AN: I hope you all will enjoy the chapter. And thank you for the reviews on the last one, very appreciated. This chapter was getting a bit long so I had to split it. So that means more goodness and I get to prolong ending this part a bit longer because it's been an enjoyment writing it, I don't want it to end. But then Part 3 will be pretty exciting and I think the spin-off story (which will explain some of what happens in Chapter 31/32) will be fun, too.
Anyway, I think you'll enjoy this chapter and the next one is already 6,000 words in and has the Guardians like I said would be in this one but got too long. Commander Cyrus will be back and is going to be making some deals behind the backs of the Terminators.
Update: Chapter 32 for those reading this now has 13,400 words already. It should be posted relatively soon.
Here is a picture of Terminator: The Battlestar Chronicles. While a 'dramatization' of the story... there are potential spoilers in it... but it should too bad...
http:// i1008. photobucket.
com/albums/af202 /bryan200711 /bsgworkinprogress2. jpg?t=1263882689
||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus (+1009 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
Mentally sighing Kendra Shaw scanned the room one last time. She hadn't slept in maybe… she couldn't remember, as hard as she tried. Doctor Roberts had sent sleeping pills to her office by one of the physician's assistants after realizing she had holed up in there after his examination. She'd taken them, to maintain appearances and even pretended to swallow and put on a show for the PA. then she'd promptly spit them out.
Right now her eyes lazily moved over the heads of the senior officers of Pegasus. Minus Major Adama, the important ones were present; Admiral Cain, Colonel Garner, Leuitenant Hoshi, Captain Adama, and the other department heads. A dozen junior officers were assembled in the back.
She had finished the morning briefing. Algae processing was ahead of schedule and would finish three days early. A few fly bys of the sun and the ever increasing density of the cloud of blue gas around it indicated it would probably go nova between now and a decade from now.
Commander Thais had his Centurions on the planet.
The fleet was being fed.
On the outside everything was going smooth. The fleet had a task; get food. A little under seventy thousand souls had been a week from starving but in the end, had maybe just lost a few pounds. To Shaw, it just gave the civilians a nice punch to the jaw to reality. Though she did shrug inwardly as she couldn't really figure out what that reality was, exactly.
Her head and eyes gravitated towards Admiral Cain as she heard her computer snap shut and a brief shuffling of papers.
"Alright, I think that's it." Admiral Cain said, sounding a bit more chipper than usual to the captain.
Cain held Shaw's eyes for a long, soul piercing second and then nodded.
"Room, attention!" Shaw shouted.
Twenty officers, either sitting at the conference table or pressed against the sides shot up, body stiff and erect, and hands pressed firmly against their sides.
Cain side stepped from her chair, nodded once, and ordered them to carry on as she turned on the tips of her feet and marched out of the briefing room, back to her quarters, an orderly quick on her heels, and already handing her paperwork to sign off on.
Shaw had turned and was organizing her papers she laid out on a desk in the front of the room. After shuffling the last set and stuffing them carefully into a manila folder she heard the hatch swoosh shut behind her. She was alone. Her computer was at the podium and she turned and stopped.
"Starbuck." She said. The CAG was still in her seat and tapping her pen in the air. Shaw decided to play it cool and profess ignorance. "How are you today?" She said with an artificial bounce to her voice which even Shaw had to mentally wince at. It was so fake it hurt her own ears to hear it.
"Soooo…" Starbuck awkwardly began. She had to suppress her typical shit-eating grin. "You want to tell me what's up?"
Shaw shrugged and shook her head absently. Quickly she slid her tablet PC into a carry case with the rest of her folder. "No idea what you're talking about-"
"That's bullfrak, captain."
The tactical officer glared at the CAG.
"It's kind of obvious, I mean… I think it's obvious," Starbuck continued. "It's a weird thing you two had going. Then some crazy comes and shoots at you. And you kill him. My guess," the CAG looked at her pen then slowly swiveled her chair and stood up, "is that you probably wanted to get shot by that guy after the fact… you regret having Carter there to protect you. Anyway, I think he likes you and you-"
"I don't care what you think." Shaw said evenly. She held herself tall, even though her side where she'd been shot sent a searing pain through her flank. "Why do you care?"
Starbuck shrugged and threw up her hands and turned and shrugged again. "I don't know," she said to the wall. "Maybe because I'm a nice CAG?"
Shaw rolled her eyes to Starbuck's back and was staring at the ground when she saw the CAG's feet shuffle as she turned back around. For an instant she let the defensive walls down a bit and actually thought she had something resembling a friend in Captain Adama. Then threw the thought into the bottomless pit of cynicism she'd dug for herself and remembered she didn't have any friends.
The tactical officer thought the gods were listening in and Hermes was playing tricks on her when Starbuck said almost what she was thinking.
"Let's be honest… Kendra." Starbuck hesitated. Using Shaw's first name sounded awkward as frak, but it wasn't like Shaw was her superior officer. "You don't have many friends and… I, uh, well, I'm probably the closest person you could call a friend."
Starbuck had to hide a cringe at this. She wasn't into the 'girly' stuff. Sharing emotions. Girl talk. In high school she was called a dyke by the girls who were more into the stereotypical 'girl stuff' and after being accepted into the Academy, her reputation as been cemented. This was about as girly as she was going to allow herself to get.
"Ya, Shaw," she nodded to herself at the use of the captain's last name as she continued. "You're only friend, really." Starbuck said. "This little back and forth you and Carter have had has been pretty obvious. Your thing. And just so happens you two are off by yourselves." She held up her hands. "I don't know if anything went down. I doubt it. But he spends time around you and you seemed to gravitate towards him… I saw it when we were back over New Caprica. Love-hate… with a bit more to the former."
Shaw's mouth came open and her lungs were ready to expel the breath she'd need to bitch out Starbuck. Then her mouth snapped shut.
Starbuck couldn't suppress the light hearted snicker. "Exactly, Shaw. So as your friend you need to at least talk it over. And believe me I know about dysfunctional… stuff." She didn't use the word 'relationship' though she sort of wanted to just to see what Shaw would do. Her best friend was married to a Cylon and the love-hate-love-hate-hate-love that had gone between her and Apollo before New Caprica had been a rollercoaster with Sam Anders as the casualty. Plus one of her close friends was a killer robot, so she felt she was secure in her attempts to offer advice. "Just… don't act like a pretentious frak and let someone through your armor or something. I don't know what goes on in the minds… the chips of theirs, but they are people…" she looked off towards the side of the room and confident she'd made an adequate delivery, nodded to reassure herself. "Alright… I have to go to Galactica and pick up Helo… so you…" she bit her lip, "just think about what I said."
And Shaw stood there for a minute and did just that.
||||||||||==In Orbit of Algae Planet==||||||||||
Helo leaned back as far as he could manage in the co-pilot seat, slouched forward a little bit, and let a long, dramatic yawn slowly leave his lungs. He then proceeded to lick his lips and chomp down on his teeth a few times as Starbuck just stared at him from the pilot's seat.
He waited and fidgeted in his seat to get a better view of the orange-red star cluster behind them before turning back around and quietly coughing with a shit-eating grin.
"And… what was that for, exactly?" She asked, giving him a look of worry for his sanity.
"Meh," he shrugged and turned to stare out the side of the canopy.
"Oh, well, I guess as tactical officer or operations or whatever you do now… paperwork is soooo much more exciting, right?" She shook her head and made sure he was looking at her when she made an exaggerated eye roll. "Raptors are sooo boring now." Starbuck looked at him in playful disdain. "Raptors are kind of boring. It's like driving a slow, boring school bus."
"Hey!"
"Raptor 714 please stand by… there's a lot of traffic down on the planet," someone said over the wireless. "Hold for landing assignment." Starbuck didn't recognize the voice. Helo had said Dee was sick with something and she knew that Lt. Hoshi (and about half the junior officers on The Beast) was doing some sort of requalification certification or something with the down time as the fleet waited, parked in orbit.
She hadn't been paying particular attention to Captain Shaw's morning operations briefing to the senior officers.
As she thought about it there was only one word to describe it; frakin' awkward.
The talk afterwards had been a lot less cringe-inducing than she'd anticipated.
"You have position zero four in the landing queue."
Starbuck acknowledged and was ready to just say 'frak it!' and jump the line. There was an entire planet down there and they were stuck flying into 'designated landing zones' or some such bullfrak. It made her life fraking boring and repetitive.
Raptor 714 was loaded with valves, wires, and tubing to replace one of the filters on an algae processing unit and some other spare materials for a burned out generator. They also had a case of spare parts for a few of the Model 007 Centurions from Pegasus.
There had been some sort of underwater mishap, rumor was one of the larger sea predators had attacked one of the Centurions, some sort of strange shark-like octopus. Miraculously it and some other fish Starbuck could only classify as 'weird' had managed to survive in the algae covered oceans.
"So… how's it like on the Beast…" Helo looked over and saw Starbuck eying him curiously. "You know…" he had a lopsided grin, "Shaw and Bishop."
Starbuck opened her mouth to speak but then closed in, snapped it shut. She just mouthed something and then turned back. Unable to keep quiet so turned back to Helo, figuring if they had to loiter out here she might as well talk about something.
She saw her opening.
"You are awfully nosy… Mr. I'm Married to a Cylon and Have a Half-Human Half-Cylon Child."
She was waving her hands out and bobbing her head around in extreme exaggeration and playful mocking. Helo made a face in response and brushed away her banter.
"Hey, I'm just wondering. That little woman is wound up tighter than a… she could use a frak."
"Helo, I can't believe you said that." She shook her head but the disappointment in her tone was overshadowed by her toothy Starbuck grin.
"I didn't even know they could." He shrugged.
"Men… one track mind…" she shook her head in feigned disapproval.
Helo snorted back at her and had his typical lip smile. "Yeah... okay, Starbuck."
"What? You really didn't think they could?"" Starbuck sounded shocked. "Really? They are 'infiltrators.'"
Helo turned in his seat and faced her and looked her up and down. There was a dawn of realization on him and deviousness plastered onto his face. "You didn't… did you… back in the Colonies?"
"What? No!" She protested vehemently. "We were just friends for frak sake."
"Yeah, we were 'just friends' too, right Kara?" He winked.
"That…that," she stammered, "That does not count!" She made a face and dismissed his claim. Helo just let out a short 'mmmhmmm' and kept smiling. "Anyway, what do you think they do… just hang there?"
"What?"
"Yeah… they, it, does it just hang there? What did you think? Co-ed showers… I know guys check out the competition. Don't deny it." She kept riding him, goading him. "All guys have to size up the competition… isn't that why you all try and act so macho… fights, boxing…"
He rubbed his eyes and buried his face in his hands.
"I don't want to talk about this." He said as she pushed the conversation in awkward territory.
"Too late." She said in an extra high, extra perky voice.
He looked back up and just sighed. "This coming from our champion boxer?" He chuckled at the thought of Kara lecturing him. "Maybe it is a good thing we have co-ed showers or I'd think you had-"
She punched him hard in the arm before he could finish. He started laughing as she tried to act seriously angered, but between the two of them she couldn't hide her amusement and cracked up seconds after Helo.
"Anyway! This is as far as guys look." He made a knife motion with his hand at the bottom of the neck. "Eyes never go below that and are locked forward." Helo tapped his gloved hands right above his knees. "Anyway, have you talked to her?"
"Me?"
She sounded taken back.
"Yeah, you. You're like her only friend, Kara."
"What? Why the frak would you think I'm her friend? She doesn't have many friends." Starbuck protested. She looked off and knew Helo was right. As far as friends went the combative, cold, and arrogant Captain Shaw didn't really have any.
For some reason Kara wasn't sure of, she just didn't want to say anything about her chat. Maybe because it was more her just talking? Starbuck shrugged to herself while Helo looked at her expecting an answer. She pursed her lips and blew out slowly and pretended to be busy. Of course, pretending to do important things in the cockpit when your friend was also a pilot usually didn't work, and Helo just slapped his legs in frustration and gave up trying to get anything more from the Pegasus CAG.
|||||||||||==Algae Planet, Secondary Harvest Site==||||||||||
"Frak… no… frak frak frak… NO frak!" Baltar half yelled, half yelped as a crate contemptuously slipped out of his sweaty, grimy hands and smashed the tip of his boot. He stomped and shook out his foot and tried to ignore the pain as a pairs of hateful, scornful eyes shot him death glares. "You want to help with this or just fraking follow me doing frak all?" He cursed over his shoulder.
"Move," the machine grumbled, pushing him aside, not caring that he stumbled, and picked up the equipment.
"There's sensitive equipment in there," the former president hissed in a frustrated tone. He frowned at the equipment and let his shoulders drop in silent defeat at the latest insult.
Carter stared him down and Baltar back upped as the machine stalked forward. He jammed the crate into Baltar's chest, glared, and then turned towards the idling Raptor. Baltar sheepishly followed, looking over at the other people staring and snickering and kept his eyes on the ground.
The machine stopped at the wing of the Raptor, and as if forgetting something, turned back and stalked to Baltar. He leaned in and said "You might not want to linger by yourself, Doctor."
Baltar didn't bother to look up as he collected the crate back into his arms. He saw the shadow of the machine plod away from the corner of his eye and could hear shuffling and murmurs behind him.
A few stood behind him, snickering, whispering, and trying to intimidate him with Carter in the Raptor and John doing pre-flight checks.
He glanced over his shoulder and gave them each a look daring them to attack him. The machines would still be forced to protect him.
"You test your fate every day, Gaius," the Six in a beautiful red dress said. Baltar was about to walk forward and the Six leaned on the crate, eliciting a groan and pleading look for her to move from the scientist. "Oh, Gaius," she wagged her finger and then pushed off from the crate, sending Baltar stumbling back a step. "Your time is coming."
Before Baltar could look back up she had disappeared.
The Raptor had settled into a standard search grid. The auto-pilot was engaged and meant that there was no need for two machines. John knew that Carter was expecting this when he'd told Carter he'd be on this Raptor flight last night.
"Have you talked about it?" John asked over their wireless in real time. He knew, or at least suspected, Carter hadn't. There would have been no time between the attacker being shot and Shaw being sent back to Pegasus for medical treatment.
"Talk about it? Talk about what, exactly… sir?"
John would have flinched at the way Carter had said 'sir' but had been expecting it. This was going to be difficult.
Speaking over their wireless was much more than just bits of text data. Text messages were simple, efficient for conveying information. Having an actual machine-machine conversation involved changes in tone, inflection, pitch, volume- it was basically a limited version of Terminator virtual reality projections where all one heard was the voice.
"Should I ask what the hell you were thinking?" John then asked. He turned in his seat towards his friend and figured if Carter wanted to beat around the metaphorical brush, he'd just go all in. "You know exactly what, don't play stupid."
John didn't appreciate Carter's tone, but he was dissatisfied with his own even more. He hated implying mental or physical deficiencies in his soldiers; being blunt was required of someone in his position but he despised being rude. He was a machine and tried to hold himself to a higher standard.
"What are we? Human? Don't…" Carter continued. "It happened." His jaw servos clenched tightly shut and his neural net sent him nagging signals to sigh which he promptly ignored.
"I'm just trying to-"
"It's my business what happens. I've accepted Cain's story, its flimsy. That's the end of it." He gestured for Planck to stop talking. He knew his machine friend wouldn't though.
"I decide when it's the end of it."
"Yes, sir, Colonel," Carter sarcastically responded. His arms were crossed and he just flicked his wrist in a mock salute at shoulder level.
Carter recalled the first day he'd met Planck, recently promoted to captain and thrown into command of Alpha Detachment. He'd been promoted above the company platoon leaders who'd been there months, years.
He'd been one of the new Terminators. Built by Tech Com in a limited production run. It wasn't the chassis… it had been the chip.
Machines could read the subtle changed in body language. Humans had a much more difficult time, but if they looked for it, they could see it. Carter remembered Planck had distrusted him and rumor had it, had even tried to have him transferred out of Alpha. Rumor. Supposedly.
That was one of the problems, Carter considered, being a machine. Not that he would ever want to be human. That thought was restricted to ridiculous 'what ifs'. He felt he was so much more. As he refocused back he considered the problem with being a machine was that he'd never forget. The bogus 'memory blocks' John had talked about were just that. They were based in some reality, but they never worked. So he could never forget.
He considered Planck to be perhaps his best friend now. But when they first met those first few months he'd wanted to rip the machine's head off. He didn't think a machine could be idealistic and naïve… but many of the new models who'd never fought for Skynet were like that.
Carter shook his head and focused back on the present. The past didn't matter, as funny as that sounded to a time travelling robot, only right now and the future.
"We're not human? Then stop acting like one and start acting like my number three and an officer in the 16th," John retorted. "We may be God knows how many light years from Earth and who knows how many years we went back in time yet you're still a commissioned officer in Tech Com, a professional. Act like it." John looked forward and watched the brush and hills sweep by under the Raptor. "You're also one of my best friends. So I'm here to hear you out."
Carter sat there.
"Do you think forming attachments with humans will be good for you?" Planck shook his head at his own question, silently answering it.
"And you and Erica? Isn't that hypocritical?"
"She's an AI. We're both AI… That's different, you know that's different." He realized he sounded a bit too defensive. "Do you think a human can really understand, comprehend? I don't know of many," Planck rebutted. "Our neural net-"
"Do you really believe that… honestly?" Carter shook his head in vicious disagreement.
The round-robin of answering questions with questions continued.
"What do you think is going to happen?" John asked, falling back on the answering a question with a question. "We're theoretically immortal, Carter. What will happen when she dies? You'll go through this again and again." John also considered the ramifications- and he knew this sounded strange- of setting his sights on Shaw. But he couldn't think of anything better. Once a machine 'set the sights' so to speak they could become incredibly possessive. Fiercely defensive. Violent even over the slightest or misperceived insult. "I need to know you understand what's-"
Carter threw up his hands. "I don't know. But do you honestly believe we'll live that long?" He gestured to his commander and back to himself. "You and me were born in war, built to fight. Do you think we'll live to see the end of this? How much longer until our luck runs out and our time comes? We've been lucky…" he shook his head. "Maybe something's wrong with my chip? I don't know. Do I even want to know?" The 'chip malfunction' was self-depreciating and he knew it. The chip he had was similar to Planck's, better than his original, and it was not malfunctioning. "Everyone dies for… right?" He almost sneered.
Planck ignored him and continued his own points as to why the relationship with Kendra Shaw would never work.
"What do you think will happen when you die or she dies? Look at… what do you think will happen to Cameron when General Connor dies… the devotion and emotional attachment? We have no idea and no one does because it's never happened." Planck strongly stated. He wanted the best for his soldiers and his friend. "It's hard to really understand whatever it was between you two, but there is something… so I acknowledge that." He chose his words carefully.
"You've always tried to integrate into human society and culture. I do one thing I finally want-"
"I've never been this close to a human before like you are. This is different-"
"Oh, don't you give me that." Carter said flatly.
"You know it is different. I've let things slide… that I shouldn't have…" he didn't finish but knew he'd failed as a commander. He saw Carter and Jo as friends more than subordinates. He'd let Jo change her appearance against his admittedly weak orders and hadn't stopped this strange, strange relationship from reaching its inevitable climax. "What you're doing will-"
"We're becoming more human all the time." Carter interrupted, frustrated. "You've integrated with the crew well… hell; Hera sees you as some uncle and just adores you and wants to see your eyes flash."
"We don't know what will happen."
"Will we even be around long enough to find out? They'll live into their mid eight decade, maybe a few years longer." Carter said. He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his neck. "And who cares?"
"The fleet?"
"Since when did you care about what humans thought!"
"Since I changed the mission. Since I realized we need these battlestars to win the war on Earth. Nothing is more important." John vehemently countered. He couldn't let the mission be put in jeopardy. "Nothing can jeopardize that, do you understand?"
A battlestar in orbit would be an outside context problem for Skynet. Pegasus alone could sit in orbit and use kinetic kill vehicles and obliterate Skynet's worldwide infrastructure in less than a week. John had done the calculations. Not even the plasma turrets in Skynet Central could reach orbit.
And Skynet Central would be the first target, immediate target as soon as contact with headquarters was made.
"That's bullshit, John, and you know it." Carter shot off, fiercely disagreeing.
"This isn't just-" John began before Carter interrupted with a strong protest.
"You have a higher clearance than I do, you've seen the research, John, and you've seen the research and read the papers on long-term active Terminators." He paused to let John counter him, but continued when John didn't say anything. Carter knew he didn't need to state the obvious, the evidence was there, they'd seen it. He still felt a need to say it. "Our chips were designed… artificial human brain, mimicry. Remember? The more we're around them the more we adopt their mannerism and their fraking peculiarities… you don't see it, I do. You hang out with the pilots, play Triad with them, you act a lot more like them then you realize. This mimicry and imitation is becoming our personality. It's who we are and… you've seen the evidence, we'll reach some point of stability, eventually."
If Carter had a heart, it'd be racing from adrenaline and his face would be flushed from anger.
"Exactly. And that's why you need to step back, Carter, you need to step back."
"Is that an order, sir?"
Planck shook his head and looked over at his friend. He wasn't supposed to see a friend, he was Carter commander, but nearly thirty years together he and Carter and Jo were friends. The lines of command and friendship had blurred the moment they had been sent back to 2008. And this wasn't going to be resolved with an order. An order would lead to resentment and machines, like Carter had said, were not immune to human emotions.
The worse of the human emotions were painfully easy for Terminators to learn, which often made them cold and callous early in their development. Only after years did they begin to act like people, more than just mindless killing machines.
Orders wouldn't work here. Carter was twice John's age and while one could classify Carter's chip as technically 'less advanced' (barely) he had twenty years of development on John. Carter was, baring Skynet, the oldest AI in Earth history.
"I won't give an order to a friend." He reached out and squeeze Carter's shoulder. "But I can give advice to a friend."
"And if I don't need it or want it?"
"Tough."
Carter snorted as the Raptor banked to search a new grid.
"How can you give me advice anyway?" Carter asked. The tension began to loosen. "You fraked it up with Erica for a while… leaving like that."
Planck grinned sheepishly. "It was a mistake, I know… and that's the point. She also figured it out. Her personality is based on a real person, Carter, but she is an AI." He straightened in his seat and glanced down at the controls and thought. "You still have to understand she may see you as cold, impersonal, callous. And it isn't just her… physical relations are an afterthought. She'll never be able to experience a virtual reality simulation. Physical intercourse is fairly boring."
"I do know that."
Planck looked over at him.
Carter continued. "So what do you want? All of us find different things… hell; even Jo has her jaded cynicism to keep her company. Me? I'm always in the middle and half the time, serving as moderator between her jaded cynicism and your misplaced idealism concerning these people. Like him back there." He jabbed a thumb back at Baltar who was focused on the ECO console and readings.
"I would think you would empathize with him a bit more." Planck treaded on a delicate area of Carter's past. "Did you tell her of your past?" He considered saying that he and she could at least start out honest, throw their skeletons from the closet and go from there.
"Don't think I don't." He paused for a minute and turned his attention out towards the horizon and the bland landscape of shrubs and pale brown dirt. "And yes, I did. Maybe this is just something we both need? Like I said, you've seen the studies and we'll get more human all the time. I have a few decades on you and Jo."
"I understand, Carter, five years ago if you'd have said I'd be in a relationship-" that sounded incredibly strange for Planck to say- "with another AI I'd have dismissed it immediately. Like you said our neural net chips are by design changing-"
"And unfortunately we're started to think more and more like humans." He gestured to his friend. "We're both old for machines. Me, you, Jo, Cameron, Weaver, and John Henry we are the oldest machines… I'm the oldest if you discount Skynet." Carter turned his head and could see Baltar sitting in the back, tapping away at the ECO console. "He's talking to himself again. Is Caprica going to tell us what it is he's talking to?"
Planck increased the sensitivity of his auditory receptors and filtered out the low rumble of Raptor engines. "She says whatever it is won't be an issue. Just watch him." The data he transmitted indicated his wariness with Caprica's assessment.
Baltar had kept his eyes and mind exquisitely focused on the read outs projected onto the ECO consoles as the machines in the cockpit were arguing. He couldn't hear anything and chalked it up to wireless chatter but they were gesturing which he found damn odd that they'd talk in real time.
"You want to know why they're doing that?" the platinum blonde haired woman in surprisingly utilitarian green fatigues asked.
Curiously she had her hair tied back in a pony tail and the curls and unnatural fluff were gone.
Baltar gave her a despairing look and quietly pleaded with her to leave him alone yet his eyes scanned her body and marveled at how his personal protector, guardian, could manage to make military uniforms so sexy. "You want to know, but you have to answer me question, Gaius."
"They'll hear me," he whispered. He was so quiet he couldn't hear himself over the humming of the Raptor engines. Baltar looked sideways at her and then dared a quick look to the cockpit. He saw Carter gesturing for Planck to stop talking. Then they continued arguing. "Okay, please tell me."
"Of course," she grinned and gave Baltar a look. He knew it as the look she gave him when she had a secret. By this point in the game he learned to wait and the Six knew it too. She was the one who gave in. "They're becoming more human. Look at them. You noticed it."
"Is that it?" Baltar whispered. He rolled his eyes at the beautiful Six for just confirming what he already suspected.
The Six gave him a fierce look not to cross her. She stood up and draped her arms around Baltar's shoulders and let her hands swim across his chest, back and forth, massaging his body.
"It's part of God's plan, Gaius. Where there is potential for life-"
"Yes they think they're alive," he said, picking up her hands and removing them from his shoulders. He would rather the touch of the real Caprica Six rather than a figment of his imagination. "Imaginary God's plan-"
He bit his lip to keep from squealing when he felt the Six's fingers digging into his shoulder, exciting the nerves, and forcing his body to twist and contort in futile efforts to escape her inescapable grasp.
"The things I do for you, Gaius," she squeezed harder and smiled at his pain, "should be enough to not be constantly berated by you. I told you, I'm here to protect you, to help you. I see what you refuse to see, hear what you refuse to hear, and believe what your heart tells you but you continually refuse to acknowledge." The Six leaned in closer and nibbled tenderly on his ear before whispering, "I said you are the hand of God."
"Alright," he hissed. His eyes locked with those icy eyes of his self-proclaimed 'guardian' and he didn't have to apologize. She released him.
"You deny God out of pettiness to annoy me, Gaius. You've changed. You said it yourself, you're an instrument of God's will, remember? Has He not given you chance after chance, saved you time after time?" She gave him a look and the flicker of a satisfied grin appeared and disappeared quickly.
Baltar turned back to his console and lazily watched the data stream in. Spikes in the EM bands were nothing abnormal and if anything outside the standard parameters came up, a nice beep-beep-beep and flashing red would snap him back.
"Is it God's will for me to be hated by my own people and be part of this motley band of refugees? That's some lackluster 'saving' if I can be brutally honest, my dear."
"You no longer see yourself a traitor, Gaius," she quickly pointed out. The Six chuckled when he opened his mouth to counter he point. She helped him close the lingering hanging jaw by placing the tips of her finger under the bone and gently pushing upwards until his teeth clicked.
"Without New Caprica you never would have become a man, Gaius. You've been tested. You thought the planet was worthless, you knew you shouldn't have settled. Your guilt, Gaius, you're guilt influences your actions." The Six rubbed her hand from his left to right shoulder and stopped where she'd hurt him. She gently massaged his aching joint before running her hand through his short hair and sitting back down in the bucket seat at the back of the Raptor. "You know you're doing God's work whether your enemies wish to accept it or not. In your charity and selflessness here you will find redemption. You will eventually be remembered as a great man, Gaius."
Baltar snorted, but carefully, and smiled to the apparition. "Maybe I am." He had considered himself to just be lucky but the more he thought of it, the more he saw an uncanny ability for him to skirt damnation at the opportune time.
"You worry too much. I see and hear what you deny. Roslin has no solid ground to stand on to try you." She seemed to read his mind. "You knew your fate was sealed when you agreed to help Commander Adama find Pegasus." She smiled sweetly at him and closed her eyes and rested her head back. "You have a defense and continue to build your impenetrable shield."
"Against the unstoppable sword," he growled in a subdued whisper. "I don't share your optimism."
"Of course not. You refuse what you know in your heart is true." She waved his pessimism away. "Big things will happen soon. Important things. I see, hear, and feel what you do, Gaius. You're a scientist..."
She didn't have to finish with 'figure it out.'
"You've seen what I've seen, heard what I've heard but I just haven't connected the dots, yes?" he asked mockingly. Baltar was absently tapping the metal at the ECO console, lazily leaning on his elbow when his eyes widened and he looked over at the Six.
The Six had been looking past him, staring towards the cockpit and looking out fo the canopy, looking for something. Her head twitched back and she slowly lowered herself until she was eye level with Baltar. Those icy blue eyes seemed to darken with a subdued contempt but a playful little smile appeared. "Understand?" She shot up and grabbed his head before he could respond and pushed it forward. She had to wait for his eyes to adjust to the closer distance. "That's for later," she declared and pointed. "This is for now." She tapped the screen.
The EM readings were flickering, numbers were changing. The beep-beep-beep and flashing red halted the conversation in the front of the Raptor and in its hold. Carter was over Baltar's shoulder, the Six had disappeared.
The disgraced scientist looked up at the machine hovering over him and pointed. "I think we've found something," he managed to obviously point out.
"Maybe you should say something?" the Six advised. She leaned in and kissed him under the ear.
Baltar shivered under her warm breath and his eyes rolled back. He felt like he was betraying Caprica, but how could he betray a real flesh and blood woman with an invisible woman he saw in his head?
Just as quickly as Baltar had felt the waves of pleasure building he felt her lips slowly release and could feel her presence looming over him. He opened his eyes and she was in a blue dress and she pushed him back and brought a long leg over his lap and sat down.
Baltar marveled at how the lights behind her accentuated her figured and outlined her dress in a radiant glow which was marvelous, breathtaking.
"You're doing God's work, Baltar. You are helping to save the remnant of your civilization. You should be proud. Have faith in Him and just as importantly, faith in yourself, Gaius and you will live to see Earth." She leaned in as he closed his eyes and prepared. "I promise you." She whispered.
And then Baltar felt nothing, no one, on his lap. He slowly opened his eyes against his body's will to keep them shut and to stay in that moment of perfection as long as he could.
He closed his eyes and just let his mind wander and pretend he was anywhere but stuck in a tube of metal on this dirty, smelly, humid world.
"You might as well tell them, Gaius," the Six said, knowing he was hesitating. "They'll know if you don't. This is it."
"Um… I think I found something."
||||||||||==Colonial One==||||||||||
President Roslin was grumbling and her eyes had narrowed and were smoking like fire as Billy laid down a new set of reports on her desk. Three years, he knew better than to say anything. Especially with what she was watching.
"-I do extend and continue to give my support to our Earth allies," Billy heard. It was the familiar rough, commanding, and domineering voice of one Admiral Cain. He took note the President had watched this recording four times today. "The actions by Mr. Crowns were unfortunate, narrow-minded, and an isolated incident."
Billy took a seat and pretended to do paperwork at his small desk. He lazily scooped up a pencil from his pencil holder and tried to make it look like he wasn't listening in by scribbling little letters on his note pad.
"We were performing salvage operations and we determined that a baseship transmitted a virus to our computers. As you all remember, Galactica was once hit with such a virus. We have purged it from our systems and installed new firewalls. Now that we know what to look for and how to combat such a Cylon tactic, it can't happen again."
The Special Aide to the President kept his gaze focused on the jumble of words he'd doodled and quietly sighed when he heard the President starting to rap her fingers on her desk. She was, simply put, quite mad.
He heard a feminine voice, dominant and commanding like Cains- it had to be Playa Palacios- as some pointed question about Earth. Billy snorted lightly at the thought of Cain even letting press aboard Pegasus. She was quite possessive of The Beast and unlike Galactica, heavily restricted traffic to the battlestar.
Billy did admit that Cain had stuck to her end of the deal made years ago that her ship was her domain and Galactica Adama's domain. As long as readiness was maintained Cain saw fit to allow Avion and Adama control of their own ships with minimal interference. A stark contrast, Billy remembered, to two years ago.
"When we came to the Colonies we had a selective memory block installed… one we can't remove…" Billy heard the machine, Planck, or Blanks (he wasn't sure which the machine preferred, not that he was overly concerned with that) explain. He didn't pay attention to the rest of the explanation, which was the official statement as to why the machines didn't know where Earth was.
It was a bullfrak excuse he knew. Of course the fleet would go fraking balls up if they were told about the real reasons why the Terminators came or even how. He shook his head at the perpetual inability of the military to just trust the people.
Some other reporters started shouting. He snorted as he picked out their voices. He'd been through so many press conferences he could be half-deaf and he would still know who was who. And the one's Cain had picked were the three Colonial Gang and four others from various ships.
He figured she'd stack the deck. James McManus had been getting the majority of his questions answered promptly. He'd laid out his views quite clearly during Colonial Day, Billy recollected, concerning President Roslin. Mr. McManus had even been lucky- though Billy wasn't exactly sure if he considered it worthwhile- and had gotten the only interview Cain had ever granted, shortly after settling New Caprica.
Now he heard Cain jump in to answer something from McManus. He expected another lie and was not proven wrong. "In addition, like we've explained before, the star patterns in Earth's sky are much different than the star patterns in the skies of the Twelve Colonies or on Kobol. Interstellar phenomena, stars that are too bright and the fact their ship was destroyed when they crashed on the Colonies… listen, we're using what was found in the Tomb of Athena and written in Pythia. We're closer. We also know the Cylons are also looking for Earth and while Earth has suffered a horrible war you've seen their weapons technology displayed on New Caprica. We're closer and with the road signs we've found, we're on the right path."
A little flicker of a wry and devious smile appeared. And, he noted, Admiral Cain had successfully diverted the attention away from her actions on Scylla. He felt a small rush of adrenalin and noticed his fists were balled as one more crime went unpunished.
He had no doubt the Admiral had been silently congratulating herself throughout the earlier press conference on another cover up well done.
"Billy… Billy!"
He blinked twice and dipped his head. "Sorry, Madam President," he offered a smile but she wasn't paying attention, "my apologies," he added unnecessarily. He hesitated but decided it was best to go in. "You've watched that a lot today, Madam President." He didn't have to gesture or nod at the little computer she had plopped in front of her.
She looked at him over the brim of her black rimmed glasses and held it for a long second before chuckling and pushing the tablet computer away from her.
"There are always hard decisions we need to make, Billy." She took a long breath in. "In the chaos fleeing the Colonies we had to destroy a liner, airlock Cylons, and I would have done it again. I would do it right now. Each of those decisions was made to save lives."
Billy sat quietly as he watched her relive the memory of ordering Olympic Carrier to be gunned down by Apollo and Starbuck. Everything logical, rational, told him and he knew her as well, that the thirteen hundred souls on that liner had been killed by Cylon boarding parties. He'd heard through Dee that Apollo and Starbuck had watched, re-watched, and watched again the gun camera footage from their Vipers as they made their passes. The blood they believed on their hands had gnawed at them and for months had threatened to end them.
"I don't doubt that, Madam President," Billy answered with a kindness in his voice Roslin hadn't heard in some time. Not after New Caprica, at least. He could see the President relax when he gave his support. He'd noticed it on New Caprica during the Cylon Occupation. They'd been through enough then. "We all have or had a duty to perform."
Duty. He closed his eyes and drew the words in the black pit which had grown steadily over the last year. 'Duty'. The lettering hovered in front of his eyes and dripped with blood and Billy saw the man he'd shot on New Caprica, and the many whose deaths he'd been responsible for. They were traitors. But they were humans.
He tried to label them as traitors to humanity, separate himself from them. Us and them. 'They' weren't even worthy of being considered human. It didn't help and it never did.
Billy felt the blood on his hands and the cold winds of New Caprica's winter even as he sat in the warm cabin of Colonial One. He knew what it was like to sentence people to death.
He had been meticulous. For hours he sat across from Roslin and Dee and Tory and went through one file folder after another. Their clandestine operations under the noses of the Cylon occupiers and their New Caprica Police cronies had been spaced over months and had seen results.
Billy had had no problem identifying the men and women who wore the NCP uniform. He had known, not acknowledged but known that as soon as they were identified as NCPers it would be a death sentence.
And the irony of whom their assassin had been. She had been ruthless, efficient, and Gods damned proficient at killing humans.
On New Caprica the city had been barren, gray, and impersonal. He once made the mistake of looking at that young and beautiful face and for a moment had forgotten there was a killer under the mask.
There had been no soul in those cold cobalt blue eyes. New Caprica had been cold but in her presence in had been icy. The machine would stroll in and examine the photographs. She would flip through the files like a book, close the folder, and throw it back on the table.
It had been a dirty secret the leaders of the insurgency had kept. A small band of radicals, miscreants, and fanatics, the Sons of Ares, had found out, and certain events occurred which had almost led to a civil war within the insurgency itself.
That thought and memory still stung and felt fresh. An enemy of mechanical occupiers marching through the streets and still they couldn't stop fighting each other.
"Billy, Billy?"
His head swiveled back and he saw a confused frown from the president.
"Sorry, Madam President. I was just remembering something I… had to do later." He ran that through his mind silently one more time and it sounded just as pathetic the second time as the first.
"You've been a bit distracted recently." She shook her head and plucked her glasses from the brim of her nose and then leaned back. "The politics in this fleet are getting more and more insufferable." Roslin rubbed the bridge of her nose delicately. "You want the job, Billy?" She looked up and smiled at her longtime aide who was trying to look distracted while his slowly shook his head. It lightened the mood a little and her smile broadened.
"No, no, not me." He coughed into his shoulder. "But I…" he didn't finish.
Roslin could sense the tension and his disapproval.
"What is it?" She asked.
Billy felt the mental walls rise in a vain effort to stop his thoughts from manifesting as words and sentences. They didn't hold long.
"With all due respect, Madam President, I think this, uh, issue"-if she could Roslin would have speared him with his eyes- "might be getting… too much attention." He felt the blood drain from his face as he quietly danced around the issue.
Commander Adama had pulled him aside yesterday on Galactica and spoken with him. While Billy disliked Cain and saw her as unduly militaristic and confrontational and unrealistically ambitious the case Adama had made had been airtight. The fleet couldn't function if the two women at the top were plotting and scheming to get each other with a quick stab in the back while smiling politely at each other.
Billy inwardly shook his head.
"I'm not excusing what she did." He found his confidence he'd gained on New Caprica. "We could never have done anything and if we could have we should have acted earlier, immediately. With all due respect she has a following and I just don't see anything"-
He almost jumped when the phone rang. Despite the confidence and strength he'd found he'd blocked everything and sectioned everything else to the point he was almost on auto-pilot. After the third ring and President Roslin now staring at him over the brim of her glasses in that displeasing, judgmental way of hers, he finally was able to move his hand to pick up the phone.
"Office of the President… yes… thank you Dee, I'll her know…." He hung up and turned to the President. "They found something on the planet."
||||||||||==Algae Planet==||||||||||
Raptor 731 touched down with a slight jostle which only increased Apollo's grumbling.
Starbuck was taking her time powering down the Raptor and seemed to be moving extra slow. Apollo watched her quietly as she moved slower than an eighty year old woman. It was decidedly deliberate, her exaggerated unhurried movements. The Pegasus XO looked down at his feet and grinned; he had a part to play in her annoyance. Making supply runs to the planet wasn't a duty many of the pilots scrambled and clawed over each other for. It was a duty they'd go along with some grumbles and complaints.
They wouldn't be pilots if they didn't have something to complain about.
"You almost done in there…" -he considered adding in one more final word which would certainly result in her attempting (and her being Starbuck, failing) to withhold sex- "dear?"
The grin grew wider when he saw her had stop mid-button push and then slowly, almost painfully pushed the button and slowly brought her hand back to her lap where it remained for a long few seconds.
In retribution she sat still for a moment, relishing Apollo's discomfort in the back of a cramped Raptor, and then began to move at such a slower pace she even considered it ridiculous. But she knew he deserved it. Somehow he was behind him getting her, the CAG!, placed on these supply runs
Starbuck had somehow managed to find herself being selected for supply runs from the 'randomized' duty roster on a regular basis now. Somehow 'random' duty assignments turned into her getting supply runs for the last three days straight.
Apollo knew she knew he had a hand in it. Showboat and Two Times had been more than willing to have a hand in it to prank the CAG. Plus, he figured, if he had to be on this planet and sleep on an itchy, thin, and patently uncomfortable cot the last two weeks it was only proper for his wife to share his wonderful experience of always being sweaty, grimy, and covered in the foul-smelling green blue algae. Which did- he knew all too well- get everywhere.
"Come on, let's go," he grumbled, banding on the hatch hurriedly. He could pull the emergency release, but that would be logged in the flight computer, and that would just be paperwork once he got back to Pegasus.
Then he heard a knock on the hatch, some footsteps on the metal wing, and then saw Planck's head in front of the canopy and him gesturing for them to hurry up.
"Hey, it's his fault, Blanks, that we're moving slow!" Starbuck yelled at the machine through the canopy. "Men are so impatient." She muttered as she took out her post-flight checklist, scanned it quickly, and popped it back into her thigh pocket.
She secured her helmet in the co-pilot's seat and twisted her pistol belt until the buckle was midline. It had a tendency to shift during flight, which was something that had bothered her going on seven, eight years now. Pulling out the band tying her hair into a pony tail she let her hair sit naturally on her shoulders.
"Well, there's a sight," Apollo complimented.
"Thank you."
"Oh, what?" He looked around the cabin to feign confusion. "I meant the mountain behind us."
Starbuck rolled her eyes.
"And you…" she said menacingly to Apollo wagging her finger. She reached over and tapped the hatch release, which hissed and then slowly groaned to an open. "You need to watch it, bub-"
She leaned over to kiss him, but at the last possible second he turned so she kissed his cheek. She'd been going in for a full on, passionate kiss, and instead reeled back and her lips puckered like she'd tasted something sour and bitter.
"Ah, yuck. There's algae all over your face… sick." She pawed at her tongue with her glove to wipe the taste off and instead got the taste of Raptor oil with a hint of tyllium fuel. "Ew, even worse."
"You should see your face!" Apollo managed to squeaked out in between deep inhalations to laugh. His ribs were hurting from laughing so hard- "Ow!" he yelped when Starbuck gave him a good jam in the side with her elbow. "Alright, alright, truce…" he waved his arms defensively and submitted to her punishment.
Starbuck stepped past and let her hand brush up against Apollo but still had her back to the hatch.
"You really are evil."
"Maybe… you'll-"
"Wow, can you two hurry?"
Starbuck turned around and Apollo peeked over her shoulder.
"How long have you been-"
"-standing here?" Planck finished, crossing his arms. "Long enough. You should see what we found."
Apollo sighed and put his hands on Starbuck's shoulders to move past her. He hopped onto the Raptor's wing, looked down to make sure there wasn't anything under him, and then jumped down beside Planck. A bit of the white dust was kicked up and he coughed.
"I told you not to go in before we got here." He said calmly. He looked behind his shoulder over the Raptor and studied the mountain.
It was nearly a hundred kilometers north of the primary base site and built onto a small mountain. Heavy cliffs were on the north face and on the south a deed, wide, winding valley ran for half a dozen kilometers.
The Raptor had landed on the eastern side where the ground was flatter.
Apollo looked up and saw a black object in the sky and used his hands to shield his eyes.
"Another Raptor." John explained. Apollo grunted his acknowledgment.
"I contacted Admiral Cain," Apollo began again, now brushing the dirt off from his fatigues and tank top, "and she's getting a few science teams ready from the fleet. I guess we'll set up a base camp…" he looked around, "maybe over there near the north east section?" He pointed and stepped towards the rear of the Raptor. "Yeah, that looks good. Cover from the rocks."
"I think he's more interested in showing you his new toy, Apollo," Starbuck called from inside the Raptor.
"Alright… you coming, Starbuck?"
"We should go," John stated. Apollo just motioned for him to hold on. "Carter and Baltar are already in there."
John and Carter had both felt the static cloud their vision as they had neared what they had already labeled a temple. The similarities to the one found in Athens were evident.
The machine stood off to the side as Starbuck and Apollo entered. Each immediately had a reflexive reaction to look up and almost gasp at the majesty and size of the cavern.
"Gods… what do you know so far?" Apollo asked, hands on hips as he surveyed the entire chamber. He pointed at the central column and the five surrounding pentagonal pillars. "What are those?" he asked, walking towards them.
He moved cautiously towards the center of the chamber. Apollo could just barely hear the faint shuffled of two others, Carter and Baltar, behind the massive pillar, discussing, or arguing, about its significance.
"This really is amazing," Starbuck whispered, turning around to see the full view of the cavern. She saw John looking towards the ground. "Something the matter?" She heard Apollo shuffle around.
"We found something like this on Earth, another chamber. It did something to us, um, the best way to describe it"-he saw concern on Starbuck's face and curiosity on Apollo's- "is sort of like a static or snow like you would see on a television."
They were half way between the door to the chamber and the center of the room.
"And is this affecting you now?" Apollo asked warily. He flexed his jaw. "What will that do?" He continued without waiting for John to answer.
John looked at Starbuck and then Apollo. "Yes." He walked past the two pilots. "But we'll be fine."
It came and went, the 'static'. The sensation wasn't pain, not in the absolute strict definition of the word. Instead, it felt more like something off-putting, like one would feel if they believed they were being watched. It was strange for the machines, not being able to quantify what they were feeling, but hardly debilitating.
"This is very interesting," Baltar yelled over. He was smack in the middle of the column, in front of the smallest pentagonal column. It stood a little above average waist height. Baltar ran his hands over the stone lettering on the column. "This is ancient, very ancient, Kobolian." He shook his head. "It was obscure even on Kobol. The glyphs. I think this confirms it then." He looked expectantly over at John and Carter.
Baltar reached out and touched the glyphs, his lips moving quickly as he tried to decipher them. "Those three signify Jupiter… hm, they're using the Tauron pantheon. Interesting." He clicked his tongue. "We think that Tauron might have been the first or second colony established… Tauron and Caprica could never quite resolve it, too little evidence either way."
"So you can confirm this is from the Thirteenth then." Carter said to Baltar. The scientist nodded, then shrugged, then looked worryingly at the machine that was staring at him, and then nodded earnestly. Carter just stood while the scientist kept changing his mind. "We'll assume it is."
Starbuck had walked up to stand beside John, with Apollo next to her. "So you were right then," she said with a smirk and a gentle backhand slap to the machine bicep. "See, I think"- Baltar moved away from the central column, towards the left- "…what the frak." Kara whispered.
She felt light, weightless, like she was swimming.
Her feet moved her forward and what she heard as a whisper, her husband was raising his voice, asking her what she was doing. She waved him back as she took a step onto the platform.
In the center of the writing on the column was a magnificent red, orange, blue, and black symbol. A swirling mandala, an eye within an eye within a storm. Her hand slowly extended and her fingers glided slowly, from top to bottom. Her lips quivered with silent movement- prayers- as her eyes moved with a strange ferocity over the image.
"Kara… Kara," Apollo called her name, concerned. Carter and Baltar were attracted by his commotion and John looked once at Apollo, his machine eyes devoid of answers, and Apollo stepped up. "Kara, what are you-"
He reached out and gently touched her arm. She had unzipped her flight suit and had tied the long sleeves around her waist. His finger slid off her sweaty arm as she staggered back and brushed past him. Starbuck began to fall back, with both John and Apollo reaching out to catch her.
Behind her was the central pentagonal column. Small, as dark as obsidian, and with sharp, pointed corners.
Her hands reached back and she fell, slicing a line down her forearm. She yelped as she seemed to break from her trance. The blood spilled onto the black as night face of the column. Apollo grabbed her before she fell to the ground.
"Kara, what the frak was that?" he asked forcefully though gently. His eyes glistened as his pupils dilated from concern and fear. He knelt down and helped her into a kneel.
"Yeah… Lee… I'm okay. I, my mother, she had me draw that once… I…" he hand reached out and her pointer finger extended, pointing at the mandala. "I-"
A crack of thunder sounded. The door to the cavern slid shut, it smashed into its frame and hissed and squealed as the seal became airtight.
The lights dimmed. Apollo had a pistol out.
The two pilots and Baltar were huddled into a defensive circle by the machines, already wary for attack. Memories of the T-800 ambush flooded their neural nets, as impossible as that would be here, thousands of light years from Earth, they took no chance. Their defensive protocols were automatic, reflexive.
Extended on the floor from the central platform with the six pillars was a stoned and marbled walk way, a slight off-red color. It extended, like the tip of a spoon, into a circle. The same mandala on the colossal central column was on the floor.
The red began to glow like a magnificent ruby in the sunlight. The orange was as fierce as the sun. The blue a deep sapphire. Each color reached up towards the ceiling and five sets of eyes followed. The white rods at the tip of the central column hummed and a white light exploded outwards and showered down like rain.
The lights converged, coalesced, into a globe, two meters above the ground.
The three Colonials watched as everything surrounding them turned black. To the machines, the static and snow increased, except for the center of their vision. All five saw the mandala on the floor ignite, the boom of thunder that sounded throughout the chamber was enough to shatter eardrums.
Apollo, Starbuck, and Baltar all winced, their mouth agape in silent agony. As deafness took hold of them the three felt a serene calm as the globe took shape. All five were on their knees.
For the most brief of second they saw a globe of light and hope. Each recognized it. Earth.
Gunnery Sergeant Chris Purcell was anxious. He was a twelve year veteran of the Colonial Marines and an experienced one at that. On the Colonies he had fought against insurgents on Sagittaron and against pirates in two separate campaigns.
He had been in half a dozen platoon to company-sized engagements before the holocaust and Exodus.
On New Caprica he had partnered with Soto in their execution of New Caprica Police and in ambushes of Cylon patrols. New Caprica and the assault on the Cylon derelict at the Lion's Head Nebula had been his most recent action. He didn't count Gina's rampage on Pegasus. He wasn't ignoring her victims, but he couldn't shake the guilt that he'd been responsible for her crimes as a complacent crewmember who had stood by.
He shook his head, opened his eyes wide, and blinked once, twice, and then flexed his jaw. He shrugged his shoulders to adjust his combat vest and ran his hands over his sub-machine gun one last time. He tapped his vest to double check where his magazines were and he visually spotted two flash grenades and one frag grenade sitting quietly in side pockets.
Purcell nodded to a Marine opposite him, Corporal Santos. He'd worked with Santos before. The corporal was a Galactica Marine but had been part of the landing party that had accompanied Athena and Carter and brought them their shiny new weapons to smash Centurion toasters into tiny little chunks of scrap metal.
He was a good Marine. Disciplined and well-rounded in his skill set.
The Gunny nodded to himself as he received a signal from the pilot. They were thirty seconds out from the site. He stood up and grabbed a handrail and activated his throat mike. A storm had appeared and it was raining, and the drops were pounding off the hull like boulders.
"Alright. Major Adama missed his check thirty minutes ago. We've tried establishing contact, nothing. Galactica's telescopes tell us the Raptors are parked outside where they believe there's a temple or whatever the machines found." He shrugged. "The radiological alarms also went balls to the walls about thirty-two minutes ago. There was also some weird ass thermal reading readings coming from the temple thing."
"Nukes, sir?" one of the Marines in the back of the Raptor asked over the roar.
Purcell shook his head and then wiped his mouth to clear off the disgusting taste of algae and then licked dry, cracked lips. "I don't think so…" he saw the 'what the frak' looks and head bobs of confusion. "The radiological alarms said something radiological… could be a power plant going active. I don't know. But we lost contact. We're going in hot. Fire team Alpha will go in first covered by Bravo and Charlie. Do this right."
"Cylons?"
The veteran beat down a reflex to roll his eyes. Most of the kids here- and he did see them not really as kids, but young men- were about six to ten years younger. But they still saw him as some 'wise old man' archetype for the ship's Marines.
"Don't know, Cal," he shot back to a lance corporal who would be leading Bravo. "Raptor Two will have Delta and Echo secure the Raptors and be our reserve."
The Gunny tensed his legs as he felt the Raptor go from a nearly three hundred kilometer per hour speed to a hover in a split second. As usual he felt his guts swish about inside his torso and the familiar feeling of a need to puke, which he repressed skillfully, as the Raptor came down a bit quick for a combat landing.
He popped out a small PDA from his pocket.
Over his shoulder and through the canopy he saw Raptor 2 had already landed slightly up the slope and its Marines were filing out and already securing the two Raptors; one the machines had piloted and one Apollo and Starbuck had piloted.
He checked the PDA. A third Raptor was on over flight beaming recon video and had a direct feed into his wireless headset for intelligence, just in case. The feeling of rabid paranoia was gripping, but there were procedures and a radiological alarm and Major Adama being incognito were enough to send the warning and demand action.
The Raptor jostled as it hit the sandy ground and the hatch seals twisted, hissed, and a stream of hot and incredibly humid air raced into the cabin. The rain still came down and bit at the Marines as they jumped from the wing to the ground, the sand and dirt turning into a lightly colored mud.
They advanced quickly and methodically, one fire team and then another. Purcell kept a split eye on his PDA and one ear open for any warnings from the Raptor in over watch above.
The signal that the Raptors were secured came in over Purcell's wireless and he clicked his throat mike twice to confirm. His team continued moving up, leapfrogging quickly but vigilantly.
They reached the mouth to what had been described as the entrance by John to Adama before the Pegasus XO and the CAG had taken a Raptor out here to investigate first. He mentally shook his head. They should have taken a squad with them for security but he then silently snorted at remembered they probably had the equivalent of a company of Marines with them in the two machines.
Corporal Santos signaled back. Footprints. Bingo. Purcell took out the a thermal and motion scanner, but nothing could penetrate the rocks. He signaled for Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie to move up.
Major Adama groaned and rubbed his forehead gingerly. He gasped and his eyes shot opened as he felt the metal of his pistol grip in his hand. "What the frak?" he whispered and looked around viciously to remember why he had his pistol clutched in his hand. "Oh Gods, Kara!" He yelled when his eyes caught sight of her, lying on her side, back to him. He pushed himself over and shook her. "Kara!"
"Oh Gods, Lee, not so loud," she groaned, rolling herself onto her back and looking up into his eyes. She heard his gun slide back into its holster and felt his arms wrap around her and her around him. She kissed him until the magic vanished when Gaius Fraking Baltar reminded them of his presence.
"Oh, what the frak was that." The scientist muttered. He was sprawled on the floor, face down. His hands were stretched in front of him as he searched for something and brushed against Starbucks pant leg. She kicked his hand away. "What?" He pushed himself up and massages both sides of his temples furiously. "Ahhh."
"Did you three see Earth?" The three Colonials heard.
John and Carter were sitting up and in a flash and silent hustle stood.
"Are you three okay?" John asked, stepping over and kneeling in front of Starbuck and Apollo. He kept his hands to himself and instead opted for a deep visual scan. Apollo and Starbuck were more preoccupied with each other and didn't notice the machine weirdly staring at the two of them. Satisfied there was nothing wrong with them, John stood up and moved over to Baltar.
"I got him," Carter informed Planck. His CO curtly nodded. "That was Earth."
"That was Earth?" Apollo asked. "How in the name of Tartarus does this place have an image of Earth?" He coughed. He stood up and helped Starbuck up. "This makes no sense." He said. He brushed himself off and winced when he saw the gash in Starbuck's arm. His fingers pressed gently on the wound and Starbuck playfully shoved him and tugged back at her arm. "You'll need to rub some disinfectant in that."
Starbuck shot him one of her grins. "Oh thanks, Lee." She rolled her eyes and giggled. "Okay," she turned her attention to the two (or three) she assumed would know the answer. "What the frak-"
They heard shuffling as the Marines rushed in. Major Adama spun and positioned himself in front of Starbuck, his hand already on his pistol. Starbuck's fingers graced hers until she saw the black armored, algae covered Marines.
They fanned out from the door, which had re-opened, and had their rifles up as they scanned the chamber. Four Marines approached cautiously and Apollo recognized their commanding NCO.
"Gunny," Apollo said, pulling his hand off his grip and relaxing himself. He felt his heart beat slowing after it had almost leapt from his chest and pounded its way out. "We're alright."
"Sir, we had no contact and a radiological alarm."
Apollo cocked his head, though it felt more like a jerk. "No contact? Wait… how long… radiological?"
"You missed your scheduled check in over thirty minutes ago and we detected a radiological signature. We thought…" Purcell hummed to himself and snorted. "Well, we thought maybe the Cylons had snuck down here or something." He relaxed fully and waved for his team to stand down and called to the team on the Raptors to stand down. "I honestly don't know, sir." He tapped the side of his tight and a few spare pistol mags clicked together. "I guess it's better to over react?"
Adama sighed with a slight underlying 'um' sound then furrowed his brow and nodded. "John," he turned around. "What the frak happened?"