Chronicles of Sobh'an

By: Sci-Fi Raptor

Disclaimer: I don't have anything to do with BSG. I just wrote this for fun.

(-O-)

I was born in a nursery, designated as Sobh'an at birth. I had five brothers and six sisters. At the time, I did not know what was going on, but my instincts told me that they were enemies and that I had to kill them immediately.
Within the next minute, the gelatinous environment we were born in rapidly heated up from the blaster fire with which we were all shooting at each other. It was hard to move in the goo, but I quickly learned how to use my afterburner. Half of my siblings had died by then; all of them were moving too slowly and were easy targets. I killed one of my sisters who failed at evading me with a barrel roll.

I came under fire just after her death and I suddenly turned my crosshairs about 180 to see who was trying to kill me. I saw his red eye batting left and right and we both kept staring at each other until a brother tried to swoop in and kill us. Without hesitation, we both twisted about and had our blasters bearing at him. As if we were of one mind, I aimed at the brother's eye while my other brother aimed for the engine. Moments later, we went back to staring at each other, as the dead carcass of our former brother slowed to a stop.

By this time, the urgent need to kill everyone had long passed away, replaced with a great desire to feed. Following our instincts, my brother and I accelerated out of the nursery and broke free into cold space. What I saw that day, for the first time, was the most gorgeous sight I had ever beheld. To my left, I could see a crab nebula, slowly being engulfed by the explosion of a white dwarf. Ahead of me, multicolored stars twinkled in a beautiful display. To my right, there was a large, glimmering asteroid field. My brother and I kept close, wary that of hidden danger. Behind us, a brother and sister broke free from our nursery and sped up to hook up with us. Of course, they did not trust us, and we did not trust them, but we all wanted to feed and our instincts told us that there was safety in numbers.

I looked behind me, to have my last glance of the nursery. It was strange; it looked like a red drop of water with a net covering it. It was attached to some large doughnut-shaped machine that had tendrils coming out of it and into the nurseries, which were strewn all around its curved cylinder. In fact, other brothers and sisters started coming out of their nurseries and followed us, giving me and my siblings more reason to stay close.

Our trip was not long, and we soon found ourselves in a large space station orbiting around one of the larger asteroids in the asteroid field. It was pure white and consisted of a large long central cylinder surrounded by metallic rings that were evenly spaced along its axis. On the side of the rings that faced us were large open doors that seemed to invite us in. We were a curious group, so we kept on going until we reached the doors. I was the last to realize that there was a wall in the room that the door led to, so I ended up crashing into it while my brothers and sister braked. The doors closed behind us so that the other brothers and sisters would not follow, leaving us in the dark.

Ours red eyes illuminated the room, and we just kept there, waiting for whatever was next. Suddenly, robotic arms shot out from the walls and clamped onto all of us. I panicked and tried to use my blasters, but they would not fire. All of us were very scared, struggling to break free, but the arms would not budge. My siblings and I started crying when more arms came out of nowhere and punctured us from the bottom. I screamed, thinking that it would be something that would cause pain, but I was completely wrong…

It turned out that we were being refueled and restocked with everything that a Cylon Raider would need.

As you can see, being born is an almost traumatic process. Like the Earth shark, newly born Cylon Raiders fight to the death in their nursery in a sort of accelerated natural selection. This urge does not last long enough for us to kill everyone; just the ones that would have died anyway.

Little doors opened and these little robots came into the room. We were terrified of the arms that came out of the walls and now these robots scared us even more. Like us, their eyes batted left and right. We stared at the one who seemed to be there to watch us, which calmed us down a bit. The other little robots walked around the room and inspected us. My other siblings checked out fine; they never got hurt. I, on the other hand, had been feeling a throbbing pain on my left wing. It hurt suddenly when a little robot probed it and I turned to look at what was hurting me so much.

It seemed that in the chaos that was the nursery, someone had blow a large hole into my wing.

Just the sight of the wound made me cry. I was venting liquids and I had not even noticed until now. All the little robots left the room and the big doors opened. My siblings were unceremoniously thrown out into space, while I was held fast. The brother that I had been staring at in the nursery was the first to realize something was wrong and tried to fly back into the room, but the doors closed before he could do anything.

By now, I was afraid that this thing that we had naively flown into was going to eat me. My fears were not assuaged when green gel suddenly was vented into the room. Within moments, the room was completely full and more robotic arms, however smaller, shot out of the walls and went straight to my wing. I would have screamed from the pain, but the monster had knocked me unconscious.

(O)

I woke up to something nudging me. I slowly woke up from my sleep and was surprised to find the stars staring back at me. I looked about, and there were my siblings, hovering about me. I was so thankful that I got to see them once again; I thought I was a goner.

I suddenly remembered about the monster and looked under me.

I screamed!

The monster was under me, it mouth wide open. One of the arms was holding me by my bottom and kept me in place. I wanted to break free, but my body would not move. One of my brothers must have realized that something was wrong, because he stopped in front of me and stared at my eye. It must have been moving erratically, because he started moving his eye in a way that comforted me. After a while, I was calm enough to realize that my instincts were telling me to "disengage."

I did not know what "disengage meant," but I did what my instincts told me to do. The robotic arm's magnetic lock deactivated and went back into the monster's mouth; the doors closed with a soft hiss. Of course, I was scared out of my mind and went behind my brother so that he could protect me from the scary monster. My other brother and sister hovered nearby, their eyes batting around like they were amused.

I suddenly remembered about the hole in my wing. I looked, but it was gone! I would have spent time thinking about that, but my siblings were suddenly on the move. I kept close to the brother that I had been staring at back in the nursery, and he was nice enough to accommodate me. He really had no idea how much being near him comforted me. When I was near him, I felt safe; nothing could hurt me and no monster would eat me.

My HUD designated him as Echelon. The other two sibling were just designated the "Twins." I did not know what all of that meant, but it was the first in a series of steps to educate me from the ground up. This little exercise gave me my first experience in naming things, a concept that is much more important than one might think.

Echelon, the Twins and I soon found ourselves in the asteroid field, where we proceeded to… play! It seems that in the time that I was sleeping (and being repaired, but I was too young to understand that concept), my siblings and the other siblings had been playing in the asteroid fields. Now, it may seem silly that we would be playing when we were meant to be soldiers, but it was a very important stage. Playing let us get used to our bodies and learn how to master its abilities so that when the real training came, we could follow our instructions rapidly.

Since I was sleeping the whole time, I was very clumsy in the beginning and was constantly being picked on. My brothers and sister seemed to taunt me until I finally got used to the control interface. By then, I could easily outrun them all because I was the only one who was smart enough to make a tight turn around an asteroid. My brothers and sister, on the other hand, did not know how to handle them and constantly bumped into them.

Satisfied that I was ready, Echelon led us deeper into the asteroid field where the most amazing thing was happening. All around us, in the chaos of the asteroid field, the other brothers and sisters were engaged in a massive game of tag!

Echelon batted his eyes to say that we were joining in the fray and three groups of siblings responded. It was decided that our group of siblings would be 'it' and it was our job to 'tag' all of the brothers and sisters from the other three groups of siblings.

My HUD automatically designated the other siblings and my IFF kept track of my siblings. We waited for a designated asteroid to fly past us, and when it did, we were all burning our afterburners. The twins decided to tackle the largest of the groups of siblings, which consisted of four sisters and two brothers. Echelon and I each went after the other groups left, each of which had three siblings in them.

Our goal was to 'tag' all of the brothers and sisters in any group and they would be it. 'Tagging' was done by our onboard computers, so there was no way to cheat. I later learned that groups of sibling actually had a term: a 'pack.' A pack was all the survivors from the same nursery. And all the packs from the same generation from the same nursery cluster were collectively known as a 'clan.'

Internally, each pack was made of a 'squadron.' Each squadron had 2-3 Raiders in it, and they were all pre-selected genetically. It was because of that that me and Echelon did not kill each other in the nursery, and it was because of that that the twins were called the twins. Sadly, those Raiders who were not part of a squadron would eventually die of loneliness, even if they were in a pack…

Our clan was actually the third borne from our nursery cluster. There were actually dozens of nursery clusters in the area, but they were spaced too far apart for any of us to have noticed after we were borne. The space station with the 'monster' was the hub for all of us and it would take care of us until we were ready to move on.

I would eventually have to go back to the monster to get refueled and refitted, but it took a lot of coaxing from Echelon to get me to go back in. To this day, I still do not trust docking stations…

But none of that mattered to me at the moment, because all I cared about was 'tagging' the pack I was chasing. My HUD told me that the twins had already tagged a person each, while Echelon and I were still down for the count. With my desire to win driving me, I increased power to my engine and started blasting the pack in front of me. Of course, my blasters were not really shooting; my onboard computer was simulating the shots and if they 'connected,' my HUD recorded the event.

The pack I was chasing was really fast, faster than anything I had chased before. They were very experienced with the game and they had learned how to anticipate the behavior of the asteroids. Just trying to keep up with them was dizzying, but when my HUD registered that Echelon had gotten a hit, I just felt more motivated. I turned on my afterburners, even though warnings for collisions alerts started going off. In a few moments, I was riding on the enemy pack's tail and started blasting them while I had still had them by surprise.

My HUD registered three hits almost instantly.

I was reeling in the exhilaration when the collision alert warnings became much more urgent. I looked up in time to notice I was about to collide into the mother of all asteroids.

(O)

I had already gotten a reputation by the time I woke up again. And I screamed just like last time when I found the monster gaping its mouth under me. Echelon calmed me down and I collected myself. It seemed that I had been out for so long, it was almost time for us to move on. Determined to make sure that I at least had some fun, Echelon took me to a place that was simply open space. There, other packs seemed to be racing, following a virtual course. I watch in wonder as I saw them moving about, tackling turns in ways that I had not even thought about. My pack urged me to join in the fray.

After waiting nervously in the queue, it was finally my turn. I was paired up against a Raider that looked just like me. Now, you would think that we all look alike, but you humans all look alike to us. It was creepy how similar he looked to me, even though we were from different clans. I think that we were pitted against each other on purpose, because there was a large crowd waiting for our race to begin.

Our onboard computers projected a virtual course on our HUD's, and told us the properties of each turn and the best way to tackle them. When we were familiarized, the race counter started.

We blasted off with our after burners on.

We were neck and neck the whole time, since it was a straightaway, but the other Raider seemed to only go fast enough to keep up with me. I tested him by going as fast as I could, and he kept speeding up to a point. After that, he stopped accelerating and fell behind. I thought that this was a good sign when my computer told me that with the speed that I was approaching it, I would need more force to stay in the upcoming turn than my brakes could supply.

I think everyone expected me to fail and jump off the 'track,' but imagine their surprise when I turned my whole body around and used my main thruster to brake. I was doing this for the first time, and the computer did not think about this option, so I was forced to wing this approach.

I managed to stay in the track, but the other Raider flew past me. I was just happy I was not disqualified and did my best to keep up with him. Being the stubborn Raider I seemed to be, I actually managed to keep up with him…

In the end, I lost. The other Raider came up to me and stared at me. For a moment, his eye actually stood still in the middle of his visor, but he continued batting it afterwards. To this day, I still do not know what he meant by it. He left, and delved into the crowd of cheering Raiders while my pack came to support me.

To my surprise, Echelon was very proud of me. I would later learn that no one thought that I would be able to keep up with the victorious Raider because not only was I being repaired for most of my life, the Raider I was flying against was one of the best so far. The twins were giddy and flew circles around me, reenacting my first braking maneuver.

I was feeling a bit woozy by then, so my pack escorted me back to the station. By the time I realized where I was, Echelon had almost directed me to be pulled in by the station's tractor beam. I panicked and flew away, but my engine sputtered as my fuel ran out. My pack came up to me and tried to reason with me. After a few minutes of batting our eyes at each other, I finally relented after Echelon's pleas; among everyone I had come to know, Echelon was the only person I really trusted. Echelon and the twins pushed me into position and I was pulled into the monster (which I would eventually learn was called the 'hangar'). After feeling thoroughly violated, I came out fully fueled. Mad at them for tricking me, I started chasing my pack…

(O)

Our onboard computer's disabled out offensive seals a few days later, and we all felt the urge to blast asteroids. Our pack, along with the other three packs we played tag with, swooped into a relatively Raider-free patch of the asteroid and held competitions over which pack, squadron, and Raider could destroy the most asteroids in a limited amount of time. Of course my pack won, though the Twins beat Echelon and I on a squadron to squadron basis. When we were playing one on one, Echelon came out triumphant, beating everyone by a large margin.

As we all started celebrating, the Twins started screaming. Echelon and I looked to see what the distress was and were horrified to find that one of the packs (with four sisters and two brothers) we were playing with was under fire from a rival pack that had lost to us at some point. We did not think that anyone would actually use live rounds against their own kind, at least not after the bloodbath that was our nurseries, but those Raiders popped out of the asteroids and ambushed them. We could not call for help, since we did not know how to communicate through subspace, so we all rallied against the offending pack. They had already killed the victim pack and they were charging deep into the asteroid field with their afterburners. Our pack and the two remaining ones scrambled for the chase.

The Twins were so enraged, they just first their blasters wildly. The actually managed to blow up a rock, and its debris actually slammed into one of the bad Raider's eye and bounce around his insides. He went out of control and veered into his brother. Those the brother managed to shake him off, the wounded Raider crashed into a large rock and exploded. The remaining four bad Raiders decided that they were better off fighting than running, so they u-turned and sprayed at us with blaster fire.

Like the Twins were before, the bad Raiders were shooting at us wildly, doing their best to stand down. But our packs had organized into our squadrons and we were sharing information through our HUD's. There was one squadron for each bad Raider (Echelon and I, the Twins, and the two other packs, since they were really just one squadron each) and we all made our own targets.

What ensued could only be called beautiful in the eyes of a soldier who is much older and wiser. We all spread out as the envelope between both factions diminished. The bad Raiders were still shooting at us wildly, while we sped up to them with our afterburners blazing.

I did not really see what had happened with the other squadrons, but I remember what happened with Echelon and me as if it were yesterday. Echelon had been flying in front of me, protecting me like he always had been. Telling me what he wanted to do through my HUD, we both veered away just as our target bad Raider was about to crash into us. We both spun around to bear out cannons at him, but all our shots missed because we were turning, and there was just too much relative speed between us and the enemy. We fired our burners again and made chase, as the bad Raider tried to run away. The other squadrons had killed their own targets, and they were converging with us to kill the last bad Raider.

From afar, it must have been painful to watch. One lonely Raider was running for its life, chased by a swarm of its kind firing a hail of blaster fire at it.

The chase was frustrating, though. Even though he was badly outmatched, the bad Raider was going to get away. It was simply a matter of physics: he had a higher initial velocity, while we were all accelerating at the same rate. Actually, we were accelerating slower than him because of our blaster fire. Realizing that the chase was pointless, the other brothers and sisters told Echelon and I that we could always find the bad Raider when it needed to refuel. They all broke off pursuit, and I was about to too, but Echelon was defiant.

It was that day, that I first saw the true warrior within him. Though I hesitated, in the end, I decided to follow Echelon, wherever he would go. But nothing changed, and the bad Raider kept on going farther and farther away. Our computers were warning us that soon, we would be so far off, that even if our brothers and sisters helped us, we would not make it back to the station. I tried to convince Echelon that the chase really was pointless then, and that the bad Raider would be left stranded in space anyway, but he would not relent. He thought that the bad Raider had to die. I had lost hope by then, so I turned off my engine, just floating as Echelon and the bad Raider sped ahead of me. I watched as they continued the chase, Echelon pumping his blasters until he ran out of ammo. Soon after, Echelon was at the point of no return, and I cried inside, thinking that Echelon was lost.

But in his rage, Echelon pulled off something that no one expected. A thin puffy line extended from under Echelon and screamed its way to the bad Raider. When it connected, the Raider suddenly sprouted into a large fiery flower.

Echelon was the first to use a missile.

(O)

It had taken a lot of coordination, but we managed to bring Echelon and I back to the station with what little fuel that we all collectively had left. Though together we were from three different nurseries, what had happened that day forged a bond that was stronger than any predetermined pack relationship. From that day on, we were a single pack, the memory of the murdered pack engrained in our memories forever.

Just barely after Echelon and I were done in the monster, our computers were giving off a flag. Immediately, brothers and sisters around us started blinking out of existence.

Our newly formed pack was afraid, but Echelon took control. With the resolve of the leader he would one day be, he led us on to our uncertain future.

We all jumped on his command.

(-O-)