A/N: I hope the SCIENCE! explanation is a good one... I couldn't get too technical since the action would sort of make it a bit awkward (I am concerned I still made it a bit too technical) but the explanation with what is happening will get expanded on in the next couple of chapters as things start to slow down. Anyway... this part broke the 200,000 word barrier (now 300,000 words for both stories, wow). So please, I hope you all enjoy this chapter and please leave any reviews, good or bad (with constructive criticism) you may want to give.
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust==||||||||||
Every morning Admiral Cain had counted the days since the Cylon war had begun. Soldiers usually remembered two days; the day it started and the day it ended. For the rag tag band of Colonials it was pitifully easy; nine-hundred and sixty-four days ago it had started, reached its climax, and ended as abruptly as it had begun. All on the same day and within hours of the first strikes on the Colonies and the attack at Scorpion Fleet Yards the war had started and been lost.
It was without question the most monumental failure and defeat in the thousands of years of Colonial and Kobolian history.
Whenever she started to brood over the past a little switch in the back of her mind was always switched on. It told her something was off, something wasn't right.
Something innate, visceral had been stirring inside the Admiral the entire morning. She couldn't place a metaphorical finger on it and she'd tried to bury her fears with paperwork and mock readiness exercises.
Maybe that was why Pegasus had so many exercises?
Gods knew they didn't really 'need' it. Her crew was more battle-hardened than any crew in the last twenty years. And of course her crew was the best. That was a given. It was her ship after all.
She had an entire Viper squadron out doing drills with five Raptors equipped with missile pods and chain-guns, shooting at drones and DRADIS ghost targets. A few minutes ago, before things went to fraking shit she was about to give the order for a mock tyllium fire drill in the aft portside fuel line which would spread towards the auxiliary magazine storage.
That would have to wait.
The Gods were very unkind to Admiral Cain, and she knew that, and she accepted it. She hadn't lived a very good life, a life she measured as beginning again when the Cylons nuked humanity into oblivion.
The Gods had damned her and the only thing she could do was live her life and take it up with them when she died. She swore if she would have to challenge Hades himself to a fist-fight in order to even be allowed into the Underworld, let alone Elysium.
Looking side to side right now she saw the lights flickering and humming- this wasn't the Underworld, this was very much the real world. One of the bridge overhead row of LEDs went out, just blinked out, like it was really didn't mean much. It was the first sign the battlestar was in trouble.
That row of lights was just the first in a cascading power fluctuation which tripped circuit breakers and sent half the battlestar plunging into darkness for a few very long, breathless seconds.
As if time had slowed, Cain was now watching her team assemble and disperse. Major Adama was posed stoically over the central command console; Lieutenant Hoshi was directing internal communications, methodical and precise as always, Colonel Gardner was already transmitting status reports. It was a well-oiled machine.
The status reports from Colonel Gardner were the worse.
"Gods…" Adama hissed as read-out flashed over the central command console. Energy readings were off the chart. "We have energy build-ups in our main FTL engines… our targetting arrays are realigning-"
"Order emergency FTL shutdown procedures," Admiral Cain ordered, stomping over to Major Adama. Shoulder-to-shoulder they watched the bar move steadily upwards, the orange 'Danger: Spatial Energy Build-up Critical- Discharge Required- Discharge Required' flash over the monitor over and over.
Cain punched in her authorization for emergency discharge as her head and neck sloped back and her eyes quickly studied DRADIS.
"Lt. Hoshi, clear all traffic from our ass- order the fleet to scatter!" She barked, her hands digging into the central console like a lion's claws into its prey. "Major Adama, damage control stations!"
He nodded briskly and tapped a command, the klaxons beginning their rhythmic cries- two long wails followed by a short beep with flashing yellow lights dancing to the rhythm of the alarm.
"Sir, an emergency discharge will cook any civilian ship before us," Adama gravely whispered. His eyes wide, both commander and executive officer knew the fleet was packed in so tight that a spatial discharge could kill hundreds, maybe thousands.
A battlestar's engines were magnitudes more powerful than a civilian ship, the scaling up of the FTL cores led to instabilities- spatial discharge with critical energy build-up among them. But a buildup like this wasn't supposed to happen. There were redundancies, triple, quadruple redundancies.
"If we don't discharge it could fry out our entire assembly," Cain calmly informed him. "The damage to Pegasus will be far worse," she added as she watched the blips on DRADIS slowly scatter.
Vipers and Raptors were clearing Pegasus air space.
The drive assembly on a battlestar was massive. Civilian ships could provide spare parts for maintenance, but none of the civilian ships had FTLs which could replace an entire drive assembly of a Mercury -class battlestar.
The Guardians might have a spare assembly but it would take a month to replace the drive. There was no other choice.
"Major Adama, on my mark… we will hold until the last possible second for the civilians to disperse."
She looked up at DRADIS and the ships were moving quickly from the radiation wake Pegasus would create. One of the slower ships, the Heron, an older passanger liner, was moving too slowly. It may not make it.
The Admiral tensed and raised her hand, ready to drop it and give the Major the signal. Her unlinking eyes watched the warning levels rise to critical on the command console…
Lt. Hoshi twirled in his chair excitedly, his hand pressed firmly on his right ear, holding his ear piece in to listen and filter the wireless chatter. Already dozens of ships were broadcasting to Pegasus, demanding to know why the fleet was scattering.
The communications stations at the fore of the CIC were being overloaded with wireless calls.
Before the Admiral could answer, a long forgotten wave of queasiness and disorientation snapped its rude fingers in front of the entire crew of the Beast. Vertigo grabbed hold of the majority of the CIC crew- a few even bending and doubling over and throwing up as the spatial distortions began to resonate through the ship.
The spatial energy buildup was at maximum critical levels.
"Now, Major!" Cain shouted.
Adama hit the control, closing his eyes and asking for forgiveness as he damned hundreds to a gruesome death of being boiled alive by radiation waves.
Nothing happened.
"We're jumping!" Adama shouted as he felt the world spinning, a tunnel of blackness forming, and vertigo begin to grip him by the shoulders, he struggled, but saw himself falling towards the deck.
"What the frak is going on!" Captain Shaw yelled as John lay on the floor, clutching the sides of his head.
The hybrid and her ear piercing wails wouldn't stop. Captain Shaw looked around frantically.
"I have no idea what happened," Daniel calmly stated, standing up from his crouched position. "I didn't touch anything," he said.
Captain Shaw didn't care. Her eyes were darting around the entire room, darkly scanning for anything to use as a weapon. This was the hybrid, somehow, she knew, this was the hybrid!
She almost hurdled over the hybrid's tank in her effort to get something, anything done. She heard the 'JUMP!' command, she'd felt the disorientation latch onto her and pull her through the fabric of space and time their FTL engines created, and she'd felt her stomach launched all the way into her throat, only for it to fall like a stone back down into her gut.
"Marines!" She shouted. "Gods!" She clutched her ears. "Marines!" She yelled into a microphone. Within seconds, disorientation tossing her left and right, she heard the hissing of the air and the clang of magnetic locks disengage and the door whoosh to the side, warm air rushing in.
Two Marines ran in, their sub-machine guns at the ready, their stocks pressed firmly into their black armored shoulder cavities. Their dark combat glasses gave them a sinister appearance as they quickly made their way to flank Captain Shaw.
"No!" Daniel shouted. He stood up and was definitely in front of the hybrid's tank, putting his own mechanical body between it, Shaw, and the Marines. "No!"
The Marines quickly raised their rifle barrels to chest height, their training kicking in like instinct. Their trigger fingers dangled uneasily at the ready. Captain Shaw only had to give the word.
"Stand aside, Daniel!" Shaw ordered. "I have my orders!" She screamed- her head was spinning and her ears felt like someone had filled them with cement. "The hybrid's doing this; it's endangering the ship we have to kill it!"
An ear piercing wail was emanating from somewhere in the hybrid's tank. It had to be some sort of defense mechanism, some sort of communications device, something.
"You have no idea what will happen!" Daniel responded. He dared a look down to John and Erica.
Shaw followed Daniel's eyes and looked down herself and saw Erica shaking the apparent lifeless form of John 'Blanks' Planck, former lieutenant and Colonial Raptor pilot.
'What the frak?' Shaw mouthed.
Her head snapped back to the Marines who had started yelling at Daniel and Daniel yelling at the Marines. He refused to stand aside and was doing everything he could to delay.
Shaw's first duty was to her ship and everything inside of her was telling her that the hybrid was doing this. She had no reservations as she prepared to give the order to fire even if the machines were in the way.
The naked form of the hybrid shot back up in its chamber, the two Marines stumbling back, Shaw's head shooting back as her eyes widened, and Daniel stared. Erica was on her feet demanding the hybrid answer her, as futile as it was, it was the only thing which could be done.
As fast as the hybrid rose it fell.
"JUMP!" She yelled.
The sudden disorientation of a fast-executed FTL jump sent waves of disorientation through Captain Shaw and the Marines. She grabbed her head and stumbled. This should not be happening. Something was very wrong.
The young captain had sat through hundreds, maybe even thousands of FTL jumps since she was a child… her mother had jumped twenty-seven times in the nine weeks she was pregnant! This should be nothing, yet it was everything it shouldn't be.
"M-Marines!" She stuttered and stammered. Through half closed eyes she looked out and focused. The two machines, if they were affected, weren't showing it nearly as bad as her. "Marines! Take aim!"
The rifles came up and they leaned forward and planted their front and back feet into the deck to steady them.
"No!" Daniel shouted.
He was a blur.
The closest Marine was disarmed and on his way to the ground before either had even registered his action. The second was disarmed and falling, joining his comrade in arms, before the first even hit the deck. The two sub-machine guns were crushed under Daniel's powerful hydraulic grip.
"Gods… Daniel," Shaw staggered, her hand shot out to the computer console as she tried to steady herself- her world was spinning- her legs were like pudding. "Daniel! Stand down! The hy-hybrid!" She yelled.
The captain took a step forward. Her eyes darted down to the Marines, her eyes blazing with fury and her hand shooting for a sidearm.
The sidearm on the closest Marine wasn't there.
She felt a hard metal tube being pressed into her side, right at her kidney, and a small, powerful, feminine hand grip her around the neck.
"I will kill her!" Gina shouted as she pulled the petite, raven-haired captain back with her.
"What are you doing!" The captain hissed and gargled through Gina's vice-like Cylon grip.
Gina, hesitated a moment. She really had no idea what she was doing; she saw the opening, she took it. Her Cylon mind was racing with how she could end this. The vortex created by her actions was quickly sucking her down to a point of no return.
The Captain sensed an opening and tried to swing around and knock the gun away, just like she had been taught by the hard-as-nails instructors in the combative course as the fleet academy.
Her arm came up, only for the captain to feel the hard material of a composite handgrip crack the side of her temple.
"You fraking humiliated me," she whispered as she walked backwards. Gina's eyes were plastered on Daniel and Erica. "I hate both of you," she hissed into the captain's ear.
Erica stood back, protecting the inanimate machine lying before her.
Daniel stood ready, his weight subtly shifting forward. He was fast, super-human fast, but not fast enough to take down a bio-Cylon from the opposite side of the room.
He was like a blur, but a bullet at that range was a blur. The pistol was a standard Marine-issue sidearm- powerful enough to blow a bloody hole straight through Shaw's back, obliterate her kidney, and shred her insides. If the hydrostatic shock didn't kill her the blood loss would surely kill her within a minute.
The bio-Cylon, Gina, still felt her head spinning, her ears pounding from the hybrid's scream, the vertigo from the sudden jump, but the adrenaline racing through her veins and arteries and bathing her body kept her focused.
Gina felt her heels hit the bulkhead at the end of the room. Gina had to move. Her hand squeeze the Captain's neck just enough that the young woman's eyes began to roll back in her head. The bio-Cylon's hand then reached down over around Shaw's neck and snatched her security keycard from around her neck and tore it off, taking the chain it was attached to and bloodied skin from her neck along with it.
Gina kicked at Shaw, using her to twirl her around so when Gina killed her, she would see her face while using the momentum to propel herself towards the door.
She raised the pistol to shoot her through the heart.
Daniel took that moment to act and lunged forward. Gina fired, her gun loudly announced its murderous intent with an ear shattering crack and puff of yellow and orange fire as she back stepped and hit the locking mechanism for the door.
It closed, her toe centimeters from being crushed- but her Cylon reflexes timed it perfectly. She quickly swiped Shaw's card and pounded the red and orange 'lock' override. The magnetic seals clicked, sealing the machines inside, and the air pressure equalizers hissed.
"Major Adama, report," Admiral Cain immediately ordered. Her left hand came up carefully to her forehead as she regained her proprioception, the momentary dizziness and vertigo having vanished.
One jump, a second, a third, and a fourth in quick succession left her feelings like someone had just sucker punched her over and over.
Adama's hand grabbed the console and his other grabbed the edge of the tactical operations console, its chair taken by a Lt. Jacob Havers, filling in for Captain Shaw.
"Uh…" he mumbled, rubbing his head. He blinked his eyes, his eyelids so heavy they threatened to remain shut under the strain, but relented and opened.
"Uh…" he echoed. "We just jumped four times in less than two minutes, sir…" he rubbed his eyes and brought his index finger and thumb in on his nose bridge. "That's impossible," his left hand was surfing over the central console, poking and tapping at different buttons while his right hand was engaged in oppressing an elaborate sequence of buttons on the side of the monitor. "Sir… I have no idea where we are," he reported.
Admiral Cain frowned and used the command console to steady herself as well. She gulped and closed her eyes.
"Anyone injured?" She yelled to the entire CIC. Her eyes open head slowly turned behind her- navigation looked already, everyone was standing or clutching onto something to help them stand. The Marines outside CIC were checking each other over, already regaining their bearings. Communications, damage control, firing control, and everyone else seemed to be doing okay.
"Everyone good?" She asked, one last time. If no one answered they would be glued to their duty stations until they were either passed out or they figured out what he happened.
"Admiral, I'm getting reports of gunfire in the hanger bay storage… outside where the hybrid was being kept," Lt. Hoshi deftly reported, keeping his surprise and apprehension to an absolute minimum.
Cain curtly nodded and her hand lashed out for the phone. She snatched it up and out of its holder, put part of the metal wire between her hand and the black head piece and hit the alert button for the Marine operations center.
"Captain, I need a strike and containment squad to the portside hanger storage, there are reports of gunfire," Admiral Cain clearly stated. Her head was still pounding, reminder her of the last hangover she'd hand… fifteen years ago. "I want containment. I want answers. Lethal force is authorized only if necessary."
The commander of the Marine detachment complied and informed her he was sending up an additional four man team to secure CIC.
Admiral Cain, nodded to the phone, and acknowledged this without argument, though she found it unnecessary. The entire CIC staff was armed, entrance to this part of the ship required being screened by two Marines at a secured hatch, and there were four more Marines outside the CIC.
"Navigation," Admiral Cain stated. "Where are we?"
The Nav Ops ran over, stopped for a second as a bout of dizziness raced over him, and then walked slowly to the central command console and keyed up the readings from his display. In no uncertain terms, he had no idea where they are. Telescopes were already searching for known star patterns.
"Should we deploy a CAP?" Adama asked, biting down on his lip. He expected Admiral Cain would answer in the negative; at least not if they might jump again.
If they began jumping the Vipers would be trapped forever. Not knowing where they were they couldn't come back. And with the jump radius of a battlestar, it could take months to search that volume of space with every spare Raptor they had.
Cain waved it off. She grinded her teeth for a moment, thinking.
Slowly she reached into her pocket and fingered her razor, took it out and placed it quietly on the console. Her fingers played with it as she studied the readouts, DRADIS, and every other report streaming towards her station.
"How the hell did we jump four times like that? No computer-"
"Sir!" Lt. Havers as tactical operations interrupted. "Sir, I'm… there's jump orders queuing up into the computer, sir." He stuttered. The lieutenant's fingers flew over the keyboard and controls trying to make sense of how the computer was operating beyond his control. "But these are the… it looks like these are old jump coordinates…" he tilted his head, his eyes narrowed, and his mouth fell open like whatever it was he had figured out was some mythical impossibility. "Four jump coordinates… this is where we jumped to…"
Major Adama and Admiral Cain exchanged looks. Adama twirled and had one hand on the back of Havers's chair and the other on the console he was manning.
"Shut it down, lieutenant," he ordered like we was stating the obvious. "Clear the orders."
Adama reached out himself and typed in the commands. Blood rushed to his cheeks in embarrassment when the commands were rejected. He shook his head- that was impossible. He mouthed 'what the frak' silently as his eyes darted left and right and back left to read the messages and coordinates popping up and scrolling across the screen.
"Something is in our system," Lt. Hoshi reported.
Cain went stiff, his hand immediately reached for her pistol. "The hybrid." Her eyes met Adama's, and his told her he agreed. "Are the firewalls breached?"
"The hybrid," he repeated back to her. "But how?"
A fist smashed down on the central console and more than a few CIC members jumped at the sudden outburst.
"The fraking machines… something they did. They fraked up, unless they betrayed us to the fraking toasters," Cain cursed. She cursed them again for her trusting them.
Captain Kara 'Starbuck' Adama lifted herself off the deck and moved slowly to her knees. On all fours she grabbed for the tool cart and slowly pulled herself up. Already dozens of Pegasus pilots and deck technicians were running around, trying to understand what had just happened.
Her hand rubbing her head, the fiery Viper pilot looked around. She felt a moment of embarrassment from being thrown to the deck, pushed there by the extreme vertigo sensation which had rushed over her. Starbuck shook her head and breathed out, her hand now clutching her chest while she was still-
"Oh frak!" She cursed when a second wave of vertigo slammed into her like a wall. She smashed her eyelids shut and kept herself up as the Beast's deck plates began to vibrate as the torrents of spatial energies washed over the mighty battlestar.
She felt a brief sensation of weightlessness, like the gravity plating had failed, before she felt her throat thrust down and smacked into her stomach.
"Gods damn this," she muttered.
"Captain Adama, are you alright?" she heard a concerned male voice shout over to her. Footsteps quickly followed until the orange jumpsuit of Deck Chief Peter Laird brushed into her peripheral vision. "Captain, the computers are down throughout the deck… I've got a couple on the sound powered trying to check into CIC, but it's a mess."
She rubbed her temples cautiously and kept her hands ready to shoot out and grab the tool cart again just in case.
A loose strand of her blonde hair stuck to the side of her face, plastered onto the corner of her mouth. She brushed it back quickly, blinking, and breathing slowly and steadily.
The Pegasus CAG tugged at her collar as the warm, dry air of an active hanger bay worked against her recovering senses to make her worse.
She mentally waved that away and refocused, her eyes opening and staring at the top of the tool cart. She was the senior officer on the deck. Starbuck took control quickly.
"Alright… we need to figure out what happened and get-" The ship jumped again. "Frak!" She hissed, closing her eyes. She began opening the slowly, the vertigo and dizziness gone when she heard a crash.
The CAG's head swiveled and her eyes followed half a dozen crewmen running towards her and passed her. She saw a forklift tipped over and somehow had sheared the safety lines holding storage containers against the bulkhead, which had collapsed down onto a group of crewmen.
"Frak!"
She grabbed Peter Laird and they ran to help.
It had happened so quickly, too quickly- she had just acted. Her training and breeding had overhwlemed her rational mind and before she could understand what was truly happening one hand grabbed the pistol and one had captured Captain Shaw's thin throat and squeezed.
Years of humiliation, torture, and imprisonment had led to this. When she saw a chance, an irrational chance for revenge or escape she had clawed at it.
She had no idea what she had just done. She was outside the locked compartment, staggering backwards, the smoking gun still in her hand. Her back hit a bulkhead and she jumped, spinning around in surprise. The bio-Cylon's hand clutched her chest as she slowed her breathing and calmed herself.
Her face felt cool. Slowly she reached up, with her index and middle fingers, and wiped what she thought was sweat off her forehead. Her hands shaking she brought her fingers down in front of her eyes. It was red. It wasn't hers.
The klaxons aboard the behemoth warship were a muffled background noise now, only a faint triple pulse of sound and light ordering the crew to damage control stations. With her enhanced Cylon senses she could feel the faint vibrations of boots pounding on the metal deck plating, moving closer and closer.
Her eyes darted down to the gun and realization struck her. She accepted what she had done; made it hers. The shaking hand stopped shaking and the petite fingers curled more tightly over the grip.
She'd taken Captain Shaw hostage and shot her. She shot her. Dead? The bio-Cylon wasn't sure- everything had happened so fast but she could see the damned hybrid machine rushing towards her.
She'd reacted, done the thing she had been born for, bred for, trained for. She took action. She pushed Shaw forward, kicked her off, and launched herself back and shot.
The bio-Cylon knew the terrible sound a bullet made when it hits flesh, organ, and bone. She knew the sound when it missed, too.
She had not missed.
She assumed she had killed the young, captain… how much she had wanted to look into the black, empty-as-space eyes as she'd done so… but this … there was time to be glad later.
They said the machines had nothing behind their eyes, no spirit, no soul and lacked everything humans had. The bio-Cylon had found a human whose eyes were just as lost and empty as a machine's. The Captain had been a walking body, meat and bone, with no spirit for years now.
The bio-Cylon took the situation and accepted it now. What was done was done. Just like voting to nuke the Colonies back into oblivion, she would again choose this. This was her last chance.
Gina still had one more target.
There was no forgiveness for what had happened to her. What had been done to her was beyond forgiveness- she couldn't forget.
The pounding on the blast door to the hybrid's chamber shocked her back to reality- the door began to deform outward as the robots trapped inside pounded their way through. Gina had to move now.
She turned and jumped into a side corridor making a straight line for the Pegasus tram system. She could use the maintenance spaces to move around the battlestar to her target.
Gina's head cocked and she stopped and pressed herself flat against a bulkhead as the tiny sensory hair cells in her ears began vibrating, alerting her to the approach of… combat boots… heavy steps… Marines.
Three Marines.
The dirty-blonde haired, tall woman, fueled by revenge and irrationality released a cocktail of hormones and chemicals into her body, speeding her reactions, giving her strength and courage. She slowed her heart and put her mind at ease as the world began playing in slow motion.
Bodies, clad in black combat armor, wielding sub-machine guns bolted around the corner- the fast response team- and approached Gina's position. She was hidden, just so. Even if they could barely see her, make out an outline, a silhouette, why think she was a threat? They were rushing to the storage bay with the hybrid, why stop for her?
She grinned and stepped out.
As the Marines passed they saw her. One began to mouth 'Oh frak' as the biological machine smiled her pearly, bleached white smile. She kicked off from the bulkhead, slamming her shoulder into the closest Marine, grabbed his neck, and nuzzled the pistol into his rib cage.
Two bullets.
Her hands shot down to his mid-back as his two colleagues stopped, skidding and spun. Using her Cylon strength she shoved him into the other two Marines, both of them sidestepped as their comrade flew through the air, already dead, and landed at their feet.
Gina fired. The Marines fired.
The bio-Cylon was like a ghost in her movements and a demon in her intentions. She twirled and ducked, a stream of bullets missing her. She fired once, hitting a Marine in the chest, cracking his sternum and sending him keeled over backwards.
Her left foot planted into the side railing of a bulkhead and she pushed off towards the right side of the corridor, firing at the Marine still standing. In a diagonal three bullet struck, one in the hip, shattering the joint, one in the stomach, and one on the right breast.
The Marine collapsed, his body buckling and failing him.
Gina ducked down and brought the pistol grip smashed into that last Marine's neck, cracking and splintering the cervical vertebra, extinguishing his life.
Her head shot up as she heard the second Marine, the one she had shot in the chest, coughing and fumbling for his weapon. His armor plating had taken the impact, but the kinetic energy from a bullet so close had disoriented him, giving the bio-Cylon her opening.
She lunged at him and grabbed the sub-machine gun; it spit bullets as she struggled and ripped it from his grip while his index finger defiantly held on to the trigger and snapped and shatter.
The vengeful Cylon heard the Marine's shoulder suddenly pop out of position as she yanked the gun. His scream was interrupted by a strike to his throat, cracking his windpipe. Her free hand delivered a bone-crunching strike to the man's clavicle. He moaned out in excruciating pain. She kicked him in the knee and he collapsed to the left as his knee gave out and buckled.
Gina stopped and looked over her prey. Her eyes were like balls of fire, ignited by the adrenaline racing through her blood vessels as she began to finally, slowly enact her revenge on Pegasus.
The Marine was still alive. He looked up into her eyes and knew she would kill him. He flinched and feebly threw up his hands for protection as Gina bent out and ripped off his eye protection.
She knew him. He knew her. He put his hands down. He saw the bright yellow-orange flash and then saw nothing.
"How much longer until the Marines get down there?" Cain asked quietly to her XO. She walked from her usual position at the head of the command console towards Major Adama.
"The fast response team should be there any minute, sir. A squad is on its way for backup, but the trams are down," he responded. He studied his display after Cain nodded and stood behind Lt. Havers.
The lieutenant, a former chief, was a limited duty officer, and only five years younger than Admiral Cain, making him the second eldest in the CIC, and one of the most experienced. With Cain standing behind him, peering over his shoulder at the tac ops center a younger officer may have been slightly intimidated or stumbled. Lt. Havers kept his attention focused.
Cain mentally nodded. Havers was like a razor. He did his job and he did it well. She had never had to discipline the older lieutenant. The Admiral had seen him in the gym, often up before her, and he was always at the secondary tactical operations station behind the primary station whenever she arrived in CIC in the morning. Her approval manifested in a short, quick nod to herself.
The Admiral watched him as he calmly reached to a drawer under the console and pulled out a PDA. He quickly synced it with the console and begun his analysis, calling Lt. Hoshi over.
Admiral Cain's left eyebrow rose slightly as she listened to the technical talk between the two. She followed up to a point, but they lost her when they started conversing about quantum something-something and its relation to sub-atomic particles, knocking digital data, and other topics beyond her understanding. Even with a bachelors of science in electrical engineering and information technology, the level of discussion between the two was far too technical.
"Admiral Cain, sir," Lt. Havers said, rising from his seat, "I think we might have found the problem." He turned and grabbed his PDA and set it on the command station and synced the two devices. Data scrolled over the console in the military's MX-3 programming language. "Our computers weren't infiltrated through the networks… at least, not really."
Major Adama spoke first. "You don't sound too sure of this," he said. "The computers aren't connected to any outside network… were the firewalls breached?"
This time Lt. Hoshi shook his head. "No, sir. The firewalls are in place- those held," he nodded approvingly. "It wasn't an infiltration, either…" he bit down, "I'm not sure how to explain it," he admitted.
Lt. Havers brought up a schematic of the FTL engines.
"Our FTL engines are designed with certain safety protocols; the energy we feed into them is inherently unstable… the spatial discharge valves on the engines…" he pointed to the half dozen locations on the hull where the engines would release their massive amounts of stores energies. Radiation would cook anything within thirty kilometers of any release. "The engines themselves are also capable of redundant jumping capabilities- if the engines are spooled and our computers go down, the engines maintain a lock on the jump coordinates, a cache. Like any computer."
"Yes, but we know this already, lieutenant," Cain stated. "Those are all standard safety protocols in Mercury-class warships."
"Yes, sir," he agreed. "But somehow the engines received simply colossal amount of energy shunted into them- and not all was from our power plant. It's like it began sucking energy, like a vacuum… we don't fully understand the folding process which happens when our FTLs are activated… it's like the engines are sucking in energy from somewhere."
"What?"
"When we jump we either move or we mis-jump, momentarily disappearing from this dimension, this reality, and then reappearing. For all intents of purposes, it is instantaneous... we've never been able to send any probe or instrument into where ever it is we actually go when we jump- because it is, for all intents and purposes, instantaneous. We can't scan this uh… dimension or whatever it is we jump into, because technically we're not there. But we're not here, either…" He keyed up a schematic to illustrate his point.
Major Adama tilted his head and tried to understand. "That makes no sense, lieutenant."
"The mis-jump can occur if the data is wrong… say the jump would take you into a star. The chances of that are astronomically… impossible," he shrugged, "but our computers will lock out the jump if the coordinates are the known coordinates for a star or within lethal range. With these jumps its like our computers registered the jump after we jumped… I think something is affecting the targeting array."
Cain and Adama looked to Lt. Hoshi. He nodded that this was his understanding of the situation as well.
Lt. Havers looked towards Lt. Hoshi for the communications officer to take over.
"So we just jumped somewhere and then repeated that a couple of times?" Cain asked.
"Yes and no," Lt. Havers stated warily. "This data is just preliminary, but there is definitely a pattern. Sir," he lowered his voice, "if it's the hybrid…"
"How is that possible?" She looked him in the eye.
"I have no idea," Havers replied. Lt. Hoshi shook his head as a negative as well. "It's like…" the lieutenant looked off. His brow began to furl down and he snatched up the PDA again and re-synced it with his console. "Space is three-dimensional. A certain amount of energy is required for each job. A one percent charge on our FTL engines may jump us a few million kilometers-"
"Longer jumps, more fuel," Major Adama stated.
Havers nodded, but his mouth open and shut like he wanted to say something else while being distracted tapping at his PDA.
"Lieutenant?" Cain asked expectantly.
"Um…" Lt. Havers was engrossed in his analysis and could barely hear her. He breathed in through a closed jaw and winced. "Um… space is three dimensional," he made a cross with his hands. "Our targeting array is fed energy from the FTL engine and based on the amount of energy in the array is how far we jump in the X, Y and Z planes… we could have no energy shunted in the X-plane array and all our energy shunted into the Y plane array… so we would jump either 'up' or 'down' to our maximum jump capabilities."
"So what you're saying, lieutenant, is that the energy is being shunted into our targeting arrays and they are what… automatically jumping us?"
He nodded. "When the energy shunts are complete, the array jumps. As long as there is a continuous amount of energy being directed into the array… you could metaphorically open the dam and flood the array with energy and jump in an instant or let it trickle in and jump after a year." He rubbed his eyes and stroked his chin as he thought. "Somehow the hybrid got the engines to begin pumping energy into the arrays and we're jumping because of it."
"Sir!" One of the secondary communications technicians yelled out. "Sir, there are reports of gunfire in the portside storage-"
Cain's eyes flashed alarm. Before she could order it Adama was on the phone with the Marine's operations center. The Admiral couldn't hear but she knew by her XO's clenched fist something was very wrong.
"Sir, there's reports of gunfire… the backup squad just found the fast response team dead sir…" he held the phone back up then brought it down and muffled the mouthpiece with his palm, "it looks like they've been shot…. They're at the door to the hybrid's chamber… it looks like…" he mouthed 'what the frak' as he listened intently. "Sir… Captain Shaw has been shot… and… Gina's, she's escaped!"
Gina ducked in quickly to an unused storage closet in the water processing facility on the portside hanger. She moved slowly, relying on the movements of the machines, the flowing water, and everything else within the room to hide her from Colonial motion trackers.
She could hear her heart beat screaming at her in her ears, the loud thump-thump-thump of the tireless muscle reverberating and pressing against her chest wall. She held onto the sub-machine gun she had snatched from the weak hands of the Marine… she felt warmth in her mouth and a sour taste. She stuffed the pistol in the waistband of her prisoner-green utilities and brought her hand up to her mouth.
With the enhanced eyes of her Cylon body she could make out the deep red of the blood she had wiped from her inner lip and could feel it now at the base of her thumb. She studied the sight, she must have bit down too hard when she thought of that Marine.
Her head flinched and her eyes closed shut but her mind was wide open as she relived what the Marine had done to her with perfect recall.
She remembered how she had dampened her sensory receptors so her body would feel numb. But she felt the pressure, the scratches, the lashings, and the beatings all the same. Even numbed, even projecting into her own world, a beautiful, old grow forest where she was alone and happy, she still knew what they were doing to her body. And she felt it.
The schematics of Pegasus ran through her mind and she quickly decided on a path, a route to her righteous revenge.
She felt her mind tear itself down the middle as she stood there quietly, breathing in and out slowly, and thinking of what she was doing. Three Marines were dead and maybe the Admiral's protégé…. It had just happened to quickly… there wasn't any going back now. Half her mind screamed to stop but it was drowned out by the part wanting its revenge, telling her the entire crew of Pegasus was rotten. Not one deserved savings. Not even the machines had done anything for her. Admiral Cain would keep her locked away forever.
Gina smiled mischievously as she considered her plan. She nodded slowly to her and rested her head on the cool black metal of her sub-machine gun. Narrowing her eyes she made her decision.
This wasn't suicide. This was war. Her war. And in war sometimes self-sacrifice was required for the greater good.
"W-what… what?!" Cain shouted at Adama. She stepped up to him threateningly, his eyes wide and demanding answers. She grabbed her phone to take control of the situation. "How the frak did she escape?" She barked at the Marine on the other line.
"I don't know, sir… we're still trying to figure that… it looks like she somehow trapped the robots in with the… the… hybrid thing, sir…"
She recognized the voice as Gunny Purcell.
"Gunny, put Planck on right fraking now," she ordered. She glared up at Adama and put her hand to the phone. "Major, if Gina's loose she can do major damage to this ship. Are we tracking anything?"
He looked down. "No, sir… ship wide motion scanners were knocked out in the jump."
Cain snarled at her luck.
"Major Adama, send out an alert to all departments and begin searches," she ordered.
"Aye, sir," he nodded quickly and spun, moving towards the operations watch standers and starting them on putting the word out on Gina's escape.
"Gunny," she began very slowly and forcefully, "find Gina. Shoot the fraking toaster if you have to."
"Sir, I can't get him on. He's just laying there… not moving. The female robot says she doesn't know what happened. The hybrid just woke up and started screaming and babbling and then went all catatonic."
"What about the Captain?" She asked with a muted, almost crackling voice. She really didn't a frak about the Earth robots.
"Doctor Roberts is rushing down, sir. We've got a stretcher and put the coag foam in her, but she'd bleeding bad, sir… we're taking her to medical once the medics stabilize her."
Cain closed her eyes. "Frak," she whispered. She felt like someone had just kicked her in the stomach.
Captain Shaw was probably the closest person she could call a friend. The young captain looked up to her and the Admiral had immediately taken a liking to her, bringing her into her inner circle. She was all that was left of that circle now- her only friend.
She ran her free hand through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck. She turned halfway and faced the entrance to CIC. The entire entrance was darkened the deep black of Marine BDUs and armor. Marine guards stood shoulder to shoulder, sub-machine guns in hand, ready.
Her Marines were always on the ball.
Major Adama rushed back over. "Sir, we can't get to the departments past frame three hundred."
That left the entire aft section of the ship; engineering, long-term storage, half the crew quarters, the science labs, water/waste reclamation, main fuel storage, auxiliary magazine stores, and a hundred other places a lone bio-Cylon could hide for days.
"Sir?" Cain heard over the sound-powered.
The Admiral couldn't concern herself with personal issues. She was a soldier, a sailor, and the leader of the last remnant of Colonial civilization. The dauntless and stoic commander turned her mind back and shot out at the Marine on the receiving end of her ire.
"And why wasn't the hybrid shot?" She demanded of Gunny Purcell. Her voice was unmistakably demanding- she wanted the hybrid shot. Now. "What the frak were Daniel and Erica doing and what do you…"
"Sir, Daniel just told us he disarmed the Marines, Gina used that opportunity to take Shaw and a sidearm and… she has the Captain's magnetic keycard."
Cain turned back to Adama. "Major, find out where Carter is and all the other machines." She swiveled to Lt. Hovers and Lt. Hoshi. "Do you two have anything yet?" She snapped at them. "I need more than speculation. What can we do to stop the erratic jumping?"
Lt. Hoshi came to semi-attention. "No, sir. Soon, sir," he reported. Lt. Havers nodded his agreement.
The Admiral turned her fury and ire back to the phone and shouted.
"Why isn't the hybrid dead!" She shouted into the mouthpiece.
"Sir, Daniel and Erica are refusing to step aside and they are armed."
"I'm coming down. Tell the Marines to meet me in Arms Locker Seven Alpha." She slammed the phone and looked at Major Adama, a fire igniting inside of her. He nodded, she nodded. They were going to finish this.
The machines had put Pegasus in danger before and Cain was Gods damn sure it wasn't going to happen again.
Starbuck and a dozen others could feel their backs tensing and their muscles tearing as they tried to lift the heavy storage container racks which were crushing the three member deck crew.
To her left one of the women on the deck crew switched out for a burly, larger man, who grunted and huffed as he put everything into lifting.
The emergency equipment was coming quickly, but three Raptors had to be cleared from the deck before they could get over. If the Pegasus crew let go the pressure would crush the three.
The driver of the crashed, laying-on-its-side forklift was pacing, cursing himself and the Lords of Kobol on how he could have fraked up like this. He blacked out. Dozens of people had. He said it was like walls of pure dreaded black closing in around him narrowing his vision to a pinpoint before there was a nothingness consuming him.
"Where the frak are the machines?" She yelled, swiveling her head to scan for any sign of them. Chief Laird had sent his fastest deck hand, a specialist name Evan Something Something to get to the Cave where the Centurions were.
As if on cue four of the five remaining Centurions the Tech Com machines had convinced to defect to Humanity came stalking down the landing bay from the far end, running quickly, their metal feet clanking on the deck plates.
From tiny specks over three hundred meters away they closed the distanced in twenty-three seconds, slowed only be the clutter on the deck and having to dodge deck hands who were themselves rushing to help.
"Please, stand aside, Captain," RC said to Starbuck as he came behind her and shimmied his way in between her and the burly, larger deck hand.
"Fraking toaster, we can do this," he protested.
"Step the frak back!" Starbuck yelled, grabbing the man's shoulder and digging in with her fingers.
"Frak!" He yelled as one of the other Centurions took his spot.
The four Centurions lifted quickly and Starbuck, Laird, and the others pulled the three men out, the Centurions lowering the storage racks slowly once the men were cleared.
"Captain Adama!" the young woman heard. "Captain Adama!" it was Major Avion. She turned, about to snap at him, but bit her tongue.
"Sir?"
"Is everything alright? What happened?" He was looking around quickly and surveying the situation in the hanger bay. He was the senior officer on deck and needed to know what was going on and he needed to know now. "Are those men okay?" He walked over but stood out of the way of the flight deck personnel who were trained for this to do their jobs and tend their wounds before medics could arrive.
Immediately RC turned towards Starbuck and his roving red eye halted centerline, his neck and leg servos activated, and he lowered almost unnoticeably lowered his height.
"Major Avion, Captain Adama, you need to come to the storage compartment, something has happened."
Starbuck looked at him oddly, confused and annoyed at his cryptic announcement. The blonde haired CAG was about to yell at the Centurion when she noticed one of them, and Carter, was missing.
"What the frak happened?" she hissed, grabbing the Centurions metal forearm and pulling it to the side. "Tell me. NOW."
There was no other way to resolve this. As commander of this ship it was Admiral Cain's duty to put its welfare and its protection and its safety above the welfare of any individual. A ship required discipline, strong adherence to orders, and a devotion to the chain of command.
Her warship had just jumped Gods' knew how many light years and could jump again at any second. A Cylon fleet was out there, searching the cosmos for them, and a Cylon human-machine hybrid think, some freak of nature with a hundred fiber optic cords running out of its body in some vat of goo was most likely behind the erratic jumps and system failures!
Admiral Cain's hand reflexively dropped to her sidearm as she rounded the last corner towards the portside hanger storage. She saw the blast door, dented and deformed where Daniel and Erica had attempted to break free.
The Admiral unclipped her sidearm and gently pushed the clip back. She would be ready, just in case.
The four Marines in front of her fanned in first and took a crescent formation, joining the other Marines with their rifles pointed at the machines.
The four Marines behind her stood guard in the corridor, watching for Gina or to warn her of the approach of any of the others.
She looked down, her eyes scanning the still form of John Planck, who had been propped up with his back at the base of the hybrid's tank. His hands were folded in his lap. Cain knew Erica had most likely done that. The robot cared for the other one. The Admiral grinded her jaw as she felt every prejudice and every strand of hatred for machines, for AI that she had suppressed over the last years begin boiling over, clawing its way back into her mind, screaming at her to release them.
Her fingers slid gently back and forth on the butt of her pistol.
Cain stood at the two, staring them down in complete silence- the only noise the faint breathing from the Admiral and her Marines. Even the soft, deep sounds of the klaxons were drowned out in the silently fierce tension gripping them all.
The human Admiral continued to glare at both machines and looked briefly at the unmoving one of the floor. Erica looked awkward holding a rifle- she'd never been built for combat, but her IL-S body was far superior to a human's still. The human commander looked over at Daniel, eying him careful, running her own calculation in her mind on the probabilities of success.
Daniel had fought Planck and destroyed the central computer server room in Pegasus over two years ago. He was considerably stronger, faster, and perhaps even bullet proof.
"Sergeant," she called over her shoulder. She took two steps back and the Marines followed her.
Two Marines wielding the isotope weapons stepped through the hatch, leveling them at the machines.
"This will spiral out of control quickly, Admiral," Daniel warned quietly, almost in a whisper. The machine looked over at Erica, who stood protectively over the still unmoving Planck below. "The hybrid is the key-"
"Shut up!" She snarled, cutting him off with a hand gesture. She slowly pulled her sidearm from her tactical holster and tapped it gently on the side of her leg. "The hybrid somehow took control of the ship's jump drives… how!" She demanded. "That's impossible."
"We don't know… I don't know… something happened. I-I was reaching inside, the hybrid woke, and before we knew what was happening, the ship was jumping." He held her eye before breaking and looking at each of the Marines. They were sweating inside their heavy combat armor.
Daniel had his rifle at an angle across his torso. The sub-machine gun would never penetrate the Marines' armor, even at this range, but he calculated the speed and position he would need to put a bullet through the tactical visors of each Marine.
At this range he could be on top of the Marines in a second, less than a second. Human reaction times were, however, increased under high stress situations and the Marines were trained, well-trained.
There would be death.
Gina ducked under a thick black and white stripped cable tube and flattened herself to scoot between a break between the supports for the Pegasus tram system. She listened intently for any signs of life on the main tram, but all she could hear was the faint moan of the warning klaxons, still sounding, and all she could see were the faint red emergency lights dotting the tunnel.
Her bio-Cylons eyes made the darkened tunnel as bright as day, and her reflexes kept her steady and moving quickly, jumping around obstacles and moving nimbly down the shaft.
She slowed when she heard the faint sound of magnetic locks disengaging and doors opening.
The infiltrator pressed herself against one of the support struts and slowly lowered her body into a half crouch, her right knee pressed into the metal deck. Slowly she brought her sub-machine gun and rested it in the crook of her shoulder and placed the barrel on an opening in the strut for support.
Two white flashlight beams made themselves visible, and Gina narrowed her eyes, increased her visual acuity, and saw the two Pegasus technicians moving slowly down the tram shaft.
She looked away, groaning quietly as an internal debate raged within her darkening mind. These two were Pegasus crew and deserve to die. They all die, she told herself again, louder, more forcefully than before. The Marines had been easy kills; easy to kill because they were at least armed. Gina could still feel a sense of honor about killing unarmed… she shook her head. The whole ship would be destroyed if she succeeded. Why should she care if she shot two unarmed techs?
Her finger slid down slowly to the trigger… and she stopped.
The Cylon felt her eye twitch and she ducked as a cone of light washed over where she had just been. Even if the humans couldn't see her from the distance in which they were beginning to work, she needed to be sure.
The two technicians found whatever systems they were working at, Gina didn't care much, and started. Both their back were to the bio-Cylon as she slowly crept forward, moving behind and through the supports, power lines, and tubes.
Her eyes narrowed as she neared her two victims… but humans had an amazingly annoying ability to somehow sense when someone was watching them.
The first tech, a younger woman, began to turn. Her head made it maybe, maybe thirty degrees before Gina slammed the butt of the rifle into her temple.
Before she had gone down Gina had lifted the sub-machine gun over her head and thrust it down on the back of the neck of the second tech.
The sound of shattering, cracking, breaking cervical vertebrae, and the man gargling for breath, sent an eerie smiling racing across Gina's vengeful face.
She looked down at the first tech, the younger woman. Her breathing was erratic and she was moaning. Gina reached down with her hand and one had on the chin, one on the forehead and twisted, breaking her neck.
The Cylon studied her kill and felt herself absorbed in the almost serene look on both their faces. The two looked peaceful. Their gruesome journey fleeing from the Cylons was over, their lives as the last tiny remnant of a once mighty civilization extinguished. There were no more worries.
Reflexively she reached down to pull the identity cards off the necks of the two deceased techs. She checked them quickly, and found the older one had Security Red access. Sinisterly, she smiled and looked to the side at the access door. Her dark, vengeful mind worked quickly, replanning and reorganizing. The bio-Cylon had a knew, more deadly plan.
She wouldn't just cripple Pegasus and maybe destroy her. She would destroy her. She would destroy everything she held dear… Cain would know the end was coming, that her beloved ship and vile crew would join her in their pagan Tartarus.
Through the door, five frame back, and two compartments over was the portside number two auxiliary magazine- missiles and bombs, enough missiles and bombs to annihilate an entire city.
Her body shivered. She was, maybe, one hundred fifty meters from her target.
The wireless radio one of the techs was carrying crackled.
"Hey, Jack, we got a report the Cylon bitch escaped. A few Marines are heading your way just in case." There was a brief pause. Anger, fright, and worry flashed across the bio-Cylons face. "Jack… hey Jack?... Susan… Specialist Susan Cline… he… frak!" the radio clicked off.
Her head swiveled left when she heard the magnetic locks of the door disengage, the click echoing through the long, dark tram tunnel. She jumped off to the opposite side of the tunnel and hid behind a small generator.
Two Marines came through, one crouched, the other scanning slowly with his assault rifle. Gina dared herself to peak, and through a crack in the grating saw the Marines moving forward. The flashlights on their rifles were scanning, waving around the tram tunnel. Her dark eyes followed them, her body tensed, until the light stopped on the bodies of the dead techs.
She hadn't hidden the bodies, there hadn't been time.
Gina stood and flicked the safety off in one swift motion. Her reflexes, strength, and precision put four rounds in the upper torso of the first Marine which saw the bodies. Two bullets hit the armor and dinged off, one hit the Marine in the throat, right at the Adam's Apple, and one hit the mandible, dug under the skin, and exploded out the left side of the Marine's head.
He went down, firing his rifle into the air, the loud cracks and brought yellow flashes brought everything to slow motion, like a strobe light had been activated. Gina leaned and crouched and fired twice more, hitting the Marine in the chest and sending him barreling backwards into a bulkhead support.
The Marine brought his gun up and fired, a three round burst hitting where Gina had just been a split second before. The wounded Marine tried in vain to follow the Cylon woman as she ran, like a blur, before stopping. As his arm brought the rifle and his eyes narrowed in on her three more flashes joined the flashes of his comrade's rifle.
One more bullet struck the center of the chest, one bullet ripped through and shattered the tactical eyewear, tearing through the eyes and lodging deep within the skull and mashed brains of the Marine., The final bullet hit on the side of the helmet, sparked as metal contacted metal, ricocheted, and bounced twice off two bulkheads before losing momentum and falling to the ground with an disappointing clink.
The Cylon rushed forward and grabbed the Marine's rifle and magazines. She jumped up and made for the door like a bandit and jammed her fist into the release mechanisms. For the third time she heard the magnetic locks click open and the hydraulics inside the door activate.
"Daniel… listen to me very, very closely," Admiral Cain began through a clenched jaw. Her left hand was in front of her chest, like a knife, moving subtly to reinforce her words. "You and Erica will stand down immediately. The hybrid will be killed. She, it… whatever the frak it is somehow took control of this ship's jump engines!" She hissed.
The Marines stood by, isotope weapons ready.
Daniel looked back at her, meeting her eyes and scanning her and the Marines. He knew she was telling the truth. When it came to her ship nothing was more sacred. The AI construct slowly looked at the other Marines in the room, scanning their faces through their eyewear. Two of them were Marines he recognized were ones he and his body guards had wounded when they had boarded Pegasus and were minutes from destroying her.
His robotic eyes could see them shaking, the blood rushing up towards the surfaces of their body as the adrenaline pumped through them. Their heart rates were through the roof, their sweat repugnant to his olfactory receptors, and their arms beginning to shake from the muscle tension.
For a long, near infinite second he considered the Admiral before him, and how she had allowed him to come aboard her vessel, after he had been instrumental in the boarding action which had killed so many of her crew. Two hundred.
It had been almost two years since that disastrous day for Pegasus. To an AI two years, in how it perceived the world, would be centuries, millennia, almost. The construct knew that the Admiral and the crew of her warship would never forgive and never forget- he wouldn't, even has a machine.
He lowered his rifle.
"Admiral, how much time until the next jump?" he asked reservedly.
The Admiral considered him for a moment. He sounded defeated, but the machines could feign emotion so precisely it was nothing more than an educated guess when dealing with them. She decided to play along.
"I don't know," she curtly replied.
The robot tilted his head, not believing her.
"I don't know, but power is building back up and there's jump coordinates we can't erase in the computer, already downloaded into the FTL drive computer…" she ended before elaborating any further.
"If your FTL is anything like a Guardian drive, the coordinates are sent to the engine to jump, stored there, just in case the CIC computers go down. A backup," he stated. The machine smirked at the Admiral's lack of response. "Exactly. The data has already been sent to the targeting apparatus and there's no way to take it out without pulling apart the apparatus and half the engine."
She bared her teeth. "Yes… that was the point of the redundancy."
"Then it doesn't matter if you kill the hybrid now. Admiral…" he felt awkward in what he was about to do, "but please, just wait. Something is happening here… our AIs don't collapse. If the hybrid is somehow overriding your computers, it could be talking with Planck right now."
Cain snorted. "You honestly believe that?" Her eyebrow raised as she considered this. "Gunny," she barked, "hand me your wireless." She put her hand behind her and felt the cool plastic of the walkie-talkie in her hand. She dialed in the CIC code. "Lieutenant Havers, this is the Admiral." She waited.
"Yes, sir," she heard over the wireless after a brief pause.
The distrusting Admiral kept her eyes locked on Daniel as she slowly brought the wireless back up to her mouth. "Have you found what the problem is with the FTL?"
There was a brief surge of static before the lieutenant could answer.
"We think it might be the targeting apparatus… sir, it looks like certain energies are being inputted into each of the array's dishes… the amount of energy within the dish will-"
Daniel interrupted. "Will direct where the main FTL drive jumps you to." He motioned for Erica to lower and safety her weapon. "Killing the hybrid will do nothing at this-"
A Marine, standing with his left hand to his ear, stepped forward quickly and hurriedly tapped the Admiral on the shoulder.
"Sir," he whispered. "The Marines have cornered Gina… outside the portside number two magazine, sir."
If the Admiral were a machine, her eyes would have flashed crimson red. She snarled as her mind raced away from the hybrid and focused on Gina, the image a target in her mind, slated for destruction.
Her head and eyes popped back towards the hybrid. This could wait. Daniel was right. There was nothing they could do now, nothing in the next fifteen minutes they would do would do anything. The solution was with Colonel Garner in engineering and leuitenants Hoshi and Havers in CIC.
"You four," she motioned at the two with isotope weapons and two other Marines, "stay here." She glared at Daniel and pulled her pistol menacingly. "If you so much as move… Marines, shoot them both. Melt the fraking machines."
"Aye, sir!" the chorus sounded.
"The rest of you," she spun, her dark brown hair whipping over her shoulders and elegantly settling itself on the centerline of her back, "With me." She snapped.
||||||||||==Somewhere (Time Indeterminate)==||||||||||
He had been here before. He remembered this place. It was how Erica had showed him the corruption of a race and the downfall of another.
"You're here. You feel stuck, islanded in this stream of stars," John heard. It was a booming, feminine voice, inside him, all around him. He tried to see where it was coming from, switching his vision modes to look for any hidden woman. It was an exercise of utter futility.
The machine stood there and watched as stars streamed by, their light as long white lines, stretching out to infinity, from infinity. Surrounding him was perpetual, endless blackness.
"There's no relief, the journey isn't over yet," the voice said again.
John called out, into the deep black. "Who are you?" He yelled.
He saw movement at the extreme end of his peripheral vision. The machine turned, a woman, the hybrid standing in front of him.
"What is this?"
She held her hands out expectantly. "Strange things happen here." She turned around; the hybrid shook its shoulders like it was cold. "We don't exactly see your world how you see it," she said, turning back around. "We can see the strands and how they interact… we can predict." She reached up and gently tapped her finger on one of the lights.
It expanded into a distorted, what John would call, grainy, pixilated image.
The Earth AI looked confused.
The hybrid looked over and sensed his anxiety and lack of understanding. She snorted understandably and closed her eyes.
"The future, the past, and the present," the hybrid responded to his confusion.
The hybrid's broad, white smile expanded until she was laughing. "When we were built, by what you have so eloquently called 'Cynet'… we're in a realm, in between… where Cynet cannot follow but where it can keep us from going- even if it doesn't know it."
John mouthed those words to himself. "What... what do you mean?" He felt his legs walk towards her, but he moved no closer. He stopped and looked down, his mouth slightly opened, perplexed and confused.
"Cynet pulls us back, but it doesn't know where we go."
Except for the blackness and the white, radiant streaks of light, the only other light was a faint blue glow reflecting in the hybrid's face. Slowly John put his hand up in front of his face, and he could see the glow on his palm. Why were his eyes glowing?
The hybrid offered him a half-heartened shrug and began circling him.
He could feel her fingers brush across his metal shoulder blades.
Metal?
He looked down, no longer clad in his black uniform, adorned with a three-dot symbol for freedom, nor even in his synthetic skin, he stood there as a dulled gray, light black metal endoskeleton.
Just to be sure he was seeing this, he activated his fingers, flexing and extending them, and then he turned his hands around, examining the back and the palms.
He spoke, but had no tongue. His metal mouth moved to the words he tried to speak, but no sound registered in his auditory receptors.
"As hybrids we see what you and Cynet and Skynet cannot see and will never understand."
The hybrid bit down and looked away, bringing her hand to her chin in thought. She looked worried.
"The separate worlds share a common history, John," the hybrid cautiously informed the machine. "You found a remnant of a remnant buried within a mountain on the world you call home." She tilted her head as John's eyes widened.
"What-"
She held up her hand.
"You exploited the technology, manipulated it… the humans cannot see this, but those like you can. She sent you here, you commander, the first to break free, on this mission. She has traveled time more than anyone in history- she has been here before… Under the mountain you felt something, something affecting your mind, your neural net. You three were not the first."
"I don't understand."
She began to speak more clearly. "Cynet knows about us… it can never come here, but it can pull us back, block our access. Even the rebel hybrids cannot come here without Cynet knowing… we've already been here too long… it's getting late… we don't have much time!" She suddenly shouted.
"And where am I?" He asked. "You grabbed my arm when we brought you aboard, you said my time was coming, a choice needed to be made." He tried stepping closer but he didn't move.
The hybrid ran her hand through her hair as she looked down with closed, darkened eyes. She moved forward, the light behind her casting a shadow over the machine as she came closer.
She shook her head, breathing rapidly, mouthing 'no, no, no, no' over and over again.
"This is not your fate… you need to make a choice." She grabbed John's metal arms and held them tight- enough to hurt him. "I don't know what will happen… but unless you make the right choice this will start again and again and again and the cycle will continue until is destroyed and there is no one left to begin the cycle again."
"What cycle?" He demanded to know. Now he grabbed the hybrid as she turned and he spun her back to face him. "What do you mean!" He could see a faint glow of crimson red in the hybrid's face.
His hands went limp and he retracted his arms and stepped back, shaking his head quickly. "No… no… I'm sorry," the machine said.
"I can feel Cynet pulling me back, John. This cycle has repeated more times than you will ever know! You must stop it. Earth… the Colonies… everything is connected… I don't know what to do… I've done what's been done before. Don't fail…" the stream of stars all coalesced into one giant, bright, blinding ball of pure white energies.
Lightning began shooting out from the center.
"It's him, Cynet," she looked over her shoulder at the ball of energy. "An enemy will come to you- you must stop this before everything is shattered."
The hybrid vanished and John blacked out.
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus==||||||||||
John's eyes lit in a deep, cobalt blue.
"John!" Erica ran over and grabbed him, hugging him tightly.
Surprised, he awkwardly returned the gesture.
"What happened?" Daniel asked as he kept watch on the four Marines in front of them.
The machine launched himself to his feet and steadied himself on the base of the hybrid's tank as his micro-gyros realigned. The hybrid was darkened and quiet now. His hand moved slowly over the conducting gel and hovered so close, he could feel the cold radiating slowly upwards into his palm.
He looked at Erica, into her eyes. "I need to…" he saw the blood on the ground and seemed to finally notice the Marines. "What happened here?"
"Captain Shaw was shot, John, and Gina escaped…."
"The situation spiraled out of control very quickly," Daniel said over his shoulder while continuing to concentrate on the Marines and setting a death stare on the four. He was redirecting power to his leg servos, the machine analogue to adrenaline being pumped through the body. "The Marines have the isotope weapons and orders to 'melt' us," Daniel let his artificial eyes roll in an over exaggerated motion, "and Cain doesn't want us moving."
John cocked his head, studying the Marines. Their pupils were dilated, they were sweating, nervous, and their hearts were thumping in their chests almost hard enough to break out of their bodies.
Four Marines, even armed with the weapons which could 'melt' machines, were deathly afraid of three machines mere meters from them.
"The assault rifles wont penetrate our endoskeletons… and the isotope weapons…" his eyebrow raised up and the side of his lift quivered into a sly half-grin.
John stepped forward, the Marines bringing the barrel of the isotope weapon up slightly, to chest height. Both Marines were pointing their barrels menacingly at them.
"I need to get to CIC… I think we need to keep jumping." He looked between Daniel and Erica. "Somehow the hybrid took control of the engines… she's trying to send us somewhere… it's all linked," he stepped forward and the Marines tensed.
Walking forward the Marine's pulled the trigger. A loud click, click and then quick click, click, clicks echoed in the room.
His hands shot out and grabbed the barrels, pushing them to the side in a V. "These weapons won't fire on us…" he yanked them away and walked forward and pushed the isotope rifles into the Marine's chest, condescendingly grinning at them both.
The Marines' eyes darted from the rifles to the machine, back to the rifle, and finally rested on the machine. They hestitantly wrapped their hands around the rifle, almost hugging them as John released his grip on the firearms.
"Of course built safeties into the weapons- we are not morons," he hissed. "Daniel, please stay here with the hybrid." He smiled at Erica. "Erica…" he held out his hand for her to come with him.
Gina stepped out and fired one more, sending two more deadly bullets streaking towards their fleshy target. Her ears heard a gargle and Marines screaming to get a medic. She could hear boots being dragged across the deck.
Wound one Marine and another would come to his aide. She took two out of the fight. Kill one, and you only took one out of the fight.
The adrenaline and synthetic chemicals running through Gina's body, products of her enhanced Cylon biology and implanted synthetic glands kept her calm and focused. She'd thrown out and suppressed the more rational part of her mind, yelling at her, pleading at her, to surrender. Gina had shut it up, told herself there was no going back, that she had to do this.
With each bullet launched at her and with each she shot towards the Marines, her murderous fury made obvious, she felt her revenge slipping further and further away.
Five Marines, now three, between her and her target and by now they would know what she was doing. They would know her target. Gina knew that while Cain was a psychopath and Apollo her brown nosing XO, serving under a murderer, she knew neither of them were stupid.
In a few minutes a dozen Marines would flood the corridor. The Centurions or the Earth machines might even be following. She couldn't take out a Centurion, let alone one of the near bullet-proof Earth Terminators.
Now she focused on killing the three Marines. Clad in black armor, weapons spitting fire, and between her and her objective she could still prevail.
Three Marines were in front of her, blocking her path towards the magazine storage. They had sub-machine guns, grenades, and flash bangs. They'd already tried a flash bang on her once, and had almost succeeded.
The bio-Cylon infiltrator had heard the pin pull; four Marines had been firing and covering their fifth comrade. They thought they were just
She'd relied on her augmented proprioceptive capabilities and photographic memory and had leaned out and fired at the leaning, crouching, and standing Marines after the flash bang exploded.
They'd ducked for cover, cursing that she could still stay on her feet. Before her magazine was empty her senses had recovered enough she could open her eyes and used her Cylon mind, augmented by her silica relay enhancements, and compensate for the disorientation, nausea, and vertigo from the bright white, ear-crushing explosion.
Gina leaned, fired, crouched, fired, and then dove for the other side of the corridor, firing. She hit one Marine in the leg, knocking it out from under him and sending him slamming head first into the bulkhead. The infiltrator soldier hit a second Marine in the shoulder, the bullet deforming on his armor, and sending him in a half-spin. A third burst had hit a Marine in the chest, forcing him back, but he kept firing.
The three Marines, either wounded and bleeding, or wounded and bruised from the kinetic energy of the bullets still continued to fire. Gina fired back at the Marine she'd hit in the leg, putting one in his forearm. He yelled and cursed the Gods and dropped his firearm.
Snarling, she sensed her opportunity. In defiance of the bullets flying around her, with nothing to loose, she came out from cover, hung low and fired on full-auto at leg level. Her arms kept the rifle steady, for the most part, but she missed more than she hit. But the Marines were hit and they fell.
She didn't even stop to make sure they were dead- they weren't. She stepped on one of their hands and the Marine yelled and groaned.
On their uniforms, strapped to their tactical belts, she saw the cylindrical tubes- grenades. She grabbed two from the closest Marine and stuffed them in her pockets and grabbed two more and did the same.
Gina ran forward, but fell and stumbled. Her hand shot out to the bulkhead and her mind sung hoarsely, screaming, shouting that something was wrong. The left side of her body felt warm, her clothes felt wet.
She looked down and saw the stain on her utilities and red, dark blood beginning to stain her green utilities, the little circle expanding faster and faster.
"Frak!" She yelled as she moved forward. Her hand once again grabbed a bulkhead, and she used her momentum and swung around. Seeing the lettering of the number two magazine storage she felt her legs pump, shooting her forward with a last but of defiant, vengeful, righteous energy.
She took out the identity card.
Beep-beep, the reader responded, and flashed red.
She felt a tear roll down her eye. She was so close and here, right here in front of the number two auxiliary magazine. The black letters, stenciled on the door on a rectangle of black, were there. She was there!
Gina was right in front of the door to the magazine storage but she saw the distance increase out towards infinity, a symbol of her hopelessness and how futile her actions had turned out to be.
The sounds of boot steps and mechanical feet told her this was the end.
She screamed and pounded both her fists onto the door, falling slowly to her knees. She hit the door once more when she felt the cold deck and small divots pressing into her tired body.
The infiltrator felt the tears and salt from sweat roll into her eyes. Sniffling, she wiped them away, and clutched her chest. She started to hyperventilate.
The corridor from the door to the T-junction was ten meters, with no cover except for some shallow bulkheads sticking out into the corridor.
She felt the four grenades in her pocket. The Cylon stopped hyperventilating and took the grenades from her pocket.
There was surrender and there was one last act of defiance she could perform. She could prime the grenades and wait… but they may send in the Centurions first… she snorted at the irony.
She felt her dark, midnight blue eyes darken. The fire which had been burning inside of her began to suffocate under her own hatred until it was nothing more than a pitiful, burning ember.
They'd figured her out. The five Marines laying in the corridor had stalled her for less than ninety seconds, but it had been enough. Pegasus, for all its flaws, its debauchery, its grotesque and perverse system of justice… Gina knew it was a tightly run ship.
When it came to killing, Pegasus, she knew, was master and commander. And they wanted to kill her.
She threw the grenades on the ground.
She heard the boots stop behind her and the steps of two Centurions behind her. Gina had her back to them, but they were on her before she could do anything. They pushed her against the door to the auxiliary magazine, shoving her face into the very words printed on that black rectangle which had taunted her in failure. She closed her eyes, she couldn't stand the sight.
The Centurions had disarmed her and spun her around and held her by the arms. Three Marines had rifles pointed at her. Six Marines behind them were ready. Just in case.
The blonde-haired infiltrator heard more boot steps, and a grim, somewhat sly smirk graced her sweaty, black-stained face. A perverse part of her felt honored they'd sent two Centurions and nine Marines after her, nineteen if she included all the ones she had killed or wounded.
What she saw next was the tall, graceful, murderous form of Admiral Cain. Gina saw her hair flow elegantly behind the Admiral, confident as ever, chest pushed out, and head held high. The Admiral wore the scars of torture on New Caprica proudly, not hiding what the Cylons had done to her, not ashamed of the punishment they had dealt her and what she had survived.
The scars were testaments to her will. Or so the public image went. Gina knew under that mask of self-confidence there was an actual person, with hopes and fears. She'd seen it.
Cain was made of iron, a machine in her own right. A force to be reckoned with and Gina saw everything in the Admiral in the mere seconds it took for her to approach- it reminded her of everything she had wanted and lost.
She had wanted her. Gina had even admitted she had loved Cain, in her own way. That was why she hesitated when she had a rifle pointing at the woman's head and that was why she had failed.
The dark brown eyes of the Admiral bore into her former lover. Gina's light blue eyes tried to meet the piercing, commanding glare of the Admiral, but she was reduced to nothingness. She felt empty. An entire platoon of Marines she had just fought, killed, and wounded. She was a Cylon, a member of a race bread for war and focused on the extermination of its former slave masters. She should feel proud, she had done her job, at Scorpion and here; she had been a soldier. Yet this one woman reduced her to nothingness.
The dark orbs in Cain's eyes sucked the life out of Gina and left nothing but a vacant, shallow, cold body.
Gina's eyes drifted slowly downwards to Cain's shaking hand which began to steadily rise up.
The barrel of Admiral Cain's sidearm was leveled at Gina's forehead, right between her eyes.
In the one second of clarity in knowing death was coming she regained herself, found her soul, found her strength. She had defied the Admiral. She had endured months of torture and years of imprisonment and psychological abuse. She had endured everything this shadow of a woman had given her! She was not done!
"Frak you," Gina snarled.
The most evil grin Gina had seen in her life slowly formed over Cain's mouth. The Admiral's hand stopped shaking, and the pistol was steady. Gina heard the safety click off, the sound like an explosion in the quiet, muffled corridor, and watched as her index finger slowly wrapped around the trigger.
"You're not my type."