BSG: BUMP IN THE NIGHT

DISCLAIMER: Same-same. It's not mine. Whatever it is, it's not mine. No profit being made, no fame fortune or glory being achieved.

A/N: Aaaaaand cut to the 'safe' side of the universe. I figure the only way to keep peeps interested is through the use of cliffhangers, so cliffhang. This chapter and the next are going to be a bit technical, sort of. I need the scienc-ey bits here and there. It makes everyone feel safer if the world is explainable.

I actually had most of this banged out on Friday, but the last few days have been a beast. I am in the grip of the karma-monster.

Chapter 3

"Hard seal on the umbilicus."

Deeko heard the flight engineer's voice both in his headset and in the cabin. Reflex sent his eyes left and right to the men who were squiring him into his armored damage control spacesuit. He'd all checked the connections and seal before, but caution and care were the words of the day, especially on a day like this one.

"Still no contact with the crew?" he asked.

"Negative," Palaton replied. Around the angled carapace of the suit, Deeko watched the pilot hit a few more switches. "Nothing coming through on the data line either, looks like the briefing was dead on this time. You'll have to do a hard reset of the flight comp."

"Okay Celes," the crew chief held one of the ship's pistols up in front of his face. Deeko fought not to roll his eyes. He hated his real name. "According to the pilot that's keeping station with us, that shuttle was boarded by an unknown number of badguys. Now, we're not getting any life readings, but that's no reason to take unnecessary chances." He made a show of taking the safety off before shoving the weapon into the holster they'd buckled on over his regular tool belt. "No chances. I mean it. What's rule number one?"

"Come back alive," Deeko nodded.

"Good boy," the older man nodded and the other man squiring slid Deeko's visor down. "No point in dying for people who are already dead. Now be careful. This isn't a training sim. This is the real deal. You sure you're up for it?"

"I've been here for all the other wreck recoveries the last couple of days, haven't I?" The smartass comment bought him a resounding smack on the back of the helmet. "Yeah. I'm good to go."

"That's what I want to hear," the older man said. "This is just the same as any other extra-vehicular op. Stay in communication..."

"I've got this, Chief Agnii," Deeko replied. "Let's just get it over with, okay?"

"Fair enough, hotshot." He nodded to the other squire. "Xanthus, get this pogey-beetle to the lower lock and then you suit up. You're his backup. I'll get to the overmonitoring station."

"Right Chief," the other guy nodded. "You heard him, noob. Get to the lock so I can dump you into the black."

'Some black,' Deeko thought, 'I'm barely going extra vehicular... Does it even count as an EVA if I'm always inside?'

"I'm getting positive pressure in your suit Celes," Chief Agnii announced. "Air mix looks good. Your vitals are all green. Copy?"

"Yeah chief," Deeko replied as he clumped clumsily down the steps towards the interior lock. "I'm a happy, healthy, bouncing baby boy." He glanced up to the readout reflected at the top of his helmet/bubble. "My readouts show the same thing. Full life gasses. Showing no hazards. One gravity..."

"Good enough," the chief returned. "I read you clearly. Cycle over to gamma channel. Let's let the fly-fly boy outside feel like he's part of the action."

"Roger. Switching now." He hit a chin toggle inside his helmet. "This is Damage Control Officer Celes to Viper on station. Do you read me?"

"Got you on unicom," the rich voice of the warrior replied coolly. "Comp says you're one gamma frequency. Switching. Do you copy me now?"

"Copy, Viper," Deeko replied uncomfortably. "Let's get this done so we can get this bird home."

"Be careful over there, DCO Celes," the warrior replied. "I know we had at least two people in that ship. They were screaming about being boarded by some kind of savage animals. The last transmission was from Sabas. He was describing how one of the creatures tore Icarion's throat out with its teeth."

"Uh, roger." Deeko gulped and made sure of the pistol.

"Relax kid," the chief chuckled. "No life-signs, remember?"

"Yeah. I'm good." He reached up and keyed the controls to the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs. "Entering the lock now. Closing..." A few more switches began the cycle of turning the little chamber into a chunk of outer space. "Gravity fading to zero. Mag boots active. I'll keep the air up until I get over to the other ship, then we'll see if we need to zero, or overcharge."

"Roger."

It took almost no time at all to get out into the puffy white tunnel of the umbilicus, close the hatch and secure his lifeline. It was all rote after training. In another moment he'd killed the magnetic soles of his boots and was drifting easily towards the other ship's still closed hatch. It was almost like flying, and that made Deeko smile.

"You there yet, kid?" The chief's voice made him sigh.

"Affirmative. Attaching thumper now." Deeko wrestled the small, bell-shaped device from his kit and put the flat face to the hatch. "Thump." He hit the switch. He checked the readout. "I'm showing positive pressure. Looks like a density of one atmosphere."

"Yeah, roger that. We're showing the same here," Chief Agnii replied.

"Requesting positive pressure in the umbilicus," Deeko said.

"Why?"

'Frak. Because I want it,' Deeko thought. 'Test time's over you old drek-skitter.' His transmission was totally different. "Power's off. That means no grave inside. Positive pressure will push any airborne debris away from the hatch. I'll be able to see better without a bunch of felgercarb floating around in front of my face."

"Positive pressure now." The old man's voice held the ghost of a smile. "Point zero-two atmospheres."

It took a little while to open the maintenance panel and fix his drill to the gear work there. By the time Deeko was ready to spring the hatch the pressure change was registering on his instruments. There was a soft, sucking hiss for a second and the hatch lifted up out of the way, revealing a plain grey alcove. He shivered at the invisible cloud of cold he imagined wafting out.

"En-" he cleared his throat. "Entering the shuttle now. Helmet light on. Cam check."

"Cam check good."

'Shoulda turned the cam on before I left the lock,' Deeko sighed. 'I'll be hearing about that when we get back.'

A flex of his toes turned his boots back on and he clumped into the shadows, panning his light up the stairwell into the main cabin. A small nameless something drifted slowly out of sight.

"Yep, there's debris," he reported.

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

Cassiopeia stood on the observation deck, staring out into the black beyond the mouth of the landing bay. She didn't speak to the other med-techs that waited nearby. Her thoughts weren't ordered enough to make conversation anyway. Even the vista before her seemed to somehow fade intermittently.

It was the hair that had given the corpse away. Dirty blonde, longish. Brittle from vacuum. Starbuck's hair. She'd screamed when the realization had set in and dropped her tray. Once she'd figured it out, she couldn't see anyone but Starbuck. The fine-boned nose covered with blue/black skin couldn't belong to anyone else. The lips frozen slightly open had been robbed of their fullness by the emptiness of space, but she knew them. She'd kissed them often enough. She'd seen them slope in that stupid grin of his.

"It wasn't Starbuck," the voice jolted her back into the here-and-now. Athena leaned against the handrail, her gaze fixed onto the universe lurking just outside. "Not ours anyway, but you already know that."

"I do," Cassiopeia sighed. Her lip quirked into an accidental imitation of their warrior's rakish grin. "How do you?"

"I saw the reports you and Doctor Salik wrote. I also saw the physical evidence you sent to CID for analysis." She caught the other woman's eyes and gave a little shrug. "Sometimes I really do use that 'commander's daughter' privilege you disapprove of so much." She looked back outside. "His uniform was wrong, but you knew that. Blue instead of brown. Captain's rank. Even his sidearm was different. It's on the list of artifacts Wilker's supposed to examine, but it'll be a while before he gets to it. He's neck deep in Viper wreckage."

Cassiopeia didn't reply and Athena stopped speaking. Both looked out into the dark. It took a moment for the blonde to sort the Gordian mess in her mind enough to say something that made some sense.

"It could have been him," Cass finally replied. "It still could be. The recovery shuttle's still out there. He could be on it, hurt."

"He's not," Athena replied. "At least Boomer's pretty sure he isn't. He believes that there are two techs on board, but not Starbuck, or Apollo."

"So where are they?"

"Out there. Still on the wreck, probably."

"Do you think..?"

"Until I see the corpses, my brother and... and Starbuck are still alive." She turned around and leaned back on the rail, her eyes on the medical technician. "They come back. It's what they do. How many times have they gone missing, or been shot down? They're the ones who raid basestars and come back from the one-way missions. Every time." She crossed her arms with finality. "They'll be back this time too."

The blonde smiled and nodded in agreement or acquiescence. Then she frowned as the body on the table reappeared in her imagination. "Until the time they don't."

Athena shrugged. "Don't play the numbers Cassiopeia. They don't work with people like us."

"People like us? I thought we were talking about Starbuck and Apollo."

"I think it's pretty safe to expand the field," the dark skinned woman replied. "If you want to talk about numbers and averages, then you might want to think about this; we should all be dead. Everyone in this fleet is the tenth of a percent. We lived while whole worlds died. Numbers would have killed everyone on this ship when the Peace Fleet burned. Numbers should have killed you when Caprica went away, or perhaps on the Gemonese freighter when you were hurt. How many socialators have you ever heard of that became med-techs on a battlestar?"

"I thought that still burned you..."

"For a long time it did," Athena shrugged again. "Why wouldn't it? You were a pay-for-play girl. I'm the daughter of a decorated naval officer and a Lord of the Tribes. I used to wonder why my boyfriend would want to play in the felgercarb." She didn't smile as Cass stiffened. "It used to matter. Now it doesn't."

"No?"

"No. We're too close to the edge out here for stupidity like that. You went with the boys on that raid and stayed with Bojay when he was hit." Athena looked unashamedly into the other woman's eyes. "Pay-for-play girls don't do that sort of thing. They cut and run when things get bad. You're brave and you're smart and you're strong. If I lose Starbuck, it won't be a shame to lose to someone like that. Of course, I'm not going to lose."

Cassiopeia laughed without scorn. After a long pause she spoke again. "Has your father decided what to do? Will he send more people out there after them?"

"I don't know," Athena replied. "Sometimes he plays the numbers. They say 'no'."

Cass nodded unhappily.

"We've made three sorties to the other side. The first one scared the boys half to death," Athena continued. "The second cost us Bojay and nearly killed Sheba. The third? We don't know yet. According to commo chatter, we lost one of the escort pilots, the shuttle might have two more on board, dead. That leaves seven still unaccounted for, eight if you count Bojay. Three missions, nine casualties. Not good numbers." She looked away to wipe at her eyes.

"But sometimes your father plays hunches, plays his feelings, right?"

"Yes, but think of this; if Apollo is gone, then I'm the only child he has left. I know he's thinking that now. Fighters came out of there and hurt Sheba. He won't risk me and even if that didn't matter, he won't risk the fleet. We're all the humans there are."

Cass said nothing more. She only stood, thinking, weighing what the other woman had said. Hurting. She knew Athena could easily be right. Starbuck might never be back. Commander Adama might not give him the chance to come back. She stood, staring out into the dark, silent until one question made its way past her lips.

"Why are you here?"

"Because I'm afraid and I didn't want to be afraid alone."

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

"I can't see half a metron," Deeko grumbled. "There's floating drek everywhere."

"Yeah, I see that on the monitor," Agnii replied. A strange tone grew in his voice as he continued. "Listen, you need to get forward and do a base restart so we can assess any other possible damage. Sooner you get that done, the sooner you can get gravity..."

It came out of the darkness while the older man was speaking, appearing out of the swirling mess like a toothmaw coming into shallow water, all teeth and blood and horror. Deeko's brain threw out the only word that worked.

"Monster!" he screamed.

It lunged for his face and wrapped an arm around his heavily armored neck. Broken, bloody teeth clicked once against the curved plexi and then... It bounced off, drifting.

Deeko shoved the mutilated corpse hard, scrabbling for the pistol with his other hand.

Somewhere on the other ship voices began to bellow laughter. Even the usually stern Chief Agnii had to clamp down hard to keep from blasting down the mic.

"Easy there, killer," Agnii coughed. "It's just a body. Calm yourself. Now."

"Frak. FRAK. FRAK!" Deeko panted. "Cursed thing scared the pogeys out of me."

"Literally," Palaton quipped. "You should see your gauges. You could power that ship on your heart-rate."

"Hey," the warrior barked over the channel. "Get yourselves back on program. This isn't the time for games. We need to know what happened to our people, so quit fracking around."

"Calm down..." Agnii began just a little too glibly. The harsh orange strobe of a Viper's cannon lit the interior of both ships. "Whoa, whoa! There's no..."

"Silence," the warrior barked. "Do your job, the lot of you. Now. Play your games with your own friend's lives. Not mine, or my friends'. Do you read me? Or do I need to make my point more strongly?"

"Th-There's no need for that," Chief Agnii stammered. "We're on the job."

"You. DCO Celes," the warrior continued, "I told you there were going to be corpses. You might know one of them. Technician Bardas was screaming into the mic when they rolled out of the hangar bay, so I know he's in there."

"I know Bardas," Xanthus' voice sounded muted in Deeko's headset.

"I don't know if Icarion's there or not, or Wing-sergeant Tyche, or Sabas, the medtech..."

"We get the idea," Agnii returned tightly.

"Do you? Do you really?" the warrior pushed. "Because they're just the ones that stayed with the shuttle. I've got six more still unaccounted for, and that's not counting the pilot they went to save, or the one that got scattered across the sky when we got jumped..."

"We understand," Agnii shot back. "We get it. Really. We're sorry. It won't happen again."

The warrior outside said nothing else. It was Deeko's turn to say something into the darkness. "Moving forward."

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

"Lieutenant Boomer, switch to channel Alpha."

Boomer sighed. That was Commander Adama's voice, not Athena's. "Alpha. Switching." Click. "Are you receiving me, Galactica?"

"Clearly," Adama returned. There was a long, thoughtful pause. "Lieutenant, your concern for your missing fellow officers and crew is noted and appreciated. However, I urge you to calm yourself. Those people on the recovery shuttle don't know all that you do. I understand your reaction, but you must moderate yourself."

"Understood, Commander."

"Good. Please return to gamma channel and continue overmonitoring."

"Yes, sir."

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

"...Beginning startup," Deeko announced.

He was trying to keep his voice level, but it was hard. That fracking corpse had been a bloody mess and it still lurked somewhere behind him. In the dark. Then there was that lunatic pilot, ready to shoot him, just outside. He was alone and scared, trapped in his suit, trapped in a bloody slaughterhouse. Oh yes, he'd finally noticed that some of the 'debris' was floating globes of blood. Some of them were pretty fracking big too. Then there was the red-suited tech drifting just above the seat beside him. That poor bastard had been through it; throat mostly gone, wrecked face that only held one good eye, and that kept looking his way...

He felt the click, click, click of the turbine switches under his fingers more than he heard them, then the shuttle's heavy pulse generators came online. Their winding moan was the friendliest sound he'd ever heard. Gravity seized him in a gentle, all encompassing grip, shoving him into the seat. Around him the clatter, smash and... splash of everything falling to the deck made him jump.

Deeko gulped as relief flooded his veins. "We're online."

"Roger that, Celes," her could all but hear the chief's nod. "We're getting data now. Stand by to correlate our readings with yours."

"Hey Deeko?" Xanthus broke in, "could you close the outer hatch? I want to vacc the umbilicus so we can do a full seal check."

"Roger, Xan." Click. "Closing."

Some reflex sent his hand up to the bubble of his helmet. He didn't catch himself before he heard the faint hiss of the visor seal breaking. The stench rolled in instantly, making him gag.

"Celes, I've got a seal fail on your suit," Agnii announced tersely.

Deeko slammed the plexi down hard, mentally cursing his stupidity. "Check it again," he hoped his voice didn't sound as thick as it felt. "I'm all sealed up."

"Yeah. Me too now," Agnii replied. "Must have been a glitch."

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

Boomer sat outside and listened as the recovery grew gabbled on.

"Okay, seal check complete. Everything's green." That was the one the young one had called 'Xan.' "No radiation leakage either. I'd be willing to call your bird spaceworthy."

"Roger." The kid.

"Listen Celes, I'm sending Xanthus over to you and you two can begin moving the bodies down to the cargo bay." Chief Agnii's voice was back to sounding a little more confident. "While you two are doing that, we'll detach the umbilicus and begin maneuvering to link the main cargo bays so we can put 'em into pods."

"Roger Chief," the young voice replied unhappily. "I remember the brief now. Full biological isolation."

"Decontam's gonna be fun," Xanthus offered. "Listen, I'll be over in about two centons, then we can disconnect. Chief, do you want to set the shuttle up on it's return vectors now, or what?"

"No. We'll just go like we have been. At present terminal velocity, it's six of one half dozen of the other. We won't burn any more fuel stopping completely and turning around than we would just taking a return vector," the older man replied. "Spinning the nose would just make it a pain to line up when we try to link."

"Right boss," Xanthus returned.