Long were the days I spent within these walls, and longer nights of aloneness. In the stillness of my dreams, I have walked the streets of Kobol and seen the faces of the Gods. Yet my fate is forever tied to the Galleon of the Stars. The leader of the caravan shall not walk upon the Colonies. As Athena did cast herself from the rock, so am I cast into the eternal blackness of space.
As my memory fades, so too shall the memory of the old disappear. Another shall come to take my place, a leader with a wasting disease, who shall guide the caravan of the heavens. She shall see the world of the new, but be apart from it. That which is born of the stars shall return to them. That is the way of the Lords of Kobol.
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.
-Scroll of Holy Pythia
Mission to Earth - Day 13
Caprican Kegger
Time had lost its meaning to Colonel Benjamin Isard. There was no night, no day, only repetition and duty. Every day was the same as the last, blurring together. Long-term detached duty had always played games with the mind, the diurnal cycle broken and unnatural. But knowing your home was gone, and that you might never set foot upon a planet again had created a special form of hell for him.
The alarm sounded, but he had not slept anyway. He swung his legs from the rack and reached for his duty jacket, the sad, worn thing it was. A great tear and sorry patch job lay to one side of it. Blood stains that had never quite gone away fully remained on the other. Whether the stain was his, or some other, he didn't know. But what little laundry equipment Dreadnought had was not up to the job – especially with the detergent chemicals earmarked for other, more important uses.
Technicians aboard Eternal Star insisted that, eventually, they would be able to do something about the sorry state of his duty uniform, now that raw materials and equipment had been discovered aboard her. How they planned to use supplies more ancient than the forum on Caprica, Isard didn't know. But he hoped they were right. After all, the Fleet was all he had left. There was no day, no night, no home, and nowhere to go. But the mission, his duty, remained.
The cramped confines of the shuttle were worsened by the extra bracing and equipment wire runs throughout the vessel. It was a patchwork that never would have passed any kind of inspection. But the inspectors were dead, and the pirates were still alive. There was something to be said for that.
He split open his algae pack and forced the unpalatable stuff down with some effort, washing it down with some water, cut with a bit of Sandra's liquor. That at least masked some of the horrendous taste.
"There was a time you'd be busted in rank for doing that, sir." Elena quipped, pointing to the thermos.
Isard laughed good-naturedly. "Like you're one to lecture anybody on the regs, Lieutenant."
"You gotta know 'em if you're gonna break 'em, sir." Elena replied, digging around for her own dinner. "I really hope those civvies can get the hydroponics producing real food again. I swear this shit is killing me slowly."
"Toasters or algae. One or the other, I guess." Isard agreed, finishing his ration. "But I'll take it over starvation."
"You didn't have to share a billet with Frank on that freighter, sir." Stalker frowned as she sniffed the ration bar.
"I suppose not. Where are we at with the next set of jump calculations?" Isard asked, screwing the cap back on his thermos. "We've got to be getting close."
"Next set of coordinates are locked in. But it's getting harder to calculate them. We're so far from known space, even the charts the uh… ship gave us are hard to use. It's taken hours just to verify them." Elena answered. "We're getting close, though. Maybe 20 or 30 more jumps, I figure."
"Good," Isard began, standing up and adjusting his duty jacket. He smiled grimly at the crazy pilot.
"What's wrong, sir? In a hurry to get back? Don't like being cooped up with me?" Elena hadn't even bothered with her duty jacket, lounging about only half in uniform. There was a time when he would have cared more. Indeed, he felt that he should care more. But the crazy pilot wasn't altogether unpleasant to look at in her tank top, either. "Like what you see, sir?" She smiled slyly.
Yeah, he thought, detached duty isn't the easiest thing in the world. Gods, it's been a long time.
"We've got some time, sir. I know some other regs you can break…"
….
Reality stretched thin around him, and the stars shifted in front of him. But still, the blackness was the same as before. The last dozen jumps had been in deep space. But this one at least had a pleasant looking nebula nearby, the Lagoon nebula, which was the marker they had been aiming for. Gods space is empty, he thought. They taught that at the Academy, of course. Even with a blind jump, you would have to be absurdly unlucky to run into anything. But it was one thing to read about the vastness, and quite another to experience it for yourself, alone on a tiny shuttle, far beyond the Red Line.
Well, not quite alone, he thought. There would probably be repercussions for that later, but getting a much-needed lay made up for a lot. At least his Commander was unlikely to give a frak, regs be damned.
"Need a cigarette, sir?" Elena quipped sarcastically from behind him, still dressing herself. "Maybe these toasters we're searching for will have one for you."
"Stow that shit, Lieutenant." Isard peered at the DRADIS readout more closely. "I'm getting something faint on DRADIS. Extreme range."
Elena leaned over his console, still topless. Isard wasn't sure whether to be interested or annoyed. Yeah, that was definitely stupid, he thought.
"We're going to have to get closer. Don't think there's any way to clear it up from this range." Isard continued.
Elena pulled her tank top over her head and sighed. "Well, so much for getting time off." She sat in the second seat and began maneuvering the ship on thrusters.
"What are you doing, Lieutenant?"
Stalker smiled. "Sir, the pirates aren't exactly master shipwrights, you know. That rocket launcher they mounted above the cockpit? It's almost directly in the way of the DRADIS dish, so we have something of a blind spot on that angle. If we twist around a bit, we should get a better look."
Sure enough, the DRADIS screen cleared up a little. Even so, the computer still refused to identify it. Whatever it was, it was small, similar to their shuttle in overall size.
"Cylons? Or something from the Thirteenth Tribe?" Isard speculated.
"No idea, sir. But it appears to be powered down, whatever it is. It's drifting slowly on a near-parallel course."
"I don't like it, Stalker. I don't like it at all." He remembered how empty space was supposed to be. The odds didn't sit well with him. "Get going on our next set of jump coordinates, and move us away from the target. Arm all weapons." Isard ordered, standing up.
Elena frowned. "Sir?"
Isard smiled at her. "You're the better pilot, Lieutenant. I'll be up in the turret. Just don't get us killed, okay?" He reached for his flight suit.
"Yes, sir."
Isard snapped on his helmet and climbed into the ball turret, marveling that the thing even worked. It was originally a gun captain module salvaged from the wreckage of Atlantia, and he was surprised it even held pressure. Still, he double-checked the helmet's integrity just to be sure before closing the hatch. The command chair was a haphazard affair, uncomfortable and too small for his large frame. But it would have to do.
Four heavy point-defense cannons from the Atlantia were at his command, along with a basic heads up display with ammo readings and a DRADIS overlay tied to his position. The target was clearly marked. It was quite haphazard, but as he experimented with the controls, he found that it worked smoothly enough, even if it was disorienting. The grav field of the shuttle was weak there, since it had not been designed to project out this far, which only added to the nausea.
"Anything of interest, Lieutenant?" He asked through the helmet comm.
"Yes, sir. I'm getting faint temperature readings. I think we woke it up, whatever it is."
"Very well. Jump calculations?"
"No can do, sir. It's taking a long time to get a full star readout. The computer needs at least half an hour before I can even start to make calculations. And we can't blind jump, or we will definitely lose our place. I don't even want to think on how long it would take to get back here, if we even could."
"Keep us on course away from the target, maximum sublight."
His DRADIS overlay beeped suddenly, with acceleration and mass readings attaching themselves to the target.
Stalker chimed in his comm. "It's moving, accelerating fast. Speed differential… we've got awhile, sir. Forty minutes, maybe, at our rate of acceleration."
"Well, that gives you ten minutes to calculate that jump before we have to deal with our friend here."
"It's not going to happen, sir." Elena replied. "Maybe I could get us pretty close if I had an hour or so. Ten minutes and I don't think I could even land us in the same pyramid court as the next leg, much less score."
"I'll take what I can get, Lieutenant. Keep the drives spun up, if it looks like this guy is going to bag us, then we have to take the risk, even if that means we're stuck here."
Laughter flooded his comm. "Starting to like me that much sir?"
"Frak you." Isard wondered if she was actually the stalker her callsign seemed to indicate.This trip is either going to be really long, or really short, he thought sardonically.
"That's the idea, sir."
Mercifully, the pilot decided to end the conversation there, and Isard stared idly as the target slowly gained ground on the shuttle. There was nothing to do but wait as the unknown chased after them. Minutes ticked by with no change.
"Computer has our position marked, sir. I'm calculating our jump coordinates now. Looks like eleven minutes to weapons range. Definitely Cylon. Heavy raider, probably."
Weapons range was an odd concept in space. Technically whatever you fired would go along forever until it hit something. But if the distance was great enough, you could simply get out of the way of the bullets before they got to you. So the firing velocity determined how close you would have to be before you could actually expect to hit your target. Missiles worried him less, for at least the shuttle was practically covered in automatic point-defense weaponry. Enough launchers and penetration aids could swamp them, of course, but it was doubtful their pursuer had enough to trouble him. The countdown clock wound down slowly…
Suddenly the DRADIS overlay went empty.
"Frak, he jumped away." Elena said, unnecessarily.
"He's getting friends. Change course, now!" Isard ordered, but Elena had anticipated the order and was already banking the craft at near-maximum g-load.
Moments later, space came alive as a dozen raiders materialized nearby. The point-defense cannons lit space alive in tracer rounds. Several raiders were destroyed in quick succession. Wheeling around the turret, he bagged one that was making a run on the shuttle from above, parts raining down upon the shuttle. The Cylons, it seemed, did not anticipate the shuttle being so heavily armed. Why not, Isard wondered, it's not like they haven't dealt with our ships before.
The remainder went to maximum sublight, bounding out of range as quickly as they could before spinning their drives and vanishing.
"That's strange, sir. Why did they jump so close? It was almost too easy."
"From your mouth to the ears of the Gods, Stalker. Change course, max burn in any other direction, and move on those calculations." Isard ordered, swinging the turret aft. Minutes passed before the Cylons jumped back in, this time the same heavy raider returned with a whole squadron of raiders.
"They're coming up aft, sir. I can't maneuver and calculate at the same time…"
"You have some time, I'll keep them busy for a bit." Isard thumbed the trigger and tracer rounds lanced toward the pursuers. They were out of range, and easily dodged the incoming fire, but it broke apart their formation and gave Elena more time.
The raider formation split into two groups, one approaching from above, and the other from below.
"Stalker, increase range counter on the point-defense. Activate them now."
"Yes, sir." For once, she didn't question his orders repeatedly. It was unlikely the guns would hit anything at this range, but the Cylon formation scattered further. The shuttle had become a porcupine in space. No matter what angle the Cylons approached from, they were likely to be stung.
The heavy raider entered the defense envelope and Isard kept a steady stream of fire on it. Return fire impacted the shuttle from the heavy raider's autocannon. Several raiders filed in behind it, using the vessel as a battering ram to breach the ship's defenses.
"Hold on, sir." He could hear the fear in Stalker's voice. If she's afraid, then what….
The ship spun around in rapidly, pointing the cockpit straight at the incoming formation, flinging the colonel to one end of the seat as the entire turret whirred in protest. He had to fight the urge to throwup. He flipped the turret around quickly, just in time to see Elena fire off the entire loadout of dumbfire rockets from the armored box. Nearly two dozen rockets slammed into the heavy raider, with a few others flying into the raiders in its DRADIS shadow. The heavy raider staggered, massive explosions consuming it from within before the entire ship finally blew apart. Isard thumbed the trigger again, bagging the raiders who had come in from behind before they could scatter, holding the guns down at maximum rate of fire. The formation of raiders became a cloud of expanding metal and gas.
The remaining raiders backed off again. A few jumped out, undoubtedly to bring more reinforcements, but ten DRADIS targets remained. Isard watched nervously as the ammo loadout from the point-defense cannons hit 50%.
"Just give me a minute sir, and maybe I can at least get us somewhere in the vicinity of where we're supposed to be."
"That's about all you have before our point-defense is gone."
It was the longest sixty seconds of his life. The raiders kept testing the ship's defenses. One got in a little too close, and the point-defense winged him. Isard finished the job with his cannons. The rest realized the ventral area wasn't defended by a turret, and they began swarming it.
Elena rolled the ship without having to be ordered, giving him a line of fire at the raiders. But they were not fooled, and he only managed to drive them off. "Gods, these things are fast. Even with the damned targeting computer, it's hard to hit anything."
That's when his whole world was suddenly consumed by a basestar, jumping in right above his line of sight. He held down the trigger, but was under no illusions that he could do any damage at all to that. The computer chimed warnings as several new targets appeared on the heads up display.
"Incoming missiles!" Stalker screamed over the comms. She need not have bothered. Point-defense and Isard's steady stream of cannon fire got most of them, but one missile made it through and impacted near the turret. The explosion was deafening, the entire ship shuddering. The last thing he heard was the decompression alarm, audible even through his helmet…
….
"Sir? SIR?" Elena's voice was desperate as she tore the helmet off his head, looking for any sign of injury.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Isard answered, checking himself to make sure he really was. Everything appeared to be intact, even if he had a splitting headache. "What happened?"
"I jumped us out. We're not quite where we're supposed to be, but it's close enough that we should only lose a few days. No DRADIS contacts. The turret is shot, though. I had to weld the hatch shut after I dragged you out. We don't have much ammo left, but everything else is intact, more or less. We can press on, if you want."
Isard nodded. "We'll continue the mission, for now… How the hell did the Cylons get out here anyway?" He wondered, rubbing his head. There was some blood there, but it wasn't bad.
"Maybe they are looking for Earth, too, following the same markers." Elena mused. "Maybe that ship AI is with them, after all."
"No, if so, it would have just airlocked us all when it had the chance. They did get the Kobolian satellite. Maybe they figured it out from that." Isard rummaged through the supply cabinet for what was left of the ambrosia Summers had donated to their cause. "It doesn't explain why they jumped right on top of us. We've been using these armed shuttles for awhile, they should have known better. It's like they were expecting someone else."
"Who else would be wandering around in a battlestar evac shuttle, sir?"
"Major Stanton mentioned that the toaster prisoner said something about another battlestar surviving, the Galactica." The Colonel pointed out, taking a swig of ambrosia. I should feel something more, I nearly bought it up there, he thought. Perhaps he was becoming numb to the thought of death.
"Sir, so you're saying the Cylons were waiting for Galactica to show up out here?"
"Well, it is a waypoint to Earth. Maybe they are looking for it too."
"Or maybe Earth is a toaster party – and not the supposedly nice toasters the ship wants us to believe in."
"That too, Lieutenant. That, too. Either way, we're going to have to be more careful."
"You mean we're going to have to spend more time cooped up in here, sir?"
The Colonel wasn't quite sure what to think of that.
….
Anger flooded the General's awareness as he digested the data packet from his scouting forces.
"The frakking pirates are looking for Earth, too? How could they even know? It's not like they have spies on Galactica." Other Ones looked on with mild disdain. Well, let my brothers stew over that, he thought acidly. "Adama and his crew used the Arrow of Apollo to reveal the nebula's location. Where did the pirates get it?"
The Six known as Ellison merely shook her head. "I keep telling you, you're underestimating them. Well, both groups, actually. That pirate captain was a former priest. Maybe he figured it out from the Scrolls."
The General shook his head. "No, we've been up and down those scrolls a thousand times and found nothing. They will take you to Kobol, but not to Earth. The location was expunged from their records. They must have found something that led them to the Lagoon nebula."
The Six merely shrugged her shoulders. "We don't know. But they are on the path to Earth. That's a fact."
"We have to destroy them."
A Number Two answered. "You're losing sight of God's plan, brother," he began. "Clearly we all have a part to play here."
"Oh will you knock it off with that superstitious mumbo jumbo. God didn't make us, humans did. And if they had a plan, we'd know about it already."
Ellison smiled. "Well, we certainly know that whatever plan the humans have, you don't have one. We've lost any kind of tracking on Galactica and the fleet, and you have no idea where these pirates are hiding either. And with the vote for peace, what can you do about it anyway, even if you find them?"
The General glared at her, but said nothing.
A Number Five looked at Ellison, his stoic poker face giving away nothing. "We still have to find them if we are to live in peace with them," he added. "Otherwise they will settle somewhere, nurse revenge, and come looking for us one day." While he was glad to have some support among his Cylon brothers, the Fives were barely better than the Twos with their obsessive devotion to the One True God.
The General smiled sardonically. "Well, we've flooded half the sector with scouting units, and marked every stop from here to the Lagoon nebula. We'll have to stumble across them eventually."
Ellison looked away for a moment, "space is big, brother."
"Maybe we'll get lucky." One replied. "After all 'God is with us' and all that, right?" He stormed off before he said something he would regret. Sometimes I wonder if I should have boxed them all, he thought. But it was too late for that now.