Azumangastar Galactica
Not-as-Thrilling-as-Advertised
4. Salvage
Rated: T - English - Sci-Fi/Humor - Reviews: 12 - Updated: 06-21-08 - Published: 06-01-08 - Complete - id:4294345
While Kurosawa was relaying the Commander's orders and the Commander was ramping up her blood alchohol content, the pilots were in their rec room conducting their own memorial service.
"To Scorpio." Aida raised her glass before gulping down the liquor.
"Scorpio!" Inoue echoed, slamming hers down on the table. They were both well on their way to plastered.
"Aerilon!" Static called from across the pilot's rec room, echoed by Bug and three others.
"Tauron!" Wallflower shouted, already quite drunk.
"To Tauron!" Tomo answered with her own raised glass before throwing her head back and gulping it down.
Across the table Kagura picked up their bottle and climbed unsteadily up on her chair. "To payback!" she shouted, pumping the bottle into the air, and the room roared their assent. "To payback!" she repeated, pumping her fist again. "So say we all!"
"SO SAY WE ALL!" came the room's response.
"For Picon!" Kagura shouted. "For Tauron!" She glanced down at Tomo. "For Scorpio!" Aida and Inoue. "For Aerilon!" Static and Bug. "And for all the others! SO SAY WE ALL!"
"SO SAY WE ALL!"
"SO SAY WE ALL!"
"SO SAY WE ALL!"
"Captain, get up here."
"What's up?" Asagi asked as she reached the cockpit. "Cylons?"
Torako shook her head. "No, jackpot." She pointed out the window at the Battlestar hanging dead in space, cracked in half and surrounded by the remains of its Vipers.
"What did that?" Asagi asked.
Torako shook her head as she took them in. "I don't know, but it looks mostly intact. Should have something we can use." She reached up and grabbed the ship's comm. "Shimauu, get ready to suit up. We're going outside."
Asagi didn't bother pointing out that military hardware was strictly off limits to salvagers, and that anyone found doing so would be in some serious trouble. Given what was going on she figured if anyone caught them red-handed it would be the Cylons, and if that happened they'd be in deep shit no matter what they happened to be doing at the time. As Torako took them in close she pointed out the window. "Torako, be careful."
Her pilot nodded. "I see it. Ordinance poppin' off all over the place. Could make things dangerous, but at least it'll help to conceal us too."
"'Could'?" Asagi asked. She knew admittedly little about the sorts of things Battlestars fired from those big guns of theirs, but she was pretty sure most of them made very big explosions. She was starting to wonder if this was such a good idea as the Delicate settled onto the shadows in the inner side of the starboard flight pod. The ship was just too wide to fit onto the deck, as they were disappointed to learn.
Torako got up and headed through the hatch to the gangway. "We'll check the hangar deck first," she said as Asagi followed her through the forward hallway to the cargo hold. "With any luck there should be something in the parts lockers." They reached the gangway heading down into the hold. "If we don't find anything there, we can always try cannibalizing the drive from a Raptor, either in bits and pieces or the whole thing. It'd shorten our legs, but it would still be better than nothing."
"Do you know your way around a Battlestar?" Asagi asked, sounding nervous. Their EVA suits didn't have an unlimited supply of oxygen.
Torako shrugged as they headed down. "We went on that tour of the Acropolis in high school, remember? That was the same type as this one." She paused and thought. "Actually, is this the Acropolis?"
"I don't like this," Asagi said as they crossed the catwalk. Below them Simauu was waiting by the airlock. She'd already suited up, and was holding her helmet under one arm. "It's too dangerous."
"Not as dangerous as the alternative," Torako said as they turned down yet another gangway. "We'll be fine, you just worry about keeping an eye on DRADIS."
"Are we going or not?" Shimauu called over to them as they finally reached the floor of the hold. "This thing's heavy."
"Yeah, yeah, gimme a minute." Torako headed for the locker to get suited up herself. Asagi watched her friend start to put on the bulky space suit before heading back to the cockpit to keep an eye on things outside.
Yuri Sakaki sat down and rubbed her eyes. When the injured from their battle above Sagitarron had begun flowing in, she found herself thinking fondly on the post-shore leave days of oozing sores and peeling rashes. There were so many burn victims here now that she wondered if they weren't in danger of running out of morpha. As she tried to ignore the din of anguished moans and cries of pain she looked over at Major Kimura, moving among the injured. As creepy as the man was, she had to admire his dedication to the welfare of his patients.
Sakaki checked her watch and stood. Well, time to get back to work. She rubbed her gritty eyes again and wondered when she would be able to sleep. Soon, she hoped; she didn't like the idea of taking stims.
"Miss Sakaki!"
She turned to see a short young officer coming towards her through the rows of beds and curtains. "Ah, Chiyo." She waved. "You're not hurt, are you?"
Lieutenant Chiyo Mihama shook her head as she reached her. "No, I just wanted to visit you. Are you all right?"
Sakaki nodded and looked around the sick bay. "I'm all right, just tired. Kimura's had us working non-stop since the battle."
Chiyo followed her as she went back to her rounds. "So many people were hurt, it's really terrible!"
Sakaki looked down at Chiyo. "How are you doing with all this? Are you very afraid?"
"Of course not!" Chiyo shook her head and put on a brave face. "I'm a Lieutenant now, I can handle this!"
Sakaki couldn't help but smile. This child prodigy from Caprica was the youngest person on the ship, and hated being treated like a kid. Of all the crew, Lieutenant Mihama probably had the brightest future. Or at least she would have, if recent events hadn't taken place. "It's okay to be afraid," Sakaki said. "I am."
"You are?" Chiyo asked. "But you're so cool!"
She didn't bother trying to deny that. It wasn't that she believed it, it was just that no matter how hard she tried she couldn't seem to convince anyone that she wasn't the lone wolf that they thought she was, so she'd learned to give up trying. Especially with Chiyo, who wanted more than anything to be tall and mature (in appearance, anyway) like she was. "Everyone feels afraid sometimes," she said.
Chiyo nodded and clenched her hands nervously. "I guess I am a little afraid," she said. "It's so scary, all those planets being bombed like that . . . all those people . . ."
Sakaki stopped. She'd been around Chiyo long enough to know what was coming.
Chiyo's eyes began to well up with tears. "My . . . family and my friends . . ." She tried to continue, but it just degenerated into sobs as she was led to a chair.
Sakaki grabbed some tissues from a nearby exam table and knelt down beside her. "It's all right," she said. "I'm sure everything will turn out all right in the end."
"You . . . really think so?" Chiyo asked and sniffed.
Sakaki nodded and smiled, though she wasn't feeling particularly optimistic.
"Tomo."
Tomo waved her hand and made an annoyed sound. She was leaning back in her chair with an arm over her eyes, balanced on the two back legs with her foot hooked around the table's leg to support her. She stank of booze, along with just about everyone else in the room. Sobriety didn't seem to be a factor of the pilots' grief management.
"Hey Numbnuts!" Someone kicked her foot from around the table leg, and she fell back with a surprised shout. As she went her legs kicked out in a vain attempt to balance, knocking the table over onto Kagura and sending the bottles and glasses crashing to the floor. Koyomi Mizuhara jumped back to avoid the wreckage.
"You got a visitor," Kagura said as she righted the table and as Tomo picked herself up off the floor.
Tomo blinked stupidly at Koyomi before the information worked its way through the drunken haze and her face lit up. "Yomiiiii!" she squealed and stumbled through the spilled drinks and broken glass to wrap her arms around the taller girl.
"Ugh, you smell like a distillery," Koyomi said, wrinkling her nose.
"Never mind that, le'ss make out," Tomo slurred.
Koyomi gently pushed her away. "Uh, let's not."
Tomo was too drunk to care that she'd just been denied. "So whassha want?" she asked as she picked up her chair and sat down. Kagura hooked one from an adjacent table and pulled it over for Koyomi.
She shrugged as she sat down. "I thought I should come see how you're doing," she said. "We haven't really spoken since the attack."
Tomo slapped drunkenly at the air in front of her face. "Ahh I'm fine!"
"No, you're drunk," Kagura said as she slouched in her chair.
"So're you, so i'ss ok," she said and leaned forward on the table.
They all looked across the room as Aida and another pilot called Handlebarz tried to comfort a sobbing Inoue.
"I hear the Commander's planning on taking on the entire Cylon fleet," Koyomi said.
"That woman's detached from reality," Kagura said with a burp. As she began to sober up, her desire to stay alive began to overpower her desire for revenge.
"Ahh, yer both cowards!" Tomo said angrily and pounded on the table. "I'm g'nna killus many o' those toastersus I can!"
They ignored her. "I think Colonel Kurosawa might have to relieve her of command," Koyomi said.
"Mutiny? Don't they shoot you for that?"
Koyomi shrugged. "That's assuming there's anyone left out there to try us."
"WAAAAAAH!" Tomo wailed, tears suddenly streaming down her face. "My family's DEAD!"
"Okay, we're at the airlock," a very much alive Torako Takino said over the wireless as she and Shimauu reached the heavy metal door set into the wall of the flight deck. The wheel spun, the door swung inward, and they were aboard the derelict Battlestar. Their flashlights cut through the airless silence as they made their way through the darkened corridor in what they hoped was the right direction. "The hangar deck is below us, so we just need to head down and we should be there," Torako said, more to herself than to anyone else.
"This is a little creepy," Shimauu's voice said into her ears.
She nodded, though the motion didn't translate through the helmet. "Captain," she said, "how's it looking out there?"
"No contacts yet," said Asagi's voice. "What about you guys?"
They stopped as they came to a hatch. "Hold on," Torako said and spun the wheel. She felt the vibration through her gloves as she swung it open, but it made no sound in the vacuum. "Waagh!" she yelled involuntarily and jumped back a step, nearly colliding with Shimauu.
"What is it? Torako?"
"Nothing, we're fine," Torako said as she shined her light on the cloudy-eyed face of a young man in an orange jumpsuit. "We just found one of the crew." Beyond him she could see more shapes floating in the darkness. She turned to Shimauu. "You okay?"
She looked away from the corpse and nodded. "I think so," she said.
Torako nodded and forced herself to push the body away. As they stepped through the hatch it went spinning off, colliding with another member of the deck crew. The two bodies became entangled, spinning together in a grotesque zero-gravity dance. "Okay," she said as they made their way along the catwalk above the deck, "Let's see what we can find."
