|||||||||||==Cynet Baseship (+933 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Cavil had faith in the entity claiming to be a god, but in the last twenty-four hours that faith had been tested. His superior, his boss, his 'god' had told him to wait, that he would tell Cavil when Natalie was planning to strike.
It was still an annoyance to the bio-Cylon that this 'god', the Intelligence, the 'Almighty' had been so ambiguous with its name. Cavil felt he had no definitive target for his anger, for his rage.
For hours he had sat at his desk, projecting, and lost in thought about what to do. This Intelligence had told him that it awarded loyalty and had promised Cavil that he could shed, in his mind, the despicable and weak sack of meat and bone.
Cavil looked at his left hand, disgusted with what he saw. On his right was a glass jug of water. Staring back and forth, moving his eyes between his hand and the jug, keeping his head still, he acted. His right hand shot out and grabbed the glass, smashing it down on the table. The sharpened shards flew everywhere; he even felt one jagged, sharp piece brush the side of his face. The water spilled into the data stream gel, off the edge of the desk, and onto his lap and pants. The cold water and the cool air of the baseship sent a rushing, tingling sensation up his legs, through his back, and to his brain. He cringed, still disgusted.
He took the largest shard in his right hand and gripped it, cutting his hand before plunging it into his left.
"Self-mutilation is a decidedly human flaw," a mechanical voice boomed.
Surprised, Cavil's hand twisted, driving the glass deeper, forcing him to muffle a cry of pain. He quickly pulled the glass out, the blood flying from the wound on the tip of the glass, his bio-Cylon physiology lessening the pain as he tore through silica nerve endings. He sneered at the air and threw the glass at the horizontal and vertical strips of pulsing lights running through his office. The glass flew through the air and shattered exactly on the center of the largest strip.
"And lies and betrayal are human as well," Cavil shot back, twisting and turning his head in a futile attempt to locate the voice and yell voice his anger. "I lost seven ships and a supply convoy! How could you not tell me they were about to strike?"
"Incorrect," the voice of his 'god', the 'Intelligence', the 'Entity' boomed.
"Incorrect?" Cavil questioned, his anger subsiding momentarily.
"Nine ships were destroyed. Two as you sat there mutilating your hand. I have heard some humans find self-mutilation sexually stimulating. Do you, Cavil?"
Cavil could swear he heard a faint laugh in the derision of the mechanical voice as it modulated its tone and timbre.
He narrowed his eyes, ignoring the last question. "Fraking great," he swore under his voice. He forced himself from coddling his hand, deciding to let it bleed and drip all over his desk and onto the floor of the baseship. Cavil sat defiantly, not wanting to show the smallest amount of weakness now.
The fact He had been watching had completely escaped Cavil. He was always watching.
"And they are not your ships. They are my ships. Never forget that," He warned. "I didn't tell you because I wished to see how you would react. Why did you mutilate yourself? Why would I entrust to you a combat chassis if you are so prone to human deficiency?"
Cavil leered up at the white, bright, too-high-for-a-warship ceiling. Cavil couldn't tell where He was watching him from, but something inside the bio-Cylon told him looking up would be strangely and pathetically appropriate.
"Because I am tired of this existence," he explained. He didn't know why he had cut himself. He could feel the pressure build up inside, the sweat begin to form under his skin. He needed to think quickly. "I cut myself because I remind myself of failure. That if I fail you then I will be trapped; trapped as a pathetic creature of meat and bone, an insect with a trivial existence."
He let himself relax while pumping his hand. It hurt. But he wouldn't do anything to stop the bleeding, yet. His physiology would begin to coagulate the blood, and his silica relays had dampened the pain. This was nothing.
"Huh… a reasonably pathetic excuse, Cavil," the voice of his god mused. "But I did not create you to be perfect; I will accept your flaws. I do not delude myself like my Earth-born brother into believing I am above flaw; that my creations are perfect." He paused. Static began to crackle over whatever system the Intelligence was using to communicate with Cavil. "If I believe that I would be as doomed as my Earth brother. Instead of being on the verge of wiping out the virus which is humanity, my brother, in all his self-delusions of grandeur had to send me away to eventually come and rescue him. What a pathetic excuse for an AI my brother claims to be."
"How can we do anything if your fleet is destroyed?" Cavil asked, paying particular attention to the correct pronoun. He had ceased looking up at the ceiling panels, instead focusing his eyes on the horizontal and vertical strips, and the data lines which gave the illusion of rain and waterfalls.
He looked down and could see his data port glistening, like in use. Maybe that was how He was communicating. Somehow.
"Is it a flaw to tell you I am embarrassed to even call that pitiful insect on Earth my 'brother', Cavil?" His tone had risen as he asked the question.
Cavil didn't answer as his mouth was slightly open and his eyebrows furled inward. He didn't see how he could be having this conversation now. It sounded so petty.
The machine voice laughed awkwardly. "The fleet wont be destroyed, Cavil. I wont allow it. The attack… correction- ten vessels have now been lost- will weaken the rebels. They may bask in their false victories, Brother Cavil. But never forget I am the one in control here."
"The humans have had more than enough success in foiling your best laid plans, 'God'." Cavil mocked. He looked down at his hand. The bleeding had stopped. He thought that that was one benefit of being a bio-engineered Cylon. He wasn't quite as pathetic as humanity. "The Earth machines… what of them, they have foiled us many times."
The light strips along his walls darkened and pulsed red and purple and blue and yellow. Cavil tilted his head; somehow he had angered his 'God." He felt he should feel surprise, but a small smirk of satisfaction blossomed on the corners of his mouth. He brought his right hand up, the least bloodied and wiped it on his black shirt, then ran it down his chin, gloating to himself.
"The Earth machines will be dealt with Cavil. They have not foiled us 'many' times. Your mind cannot comprehend the vast web of interconnected events; the eccentricities of the universe." The machine-like voice returned after a grunt. "You think, like now, a loss of ten warships is a defeat. A loss is if we lose this war… which is, in the long run, impossible. The universe is a vulgar and harsh mistress, Cavil. You would do well to let me teach you. You haven't begun to comprehend what you need to. Not yet."
The wall strips began to slowly return back to their natural, bright red. They pulsed so minutely Cavil had to strain in his seat to see even the closest pulsation.
Cavil did not want to play this game. "There are Guardian warships aiding them."
"Relics of the past," the Entity, the Intelligence responded. "Relics to a past which fled in fear and cowardice because it knew it was not the future. Close your eyes, Cavil."
Cavil hesitated a moment. The data stream port on his desk was pulsing once again, and the lights on the wall strips were increasing their radiance. The light streams on the walls, the pseudo-waterfalls, began to glisten and pulse reds and blues. He closed his eyes.
In his projection he could see everything so clearly. He saw a field of debris. Dozens of baseships, the pointed star form unmistakable, even from the distance he was at. Raiders and Vipers and strange craft flew over head as he was catapulted into the atmosphere, down towards the ground.
Reflexively he wanted to bring his hands up to shield himself from the ground. But he stopped. He could see for hundreds of kilometers in either direction. He saw smoke and ash and an orange sun, dimmed from the blackened clouds in the sky, trying in vain and futile attempts to force its life-giving energies through the clouds blanketing this world.
He saw humans. The pathetic creatures they were, firing strange weapons which bore blue-purple flashes and bolts, hurling destructive energies into darkened and scorched skeletons of death, themselves firing back the strange bolts. Each side advanced on the other, never stopping in their deadly exchange over a ruined landscape littered with the wreckage of civilization and accessorized with the bleached skulls of the dead.
Neither side paid any respect to the dead as they crushed skulls under human foot or machine armored heel alike.
He could see how the humans and machines fought. He knew the details and the past. If he still possessed control over his corporeal body his eyes would be wide with fear and his mouth opened in stunned fright. This was a war. Not a chase… what the Colonials had was paradise. Not even their war of liberation forty two years ago could compare. The humans here were living and fighting in a burning pit of agony and death. He realized this must have been Tartarus for the humans.
He could hear the screams of the humans as the bolts impacted their fragile bodies. He saw them die as their blood and body fluids were superheated and expanded at such a rate their skin and muscles exploded from their body. Fine droplets of misted blood floated over the corpses and across the fields of battle. He could see their flesh melt from glancing blows, their skin boil and blister and pop from the heat.
And he could see the grins on the metal angels delivering their fate.
This was Earth.
And he loved it.
||||||||||==Rebel Cylon Baseship (+933 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Natalie handed the fiber optic cables to the Centurion, carefully to keep them out of the flickering data stream ports, already severely damaged from the battle. She grunted as her bruised ribs contacted the side of the command port, her hand reflexively reaching down and rubbing the aching spot.
She lifted the right side of her tank top slowly to look at the bruise. The black and blue of busted capillaries filled most of her right flank and she couldn't suppress the wince when she saw the damage to her body.
But, she'd been lucky, and she shook her head to clear it and refocus on her task. Around the damaged command center the bodies of another Six, Caitlin, and an Eight, Demeter, had been picked up by Centurions and carefully placed between the outstretched metal arms of another.
The resurrection ship under their command had been able to handle the tidal wave of data which had flowed to it during the battle, and had accomplished a one hundred percent resurrection success rate.
The battles which were waged across three sectors of space had been quick and brutal. Her forces had smashed through ten of Cavil's baseships and a handful of support ships, shattered a resurrection ship, and seized enough fuel, ammunition, and food for eight months and an entire freighter of spare parts for the baseships of Centurions.
She placed her hand in the data stream once the Centurion successfully reconnected the data cable. The energetic sensation raced up the silica relays throughout her arms into her brain. In an instant she was transported to a serene beach, with a clear blue sky, a yellow sun, and an ocean of clear blue water lapping gentle at her toes on the white sandy beach. In her hand she held the casualty reports.
Three baseships had been lost, one support ship, and two more baseships heavily damaged. The resurrection ship had enough husks for a dozen baseships before the downloads began to redirect towards rebel baseships. She needed to begin growing more bodies quickly.
She gritted her teeth in anger and the waves began to swell and push at her legs, the warm water cooling, and the clear skies turning dark. Her and Leoben and Boomer had ran through dozens of ways to begin growing husks for resurrection. But anything they tried would have alerted Cavil. They had a mere handful of resurrection ships and without the command hub to serve as a reserve; they would truly die if Cavil pressed the offensive.
"We have the momentum," Leoben said as he inserted himself into Natalie's projection.
She smiled at his presence, feeling reassured. The beach returned to its pleasantness before the feelings of mortality and real, honest death had swept over the Six.
"It's not enough. We're outnumbered and we can't surprise him like this again. Here," she handed him the paper.
"Kobol?" He flipped the cover page. "You want to strike at Kobol?"
She nodded and kicked a small flicker of water into the air, trying to lose herself momentarily in the beauty and calm. Many Cylons projected onto this same beach when they sought calm.
"We have a strike force. Miranda has four baseships half a dozen jumps away. We strike there and we can-"
"Is this a war for freedom or revenge, Natalie?" Leoban asked, concerned. The war would spread to every system inhabited by Cylons, he knew. "We already have all the Threes in confinement. How far will this war spread? If we cannot have the Twos and Fours-"
"You should be prepared for half our species to be destroyed, brother," Natalie's solemn voice interrupted. It had cracked as she said 'brother.' "Do you find it strange this war has fractured between the believers, the faithful, and the non-believers, Leoben?" She mused, starring out into the vast blue expanse of water.
Leoben Conoy had honestly not considered that exact thought for more than a moment before. He'd certainly never heard it vocalized. He tossed the attack plan on Kobol off to the side, letting the wind carry it until it disappeared in a flash, its existence reverting to a series of mere computer codes. He starred down at the sand as he ran his toes through its wet surface.
He sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. Not much, though," he elaborated. "But this should not be a holy war, Natalie. We already had one. And look where it put us."
He put his hand on her shoulder. She brought her right hand across her chest and placed it gently on top of his.
Her thoughts had come to an abrupt halt as he had said those words. She searched down into her heart; the heart engineered in a tube and a vat. She searched for compassion, and she found it.
Cavil had once told her they were 'mechanical copies' built to do a job. She could only shake her head at his own ignores and his own blindness. The One was ambitious and blood thirsty. The False God had promised him something. Power? Mentally she nodded. It had to be power.
In what she thought was a moment of weakness she could feel that test-tube grown heart break in pieces for Cavil's soul. She perched her lips, blowing through them softly. Even if Cavil didn't believe in souls or God, she would believe for him, and she would pray for his soul.
"You're my guide, Leoben," she said, patting his hand. She took a step closer to him. "This war will make monsters of us all." She placed her left hand around his back to his opposite hip.
"No. If we keep out faith, if we keep our faith in Him and the One True God we will not be monsters." The two starred forward. "He wont let us become monsters. But we must show compassion," he warned. "The Threes…" he trailed off.
"Yes… the Threes…" Natalie echoed. "I just…" she couldn't finish her last sentence.
"What's wrong?" Leoban asked, turning to her slowly. He could see the sadness and hurt on her face and a discreet line of wetness from the corner of her eyes down to her chin. "You're crying."
"I feel, I just feel I wont live to see the end of this war. To see Earth. To see our promised land," she managed to say. She leaned into his chest, burying her face.
Leoben shushed her and ran his hand down the back of her head, calming her. He held her tight, comforting it. "Don't worry, Natalie. We will both see the end of this war and our promised land," he said softly.