I don't know how well I did this chapter, but I kind of like it.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. Well, I do own a few, but just the ones that I made up.
Spoilers: 33, Pegasus
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Chapter 12- Back from the Grave
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Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62
Sophie was about to drop her gun when one of the Marines raised his assault rifle and fired. The carbine's three round burst almost killed her. The first bullet passed only three inches above her head. The second grazed her, ripping a hole in the flight suit that she was still wearing, and the third hit her rifle, smashing it. The impact threw her to the ground. When she hit she evaluated her options. Well, I'm sure not going to just sit here and let him kill me. Obviously Cain doesn't want me alive anymore. She drew her sidearm, the same one she had captured from the marines, and fired on the second Marine, who was also aiming his gun at her. Reluctant to kill, she fired two rounds, both impacting in the chest. The force of the two slugs against his armor threw he against a wall, and knocked the breath out of him. He would be back up in about twenty seconds, but this would be over by then. She tried to take aim at the first marine, the one that had fired at her first. But as she shifted her aim she knew that there was no way she could get off a hot before that Marine shot her. She closed her eyes. This wasn't how she expected that she was going to die, and she sure as hell wasn't going to Elysium. Why the hell was it taking the Marine so long to shoot?
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For a second Talon was confused about what was going on. The shot didn't come from her, there was no muzzle flash from her gun. He turned to see one of the marines blazing away at her with his rifle. Idiot. The Marine's wounded pride caused him to disobey direct orders from two different admirals. He saw her rifle shatter, her fall to the ground, and he saw her shoot the other Marine, who was in the process of drawing his weapon. Shifting his attention back to the other Marine, he noticed that his finger was on the trigger. The Marine had already made his decision. He would shoot her, and then claim it was in self defense, which would hold up considering she had fired too. Now that he thought of it, the Marines would probably shoot him too, because he was bound to report what really happened. He pulled back with his right arm and punched the Marine on the neck with his mechanical hand. He heard a sickening snap, and the Marine fell down, his head at a unnatural angle. He hadn't meant to kill the Marine, but the force of his new arm had snapped his neck. As he fell he accidentally triggered a burst a Sophie, causing her to dive for cover. The marine who had been knocked down by Sophie's shots was getting up. He had just seen his partner be killed, albeit accidentally, by Talon. He raised himself into a crouch, and aimed his pistol at Talon. Talon reflexively raised his hand, as if to stop the bullet. But the Marine didn't fire. Instead, he flew backward and slammed into a wall, knocking him out. Talon looked around for what had caused the Marine to fly back. Deadbolt was on the ground, just getting up. It hadn't been her, and their was no one else in the corridor. He was trying to figure out what happened when he heard the noise of a gun cocking. He turned around to see Sophie holding a pistol at him.
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Sophie had watched as he killed Marine with one punch. That was pretty amazing, but it was topped by the way he had dealt with the other Marine. Maybe it was some kind of new weapon that projected a force field to blow someone back. Or something like that. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But then she wasn't sure what to make of him. His uniform was strange, and he defiantly wasn't from the Pegasus. She aimed her gun and cocked it. He must have heard the noise, because he turned around to face her. Seeing the gun, he put his hands up.
"Who the frak are you?" she demanded.
"Lieutenant Talon Devruin, 952nd TIE Wing, Star Destroyer Gorgon, Maw Facility."
She blinked at that. What?
He suppressed a chuckle. "I'm a fighter pilot of the Star Destroyer. I believe you know me. I was the TIE pilot."
He didn't have to say anything else. There was only one person he could be referring to.
Sophie narrowed her eyes. "And why are you here?"
"To convince you to come out of hiding. All charges have been dropped."
Sophie snorted. "Yeah, right. Cain's notorious for holding a grudge. The hells will freeze over before she drops any charges."
"Admiral Daala ordered Cain to drop the charges. She has the power to do that. I don't know why, but Daala wants to meet with you really bad."
Sophie gestured to the Marines lying on the floor. "And them? They tried to kill me."
"They weren't supposed to. I guess they really wanted you dead. They seemed very humiliated."
"How did you take them down like that?"
Talon shrugged. "My right arm is mechanical. They had to amputate it after I took a hit from that Raider's KEW. Fortunately I should be able to fly soon. But I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't know my strength when I hit."
"And the other Marine?"
"I have no idea."
Before they could continue the conversation any longer, they heard a loud bang. A section of the ceiling right over their heads fell down, followed by Kirana. She landed on her feet, a blaster rifle trained on Sophie. She looked at the two Marines. "Looks like I missed all the excitement. I'll comm for a med team, and then let's go meet up with Daala."
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When Sophie realized that they were going to the brig she started to freak out, but Talon assured her that they were going there because that's were Daala was. She didn't know why, but she trusted him.
When they made it to the holding cells, Daala was waiting for them. She looked Sophie up and down, studying her. The only difference between the picture of her on file and her image was her eyes. Daala could see tightly controlled fury and pain. She had suffered in the past. Interesting.
"Lieutenants," she said to Talon and Deadbolt, "and Guardswoman Forr. I was just inside the holding cells. I planned to speak to the Cylon prisoners. However, they won't talk. I was hoping some one from the Pegasus could enlighten me as to what happened here. "
Daala pushed to door open. The four of them stepped inside. The two Cylons were in separate cells. They could not see each other or look out the window of the holding cells, but due to the design of the widow observers could see in. They were both lying on the floor, not moving. They were dressed in ragged, minimal clothes. They were obviously traumatized, but had not sign of physical injury on them.
Talon's looked on the scene in disgust, as his opinion of the Pegasus dropped another notch.
"They've been raped, haven't they." Daala said to Sophie. It wasn't a question.
Sophie nodded. "Something changed once you arrived. The ship was just suddenly filled with hate. Hate at the Cylons. I mean, sure, we despised them for nuking our worlds, but this is new. And it's not just Cylons. My only friend on this ship was brought up on charges of mutiny. It was complete bullshit, of course, but the people on this ship, they wanted someone to hurt. We didn't have any Cylons, so they took it out on the prisoners. One knuckle dragger almost got beat to death. The people on this ship aren't bad, with the exception of a few. We're just lost. All of us. Cain doesn't order this, but she know what's going on. She just turns a blind eye to it."
While Daala was taking that in, she noticed that Kirana wasn't moving. "Kirana?" she said.
She didn't reply. "Guardswoman Forr! Attention!"
At that Kirana automatically snapped to attention. Daala gazed into the dark visor of Kirana's helmet. What was wrong with her? It's a shocking sight, but she never gets shocked at anything. She's brutally killed people in hand to hand combat, mostly at training, but nothing like this.
"Forr, are you fit for duty?"
Kirana took a while to reply. "Yes sir."
"The hell you are. Report back to the shuttle. We'll be joining you shortly."
Kirana saluted, and then walked back to the ship.
Daala let out a deep breath. "Well, I should of expected something like this, but I didn't. Even on a machine, that's not right. Let's get back to the Gorgon. We'll talk more on the shuttle. You too, Narcasa. I have permission from Cain to take you back to my ship. Lets go.
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Bravo 3, Lambda Shuttle
As the shuttle took off, Kirana remained seated in the back of the shuttle. It was obvious that Sophie wanted to take a look at the cockpit of the shuttle. Daala noticed that, and motion towards the door. "Come on, we'll show you the front. Devruin, show her around."
Talon and Sophie walked up to the door of the cockpit. He rapped on the door, and it opened. "Come on." He said, and escorted him into the cramped cockpit. He evicted the copilot from his seat, and sat down in it. Sophie took the observer's seat. She leaned right past Talon's head to see the instruments and controls. He was suddenly aware of their close proximity. For the first time he was aware of how attractive she was. He was about to tell her what some of the controls were when the sensor board started buzzing.
The shuttle pilot turned to him. "We have a contact, unknown class, slow speed, intercept course with our ships."
Talon quickly got out of his seat and ducked into the main cabin. "Admiral, we have a unknown contact."
In a instant, Daala was in the door way. The cockpit was getting a little cramped, but everyone was to focused on the sensor to care.
Daala was the first to speak. "Interrogate that ships IFF, see if we get anything. Get me a line to the Pegasus."
The pilot gave a headset to Daala. "I'm getting a secure line to the Pegasus."
Daala spoke into the microphone. "Pegasus, this is Admiral Daala in shuttle Bravo 3."
Cain's voice came over the speakers. "Admiral Daala, this is Pegasus Actual. We read one contact on DRADIS, CBDR. Do you concur?"
"Yes. We tried to identify it, but we're getting nothing."
"Us too, wait a second…We're getting Colonial recognition codes. Stand by."
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Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62
Cain had been in the CIC when Hoshi first called out. "DRADIS contact, unknown ship, slow speed, bearing 058, carom 103, CBDR. Checking codes.
Cain's comm officer turned twoars her. "Sir, Admiral Daala is requesting a private line."
"Put her through."
Cain picked up the phone. She heard Daala over the wireless. "Pegasus, this is Admiral Daala in shuttle Bravo 3."
"Admiral Daala, this is Pegasus Actual. We read one contact on DRADIS, CBDR. Do you concur?"
Daala seemed a bit worried, but the comm distortion made it hard to tell. Their ships were immobile until the repairs were complete, Cain currently had no pilots, and the Basestar as not fully functional. It had managed to turn out two Raiders, but that was it. They had to rely on the Imperial fighters, which, while deadly, were not enough to protect against Basestars.
"Yes. We tried to identify it, but we're getting nothing." Daala answered.
"Us too-" she was interrupted in mid sentence by Hoshi.
"Admiral," he said, "we're getting Colonial Recognition signals.
She picked up the comm. "Wait a second…We're getting Colonial recognition codes. Stand by."
"Mr. Hoshi, verify those signals."
"I already did. And we're getting a transmission from the contact."
"Put it on the speakers."
A squeal of static came through the speakers, followed by a male voice. "Thank the gods, we finally found someone. It's a miracle."
Cain spoke into the phone. "Unidentified ship, this is the Battlestar Pegasus. Identify yourself."
"Sorry. This is Captain Ben Jecks. We're the Olympic Carrier."
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Okay, a few things. I do know that at the end of 33, when Apollo and Starbuck shot down the Olympic Carrier it blew up in a spectacular way. I'm not changing that fact, so it'll be interesting ahead. Also, I do think that the people on the Peg are just lost, not bad (with the exception of Cain she's a bit evil).
As a last note, while I don't obsess over reviews, it is nice to know that people out here are reading your story. I'll write and post the chapters no matter what, but reviews are good motivators.
Now that that's over with, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please review!
