Chapter 33
Tamara groaned as she struggled to return to the land of the living, her senses slowly reactivating to wade through the haze both of confusion and exhaustion that currently clouded her mind. She fought to organize the data trickling in through her senses, for instance, the warm, hard surface under her back, the sounds of a recirculating air system and, most importantly, the pressure of some kind of force keeping her in place against the hard surface.
And that, that last piece of data unsettled her. It caused discomfort more than anything those other sensations had triggered because she knew it was wrong for the pressure to be present.
There were a myriad of logical explanations for why she knew she wasn't waking up in her own bed on her basestar, why she wasn't lying in it with Aaron by her side. Why he hadn't curled into her, hadn't sought her out in his slumber. The surface and the air system could somehow be accounted for but what could not was the fact she could not feel him wrapped inside her arms. It was a presence that she had grown used to over the last few months, a presence that had become so reassuring she could barely remember what it was like to wake up without the soft pressure of her head resting upon his shoulder, while his hand splayed across one cheek of her bottom warming her bare skin. She could barely remember what it was like to wake up with her own hand empty, and she closed her fingers reflexively, searchingly, wondering why she couldn't feel his toned abdomen under her fingertips.
Aaron should be there with her and the realization he was missing made Tamara frown even as she still hadn't opened her eyes. So…where was…
They had been attacked by the aliens on the surface of that moon when…
"Aaron!"
The memory jarred her awake, removing the last residual haze from her mind as her eyes shot open and she struggled to rise as her recall of the events returned along with a healthy dose of fear. They had led the Centurions toward the mining site when the alien ground vehicle had approached their party. They had taken cover inside a shallow crater while the Centurions had engaged the vehicle in a hopeless battle where the aliens' gun turret had shattered their protectors into scrap metal. She remembered when Aaron had told her to run, to escape and she now saw in her mind's eye the broken torso of a Centurion rush toward the both of them before both the pain and the darkness had taken her into their embrace.
"Aaron!" This time she called out to him, her voice hoarse and weak.
"Chief," another voice exclaimed, "the woman appears to have regained consciousness!"
She turned her head toward the voice that had spoken Colonial Standard and when she saw what had apparently spoken her dry throat tried to gulp but was incapable of doing so.
The creature, in relation to the human-sized space around Tamara, appeared to be two-thirds the height and twice the width of her fellow humaniform Cylons. It rested three hands on the platform where she lay, hands that were attached to three arms. Its flesh was tinged neutral gray and it possessed several oval bulbs near the top of its flat head placed equidistantly around its form.
"W-who…who a-are you?" Tamara asked, her voice raspy. "W-why did you attack us?"
"My name is Krenar'a. I am a Tripean and a member of the armed forces and a citizen of the Alliance of Planets. However, we were not the ones who'd attacked you. We rescued you from them, actually."
"W-who attacked us?"
"A xenophobic race that desires to exterminate humans or entities that can be mistaken to pass as humans. I fear your people would be killed by them simply because of your appearance."
She blinked twice at what the creature had implied about her. "Why do you think I'm not human?"
The being appeared to have cocked what looked like an eyebrow above one of the oval bulbs on its head that faced Tamara. "Because we know for a fact that you are a Cylon, one of your race's infiltration models, I do believe."
A shaken Tamara simply stared at Krenar'a. "How do you know about my people? How can you speak Colonial Standard? Why can I not move my body off of this platform?"
"I can provide the answers to your questions as soon as you tell me your name, miss."
She rotated her head toward the sound of the new voice and found a human male standing alongside her platform. He appeared to be around Aaron's height and build. His hair was dark and his face was unshaven with several days' stubble. He wore a pair of coveralls with a patch on his left breast that looked like a representation of their galaxy.
She swallowed slowly, trying to lubricate her aching throat.
"Here," he offered her a plastic cup filled with ice chips. "Place a few of these in your mouth. They will help you rehydrate."
"I can't reach it," she complained. "Something's pressing down against my body."
"Oh, right! Sorry about that." Then he glanced up toward the ceiling and declared, "Autodoc, this is Pettus. Disengage the suppressor field in the surgical area."
"Disengaging suppressor field, Chief," a soft, computerized voice announced to the occupants of the room.
Tamara was both relieved when the pressure against her had ceased and stunned by the fact that this human and alien who both spoke in Colonial Standard were conversing with an Artificial Intelligence! "M-my name," she stammered, "is Tamara."
He nodded. "My name is Pettus. I'm the commanding officer of this scout boat. We know about your people, the Cylons, because my government has recently encountered several members of your society. The reason we can speak to you using the Colonial language is due to our technology which allows us to download a translation matrix to communicate with your people in the spoken language you use. Finally, the reason you were restrained on this platform was because our AI medical unit had to perform surgery on you to save your life. When one of your mechanical companion's had struck your body, it had caused you to suffer significant internal injuries. Our AI was able to repair the damage. Afterwards, we kept you under sedation until your body had begun down the road to recovery. The Autodoc then decided to bring you out from under anesthesia so you could begin to move around a bit to help you heal."
"I see. Am I your prisoner, Pettus?"
"No, ma'am. My superiors have instructed us to treat you as our honored guest. We are currently in flight to rendezvous with an Alliance ship where you will be reunited with some of your people. Please understand the Alliance is not at war with your people and are interested in engaging in peaceful relations with your society."
She nodded. "What about my companion? Is he here? Is he all right?"
He gave her a sad look then. "Tamara…I'm sorry but I'm afraid he didn't make it. You see, one of the mechanical entities that was shattered by the aliens' gunfire, smashed through your friend's faceplate when it struck him."
She closed her eyes, her grief pressing against her chest with more force than the Autodoc's suppression field had. "Did you leave him behind on that frakking moon?" she spat.
"No. We brought him aboard with us to return him to your people with you."
She gazed at the man with the tears she shed for her Aaron, her lost friend and lover, in her eyes then forced a tiny smile. "Thank you."
He blinked twice and said nothing. He simply nodded in response.
She was silent for several moments while she sucked on the shards of ice he'd given her earlier. Then she said, "Your government, the Alliance of Planets…"
"Yes?"
"Are you all mostly…human?"
He shook his head. "No. Although humans are the most numerous population of citizens in the Alliance, there are other non-human races, like Krenar'a's people, who make up significant segments of the census."
She processed that bit of information for several seconds before she asked, "Pettus, why was your scout boat on that moon?"
He shifted uncomfortably from his right foot to his left, apparently considering what to reveal to her. Then he spoke. "We were assigned to infiltrate the moon and conduct an operation for our government. When we realized that your party was going to be attacked by the aliens stationed on that moon, we attempted a rescue operation. However, before we could reach your party, most of it had been destroyed by the alien vehicle. Once we engaged, we were able to take out your attackers. However, we lost one of our men in the process."
She stared into his eyes and gasped. "Your man was killed by the aliens that attacked Aaron and me?"
"I'm afraid so, ma'am."
"You were willing to risk your lives to save us?"
"Yes, ma'am. You see, at the time, we didn't know about your people. We thought you may have been citizens who'd recently become Alliance members who were known to associate with mechanical entities. If that had been the case, we were sworn to protect them from harm."
"I see," she said. "And if you had known we were Cylons rather than your Alliance members, would you have helped us?"
"Of course we would have assisted you, Tamara. We wouldn't want to leave anyone to suffer at the hands of those aliens."
She didn't know what to think about his admission. They had apparently saved her life and were taking her to see some members of her Collective. Although she couldn't know if this was all a ruse on their part, she was impressed by their current willingness to share information with her.
"How did you know my people weren't human like you, Pettus?"
"Our medical instrumentation is quite advanced, Tamara. Our devices were able to determine that your race's biology is significantly different from ours in certain respects. Additionally, none of your people know any of our standard languages, so it was pretty obvious that your people were new to our region of space."
She considered his explanations quite carefully. If he was telling the truth, infiltrating the Alliance would be nearly impossible for her people to accomplish if they wanted to determine if Pettus' people posed any threat to the Collective.
Knowing the Cylons' luck, she sighed to herself inwardly, it was likely the Alliance constituted a hugely significant threat to her society. Although she couldn't see much from where she lay, the medical device that had treated her, considering how frakked she'd been after the attack on the moon, was centuries more advanced than any medical technology the Cylons possessed. Moreover, considering how the aliens that had killed Aaron and had nearly killed Tamara had out-classed her party, it was logical to assume the Alliance was more advanced than those xenophobic aliens.
"Now, let's get you up off of that bed and onto your feet. Then we'll help you take a nice stroll around the med bay," Pettus said. "According to the Autodoc, some exercise will help you heal faster."
As she slid off the platform, both Pettus and the Tripean supported her weight equally. Once both of her feet had touched down onto the deck, the two Alliance service members gently guided the Cylon through her first steps aboard their craft.
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TBC
Sorry about the long wait and the short chapter but I wanted to get this story back on track and back in the swing of things after some huge shake ups for me in RL over the past year. Thank you for your patience!