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Fic of doom Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven: In the End, Natalie has a Plan
Cally watched over Dualla's shoulder as the communications specialist fiddled with the panel of Starbuck's viper. It had seemed like a good idea to get Dualla's help, since she was the expert on this sort of equipment (the blackbird would never have communicated without her). It was still felt sort of wierd to be asking her for help when she was busy doing things like keeping the Galactica running (with the help of Gaeta, Hoshi and Racetrack).
"And it just started registering?"
"Yeah." Cally shrugged, "I was pretending, you know? Playing at viper pilot, and I flipped it on and bingo. There it was."
A grin appeared on Dee's lips as she turned to look at Cally. "You want to be a viper pilot?"
Cally made a face, "Having a hard time seeing me in a viper, specialist?"
Her grin deepening, Dee stood up in the cockpit, "Not at all, specialist. Now, I think I've got a good bearing on this signal, so I'll run it through my systems in CIC, see if I can't pick it up there."
Backing down the ladder, Cally got out of Dee's way as she swung over the lip of the cockpit and climbed down.
"So, Cally," Dee nudged her arm, "Why'd you come to me and not the Chief?"
Narrowing her eyes, Cally shrugged, "We're divorced. Besides, something like this, he might not be interested in."
"Divorced. Yeah, I heard that." A sympathetic smile appeared on Dee's face. "Guess you don't want to talk about it. I didn't, so I get that. It's just..."
"I was so in love with him," finished Cally, her voice bitter. "You don't have to dance around it, Dee. I was head over the heels in love with him. I was stupid. I forgave him for beating the shit out of me." I shouldn't have. But she couldn't quite say that. Even knowing what he was, she couldn't take her forgiveness back. She'd meant it at the time.
Dee reached out and put her arm around Cally, pulling her in against her side. They were of a height, Cally fitting neatly in against Dee's shoulder. "Hey. Hey, don't beat yourself up, Cally. We all make mistakes."
"Some of us don't have or jaws broken by them." Cally gave in and half-hugged Dee back. "Hey, it's ok. You got over Apollo. I'll get over Galen."
"You will," Dee assured her, sounding confident.
The problem was, Cally didn't think her son would get over the lack of his father.
-=-
Punchline radioed in that they were bringing humans, just so that no one freaked out when the vipers landed. Then she and Lemon released the birds and made sure they followed a flight path to land on the base star. Seeing the damage again after days of searching empty space just made her crankier about all of this. Cavil needed to be destroyed, and if they needed humans to help do that, she was almost willing to agree.
Natalie was waiting for them all when the hangar re-pressurized. She looked tired, and Punchline wondered how much sleep the Six had been getting. They didn't need much, but Natalie looked like she hadn't had any since the war began.
"It's safe," Natalie called to the vipers, looking uncertain as to whether they'd respond.
After a moment, the vipers opened and the pilot slowly unstrapped. Starbuck pulled her helmet off and swung down, looking between them all. "Nice party you invited us to."
"Captain Thrace, I should have known." Rolling her eyes, Natalie continued, "I'm sure the Twos will be interested in seeing you."
"Any Two gets near me, I'll put a bullet in his head," Kara replied levelly.
The other pilot came closer, looking between them all. "Why did you bring us here?" he asked, glancing at Punchle.
Natalie seemed to consider and then said, "We need your help."
The bald statement made the pilots exchange a look, then Kara shrugged, "Why should we care?"
"Well, for one thing, you're stuck here. In about two weeks, this base star will be torn to shreds by atmospheric forces. So, if you don't help, you die." Natalie looked implacable.
Punchline wasn't so sure threatening them was the way to go about it, but begging had never been the Cylon way. She shifted from one foot to the other, wondering if she could convince them to help, but doubted it. She shot a glance at Lemon, who looked just as confused as she felt, and had to grin a little.
"And why should we care if you die?"
"Kara--"
"Shut up, Sam."
The interplay between them didn't escape Natalie's notice, but she didn't comment on it. "Because we just want peace. And not that bullshit from New Caprica. We'll avoid you, in future, you avoid us."
Natalie wasn't mentioning the final five. Punchline wondered why not, considering that the presence of the five in the colonial fleet had been the whole reason Natalie had led them in their rebellion.
"Natalie!" Prudence came running in, "We may have a problem. Anton just told me he overheard some of his brothers talking about sabotaging us for the 'greater' Cylon good." She stopped when she spotted the two humans.
"Dammit."
-=-
On board the Demetrius, Helo was having everyone run system checks while Hot Dog and Hardball checked the outer skin for damage. They'd jumped to a relatively empty sector of space, only the distant twinkle of stars to watch them while they made any repairs that were needed and waited until it was safe (hopefully) to jump back to thei previous coordinates to retrieve their lost pilots.
"I don't know how long those base stars will stay," Athena was saying as she came back to CIC. Barolay was behind her, looking annoyed and worried. Athena turned to look at Helo as she stopped in front of the table. "There appears to be no damage to any of our systems, Helo. But I'm a little worried about the way the drive's been responding the last couple jumps."
From his console, Gaeta nodded, "I've been bringing it up to the Captain's attention, but she wasn't very interested."
Helo frowned at them, "What do you mean?"
"There's been a sort of... interference, a differential that I have to compensate for each time we jump. The first few times we landed off our mark by a few feet, but the distance has been growing." Felix shrugged, "I don't think this ship was designed to handle this sort of constant stress, and we've been on the run for a long time, sir. The engine was bound to start breaking down eventually."
That didn't sound good to Karl Agathon, that didn't sound good to him at all. His frown deepened, "What are you saying, that this ship is going to be stuck somewhere without FTL?"
"Maybe." Gaeta exchanged a look with Athena, then sighed. "We're due a major over-haul, sir. I don't think we can escape that."
"How long?"
"Maybe, ten more jumps? Less if we're jumping in succession." With a shrug, Gaeta turned back to his board, "We just have to hope the Captain can find her way to Earth soon, or we won't be making the rendezvous with Galactica."
Great. Another worry to add to his plate. Helo refrained from banging his head against the table. It would be unprofessional and unproductive, and it wouldn't get him any closer to seeing his daughter again. Not for the first time, he regretted agreeing to both he and Athena coming on this trip. If one of them had stayed with her, the other might not have worried so much.
-=-
"I can't believe we agreeed to this," Candy muttered. She wasn't used to being so pro-active in her own interests. She'd been more about seducing and annoying, or jabbing with dirty needles (more than one pilot had been scrubbed from flying due to an STD, during her tenure in the colonial fleet) than about wandering around, shooting things. Or standing near the controls for an airlock, waiting for the signal to open the deck to space.
There were decompression hatches that would drop at every juncture, and those would have to be stopped from the control center. Candy just hoped the stupid Eight was up to that job, otherwise this airlocking thing would be pointless.
"You can't believe?" Jo, the Eight, shook her head from where she was slumped against the wall across from Candy. They'd both tethered themselves to hooks in the wall, and were both wearing flight suits which were designed to protect against the rigors of being ejected in mid-flight. The cold would eventually get to them, but the suits were presurrized, once the helmet was attached. "I can't believe that Boomer is flip-flopping the other way."
"She seemed too stupid to ever see the light," agreed Candy.
Not seeming to care about the insult to her line, Jo nodded. "You know, we used to think of Boomer as some sort of hero? She was on Galactica, you know? She'd been in the war, she'd done shit. Now? Now, I don't get her at all, but she certainly isn't no frakking hero of the Cylon for allowing Cavil to destroy us."
Candy shrugged. She'd helped Cavil before, so it wasn't as though she had much of a leg to stand on. Most of them didn't know that, though. And she was sort of over that whole thing. Cavil had been a shitty lay and sort of useless, after a while, even when they'd been in the fleet together. Always sitting around, stewing and sulking about some stupid shit he'd never explain. It was why Candy had been fully behind Natalie (or mostly): it was at least something different. Something that wasn't blaming the human's for their own lot in life.
"At least you're not stuck with the sainted Caprica who can do no wrong, even now." Candy scowled. Falling for a frakking human (especially Baltar with his dreamy hair) was such a stupid thing to do. A human thing to do, though Candy figured 'human' didn't apply to Cylons. So maybe that made it a Cylon thing to do.
Either way, it was still stupid, and she was pretty sure she hated Gaius Baltar and his hair.
"What, even after she killed Boomer and stole Hera for the humans?" Looking disgusted, Jo shook her head, "You Sixes are way too frakking forgiving."
Candy made a face. "It's Baltar. Most of my line has this 'thing' for him."
"But not you?"
"Frak no. Have you met the man? He needs a good bath and shave, not to mention less crazy."
Jo snorted, "At least your line isn't enamored of Galen Tyrol. Do you know how many Eights used to stalk him on New Caprica?" She shook her head, "Stupid Eights. Like the man who'd married a human woman would give any of them the time of day."
"Oh, but didn't you hear? It's so romantic when one of your number died in his arms," Candy rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, he was so broken up about that, he went and married her murderer." With a shake of her head, Jo seemed to dismiss him. "There's at least half a dozen who downloaded Athena's memories and now think Helo is perfect, too."
"Helo?" Candy sniggered, "He's an idiot. A dumb, loyal puppy."
Jo made a face, "I don't know why they couldn't have picked, like, Sam Anders to lust after. At least he's done shit, even if it was mostly blowing us up."
"And he's batshit insane and married to Kara Thrace."
"Gotta admire the balls on the man who married Starbuck," Jo pointed out.
Point. Candy shrugged and stretched, "This is getting ridiculous, do you think Boomer will get off her ass and send the signal soon?"
"Well, as long as Cavil doesn't switch his blow-up doll back on, I think we're good."
Candy shuddered. "Thanks. Didn't want to think of that."
A smirk crossed Jo's lips, "My pleasure."
-=-
chapter eight
Cally watched over Dualla's shoulder as the communications specialist fiddled with the panel of Starbuck's viper. It had seemed like a good idea to get Dualla's help, since she was the expert on this sort of equipment (the blackbird would never have communicated without her). It was still felt sort of wierd to be asking her for help when she was busy doing things like keeping the Galactica running (with the help of Gaeta, Hoshi and Racetrack).
"And it just started registering?"
"Yeah." Cally shrugged, "I was pretending, you know? Playing at viper pilot, and I flipped it on and bingo. There it was."
A grin appeared on Dee's lips as she turned to look at Cally. "You want to be a viper pilot?"
Cally made a face, "Having a hard time seeing me in a viper, specialist?"
Her grin deepening, Dee stood up in the cockpit, "Not at all, specialist. Now, I think I've got a good bearing on this signal, so I'll run it through my systems in CIC, see if I can't pick it up there."
Backing down the ladder, Cally got out of Dee's way as she swung over the lip of the cockpit and climbed down.
"So, Cally," Dee nudged her arm, "Why'd you come to me and not the Chief?"
Narrowing her eyes, Cally shrugged, "We're divorced. Besides, something like this, he might not be interested in."
"Divorced. Yeah, I heard that." A sympathetic smile appeared on Dee's face. "Guess you don't want to talk about it. I didn't, so I get that. It's just..."
"I was so in love with him," finished Cally, her voice bitter. "You don't have to dance around it, Dee. I was head over the heels in love with him. I was stupid. I forgave him for beating the shit out of me." I shouldn't have. But she couldn't quite say that. Even knowing what he was, she couldn't take her forgiveness back. She'd meant it at the time.
Dee reached out and put her arm around Cally, pulling her in against her side. They were of a height, Cally fitting neatly in against Dee's shoulder. "Hey. Hey, don't beat yourself up, Cally. We all make mistakes."
"Some of us don't have or jaws broken by them." Cally gave in and half-hugged Dee back. "Hey, it's ok. You got over Apollo. I'll get over Galen."
"You will," Dee assured her, sounding confident.
The problem was, Cally didn't think her son would get over the lack of his father.
-=-
Punchline radioed in that they were bringing humans, just so that no one freaked out when the vipers landed. Then she and Lemon released the birds and made sure they followed a flight path to land on the base star. Seeing the damage again after days of searching empty space just made her crankier about all of this. Cavil needed to be destroyed, and if they needed humans to help do that, she was almost willing to agree.
Natalie was waiting for them all when the hangar re-pressurized. She looked tired, and Punchline wondered how much sleep the Six had been getting. They didn't need much, but Natalie looked like she hadn't had any since the war began.
"It's safe," Natalie called to the vipers, looking uncertain as to whether they'd respond.
After a moment, the vipers opened and the pilot slowly unstrapped. Starbuck pulled her helmet off and swung down, looking between them all. "Nice party you invited us to."
"Captain Thrace, I should have known." Rolling her eyes, Natalie continued, "I'm sure the Twos will be interested in seeing you."
"Any Two gets near me, I'll put a bullet in his head," Kara replied levelly.
The other pilot came closer, looking between them all. "Why did you bring us here?" he asked, glancing at Punchle.
Natalie seemed to consider and then said, "We need your help."
The bald statement made the pilots exchange a look, then Kara shrugged, "Why should we care?"
"Well, for one thing, you're stuck here. In about two weeks, this base star will be torn to shreds by atmospheric forces. So, if you don't help, you die." Natalie looked implacable.
Punchline wasn't so sure threatening them was the way to go about it, but begging had never been the Cylon way. She shifted from one foot to the other, wondering if she could convince them to help, but doubted it. She shot a glance at Lemon, who looked just as confused as she felt, and had to grin a little.
"And why should we care if you die?"
"Kara--"
"Shut up, Sam."
The interplay between them didn't escape Natalie's notice, but she didn't comment on it. "Because we just want peace. And not that bullshit from New Caprica. We'll avoid you, in future, you avoid us."
Natalie wasn't mentioning the final five. Punchline wondered why not, considering that the presence of the five in the colonial fleet had been the whole reason Natalie had led them in their rebellion.
"Natalie!" Prudence came running in, "We may have a problem. Anton just told me he overheard some of his brothers talking about sabotaging us for the 'greater' Cylon good." She stopped when she spotted the two humans.
"Dammit."
-=-
On board the Demetrius, Helo was having everyone run system checks while Hot Dog and Hardball checked the outer skin for damage. They'd jumped to a relatively empty sector of space, only the distant twinkle of stars to watch them while they made any repairs that were needed and waited until it was safe (hopefully) to jump back to thei previous coordinates to retrieve their lost pilots.
"I don't know how long those base stars will stay," Athena was saying as she came back to CIC. Barolay was behind her, looking annoyed and worried. Athena turned to look at Helo as she stopped in front of the table. "There appears to be no damage to any of our systems, Helo. But I'm a little worried about the way the drive's been responding the last couple jumps."
From his console, Gaeta nodded, "I've been bringing it up to the Captain's attention, but she wasn't very interested."
Helo frowned at them, "What do you mean?"
"There's been a sort of... interference, a differential that I have to compensate for each time we jump. The first few times we landed off our mark by a few feet, but the distance has been growing." Felix shrugged, "I don't think this ship was designed to handle this sort of constant stress, and we've been on the run for a long time, sir. The engine was bound to start breaking down eventually."
That didn't sound good to Karl Agathon, that didn't sound good to him at all. His frown deepened, "What are you saying, that this ship is going to be stuck somewhere without FTL?"
"Maybe." Gaeta exchanged a look with Athena, then sighed. "We're due a major over-haul, sir. I don't think we can escape that."
"How long?"
"Maybe, ten more jumps? Less if we're jumping in succession." With a shrug, Gaeta turned back to his board, "We just have to hope the Captain can find her way to Earth soon, or we won't be making the rendezvous with Galactica."
Great. Another worry to add to his plate. Helo refrained from banging his head against the table. It would be unprofessional and unproductive, and it wouldn't get him any closer to seeing his daughter again. Not for the first time, he regretted agreeing to both he and Athena coming on this trip. If one of them had stayed with her, the other might not have worried so much.
-=-
"I can't believe we agreeed to this," Candy muttered. She wasn't used to being so pro-active in her own interests. She'd been more about seducing and annoying, or jabbing with dirty needles (more than one pilot had been scrubbed from flying due to an STD, during her tenure in the colonial fleet) than about wandering around, shooting things. Or standing near the controls for an airlock, waiting for the signal to open the deck to space.
There were decompression hatches that would drop at every juncture, and those would have to be stopped from the control center. Candy just hoped the stupid Eight was up to that job, otherwise this airlocking thing would be pointless.
"You can't believe?" Jo, the Eight, shook her head from where she was slumped against the wall across from Candy. They'd both tethered themselves to hooks in the wall, and were both wearing flight suits which were designed to protect against the rigors of being ejected in mid-flight. The cold would eventually get to them, but the suits were presurrized, once the helmet was attached. "I can't believe that Boomer is flip-flopping the other way."
"She seemed too stupid to ever see the light," agreed Candy.
Not seeming to care about the insult to her line, Jo nodded. "You know, we used to think of Boomer as some sort of hero? She was on Galactica, you know? She'd been in the war, she'd done shit. Now? Now, I don't get her at all, but she certainly isn't no frakking hero of the Cylon for allowing Cavil to destroy us."
Candy shrugged. She'd helped Cavil before, so it wasn't as though she had much of a leg to stand on. Most of them didn't know that, though. And she was sort of over that whole thing. Cavil had been a shitty lay and sort of useless, after a while, even when they'd been in the fleet together. Always sitting around, stewing and sulking about some stupid shit he'd never explain. It was why Candy had been fully behind Natalie (or mostly): it was at least something different. Something that wasn't blaming the human's for their own lot in life.
"At least you're not stuck with the sainted Caprica who can do no wrong, even now." Candy scowled. Falling for a frakking human (especially Baltar with his dreamy hair) was such a stupid thing to do. A human thing to do, though Candy figured 'human' didn't apply to Cylons. So maybe that made it a Cylon thing to do.
Either way, it was still stupid, and she was pretty sure she hated Gaius Baltar and his hair.
"What, even after she killed Boomer and stole Hera for the humans?" Looking disgusted, Jo shook her head, "You Sixes are way too frakking forgiving."
Candy made a face. "It's Baltar. Most of my line has this 'thing' for him."
"But not you?"
"Frak no. Have you met the man? He needs a good bath and shave, not to mention less crazy."
Jo snorted, "At least your line isn't enamored of Galen Tyrol. Do you know how many Eights used to stalk him on New Caprica?" She shook her head, "Stupid Eights. Like the man who'd married a human woman would give any of them the time of day."
"Oh, but didn't you hear? It's so romantic when one of your number died in his arms," Candy rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, he was so broken up about that, he went and married her murderer." With a shake of her head, Jo seemed to dismiss him. "There's at least half a dozen who downloaded Athena's memories and now think Helo is perfect, too."
"Helo?" Candy sniggered, "He's an idiot. A dumb, loyal puppy."
Jo made a face, "I don't know why they couldn't have picked, like, Sam Anders to lust after. At least he's done shit, even if it was mostly blowing us up."
"And he's batshit insane and married to Kara Thrace."
"Gotta admire the balls on the man who married Starbuck," Jo pointed out.
Point. Candy shrugged and stretched, "This is getting ridiculous, do you think Boomer will get off her ass and send the signal soon?"
"Well, as long as Cavil doesn't switch his blow-up doll back on, I think we're good."
Candy shuddered. "Thanks. Didn't want to think of that."
A smirk crossed Jo's lips, "My pleasure."
-=-
chapter eight