Episode 8 Part 5:
Nessella:
A scream tore through her ears. The scream wasn't human. It was a god screaming in pain only something on such a high level of existence could comprehend. Maybe it could feel them crawling around inside it. The screaming stopped. Nessella pulled her bloody hands away from her ears and opened her eyes. Most of the marines were doubled over.
"What the frak was that?" Venko yelped.
"No time to talk, get back to the ships" Alenko stammered. He practically kicked the Private getting him moving. "Colonel, are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Nessella wobbled down the corridor. She clutched the shotgun in hands that felt thick and rubbery.
"What the frak was that?" someone else repeated.
Nessella got a hilarious thought. "I looks to me like we gave it indigestion." Alenko smacked her shoulder. They weren't pursued but the radio was live with contact reports.
A kilometer and a half back they ran face first into a gaggle of bloodied marines. They were from fifth platoon. They were supposed to be holding the exit open. Nessella demanded "where are you going?"
"They took the corridor up ahead. I don't know if anyone else is left" A corporal stammered. Nessella shoved her back down the corridor. "That is our way out, lets move!" They rounded the next corner-and withdrew at the site of an unending wall of cylons shoulder to shoulder. Machine guns were set up but the cylons didn't pursue. They didn't need to, eventually mechanical horrors would collapse in from all sides.
"Sergeant do you have anything that can break through?" Nessella asked.
Alenko crouched at the corner. Just out of sight. "We're doing an offensive firewall. Everyone with grenade launchers to the front. Hand up tube charges if you've got em'." A dozen marines came to the front. The tubes were handed up followed by several incendiary grenades. "Colonel, time?"
"Thirty-eight minutes." She took a place near the front.
"Plenty. Everyone fix bayonets!" The marines formed an anxious line of black. About to plunge into the furnace. He raised three fingers. She tensed and caught her breath. Two. One. With a scream they leapt around the corner like a tsunami.
Nessella got three seconds to observe the centurions waiting passively for their arrival. Just enough time to see the serrated claws and wonder what they would do to her. A fusillade of grenades shot over her shoulders. The steel wall was collapsed by a rolling wave of flames. They raced through firing at anything metal that moved. A second group of centurions appeared ahead. The tube charges disintegrated them. The reverberations from the blast drove Nessella and most of the marines to their knees but somehow the tsunami kept rolling. A fresh pack of cylons guarded the corridor. Alenko pushed Nessella behind him.
The groups slammed into each other. The cylons simply collapsed beneath the weight of multiple ranks of reinforced assault marines.
Ahead the mechanical and human bodies were tangled together where they'd fallen in hand to hand. Bullets had shattered the metal walls but the red matter beneath was unharmed. The column stopped to grab dog tags then resumed their pace.
"Cylons on our tail!" someone cried over the radio.
Alenko spat out blood into his air hose. "Shotguns to the rear. Yell out if we're leaving you behind."
Nessella asked "LZ what's your status?" She fired at a cylon crawling from a hole in the floor and missed their reply. "Repeat please."
"We're clear but under attack." Another scream rent the air. With a thunk the ceiling crumpled several inches.
Alenko muttered "oh well frak that." They kept running.
The ready room they'd entered from had been fortified with mobile barricades and 12.7 millimeter machine guns. Fifty caliber bullets had eaten away most of the walls and furniture. Red metal showed through everywhere. Cylons piled up to the ceiling. The marines had to get tools and dig a path through. Alenko gasped "time?"
"Twelve minutes." She and him stopped by the airlock and waved the marines through.
"My squad stay with me. We're covering the exit." The walls themselves shifted and cylons poured out. Nessella fired off her last two shots and reloaded. She checked her bandolier. Empty.
The machine guns hosed them down. Zeus' fire crushed the entire attack flat. Then the machine guns were being dismantled and carried back. "Lets go!" Alenko bellowed. They ran outside and into radio silence.
The shuttles took off as Nessella ran past them. She looked over her shoulder. The airlocks were vomiting centurions. Her heart leapt. They were almost to the raptor. She almost threw up when she realized they didn't have enough of a lead to make it aboard before the centurions caught up.
The raptor leapt into space. "What are you doing?" Nessella screamed. She slammed into Belsinki, who'd come to a complete stop at the end of the deck. The nine of them stood there. Alenko shook a fist at the spacecraft.
The raptor angled towards the approaching cylons and cut loose with four 12.7 millimeter rotary cannon and a twenty-millimeter bubble turret. Missiles flew and the deck shook. Nessella ducked as still-writhing cylon wreckage flew overhead. Alenko gestured angrily at the firestorm and they resumed shooting, picking off anything that got through. As she pumped her remaining buckshot down range Nessella felt the rush. It was the fire that made men and women insane enough to join the assault marines. It didn't matter that she could die in an instant or that any of the weapons going off around her would rip her to pieces like an insect. She was in the middle of the inferno.
A pair of vipers opened up with their cannon. Centuries old steel gave a final jolt. The deck gave way. Swiftly it went vertical as it plunged and Nessella would've fallen off if it hadn't been for her magnetic boots. Their raptor spun around and dropped after them. Somehow it settled its magnetic landing struts on the very lip and fired its thrusters, slowing them to a halt. The back ramp opened. Vendetta appeared. It took Nessella a moment to discern her giving a V-for victory salute.
They strapped in and the raptor took off. "Did you think we'd leave you, Sergeant?" Rango asked as soon as the cabin was pressurized.
Alenko took off his mask and spat more blood. "Just get us out of range. How much time colonel?"
Her hands were shaking almost too hard to read the digital clock. "Two minutes and thirty seconds." Rango firewalled the thrusters.
He said, "I'm sorry but we don't have a polarizer good enough to let you view this" and shut the blast shields and turned off the external cameras. They were fifty kilometers from the thing when the nuke went but Nessella still felt the cabin brighten.
Huxton:
A flash of light nearly blinded him through the camera's filters. A white fist punched its way out of the station. A third of its mass vanished in an instant. Huxton got ready for the report that they were still trapped and there was something extending towards them. Then with a final sigh the station crumbled apart.
Something emerged from the wreckage. It vanished into the nebula before Huxton could get a look at it. A chill ran through him, the first time that had happened in years. "What's our situation?" he asked.
"The magnetic field is down" Grissom said.
"Radios are clear! just the usual background static" Cage reported.
Applause rang through the CIC. "Good. Signal all ships we depart as soon as our boarding party returns. Grissom, plot a course for Ravin's location. We'll try to meet him on the way." He drained his flask in one long gulp. "Prepare sickbay for casualties."
He met Nessella in a bed in the hospital. She was sitting in a chair with a brace over one leg. "Hey Commander" she said and smiled. The battle had left her worn out like a combat-stressed marine. Her hands shook and her skin had an unhealthy pallor. The corners of her mouth were red where she'd been shouting into her oxygen mask.
"Hello Colonel." He saluted. Then looked around. The entire boarding party was in various states of collapse around them. Three hundred marines had left. Two hundred and three returned. "Congrats, you helped save the human race. For now."
She chuckled. "Nice to know."
"What happened there?" he pointed at her leg. Stopped just short of tapping it.
Nessella winced. "One of those centurions got my suit and I didn't notice until we were on the hangar deck. Its just a lot of ruptured blood vessels and some tendon damage. I'll be on crutches for a couple weeks." She clapped her hands. "A flesh wound."
"Good to here. Rest up." He went off to thank the rest of the soldiers.
Marlay:
The monitor hooked into Aelia's head was dark. Her brain was cold and dead. Her body was pale and limp like it was already gone. Marlay clutched at her lukewarm right. Across from her Rachel had her left. The teenager's face was buried in the chest of Aelia's hospital gown. A ragged teddy bear sat under the crook of her arm along with roses from several visitors. Every few minutes Marlay felt Aelia clutching her back and started. Then she realized she was imagining and sank a little lower in her chair
It had been so simple. She'd only needed to leap the few feet between them and yank her headphones off. That was it. Huxton would've done it. He would've seen this coming. She'd fraked up and another member of Vindication control was going to be KIA.
"Zoey" Rachel rasped. She looked up. Her eyes were red with tears. Marlay reached over and patted her shoulder. "Did you know Ally was in love with you?"
She'd been trying to push that away and forget about it. All her feelings and the pain from her broken heart surged forwards. Marlay gasped for breath. "I did. She might've been too young now but I loved her back." The girls linked hands at the same time.
"If she doesn't wake up they put her down in two weeks?" Rachel asked.
"Yes."
"I'm praying for her. She is the only person I have left from before the war. I don't want to lose her."
"I'll be praying too."
Huxton:
Most of the Remnant's high command toured Gehenna's medical bay. "So you expect us to take on an additional thousand people when we're running on two-thirds rations?" Travere asked.
Ravin shook his head. "Eight hundred and fifty. The most critical ones died while we were in transit."
Huxton looked at Travere's 'quorum' of Captains. Along with their President they were talking in hushed voices. No sudden moves and no authority. They couldn't decide if it would be better to dump the walking skeletons or take them in. Nobody wanted to make that call. They didn't have the gumption.
He would. "Feed them, care for them, and find them a home. That's the orders." Instantly it seemed like every voice turned against them. Travere couldn't hold the captains back from rounding on Huxton. A couple dozen people began yelling protests and statistics in his face. He placed his hand over his sidearm. "I am an officer of the colonial fleet. I am charged with protecting the human race. That is what I'm doing."
Travere sidled close and whispered in his ear. "How long until the food raid?"
"Next week. Its then or never so it doesn't matter if we take a few hundred more mouths on" His eyes caught one of the television screens on the walls of the hospital. Another food riot was underway. The reporters were blaming it on the 'tyrannical duo' of Huxton and Travere.
…
Nessella limped into his office. "So what's the latest news?" she asked. Huxton held up a sheet of paper.
"The results of carbon-dating that chunk of metal you picked up. It was one hundred and fifty thousand years old."
Nessella's jaw went slack. "I think there was an even older section afterwards. And those cylons, we should've gotten a sample from them."
"Too much of a security risk." He slid the other paper across the table to her. "That came out of the station when we nuked it. I read your report and I think this is what you saw." Nessella could barely make it out. It was a slithering and twisting mess that her eyes had trouble outlining despite being perfectly evident much like the station. There were no distinct features, just the unending mass of something.
She recalled the station. "We still don't know what that is though."
"I know." Huxton took both papers. He walked over to his end table and opened it to expose a safe. The papers went inside and the safe locked behind. "I have the data from the ice planet and some files from Xezbeth in there too. One hard copy, one digital copy in Gehenna's vault. There's something bigger going on here than a bunch of disgruntled machines. We are going to figure it out."
Alenko:
Alenko was let out of the hospital at the break of day. His throat still hurt where the centurion had punched him and one molar was KIA. He gathered a fresh uniform and his grease-sullied rifle and hiked back to the barracks. The corridors were nearly deserted as the second watch was on station while the first had long gone to bed. He'd just give his weapon a quick clean then hit the sack for twelve hours of beautiful sleep.
One sector in he noted that the girl he'd seen leaving the hospital after him was still behind him. Two sectors later he was passing through officer country and she was still there. What the frak would some brat want with him? In the intersection where Huxton had taken a bullet for a random civilian he looked back. She quickly turned away.
By the time she'd turned back he was standing two feet away with his assault rifle held across his chest. Her mouth formed an 'O' and she leapt back. He grabbed her shoulder with one hand. Alenko stood on his toes so he was staring down at her. "Whatever you are planning on doing it isn't worth getting shot over."
She didn't look afraid. Didn't look angry either. She was clenched up in pain. "My name is Rachel Carmine. Do you accept volunteers for the marines?" Stuffy Virgonian upper-class accent.
"Getting here requires a lengthy process that does not involve stalking me across the ship. That sends you to the brig."
The girl bit her lip. "Did you hear about Specialist Wrenner?"
"The girl who got her brain fried, yes." She recoiled like he'd slugged her.
"Aelia was my friend since we were born. She's the only person I have left from before. Now she's brain dead." Her voice rose to a fevered rage. "The cylons did that to her and now she's never going to wake up. I want to kill cylons." Alenko considered the proposition. The kid was fifteen but she was physically robust, much more so than her friend.
"Can you run a sub-six fifty meter?"
"No."
"Can you handle a gun?"
"I never learned."
"How are you on obeying orders and drilling?"
"I can do that sir. If sports taught me anything I definitely can."
They were going to need to get the replacements somewhere. She was driven and apparently disciplined. Of any two attributes for a successful marine he could've asked for, those were the best two. The iron grip on her shoulder became a gentle pat. "Come down to the barracks in two days at oh-six hundred. I'll have your paperwork and BDUs then. Myself and the other DIs will beat the everloving shit from you at every turn. You want to be an assault marine, you have to take the pain."
She bit her lip and nodded. "I'll be there."
"Good." They left. Before he turned the corner Alenko looked over his shoulder one last time. She was walking back the way she'd come, towards the hospital.
Adama:
Gavel hit desk. The judge asked "do you have any final words Commodore?"
"Yes I do." Bill leaned over so he could look Caine in the eyes. She met his gaze and held it. "Helena. Do you know why you're here?"
Caine furrowed her brow. "You are on a misguided crusade for justice?"
"No. You're here because no one else did what you ever did. Even when we were presented with the opportunity we found a way not to. Even if it meant listening to our subordinates." Instead of shooting them. "We knew that the law would let us do it but we didn't. Because we couldn't live with ourselves if we did."
Caine conferred with Romo. "What is your point? I did what I had to. Pegasus survived and no rules were violated."
Bill had outlined this in a half-asleep haze about six hours ago. "Do you know what it means to be human? You and I have watched the cylons use each other without care for the amount of their own kind they harm. Every officer in the Colonial fleet before you has stopped just short of doing the same. Even Adriatic Huxton drew the line. You crossed it. You used your fellow humans and left them to die when you were done."
Romo began "I don't see how-"
"Where is your humanity Caine? You refuse to accept responsibility for what you've done because it really wasn't your fault. You played god with over a thousand of us. Like a cylon. If we stoop to your level then why would we be worth saving? Answer me that."
Romo couldn't stop her. Caine's composure broke. "What do you know! You weren't there-"
"I was here. My son was presumed dead and I had fifty thousand civilians on my hands." Caine worked her jaw furiously but nothing came out. Romo had one hand on her shoulder in case she did explode. "The persecution rests."
Death itself had struck as the jury filed away. When five hours later recess ended and they returned it was still dead. The judge walked to her podium. "The jury has voted three to two to convict Helena Caine on all charges. She is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole." The ballroom went insane. Screams and shouts from all factions filled the air. Furniture was thrown. A woman drew a megaphone and screamed "peace with the cylons!" before every person with a modicum more sanity beat her until broken.
The marines handcuffed Caine. "Wait!" Bill yelled and walked over.
Caine muttered "you don't seem like the kind to gloat."
Bill shook his head. "I came here to see if you'd apologize before we put you away."
"For what? I did what I had to, to survive. How does that make me any different from you?" She didn't realize it. He turned away to let her go. A familiar face appeared out of the crowd and mounted the stage. Adama sighed and waited for security to approach. "Oh my gods, GINA" Caine screamed. Bill turned to her. "Behind us" Caine screamed in sudden panic.
Bill spun around. Gina kicked Romo into the audience then flattened a pair of marines with one hand. She leapt over them and drew a pistol. Bill did what he had to: threw out his arms to cover Caine. Gina fired. Pain coursed through him.
Lee was running towards Gina when the gunshot cracked through the air. His father doubled over. Again. Shot by a cylon again. He couldn't take it. Lee drew his sidearm. His first shot was low punctured Gina's belly. She spun around to glare at him. He shot her a few inches higher with each pull of the trigger as he adjusted aim. She dropped her gun and raised her hands. Still silent. He shot her through the heart.
Her body hadn't even hit the deck when he reached his father's side. "Dad!" he begged. Bill almost stopped his heart by grabbing his jacket.
"Its okay son, just a shoulder wound." He smiled through pain. Lee's heartbeat barely slowed.
"Thank frakking gods." He collapsed to his knees and grabbed Bill's hand. For now he was just a scared child helpless against the universe.