So Says the Author: Why, hello again.
I know. Silly, silly me. -coughreferencecough- Eni has already updated? I mean, whaaat? Crazy stuffs, amirite? It's what happens when you're a first-time author and you get your FIRST REVIEW -squee- Even if they're anonymous. I love you anyway, steve. Let's have a round of applause for steve! And to answer his question...
steve: Hello, steve. You are amazing, steve. Now that we've got that out of the way... I honestly don't know, in answer to your question. I know that they're gonna get tortured (oh yus, you didn't think it would be all fun and games and learning to fly happily, did you?) and morale's gonna get the crap beaten out of it. And everyone's gonna start seeing or hearing hallucinative voices of God. After that... well, in all capture stories, they've gotta escape, right? ;)
So that's about as far as I have figured out. ;u; Oh, but I do know that you'll be seeing some other reincarnated characters... -rubs hands evilly- Nope, I don't have an explanation for that either.
Phew. I love my first reviewer so much I just had to give him a long answer -hugs-
Thanks To: thunder18 for not only favoriting and following the story but for favoriting and following me as well! ;w;
Now read!
Max
"The sleeping beauties hath risen!"
Iggy's announcement was followed by snickering laughter courtesy of Gazzy and Nudge.
"Shut up, guys," I ordered irritably. "No need to frighten the newbies."
Something clicked in the walls and a few lights brightened up. I raised an eyebrow at Angel, and she simply smiled sweetly. (Which lately makes me shiver more than squee at the adorableness.)
Being the closest one to our disassembled conga line of experiments, I had the first good look.
There were definitely five of them, all in their late twenties. They were dressed in the plain white pants and shirts that we were wearing, and they all had wings pressed tightly to their backs. (More bird people. Yippee.) The way they were fumbling around in pain every time their wings were smushed beneath their weight, they either had no idea they possessed the things or they'd forgotten completely.
The one closest to me was a guy, average height, with broad shoulders and sandy brown hair that was slightly longer than what a military cut would usually be. When his face turned slightly towards me I got a glimpse of über-vivid blue eyes. He had sharply defined muscles, same as the rest of his crew, and a handsome face.
The next was a blonde woman with hair barely past her chin, blue eyes, and a stocky frame. She looked like she worked out quite often. She had a few tattoos, the most prominent being a circle with a wing coming off of it emblazoned on her left arm. A few scars dotted one knee.
After her was another woman, with an Asian look about her plus dark olive skin. Her hair was sleek and dark, pulled back into a fallen-apart ponytail. She had a slight fringe of bangs. She looked slender and about average height, but something told me a lot more strength than should be possible was hidden in those limbs.
The next was another guy, tall and broad-shouldered, with close-cropped brown hair and kind brown eyes that looked dazed and frantic at the same time. One hand frantically scrambled to reach for the previous woman's, and I guessed they were together. Like, ooh-la-la.
The fifth and final one was another guy, stocky like his friends, with black hair and wide eyes. He looked like the guy with the most upper body strength, with rough hands whose calluses I could see from a mile away like he'd been working with heavy equipment his whole life.
Did I mention they all had wings?
"Frak me," the first guy groaned once he'd focused enough to recognize the bars in front of him.
The Asian woman seemed to shake off the drugs the fastest, quickly followed by the dark-haired man. Next was the first guy, then the blonde woman, and finally Mr. Romance.
"Last I checked, you were dead," 1 said to 2.
She groaned. "Don't ask for insightful answers. I feel stoned."
"Like... really stoned?" 4 slurred.
3 slapped her significant other. He woke up. "Keep it together, Helo," she barked.
1 and 5 raised sloppy salutes, while 2 just snorted and slumped over, looking for all the world like she was drunk.
"Who are you guys?" Gazzy asked curiously.
3 frowned at them. "Kids? Since when do ... people capture kids?" Something seemed to trouble her about this, and when she leaned back and her shirt rode up her stomach a little, I noticed barely-visible stretch marks. So. Ooh-la-la and Mrs. Wong have a kid.
"Well duh, seeing as we're all freaks here," Iggy quipped.
"Hey, I still have my pretty face," 'Helo' argued with a large smirk plastered across his face.
2 snorted... again. "Duke it out with Apollo, Helo."
A chorus of laughter, and 1 protested, "I don't remember signing up for a beauty contest, Starbuck."
Alright. Three names, two to go. Helo? Apollo? Starbuck? A little funky, but with a name like Maximum, I suppose I'm being hypocritical.
"You didn't answer my question," Iggy pouted.
Wong leveled a calm, dangerous glare at him - not that it mattered, he couldn't see it, but she didn't need to know that - and responded evenly, "You haven't given us a reason to."
"Just call her Athena and try not to hate us," 5 spoke up. "More enemies don't sound fun right now. Especially not a group of vindictive kids."
More riotous laughter. That did it, they were stoned, save for Athena. "Okay, so we've got the god of the sun and the goddess of wisdom, Starbuck's Coffee Company, Helium, and the mysterious unnamed guy," I summarized.
"Tyrol," Apollo supplied.
"Okaaayyy. Sunny, Brains, Espresso, Balloon, and Tyrol," Fang cracks a grin and I laugh.
"We'll offer some equality," I said without skipping a beat. "I'm Max, that's Fang, Blank-Eyes is Iggy, that's Nudge, and the twin blonde spawns of Satan are Gazzy and Angel. And yes, we're all freaks."
Apollo closed his eyes. "My back itches."
I spread my wings a little. "Welcome to the circus, my Lord," I said sarcastically. My flock followed suit, letting their feathers breathe while trying to keep them from hitting the bars of their cages.
Eyes bulged out of their sockets. Helo choked (on his own spit? I like this guy), Athena coughed, and Apollo twitched. Starbuck laughed, and Tyrol froze.
Finally, Nudge broke the silence. "Show us yours!" she said indignantly.
"Sorry, my only wings are a tiny metal pin that I ditched a long time ago," Apollo replied, a little bewildered.
"Does your 'itch' feel like a pair of muscles?" Gazzy prodded. A few hesitant nods and glares. "Then flex them."
Starbuck was the only one who tried, and her friends nearly shit their pants. The woman herself reached around behind her, only to encounter the strange feeling of a small wall of feathers and muscle. Her wingspan was probably near seventeen feet, I guessed, and were pure white with a dusky gray fringe and brown faded spots.
"Pretty," Angel commented.
Athena followed, and shrieked a little when she inadverdently folded her seventeen-foot wingspan around herself. Hers were a dark, dark chocolate brown, shot through with black feathers along the tops.
Helo's jaw dropped open, and he and Apollo both unfolded theirs at the same time. Both had near-eighteen feet of feathered muscles. Helo's were russet brown and white, speckled like a hawk's. Apollo's were golden brown with white primaries and darker flecks.
Tyrol was the last to try, and as he revealed eighteen-foot wings colored shades of charcoal gray, he looked like he was going to faint.
"That's not metal," I pointed out unnecessarily, trying to hold back my laughter.
"What the frak?" Starbuck all but whimpered. "That's not possible. There's no frakking way."
Athena put her head in her hands. "If they've grown wings on us, they probably tested us," she started to say, voice muffled. "That means they probably know about me and Galen."
Tyrol- Galen I guessed was his first name- bit his lip. "Software with wings, huh?"
"Software?" I questioned, growing wary.
"We're..." Athena hesitated, looking at Tyrol almost as if he was her superior, even though beforehand she'd seemed like the more dominant one. He nodded almost imperceptibly - looking suspiciously unused to command - and she continued. "We're Cylons."
Blank looks all around.
(Helo was still gazing at his wings in slack-jawed blank-eyed wonder, and Starbuck looked like she was finding it hard to focus.)
"And...?" I drawled.
"You don't know what Cylons are?" Apollo asked incredulously. "Wait- you have electricity." The whole group's gazes (save Helo) flicked up to the fluorescent lights. "How long ago was the time of your ancestors? Since the, ah, tribal people? We called them cavemen."
Fang looked them over suspicously, and Angel let out a quick gasp. "You're- you've been here before," she repeated, but this time her voice was full of wonder. "You guys lived here over one hundred and fifty thousand years ago."
"One hundred and fifty thousand?" Starbuck gaped, at the same time as Apollo demanded, "How did you know that?"
"She can read minds. Freaky stuff, I know. Now... can I PLEASE get an answer to the Cylon question?" I elaborated, annoyance clear in my voice.
Athena looked at Tyrol, who nodded for her to explain. She took a deep breath.
"It's a long story. It starts with a planet called Kobol..."
Over an hour later, silence finally fell after Athena's looooong explanation. And the only thing I could say? "Mindfuck."
All motherly no-cussing rules went out the window. My brain was still struggling through everything she'd said. The five people sitting in front of us were our great-great-great-great-a hundred thousand greats-relatives, distantly. The Cylon blood had long died out of our systems, apparently, but there was a tiny ounce of it in all of us nontheless. The Twelve Colonies were responsible for the evolution of the human race, and their leaders were sitting in front of us.
"Mindfuck," I repeated. "Or, I guess the way you say it, 'mindfrak'."
"Speak for yourselves," Helo said weakly. "I still can't get used to..." he gestured vaguely at his feathers, folded all neatly back up. "... This."
I glanced at the clock the whitecoats had conveniently placed on the wall for us. I knew the routine, back from our first seven-or-so years of life spent here. It was almost fly time.
"You'll get a chance to use 'em in about a minute, so I'd get ready. You're about to get a crash course in flying - old school style."
Right on cue, thirty seconds later, a loud buzzing sound rang out and the hatches on our cages sprung open. The back wall opened and we all filed out, the five Colonists following our lead.
We emerged into a large, open field, all grass and a slight artificial breeze. I knew that exactly two hundred feet above our heads, the fake blue sky turned out to be a hard synthetic dome. Not fun to smash into, let me tell you, but it'll warn you about two seconds before impact. Let's hope the Colonial yahoos thought quick on their feet. I also knew that the whitecoats were watching us, concealed within the walls somewhere.
"Okay, first lesson. Takeoff is optional, landing is mandatory." I smirked. "So don't do either lightly."
Apollo cut me off just as I was about to continue Snarky Flying 101. "Uh… Max, four of us have flown regularly before, and I believe Tyrol was taught rudimentary Raptor flying. You can skip basics." Just as I opened my mouth to retort sharply to that, he laughed and said, "Yes, we know that flying with actual wings is different, God."
I frowned. "What did you call me?"
Starbuck snorted in laughter.
"God. Where we come from, Starbuck was a flight instructor, and she always made all of her students call her God," Apollo explained.
"Hey, you said that your names are just callsigns, right?" Nudge spoke up. Various nods were her answer. "Then… don't you have real names?"
"We prefer our callsigns for now-" Athena started to say, but Tyrol cut across her.
"You already know mine, since I'm not a pilot. Galen Tyrol. Most of the people on Galactica, including the Old Man, just called me 'Chief'."
I nodded. They'd told us about the Old Man, Admiral Adama. Apollo had looked particularly sorrowful when the guy was mentioned. I made a mental note to ask him about it later, although I wasn't too hopeful about an honest answer.
"Kara," Starbuck said.
"Karl," Helo said at almost the same time, smiling at Galen.
Athena sighed. "Sharon. But you already knew that, we explained the Cylon models."
A pause. We all looked expectantly at Apollo, but he let us hang, until… "Lee."
"Alright!" I clapped my hands. "Now, if we're finally done, can we get on with flying?"
Grumbled mutters of assent met my ears and I beamed my best shit-eating grin. "Okie-dokie people. Let's start with takeoff. Easiest way is to launch yourself off a cliff, but since this place is sadly devoid of one, we'll start with the running-and-jumping method. Run, spread your wings, flap, and hope for the best." Then I stood back and looked at my five pupils expectantly.
"You can't be serious," Galen groaned. "That's all the instruction you get?"
"It's the same in my old class in Galactica," Starbuck pointed out. "Tell 'em the basics, hand 'em a manual, stick 'em in the cockpit, and throw them into space."
Apollo laughed. "It wasn't quite that bad. I taught one of your classes while you were out with that busted knee, and your students were scared shitless of me. Mostly because they thought if funloving Starbuck was so bad, then the CAG with the stick up his ass had to be much worse."
"You did have a hell of a stick up your ass," Athena admitted, and they descended again into laughter.
I cleared my throat impatiently. "If you're quite done… can we get on with the flying?"
A chorus of "Yes, God"'s sounded and after some more giggling they got their shit together and stood a good twenty feet apart each, to allow room for their huge wingspans. My flock took to the air, with the exception of Fang and myself. We'd be ground control and wait until the newbies got the hang of it, as much as my wings were aching to fly.
Apollo and Starbuck were the first to start running, to no-one's surprise. They even turned it into a bit of a race, running faster and faster (and flapping) until with herky-jerky movements, Lee caught the breeze and was lifted off the ground. Kara, not one to be outshone, quickly flapped even harder and shot up next to him.
The looks on their faces when they realized they were actually frakking flying were priceless.
"Woooooo!" was the consensus as the two Viper jocks found their speed and banked sharply before hitting the dome wall, swooping upwards – albeit a little clumsily.
Helo was next, Sharon a few paces behind him. Both wobbled as they lifted into the air, but with the semi-experience of Raptor pilots, they fell into tandem and gained altitude quickly.
Tyrol was the only one left. Rubbing his arm, he murmured, "My bones are aching."
"That would be because the whitecoats so thoughtfully hollowed them out," I said dryly. "Now get to it, Chief. Your friends are leaving you in the dust."
He nodded nervously and started running, not looking very sure of himself. After a moment he remembered to flap and did so as hard as he could, beating the air with powerful strokes. Slowly, his feet left the ground, and… he was airborne.
"Ohmygodsthisissofunhahahah!" Helo yelled, caught up in the rush.
"Hey, Chief!" Sharon called teasingly as Tyrol spiralled up to join them. "Nice of you to finally make it!" She twirled a clumy circle around him.
I rolled my eyes as Fang and I rejoined the flock. "They're like a bunch of kindergarteners who just learned how to play a new game," Nudge giggled. "Even though they're, like, a decade older than us."
I snorted. "Yep. They're kinda childish, despite the fact they should be dead."
"Don't be grim!" Iggy chastised, diving down to teach them how to play Wing Tag.
"Let me teach!" I protested, swooping after him. Before I got out of earshot, I heard Angel say to Fang,
"We're childish too. Max most of all, sometimes."
My jaw dropped. "I HEARD THAT!" I hollered over my shoulder, but I followed Iggy the rest of the way to where the newbies were forming an unsteady flight formation.
Iggy and I hung back, Wing Tag plans forgotten, simply watching in awe as they all gained their sea legs- er, sky legs? – quicker than should be possible. Even Tyrol was catching up. With Apollo and Starbuck as the ringleaders, they fell into a militaristic flight formation – half of a wedge, with point fanning out in small tight barrel rolls. Perfect for battle, I supposed.
"Cylon raider!" Apollo called out mockingly, yet seriously, if that was possible. "He's on your six, Helo!" Helo rolled neatly out of the way, folding his wings in slightly as he went through a few sloppy escape manouveres. "Starbuck, you're with me. Athena, Chief, split and on my mark, come in from both sides." Both complied, peeling off to obey orders.
If I recalled what they'd said their military ranks were, Lee was a Major. I think that's higher than Lietenant, Captain, and Chief, which is what the others were, respectively. And he'd been 'CAG', which was the Commander of the Air something.
"I've got your wing, Apollo!" Starbuck called out as the two rolled up and around in a loop to come up behind the 'Raider'. Both of them mimed shooting a handgun, making the 'raider' that none of us could see but that they could all picture so clearly swerve about. Before it could come about and shoot Apollo and Starbuck out of the sky, Tyrol and Athena came diving in from either side, also miming shooting their guns. Helo came rocketing upwards and finished it with a neat shot to one wing. Whatever that meant.
Once they'd broken formation and banked fluidly to rejoin us, the whole flock was just flying in lazy hawk circles, watching the display with wide eyes.
"Well," I cleared my throat awkwardly, the first to speak. "You know your shit."
For some reason this seemed immensely funny to them, and they doubled over laughing, momentarily forgetting where the hell they were. Five figures dropped like stones and Helo let out a manly shriek, before they remembered to flap and came drifting back upwards, blushing bright red.
Silence. Then, "Helo, I didn't know you could reach that octave."
This time when they all cracked up, they continued flying, and started spiralling down to the ground to rest their tired wings. They hadn't built up any stamina yet, after all.
"My bones hurt," Athena admitted as they rested on the grass.
The whole group murmured agreement. "Max said it was because the scientists hollowed them out, to make us lighter and able to fly. Also, something about air sacs?"
Athena blanched. "Lords, I hope it won't mess up my organs even more."
"More?" I questioned, landing on the grass next to them. I'd let the flock continue flying for the time being – the whitecoats let us have this free time, we'd take it. Even if it would just become a carrot for them to dangle in front of us. "What's wrong with your guts?"
"'I find it hard to believe you people went to all the trouble of …' something something, '… but you didn't bother to upgrade the plumbing!'" Sharon quoted, imitating a deep, gravelly voice.
The group cracked up again. "Cottle, the old bastard!" Starbuck chortled. "I completely forgot about the guy. Lords, he was the worst."
More smiles and references to things ensued, but most of it went right over my head. I wasn't sure what they meant by 'hotdog' as if they were referring to a person, 'nuggets', the Old Man, 'that frak-up Baltar', and a few other names.
"Crap!" I let out a few more expletives, the Colonists looking at me strangely. There was another convenient clock on the opposite wall, and by the looks of the time the whitecoats would be hauling us in soon. "GUYS! TIME'S UP, GET YOUR TAIL FEATHERS DOWN HERE PRONTO!" I howled.
The flock came circling down just as the ground dropped out from under our feet. The five newbies plus myself extended our wings as a reflex, me a bit faster on the uptake. The flock joined us with resigned sighs, and we just glided down the deep shaft until we came to a pure white room where we were once again locked into cages. Rows of Flyboys lined the walls, ensuring no hope of escape.
As we were wheeled down hallways slowly and methodically, we passed by a large hangar. Peeking inside as we passed by, I noticed a few strange aircraft and a huge bin full of foreign weapons and missles that didn't look American. The faces of all five newbies lit up like a little kids' at Christmas, though, and I filed that away as important info to ask about later. Maybe the aircraft I'd seen was something they recognized. After all, they were military, weren't they?
So Says the Author: Not as much of a cliffhanger, I guess, but Eni was feeling nice today.
So. Was it crap? I thought it was crap, but I think pretty much all of my writing is crap. Which is why I need you lovely peoples on the interwebs to say nice things! Pwease?
Gahd. The shameless self-advertising. Yep, they kinda got the hang of it quickly, because I'd rather not spend the time writing out sequences of winged Colonial idiots falling out of the fake sky and learning slowly. Your arguments are invalid. (Or maybe they're valid, but I won't listen anyway.)
I feel like the worst author ever now ;n; Demanding feedback then telling you I won't listen. -sigh- Still haven't gotten the hang of it.
Guilt trip, children! Eni will love you! ;^;
- Eni