the second time this week they've pre-empted All
My Children,' Jamie groused. 'I'll have nothing on my VCR when I get
home.'
     'Police were called to the scene of a robbery of a First
Interstate Bank in Azusa an hour ago,' declaimed a newswoman with
sprayed-stiff bleached blonde hair. 'The suspects, a woman in her late
twenties and a man in his mid-forties, entered the building at 11:25 am
this morning appearing as regular bank customers. The woman then
appeared to hold the man hostage, but both escaped together, leading
police to believe he may be an accomplice. The two overpowered security
guards and escaped in a black Toyota pickup with more than twenty
thousand dollars in cash, and police are now searching the area.' All
the while, the news channel played stills from the bank's security
camera.
     'That's Xaviar all right,' Jamie said angrily. 'But who the hell
is that with him?' 
     'I've already checked with fleet logs,' Adama said. 'She isn't one
of our people, which leads me to believe he is recruiting from the
indigenous criminal elements of Los Angeles.'
     'For what purpose?' Dillon queried.
     'The old chestnut,' Jamie hissed. 'Money.' She pointed to the
footage. 'Look at him, Commander. He's gaunt and unshaven. His clothes
are dirty and he looks badly sunburned to me.'
     'We've learned people on Earth find a satisfactory existence is
difficult without currency,' Troy said.
     'Ain't that the truth,' Jamie rolled her eyes. 'That's why I quit
journalism.'
     Adama straightened his uniform. 'You three must go to Earth and
stop Xaviar at once. The likelihood he will introduce his criminal
associates to Galactican weaponry is as dangerous to the planet as were
his adventures with the Nazis.'

     Later that afternoon Xaviar and Cindy ripped off another bank.
This time Xaviar introduced his new friend to the wonder of the
invisibility device. All they had to do was climb over the counter and
let their skinny pockets get fat. Glutted with power, they stepped next
door into a launderette and picked up some dry-cleaned silk threads for
the cause. 'I fancy some tapes for the stereo in my truck,' Cindy had
thought, so they went to a Warehouse and loaded up with them too, not
forgetting to empty each register. Xaviar couldn't resist cuffing one
of the employees over the back of the head and watching a colleague get
the blame. 
     The two hooligans couldn't stop giggling. Why had Xaviar not
thought of this before? He'd even tried to get a job once - what a mess
that had been. He didn't even want to think about that. In fact he was
tempted to bowl over there and put the boss's lights out with his
laser, but when he saw Cindy's silhouette start to flicker while
relieving a McDonald's of three fresh Big Macs for them, he was snapped
back.
     'Cindy! You're starting to show!' he hissed. Cindy cursed out loud
and started running for the door.
     'Find some cover and I'll divert their attention!' he said,
pulling his laser. Watching Cindy, he aimed at the smelly trough of oil
and loosed off a shot. It exploded and showered boiling oil in every
direction. Twisting to avoid the spray, Xaviar looked again. Cindy was
now fully visible, but she had made it out of the place with loot
intact. She looked around for him, but still invisible, he grabbed her
round the waist, making her laugh and nearly drop their food. 
     In a nearby park, both visible, they ate a leisurely meal and
plotted further.
     'Your energizer's run down,' Xaviar complained. He ate like a
horse, Cindy observed. And had no idea how to use a straw, as she saw
him leave it in the milkshake and damn near poke his eye out every time
he took a swig. He was almost childlike in his ignorance of simple
everyday things, but that was why Cindy was starting to fall for him
despite herself.
     'What does that mean, Nash?' she asked.
     'It means our current criminal exploits must be postponed.' He
gulped the rest of his burger and started on some fries, studiously
avoiding the provided sachets of ketchup. That was repulsive to him
even by Earth standards.
     'What do you mean? We've only just begun!'
     'No. In any case, I have little use for currency.'
     'Is that right?' Cindy scoffed. 'You have a trust fund or
something?'
     Xaviar seized her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes with
that psychotic fix that had thrown her once before, when they'd first
met. 'I don't know what a trust fund is! What I'm talking about is a
bargaining chip, which we with our power can seize!'
     'Ah, you're talking about kidnapping. You're learning fast,
sweetheart.' She pondered. 'Who did you have in mind?' She reckoned
they could start small, like bank managers or rich kids' parents and
then move up to politicians.
     'The scourge of the human race... the repellent half-breed Doctor
Zee.'

     Troy, Dillon and Jamie landed, relying on energizer readouts to
try and pinpoint Xaviar's last location. Not an easy task by any means,
as the renegade had not only reconfigured his systems to deflect any
attempts made to track him, but there were now growing numbers of
Galactican-designed energizers now functioning in North America. Most
were donated from current stock, but some selected Earth scientists had
successfully copied their designs to build more, acting on Adama's
advice not to reveal their origin. The lure of fame and recognition, in
one case the Nobel Prize, was a good enough incentive. 
     'What happened to those bikes of yours?' Jamie asked as Troy
unlocked Jamie's rented garage in Rialto (close enough for vipers to
land in the nearby desert and then walk) to reveal the black Camaro
they were now using.
     'I crashed mine,' Dillon said sheepishly. 'Participating in an
Earth entertainment called motocross.'
     'Adama reckoned we were drawing too much attention to ourselves.
He cited our apparently extensive police records,' said Troy. 'So
Doctor Zee suggested dismantling them and incorporating their
technology into nondescript contemporary vehicles.'
     Jamie passed her hand over the Camaro's hood, gasping when she
took a look beneath the tinted glass to see the technology within.
'Nondescript this is not, lads,' Jamie said. 'Sounds to me like you've
been watching too much Knight Rider.'

     Cindy had no idea what she was letting herself in for when her new
love interest started rattling on about his spaceship. She might have
known she'd picked another lunatic, although the way he'd spoken to her
earlier sounded so earnest she couldn't help but humor him. She hadn't
believed a word he'd said about being from another galaxy, or whatever,
and moreover that he was going to take her there, in his spaceship of
course, to kidnap some boy genius. Occasionally she had her doubts
about his intentions. He'd cuffed her once, who was to say he wouldn't
take her into a field and kill her outright? Not likely. She'd bested
him once, and she'd do it again.
     'Jesus Lord!' she exclaimed, her eyes wide. Nash was grinning at
her and gloating, a tarpaulin he'd just whisked off in both hands.
There was only a thirty-foot spaceship staring her straight in the
face. Not one in very good condition, but a spaceship nonetheless.
     'Just who are you?' she gaped.
     Xaviar beamed and cracked the cockpit. 'Get in the back and put
this helmet on,' he said, throwing her something that looked like an
Aztec mask. He put one on of his own and climbed up into the front
seat. 
     Cindy had no idea what to expect, still aghast from this whole
bizarre experience, but when she was thrown back in her seat and saw
blackness out of the window where just seconds before there had been
Southern California, she just sat there, mouth hung open like a floppy
dog. She couldn't even see Earth. 
     She began asking silly questions as soon as her senses returned
and panic set in. 'Oh my God! You really are a space alien! You're
gonna take me to the mothership and give me to little green men to
dissect!' 
     'Don't be bloody stupid! There's no such things as little green
men - SHUT UP, will you? I'm trying to think!' Xaviar roared, losing
his temper. Cindy parked her mouth smartish and started fiddling with
some of the controls.
     '-And leave those damned instruments alone!' her pilot snapped.

     Troy's Camaro burned along the San Bernardino Freeway at 100 mph.
'Interface with Earth's satellites and our own tracking systems to
determine the location of the bank Xaviar invaded,' Troy ordered
Dillon.
     'Forget all that,' Jamie in the back said. 'I know where Azusa is.
Anyway, shouldn't we be looking for the black Toyota mentioned in the
newscast?'
     'Why is that necessary?' Troy questioned.
     'In case you forget, Troy, we're on a primitive planet,' Jamie
chided. 'Our satellites don't know where banks are or make coffee like
you thought they might when you got here.' Troy looked embarrassed.
     Jamie looked him in the eye by way of the rearview mirror. 'You
wouldn't have to worry about any of this if you let ME drive,' she said
with an evil grin.
     Now Troy lost his usual stiff composure. The perfect phrase in the
Earth vernacular came to him as if he'd spoken the language all his
life. 
     'Hell, no!'
     Dillon broke the tension. 'The signature emission of Xaviar's
viper has stopped,' he said in puzzlement. 
     'Frack! That means he's launched again.' Troy said.
     'Better turn round, guys,' Jamie said ominously. 'If he's taken
that woman with him, using what he knows, one of your people could be
in serious trouble.'

     'So where are we going?' Cindy said timidly. 'Mars? Jupiter?'
     'Don't be so provincial,' Xaviar sneered. 'They're light years
behind us. No, we're going to the source. Engaging invisibility drive.'
The battered viper shimmered, then apparently disappeared.
     'We only have a fifteen-centon window to get in, grab the pest and
get out,' Xaviar planned. 
     'Just what is the beef with this kid you keep talking about?'
Cindy asked. Did he sleep with your wife or something?'
     Xaviar turned in his seat and shot her such a look of anger that
she quailed. 'Forget I asked,' she sighed. 
     'There it is,' Xaviar breathed just then. 'The Galactica.'
     Cindy pressed her nose to the window. No mothership she'd ever
seen on TV came close to this thing. Sleek, gunmetal-silver and
encrusted with battlements and armaments, it was surely five miles long
by half as much again wide. Looking closer she could see behind it at a
distance a large quantity of smaller ships of various shapes. Some of
them appeared distinctly decrepit, trailing vapor and sporting numerous
welded patches. A number were daubed with graffiti, some with painted
faces and sharks' teeth, others with defiant slogans or what appeared
to be ancient corporate logos. 
     So all the nonsense he'd been talking was true. And she if anyone
was the mad one, if not for not believing but for going along with him.
The Galactica grew impossibly huge in the windscreen, soon blotting out
all space entirely.
     Xaviar shut his eyes as the viper passed into the cavernous port
landing bay. No, they hadn't altered the shield frequency, which meant
his infrequent trips back to steal things hadn't been noticed. He was
that good. They ground to a halt in an inconspicuous corner and Xaviar
popped the hatch. 
     'Out,' he ordered, 'and keep your mouth tight shut.'
     Cindy kept hold of Xaviar's hand as he led them towards an open
elevator. 'Can't go that way,' he hissed, pulling her away. 'An empty
lift would look suspicious. We'll have to use the stairs.' Cindy's face
fell, although she was glad nobody could see it. Never much of an
exerciser, she disliked climbing stairs intensely, especially since
this Galactica looked to be a couple of hundred floors tall.
     Three flights up got the pair to an unremarkable corridor, but it
led to some sort of internal tramway. Xaviar jerked her hand in that
direction. Presently a carriage hissed towards them, carrying two
colonial warriors probably back from patrol and heading for the
officers' club or crew quarters. He didn't recognize either pilot;
obviously new levies recruited since his exile. 'This way,' he
whispered over the whine of the oncoming tramway. 'Get in the last two
seats at the back.'
     Cindy was nervous as hell, especially seeing the two additional
people, who she noticed didn't look too extraterrestrial at all, and
hid behind Xaviar without remembering they wouldn't be able to see her.
Reflex action. They got into the car without problems and skimmed
onward and upward, but when it reached an intermediate level, the two
warriors got out and a dozen civilians took their place. Xaviar
realized with horror that they were going to fill up the whole
carriage. He crouched down as low as he could, but sure enough a big
fat woman, it had to be, sat down right in his lap. He nearly groaned
out loud as a hundred kilons of flab sank down across him, threatening
to snap his bones. By the luck of the Lords of Kobol alone she was so
fat she didn't seem to realize what she was sitting on, and the train
got going again. He wished to God he could stun her good with his
pistol, but she'd pinned his gun arm across his lap and he couldn't
reach it. Worst of all, she took the trouble to crack a fart when she
thought nobody would notice, and Xaviar took the brunt of it. When she
got up to leave, it seemed like yahrens later, Xaviar sent her on her
way with a good kick from his service boot, never mind who saw. Cindy
waited till all the passengers had disembarked, then let out a guffaw
of barely suppressed laughter. He wanted to clout her one but lucky for
her, he couldn't see her. Dr Zee wouldn't be so lucky, he grimaced,
mind going back to business. 
     At last they reached bridge level. Xaviar wrenched himself to his
feet, checking his legs to make sure nothing was broken. He was luckier
than on your standard Cylon run-in! Taking his Earth compatriot's hand
again, he strode onward, making sure not to bump into anyone.

     Dr. Zee was in his chambers meditating. Chimes hung from the
ceiling, while the groan of the generators close by pervaded the
blue-lit enclosure, adding to the deeply intense, almost surreal nature
of this rather special young man's most private sanctum. Twenty screens
provided the prodigy with ceaseless, unlimited views of Earth news,
culture and sports. Now nineteen, Dr Zee was still small of physical
stature as perhaps befitted someone whose extreme youth made his powers
all the more awesome, but amid all this flow of information, there was
something the white-garbed scientific advisor had not told anyone. The
critical nature of his security status was so acute that despite his
boundless knowledge and capacity for innovation, five years after
discovering the truth of the existence of the mythical planet Earth, he
had never actually seen the planet with his own eyes, nor had he set
foot on it. He had rarely even been allowed off the Galactica for fear
he'd fall foul of suspected dissident elements, for example those sorry
paupers festering aboard the still-ragged Gemini Freighter, or the
surviving Borellian nomen, longtime masters of organized crime aboard
the fleet.
     Dr Zee had never really fitted in. Starbuck's son he was, but he'd
never smoked a cigar or kissed a girl or even played a hand of pyramid
like the famous father some now expected him to live up to. A lot had
changed since he had found out who he was, following incredible dreams
that had led him to question his entire purpose. Something he had
learned from Earth sociology that was apparently standard practice for
those of his biological age - what they in their primitive terminology
called an identity crisis. 
     He wanted to fly a viper. He knew how it was done - he knew how
they were built and how to refine the fuel which powered them, but
Adama put his foot down. 'You alone must not be risked!' he'd panicked
a hundred times, as if Dr. Zee's loss would imperil Adama's dream, as
indeed his finding had fulfilled it. 
     When his visions and calculations had confirmed Earth's reality,
Dr. Zee was elated, as for the first time he might be able to commune
with beings of his mental stature, possibly beings of light as Adama
imagined them, those who had abandoned corporeal form millennia ago. No
such luck. Earth had proven a bitter disappointment for all the fleet.
Not only was the planet grossly overpopulated and sorely abused, its
people were culturally barely more than animals; selfish, warlike and
destructive to the extreme. If the Cylons were to find the shining
planet they'd wade right through them without needing to fire a shot.
He had no doubt some would sell the planet's location entirely for the
money and power they so craved.
     Some such he found to be within the Galactica's own ranks - Xaviar
in particular. He knew the career officer was solitary and bitter, one
of the growing faction who believed that integration with Earth's
population would destroy within a generation the advantage the
colonials were barely clinging to. The lack of facilities alone had
condemned at least twelve children to assimilation with Earth's
population, and to all intents and purposes they were lost.
Undereducated in the North American schools they were sent to,
overexposed to the greedy, grabbing ways of the locals they were
billeted with, and unable to seek medical help for fear of discovery as
aliens (and what the xenophobic Earthlings would make of real aliens he
shuddered to think) they would be twelve fewer viper pilots or
scientists for the inevitable war with the Cylons. So to placate the
skeptics, Dr Zee had created time travel. This way, he had posited,
some trained warriors could sidestep the current mess Earth was in and
advance the technology of the past in order to bring their civilization
to defense readiness in just years rather than centuries. How was he to
know Xaviar would appropriate the technology and use it to seek out and
enrich the most degenerate of all Earth civilizations past or present,
the Nazis? But then, Dr. Zee was never wrong. Adama had said so, and
never ceased to remind the Galactican fleet.
     But he was wrong, and had been more times than he cared to admit.
Not only wrong, but bored, lonely and frustrated. Sometimes all he
wanted to do was sleep. In his dreams, still as intense as ever, he
would see Earth and walk on its green surface - in all his life, Dr Zee
had never seen real ground or breathed real air. 
     At that precise moment, sleep he did, as a huge forearm poleaxed
him between the shoulder blades. Down he went like a sack of fresh
grain.

     'That was too easy by half!' Xaviar crowed. 'How do you like that,
brat?' he addressed the prone form. 'Felled by the technology you
invented to protect us. I should sell it to the Cylons; they'd love
that.'
     In one move the Galactican outlaw scooped up and slung the inert
teenager over his shoulders, thus extending the invisibility shield
over him. Xaviar's back winced audibly, but he balanced the weight and
straightened up. 'Now back the way we came.'
     'Nash, he's just a kid,' Cindy said with misgivings. 'I don't know
about this-'
     'Shut your face!' Xaviar snapped furiously. Cindy recoiled.
Something was very dubious about this - Cindy had been a career
criminal for years, but she'd taken special care never to actually
physically hurt anyone, and the idea of harming children, however old
they were, was exceedingly repugnant to her.
     'Don't fault me on this, woman,' Xaviar snapped. 'This is
personal. The future of our entire people, if I didn't make that clear
enough. Are you listening to me??'
     'Okay,' Cindy said defiantly, ready to lose her temper. 
     'Maybe I'll sell this little pig to the Cylons,' Xaviar breathed
intently, laughing maniacally. 'What they wouldn't do with him!'
     Cindy wondered what Cylons were, noting Xaviar seemed afraid of
them. A point to note down for future reference. They left the
conference chamber and started for the lift. In much more of a hurry
this time, Cindy reckoned; Nash didn't seem to care who noticed them
this time. Yes, having this kid hostage had changed him all right - he
was definitely a headcase. Cindy began to worry her head strongly. 
     'Frack!' Xaviar snapped. 'I can't manhandle him down all those
damn stairs we came up. We're gonna have to wait for someone to use the
elevator.' He checked his timepiece - less than five centons till the
personal energizer went out. 
     'Come on, come on, come on,' Xaviar grumbled. 'Ah!' A male hangar
crewman in orange overalls was coming their way. 'Good news! He'll be
going right to the launch bay.' Sure enough, the lone passenger punched
in the address and down they went. However, when Xaviar shifted Dr.
Zee's unconscious form from his right shoulder to his left, the boy's
legs swung out and knocked the crewman flat on the floor. 
     'What the hell's going on?' said the crewman out loud, rubbing the
back of his head. 'Is someone wearing an energizer?' Such a practice
had been banned aboard the Galactica, not due to Xaviar's appearances
but following a spate of grope-and-run incidents against female viper
pilots. The crewman put out his hands ahead of him, trying to find a
body. 'Who's there?' he said, voice cracking. Xaviar squashed himself
aside but the crewman got Cindy right where it counts. 'Hey!' he
shouted before Xaviar grabbed him round the neck, dropping Dr. Zee
roughly to the deck. 
     'Don't say a word or I'll break your neck,' Xaviar hissed as the
crewman struggled in vain. He knew that deranged voice anywhere.
'Cindy! Pick him up!' he ordered, to which Cindy scrabbled around for
Dr. Zee. The lift settled to the bottom, but at that moment Xaviar's
energizer started flashing red. 'You're showing!' Cindy protested,
prompting a look of anger on Xaviar's face. 
     'Xaviar, let me go!' the crewman whined. 'I'll do anything you
want. What are you doing with Dr. Zee?'
     Xaviar slapped him hard. 'Move to that viper over there,' he
snarled, pointing to a brand-new two-seat viper with a fuel nozzle
sticking out of its tank - obviously just filled up. He'd already
decided to abandon his own ship; it was barely capable of atmospheric
flight after months without maintenance. 'Hey, why not make yourself
useful?' he declared. 'Carry our guest into the back of the ship, would
you?' He motioned Cindy, who was now showing too, to give Dr. Zee to
the crewman, who complied nervously, as slowly as he could, taking time
to study both Xaviar's face (apparently the beneficiary of some rather
sloppy Earth plastic surgery since the last picture of him had been
circulated fleetwide) and that of his reluctant-looking female
accomplice. 
     But Xaviar wasn't going to give him that chance. He blindsided the
hapless crewman with a straightarm under the chin, felling him
instantly, then dragged him behind the viper. He shoved the crewman
between the viper engines and the engine backwash bracer, then swung
himself up into the viper.
     Cindy was already in the rear seat with Dr. Zee draped across her.
'Nash! Or Xaviar - whatever your name is - you'll incinerate him!'
     Xaviar ignored her, concentrating on breaking off an instrument
panel with both hands. Viper pilots accessed their ships by means of
personal launch codes tapped into the ships' computron, but Xaviar's
had been invalidated long ago, so he had to employ a technique he'd
learned from Earth. Hot-wiring, they called it, but in this case a bit
more complicated. He'd used the same technique to sabotage the systems
of a viper he'd 'donated' to Troy and Dillon in an attempt to send them
into deep space and then cut out their engines and life support.
Dragging out wires, he grabbed his laser and set it to its lowest
intensity, soldering loose a few of them and then reconnecting them
with others, welding them sealed again to make sure. Cindy was
blathering something behind his back in irritating shrill tones, but he
was intent on his work. The viper engines fired, and Xaviar stabbed the
launch button on the joystick. He shut out the sudden yell of pain
which came from behind the ship. Passengers were shot backward and the
viper powered off into space. 
     He sneered at Cindy's ensuing sobs. 'Oh, be quiet, for God's sake.
That's just the tip of the iceberg for what I plan to do.'

     Troy and Dillon reached the First Interstate Bank branch in time
to still see police cruisers arrayed round about. 
     'Good, that's exactly what we want,' Dillon said from the
passenger seat.
     'Pull in by the McDonald's,' Jamie instructed. 'Get close enough
to tap their radio transmissions, and see which way Xaviar's gone.'
     'We may not have to,' said Troy pointing. 'It looks like this
entire block has been hit.' Employees of every store on that block were
complaining to the police present that some person or persons had
systematically raided their registers and safes, all within the same
fifteen minutes following the bank raid. Troy's monitoring of the
pavement conversations confirmed this. Best of all, somebody had
remembered the license plate of the black Toyota getaway truck. Troy
entered this into their onboard computer and came up with a match. 
     'It's registered to a Cynthia Martinovic. She has an address
listed in the city of San Bernardino,' he said. 
     'That's as good a place as any to stake out,' Jamie said.
     As they were entering the San Bernardino Freeway once again, the
console beeped.
     'Troy here.'
     'This is Commander Adama. Crisis situation. Xaviar has infiltrated
the Galactica and kidnapped Dr. Zee. He is in the company of an
unidentified Earth woman, whose likeness I am transmitting to you now.'
A blonde female face appeared on the screen in front of them.
     'We've got a match on the woman, but it doesn't answer any of our
questions. How did you ascertain it was Xaviar?' Troy asked.
     Adama's voice was pained. 'He killed a member of the hangar crew,
by...searing him with blast from the engines of the viper he stole. He
was able to give us this information before he died.'
     'What a bastard,' Jamie hissed. 'And a murderer now, too.'
     'Xaviar has left the Galactica and is likely to be returning to
Earth any centon now. Approach him with extreme caution. Under no
circumstances must he be allowed to divulge Dr. Zee's secrets or bring
harm to him!'
     'Thank you, Grandfather,' Troy said, face hard. He cut the
connection. 
     'Punch up this woman's driver's license information,' Jamie said.
In seconds, her info came up with an image of her face. A perfect
match. 'So this is her. Who is she?'
     'I don't know. A local criminal, perhaps?'
     'The police departments I've scanned have no records on her -
perhaps she's skilled enough to have evaded apprehension,' Dillon said.
'Which means she's potentially as dangerous as Xaviar himself.'
     'Picking up a powerful ion trail coming into atmospheric power
dive,' Troy said. 'It's him all right - he can't have had time to
camouflage this viper's signature emission.'
     'How far?'
     'Twenty thousand metrons, direction east.'
     'I bet I know how you're gonna get there,' smiled Jamie. 'This
thing flies, doesn't it?' It still seemed ridiculous to her just what
the Galacticans could do, all this time later.
     'Not in this traffic,' Troy groaned. True to form, the 10 was
starting to lock up again - probably some idiot stalled in the fast
lane and everyone else was slowing down for a look. 
     'Nice neat formation though,' Dillon ribbed him in a crass attempt
at humor. That had been the first thing Troy had said when he saw the
wheezy, sluggish ground vehicles of Earth trundling along the grimy
freeways, and Dillon had never let him forget it.

     It seemed to Cindy that Xaviar had lost his mind for sure. The
minute the got the viper on the ground, he'd hauled out Dr. Zee and
begun clobbering him black and blue. 
     'You little bastard!' he ranted, braying away with the extra
strength Earth's low gravity gave Galacticans. Dr. Zee was barely
conscious and took each blow worse than the last.
     'Jesus!' Cindy shouted, apparently invoking one of Earth's puny
gods. 'What's wrong with you? What did this kid ever do to you?'
     Now Xaviar hauled off against her, but missed by a long stretch.
'Stay out of my business!' he yelled. 'Peasant!' She dropped back a few
paces and scowled.
     Dr. Zee's white uniform was flecked with blood, but he was coming
around.
     'Xaviar!' he gasped. 'What do you think you're doing?'
     Xaviar ripped off his coat - too hot in this desert for a coat -
and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
     'I want information,' he snarled. 
     'Of what nature?' Dr. Zee inquired, a new defiance creeping into
his voice. Something was different. He was on Earth! Not under the
ideal circumstances, admittedly, but all the same. He took a look
around him. Real sky - blue as far as the eye could see. Fantastically
beautiful! And real air, not synthesized, not engendered. And under his
hands and feet was real grass! 
     'You are going to reprogram time travel capability into my new
viper,' Xaviar breathed, eyes bright. 'And with it, before I embark on
the standard pursuit of power and wealth, I think I shall make a side
trip; returning to the Galactica of ages past in order to kill your
father - Starbuck.'
     'Charming,' Dr. Zee sighed. 'You are as primitive and as
passionate as these Earth people you seem to use up and throw away so
offhandedly.' He shot Cindy a look, and she flashed the briefest of
acknowledgments back. He was felled with a slap, but continued.
     'Time travel is inherently illogical. You if no-one else are
empirical proof of that, Xaviar, for your ill-fated adventures with the
very worst of historical Earth's criminal elements. For that I made the
conscious choice to abandon time travel experimentation and impose an
indefinite prohibition upon its use. I will not accede.'
     'Oh, yes you will, little man.' He shot a blindingly powerful arm
out and seized Cindy by the throat. 'Or I'm going to tear this
Earthling to pieces right in front of you.' Dr Zee flinched.
     'You scumbag!' Cindy managed, affronted. She was right - he was a
case, and he was going to kill her! And as surely as her horror of
killing had put Dr. Zee's life in jeopardy, his fear for her would be
her end too. And if that wasn't bad enough, here they were talking
about time travel as if it was something people did every day. She made
a mental note to turn over a new leaf - if she came out of this alive.
Not a likely prospect.
     'I thought you said you loved me,' she tried, although this Xaviar
probably didn't have a heart. Or that was little and green in place of
his non-alien skin.
     'Love indeed,' Dr. Zee scoffed. 'Young lady, this man is a
hardened criminal by our standards - and what's more, mentally
imbalanced, with no clue as to what nefarious crimes he will attempt on
any given day.'
     'Thank you, thank you, please, no applause,' Xaviar said. 'Do I
ever get a say in anything? That's the trouble with our society, you
half-pint! We barely defended ourselves against the Cylons for thirty
yahrens, but what's the point if we were living in our own leavings?
Look how these Earth people live! Much the same for ninety percent of
them! And when I tried to go back and change things, against Adama's -
no, YOUR oh-so intractable genius orders, I'm treated like a criminal?
I forgot - you're never wrong.'
     'Were you trying to make things better, Xaviar? Seriously? Were
you really?' Dr. Zee fixed him with a stare, daring him to reveal a
heart.
     Xaviar swung a ferocious punch, breaking the boy genius's nose.
Dr. Zee snapped back in agony, but reflected with some satisfaction
he'd cut Xaviar where it hurt. 
     'It's me that's never wrong,' Xaviar snapped, but his voice
caught. The truth was, he didn't know any more. He never had really,
and what hurt most was the fact that he'd come too far. He'd killed
that crewman in cold blood, and in front of the one woman who'd treated
him like SOMEBODY. Now he'd lost her trust, and she'd have to die so he
could live. Because that's what it boiled down to. He wished he could
destroy both the Galactica, the miserable Cylons and his internal
enemies all at the same time - his ego demanded it, but it wasn't
possible. All that was left was to save himself, by retreating into
Earth's past. To Hades with this 1985.
     'Now configure the time coordinates as I wish, or she dies.' His
weapon was now drawn, and pointed at Cindy. But he couldn't look her in
the eye.
     'Thanks a lot,' she scowled. It was too late.

     As Dr. Zee got to work in Xaviar's viper, fifteen miles to the
west Troy's Camaro was still inching through rush-hour traffic. Jamie
spat curses to herself, building up the Galacticans' Earth vocabulary
prodigiously. 'Got any lasers in this heap?' she groused.
     It took them an hour to trail five miles, but with the
characteristic surreality of Southern California's mad freeways, the
obstruction vanished as suddenly as it'd come, and they were belting
along on their way again.
     'ETA five centons,' Dillon said. 'His beacon is stronger than
ever. He's in a patch of wilderness adjacent to Interstate 15 and
Sierra Avenue.'
     'Arm your lasers,' Troy said ominously. 'There could be shooting.'

     'What's the damn holdup? Work, goddammit!' Xaviar spewed. He was
badly sunburnt and starting to peel, and Dr. Zee appeared to be
deliberately dawdling. So paranoid was he that he was convinced the
youthful genius was sabotaging his ship, but he was skilled enough
technologically to figure out he was not. Current vipers were fitted
with time travel technology, but with much of the appropriate circuitry
disconnected or funneled into other applications of these versatile
aircraft. The first of his plans involved a bit more simplicity than
the Nazi escapade. This time he'd give Stalin's Russia the bomb in the
same time period. They were much like the Nazis in their cruelty, but
weren't as particular as to who they killed - everyone was fair game.
Since he was going to kill Dr. Zee anyway before he departed, he didn't
mind ordering him to set the timer for the year 1936 - viewed in the
Galacticans' own eight-figure clock for the most accurate measurement
of target time.
     Cindy watched Xaviar, keeping an eye on the muzzle of his stubby
laser pistol pointed at her. She remembered her own pistol deep in her
jacket, but dared not go for it. She couldn't think of shooting him
despite his cruelty, and was further unsure as to whether or not he had
extra-thick skin or something. She watched with astonishment as he
bounded fifty feet into the air to check on Dr. Zee's cockpit work. 
     Then she looked away to the southwest. A black car was tearing
towards them kicking up dust. Too close to be - police? No. She decided
to refrain from telling Xaviar, but he noticed soon enough, seeing two
faces he hated more than anything in the universe.
     'NO!' he screamed apoplectically. He punched Dr. Zee across the
side of his head, knocking him over and out of the viper, but as he
tumbled his spanner raked across the last of his work, which he would
have finished in two or three centons anyway, and ripped out one of his
meticulously soldered wires. Sparks erupted from a short circuit but
did not knock out the entire power grid. The system promptly rebooted
and reset the timer to 0000000. Dr. Zee saw it all before the lights
went out again, but Xaviar didn't; his eyes were on the loathsome Troy
and Dillon leaping from a customized Earth car, weapons drawn. They
crouched behind its doors like a crummy cop show seen on the myriad of
brainless entertainment channels available in these parts. 
     Xaviar jumped behind the viper's landing strut and drew a bead on
Troy's head. Cindy leapt for cover of her own as Xaviar pulled the
trigger. 
     Nothing happened! A puny flame came out of the end, not enough
even to solder a hole in a piece of metal. Xaviar shrieked curses as he
tried to reset his weapon to maximum strength, but at that moment Cindy
drew her own .38 and shot Xaviar in the gut. He yelled and went over
backwards, but it looked like a flesh wound and he was quickly up and
roaring. He fired shots at her wildly, but she managed to creep round
the other side of the viper. Her ankle twisted under her, but she was
bought some time by the two other people opening fire with the same
laser weapons. They bounced off the viper's polysteel surface close to
Xaviar, pinning him down.
     'Cindy!' he screamed. He couldn't see her. 'Cindy!!' Round the
side of the viper, she tried to frantically remember where she'd seen
the fuel being loaded aboard the Galactica. The tank had gone round the
side she was on, but then under the ship where Xaviar could shoot her.
She bargained he wouldn't, and leapt for it, unscrewing with all her
might. Maybe running out of gas would slow him down - sure enough, fuel
came splashing out. Covered with it, she broke and ran towards the
black Camaro. Xaviar now had a clear shot, and if he fired she'd go up
like a torch. She gritted her teeth, banking on the last vestige of
whatever humanity Xaviar had left, and ran. Her back seemed huge and
exposed. When she caught her ankle in a root and tripped, she was even
more terrified.
     But Xaviar didn't fire. He just screamed her name in anguish.

     Cindy reached the Camaro and flung herself into cover with the
last of her strength. 'Don't kill him! He doesn't know what he's
doing!' she cried out.
     'He still has Dr. Zee,' Troy said.
     'Troy - Dillon - Jamie,' Jamie said, doing the introductions. A
shot zipped by, cracking sparks and a thousand dollars' worth of
metallic paint off the Camaro's roof. 'Cindy, right?' 
     'Yeah,' she said sadly. 'More aliens?' 
     'Mm-hm, 'Jamie acceded. 'These two are, but I'm from Reno.'
     Dillon looked at her. 'Reno's alien to me,' he said, dignity
deflated. He cracked another shot towards Xaviar's viper, which was now
noticeably spilling fuel.
     'Funny, you're not the first person to have told me that,' Jamie
mused. 
     'Look Jamie! He's going for Dr. Zee!' Troy shouted, watching the
Galactican rebel scoot under the viper. He grabbed the white-uniformed
youth and held him up in front of him.
     'Don't toy with me Captain Troy! This time I've got the whip
hand!'
     Troy said 'I don't know what he's talking about but we can't
shoot.'
     'Guns down boys - I don't care about you this time. You're all
going to die anyway, but not today. Just let me fly out of here and
your precious genius lives.'
     'Dammit, he's got us,' Dillon said. 'We have no choice.'
     'Xaviar, give it up,' Cindy said suddenly, showing herself in
plain view. 'What about me?'
They were only fifty yards, or metrons away from each other, but unless
it was a trick of the light from the hot Inland Empire sun, the two
warriors and the two Earth natives could have sworn blind they saw
Xaviar sob. And Xaviar never faltered.
     'What else can I do?' he said, in the saddest, most heartbroken
voice any of them had ever heard. Then he shoved Dr. Zee roughly
forward onto his face and leapt into his ship. Troy and Dillon broke
cover and started to sprint towards the viper, but Xaviar dropped his
canopy and fired up his engines. 
     Troy and Dillon threw themselves on the ground face first as the
backblast from Xaviar's viper ignited the pool of spilt fuel. A huge
fireball boiled up into the sky, Xaviar's ship trailing flame briefly
as it accelerated skyward. They saw him punch into timewarp almost
instantly and streak a long white trail across Southern California's
deep blue before disappearing.

     'We've lost him,' Dillon said dejectedly.
     'I don't think so, Lieutenant,' said Dr. Zee, now staggering to
his feet. 'He inadvertently sabotaged his own timewarp device. He has
gone not to 1936 as he intended, but twenty million years into the
past. There he will find no governments to subvert, no natives to whom
to give technology - the odds are he will find no human life
whatsoever. And furthermore, his ship leaked a good proportion of his
fuel before takeoff - fuel he will be unable to synthesize where he's
gone. He won't be coming back.'
     Cindy sobbed. Jamie lent a shoulder.
     'The poor, sad, miserable bastard. Just like the usual pack of
losers I have to pick, but I loved him anyway.' Jamie decided not to
ask any further questions, and led her away to the car.

     'Troy, Dillon, Jamie,' Dr. Zee said, for the first time using his
friends' given names rather than their ranks or formal titles and
surprising the hell out of them. 'I have had the opportunity to - shall
we say - reevaluate my position within the Galactican fleet. Some of
what Xaviar said has affected me rather deeply... and indeed
corresponds with a lot of my thoughts over the past weeks and months.'
     The warriors and their allies looked at him. He was fighting a
great deal of pain, not just physical.
     Dr. Zee spoke frankly, stunning his audience. 'A great deal of
what I have thought and decreed concerning our dealings with this
homeworld has been - wrong,' he said, growing uncharacteristically
emotional. 'From my exalted status virtually imprisoned aboard the
Galactica, I have come to realize I have absolutely no idea of what
makes this planet important to its people, and have frankly been
exceedingly arrogant in delegating its future without the benefit of
any personal interaction with those who live here. Hence my -
miscalculations - concerning Xaviar.'
     'I should like to - stay here a while. After all, I have never
stood on real ground before, nor breathed unfiltered air. This planet
is so... so incredibly beautiful. I never realized,' he said, simply
amazed at what he saw. 'Perhaps we are concentrating too much on an
unpredictable future, without doing anything to improve the present.'
     'Cindy,' he said approaching her, 'I owe you my life, albeit by a
distinctly roundabout way. Would you show me the wonders of Earth?'
     'In return we won't turn you in to the police,' Troy offered. A
bit devious, but good enough - after all, they each had records as long
as the flight from the colonies. 'And Dr. Zee, Adama will understand.
He has before.'
     'Why not?' Cindy said, shaking hands with Dr. Zee in the local
manner. 'This time, it's me that's not wrong. And let it stay that
way.'

THE END

'The great ship Galactica - our home for these many years we've endured
the wilderness of space. And now we reach the end of our journey. We
have at last found Earth!'