BSG: BUMP IN THE NIGHT

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. This is me playing in the dark. No copyright infringement is intended.

Update 5/1/14;

Sorry it's taken so long to get this out, but life has been a ride lately. New job with 10 weeks training. Tendonitis. Weird schedule (My days off rotate so it's really hard to get anything done). Anys, I'm back and I'm gonna finish this dangit!

Old Update;

Welcome to the beginning of Part 3. This is the last section. I originally wrote all this on the same night that I wrote the last chapter, but I felt that there were some bugs... And then life got in the way. Again. What it did give me was a breather to look and think and correct a few things.

I guarantee that you'll find out whether Cassiopeia got eaten or not. Now, cue Patrick Macnee and the big music.

Chapter 1

"So this is an Adder?" Starbuck ran one hand along the broad white wing of the hulking attack ship. The bottom edge was even with his chest.

"Yeah, they're the newest thing," Zak's disdainful eye drifted along the heavy fighter's profile. "A lot of people think they're going to replace Vipers..."

"But not you."

"But not me." The younger man agreed as he strode unhurriedly around to the fuselage. "Oh, it kicks out a ton of fire," his gesturing finger swept dismissively over the shape, "launch rails for missiles, computer sighted barbettes instead of fixed forward turbolasers, even a tail gun..."

"It's pretty impressive," Starbuck nodded. The younger man's growing scowl forced him to bury a smirk. "But it's so big. I mean yeah, it's got a ton of guns, but how's it handle?"

"Like a bovus."

It was hard for the blonde not to chuckle at the younger man's tone. "So it's got what, a crew of two?"

"Yeah. One's the pilot, of course. He runs the forward guns and actually fires the missiles, but the backseat selects their targets, does sensors, commo and the tail gun." Zak leaned against the ship, weighing something more. After a short, uncertain moment, he gave a little shrug and then tacked it on. "It's weird. Having you here, I mean."

"It's weird being here," Starbuck shook his head as his tongue unexpectedly went to turbos. "This universe of yours is a real treat, let me tell you. Green sky, dead ships full of monsters... Then there's how all the people have changed." He offered the kid a weak smile and a shrug as he damped back down. "I mean I'm not surprised that Boomer made captain, or that Sheba's a major over here, they both have that kind of drive, but..."

"But?"

"I'm kind of surprised that you're not visiting Apollo. He is your brother, after all. Sort of." He looked away from the white skinned ship in time to catch Zak stilling his features. "Everything here's so much like home. Except for little details, I could be in Galactica's launchbay now." Starbuck caught the slight narrowing of Zak's eyes. Everything finally clicked into place. "At Cimtar. You had to leave him, didn't you?"

"Is that what happened on your side?" Zak looked over, a bit surprised. "He left me behind?"

Starbuck looked over. "I can tell you, if you really want to know."

Zak gave a quick hack with his chin.

Starbuck turned his back to the brawny fighter. "I don't know if it was the same over here, but back home, it looked like you'd graduated the academy just in time for the war to end. Apollo and I had drawn one last patrol, but everybody knew it was just for appearances." Starbuck thought back with a burdened sigh, remembering the day the world ended. "It was supposed to be a milk run. The same way it was here, I guess."

"Milk has a funny way of turning into blood when you're a warrior," the younger man murmured.

Starbuck blinked at the younger man's choice of words. It was so weird thinking of this... this warrior as the goofy kid brother he remembered. "The two of you found the assault wave as it was coming in. They hit your high engine as you guys burned for the fleet." Starbuck looked over to see Zak staring back across the last few years, back to his own version of Cimtar. "Apollo stayed behind, covering you as long as he could." The blonde man paused again, surprised at how hard it was to tell someone how they'd died. "There were a thousand Cylon Raiders and no one knew they were on the way. You guys were being jammed. He had to choose..."

"Between me and the fleet."

"Yeah. Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh and Athena saw your beacon go out right when Apollo crossed over the apron. He hit the bridge in a rush, hurried to report." Starbuck stepped over and put a hand on the other man's shoulder, almost imploring him to believe. "He wanted to go back for you, but it was too late. Your father told him. He would have come after you." Starbuck's hand dropped. "They still blame themselves."

The noise of the bay, sounds of techs doing their jobs, of arming and fuelling the ships about to go out was drowned by the silence between the two men.

"I didn't go on that patrol," Zak finally sighed. "I could have. Should have, maybe. I'd made a little deal with you. You were going to play sick..."

"I remember," Starbuck replied with a half grin. "I mean, it was the same on our side."

"I had a chance to go out with a girl. Rigel. She's one of the bridge techs in Athena's section," Zak's voice got softer. "I told our Starbuck that I'd changed my mind and I went out with her." The young man looked away, down the nearby launch tube. "I always wondered if he would have lived. Maybe if I'd kept our deal I could have saved our Apollo."

"Well now I see why you and Athena hate me so much." The weight of his other self's guilt settled heavily on his shoulders as he fiddled with the cable around his neck. "I'm the one that let him down."

"No." Zak shook his head. "He took an engine hit. Starboard side. "He mirrored Starbuck's one of earlier shrugs. "Luck of the draw. Everyone else knew it. He knew that you would have stayed to cover him. My brother ordered you... our Starbuck I mean, to burn for the fleet. Then he turned around and charged Morda's wraiths before you could do anything about it. It was all over pretty fast." The younger man's voice grew tight, but he continued. "For the longest time we all watched you beat yourself up. You never told anyone about our deal and when I wanted to tell them..."

Starbuck reached over, gripping the younger warrior's shoulder hard. "It was my patrol from the get-go. My assignment. Not yours. It always was."

"You always said that." Zak's lips twitched and shook his head, as if realizing that the man he was talking to carried his own scars from that day. "You need to let it go as much as me, I think. That Zak was a big boy, even if his uniform was the wrong color. He chose to go."

"Maybe so," Starbuck shrugged and let his hand drop. "But he was a kid. I wasn't."

"You know, everyone felt so bad for you." He offered a small grin. "Athena almost backed off and let you have Cassiopeia."

"Almost?"

Zak let slip a genuine lop-sided smile.

"There you are," a new voice broke in. A ground crewman in the loudest green outfit Starbuck had ever seen strode over. "Time to get in and run your preflights. Launch is in ten."

"Well, looks like we need to lift," Zak clapped the blonde warrior on the shoulder and started walking.

"Yeah." The other man followed.

"Hey Starbuck?"

"Hm?"

"It's good to see you again."

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

"Two hundred centars off my engines. Tyrol's going to fry me," Starbuck frowned. He looked out of his canopy to see one of the strangely decorated Vipers just off his port wing. Zak waved. He waved back. Ahead the debris cloud began to stain the green sky.

"Still, it's better than walking."

"Corpsefly to flight, tighten up. Eyes open." Sheba's transmission was veteran calm. "Debris field penetration in twenty microns."

The warmth in his cockpit didn't just fade, as the outlying debris drew near and begin passing him by it was aggressively replaced by a chill. His helmet lights flickered off of the canopy as he began looking around, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary among the drifting trash. Half imagined images of fried pilots made him shiver hard.

"Why wasn't the field this thick when we first came through?" Starbuck's voice sounded a touch too high in the confines of his little ship.

"Creel usually keeps it spread out," Zak replied. "Lyches can sense life force through the senses of their creations. The further the cloud spreads, the further out they can scan. This time it looks like he's pulling it in to concentrate his force."

"Yeah, I see that," Starbuck said. "I guess it'll be so much easier for him if we just fly into some of this junk. We die and he never has to fire a shot."

There was no way to identify all the felgercarb floating around. Some of the debris was too small to be easily identified, others were big; gently pirouetting bits of curved hull, assemblies of exposed support ribs, or tentacles of paralyzed cable flung out, still trying to cling to something. Occasionally he would see something that he could identify. Then he'd regret looking. When a half melted helmet flowed by, he got a little sick.

"Three centons until terminator," Zak's announcement made the blonde man jump. "We're almost there, people."

A new voice popped across the tactical channel. "Gryphon Eight-Two. LRS showing activity on our aft vector. It looks like... Holy Frak!"

"What's going on, Eight?" Sheba's bark overrode Boomer's.

"Hulk, hulk, hulk," Eight-Two announced in a loud voice. "I must have caught it's bow wave. It looks like... Oh Lords...

"What's going on back there, Eight-Two?" Zak demanded.

"Gryphon One," Boomer cut in. "It's Elysium. It looks like a Hulk coalesced right inside her."

"How is that possible?" Starbuck demanded.

"I've got another bow wave," Eight broke in. "Two light microns from the ship. Oh Lords, it's popping now."

"Chisel Leader to Corpsefly, what do we do?"

Sheba's voice came back at once. "Abort translation," she commanded. "We've got to get back."

"Attention Chisel Flight," Admiral Agathon's voice boomed above a background din of claxons and loud combat bridge chatter. "You will continue with your mission. I repeat, you will continue with your mission."

"But sir..."

"Nothing has changed," Agathon barked. "We have this under control. Escape while you can. Execute Ilion. I say again, execute Ilion."

"Order confirmed," Zak's voice didn't sound happy at all. "Two centons to terminator. Eyes sharp people, weapons free on my authority."

Boomer's voice broke in. "Good call. We're getting activity high in the debris field. Looks like wraiths are beginning to form. We're closing on you. One sixty plus twelve. Burning. Twenty microns out."

The first green threads lanced in a heartbeat later. They were wide of Starbuck's little ship, but they were still near enough to remind him that he was totally naked. Zak's bird started to peel away.

"All Chisel elements, let's mix it up. Voyager one, stick with Corpsefly. Head for the terminator."

"Whatever you say," Starbuck replied hurriedly. He thrust backwards to settle between two of the fat bodied shuttles.

Space seemed to explode in wrath. Glowing filaments of bilious green lanced across the tinctured night, answered immediately by threads of actinic violet. The fat-bodied shuttles activated their turrets in turn, adding their own lightenings to the fray. Starbuck sat nervously in his unarmed little ship, watching the night strobe, hoping that no one would notice him.

Emerald and amethyst flickered through the canopy glass, briefly bathing Starbuck's face. 'I never asked why the beams are different colors..."

It was a living Viper that made the first kill. Its purple spikes lashed out and hit something that might have been another fighter once upon a time. The explosion that followed was small, almost anticlimactic. Just a billowing violet 'poof' of energy, then the enemy ship broke up, bits just tumbling away in an erratic fan of debris. The sight of its death reminded Starbuck of a puppet with its strings cut.

Even though this was all so new to him, each detail so important, the young warrior was too experienced to lock his eyes on one thing. As soon as the first bandit was dead, he began searching for other threats.

Gryphon Squadron's eight Adders arrived in two groups; separate echelons of burly machines shouldered their way through the emerald void like a little family of thugs looking for trouble. Starbuck watched as the narrow barbettes flung wide arcs of destruction, while their aft turrets answered any threats they might have left behind. It didn't look like any of the bruisers had shed missiles yet.

One of them should have.

A series of sticky looking, bilious bolts seared in from somewhere high, scoring solid hits on one fuselage. The victim tried to roll away as energy flares walked along its skin, causing a sudden, oddly flowing flame to cling and spread. Instantly a woman's shriek knifed through Starbuck's headset, flinging up a memory of the hell on Beta Channel. The Gryphon ended spectacularly. Just when the flames reached the cockpit and the screams peaked, the heavy ship exploded into a weird mix of violet and viridian fires. Freed missiles tumbled away, self detonating only microns later, adding miniature stars to the emerald sky.

"Holy frak," Starbuck swore as his little ship shuddered. He looked down in time to see the snow clear from his monitors. "What in Dis was that?"

"We don't turn. Not anymore," Sheba replied tersely. "Thirty microns to terminator. All flies, get ready. Don't let us down, lieutenant."

"Yeah, yeah. Right." Starbuck stammered. He nudged his throttle forward, not wanting to get caught between two of these fat birds when the power went away.

BSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSGBSG

His Viper died right on schedule. His fingers fled across the switches as cloying darkness oiled through the cockpit. The monitors had barely flickered back when a familiar voice announced;

"Attention intruders, you are in interdicted space. Do not apply thrust, or you will be vaporized."

"Jolly?" Starbuck blinked and grinned. "Is that you?" He laughed. "Is that really you?"

"Vulture Four online. Weapons hot," Captain Boomer's voice broke in. "I'm reading multiple..." The pilot's voice faded, overwhelmed with shock and awe. "Civilians. The big ships are all civilian. "Corpsefly, are you online yet? Do you copy?"

"Affirmative. Standby, all elements," Sheba ordered hurriedly. "Transponder codes coming in on prime target."

"Prime target?" Starbuck demanded. "No, no, no. Stand down. Don't be stupid."

"By the Lords," Zak gasped. "It really is her. It really is the Galactica."

"Fast movers..." a new voice began.

A familiar, if threatening voice chopped him off.

"Starbuck?" The big man's voice shot back. "What in Dis is going on? You've got five microns, then we do what we have to do."

"Listen, I've got a wild story. These people are with me. Don't shoot them. Yet."

"What?"

Stringbean's voice cut his wingman off. "I've got more than a dozen..."

"I've got five shuttles behind me and two squadrons of fighters behind that," Starbuck explained. "Patch me through to the commander." He glanced down at his screens, getting his bearings. Home hung very close by in the welcoming inky black. "Why haven't you guys left?"

"Lieutenant Starbuck," Colonel Tigh's voice broke in on the tactical channel. "You and your new friends will follow Wing Sergeant Jolly's instructions or you will be destroyed. Do you understand?"

"Colonel Tigh? Where's the commander?" Starbuck asked.

"That's not your concern right now, lieutenant. Do you understand my instructions?"

Yes sir," the warrior gulped. "I'll need to relay them to the others."

"No need," the major replied calmly. "We're receiving you loud and clear, Colonel."

"Very good. Lieutenant Boomer is launching immediately and will be at your location in less than a centon." There was a pause and Starbuck could easily picture the Colonel thinking hard, weighing what he would say next. "Lieutenant, I'm depending on you to keep things from escalating. And welcome back."

Starbuck smiled nervously. Yeah, he was home.