Battlestar Galactica Fan Fiction Story

BSG 41

I found a spare flight suit in the Pilot's locker room. After acquiring a helmet, gloves, boots and metal pressure collars, I made my way to the cargo hold. The elevators were offline, so I climbed down ladders and went through causeways. After eight minutes of crawling through the massive ship, I approached the inner pressure hatch to Cargo Hold One. Outside the hatch, waiting for me, was Captain Lindsey Cramer. She was in her flight suit and was waiting for me. She saluted as I walked up to her. I smiled and returned the salute. "I take it Marks talked you into coming with me?"

"He didn't have to talk me into it, sir."

I turned the lock on the hatch and swung the door open. "Don't you have a squadron to run?"

"Not much of anything to run when all my Raptors are gone."

"You remember how to fly a Viper?"

She walked through the doors into the hold. "Yes." She turned to look at me as she put on her gloves and sealed them with the collars, "Do you?"

I laughed under my breath and followed. The six Vipers were sitting in a row, pointed at the large cargo door on the port side of the Craton. As I walked into the massive hold, I saw a deck gang fueling the Vipers, checking them for problems, and loading them with ammunition and missiles. Inside one of the Vipers, I saw David Slaton. As I walked up to him, I heard Cramer remark, "With the squadron gone, the knuckledraggers have nothing to work on."

When I approached the Viper, Chief Slaton had climbed out and was saluting. I saw a bandage around his head. I returned the salute. "How you feeling Chief?" I asked.

He placed a hand on his temple. "That bitch got me good."

"You helping out the Deckhands?" asked Cramer.

"No ma'am," he said holding up a tablet computer with a schematic. "I was patching the software on the mark eights." He walked around Cramer, and stood next to me. He showed me the tablet. "The mark eights are too advanced to work with the old CNP, and you and I are going to need months to study the new one to find out which back doors the Cylon's came through, so trying to patch it is too risky. So I did my best to modify the old one to work with the Viper."

Lindsey walked next to me to see what I was looking at. I knew she wouldn't understand the scrolling numbers across the tablet. "Can't we localize the avionic packages?" she asked.

David and I both looked at Cramer at the same time. The fluid movement of both our heads turning in her direction shocked her a bit. "No ma'am. The Vipers are too reliant on the computer's being networked together. I've only had twenty minutes to work on this, so no promises." David looked at me. "I uploaded the source code of the old CNP to a hard drive in your Viper sir, so if you encounter any problems you can be able to rewrite what you need to fix it."

"Thanks Chief," I shook his hand. Then Cramer shook his hand. He wished us luck and walked off. I did a quick visual check then we both climbed up the ladders on either side of the two Vipers. Once in the cockpit, a young petty officer climbed up the ladder and handed me a checklist. I strapped it to my knee board. Then he handed me a clip board. It was the Vipers Maintenance Release Report. I signed the bottom and handed it back. Then the petty officer helped me don my helmet and connect my flight suit to the ejection seat. I gave a thumbs up, and slid the canopy back and locked it. I ran through my preflight checklist: Power On check was good. I looked outside the Viper and saw the deck gang had removed the fuel lines, and had pulled back all their equipment.

The Deck Chief gave us both a thumbs up, which we returned, then he saluted, which we both returned. Then he ran out of the room with his gang, and sealed the hatch. The next thing I knew, the massive cargo doors were retracting into the deck and ceiling. I clicked on my radio, "Flash, this is Roller, inter plane radio check. How do you hear?"

"Lima Charlie. How me?" responded Lindsey.

"Loud and clear." I switched to exterior radio. "Craton, this is Viper Flight. Request permission to launch."

I heard James over the radio, "Viper Flight, you are clear, good luck Flash and Roller."

I ran through my Engine On checklist. The three thrusters fired to life. "Alright Flash, the mark eight may look like a mark seven, but there are a few differences I will brief on the way to the Anchorage. Right now, just know they have quicker input to response times by about .04. And the thrusters are 10% more efficient and provide over 20% more power at full throttle."

"Roger that Roller."

I hit the vertical RCS and the Viper floated up in the cargo hold. I looked over and Flash had done the same. It was easy to do, so I assumed the deck gang lowered the gravity plating. I flipped the gear handle and watched all three skid indicator lights go from steady green, to flashing red, to off. I used the RCS to thrust out of the hold (I didn't want to blow away or ignite any fires with my main engines). Once out of the hold, I did a quick flight around the Craton to survey the damage. It was bad. "Lets go!" I punched it and took off towards the planet with Lindsey off my wing tip.

"Viper Flight, Craton requests Roller Actual," I heard James say in my helmet.

I clicked my comm. Button, "This is Roller Actual, go ahead."

I heard Marks, "Hurry up Roller, and make it back."

"I promise I wont stay longer than I have to," I responded. I turned my head and looked at the ship. Then I looked forward towards the eye of the storm. Then I heard DRADIS lose Craton's IFF, she had jumped out. I made certain to start the timer on my watch to countdown from five hours. We entered the storm.

"So what's so special about these Vipers?" asked Lindsey.

"They feature the CMS just like the Craton, but it drowns out our DRADIS. They are equip to work with Virtual Environment helmets, giving the pilot a full degree of visual acuity. But it's most advanced feature is a limited jump drive."

"What!" I heard her say in shock. "How can you fit a FTL inside craft this small?"

"Well, these babies are prototypes. Technically, they are not even Vipers. R&D was going to call them Cobras. These are Cobra mark threes. But the name was never finalized by the selection committee. So on paper, they are Viper mark eights."

"Why mark three?" She asked as we took another turn in the storm.

The stars had vanished and we relied on the computer to navigate for us. "The mark one was too heavy to maneuver, so they redesigned it. The mark two looked kind of like it does now, but the FTL had discharge problems. The test birds exploded during jumps. So for the mark threes, they took the Viper mark seven body, threw in the Cobra mark one engines, and added an FTL from a Raptor; modified to make it smaller. The result was this, the Cobra."

"Wait, wait, you said they blew up when jumped?"

I smiled at her question. "Yeah, the accident board concluded it was from the newly designed FTL. But these birds have a drive modeled after the Raptor FTL's. The smaller FTL has a flaw. Simulation's show it burns itself out after the first jump. So, even though they haven't been tested, we should be fine (I hope)."

"Frak. Now you tell me," she said sarcastically. We took another turn. We were at thirty percent thrust due to the turns in the atmosphere. I remember thinking how neat it was that the Anchorage was inside a massive storm in a gas giant. What was even more interesting, was the storm's eye created a calm passageway all the way down to the iron core at the center of the planet. "In all my years flying, I have never seen anything like this."

"I know what you mean," I added. The lightning had a way of lighting up the green gas surrounding the passageway. We kept cruising until we had the Anchorage in site. The massive station was many times larger than a Battlestar. It looked like someone stacked several bicycle wheels on top of one another. I referenced the data in the computer. The station had multiple docking rings, bays, and hatches. I chose the open landing bay at the tip of the spire. I knew the old communication's array was located in the spire, and I wanted to check the station's logs. Additionally, I figured if someone were to come looking for us (like the Cylons) they would think we would be docked in the storage rings. "There it is. Follow me in." I heard her acknowledge with two clicks. We flew quickly to the spire. I checked my watch. Over thirty minutes had gone by.

We landed in the docking bay the same way we took off from the Craton, slow and controlled using RCS. Once our skids were down, I shut down the mains, but left the power on. The gravity plating on the deck was low, so we took it easy getting out of our Vipers (the bay was open to space, so we didn't want to float off). We did an EVA from our Vipers to the pressure hatch. I knew the flight suit was capable of storing ninety minutes of oxygen without a tank, but I couldn't help but continue to check the O2 readout on my sleeve.

The hatch was unpressurized and, once unlocked, swung open easily. Inside the airlock was an old three lever system. We shut the outside hatch and sealed it with the first lever. Then we pressurized the airlock with the second lever. Once pressurized, a pressure sensor released the third lever, allowing us to pull it, which unlocked the inner hatch. We swung the inner hatch door open and checked the outside air with our atmosphere detector. The stem stayed green. I took off my helmet, collars, and gloves and left them next to the hatch. Cramer did the same.

I finally grabbed my flashlight and began to walk down the dark dengy corridor. The air was stale and smelled of rust. There was no light in the corridor, except from the two flashlights we held. The data disk on the Anchorage had only a basic overview of the stations features, inventory lists and approach and docking procedures. It had nothing on actual maps, and this place was massive. You could hear drips, and the echoes of metal scraping metal miles away. As we walked, a sudden shudder would run down the spire and we felt it in our feet.

We made our way slowly. The corridor zigged and zagged. We quickly realized we would become disoriented so Cramer began cracking and dropping chemical light sticks to mark our way. I checked my watch. We had been in the station for forty five minutes. I did quick math in my head. That gave us just over three and a half hours to get back to the Craton. I guessed we could make it to the Vipers in ten minutes at a run, then five minutes for power up, and another thirty minutes to get clear of the EM field. After subtracting, I had to leave in. . . three hours max! Suddenly the five hour mark wasn't that far away. We kept walking around the dark labyrinth. We were getting no where, and I was feeling stupid again. What am I doing here? I stopped and prayed to the Gods. I saw Lindsey look at me funny.

-

We walked into the ready room. The whole training squadron was in there waiting for us. We felt embarrassed and overdressed wearing our Dress Grays. Our Squadron Commander was there waiting for us, Major Matt Tinker. He was a big black man that was more teddy bear than man. He began clapping when we walked in. He made us stand at Parade Rest in front of everyone. The class followed in clapping. Our Instructors from Battle Sim One were also there clapping. I didn't know how to interpret it. I looked over to Kara, she had the same look of shock and confusion. "Sir?"

Major Tinker had a smile and began to laugh as he talked. "The Commander and XO have already given you a scolding, so I'm sure mine would be lost on both of you." The clapping died down and was replaced by smiling faces. Tinker walked up to Kara. "So instead I'll just make fun of you." Everyone laughed. "Lt. Thrace. You saved the life of your wingman, twice. You remote ejected him, then you performed mouth to mouth on him, after he had suffocated, on his PUKE!" Everyone 'ewwed' in unison. Tinker kept his smiling grin. "Yeah you all destroyed two Vipers, but hey, you managed to take out one Instructor." Everyone laughed.

This was uncomfortable, but it was better than being yelled at. One of our Instructors yelled, "One bird with but two stones!" Everyone laughed at the change in phrase.

Tinker continued. "Why you were both up there," he looked up referencing the CIC, "we have been listening to your flight recorders. And, we have finally come up with a suitable set of names for our last two classmates." Everyone was smiling. We had been without call signs for months. We just hadn't done anything to stand out enough to get one. Well, that is until now. "Kara, you shall be known as," Tinker looked back to the class sitting in the chairs. The class began to drum their hands on the folding desks, mocking a drum roll. "Starbuck!" Laughter. I laughed too.

I heard Kara, "Oh my gods. You're fraking me?"

"Nope!" said Tinker laughing. "What are you smiling at Cody?" My smiling faded, and Kara's returned. "We entertained so many for you Ryan. Puker. Upchuck. Chunks. Throwsupalot." Laughter. My face was red. "Deadthrowup. I think Ensign Richie said Sirpukesinmyhelmetanddies was a good one, but I think it was too long. Instead, we will go with Roller." The laughter died a bit. Kara and I were wondering why 'Roller.' Tinker beat us to it. "Lt. Cody, you are the first student to impress his instructor by performing stunt maneuvers on your first Battle Sim. You did it three times."

"Three?" I asked.

"Examing the data recorder, you made inputs to roll up, over, and away from Lt. Thrace saving her life, by throwing you into an unrecoverable roll. It was enough to impress the Commander to keeping you both. So you are forever known as, Roller." Tinker turned to the class, who all stood. "Viper Class Bravo One Seven, I give you your final pilots: Starbuck and Roller!" Everyone laughed and cheered, and began pouring beer.

-

After we left the party in the ready room, we finally got some time together to go over the After Action Report and the Safety Report. I was reading the control inputs from Kara's Viper and saw she remote ejected me. I looked up to her sitting across the table smoking a cigar. "Thanks for that Kara."

She looked over to me. I could see in her eyes something was wrong. "I didn't pull the eject."

I didn't register that comment right away. I looked down at the report and back up to her. "Kara, our Foxtrot Charlie automation was off, but the connection was linked. When we initiated that last roll, I engaged it again. So you saved me by ejecting your self. Don't feel guilty you didn't know it wouldn't do it."

She blew out smoke and gulped down her beer. "No, you're not understanding!" She stood and walked over, and sat right next to me. She grabbed the report and threw it across the room. "I was so embarrassed by me fraking up, I didn't want to eject. I thought you were already dead. So I was going to just let my Viper plow into an asteroid. Then I changed my mind. By then the g-forces were pinning my hands to the other side of the craft. I prayed. For the first time since I was a little girl, I prayed for the Gods to save me."

I stared deep into her eyes which were no longer tearing. They were full of something else. "What are you saying Starbuck?"

"I didn't pull the eject Ryan."

"You're saying God pulled the eject?" I asked weirded out.

She got up, placed her cigar in her mouth, and grabed her empty beer mug. She began to leave the room. "I don't know what pulled the eject Cody. Alls I know, is that something did. Something, or someone did." She paused in thought. I just stared at her. She exhaled her smoke. "I think a higher power wanted you alive." She turned and winked at me before leaving the room. I stayed sitting there and went over the reports. I left the room hours later to listen to the flight recorders and check the data recorders myself. After investigating the whole night, I couldn't explain an accidental eject. That night, when I got into my bunk, that was the first night I actually prayed, and meant it.

-

I prayed. As I leaned on the wall, I got a jab in my back. Turning, I moved my hands over the spot that jabbed me. I felt a lever. I flipped it, and the lights came on. We were in a hallway that wasn't as wide, as it was long! The hallway would turn a little left or right, but while we thought we were in a maze, it was just our minds playing tricks on us in the darkness. And, right there across from me, was an old map hanging on the wall. The map took most of the wall panel. It was a stretch layout of the station, sideways.

We were in a maintenance shaft that ran the length of the spire. From the look of the shaft, it seemed like a sewer. Rust had lined the walls. Piping, electric lines, and rubber hoses were hanging overhead, bolted to the walls, and running under the metal floor grates. Water drips were coming out of some pipes, while steam hissed out of others. Most of the lights were busted, others flickered, and a few stayed lit. Staircases rose out of the shaft every few hundred yards. This station was old.

Looking back at the map. I saw we were further than I expected to be. We were halfway up the shaft. We had passed the communication's room by a mile, It was right next to the landing bay. I sighed. "Frak."

Lindsey asked what I was frustrated at. "Well, since we are halfway there, you want to check the storage?"

I looked at my watch then at her. "Let's do it, but first. . ." I looked at the map and found a route to the elevator. We went up the next staircase, took another winding corridor, and arrived at the old elevator. I hit the arrow button on the panel. Because, in the spire of the station, the gravity plating was vertical, the buttons on the elevator pointed left and right instead of up and down.

We arrived in the central hub of the spinning storage holds. The metal grate doors of the elevator slid up after pulling, and we walked out. The power was on up here. That made since because the Galactica had just been here. It took an hour to check all three holds. We then decided to check the Large Ordinance Room (it was a central vault that held nukes). We made our way through the spoke crossway's from the top storage hold, to the spire. As we were about to open the hatch to walk into the main corridor outside the Large Ordinance Room, we heard voices. They were mere mumbles when we approached the hatch. I looked at Cramer. She looked back. She had heard it too.

"By your command," we heard the voice say. The voice sounded remarkably like. . . Shelly Godfrey.