Responses to Comments:
War Sage - you called it. I'll need to stir things up a little and be less predictable. Maybe, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover. Vampires in Space. That might do it. :)
BSG FanFic - Bree's Twin
Chapter 6, Decisions
Please note: I own no part or share in the Battlestar Galactica realm. This story is submitted for entertainment purposes only.
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.
"Evvie reminds me of someone I met. I can't remember when. It'll come to me."
~Cru, Journal, if he had time to keep one
"Bree's Twin, this is Raptor 442, callsign 'Downtown', I have been given orders to put holes in you and leave you adrift if you are lying about that tylium,"
"Raptor 442, callsign 'Downtown, we've been out here eight days. Where the hell have you been?"
"We've been busy. What about that tylium, Bree?"
"Again with them calling me 'Bree'," said Cru to John under his breath. "We got it - two million gallons of B-Grade fuel and one hundred and forty-four thousand tons of powder."
"Serious?" asked Downtown.
"Yep, compliments of the fine people of Ytineres Valley, east of Caprica City, and all of them left to their deaths. May the gods watch over them and keep them safe."
"So say we all," replied Downtown.
"So say we all," said Cru.
"So say we all," said John.
~~~~~/~~~~~
Eight days prior
BREE'S TWIN was in lock-out. The tylium fuel had reached a critical temperature, which triggered several fail-safe switches, including shutting down the FTL drives. Cru and John watched the monitors and watched out the windows. They watched the sensors. The heat played havoc on all of them from midship and back. John alerted Cru to the sensors near where they were last working. According to the displayed number, the air temperature had reached forty-six degrees, celsius, which was 115 degrees, Fahrenheit.
"That's the kind of heat that saps your will to live," said John.
"Right - that's just the air temp. I'm worried about what's making it so."
"Equipment is burning up. We have to shut down non-essentials."
"Yeah, and a few critical systems we might do without for a while."
"Are we done running?" asked John.
"We're done."
John opened up a menu on the computer screen and started working down through a list of critical and non-critical systems. There were many hundreds.
"Mrs. Hawkins, you and your kids come forward," said Cru over the ship's intercom. "There's nothing more to be done back there. We have to wait this out."
There was no reply. The intercom was not difficult to use - a single button was pushed to allow talking. A built-in speaker provided audio. The small panels were available all over the ship. Cru and John exchanged glances as the silence continued.
"Mrs. Hawkins? Evvie?"
Nothing.
"John, take the controls. I'm going to check on them."
"I'm sure they're fine. They're tired. We're all tired. They're either in their rooms or under the grav plate - that's probably coolest."
"Yeah, but I remember something about 115 degrees being the highest level the sensors can measure."
"You think it might be hotter?"
"Maybe - it's worth a check. It's just something I saw in one of the service manuals. You don't expect to have heat problems in space - not like this. I could be wrong. If not, though, it could be a lot hotter. They might be in trouble. We might be in trouble."
"In trouble? You mean more than our current state?" replied John.
"True," said Cru with a nod.
Cru picked up two bottles of water from the kitchen, in passing, and dropped down into the crawlway. The heat was suffocating. By the time he worked his way aft, he was drenched in new sweat and his skin was flush. It was hard to breathe. The temperature was well above forty-six degrees.
Cru topped the stairs out of the crawlway and into what seemed like a furnace. Everything was hot to the touch. The whole companionway smelled of melting rubberized sealer and plastic. Wires had burned through their insulation and were exposed. Smoke was in the air. An overhead pipe glowed cherry red from the heat.
Cru found Evvie, on all fours, tugging at her daughter's and son's arms, trying to move them. Emily had fallen from the heat, so too had the young boy, Fletcher. Evvie was past the ability to save them or herself, but she continued trying even as Cru set an open bottle of water in front of her, snatched up Fletcher, and brought him over to the outer wall, which was where Evvie was attempting to pull them. The outer wall had been exposed earlier when the covering panels and the many layers of insulation had been removed. There was a small zone where the extreme outside temperature won out against the severe heat. Near the wall, might be survivable. Anywhere else, was not. Cru opened the second bottle and poured half of it over Fletcher. He left the bottle with the boy, returned to the mother and daughter, and dragged them both to the wall before he dropped from exhaustion.
One last task - Cru staggered back to an intercom panel.
"John, go dark!" Cru called over the intercom. "Turn everything off!. Everything! We're about to blow."
"Okay, Cru." John's voice crackled over the failing intercom unit. Moments later all lights went off and the heavy equipment, including the big transformers for the gravity plates, could be heard powering down. The cherry-red, smoldering pipe lit the area in a faint glow.
Cru crawled back to Evvie and the kids before he succumbed to the heat. He had a vague feeling of bumping along the causeway as gravity diminished and weightlessness took hold.
~~~~~/~~~~~
"Welcome back." It was John.
Cru, John, Evvie, Emily, and Fletcher were on the bridge. John knelt next to Cru. Cru and the others were lying flat on their backs.
"That was 'effing hot," said Cru. "That might just be a record." Cru's voice was weak but he cracked a little humor. "We need to call someone. Do you know a good Heating and Air Conditioning guy?"
"A couple," said John with a nod. "That was good thinking, huddling up against the wall. It saved your lives."
"It was the mother's idea. She was trying to pull her kids over to it, but had no strength left."
John helped Cru up to a sitting position.
"Gravity is on," said Cru. "That's encouraging."
John nodded again.
Cru looked around the bridge. The panels were lit with their gauges and buttons, and indicators, but all the other lights, like the overheads and the stairway lights were off.
"It's still hot back there," said John. "But, the numbers are coming down. Some are still pegged at forty-six, celsius, but others are in the high thirties."
"The tylium, what's that at?"
"Thirty-eight and a half."
"That's still scary."
"Yeah, I'll breathe easier when it's back under thirty-six.
Cru nodded. He looked past Evvie and her two kids, at an open panel in the wall. It was a locker that held emergency pressure suits. One was missing.
John followed Cru's gaze. "Yeah, I used a suit to get you - all of you. Those things are at least twenty years old. The temperature controls still worked, mostly, and the O2 needs a refill."
"Are you saying it wouldn't pass a safety inspection?" said Cru with a little sarcasm.
"Most of this ship wouldn't pass one, but yeah, it needs a refill."
Cru nodded again. "Well, it was a good idea - brilliant, really. I wish I had thought of that."
John shrugged.
"So, how long was I out?" asked Cru.
"About six hours, mostly. I got you to take some water a couple of hours ago. You were pretty gone. The others are really out."
"What about the Cylons?" Cru tried to stand but John held him at the shoulder.
"They're not here. They didn't follow us. We're alone in this little bit of the universe."
"But six hours? John, you should have-"
"There was nothing to do. I have the air handlers running again and the primary reclamations. I'm still working through status checks to figure out what's broken. I really don't know this ship very well - not the inner workings. I'm using the manuals - they were written, like, a million years ago."
Cru gave a light smile but it failed as he looked at Evvie. "Have they been up at all?"
"No, just you and the girl. She talked nonsense for a while - fever-talk - something about a cat. Then, she passed out again."
Cru sighed. "All of them were in it longer than me - a lot longer. It fries the brain."
"I got them cooled down pretty quick once they were up here. You too. We're in the coolest room on the ship. We'll have to see."
Cru nodded. "Alright then," said Cru as he worked himself up to standing. He shrugged off John's protests. "I'm soaking wet. I'm going to change. Is this really sweat?"
"It's water. Well, both I suppose. I gave you all a good soaking. That's what the computer says to do. Lower the body temperature. You were all burning up."
"I bet we were," said Cru. He paused in thought. "Thanks - what you did was huge." He gestured to the Hawkinses. "No one would have blamed you if you left them back there."
John shrugged again but gave a light smile. "Off you go. Take a shower too. A cool one. You smell."
"Gladly," said Cru. He nodded and headed to his cabin.
Cru took a shower and changed into dry clothes.
The three Hawkinses were still unconscious when he returned to the bridge but their breathing was level and all their vitals were typical, according to the bracelet device from the medical kit. Cru and John moved them into Cru's cabin. They could not stay on the bridge, and Cru's room, being next to the bridge, was the second coolest in the ship. All three were stirring by the time Cru and John were finished getting them settled. Evvie and Emily were in the bed and Fletcher was in a reclining chair.
~~~~~/~~~~~
Evvie awoke as Cru finished a quick straightening of the cabin.
Cru's cabin was the largest of the crew's quarters. It had a full-size bed, a small kitchenette with a sitting area, cabinetry, a reclining chair with overhanging reading lamp, and a computer station with four large-panel monitors. Everything about the room was old and reflected the advanced age of the ship, but it was well-kept.
Cru and Evvie made eye contact for a brief moment before both looked away. Evvie swung her legs out and over the side of the bed as she came up to a sitting position. Her eyes stayed forward and downcast.
"I can help," said Evvie quietly.
"There's nothing left to do." He put away a short stack of mismatched kitchen towels. "There are blankets, there," he said with a pointing of his finger. Three heavily worn and faded but clean blankets were stacked on the table. "It's hot, but you might get the chills, it happens sometimes. Also, there's water on the counter, in that pitcher, and more from the sink faucet - it's treated water - it's safe to drink. You should sip it, though." Cru turned and faced towards the room's entrance. "That closed door to the left, just inside the room, is a shower, with soap, shampoo, and towels. On the right, is the closet with some of my clothes. Help yourselves if you see something that works."
"Thank you," said Evvie.
Cru turned back around. "If you leave your clothes outside the door, I'll wash them when I get a chance."
"You have a laundry?" It caught Evvie by surprise and caused her to look up. Her steel-blue eyes were swollen and tired.
"All long-haul ships do," said Cru. "It becomes a necessity after a week or so, if you take my meaning." Cru referred to hard-working men and women, slick with sweat, and laboring in close quarters. The condition was not unlike all of them, eight hours prior.
Evvie nodded her understanding. She looked away again.
"Anyway, it's aft, on the other side of the receiving deck, which was the room that we lost. You'd have to use the crawlway to get to it. I'm going that way soon. As I said, if you leave them out, I'll wash them."
Cru turned to go but then paused.
"Mrs. Hawkins?" said Cru.
"Mr. Cru?" said Mrs. Hawkins without looking up.
"You've had a tough run and you landed on a ship that couldn't keep up with the others - we fell behind." Cru paused. "The situation, in all appearances, seems...a bit hopeless."
Cru paused again. Evvie did not reply which Cru assumed meant she agreed. BREE'S TWIN was an old, out-of-date ship that couldn't keep up. Evvie's husband, Mark, might have caused the death of Cru's friend Lita and her family, but he, Richard Cru, had agreed to take her and her children aboard, and after having done so, failed them.
"Mrs. Hawkins, there are enough supplies to last half a year. Those folks out there, running from the Cylons - if they survive, they know we have fuel and lots of it. They'll come back. They have to, to survive. If they don't, it's not difficult to trace back to the colonies. Gods willing, there will be a safe place to land - a safe place and survivors."
Evvie nodded ever-so-slightly.
~~~~~/~~~~~
All the critical systems that had overheated and threatened catastrophic failures had cooled into their nominal ranges. Inside temperatures dipped quickly into life-threatening freezing levels and required reinstalling the insulation layers and cover plates as fast as they had been removed.
Evvie and her children had moved out of Cru's cabin sometime on the fourth day, after the hardest of the work was done. Cru didn't notice when, only that the room was cleaned and near spotless, and anything used was either replaced or was washed, dried, and folded.
Cru and John worked at getting the critical systems back online. Electrical components had smoked, melted, or burned and needed to be replaced when possible or bypassed when not. The benefit of an old ship was its non-complicated circuitry. Repairs were more often successful than not.
After the most critical systems were running, John spent a day using the motorized lift to push the dirt into open spaces all over the ship. The large box of seed packets, brought on a whim during their escape, was key to their long-term survival. Every day without seeds in the dirt was a potential day without food.
On the sixth day, Cru had Evvie, Emily, and Fletcher began the massive task of organizing the spare parts. Cru had documented the inventory with great care, but that information was on a database back on Caprica. The lurching, the sudden starts and stops, and the time spent without gravity had made a jumble of anything that was not tightly secured in place. Evvie and the children had done excellent work organizing the insulation and cover plates - they were coming off the walls in quick succession, there were hundreds in varying shapes and sizes, and she and her children marked them and kept them in order. Putting them back in place was swift and without error. Their work on the parts inventory was just as organized.
The next day, the seventh, the Hawkinses took a break from the spare parts and tackled the convenience store inventory.
"Mrs. Hawkins," said Cru as he entered the cargo hold.
All three of the Hawkinses were wearing Cru's shirts. Fletcher, the youngest, and just shorter than his sister, wore a service station shirt. He tucked the large folds of extra material into his trousers as much as he could. Emily chose the longest shirt he had, which was a red flannel. She sashed it at her waist and wore it like a mid-length dress. Evvie wore another shirt, a blue chamois, like an artist's painting smock - rolled-up sleeves, untucked and loose, over her slacks.
"Mr. Cru," said Evvie in response. Her eyes turned downward as she did most times in his presence. The children looked on in silence.
"I have a change in plans," said Cru. "When our people come back for us-"
"Are they coming for us?" interrupted Fletcher.
"Fletcher!" hissed Evvie, "hush!"
"No, it's okay. Questions are fine." He turned to Fletcher. "They have our location and I'm sure they will find us. We've been here seven days and we may be here a lot longer. But, they will find us. Fortunately for us, there is a lot to keep us busy."
Evvie looked up. The children sighed. Fletcher looked at the open blisters on his hands. They were still fresh and weeping.
"I need someone to do numbers for me. Are either of you good at that?"
"Mom, is," said Emily in a quiet voice. "She's smart."
"Emily…" said Evvie. There was no mistaking her disapproval.
"Mrs. Hawkins, I want you to create two ledgers. I want the three of you to separate anything edible from the rest of the inventory, and set a quarter of it aside. That quarter is what we declare to the new fleet authority when they ask. The rest of it - we are going to hide."
"Hide?" said Evvie.
"Yeah, in fact, we're hiding all the vitamins too, the soft drinks, the sports drinks, all the candy, the boxed sugar, anything with high calories."
Evvie nodded her understanding. Calories and vitamins weren't all that was needed to live on, but they were a huge part of it.
"There were fifty thousand survivors with the Cylons in hot pursuit. I don't know what will be left when they find us, but the recent events show how alone we are, even among the other ships. Our business will be survival, and it will start with not handing over our stores to whoever has assumed control."
"You said our business? Our stores" asked Evvie cautiously. She looked up into Cru's eyes, searching. "Then you intend to keep us? You won't...end...us?" Evvie avoided the word "kill" as if speaking it out loud might give it a home, so-to-speak."What of Mr. Destre, your friend, John?"
It suddenly hit Cru, on why everything they did was so desperately perfect, why they were so keen on not being a burden, and why they worked themselves bloody trying to be useful. They were frightened of being "airlocked" or given over to another ship. BREE'S TWIN was a musty old derelict ship, but there was room to breathe in it. They all knew from the wireless that other ships were vastly overcrowded, dangerous, and there had been heavy speculation on how quickly the food and water would run out.
"No, you're needed here," said Cru. He thought back to when Evvie was bleeding from her shoulder, a severe wound, and she never stopped working. The children were dead on their feet, too frightened to quit. Cru added, "if one of you can cook. I'll make you all part of the crew. I'm tired of eating from boxes."
"I can cook!" said Emily with brightened eyes. Her enthusiasm was almost a shout.
Cru knew the daughter could cook. He heard her say as much, to her mother, days before.
"Alright," said Cru. "Fletcher, you'll be a copilot, in-training, and I'll give you a crash course in engineering and maintenance. Mrs. Hawkins, you'll do numbers and inventory. Emily, you'll be helping your mother when you are not running the galley."
All three of the Hawkinses exchanged glances.
"All of you will be tending the gardens if we can get something to grow."
Evvie nodded. The children nodded too, with a little more vigor. Gardening seemed a lot less physical than everything they had done in the last 7 days.
"There's a lot more to do aboard ship, much more, you've seen that already. Bree's Twin should be flying with a crew of eight, but five will have to do, for now. When we are back with the fleet, I'll start working up some connections and see if we can't find three more able bodies willing to join us. That sound okay to you all?"
Evvie nodded. "It does, sir. Thank you."
~~~~~/~~~~~
Present Day, Eight days after the attack
"Downtown, what's the situation, back there?"
The tiny raptor was dwarfed by the large freighter, as a small ant might be to a very large beetle
"On the fleet?"
"Yeah, is it still a fleet? Survivors?"
"Affirmative on both. We're well away from the Cylons, finally. They had taken over one of the ships, a big cruise-liner called the Olympic Carrier, and were tracking it. We destroyed it and that was that."
"Destroyed? Our people were aboard?"
"Yes, I heard 1,200, maybe 1,300."
Cru paused as the high number sunk in. It was a pittance compared to all those lost back in the colonies. But, only a finite number of ships escaped, and any loss of life was grievous.
"Understood," said Cru at last.
There was a long moment when no one spoke. It seemed appropriate.
"That carrier - we were jumping right next to them," said John Quietly, "every jump - them and us."
"Yeah, and now they're just gone," said Cru in the same quiet voice. "Damn."
John nodded his agreement with the sentiment.
"Bree's Twin," said Downtown at last. "I was told you were off-line - you couldn't jump. I'm just here to reconnoiter and go fetch an appropriate service crew. I'm a bit of a mechanic if it's something simple and my ECO is an electronics wizard. I also have supplies if you are low. Food. Water."
"Not needed, Downtown. We just needed a cool-down. Supplies are sufficient. We're ready."
"Bree's Twin, that's great news. Then, fire up your coils. I'll send you the first jump numbers."
"Affirmative, Downtown," said Cru. "I need two minutes."
"Right," said Downtown. "Let me know."
"Will do."
"I like this guy," said John. "It's the first of these pilots to talk to us - like we're not a pain in their asses."
"Yeah, we have the tylium they need. It changes everything."
"You should let them know you're prior military," said John. "This all might go better."
Cru shook his head. "No, I was Fleet Ops. I expect they need folks like me. They'll press me into service. I like it right here."
John nodded his head in agreement. "Not to mention that Battlestar has a big target on it every time the Cylons show up."
"Yeah, there's that too. Given a choice, I choose life."
Cru couldn't keep the FTL drives in a perpetual state of readiness. He had to shut them down on occasion. Downtown and his raptor showed up during one of those times. It took only a couple of pushed buttons and a flipped switch to get them warming up.
"Downtown, you have access to service crews," said Cru. "If you pull up on my port side, you'll see we've blown the entryway. We need an outside team. I've been trying to work through Colonial One. I can't get their attention."
"Oh, you got their attention now. That cargo of yours gets you to the front of the line. Hang on."
"I appreciate that I'm sure, but I hope there's more fuel than this. B-Grade won't work in half the ships I saw, and two million gallons just isn't a lot."
"No, we have a couple tankers, 'Firedrakes' if I'm not mistaken, old ones, and a mobile ore refinery that was coming back, planet-side, full-to-bursting."
"That's fortunate," added Cru. He wasn't wrong. Food and fuel were two of the highest priorities, along with water and breathable air. Some strategists, the cold and unfeeling type, might place fuel at the top of the four with the understanding that the other three will find their harmony with the mortality rates.
"Agreed," said Downtown. "But more fuel - the merrier, right? Coming back after you was an apex priority."
"So if I was a shipment of plastic bobblehead toys…," Cru added with light sarcasm, "I might be waiting for a while."
"The Cylons might like bobbleheads…you might have tried with them," replied Downtown.
The pilot laughed as he spoke. The new president might have sent someone back for the big freighter, insisting that all lives were precious and worth saving. But it was plain, the biggest reason he was there was the tylium.
Downtown maneuvered the raptor under BREE'S TWIN and came up on the port side, near where the access port had been."
"Yep, it's a hole," said Downtown. He gave another laugh.
"Yeah, we got that part," said Cru, with an amused smile. "How does it look?"
"I love these old ships. They're very practical. Your hull has flat, even surfaces. I bet Maintenance can slap a bolt-on over it, no mods, and be done in twenty minutes. It won't look pretty, but it will be highly functional."
"Do you have those? On the Galactica?"
"Not on the Galactica, Bree. We've got a flattop maintenance rig. That sort of thing is standard inventory."
"Glad to hear it. That'd be great."
Downtown flipped on the forward lights and scanned deeper into the hole.
"Do you have enough atmo to refill?" asked Downtown. "It looks like it opens into a big room. Compressed air is a bit of a premium, as you might imagine."
"We have the back-fills for the fluid stores. It's all nitrogen and we have plenty of O2. So yeah, we should be good."
"Copy that, Bree," said Downtown. "Alright, let's get you back. We have eight long jumps ahead of us."
"Eight? That's not too far."
Downtown laughed again. "We jumped every thirty-three minutes, two hundred and thirty-seven times. We never had enough time to calculate good, long jumps for the whole fleet. We did a whole lot of short hopping around, zigzagging and doubling back, trying to throw off the toasters. By straight-line accounts, you're right, we didn't get too far, not for all the time we were at it."
"Understood," said Cru. "We're ready when you are."
"Okay," said Downtown. "Let's do this."
As always, comments are encouraged. "Feed an Introvert" as I've said in other work.