Jack Benatyr never wanted to be a TV anchor. He didn't believe he was ever meant to.
He wanted to narrate sports. He loved sports, but simply wasn't built for it. He didn't 'have the shoulders', his youth school coach would tell him.
So he went to college for sports telecasting instead. Met a girl in college. Married said college girl.
After that, he finished his degree, and got a small gig working as a narrator for a small, up-and-coming sports game called Pyramid.
That small up-and-coming game became very big very fast. Jack and his new wife were very happy, as he was now being paid very much. One day, however, things changed.
As things often do.
The people who made the decisions for Pyramid didn't like the taxes being levied on them. Something about being on one of the most populated, busiest planets in the Colonies, Picon.
So the arena, and everything Jack Benatyr did, was demolished, packed up, and moved. To the planet Aerilon, where taxes were cheap and the land on which to build several stadiums was plentiful. The only real issue in the mix was that Jack had to follow them there if he wanted his job.
He did, in fact, want his nice, high paying job. He liked it very much, and so did his wife.
So, with nothing tying them down so that they couldn't move, they made the only sensible decision and packed bags.
They traveled to the Major Ross Harrber Multiport, a hub of aerospace travel with cheap tickets and constant flights.
"Well, I think it looks terrific on him." Clara said.
The big screen seventy feet above and in front of them, on the other end of the multiport terminal, showed a black man with a pink fur hat, a sharp green suit and multicolor painted nails. Next to him were the words 'BELVEDERE - THE NEW SCENT BY CORRISSIMMO'
"I don't have any idea what you see in that outfit. I mean, what do you even say to the guy in the suit joint? 'Uhhh, yeah, hi, I want to look like 3 different highlighters taped together'" Jack said, mocking the imaginary deep, slurry voice of the man on the screen.
Clara giggled, throwing her head back with a fit of stifled laughter. Her long black hair flowed over the back of the cushioned bench they both sat on. Jack sat there for a second, looking at her. "I'm a lucky bastard" cycled through his head more than once.
Jack smirked at his own joke, and just as he looked back at the screen for further insult inspiration, the image changed to one of a rolling green field, with blue skies and emerald waters.
"Gods, that looks like heaven, doesn't it." Clara said, also looking at the screen. "Just imagine, huh? A nice house, in a place like that, some rugrats running around, playing in the dirt..." She trailed off, seemingly lost in thought.
Jack nudged her arm. "We'll have all that and more soon enough, just as soon as I get back to work. There's plenty of space for us on Aerilon to build whatever kind of house we want."
She sighed, and looked at the screen, which had changed again to a photo of a fancy car. "Well, I have to use the bathroom. When does the ship arrive?"
Jack glanced at his watch and shrugged. "45 minutes, give or take."
She nodded at him, and walked off in what Jack could only assume was the direction of the bathroom.
As she left, Jack sat alone for a moment. He stared at the screen, as it changed from one advertisement to the next.
He listened to the PA system, as its automated voice rattled off directions and departures from different gates and stations. As he listened, though, one automated drawl stood out to him. It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before, it just stood out to him more than usual for whatever reason.
ALL PASSENGERS, PLEASE REPORT ANY SUSPICIOUS OR ABANDONED ITEMS YOU MAY ENCOUNTER TO OUR FRIENDLY POLICE FORCE.
As it continued to drone on about the hazards of leaving your bag unattended, or taking care of bags for strangers one doesn't know, Jack shot a quick glance at the roving police kiosk nearest to him. The blue and orange lights normally lit up all over it were dark. As a matter of fact, it didn't seem to be moving at all. The usual chirps and buzzes coming from it were completely absent.
That's odd, Jack thought. That doesn't happen very often.
Jack glanced around, the thought briefly occurring to him that there might be something unsavory nearby.
His wandering eyes landed on an innocuous-looking black bag on a far wall, close to the big screen he had been laughing at minutes before. It wasn't by anything important, it wasn't doing anything interesting, it was just... there.
And everyone was just walking by it.
Jack rotated some options around in his mind. He could go check it, and run the possibility of sifting through someone's stuff. However, as he watched it more and more, nobody interacted with it. People treated it like it wasn't even there.
He made a choice.
Jack got up, and briskly walked the 60 or so feet to the bag. As he got closer, he could see it in better detail:
It was a small bag, probably a child's. Its size was of something you'd find on the back of a toddler, if not a little bulky for what it was.
What kid walks around with an all black backpack? Jack thought to himself. Lame parents.
As Jack reached the bag, he immediately reached out to tear it open, eager to see if his suspicions were founded. The thought then also occurred to him that that might trigger the bomb it might possibly contain.
Jesus, Jack thought. Could this really be a bomb?
The thought made him apprehensive. He knelt down and, reaching carefully, slowly opened the bag. Nervous, he looked in.
Inside were three metal cans, each wired together with multicolored wire. A plastic black box, resting on top of the middle can, partially obscured the wires, and, placing his hand on it, he could feel some kind of rumbling, intensifying and quieting in intervals. As he listened, through the people and traffic, he could hear a low whirr.
He blankly stared at the mechanism for a minute, unsure of what he was looking at.
It all hit him in the span of a moment.
Holy shit, he thought to himself. Holy shit holy shit holy shit this is a bomb this is a FUCKING BOMB
He stood up, hastily removing his hand from the black box, and staggering backwards a few steps, his heart racing.
He whirled around, desperate to see the police kiosk somewhere. He knew he needed to summon police. He needed to stop this thing before it could hurt someone, he had to.
Instead of seeing police, he was face to face with his wife.
"Gods, honey, you scared me." Jack said, his heart nearly skipping a beat.
"I was looking all over for you, I was a little nervous myself." She said, grinning and arching an eyebrow. "What's the bag?"
Jack looked her in the eye, the tension of the moment choking his ability to speak. "A bomb." He said, the words barely able to leave his mouth.
Her grin disappeared instantly. "...What? What do you mean a bomb?"
"I... The kind that explodes." He said. "Baby, we don't have time. Here, keep an eye on it, please. I'm going to go find some police, or security, or something. Anyone."
Clara nodded, her grin completely gone and her face somewhat paled.
"Alright," She said, her voice quieted. "Please hurry."
There wasn't any time for hurrying.
As Jack turned and ran, looking desperately for a kiosk or phone booth or a blue uniform or anything he could use to get help, the device's mechanism stopped. The gears and wires within that small, plastic box fell silent. The uninformed might assume, just for that moment, that the device was dead.
In that moment, the force of 6 grenades was released from the cans within that bag.
Jack didn't even have time to look back at his wife before being knocked unconscious from the blast wave.
Stupid decisions.
Cornerstones of everybody's lives.
Everybody makes them, most can live with them.
Only a prized few are cursed with having theirs be ones that kill.
And as Jack Benatyr laid in his hospital bed, his eyelids swollen shut from the burn medication the doctors had given him, he thought those words in the dark.
He couldn't see his body. His damaged, broken, destroyed body. He knew, on some level, that he was damaged beyond easy repair, but between the ambient pain he felt all over, and the drugs he had been administered by the doctors, it kept him from being conscious of what specifically was wrong with him.
His head sunk back into his pillow. As his head sank in, it covered his ears, and he had the impression that he was bleeding on it somehow. That was the last thing on his mind, though.
He was thinking about his wife.
He hadn't even had the courtesy to tell her he loved her when he left her to die with a live bomb.
Who the hell am I? Who the hell did I think I was? Jack thought, the grief creeping up his burned, bandaged body like a snake. Who the hell was I to leave her there?
As he laid there, and those thoughts echoed around inside of his head, the guilt began to constrict his body.
He began to sob, each time he breathed, he could feel the pain from his damaged muscles. Each tendon begging him to stop, to rest.
He couldn't. The grief wouldn't let him.
The sobbing intensified. He cried out in pain, the tears that managed to get by his eyelids stinging his skin. He thrashed on the bed, writhing against the constraints of the damage his body endured. The grief relished it. Jack could feel it. The parasitic sadness inside of him rejoicing with his suffering.
Through the quiet ringing in his ears, he could hear clamoring. The faint voices of doctors and nurses.
He felt a prick in the side of his neck, and barely had time to hear the air discharge from the sedative injector before he drifted off.
-NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR-
Dear Reader,
Writing this story has been fun. When I first watched the 'new' Battlestar Galactica show two years ago, I knew I wanted to write something about it. The plot gripped me, and I was fascinated by the story and universe the show created. And from that curiosity came a desire to create a version of my own. Something new and unique that could build off of this cool, interesting world, and fill in plot holes not addressed in the show.
From that desire came Battlefleet One.
A story that, as of writing this, is currently on its first, and only, rewrite. The entire plot has already been overhauled twice on my end, and I have completely ditched entire parts that I wanted to write, solely because I don't believe they would adhere to the level of quality I want from this.
This is all to say that this is going to be good. To those who might be irritated by the long timetable these parts have been released on, just know that I am trying to take a 'quality over quantity' approach to this.
But what does that mean for you? The person this is being written for, the audience? Well, it means two things.
First, this will be the last part for a while. Not a long while, just long enough for me to actually write the next few chapters the best that I can.
And, secondly, there are more of these parts to come. Six more, to be exact, until this 'volume', as I like to call it, is finished. In these upcoming parts, interesting and exciting things will happen to both of our characters, Captain Richard 'Dick' Grandy and Jack Benatyr. You will learn more about them, and you will follow them as they confront the absolutely terrifying reality of a Cylon invasion. Their worlds will change around them in unforeseen ways, and people they hold close to them and care about will get hurt.
Just like poor Clara.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned.
Marcus O'Hanrahan.