Author's Notes: Hello all and thank you for reading this story. I hope you won't mind a brief introduction so that I can set up exactly what sort of story this will be. As the story tags suggest, this fanfiction takes place within the world, or should I say worlds, of Battlestar Galactica, and more specifically, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. However, that does not mean that this is a pure retelling of that story. Some who read this might be familiar with the Horatio Hornblower series written by C.S. Forester, that follows the course of a single officer in England's Royal Navy through his service during the Napoleonic Wars. My goal here is to try my own attempt at this same general idea. That is not to say that my character will never take part in any of Deadlock's events, merely that she will show other aspects of the war in addition to those seen in the game.
In case anyone is interested, the title of this story comes also from another great piece of historical fiction called The Winds of War by Herman Wouk. In it, the main character, Captain Victor Henry, quoted the single communique issued by U.S. Fleet Admiral Ernest King after the end of WW2, "We won." Henry then went on to say that had he sat down and written his own memoirs of his service, it would boil down to more or less, "I served." To denote various sections, I will add other titles beneath this overall banner.
Now, enough waffle from me. Best to let you get on and allow my story to speak for itself.
Oh, before I forget, great thanks to my betareader DankUser, for catching all of my many typos and giving me some fantastic feedback.
I Served
Prologue, Part One
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe. With tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe there may yet be brothers of Man, who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens.
0600 Hours
4215 Shoreview Road
Perkinston, Picon, Twelve Colonies of Kobol
Her eyes slid open at precisely 0600 hours without any alarm going off. A lifetime of military habit and discipline had long since given her the ability to wake up exactly when she wanted to and had equally robbed her of the ability to sleep in. As though from a distance and only half heard, the morning call to revile blaring from a ship's PA system reverberated through her ears.
Her bedroom was still dark, its many windows covered by thick curtains that blocked out almost all of the morning's faint light. Around the edges of these curtains an insubstantial grayness seeped. Even as she lay there, her senses automatically took this to mean that there would be rain today. If her knee was anything to go by, it would be heavy rain. Idly, she massaged the knee in question, soon realizing that this was not the only place on her body that ached. Old age was creeping up on her, and these were not the first signs of its imminent arrival.
Brushing aside the dark thoughts that this revelation usually brought, namely that she was lucky to have to reached a point where she had to deal with this when so many men and women she'd served with never would, Admiral Ruth Gilmer, Colonial Fleet (ret.) pushed herself into a seated position, her thick blanket falling off of her as she did so. Her feet found the carpeted floor and fumbled for a moment, searching for the pair of slippers she had discarded the night before. As soon as her feet slid into them, warming gels in the soles activated. They had been a gift from her godsdaughter, and were a lifesaver to someone who was always cold. She stood, gingerly applying weight to her aching knee, and retrieved a robe from the hook next to her bed.
Her bedroom, much like the rest of her modest two-story house, was sparsely decorated. The light blue walls were bare of all but a few personal decorations, and the bookshelves held nothing but a handful of keepsakes. What wall decorations she had were a few paintings of nondescript things much like you would find in a doctor's office or a government building. These had been hung by the realtor that sold her the house and she hadn't seen a reason to remove them. They did a good job of making the walls look less empty, even if they weren't really there to be looked at. On either side of the door leading to her bathroom and looking distinctly out of place in the nondescript room, were the only two items that she had placed there herself. On the left was a large, printed picture of a battlestar in an ornate wooden frame, looking powerful and imposed against a swirling pink nebula. Around this ran a thick white border with at least a hundred signatures and written messages, all of them to "The Skipper." On the right was an octagonal shadow box with two concentric rings of ribbons and awards surrounding a large Colonial Fleet emblem.
The last wall, the one directly opposite her bed, was made up of large windows that spanned from floor to ceiling. In the center of these were two sliding glass doors that led out onto her private balcony, from which she had a panoramic view. It was to these doors that she walked, stretching out her limbs as she did so. The curtains slid back on their rails, revealing thick, rain-filled clouds that blanketed Picon's eastern sky, leaving only a thin clear band just on the horizon. Against this narrow stretch of clear sky, she watched as the towering skyscrapers of Perkinston revealed themselves, silhouetted against the coming dawn. Just beyond the city the sun was creeping upwards, caught only in momentary glimpses as the concrete jungle blocked its view from her window. In another hour it would be gone, hidden from them by clouds. Lowering her gaze, Ruth caught sight of one of her neighbors, a retired Marine colonel, getting an early start on his lawn maintenance before the rain drove him inside. The rest of her neighborhood, or at least what of it she could see from here, was quiet.
She hadn't lived here long, even though she had owned the house for more than a decade now. It had been a purchased during the middle part of her career, when shore assignments were becoming more common than deployments in space. Either because she was a native or because of her war record, most of these planetside assignments had landed her at Colonial Fleet Headquarters in Perkinston. So, it had only been logical to purchase a house on the outskirts of the city, if only to get out of the rental game if nothing else. Slowly, during her various planetside postings and infrequent shore leaves, she had turned it from a house into something resembling a home and adapted it to her liking. When her retirement had been finalized three years ago and she found herself "on the beach" permanently, it had become her actual home. Becoming grounded again after a lifetime constantly on the move had not been an easy transition. More than once she had even seriously considered selling and buying a small, jump capable ship in order to spend her retirement years out among the stars, but every time she had been about to buy one, she had stopped herself. That part of her life was over now. It was time to enjoy the peace and quiet that almost fifty years of service to the Colonies afforded her.
Only a few weeks shy of her seventy fifth birthday, Ruth knew that with the assistance of modern medicine she could easily live another twenty years or more, but that was little help to combat the dour moods that were occurring with greater frequency. She had commanded everything from a frigate to a battlestar group, been trusted with millions of cubits in ships and supplies, not to mention countless lives. Now what was she supposed to do, garden? Her career was over, the fleet had no more use for her. Oh, there had been the promise of a guest lecturer position at the Academy or War College or the occasional ceremony for her to preside over, but in reality, she was done. It was time for the next generation to run the show. She could still remember the looks on the faces of the retirement board as they lauded her with hollow words of praise for her years of service, their sycophantic smiles making her want to vomit. She hadn't wanted to leave, sure there was still something she could contribute, but it had been out of her hands. The papers were signed, and she was gone.
Her reverie, one she had slipped into without realizing it, snapped as her neighbor looked up and waved to her. The movement was enough for her eyes to regain control of what her brain was seeing, locking the bitterness away for another time. She waved back absently then turned from the window. It was time for breakfast. On her way to the door, she stopped and picked up a small framed photograph from her bedside table. This had been a morning ritual for as long as she could remember. The photo was badly worn and was crossed with thick creases from when it had been haphazardly shoved into a wallet or a pocket. In it, discernable to Ruth because the image there had long been branded into her head, was a small girl being held aloft by her parents, one on either side. They were laughing at some long-forgotten joke, their gleeful expressions locked, dead. She smiled down at the girl she had been, then returned the frame to the bedside table and left the past behind.
The rest of her house was not large, and she didn't need it to be. The remainder of the second floor was taken up by a second bedroom that doubled as an office, and the house's other bathroom. One side of the landing was open out onto the living room with its vaulted ceiling, with a small nook to one side of the spiral staircase that she had converted into a reading space. Downstairs, under the second floor, was an expansive kitchen and rarely used dining room. The real selling point of the house, and the reason it had cost so much, was the living room. Like her bedroom one entire wall was entirely glass, showing an identical, if broader, panorama. On a good day she could see the ocean, and at night she had an uninterrupted view of the stars.
Halfway down the stairs, a sensor detected her movement and the curtains covering these windows began to retract, while the privacy film on the exterior of the glass activated, allowing her to see out without letting anyone see in. Going straight to the kitchen, Ruth went through her normal morning routine of cooking herself breakfast while the news played over the wireless. Unlike the gleaming kitchen and its sparkling, modern appliances that were only a few years old, the wireless set was a battered and half broken black box sitting on the counter. It was a Cylon War era model she had stripped out of a raptor years ago. Several times her godsdaughter had offered to replace it, but Ruth always declined. It still worked like a charm and had even outlasted a handful of commercial sets she had purchased over the years.
The overly peppy voice of the female newscaster went in one ear and out the other as she crooned on and on about some new gizmo which kids everywhere would soon be begging their parents for. As the bacon began to sizzle in the pan, the program shifted over to sports and Ruth turned up the dial. The Oranu Twins had stomped the Olympia Stallions on Gemenon yesterday, paving the way to the championship. As a lifelong Picon Panthers fan, this mattered little to Ruth, even though she liked to stay current. Her own hopes for her team had been dashed two weeks ago in a devastating loss to the Caprica Buccaneers. She twiddled the dial, searching for nothing in particular. Bursts of static squealed from the speaker, interrupted here and there by snatches of voices or music.
She settled on the Cap-5 Alpha program from Caprica, wondering if they were reporting actual news this morning. Instead of the normal newscasters, a stern male voice tinged with emotion erupted from the wireless set, sending chills down her spine before the words it was saying fully penetrated her mind. "…when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really." Ruth's breath caught in her chest as the man paused, then continued on. "You cannot play God, then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore." The transmission crackled and popped before what sounded like a single pair of hands clapping, followed swiftly by more. This lasted a few more seconds before the feed shifted over to another, stronger signal. "You have just heard the words of the final commander of the Battlestar Galactica, Commander William Adama. Galactica is being retired today after nearly half a century serving in the Colonial Fleet. It is currently on route to Caprica, where it will be turned into a museum-"
Ruth had stopped processing the words the reporter was speaking a while ago. She didn't even notice the bacon sizzling heartily or the coffee pot cheerfully announcing it had completed its task in a series of chirps. Unconscious of her movements, Ruth finished making her breakfast as her mind was once more taken back, back to the last time she'd heard that voice. It was easily recognizable, even over the usual crackles and pops that indicated a military transmitter. True, it had lost the cocky edge she remembered so vividly from when its owner had been her CAG for a year aboard the battlestar Atlantia. Somewhere along the line it had gotten old, just like she had. She laughed, recalling the time her LSO had howled over the wireless for Husker's head after some stunt he'd pulled on his thousandth landing. How Adama had smirked in the CIC as she had been forced to dress him down half heartedly. She'd heard he'd gotten the Galactica, just another red striper who'd lost out on his chance for admiral's stars and was sentenced to a slow retirement.
How though had she forgotten about Galactica's decommissioning today, though? Months ago a letter on rich, embossed paper had arrived by special courier from the Ministry of Defense inviting her to attend the ceremony. After fifty years and being awarded every unit citation in the book, not to mention a few that had been created just for her, she was finally being put out to pasture. "I know how that feels," Ruth muttered around a mouthful of bacon.
She hadn't set foot on the Galactica since the end of the war. If she was being entirely honest, she'd avoided the ship, along with every other one she'd served on during those years. She wasn't alone in doing this. It was hard to walk down the corridors and passageways of the places she'd spent with friends and family, only to lose them. Even Galactica, a ship she'd only been posted to for a short time, still held too many ghosts for her to feel comfortable returning to it. "Their souls are with the Gods now, so what was the point in dragging them back," had been her justification to herself.
It wasn't like decommissioning ceremonies were a good time anyway. Watching a ship that had been a living, breathing thing die and be sent off to one fate or another was not something anyone who served enjoyed. Even the ones who were turned into museums weren't the same. There was no getting around the fact that they were killing her. This one had also promised to be a giant clusterfrak of self-serving politicians and gray-haired old warriors intent on reliving their glory days one last time. It had taken her less than ten minutes to send back a politely worded letter telling the Ministry to "frak off."
Her plate lay empty before her, even though she had no memory at all of eating it. Now that the hatch was open, memories flooded outwards dragging her even further backwards. She saw the day of the Cylon rebellion when her life had changed forever. Then she was signing up for Colonial Fleet over her father's firm disapproval. Her first posting to the Themis. Seeing the Daidalos shipyard and the skeletons of Galactica and her sisters under construction. Going down over Tauron hours after the ceasefire had been signed. Being there when Sarkis recommissioned the Fleet. Her first command. Years of mind-numbing, soul crushing combat without end and without hope. The final battle over that gods forsaken ball of ice when Columbia had been lost. The crying and cheering in the CIC after the announcement of the armistice. All of it felt like it was both a million years ago and had happened yesterday.
She looked down and found that her hands had retrieved something from a nearby shelf. As far as she knew, the plastic model of an Adamant-class frigate she cradled was the only thing ever salvaged from the Themis as it had gone down in that last, lonely fight above Tauron. She had snatched it from the plotting table in the war room, her battle station at the time, when the CO had ordered all hands to abandon ship. Try as she might, she had never really been able to explain to herself why she'd done it. Maybe she thought the ship owed her something, maybe she wanted it so she would never forget the price of betrayal. Her bony fingers rubbed the port side of the model where a flash of fire had partially melted the ridges.
The wireless, which had been prattling on behind her, music replacing the news, suddenly erupted into noise as a harried voice came across the feed. "-rypter, Krypter!" The military distress signal triggered something in her and her training immediately took over. She raced to the wireless, cursing herself for never repairing the transmit function. It wasn't like she'd ever expected to need it. "Emergency!" the voice continued, "This is the Battlestar Persephone, transmitting in the clear to all civilian receivers. Evacuate, repeat evacuate! The Cylons have…My gods…" the signal died into a burst of static.
Ruth's heartbeat raced like it hadn't done in ages. She was in movement an instant later, sprinting heedlessly up the stairs to her bedroom, her aches and pains entirely forgotten. Her uniform still hung in her closet, and she donned it with practiced ease. It was a twenty minute drive to Colonial Fleet Headquarters. Surely there would be something she could do.
Her plans died in the exact same moment that Perkinston ceased to exist. If she hadn't been reaching into the closet for her uniform jacket when the sky outside turned a brilliant, all consuming white, then she would have been blinded like so many others now were. When the flash died, she walked slowly towards the tall windows, not wanting to believe the horror she was seeing. The city was gone, replaced by a growing mushroom cloud. Along the ground, still a ways off but speeding towards her every second was a wall of fire and ash. She looked down and saw the marine colonel openly weeping as he too watched in utter despair.
For half a heartbeat, Ruth thought about running. If she could make it to her car and get out of here, but no, it was no use. Hiding was just as pointless. She had less than a minute to live and she had no intention of abandoning her dignity in the face of death. One by one she finished buttoning up her jacket, somewhat amazed that she could face this oncoming storm dry eyed with a calm heart. At least she wouldn't need to clean up after breakfast, she hated doing the dishes. She chuckled at that, then remembered the old proverb she remembered her childhood priest repeating over and over again during his sermons. "All of this has happened before." She whispered these works quietly to herself, her voice lost in the roar that had begun to deafen her. The light outside died completely, and a moment later Admiral Ruth Gilmer was gone as the house she had intended to live the final years of her life in was overcome by fire and dust.