First Contact 35:
World Breaker

Six was standing on the roof top of one of the few sky scrapers to survive the war, looking out across a city who's name she had never though to learn. It was somehow strange to stand amid what had once been a teeming metropolis of millions, but was now a darkened shell of its former glory. There were a few lights, scattered round where her fellow Cylons were working on repairing necessary infrastructure, but the city was eerily silent, with only the muted howling of the wind blowing in off of the nearby desert.

The Twelve Colonies of Kobol had fallen, and aside from a few scattered survives, the human race was all but extinct. The refuges following the School Teacher and the Old Warhorse might truly believe in a mythical Thirteenth Tribe, but Six knew in her heart that it was just that, a myth. A story parents told their children at bedtime. There was no Thirteenth Tribe, no distant and hidden world known as Earth. Aside from the devastated remains of Kobol, the universe was a cold and and unforgiving wasteland, devoid of life.

It came as a surprise then when the heavens opened, the sky torn asunder by a rotating void that stretched from horizon to horizon. Lightning flashed across a cloudless sky, deafening rolls of thunder shattering every remaining window in the city. Six clasped her hands down over her ears, her screams of pain lost amid the sound of the universe being ripped in two. No eyes that looked up survived long enough to see the small bluer of silver that shot forth from out of the maelstrom, streaking low across the city. The shock wave it generated as it passed over head blow Six across the roof and over the edge, sending her tumbling down into the streets below...

Six's head broke the surface of the rebirth tank, her mouth open wide to suck down as much air as she could. Wiping the warm pink liquid from her eyes, she could tell that something was wrong; the entire chamber was filled with smoke and flame, explosions rocking the entire building as the fire found something volatile and set it off. Amid all the chaos, silhouetted against the raging inferno, stood a solitary Centurion, its armour dented and broken, its left arm ripped off at the shoulder.

"Report." Six croaked, "Where are the others."

"There are no others." The Centurion looked at her, the visor of its solitary red eye cracked and unmoving, "They have gone to face the life form classification Hulk."

"Hulk?" Six blinked, looking round for some cloths and finding only a dusty set of BDU's and a rifle, "How long was I in the buffer for?"

"6-days, 18-hours, 17-minutes and 36 seconds." Her companion reported, "You have command authorisation."

"Command authorisation?" Six looked up as she pulled on the uniform, regretting the absence of her preferred slinky red dress, "I'm the hight rank on planet?"

"You are the highest rank left within any known operations area." The Centurion responded blankly, "No other signals detected."

"What the frack?" Six almost fell over in shock, "They're dead? All of them?"

"Yes." The Centurion's voice seemed suddenly all to cold and emotionless.

"How...how many Centurions are there?" Six asked, thinking on her feet as she made her way out of the Resurrection chamber, the hard combat boots she wore thumping against the cold sheet metal that covered the floor.

"One operational Centurion within any known operations area." He metallic companion responded, a few paces behind, "There are, however, still two Basestar's in orbit and ready to execute battle-plan Scorched Earth."

"That's a little extrema..." Six's comment died on her lips as they reached the surface and made their way out into the street.

While the city had shown signs of the nuclear holocaust before, now it was a total wasteland, without a single building still standing. All around them lay ruins, while clouds of smoke billowing from countless fires filled the air. Amid the wreckage lay bodies, Centurions and BioCylons alike; they lay strewn about along an unmistakable path of destruction that led out of the desert and into the middle of the city. Motioning the Centurion to follow her, Six followed the trail of devastation, the weight of the rifle in her hands suddenly comforting.

Picking her way across the rubble, she continued until she came to the park that had been the centrepiece of the entire city; it was somehow untouched by the wholesale devastation, but there was something sitting under a grove of trees, half-hidden in the deep shadows.

"Wait here." Six ordered the Centurion, "And if anything happens to me, activate battle plan Scorched Earth."

Her final order given, she slowly made her way across the grass until she got a better look at the strange creature that sat in the warm sunlight. It was probably twice her hight, a living mountain of muscle, its breath rasping even at rest. Despite its unusual size and dark green skin, its face, when she finally saw it, was almost like that of a human. Hard green eyes snapped round to examine her as if she was a bug under a microscope.

"Have you come to challenge Hulk too?" It asked, the voice of rage and ruin, "Puny humans and your clockwork soldiers; no better than those who tricked Hulk onto ship and sent him into space."

"I'm not a human; I'm a Cylon." Six explained, hoping it would afford her some measure of protection, "There used to be humans here, on this world, but we killed them all."

"Cylons Smash?" The Hulk asked.

"Yes, I suppose we did..." Six nodded, not fully understanding the question.

"Cylons smash puny humans, then try to smash Hulk." The creature hissed, anger radiating off of his body, "Why no one leave Hulk alone?"

"I'm the last of my kind." Six explained, putting the rifle down; she knew it would do no good, and would only antagonise the stranger more, "No one left to hurt you."

"Cylons smashed humans, smashed city." The Hulk looked around at the trees; they were all dead or dying of radiation poisoning, "Cylons smash trees and flowers! HULK LIKE TREES AND FLOWERS!" With a roar that sounded like the battle cry of an enraged God, the Hulk leapt to his feet and grabbed Six, his huge fist squeezing the air out of her lungs, "MAYBE HULK FINISH SMASHING PUNY CYLONS NOW?"

"If you do that... then you will die." Six gasped, fighting the darkness that threatened to engulf her, "Anyone who comes across this planet will know you destroyed my people? Will that save the trees and flowers?"

"They can call me what they want." The Hulk laughed as the hail-storm of missiles fell down through the sky, so many that they almost blotted out the sun, "Saviour? Destroyer? All that matters is that I made a choice..."

A second sun rose across the surface of Caprica, destroying all in its path. And while it removed the last traces of the Cylon occupation, of the being known as Hulk, there was no sign.

Bear witness to his choice, Children of Kobol, and give thanks to your Gods.

And then pray for their mercy, for tonight the Hulk may sleep...

...but his rage will never die.

The End
(Battlestar Galactica/Planet Hulk)