BSG: BUMP IN THE NIGHT
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. This is me playing in the dark. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I like horror movies. I like B-movies. I love old BSG. I hate the new one. The old one was a show that was perhaps a little naive for today's crowd, but I like the way the characters could count on each other. The new one was crap for that. If you watch all the eps back to back, the new writers couldn't keep characterization to save their souls. It was very much a "let's do this, no one will notice" style of writing. Even thier interior ship sets were bad. A Battlestar is a warship. Every space has a dedicated purpose. They're not light and airy, they don't have wasted airspaces designed by Dali. They're bricks on purpose and with a purpose. And who thought of that Transformers Hangar Bay thing? The machinery to run it would have used up most of the ship's interior space anyway. Main power core? Don't need it, just stick that wonky hydraulic control bit in there... But I digress. This is a Battlestar Horror movie. I hope you enjoy it.
You guys should also know that this is my other project. Right now I'm doing an HP/OUAT crossover too. I've got the first third or so of this written, but feedback counts. When I get to the end of what I have edited, if I don't get some feedback, this one dies. Sorry, but that's how it is. No interest, no story.
Chapter 1
Apollo's warm laugh bounced off of his canopy.
"Thanks buddy," His helmet's speakers reproduced his best friend's tone of sarcasm perfectly. "It's good to know that I can always count on you."
"I'm sorry, Starbuck," the dark skinned young man couldn't keep the broad smile out of his voice, "but you've got to admit that you brought all this on yourself. Again."
"Some best friend you are," the voice huffed back.
"I think I'm a great best friend," Apollo glanced down to his instrument panel. The sensor screen remained blessedly clear. He blinked back up to the starfield racing by outside his canopy. "You'll notice that I'm not beating you up for two-timing my sister."
"You know it's not..."
"Don't say 'it's not like that'," Apollo shook his head in good natured denial, "because you know it is. You bounce from Athena to Cassiopeia and from Noday to Miriam like a deranged fruit leaper, then you wonder why they get mad when they catch you."
"Yeah, but..."
"You need to start making up your mind, or start exercising some special caution, buddy," Apollo interrupted good-naturedly. "Athena's not just a flight controller, she's a full warrior and she might just shoot you, and as for Cassie, she's become a well trained med-tech. You end up in the medical bay and one of these times she might not let you wake up. Or worse, maybe you will wake up and find out that you have to use the turbo-flush sitting down because something you value very highly got amputated."
"That's not funny, Apollo."
The flatness of his friends' tone made him laugh again. Long ingrained habit sent his eyes drifting over the instrument panel again. This time there was something there.
"Starbuck, I'm getting something odd, bearing 300 by 295..."
"Got it," his wingman's voice came back all business. "Readings are weird. I haven't seen anything like this since we hit that magnetic void a yaren ago."
"That's what I thought too, but I'm also getting an energy reading that shouldn't be there. Check your Lambda frequency."
"Lambda? That's ultra, ultra low, buddy."
"Yeah, I know. I've been monitoring it on our last few deep space patrols for Doctor Wilker," Apollo replied. "He thinks the Cylons might try using ULF to communicate with their pursuit ships."
"And the Cylons would use this freq why, exactly?"
"Well, according to Wilker, a lambda signal propagates slower than normal communications, but its range is only limited by the power you put into it; there's no top end and no signal degradation no matter how far it goes. You're either getting it, or you're not." The dark skinned young man looked up over the cockpit combing. There was definitely a dark spot in the starfield below and ahead. "Lambda is almost unjammable, but with our current technology we can't build any small transmitters. The Galactica might be able to cobble something up, but it would take up half of one of the launch bays." He glanced back at the white-skinned fighter flying just above and behind his left shoulder. "Can you confirm that lambda emission?"
"Yeah, sorry. Schoolwork distracted me," Starbuck replied. There was a momentary pause. "Yeah, I confirm the lambda reading, but there's no modulation. It's like a carrier wave with nothing being transmitted across it."
"That's what..."
"Wait a micron," Starbuck's voice cut Apollo off. "Did you see that? There was a blip on the transmission monitor. There. Another one."
"I see it," Apollo nodded. "There's a third. It looks like they're becoming more frequent the closer we get to that void. If the Cylons really are using lambda channel, Galactica needs to know about it."
"Yeah, I'd hate to burn all this fuel for nothing."
"Activate and zero your inertial locator," Apollo ordered, "then we'll go in."
"Zeroed. Lead the way, buddy."
The two Vipers barely had to alter course to aim their noses towards the growing void. Both made their corrections almost simultaneously and a three pronged plume of blue/white flame erupted from the first white ship. Half an instant later similar geysers sprang from the engines of the follower and the pair sped toward the hole in space.
"Why am I the one that always finds these things?" Starbuck probably didn't intend for Apollo to reply.
"You're not," Apollo chuckled, answering anyway. "I am. I just like to bring you along for the ride."
The flight captain checked his instruments again, this time not only to note the readings, but to make sure his flight recorders were all functioning properly. That done, he scanned the starfield one more time. His last glance as the terminator drew close was to check the lambda channel. The blip had turned into a solid signal. The universe chose that exact moment switch itself off.
BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG
His Viper died.
"Frack!" Starbuck shouted as his cockpit went black. He threw a quick eye up to Apollo's Viper. Things didn't look any better up there. His turbo-thrusters were out. Even the normal blue/white glow of military thrust was gone. Apollo's bird was just as dead as his.
"Apollo, do you read me?" Starbuck called. He began flipping switches, running the checklist in his head as he spoke. 'Engine start switches off, check.' "Apollo, I've suffered a massive power failure. Everything is offline. Respond." 'Okay. Here we go. Engine start...on.'
The young lieutenant almost cheered as the familiar sound of pulse generators winding up filled the tiny cabin. His fingers flickered across the controls.
"...Buck, can you read me?" Apollo's voice hissed into his earpieces.
"Got you now, Apollo," Starbuck replied. He looked down at the inertial locator. What he saw wiped the grin from his face. The machine Doctor Wilker had developed after Galactica's first voyage through a magnetic anomaly had deactivated as well. He re-zeroed, hoping that they hadn't drifted too far off course. "What happened?"
"I'm not sure. Everything just shut down without warning."
"Same here." Starbuck could easily imagine his best friend's eyes pouring over his instruments, searching for hidden damage. The young man set his eyes on the starfield. No sense both of them being caught off-guard.
"Everything seems to be working now, as far as I can tell. Lambda frequency's showing steady transmission, but I'm not hearing anything."
"Hey Apollo, check out the stars."
Starbuck hadn't been expecting any stars at all. This was supposed to be another magnetic void, but the sky here was filled with pinpricks of light that somehow felt further away than normal stars. Unfortunately, they weren't white or red or blue anymore, they were all varying intensities of green.
"Could we have entered a nebula?" Starbuck asked.
"No. Scanners aren't showing any gases, or particulate debris." There was a pause and when Apollo spoke again he didn't sound happy at all. "Something's wrong. Starbuck, how far out do your long range sensors reach?"
"I'm not sure," Starbuck replied. He flipped a pair of switches. "I'm not reading anything... Hold on." Another switch flip set his LR scanners to auto calibrate. He frowned at the result. "This is impossible, active sensors only reach ten light-microns. I've lost ninety-nine percent of my range. I might as well just use the targeting scanner." He was suddenly very tempted to punch the little screen.
"Mine are behaving the same way. They reach out to ten light-microns, then nothing," Apollo confirmed. "If we were being jammed, there would just be static. These are acting like our emitters are damaged. We're sending and receiving signal, were just getting massive attenuation. Something's absorbing the sensor wave."
Starbuck's eyes nervously raked the weird sky again. This time he played it slow and carefully, sectoring the sky the way his instructors had taught him to search if battle damage somehow wiped out his sensors. Of course, in a very real sense, he didn't have sensors now anyway.
"If this is some kind of new Cylon trick, we have to inform the fleet," Apollo said. "Patrols are going to become crucial."
"Yeah," Starbuck nodded. "Listen, if this is some kind of new secret weapon we need to find out a few things..."
"I think I know what you mean," Apollo said. "You want to test our communications range?"
"Want to?" Starbuck asked. "No. But I think we need to."
The chuckle that came through his headset was almost reassuring. "Agreed."
"I'll head out to one light-micron," Starbuck said. "That way, I'll still be on your scope, even if we can't talk. If I don't hear from you within one centon, I'll come back."
"Keep your eyes peeled. I wouldn't want you to wander into a Cylon attack group."
"Me neither." The young warrior didn't notice his thumb tremble as it rose and pressed the engine control on his joystick.
Viper Two's turbos erupted again, pushing Starbuck back into his seat. His eyes bugged as burning bile rose in his throat.
'Frack.' An angry grimace etched his features as he swallowed. 'Boomer would have a field day if he found out I'd painted my cockpit.' He checked the instruments. Again something was going wrong.
"Apollo, I'm having problems with my thrusters," he announced.
"Yeah. You're slow," Apollo's voice was already starting to sound distant. "I see all three engines lit up. Color's good. No stuttering."
"Yeah, but according to my computer, I'm only doing sixty percent of normal acceleration." He ran the back of his fingers over his mouth. "There's no way the Cylons are doing this."
"Must be a local effect," Apollo replied. "Tha* *akes me fee* *etter."
"I'm starting to get signal degradation at point-six-five light-microns," Starbuck announced.
"**nfirm** *ix-five ligh***crons. Try *eta channel," Apollo said.
"Say again. I didn't catch the channel."
"Beta cha****, I s** *gain *eta Chan****."
"Switching to beta channel." Starbuck flipped a switch.
The com system exploded with noise like nothing the young pilot had ever heard before. There was static, yes, but there was also far more. Intermittent bursts of high frequency noise reminded him of blaster fire. He shivered when he realized there were also voices screaming.
"Apollo, Apollo, do you read?" Starbuck shouted back into the microphone. "I'm going back to alpha channel. I'm going back to alpha channel." He couldn't flip the switch fast enough to kill the terror that suddenly fisted around his heart. "Apollo, do you read?"
"***. Ba** ** **fa." There was a demanding tone to the few half words he could hear. "D* *** hear ****?"
"Yeah, buddy, I hear you. Listen, I'm at point nine light-microns. I'm coming back."
Starbuck rolled his Viper hard over and lined up on the return vector his inertial locator provided. When he was on the beam, he hit the turbos again. Too late he remembered what happened last time. He got a mouthful.
"*tarbu**, do you *o*y?"
"I hear you. Do you hear me?" He grimaced against the vile taste. Nervousness flicked the young man's blue eyes across the dim starfield. Something was wrong here. Bad wrong.
'FRACK!' He jumped, startled by the blare of the contact alarm. There was now a second ship on long range sensors. 'Not good. Not good. Not good.'
"Got a contact, Apollo." He flipped the little screen over to the library computer. The screen blinked and flickered, laboring to produce an image. It finally sketched out a Viper just like his own. "Are you getting this?"
"Yea*. It* not po**ible. We're the onl* ones on this *ector."
The improving sound of his flight leader's voice was doing worlds to improve Starbuck's confidence. "I know, but there it is. We'll have a visual in five microns."
"I'm comin* to you," Apollo announced. "I want us able to support each other in *ase this is some kind of trick."
"You won't hear me arguing." Starbuck agreed hurriedly.
It was three microns later that Apollo arrived, burning his turbos. Seeing his friend's plumes caused him to check his own fuel gauges. They'd been burning pretty hot on this mission and he did not want to get stuck out here. He looked up just in time to see the fighter flash by.
"Did you see his markings?" Apollo asked.
"Yeah, but I didn't catch any details," Starbuck replied. "Why, what's up?"
"They weren't ours."
"What do you mean they weren't ours?" Starbuck looked out just as the stranger pulled up nearby.
"I mean that whoever that is, they're not from the Galactica."
Starbuck gulped when the machine rolled up into a position in space not too far away. Apollo was right, the markings on that ship weren't from the Galactica nor, from what he could tell, were they from any other squadron he'd ever seen. The fighter was too far away to see inside the cockpit, but one thing was clear, it had been through the wringer. Some kind of artwork was visible through spots of heavy carbon scoring on the fuselage. The damaged dorsal fin was a banner in metal, declaring an unknown heraldry into the eternal night.
"I see what you mean."
BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG
"He's off my starboard side," Starbuck said. "Can you see him?"
"Yeah," Apollo looked over, but the ship was still far away. "Can you get a good look at him? All I can see is a lot of blast blacking."
"He's been pretty beaten up," the voice returned through the headset. "Part of his dorsal is gone and I can see some support ribs through his port wing. It looks like his port turbo-laser might have exploded and started a plasma fire."
"His capacitors would have blown," the smile trying to sneak onto his face felt foreign. Odd. "He's got to be even luckier than you, Starbuck. Keep an eye on him, I'll set my transmitter for unicom and try to make contact."
"Unicom. Got it," Starbuck replied.
His hand shook a little as he reached for the button. The second he pushed it the commo array would begin receiving whatever was out there. He dreaded hearing the hell of beta channel again.
He cleared his throat and hit the button. There was no wail of energy and death. "This is Captain Apollo of the Battlestar Galactica," he began. "Please state your name and purpose." The instant explosion of noise made him regret it.
"***s *s ***ta** St**b***k," stuttered out of the chaos. A long scream chopped off the next words, but one word hissed clear; "Cylon ***ack ** *nbo***. Le** Ge* **em."
"I'm having trouble receiving you," Apollo announced. "Please repeat your message."
"Apollo, he's moving."
Starbuck was right. The stranger had bleeped his turbos and rolled into position in front of the two fighters. He sat still for just a moment before waggling his ship.
"Well, he's not hostile," Apollo said as he hurriedly flicked his communicators back to their normal tactical channel. "He's given us a perfect firing solution."
"You're going to say that you want to follow him, aren't you?" Starbuck did not sound happy.
"Well, he is waggling," now the chipper tone of his voice tasted out of place. "I've seen you do it before."
"Yeah, but I was flying a Cylon raider and didn't want you to shoot me."
The lead fighter began pulling away and altering his course.
"I want to follow him." Apollo checked his instruments. "He's almost up to full military speed. Let's go." He throttled up.
"Apollo... I don't think we should."
The captain checked his scope. Starbuck was falling behind. "Catch up, Starbuck. That's an order."
As the pair accelerated, Starbuck quickly fell into formation with his element leader, but said nothing more. Apollo didn't try to make contact again. True, he had made a sort of pitiful contact on unicom, but nothing clear. Apollo shifted nervously in his seat. There was something awful about beta channel.
They had been following the stranger for less than five centons when Starbuck finally spoke. "He's pulling ahead."
"Yeah, I see. Apparently whatever is drawing off our energy doesn't affect him," Apollo returned. "He's going full military speed. We're not. The effect just isn't as pronounced when we're not burning our turbos."
"How long are we going to let this guy lead us along?" Apollo could easily hear the discomfort in his wingman's voice. "He could be pulling us into an ambush."
"About ten more centons. By that time we'll be at the edge of turbo range back to normal space," Apollo replied.
"It better be sooner than that, buddy. I rode my turbos pretty hard when we did that radio check, remember?"
"Yeah," Apollo sighed uncomfortably. "I should have remembered." A new contact alarm made him jump. "It may not matter. Something big just popped at the edge of long range sensors."
"Got it. Going to the warbook."
"Our friend just hit his turbos," Apollo shifted in his seat, getting ready for something. Getting ready for anything. "Eyes open, Starbuck."
As the white needle zoomed away on a low arc, Apollo's first instincts were to catch up to the unknown, or to blast him. He did neither. Whoever he was, he didn't seem to be evading, he was just in a hurry to reach the distant mystery shape. Something about the big shadow awoke a cold feeling in his gut.
"Apollo. The warbook just gave me a hit." Starbucks voice was low. Almost fearful. "It's a battlestar."
"That's not..." Apollo's voice failed as the shape began to resolve. "...Possible." In a way they were both right. The shape that finally resolved might have started its existence as a battlestar, but it surely wasn't one anymore.
Flight Captain Apollo had spent all of his adult life as a warrior, most of it aboard the Galactica. Fighters were his life and though he loved their sleekness and speed, something about battlestars had always made him feel safe. Even now, after seeing so many of them on fire, or exploding, the huge solidity of the Galactica still seemed to emanate an aura of almost godlike strength. That illusion died as they approached the wreck ahead.
"By the Lords," he whispered.
Everything about the half shadowed shape spoke of massive disaster. Something unimaginatively powerful had broken her back, leaving was left of her huge engine pod bent off-kilter from the rest of the hull. Her engines were cold. Dark. Dead. She was even drifting at an off angle; nose down at about thirty degrees and listing. Sensors showed the big ship to be moving at a low terminal velocity.
The two vipers were approaching her from low port aft. The thin spear of actinic light that had been their guide was arcing up towards the opposite side hangar bay. There was almost nothing left of the one closest to Apollo and Starbuck. A broad cloud of debris twinkled where the mouth of the hangar should have been, but the huge cigar-shaped structure was missing. The aft-most connecting arm that would attach it to the hull was completely gone, leaving a black, rip-edged rectangle yawning where it had been blown away. The central arm still reached out from the main body of the wreck like an arm without a hand, jutting out without touching anything. Only a tiny bit of the cigar-shaped outer work remained, almost like a tiny section of eggshell held in place by the foremost arm.
"It looks like something hit the fighter bay tylium reserve," the implications of all that power took Apollo's voice away. "It blew the whole deck away."
"There's no power anywhere," Starbuck's voice was a funeral whisper. "No active transponders, nothing to tell us who she was. Even her repeaters are dead."
"There's some radiation," Apollo noted. "Something must have broken containment on one of the main energizers. You can see the open shafts where they ejected the cores."
"Apollo, lets get out of here," Starbuck's tone was as nervous as Apollo felt. "It's a dead ship. Let's report back."
"But where did that viper go?" The captain checked his instruments. As far as his electronics were concerned, there were only two ships living out in the dark; his and Starbucks. "Make sure your battle cameras are active. We'll cruise around her once before we go back. Maybe there's something here the fleet can use."
"Yeah. Right." Starbuck's voice had flattened. "Cameras are on. I'll follow you."
"No. We'll go around from the aft to the fore on opposite sides at the midline, then scissor high-low, come back and link back up on the way out."
"Fine," Starbuck sighed. "I'll go starboard and high. There's more light that way."
"Fair enough, but don't rocket around," Apollo returned. "I don't like it here either, but I want a thorough scan. I mean it."
The two Vipers approached the dead ship from the rear. Apollo felt a little colder somehow, when Starbuck peeled off to begin his circuit.
BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG
The chill of green stars followed both warriors back to their side of the hole. Gone was the banter that normally volleyed back and forth. Apollo spoke only to issue orders, Starbuck only to acknowledge. When they were back within communications range of the fleet, Apollo broke his silence again to make a terse, coded report. When Jolly and Greenbean arrived to relieve them, Apollo ordered them to stay out of the void, but said little more. He was already powering back to the fleet as the new pair acknowledged.
Both Vipers were almost dry when the welcoming shape of home appeared before them. By unspoken agreement, the two warriors had come back as fast as fuel would allow.
"Galactica control, this is Blue One, requesting landing vectors," Apollo said.
"Sending now," Athena's voice was warm and friendly. It made the dark haired man shiver as if he'd been swimming in ice water and someone had just dumped him into a sauna. "Welcome back Apollo."
"We'll need our flight recorders analyzed," the young man replied in a tight voice. "Also, please ask father to attend the debriefing."
"Apollo, is everything alright?" the feeling of concern coming through the speakers was welcome, but somehow not.
The young man in the lead Viper felt a touch of shame and he didn't understand why. "I'm fine," he snapped back, "just get it done, alright lieutenant?"
A/N: Let me know what you think so far. Interest = updates. Would you like to know more?