Battlestar Galactica Fan Fiction Story
BSG 41
He ran around the room as we followed him with our weapons. Everyone in the CIC dropped to the ground as the Marines and I opened fire. He was quick. He ran ahead of our aiming and jumped into the mass of Marines guarding the glass door entry. Everything after that was a blur. I saw two Marines drop to the ground with their arms snapped behind them. I saw another Marine scream in pain as his knee was forced to bend the opposite direction (effectively breaking his kneecap). I watched as the Cylon raised the rifle he took from one of the Marines and pointed at me. I watched and heard the remaining Marines shoot him dead. I fell to the floor on my back. I tasted blood in my mouth. I looked down and saw I was shot in the chest.
Everything after that was blur. Mike and Lindsey were by my side as I coughed up blood. I just remember saying one thing before I passed out, "Recalculate a new jump, and get us out of here. NOW!"
-
I was in a room staring at the ceiling. The ceiling was gone. In its place was a field of stars. I recognized the closest star and the planets surrounding it. It was my system. I saw Picon, the eighth planet from the sun. I saw Caprica, the middle planet in the system. Caprica was beautiful. It sat right in the middle of the Habitable Zone. I saw Virgon, on the outer edge of the zone; just close enough to the sun to support life. I was in a room at Virgon Station L5 (Lagrangian point five moved in Virgon's orbit around the Sun, at the same speed and direction as Virgon, without ever surpassing it or falling out of orbit). I was in the science room of the station.
The room was white washed and glowing. The table I was standing at had a lighted map of the system on it. I had been here many times, transitioning between my base on Virgon. Standing across from the table was Commander Ronda Sheraton. She looked the same as I last saw her, bruised and coughing up blood. I was frightened as I realized she was dead. She looked right at me, with her dead eyes, and said, as she choked up blood, "find water bay."
Next to her, at the end of the lighted table, was a man I have only ever met once in my life during a tour. Standing there was Commander William Adama. He was old, and clean cut. He wore glasses and held his hands in front of him. He looked right at me and said, "finwat terish bason." Right then they both pointed to a point on the map. When I looked down at the map to see where they were pointing, I woke up.
-
"Commander?" I heard Marks say silently. I heard a steady beep, beep, beep from the medical equipment monitoring my heart. I heard people talking in the background. I felt a little nauseated. I slowly opened my eyes to find that the light hurt. It took a few moments, but I finally focused on the people around me. I saw Marks and Colonel Tinker from the Virgil. I also saw a black long haired woman I had never seen before. She wore a Colonial Fleet uniform with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on her collar. "Commander Cody, how do you feel?"
It was hard to breath. My lung hurt. My arm hurt. But I felt okay. "SITREP," I ordered. A nurse came over and helped me sit up.
"Sir, you know Matt Tinker," Marks said. Matt nodded hello. He was still as big and black as a bear, but held a polite soft presence. "This is Colonel Daugherty, skipper of the Colonial Freighter Theban." She nodded hello. Marks said Colonel, which made me look at her rank again. She was a Lt. Colonel. Then I remembered military protocol allowed Lt. Colonels to be called just: Colonels. "After you passed out, I gave David Slaton a field commission as a Lieutenant and he calculated our new jump. It took him about thirty minutes and just as we distributed the coordinates the Cylons jumped in. We managed to get out without a scratch."
I choked a bit. "How long. . .have I been out?"
"About a day and a half," responded Marks. "You were shot in the left lung. The surgery was a success, for your arm and your lung. Doc says you will be up and ready by tomorrow. All the repairs have been finished and the Craton is at 90%. Slaton has built an impressive network for our C3. He is a smart kid."
"The Virgil?" I asked.
Tinker stepped forward, "We are still repairing our main engines. When we jumped into orbit of Ragnar, a Cylon had sabotaged our drives by detonating a G-4 explosive near our main fuel lines. We were expecting to find the Galactica, but instead we found you. Thank the Gods."
"Commander Gudmundson?" I asked.
Matt looked down and shook his head. I took it as a bad sign. "The Cylon on board shot him three times in the chest, and killed eight other of my men before we took him out. Over all, we are attributing 327 deaths to that frakker." When he told me that, I sighed. I wanted Gudmundson to be alive, because I didn't want this responsibility.
Marks continued on the same note, "through what we know and what Captain Cramer has been able to tell us, we have searched the fleet and found no other humanoid Cylon models." I looked to Daugherty. "The Theban stumbled upon one of our Raptors. While we were waiting, I sent out our squadron to look for survivors. The Theban was the only other Colonial Fleet ship we could find. Cramer told us that a Destroyer, two Battle Cruisers and the Battlestars Pegasus and Galactica are still out there somewhere. We have forty Raptors jumping through the System looking for them, and any other survivors."
"Where are we?" I asked.
Tinker answered, "We are currently in polar orbit of the Sun."
I looked back to Daugherty, "Colonel, what's your story?"
She spoke up. Her voice was beautiful, "We were transitioning from the far side of the Armistice Line during the attack. We have no defensive weapons, so I took us off our flight plan and we were jumping every few hours until we came across one of your Raptors. I have a full crew and our holds are full of electronic equipment and spare parts that we never got to deliver."
I took a deep breath and started to choke. Thats when the nurse came back over to tend to me. She dismissed my visitors and I gradually fell back asleep.
-
Sheraton and Adama pointed at the lighted map. I kept trying to look down to see it but I couldn't. Sheraton looked into my eyes and said, "finwat terish bason."
Adama looked at her and responded, "find water bay."
I spoke, "what does that mean?"
They both looked at me and pointed at the map. I couldn't see where they were pointing. I sighed. Sheraton spoke and coughed up blood, "fin. . .wat" cough "ter. . ." cough "bay. . ." cough.
I looked up at the ceiling. The solar system was bright. A comet went flying by.
-
I woke up. I asked the nurse and found out I had been asleep all day. I managed to convince the Doctor to let me go. He gave me some medication and helped me to the Commanders Quarters. My arm was in a Velcro cast and my chest was in a white bandaged wrap. When we approached Sheraton's quarters, I found someone had changed the stenciling on the glass: COMMANDER RYAN CODY. Inside someone had cleaned up the room and taken out all of Sheraton's things. I suddenly felt sad. The Doctor helped me take a shower, clean myself, and get dressed before he left.
I had on a clean and pressed blue uniform. My new cast fit nicely under my sleeve, but it protruded just enough to tell there was something wrong. But that didn't matter either because I had to put my arm in a sling. I sat down at the desk and began to look through the clip boards that were piled up. I referenced the Final Count: 9 SHIPS/8643 PAX. That number made my stomach drop. With billions dead and entire worlds destroyed, only 8,643 were alive. I held onto my sanity by remembering the Galactica was out there and they had escaped with an entire fleet of ships. I could only guess how many people were with them, but I hoped it was more than 8,643.
I turned and looked at the DRADIS screen in the wall. All the ships were shown. The Craton and Virgil were on either sides of the fleet with the ships in the middle. I saw a flight of Vipers flying around. Where would we go?
Then I remembered the note from Adama. I didn't know where it went, but it didn't matter. I had it memorized. Then I remembered my dreams. Sheraton was choking and coughing up blood. Find Water Bay was not what she was saying. She was saying Finwat Terish Bason.What was it? In the dream they were pointing at a map of the system. I decided to go to the CIC.
-
The double glass doors slid open. When I walked in, everyone stopped and stared. I smiled humbly. "Commander on Deck," announced Marks.
"Carry on," I responded. I walked over to the information management table. Marks was there coordinating the fleet.
"How are you feeling?" asked Marks.
"Like I've been shot," I answered. I wasn't lying. I was in pain, but it was manageable. I looked up at DRADIS to check the surrounding space. The radiation from the sun was scrambling the sweep. However, the ships in the fleet were close enough to be read loud and clear. I looked down at the lighted table. On it was a map of the system. My dream immediately came back to haunt me. I looked over the lighted map and read every small detail. Nothing on it said Finwat Terish Bason. That's when lightning struck my brain. The three words were capitalized on the note Commander Adama left.
"What are you looking for?" asked Marks. He must have noticed me scrutinizing the map. "Water Bay?" I looked up at him. "I read the note and spent the last two days searching depot lists and old communication stations. I couldn't find any reference to Water Bay in the database."
"That's because Water Bay isn't real." He looked at me puzzled. I told him about Adama's note. "Have you ever heard of Finwat Terish Bason?"
I saw him thinking. And I saw he knew something. "I know Terish is a popular Gemenese surname."
I looked up and I immediately got it! "Mr. Slaton, come over here please." David walked over from the Tactical Station. "Lt. Slaton, get me any information you can pull on Oswald Terish."
"Who sir?" asked Slaton.
Marks smiled. "Oswald Terish. He was an astronomer from Gemenon over a hundred years ago."
Slaton nodded, "right away sirs." He left and got busy.
"For now, we keep this between just us," I ordered Marks. He nodded in agreement.
We all heard a DRADIS contact beep and looked up instinctively at the screen. "Sir," said Petty Officer James, "Virgil Rescue Raptor one five has returned."
"Any contacts?" asked Marks. Everyone looked over to James in hope. It occurred to me that we had all lost people we had cared about. Everyone had hope that maybe, just maybe, someone they knew was alive. James shook his head no. The crew in the CIC lost the little bit of hope they were holding on to. "That was our last bird out."
"Let's jump to a new set of coordinates, then send them all back out. We have to keep looking," I said.
"I think we should send a few to try and land on one of the planets," said Marks. "There has to be survivors there."
It didn't take long for the fleet to be ready to jump. Everyones FTL's were already spooled and had the coordinates locked in. They were just waiting for a reason. As Fleet Commander (a title I secretly anointed myself because I was the only Colonial Commander alive) I had the power to order everyone to jump. It suddenly honed in on me that I was, for all accounts, a very powerful person (something I always loathed). I wished Commander Gudmundson was alive. I wish Commander Sheraton was alive.
-
We jumped to a position that was inside the asteroid belt. This position didn't have the cover of a cloud of radiation, but if we dropped our power signatures, it painted us as just another rock in the belt. We launched an convoy of Raptors to new positions throughout the system. I signed off on a two Raptor test rescue mission to Tauron. They were to probe the Cylon defense of the planet; land if able; take survivors if practical; and report back. Meanwhile, I had retreated to my quarters with Marks and Tinker. I decided to let Tinker in on the note from Adama. We had star charts of the system covering the glass dining room table. I was going through the report Slaton had given me on Oswald Terish. It was not much information.
----
COLONIAL FILE: OSWALD DYSON TERISH
Oswald Terish was a male Astronomer born on Gemenon during the last century. He died at the age of 78 from Diamonds Disease. He married Finwat Windel and had three sons: Jack, George, and Oswald. He was infamous on Gemenon for being able to speak ancient Gemenese.
His most important discovery came the year before he died when he discovered the ice comet Jaygo's Comet. His other discoveries include the Twin Moons, the Prolmar System, and the Dead Planet.
----
It wasn't much information, but it was a jumping off point. I told the others. Tinker then added to the conversation, "Finwat Terish Bason must be the name of something." I gave him a look of stupidity. To which he countered, "No you're not getting it. These scientist all name crap after them or their family. Finwat was his wife. Terish was him. Jaygo's Comet was his sons (J-G-O). We need to do a search for scientists with the name Bason."
A few more hours went by. The books gradually stacked up on my desk. The maps began to spill onto the walls and floor of my quarters. We were done with coffee and now were drinking liquor. I was slightly buzzed. Half of our Raptor teams had come back. Only one Raptor returned with five survivors from a Caprican Corvette. We were still waiting on the Tauron Rescue Mission. The success of that mission was going to dictate if we send Raptors to the other planets.
Slaton dropped off the reports of all the scientists with the names Bason. After scrubbing the lists, we realized none of them fit the bill. That was when we began expanding our search. Each expansion returned more results with nothing to do with Finwat Terish Bason. A few more hours went by and we were no where. That's when I saw a file that had fell on the floor. It had the history of the family name Bason on it. "It's not a name," I said. Both men looked up at me from the books they were flipping through. "It's not a persons name. I think its a thing."
"What is a Bason if it's not a name?" asked Tinker.
"I don't know," I responded. I took another swig of liquor. I looked back at Oswald Terish's file. I read it out load. "Oswald Terish was a male Astronomer. . .blah, blah, blah. . .Diamonds Disease. . .able to speak ancient Gemenese. . .blah, blah, blah. . . Jaygo's Comet. ."
"Wait!" said Tinker and Marks together. I looked up at them. Marks and Tinker spoke in unison again, "Ancient Gemenese!"
I still didn't know what they were talking about. Marks got up and walked over to my computer station at the desk in the other room. He began a search. The result was instantaneous. "The computer has all known languages in its communications sub filter," answered Marks. "And that includes. . ."
"Ancient Gemenses," I responded.
Marks looked at the computer screen. "Bason, or Baysin is a noun derived from Baidlen. The word was used between the 4th and 5th dynasties of the Gemenon Golden Age as a description of purgatory. In later centuries, the word changed meaning to: death, dark, and black. During the last century of the 5th dynasty and the first century of the New Age, the word changed meaning again to mean: black land, purgatory place, or dead world."
I looked back down at the file, smiled and read out loud, " 'His other discoveries include the Twin Moons, the Prolmar System, and the Dead Planet."