Chapter Eight
Action stations. Action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill…
There was one good thing about the utter chaos Kara and Lee ran out into. No one was going to be paying any attention to possible Cylon prisoners and their escape.
Crew members were rushing by, some were yelling, others grabbed at one another, seeking information, consolation.
Kara tucked her weapon into the small of her back, sprinting through the teaming mass towards the hangar deck. There was an air of panic that went beyond the usual for an attack; the sound of distant shouts. Something was so very wrong.
Sparks flew from some of the consoles, their digital screens flickering.
Action stations. Action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill…
Another shudder, another impact. Kara was thrown down to the floor on her back. She sucked in a sharp breath as her elbow cracked against the floor. Lee was flung up against the bulkhead with bruising strength. He pushed stiffly away from the wall and reached out an arm to help her up. He clutched her outstretched arm and grunted a little he hauled her to her feet.
"Okay?"
She nodded briskly.
They resumed their sprint, darting around the corner into the next corridor.
A young male pilot with brown hair rushed towards them, throwing a look back over his shoulder.
"Toasters on the move, up ahead," he barked before he turned back around and his eyes widened with recognition.
"Kara!"
Sam drew up in front of her, oblivious to Lee who had stopped as well. He grasped her by the upper arms, breathing raggedly, sweat glistening above his upper lip.
"Kara, thank the gods. I figured you were still stuck in the brig. Everything's being shot to hell-you'd have been like a fish in a barrel," he gulped in a great breath of air.
Kara laid a hand on his chest, meeting his eyes in that way you do when you're trying to help someone calm and focus.
"We're pilots, Sam. We need to get to the hangar deck. The sooner we're in the sky the better." She attempted to drag him along with her for a few feet.
He shook his head stepping in front of her, "I don't think it'll make much difference, four cylon base ships just jumped right on top of us."
Lee stepped slightly between them and to the side, eyes on Sam, "Then why haven't we commenced emergency jump preparations?"
"Mother frakkers took out our FTL first thing. Galactica's dead in the water, taking all the hits, trying to shield the Fleet…"
"Frak," Kara swore furiously, "I guess that explains why we're being tossed around like cubits in a jar."
Sam kept shaking his head, his voice took on an edge of despairing laughter, "It's going to be an all-out bloodbath, Kara. The raiders are suicide diving into the sides of the ships. It's like they have no sense of preservation any more. Heavy raiders too…Centurions are starting to board…I saw them…" he stopped, looking slightly overwhelmed.
Lee stiffened beside her, pulling out his weapon, "Kara-"
"I see it," Kara snapped, placing a firm hand on the back of Sam's head, "Get down!"
She shoved down with all her might, forcing Sam's body to bend and fold to the ground. A shot whizzed past her ear as they fell, loud and hot and too close.
The sound of Lee's weapon discharging repeatedly followed her to the floor, she reached behind her and pulled out her own sidearm. Her arm stretched across Sam's shoulders as she fired off multiple rounds. Several shots hit the centurion squarely in the visor where a menacing red bead slid to and fro. The glowing red dot stopped with a shower of sparks and a sizzle.
Kara and Sam scrambled out of their crouch and Kara threw an anxious look over her shoulder to see Lee pushing away from where he was flattened up against the bulkhead. There was just enough time for the three of them to sprint through the adjoining corridor opening. She could hear the sightless machine still struggling to engage its weapons behind them. A shower of directionless gunfire, still deadly. They turned a corner and a thrill coursed through her. She felt the inappropriate urge to laugh out loud.
Not only had none of that toaster's blasts had the chance to find the back of Samuel Ander's head, but they hadn't managed to put any new holes in her and Lee either.
Rejuvenated, she picked up her speed, more anxious than ever to get to the hangar deck and climb in her viper where she could do some serious damage.
"Thanks, Kara. I owe you one," Sam threw over his shoulder from where he ran just ahead of her and Lee. His words were no less sincere for his breathlessness.
"Anytime, Sammy." From where she was standing, she'd owed him one.
The distant sounds of staccato centurion gunfire began to echo throughout Galactica's corridors, pushing them to run faster.
Kara's hurriedly obtained flight suit was still hanging halfway down her middle as the three of them sprinted across the upper landing.
They reached the ladder, the sound of their feet hitting the rungs, the uneven hitch of their breathing, was drowned out by the shouts of the deck hands and pilots below. Kara had to hold onto the side of the ladder for dear life as another impact shook the battlestar while she was still descending.
As soon as they walked out onto the deck, she could immediately count at least seven vipers that should have been in the air but weren't. And that was assuming all alert vipers were away, otherwise there could be even more. She didn't want to think about where those seven or more pilots were if they were not in their cockpits.
Lee was immediately off and running, organizing, shouting, prodding, and prepping the pilots and crew. Sam gave her shoulder a squeeze and then jogged off in the direction of his viper.
Kara spotted a familiar form crouched beneath a viper's belly. She ran towards him.
"Chief!"
He looked up, momentary surprise flashed in his eyes, then his expression settled back quickly into that look of determined concentration one wears in the midst of duty and battle. There was a nasty gash along his temple, bruising all along his hairline near the wound. He was pulling at some tubing.
"Captain."
"I'm going to need my bird, Chief," She scowled, dragging in deep breaths. Her lungs burned. She flattened her palm against the viper's body, bracing as another shudder rippled through the ship's hull.
Chief sliced off a bit of the tubing, replaced it, and stood.
His eyes narrowed, "If you're expecting an argument from me, Captain, you're not going to get it. Truth is, we can use every viper pilot we have and probably some we don't. Fresh from the brig or not."
Kara nodded briskly, relieved, slipping her arms into her suit's sleeves with sharp, agitated movements. She took turns holding her flight helmet in each arm.
"How did this happen?" She didn't really expect an answer so she was surprised when he replied.
"An eight, Boomer to be exact, sir, showed up not an hour ago. With Ellen Tigh in tow no less. Says she escaped from the one model, Cavil."
"Boomer?" Of course. It had happened before. Only this time, there were no Cylon allies and no need for Cavil to preserve information on Resurrection since he'd never lost it. There was only his blind hatred and a bunch of lobotomized raiders.
She felt a frisson of icy fear snake through the pit of her stomach. The little information she had painted an abstract picture, a jumble of puzzle pieces that tried to tell a story Kara wasn't sure she wanted to know the ending to.
Chief was nodding and moving towards her viper, unaware of her inner turmoil, "She says she came to warn us that Cavil had found us and was on his way. They took both women to a holding cell. About ten minutes later all hell breaks loose."
Kara marched after him, processing this while she laid her helmet on the deck and began emergency pre-flight procedures. Her hurried external inspection felt like being reunited with a long lost friend. She could do it in her sleep. Practically had.
"Tanks filled. Canopy Locks and explosive bolts to safe," Chief came up beside her where she stood next to the viper's ladder, "Good luck out there, Captain."
She nodded, "Thanks, Chief." He returned the nod absently and was already on to the next task. Lee passed him as he went.
"Major."
Lee nodded to the other man and pulled up in front of her. His eyes ran over the viper behind her as if he could foresee any potential damage. He turned to her and his expression was torn. They needed every available pilot; the chance was great that one or both of them was not coming back. Probably the latter. Did they ignore the fact that this could be goodbye?
Kara was so tired of saying goodbye to this man.
He reached out his right hand and took hers, his fingers wrapped around the outside of her hand, his thumb in the crook of hers. More clasp than shake. He tugged her forward with it and she met his gaze, inches from her own.
His eyes were so damn blue. His love so damn real.
"Good hunting, Captain."
Frak that.
She swooped in and slid her mouth over his, tilting her head to the side, grabbing his jaw with her left hand and pressing closer, kissing harder, taking more; if only for a moment. His free hand came up to rest alongside her face, his touch feathery and warm. A low groan escaped from his throat; heat coiled in the pit of her stomach.
Somewhere, another raider decided to end its life in a fiery death against Galactica's hull. The ensuing blow to Galactica's stability had them both falling apart.
Lee surprised her, following her backwards step to kiss her quickly one last time, she touched the tip of her tongue to his lower lip as he slid away.
Kara looked down and to the side collecting her breath and her thoughts; zipping up her flight suit. She caught Sam doing a very poor job of trying to not stare in between pre-flight tasks. His expression was a complicated mixture of anger and jealousy, acceptance and apology as he looked away.
Kara felt the familiar guilt, but it was a little softer than before. Like the first echo. One day, if they lived through all this, maybe it wouldn't be so hard. She turned back to Lee who had missed nothing.
She licked her lips, smoothed out her expression, "I should go."
"So should I. Good luck out there, Starbuck," he tilted his head a little to the side and his lips pulled into the curve of a sad smile as he gave her a little salute and backed away.
It was only natural to return the smile, the salute, "You too, Apollo."
She spun around and snatched up her helmet, grabbed on to the cool metal sidebar of the ladder. Her right foot fell on the first rung, her left foot, the second.
She had just placed her foot on the third rung when there was a horrible booming, the sound of something crashing through heavy metal in the far corner of the spacious room. In that first moment, Kara feared a raider had just come through the walls of the hangar deck. She turned to the left and leaned out, still gripping the ladder.
She couldn't see much past the vipers, but she could hear. Deck hands and pilots alike shouting, gunfire. The clatter of tools being dropped and carts being turned over. And over this discordant harmony of violence laid the deadly rhythm of Centurion gunfire, punctuated by the metal clanking of their bodies in motion.
The deck hands would be unarmed, only a handful of pilots and some sidearms against who knows how many shiny metal death dealers. It was one of the worst places the Cylons could have chosen to attack. Minimal resistance, but the loss of the souls and their skills here would be immeasurable.
Kara thought fast.
She looked behind her, caught Sam's eye, "Sam! Tell the other pilots-get in your vipers-unlock your weapons!"
Sam looked at her as if she had lost her mind. She hated when people did that. It was probably always true, but hardly ever necessary, "Now!"
Sam began climbing the ladder to his own cockpit, yelling at the top of his lungs to the pilot nearest him, who returned the favor, and so on.
Kara dropped her helmet to the deck with a clatter and pulled herself up the rest of the ladder. She threw herself into the seat, breathing hard, feeling a little dizzy with the rush of fear and adrenaline.
She stared at the panel for a moment, unseeing, before her training took over. A flip of a switch. The pull of a lever.
Weapons safety: Off. Weapons: Armed.
Kara felt a moment of self-doubt. She was about to basically go weapons free inside the ship. And she'd told the other pilots to do the same.
The possibility of structural damage…
Kara thought of the lives that were at stake here.
…was worth it.
She could see at least three in her line of sights. With the vipers parked in varying angles at different intervals along the deck, she could only hope they crossed the pilots' crosshairs at least once.
Her shield was still back, though she couldn't be certain anyone could hear her in the mayhem. She stood up a little in the cockpit.
"Get back! Everybody out of the way! Let's go, let's go, let's go!" her throat protested the mistreatment as she roared at the top of her lungs.
She waited until she was sure only the bulkhead and the Centurions were at stake, then mashed her thumb down and braced herself against the rippling shudder of her viper as it released it's weapons power.
There was the satisfying screech of metal being shredded, of robotic machinery exploding in a burnt sienna cloud of fire and sparks.
She could hear the other pilots following her lead at varying intervals. Another Centurion had the misfortune of clanking past her viper's nose. Her viper's firepower made scrap metal of him too, but tore a hole through the hangar deck wall as well. Kara knew it couldn't be the only one. There was an unnerving feel of wind rushing past and slowly, silence.
It took a second for Kara to notice the complete chaos of sound had died down to nothing but the whistle of that wind and the unmistakable cries of pain.
Kara shoved out of the cockpit with slick palms and trembling hands and half-climbed, half-slipped down the ladder to the deck below.
She looked around. The air felt too thin. Her lungs burned.
Bodies littered the ground that should have been in the sky instead, and she caught glimpses of twisted metallic forms and robotic blood-stained limbs among the carnage. And still the unsettling feel of wind streaming over her skin.
Chief stood not two yards to her left. The woman at his feet wasn't moving. Several deck hands rushed past carrying a fallen comrade amongst them. Kara watched them go.
Chief looked around, real fear in his eyes. "Well, that takes care of the frakking toasters…but I think it's safe to say we sustained some structural damage."
"We're depressurizing, " Sam walked up and concluded, almost laughing at the sheer awfulness of it all.
Chief nodded.
Kara could see bodies strewn behind carts and crates, barrels and vipers. Too many bodies. She thought she'd saved them.
She turned from the two men and began walking again, slowly this time.
"Kara?" That was Sam.
But Kara wasn't listening. More shouts echoed from a nearby huddle of survivors. Someone was weeping very loudly at her back and to the right. The wind kept whistling. It carried the unmistakable smell of death with it.
She stopped suddenly and spun around. Chief stopped speaking with Sam, his expression became guarded.
"Did you see Lee?" Her voice came casual. Too casual.
She turned away almost absently, she spotted a young woman-Cally, maybe?- crying off in the distance. A fellow mechanic was slumped over a worktable beside her.
Chief came up next to her. She hadn't even seen him move. Kara grabbed at his arm for a moment as the Galactica sustained another missile attack. They steadied themselves after impact. It was almost like habit now.
"Captain, it all happened so quickly-"
"Where?" she interrupted, glancing over her shoulder then back to him. Her grip on her weapon tightened, her knuckles gleamed white.
She saw the Chief swallow, his expression solemn, almost respectful, "I saw him heading in that direction when it started, Captain."
She turned slowly in the direction of his nod. It was the direction the Centurions had come from.
A deck hand jostled her as he ran past, holding his stomach as if in pain. She could hear the sounds of him getting sick nearby. Sam might have been speaking, trying to hold her back by the arm. She couldn't be sure. Chief might have laid a hand on her shoulder for a moment. She might have tripped over a body, she might have loosened her grip on her weapon.
She rounded one viper then another, stepping over her fallen comrades, one by one. There was no shouting, no wind, no Chief, no Sam, no sound at all.
There was one more viper to her left, blocking her view. She could feel the subtle shaking begin in her hands, travel up her arms to her shoulders, her chest, spreading outwards. Why is it that when terrible things happen you always got this feeling of knowing? Why couldn't you just stay oblivious for a few more precious moments?
Kara rounded the last viper and counted two centurions, bent and twisted on the surface of the deck. There was a deckhand, his orange jumper contrasting in an obscenely cheerful way with the brightness of his spilled blood. There was green there as well.
There was a pilot closer to where she stood, a nugget that Kara had barely met during her brief return to flight status. What was his call sign? She focused on his body with fierce determination, her mind insisted that she remember the name, that she had to. That she couldn't look to the other body just yet. Rebound. His call sign was Rebound.
She recalled it too quickly. There was nothing to do but look to the other pilot.
His arm was lying at his side, still holding the grip of his sidearm. His hair was brown, his face and form familiar. His head was turned, she could make out his still features… if she wanted to.
She might have dropped her weapon then, and she might have stumbled forward. She might have dropped to her knees beside him, and she might have died a little.
He was still beautiful. There was blood-the evidence of pain. It seemed wrong that he should still be beautiful. Her trembling hand reached out and felt the place where his heart should beat. The blood seeped through, covering her fingers, she pressed harder as if that would keep it inside of him.
"No." The sound was guttural, torn from her body. It didn't sound like her.
She leaned over him, covered him with life, pressing her face into the still-warm curve of his throat. Strands of her hair dragged through his blood. It smeared down her front. She didn't care.
In her young life, Kara Thrace had experienced more pain, more heartache, than any soul should be expected to. Life had dealt her an extraordinarily cruel hand. But this? This was new.
She lifted his body, held him to her own, so close. As if she could share her heartbeat.
There was pain, and there was heartache. But it was more than that. A sense of never belonging again. The feeling that she had been cut loose, set adrift. Nothing to hold onto, nothing to return to again. She was lost and always would be now. To lose family, friend, lover, touchstone. To lose all that and more in one moment. How did anyone survive that; recover?
A sob tore from her throat, her chest felt white hot, her whole body cramped as if it wanted to curl into itself, as if she were collapsing in on herself like a dying star.
"Kara?" someone was pulling her back, hands on her shoulders, "Kara, baby, I'm sorry. We have to go. You were right, they need us out there. In the sky, killing off every last frakking toaster that we can. Come on, come on, Kara. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Her shoulders shook beneath his hands, her chest heaving.
"I can't breathe."
Sam heard her gritted words, tried to pull her up again, "It's the walls, Kara. We're depressurizing, losing oxygen. We need to get out of here fast."
Kara shook her head, what was he even talking about?
"I can't breathe, Sam."
"Kara," he knelt beside her, forced her head up with his hands so he could look at her. "We have to go."
She looked him in the eye, she didn't see him.
"I wish I'd never come back."
Sam frowned, not understanding, "Come on, Kara. Come on. There's nothing we can do for him now. He's gone."
It hurt too much. She wouldn't survive it. A hot tear rushed down her face and dripped off her chin. Her stomach began to spasm in that way that let you know you might be violently ill. She swallowed, choked.
"Kara?"
"Go," almost a growl, "Go, Sam."
Something in her face convinced him, he dropped his hands from her and stood, pacing to a spot several feet away. He turned his back. Waited.
She hated that he waited. That he knew life would go on and so would she. At the moment, it seemed to her unthinkable.
She looked down at him one last time, pressed trembling fingers, covered in his dried blood, over his cheekbones, his jaw; thumb across his lips. She bent and kissed him softly, held there for a moment, hesitated; thought of the words.
Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama.
Love. It meant nothing. Love. This was so much more than that. She needed him. He was a basic necessity.
Her expression unnaturally fierce, she laid him down but kept the burden. She methodically removed his dog tags, slipping them over her head to hang over her own beneath her shirt. There was nothing left for her to do now but to go down fighting. It was only fitting that she take a part of him with her when she did.
Kara backed away from him slowly, had to shut her eyes and turn away. Had to not think about him, had to pretend this hadn't happened. There was no other way she could continue, no other way she could move on, follow through.
Sam was careful not to touch her as she pulled alongside him, they turned and took a few strides in the direction of their vipers. She could feel Sam's eyes on her face. She kept her gaze straight ahead.
"Captain, there you are." There was blood splattered across the Lt. Dualla's chin and jaw, she was pulling in deep shuddering breaths, there was a look to her eyes that said she was just holding it together.
Kara struggled to focus on the words, the sounds and syllables barely registered through the white hot curtain of ache that seemed to hang between her and the rest of the world. Nevertheless, she found herself moving closer to the dark-haired officer, blocking the other woman's view, shielding her from…from what was there.
"The Admiral sent us," Dee continued in that clipped, harried tone," She looked aside to the lone, uniformed guard at her side. "There were four of us…" she said, almost as if to herself. She shook her head, "We need to get back to the CIC. Now."
Kara looked at her, tone lifeless, jaw tight, "Why? I'm a pilot. My place is in that cockpit over there."
Dee shook her head, still breathless, "We fixed the FTL. Temporarily. It's only a matter of time before they figure that out and disable us again," she hesitated, as if she were struggling through a personal disagreement with the words she'd been ordered to say, "The Admiral wants you to jump us out of here."
It was probably the one thing that could have pierced through the fog of pain.
Kara scowled and swallowed back the tears that still wanted to come, "You've got to be frakking kidding me."
Dee scowled, "Sure, Captain. We fought through the Centurions-two other guards died alongside of us-so that we could come down here and play a joke on you," with that, she whirled about and marched away.
Kara rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes roughly and looked around.
She'd dropped her weapon…
No, gods no. She wasn't walking back there.
"Kara?"
Sam.
Kara spun around, looked Sam right in the eye, "I need my sidearm."
"Kara, what's going on-?"
"Now, Sam," she growled.
He frowned, but sighed and turned.
Kara looked away while Sam went to retrieve her weapon. She felt him come along behind her, he silently slid the grip into her hand, her fingers tightened around it.
She turned her head to the side and spoke concisely, "Don't go out, Sam. And don't let anyone else go up, either. We're calling all of our birds in."
Kara turned back around, held her face like stone and strode purposefully after Dee and the marine.
"We're going home." A lie. Her home was gone.
