BSG: BUMP IN THE NIGHT - PART 2
DISCLAIMER: See previous. Seriously. If you've gotten this far you know I have nothing, I'm making nothing and I own nothing. Nothing's changed.
A/N: Well that was a long weekend, huh? It seems that I am, to quote Billy Shake, fortune's fool. Karma has apparently decided to make up for the rest of the year with the last few months and I have been... discommoded lately. Had to get a hot water heater, washer/dryer, fix everywhere that they went, then the car needed stuff, then the rest of the house, plumber, water pressure, blah, blah, blah, ad inifinitum. I FINALLY got that other chapter done for YOTS, and uploaded, but it was a pain. I have also JUST finished editing the previous installments of this one. (There were some dropped words and misspellings, and I gave the flow a tweak. Nothing major, so you don't need to re-read). After this, it's time for breffie.
My next installment may be a bit (though hopefully much shorter than the last one), because I have to start raw writing. As I said before, I had most of this written, so putting it here was mostly editing and cut/paste. After this chap I want to head back to the Battlestar to get their take on things, so it'll be yet another chapter before I get to play my little trick on Starbuck. Don't get too excited about that, it's just a little poke, but I've mentioned it before and I wanted to give you all an update. I think it's funny.
Now for the gunfight/rescue. Cue the title music.
Chapter 2
Chira threw up. Adrenaline, terror, the stink of burnt rot, anything could have set her off. Starbuck had felt the desire since he got onto this cursed bucket, but he hadn't done it. He was kind of jealous.
"...e can only reach you if we know where you are," the voice said firmly.
Apollo stared confusedly at Starbuck. The younger man closed his fist over his microphone.
"I know, it's impossible, but that sounds like Sheba," His whisper was clipped. Tense.
"Identify yourself," Apollo commanded sternly.
"This is Major Sheba of the Warstar Elysium and you don't have time to frak with me," the woman's voice was equally harsh. "You need to tell me exactly where you are so I can tell you how to get out of the trouble you're in. The lemmies know this ship and they're going to be up your ass any micron, so you need to move. Now."
"This is some kind of trick..." Apollo began.
Her tone was perfect 'angry Sheba'. "Fine, I'll just let you get torn apart and eaten then. So sorry to have bothered you. Remember to lead with your throat..."
Apollo felt his stomach drop out. "Wait! Wait," he called fearfully out into the dark. His handlight panned across the door, looking for the location tag that should have been in the center. "I can't find the..."
Sinon's light hit the tab above the hatch.
"I'm at hatchway 4-126-3-H," Apollo announced. He waited. "Are you still there?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Sheba's voice replied tersely. "Can you tell which way is forward?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, you need to get to hatchway 4-120-3-H. Take it. Close it. Go to the next intersection and hang a left..."
"That takes me into the warrior's dorms," Apollo replied.
"That's right. Don't worry about lemmies. There may be a few, but the warriors had all launched when Laurentia died, so except for some stragglers, you shouldn't have anything to worry about," the voice returned. "We'll probably take out the few there anyway. We're moving towards you now."
"Hey, I don't know if you noticed," Starbuck broke in angrily, "but those things don't die."
"Starbuck?" she gasped. "But how are you..?"
"That's because they're already dead, genius." A male voice bit sarcastically.
Then what he said sank in and the frightened warriors goggled at each other as Sheba's voice continued. "The human skull is a sensor pod. If you want them to stop, you shoot them in the head. No sensors and they're useless. No point in animating them."
"You say that like we're supposed to know," Apollo added his annoyance to the conversation.
"Every first orbit cadet knows," the voice returned in an edgy, somehow curious tone. "So does every pirate, free pilot or freighter bum. Who are you?"
"I'm Flight Captain Apollo of the Battlestar Galactica."
There was a long pause.
"Oh, I'm definitely looking forward to meeting you people now," the woman's voice held a purr of menace.
"That didn't sound good," Starbuck murmured.
"Your choice," Sheba fired back mercilessly. "Wait for the lemmies to tear you apart, or come to me. At least you know that I'll talk to you instead of eating your face off." She paused for a moment before continuing in a slightly softer tone. "I wouldn't try to make it back to your shuttle either. You people came in with everything but the squadron band playing. It's probably been overrun. You should consider it gone."
Apollo switched his mic off. "Lovely." He looked back at the door, then at the others. "You all caught that?"
"Yeah, but it's not possible," Chira said, still wiping bile from her mouth. "Sheba's in the med bay aboard the Galactica."
"I know," Apollo nodded.
"And warstars?" Dares demanded. "What in Dis is a warstar?"
"It was supposed to be the next step up from a battlestar. My father once told me about them." Apollo jerked his head to the others to begin moving. "They'd been on the drawing board for a long time, but when rumors of peace with the Cylons started circulating, they stopped working on them."
"Looks like somebody didn't," Starbuck said.
"Doesn't matter," Apollo returned with a note of finality. "We're trapped and the only help we've gotten so far is from someone who can't possibly be here. Now let's go before those... things find a way around our little barricade."
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Starbuck was getting a case of the creeping horrors. He still felt those things watching him through the alloy walls. Need and caution sent him the down the marching line, to share rearguard with Dares. After all, the only thing between the tail end of this little group and the monsters he'd seen was two little doors and a whole lot of shadowy nothing. Their handlights never showed anything, but they both felt something back there, but the only sounds they caught were Chira's half muffled sobs and the scrape of their boots on the deck sole. They didn't talk and all that silence gave the young lieutenant's mind time to work. Both men looked back frequently.
Whatever else happened, he did not want to think about Sheba's voice coming over their headsets. Nor did he want to think about those things behind in any capacity other than as targets. More than once he'd caught himself thinking about what, no, who they'd once been... and then he'd chop that line right off. Instead he concentrated on the threat aspect. It was safer to think of them as some sort of alien than... what the flickering lights had shown him. Chills clung to his skin like sweat. If those aliens knew the layout of the ship, then they'd know how to get around the barricade. His gaze began to dart back to front.
'If they know the corridors, then the next way through is...' Starbuck's eyes widened and he rushed quickly forward, startling Dares.
"Hey," the blonde's whisper halted Apollo. "I just thought of something."
"What?" Apollo's voice was abnormally harsh.
"Keep it down," Starbuck cautioned. He looked up the passage and back. "If those things know this ship, then the next place they can catch us is up ahead..."
"...At frame 120," Apollo finished. He flashed his light to the darkness ahead.
"Exactly," Starbuck replied. "If this place is laid out like home, then there's a four way intersection ahead of that hatch."
"And you think it's a trap," Apollo nodded.
"It could be. Think about it," the younger man licked his lips nervously. "We know Sheba's in the med bay, but whatever is out here wanted us to go this way. She also told us to..."
"...Forget about the shuttle," Apollo nodded. He flashed his light back, half to check the blackness behind them, half to make sure everyone was still there. "Sinon, can you burn through those welds you made?"
"I could," the man began nervously, "but why would I want to? Those things are back there."
"They might not be."
Starbuck didn't think before he spoke. As usual. Sinon got what he meant at once. The tech's eyes got wide. He opened his mouth to say something, but never got the chance. Blasters began to scream from the dark up somewhere up ahead.
Apollo's reflexes betrayed him. "Sheba?" His hand strayed up to the tiny switches on his headset to make sure he was transmitting. "Sheba, are you there?"
"Yeah, we're here, Apollo," the woman snarled above the noise of combat. "Good job. Tell Creel you got us good, you gall-mogging snitrad." There was a break as more blaster fire shrieked into the darkness. "Well, we're not going down without a fight. Tell your boss he's gonna need more toys, 'cause we're wrecking these."
"That didn't sound fake," Starbuck said.
The two men shared a glance and began bolting up the corridor towards the sound of gunfire. Apollo paused as his friend ran on.
"Dares, keep an eye on these two. We'll let you know what's going on." The Apollo spun and with a bob of his light, was gone.
It took seconds to reach the next hatch and pass through. Starbuck had already tucked himself up into the cubby of a support beam and was winging shots up the corridor. Apollo shivered as he watched another corpse go down.
Starbuck gave him a ferocious smile. "She was right. Hit 'em in the head and they go down." He turned back, flashing off a shot as something once human bolted across the intersection. Downrange the head popped in a blast of steaming gore. "It's just like target practice," he said gleefully. His next shot missed, staining some distant something with carbon.
Part of Apollo knew he should be horrified at the hunger on his best friend's face, but that wasn't the part in charge now. He stepped quickly across to the other support member, cuddled up in the angle and clipped off a shot. On cue, one of the damaged skulls exploded. Relief surged with the adrenaline in his veins. Apollo barked out a laugh and shot again.
It took a few moments to realize that things were not working out quite right. For one thing, there were a lot of those things making it all the way across. For another, some of them had noticed the bolts flashing up their flank. Starbuck put the next one down as it had rounded the corner. Apollo had gotten another, but the next dropped a pace into their hallway. The one after that had just fallen two paces closer.
"There are too many of them," Starbuck said. His next shot exploded on the hatch combing, but Apollo's hit.
The headset jabbered, and Apollo ducked back. "Say again all last!" he instructed.
"TDX, TDX, TDX," Sheba shouted. "Drop! Drop now!"
"Hit the deck!" Apollo hoped his shout reached all the way back to Dares and crew. "Starbuck..!"
The blonde man dropped just as a blinding white blade of energy slashed through the metal above his shoulders. Apollo blinked and shook his head. New terror seized him in a jagged fist. Every sense was malfunctioning; vision; gone, hearing; blown. He could hear Starbuck saying something, but the noise was distant, indistinct as if he were under water. The only thing he could smell was the all-encompassing stink of burnt alloy. Even his sense of touch only was selectively working. His face felt sunburned, but everything covered, or away from whatever that blast seemed to be working well enough.
"Starbuck!" Apollo shouted. "Starbuck. Get Dares up here. He needs to take my place in case there are more of them."
Something grabbed him and the blind warrior raised his pistol, hoping he wasn't about to fire on his best friend. The weapon was shoved away as Starbuck's voice mumbled something. There were light pats on his chest and a hand seized the burn on his face, as if someone were checking his eyes. There were pats on his shoulders. The monsters wouldn't do that, would they?
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Starbuck knelt beside Apollo, shouting for Chira. From the way his friend was staring around, he had to be blind. An impact against his side made him jump. The med tech was saying something, but he couldn't make out anything but a huge ringing noise. He looked away as she was still speaking.
"Dares, get over here," he gestured hurriedly as he shot a glance back up the corridor. "There might be more of them coming. We have to hold them off."
Dares mumbled something back. When it was clear Starbuck couldn't understand him, he pointed.
Starbuck's pistol followed his gaze. Other figures were crossing in front of the opening now. These were different. They wore armored vacc suits, carried pulse rifles and were going the other way. Carefully. Their motions were fluid, not the hurried, half coordinated herky-jerks of the aliens. Occasionally there was a flash as someone shot something. Somehow, the sight of them made him feel better. So far the aliens hadn't carried tools, or used weapons.
His confidence ebbed when three more suited figures stepped around the corner, two pointing their rifles his way. For the merest instant he was tempted to fire, but there wouldn't have been any point. There were more of them and they had bigger guns.
"Hold it," Starbuck raised his hands as he climbed to his feet. "We're not monsters." The figures approached as the young lieutenant carefully holstered his pistol. "We're no threat to you. See?"
The rearmost figure stepped angrily forward, gloved hand shoving back the blast visor on its helmet. Sheba glared at Starbuck and spoke, gesturing towards Apollo and Chira.
"Easy, easy," Starbuck held his hands up placatingly. "I can't hear you. Whatever that blast was... My ears are ringing too loud." He turned and gestured over to their single undamaged warrior. "Dares, come over here."
It took several short moments to get the point across, but the still obscured troopers gesturing with their pulse rifles hadn't hurt the effort at all. Very, very soon, Sheba and her people had gotten Apollo to his feet. Chira and Sinon had the duty of moving him so that he didn't walk into walls, or trip. The last was a real hazard as the group loped into the battle area.
One of Sheba's conditions was that the handlights be put out. The lamps the rescue party used were red. It made sense to Starbuck. They wouldn't kill night-vision the way their own handlights had, though the glare didn't seem to penetrate as far. Still, as they picked hurriedly through the corpse strewn corridor, he wished for another color to light their way.
Sheba's people were moving like they had a purpose. Two of the six had already moved relatively far ahead, rifles ready and looking for something else to blast. The Major had stayed back with the small group of refugees, looking back often, her expression alternating between hostile/neutral and just plain annoyed. Whenever she had to say something, she addressed Dares, or the techs. Starbuck got no words, only hard looks. The remainder of Sheba's team followed the small band of refugees. No one had any illusions about their real purpose. Oh sure, they were back there to keep something from coming up on them in the dark, but the blonde warrior knew they were also there just in case someone from the Galactica got stupid. Starbuck had no doubt that if he went for his pistol, his end would be spectacular. And short-lived.
Within a few minutes, they'd been led into the bachelor warriors' dorms. A fat, purplish flash or three made everyone freeze nervously, but the pause was short and the group was moving again within seconds. It wasn't long before they saw their destination. Sheba moved up to the wide, black opening of this ship's old hangar tram. Her two scouts had already gone inside. Starbuck and the others paused outside.
"You can't be serious," the blonde officer said. "What if something turns the tram on?"
The brown haired woman said something that Starbuck still couldn't catch and pointed more forcefully into the opening. When the man didn't move, she pointed again and a hard shove from a pulse rifle made the message clear. The young man looked back, halfway ready to fight, but a flicker of movement from the woman in front caught his eye. When he looked back, his universe shrank to the blaster muzzle centered on his nose. She pointed again.
Starbuck gulped, nodded and let himself be herded into the long shaft. The bobbing reds not too far ahead left him feeling as though he were hiking to Hades. The pitiful twinkle ahead and glare behind left huge clouds of shadows that jostled and clung. It took him a few moments to realize that he was starting to actually hear the rattle of their boots on the metal catwalk.
Back in the real world, the tram ride was very, very short. Actually walking the tracks seemed to take forever. He'd all but given up on seeing real light again when they reached the end of the shaft and emerged into the forward section of the hangar bay. Starbuck wanted to pause, savoring the feeling of open space again, but Faux Sheba kept the pressure on, not letting anyone slow. She kept looking back, occasionally barking something the group helping Apollo along. They rounded a large, jagged berg of wreckage and Starbuck froze.
The sight of their shuttle stopped nearly everyone. While the beast squatting on the ashes was similar enough to fleet basic for anyone to recognize its design, this one could never be mistaken for the one they'd left behind. This one wasn't just some slow, fat-bellied personnel carrier. Scattered here and there over the hull were several new, blunt-nosed sponsons, but the things that really captured everyone's attention were the glass globes of turrets someone had mounted just ahead of the thrust units. The one on top was pointed forward, out into the gulf of space, but the one on the bottom was pointed right at them.
"Holy frak," Starbuck breathed. Whatever he was about to say next was drowned out by the same exclamation from Sheba. They were the first words to penetrate the ringing in his ears.
"Holy frak," her eyes narrowed angrily as they darted around the bay. "Run to the shuttle. GO, GO, GO!"
Starbuck took only an instant to look around before he whirled on his little group. Here and there, scattered like faint twinkling stars, the yellow depressurization warning strobes were starting to blink.
"Run!" he shouted to the others. "They're going to blow the bay!"
There had been several others, also in suits, outside the armed shuttlecraft. They had obviously been waiting for the group to come jogging out of the dark. When faux-Sheba started the stampede, two knelt and raised heavy rifles to their shoulders. Another ducked into the shuttle and bolted up the stairs.
As the group charged the fat bellied ship, Starbuck noticed a gauze thin dome of purple haze surrounding its hull. He shot Major Sheba a wide-eyed, questioning look. She just jerked her chin towards the space-suited figure just ahead of their little group. He/she wasn't slowing down at all. In fact, it passed through the field and bolted on through the open hatchway.
"Keep going," Sheba's voice was muffled both by the plexi covering her face and the sound of large pulse-turbines winding up. "Get inside. Licas will get you seated. Hurry up. GO!
The little group loped along wearily, but the thought of choking to death in vacuum kept them moving. Apollo was sent pounding into the shuttle first, bouncing clumsily into the tight corner and up the stairs to the main deck. When Starbuck finally managed to crowd inside, there was barely an instant to notice how similar the interior was to the shuttles from home, before he was shoved down into a seat on the outside wall. Sheba fled forward as Apollo was buckled down by the first suit in. By the time Starbuck realized what was going on, it was too late. His wrists were bound together and his pistol was gone.
No one was given any time to ask questions. As soon as Dares was strapped down, one of the space-suited warriors came by with a roll of cargo tape. Everyone got some.
"This is Corpse Fly. We have cargo," the announcement was loud and clear through the crew area.
Regular gravity returned as someone closed the shuttle's outer hatch. Starbuck hadn't known how much he was missing it until it came back.
He looked around nervously. Sinon, Dares and Chira looked as terrified as he felt. Apollo's eyes were wide and staring around. Two of the... ten, maybe..? Space suited figures sat down in front of their prisoners and began strapping themselves down. Through the ports on the other side of the ship, Starbuck saw thin shrouds of air whipping by, headed for the green deeps beyond the hangar.
"Send the destruct signal," Sheba commanded as she strode towards the odd, four seat cockpit. "I don't want the lyche to figure out how our XE filters work."
"Right boss."
The shuttle lifted and began slipping slowly out of the bay. At the back of the line of seats Chira began shuddering and weeping into her gag.
"Hey," one of the guards called out, "this one's crying..."
"Dopplers are clever," Sheba called back. "You know that. Keep an eye on them. If they move, blast their heads off."
"Yeah, don't take any chances," the guard in front of Apollo gave him a meaningful stare as he spoke. "If someone or something has to die here, make sure it's them, not you."
The captured warriors looked around as they felt the shuttle jag abruptly. Faux Sheba was putting the fat bodied machine through paces they'd never have imagined trying in one of theirs. She'd pulled hard, putting the beast in an abrupt, spinning climb. If the younger man hadn't been kept silent by the tape, he would probably have been rendered silent as the woman at the front of the bus rolled them two hundred and seventy degrees, all the while turning smoothly onto an outward bound course to starboard.
"Here we go," she announced. "Going active. Licas, Vyra, get those guns online. Creel might not have sent all his spooks after that shuttle."
"I've got combat chatter and energy sources about three light centons to starboard," one of the crew called out. Instantly there was a secondary sound of turbines winding up. The ship buffeted slightly once.
"Incoming," a new voice announced. "Two spooks. Low, neg forty. One at sixty three degrees, one at one hundred."
"Roger that. Two," Sheba repeated.
"I'll take the one at a hundred first," a woman replied too calmly. "It's closer."
"Hey, Vyra, bet I kill 'em before you," the man named Licas taunted.
"Contact ahead. One more," the copilot announced. "Frak, he's close."
"Roger. We'll see about getting by him," Sheba replied.
"He's going to try ramming," the copilot said.
"Not an issue." Sheba's confidence was not catching among the prisoners.
The shuttle rolled over, turning and twisting in ways that it shouldn't have been able to. Whatever else their pilot was, she was skilled.
"One down," Vyra said calmly.
"Hah, smoked one," Licas crowed.
"Got our rammer," the woman said, seconds later. "Good flying, boss."
"Thank you." Sheba's tone was tight with concentration. "Anything else?"
"Negative," Licas reported glumly. "If there's anything out here they don't want to leave daddy."
"We've been too expensive for Commander Creel to play much more," Sheba nodded. "Bleep escort one, tell them they can fade back whenever they want. I think we're clear." Her announcement brought a quick burst of cheers from her people. Even laconic Vyra gave a chuckle and a clap. Their protracted noise prompted the woman to speak again. "Okay people, that doesn't mean it's time to break out the ambrosia. We've got six prisoners for fleetsec. We're also too close to Laurentia for comfort and you all know how smart Creel is. Eyes open. Start storing your gear and getting ready to go home, but don't be stupid."
At the words 'six prisoners', the blonde officer sagged back with relief. The sixth prisoner had to be Bojay. A sound of approaching boots pulled everyone's attention back to the front of the bay. Sheba was coming over.
"Sleep them," she ordered one of the guards. With a gesture she cleared the seat in front of the flight lieutenant. A quick jerk pulled the tape from his mouth before she sat. "You're supposed to be Starbuck." She looked at him with frosty eyes. "You made a mistake." She reached out and fingered the clusters of his rank. "Starbuck was a captain."
"I am Starbuck," he replied tersely. "What the frak are you up to? We haven't..."
"You've done nothing except impersonate an officer of the Colonial Fleet, ignore fleet marker buoys, fly into prohibited space and get the attention of a particularly nasty lyche," the woman's tone was envenomed steel. "Even if you're not a doppler or a rev, you put me and my crew at risk, as well as the wing of fighters hiding outside to give us cover. You've risked twenty lives, not counting your own."
She looked over to the end of the row. One of her people had put an air hypo to Chira's neck. There was a hiss and she slumped.
"Hm. Our drugs seem to work on you. Good."
"We're human beings just like you..." Starbuck returned angrily.
"You can't be." Sheba barked back. She took a breath and calmed. "You can't be."
"Look, I'm Lieutenant Starbuck of the Battlestar Galactica. That's Captain Apollo," he jerked his head at the man beside him. "He commands blue squadron. You know us." He stopped when he saw the denial in her eyes, took a breath and tried again. "Your name is Sheba. Your father was Commander Cain of the Pegasus. We all thought you were dead after the Siege of Molokai..."
"You're good, I'll give you that," Sheba's smile held no warmth. "Fine, Lieutenant Starbuck, who's commander of the Galactica?"
"Commander Adama."
"When did you see him last?"
The blonde officer attempted a shrug. "Two, maybe three centars ago. Just before the mission to come here."
Again she bestowed a mirthless smile. "Commander Adama and the Battlestar Galactica were destroyed at the Scouring of Caprica. Oh, some of his people survived, but not many." Her eyes flicked to Starbuck just as the hypo hit his neck. "But you should know that lieutenant. You were one of the survivors. In fact, you were the commander of Griffon Squadron until eighteen sectars ago. That's when you died just over there." She nodded back towards the rapidly shrinking wreckage. "I also know for a fact that Captain Apollo died six sectars before that."
"That's not possible." Starbuck's mouth went dry.
"Oh, but it is." Sheba replied too calmly. Her hand lightninged out, seizing his hair in a brutal fist. "I saw Starbuck burn. As for Apollo? He died a hero. His Viper exploded just short of the Peace Fleet. His last act was to warn us that ten thousand Cylon Wraiths were on the way in. He gave us time to crash launch enough fighters to keep the Colonies alive." She shoved his head hard enough to bounce off of the glassteel window. "I don't know what you are, but I'm going to make it my personal mission to find out. And I will. Count on it."