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Entry tags:
Ficlets: NewBSG
set: pre-series
spoils: The Farm
Cylons. Is because I was giving penance to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
musicforcylons for being annoying about something.
Simon liked to think that he was playing god.
It was a running joke amongst his colleagues that his theories about recombinant genes really were just that--changing nature at its very base, and proving that the gods had gotten it wrong to begin with.
There was a sense of power in taking the twisting strands of DNA and rewriting their codices, making them break apart and link back up, with mis-matched edges and too many chromosomes. Kittens born with dog-shaped ears, puppies born with monkey tails, children born with cat-tails (the latter destroyed whilst grieving parents were told the child was simply too young).
Sometimes, there was censure. One promising young grad student had threatened to file a complaint with the ethics committee. Simon never actually found out what happened to her, but the ethics committee never filed a formal charge against him.
He was taking a walk in the park, listening to the birds and wondering if hedgehogs should be just a little sonic when the sound of the planet changed.
Picon heaved once, and bright white light shattered the sky. Simon was falling before the thunder-clap reached him. Falling forever and ever, feeling slight surprise as his body burned in the nuclear blast.
Then he was suddenly gasping for breath, staring at a dark ceiling, at gathered people. Not his colleagues. He didn't know these people (though he did).
"What--"
"Welcome back, brother," the woman to his right said, her blonde head inclined gracefully.
Simon swallowed. Brother. Sister. Another Simon stepped out of the shadows, grinned at him, "Glad to see you made the transition."
"I don't--" He knew. He always knew. Somewhere, deep down. He swallowed again and straightened, the liquid sliding off of his skin. "It's good to be back." The lie rolled off of his tongue easily. And it would be true, once he could get back to his lab. His work. God's work.
Six smiled and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "We have work for you, healer."
Set: Mini
Er. Spoilers?
Characters: Sharon, Tyrol, Boxey
Boxey's looking distrustful and like he hates adults, and Sharon is just looking at him, smiling kind of fondly. And for just a moment, Galen's brain takes a snapshot. This. This is what it would have been like if they'd had their chance.
Settled down with children, both happy and loving every minute of the day.
Growing old and gray together, watching their great-grandchildren do things they'd thought impossible.
But the cylons have taken all of that away.
Sharon looks up at him, and he wants, for a moment, to be able to tell it to her. The future that he sees, that he wants with a strange desperation. Then the moment is past and he's grabbing her and kissing her, unable to believe that they're simply both alive.
Set: mini
Characters: Lee, Adama
He's six and half (very important, the last bit), again and his father's sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Hey," his dad says, eyes almost worried, "What's wrong?"
And then Lee remembers the nightmare and the terror, and blurts it all out. He sounds stupid, "I dreamt there was a big war, and you were in it and you died and mom died and me an' Zak were left, and there wasn't anyone and--"
His dad reaches out and tousles his hair. "Hey. There's not gonna be a war. We kicked the Cylons' asses, son."
Lee remembers that he was uncertain. He still is.
"Really," his dad reaches out and hugs him, awkward because hugs weren't something he did often (though he tried). "It'll be ok, kiddo."
And Lee snaps back to the present, and stares at his dad. He's greyer and older and less... something. Possibly innocent. He wonders if his dad remembers that night. Wonders, too, if his dad understands that when Lee had found out his parents were seperating two weeks later, he'd wished the Cylons would come back.
Probably not.
Set: Six Degrees of Seperation
Character: Cally
It's stupid and it's petty, but Cally thinks Sharon deserves a little crap in her life. Socinus is in the brig, and Chief keeps kicking himself. And Boomer just continues on as if nothing happened. None of the shit touches her, and it's unfair.
The yellow grease pencil is all she can find on short notice.
Easy to slip into officer country--no one notices a specialist who looks like she's got business there. Easy to figure out which locker belongs to Boomer.
The word is quickly scrawled, and Cally slams the door shut on it.
The mirror was a good idea.
Set: Sacrifice
Character: Billy
There's really no time to think.
But he does it, anyway.
On the one hand, he shouldn't do anything to help Dee. She said no, she broke his heart, and now she's doing... something, he isn't sure what, with Captain Adama. And it hurts. Gods-damnit, it hurts like frak.
He could be petty.
"Kill the girlfriend." could be a phrase to ignore.
Or he could be the man his parents hoped he would be. The man they'd be proud of, the little kid brother his sisters always mocked for being too-tall and too uncertain.
It's really not something he has to think about.
Besides, the gunman isn't paying attention to him anyway.
Er, and a slightly longer one (1,000 words)
Set: Scar, spoilers.
Character: Kara Thrace, with references to Stinger, Adama and Lee.
Notes: er. Angsty little thingie, possibly a bit wanky, in some respects.
Disclaimer: not mine. Rating: eh. 13. ish.
Stood there too long
by ALC Punk!
It's almost too-cold in the pilots' ready room, but the alcohol pulsing through her veins is pushing the cold away. On the screen, light flickers, catches her eye and Kara follows the movement of Scar. It turns and weaves, using the sunlight and asteroids to its advantage before ruthlessly destroying the viper trying to kill it.
Effortlessly, almost, it slips away before the other has a chance to even tag it.
The bottle tips up as the image loops back to the beginning and starts up again. It's an excercise in futility. As if burning the images into her brain will save the pilot, this time through. As if by some act of the Gods, Kara could reach through time and stop this before it starts.
If asked, she'll claim she has no idea which pilot is getting his ass blown into smithereens.
And it's a lie. Kara knows all of their names.
Kara remembers lying to Lee. Telling him she couldn't remember their names. All while she was drinking to forget, drinking to purge their faces and call signs from her mind. It hasn't worked, of course. She'd trained half of them, flown with the other half for two years.
Stinger. Gods, Stinger had put up with her crap without being obnoxious about it from day one.
That day in the brig still seems so far away. And normal.
"Starbuck."
She looked up at him, disinterested. "Sir."
A snort, and he shook his head. "I was going to ask why you do it, but I know. You're a pilot."
"Oh, frak you. Sir."
Stinger shook his head. "You're such an ass."
"Takes one to know one." She didn't tack on the 'sir'. It seemed pointless.
"One day, Starbuck, this is gonna bite you in the ass. I just hope I'm there to see it."
He wasn't, of course.
Instead he was dead, hanging somewhere in space without a proper burial and only mourned in passing.
He hadn't wanted her aboard. Not in his squadron. Until he'd seen her fly. And even then, it had been grudging acceptance. Hard to object to the Old Man's favorite pilot, after all. Harder to object when she was just so damned good.
Even if she did cause more trouble than ten drunk engineers on leave.
And then, of course she'd frakked him. Not when it would have mattered, but later when it didn't. When she was drunk and full of flying and laughing hysterically at something. Two doors down from his office, he made Starbuck orgasm. It made him smug for two seconds and then she was laughing again and it was his turn.
It never happened again. Kara never told him it was because he was a mediocre frak, though the word got round.
But he didn't care. He had a girlfriend that he went on leave to see, two kids running around on Picon, and an ex-wife on Sagitarron. He could handle a little sexual mockery. And he could handle Starbuck's inability to commit by making her work to keep her place on the squad.
Stinger'd talked her out of more charges while on leave than any of the other pilots combined. That's what a good CAG was for, after all -- to keep his pilot's noses clean and bust them down when they were idiots.
He occasionally shared his observations of his pilots with the commander. The Old Man liked hearing about the people who worked under him. Especially when it came to Starbuck. As if he had a perverse need to know just how bad she'd been, even as he accepted it and moved on.
"My assessment is she'll never make higher than Lieutenant. Neither will half of them, though. And it's not a bad thing. They're the kind of people you need as pilots."
"All crazy."
"Yeah."
Adama nodded, then offered him another drink. "And Starbuck's lack of tact?"
"I don't think she'll grow out of it."
It seemed the commander agreed, given the proud look in his eyes. Stinger let it pass, it wasn't his place to ask the Commander why he was so close with one of his pilots.
Just like it wasn't his place to comment on the XO's alcoholism (or on the XO's wife, who didn't frak as enthusiastically as Starbuck, but who also didn't seem to mind a little sweet-talk).
They moved on from Starbuck to other things: the decommissioning, the commander's decision to retire, even touched carefully on his estranged son. Stinger said he'd be glad to have young Captain Adama fly with them for the ceremony. Then he set his half-finished drink down carefully, and saluted the man who'd been one of the best commanders the fleet had had.
"An honor serving with you, sir."
"The honor's all mine." The commander returned the salute.
Walking away, Stinger wondered what the world had come to if they were turning battlestars into museums.
The admiralty weren't all that bright.
And when Starbuck sat in the brig and listened to the reports of Galactica's vipers being destroyed without so much as a single shot being fired, she allowed herself five seconds to mourn them. Pilots she'd frakked with, played with, fought with, drunk with. All gone in thirty seconds.
For five seconds she could feel the pain rip through her. Then she slammed the door on it, locked it down and got angry. Angry at the cylons, angry at Tigh, angry at the marines for locking her here in the brig.
Now, she watches Scar, watches the raider jig and turn, out-flying pilot after pilot. Death after death. Her fault. Her responsibility to turn out perfect pilots. Only she'd failed. She couldn't train them well enough and now they're dead. It's why she keeps hiding behind rules when talking to Kat. Scurrying under a rulebook and being impersonal didn't allow her to care. She can't afford to care.
It's easier to pretend she doesn't care and can't remember.
-f-
spoils: The Farm
Cylons. Is because I was giving penance to
musicforcylons for being annoying about something.Simon liked to think that he was playing god.
It was a running joke amongst his colleagues that his theories about recombinant genes really were just that--changing nature at its very base, and proving that the gods had gotten it wrong to begin with.
There was a sense of power in taking the twisting strands of DNA and rewriting their codices, making them break apart and link back up, with mis-matched edges and too many chromosomes. Kittens born with dog-shaped ears, puppies born with monkey tails, children born with cat-tails (the latter destroyed whilst grieving parents were told the child was simply too young).
Sometimes, there was censure. One promising young grad student had threatened to file a complaint with the ethics committee. Simon never actually found out what happened to her, but the ethics committee never filed a formal charge against him.
He was taking a walk in the park, listening to the birds and wondering if hedgehogs should be just a little sonic when the sound of the planet changed.
Picon heaved once, and bright white light shattered the sky. Simon was falling before the thunder-clap reached him. Falling forever and ever, feeling slight surprise as his body burned in the nuclear blast.
Then he was suddenly gasping for breath, staring at a dark ceiling, at gathered people. Not his colleagues. He didn't know these people (though he did).
"What--"
"Welcome back, brother," the woman to his right said, her blonde head inclined gracefully.
Simon swallowed. Brother. Sister. Another Simon stepped out of the shadows, grinned at him, "Glad to see you made the transition."
"I don't--" He knew. He always knew. Somewhere, deep down. He swallowed again and straightened, the liquid sliding off of his skin. "It's good to be back." The lie rolled off of his tongue easily. And it would be true, once he could get back to his lab. His work. God's work.
Six smiled and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "We have work for you, healer."
Set: Mini
Er. Spoilers?
Characters: Sharon, Tyrol, Boxey
Boxey's looking distrustful and like he hates adults, and Sharon is just looking at him, smiling kind of fondly. And for just a moment, Galen's brain takes a snapshot. This. This is what it would have been like if they'd had their chance.
Settled down with children, both happy and loving every minute of the day.
Growing old and gray together, watching their great-grandchildren do things they'd thought impossible.
But the cylons have taken all of that away.
Sharon looks up at him, and he wants, for a moment, to be able to tell it to her. The future that he sees, that he wants with a strange desperation. Then the moment is past and he's grabbing her and kissing her, unable to believe that they're simply both alive.
Set: mini
Characters: Lee, Adama
He's six and half (very important, the last bit), again and his father's sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Hey," his dad says, eyes almost worried, "What's wrong?"
And then Lee remembers the nightmare and the terror, and blurts it all out. He sounds stupid, "I dreamt there was a big war, and you were in it and you died and mom died and me an' Zak were left, and there wasn't anyone and--"
His dad reaches out and tousles his hair. "Hey. There's not gonna be a war. We kicked the Cylons' asses, son."
Lee remembers that he was uncertain. He still is.
"Really," his dad reaches out and hugs him, awkward because hugs weren't something he did often (though he tried). "It'll be ok, kiddo."
And Lee snaps back to the present, and stares at his dad. He's greyer and older and less... something. Possibly innocent. He wonders if his dad remembers that night. Wonders, too, if his dad understands that when Lee had found out his parents were seperating two weeks later, he'd wished the Cylons would come back.
Probably not.
Set: Six Degrees of Seperation
Character: Cally
It's stupid and it's petty, but Cally thinks Sharon deserves a little crap in her life. Socinus is in the brig, and Chief keeps kicking himself. And Boomer just continues on as if nothing happened. None of the shit touches her, and it's unfair.
The yellow grease pencil is all she can find on short notice.
Easy to slip into officer country--no one notices a specialist who looks like she's got business there. Easy to figure out which locker belongs to Boomer.
The word is quickly scrawled, and Cally slams the door shut on it.
The mirror was a good idea.
Set: Sacrifice
Character: Billy
There's really no time to think.
But he does it, anyway.
On the one hand, he shouldn't do anything to help Dee. She said no, she broke his heart, and now she's doing... something, he isn't sure what, with Captain Adama. And it hurts. Gods-damnit, it hurts like frak.
He could be petty.
"Kill the girlfriend." could be a phrase to ignore.
Or he could be the man his parents hoped he would be. The man they'd be proud of, the little kid brother his sisters always mocked for being too-tall and too uncertain.
It's really not something he has to think about.
Besides, the gunman isn't paying attention to him anyway.
Er, and a slightly longer one (1,000 words)
Set: Scar, spoilers.
Character: Kara Thrace, with references to Stinger, Adama and Lee.
Notes: er. Angsty little thingie, possibly a bit wanky, in some respects.
Disclaimer: not mine. Rating: eh. 13. ish.
Stood there too long
by ALC Punk!
It's almost too-cold in the pilots' ready room, but the alcohol pulsing through her veins is pushing the cold away. On the screen, light flickers, catches her eye and Kara follows the movement of Scar. It turns and weaves, using the sunlight and asteroids to its advantage before ruthlessly destroying the viper trying to kill it.
Effortlessly, almost, it slips away before the other has a chance to even tag it.
The bottle tips up as the image loops back to the beginning and starts up again. It's an excercise in futility. As if burning the images into her brain will save the pilot, this time through. As if by some act of the Gods, Kara could reach through time and stop this before it starts.
If asked, she'll claim she has no idea which pilot is getting his ass blown into smithereens.
And it's a lie. Kara knows all of their names.
Kara remembers lying to Lee. Telling him she couldn't remember their names. All while she was drinking to forget, drinking to purge their faces and call signs from her mind. It hasn't worked, of course. She'd trained half of them, flown with the other half for two years.
Stinger. Gods, Stinger had put up with her crap without being obnoxious about it from day one.
That day in the brig still seems so far away. And normal.
"Starbuck."
She looked up at him, disinterested. "Sir."
A snort, and he shook his head. "I was going to ask why you do it, but I know. You're a pilot."
"Oh, frak you. Sir."
Stinger shook his head. "You're such an ass."
"Takes one to know one." She didn't tack on the 'sir'. It seemed pointless.
"One day, Starbuck, this is gonna bite you in the ass. I just hope I'm there to see it."
He wasn't, of course.
Instead he was dead, hanging somewhere in space without a proper burial and only mourned in passing.
He hadn't wanted her aboard. Not in his squadron. Until he'd seen her fly. And even then, it had been grudging acceptance. Hard to object to the Old Man's favorite pilot, after all. Harder to object when she was just so damned good.
Even if she did cause more trouble than ten drunk engineers on leave.
And then, of course she'd frakked him. Not when it would have mattered, but later when it didn't. When she was drunk and full of flying and laughing hysterically at something. Two doors down from his office, he made Starbuck orgasm. It made him smug for two seconds and then she was laughing again and it was his turn.
It never happened again. Kara never told him it was because he was a mediocre frak, though the word got round.
But he didn't care. He had a girlfriend that he went on leave to see, two kids running around on Picon, and an ex-wife on Sagitarron. He could handle a little sexual mockery. And he could handle Starbuck's inability to commit by making her work to keep her place on the squad.
Stinger'd talked her out of more charges while on leave than any of the other pilots combined. That's what a good CAG was for, after all -- to keep his pilot's noses clean and bust them down when they were idiots.
He occasionally shared his observations of his pilots with the commander. The Old Man liked hearing about the people who worked under him. Especially when it came to Starbuck. As if he had a perverse need to know just how bad she'd been, even as he accepted it and moved on.
"My assessment is she'll never make higher than Lieutenant. Neither will half of them, though. And it's not a bad thing. They're the kind of people you need as pilots."
"All crazy."
"Yeah."
Adama nodded, then offered him another drink. "And Starbuck's lack of tact?"
"I don't think she'll grow out of it."
It seemed the commander agreed, given the proud look in his eyes. Stinger let it pass, it wasn't his place to ask the Commander why he was so close with one of his pilots.
Just like it wasn't his place to comment on the XO's alcoholism (or on the XO's wife, who didn't frak as enthusiastically as Starbuck, but who also didn't seem to mind a little sweet-talk).
They moved on from Starbuck to other things: the decommissioning, the commander's decision to retire, even touched carefully on his estranged son. Stinger said he'd be glad to have young Captain Adama fly with them for the ceremony. Then he set his half-finished drink down carefully, and saluted the man who'd been one of the best commanders the fleet had had.
"An honor serving with you, sir."
"The honor's all mine." The commander returned the salute.
Walking away, Stinger wondered what the world had come to if they were turning battlestars into museums.
The admiralty weren't all that bright.
And when Starbuck sat in the brig and listened to the reports of Galactica's vipers being destroyed without so much as a single shot being fired, she allowed herself five seconds to mourn them. Pilots she'd frakked with, played with, fought with, drunk with. All gone in thirty seconds.
For five seconds she could feel the pain rip through her. Then she slammed the door on it, locked it down and got angry. Angry at the cylons, angry at Tigh, angry at the marines for locking her here in the brig.
Now, she watches Scar, watches the raider jig and turn, out-flying pilot after pilot. Death after death. Her fault. Her responsibility to turn out perfect pilots. Only she'd failed. She couldn't train them well enough and now they're dead. It's why she keeps hiding behind rules when talking to Kat. Scurrying under a rulebook and being impersonal didn't allow her to care. She can't afford to care.
It's easier to pretend she doesn't care and can't remember.
-f-
no subject
These are very good. But your stuff is always good. Hrm. I suppose that makes me a Lyssie sycophant or something.
Er. I did get slightly confused in the last one with the change of perspective. Does that count as constructive criticism? :-)
no subject
And it is what it looked lke.
Thank you. Hrm. Does that mean I have yes-women?
Argh. I thought about that, but I wanted to get it done.
Besides, to fix it requires writing a longer fic, I suspect, and I don't know Stinger that wellEr, not to mention my handle on Dad is sketchy. (For instance, I can't imagine him telling Kara about his thousandth landing. At all).ALSO. Send help. I have run out of BSG tapes to listen to and may resort to chipmunk!BSG shortly.
no subject
Thank you. Hrm. Does that mean I have yes-women?
Yes.
I can't imagine him telling Kara about his thousandth landing.
Didn't he actually say, "I don't remember telling you about it," in "Act of Contrition"? I always assumed she heard about it from someone else, or maybe they got drunk some time and he just forgot. ;-) (I think her response was, "Yeah, whatever..." in that scene, which makes me laugh on so many levels.)
no subject
Oooh. Grease pencil would work. *goes to change things*
no subject
*actually tears up*
Dammit, you had to go and rebreak my rather raw Billy emotions before work! DAMN YOU.
no subject
Have a hankie? And a Snickers?
no subject
I love that Steve produces awesome cylon fic! YAY FIC!
(Poke me and I might be able to say more on another day.)
no subject
*pats*