Responses to Comments:
Loose a Fur - You get full marks for creativity. Cru thinks they'll all be heading back one day. I expect he'll want to keep the war-time atrocities at a minimum.
Monbade - I found where you got 50 Mil. Cool. I'll let the readership die down (all dozen or so) and change it.
BSG FanFic - Bree's Twin
Chapter 5, Heat
Please note: I own no part or share in the Battlestar Galactica realm. This story is submitted for entertainment purposes only. Any similarities in names (other than specific BSG cast) are unintended. Any plot similarities to other FF stories are also unintended.
Reminder: I did not spend time making up non-earth names for common things; a soda is not a "fizzy ", oil is not "slip-juice", a pistol is not a mini 'hand-boomer", etc.
"Of all the work I did for Undersecretary Roslin, and I choose 'that' story. Why do people always go for the embarrassing ones?"
~Cru, Journal, if he had time to keep one
The Galactica did battle with the Cylons as the fleet fled to the Prolmar sector. BREE'S TWIN, having had direct contact with the Cylons, was required to sail at the furthest reaches of the fleet, as a precaution. It was one of the last ships out of the Ragnar weapons depot approach and the last ship to come up underneath the Galactica. Galactica took a pounding, waiting for that last ship - Cru's ship - to jump away. The last sight Cru beheld, before jumping away, was the Galactica retrieving its vipers amid a massive firestorm of missiles and an uncountable number of Cylon attack craft. It was a scene, his first of many, that Cru would never forget.
BREE'S TWIN came out of the FTL jump in safe alignment with the fleet. Whoever calculated the jumps for sixty-odd ships leaving from the same point, to arrive in reasonable formation without bumping into each other, was a genius with numbers. That was Cru's first thought. His second thought was whether Galactica would survive and join them, or not.
The Galactica showed up moments later. It was scarred with impact craters.
~~~~~/~~~~~
"We're the only ones here…" said John with a heavy heart.
BREE'S TWIN arrived at the rear of the ragtag colonial fleet. The position provided a full view of the surviving ships. None were military save for the warship now at their center. Too few were fleet-level vessels with the facilities for long-term flight operations. Too many needed regular ports-of-call for maintenance, refueling, and resupply.
John stepped around the command console and up to the forward windows. "Is there no one else?" He scanned the stars in all directions.
"It's just us - this is all that's made it so far." Cru scanned the DRADIS and looked out the same windows as John. "The DRADIS counts seventy-eight ships - but a whole lot of them look like ghost images - hard to tell from this angle."
"Cru, I expected forty battlestars, in formation, ready to kick it to the Cylons - ready for revenge."
"Maybe this is a rallying point. I expect the military folks will have a plan. We'll need to be ready to act when the call goes out."
"So, keep the engines warm."
"Yeah, really warm."
John nodded. "Did you hear? The new president is the Education Secretary. I never knew there was an 'Education Secretary'." John returned to his seat. He gave a heavy sigh. He looked for a distraction - any distraction.
"Oh, well...um," said Cru. He started through some computer checks but paused and turned. "There's a secretary for everything, but yeah, I actually knew her."
"Personally?"
"No, nothing like that. The military was doing this integration thing with service members and their families. We were out at the big Trejo station."
John gave a half-smile. It was a false smile. Any semblance to amusement, entertainment, or joy, was false. "So, you were out in the middle of nowhere."
"Yeah, me and seven thousand other people. It was a big deal, with schools and everything. She was an undersecretary at the time, and she was there as a sort of sledgehammer to make sure it was successful. We had just rotated in for eight months, me and a lieutenant named Brooke. Our raptor was outfitted for recovery ops for the crews doing outside work. It was brand-spanking new. It was also the only reliable shuttle vehicle that wasn't set up for maintenance work and covered in grease. We took her and a couple of others to different parts of the station every morning and picked them up every evening. It was faster to fly them over than them trying to get anywhere, on foot, or by cart. I remember she was courteous even though she didn't have to be."
"She's a government official. 'Courtesy' is what they do."
"And she did it well, all except once." Cru smiled. "She jabbed me in the ribs with her finger."
"Why?"
"Well, we used access ports for most of the runs - they were all over the station and all of them were the circular kind. They got us closer to where we needed to be, rather than using the landing bays. One morning, I flew her to a port on the down-pitch, which means scooting over the edge on your butt and climbing down into gravity."
John nodded his understanding.
Cru continued. "On one trip, she was reaching down for the ladder with her feet and as she eased down, her blouse hung up on the static transfer tab - it sticks out a little. She tried to get it loose, but she stumbled down the ladder. I caught her by the waist before she fell, but the blouse ended up pulled up over her shoulders - right in front of me."
"Oh no!" said John with a smile of disbelief. "Our new president?"
"Yep. I set her down, and with great decorum and impeccable deportment, she stood tall, pulled her blouse back into place, and flattened out the wrinkles. I stood there at a modified 'attention', holding out my hand for support, if she wanted it, and trying not to laugh - it was pretty funny. She gave me a mock scowl - I think it was a mock scowl, and she jabbed me in the side with her index finger."
John gave a smile.
"After that, I offered my hand anytime I proceeded her through. It's not protocol, like the old days, but she took my hand as often as not."
"Do you think she would remember you?"
"Maybe she would, I guess. My helmet said 'Cru' on the back. She saw it every day. Other than that and the unintended blouse-thing, it was mostly, 'Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Please watch your step, ma'am."
John nodded and gave another half-smile.
"Okay, then," said Cru as he shifted in his chair to face the consoles. "I need to work out some new jump numbers. I don't like being out here unprepared. Can you keep working on getting things stowed? I'll watch the con, for now, let's say, another two hours or so. Then we'll switch. I'll do some of the lift-work."
"I don't mind the hard work. It gives me something to focus on," said John. "I'll start on the bay and the machine shop. If we can get a repair crew on-board, I don't want them running off with the tools."
"That's a good call. I'll ask around and see who's available."
~~~~~/~~~~~
Exactly eighteen minutes later:
"John, they found us!" shouted Cru over the ship's intercom. "We're jumping again! Mrs. Hawkins, you and your kids hold on to something!"
The first of more than two hundred FTL jumps was completed. John was up on the bridge in less than a minute, which included crawling on hands and knees, under the decompressed receiving deck.
"Cylons?" called John. He ran up the stairs and slipped into his chair next to Cru. He scanned the DRADIS.
"Yep. They were right on top of us when they popped in." Cru worked the controls and punched in operation codes - his hands were visibly shaking. "Look at this." Cru pointed to the monitor on his right. "We had three inbound missiles on us. We jumped right out of their path - a hair's breadth from scrap metal. My heart is still pounding."
John put his finger on the monitor's screen, right under the number eighteen. The number was written with three digits, which included a decimal point and a zero.
"Am I reading this right? The missile was a hundred and eighty meters away? That's pretty close."
"Look at it again. There's a decimal point in there. It was eighteen meters away. They were ship-killer missiles, John, traveling at speed, and yes, I'm really getting tired of these near-death experiences."
John sunk deeper into his chair as exasperation won out. Eighteen meters was a very, very small fraction of a second, away from death.
"Me too," said John, "...really tired." John looked out the front windows. "I see we're still with the others. Did everyone make it?"
"I don't know. We were the closest ship to the damn things, us and the Olympic Carrier. That's them off our starboard. We got out. I'd like to think we're all here."
Cru pointed to a monitor. In it, was framed the large cruise liner, OLYMPIC CARRIER.
"Who's running the jumps? I'm glad we're that organized."
"Yes, well, that's what almost got us killed. We got the numbers from Galactica and I couldn't get the damn things registered fast enough."
"Registered? Why aren't they linking with us? They could jump all of us with one push of a button."
"No, no links. Rumor says that's how the pan-heads wiped us out. They got into our networks and shut down the systems - whole battlestars, just poof, gone off the net, and defense batteries never fired a shot. So yeah, everything is manual."
John pointed. "Look, you got a new set coming in - jump coordinates."
"Here we go again," said Cru with a sigh. He read the numbers from the incoming message text and punched them into a keypad.
~~~~~/~~~~~
"Bree's Twin, this is Raptor 478, callsign 'Boomer', Please Acknowledge".
BREE'S TWIN, for the moment, playing the role of an errant freighter, was at the edge of DRADIS limits. The jump coordinates were off, by a little, and the result was one less ship at the arrival point. The fleet had jumped sixty-three times. This wasn't the first error encountered but it was the biggest. Or, was it?
"We're here, Boomer. Where should we be?" The voice was Cru's. "I can't find you."
"Bree's Twin, I have you on visual. I am low on your Port bow."
The many billions of stars visible to human eyes made it impossible to see the tiny raptor or the faraway fleet. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii and her ECO tracked down BREE'S TWIN long before Cru could pick her up on his older equipment.
"Bree's Twin I am transmitting your location to Galactica. We'll get you new coordinates soon. Stay where you are. Once you have them, make your jump and wait for us at the new location. You will be there alone but only until the rest of us jump in. To clarify, stay where you are, for now. Do not attempt to return to the fleet from here. We will give you a set of coordinates based on your current location."
"Understood, Boomer. Standing by."
Cru switched off the mic. "Now we wait."
"Right," replied John. "If the Cylons jump over here, then we know they put some sort of tracker on us."
"Right, then we bug out to the new locale, I suit up, and I go on a space-walk to find it."
"Yeah, if it's us they are tracking, it'd have to be something outside. They got on board, but they got sucked out by the decompression, moments after."
Cru nodded his agreement.
"Pardon me...sir."
Neither man heard Evvie come up the stairs. Both turned around in surprise. Cru stood. John did not.
Evvie had stood silent for several minutes, waiting, while Cru and John worked through their plan. Evvie wore a pale yellow jumper and slacks, with a long-sleeve white blouse, all of which were soiled from the short time aboard-ship. Most prominent, was the blood of her husband down her front, from when she had held him, and watched him die. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. Her hair was shoulder-length and held back with a blue band. Some of the hair had tugged loose and hung in her face. She was not wearing shoes. Cru had a fleeting memory of them being loose slippers of a sort, of them being ripped off her feet, and their flying towards the gaping decompression hole.
"You said you would come to get us when we were away," said Evvie, "but you did not." Her voice was low and her eyes were downcast. "The children are hungry."
"Your children can, frakking go to-" started John in a growl.
"John…," said Cru, "don't."
John wasn't ready to listen to Cru, not about this. The woman standing before them was doing so, instead of Lita, his fiancé. Lita had a son with her. Both were dead, in part, because of the woman. Still, John's rage was a thing best left buried and contained, for now. He knew this. He was a practical man. They were tired, exhausted, and life still danced on the tip-most portion of a razor's edge. It was better to be silent than let fly with emotions that, once released, would not be contained.
"You passed the galley coming up here," said Cru. "It's just back and to the right. Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge - we need to work through that, first."
Evvie nodded her understanding. The perishable food should be eaten first so that nothing was wasted. She turned and started down the stairs. She stopped, turned in place, and spoke again, "can I bring you two back anything?"
Neither Cru nor John had eaten. Prepping for FTL jumps every thirty-three minutes had left little room for anything else.
"Can you make us some sandwiches?" asked Cru.
"I don't want anything," snapped John.
Cru gave a quiet sigh. He held up two fingers, to Evvie, to indicate a sandwich for both him and John.
Evvie nodded and retreated back down the remaining stairs.
Cru and John sat in silence until the thirty-three-minute mark arrived. They had received the new coordinates from Galactica but held off their jump. They waited for the Cylons; three base stars, at the least, and hundreds of fighter craft. None arrived - at least not by them. They waited until the thirty-five-minute mark. Nothing showed in their locale but ghost images flickered at the furthest reaches of the DRADIS, where the fleet had been. Any longer, and the Galactica might send someone looking for them. They jumped away and found the fleet. It was winding down from its sixty-fourth jump. The Galactica looked like it had more holes in its armor.
Evvie came onto the bridge without Cru or John hearing her. She brought sandwiches and juice and departed quietly, except to mention that it was very hot in the stern section of the ship.
"That's a problem," said Cru after Evvie was gone.
"Right," snapped John. "You need to find that woman a pair of shoes, something loud, or a collar with a bell, so we can hear her sneaking up on us."
"She's not 'sneaking' up on us and that's not what I meant."
"I know, I know," said John waving his hand. "So what about this heat? What don't I know?"
"We don't have baffles and cycling pumps like regular tankers do. The tylium holding tank is strictly for out-and-back hauling. We're still a fleet-level freighter, mind, so we can be out here a long time, but we don't have the plumbing for this constant FTL jumping."
"...And the jumps are warming up the tylium."
"Right. It's just a fraction of a degree, each time, but they're adding up."
"What about the other ships? How are they managing?"
"They have smaller tanks, I'm sure. They only carry what they use. They all have temperature regulators, much as I've seen. Us? We've got almost two million gallons of Tylium fuel and no way to cool it down. I've been watching it climb all day."
Cru keyed in the entry code that listed all the temperature sensors in the ship. The cabin temperatures, towards the back, hovered around thirty degrees celsius, which was eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid tylium fuel in #2 Storage, which was right next to the starboard-side FTL coils, was a very warm thirty-five degrees Celsius, which was ninety-five degrees, Fahrenheit.
"We're off-planet, in space, and we're overheating." John pointed at the wall and the outside, beyond it. "It's negative two hundred and seventy degrees celsius out there."
"I know," said Cru. "But, there is no easy way to use it. The crispers freeze-dry the waste for all the moisture. They use temperature sinks to the outside. The condenser coils in the reclamation units are similar. I've got them both running full. They're small differences that, in the end, might buy us minutes only."
John nodded. "Buying time before the inevitable."
"Right, the fuel goes unstable, we make that last jump, and 'Boom'." Cru shook his head. "I expected this chase to end when we got far enough away from the colonies. I assumed their prize was the taking of our habitable planets - I never thought beyond that. But, it would seem it is more about our extinction."
"Yeah, wiping out humanity."
~~~~~/~~~~~
Eight jumps later, Cru and John were removing panels and insulation from inside the outer walls and from around #2 Storage. Twenty-two jumps later, Evvie, and her two children, Emily and Fletcher, were pressed into service. They helped by carrying the pieces down the near-side stairs below and stacking them in order, in the crawlway beneath the gravity plates.
The heat was unbearable. The Caprican survivors were drenched in sweat. Evvie marshaled her children against exhaustion and collapse as Cru and John handed down more and more of the plates and insulation - there were hundreds. No one escaped injury. Cuts and gouges were hastily bandaged or wrapped depending on severity. Blisters formed and opened. The two men and young Fletcher were stripped to the waist. Evvie and Emily, all decorum aside, were sleeves-up and buttons down.
"We're at twenty-five minutes," said Cru as the next jump neared. "Mrs. Hawkins, kids, you know the routine while we're gone, scrape away all the ice you can. It's building up and creating its own insulation." Cru rubbed at his eyes in an effort to stave off his own exhaustion. "We'll call out the jump when it's time. Take your rest for five minutes and we'll come back and start anew."
Evvie nodded as she handed the scrapers to her children. Her children took the hand tools without speaking and shuffled wearily to the wall. Evvie followed. She had been cut across the left shoulder and bled enough to soak her shirt down her back to the waist. Cru didn't remember when it had happened. It was probably from a panel. They were made of stamped metal and had sharp burrs around the edges. Evvie never cried out or asked for help.
Cru picked up the hand-held radio from a ledge nearby. He and John headed up to the bridge.
~~~~~/~~~~~
"Colonial One, this is Bree's Twin. I say again, we are in peril. We are overheating and near system failure. Be advised, we are carrying Tyl-" Cru stopped and turned to John after a pause. "They popped on to tell me to keep holding. That was it. We're still on hold."
"Seventeen hours is a long time to be on hold."
"Twenty-two hours if you count the first call."
"Maybe try Galactica again?"
Cru shrugged and clicked over to a channel Galactica was thought to monitor. It was full of chatter. Everyone was shouting over everyone.
"Maybe try some of these fighter pilots flying about."
"I've tried, John. They're not answering us civvies."
John settled into his seat and sat in silence. The next jump coordinates were punched in. He watched the DRADIS for Cylons. There was less than one minute until the thirty-three-minute mark.
"It's time for Plan B," said Cru. "After this jump, we calculate our own set of numbers and send them to Colonial One. We leave the fleet and they can come find us when they can."
"If they can," corrected John.
"Right."
John pointed to the DRADIS. "The fry-pans are here."
"They're called 'Pan-heads'," corrected Cru, "or 'Toasters'."
"Whatever."
"Hawkinses," called Cru over the intercom. "We're jumping again. You can stand down. We're done running with the fleet. They'll need to come find us if they want us."
With the push of a button, the FTL jump was done.
"Are we done pulling down the insulation tiles?" asked John. "We're still building up heat. Won't that be a problem?"
"We are. It is. It's a problem, but it will back down if we stop the jumps."
"Yeah, but we're FTL-locked if it hits the threshold," said John, "We'll be an easy target if they show up here."
"Oh, it will reach the threshold, make no mistake about that. Whether it does so while we sit, or while we're jumping, it makes no difference. If the Cylons are following us, we're done for."
~~~~~/~~~~~
Cru calculated a jump that was out and away from the fleet's direction. He didn't want anyone risking their lives jumping out to them, to coax them back, either by implore or by cannon. Thirty-two minutes later, COLONIAL ONE popped on the line again, right before the next jump.
"Bree's Twin, please continue to hold, we are answering calls in the order-"
"Do not put me on hold again!" growled Cru. "I just sent you the coordinates I'm jumping to. I am hauling two million gallons of B-Grade Tylium fuel and one hundred and forty-four thousand tons of fine-powder, tylium ore. If you're frakking thirsty, you know where we'll be."
Cru didn't wait for the Cylons to appear. He didn't wait for COLONIAL ONE to answer. He pushed the FTL drive button. In an instant, they were gone.