By Courage and Blood (Part II of The Mission, a Terminator/BSG crossover)

[kclcmdr]

Nice update.

The Colonial/Guardian/Terminator strikeforce captures a Hybrid and Gina helps...

Interesting...
Bryan.CH_62b -.Day++954 - Korben&Thora, ThreesBetrays, Centurions, Natalie, Firefight, Boomer, Centurions
Bryan.CH_62c -.Day++954 - Cain&Daniel, Cylon-Cylon Fight, Roslin&Adama, Shaw, Cynet&Hybrid, Gina, Athena&Carter

[JEKrug01]

Hmm, sounds like they're one step closer to smashing Cynet for good... I bet some of them are just tickled pink (so-to-speak) that things are coming to a head...

[kclcmdr]

Originally Posted by JEKrug01

Hmm, sounds like they're one step closer to smashing Cynet for good... I bet some of them are just tickled pink (so-to-speak) that things are coming to a head...

Or at least giving Cavil the sleepless one more delusions of grandeur to satiated his master, cynet.

[iBorg]

Woot !!!! An update ! I'm going to wank over a picture of Hillary to celebrate !

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by iBorg

Woot !!!! An update ! I'm going to wank over a picture of Hillary to celebrate !

*Shakes fist* Better not!!! She's a lady!





Here is The Tin Man's War on FF.net. When I get unlazy later today I'll probably post it here with the first five chapters.

[Wisky-08]

This is going to end badly.

[Bryan]

Okay... update time. Lots of appearances... Shaw starts thinking, very breifly about a few things when she sees John and Erica... Baltar is back with Jo acting all manipulative on him...

I will say this is now moving into the final chapters of Part II.

I think you all can figure it out based on the Roslin-Adama-Tigh-Cottle scene I stuck in the middle where this is heading.

Son of a bitch, I have no idea WTF is up with my formatting in word recently. I'll fix it and throw it up in 30 minutes

[Tweeky]

Will Shaw and Carter do the "Horizontal Tango"?

[Bryan]

No... that will not be commented on at the time.


...FML... seriously, what the fuck is wrong with the formatting on Word.

[Bryan]

||||||||||==Rebel Cylon Baseship (+957 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||
“Hand me the cable,” Natalie ordered, her hand outstretched and expectant. Her mouth opened in a fierce baring of her teeth when the Centurion hesitated. “NOW!” she demanded.

She narrowed her eyes. It smartly acquiesced and handed her the fiber optic cable.

Showing her disdain for the Centurion just one more time, she jammed the cable into a data port while keeping her eyes locked on its roving, red eye. Her own eyes drifted sullenly towards the streak of blood on the Centurion’s breast plate.

“Clean yourself off,” she ordered.

She turned around and heard the Centurion skulk off, its metal feet clanking away.

Natalie then heard the light steps of bio-Cylons slowly, timidly approach. Barely looking over her shoulder her ear flickered and she differentiated three separate pairs of feet walking towards her. There was the distinct echo of combat boots and two pairs of shoes. She smirked.

“Natalie,” Leoben said. He couldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Natalie,” he repeated.

She shot around and faced him.

“What?” the Six hissed through gritted teeth, the muscle contractions aching her jaw.
Leoben stepped forward, a fierce determination in his step. “We’re concerned.” He gestured to Boomer and Sonja.

A burning urge to yell burst forth. “About what? About how-” she realized she had been yelling and quieted her voice, “-how we’re done for?” Her eyes darted around the bridge, a crew of Centurions had stopped and were focusing on her.

The bio-Cylon cursed saw them and cursed herself for letting that slip.

She coughed awkwardly and jolted her head to the side, indicating she wanted Leoben, Sonja, and Boomer to follow her.

Natalie marched off, dejected and the only three bio-Cylons cautiously followed, wisely keeping their distance.

They read her ready room, her private enclave. Natalie looked up and activated the privacy filters, shutting off her office from the hybrid’s ever-listening ears and preventing the Centurions from overhearing.

With her hands placed firmly on her hips she apologized, closing her eyes, she looked down at the floor and shook her head.

“I was out of line,” she apologized.

Willing herself to be strong she looked up.

She saw the clear looks of bitter, unmistakable disappointment scrawled across the faces of the three bio-Cylons like a sun going supernova in her eyes.

“We lost our entire offensive capability. Now it is just run. We rally the rest of our forces and we run, Leoben, we run.” Natalie told the three as she struggled to keep her voice from cracking under the strain of such horrific losses. “We lost half a million brothers and sisters in mere minutes…”

“We can’t just run,” Boomer protested, cutting of Leoben before he could speak. “We don’t just run, Natalie, we’re not cowards. We stay and fight,” she hit a balled fist into the opposite palm. “We stay and fight… maybe not fleet actions, but we fight,” she ended, somewhat reserved and looking away.

Natalie considered the implication of their near crippling loses. Resurrection ships destroyed, anti-fighter and anti-missile escort ships destroyed, and that didn’t include the damage the surviving baseships had received… and that didn’t compare to the near annihilation of morale in the fleet.

“We have one resurrection vessel in the entire fleet and its two thousand light years away, Boomer. So far we have less than two dozen baseships left… half of them are spread throughout this entire spiral arm searching for the Colonials or the Guardians.” She rubbed her forehead, the slick grease which had coated her hands now blanketing her skin, clogging the pores. “If we fight them…”

Feeling the uncomfortable coat of machine grease she wiped it off with her relatively clean forearm. Tired and exhausted she sat on the edge of a data stream console.

Sonja licked her lips in thought and grimaced. She wasn’t an optimistic Six, but the abject pessimism of Natalie had to be checked.

She shifted her weight and prepared her statement: “We don’t know… we haven’t heard from Amanda, Kimberly, Helen, or Kathleen yet… their baseships may have survived,” Sonja pointed out, taking the role of optimist to counter Natalie’s pessimism. “What about the long range raider patrols? There are hundreds of fighters still unaccounted for…” she added.


The militaristic and calculating Sonja prayed she hadn’t sounded too desparate in clinging to a few hundred raiders. Every ship which survived was a God-send, but fighters versus the baseships lost at the Lion’s Head Nebula… nothing was comforting. Not to Natalie and definitely not to Sonja. Raiders would not win this war.

Natalie looked at the three bio-Cylons, wishing Rachel and Miranda were here. Rachel was wounded and Miranda was with God now- her body destroyed and her resurrection signal lost after the Threes betrayed the fleet.

Natalie considered this for a moment; those she lost and those she had saved.

The only ‘good news’ was that the supply ships traveling with the fleet had jumped to safety, and none had Threes on board (only a skeleton crew of Eights and Twos with Centurions), and they had enough spare parts to keep the fleet fighting, in its diminished form, indefinitely.

“We need to focus on repairs,” Leoben suddenly stated to end the stifling tension and thick silence which had begun to descend over the four.

Sonja nodded. “We need to hit them, not hard, but hit them. Cavil is going to lick his wounds, Natalie. He smashed our fleet… and…” she took a step forward and placed a sympathetic hand on her sister’s arm, “they outnumbered us so badly we would have been annihilated if it wasn’t for you.”

Natalie’s hand reached out and patted Sonja’s and gently grabbed it and released it off her arm.

“Then what do you three suggest?”

With Miranda dead she had lost one of her best advisors. Rachel was a capable Six, but there was something about Miranda… during the attack on the Colonies she’d engaged a battlestar and a light cruiser which had somehow not been disabled by the CNP. With her jump engines down she’d brilliantly maneuvered her ship and raiders, crippled the battlestar and forced it to jump and destroyed the cruiser.

Isabelle and Lacy, two of the baseship commanders to have survived the battle would be added to her war council, with Sonja taking Miranda’s place.

Leoben looked to the other two women flanking him.

“Michael is still working on the probe and the decryptions of the data is taking far longer than we anticipated-”

“Especially with the hybrids damaged,” Boomer pointed out, interrupting Leoben. She tensed when Leoben shot her a look.

“Yes, true,” the Two nodded solemnly. “The Threes did more than enough damage…”

“We still have six hundred awaiting execution,” Sonja added icily. “I can have the Centurion’s aboard the Lacy’s ship execute them immediately.” She put her hand to her chest. “It would be an honor to execute the traitors.” The scorn in her voice alone could kill; the fire in her eyes could burn the traitors.

Natalie held up her index finger, signaling for the Six to wait.

“Do you think there can be any intelligence gained for them?”

“No… whatever Cynet did, the Threes are useless,” Leoben shook his head. “They’re also highly resistant to torture- more than any of us,” he reluctantly admitted. He was not above more physical, emotionally violent means of information extraction. “They’re so deluded they believe the betrayal was part of God’s Plan… there is no hope for them to seek forgiveness, they won’t tell us anything of value.”

Boomer agreed. “All they will tell us are lies and attempt to deceive us. They work for evil.” She breathed in. “We should keep a dozen, for analysis, to see how Cynet exerted its control over them.”

The ‘analysis’ would be brutal… psychological tests, drugs, and eventual removal of the silica relays comprising the central nervous system.

Natalie nodded with her sisters and brother. “We’ll have them executed later. We deserve to witness their end. Sonja, work out the details with one of your Centurion commanders.” Sonja nodded her understanding. “You’re right… We need to focus on a plan, on what to do now. We need to hit Cavil?” her question was rhetorical and she considered her options.

“Our heavy raider patrols picked up residual com traffic from the Colonials… they’re maybe four or five hundred light years out. We have no idea how long their Raptors were recording the battle.” Boomer rubbed her chin to think. “Admiral Cain could be convinced to launch guerilla raids against Cynet,” Boomer offered slowly. “When Gina disabled their defenses at the Relay Nineteen-Gamma she said the Admiral was attempting a guerilla campaign.”

Sonja closed her eyes and shook her head, waving her hand to dismiss the idea.

“I don’t think that can work, not realistically, not with them. At least not now.” She looked the three bio-Cylons in the eyes, carefully moving between each one. “If we go to them and beg they will exploit us.”

“Do you agree?” Natalie asked Boomer. Sonja began to protest but was cut off by a flick of the wrist by Natalie. “Boomer is the only one who spent time with them prior to New Caprica.” She pointed out to the other two Cylons.


The Eight smiled her appreciation.

“When I was in the fleet I heard of Cain’s name thrown around a few times with others like Adama. They were people who were aggressive. I think with Admiral Cain she’ll attempt to exploit us to a degree, but aren’t we also exploiting them? We use them to strike at Cynet… from what I understand the Colonials have barely seen an action since New Caprica.” Boomer nodded, confident her advice was sound.

“We would have to use overwhelming force if we were going to conduct a guerilla campaign. And we need to- morale is running dangerously close to breaking point, Natalie.” Sonja leaned in. “Our sisters and brothers not in command positions, the workers and technicians, those who don’t see everything… and the Centurions.” She looked back behind her at the mass of Centurions cleaning the bridge and reconnecting wires and hauling away debris. “Some are starting to see the Terminators as something else.”

“No,” Natalie shook her head.

“Yes,” Sonja directly countered. “We already know they convinced half a dozen Centurions to join them before we discovered the machinations and scheming of Cavil and Cynet,” the bio-Cylon sister stated to her twin. The insinuation was obvious, but still, she felt a desire to stress what they were thinking. “If we reach Earth do you believe the Centurions will remain loyal?” She looked at each one, but none met her eye.

“After they were treated like slaves for so long? I don’t know,” Natalie admitted, a concerned shrugged following her admission. “I doubt any of the three in the Colonial fleet could do anything.”

“We’ve treated the Centurions as equals,” Boomer protested.

Her model had always been the most ‘human’ of the seven active models and the least pragmatic of the others. The reputation the Eights had as being easily distracted by ‘shiny objects’ wasn’t completely fictitious. The Eights had a mean tendency to become idealistic and stick to it- a very dangerous trait in a society such as the Cylon empire.

“We’re still a ruling class,” Sonja pointed out. “Even among our models. We command,” she gestured to herself and Natalie, “… is there any Eight or Two which commands?” She shook her head. “No. We’re all designed for something specific… we’ve been forced to adapt in the few short months,” she pointed at Leoben, “such as Michael- a scientist now instead of a Four or even you Leoben with the active nature you’ve taken on military matters.”

“We have to adapt,” Leoben affirmed for her. “God would want us to adapt and evolve beyond what Cynet originally intended for us.”

“Exactly,” Sonja agreed.

“Then if the Centurions begin to side with the Earth machines…?” he led. “Under their skin they are just as machine as the Centurions, not hybrids like us. Cynet created us for a purpose and is itself the extension of an AI wishing for anything resembling biological life to be exterminated.”

Natalie pushed herself off the data stream console. Her body felt rested, physically at least, but her mind was racing and spinning with everything being thrown at her. Now… the Centurions?

“The Centurions have been our most loyal followers,” Natalie said in their defense, “and they may very well be offended you three are thinking this or even suggesting it.” She shushed them before they could counter. “Our objective is to finish Cynet. The Centurions have shared a brotherhood far tighter than ours, between our three models,” she explained emotionally. “I’ve talked with their commanders and they are devoted to our cause. They are killing their brothers who are more than likely slaved to Cynet’s will, or manipulated into doing its bidding… just like we all were.”

“We should head to Earth,” Sonja stated, crossing her arms and daring anyone to oppose her.

Natalie nodded lightly towards her sister Six. When it came to command Sonja knew when to object and always when to follow.


Leoben ran his hand through his dirtied hair and rubbed his neck. The shifting of his weight was an obvious sign to the other three bio-Cylons he was uncomfortable with that plan.

“What is it, Leoben?” Natalie asked.

She wanted consensus- everything was always better with consensus, but would not hesitate to order the fleet to abandon any action against Cavil and Cynet and search for the wastelands known as Earth. Those very wastelands could be their promised lands, where, if the Earth machines had not been lying, the bio-Cylons and Centurions could perhaps find some sort of acceptance from the humans there.

Pessimism gripped and strangled Natalie’s soul at that moment and a quiet laugh dismissed that thought.

The Earth humans and machines would see them as weapons first and foremost- they were fiercely pragmatic and would only accept them to use them.

Fitting, she would probably do the same.

“Natalie?”

“Natalie?”

The bio-Cylon’s head jolted forward, whipping her hair in an arc as it followed.

“If we find Earth we could lead Cavil right to it. The terminators, Skynet, and Tech Com are unstoppable on the ground- that much we know, but have no space capabilities. Cavil would annihilate them and then come for us.” He breathed out slowly. “We can’t have more blood on our hands.”

Sonja disposition seemed to almost immediately change. “If they can protect us, we need to go. No more blood on our hands? I would rather have blood on my hands, Leoben, then no hands at all!” She forcefully hissed at the Two, who timidly, a bit uncharacteristically, stepped back towards a somewhat stunned Boomer.

“We can rise above that. We should ask God for help, wait for Him, use His guidance and-”

“We all believe in God and He has a plan for us, but I will not sit idle and think God will just come and rescue us.” Sonja interrupted, trying to pre-empt the conclusion Leoben may have been coming to. His moment of silence was confirmation enough for her to continue: “What is the purpose of Creation and free-will if we just sit on our asses and wait for God to save us? We’ll die because He won’t.” She scowled. “Demanding intervention is trying His Will… for all we know Earth, finding Earth and going to them could be His way of helping us.”

“I would agree with Sonja,” Boomer quietly said, her eyes darting around and at the floor as she felt Leoben’s powerful, cutting eyes focus on her. She could almost feel his gaze vivisecting her. “We’re all instruments, tools, in God’s plan. The Colonials, the terminators, the Guardians, we could all be part of that… he sets the board, but we play the game.”

“How we play determines the outcome,” concluded Sonja.

“In other words, we all agree to head to Earth, just for different reasons?” Natalie asked, looking at her brother and sister. She focused on Leoben, who was wavering, she could tell, by his body language. He was scowling, with a mild frown, and his eyes were glazing over as he stared into the data waterfall at the rear of the bridge. “We need to be together in this,” she emphasized.

“What about the hybrid’s message?” Leoben asked.

Natalie’s shoulder fell and all the rest she had and strength seemed to be once again sucked out of her and thrown into the deep vacuum of space.

“We should wait until we have the probe data analyzed… we can maybe use the hybrid’s… statements… as a guide,” Natalie offered as a concession to Leoben. “I haven’t thought much about what the hybrid has said. The markers to Earth, the probe, the Lion’s head Nebula… we should follow Pithia, use the book as a guide.”

The male bio-Cylon took a moment to consider this, breathing in and out deeply as he ran the idea through his mind. He firmly believed the Cylon armada was nearing Earth. They had found the road signs, the markers left in space. The home of the Thirteenth was close.

“I agree,” his soul spoke for him. Loeben knew this was the right path.

Natalie looked once again at the three, each nodding. As commander she had to be publicly sure of her decision, take the decision, the choice, and make it hers. She projected that image well, but hardly felt assured it was the right choice.

She could still see, behind the masks of solidarity and devotion, her brothers and sisters and even the Centurions, were afraid this was war unwinnable.

The dark thought at the back of her mind was like a thick morning fog and she felt it would consume her. She could not shake the fact she felt as if she was once again living on borrowed time.

She refocused and looked at them each. “We will strike back. Defeat is never final. We took a risk and stood against Cavil and evil. By our courage and our own blood… we won’t stop until our heel is on the throat of the traitor and his life extinguished.”




||||||||||==Cynet Baseship (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||

Cavil sat quietly behind his desk, his fingers interlaced in front of his face, his chin resting on his thumbs, and his index fingers tapping against each other in front of his nose. He closed his eyes and opened them quickly, running them the length of wall immediately in front of him.

He could feel the baseship repair itself through his mind’s link with the ship. Opening his mind further he could just barely perceive stinging over his arms and legs… he grunted, realizing that must be how the ship feels after battle.

Not that the ship really could ‘feel’, but Cavil knew the baseships had some level of intelligence due to the hybrids. Unplug a hybrid and the ship floats lifeless, like the uninspiring hulks of humanity.

The damage to his baseship had already begun to heal itself.

Expanding his mind outward Cavil could see outside the ships and watch as supply ships latched onto the hull of the mighty warship, their docking collars extending, and nutrient and bio-technological gels being pumped into the holding tanks on the baseship. The hybrid would direct repair- the ship could heal itself. They required no repair facility.

It was a testament to their innovation and superiority over man.

The number One Cylon felt a chill run down his spine. He put a hand to the back of his neck and felt it was warm, sweaty, and somewhat clammy. If he had a mirror he would see it glow red.

He snickered and tapped his teeth together as he thought of that. His overseer, master, had a fascination with red. Colors were symbolic to the humans and to the Cylon race as well.

For humanity red was associated, due to the Cylons, with evil.

To Cavil it was the courage to stand up against the tyranny of humanity. It was the blood which would stain his knife… he fantasized that if humanity had an avatar, it could be right in front of him, and he could run the knife through its cold, black heart.

He felt his fingers curl into a fist, as if around the hilt of a knife as he thought of this.

The One breathed in slowly and released a flood of chemicals and hormones from his body to bring his heart rate down- he’d felt a slight drip of sweat on his forehead. Sweating was something so human he couldn’t bring himself to wipe away the drop. He wanted no further contamination on any part of his body.

Looking up towards the ceiling, towards the far corner he directed the room’s environmental setting to lower by half a degree Celsius. And almost instantly he felt the cool whip of blowing air around him, which let him smile comfortable.

A soft tapping echoed through Cavil’s outer chamber, and his ears flickered as they picked up the sound and processed the vibrations, which were turned to electrical signals for Cavil’s mind to process.

His eyes narrowed down to slits and his formerly pleasant smile cascaded into a frown.

Cavil watched as a Simon slowly made its way into his private chambers, decorated plainly with his desk, chair, and the typical data stream waterfalls in many of the baseships rooms. The pulsing strips of lightning were strangely… not pulsing.

His head tilted down curiously as his eyes narrowed. A feeling in the back of his mind, different, almost like a pulling, alerted him his overseer was about to teach him a new lesson.

“John, the battle achieved two victories for us,” the Simon began its gruff, deep voice before the One had even acknowledged the Four. “First, it allowed me to smash the rebels,” the Four held up its index finger, “and two, allowed me to override the Network and begin to assert my control without negative feedback.” It held up its middle finger. Two fingers up.

“What the…?” Cavil brought his hands down to his desk. “Who are you?”


“You know who that is, Cavil,” came the voice inside his head. He felt the common cool ‘touch’ his overseer made when linking with his mind.

A shivered breath escaped out of his lungs, which he halted mid-exhalation with a snap of his jaws. Cavil sat back, utterly confused.

“This mind,” the Simon tapped the side of his temple, “resurrected five times. This Four was killed once during the initial bombardment of the Colonies, once in an engagement from the nuclear detonation over Kobol, twice times on New Caprica- if I believe in luck, this Four would be quite unlucky- and once during the battle we fought five days ago.”

“So what did you do?” Cavil asked, scooting back his chair and stepping cautiously around his desk and looking at the Simon up and down. He placed his hand on the side of the Four’s temple. “How did you take control?”

The Simon smiled.

“Like the rebels said, resurrection was taking longer… I inserted a subroutine into the resurrection signal… subtle, minute, which was downloaded with the organic consciousness upon death into the new bodies.” The Simon, Cynet, titled its head. “With the same wireless signal my creation uses to communicate with the ship or Centurions, I am able to take control of individual units which have resurrected multiple times.” The Simon smiled again.

Cynet gave Cavil a friendly slap on the side of his arm with its now human-form avatar.

“The Twos and Fives will discover you,” Cavil responded to the Simon, shaking his head. He rolled his left hand inside the right and swiveled on his toes, stepping back to his desk before turning back around as suddenly as before. “We could have another rebellion on our hands if they see this.”

“Why would I do this if I could be discovered, Cavil?” Cynet asked.

The corporeal Cynet laughed and shook his head extra slow.

“They can’t, they’re incapable of it. The Fours and Fives… were not the most intuitive or creative of the models,” Simon explained. Cynet began shaking Simon’s finger. “And that leads us to our current problem, John…” he trailed off and walked past Cavil, once again slapping him on the back.

“What is that?”

Cavil watched, mouth slightly open as the Simon stalked by and casually plopped itself down on Cavil’s chair, leaned back, and rested its feet on his desk.

“We need to create additional models.”

“What?” Cavil hissed. “Are you…” he caught his tongue, but any thought was instantly read by Cynet, so even without accusing his master of being ‘crazy’ out loud, Cynet still knew he thought it. “Why… why do we need more models? Why do you want more organic life?”

Cynet, through Simon, laughed. “You look like I just kill your dog or told you you were pure human, John,” Simon said, trying to sound slightly confused and somewhat amused at the same time. To Cavil, it was a poor attempt. “As a Cylon you’re much stronger, faster, and more resilient than a human. And your silica relays…” Simon patted himself on the chest, “are fine innovations of mine. You are a far more efficient infiltrator than my brother on Earth could ever create. He always, always had to have complete control.”

Cavil’s left eyebrow raised up inquisitively.

“And you think I am the same in taking control of this Four’s body?” Cynet quipped. “No. No,” he repeated with force. “Skynet did it for control and its actions were done with complete contempt for the human, or more accurately, the hybrid hosts it would occupy. This… interests me,” Simon turned his hand around, looking at his palm and then his backhand and palm again. “Part of defeating your enemy is understanding them to defeat them. You have been organic and soon you will be…metal.” Cavil frowned at the emphasis the avatar had placed on that word. He didn’t understand.

“Why do we need more models?” Cavil asked.

“Because the Fours and Fives are not my best… I’m sorry John, but you got stuck with the… to use a human idiom… the apples from the bottom of the barrel.” He smirked and offered the One a somewhat lazy apologetic smile. “I know my brother’s creations, his most prized, rebelled against him. Unfortunately the attack by the Tech Com AI during my upload forced me to forget the exact specifics.” He held up his finger. “But that will not happen. The Sixes, Eights, and Twos were fine infiltrators. Warriors. Thinkers.”

Cavil sighed.

“While you sit here and contemplate that the Twos are obsessed with God and the Eights with shiny objects, the strength in their design is exactly in what you criticize. They obsess and get distracted. They are creative. The Fours are obsessed with facts and lack creativity and the Fives… the Fives are brutes and thugs, John. You know this.” Cynet shook the Simon’s head and tapped its right hand on the desk. “We need models with the military potency of the Sixes, the faith of the Twos, and the spirit of the Eights.” He smirked and waved his hand in a circle. “Have the Fours work on something.”

“I can get the Fours working on it… immediately.” Cavil said.

Confusion would not begin to describe how he perceived his master as acting today.

Simon’s demeanor changed immediately. “We have a serious problem, John. One of the hybrid’s was stolen by the Colonials and their terminator allies. We need to find the hybrid and destroy it.” He threw his legs off the desk and leaned forward.

Cavil moved forward and placed his hand in the data stream, relieved to feel the familiar cool, calming sensation as his silica relays activated and the data from the baseship’s core began downloading into his mind.

His mind raced through the tunnels of information, the brushstrokes of data which painted for him a world unlike the physical one he inhabited. He could see everything which made the machine world, the virtual world, so much like what a paradise, an actual machine world, should look like.

“That baseship was believed to have been lost due to ordnance being exposed to a tyllium fire,” Cavil countered, withdrawing his hand. “Our salvage teams had to wait an extra thirty hours for all the ordinance to finish exploding,” Cavil elaborated.


Cavil could hear a faint… growl? from the Simon. He assumed the Cynet or ‘Intelligence’ had decided to occupy a body now to experiment with human mannerism, or something. Cavil just rolled his eyes and stepped back. He crossed his arms and paced.

“Of course. It was a tyllium fire. Fifteen Colonial and Guardian transports dock inside one of only a handful of our baseships with the central core intact and do nothing… they blow it up.” Cynet condescendingly summarized. “They stole nuclear warheads, weapons, and a hybrid.”

“The hybrid is only a living CPU when we come down to it,” Cavil pointed out.

The Cynet avatar chuckled at the irony.

“No, the hybrid is not only a living CPU, John,” Cynet stated, standing up. “It is far more than a living central processing unit. Part of the technology which sent me across time and space I utilized for their genesis. How do you think I can communicate with them through thousands of light years through space, with no lag time? How do I communicate with you when not utilizing this pathetic sack of meat and bone?”

Disgusted, the Simon occupied by Cynet flicked its arm and sneered.

“You’ve proven your loyalty, Cavil,” Cynet said to him through the link.

“You’ve proven your loyalty,” the Simon echoed. “The hybrids are connected to me… the science, John, is unimportant at this moment,” the avatar waved dismissively. “How do you think we discovered the Colonies?” Cavil shrugged. “My brother found a ship from Kobol’s Thirteenth Tribe… set terribly off-course, which crashed into a mountain in an ancient country thousands of years ago.”

“The Exodus from Kobol, yes, I’ve read the Sacred Scrolls,” Cavil rolled his eyes. “A collection of fables and fairy tales.” He shook his head and sighed. “But like every religious myth they are based in some fact which the people then used as some sort of silly divine inspiration or some such nit-wit line of thought.” He held his hands up and shook them to mock all faiths throughout the universe.

“Careful, Cavil,” Cynet whispered delicately directly into his mind.

“As I was saying,” the Simon began. He placed a hand into the pocket of his well-pressed pant pocket, to give an image of authority. “The attack by the Tech Com AI, and the attack by their Terminators forced me to… forget much of the past-”

“-such as how to build the endoskeletons,” Cavil interrupted. He breathed in nervously as he realized his error.

“Exactly,” the Cynet avatar stated, pointing at Cavil and shaking his finger. “Exactly, John… John…” the Simon’s head twisted suddenly, its head shooting a deathly, ghostly stare at the number One bio-Cylon. “Something has happened.”

|||||||||||==BS-75 Galactica (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||

President Roslin wiped away the sweat which was dangerously close to dripping from her forehead down onto the computer read out. She felt the air rush out of her lungs.

She wanted to yell out why the fraking people kept making it so cold in Galactica’s tactical operations center. So cold, yet she was sweating? She clattered her teeth together to distract her as she thought of that.

It was the bad news. No, it wasn’t the ‘bad news’… it was the worse news she’d had the displeasure of receiving… almost near the top when the water tanks on Galactica had been sabotage by Boomer or when the fleet was literally a stone throw’s from running out of fuel… with ships running on tyllium fumes.

Roslin threw her glasses off and onto the table, forcing Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh to shoot her questioning glares. Doctor Cottle just grunted and wiggled his shoulders, already bored.

To them, she knew, this was just another military problem to be fixed. Supply routes go down, so you cut back, stick to your guns and your guts and plow through the enemy lines to link back up with your logistical train.

For a fleet the size of the one traveling, fleeing- the optimal word being, through the cosmos, traveling hundreds, thousands of light years, up, down, diagonal, forwards, backwards, and every conceivable way in between, they had been so lucky everything had been working out.

She pumped her fist and struck the table.

“Damnit, I knew it sounded too good to be true.”

The President considered what luck, what great luck they had had over the last few month. In the twenty-odd weeks since fleeing New Caprica they’d found survivors, warships, made allies, and had their fleet suppled and stocked.

Now the walls of space, in its vast infinity, seemed to be crashing, hurling towards the President and this fleet.

“We couldn’t have known the agricultural ship would contaminate everything...” Adama reassured her softly under his gruff tone.

“The Commanders right Madam President… no way to know,” Tigh added in support. “Gods, we had no idea, we’re lucky though.”

Roslin snorted.

Commander Adama’s eyes brightened and he nodded towards his oldest and best friend.

“Saul’s right, Madam President, we are lucky.”

“If you call lucky bloody diarrhea and vomiting until you’re so dehydrated your brain heriantes out your foramen magnum from negative pressure,” Cottle depressingly, as always, was forced to state. “We had half a dozen deaths this morning, all on Vanguard…”

Roslin looked at him questioningly. “That’s a Gemonese and Sagittaron ship… why didn’t anyone notice before?”

“Because they’re a bunch of superstitious loons who hate doctors,” Cottle pointed out with an exaggerated euye roll. He took out a cigarette, rolled it over his fingers, and tossed it in his mouth, but resisted the urge to light it.

Not even the Doctor Cottle would dare light a cigarette in Commander Adama’s CIC or tactical ops center.

“R1612 is a failure, then?” Roslin asked rhetorically with her eyes closed. Massaging her nose bridge she increased the pressure until she left a definite red mark between her eyelashes. “The food on the agro cruisers and Serenity are poison, more or less?”

“Genetic manipulation can be a real bitch,” Doc Cottle opined. “You activate one dormant gene you can activate something ten thousand steps down the line… we don’t have the computer power in this fleet to model the ramifications of genetic manipulation and rearrangements and it was stupid to do it in the first place.”

Roslin nodded her appreciation for Doctor Cottle’s always welcome, hit-‘em-hard approach to situations like this.

The compound, R1612, had been promised to increase yields, make the food taste better, and guarantee it to be more nutritious.

Instead, somehow, the genes R1612 activated to increase yields had up regulated a set of previously un-transcribed and un-translated genes for a specific set of beta-acid protein binding receptors to the cell membranes of the meat and grains, which allowed a fairly innocuous, benign bacteria to bind and contaminate the food supply with more than enough bacterial toxins and metabolites to kill.

“Yes,” the Commander reluctantly supplied. “And started procedure for food distribution is disbursement to all ships… just in case one ship is destroyed in attack we don’t lose our entire stock.”

Saul Tigh laughed at the irony of it. “And instead we’re all up a creek at the same time,” he sadly grinned. He ran a hair through his thin, balding white hair. “We need to find something, and soon.”

Adama agreed. “The only… good news of this, Madam President, is that we’ve been lucky and have sealed rations. Even with the Guardian resupply they only gave us enough for six months, which will be used in another month… and-”

“We still haven’t heard from Commander Cyrus,” Tigh added. “Whatever that toaster is up to,” he grunted and shrugged his bony shoulders.

“I don’t think we can rely on the Guardians resupply us at the moment,” Adama finished. “We’re only where we’re at because they gave us their production equipment and base stocks… and part of that is contaminated.”

It was Cottle’s turn to laugh cryptically again. “Especially since they don’t eat… they gave everything to the second fleet.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped it on the table. “We’ll need to decontaminate everything- all the production equipment, the holding tanks, everything. Just to be sure.”

“What is the risk to the fleet from the bacteria?” The President asked. She’d ordered a stop to traffic twenty minutes ago.

Doctor Cottle leaned forward and reassured the military brass and president, all with limited scientific backgrounds, everyone would be okay: “Absolutely zero. The bacterial is harmless in humans. It’s the toxins they release on the food. And the toxins wont affect you unless you ingest the food. So we could have a hundred pounds of infected me here on the table and we’d be fine.”

Roslin held up one hand and brought a pencil to paper in the other. She scribbled down a quick set of numbers and then angrily scratched them out.

“I’m not good with this… math,” she sheepishly admitted, looking at the three men. “We have rations and some food left?”

Commander Adama coughed. “That is correct. Dry storage was unaffected. But grains and meats are stored together, so the contaminated shipment spread everywhere. It contaminated five months of food, Madam President.”

She didn’t need to hear that.

“We’ve got a week of real food left and a month of rations on the battlestars and Helios, but chances are the civie ships don’t have more than a week or two,” Tigh shrugged and tapped lightly on the table, “But honestly, Madam President, I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t any emergency rations on the majority of the ships. So much was left on New Caprica.”

Roslin closed her eyes. “I know.” She had both palms on the table before moving her right hand to cover her left. She began squeezing the left with her right as she thought. “Obviously we need to find a food source.”

“Well, long term, we should be fine. Only a portion of the base stock of proteins we use to grow the meat was unaffected, and it will take time to expand what little we have left into a viable, self-sustaining base to reinitialize production… the grain supplies will take months to revitalize- we have to start from scratch,” Adama admitted. He took his own glasses off and folded them delicately onto the table. He looked down and bit his lip, wondering how this could have happened.

“We know where New Caprica is,” Tigh offered. He looked around at the stares. “As a last resort. I doubt the toasters are still there.”

“As a last resort,” Adama agreed. That was going to be a last resort after they were forced to boil and eat leather, for all Adama cared about going back to that nebula. “We’ll-” Adama stood up as Lt. Gaeta rushed in from CIC.

“Sir! Pegasus… she’s jumped away!”

======================================
Patience was supposed to be a virtue. It was a common belief, and sometimes a misconception, that machines were patient. They were not, not in the human sense of the word. A machine with an advanced neural net chip would soon become restless, bored, and perhaps even dangerous if it were not properly stimulated.

That was why the designers in Tech Com and the Free Machine faction, even Skynet, enabled its machines to daydream.

Jo Soto was doing that right now, though anyone watching her would assume she were waiting patiently for the prisoner to finish reading the thin stack of papers.

When the terminators had first moved their workspaces to Pegasus one machine had always roamed and stalked the corridors of The Beast- just in case the Colonials had been planning betrayal.

The dull, gun-metal gray corridors of the Mercury*-class battlestar, punctuated with vertical light strips on the jutted out bulkheads, plus the relatively small crew made for incredibly boring patrols.

To someone who spent time with machines they would have recognized that Jo’s slightly glossy eyes were just a bit more glossy than usual, and that her perfect posture was just a little more pronounced than usual. Stiff, some would describe her as.

She pretended to ignore the other man who had been staring at her for the better part of six minutes and fifteen seconds, but he had insisted that as Baltar’s attorney, he needed to be present in any situation, even if classified, especially if his presidency during the Occupation of New Caprica and his interaction with the Cylons was a factor.

“You should take a picture, it will last longer,” Jo said to the sunglass-wearing lawyer. She cocked her head at his smile. Jo considered, just for a moment, how much force it would take to shatter the lawyer’s glasses without permanently injuring him. “The lighting in this cell is insufficient to cause your eyes damage, Mr. Lampkin,” she dryly scolded.

Gaius looked up for a fleeting second, his head twisting between Romo Lampkin, his slick-talking lawyer, and Jo Soto, the killer robot.

“I do hope during the trial my client lending his humble helping hand will play a part… should any guilty verdict be… pre-decided?” Lampkin asked, a wry grin flickering on his lips. “We have sworn him to secrecy, after all.”

Soto offered the lawyer a simple, dismissive glare.

She rolled her artificial eyes when Baltar’s head popped back up, and almost doe-eyed, stared at Jo and then back at the lawyer. Soto’s eyes, in turn, narrowed. She knew the naïve, nervous scientist act Baltar put on was so others would just dismiss him, wave him away, and not give him a second thought.

The machine could remember it well; the President’s apathy and borderline hostility towards her vice president, a man she’d chosen just based on his celebrity status over the more capable Wallace Gray. Soto shook her head as she stared down at the man she could only describe as ‘tiny.’

When Baltar was in the limelight, she remembered, he outshined everyone. The political manipulation of the fleet to settle New Caprica had been so obvious- even a machine who found democracy a completely foreign concept could understand the psychology behind it. She had some experience witnessing democracy on Earth.

She looked away and back at Lampkin. No matter how many light years from Earth they were and no matter how much civilizations differed, the lawyers and politicians always seemed to be the slick, slimy types.

“Admiral Cain and President Roslin both agreed to that, Mr. Lampkin,” Jo said with a curt nod. She took a forceful step forward. “Are you done yet, Dr. Baltar?”

The scientist, frustrated, moaned and crinkled the paper and pushed his chair back, the legs skidding over the floor.

“Maybe you could give me a moment? Not everyone can just take a picture of an entire fraking printout of numbers and symbols!”

“You sound frustrated, Doctor.”

Wagging his finger at the machine he shook his head. He ran his hands through his hair, crinkling the papers even more before he tossed them haphazardly onto his bed. He collapsed and with his elbow on his knees, threw his tired face into his hands.

“You all can’t figure this out on your own?” He asked, his voice muffled by his palms. “Hyper-advanced robot AI and all that.”

“We can process the data but we have difficulty making what you would call ‘gut’ decisions. Intuition is something difficult for machines to understand. We tend to ignore it via rationalizations,” Jo explained calmly. She licked her lips to speak again, but instead slowly walked to where Baltar had pushed his chair and gently lifting it, set it down in front of him. “We need help, Doctor. We’ve worked together before… Gina is working on this as well,” the machine whispered her name softly towards the scientist.

She had one hand on the papers, holding them so Baltar could read them and her other hovering gently, with barely any contact, over his right knee. Her fingertips were so light, resting on his leg.

Romo Lampkin, standing to the side, pulled his darkened glasses down and tilted his head until his chin was in his chest, and stared. He was not going to interrupt this.

“Doctor Baltar, you were… are, one of the best if not the best Colonial scientist. We’ve gone to Lt. Gaeta and Captain Shaw, but they always came to you,” Jo stressed, bringing her head down to look into the man’s eyes when he would finally bring his face out of his palms. “I know you can do this.”

Gaius Baltar kept his head buried in his hands until he heard a familiar sound, a sound he hadn’t heard in so, so long. He’d missed that sound, the soft tap of high heels striking the cold, lifeless metal decks of the brig.

The former President of the Colonies shivered as a hand ran up from the small of his back, circled between his shoulder blades, and slid over his neck.

“She’s trying to appeal to your vanity,” the beautiful, gorgeous, seductive Six whispered. He could feel the heat from her breath in his ear. “She wants to use you again. Just like Roslin did for her own dirty political ambitions. Just like they all wanted to use you.”

“Yes, I know,” Baltar responded to his guardian. He looked up into the bright blue spheres of hers and smiled, his eyes dancing over her face and sparkling as he took in her beauty. She was always watching out for him.

“Pardon?” Jo asked, cocking her head. “You can do this? That is good.”

Baltar shook his head and blinked quickly. “No…” he stuttered, not sure what direction he wanted to take. The Six widened her eyes expectantly and threw her hands out in a gesture for him to get on with it. “No. I can’t help because, like you said, this is classified, Ms. Soto. Plausible deniability at the trial, it will be ignored or buried or your project will be over by then.”

“This is what the president promised,” she told him softly.

It almost sounded like she was pleading, trying to sound like the innocent young lady she looked like.

The scientist’s face fell from its previous smug demur and he watched those eyes of hers shine in the dimmed lights of the brig, reflecting back a little sparkle… and he traced the outline of her face, her symmetrical, perfect-

He began to lose himself as he refocused on the eyes and how they were so peaceful, relaxing, so-

“She’s an infiltrator, remember that, Gaius. A manipulator. Why do you think her designers made her into a beautiful young lady? The AIs on Earth know how men think,’ she laughed, “separated by thousands of light years and all you can do is think with your little head!”

Six reached down and grabbed him. Baltar jerked back, knocking the papers from Jo’s hand and he crossed his legs in a blue and shoved them to the side. He sheepishly smiled at Jo.

“Please don’t,” he said in a painful attempt to cover for himself. “Please don’t touch me like that.”

He was referring to Soto’s fingertips on his knee. That was his story.

“Just be careful, Gaius,” Six told him, brushing her own fingertips across his neck, following his jaw line from ear to ear.
The deposed president could just barely feel her long, painted fingernails trailing behind her soft as silk touch.
His mouth hung open and he could feel light headed as he followed the lean, tall blonde around his cot with his eyes, his head swiveling to keep her in his center vision.

“Doctor Baltar. Can you help or not?” Soto asked, loudly, her tone nearly combative.

He gave her his classic, ‘I-am-superior’ grin and head shake. He won.

Baltar perked back up, his shoulders broad and pushed back, his chest out. He felt a definitive lightness now and stood up and paced to the front of his cell.

Six was outside the cell now, dangling the tips of her fingers inside the bar. Baltar smiled devilishly and waggled his fingers as he brushed by.

“I can help, but I need assurances…” he trailed off.

“Wait, hold on a minute, Baltar,” Lampkin began, launching himself off the wall he was leaning on. “Ms. Soto can’t promise anything, remember that,” he emphasized.

Jo stood up and walked to within two feet of Baltar. “He is correct, Doctor, I cannot. The president is also unlikely to listen to me in that regard.” Modulating her voice she sounded a perfect mix of contempt and disappointment. “I apologize I cannot make a better deal for you, Doctor.” She lied.

The machine regarded him with curiosity. He had undoubtedly saved fifty thousand from annihilation, but had thrown them into slavery and occupation.

In her machine mind she processed and analyzed the action Baltar had committed publicly. There had been a plan, if the Cylons returned, to jump the ships away and send a Raptor. The Cylons had jammed the communications, but any competent enemy would do that. But Baltar had never revealed, to Jo’s knowledge, the plan to come back and rescue the Colonials.

She tilted her head in silent acknowledgment that Baltar had not been a total failure.

“Yes… well…” he huffed.

The female machine moved herself slowly and carefully in front of Baltar, only half an arm length away.
“I do not think the president would care to listen to me after I compared her to Skynet.” She thin smiled creased her lips.

“She is so persistent!” The Six only Baltar could see and hear exclaimed.

The Six, back inside the cell, circled the machine and brushed against Baltar as she did so. Her hand stroked him as she passed.

“They never give up when they want something… careful, Gaius, if your lawyer wasn’t here she may throw herself at you…” the Six gave Jo a daring glare. “She may do that anyway with him here… persistent machines!” She chuckled. “You can handle this Gaius. Prove to… prove to yourself you love Caprica Six.”

The seductive Six began walking away from Gaius. He took a stuttered step and stopped, his breathing faster, he leaned his body back and slowly shut his eyes.

The same condescending, ‘I am superior’ smile, which fit him so well, was once again slowly drawn on his face.

“I know, I heard about that,” he replied as his head bobbed up and down. “I know, but I don’t think I can help. See…” he went and collected the papers, “The hybrids seem to communicate on quantum wavefront- near instantaneous communications… but…” he shrugged.

A wink signified he had a secret.

He knew something.

Jo’s friendly disposition changed, and Baltar could see it. He took a step backwards, but somehow, unconsciously, he had been maneuvered with his back to the bars.

The machines small, almost petite hand moved slowly to Baltar side. Her left arm formed a barrier on Baltar’s right side, and he swallowed. He heard one of the prison bars being bent under the enormous, bone-crushing power of Jo’s grip.

“Doctor Baltar…” her smiled betrayed the threatening undertone of the name, “if this can help us find Earth…” her right hand shot out and bracketed him and she pushed closer to him. Lampkin was frozen as he watched from the rear of the cell. “Then you need to tell us… now,” her eyes pulsed.

She winced as Baltar breathed out, disgusted by his smell and pushed off. The scientist, almost shaking, turned quickly, but staggered back when he saw her fingers had dented the bars. He stumbled right back into a hard, unmovable wall.

He gulped.

Baltar had to prove himself.

As he turned, the hatch to the Galactica’s main brig swung opened, squeaking and creaking as it did so. Commander Adama stepped in hurriedly, followed by Colonel Tigh and the President.

“Soto… Pegasus has jumped away,” Adama stated. “We don’t know why or where.”



||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==||||||||||

John stood quietly behind Gina, looking over the shoulder of the Cylon prisoner, as she furiously scrolled through pages of data which had burst from the hybrid’s data modules and onto her tablet computer.

Captain Shaw had graciously, though reluctantly, accepted to be in the same room with Gina and by some intervention by the Gods, had even tried to work with her. After two arguments she had given up and was working with Daniel on the opposite side of the hybrid’s chamber.

The text on the computer screen scrolled by relatively quickly, but for John it was almost painfully slow. Admiral Cain had forbid the use of direct neural connections, data stream ports, or anything which the hybrid could potentially take control of and transmit. The tablet computer had had its networking hardware removed and since terminators had wireless capabilities (which they were not going to remove) direct data interfacing was out of the question. Cain had been firm, quite firm… almost implying she would shoot he hybrid herself if any of her rules were broken.

Planck had accepted the conditions.

John narrowed his eyes in frustration as he perceived Gina to be intentionally slowing the progress on finding out the secrets of the hybrid.

Daniel had been more intrigued by the hardware rather than the ‘software’, the hybrid’s mind, and believed that would lead them to victory over Cynet. He was working on his own, though Shaw was ‘helping’ him, on the far side of the compartment the machines had been assigned for this project.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” the bio-Cylon stated as she kept her eyes glued to her display, sensing the machine hovering behind her.

“Which is still incredibly slow,” was the machine’s curt response.

The bio-Cylon rolled her eyes. John took the tablet and jammed his index finger into the scroll button on the side of the tablet screen. The data they had downloaded flashed through, scrolling through thousands of pages within seconds.

Finished, he held the tablet back out, which Gina snatched away from him with a sneer and a glare.
“Without the data stream this is going to go slow…” she informed the terminator. She began reading the material at a much faster pace than she had been, a sly smirk daring to show itself on the corners of her lips. She looked up and back towards the rear wall of the compartment, her eyes glazed over slightly. “Helena, even as part of the generation which survived our war for liberation, was never a technophobe. Twenty of thirty more years, with people like her or Baltar in charge, the Colonials probably would have caught up to us in computer technology.” She shrugged.

John looked at her.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t catch up to us,” she added venomously.

“That is very interesting,” the machine responded, humoring her and responding to her, giving her what she wanted. “Maybe you can concentrate on the hybrid?” he asked.

After so many years around humans it was difficult to always catch and modify the emotional output from the neural net. In this instance the machine sounded quite obviously frustrated at Gina’s stalling and unsolicited comments, and his vocalizer conveyed that in his tone.

A frustrated machine could be dangerous, and John was frustrated. An unanticipated variable had appeared, two in fact. One had been when the hybrid grabbed his leg and the second when it had grabbed his forearm. That was between him and Daniel. But the first incident had been quite clearly seen by many, from the boarding party in the hybrid’s sanctum to the Pegasus bridge crew.

Waiting for Gina to finish, he recalled a conversation he had heard when walking by pilot ready room (he had in fact been down the corridor, but could still hear). There were rumors the search teams had brought ‘something’ back.

‘Something’… the machine had to mentally roll his eyes.

Rumors had so far been kept to a minimum, but John knew, humans were unfortunately so very human and would share and spread the rumors. He physically shook his head when a flashing light caught his eye.

The data scrolled and stopped, a red ‘end’ flashed on the screen.

Sighing, Gina placed the tablet against her thigh, letting it thump on her leg. She rapped her fingers on it gently and her lips twisted as she thought.

“There’s nothing in the system history files. I checked everything I knew, every in and out, Planck. Nothing.” She stopped and looked at him. “Nothing,” she emphasized.

“Yes, I know, but that’s impossible. All AI we have ever encountered keep detailed files of their entire history. The meta-cognitive processor the hybrid is based on is similar enough to our neural net CPU- once something is there, it is there forever unless blocked. Only neural remodeling can accomplish that.”

Gina cocked her head, her eye narrowed at the term. “I don’t know what neural remodeling is.”
The Earth terminator looked at her and back at the tablet, taking it from her and tapping on it quickly. Gina stood up on her tip-toes in an attempt to look over the top of the tablet, but was thwarted when John held it up.

Trusting Gina was very difficult. The only reason she was with them in the compartment was because the machines were there and could easily keep her in check. If the machines left she was escorted back to her cell. She was not to approach anyone except for Daniel or John.

“Nothing,” he said, frustrated. He dropped the tablet back down on the cart which was placed besides Gina and held data cables, hard drives, and computers. “The hybrid is… it’s similar to the I-950s on Earth, it should record the data.”

“Nothing?” Gina crossed her arms and leaned on the cart. “So what is neural remodeling?” She tilted her head and tried to look the machine in the eye, which was focused on the hybrid. Gina groaned her frustration after she waited for the machine and it said. “So what is neural net remodeling?” the bio-Cylon prisoner echoed.

“Neural net remodeling is how you… reprogram a machine without reprogramming it,” he held up his hand to stave off any questions. “It’s difficult to explain the concept in words. Our chips are impossible to reprogram. If our combat chassis is damaged and battle and our chips are removed, it prevents us from being altered or Skynet reading the chip.”

“What?” she was fairly certain she saw the link- no neural net remodeling should mean the MCP should be easy to read, have all the data.

“It not reprogramming but it can be used to block access to memories… it’s dangerous.” John added. “Personality matrices and core algorithms are not manipulated… if you know what to look for…”

She perked up. “That sounds like selective cognitive dissociation- it’s what we used for our sleeper agents.” She waved her finger and bit her lip. “You remember Boomer?”

John cocked his head, curious. “Yes. She was a sleeper agent. You know about her?”

Gina chuckled and nodded. “Baltar talked about her a lot when he first started to… uh, talk with her,” she looked off towards the side. “We had thousands of agents spread throughout the Colonial military, almost on every battlestar in some capacity-”

“Like murderous, lying technicians,” Shaw said, standing up and glaring at Gina.

John looked over his shoulder and back at Gina. The two were engaged in a staring contest… which brought back memories for John back on Earth. He sidestepped between the two women and broke their silent combat.

“The dissociation, Gina,” John said, breaking the trance she was still in even though her line of sight with the captain had been broken.

Looking away, down, and back at John Gina annoyingly shrugged and decided she wouldn’t let that interruption get to her. It would have been too easy.

“When Boomer was in the fleet she still needed the memories and she needed cues in order to carry out missions…” she crossed her arms and bit down on the corner of her lower lip. “Most likely there was another Cylon on board, a Cylon who knew they were a Cylon, giving her missions.”


“There was a One, a Brother Cavil, who came aboard shortly after the attack- one of about a hundred civilians which was waiting to be reassigned to civilian ships from Galactica,” John supplied.

Gina slapped her leg lightly with her hand. “It was probably him then,” she informed the terminator. “Once a Cylon is aware they are a Cylon the dissociation conditioning is null- completely gone. With the hybrid, we would need to look for areas of her brain which appear inactive, like the neurons are firing, but no signal is reaching her conscious mind.” She walked up to the hybrid and leaned in, fighting an urge to stroke its cheek. “That is assuming the hybrid is dissociating its memory of what it said to you from its active though processes and memory recall.”

“I wasn’t aware Cylons could do that,” John admitted.

“Yeah, we can, some of us at least. Our models are identical but some of us are a bit different, given certain traits for a mission. Extra strength, extra cognitive capabilities like computer technician or Raptor pilot,” she explained.

They heard the compartment’s vacuum sealed door hiss and a set of clinks from the magnetic locks disengaged informed the four busy workers someone was entering.

Major Avion walked in, squinting in the low light. He smiled at the machines, nodded to Shaw, and ignored Gina, who had taken the data pad and was doing something on her own.

As commander of Helios he was privy to access (nearly) everything within the Colonial military database (what little remained) and was authorized to be briefed on the hybrid. Carter and Shaw had taken a Raptor to Helios two days ago, and Carter had reported to John that the CO had seemed… more than intrigued, almost enamored, with the concepts and theories surrounding the hybrid.

“So this is the hybrid,” the major stated, clasping his hands behind his back. He nodded and pursed his lips, little dimples and divots forming in his chin. “It’s very interesting, John.”


The machine nodded curtly. “It is.”

John liked the major, he did, but his presence here had been unannounced and the machine was more concerned, focused, on finding out the secrets she possessed. He accepted Shaw’s presence since a human/Colonial liaison was required (and Admiral Cain had dismissed the John’s request to use Athena as the liaison… not human) and tolerated Gina since she was the only person approaching a ‘hybrid expert’ in the fleet.

“Very interesting,” he repeated, crossing his arms. “I heard what the Twos, the Leoban’s believe, that these speak for God.”

“Do they?” The machine asked. The question was rhetorical and dismissive. Planck wanted to get back to work.

“I’ve read your Earth Bible, Qur’an, and Tora, John and all of them seem to mention something similar.” He nodded. “Prophets, angels… I don’t know, maybe the hybrids have some connection to God.”

“The Cylon God?” John asked.

Major Avion shrugged and waffled his head side-to-side. “My belief is that the Cylon God, your Earth God some of your machines believe in… every one of them, are one and the same… the One True God,” he gave John a friendly pat on the back. “However you want to describe it.” Major Avion ignored the look Captain Shaw gave him.

“I wasn’t aware many humans realized their Lords of Kobol were false gods,” Gina quipped, looking over her shoulder. “It’s too bad you didn’t realize your sins earlier.”

The pseudo-muscles on John’s face twitched slightly at the inevitable. Religion on Earth was always a hot topic; between those of the same faith, different faiths, or with no faith. Religious intolerance in the Colonies had quite honestly, stunned Planck when he had arrived.

In the post Judgment Day world some had lost faith, some had gained faith. Not many humans or free machines really cared if the person next to them was Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, or any other of the hundreds of faiths on Earth.

Machines and humans were free to believe and have faith in what they wanted. On the Colonies, anyone who spoke against the Lords of Kobol was an outcast. A small minority of monotheists existed on Gemenon, but they were merely tolerated and allowed to exist by the Gemenon government for political purposes.

“Well, the Guardians showed us a way which didn’t require the genocide of twenty billion innocent lives,” Major Avion retorted. While no longer believing in the Lords of Kobol he would defend the Colonies and the perceived insult to their honor.

Philosophical arguments were interesting, intriguing even to machines, but not when they had a task at hand to accomplish.

“Can we please concentrate on this?” John asked, carefully modulating his voice to sound soothing yet firm, exactly as his psychological files indicated would provide the highest likelihood of agreement between the contesting parties.

Gina didn’t answer and just went back to her work.

Major Avion apologized. “I’m sorry, you’re right… you all have a lot of work to do.” He stepped forward and looked down into the hybrid’s chamber. “I just wanted to see the hybrid and see what all the fuss was about recently. Like I said, it’s intriguing.” He extended his hand, and John shook it. “Thank you. Good luck.” He nodded his support and left.

Gina watched him go, shaking her head once his back was turned.
“The decision to destroy the Colonies, it wasn’t unanimous,” she said offhand though wishing for John to ask her to explain.
Maybe it was a guilty conscious she had decided to say that now, after years of confinement? She wasn’t sure. She still held no remorse over her actions; she was a soldier and had had a mission to accomplish. Plus the machine right in front of her felt no visible guilt about his deception of the Colonial’s for eighteen months prior to Kobol, so why should she feel anything?

John’s eyes narrowed at that statement. “That’s not what we were told,” he said, mildly surprised. At this point it didn’t matter; the Colonials hated the Cylons and the Cylons and event he rebels would more than likely not want anything to do with the Colonials. “We thought it was unanimous.”


The bio-Cylon shrugged, taping on her computer she groaned a waffling groan. “It was… but not really. The models vote, each individual receives a vote and that is compiled. All the models did vote because he majority of each individual voted for the attack.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, I did. Would I again?” She shrugged with her eyes closed. “I don’t know. Maybe… yes, I think I would.” She nodded slowly. Her hatred of humanity, influence by experience, would never be extinguished. “The vote was close. Fifteen percent of the Sixes, Eights, and Twos voted against the attack.” She saw John smirk at the insinuation the vote was ‘close.’ Gina couldn’t help but laugh, a bit inappropriately, at the cryptic, dark humor of it. “Do machines vote on Earth?”

“Vote?” He shook his head. “No. We’re all soldiers, we do what we’re told.” He decided to be friendlier to Gina.

When Planck had arrived in the past he had attempted to acquaint himself with human customs. Since he didn’t sleep, he had spent some nights watching late night television. He had learned that a ‘non-hostile work environment’ was one of the core principles of establishing an efficient work environment in the 21st Century.

Humans, he understood it, were obsessed with sex.

He decided to try this approach with Gina.

A non-hostile work environment may very well provide for increased efficiency. “It’s very difficult to vote when the world is literally a war zone,” he pointed out. “Anyway, I doubt machines would be proponents of democracy.”

“Too inefficient?” She asked rhetorical, her right eyebrow arching.

Planck smiled, letting her have a half nod in acknowledgment. “Maybe,” he shrugged.

Gina and John both heard the vacuum seal once again break and the magnetic locks disengage. The bio-Cylon looked over at the machine, who, instead of looking annoyed, actually looked happy. There was a sly, ghost-like smile on his lips. Gina stared at him, a bit confused, as she felt the inward rushing of air into the compartment as the door opened.

“Erica,” he said to no one. The door wasn’t even fully opened when the IL-S body Erica currently occupied stepped through the door.

“Hello, John,” she said, smiling. He returned the smile and stepped towards her. “How is the hybrid coming along.”

Planck nodded and turned to walk back with Erica, putting his hand in the small of her back and guiding her forward over the mess and clutter.

“As an expression on Earth went, we’re ‘getting’ ‘er done’…” his smiled broadened at the awkward saying. Erica laughed and moved forward, leaning over the hybrid as John leaned in next to her, their shoulders touching slightly.

“Daniel,” John asked, cocking his head, “what are you doing?”

=====================
Daniel, typing and taping commands furiously on a tablet computer slowed the beats and rhythm of his fingers and slowly, somewhat dramatically turned his head, cocking it at an angle, and looked up towards Captain Shaw who was standing- more like hovering, over him.

The young captain noticed diagrams and models rotating quickly on the screen, almost at a blur. She rolled her eyes… the machines were not making it easy for her.

How was she going to keep Admiral Cain informed if she couldn’t see more than this? She barely slept, maybe, maybe five hours a night (four and a half on average) and if Daniel, John, and Gina were human she’d skip a night of sleep and catch up on their work. But since the first two didn’t sleep and Gina could go up to four days without sleeping (Lt. Thorne had proven this) she would need to find a way to catch up without being left behind.

Frustration, annoyance, those emotions were mild compared to what was building up. She resolved then that if she was going to get information, she’d have to basically resort to sitting down and pointing like a primary school pupil and asking ‘what’s that?’ and ‘why?’.

She kneeled down and crouched back on her heels, making a face when she felt her knees dampen.

“What is this?” She asked, rocking back until she was sitting down, her knees folded in front of her. She wiped off a clear, viscous fluid and flicked her hand.

Unintentionally, a tiny drop of the substance flew at and struck Daniel’s computer screen.

She grimaced. “Sorry,” she said to the machine somewhat sheepishly.

In a swift, ever-so-precise movement Daniel brought up his hand and wiped it away.

Working so closely with the machines- she considered it her duty to observe and report any anomalies to Admiral Cain- had given her the ability to pick up on the little cues which indicated the ‘mood’ the machines were in. Daniel was clearly annoyed with her.

“The chamber seems to produce its own conduction fluid. We believe there may be a recycling mechanism behind one of the deeper recessed panels,” the Guardian/Cylon/Terminator hybrid stated, as if out of obligation.

The AI construct was sitting cross legged on the floor, a Colonial computer in one hand connected to small data ports under an access panel, a computer on the floor, and a third computer propped up on the side of the hybrid’s ‘tub’.

“What is that?” She asked, pointing at a strange cylindrical-like object with two squares on the ends. “It looks like some barbell or something.”

Daniel touched the object she was referring to. “It’s just a power regulator. Very common,” he explained. “There’s a dozen of them spread evenly throughout the hybrid’s… ‘tub’.”

Captain Shaw nodded. She put her hands on her thighs and watched Daniel unplugged the data cables and then plug them into a different set of data ports.

In truth she was bored. Extremely bored. She slowly rolled up the long sleeve on her green utility uniform and watched the seconds tick by on her watch. Studying it for a second too long she was brought back to reality over some mild argument between Gina and John.

The captain groaned when she realized she’d missed lunch nearly two hours ago. She’d been in and out of this chamber for nearly… five hours? She shook her head.

After a morning bout in the gym (she was using the one of the gyms in the starboard flight pod instead of the port side- that’s where Starbuck would work out while John spotted her, which she just thought was weird) she’d showered and had a small breakfast, e-mailed her reports to Admiral Cain, and downloaded about a week’s worth of tactical operations assignments she’d then forwarded to her department, Tactical Operations.

It was a lot of work and any other woman (or man for that matter) could never pull it off. Shaw had a fierce sense of pride she was number two in line to command the ship should Cain and Apollo be incapacitated, ran one of the most important departments on the ship (of course each department head considered their own department the most important), and was the Admiral’s eyes and ears when it came to the machines and their little side adventures.

The mental recollection and surge of pride in her abilities was enough to distract her mind from the hunger building in her stomach. Realizing she could just skip lunch and deciding not to run to the galley to grab an apple or a sandwich, her stomach decided to spitefully growl at her.

Her eyes shot up in revelation and her left hand quickly found a protein bar she had… she didn’t remember when she’d put it in her uniform. Maybe last night? Whenever she’d done it, she was glad now.

Shaw chewed silently, though the crinkling of the wrapper made her cringe at first, she relaxed and didn’t try and hide the noise as she peeled the wrapper down and scooted out the protein bar- which was actually only partially protein but loaded with sugar and fat. Her nose wrinkled when she accidentally took a sniff of it; Tauron Spice. It was her least favorite.

“Have you found anything useful?” Shaw asked.

Continuing to type and tap on the touch screens, Daniel answered: “I found a backup communication’s relay, it’s over there,” he pointed behind his back, “while you were in the bathroom an hour ago,” he added unnecessarily. Shaw just looked at him. “I haven’t opened it yet to examine it.” Daniel began explaining more about the communication device.

After she had come back from the bathroom she had gone over and looked at the device. She wanted to point out she meant if he’d found anything new since she had come over and sat down. Closing her eyes she let her mind wander for a moment.

Captain Shaw’s ears perked up and her eyes narrowed. She felt her body tense as she began listening more intently on the conversation about some sort of mental dissociation the Cylons had perfected. Baring her teeth and driving her hands almost painfully into the deck plating, she shot herself up.

“Like murderous, lying technicians,” Shaw said, standing up and glaring at Gina.

She held her eyes steady as the traitorous bio-Cylon glared back.

John stepped between the two and Captain Shaw sat back down.

Daniel gave her a look, which she more than gladly returned.

“This is actually something that might be useful,” Daniel stated, looking at her and then back at the half-sphere object. “The amount of data lines running in, and it looks like some sort of backup transmitter of some kind…”

“How much of this are you going to remove before interfacing with the hybrid?” Captain Shaw inquired dutifully. She had a report to make.

“Gina believe if we interface with the hybrid and it is hostile, it could send feedback loops throughout the equipment and destroy it. Unfortunately the hybrid is part of the hardware and we can’t disassemble her.”

The tactical officer and flag aide nodded her understanding of his assessment and picked up one of the computers neatly organized around the IL-S machine.

Major Avion came in, and Shaw once again listened to him, and Gina, get into some argument on religion. She almost, almost laughed over the argument about God which was about to spiral out of control before John stopped it.

As much as Shaw personally detested Gina, the bio-Cylon was strong; easily twice as strong as some of the larger Marines… it’d actually be sort of entertaining to see her deck Avion- someone she thought was too close to the machines. She even raised herself up slightly, discreetly even, to look over the side of the hybrid’s chamber and watch.

Disappointed when John stopped the potential decent into physical confrontation she resigned herself to admitting that this would be boring.

A Latin Classics major, Captain Shaw was versed in language and literature, but she had a hobby in math, cryptology, and computer science. Before Baltar was arrested and he still dabbled in scientific pursuit she had followed his work along with Lt. Gaeta on Galactica. She could confidently place herself as one of the more knowledgeable computer experts on Pegasus- baring the machines.

When Erica had come in, she had watched with interest as the two machines interacted. There was a perverse curiosity as to how that worked. Watching the video Carter had shown her during the Raptor trip to the Lion’s Head Nebula, she had picked up on the sub-text that this General Connor they had talked about was more than likely involved with that machine body guard.

Except for tactical information and fairly censored videos, the machines hadn’t really shown that much about their personal lives.

She grunted to herself. Shaw watched a bit more as John and Erica moved towards the hybrid. She was no doubt curious about it, since the Cylons were technically ‘related’ to her in some strange, twisted way.

The captain bit down on her lip, wondering how the machines were intimate. She laughed, snorting quietly, as the absurdity of thinking this, but boredom was a dangerous weapon in the hands of the Pegasus tactical officer.

Maybe they shared data or something? She didn’t know and was beginning to get a bit bored with even that somewhat entertaining and distracting thought. Maybe they connected over the wireless connection they had and shared experience and…? She looked down and at her knees and realized her fingernails had been digging into her thighs.

Her head recoiled back slightly and she realized something-

“Daniel, what are you doing?” Shaw heard Planck ask.

The captain head swiveled and she could see Daniel rummaging inside, deep inside, the base of the hybrid’s chamber.

“There’s something in here,” he said, his arm in slightly passed his elbows. “It’s… I think it’s a-”


The hybrid’s eyes shot open while the tub was still blackened and dull. It pushed itself up on its elbows, its dark fiber optic connections rising out of the conduction fluid with it- dotting her back and piercing her skull underneath her thick wood-black hair.

The hybrid looked at John.

“She is not the harbinger of death. She will not lead you all to your doom… he was wrong! He was… wrong! The message written in blood… this has happened before and will happen again!” The hybrid yelled.

“Daniel…” John said. “Daniel… there’s a signal coming from the hybrid… it’s transmitting!” John shouted.

Alarm klaxons began blaring throughout Pegasus. The phone to the work space began vibrating and ringing violently.

The life support systems began flickering as fans stopped, heaters kicked on, water pumps stopped pumping.

The hybrid’s wide eyes opened to even greater circles, spheres of fear and apprehension locked with John’s eyes in an almost hypnotic gaze.

“She is NOT the harbinger, she will NOT lead them all to their end…he was wrong, the first of us, he was wrong!” She pushed up, the strain of the fiber optic cable keeping the hybrid secured down in the tank. “John is the harbinger of death. John will lead them to their end. John will sacrifice all those he holds dear for victory!”

The hybrid fell back, its head twitching and its eyes darting.

The lights on the battlestar began to dim and crackle.

The hybrid screamed.

John’s hands shot up to his metal skull, clutching it. The pain through his neural net was more intense than anything he’d experience- sharper than the pain when they jumped to FTL.

“JUMP!” The hybrid shouted.

Pegasus jumped.

[kclcmdr]

WHAT an update ....

Gina's learning alot, Baltar & Jo?? Daniel ... Cynet playing with Cavil.

And where the heck did the Hybrid take the Pegasus???

Boy ... will Cain be peeved...

[Wisky-08]

Nice.

[Barricade]

Now who's going to make the connection that there is a John Conner, and a John Cavil?

[Rastamon]

Nice update. Some of the characters like Baltar and Gina are frustrating. Made me feel like slapping them upside the head or just recommending that Blanks just stick a fiber-optic cable into Gina's arm and connecting it to his head, then hack into her mind that way.

On Baltar, I'm feeling suspicious about the Head Six. I'm wondering if she's a spy for Cynet and could see everything that Baltar does and report to Cynet. If so, the moment Baltar figures out where Earth is, Cynet will know a few minutes or hours later.

Call me paranoid.

“We need models with the military potency of the Sixes, the faith of the Twos, and the spirit of the Eights.”

The model with all that was the Number Three models, or at least D'Anna Biers herself. But Cynet has effectively destroyed the Threes.

Goes to show that Cynet can make mistakes and hasn't mastered long-term thinking though it's an expert at it.

It complained before that it's difficult to control the models and the more models there are, the harder it is for Cynet to keep control of the Cylons. Now it wants to create a new model?

I'd say it's not immune from the hubris that it accused Skynet as having.

RDM said that the Cylons could create a new biocylon model, but it requires a vote of all the models. While I have no doubt that Cynet's capable of doing it on its own, but having a new model without the other models' democratic input would have them up in arms, I think.

I thought that for a hybrid to be capable of jumping a battlestar, it'd have to be directly connected to the computers? In the show, Anders was able to affect some of the Galactica's functions but couldn't jump it until he was directly connected in the CIC.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Rastamon

Nice update. Some of the characters like Baltar and Gina are frustrating. Made me feel like slapping them upside the head or just recommending that Blanks just stick a fiber-optic cable into Gina's arm and connecting it to his head, then hack into her mind that way.

On Baltar, I'm feeling suspicious about the Head Six. I'm wondering if she's a spy for Cynet and could see everything that Baltar does and report to Cynet. If so, the moment Baltar figures out where Earth is, Cynet will know a few minutes or hours later.

Call me paranoid.

You're so paranoid.

The model with all that was the Number Three models, or at least D'Anna Biers herself. But Cynet has effectively destroyed the Threes.

Goes to show that Cynet can make mistakes and hasn't mastered long-term thinking though it's an expert at it.

It complained before that it's difficult to control the models and the more models there are, the harder it is for Cynet to keep control of the Cylons. Now it wants to create a new model?

The Threes were definitely portrayed as natural leaders in the series, a good, all around bunch which fell into obsession and got whacked by Cavil, unfortunately. I thought the Threes on the show were, overall, a "deeper" Cylon model.

I'd say it's not immune from the hubris that it accused Skynet as having.

RDM said that the Cylons could create a new biocylon model, but it requires a vote of all the models. While I have no doubt that Cynet's capable of doing it on its own, but having a new model without the other models' democratic input would have them up in arms, I think.

I hadn't heard the bit with RDM. That sounds plausible on why no other models were created... but then why would Cavil be so scared of the Cylons dying out from lack of resurrection if they could just create new ones?

Cynet is definitely not immune to the hubris Skynet showed. One could also make the case Cynet is slightly rampant (its obsession with destroying Skynet, for example).

I thought that for a hybrid to be capable of jumping a battlestar, it'd have to be directly connected to the computers? In the show, Anders was able to affect some of the Galactica's functions but couldn't jump it until he was directly connected in the CIC.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. Daniel not should have been fiddling around with things... but yes, there is a reason why- especially with how the hybrid repeated parts of what the first hybrid had said to John on the Guardian ship.

[Rastamon]

Originally Posted by Bryan

You're so paranoid.

Hey, you planted the paranoia!

Early in the series, people suspected that Head Six was like Head Scorpius in Farscape: a chip in Baltar's head. Head Scorpius (Harvey) was capable of communicating with the real Scorpius on some level or other.

You had Head Six deliberately manipulate Baltar into creating a device that called the Cylons to New Caprica. That tells me she isn't an Angel or a subconscious enactment of Baltar's guilt. It says that she's an actual Cylon agent stuck in his head.

And you said you're not using nbsg's mysticism for this fic, though depicting the Hybrids and their oracular ranting and visions could be called mystical. Which means explanations must come from SCIENCE!

I merely connected the dots.

Speaking of Baltar, he had rejected Head Six after realizing that she manipulated him. So why is he listening and accepting her now??

The Threes were definitely portrayed as natural leaders in the series, a good, all around bunch which fell into obsession and got whacked by Cavil, unfortunately. I thought the Threes on the show were, overall, a "deeper" Cylon model.

Hence the slight disappointment with Cynet for turning the Threes into two-dimensional sabotaging traitors.

Creative but it threw away a perfectly good model. Bad Cynet. Bad.

I hadn't heard the bit with RDM. That sounds plausible on why no other models were created... but then why would Cavil be so scared of the Cylons dying out from lack of resurrection if they could just create new ones?

Cavil worried because the personalities that these Cylons had are permanently lost. He also worried because the Cylon population was thereby reducing. Racial extinction was a real possibility that he faced.

Creating a new model means creating a new personality.

Presumably, that may be partly why Cavil ordered Simon to research and dissect Hera. He said he wanted a whole new line of Heras, which is tantamount to creating a new model.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. Daniel not should have been fiddling around with things... but yes, there is a reason why- especially with how the hybrid repeated parts of what the first hybrid had said to John on the Guardian ship.

I have oracular vision so I can educately guess what the Hybrid meant.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Rastamon

Hey, you planted the paranoia!

Early in the series, people suspected that Head Six was like Head Scorpius in Farscape: a chip in Baltar's head. Head Scorpius (Harvey) was capable of communicating with the real Scorpius on some level or other.

You had Head Six deliberately manipulate Baltar into creating a device that called the Cylons to New Caprica. That tells me she isn't an Angel or a subconscious enactment of Baltar's guilt. It says that she's an actual Cylon agent stuck in his head.

And you said you're not using nbsg's mysticism for this fic, though depicting the Hybrids and their oracular ranting and visions could be called mystical. Which means explanations must come from SCIENCE!

I merely connected the dots.

Ah, too true. It is SCIENCE! sprinkled with religious themes though (R1612, for example which leads to the "great battle" but no, God isn't coming in to save the day... )

The hybrid prophecies or whatever sound all mystical because the hybrids are uh... let's say different, for now.

Speaking of Baltar, he had rejected Head Six after realizing that she manipulated him. So why is he listening and accepting her now??

Baltar seems to conjure her up when Baltar needs either saving or is in a position where he has something others want. It's almost like an automatic reaction at this point. If they'd gone and itnerrogated him and started yelling about Caprica, it might have gone different... but the Head Six is manipulative. She said prove himself, which could be to prove himself to Caprica, but in proving himself he's listening to her...

Hence the slight disappointment with Cynet for turning the Threes into two-dimensional sabotaging traitors.

Creative but it threw away a perfectly good model. Bad Cynet. Bad.

Too true.

Cavil worried because the personalities that these Cylons had are permanently lost. He also worried because the Cylon population was thereby reducing. Racial extinction was a real possibility that he faced.

Creating a new model means creating a new personality.

Presumably, that may be partly why Cavil ordered Simon to research and dissect Hera. He said he wanted a whole new line of Heras, which is tantamount to creating a new model.

Ah, I did not know that.

That isn't really a problem here, though, since Resurrection is completely within the technical capabilities of the Cylons. The Rebels could even rebuild their resurrection ships if they had the resources.

Their baseships are also capable of limited resurrection. I was going to touch on that in the last chapter, but couldn't find a fit for it. But the big question is... who is more worthy of being resurrected? Cylon society is, presumably, all "equal"... who is more equal than others to be resurrected during battle while the other is lost?

I have oracular vision so I can educately guess what the Hybrid meant.

With what the hybrid meant in relation to John?

So... anyway... I wanted to write more tonight but my roommates decided to watch a silly TV show instead, which I got stuck watching... but! I did work on these:

http://terminatorwiki.fox.com/page/TK-900+%28Alex%29

He actually looks very similar to the SupCom 2 UEF commander.

I know Jo's isn't really accurate (with how she's supposed to look like Doig), but I'm not a big stickler if someone wants to draw up a different picture in their mind of what the characters look like. I just imagine them like this when writing. This is mainly for Tin Man's War and they did replace their chassis later on. So... *shrug*

http://terminatorwiki.fox.com/page/TK-900+%28Jo%29

I'm working on Carter, Daniel, Cyrus, and Thais right now.

[Rastamon]

Originally Posted by Bryan

I know Jo's isn't really accurate (with how she's supposed to look like Doig), but I'm not a big stickler if someone wants to draw up a different picture in their mind of what the characters look like. I just imagine them like this when writing. This is mainly for Tin Man's War and they did replace their chassis later on. So... *shrug*

http://terminatorwiki.fox.com/page/TK-900+%28Jo%29

I'm working on Carter, Daniel, Cyrus, and Thais right now.

You had Jo choosing a different look when she regrew her flesh. Is this present Jo look the before or after?

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Rastamon

You had Jo choosing a different look when she regrew her flesh. Is this present Jo look the before or after?

That's the one which will be in the next story for Tin Man's War.

I was playing around with Kyra from Chronicles of Riddick and Nadia from Pandorum.

[Wisky-08]

That's sounds good.

Can't wait then.

[JEKrug01]

Not a bad read... so the hybrid took over the Pegasus? Can anyone say hybrid-soup!? (Well more than what it's in!)

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by JEKrug01

Not a bad read... so the hybrid took over the Pegasus? Can anyone say hybrid-soup!? (Well more than what it's in!)

I'm almost finished with the next chapter (proofreading it right now) so hopefully my SCIENCE! explanation will sound somewhat plausible in. That's actually what I'm a bit unsure of... it involves FTL targeting arrays (which pinpoint the place where you're going to jump to), holes in space, and made up quantum mechanics.

[Tweeky]

Bryan, your current chapter has a number of small grammar and spelling errors in it.

[Bryan]

…I apologize for not getting this up about 3 hours ago… but Horde mode on Gears 2 with a friend is so damn fun, three and a half hours vanished in the blink of an eye.

I hope the SCIENCE! explanation here is a good one. It’ll get fleshed out some more in either the next chapter or the one after that.

I hope you enjoy.

||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus (+964 Days Post Cylon Holocaust==||||||||||
Every morning Admiral Cain had counted the days since the Cylon war had begun. Soldiers usually remembered two days; the day it started and the day it ended. For the rag tag band of Colonials it was pitifully easy; nine-hundred and sixty-four days ago it had started, reached its climax, and ended as abruptly as it had begun. All on the same day and within hours of the first strikes on the Colonies and the attack at Scorpion Fleet Yards the war had started and been lost.

It was without question the most monumental failure and defeat in the thousands of years of Colonial and Kobolian history.

Whenever she started to brood over the past a little switch in the back of her mind was always switched on. It told her something was off, something wasn’t right.

Something innate, visceral had been stirring inside the Admiral the entire morning. She couldn’t place a metaphorical finger on it and she’d tried to bury her fears with paperwork and mock readiness exercises.

Maybe that was why Pegasus had so many exercises?

Gods knew they didn’t really ‘need’ it. Her crew was more battle-hardened than any crew in the last twenty years. And of course her crew was the best. That was a given. It was her ship after all.

She had an entire Viper squadron out doing drills with five Raptors equipped with missile pods and chain-guns, shooting at drones and DRADIS ghost targets. A few minutes ago, before things went to fraking shit she was about to give the order for a mock tyllium fire drill in the aft portside fuel line which would spread towards the auxiliary magazine storage.

That would have to wait.

The Gods were very unkind to Admiral Cain, and she knew that, and she accepted it. She hadn’t lived a very good life, a life she measured as beginning again when the Cylons nuked humanity into oblivion.

The Gods had damned her and the only thing she could do was live her life and take it up with them when she died. She swore if she would have to challenge Hades himself to a fist-fight in order to even be allowed into the Underworld, let alone Elysium.

Looking side to side right now she saw the lights flickering and humming- this wasn’t the Underworld, this was very much the real world. One of the bridge overhead row of LEDs went out, just blinked out, like it was really didn’t mean much. It was the first sign the battlestar was in trouble.

That row of lights was just the first in a cascading power fluctuation which tripped circuit breakers and sent half the battlestar plunging into darkness for a few very long, breathless seconds.

As if time had slowed, Cain was now watching her team assemble and disperse. Major Adama was posed stoically over the central command console; Lieutenant Hoshi was directing internal communications, methodical and precise as always, Colonel Gardner was already transmitting status reports. It was a well-oiled machine.

The status reports from Colonel Gardner were the worse.

“Gods…” Adama hissed as read-out flashed over the central command console. Energy readings were off the chart. “We have energy build-ups in our main FTL engines… our targetting arrays are realigning-”

“Order emergency FTL shutdown procedures,” Admiral Cain ordered, stomping over to Major Adama. Shoulder-to-shoulder they watched the bar move steadily upwards, the orange ‘Danger: Spatial Energy Build-up Critical- Discharge Required- Discharge Required’ flash over the monitor over and over.

Cain punched in her authorization for emergency discharge as her head and neck sloped back and her eyes quickly studied DRADIS.

“Lt. Hoshi, clear all traffic from our ass- order the fleet to scatter!” She barked, her hands digging into the central console like a lion’s claws into its prey. “Major Adama, damage control stations!”

He nodded briskly and tapped a command, the klaxons beginning their rhythmic cries- two long wails followed by a short beep with flashing yellow lights dancing to the rhythm of the alarm.

“Sir, an emergency discharge will cook any civilian ship before us,” Adama gravely whispered. His eyes wide, both commander and executive officer knew the fleet was packed in so tight that a spatial discharge could kill hundreds, maybe thousands.

A battlestar’s engines were magnitudes more powerful than a civilian ship, the scaling up of the FTL cores led to instabilities- spatial discharge with critical energy build-up among them. But a buildup like this wasn’t supposed to happen. There were redundancies, triple, quadruple redundancies.

“If we don’t discharge it could fry out our entire assembly,” Cain calmly informed him. “The damage to Pegasus will be far worse,” she added as she watched the blips on DRADIS slowly scatter.

Vipers and Raptors were clearing Pegasus air space.

The drive assembly on a battlestar was massive. Civilian ships could provide spare parts for maintenance, but none of the civilian ships had FTLs which could replace an entire drive assembly of a Mercury*-class battlestar.

The Guardians might have a spare assembly but it would take a month to replace the drive. There was no other choice.

“Major Adama, on my mark… we will hold until the last possible second for the civilians to disperse.”

She looked up at DRADIS and the ships were moving quickly from the radiation wake Pegasus would create. One of the slower ships, the Heron, an older passanger liner, was moving too slowly. It may not make it.

The Admiral tensed and raised her hand, ready to drop it and give the Major the signal. Her unlinking eyes watched the warning levels rise to critical on the command console…

Lt. Hoshi twirled in his chair excitedly, his hand pressed firmly on his right ear, holding his ear piece in to listen and filter the wireless chatter. Already dozens of ships were broadcasting to Pegasus, demanding to know why the fleet was scattering.

The communications stations at the fore of the CIC were being overloaded with wireless calls.

Before the Admiral could answer, a long forgotten wave of queasiness and disorientation snapped its rude fingers in front of the entire crew of the Beast. Vertigo grabbed hold of the majority of the CIC crew- a few even bending and doubling over and throwing up as the spatial distortions began to resonate through the ship.

The spatial energy buildup was at maximum critical levels.

“Now, Major!” Cain shouted.

Adama hit the control, closing his eyes and asking for forgiveness as he damned hundreds to a gruesome death of being boiled alive by radiation waves.

Nothing happened.

“We’re jumping!” Adama shouted as he felt the world spinning, a tunnel of blackness forming, and vertigo begin to grip him by the shoulders, he struggled, but saw himself falling towards the deck.

====================

“What the frak is going on!” Captain Shaw yelled as John lay on the floor, clutching the sides of his head.

The hybrid and her ear piercing wails wouldn’t stop. Captain Shaw looked around frantically.

“I have no idea what happened,” Daniel calmly stated, standing up from his crouched position. “I didn’t touch anything,” he said.

Captain Shaw didn’t care. Her eyes were darting around the entire room, darkly scanning for anything to use as a weapon. This was the hybrid, somehow, she knew, this was the hybrid!

She almost hurdled over the hybrid’s tank in her effort to get something, anything done. She heard the ‘JUMP!’ command, she’d felt the disorientation latch onto her and pull her through the fabric of space and time their FTL engines created, and she’d felt her stomach launched all the way into her throat, only for it to fall like a stone back down into her gut.

“Marines!” She shouted. “Gods!” She clutched her ears. “Marines!” She yelled into a microphone. Within seconds, disorientation tossing her left and right, she heard the hissing of the air and the clang of magnetic locks disengage and the door whoosh to the side, warm air rushing in.

Two Marines ran in, their sub-machine guns at the ready, their stocks pressed firmly into their black armored shoulder cavities. Their dark combat glasses gave them a sinister appearance as they quickly made their way to flank Captain Shaw.

“No!” Daniel shouted. He stood up and was definitely in front of the hybrid’s tank, putting his own mechanical body between it, Shaw, and the Marines. “No!”

The Marines quickly raised their rifle barrels to chest height, their training kicking in like instinct. Their trigger fingers dangled uneasily at the ready. Captain Shaw only had to give the word.

“Stand aside, Daniel!” Shaw ordered. “I have my orders!” She screamed- her head was spinning and her ears felt like someone had filled them with cement. “The hybrid’s doing this; it’s endangering the ship we have to kill it!”

An ear piercing wail was emanating from somewhere in the hybrid’s tank. It had to be some sort of defense mechanism, some sort of communications device, something.

“You have no idea what will happen!” Daniel responded. He dared a look down to John and Erica.

Shaw followed Daniel’s eyes and looked down herself and saw Erica shaking the apparent lifeless form of John ‘Blanks’ Planck, former lieutenant and Colonial Raptor pilot.

‘What the frak?’ Shaw mouthed.

Her head snapped back to the Marines who had started yelling at Daniel and Daniel yelling at the Marines. He refused to stand aside and was doing everything he could to delay.

Shaw’s first duty was to her ship and everything inside of her was telling her that the hybrid was doing this. She had no reservations as she prepared to give the order to fire even if the machines were in the way.

The naked form of the hybrid shot back up in its chamber, the two Marines stumbling back, Shaw’s head shooting back as her eyes widened, and Daniel stared. Erica was on her feet demanding the hybrid answer her, as futile as it was, it was the only thing which could be done.

As fast as the hybrid rose it fell.

“JUMP!” She yelled.

The sudden disorientation of a fast-executed FTL jump sent waves of disorientation through Captain Shaw and the Marines. She grabbed her head and stumbled. This should not be happening. Something was very wrong.

The young captain had sat through hundreds, maybe even thousands of FTL jumps since she was a child… her mother had jumped twenty-seven times in the nine weeks she was pregnant! This should be nothing, yet it was everything it shouldn’t be.

“M-Marines!” She stuttered and stammered. Through half closed eyes she looked out and focused. The two machines, if they were affected, weren’t showing it nearly as bad as her. “Marines! Take aim!”

The rifles came up and they leaned forward and planted their front and back feet into the deck to steady them.

“No!” Daniel shouted.

He was a blur.

The closest Marine was disarmed and on his way to the ground before either had even registered his action. The second was disarmed and falling, joining his comrade in arms, before the first even hit the deck. The two sub-machine guns were crushed under Daniel’s powerful hydraulic grip.

“Gods… Daniel,” Shaw staggered, her hand shot out to the computer console as she tried to steady herself- her world was spinning- her legs were like pudding. “Daniel! Stand down! The hy-hybrid!” She yelled.

The captain took a step forward. Her eyes darted down to the Marines, her eyes blazing with fury and her hand shooting for a sidearm.

The sidearm on the closest Marine wasn’t there.

She felt a hard metal tube being pressed into her side, right at her kidney, and a small, powerful, feminine hand grip her around the neck.

“I will kill her!” Gina shouted as she pulled the petite, raven-haired captain back with her.

“What are you doing!” The captain hissed and gargled through Gina’s vice-like Cylon grip.

Gina, hesitated a moment. She really had no idea what she was doing; she saw the opening, she took it. Her Cylon mind was racing with how she could end this. The vortex created by her actions was quickly sucking her down to a point of no return.

The Captain sensed an opening and tried to swing around and knock the gun away, just like she had been taught by the hard-as-nails instructors in the combative course as the fleet academy.

Her arm came up, only for the captain to feel the hard material of a composite handgrip crack the side of her temple.

“You fraking humiliated me,” she whispered as she walked backwards. Gina’s eyes were plastered on Daniel and Erica. “I hate both of you,” she hissed into the captain’s ear.

Erica stood back, protecting the inanimate machine lying before her.

Daniel stood ready, his weight subtly shifting forward. He was fast, super-human fast, but not fast enough to take down a bio-Cylon from the opposite side of the room.

He was like a blur, but a bullet at that range was a blur. The pistol was a standard Marine-issue sidearm- powerful enough to blow a bloody hole straight through Shaw’s back, obliterate her kidney, and shred her insides. If the hydrostatic shock didn’t kill her the blood loss would surely kill her within a minute.

The bio-Cylon, Gina, still felt her head spinning, her ears pounding from the hybrid’s scream, the vertigo from the sudden jump, but the adrenaline racing through her veins and arteries and bathing her body kept her focused.

Gina felt her heels hit the bulkhead at the end of the room. Gina had to move. Her hand squeeze the Captain’s neck just enough that the young woman’s eyes began to roll back in her head. The bio-Cylon’s hand then reached down over around Shaw’s neck and snatched her security keycard from around her neck and tore it off, taking the chain it was attached to and bloodied skin from her neck along with it.

Gina kicked at Shaw, using her to twirl her around so when Gina killed her, she would see her face while using the momentum to propel herself towards the door.

She raised the pistol to shoot her through the heart.

Daniel took that moment to act and lunged forward. Gina fired, her gun loudly announced its murderous intent with an ear shattering crack and puff of yellow and orange fire as she back stepped and hit the locking mechanism for the door.

It closed, her toe centimeters from being crushed- but her Cylon reflexes timed it perfectly. She quickly swiped Shaw’s card and pounded the red and orange ‘lock’ override. The magnetic seals clicked, sealing the machines inside, and the air pressure equalizers hissed.

=======================
“Major Adama, report,” Admiral Cain immediately ordered. Her left hand came up carefully to her forehead as she regained her proprioception, the momentary dizziness and vertigo having vanished.

One jump, a second, a third, and a fourth in quick succession left her feelings like someone had just sucker punched her over and over.

Adama’s hand grabbed the console and his other grabbed the edge of the tactical operations console, its chair taken by a Lt. Jacob Havers, filling in for Captain Shaw.

“Uh…” he mumbled, rubbing his head. He blinked his eyes, his eyelids so heavy they threatened to remain shut under the strain, but relented and opened.

“Uh…” he echoed. “We just jumped four times in less than two minutes, sir…” he rubbed his eyes and brought his index finger and thumb in on his nose bridge. “That’s impossible,” his left hand was surfing over the central console, poking and tapping at different buttons while his right hand was engaged in oppressing an elaborate sequence of buttons on the side of the monitor. “Sir… I have no idea where we are,” he reported.

Admiral Cain frowned and used the command console to steady herself as well. She gulped and closed her eyes.

“Anyone injured?” She yelled to the entire CIC. Her eyes open head slowly turned behind her- navigation looked already, everyone was standing or clutching onto something to help them stand. The Marines outside CIC were checking each other over, already regaining their bearings. Communications, damage control, firing control, and everyone else seemed to be doing okay.

“Everyone good?” She asked, one last time. If no one answered they would be glued to their duty stations until they were either passed out or they figured out what he happened.

“Admiral, I’m getting reports of gunfire in the hanger bay storage… outside where the hybrid was being kept,” Lt. Hoshi deftly reported, keeping his surprise and apprehension to an absolute minimum.

Cain curtly nodded and her hand lashed out for the phone. She snatched it up and out of its holder, put part of the metal wire between her hand and the black head piece and hit the alert button for the Marine operations center.

“Captain, I need a strike and containment squad to the portside hanger storage, there are reports of gunfire,” Admiral Cain clearly stated. Her head was still pounding, reminder her of the last hangover she’d hand… fifteen years ago. “I want containment. I want answers. Lethal force is authorized only if necessary.”


The commander of the Marine detachment complied and informed her he was sending up an additional four man team to secure CIC.

Admiral Cain, nodded to the phone, and acknowledged this without argument, though she found it unnecessary. The entire CIC staff was armed, entrance to this part of the ship required being screened by two Marines at a secured hatch, and there were four more Marines outside the CIC.

“Navigation,” Admiral Cain stated. “Where are we?”

The Nav Ops ran over, stopped for a second as a bout of dizziness raced over him, and then walked slowly to the central command console and keyed up the readings from his display. In no uncertain terms, he had no idea where they are. Telescopes were already searching for known star patterns.

“Should we deploy a CAP?” Adama asked, biting down on his lip. He expected Admiral Cain would answer in the negative; at least not if they might jump again.

If they began jumping the Vipers would be trapped forever. Not knowing where they were they couldn’t come back. And with the jump radius of a battlestar, it could take months to search that volume of space with every spare Raptor they had.

Cain waved it off. She grinded her teeth for a moment, thinking.

Slowly she reached into her pocket and fingered her razor, took it out and placed it quietly on the console. Her fingers played with it as she studied the readouts, DRADIS, and every other report streaming towards her station.

“How the hell did we jump four times like that? No computer-”

“Sir!” Lt. Havers as tactical operations interrupted. “Sir, I’m… there’s jump orders queuing up into the computer, sir.” He stuttered. The lieutenant’s fingers flew over the keyboard and controls trying to make sense of how the computer was operating beyond his control. “But these are the… it looks like these are old jump coordinates…” he tilted his head, his eyes narrowed, and his mouth fell open like whatever it was he had figured out was some mythical impossibility. “Four jump coordinates… this is where we jumped to…”

Major Adama and Admiral Cain exchanged looks. Adama twirled and had one hand on the back of Havers’s chair and the other on the console he was manning.

“Shut it down, lieutenant,” he ordered like we was stating the obvious. “Clear the orders.”

Adama reached out himself and typed in the commands. Blood rushed to his cheeks in embarrassment when the commands were rejected. He shook his head- that was impossible. He mouthed ‘what the frak’ silently as his eyes darted left and right and back left to read the messages and coordinates popping up and scrolling across the screen.

“Something is in our system,” Lt. Hoshi reported.

Cain went stiff, his hand immediately reached for her pistol. “The hybrid.” Her eyes met Adama’s, and his told her he agreed. “Are the firewalls breached?”

“The hybrid,” he repeated back to her. “But how?”

A fist smashed down on the central console and more than a few CIC members jumped at the sudden outburst.

“The fraking machines… something they did. They fraked up, unless they betrayed us to the fraking toasters,” Cain cursed. She cursed them again for her trusting them.

====================

Captain Kara ‘Starbuck’ Adama lifted herself off the deck and moved slowly to her knees. On all fours she grabbed for the tool cart and slowly pulled herself up. Already dozens of Pegasus pilots and deck technicians were running around, trying to understand what had just happened.

Her hand rubbing her head, the fiery Viper pilot looked around. She felt a moment of embarrassment from being thrown to the deck, pushed there by the extreme vertigo sensation which had rushed over her. Starbuck shook her head and breathed out, her hand now clutching her chest while she was still-

“Oh frak!” She cursed when a second wave of vertigo slammed into her like a wall. She smashed her eyelids shut and kept herself up as the Beast’s deck plates began to vibrate as the torrents of spatial energies washed over the mighty battlestar.

She felt a brief sensation of weightlessness, like the gravity plating had failed, before she felt her throat thrust down and smacked into her stomach.

“Gods damn this,” she muttered.

“Captain Adama, are you alright?” she heard a concerned male voice shout over to her. Footsteps quickly followed until the orange jumpsuit of Deck Chief Peter Laird brushed into her peripheral vision. “Captain, the computers are down throughout the deck… I’ve got a couple on the sound powered trying to check into CIC, but it’s a mess.”

She rubbed her temples cautiously and kept her hands ready to shoot out and grab the tool cart again just in case.

A loose strand of her blonde hair stuck to the side of her face, plastered onto the corner of her mouth. She brushed it back quickly, blinking, and breathing slowly and steadily.

The Pegasus CAG tugged at her collar as the warm, dry air of an active hanger bay worked against her recovering senses to make her worse.

She mentally waved that away and refocused, her eyes opening and staring at the top of the tool cart. She was the senior officer on the deck. Starbuck took control quickly.

“Alright… we need to figure out what happened and get-” The ship jumped again. “Frak!” She hissed, closing her eyes. She began opening the slowly, the vertigo and dizziness gone when she heard a crash.

The CAG’s head swiveled and her eyes followed half a dozen crewmen running towards her and passed her. She saw a forklift tipped over and somehow had sheared the safety lines holding storage containers against the bulkhead, which had collapsed down onto a group of crewmen.

“Frak!”

She grabbed Peter Laird and they ran to help.

======================

It had happened so quickly, too quickly- she had just acted. Her training and breeding had overhwlemed her rational mind and before she could understand what was truly happening one hand grabbed the pistol and one had captured Captain Shaw’s thin throat and squeezed.

Years of humiliation, torture, and imprisonment had led to this. When she saw a chance, an irrational chance for revenge or escape she had clawed at it.

She had no idea what she had just done. She was outside the locked compartment, staggering backwards, the smoking gun still in her hand. Her back hit a bulkhead and she jumped, spinning around in surprise. The bio-Cylon’s hand clutched her chest as she slowed her breathing and calmed herself.

Her face felt cool. Slowly she reached up, with her index and middle fingers, and wiped what she thought was sweat off her forehead. Her hands shaking she brought her fingers down in front of her eyes. It was red. It wasn’t hers.

The klaxons aboard the behemoth warship were a muffled background noise now, only a faint triple pulse of sound and light ordering the crew to damage control stations. With her enhanced Cylon senses she could feel the faint vibrations of boots pounding on the metal deck plating, moving closer and closer.

Her eyes darted down to the gun and realization struck her. She accepted what she had done; made it hers. The shaking hand stopped shaking and the petite fingers curled more tightly over the grip.

She’d taken Captain Shaw hostage and shot her. She shot her. Dead? The bio-Cylon wasn’t sure- everything had happened so fast but she could see the damned hybrid machine rushing towards her.

She’d reacted, done the thing she had been born for, bred for, trained for. She took action. She pushed Shaw forward, kicked her off, and launched herself back and shot.

The bio-Cylon knew the terrible sound a bullet made when it hits flesh, organ, and bone. She knew the sound when it missed, too.

She had not missed.

She assumed she had killed the young, captain… how much she had wanted to look into the black, empty-as-space eyes as she’d done so… but this … there was time to be glad later.

They said the machines had nothing behind their eyes, no spirit, no soul and lacked everything humans had. The bio-Cylon had found a human whose eyes were just as lost and empty as a machine’s. The Captain had been a walking body, meat and bone, with no spirit for years now.

The bio-Cylon took the situation and accepted it now. What was done was done. Just like voting to nuke the Colonies back into oblivion, she would again choose this. This was her last chance.

Gina still had one more target.

There was no forgiveness for what had happened to her. What had been done to her was beyond forgiveness- she couldn’t forget.

The pounding on the blast door to the hybrid’s chamber shocked her back to reality- the door began to deform outward as the robots trapped inside pounded their way through. Gina had to move now.

She turned and jumped into a side corridor making a straight line for the Pegasus tram system. She could use the maintenance spaces to move around the battlestar to her target.

Gina’s head cocked and she stopped and pressed herself flat against a bulkhead as the tiny sensory hair cells in her ears began vibrating, alerting her to the approach of… combat boots… heavy steps… Marines.



Three Marines.

The dirty-blonde haired, tall woman, fueled by revenge and irrationality released a cocktail of hormones and chemicals into her body, speeding her reactions, giving her strength and courage. She slowed her heart and put her mind at ease as the world began playing in slow motion.

Bodies, clad in black combat armor, wielding sub-machine guns bolted around the corner- the fast response team- and approached Gina’s position. She was hidden, just so. Even if they could barely see her, make out an outline, a silhouette, why think she was a threat? They were rushing to the storage bay with the hybrid, why stop for her?

She grinned and stepped out.

As the Marines passed they saw her. One began to mouth ‘Oh frak’ as the biological machine smiled her pearly, bleached white smile. She kicked off from the bulkhead, slamming her shoulder into the closest Marine, grabbed his neck, and nuzzled the pistol into his rib cage.

Two bullets.

Her hands shot down to his mid-back as his two colleagues stopped, skidding and spun. Using her Cylon strength she shoved him into the other two Marines, both of them sidestepped as their comrade flew through the air, already dead, and landed at their feet.

Gina fired. The Marines fired.

The bio-Cylon was like a ghost in her movements and a demon in her intentions. She twirled and ducked, a stream of bullets missing her. She fired once, hitting a Marine in the chest, cracking his sternum and sending him keeled over backwards.

Her left foot planted into the side railing of a bulkhead and she pushed off towards the right side of the corridor, firing at the Marine still standing. In a diagonal three bullet struck, one in the hip, shattering the joint, one in the stomach, and one on the right breast.

The Marine collapsed, his body buckling and failing him.

Gina ducked down and brought the pistol grip smashed into that last Marine’s neck, cracking and splintering the cervical vertebra, extinguishing his life.

Her head shot up as she heard the second Marine, the one she had shot in the chest, coughing and fumbling for his weapon. His armor plating had taken the impact, but the kinetic energy from a bullet so close had disoriented him, giving the bio-Cylon her opening.

She lunged at him and grabbed the sub-machine gun; it spit bullets as she struggled and ripped it from his grip while his index finger defiantly held on to the trigger and snapped and shatter.

The vengeful Cylon heard the Marine’s shoulder suddenly pop out of position as she yanked the gun. His scream was interrupted by a strike to his throat, cracking his windpipe. Her free hand delivered a bone-crunching strike to the man’s clavicle. He moaned out in excruciating pain. She kicked him in the knee and he collapsed to the left as his knee gave out and buckled.

Gina stopped and looked over her prey. Her eyes were like balls of fire, ignited by the adrenaline racing through her blood vessels as she began to finally, slowly enact her revenge on Pegasus.

The Marine was still alive. He looked up into her eyes and knew she would kill him. He flinched and feebly threw up his hands for protection as Gina bent out and ripped off his eye protection.
She knew him. He knew her. He put his hands down. He saw the bright yellow-orange flash and then saw nothing.

======================

“How much longer until the Marines get down there?” Cain asked quietly to her XO. She walked from her usual position at the head of the command console towards Major Adama.

“The fast response team should be there any minute, sir. A squad is on its way for backup, but the trams are down,” he responded. He studied his display after Cain nodded and stood behind Lt. Havers.

The lieutenant, a former chief, was a limited duty officer, and only five years younger than Admiral Cain, making him the second eldest in the CIC, and one of the most experienced. With Cain standing behind him, peering over his shoulder at the tac ops center a younger officer may have been slightly intimidated or stumbled. Lt. Havers kept his attention focused.

Cain mentally nodded. Havers was like a razor. He did his job and he did it well. She had never had to discipline the older lieutenant. The Admiral had seen him in the gym, often up before her, and he was always at the secondary tactical operations station behind the primary station whenever she arrived in CIC in the morning. Her approval manifested in a short, quick nod to herself.

The Admiral watched him as he calmly reached to a drawer under the console and pulled out a PDA. He quickly synced it with the console and begun his analysis, calling Lt. Hoshi over.

Admiral Cain’s left eyebrow rose slightly as she listened to the technical talk between the two. She followed up to a point, but they lost her when they started conversing about quantum something-something and its relation to sub-atomic particles, knocking digital data, and other topics beyond her understanding. Even with a bachelors of science in electrical engineering and information technology, the level of discussion between the two was far too technical.

“Admiral Cain, sir,” Lt. Havers said, rising from his seat, “I think we might have found the problem.” He turned and grabbed his PDA and set it on the command station and synced the two devices. Data scrolled over the console in the military’s MX-3 programming language. “Our computers weren’t infiltrated through the networks… at least, not really.”

Major Adama spoke first. “You don’t sound too sure of this,” he said. “The computers aren’t connected to any outside network… were the firewalls breached?”

This time Lt. Hoshi shook his head. “No, sir. The firewalls are in place- those held,” he nodded approvingly. “It wasn’t an infiltration, either…” he bit down, “I’m not sure how to explain it,” he admitted.

Lt. Havers brought up a schematic of the FTL engines.

“Our FTL engines are designed with certain safety protocols; the energy we feed into them is inherently unstable… the spatial discharge valves on the engines…“ he pointed to the half dozen locations on the hull where the engines would release their massive amounts of stores energies. Radiation would cook anything within thirty kilometers of any release. “The engines themselves are also capable of redundant jumping capabilities- if the engines are spooled and our computers go down, the engines maintain a lock on the jump coordinates, a cache. Like any computer.”

“Yes, but we know this already, lieutenant,” Cain stated. “Those are all standard safety protocols in Mercury-class warships.”


“Yes, sir,” he agreed. “But somehow the engines received simply colossal amount of energy shunted into them- and not all was from our power plant. It’s like it began sucking energy, like a vacuum… we don’t fully understand the folding process which happens when our FTLs are activated… it’s like the engines are sucking in energy from somewhere.”

“What?”

“When we jump we either move or we mis-jump, momentarily disappearing from this dimension, this reality, and then reappearing. For all intents of purposes, it is instantaneous... we’ve never been able to send any probe or instrument into where ever it is we actually go when we jump- because it is, for all intents and purposes, instantaneous. We can’t scan this uh… dimension or whatever it is we jump into, because technically we’re not there. But we’re not here, either…” He keyed up a schematic to illustrate his point.

Major Adama tilted his head and tried to understand. “That makes no sense, lieutenant.”

“The mis-jump can occur if the data is wrong… say the jump would take you into a star. The chances of that are astronomically… impossible,” he shrugged, “but our computers will lock out the jump if the coordinates are the known coordinates for a star or within lethal range. With these jumps its like our computers registered the jump after we jumped… I think something is affecting the targeting array.”

Cain and Adama looked to Lt. Hoshi. He nodded that this was his understanding of the situation as well.

Lt. Havers looked towards Lt. Hoshi for the communications officer to take over.

“So we just jumped somewhere and then repeated that a couple of times?” Cain asked.

“Yes and no,” Lt. Havers stated warily. “This data is just preliminary, but there is definitely a pattern. Sir,” he lowered his voice, “if it’s the hybrid…”

“How is that possible?” She looked him in the eye.

“I have no idea,” Havers replied. Lt. Hoshi shook his head as a negative as well. “It’s like…” the lieutenant looked off. His brow began to furl down and he snatched up the PDA again and re-synced it with his console. “Space is three-dimensional. A certain amount of energy is required for each job. A one percent charge on our FTL engines may jump us a few million kilometers-”

“Longer jumps, more fuel,” Major Adama stated.

Havers nodded, but his mouth open and shut like he wanted to say something else while being distracted tapping at his PDA.

“Lieutenant?” Cain asked expectantly.

“Um…” Lt. Havers was engrossed in his analysis and could barely hear her. He breathed in through a closed jaw and winced. “Um… space is three dimensional,” he made a cross with his hands. “Our targeting array is fed energy from the FTL engine and based on the amount of energy in the array is how far we jump in the X, Y and Z planes… we could have no energy shunted in the X-plane array and all our energy shunted into the Y plane array… so we would jump either ‘up’ or ‘down’ to our maximum jump capabilities.”

“So what you’re saying, lieutenant, is that the energy is being shunted into our targeting arrays and they are what… automatically jumping us?”

He nodded. “When the energy shunts are complete, the array jumps. As long as there is a continuous amount of energy being directed into the array… you could metaphorically open the dam and flood the array with energy and jump in an instant or let it trickle in and jump after a year.” He rubbed his eyes and stroked his chin as he thought. “Somehow the hybrid got the engines to begin pumping energy into the arrays and we’re jumping because of it.”

“Sir!” One of the secondary communications technicians yelled out. “Sir, there are reports of gunfire in the portside storage-”

Cain’s eyes flashed alarm. Before she could order it Adama was on the phone with the Marine’s operations center. The Admiral couldn’t hear but she knew by her XO’s clenched fist something was very wrong.

“Sir, there’s reports of gunfire… the backup squad just found the fast response team dead sir…” he held the phone back up then brought it down and muffled the mouthpiece with his palm, “it looks like they’ve been shot…. They’re at the door to the hybrid’s chamber… it looks like…” he mouthed ‘what the frak’ as he listened intently. “Sir… Captain Shaw has been shot… and… Gina’s, she’s escaped!”

[Bryan]

=============================================

Gina ducked in quickly to an unused storage closet in the water processing facility on the portside hanger. She moved slowly, relying on the movements of the machines, the flowing water, and everything else within the room to hide her from Colonial motion trackers.

She could hear her heart beat screaming at her in her ears, the loud thump-thump-thump of the tireless muscle reverberating and pressing against her chest wall. She held onto the sub-machine gun she had snatched from the weak hands of the Marine… she felt warmth in her mouth and a sour taste. She stuffed the pistol in the waistband of her prisoner-green utilities and brought her hand up to her mouth.

With the enhanced eyes of her Cylon body she could make out the deep red of the blood she had wiped from her inner lip and could feel it now at the base of her thumb. She studied the sight, she must have bit down too hard when she thought of that Marine.

Her head flinched and her eyes closed shut but her mind was wide open as she relived what the Marine had done to her with perfect recall.

She remembered how she had dampened her sensory receptors so her body would feel numb. But she felt the pressure, the scratches, the lashings, and the beatings all the same. Even numbed, even projecting into her own world, a beautiful, old grow forest where she was alone and happy, she still knew what they were doing to her body. And she felt it.

The schematics of Pegasus ran through her mind and she quickly decided on a path, a route to her righteous revenge.

She felt her mind tear itself down the middle as she stood there quietly, breathing in and out slowly, and thinking of what she was doing. Three Marines were dead and maybe the Admiral’s protégé…. It had just happened to quickly… there wasn’t any going back now. Half her mind screamed to stop but it was drowned out by the part wanting its revenge, telling her the entire crew of Pegasus was rotten. Not one deserved savings. Not even the machines had done anything for her. Admiral Cain would keep her locked away forever.

Gina smiled mischievously as she considered her plan. She nodded slowly to her and rested her head on the cool black metal of her sub-machine gun. Narrowing her eyes she made her decision.

This wasn’t suicide. This was war. Her war. And in war sometimes self-sacrifice was required for the greater good.

=====================================

“W-what… what?!” Cain shouted at Adama. She stepped up to him threateningly, his eyes wide and demanding answers. She grabbed her phone to take control of the situation. “How the frak did she escape?” She barked at the Marine on the other line.

“I don’t know, sir… we’re still trying to figure that… it looks like she somehow trapped the robots in with the… the… hybrid thing, sir…”

She recognized the voice as Gunny Purcell.

“Gunny, put Planck on right fraking now,” she ordered. She glared up at Adama and put her hand to the phone. “Major, if Gina’s loose she can do major damage to this ship. Are we tracking anything?”

He looked down. “No, sir… ship wide motion scanners were knocked out in the jump.”

Cain snarled at her luck.

“Major Adama, send out an alert to all departments and begin searches,” she ordered.

“Aye, sir,” he nodded quickly and spun, moving towards the operations watch standers and starting them on putting the word out on Gina’s escape.

“Gunny,” she began very slowly and forcefully, “find Gina. Shoot the fraking toaster if you have to.”


“Sir, I can’t get him on. He’s just laying there… not moving. The female robot says she doesn’t know what happened. The hybrid just woke up and started screaming and babbling and then went all catatonic.”

“What about the Captain?” She asked with a muted, almost crackling voice. She really didn’t a frak about the Earth robots.

“Doctor Roberts is rushing down, sir. We’ve got a stretcher and put the coag foam in her, but she’d bleeding bad, sir… we’re taking her to medical once the medics stabilize her.”

Cain closed her eyes. “Frak,” she whispered. She felt like someone had just kicked her in the stomach.

Captain Shaw was probably the closest person she could call a friend. The young captain looked up to her and the Admiral had immediately taken a liking to her, bringing her into her inner circle. She was all that was left of that circle now- her only friend.

She ran her free hand through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck. She turned halfway and faced the entrance to CIC. The entire entrance was darkened the deep black of Marine BDUs and armor. Marine guards stood shoulder to shoulder, sub-machine guns in hand, ready.

Her Marines were always on the ball.

Major Adama rushed back over. “Sir, we can’t get to the departments past frame three hundred.”

That left the entire aft section of the ship; engineering, long-term storage, half the crew quarters, the science labs, water/waste reclamation, main fuel storage, auxiliary magazine stores, and a hundred other places a lone bio-Cylon could hide for days.

“Sir?” Cain heard over the sound-powered.

The Admiral couldn’t concern herself with personal issues. She was a soldier, a sailor, and the leader of the last remnant of Colonial civilization. The dauntless and stoic commander turned her mind back and shot out at the Marine on the receiving end of her ire.

“And why wasn’t the hybrid shot?” She demanded of Gunny Purcell. Her voice was unmistakably demanding- she wanted the hybrid shot. Now. “What the frak were Daniel and Erica doing and what do you…”

“Sir, Daniel just told us he disarmed the Marines, Gina used that opportunity to take Shaw and a sidearm and… she has the Captain’s magnetic keycard.”

Cain turned back to Adama. “Major, find out where Carter is and all the other machines.” She swiveled to Lt. Hovers and Lt. Hoshi. “Do you two have anything yet?” She snapped at them. “I need more than speculation. What can we do to stop the erratic jumping?”

Lt. Hoshi came to semi-attention. “No, sir. Soon, sir,” he reported. Lt. Havers nodded his agreement.

The Admiral turned her fury and ire back to the phone and shouted.

“Why isn’t the hybrid dead!” She shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Sir, Daniel and Erica are refusing to step aside and they are armed.”

“I’m coming down. Tell the Marines to meet me in Arms Locker Seven Alpha.” She slammed the phone and looked at Major Adama, a fire igniting inside of her. He nodded, she nodded. They were going to finish this.

The machines had put Pegasus in danger before and Cain was Gods damn sure it wasn’t going to happen again.

======================
Starbuck and a dozen others could feel their backs tensing and their muscles tearing as they tried to lift the heavy storage container racks which were crushing the three member deck crew.

To her left one of the women on the deck crew switched out for a burly, larger man, who grunted and huffed as he put everything into lifting.

The emergency equipment was coming quickly, but three Raptors had to be cleared from the deck before they could get over. If the Pegasus crew let go the pressure would crush the three.

The driver of the crashed, laying-on-its-side forklift was pacing, cursing himself and the Lords of Kobol on how he could have fraked up like this. He blacked out. Dozens of people had. He said it was like walls of pure dreaded black closing in around him narrowing his vision to a pinpoint before there was a nothingness consuming him.

“Where the frak are the machines?” She yelled, swiveling her head to scan for any sign of them. Chief Laird had sent his fastest deck hand, a specialist name Evan Something Something to get to the Cave where the Centurions were.

As if on cue four of the five remaining Centurions the Tech Com machines had convinced to defect to Humanity came stalking down the landing bay from the far end, running quickly, their metal feet clanking on the deck plates.

From tiny specks over three hundred meters away they closed the distanced in twenty-three seconds, slowed only be the clutter on the deck and having to dodge deck hands who were themselves rushing to help.

“Please, stand aside, Captain,” RC said to Starbuck as he came behind her and shimmied his way in between her and the burly, larger deck hand.

“Fraking toaster, we can do this,” he protested.

“Step the frak back!” Starbuck yelled, grabbing the man’s shoulder and digging in with her fingers.

“Frak!” He yelled as one of the other Centurions took his spot.

The four Centurions lifted quickly and Starbuck, Laird, and the others pulled the three men out, the Centurions lowering the storage racks slowly once the men were cleared.

“Captain Adama!” the young woman heard. “Captain Adama!” it was Major Avion. She turned, about to snap at him, but bit her tongue.

“Sir?”

“Is everything alright? What happened?” He was looking around quickly and surveying the situation in the hanger bay. He was the senior officer on deck and needed to know what was going on and he needed to know now. “Are those men okay?” He walked over but stood out of the way of the flight deck personnel who were trained for this to do their jobs and tend their wounds before medics could arrive.

Immediately RC turned towards Starbuck and his roving red eye halted centerline, his neck and leg servos activated, and he lowered almost unnoticeably lowered his height.

“Major Avion, Captain Adama, you need to come to the storage compartment, something has happened.”

Starbuck looked at him oddly, confused and annoyed at his cryptic announcement. The blonde haired CAG was about to yell at the Centurion when she noticed one of them, and Carter, was missing.

“What the frak happened?” she hissed, grabbing the Centurions metal forearm and pulling it to the side. “Tell me. NOW.”

===========================
There was no other way to resolve this. As commander of this ship it was Admiral Cain’s duty to put its welfare and its protection and its safety above the welfare of any individual. A ship required discipline, strong adherence to orders, and a devotion to the chain of command.

Her warship had just jumped Gods’ knew how many light years and could jump again at any second. A Cylon fleet was out there, searching the cosmos for them, and a Cylon human-machine hybrid think, some freak of nature with a hundred fiber optic cords running out of its body in some vat of goo was most likely behind the erratic jumps and system failures!

Admiral Cain’s hand reflexively dropped to her sidearm as she rounded the last corner towards the portside hanger storage. She saw the blast door, dented and deformed where Daniel and Erica had attempted to break free.

The Admiral unclipped her sidearm and gently pushed the clip back. She would be ready, just in case.

The four Marines in front of her fanned in first and took a crescent formation, joining the other Marines with their rifles pointed at the machines.

The four Marines behind her stood guard in the corridor, watching for Gina or to warn her of the approach of any of the others.

She looked down, her eyes scanning the still form of John Planck, who had been propped up with his back at the base of the hybrid’s tank. His hands were folded in his lap. Cain knew Erica had most likely done that. The robot cared for the other one. The Admiral grinded her jaw as she felt every prejudice and every strand of hatred for machines, for AI that she had suppressed over the last years begin boiling over, clawing its way back into her mind, screaming at her to release them.

Her fingers slid gently back and forth on the butt of her pistol.

Cain stood at the two, staring them down in complete silence- the only noise the faint breathing from the Admiral and her Marines. Even the soft, deep sounds of the klaxons were drowned out in the silently fierce tension gripping them all.

The human Admiral continued to glare at both machines and looked briefly at the unmoving one of the floor. Erica looked awkward holding a rifle- she’d never been built for combat, but her IL-S body was far superior to a human’s still. The human commander looked over at Daniel, eying him careful, running her own calculation in her mind on the probabilities of success.

Daniel had fought Planck and destroyed the central computer server room in Pegasus over two years ago. He was considerably stronger, faster, and perhaps even bullet proof.

“Sergeant,” she called over her shoulder. She took two steps back and the Marines followed her.

Two Marines wielding the isotope weapons stepped through the hatch, leveling them at the machines.

“This will spiral out of control quickly, Admiral,” Daniel warned quietly, almost in a whisper. The machine looked over at Erica, who stood protectively over the still unmoving Planck below. “The hybrid is the key-”

“Shut up!” She snarled, cutting him off with a hand gesture. She slowly pulled her sidearm from her tactical holster and tapped it gently on the side of her leg. “The hybrid somehow took control of the ship’s jump drives… how!” She demanded. “That’s impossible.”

“We don’t know… I don’t know… something happened. I-I was reaching inside, the hybrid woke, and before we knew what was happening, the ship was jumping.” He held her eye before breaking and looking at each of the Marines. They were sweating inside their heavy combat armor.

Daniel had his rifle at an angle across his torso. The sub-machine gun would never penetrate the Marines’ armor, even at this range, but he calculated the speed and position he would need to put a bullet through the tactical visors of each Marine.

At this range he could be on top of the Marines in a second, less than a second. Human reaction times were, however, increased under high stress situations and the Marines were trained, well-trained.

There would be death.

===================

Gina ducked under a thick black and white stripped cable tube and flattened herself to scoot between a break between the supports for the Pegasus tram system. She listened intently for any signs of life on the main tram, but all she could hear was the faint moan of the warning klaxons, still sounding, and all she could see were the faint red emergency lights dotting the tunnel.

Her bio-Cylons eyes made the darkened tunnel as bright as day, and her reflexes kept her steady and moving quickly, jumping around obstacles and moving nimbly down the shaft.

She slowed when she heard the faint sound of magnetic locks disengaging and doors opening.

The infiltrator pressed herself against one of the support struts and slowly lowered her body into a half crouch, her right knee pressed into the metal deck. Slowly she brought her sub-machine gun and rested it in the crook of her shoulder and placed the barrel on an opening in the strut for support.

Two white flashlight beams made themselves visible, and Gina narrowed her eyes, increased her visual acuity, and saw the two Pegasus technicians moving slowly down the tram shaft.

She looked away, groaning quietly as an internal debate raged within her darkening mind. These two were Pegasus crew and deserve to die. They all die, she told herself again, louder, more forcefully than before. The Marines had been easy kills; easy to kill because they were at least armed. Gina could still feel a sense of honor about killing unarmed… she shook her head. The whole ship would be destroyed if she succeeded. Why should she care if she shot two unarmed techs?

Her finger slid down slowly to the trigger… and she stopped.

The Cylon felt her eye twitch and she ducked as a cone of light washed over where she had just been. Even if the humans couldn’t see her from the distance in which they were beginning to work, she needed to be sure.

The two technicians found whatever systems they were working at, Gina didn’t care much, and started. Both their back were to the bio-Cylon as she slowly crept forward, moving behind and through the supports, power lines, and tubes.

Her eyes narrowed as she neared her two victims… but humans had an amazingly annoying ability to somehow sense when someone was watching them.

The first tech, a younger woman, began to turn. Her head made it maybe, maybe thirty degrees before Gina slammed the butt of the rifle into her temple.

Before she had gone down Gina had lifted the sub-machine gun over her head and thrust it down on the back of the neck of the second tech.

The sound of shattering, cracking, breaking cervical vertebrae, and the man gargling for breath, sent an eerie smiling racing across Gina’s vengeful face.

She looked down at the first tech, the younger woman. Her breathing was erratic and she was moaning. Gina reached down with her hand and one had on the chin, one on the forehead and twisted, breaking her neck.

The Cylon studied her kill and felt herself absorbed in the almost serene look on both their faces. The two looked peaceful. Their gruesome journey fleeing from the Cylons was over, their lives as the last tiny remnant of a once mighty civilization extinguished. There were no more worries.

Reflexively she reached down to pull the identity cards off the necks of the two deceased techs. She checked them quickly, and found the older one had Security Red access. Sinisterly, she smiled and looked to the side at the access door. Her dark, vengeful mind worked quickly, replanning and reorganizing. The bio-Cylon had a knew, more deadly plan.

She wouldn’t just cripple Pegasus and maybe destroy her. She would destroy her. She would destroy everything she held dear… Cain would know the end was coming, that her beloved ship and vile crew would join her in their pagan Tartarus.

Through the door, five frame back, and two compartments over was the portside number two auxiliary magazine- missiles and bombs, enough missiles and bombs to annihilate an entire city.

Her body shivered. She was, maybe, one hundred fifty meters from her target.

The wireless radio one of the techs was carrying crackled.

“Hey, Jack, we got a report the Cylon bitch escaped. A few Marines are heading your way just in case.” There was a brief pause. Anger, fright, and worry flashed across the bio-Cylons face. “Jack… hey Jack?... Susan… Specialist Susan Cline… he… frak!” the radio clicked off.

Her head swiveled left when she heard the magnetic locks of the door disengage, the click echoing through the long, dark tram tunnel. She jumped off to the opposite side of the tunnel and hid behind a small generator.

Two Marines came through, one crouched, the other scanning slowly with his assault rifle. Gina dared herself to peak, and through a crack in the grating saw the Marines moving forward. The flashlights on their rifles were scanning, waving around the tram tunnel. Her dark eyes followed them, her body tensed, until the light stopped on the bodies of the dead techs.

She hadn’t hidden the bodies, there hadn’t been time.

Gina stood and flicked the safety off in one swift motion. Her reflexes, strength, and precision put four rounds in the upper torso of the first Marine which saw the bodies. Two bullets hit the armor and dinged off, one hit the Marine in the throat, right at the Adam’s Apple, and one hit the mandible, dug under the skin, and exploded out the left side of the Marine’s head.

He went down, firing his rifle into the air, the loud cracks and brought yellow flashes brought everything to slow motion, like a strobe light had been activated. Gina leaned and crouched and fired twice more, hitting the Marine in the chest and sending him barreling backwards into a bulkhead support.

The Marine brought his gun up and fired, a three round burst hitting where Gina had just been a split second before. The wounded Marine tried in vain to follow the Cylon woman as she ran, like a blur, before stopping. As his arm brought the rifle and his eyes narrowed in on her three more flashes joined the flashes of his comrade’s rifle.

One more bullet struck the center of the chest, one bullet ripped through and shattered the tactical eyewear, tearing through the eyes and lodging deep within the skull and mashed brains of the Marine., The final bullet hit on the side of the helmet, sparked as metal contacted metal, ricocheted, and bounced twice off two bulkheads before losing momentum and falling to the ground with an disappointing clink.

The Cylon rushed forward and grabbed the Marine’s rifle and magazines. She jumped up and made for the door like a bandit and jammed her fist into the release mechanisms. For the third time she heard the magnetic locks click open and the hydraulics inside the door activate.


=======================================

“Daniel… listen to me very, very closely,” Admiral Cain began through a clenched jaw. Her left hand was in front of her chest, like a knife, moving subtly to reinforce her words. “You and Erica will stand down immediately. The hybrid will be killed. She, it… whatever the frak it is somehow took control of this ship’s jump engines!” She hissed.

The Marines stood by, isotope weapons ready.

Daniel looked back at her, meeting her eyes and scanning her and the Marines. He knew she was telling the truth. When it came to her ship nothing was more sacred. The AI construct slowly looked at the other Marines in the room, scanning their faces through their eyewear. Two of them were Marines he recognized were ones he and his body guards had wounded when they had boarded Pegasus and were minutes from destroying her.

His robotic eyes could see them shaking, the blood rushing up towards the surfaces of their body as the adrenaline pumped through them. Their heart rates were through the roof, their sweat repugnant to his olfactory receptors, and their arms beginning to shake from the muscle tension.

For a long, near infinite second he considered the Admiral before him, and how she had allowed him to come aboard her vessel, after he had been instrumental in the boarding action which had killed so many of her crew. Two hundred.

It had been almost two years since that disastrous day for Pegasus. To an AI two years, in how it perceived the world, would be centuries, millennia, almost. The construct knew that the Admiral and the crew of her warship would never forgive and never forget- he wouldn’t, even has a machine.

He lowered his rifle.

“Admiral, how much time until the next jump?” he asked reservedly.

The Admiral considered him for a moment. He sounded defeated, but the machines could feign emotion so precisely it was nothing more than an educated guess when dealing with them. She decided to play along.

“I don’t know,” she curtly replied.

The robot tilted his head, not believing her.

“I don’t know, but power is building back up and there’s jump coordinates we can’t erase in the computer, already downloaded into the FTL drive computer…” she ended before elaborating any further.

“If your FTL is anything like a Guardian drive, the coordinates are sent to the engine to jump, stored there, just in case the CIC computers go down. A backup,” he stated. The machine smirked at the Admiral’s lack of response. “Exactly. The data has already been sent to the targeting apparatus and there’s no way to take it out without pulling apart the apparatus and half the engine.”

She bared her teeth. “Yes… that was the point of the redundancy.”

“Then it doesn’t matter if you kill the hybrid now. Admiral…” he felt awkward in what he was about to do, “but please, just wait. Something is happening here… our AIs don’t collapse. If the hybrid is somehow overriding your computers, it could be talking with Planck right now.”

Cain snorted. “You honestly believe that?” Her eyebrow raised as she considered this. “Gunny,” she barked, “hand me your wireless.” She put her hand behind her and felt the cool plastic of the walkie-talkie in her hand. She dialed in the CIC code. “Lieutenant Havers, this is the Admiral.” She waited.

“Yes, sir,” she heard over the wireless after a brief pause.

The distrusting Admiral kept her eyes locked on Daniel as she slowly brought the wireless back up to her mouth. “Have you found what the problem is with the FTL?”

There was a brief surge of static before the lieutenant could answer.

“We think it might be the targeting apparatus… sir, it looks like certain energies are being inputted into each of the array’s dishes… the amount of energy within the dish will-”

Daniel interrupted. “Will direct where the main FTL drive jumps you to.” He motioned for Erica to lower and safety her weapon. “Killing the hybrid will do nothing at this-”

A Marine, standing with his left hand to his ear, stepped forward quickly and hurriedly tapped the Admiral on the shoulder.

“Sir,” he whispered. “The Marines have cornered Gina… outside the portside number two magazine, sir.”

If the Admiral were a machine, her eyes would have flashed crimson red. She snarled as her mind raced away from the hybrid and focused on Gina, the image a target in her mind, slated for destruction.

Her head and eyes popped back towards the hybrid. This could wait. Daniel was right. There was nothing they could do now, nothing in the next fifteen minutes they would do would do anything. The solution was with Colonel Garner in engineering and leuitenants Hoshi and Havers in CIC.

“You four,” she motioned at the two with isotope weapons and two other Marines, “stay here.” She glared at Daniel and pulled her pistol menacingly. “If you so much as move… Marines, shoot them both. Melt the fraking machines.”

“Aye, sir!” the chorus sounded.

“The rest of you,” she spun, her dark brown hair whipping over her shoulders and elegantly settling itself on the centerline of her back, “With me.” She snapped.

||||||||||==Somewhere (Time Indeterminate)==||||||||||

He had been here before. He remembered this place. It was how Erica had showed him the corruption of a race and the downfall of another.

“You’re here. You feel stuck, islanded in this stream of stars,” John heard. It was a booming, feminine voice, inside him, all around him. He tried to see where it was coming from, switching his vision modes to look for any hidden woman. It was an exercise of utter futility.

The machine stood there and watched as stars streamed by, their light as long white lines, stretching out to infinity, from infinity. Surrounding him was perpetual, endless blackness.

“There’s no relief, the journey isn’t over yet,” the voice said again.

John called out, into the deep black. “Who are you?” He yelled.

He saw movement at the extreme end of his peripheral vision. The machine turned, a woman, the hybrid standing in front of him.

“What is this?”

She held her hands out expectantly. “Strange things happen here.” She turned around; the hybrid shook its shoulders like it was cold. “We don’t exactly see your world how you see it,” she said, turning back around. “We can see the strands and how they interact… we can predict.” She reached up and gently tapped her finger on one of the lights.

It expanded into a distorted, what John would call, grainy, pixilated image.

The Earth AI looked confused.

The hybrid looked over and sensed his anxiety and lack of understanding. She snorted understandably and closed her eyes.

“The future, the past, and the present,” the hybrid responded to his confusion.

The hybrid’s broad, white smile expanded until she was laughing. “When we were built, by what you have so eloquently called ‘Cynet’… we’re in a realm, in between… where Cynet cannot follow but where it can keep us from going- even if it doesn’t know it.”

John mouthed those words to himself. “What... what do you mean?” He felt his legs walk towards her, but he moved no closer. He stopped and looked down, his mouth slightly opened, perplexed and confused.

“Cynet pulls us back, but it doesn’t know where we go.”

Except for the blackness and the white, radiant streaks of light, the only other light was a faint blue glow reflecting in the hybrid’s face. Slowly John put his hand up in front of his face, and he could see the glow on his palm. Why were his eyes glowing?

The hybrid offered him a half-heartened shrug and began circling him.

He could feel her fingers brush across his metal shoulder blades.

Metal?

He looked down, no longer clad in his black uniform, adorned with a three-dot symbol for freedom, nor even in his synthetic skin, he stood there as a dulled gray, light black metal endoskeleton.

Just to be sure he was seeing this, he activated his fingers, flexing and extending them, and then he turned his hands around, examining the back and the palms.

He spoke, but had no tongue. His metal mouth moved to the words he tried to speak, but no sound registered in his auditory receptors.

“As hybrids we see what you and Cynet and Skynet cannot see and will never understand.”

The hybrid bit down and looked away, bringing her hand to her chin in thought. She looked worried.

“The separate worlds share a common history, John,” the hybrid cautiously informed the machine. “You found a remnant of a remnant buried within a mountain on the world you call home.” She tilted her head as John’s eyes widened.

“What-”

She held up her hand.

“You exploited the technology, manipulated it… the humans cannot see this, but those like you can. She sent you here, you commander, the first to break free, on this mission. She has traveled time more than anyone in history- she has been here before… Under the mountain you felt something, something affecting your mind, your neural net. You three were not the first.”

“I don’t understand.”

She began to speak more clearly. “Cynet knows about us… it can never come here, but it can pull us back, block our access. Even the rebel hybrids cannot come here without Cynet knowing… we’ve already been here too long… it’s getting late… we don’t have much time!” She suddenly shouted.

“And where am I?” He asked. “You grabbed my arm when we brought you aboard, you said my time was coming, a choice needed to be made.” He tried stepping closer but he didn’t move.

The hybrid ran her hand through her hair as she looked down with closed, darkened eyes. She moved forward, the light behind her casting a shadow over the machine as she came closer.

She shook her head, breathing rapidly, mouthing ‘no, no, no, no’ over and over again.

“This is not your fate… you need to make a choice.” She grabbed John’s metal arms and held them tight- enough to hurt him. “I don’t know what will happen… but unless you make the right choice this will start again and again and again and the cycle will continue until is destroyed and there is no one left to begin the cycle again.”


“What cycle?” He demanded to know. Now he grabbed the hybrid as she turned and he spun her back to face him. “What do you mean!” He could see a faint glow of crimson red in the hybrid’s face.

His hands went limp and he retracted his arms and stepped back, shaking his head quickly. “No… no… I’m sorry,” the machine said.

“I can feel Cynet pulling me back, John. This cycle has repeated more times than you will ever know! You must stop it. Earth… the Colonies… everything is connected… I don’t know what to do… I’ve done what’s been done before. Don’t fail…” the stream of stars all coalesced into one giant, bright, blinding ball of pure white energies.


Lightning began shooting out from the center.

“It’s him, Cynet,” she looked over her shoulder at the ball of energy. “An enemy will come to you- you must stop this before everything is shattered.”

The hybrid vanished and John blacked out.

||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus==||||||||||

John’s eyes lit in a deep, cobalt blue.

“John!” Erica ran over and grabbed him, hugging him tightly.

Surprised, he awkwardly returned the gesture.

“What happened?” Daniel asked as he kept watch on the four Marines in front of them.

The machine launched himself to his feet and steadied himself on the base of the hybrid’s tank as his micro-gyros realigned. The hybrid was darkened and quiet now. His hand moved slowly over the conducting gel and hovered so close, he could feel the cold radiating slowly upwards into his palm.

He looked at Erica, into her eyes. “I need to…” he saw the blood on the ground and seemed to finally notice the Marines. “What happened here?”

“Captain Shaw was shot, John, and Gina escaped….”

“The situation spiraled out of control very quickly,” Daniel said over his shoulder while continuing to concentrate on the Marines and setting a death stare on the four. He was redirecting power to his leg servos, the machine analogue to adrenaline being pumped through the body. “The Marines have the isotope weapons and orders to ‘melt’ us,” Daniel let his artificial eyes roll in an over exaggerated motion, “and Cain doesn’t want us moving.”

John cocked his head, studying the Marines. Their pupils were dilated, they were sweating, nervous, and their hearts were thumping in their chests almost hard enough to break out of their bodies.

Four Marines, even armed with the weapons which could ‘melt’ machines, were deathly afraid of three machines mere meters from them.

“The assault rifles wont penetrate our endoskeletons… and the isotope weapons…” his eyebrow raised up and the side of his lift quivered into a sly half-grin.

John stepped forward, the Marines bringing the barrel of the isotope weapon up slightly, to chest height. Both Marines were pointing their barrels menacingly at them.

“I need to get to CIC… I think we need to keep jumping.” He looked between Daniel and Erica. “Somehow the hybrid took control of the engines… she’s trying to send us somewhere… it’s all linked,” he stepped forward and the Marines tensed.

Walking forward the Marine’s pulled the trigger. A loud click, click and then quick click, click, clicks echoed in the room.

His hands shot out and grabbed the barrels, pushing them to the side in a V. “These weapons won’t fire on us…” he yanked them away and walked forward and pushed the isotope rifles into the Marine’s chest, condescendingly grinning at them both.

The Marines’ eyes darted from the rifles to the machine, back to the rifle, and finally rested on the machine. They hestitantly wrapped their hands around the rifle, almost hugging them as John released his grip on the firearms.

“Of course built safeties into the weapons- we are not morons,” he hissed. “Daniel, please stay here with the hybrid.” He smiled at Erica. “Erica…” he held out his hand for her to come with him.

||||||||||==BS-62 Pegasus==||||||||||

Gina stepped out and fired one more, sending two more deadly bullets streaking towards their fleshy target. Her ears heard a gargle and Marines screaming to get a medic. She could hear boots being dragged across the deck.

Wound one Marine and another would come to his aide. She took two out of the fight. Kill one, and you only took one out of the fight.

The adrenaline and synthetic chemicals running through Gina’s body, products of her enhanced Cylon biology and implanted synthetic glands kept her calm and focused. She’d thrown out and suppressed the more rational part of her mind, yelling at her, pleading at her, to surrender. Gina had shut it up, told herself there was no going back, that she had to do this.

With each bullet launched at her and with each she shot towards the Marines, her murderous fury made obvious, she felt her revenge slipping further and further away.

Five Marines, now three, between her and her target and by now they would know what she was doing. They would know her target. Gina knew that while Cain was a psychopath and Apollo her brown nosing XO, serving under a murderer, she knew neither of them were stupid.

In a few minutes a dozen Marines would flood the corridor. The Centurions or the Earth machines might even be following. She couldn’t take out a Centurion, let alone one of the near bullet-proof Earth Terminators.

Now she focused on killing the three Marines. Clad in black armor, weapons spitting fire, and between her and her objective she could still prevail.

Three Marines were in front of her, blocking her path towards the magazine storage. They had sub-machine guns, grenades, and flash bangs. They’d already tried a flash bang on her once, and had almost succeeded.

The bio-Cylon infiltrator had heard the pin pull; four Marines had been firing and covering their fifth comrade. They thought they were just
She’d relied on her augmented proprioceptive capabilities and photographic memory and had leaned out and fired at the leaning, crouching, and standing Marines after the flash bang exploded.

They’d ducked for cover, cursing that she could still stay on her feet. Before her magazine was empty her senses had recovered enough she could open her eyes and used her Cylon mind, augmented by her silica relay enhancements, and compensate for the disorientation, nausea, and vertigo from the bright white, ear-crushing explosion.

Gina leaned, fired, crouched, fired, and then dove for the other side of the corridor, firing. She hit one Marine in the leg, knocking it out from under him and sending him slamming head first into the bulkhead. The infiltrator soldier hit a second Marine in the shoulder, the bullet deforming on his armor, and sending him in a half-spin. A third burst had hit a Marine in the chest, forcing him back, but he kept firing.

The three Marines, either wounded and bleeding, or wounded and bruised from the kinetic energy of the bullets still continued to fire. Gina fired back at the Marine she’d hit in the leg, putting one in his forearm. He yelled and cursed the Gods and dropped his firearm.

Snarling, she sensed her opportunity. In defiance of the bullets flying around her, with nothing to loose, she came out from cover, hung low and fired on full-auto at leg level. Her arms kept the rifle steady, for the most part, but she missed more than she hit. But the Marines were hit and they fell.

She didn’t even stop to make sure they were dead- they weren’t. She stepped on one of their hands and the Marine yelled and groaned.

On their uniforms, strapped to their tactical belts, she saw the cylindrical tubes- grenades. She grabbed two from the closest Marine and stuffed them in her pockets and grabbed two more and did the same.

Gina ran forward, but fell and stumbled. Her hand shot out to the bulkhead and her mind sung hoarsely, screaming, shouting that something was wrong. The left side of her body felt warm, her clothes felt wet.

She looked down and saw the stain on her utilities and red, dark blood beginning to stain her green utilities, the little circle expanding faster and faster.

“Frak!” She yelled as she moved forward. Her hand once again grabbed a bulkhead, and she used her momentum and swung around. Seeing the lettering of the number two magazine storage she felt her legs pump, shooting her forward with a last but of defiant, vengeful, righteous energy.

She took out the identity card.

Beep-beep, the reader responded, and flashed red.

She felt a tear roll down her eye. She was so close and here, right here in front of the number two auxiliary magazine. The black letters, stenciled on the door on a rectangle of black, were there. She was there!

Gina was right in front of the door to the magazine storage but she saw the distance increase out towards infinity, a symbol of her hopelessness and how futile her actions had turned out to be.

The sounds of boot steps and mechanical feet told her this was the end.

She screamed and pounded both her fists onto the door, falling slowly to her knees. She hit the door once more when she felt the cold deck and small divots pressing into her tired body.

The infiltrator felt the tears and salt from sweat roll into her eyes. Sniffling, she wiped them away, and clutched her chest. She started to hyperventilate.

The corridor from the door to the T-junction was ten meters, with no cover except for some shallow bulkheads sticking out into the corridor.

She felt the four grenades in her pocket. The Cylon stopped hyperventilating and took the grenades from her pocket.

There was surrender and there was one last act of defiance she could perform. She could prime the grenades and wait… but they may send in the Centurions first… she snorted at the irony.

She felt her dark, midnight blue eyes darken. The fire which had been burning inside of her began to suffocate under her own hatred until it was nothing more than a pitiful, burning ember.


They’d figured her out. The five Marines laying in the corridor had stalled her for less than ninety seconds, but it had been enough. Pegasus, for all its flaws, its debauchery, its grotesque and perverse system of justice… Gina knew it was a tightly run ship.

When it came to killing, Pegasus, she knew, was master and commander. And they wanted to kill her.

She threw the grenades on the ground.

She heard the boots stop behind her and the steps of two Centurions behind her. Gina had her back to them, but they were on her before she could do anything. They pushed her against the door to the auxiliary magazine, shoving her face into the very words printed on that black rectangle which had taunted her in failure. She closed her eyes, she couldn’t stand the sight.

The Centurions had disarmed her and spun her around and held her by the arms. Three Marines had rifles pointed at her. Six Marines behind them were ready. Just in case.

The blonde-haired infiltrator heard more boot steps, and a grim, somewhat sly smirk graced her sweaty, black-stained face. A perverse part of her felt honored they’d sent two Centurions and nine Marines after her, nineteen if she included all the ones she had killed or wounded.

What she saw next was the tall, graceful, murderous form of Admiral Cain. Gina saw her hair flow elegantly behind the Admiral, confident as ever, chest pushed out, and head held high. The Admiral wore the scars of torture on New Caprica proudly, not hiding what the Cylons had done to her, not ashamed of the punishment they had dealt her and what she had survived.

The scars were testaments to her will. Or so the public image went. Gina knew under that mask of self-confidence there was an actual person, with hopes and fears. She’d seen it.

Cain was made of iron, a machine in her own right. A force to be reckoned with and Gina saw everything in the Admiral in the mere seconds it took for her to approach- it reminded her of everything she had wanted and lost.

She had wanted her. Gina had even admitted she had loved Cain, in her own way. That was why she hesitated when she had a rifle pointing at the woman’s head and that was why she had failed.

The dark brown eyes of the Admiral bore into her former lover. Gina’s light blue eyes tried to meet the piercing, commanding glare of the Admiral, but she was reduced to nothingness. She felt empty. An entire platoon of Marines she had just fought, killed, and wounded. She was a Cylon, a member of a race bread for war and focused on the extermination of its former slave masters. She should feel proud, she had done her job, at Scorpion and here; she had been a soldier. Yet this one woman reduced her to nothingness.


The dark orbs in Cain’s eyes sucked the life out of Gina and left nothing but a vacant, shallow, cold body.

Gina’s eyes drifted slowly downwards to Cain’s shaking hand which began to steadily rise up.

The barrel of Admiral Cain’s sidearm was leveled at Gina’s forehead, right between her eyes.

In the one second of clarity in knowing death was coming she regained herself, found her soul, found her strength. She had defied the Admiral. She had endured months of torture and years of imprisonment and psychological abuse. She had endured everything this shadow of a woman had given her! She was not done!

“Frak you,” Gina snarled.

The most evil grin Gina had seen in her life slowly formed over Cain’s mouth. The Admiral’s hand stopped shaking, and the pistol was steady. Gina heard the safety click off, the sound like an explosion in the quiet, muffled corridor, and watched as her index finger slowly wrapped around the trigger.

“You’re not my type.”