Daala and the Fleet Chapter 6: A Fight Over Dinner, a battlestar galactica: 2003 fanfic

Why do I even bother with this disclamer?

This does involve a fight over dinner. I hope you like it.

Again, some spoilers involving Razor

Chapter 6- A Fight Over Dinner

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

Daala spoke to Kirana. "Get your best guard and follow me back to the Pegasus for dinner."

Kretas looked at her. "Am I coming?"

Daala shook her head. "If something goes wrong and I die, the Gorgon will need a reliable commander. But I do have one thing for you to do. I need you to cook."

Kretas looked at her like she had lost her mind. "Besides the fact that a dinner on the Pegasus means that Cain will supply the food, why me? We do have cooks on this ship, you know."

Daala smirked. "Yes, but I do believe you may be the only person on this ship who knows how to make a good Corellian spiceloaf. Hurry, or I'll be late."

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG -62

The second landing on the Pegasus went more smoothly then the first. When the ramp lowered and Daala stepped out of the shuttle, there were only two marines waiting for her, and their rifles were not aimed at her. The two marines escorted Daala and her guards to Cain's quarters. Daala was carrying the spiceloaf so that both of her guards could have their hands free. Her guards carried multiple weapons, including blaster rifles and electrified clubs for short range combat. Because of the fact that Cylons had been know to infiltrate fleet ships, precautions had been taken in case there were some onboard the Pegasus. Back when the Emperor was still alive a replica droid had been created that was almost indistinguishable from a human. They did emit a small amount of magnetic energy, so all guard and Stormtrooper helmets could now scan people and determine where they were Cylons or not.

After a couple of minutes spent walking through a maze of passageways, they finally arrived at Cain's quarters. The door had been left open for them. As Daala and her guards stepped in the room, Daala was able to take a look at the elaborate decorations in Cain's room. All around the room was a collection of slugthrowers, from flintlock pistons to menacing assault rifles. Daala thought she might like Cain. The other prominent features in her room were a large dining table, complete with meals on the center of the table, and a large bed. Cain was waiting for them. When Daala saw Cain she froze. Cain was the woman from her dream. Upon seeing her expression, Cain asked, "What's the matter? You look like I just shot your dog."

Daala regained her composure and extended her hand. "Admiral Natasi Daala, commander of the Star Destroyer Gorgon, Imperial fleet."

Cain shook her hand. "Admiral Helena Cain, commander of the Battlestar Pegasus. I'm what's left of the Colonial fleet."

Daala shook he head. "No, you're not. The Battlestar Galactica is still alive."

Cain's mouth dropped open. Daala smiled. "You see? We do have a lot to talk about."

Cain looked at Daala's guards. "Are those your bodyguards?"

Daala nodded. "Could I see their faces?" asked Cain. The guards hesitated, but after nod of approval from Daala they removed their helmets, revealing the faces of Kirana Forr and Araeya Ran-shok, one of Daala's other guards. While Cain was studying their faces, a woman walked in the room. She was slightly taller than Daala, and had honey-blond hair. When she walked in both guards still had their helmets off, so they missed the Cylon detector alarms that were gong off in their helmets.

Kirana and Araeya stepped outside the room and closed the hatch, not knowing that they had left their leader in the same room with a Cylon.

When the woman stepped in the room Cain smiled. "This is Systems Analyst Gina Inviere. She'll be joining us for dinner."

At first Daala was confused why someone who was not even an officer was joining them…until she saw them exchange what was supposed to be a casual kiss on the cheek, a greeting. But she noticed that the kiss was a bit closer to the mouth than the cheek, and they lingered a bit longer than was custom. Daala didn't care. She had nothing against same sex couples. But why did she have a feeling that she had seen Inviere before?

During dinner Daala explained about the Empire, the Rebels, and her current situation. Of course, she left out lots of important details, like that their shields were down, and the capabilities of her fighters. "Amazing. So you have…aliens aboard your ship?" Cain said. Daala nodded. She was one of the only high ranked Imperials that were not biased about non-humans.

"But only a few. I can introduce you later if you'd like that."

"And what do you know about the Cylons?" said Cain.

Daala noticed that Gina seemed a bit uncomfortable when discussing the Cylons. "Well, the Cylons used a man named Gaius Baltar, have you heard of him?"

Cain nodded. "He designed the CNP navigation software, using networked computers. At the time of the attacks, ours was down…Oh." Cain's voice trailed off as she put it all together. "He was a traitor, wasn't he?"

Daala nodded. "He's probably dead from the nukes on Caprica. But he wasn't alone. The Cylons can look like humans now. There are seven models and-" Daala stopped abruptly. She realized where she had seen Gina before. The recording that was taken by Stormtroopers inside the Resurrection ship had shown the seven models. The ones that had been I.D as number Sixes had the same body as Gina. Gina must have seen recognition in Daala's eyes, because even as she shouted "Guards!", Gina tipped the table over, sending Cain and Daala flying. The door flew open, and Kirana and Araeya rushed in. Their helmet alarms went off, and the sensors in their helmet automatically locked onto Gina. But Gina was faster that them, and slammed into Kirana, knocking her to the floor and grabbing her blaster. Araeya raised her blaster rifle and fired a shot, but in her haste she had little time to aim, and the blaster bolt went tight over Gina's shoulder. Gina brought up her stolen blaster and shot Araeya in the face, killing her. All this happened over the course of two seconds.

As Kirana started to get up, Gina shot her in the abdomen. Kirana collapsed again, her hands clutching her stomach wound. In one smooth move Gina whacked Daala in the head with the rifle and turned toward Cain.

Kirana and Araeya wee standing outside Cain's hatch when they heard Daala's cry for help. Kirana's helmet began to beep urgently, and a red target designator locked onto Gina. But Gina was unnaturally fast and strong, and she slammed into Kirana and grabbed her rifle. As Kirana struggled to stand, as she had the breath knocked out of her, she could only watch as Gina shot her friend and colleague. Then Gina shot her in the gut. Pain washed over Kirana as she doubled over, her wound smoking. But that was alright. Kirana knew pain. She had experienced more of it then she should have had to. Just as Daala got clubbed by the rifle, Kirana managed to take her hands off her stomach and grab her electrified club. Kirana staggered to her feet and saw the rifle come to rest on Cain's head.

But Gina did not shoot, and Kirana registered a hint of confusion in her eyes. Kirana used that time to grab her electrified club and hit Gina in the back, sending thousands of volts of electricity through her body. As Gina fell to the ground, Kirana used the last of her energy to hit her one more time, knocking her out. Her energy spent, Kirana collapsed.

Cain was in shock. Her lover had just attacked the Admiral from another galaxy, and had possibly killed her and her guards. Cain knew her first reaction should be to check Daala, but she found herself drawn towards Gina. Was it true? Was she a Cylon? Cain knew very well that she was a woman in many ways, and it seemed impossible.

Cain broke out of her stupor and dashed over to Daala. She was unconscious, but still breathing. Looking at the guards Cain instantly knew that one of them was dead, her face a smoldering wreck. The other one was alive, but barely. Cain hurried over to the phone. Picking it up, she said, "Marines and medics to the Admiral's quarters. Emergency!"

"Hey, Suna. Have you heard the joke about the monkey who fell out of the tree?"

Suna Yres groaned. "For the third time, yes! He was dead." she said in her clipped and precise English accent. "Will you ever just shut up and go away? Or is that too much to hope for?"

Devlin McAllister grinned. He enjoyed annoying his co-worker. After all, they were the only people on watch in the Pegasus's aft damage control, which functioned like a auxiliary control room. Suddenly the loudspeaker blared, and both Suna and Devlin heard Admiral Cain's voice over the intercom. "Marines and medics to the Admiral's quarters. Emergency!"

Devlin turned to Suna. "What'd'ya think is going on?"

But Suna was not able to think. Thoughts kept racing into her head. A flip had been switched in her head. Gina was in trouble. Six. Three. Mission. Suna brushed her long blonde hair out of her eyes and looked at Devon. "I think… I'm going to kill you." Suna withdrew her pistol and shot Devlin three times in the chest. Holstering her smoking gun, Suna kicked him a couple of times. "Why did you fall out of the tree?"

Suna casually walked to the doors of the control room and bolted them shut. Walking over to the bank of switches she looked at all of them, humming a little tne. "So much work, so little time. What's a Three to do?"

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

Commander Kretas sat in the chair which was usually Daala's, waiting for her return. It was boring out on the Gorgon. There was nothing to do. He wondered how the meeting was going.

Suddenly the sensor officer spun around. "Radiation detected! Coming from the Battlestar Pegasus. The Pegasus is coming about, turning to face us. ETA until maneuver complete is thirty seconds."

Kretas paled. While the nuclear warheads on the Pegasus would be easy to shoot down, the main batteries were another matter. Each giant slug that the Pegasus's main guns shot could blow the bridge right off the destroyer. If only they had shields.

"Issue one warning to them. Tell them to disarm their nukes and cut power to engines. And try to raise the Admiral on comlink."

The communications officer nodded. "Aye aye, sir." After a moment of multitasking, the comm officer turned back to him. "I can't contact the Battlestar, and Admiral Daala isn't answering her comm."

Kretas closed his eyes. "Roll ninety degrees to starboard, depress all guns to maximum angle. I want every weapon we have targeting those engines. Launch all fighters."

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62

Suna smiled. It felt so good to be a Three again. Her memories had been repressed until she sensed something was wrong, like a fellow Cylon in trouble. But still so much work to do. She had already overridden the CIC's controls and jammed all wireless frequencies, and started to maneuver the ship. Watching the progress of the Pegasus's roll she was disappointed. The fixed main guns still didn't have a firing solution. But that's what secondary guns were for. As a afterthought, she opened all flight pod doors and opened all launch tubes. With the launch tubes locked open, it was impossible to get a fighter that wasn't already in the tube to launch. Assuming there were any fighters left. She knew that it was only a matter of time before a squad of marines came bashing down the door. Oh well. That's what pistols were made for.

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

"Commander. Something's wrong." The speaker, who was the temporary XO, directed Kretas's attention to the transperisteel window on the bridge. What Kretas saw puzzled him. The massive doors on the flight pods were opening. He could see the air being sucked out of the pods, followed by unmanned Vipers, Raptors, and human bodies. No officer would open doors killing hundreds of people for no reason. Why would they do that? he wondered. Then it hit him. They weren't doing it on purpose.

He stood up. "Order all fighters to attack the engines on the Battlestar. Jump to emergency coordinates. Now!"

On the hull of the Pegasus secondary batteries swiveled in their mounts to face the Gorgon. They were still loaded with flak rounds from the last battle. Unfortunately for Suna, she needed a key to launch nukes, and was only able to open their doors. But that wasn't a problem. The secondary guns would start firing any second now, and the main batteries would be in range in about fifteen seconds. The secondary guns locked on the Gorgon's bridge and opened fire.

The Gorgon was about to enter hyperspace when the first shells from the Pegasus hit. Most of them did no real damage, but one shell exploded fifty meters from the bridge view port. One piece of shrapnel pieced the window, went through the communications officers neck, nearly decapitating him, and lodged in Kretas's right shoulder. He fell to his knees in shock, and did not resist when someone hauled him out of the bridge area. The amount of air that was flowing out of the view port overstressed it, and with a roar the whole piece of transperisteel crumbled and was sucked away into space. The blast doors closed behind Kretas, and he felt a slight lurch as the Gorgon jumped away.

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62

Suna was very disappointed. The destroyer had jumped right before she had a firing solution for the main guns. But at least there were still fighters out there. She set the secondary batteries and CIWS systems to auto fire.

Sigma Leader, TIE Bomber

Sigma leader used his tongue to toggle the comm switch in his helmet. He was flying a TIE Bomber, and even though there was heavy jamming his ship's comm as still able to broadcast. "Sigma squadron, Sigma Lead. Stay away from the ship's guns and unload your missiles on the engines. The Gorgon will be back any minute to help us." He tried to sound confident, but that was hard to do. Last time he had seen the Gorgon, it had a hole in its bridge and it had jumped away from the fight, with most of its craft still in the hanger. Sigma squadron was only half full, and there were only a handful of fighters and interceptors to guard them. While a few of the craft were hyperspace capable, the rest were stranded until the Gorgon returned. If it returned.

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62

Cain had made it to the CIC despite the frantic confusion in her quarters, where Daala and her barely surviving guard were rushed to the sickbay, and Gina was taken to the brig. She stalked into the CIC, furious. "Mr. Hoshi!" she barked. "Sitrep!"

Hoshi had a confused expression on his face. " I don't know. We're firing our guns, but we have no control over them. The wireless is being jammed, and all the controls are being overridden by the aft damage control department." He paused. "The flight pod doors were opened with people inside of them. And the Vipers are locked out of their tubes."

Cain turned to Belzen. "Send a detachment of marines to the aft damage control room. Stop this madness."

Blue 3, Viper Mk.VII

Lt. Sophie "Deadbolt" Narcasa was bored out of her mind. Ever since that stupid fraked up destroyer arrived, Cain ordered that at least ten Vipers be manned in the tubes at all time. And of course, as the female pilot with the most kills, she just had to be assigned to this duty. This was her third hour in the tube. Only five more to go.

Suddenly the she heard the distinctive hiss of air that meant that the doors which faced space had just been opened. Which also meant that the door behind her had closed. She looked of the left side of her Viper's canopy and into the launch room, expecting to see a technician with launch key in hand, waiting for her to give the signal to launch. Instead, she did find a technician, but the technician was being sucked out of the launch control room almost like…a explosive decompression. Then she felt the vibrations as the ship's guns began to fire. Frak this. She wasn't going to sit around in a tube until a battle was over. But how would she get out? Well there was one way, but it was a very stupid idea. Sounded like her kind of plan. She goosed her afterburners, and her ship began to slide down the launch rail, grinding across the metal rail. She started to achieve some velocity, but not enough. When she reached the end of the tube she still didn't have much momentum. She was close enough to the Pegasus that when she left the tube, its artificial gravity pulled her down. Skimming across the hull, she was able to break free, and coated into space. What she saw confused and horrified her.

The Pegasus was venting atmosphere from its flight pods, and she could see Vipers and the mechanics that were working on them thrown into space. Than there was also that matter of the guns. The Battlestar was firing as many guns as it could. She saw a stream of rounds that were aimed at the destroyer. But what frightened her was what else they were shooting at. There had been three Vipers on CAP, but now there was only one left, no make that zero. The Pegasus's CIWS guns had specifically targeted the Vipers on CAP. She then saw a round impact on the Gorgon's bridge, and watched it jump out of the system. She also spotted a group of fighters from the destroyer, heading towards the Battlestar's engine section, presumably to stop it from attacking more ships.

But then she saw two turrets traversing towards them. The flak rounds would tear those fighters to pieces. She had a choice to make. Watch them die or blow up the turrets and save them. Of course, firing on her own ship and helping knock out its engines was technically treason, but she was pretty sure that something was wrong with her ship.

Pushing those thoughts out of her head, she lined up on the first battery and fired, sending bullets flying into the gun, destroying it. She repeated the process on the second gun, and waited for the bombers to shoot.

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62

The bombers never needed to fire. Suna had just turned her attention from the guns to the emergency venting procedure. As she started to reach for the buttons that would vent all of the Pegasus's atmosphere into space, she heard a bang as the door flew open, flowed by a group of marines. She shrugged inwardly. It was bound to happen sometime. She pulled her gun up and shot one marine in the face. Her next two rounds impacted the armor on one of the marine's chest, but did not penetrate. That particular marine had distracted her enough so that another marine was able to sneak up behind her and knock her unconscious with the butt of his rifle. The marines quickly secured her and restored all control to the CIC. Cain shut off the engines to indicate that the fight was over to the Gorgon. But the DRADIS sensor was clear. The Gorgon was gone. Out in space, the TIEs that had hyperdrives decided to jump back to their ship, leaving the bombers of Sigma squadron to drift in space. Finally they were able to get clearance to land on the Pegasus. They landed in the port flight pod. It was a eerie sight because the pod was empty, when it should have been bustling with activity and covered with fighters.

Cain made her way from the CIC to the LifeStation onboard. She looked at the two patients lying on white cots, Admiral Daala and Royal Guardswoman Forr. They were both unconscious. Cain walked over to the doctor. "How are they?" she asked.

The doctor, whose name was Mike Gibbons, shook his head. "They're both critical." he said. "We don't have the resources to treat them. One has a smoking crater where her gut should be and the other has a bashed in skull. That fancy ship of theirs better get back fast, or they're both dead."

I had just finished re-watching a episode with D'Anna in it, and I just had to put a Three in the story. Unfortunatly, starting about the 19th, I am leaving for about three weeks and will probaly not have computer acces. That, plus a 20 page paper I have to write means that there probably will either be a update or two within the next week or there won't be a update for another month or so. But when I come back I will almost certanly have a chapter or two.

P.S. SSJ-Jolt, GalacticaCAG, and amac1688 used the really huge hint last chapter to figure out 18503's identity. He will play a big part later in the story. Please review!