Recon Heavy Raider
Deep Space
Caprica Cavil, that's what they were calling him now. His long mission with Anders - my father, he thought – had affected him. He was no longer pure, no longer like the rest of his brothers. And the First One, John, had known this.
"When we get back, I'm going to have you boxed."
Caprica Cavil had no doubts about his brother's sincerity. Upon arriving, John had been distracted. Consumed with his mission to annihilate humanity.
"I'll box you tomorrow." He said, on that first day. And the next day. And the week after that. Maybe some part of John didn't want to do it, or maybe he just had too much to do. More likely, John couldn't figure out how to box him without explaining the reasons to the others, which would have been even worse. Whatever the reason, the reprieve had been welcome.
Then the growing rift in Cylon society had led to the Civil War. Boomer had broken the deadlock between the Cylon models over lobotomizing the raiders. Or so it had seemed, for the other three models had disagreed. It had been a matter of procedure, argued Caprica Six. If three models were majority in favor, and three models major in disfavor, that was still a tie even if one individual dissented.
After all, it didn't matter to anyone that he had dissented from the rest of the Ones and sided with those who didn't want to lobotomize the raiders. What did it matter that one Eight also disagreed with her line?
John had used that moment to exercise his power, to show everyone who was truly in charge.
Caprica Cavil stole the heavy raider that evening. The reprieve from being boxed surely wasn't going to survive this. Whatever remaining humanity – Caprica Cavil tasted the word and didn't know how to process it – John had left died in that moment. He really was a machine.
Eventually he made it to a "rebel" basestar and declared his allegiance… only to find that basestar the target of a vicious attack. Cavil didn't know how many had died in the short war, but the casualties on both sides had been horrific, and for the most part, resurrection ships hadn't been in range during the fighting. More had died, more ships had been destroyed, during the short civil war than the entire conflict with the Colonials.
"So much death," he said. A Six and an Eight had escaped the dying basestar with him, along with a pair of now-sentient new-model Centurions.
"Blame the rest of your line for that." The Eight said. Cavil felt the sting of those words.
"I've had a long time to think about this." He replied.
"Yeah?" The Eight responded dismissively. She was hurt, he knew, wounded that so many of her line had been lost.
"Yeah. Look, we were immature. Yes, I know how that sounds. Look at me. I'm an old man – modeled after my grandfather, I suppose," for Cavil had decided that the time had come to release the identities of the Final Five, now that hope of reunification was gone. Too bad these two would probably be the only ones to ever know it.
He continued. "But really, we were children. All of us. Intelligent. Powerful. But still emotionally stunted, immature children. Even after decades on the Colony, what did we learn? Give children a fleet of basestars, a touching story about the enslavement of their ancestors, and off goes the genocide. Our parents were wiser than we were."
The Eight laughed at that, despite the situation. "Colonel Tigh and Ellen as wise? Hard to imagine that."
"At least they never turned on their own people. At least they never genocided an entire race. We've done both. If there is a God, surely he is disappointed."
He began plotting the next sequence of jump coordinates. Their fuel was limited, for there had been no time to tank off on the basestar before the attack had consumed it. They would need to encounter Ellison's ship soon, supposing it had survived, or they would be doomed to a slow death.
"You really think my sister is still alive?" The Six asked.
"I know it," Cavil replied. "When she came back to us, she brought a touch of that piratical mindset back with her. God wouldn't let her die so easily, I think." The others looked at him curiously. No other One had demonstrated a faith in God. Then again, I don't know he exists either. I just… wonder if maybe the rest of my line got it all wrong on that count, too, just like they did with the rest.
"But how can you know where she is? Is God going to lead you to her?" The Eight said, sarcasm creeping into her tone.
Cavil laughed. "I also put a tracking device on the ship back when she was refitting it. Yes, we still have to get close to find her. But we know where she was, and I have some suspicion of what she was trying to do. Spend a year with the Caprican resistance and you can find yourself thinking rather like a human…"
"I hope you're right," said the Six.
One of the Centurions looked at the rest and inclined his head slightly. What thoughts were creeping around its CPU, Cavil couldn't fathom. The ship jumped to the first marker on his search grid, Ellison's last known coordinates.
… … …
Recon Raptor
Deep Space – Initial Rendezvous Coordinates
Hatchet frowned as he scanned the environment. Something was very wrong. Though most of it was at the extreme end of DRADIS range, it was clear there had been a battle here, and a pretty big one at that. Wrecked raiders were floating around on ballistic courses, and damaged sections of a larger vessel – probably a basestar – littered the battlefield.
His ECO, Nikos, a balding middle-aged man covered Halatha tattoos, and a Dreadnought salvager who had been drafted to duty on Revenge due to his familiarity with the mass spec machinery, captured the essence of the situation. "Godsdamn, someone got butt-frakked hard out here. Who the frak could paste the Cylons like this?"
"Not sure we want to stay around and find out." Hatchet said. His mission was to jump to various coordinates where Eternal Star had changed course to see if there were any indications the Cylons had seen through the ruse, then jump to his assigned 'water hole in the desert' Isard had called it, in his briefing, if no evidence could be found.
Well, there is definitely evidence, he thought. Frak. Nash isn't going to like this.
"Hatchet – um… sir… whatever. Take a look at this." Nikos said, sending a visual feed to his station. "Scanning the wreckage, I found a dud. Capital ship grade Cylon missile. It's embedded in the raider. Looks like it smacked into the raider before it had time to arm itself. Or maybe the raider deliberately rammed it. Hard to tell."
Hatchet pondered that for a few moments. The Cylons were shooting at each other? What the frak?
"And the bigger stuff," Nikos began, "definitely came off something big. Basestar-sized, probably. Some pretty thick armor."
"Can you confirm that it's Cylon?"
Nikos nodded. "Yeah, looks Cylon to me. But it's a little old."
"Old? How can you tell?"
"Doesn't have the organic resin shit you see on the newer ships when they explode. But the spectrometer is telling me it still matches known Cylon metal formulation techniques. Guessing, I'd say someone took an old ship out here for some godsdamned reason, and then some other Cylons took a good shot at killing it."
"Took a good shot? It's not dead?"
"I mean maybe, I dunno. But if it died, it didn't do it here. Not enough wreckage for a whole basestar. Not seeing remains of a jump drive either, or anything like it. Whatever it was probably lived and got away from here, but got shot up real good."
Hatchet sighed and keyed the computer for the jump back to Revenge. They'd need this information. In all probability, the Cylons were searching for them. Or some were, anyway.
"Weird shit, man." Nikos said. "Frakking weird." He pulled out a flask and started drinking.
"Godsdamnit, you can't drink on duty!" Hatchet said.
"Whatever," Nikos said. "I don't tell you how to do your job. Don't tell me how to do mine."
Hatchet was floored for a moment. "Um… you DO know how the military works, right?"
… … …
Dreadnought
Deep Space
Summers could feel it in his bones. Something big was about to happen. The comfort of the last year was coming to an end. He puffed on his cigar and contemplated the revelations from Hatchet and Nikos.
"They are looking for us… that much is clear." He said. It was obvious, and probably didn't need to be said out loud, but it helped him think.
"We have to go. Now." Nash added. "And frankly, I'm not going to wait around for you to…"
Summers turned to face the irate Colonel. "Yeah? How long do you think Revenge is going to last, alone out there in blackness of cold space? We do this thing together. Shut your frakking mouth unless you have something to say that isn't completely stupid."
Nikos leaned against a wall and broke out a cigarette, flicking his lighter open. "Some weird shit going on out there, Cap'n. Cylon wreckage all over. Didn't make much sense."
Isard chimed in. "Well, maybe it does, actually."
"What do you mean?" Summers asked.
"Think about it, sir," Isard began, pointedly using his title of address and casting a warning glance Nash's way. "We got to Earth, and found evidence that the Thirteenth tribe had their own robotic rebellion. And Dana said the Cylons of Kobol fought each other. No reason these Cylons can't be doing the same thing. Especially since we're not a threat anymore. They've got all the time in the world to hash out their own differences. Cycle of time and all that."
Summers nodded. "Plausible, at least. So we know some Cylons saw through our little trick, and have been hunting for us. But they didn't see through it right away, or they'd have found us already. We know one faction of Cylons reactivated an old basestar, and some other Cylons were after them."
Stalker leaned against the main tactical display. "Look, we don't have a lot of choice here. We either abandon a Galleon of Kobol, and all of its resources, or we don't. We either take the risk that maybe the Cylons gave up looking for us because they are fighting their own damned war, or that whoever wins is still gonna come looking for us when they're done. Leave or stay. That's really about it."
Dana, over wireless, spoke up. For the most part, she had remained silent during the discussion. "There's a third option."
Summers scratched his chin. "Yeah? What's that."
"You could find these Cylons first."
"I'm positive I didn't hear that right," he said.
"Make an alliance with one of the Cylon factions. Probably whichever one is losing, as they'd be more likely to want our help," Dana offered.
"Are you frakking KIDDING ME!" Nash yelled. "What kind of stupid, ass-backwards idea is that? I thought AI stood for artificial intelligence, not artificial idiot!"
"Frak you." Dana answered.
"You don't have the proper equipment." Nash said.
"Neither do you."
"Well, your hanger deck can accept whole freighters, so…"
Summers mulled that over for a moment, ignoring the banter. "Here's what we're going to do. I want all the civvies to transfer over to the agro freighter, and move it out of Eternal Star's landing pod. I want all ships spooled and ready to jump away from the Galleon within the hour, but I also want all the important seed stock and animal samples, and a few tissue growth machines transferred during that time. I want to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. When the recon Raptors report back, tank them off and send them on a search grid along our previous course, backtracking to where we found the Cylon wreckage. I want to find these Cylons and at least figure out what their intentions are."
"No, sir," Nash replied. "I'm not allying with toasters."
"I didn't say we're going to ally with them," Summers said. "I said we're going to find them and figure out what's going on, if they are looking for us, and what this conflict between them means. Only then will we have enough information to figure out what the frak we're going to do. But I want to be ready to abandon the galleon immediately if we have to."
"I understand," Dana said.
"Wish we could'a rigged a jump drive on the galleon," Jack said. "Would'a made things easier."
"Trust me, I wish that too," she replied. "But a jump drive big enough for me would have to be fabricated by a major shipyard. And I'm not sure it would even work then. I was never designed for it."
Nikos finished his cigarette and flicked the butt into the waste recycling chute. "Yeah, least I'd be guaranteed a lifetime supply of cancer sticks if we could stick around here. Guess I better get back to my ship." Hatchet followed him out the hatch.
Working on a communications console, Frank stuck his head up to interject. "Hey, what if it's a ship full of hot Cylon babes or something? Think we could keep some?"
Jack shook his head. "What the frak are the odds of that?"
… … …
Two-hundred and thirty-seven Sixes crowded the basestar's main armored deck, the only one with fully functional life-support. The other decks buzzed with Centurion activity. Holes in the hull were being patched, systems being brought back online. Ellison frowned – the cramped confines and lack of functional showers offended her nostrils. She laughed. If it bothered her, after living aboard Dreadnought, it had to be horrifying to her sisters.
"We don't have enough Centurions to get the ventral section habitable any time soon," Kelly said.
"I know," Ellison replied. "If we can patch up the rest of the dorsal hull and lash the ventral supports, we should at least be able to get a couple of jumps out of the ship, and survive for a while on our stored supplies."
"We were supposed to tank off on consumables every month to…" Another Six began.
"Don't worry too much. I always overstated our supply needs to the General. Gamed the system a bit in case I wanted to freelance for a while. We've got a few months of consumables, if we can get access to the cargo bays on decks one and two." Ellison said.
"We're pushing the Centurions pretty hard…" Kelly pointed out.
"They know the stakes. If we lose, they'll be lobotomized, or just outright destroyed. They will help us." Ellison said.
Kelly merely nodded. Alarms suddenly went off throughout the ship's flow-interface.
"Incoming! Heavy raider!" Kelly said.
"One of ours?" Ellison asked, through the shared interface. But before she could confirm, she armed the primary batteries, just in case. And aren't I glad I argued to have the main guns repaired first?
"Basestar, this is…" The voice belonged to a One.
Kelly's face fell as Ellison trained the batteries on the incoming raider.
"DON'T SHOOT," a Six's voice came through the wireless. "He's Caprica Cavil. He's with us! He rebelled against the others. Ellison heard some yelling in the background. "…I told you to let me talk first you frakking moron… no… well I don't care…"
Ellison allowed herself a little internal chuckle as she tasted the security profiles of the three humanform Cylons aboard the heavy raider. A Six, an Eight, and… yes, that was Caprica Cavil. She detected a pair of functional Centurions as well, and they weren't locked into sub-sentient mode. That meant they were probably on her side. She kept the weapons trained on the raider, but felt the adrenaline high start to die down.
"Dock in bay three. Bays one and two are open to space right now. No sudden moves. How'd you find us?"
"Long story," Caprica Cavil said. "Short version is that I put a tracker on your ship."
"You WHAT?" Ellison answered. "You mean they could be tracking us right now?"
"Only I know the frequency to look for. Otherwise it'll look like background radiation."
"Frak you." Ellison said. But she opened the docking bay anyway.
An hour of rushed explanations later, she felt as if her whole world had crumbled around her. The Thirteenth Tribe were Cylons? They had their own robotic rebellion? The Ones had boxed the Threes because they knew?
Most of all, the Final Five were in Galactica's fleet? Her whole world had turned upside down. Now, with damning certainty, she knew it had been wrong to attack humanity. Jack, where are you? I was so wrong. I'm so sorry. She thought about the humans she had killed, personally.
She wanted to take it all back.
She wanted to choke this Cavil to death, even if he had repented of the actions of his brothers.
She wanted to put a gun to her head to make the pain and guilt go away. Just pull the trigger… no resurrection ship… the final death… It would be sublime.
The many Sixes around her reacted in their own ways. A single face, copied so many times, but with the hint of individuality crossing them all. Some frowned, some cried. Some stood blankly, as if their system was stuck in that moment between download and full reactivation. There were blondes and brunettes, redheads and one that had taken to coloring her hair as black as an Eight's. Some dressed conservatively, others provocatively.
They were becoming human.
To be human meant to be afraid. To feel shame. Guilt.
"Frak you," Ellison cried.
"I know," Caprica Cavil said. "I know. What we did was…"
"Evil."
"Not just that," Caprica Cavil said. "It was dumb. We knew more about the cycle of time than the humans ever did, and here we are repeating it knowingly."
A Centurion stood watch over both of them, looking curiously from one to the other. He said nothing, but suddenly Ellison wondered if he wondered if he had likewise judged his humanform compatriots as evil-minded morons.
"So what now?" She wondered aloud.
"We go find that boyfriend of yours aboard Dreadnought." Caprica Cavil said.
"The Ones never believed us when we said the nuke was designed to cover an ion trail. The General thought this was a fool's quest."
Caprica Cavil laughed. "I believed you. I spent long enough among the humans in the Caprican Resistance to know how they think. I think you're right, and given what happened to the rest of our fleet, they may be our only hope. As far as I know, yours is the only basestar on our side to have survived. Certainly our basestar didn't make it."
"What about Galactica?" Kelly said.
"What about them? I don't have any idea where Galactica went to. But we do have a lead on these pirates of yours." Caprica Cavil said. "And unless what I saw isn't as bad as it looks, I don't think this ship is going to work out for us in the long run. We're going to need help to survive."
"That's assuming they don't just blast us out of the sky as soon as we find them." Ellison said, frowning. And I'd deserve it, too.
"We've got one thing going for us." Caprica Cavil pointed out. When many of the other Sixes merely tilted their heads questioningly, he continued. "You've got a ship full of beautiful women, and Dreadnought is what the humans would call a frakkin' sausage fest. I think we can make a deal."
Behind him, Kelly rolled her eyes. "Oh, great. Just frakkin' great. That's your frakked up plan? Isn't your model always going around saying 'we have a plan'," she dropped her voice an octave for the last bit and waved her hands around like she was a robotic caricature. "But really, it's all just a frakked up ass pull from a petulant child who was mad at his mommy."
But maybe that wouldn't be all bad, Ellison thought, ignoring Kelly's rant. If he still loves me, if I'm still worth loving…