This one's for Yahtzie, who yelled at me to update and who shares the same favourite episode as me.
My favourite line from that episode (aside from the obvious in the last two minutes) is:
'Well, if you're my subconscious, I've got to say that you're a little full of myself.'
It should also be pointed out that THIS story is only vaguely A/R, the next one has some Rodama action in it, but most of it's hinted at and doesn't get really interesting until near the end and then the story after THAT, there's some hot 'n' steamy for all concerned.
Yowza.
Now, on with the show.
Chapter 4: Told You So
"You two, with me!"
A man with an eye-patch that Edric had never seen before yanked open the hatch to the brig, pointed at them both like he'd rather shoot them and ordered the Marines to descend upon them. The doors to their cells were thrown open, both he and Colton had manacles slammed onto their wrists, had been bodily hauled out of their confining cages and into the main corridors of the Galactica before they knew what was happening to them.
They were surrounded by the guards and buffeted down the corridors between various guns, all pointed at them. Edric bristled when one of the guys manhandled Colton a little too roughly, and his steely glare was more than enough to have the guy stepping firmly away from her. The battlestar heaved and bucked around them. The sound of heavy artillery impacts muffled and thrumming through the hulls.
"Just like old times, eh, Eddie?"
"Don't call me that." He gritted at her, under no illusions that this would ever make her stop. "And this isn't the time for your warped sense of humour."
"Well, doesn't look like you'll be growing one any time soon so I thought I'd be the comic relief in such dire straights."
"Stifle that woman before I do it." Eye-patch barked and Edric snarled at the Marine that moved in on Colton.
"You. Touch her and you'll need an enema to see that gun again." He turned on Colton. "You. Shut up."
"Never." Colton danced around him, slipped like an oddly dressed eel between two marines and stopped in front of Eye-patch with what she hoped was a charming smile pasted over her face. "Arr, matey." She grinned at him and refused to back down when his scowl only deepened. "Now, now, Captain Ahab, I know a way to turn that frown upside down." She held up one finger and took a huge step backwards when he motioned for the marines to grab hold of her. "I need one minute of your time."
"Thirty seconds. There's a war on."
"Exactly. You need all the help you can get which is why the other Adama sent you down here to grab us Cylon sweet-cakes." She was speaking VERY quickly. "Now this ship is taking a helluva beating, judging by hull vibrations and impact sounds, and you need flyboy over there to get his nice shiny ship out there and go and kick some Cylon arse, right? Don't answer it'll take too long. You want me because I know more about these toaster frakwits than anyone else alive and you're thinking that maybe I know something important like, say, a frequency that can scramble the Raiders' systems long enough for y'all to haul ass back inside and jump away nice and safe." Her chest heaved as she sucked in a breath. "That was twenty nine seconds by the by."
"What do you want?" Was Eye-patch's immediate response. Oh, she liked him, none of this pussy-footing around. Right down to bid-ness.
"Out of these cuffs." She held her hands up in illustration.
A sharp nod. "Done." He rattled keys from his pocket and slid them into the locks on the cuffs then he gripped her wrist tight enough to make her suck in a harsh breath. "If you step one toe out of line, I'll airlock you myself."
"I would expect no less from a scurvy knave such as you." She saluted him and was once more surrounded by marines as Edric's manacles were released as well. The ship continued to heave under them. Was it her or was it getting worse? Gods, she hated space.
"You know of a frequency to frak up the Cylons?"
"Well, the way I see it, I've got about five minutes to learn one." Edric stared at her and she shrugged with that childish grin of hers. Excited at the next puzzle given to her.
"And after five minutes?"
She tilted her head and shrugged one shoulder. "Won't matter after that." He arched a brow at her. "Eddie, haven't you figured it out? If I don't fix the frakked up mess for all these idiots, we'll all be dead in five minutes. Happy hunting, darling." She reached up and cupped one side of his face, yanking him down and pressing a deliberately sloppy kiss to the opposite cheek and then waving to him jauntily as they parted ways at the next fork in the corridor.
Edric could only shake his head at her antics, hope she was wrong about the five minute deadline (bad choice of words) and quicken his pace down towards the hanger deck.
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Saul ducked though the hatch and into the CIC a half step behind Doctor Colton and watched a fierce change come over the woman. Her spine straightened, her chin took on a hard edge and her eyes became flint. She barked orders like she was born to it and had the officers scattered in the alarm swamped room jumping to fulfil her needs like she was the Old Man wearing a different face. He had to admit, not that he would ever say it out loud, that he was impressed. He'd read the docket on her too, and if half of the stuff on that sheet was true, she could very well be a very good thing for them and a horrific thing for the Cylons.
"I need the strongest transistor you have and I need the access to the com." When the equipment didn't immediately appear in her hands, she snarled again. "TODAY, people! Baby Bill is nothing like his Grandmama if he lets y'all go this bloody SLOW!" She snapped at the nearest unfortunate crewman. The transistor was shoved into her hands. "I need spare wire, pliers, a sonic screwdriver and gum."
Dee had hauled out a tool box and was yanking things from its jumbled depths and transferring them into Colton's hands as she ripped off the side of the transistor and revealed the wired innards, she grabbed fistfuls and yanked them out into the flashing light so she could see what was going on.
"SOMEBODY TURN THOSE DAMN ALARMS OFF I CAN'T TELL WHAT COLOURS ARE WHAT OTHERWISE!" She bellowed over the wailing sounds of the CIC in full battle mode and all was immediately made quiet. "Thank you." She sang softly and snapped her fingers at Dee. "Gum. Where's the gum?" When Dee just looked at her Colton heaved a long suffering sigh and looked out over the CIC at large. "You mean to tell me that nobody on this Cylon infested ship chews GUM!?"
"I have some, ma'am." A crewman shuffled forward and held out a packet to her.
"Don't call me ma'am unless we're in too deep, boy." She snatched it from his hand, ripped out several pieces and shoved them into a shocked Dee's mouth. "Chew please." She went back to ripping at the transistor, yanking off panelling on the com system and twisting stripped wiring together. Dee stared at her a second and then began to hurriedly chew when Colton looked as if she was about to manually assist.
"This doesn't count?" Saul asked, keeping his good eye fixed on DRADIS, what the hell was going on out there? Not that he wasn't pleased, but Raiders were dropping like flies out there for no apparent reason and that was a little more disconcerting that he liked to admit. He kept the majority of his attention focused on what was going on outside rather than what was going on right in front of him, but he still monitored Colton with half an ear. The President's warning about Colton ringing in his ears.
"Trust me, when we're in too deep, I'll let you know." Colton muttered yanking out a knot of spliced wires, reaching into Dee's surprised mouth and extracting the sticky gum. She barely blinked but nearly everyone else in the CIC, including Dee, grimaced at the very thought of what she'd just done. "Hey, count yourself lucky I didn't reach in for a stool sample." Colton shoved the wires back in, jammed the transistor up against the com console and slammed the panel shut so it was wedged against the machinery. She flicked the power switch and looked at it expectantly.
Nothing happened.
"Shit."
"If you've lied to me…" Saul began.
"Aye, aye, you'll make me walk the plank. Whatever, Ahab." Colton waved him away with a dismissive hand and thought a moment. "I know!" She dived for the tool box, yanked out a mallet, and battered the side of the transistor. It coughed once then thrummed to life. "Yes! Thank you! I'll be here all week. Try the gruel." Colton surged to her feet and the marines closed on her again to escort her from the room.
"Ah, ah, ah!" She waggled an admonishing finger at them and then threw the mallet at one of them to catch. "Please, gentleman, allow me my grand finale."
A nod from Saul had them backing off.
"Alrighty then, boys and girls. Here we are. Balls to the wall and say goodbye to your ability to hear." Colton reached over Dee's head and gripped the huge lever that powered up the com console. Because it was such a large system, it required a lot of juice.
"What?" Saul demanded. Anything requiring his personal pieces being nailed to a bulkhead was decidedly a not good idea in his mind.
"I might have not mentioned that this was still in its test stages."
"How many tests have been done?"
"Including this one?" Colton raised her eyes to the ceiling and counted silently on the fingers of one hand. "One."
"What the frakking hell- -!"
"Now, now, Davey Jones, people will think you don't like me." Colton waved off his menacing advance.
"You don't even know if this works?!"
"Well, it'll either scramble the raiders or…"
"OR!?" Saul bellowed at her.
"Cause our brains to explode. One of the two. Earplugs in everyone!" Colton announced with a cheery smile and flipped the lever down with a piercing shriek of sound and an explosion of sparks.
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The Betty screamed out of the hanger and into the silent black of space. Even with her tarnished hull, she blended into the constant night of the universe and twisted, spinning in a whirling barrel roll that had Edric grinning. Damn, decades of being locked in a sleep he had been aware of somewhere in the back of his mind and he was finally back where he belonged. In his cockpit, with Betty, and ready to kick some Cylon ass.
"Well, Miss Boop, what say you we send some of these toasters back to the manufacturer due to unforeseen faults?"
"Sounds like a plan, Edric." Betty answered smoothly in her odd non-voice.
"Alright then." Edric flexed his gloved hands in the flight gauntlets and leant forward. He listened as Betty's limbs extended to her hyper sleek position, wings stretched out in front of her and her legs tucked up behind her. Her cannons hung loose under her belly like the waiting talons of a predatory bird and she was just looking for a tasty Cylon snack to cut her teeth on.
"That one." Betty murmured. "There." Edric turned, knowing which one she meant despite her distinct lack of ability to point.
"Good choice." Edric murmured and twisted his body. Betty spiralled in the air to mimic his movement and they sliced downwards through the vacuum impossibly fast. They swooped down and smashed into the Cylon raider that had no idea they had been there. The last thing to go through its animal like brain was Betty's outstretched wings as her unbreakable alloy hull sliced cleanly through the raider as if it were tissue paper and left nothing but shrapnel and exploding fuel cells behind it.
"There." Betty said and Edric arched again the wings bucking backwards and aiding Betty and flipping over her own tail and scooting back towards the Galactica as fast as her one of a kind engine could throttle. There was a raider headed for a suicide mission and, well, that was just plain rude as far as Edric was concerned. Betty spun in the air so she was 'right' way up again, snuck up on the raider from behind and promptly landed on its back. The rending of metal on metal squealed over Betty and both the ship and her pilot ignored it. Wings and legs scissored together and caught the raider's wings between their pincer clutches. The raider tried to buck them off but Betty was having none of it. She heaved with Edric's help, and banked away from Galactica. Another raider slid into their flight path and Edric smirked as he thought a command and Betty answered. Twin cannons nudged up and over the raider's head and pointed at its fellow that was being chased by a viper at breakneck speed. Muzzle flashes strobe lighted in front of Edric's face as the cannons unleashed hell on the raider's flank. The ship banked sharply, the tracer bullets shredding a wing to garner its attention. It turned to them and seemed to wobble in confusion when it could only see a fellow raider barrelling towards it.
"Let's make him afraid of the dark, Betty."
"With pleasure." She waited right up until the last instant before releasing her limbs from the death grip they had on the raider. It spun crazily, its crushed wings ruining its otherwise smooth flight. It smashed into its brother with spectacular pyrotechnics and Betty soared through the fire like a dolphin leaping out of water.
"What the frak!" A woman's voice snapped in his ear.
"Found the fleet's com." Betty supplied unnecessarily.
"I can hear that." Edric winced at the feminine bellow that assaulted his ears.
"Apollo, you see that? What the frak was it? Another raider?"
"Looked black, Starbuck. Dunno, raiders don't come in black as far as I'm aware."
"Damn straight they don't." Edric spoke back to the two viper pilots. "Betty ain't no raider."
"Who the frak is this?!" Starbuck, the woman demanded.
"Pleasantries can wait till later, ladies. Right now I've got some cylons I'd like to reduce to spare parts. Care to join me?"
There was a beat of silence on the other end of the com.
"Sounds like my kinda guy, Apollo, what you think?" Starbuck spoke to open com.
"I say we go find some more raiders before all the good ones are taken." Apollo flipped his viper and soared back into the melee, Starbuck wheeled and chased after him and Betty thrummed over their heads, a deadly bloodthirsty shadow that was hungry for more.
THOOM!!
Betty whirled to the side as some kind of shockwave rolled over them, Edric grunted and took pains to right his flyer before asking her.
"What in Hades' skull patterned underwear was that?!"
"Good image. It was some kind of sonic signal. Originated from the Galactica." Betty supplied helpfully.
"She okay?"
"Fine, but look at the raiders." Edric turned his attention back to the mess of a battle and frowned at what he saw. The winged cylons spun crazily in the vacuum, spinning end over end, crashing into each other and generally cocking up all over the joint. He knew what had happened, knew that Colton had come through on her end of the deal and did the only thing that came naturally and seemed right in the situation.
"Adama, here, everyone on me. Taking charge of the flight. The Cylons are down. Repeat; Cylons are down." Vipers were righting themselves around him, blown off course by the shockwave too. "Don't know how long it's going to last but, Gods damnit, let's make it frakking count."
With a burst of turbo thrusters powering up, Betty lunged forward to full gallop and streaked towards the Cylons, only the tarnish of her tough hide and the rippling of stars that her passing caused allowed the viper pilots to track her movement but they did what they had been trained to do. They followed an Adama into battle, knowing he'd lead them straight back out of it victorious or not at all.
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"Where is she?!" Saul staggered to his feet, his inner ears wobbly and his balance shot. "I'm gonna kill her!"
"Heh heh heh heh." The husky sound of a coughing chuckle announced her presence under an unbolted chair. The Galactica listed oddly to one side where the sound wave had temporarily shut down all her systems and allowed her to drift for a few moments. Colton kicked the chair away and moved so Dee could crawl out from under the com. "Well, that was a hell of a thing." She shook her head as if clearing water from her ears. "Anyone up for another round?" She giggled a little drunkenly and wobbled more than a little when Saul hauled her up off the floor. "Greetings, el capitaine!" She managed an unsteady salute.
"You are going straight back into the brig, you destructive little…"
"Sir!" Dee scrambled back up to her station and pointed up to the DRADIS screen which was just now flickering back to life. "It's working. Raiders are drifting and we're wiping the floor with them."
"Told you so." Colton patted his shoulder and pulled a hand rolled from her pocket, lit it and took a long drag from the business end. She held out the packet to Saul. "Want one?"
Saul glared at her for a long moment, then couldn't help but grin. Girl had balls, that was for sure. He accepted the smoke and then lent in for her to light it.
"I suggest you…" She waved her hand up at the DRADIS screen. "Re-leash the hounds of hell, un-scramble them, whatever it is you do. I don't know how long this will last."
"You heard the lady, bring our birds home and spool up the FTL, time to rejoin the rest of humanity, boys and girls." Saul growled the orders out around his cigarette and turned back to Colton to see her smoking hands-free, arms akimbo and scanning the CIC for something she clearly wasn't seeing.
"What is it?"
"Where's Baby Bill?" She took her cigarette out of her mouth with a flourish and wafted smoke everywhere. Saul's jaw tightened until he felt like it was going to fall off. "What? You look like I just kicked your dog."
"Come with me." Saul headed for the hatch and down towards the medical bay. He caught a passing marine. "You, go find that other one and bring him to the medical bay."
Intrigued now, Colton tripped after him and followed him down the corridor as the marine ran the other way to carry out his mission.
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Edric was hustled into the medical bay, despite his protests about getting more tests done. He felt fine, honest, but the marines weren't for having it and they lobbed him into the ward anyway.
Edric found it to be a long spacious room that looked like it had been extended to make more room at some point. Gurneys lined both sides and there was hubs of medical supplies at both ends and cabinets locked with various drugs inside, that looked in dangerous short supply as far as he was concerned. The ward was mostly empty, aside from nurses hustling this way and that at apparent breakneck speed. They ran across the ward, apparently walking the twelve or so steps wasn't fast enough.
Now that was worrying.
A scream rent the bubbling sound of the ward. Everyone froze for a flashing instant before training kicked in and they shifted back into work gear from neutral and then hyper speed again. It had been a woman's scream. Edric immediately thought of Colton and his heart ended up somewhere around his trachea. He had a mission, she couldn't die. That would mean he had failed and an Adama did not fail. He shouldered his way through the throng of medics to the bed where the scream had come from and when Edric Adama shouldered people, they either careened off him or were flattened against the nearest bulkhead. He arrived at the bed, ready to berate Colton for whatever stupid stunt she had gone and pulled now and found himself standing with his mouth hanging open over the President of the Twelve Colonies.
"Frak me." He whispered hoarsely.
To say she looked Gods-awful would have been the understatement of the century. She had been strapped down to the bed, evidently to stop her from hurting herself judging by the way she was thrashing around. Her skin was blistered and covered in angry red blotches, her throat swollen and the blood vessels in her eyes had all burst giving her a chilling maddened look. She was obviously in agony. Bone searing, craze inducing pain that never stopped and drilled into you so hard that even your hair hurt.
It all looked chillingly familiar.
Edric lifted his head over to the next bed when a bellow of pain rang through the ward, seven nurses were trying to pin down the Admiral of the fleet so they could put him under restraints. Edric rushed over, picked up two nurses and put them out of his way before planting one hand on Adama's blistered chest and the other on his still free arm. He pinned the older man to the bed and allowed a stunned nurse to tie him down.
Edric stepped back and looked over his apparent descendant.
He had exactly the same symptoms as Roslin.
"No! No way, you can't give them that."
He recognised that northern tone of superiority. Turning, Edric looked over to where Colton had a hold of Cottle's wrist and was twisting slowly until his face grimaced in pain.
"They're in pain." Cottle gasped and Edric strode over and yanked her hand away from Cottle's before she could pulverise the fragile bones in his wrist. She had never been as good as controlling the strength as he had and it was worse when she was pissed off. Which, fortunately for everyone, wasn't very often.
"I'm giving them the morphine."
"Then you better be prepared for the death sentence, doc. I don't know how much has changed in the last few decades, but where I come from, murdering the leaders of humanity tends to be frowned upon." Colton's voice was deadly quiet. Her expression immovable in its neutrality. She was livid. He had only seen her like this once before, when her father had saved her life.
Everyone in the ward went still at her words.
Except for the President and the Admiral. They still screamed in pain.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't want to say until I'm sure." Colton hedged.
"Oh, come ON, Colton!" Edric whirled her in his arms and gripped her hard by the shoulders. "You know what this is. I know what this is. We've BOTH seen it before."
"Hey, who's the genius here?" She arched a brow at him. There was still some of that chilling anger in her eyes. She was looking for something to rip apart and he had just wedged himself into her sights. "It shouldn't have happened. There's no possible way it could have been transferred."
"Well, you're a scientist," he thrust his arm out to indicate the thrashing patients on the bed. "What's the evidence telling you?"
Colton's jaw hardened to mutinous proportions. Her anger seemed to intensify and roll off her in icy waves.
"Somebody better start talking or I'll have you both air locked." Saul bellowed at them and Colton heaved a sigh.
"It's the nanotech." Colton muttered.
"What?" Cottle looked at her like she'd just said she had three breasts.
"The nanotech." She said louder, turning to face him. "The stuff in our blood, mine and Edric's, that makes us 'special'. Immune to disease, more resilient, better agility, better stamina, reflexes ten times as fast…you name it. We're practically bionic."
"What about it?" Cottle was getting impatient. Two syringes of morphine and years of experience telling him to comfort his patients as best he could. Even if he didn't know what the hell was going on.
Colton raked a hand through her hair and then planted her hands on her slim hips.
"You know how I said that the transference between normal and enhanced was violent? How only two out of twelve survived? Well, we were all turned inside out by it, almost literally, and the first stage, looked exactly like that." Colton pointed at the President and the Admiral.
"You're saying you did this to them?" Saul snarled, advancing towards them. The two marines at the door lifting their weapons and training them on Edric and Colton without orders being issued.
"Not intentionally!" Colton snapped at him. She looked pained for a moment and then worked hard to get the words out in a rush because she didn't plan on saying them again any time soon. "I don't know how it happened."
"Yeah, well, you can sing THAT tune as long as you want in the brig, missy…"
"Hey, there were precautions taken against this. Nanotech replaces the white cell immune system with an offensive organism instead of a defensive one. It's dangerous for that to get a hold of someone else. We coded it into individual DNA, so THIS wouldn't happen." She waved expansively at the agonies on the beds.
"Well, somebody frakked up big time, didn't they?"
"I'd have to agree with you there." Edric put in, folding massive arms over his broad chest.
"Shut up." Colton snapped at him. "It makes no sense."
"Never mind how." Cottle cut in, all this arguing was pointless while his patients were suffering. "Tell me how to fix it."
"You can't."
"What?" Cottle snapped at her. "Your father invented these things didn't he? Tell me how to shut them down."
"You don't understand. It's already too late. The immune system's already been compromised. Even if I could shut the little buggers down, I wouldn't, I'd be sentencing them to death."
"What do you suggest then?"
"Let it run its course. There's a chance, a slim one, that they'll survive."
"As what?" Saul demanded. "Cylon half-breeds?"
"Better than dead." Edric growled and planted himself between Saul and Colton. Saul sensibly backed off.
"Aye, if they survive, they'll be like us, but they'll be alive and very, very, well." Colton said.
"That's it, get them out of here!" Saul waved an arm at them both and the marine's stepped forward.
"Wait!" Cottle barked and the marines paused. Everyone knew that in the med bay, doctor's orders were synonymous with Gods'. Don't piss off the doc because he might be stitching your leg back on some day.
"These two are the only living witnesses of this thing. I need them here. They survived it. They're going to tell me how to get Adama and Laura through it. Got it?" Cottle levelled a glare on the two of them.
They both nodded and watched as Saul and the marines were hustled out of the med bay because they were 'just getting in the way'. Colton and Edric looked at Adama and Roslin twisting on the beds.
"Told you they'd need us eventually." Colton husked hollowly.
"Told you it would blow up in our faces." Edric answered back quietly.
"Aye."
"Yeah."
They looked at each other and then back at the patients, then spoke together at exactly the same time.
"Frak."