To Hell and Back

Chapter Six: "I HATE This Job Sometimes"

Ron was in the Archangel's medical bay, getting his hands covered in gauze.

"Now, is that going to be the last time you do that?"

"I'll wear rubber gloves next time; I was in a rush!"

His hands were dipped in water to help with the burns.

"FRAK!"

The doctor rolled her eyes.

"OF COURSE it hurts. You got electrocuted by over 50000 volts of power! You're lucky you're not dead."

Ron laid down on the bed.

"It was less then an amp! There was no way in hell it could've killed me!"

The Archangel's medical officer sighed. "

I pray to Allah that you recover quickly."

Ron looked at her. "Allah?"

"Oh, I'm Islamic. We believe in one God, but unlike some hardliners, we believe that the Gods of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are one and the same."

"Well, I'm more of an atheist, myself, but I do pray to the Lords of Kobol, our gods."

"Captain Gladys told me: the Greek Parthenon's the Earth equivalent of your religion."

"I can assume its dead?"

"Yes. Died out some 2000 years ago. It took a lot to finally put the flame out, so to speak."

"Well, it's back, in some other form."

"We can worship whatever we want. No terrorism, though."

"No shit."

Battlestar Pegasus: Marine Training room

Shaw was handling the training of new Marines when a few of the Archangel's crew entered.

"Who the frak are you?"

The old African-American man saluted.

"Mark Wilkins, Archangel Marine Commander.

You people need a proper drill instructor and I was shanghaied to do it."

Shaw rolled her eyes, but the Marine took her gun and she left.

Orb Battlestar equivalent LCAM-01XA Archangel

"Problems with our new FTL drive?"

William Birkin, a Lieutenant in the Colonial Corp of Engineers, shook his head.

"Normally, there are some problems, but your ship is an exception, likely due to it being a warship, Captain Ramius."

"'Ms. Murrue' will do fine."

"You're a commissioned officer, ma'am, not a volunteer."

Birkin got up.

"Has Major Pinkerton recovered from his shocking experience?"

Murrue laughed at Birkin's jab at Ron getting electrocuted.

"Oh, I'm fine, Birkin."

Ron entered the bridge with his arms all taped up and in slings.

"Maybe you'd like it after I zap you!"

"You wouldn't!"

Ron laughed.

"You know damn well I wouldn't! But never have fun at my expense, Birkin, or else you'll find yourself out of a job."

Birkin saluted. "Yes, sir. Sorry sir."

The shocked man left. "Report to the Pegasus at 0600. Yoko needs help with the Minerva FTL drive and since I'm out, you're in, wife or no."

Ron walked out, then tripped. "OH, FRAK!"

Battlestar Galactica: 0550 hours the next day

"A rescue mission?"

"Force Recon. Pegasus is the command ship; I'd like you to fly support, Captain Ramius."

"I'll do that. Colonel Wesker's requesting to work with the Colonial Corp of Engineers; he's being rather forceful."

Adama looked at Wesker's profile: 'unlucky as frak' was the term to use.

"He's the one responsible for you being here, right?"

Murrue chuckled.

"Not his fault, actually. Most of the plasma particles hadn't become inert before Wesker fired. All the weapons fire supercharged his shot."

"The pilot of the Destroy's suffering from some kind of drug withdrawal. She's in pain. The Minerva's sent over what medical files they had, and we've seen this before."

Murrue was now curious.

"What?"

"Viper pilots used a drug cocktail during the war to boost their combat performance: Colonial 'Extendeds', I guess you could say."

"And you let this happen?"

Adama looked at the woman.

His infamous Glare wore her down in seconds.

"We were at war at the time, and the President was tried for war crimes after the war. The only cure for our pilots was a blood transplant, but it required 6 pints to cure the pilot."

"An entire person's blood supply?"

"One of the volunteers was Major Pinkerton. His ideas solved our 'Extended' problem, and he gave blood to one of the pilots. Luckily for your Alliance friends, he's type A, just like her, and has a lot of blood for a person."

ZAFT Battlestar equivalent LHM-BB01 Minerva

"Oh, that's just fraking great. I get electrocuted after by installing the Archangel's FTL drive, then get hit on the head by a fraking wall after tripping, and now I've got to give blood to another fraking pilot with drugs in her system?"

Ron laughed bitterly.

"I HATE this job sometimes."

Major Sherman Cottle, Fleet/Galactica chief surgeon/chain smoker from hell, chuckled at the Major's unwillingness to give blood.

"She'll die if you don't."

"I said I don't like it, I never said I won't do it."

He looked at the thrashing Stella.

"Besides, she looks like my step-sister. Before the Fall: she died on Tauron with other members of the Corp."

He laid down, and Cottle shuck a needle in his arm.

"I'm doing this for my step-sister, not you, Neo Roanoke."

The leader of Phantom Pain frowned.

The Major was not an enemy he wanted to fight.

"Let's get this over with."

"This might not work, Major. Earth's Extendeds are different then their Colonial counterparts."

"If it does, I'm going to hurt you badly, Roanoke."

Ron laid down and fell asleep. Ron started snoring.

"Bare with it. We can't cure that, I'm sorry to say."

He pulled out a smoke. "Light up and you're next."

Battlestar Pegasus: Raptor Recovery Mission

Kira, deciding to see what a Viper was like in flight, replaced Showboat as Kara's wingman.

And he saw why Mobile Armor pilots liked the fighter design: easy to fly and deadly in the right hands.

"Nothing to the right of me, nothing to the left of me. What about you, Kira?"

Kira shook his head.

"Nothing-Wait, I see something." Two flying wing-design fighters-similar to the B-2A Spirit bomber of the late 20th century-were coming at them, just beyond DRADIS range, but just inside the range of Kira's eyes.

"Fighters. Two of them at least, maybe more. Mr. Adama, what do you think?"

On board the Pegasus, in CIC, Kendra Shaw sent the reply. "Mr. Yamato, you will refer to the Commander by rank or 'sir'!"

"Major, he's not Colonial. Let it go." He took the phone from Shaw.

"Kira, how many are there? If there's more then four, turn back: we can't risk you getting shot down."

'Besides, your sister would kill me.'

Cagalli Yula Athha, in full Orb dress uniform, was in CIC, watching Lee's every move. Back with the Vipers, Kira saw a full squadron of 20 coming at them.

Pegasus' DRADIS confirmed that.

"Back to the nest, NOW!"

Kara and Kira 180'ed, and afterburned back to the Mercury-class Battlestar.

The Archangel activated her AA CIWS guns, with gaps for the two Vipers to fly through. "These ships...I can almost see them. There's something weird about them."

Weird was right: these weren't modern Cylon Raiders: these were the older, Cylon War-era Raiders.

Kira and Kara couldn't evade the Cylons forever.

On board Pegasus, Kendra saw this.

'I'm not letting the Cylons get this ship.'

"Ensign, set the batteries to full auto fire."

The weapons officer looked at her in confusion.

"NOW, Ensign."

Back with our favorite pilots, the flak field from the guns picked up, and damn, was it noticeable.

"Frak, Shaw's shooting at us!"

"Just shoot the cannon fire!"

"Reading my mind, kiddo!"

The KEW cannons spat flames, and the Vipers entered the starboard hanger bay.

Unfortunately, so did one of the Raiders.

Kara spun around as Kira landed and shot the bastard. It crashed into the dorsal pylons, killing the flight crew and crashing it to the deck, slamming into her Viper.

Kara's eye twitched for 10 seconds. "Son of a Bitch!"

5 minutes later: Battlestar Pegasus Starboard Hanger Bay

Kara was bleeding from her face, injuries suffered from the crashing of the Cylon Raider into her Viper.

"She's a loose cannon!"

"And she's also the XO."

"Kara, that barrage saved our lives."

Kira, who was fine after the battle, walked over in his flight suit.

Kara, on the other hand, wanted to kill Shaw.

She walked over to the Pegasus XO.

"Want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?"

"If I were you, Captain, I wouldn't question the results of my tactical orders."

"Tactical orders? That's what you call firing at your own pilot?"

"Questioning orders is a very bad idea on this ship, Captain."

Kara smirked.

"Cain's dead. So's her style of command. Shoot at me again, I'll pull a Boomer on you. Get me?"

Boomer, the Model 8 Cylon who served on Galactica, shot then-Commander Adama with her FN 5-7 at point blank range, and she nearly killed him.

It took two emergency surgeries to save the Old Man.

And everyone on Pegasus wanted to do the same thing to Shaw after she took the place of second in command.

Kara was the first person to threaten her with it, though.

"Break it up."

Kira pushed the 2 women away before things could get ugly.

"Kira's right. Break it up. You're making a scene."

Then the remains of the Raider entered the Hanger.

"Now where the frak did you come from?"

Battlestar Pegasus: Starboard Hanger Bay

Tigh looked at the Raider and its Model 0005 Centurion pilots.

"Haven't seen one of these outside a museum in 40 years."

He looked at Shinn, who blushed in embarrassment. (AN: For further information, see Chapter 2.)

Kira and Ron (who recovered from the blood transplant, but was looking like Dracula(Add Transylvanian accent here)) looked at the chrome plated Cylon hanging out of the cockpit.

"So this is a Cylon."

"First Gen, Model 0005. I, unfortunately, helped with the final design of the AI."

Ron sighed.

"And I still don't like them."

"Where'd they come from?"

"No clue. They just appeared out of nowhere."

"Well, like the 2nd Gen Raiders, these things have FTL drives."

Roslin looked at the Cylons and asked the most stupid question put to a CCE officer.

"Why would the Cylons resurrect a model they believe is obsolete?"

"Maybe they wouldn't."

Sharon Agathon, the defecting Model 8 Cylon, looked at the Centurions.

"Something you want to add, kid?"

Sharon looked at the old Major.

"There's mention of a group of Centurions called Guardians who escaped the deactivation of all the old model Centurions."

"What do these Guardians guard?"

Lunamaria Hawke smirked at Shaw's wordplay.

"A Hybrid. The first step between machines and fully organic forms."

"The Raiders being Step 3, right? They are biomechanical, after all."

"Yes, but it was a dead-end. Hybrids are used on most Baseships, but not like the First one."

"Any idea where it is?"

"None. I don't have access to that kind of data."

"If the Cylons have our people, these Guardians are likely suspects. See what Tyrol and Baltar over there can do. I'll be on the Minerva."

"Ditto on that, Major."

Ron, Luna and Shinn walked over to a Raptor to head back to the Minerva.

ZAFT Battlestar equivalent LHM-BB01 Minerva

Stella was recovering in the medical bay, and Neo was around to get clocked.

Ron entered the bay about 5 minutes after boarding, ran up to Neo and punched him in the face, followed by Shinn.

"That's for making me donate blood."

"And that's for breaking your promise to me, asshole!"

Neo's mask was now broken and fell off his face.

"That hurt."

"That was the point, assbite. Now, if you excuse me, my casts need to be replaced."

Luna helped him onto a bed.

"Wait a minute." She studied his face. This man was...

"You're Mu La Flaga!"

Neo shook his head.

"What?"

"Mu la Flaga, an ace pilot from the last war. Blue Cosmos must've done the same thing to you as they did to Stella: wiped your memories and gave you a new identity."

"I'm not this La Flaga guy."

"Well, would you object to a DNA test? It's impartial, so either of us will know if we're right."

"Fine by me, kid."

Luna floated up to the bridge. Stella woke up, and saw Shinn, then hugged him. "Well, that's new."

September 12th, 2010 update: simple editing has been completed and all grammar mistakes fixed.

It's not entertaining at all to do this, but if the successor to this series is to make any sense, I've got to do it.

Ja Ne!