Chapter 7

Surviving

With the beginning of hostilities in the atmosphere over Caprica and the bombing of the major cities, many people were fearful of venturing outside of their homes or underground shelters in part due to debris from the fighting that was falling onto the planet below. Many people were reluctant to investigate the fallen debris for fear that it was Cylon.

-Bartell, History of the Second Cylon War

.

Karl insisted that they take everything out of the backpacks and go through all of it before they decided what to take and what to leave behind in the small airport terminal.

Kara wasn't surprised to see that her mother's backpack was filled with food, mostly RtEMs or Ready-to-Eat Meals. There were also some granola bars and packages of nuts and dried fruit. At the bottom was a good flashlight, extra batteries, three canteens, matches in a waterproof container and her mother's Mossinger-45 sidearm…loaded and with an extra clip. There was also a box of water purification tablets. They decided right away that this was a backpack they needed intact. Kara took the canteens over to the water fountain and filled them up.

They went through their clothes and stuffed everything they could into Kara's backpack. Kara was going to carry whichever of the packs weighed less. She got an extra waterproof poncho out of Tricia Agathon's backpack as well as another flashlight, a pair of binoculars and some food.

Finally they were ready to go. Before they left, though, Karl showed his good judgment again when he went into Singer's little office. He took a big topographical map from the bulletin board while Kara went through the desk drawers and found a road map. Later they would have a chance to figure out where they actually were, almost nine hundred miles northwest of Caprica City and nearly two hundred miles southeast of Antioch, the largest city in the northern part of the continent.

The last thing they did before they left was to call the emergency number from the phone on Singer's desk. Karl told them there had been a shooting at the airport and then laid the receiver down without hanging up the phone. It wouldn't take the dispatcher long to find out the location.

The sun was rising when they left the little terminal building. They were barely across the field and into the woods on the other side of the runway when they heard the first siren. They waited there deep inside the tree line for twenty minutes until the terminal was swarming with police.

Karl had been studying the topographical map. "We've got to get further away, Kara, at least a mile. If we go up over here I think we can stay under cover and get high enough to see the field. They might find us if we stay here."

Reluctantly she agreed and followed him. It was a wise decision. During the next several hours the wooded area nearest the field was searched by the police.

They waited all that day. By late afternoon the police were gone. They decided to ration the meals. If they ate only twice a day, the meals would last five days longer. Karl found a small stream and they moved closer to it. It was good to be able to wash her face and get fresh water even though they still used the purification tablets. That night she watched the sky and slept the next day while Karl watched and then slept at night. They never saw another ship land. Singer's death must have shut down the small airport.

She knew that if her father were alive, he would come back there. But as each hour went by, she lost a little more hope. She and Karl didn't talk about it, but she knew those were his thoughts, too. They were both sure that after her father had flown those men wherever they wanted to go, Zarek or one of them would kill him. She tried not to think of him the way she had found Singer. She tried not to think of her father's green eyes half-open and dead.

On the second morning, the battle for Caprica began in the atmosphere far above them and then moved to the surface of the planet as Cylon Raiders began getting through. Two nights after that, a Viper, or what was left of a Viper fell near them.

At least Kara thought it was near them. They were both watching the sky early in the evening, just at twilight, and she and Karl both saw it, not yet knowing what it was, watched it coming down through the atmosphere, heat shield glowing. Even through the binoculars they couldn't tell what kind of ship it was. It was nearly down when it broke apart, the glowing object splitting into two pieces.

"Come on," she told Karl. "We've got to go to where it fell."

She had to know if it was her father's ship. It had come down through the night shedding sparkling fire like they had done four nights ago. She had to know.

"Kara, that's a lot further than you think. It's not just a few miles. It's probably between ten and fifteen, maybe twenty. If we go, we'll have to take the backpacks because I don't know if we'll be able to find our way back here. It's not like we're at one of the campgrounds on Picon where we know all the trails. You do know we'll be going away from the airfield."

"You're thinking the same thing I am. We're both thinking they killed him just like they killed Singer. But what if that was him falling out of the sky just now? What if he was trying to make it back here to us? I've got to know, Karl. I've got to know."

"All right. Let's go. We're going to run out of food soon. Maybe now's a good time to start thinking about what we're going to do next. We'll probably have to head for a town or something."

They walked all night, using the flashlight when they had to, navigating by moonlight when they could. Karl had marked the Viper's direction on his compass and kept them on course. They crossed mostly farmland and occasional patches of woods. They stayed away from the roads and houses…not that they saw many. One wheat field alone must have covered three or four straight miles.

As the sky started to lighten, they were able to follow the thin line of smoke.

Near dawn they came to the spot where the main part of the fuselage had fallen into a cornfield. The ground was scorched for nearly thirty feet in all directions, but the fire caused by the red-hot heat shield had burned out by the time they got there. Karl came out of the corn into the opening first and immediately turned around, trying to shield her.

"Oh, gods, Kara, don't look."

She pushed around him. The Viper, or what was left of it was partly on its side with one engine, one wing and most of the canopy missing. The pilot was still strapped in the cockpit. She knew that meant only one thing. He'd been dead before the Viper came down, otherwise he would have ejected before he hit the ground. His flight computer must have been trying to bring the ship down when they saw the sparkling fire.

For a long time Kara stood and stared at the gruesome sight and felt what was left of her childhood slowly ebb away. Karl had taken off his backpack and was standing behind her. She could hear his breathing coming in harsh rasps. She wondered if he was going to be sick. Finally she slipped her backpack off her shoulders and put it on the ground.

Feeling almost like she was someone else, she walked over to the pilot. He hadn't really burned, but the fire had darkened the exterior of his suit and helmet. There was a fist-sized black hole in his chest. Everything was smoke-darkened except the lower part of one arm which looked untouched. His gloved hand was on the edge of the cockpit, where that side of the canopy would have been attached, like he was reaching for her.

She moved up to the side of the fuselage. His glove was right in front of her. She touched it, stroked the top of it gently. But it wasn't enough to touch his glove, she wanted to touch his hand. She found the release and pulled the glove off, slipped her hand into his and held it, then leaned over and put her cheek against it. It was still warm like her father's hand had been when he'd squeezed hers.

Karl came up behind her and said softly, "What are you doing, Kara? You're really freaking me out. This is…was a Viper. This is not your father."

"I know. But maybe he was somebody's father."

"Come on, Kara. Let's go. I know we're not the only ones who saw him fall. Somebody could show up here any time…maybe even Cylons."

She released the pilot's hand and noticed his wedding ring, a slim silver band. Very carefully she slipped the ring off his finger. She took her mother's dog tags from around her neck, snapped open the chain and put the ring on it with them before she closed it and put it back around her neck.

Her parents were together now. This pilot wasn't her father, but her father was dead, too. She knew that Zarek had killed him or he would have come back for her. Standing there in the dawn light she put her parents in a safe place in her heart and said goodbye to both of them. To Sassy and Flyboy who had loved each other so much they had made a baby together. They had made her.

She turned around and looked at Karl. "Let's go."

If he noticed a new hardness in her voice, he didn't say anything. She knew he understood. He'd lost everyone in his family, too. All they had left now was each other.

Later she could never remember much about that night. It was more like a dream to her that she could only recall in brief flashes. If it weren't for the ring on the chain with her mother's dog tags, she could easily have believed that it was all just a dream.

They crossed the cornfield and came to a small dirt road on the other side. They followed it northwest for what she guessed was five or more miles before it ended in a narrow driveway that wound out of sight into thick trees. At the end of the driveway, maybe half a mile from the dirt road was a small stone house.

They needed water and hoped whoever lived there would give them some. Even though the doors were unlocked, there was no one there. They knocked and called out but got no answer. Finally they went inside. The dishes had been washed and left in the drainer by the sink. The television was on a channel that was nothing but static. Certainly whoever lived there had just gone out on an errand and would return.

Karl said they would ask if there was anywhere nearby that they could stay, if maybe they could do some chores and earn some money. He even told Kara they might have to work for their meals. That was okay with her. They had to eat.

They got some water, went back out and waited under a tree in the back. No one came. Finally at dusk they went inside and each ate one of the RtEMs. The television was so old that it didn't even have a remote control. Karl finally figured out how to change the channels. He could only find one that was still broadcasting. The news was not good.

Caprica City, the capital of the Colonial government, had taken some bomb hits from the Cylon Raiders that had gotten through the Colonial defenses. Delphi had suffered in a similar way. But the worst hit had been the three large northern cities of Antioch, Sovana and Kinsdale. There was much worse destruction where the defenses had been the weakest. The same was true of Caprica's three smaller continents. They had suffered much heavier damage than either the capital or Delphi.

Kara and Karl watched horrified as the images played out on the screen, as courageous newscasters and their camera crews kept broadcasting even as the bombs fell around them. Karl took out the map and marked the bombed cities as they were announced. If a city wasn't on the map, he wrote the name in the margin.

The cities were all to the north of their current location a hundred miles or more. In between based on the topographical map and the road map, it looked like mostly farmland, dotted with the occasional small town.

Finally he turned off the television. "That's enough for tonight."

"Are the Cylons going to destroy Caprica?"

"It looks that way. Not the way they nuked the other planets, but they're doing it…just slower unless our battlestars can stop them."

"Then what my father did to get us off Picon was useless," she said harshly, feeling like she was going to cry. "Zarek killed him and we're going to die, too."

"We're not dead, yet, Kara. We can't just give up. Why don't you go into the bedroom and get some sleep."

"I'm used to staying up all night now. You go sleep."

"You didn't sleep any today. Let's both try to sleep. What's the worst that can happen tonight? The people who live here will come back and find us." He gestured to the picture of a gray-haired couple that was sitting on the top of the television. "What can they do? Throw us out. I can handle that."

"Yeah, me, too."

"Even if they call the cops, we can be gone before anybody gets here. I mean we're in the middle of nowhere. I'll take the couch. You go to the bedroom."

"No, I don't want to be in there by myself. You come, too."

"Kara, we can't sleep together in the same bed."

"Why not? It's a big bed, and you're like a brother."

"But I'm not really your brother. We just can't. We're not…it's just not right."

"Karl, we're going to keep our clothes on. Duh. What did you think I meant?"

Karl thought about what she had just said. "Yeah, I guess it's not like we're…yeah…if we keep our clothes on it will be okay. Just like out there in the woods."

"Why are you making such a big deal out of this? You and me and Marie have slept in the same tent when we went camping with your parents back on Picon."

"It's just that…never mind, Kara. Let's just go to sleep. We must have walked twenty-five or more miles since yesterday. I'm really tired. I know you are, too."

"I want to take a shower." She said. "These clothes are rank."

"Okay. You go first."

Sleeping on a bed again felt good. Kara hadn't realized how tired she was. She didn't wake up until the sun was high the next day. She found Karl sitting in the kitchen. There was a dishtowel on the table and lying on it was an old revolver that he had started cleaning. It was so old she didn't even know what it was.

"Where'd you get that antique?"

"I found the old couple who was living here. They're in a shed out back. They're a lot older than that picture of them on the bookcase. It looks like he shot her and then shot himself. He even shot their dog. Like they were looking at the news on the television and then went out into the shed…and just…did it. I picked up the pistol. It might come in handy."

"Oh, gods." Kara sat down at the table.

"Yeah, we need to bury them. I wish I hadn't eaten before I went out there. I wasted a whole meal."

"I haven't eaten yet. Let's go do it."

"It's really bad. They've probably been dead at least since day before yesterday, probably since the day the fighting started, and with the heat and the smell and…and the flies and maggots…it's bad. I mean it, Kara. It's bad."

"I saw Singer after he'd been shot. I can handle it."

She thought she could, but when Karl opened the door of the shed and the smell hit her just as she saw the bodies, she gagged. There was nothing in her stomach except some water she had just drunk, but it came right back up. This was a lot worse than Singer. Even after Karl closed the door, she dry-heaved for a long time. The smell was everywhere.

Karl took her arm and pulled her to the far side of the yard where they sat down under a tree. She leaned back against the trunk and waited for her stomach to settle.

"Let's burn the shed," she finally said. "It's small and not too close to the house. It'll be like a funeral pyre. Like we learned about in history. What they used to do with heroes."

"These people weren't heroes."

"What difference does it make? Do you want to try to bury them?"

"Somebody will probably see the smoke."

"So we get our backpacks and go into the woods. If somebody comes we leave."

"Why don't we just call the cops and then leave? Like we did back there at the airport. Let them handle it?"

Kara thought about his suggestion. "Did you see a phone in the house anywhere?"

"No," Karl answered. "I don't think there is one. Man, this old couple was living like hermits. Yeah. Let's just burn it and take our chances."

They went back into the house and put everything in their backpacks and took them into the woods. After gathering dead twigs and limbs they piled them inside the door of the shed until they had a stack two feet tall. Karl lit it. The shed burned for over an hour, finally collapsing on itself in the late afternoon.

They stayed in the woods until well after dark, until the shed was a pile of glowing wood stumps and embers. No one ever came.

Finally near midnight they went back into the house, took turns showering and went to sleep.

The next morning Kara cooked some eggs that she found in the refrigerator. There was no toaster, but she toasted bread in the oven. There was home canned jelly in the fridge, too. They had a real breakfast for the first time in days. After they ate, they sat at the table and talked.

Kara was the one who finally asked the question. "What are we going to do now?"

"We can either stay here or we can go. I don't know where we'll go. I don't know that any place is safe now. The cities to the north are mostly destroyed. We're nearly nine hundred miles from Caprica City. Delphi is to the east of that. It's even further. Based on the map there's a couple of little towns maybe thirty, forty miles from here, but I don't know what we'll find if we go there. Maybe they've been bombed, too, and the news just didn't cover it."

"Did you look at television yet, today?"

"No. It'll just be about more cities being destroyed."

She got up and went into the living room and turned on the set. It was so ancient that it took forever to warm up and the picture to come into focus.

The news was of a truce while representatives of the Caprican government met with representatives of the Cylons to discuss the surrender…of the last remaining Colony.

"No! No! They can't do that! They just can't do it!" Kara didn't even realize that she was shouting. Karl came running in.

"What?"

"Look!" she wailed. "I can't believe it. They're giving up. They're surrendering to the Cylons."

They stayed with the television all that day and the next. The first evening there was a broadcast that the Cylons had sent a delegation of three humans to negotiate the surrender. They were immediately arrested and charged with treason.

They next day the Cylons sent three more…the same three. There was news footage of them getting off a Heavy Raider. The station played the footage taken a day earlier. It was clearly the same three people wearing the same clothes…a black man, an older white man and a blond woman.

Next the newscaster interviewed a famous scientist in Caprica City.

"I'm speaking with Dr. Gaius Baltar who has won numerous awards for his innovative scientific work in the area of Artificial Intelligence and genetics. His ideas have often sparked controversy but have generally been acknowledged as being on the leading edge of our technology's current limits. Dr. Baltar, I understand you've been asked to participate in the negotiations with the Cylons. Is that true?"

"Well, yes, it's true. Due to the extraordinary events of the last two days Rick felt it would be best to have a scientist on the team."

"By Rick you're referring to President Adar. I understand you and he are personal friends."

"Yes, of course."

"Dr. Baltar, what do you think this means? Have the Cylons found a way to clone humans?"

"I don't think so. After all we can't clone humans yet. Cylon intelligence is not nearly as advanced as ours, so, no, I don't think they've found a way to clone humans."

"Then how do you explain what we've seen here these last two days? Identical twins?"

"We have no idea yet exactly what we're seeing. My hypothesis, and it is just that, a hypothesis, is that we're seeing some new type of Artificial Intelligence in a clever package, so to speak, in human form, not human, mind you, just human form."

"In other words, a robot? Is that what you think these human look-alikes are, Dr. Baltar? A new generation of Cylons, but still robots?"

"Well, yes, to use a term that is understandable by the layperson. Yes, a sort of robot. We have many of the components to manufacture a life-like looking robot, artificial skin and muscle being the main ones. I suppose with enough effort, and it would take a great deal of effort, a human-looking robot could be constructed over a strong lightweight skeleton. Add a computer processor for a brain, load software and…yes, of course…it could be done. It might look human, but it would still be a machine. That's not to say the Cylons have achieved anything that remarkable, yet it is possible, I suppose. I would think, though, that they certainly had to have a human or humans to do the design and engineering. It's all quite beyond Cylon skill, I'm sure."

"And what does this mean?"

"Mean?"

"We've seen two copies of three different robot models if you're correct. Could there be more? Could there be an unlimited number of copies?"

"I would hardly say unlimited, but I suppose there could be a great many copies just like our computer manufacturers turn out identical machine after identical machine. Given that they have enough of all the resources, of course."

"Do you think there are more than three models?"

"Well now that is a very good question, isn't it?"

"In other words, Dr. Baltar, you have no idea."

"I don't feel that it would be in the best interest of the negotiations for me to speculate further at this point."

Kara got up and turned down the sound on the television and looked at Karl. "He's saying the Cylons have made robots that look like humans. That sucks."

"Yeah, like that really makes a difference to us. When would either one of us ever meet a human-looking Cylon? So what do you want to do, Kara? Stay here or go?"

"For right now I think it's a no-brainer. There's a pantry full of canned food and a nearly-full freezer. There's even the garden if we can figure out what all that stuff is. We stay until the food runs out or somebody comes and makes us leave. We've got shelter at least, and a bathroom. Who knows what's going to happen next, especially if the government surrenders Caprica to the Cylons. What do you think?"

"Yeah, I think we stay. But we don't get too comfortable. We might have to move on at any time."

"You mean like if we get thrown out?"

"I mean like if anybody shows up."

"Who's going to show up?"

Karl shrugged and wouldn't say anything else. He knew something he didn't want to talk to her about. She kept pestering him, though, until he said.

"We're at war now, Kara, and sometimes people do stuff they wouldn't do otherwise. They loot and they steal. Sometimes they even kill and…do other stuff as bad or worse."

"What's worse than killing?"

"Like back at the airport. What Zarek threatened to let his men do to you if your father didn't fly them off Caprica."

Finally she understood.

"War really sucks, Kara. Marines and soldiers and…and Viper pilots fight and die, but other people suffer, too."

"Yeah, people like you and me."

Karl had a far-away look, and she somehow knew he was thinking about his little sister Marie and probably his parents, too. "Yeah," he finally said. "People like you and me."