Hi, so i've pretty much written the first part of this story, which will be divided into two chapters and told from Zak's point of view. There will be two other parts, the story will carry on but the view points will change. Lee's view point will be the final part.
Zak
Kara Thrace punched me square on the jaw. The hit had enough force to push me back and crash down onto the freshly cut lawn.
'What was that for?' I shouted at her, my voice high and indignant.
She eyed me up.
"Don't say stuff like that'
'Like what? You scared of atheists, Kara Thrace?"
She clenched her fists and readied herself for a full out fight.
'It ain't rights saying stuff like that. The Gods will punish you.'
The fellow thirteen year old looked at me with an odd mix of fury and piety. In our three months of friendship I had never taken Kara to be the religious type, she was nothing but anger and action with a smart brain caught up in it all. My brother told me to stay away from the likes of her, you don't get many friends by being nice to Kara Thrace but you get plenty of enemies. My brother never had sense of fun, she was the only excitement that could be found in the nowhere country town. Besides, you stuck out if you bucked the norm here on Talos and we certainly did that with flare.
'You serious?' I questioned to make sure, searching her face for a sign of breaking laughter. Kara seemed too intelligent to fall for all that crap.
'You don't fool with the Gods, Zak, not ever'
I shrugged my shoulders and tried to move the subject away, the Lords of Kobol never meant much to me and I doubted that they'd start now. Religion had a greater ferocity here than it did on Caprica, they had a different, more old-fashioned, way about it.
Dad had sent me to live with granddad in this one street, backcountry town on a planet so small it didn't counted as a colony. Even the greatest city here had nothing on what lay on Caprica. Anything worth happening occurred on Caprica and anyone worth being settled their roots in Caprica City: except my grandfather. The greatest lawyer of the times had retired in a place nobody knew about, on a planet nobody cared for.
'You ever been off the planet?' I asked, trying to pull Kara back into a good mood. She shrugged.
'Been around with my ma a bit, but me and pa usually stay here. Its not as bad as you think it is… Caprica just blew your ego too big to see past a city's shiny lights'
I looked around us. There wasn't much, nothing but flat fields if you looked west and a few stone houses if you looked east. Whatever Kara was seeing, I couldn't picture it.
'Why would anyone choose this place?'
My friend gave up on me.
'The simple life? I don't know Zak, but from the sounds of it your dad ain't moving you off this rock anytime soon'
She got that right, so I turned away. Nothing like being the screw up son of the great William Adama. Dad reckoned I was on a bad streak and needed to be set right by a father figure, naturally he was too busy to do it himself. It was a good thing that his other son turned out to be golden, Lee was already serving his military service and would be racking up shiny medals in no time.
'Will you join the service when you're old enough? It'd be a good way to get out' I asked and watched as she answered. Despite all the brawl and buff, Kara was quite a pretty girl with light blonde hair and an athlete's body.
'Maybe if pyramid ball doesn't work out. I think ma wouldn't actually chop off my fingers this time if I even considered becoming a pianist'
It was odd the way she said it and I looked at her curiously. Granddad said that Socrata Thrace was a hard woman with a hard heart. I hadn't seen much of her yet, although Kara wasn't exactly looking forward to her mother's return.
'She hates playing that much?'
Kara shook her head.
'No… she just hates pa. Says he's soft, says he's not a real man'
I'd meet Mr Thrace several times; he was a man with a gentle way about him, a surprising trait for a person whose genetics made up half of Kara Thrace.
'But ma's a bitch' Kara finished off without hesitation 'she's just bitter cause people actually like him'
That was an unfortunate truth that most weren't willing to say.
I looked at my watch then up at the sky. Dusk was heading in fast and they'd be squinting for light in half an hour.
'We better head back, I bet granddad would let you stay for supper, I think he likes you more than me.'
Kara flashed a smile that pulled her whole face up. She always tried to calm herself around the old man, she wanted him to like her, and it wasn't all that hard when she actually tried to be nice. Kara had an easy laugh and a good humor that always brightened up granddad, it was hard to be jealous of it cause when Kara lit up it made everything right.
Our house was across from hers and when the wind was right we could hear her father play. Kara would sing sometimes, she had a strong clear voice that carried well; it'd make Granddad stop and listen with a smile pulling at his lips.
Grandma had been dead for over a decade now. My father tried to get him in-house help but Joseph Adama took great offence and refused. Sending me here solved two problems at once, although dad swore it wasn't the reason for my exile.
'Granddad, we're home. Granddad!' I shouted out as I slammed the door shut. The house was unnecessarily big and modeled like the old houses on Caprica. Everything was fine wood and antique fittings, far too grand for it's setting in the Eos Plains.
There was an unsettled quiet in the air, lingering like a bad smell. The intake of Kara's breath told me she felt it too.
'Granddad!' I called out again. There was a rustle and he emerged at the top of the stairs. Joseph Adama had an ashen face that suddenly looked its age. The man had always been one of dignity and as he got older it seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright and healthy. Now shoulders sagged like all the burdens buried in his mind had been released.
'Zak, Kara' The old man said in a breathless unsteady voice.
We ran up too him, as we bounded up the stairs Kara took my hand and squeezed it.
'Granddad, are you alright? Is something wrong, do we need to call the hospital?'
He looked at us incredulously.
'You haven't heard?'
Kara and I looked at each other then back at Granddad.
'Heard what?'
A brief moment of composure took hold like autopilot.
'Come you two, sit down'
He led us to his study, a place reserved for his privacy and punishment. Only the flushed flesh of Kara's hand kept me grounded, even sitting down she wouldn't let go.
Granddad sat down behind his desk and mindlessly reached for a pen and tapped it against the hard surface.
'Children' He addressed us with all the formality of his lawyer years. 'There has been an attack…. Radio reports are coming in that Caprica…. That Caprica and the colonies have been attacked'
My heart was hit with a sharp pain and my whole body stiffened.
'An attack…' Kara said for me.
Granddad nodded.
'Caprica and…. And it appears that other major colonial cities have been targeted. Do you remember the cylon wars?' Grandfather's voice was wavering. The question was redundant. There was no way to not know about the cylon wars; when the creations of man became so great that they turned against their masters. The machinery of man developed the art of basic human survival and slaughters their enslaving creators. The poetry, media, art; the whole culture of the colonies had shifted since that war. The older generation lived with memories of desolation and destruction and only since them have people eased as each wave of children grew and experiences turned to myths and stories.
'It appears the cylons have returned, exceptionally strong. Things are coming through in fragments but the cylons are demanding surrender, that much is clear, and I believe Talos will give it. This planet isn't a colony; there are no military forces here. Children, I will speak to you bluntly because very soon you will become adults. I estimate that within the hour this planet will be under cylon control and then only the Gods know our fate'
He was speaking with a voice I'd never heard, his eyes looked past us. I leant across the table and took the radio in my hand and turned the knob. Kara sat stunned as fuzzy reports met our ears and confirmed my grandfather's words. .
'My father is in Eris' Kara said with a hollow voice 'he said he'd be gone for just a day, be back by breakfast tomorrow' She turned to me with wide eyes 'He'll be back right? He'll come back?'
I couldn't answer; I couldn't find my voice.
Night crept forth with no real sense of time passing. Kara and i slept holding each other in an armchair, both of us falling in and out of consciousness with no real rest. Caprica was gone. My home: my family. It seemed an impossible thought.
Dad and Lee would be on Battlestar and how long would they last. I should have been up on the Galactica, the one dad had worked on was being turned into the museum and retirement ceremony was yesterday. I'd refused to go, still angry with dad for sending me away to this rock.
Mum would be dead. Those words didn't even make sense. Our grand modern house that she loved would be gone, so close to Caprica city it'd surely be burning. I rocked back and forth. How do you deal with this? How do you accept it?
I closed my eyes and pictured my lost room. Once upon a time, Lee and I had shared, then he became too serious to have a younger brother beside him and I had the room all to myself. Everyone looked on it as a good thing but it became too dark and quiet without him. My toys had too much space and all my worldly belonging couldn't fill it up. My photos, posters and books, did they even exist now? Or were they just burning rubble.
Mum.
Mum with her greying hair and warm smell. Carolanne Adama. I whispered her name just to hear it, to make it exist again in the world. .
Kara stirred beside me, her entire weight leaning into my side. She hadn't done her crying yet, just kept quiet and still every time I erupted with realization. Granddad couldn't look at us; he went off and stayed in his room, sitting even stiller than Kara.
Gods.
Kara. I had Kara. I shifted myself so her head laid closer to mine. We would stay together; protect each other. The cylons were coming and I would not watch her die, we needed to survive.
Gently I shook her awake. Daylight was seeping through the windows and we couldn't grieve any longer. She looked up at me with bleary eyes and for a moment she'd forgotten then the sadness hadn't crept into them.
'We got to get ready, we got to get ready to leave' Realization hit but ploughed through it to understand my words. The cylons were coming; coming to kill or captivate, neither option seemed right to wait for.
'Do you know anywhere on this rock we hide?'
Kara bit her lip and thought.
'The wilderlands, its all uncultivated. Most people would head to the northern hills, not to the south, but I think the south would be safer'
I nodded. There were myths surrounding the wilderlands, people said there were monsters there, the rational people said it was a harsh inhospitable environment, but Kara was right. There was nowhere to hide in the fields and only the Ino forest would provide shelter but that was the obvious place.
I crept into my grandfather's study. He was awake and still, looking without seeing.
'Granddad, Granddad?' The old man lifted his tired head. My grandfather had been a great man of his time, he wrote the law books students studied today and was generally regarded as one of the greatest minds of the generation, right next to the likes of Gaius Baltar.
'We got a plan granddad, we got to get out of here, I don't want to surrender'
A smile ghosted Joseph Adama's lips.
'Good son, that's good son.' He rested his hand on my shoulder 'You and Kara look after yourselves, stick together'
'Aren't you coming?' My stomach dropped and my insides hollowed.
'I won't make it out there. I'm too old for this. I want to die in this house, the one your grandmother and me built. My fighting was done long ago.'
'Granddad…'
'Please, Zak. Leave with Kara.'
The man looked so old now, the last bits of life leaving him. My aunt and uncle, his children were probably dead, as would their children. The survival of my father offered limited hope. His life had ended even though his breathing hadn't.
I crept back into the other room where Kara was finishing the packing. Her mother was a marine and had plenty of survival supplies, which we divided between packs.
'Granddad isn't coming' I said the words as if I was confirming the truth.
Her hands stilled and mouth rolled out a soft 'oh'. I swear there was tear that drowned her usual sparking temper.
'You better say goodbye, he always liked you'
She nodded and followed her into the other room, only to anchor myself at the door and watch the scene unfold. Kara hugged granddad. The man had never hugged me; he was a hand shaker and valued a tight firm grip. Kara looked like small child in the way she wrapped her arms around the old man, a broken little girl who never quite learned the art of a parent's touch. When she emerged from the room she had stiffened, her face held together by the cold steel of empty emptions.
'We'll take the bikes' were her first words. 'We can ride through the fields' She kept quiet about anything else, working silently to prepare.
It was strange how blue and clear the sky was that next morning. Terrible things were happening but the day was fine and warm, in my mind the sky was streaks of black and red with thunderbolt flying, that backdrop seemed far more appropriate to the new reality. In far off distance there was smoke but you could almost trick yourself to believe it a bonfire, common for the region in autumns and winters.
We set off before midday, neither keen to admit that we may have left for good. Granddad kissed our heads and waved us off as if we out for an afternoon bike ride and would be back in time for dinner.
The track was bumpy and we both lost the ability and will to speak. It was a monotonous ride; even the way my legs began to ache had a repetitive rhythm. When the day faded into the evening's blue hue we quickened our pace, it was easier in the cooler air but only lasted as far we could see.
I only looked behind me when we stopped for the night, when I squinted I swore I could see a soft orange haze lighting up the distance.
'You think it's the cylons?'
Kara nodded grimly.
'The radio said they were coming, we should have left earlier'
Maybe, but we didn't know how bad it was earlier or where to go. Even now it was hard to know.
We took turns to sleep, each falling into darkness out of exhaustion, too tired to dream and think. By the first crack of dawn we rode again. Pockets of black smoke appeared in the distance, as it had the day before but this time more pronounced and sinister, so we were careful to keep off the main road.
'Gods' Kara muttered. She said her prayers frequently now, whispering the familiar words as she rode. If there were any Gods, I believed they had abandoned us or unable to help, but Kara kept her faith unwavering.
Towards the afternoon we reached a farmhouse, at first we thought had been abandoned, but as we got closer found a smoldering ruin only a day old. Kara took charge and waved me back as she crept forward against my advice. Half the house was still in tact and held the promise of food. This was how Kara reasoned with me as she pulled a knife from her pack. I doubted a knife would be any help against a steely cylon and hoped to the Gods she wasn't considering the former human residents. She disappeared from sight for a moment before in high voice called me forward.
'Zak! Quick! Bring the packs!'
I bounced forward in clumsy steps, heaving the packs to her voice. On rounding the corner my throat gagged up and palms got sweaty. A woman laid a bloody mess of limbs on the ground, half her face burned.
'Its okay' Kara swallowed her hysteria and made her shaky hands steady 'We got some morphine, it'll help the pain'
The woman had been pretty once with hair even fairer than Kara's and a sharp face. Her eyes moved to Kara and a soft smile set on her lips.
'Lords of Kobol' Kara prayed, looking down at the wreckage that had been a human being 'I don't know how to help' There was so much damage and so much bleeding.
The woman took her hand.
'Thank you' A rasp came.
Tears began to plough down Kara's face with a devastation I'd never seen on any human being. Looking around the burnt out room properly, I saw several other bodies blackened and dead.
'I can say a prayer, I don't know what else to do'
The woman nodded and Kara began.
'Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer, have mercy on the souls of the dead and dying, deliver them to the fields of Elysium, to meet again in eternal peace and happiness. Let the Gods guide us through this life and the next, forever more. So say we all.'
The woman swallowed though it seemed to hurt.
'Thank you… I'll remember you…'
A shuddering breath came forth and Kara collapsed weeping with blood on her hands and a dead woman's head in her lap.
We had to get out. There could be no burial, there was no time and the stench of death was too strong. The cylons had been here and could still be close.
I carefully helped Kara up and was guiding her to the bikes when I heard the high notes of a horses' call. Three of them stood grazing half a mile away. Our bikes were the cheap sort, made for smooth gravel and I doubted how long they'd hold up in the rough bumpy fields.
'Kara, I need you to focus, we have to find a saddle, it'll be easier to ride than bike' They'd be more visibility but it'd make the terrain easier when they reached the wilderland. Kara didn't respond so I sat her down and made a run for the barn, praying the sight would be less than the house. The equipment was all there, my mother enjoyed riding so I knew how to saddle a horse at least. I picked the speckled horse for myself and the steady brown mare for Kara, our new transport, both seemed easy tempered and willing for riders.
'Are you sure its safe?' The fearless Kara Thrace asked cautiously, it nearly made me laugh.
'Your scared of horses' She glared with all the fury and anger I wanted back.
'No, machines are just more reliable' Kara said the words before she could take them back and in a wave of reluctant release we laughed but it could barely cover the horror literal behind us.
The journey was easier and faster with the horses although our increased visibility increased our caution. After a while I stopped thinking. Thinking about anything seemed to hurt so I let emptiness wash over me and fought to keep it in place. Conversations with Kara were about the simple immediate needs and survival. It felt good to have the horse, their movements and behavior was comforting and normal, and lacked any grief.
'It should be another's days ride or so'
We were moving further away from roads and houses, more and more fields were looking wild and abandoned. Talos never had a large population; they'd been a boom thirty years ago when a government program came through that was meant to encourage farming. It halfway worked, although the people came most of the left within the decade and much of the newly cultivated land was left to rot. My grandfather's house laid in the mid ground where crop turned to rot only a few miles out. It was logical reasoning that cylons wouldn't be out here because there simply wasn't people the further out you got, aside from the odd monotheistic oddball cult.
The sky was red that evening, a sure sign of the coming rain. Kara pointed to a rise in the distance.
'That's the Wilderlands up there'
The light was low and there wasn't much to see but I felt the relief all the same.
'You ever been there?' I asked as I leapt off the horse, who I'd named Anders after the greatest Pyramid ball player of time. In the first intended joke in days, Kara said if I wanted that I should have called it 'Thrace'.
'Ma use to drop me off there for a few days, survival training or some crap like that, got hyperthermia once and she said it was my own bloody fault. Never thought I'd be useful, kind of hate her more because it is'
Kara was easier with her horse now though still a bit cautious.
'You know how a machine is supposed to work, with all its clogs and movements, but you can't tell with beasts. Guess they're the original cylon, can turn on you at any moment' Kara reasoned 'Thank the Gods they don't have opposable thumbs'
It was beginning to get easier to pretend, not that everything was okay, but just that nothing else existed except the here and now. Kara stopped loosing herself in stillness so much and as if her personality was a muscle, she eased herself out of the ache and into a shadow of what she used to be.
We slept under a small tarp that night, originally planning to rotate on watch but quickly we both fell into a sleep that only broke with a heavy morning rain. We had thick, waterproof jackets but it didn't stop the wet from seeping into our bones through our exposed hands and faces. The fields shifted to flat dirt that would have been dusty on a fine day but became nothing but mud when the weather broke. Through it all the wilderlands became clear and welcomed us with all its legendary hospitality. The terrain was rough and barren although Kara said there was swampland on the other side of the particularly small mountain.
'The weather must be bad on the other side if its raining here' Kara commented with a grim look 'Usually the mountain keeps the rain from reaching these plains'
I looked around.
'these don't really count as plains, no matter how hard you imagine'
She rolled her eyes 'Well whatever you want to call it, I swear, it usually doesn't rain' Except when it did travelers became caked in a thick swallowing mud.
I never went camping as a kid; Dad didn't have time and mum didn't have the inclination. We lived in suburbia outside Caprica city, there was lots of green but all artificially structured to suit the perfect neighborhood. Occasionally, Lee and I would pretend on the lawn, make tents out of old bed sheets and steal food from the kitchen. We never managed to sleep out there for a full night, it always got too cold, so we'd creep inside with hanging heads to our beds which welcomed us in warm blankets without judgment.
I wondered if this would be the rest of our lives; mud and hunger, or would the nuclear bombs eventually go off and we'll just die all the same. We had a battery run radio that we turned on at nights, the wavelinks were mostly run by cylons now, their voices sounded the same but you could always tell from the contents. Everyone would be safe, they said, if we didn't resist and followed orders. "Refugee" camps were being set up, there was a lot of propaganda about how these camps were being established to foster peace and harmony. I doubted it, so did Kara.
The further out we got, the less you could make out in amongst the fuzziness. By now it didn't really matter, neither of us wanted to listen to it anymore.
A week had passed since the initial attack and we were far into the wilderlands. We couldn't decide where or if to stop so we just kept riding until we collapsed. Indecision formed the decision, in the end. The Kara saw it, out in the repetitive barren landscape she spotted the oddity out in the distance. A definitive crossroads had been reached.
