Author's note: I don't normally do these, but circumstances dictated it this time. Thank you to everyone for their patience on this story. A lot of things have factored into the various delays, but all the feedback has been wonderful. We're at chapter 11 of 13 and an epilogue, at best guess. And thank you to Kodiak Bear and Jen and Kerry for the constant advice, comments and betas. Without you three, I'd be lost.
Also, as a final note, this story is now completely AU after the miniseries. I know that's been obvious since the series actually began, but I'm stating it now for the record.
OxOxOxOxO
Frakking messes were a part of Galen Tyrol's life. True, he'd spent most of his life cleaning them up, and he'd forced himself to develop a certain tolerance for unavoidable situations.
A frakking bomb in the middle of a frakking ship that almost killed every last frakking person on board certainly qualified.
Struggling for some sort of handhold on the piece of wreckage in front of him, Tyrol shifted his weight to his heels and began to pull. With a loud, painful groan, the metal shifted about about three inches to the right before his hands slipped off for about the tenth time in the last two minutes. He had to get this shifted. He refused to walk away from this until he absolutely had to, Starbuck deserved that mu--
"Sir!" Grunting in frustration, Tyrol let his hands fall off the beam and turned around to come face to face with Captain Moore. He closed his eyes and begged the Gods for patience.
"Captain, I don't have time--"
"Sir, I might be able to buy us an extra 30 seconds, maybe a minute if we're lucky."
Tyrol opened his eyes and stared, uncomprehending. A moment later, Moore started to talk.
"We might be able to shut the bulkheads manually. Between here and the hangar, sir. We probably could have done it earlier, but you wanted to get as many people as possible out." Moore paused for a hurried breath and then rushed on. "Sir, if we can get those bulkheads shut, we might have a few extra seconds to get on board the shuttle. If we need it."
Tyrol nodded. The idea made sense, and it would give them a little more time. But it meant giving up any hope of getting through some of the debris and finding any more survivors. They were still short about 10 of the crew -- and the not-so-small matter of his own missing lieutenant.
But they had to shut the bulkheads, or else--he didn't want to even think of the "or else" here. It ran perilously close to a remembered fire, a handful of harsh words, and a rush of hatred through his system so pure it burned his soul.
Tyrol swallowed hard, and nodded at the captain.
"Okay, but this bulkhead last." He turned back to the wreckage as he fired off his last command. He had one last idea here, even if it was grasping at straws. "And send me that freckled kid you had over here earlier.
"I need another set of hands."
OxOxOxOxOxO
She could hear the voices, dammit.
Kara picked up the small piece of pipe again, and resumed banging on the metal. She couldn't yell; she'd tried. Somewhere in the last half hour, her voice had worn down to a low croak. The best she could manage was a whisper her own ears could hardly hear.
And she couldn't move any further. She'd managed to work herself into what looked and felt like a corner. Nothing would budge even a fraction of an inch, and she felt too heavy to try and maneuver her way back the direction she had come.
So with the one good arm she had left, she was hammering on the wreckage -- and praying to the Gods someone was still around to hear it. She'd given up trying to make out one noise from another. Maybe someone was searching for her, and maybe it was the hull popping another joint out of place before imploding.
She didn't really care, one way or the other. She just didn't want to die and join the body count. She'd screw up one too many lives if she did.
Wearily, as she smacked away at the wreckage, she realized she wanted someone here with her. She wanted Lee, dammit, complete with his sardonic smile and uptight by-the-book attitude. She wanted him so badly she felt her arm go weak at the thought and her stomach tighten in a knot and her eyes fill with fresh tears. She needed to get out of here so she could see him again, crack jokes with him, and make sure he and his father said a few words outside of military-speak once in a while.
Just a few. She wasn't asking for a miracle here. Just a few words every day, maybe a smile or two. She wouldn't even ask for a hug. Really.
Kara started swinging actively with the pipe, now crashing it in between two steel beams. She'd make them hear her, even if she had to wake up every demon in Haedes.
OxOxOxOxO
"You want me to do WHAT?"
The young ensign -- who couldn't have been more than 16 years old and had every one of the freckles the chief had ID'ed him by -- just stood and stared at him, his mouth caught between slack-jawed and bemused grin.
Tyrol really couldn't blame him. What he was proposing did have a certain amount of insanity to it.
Then again, an insane situation requires an insane solution. Starbuck would like the idea -- if she ever got to hear it. The chief gave the teenager a slight shove toward the wreckage.
"Get up on top the best you can, find the first space large enough to dig into, and she if you find anything." Kara was in there somewhere, he was sure of it. He could hear something banging around in there, and he was pretty frakking sure it wasn't hull noise.
"Go!"
The teenager paused for a fraction of a second, and then with a sure grip that belied his youthful appearance, expertly worked his way up the pile in front of him. A second later, he began to disappear on a downward slope.
OxOxOxOxO
He wouldn't fail. He couldn't let himself fail. He had a life to save and that was all that mattered.
Ensign Matt Lindman had dreamed of being a warrior since he was five years old and his parents had bought him a toy viper as a winter solstice gift. That small toy had gone everywhere with him as a boy, surviving the various abuses of grade school with a little bit of paint, some tack glue and a lot of love. When he had reached secondary school, he'd put it on top of his computer and used it as motivation for trying to master elementary astrophysics.
Even when his parents had been forced to pull him out of school to earn money for the family, he'd taken it with him. Somewhere on board the Hephaestus lay his small toy, probably now spoiled beyond recognition. In any case, it woudl be gone in the next few minutes as the ship he'd served on for the past two years -- since the morning of his 16th birthday -- slowly turned itself into a scrap heap.
The ship would be gone, but this Lieutenant Starbuck would not be. Not if he had anything to say about it. He was smaller than the chief, and he could squeeze into the small spaces the gaps in the wreckage provided. He only had to hope she wasn't too tightly stuck, or it wouldn't matter whether he found her -- he wouldn't be able to pull her out.
So far, he was just following the source of the banging that the chief -- at least, he thought the man was a chief, since he looked like the deckmaster the Hephaestus had -- had told him to follow. He could've sworn he'd seen something move in the dim light, too. It hadn't moved again, but he'd get his hand on it anyhow, just to be sure.
OxOxOxOxO
The noise was all around her now. Kara could now be reasonably certain her hearing had gotten frakked up by the explosion, because she could hear echos and crunching and popping all bundled into one impossible sound. She wanted to make sense of it, but she couldn't. Somehow, she thought she'd heard voices, but it felt like someone had shoved packing insulation in her ears.
Just a few words, Lee. It was her mantra now. A few words, that's all I'm ask--
The world suddenly tightened around her, and Kara tried to scream. All that came out was a muffled croak as the breath got knocked out of her lungs. The space, HER space, all she had left, seemed to be closing in around her, shifting her body into a grotesque twist that made every muscle holler in protest.
It took her another second to realize that she was, in fact, moving backwards, and she was being pulled.
OxOxOxOxO
Lindman wasn't sure it was the lieutenant. For all he knew, it was another person, maybe even a dead one at that. He had just grabbed at the two feet, sticking neatly out of the hole in front of him, and pulled with all of his might.
The feet started moving, and with a purpose all their own. One connected firmly with his nose, and for a few seconds, he saw stars. It took another few seconds before he realized a gush of warm blood was now traveling down his face.
It didn't matter. Pulling with all of his might, he started scrambling backwards, hoping the person he had hold of would hold up their end of the bargain.
OxOxOxOxO
"Sir, she's docking!"
Tyrol spun around and saw the familiar outline of one of Galactica's raptors settling onto the deck. Moore was pulled his men away from the bulkheads, now forgotten with the safety of a ship in front of them, and waving frantically at the chief.
"We need to go!" Even over the din of the ship's engines, Tyrol easily understood the message. His stomach dropped out on him as he nodded, and he turned back to pull the ensign out of the wreckage.
May the Gods and the Old Man forgive me for this...I'm sorry, Lieutenant.
He reached up with an arm for Lindman's legs, and almost got a foot in his face for his efforts. He barely managed to scramble out of the way before the ensign barreled back over the edge of the mess, pulling something behind him.
In an ungraceful heap, Lindman collapsed to the floor, blood streaming down his chin. A second later, a sputtering form in the uniform of a Colonial pilot landed beside him.
The blue eyes stared up at him for a brief second and then closed in a grimace.
"Frak me, Chief." The hoarseness almost ground out any comprehension from Starbuck's words, but he heard them all the same. He could only stand there, dumbfounded, as the lieutenant spat out a few more curses that finally dissolved into a massive, hacking cough.
OxOxOxOxO
Lindman wasn't listening to the words, nor was he watching the chief or the lieutenant. Instead, his ears focused on the sudden, harsh hissing that grew all around them. It took him all of a microsecond to decipher the noise and know that they had to move now.
So, without a word, he scrambled to his feet, pulling the lieutenant -- at least, it looked like a lieutenant, and it was a she, something the chief had mentioned was important -- along with him. Shoving the chief along in front of them, Lindman stumbled toward the ship in the bay.
And as the ramp started to rise from the floor, insistent hands latched around all three people, and pulled them safely into the final flight from the Hephaestus.