BSG: BUMP IN THE NIGHT
DISCLAIMER: Same, same: I own nothing. They own everything. I'm just playing in their sandbox. Please don't sue me.
A/N: Cue the sound effects and subtlely apprehensive music...
Chapter 4
"There it is, right were the projections said it would be," Sheba announced into her helmet mic. "Activate scan packages."
"This is just in and out, right?" Bojay asked, already flipping switches. "Just to the wreck and back."
"You already know the answer," Sheba replied. She chuckled. "Why so nervous? You're starting to sound like a first orbit cadet."
"Something Starbuck showed me," the young man grumped.
"That sounds personal."
"Ha-ha. Seriously, just before preflight Starbuck hooked me up with a clip from his cockpit recorder," Bojay looked nervously at the growing hole ahead of them. "You were in the Commander's briefing, right?"
"You know I was."
"Did they play their whole mission for you, com logs and all?"
"No, but I heard about the beta channel chatter," Sheba checked her instruments. "Is there a point to all this? We're nearing the terminator."
"You know that communications fade at about a light-micron, right?" Bojay said. "That was in our pre-mission briefing, but what wasn't in it was that Apollo tried cycling through the channels, trying to get better reception."
"That's standard operating procedure," Sheba's tone was becoming more and more businesslike.
"Just don't switch to beta channel, okay?" Bojay's tone carried a shiver.
"Lieutenant Bojay, whatever Apollo and Starbuck experienced was heightened by the density of the local magnetic field." Sheba spoke in the firm tones of a combat officer. "Doctor Wilker has modified our helmets to shield us from as much of the effect as possible." She shook her head. "All this was in the briefing. Don't tell me you're afraid of a little radio noise."
"Just don't. Alright?" Bojay sighed and angled his ship after his leader. The hole was just ahead. "I've got a feeling that you'll regret it if you do."
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It was late alpha shift when Starbuck made his way back into the medical bay. As he'd hoped, Cassiopeia was down here doing something with a battery of electronics. He didn't exactly sneak over to her, but she didn't notice him until he was within arms reach. When she turned, she bounced off his chest.
"Starbuck," she smacked his shoulder and gave him a half-hearted frown, "you scared me."
"Yeah, sorry." He let her push herself out of his arms. "Listen, about the other night..."
"Don't worry about it," Cassie said as she headed to a nearby consol. "As far as I'm concerned, you sustained an injury. Everything else was part of the treatment."
"What 'everything else'?" He followed her. "All I remember was going to your quarters..."
"And going to sleep with the lights on," the med–tech smiled sweetly. "I put a sedative in your drink. You looked like you needed it."
"Listen, Cass, I just wanted to say thank you. You have no idea what it was like," he ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know..."
"It wasn't your fault, Starbuck," she turned and laid a gentle hand fell on his shoulder. "You were under the effects of something beyond your experience. I don't think anything less of you because of it. Really."
"I appreciate it," he gave one of those boyish grins she always seemed to find so attractive. "Listen, I was wondering if I could make it up to you."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, it'll probably be a few sectons before I get a chance to do what I really want to do..."
"And what would that be?" Cass grinned as she returned to her work.
"Well, taking you to the Rising Star, of course."
"Aha." The blonde typed some information into her console. "You know, I remember the time you took me there before that other long range probe of yours. Do you?" She rolled on, not giving him a chance to answer. "I met Athena in the corridor just after you'd left. She thought she was on a date with you too."
"That was different," he wheedled.
"Starbuck, I am not a triad ball." She keyed a few new datum into the computer and checked the results with projections listed on her hand monitor. "I don't like being bounced around. In fact, I'm very, very tired of it."
"I'm not bouncing you around," Starbuck interjected. "I was just trying to show you how grateful I am."
"Fine. Show me," she stood straight and shrugged off the hands Starbuck placed on her shoulders. "But you have to show me. No one else. Not Noday, not Athena. No one. I mean it."
"Fine. That's all I'm asking." He finally managed to return a single hand to one of her upper arms. He dipped his head to peer more deeply into her eyes. "I was thinking a little picnic under the stars, in the observation dome? Maybe a little ambrosia?"
"Not too much," Cassiopeia returned. "I'm not going to let you take advantage of me this time."
"Take advantage? What are you talking about?"
"I'm also tired of feeling like a handy landing bay for your little Viper," she returned seriously. "I mean it. If you want to keep playing games, then maybe you should play them with someone else."
"It's not like that," he took a hurried step to keep up with her as she moved back towards her original computer bank.
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The cybernetics bay was an ordered disaster, as usual. A couple of Cylon centurions were scattered about the place, a head here, sensors there, power pack sharing a shelf with a left arm. There were other parts as well; servo motors for every purpose imaginable, a spool's worth of flex conduit draped over a scatter of tables and racks, the guts of a computer were intertwined with half of an avionics pod from an old Viper. It was Doctor Wilker's toyshop and only he knew what all the goodies were.
Apollo remembered the first time he'd come in here. He'd been trying to help Boxey feel better. Now he was in here to meet with the mad scientist and his father. Something cold slipped down his spine. He shook it off. It had to be some leftover something from the void making him uneasy.
"Ah, Captain Apollo," the white-hared man approached, "Welcome. Commander Adama is already here. Follow me, please."
The trip back into the electronic maze was a short one. Even on a ship the size of the Galactica, space was at a premium. The little office Wilker called home was a smaller cubical that looked like the place where unloved, or unidentifiable bits went to die. There were a trio of mismatched chairs, one of which was already occupied, a desk that was populated with random piles of paper and a wide, black monitor on one wall.
"Now that we're all here, we can get started," Wilker said as he made his way around the much abused desk.
"What is it that's so important?" Apollo asked.
"I've been asking myself the same thing," Adama said. The old man shifted as Apollo took the one free seat. "What is it you've summoned us here for, Doctor Wilker?"
"As you know, I've been looking at the flight recordings to see if there are any hidden designs behind the transmissions you recorded," Wilker took his seat and tapped on the surface of his desk. Across the small room the screen came to life and displayed a single, flat line. "I may have found some."
"Oh yes?" Adama perked.
"This section of the record begins before after Captain Apollo restarted his Viper," Wilker said. "It's just the audio portion, so there will be no visual component."
"We heard all the audio at the first debriefing," Adama said. "Except for the oddities of beta channel, there was nothing unusual."
"I'm afraid that you're incorrect, Commander. There were several things that may have been heard, but not noticed," Wilker said. "You see, humans process most of their information visually. In fact, I'm sure Doctor Salik will be more than happy to confirm that human beings gather up to ninety percent of their information through their eyes."
"So what about this recording?" Apollo asked. The promise of being exposed to the noise of beta channel again was making him nervous.
Wilker blinked and let it go. "Some weeks ago I asked Captain Apollo to monitor lambda channel, as an experiment" he pressed a certain point on his desk and the recording began emitting little burps of sound. "Until the probe two days ago, lambda had been fairly silent, oh there was some stellar noise, backwash from collapsed stars and the like, but until yesterday, there had been no intelligent modulation."
"Yeah, but I'm also getting an energy reading that shouldn't be there. Check your Lambda frequency."
"Lambda? That's ultra, ultra low, buddy."
"Yeah, I know. I've been monitoring it on these deep space patrols for a few weeks for Doctor Wilker..."
"Now at this point, there's nothing intelligible coming through," Wilker adjusted the noise so that the cockpit voices were filtered out. "This, to my mind, is not unusual, not when one considers the signals' point of origin."
"Which was?" Adama asked.
"The other side of the hole." The warrior's voice was low. Strained.
"Exactly. The fact that the wave made it through the rift at all demonstrates the sagacity of my theory," Wilker said. He pressed a few more buttons. "This portion is from after the Viper restart. I've already filtered out any extraneous noise, so you shouldn't have any trouble understanding the transmission."
"There's a definite transmission?" Apollo sat up straighter.
"See, or rather, hear for yourself," Wilker nodded.
The line remained flat only a moment longer. When it began jumping the voice that came through was easy enough to understand.
"Attention, attention. You are within the perimeter of a war-wreckage zone. This area has been declared a class nine hazard by Colonial Operations Command. If you are receiving this message, you are in danger. Turn around, follow your back azimuth out of this region. If you are found within this area, you will be considered hostile and may be fired upon..."
"Wait, I didn't hear any of that when we were there," Apollo jerked to his feet in surprise.
"Actually, you may have." Wilker turned down the volume as the message repeated. "You just didn't know it. As I said, it took some effort to reproduce the signal with this sort of clarity. It would have probably sounded very muffled to you. Even I couldn't gather any words from the signal in its raw state."
Adama sat and said nothing for a long moment, but sat rubbing his fingertips over one of his temples. It was almost as if he were listening to the full broadcast a second time.
"The signal is on an infinite loop. If you've heard it once, you may as well have heard it a thousand times," Wilker paused his playback.
"Father, I've never heard of a class nine hazard," Apollo said.
"Nor would you have," Adama returned. "It's an old delineation that was being phased out while I was still a young pilot." He sighed deeply as he drew upon a store of long unused knowledge. "Buoys were set out in space to guard useless and isolated asteroids where we used to dump hazardous materials, or to warn others away from wreckage that emitted harmful levels of radiation." He frowned and let his gaze track the rills of the vocal recording. "Class nine usually meant a radiation hazard that could immediately cripple sensitive electronics and could conceivably kill even the most shielded crews within hours."
"But we detected no such radiation," Apollo supplied. "Starbuck and I didn't have any problems. We even circled the wreck."
"I know. I appreciate that, believe me," Adama nodded. He looked back to the little man behind the desk. "I'm also very interested in their reference to Colonial Operations Command."
"Yes," Wilker agreed. "It implies that there is still a Colonial government on that side of the anomaly. The obvious problem is that we don't know how long that wreck has been there."
"It's also very interesting that such a transmission exists at all," Adama's thoughtful gaze encompassed the other two men. "Think. It's an uncoded broadcast. The fact it's a warning is also very interesting to me. Who is it warning away? Not Cylons certainly. In fact it displays a complete disregard for our metal adversaries."
"Yes," Apollo smiled for the first time since he came into Wilker's little lab. "A broadcast like that shows that whoever put it out doesn't care whether the Cylons hear or not."
"Exactly," Adama nodded and knocked happily on the desk. "From this, it would seem that the Cylons aren't as great a threat over there as they are here. I would certainly say that merits further exploration, wouldn't you, Captain?"
"There are a few further facets that you should make note of," Wilker announced.
"Further facets?" Adama asked.
"Indeed." Wilker fiddled about with his desk controls.
"Beta channel," Apollo deflated.
"Yes. The beta channel." Doctor Wilker looked over at the two men across the desk. "I've processed that signal in much the same way as I did the one on lambda channel," the white-haired man began. "It was actually a much more difficult task."
"Oh?" Adama looked over.
"Indeed. The second signal seems to be made of layers and layers of transmission all edited together." Wilker stated calmly. He pressed a button and the graph began to judder insanely. "As you can hear," the wild haired man had to raise his voice above the noise, "it's sound upon sound. Some are much louder than others. This was what initially led me to believe that it was manufactured." He pressed another button to mute the hellish racket.
Wilker looked across the table and was forced to bury a smile. He'd never seen Commander Adama slack-jawed with wonder, and yet now, the old man sat looking at the still monitor as though he'd never seen one before. As for Apollo, the young man was pale and rigid. He knew he was no medical doctor, Lords knew Salik pointed out often enough, but it was obvious that the younger man's rictus was a clumsy effort to halt his shivering.
"This signal can be nothing other than manufactured," the wild-haired man continued after a quiet moment's bask. "As you know from your own experiences, a more powerful transmission will drown out a weaker. I haven't been able to separate all the voices in the transmission yet, but so far the computer has identified more than fifty. This..." he gestured his disdain at the monitor, "...this farce had to be artificially created."
"Then how do you explain the effect it's had on me and Starbuck?" Apollo demanded.
"The effect is also artificial," Wilker sat back smugly. "Granted, a great part of its potency probably does lie with the high electromagnetic field of the region, however, there is a harmonic buried in all the noise." He pressed a button to restart the signal, then another to freeze it.
"If you look here," he rose and stepped to the monitor, pointing, "these peaks, here and here, and these valleys here, here and here, these aren't naturally occurring. Their wavelength has nothing to do with the actual sounds present. I believe they result because of a combination of tones that literally create another sound."
"And these harmonics, as you call them, produce a physical effect?" Adama asked.
"They do," Wilker turned and crossed his arms authoritatively. "The combination of sound levels and tones will produce subconscious, even visceral reactions ranging from nausea to acute discomfort. Honestly, this, combined with the effects of a dense electromagnetic field, would create feelings of disquiet, then fear and with enough exposure, pure, unreasoning terror. I can easily imagine long term immersion producing insanity. It's really quite a sophisticated deterrent."
"Could it part of the warning beacon?" Adama frowned, noting the almost gleeful tone the scientist had at discovering something so obviously evil.
"If it is, it's insidious in ways that no normal Colonial officer could imagine." Wilker's tone was still satisfied, almost gloating. "It's a signal whose base carrier is of a frequency designed to produce fear. It would only work on beings with a make-up like our own. Electronic lifeforms, like the Cylons, would be immune by their very nature."
"But how can anyone understand fifty voices all at once?" the older man asked.
"If it's a warning, I understood it perfectly," Apollo said. "As soon as I heard it, I wanted to get away."
"That may be the point of the whole thing," Wilker agreed. "From what I've been able to separate out, each voice is some sort of death transmission. Imagine hearing fifty separate voices of people dying. The conscious human mind couldn't process it all, but the subconscious would be able to." He pursed his lips for a moment, as if he'd realized just how much admiration he was injecting into his observations. "Many of them are warriors, Viper pilots, fighting and being killed. Some are from bridge crews whose ships are under attack, or even on fire. The worst ones are the quiet ones. The ones whose voices are consumed with despair." He stopped again and sniffed dispassionately. "It's really an amazing transmission. One might even call it horribly effective."
Apollo nodded. It was the best, most comforting explanation for what he'd heard out there in the dark. Unfortunately words didn't cover the mood, the fear that the sound had planted in his soul.
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"You know, Starbuck, you're not normally too overjoyed to be near the bridge," Athena smiled wryly at the monitor.
"Yeah well, call this time special interest." He leaned forward, taking the opportunity to slip a hand onto one of the woman's blue-clad shoulders.
"What, you're after Sheba now?" Athena rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Better watch out, she might just shoot you."
"Why does everybody say that?" the young man asked. He straightened back up. "No, I'm not even remotely interested in Sheba..."
"Then why are you asking about her flight?" Athena smirked up at her sometime boyfriend.
"Because she and Bojay are in that hole," Starbuck said impatiently. He looked around to see if he'd captured anyone's attention. "Look, Athena, you weren't there. You didn't see, or hear it all. That place... There's something wrong with it. No one should be in there."
"Apollo told me the same thing," Athena turned her eyes briefly from her monitor. Right now her two-timing quasi-boyfriend looked like a big, scared kid. For a moment she wanted to stand and give him a hug. She crushed the notion quickly enough. "He said he'd never seen a place so wrong."
"How long have they been in there?" Starbuck asked.
"Fifty centons." She glanced back again. If anything the blonde warrior seemed to grow more uncomfortable. "Don't worry, Starbuck. Doctor Wilker modified their helmets and had the techs do some things to their Vipers. It won't be like when you and Apollo went through..."
"Galactica control, this is Probe one, I am under attack," Sheba's voice burst through the speaker. "Five pursuers. I've lost contact with my wingman. Send assistance."
Starbuck didn't wait for instructions. In the blink of an eye, he was speeding for the exit, on his way to hangar bay alpha.
"Colonel Tigh," Athena called up to the command pedestal. "Lieutenant Sheba has returned to our side, she's under attack by five assailants."
"Go to red alert," the older man's voice easily penetrated the low susurrus of operations. "Launch ready fighters." The wide, dais began to rotate towards the long bank of deep space scanners. He looked aside for just a moment. "Omega, get the Commander to the bridge. Athena, focus our scanners on Sheba's coordinates. I want to learn all we can about who, or whatever is chasing her."
"Yes, sir."
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She'd penetrated the terminator just moments ago and performed the fastest restart sequence in the history of the fleet. Unfortunately, that had still slowed her. The bandits should be on top of her any second. She looked down; local scan showed that they were still back there. Closing. Sheba's Viper bucked once more as one of the weird green blaster bolts detonated high, forward and left, probably missing her only because she'd gotten back under power and jinked low.
Her eyes flicked down as her tactical scanner flickered under the effects of the near miss. All of the bandits were now on her side of the hole. The three furthest back showed on the little screen as bright, malicious stars. She blinked at the pair closest to her. They were indistinct, faded somehow.
"Sheba? Boomer. We have you on short range scanners and will be at your position in two centons." The woman's face broke into a broad smile at the confidant sound of the black man's voice. "Be there when we get there."
"Not a problem," Sheba said, forcing her voice calm. She jerked her stick to the side, hopefully rolling out of some unknown badguy's gunsights. "Give me a vector and I'll bring them to you."
"Roger that." Boomer's voice also began to sound stiff. "Bear ten by twenty five relative..."
"Sheba, I'm only picking you up on my sensors," Starbuck's voice broke in. "Where's Bojay?"
"I don't know," the woman replied. She looked down at her screens again. She blinked in surprise. There was nothing behind her. "Boomer, I think they've turned back. I'm heading back in."
"Don't do it, Sheba, not 'till the rest of us get there," he returned.
"I've got to, and you can't follow me. You haven't been shielded," she shot back. Her hard, rolling turn pushed her down into the seat. "You don't know what it's like over there."
"No, but I do," Starbuck announced. She could hear him strain to bury the mounting fear he must have felt. "If you'll..." She missed the rest.
God punched her Viper. The impact smashed her three times around the cockpit before she even realized anything had gone wrong. There was a stench of frying plastic and metal, a taste of blood and an all encompassing disassociation. For the micron left in her world, she felt like a passenger in her own body, trying to figure out words to put to what was going on as her bird screamed and died. Nothing clicked until she saw the flat-spinning nose of another fighter headed right for her face.
'Viper...' She thought the word clearly. Then she couldn't think anything else.
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Warmth. Soft, almost fuzzy warmth filled her veins.
"I'm not comfortable with this Adama," a deep male voice growled. "We shouldn't be waking her for a week."
"We wouldn't be, if there weren't another warrior in danger." The commander's voice made Sheba feel safe again. She tried to open her eyes, but could only make them flutter.
"We're getting a reaction."
Cassie's voice was close to her head. Instinctively, she turned, or tried to. Instantly there was a soft something laid on her forehead. A cloth? A hand? She couldn't tell yet. Sheba's eyes fluttered wider. Her world began to turn into something bright and blurry.
"Sheba?" Cassie spoke again. "Sheba, I need you to try and be calm."
'That means bad news.' The sarcastic thought almost made the brown-haired warrior chuckle. "Wh-where..?"
"You're in the medical bay," Cassie said. She glanced up, first to the worried face of Commander Adama, then to the hard expression of Doctor Salik. Practice may have kept his craggy face immobile, but Cassiopeia knew he was worried too. "Your Viper was hit with a piece of wreckage. You've gotten pretty banged up."
Sheba tried to sit up, but someone else was still driving her body. The best she could get was a little clench from her abdomen. Instantly Cassie put her hands on her shoulders, pushing gently to keep her down.
"Don't move," the blonde commanded. "You're badly injured."
Sheba's eyes flicked up to her friend's concerned face. Everything had an odd red tint. 'Blood in my eyes,' she realized. 'Explosive decompression. FRAK, I must have come close to checking out.' A sense of horror overwhelmed her when she realized just how near she'd come to dying.
"Sheba," the commanders voice was a concerned near purr. He drew closer to her healing unit and laid a comforting hand on her arm. "Believe me, we wouldn't be disturbing you if it wasn't necessary. Your fighter was very, very badly damaged. The technicians don't know if they can get your flight recorder to respond. Can you answer some questions?"
'The flight recorder's wrecked?' Pain began to creep into her head as she knit her brows. 'FRAK!' She nodded and coughed weakly. Her voice came out as a whisper.
"I'll try commander."
"We need to know what happened to Lieutenant Bojay."
"I-I don't know." Tears appeared without warning. At first, the still sluggish logical part of her mind tried to tell her that her eyes were draining blood. She slammed them shut to keep it all in. "We got to the wreck. Followed Apollo and Starbuck's original survey path. I made it to the forward section to scissor with Bojay, but there were five Vipers instead. They fired, I returned. I know I hit one. I saw it burst into flame..." Her voice dissolved into a groan. The first sob wracked her body like a seizure.
"Adama," Salik took the larger man's arm and led him a few feet away. "You're not going to get much more and trying is dangerous." He looked up into the older man's dark eyes. "I mean it. Even the little movement she's done so far is endangering her more. We need to let her slip back into unconsciousness so we can get to work saving her life."
Adama took a deep breath, looked over at the silver tube and the young warrior inside. He nodded. "Of course. I think I have all the answers I need." He patted the doctor's forearm. "Do your best, doctor. I lost her father, I don't want to lose her as well."
"You know we will, Adama." Salik nodded. He turned to look over at Cassie. "Discontinue stimulation and prepare the bone fuser."
"Bone fuser? But she's got internal..."
"I know, I know," the older man nodded. He was happy to see that his med tech was obeying quickly, even as she questioned him. "We'll have to go about this in stages. If her body isn't worried about pain, or healing her broken bones, maybe it will be able help us when we look to her internal injuries." He nodded to the Commander as he left the room. "We've got a lot of work to do and we've got to do it in the right order if we're going to save her."