"Frak."
Viper pilot Sarah Manning, call sign Black Orphan, frantically pulls her rudder and toggles her boosters to stabilize her ship after getting clipped by one of the cylon raiders. Tony, her mechanic, is not going to be happy.
"Are you alright?" fellow pilot Helena asks, picking off the raider that had shot Sarah. Her technique is less elegant than her twin sister's, but no one can say it's not brutally efficient.
"Just fine Meathead," Sarah radios back. "Come on, let's get these arse-holes."
"I still do not like that callsign," Helena says sullenly. "I wish Lieutenant Thrace had not called me this."
"Too late now. Get ready to flank me, yeah?"
Together, the sisters fly towards a formation of five raiders. When they get within range, Sarah executes a flip and targets the leader, while Helena sprays out cover fire behind her, hitting two ships. Sarah's shot gets the leader, and the ensuing explosion catches another raider, which spins out and destroys the last ship.
"Shit yeah!" Sarah cheers. "Time to go home, Meathead."
"I am coming, Black Orphan."
"We've got to get rid of your Gemenon accent," Sarah mentions as they fly in. "I know you ended up getting raised by some of those religious nuts after we were separated, but you don't wanna be linked to them."
"Do not mock the gods of Kobol, sestra," Helena says darkly. "They give me the light."
Sarah sighs. "Whatever, Meathead. Eventually you're gonna run out of blonde hair dye." Radio silence follows as the pair lands their ships on the hanger deck.
"What'd you do to my ship, Manning?" Tony yells as Sarah hops out of her fighter. "I just gave her a freakin' tune-up!"
"I saved your ass from those raiders," Sarah replies. "Just like the last five times."
"You can shove that and your fancy Picon military accent, sir," Tony grumbles. "Gods, I wish Sammy were here."
"I'm sorry. I heard he was one of the ones we lost when we vented the ship when they cylons first attacked."
"Yeah, well, the world keeps on turning." Tony pauses. "Or doesn't, since the toasters slagged them all."
The pilot claps him on the shoulder. "They really frakked us mate. But I'm all for giving them hell. It's only been a month, yeah? We'll find Earth, like the commander said, and we'll start over." She stops for a second. "I guess I was one of the lucky ones. I had no parents to lose."
"Major Sadler practically raised you," Tony reminds her. "She got you into the academy. And your brother Felix was bartending on Cloud 9, so he made it too."
Sarah laughs. "He was so sore when she moved him to this rustbucket to be an officer's assistant. She said she wanted to replaced lost personal, but I think she just wants us both where she can keep an eye on us."
"And then there's Helena," Tony says, jerking his head towards the blonde girl watching them, obviously waiting for Sarah. "I can't believe she tracked you all the way into the service, and managed to join up herself."
"We were only four when we were separated," Sarah remembers. "But she never stops going on about our connection, or that the gods sent her here to do their work. They really got to her on Gemenon."
"Yeah, to be honest with you she gives me the creeps," Tony says quietly. "But she's almost as good a pilot as you, and you're almost as good as Starbuck. She's always wrecking my ships too."
"Speaking of wrecks, I've got to go give my report to Captain Hendrix."
"It's a good thing that one doesn't fly. She takes after Colonel Tigh."
Sarah nods, snorting a little. "Come on Helena," she calls. "We've got officer bullshit to do."
The twins leave, and Tony shakes his head. "Pilots," he mutters under his breath. "They're a different breed, aren't they?"
…
Captain Alison Hendrix takes her job very seriously. Compiling all the flight reports and analyzing the cylons' attacks for patterns is of utmost importance, and she has a very exact filing system. Or rather she would, if her new assistant Felix Dawkins wasn't so good at mucking everything up.
"Felix!" Alison barks. "Those papers go in file 14C, not 24A."
The tall, lanky man rolls his eyes. "Yessir, Captain. Gods, I'm a bloody bartender, not a secretary."
"You're not a bartender anymore," Alison reprimands him.
"Oh really?" Felix drawls. "Then what do you call the two drinks you had me pour you earlier?"
"A way to get the creative juices flowing. It takes out of the box thinking to analyze machines," the brunette sniffs. "Don't be insubordinate."
"Speaking of…" Felix breaks into a grin. "Sarah!"
"Lieutenant Manning," Alison corrects, and then turns to the pilot. "I presume you have your report for me?"
"Right here, fresh outta the ship's log." Sarah looks bored. "Helena's got hers too."
"Sir." Alison eyes her. "Helena's got hers too, sir."
"Yes sir, absolutely sir, I'll never forget again, yeah, sir."
Alison knows she's being mocked, but chooses not to engage. Manning's twin won't stop staring at her and she finds it unsettling. "Well, give them here. Be quick about it."
Both pilots hand them over. Helena still appears to be looking at her, unblinking. "What do you want, Lieutenant?" Alison snaps.
"You do not like my sestra."
"Officers don't let their opinions color their judgements," Alison says shortly. "You're both dismissed."
"See ya later, Fee," Sarah throws over her shoulder as the sisters leave.
"Ta!" he returns, and Alison groans internally. She needs another drink.
…
On a different deck of the ship, Cosima sighs, running a hand through her hair. "It doesn't make sense," she says. "Baltar's cylon detector should have worked."
"Perhaps it is impossible to tell," Delphine, her lab partner, answers. "They could be any one of us."
"I know there's a way to do this." Cosima is adamant. "I'm an expert in evolutionary biology, and the cylons have to be different somehow. You're with me on this, right?" She looks up at Delphine beseechingly, who tells herself her heart doesn't skip a beat. That would be contrary to her mission.
"I will help you," the blonde says. "If you are really set on this." Delphine would rather be closer to this than not. That way, if the scientist gets to be too much on the right track, she can sabotage the project. Cosima is highly intelligent, for a human. It fascinates the cylon woman.
"Why're you looking at me like that?" her partner asks. Is she blushing? "Not, uh, not that I mind, but it's different, you know."
"Ah, I was just, um, lost in thought," Delphine replies. "I am sorry."
"Don't be," Cosima answers, and steps closer. She nudges Delphine with her shoulder. "Come on, we've got some crazy science to do."
"Yes," Delphine says. "Let's do the crazy science." After that, the two women lapse into a comfortable silence. Delphine titrates chemicals to make DNA-isolating solutions, and Cosima takes a sample of her own hair.
"I know I'm human," she says, "so we can use me as the control test subject. Guess I'll get to sequence my own DNA."
"No surprises." Delphine smiles.
"Well, I hope not. I could always find out I had some terrible genetic disease."
"Don't joke like that." Delphine covers Cosima's hand with her own. "It is not funny."
Cosima is definitely blushing now. "No more jokes," she says, a little raspy. "Just science."
The taller woman nods before remembering to remove her hand. Oddly, she seems to miss the warmth of Cosima's. Curiouser and curiouser…
...
Cal Morrison wakes with a start on Caprica. Sleep is little and far in between in the resistance, but he doesn't feel especially grateful for it right now. It's the nightmares again. He always dreams the same thing. He dies, only to wake up screaming and covered in fluid, with a thousand copies of himself watching. It's so vivid he could swear he's lived it.
"Up and at 'em Cal," Andrew Cooper says. "Anders has got a raid planned for today."
"A raid? On what?"
"A supply building. We're running low on anti-radiation meds and water purifiers."
Cal nods. It always feels like they're running on borrowed time. But he'd follow Sam Anders anywhere. He had been his captain for pyramidball, and now he is his commander for the resistance. Still, it's funny. Cal never seems to feel the effects of the radiation poisoning as badly as the rest of them.
"Let's do it," he says, grabbing his rifle. "I hate those frakking toasters."
"We move out at first light," Cooper says. "Be ready."
"I am," Cal answers. He's been through hell, and it makes him nervous to think of this raid. He's only human, after all.
