HunTrib Chpt 5

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=Hunted Tribes=
==Chapter 5==
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“A warship has a soul, if it has done its duty, kept its crew alive and has met its enemies head-on again and again without ever letting you down you can feel the pride running through the decks and bulkheads as much as you can the people aboard, it’s palpable, but a warship can be stained with dishonour too.” Admiral William Adama – 3047
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===Matters of fuel and Honor===
Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet – 3045 CEE
Saul Tigh raised his eyebrows. ‘They just got up and walked out?’ he asked. ‘All of them at once?’
Admiral Adama nodded as he looked around the CIC for a brief moment before returning his attention to his XO. ‘From what Starbuck told me on the wireless the aggressor squadron sent down from Galactica were already in the base canteen eating lunch, and trading normal fighter-pilot BS with the locals as best they could given the language barrier, when the pilots from Pegasus walked in’ he said. ‘The New Circe pilots see their Pegasus shoulder patches and then every one of them gets up without a word and leaves.’
‘Do we at least know why?’ Tigh asked Adama.
‘Starbuck asked around’ Adama replied, ‘they won't socialize with anyone from Pegasus because the story spread about how when it was under Cain's command the ship and crew abandoned the civilians they found to the cylons’ he said. ‘They consider the Pegasus and anyone who was on it at the time disgraced.’
‘Disgraced?’ Tigh repeated.
‘They lost their honour’ Adama explained. ‘The highest duty of a soldier is to put themselves between the civilians and the enemy’ he said. ‘Leaving them behind was bad enough but stripping their FTL Drives and conscripting anyone useful, threatening to execute the families of anyone that refused to come along, basically means that the average Wolverine wouldn't piss on a crewman from the Beast if he was on fire.’
Tigh frowned. ‘Gods know Bill I can see their point but the Pegasus crew were acting under orders.’
‘Starbuck said much the same to the locals,’ Adama told him, ‘the reply was that Cain should have been shot dead on the spot for issuing the order.’ he said.
‘Easier said than done.’ Tigh opined.
‘They're a warrior culture, they hold to an idea of chivalry that's been driven deep into their psyches’ Adama replied. ‘I heard a story about their own exodus two centuries ago’ he said, ‘during their time raiding worlds in the Draconis Combine every single one of them that faced capture after a skirmish went badly committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner’ he told Tigh. ‘That's the reason the Inner Sphere Successor States still have no idea who they were’ he continued. ‘They believe Saul, they believe hard’ he said.
‘Crazy bastards’ Tigh responded, at least they had the courage of their convictions though he thought to himself. ‘So what do they think of Galactica then?’ he asked curiously.
‘Galactica put herself between the civilian ships and the cylons at the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage to defend them until they could jump out’ Adama replied, ‘Duty done, honour intact.’
‘Good because it would be my duty to have decked any of them that badmouthed my boat’ Saul Tigh declared. ‘So you're heading down there yourself later then?’ he asked.
Adama nodded. ‘I've got a meeting with my opposite number Admiral Franks’ he confirmed. ‘We're supposed to thrash out the plan to head back to the Colonies’ he said. ‘It'll be Galactica leading the expedition, hope you're ready to go home’ he said.
‘That's a lot of jumps even if we head in a straight line.’ Tigh noted. Their journey since leaving their home system Cyrannus had been anything but direct, they had deliberately tried to throw off their pursuers by not following anything like a predictable course so they weren't nearly as far away as they could have been, but it was still a good trek to the Twelve Colonies from here.
‘We're getting a new navigational computer from New Circe which should push out the Red-Line, we'll be doing twenty-plus light-years a jump each time and it'll calculate them fast’ Adama told him. The vast majority of jumps they had made since the fall of the colonies had been less than a quarter of that, although the record was thirty when they jumped away from Ragnar. The Cylons had longer-ranged, more-efficient drives and better computers so they could jump even further safely, but the ability to perform repeated jumps of over twenty light-years in quick succession was a major step-forward for a Battlestar.
‘And what if the Cylons hit this fancy new computer with a virus?’ Saul asked doubtfully.
‘It wouldn't be integrated with any of our systems, it'll just spit out the numbers on a display for us to punch in ourselves manually, and the programming language should be too alien for the cylons to interface with, even if all the fancy firewalls they say it'll have they have don't work’ Adama replied. ‘Worst case scenario we pull the plug and we've still got Gaeta over there to get us back’ he said indicating the Tactical Officer sat at his post nearby. ‘It'll take a lot longer though.’
Saul Tigh wanted a drink, he had managed to get a couple of bottles of some local moonshine called skogsstjärnan brought up from New Circe in one of the supply shuttles. It wasn't exactly ambrosia, and he was damned if he could pronounce it, but it wasn't too bad, or at least Ellen hadn't complained too much yet anyway. ‘I hope we'll be testing this new NavComp properly before we go skipping back to Kobol’ he said, that was going to be their first rest-stop, testing the waters for Cylon surprises before going deeper.
‘Plenty of test jumps and calculations run side by side before we start trusting it’ Adama reassured him. ‘It'll be a joint mission, as well as half a dozen raptors and two squadrons of vipers we'll be taking twenty-four of their heavy aerospace fighters aboard, our flight decks should handle them okay.’
‘Well they sure as hell won't fit in a viper launch tube’ Tigh said in amusement, they each massed twice what a raptor did but could be launched and retrieved the same way. With only a small number of raptors and half her maximum complement of eighty fighters on Galactica, there should be room for the things at least he agreed.
‘We're aiming for heading out in three weeks’ Adama told him, ‘that's enough time for the aggressor squadrons we've provided to show the Wolverines how to deal with Cylon Raiders and we'll already have a little experience with joint ops thanks to the mining operations’ he said.
‘Yeah I heard they found tylium a few light years away’ Tigh noted.
‘New Circe has been scouting the local systems for decades’ Adama said, ‘they told us the ones with the largest asteroid belts and on the third try a raptor from Pegasus struck lucky in a belt two jumps away’ he told him. ‘The mining ships Monarch and Majahual should be pulling ore out of there within a couple of days, the Wolverine destroyer Yukon will be at a staging area half way between New Circe and the mining operation along with the refinery Daru Mozu’ he explained, ‘cargo ships shuttle the ore to the refinery and when she's full she'll head back to New Circe and the other refinery Hitei Kan will take her place’ he said. ‘We'll have all the ships in the fleet fully fueled inside a month and then we can start building up a reserve.’
‘We're trusting the security of our ships to the locals?’ Tigh queried.
‘We'll have a raptor in the system with the mining ships and a half-squadron of vipers with the Yukon.’ Adama replied. As well as the fifty of its own fighters the destroyer/carrier held there were additional bays on the Yukon that could carry up to five two-hundred ton vessels. That was more than enough room to house a raptor and ten vipers although seeing as how they were going to be from Pegasus the colonials temporarily assigned to the Wolverine warship might find themselves being ostracized by the crew Adama wondered, oh well they were soldiers and could damn well suck it up he decided.
‘Fine by me then, and that all sounds good for getting us some tylium, but what about the metal we need for Vipers too?’ Tigh asked. ‘We need to replace our losses, we’re training new pilots all the time but we need more machines to put them in too’ he stated.
‘New Circe has its own mining ships operating in this system, there's no tylium here but plenty of orbiting rocks with other raw materials’ Adama replied. ‘They say they'll provide whatever we need so we can get our factory ships running to capacity again, fix the fleet and get the production line on Pegasus churning out vipers at a better pace’ he said. ‘At least we've got some breathing space now’ he observed, ‘we can spend longer training the new pilots.’
‘If we'd had even another week to get them up to speed we'd have lost less rookies’ Tigh agreed wholeheartedly, they had been forced by necessity to throw inexperienced and under-trained pilots at the cylons and it had cost them dear. ‘Nice of the Wolvies to give us some metal, so what's their price for this act of generosity?’ he asked wryly.
‘Tech transfer as ever’ Adama replied with a shrug. ‘They want access to anything good we can salvage from the Colonies and any additional research we have on the Cylons’ he said, ‘they want it so bad they can practically taste it.’
‘I might have been known to drool over their directed-energy-weapons a little myself’ Tigh responded with a laugh.
‘We're getting them’ Adama told him. ‘Well not ones for capital ships for now but enough lasers to sling one under all our vipers’ he said. ‘It'll add about half a ton of weight to our birds, and it won't have the rate of fire theirs do because our Viper powerplants will take longer to charge the capacitors, but it should be a one-shot kill on a Raider’ he continued. ‘The first prototype is already being worked on I'm going to get Chief Tyrol to go down take a look and help them out if he can.’
‘Adding that extra mass to a viper will reduce her maneuverability Bill’ Tigh pointed out. ‘Add a full missile loadout as well and she'll be sluggish’ he warned.
‘If it proves to be too much we can offset it at least partially by pulling one of the guns and its ammo off a Mark VII’ Adama replied, the more advanced model viper carried three 30mm kinetic-energy-weapons as opposed to the two of the older Mark II . ‘Two guns were always enough for us in the old days right?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Yeah they're spoiled these days’ Tigh agreed, ‘and frakking lasers now too’ he continued, rolling his eyes. ‘When I joined up it was a bow and arrow and if you were lucky the arrow had a point on it.’
‘New-fangled technology’ Adama responded dismissively, playing along with his XO. ‘We still threw rocks back when I went to flight school’ he said. ‘And we didn't have these fancy air-tight helmets so if you went into space you had to hold your breath the whole mission’ he declared.
Tigh sighed. ‘And I'll bet if you told nuggets that today they wouldn't believe you’ he said, shaking his head sadly and trying to keep a straight face.
Adama nodded his agreement. ‘I do miss those clockwork Centurions though’ he responded. ‘All you had to do was wait for them to run down and then just push them over’ he said. ‘If they were all lined up it was like dominos...’ he continued then couldn't any more because he started laughing triggering Tigh to do so as well.
Gaeta and everyone else in the CIC ignored them but they wished they were in on whatever joke it was that had caused the normally stern Old Man and the usually less than cheerful XO to regress several decades in age.
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===Officers vs Non-Coms===
Franklin Hallis Airbase – New Circe – 3045CE
Squatting underneath with one of the access panels already opened Chief Tyrol reached into the guts of the Viper trying to tease out the power cable being threaded through the airframe. ‘I can't get it’ he said after trying for a while. ‘Cally, you try’ he ordered, pulling his arm back out and moving aside to let the other technician attempt it.
Specialist Calandra Henderson dropped down under the viper and shuffled into position. Her jaw wasn't wired shut any more, and most of the bruises were long gone, but being in such close proximity to Tyrol was unsettling even if she had accepted that it wasn't really the Chief she knew and cared about who had beaten her senseless. ‘It should be somewhere alongside the avionics lines right?’ she asked reaching in.
‘Yeah, there's not much extra room in there but it was the best way to run the cable back to the generator’ Tyrol confirmed. A Viper Mark VII needed a fair amount of electrical power to run its fly-by-wire avionics systems, and the DRADIS in particular required plenty of wattage, but in order to get juice into the new laser weapon they were fitting they needed to run another cable through the fighter and it was proving slightly problematic so far.
Seelix the other deckhand Tyrol had brought with him down to New Circe was watching with a grin as the girl managed to get her entire arm into the viper up to her shoulder. ‘Hey Cally, I don't know about you wanting to be a dentist but from the looks of it you'd have made a great farmyard vet.’ she said. ‘I can just see you with you arm up a cow's ass’ she joked.
‘Frak you’ Cally responded. ‘Got it!’ she exclaimed, taking hold of the cable and pulling it through. Being “small and skinny” as she had been labelled, though she much preferred being called “petite and slender”, gave her the ability to get deeper into the guts of a Viper or Raptor than most of the other knuckle-draggers. ‘All yours Chief’ she told Tyrol, giving him the end of the cable.
‘Good work’ Tyrol told her and moved to the next stage of the process while she got clear. Once he had the new line connected up to the generator they could finally get the laser bolted on and try out the firing controls he and Seelix had already installed in the cockpit.
Getting out from under the Viper, Cally yawned and stretched out, they had been working in this damn hanger for hours already and her body-clock was off. It was only early afternoon here but she was still on Fleet time which was approaching midnight. She looked around, casting her eyes over the two other Vipers that were waiting to be done next and the pair of what they called Visigoth aerospace fighters, sixty-ton machines that were classified as medium by the locals. A Wolverine ground-crew were working on one of them and as Cally and Seelix watched a New Circe pilot wearing one of their special flightsuits came over to the Visigoth under repair and judging by the volume and the tone of his voice he began bawling them out. ‘I can't understand a damn word but I'm willing to bet that pilot is giving those knuckledraggers shit for not being able to achieve the frakking impossible’ Seelix observed.
‘Yeah’ Cally agreed as the guy she guessed was the crew chief working on the Visigoth got right up into the pilots face and started yelling back. Older more experienced Non-Coms could often get away with saying just about anything they liked to junior officers as long as they added “Sir” at the end, though of course that depended on whether they were absolutely sure they were right if higher ranks ever got involved in the situation. They might get a reprimand for mouthing off at a lieutenant but the pilot would likely get serious crap in turn from his own CO too if the NCO could demonstrate their case. ‘Officers are jerks’ she opined.
‘I'll choose to forget I heard that.’ a familiar voice interjected causing Cally to grimace before she and Seelix span around to find Starbuck stood nearby with a grin on her face. ‘Aren't you finished yet Chief?’ the pilot asked.
‘It'll be ready when it's ready, Sir’ Tyrol replied patiently, not bothering to get out from under the viper.
‘I want to be in this thing shooting up some targets tomorrow, it will be working by then right?’ Starbuck asked.
‘I'm not giving a cast-iron guarantee but it should be’ Tyrol told her cautiously. ‘Everything works on the bench and we've nearly got the hard stuff done’ he continued. ‘Actually bolting the laser to the airframe is the easy part’ he said.
‘So it'll just be another button on the joystick?’ Starbuck checked with Seelix, she was the electronics and avionics expert.
‘Yes Sir’ Seelix confirmed. ‘I've put in an LED that lights up when the laser is charged and ready’ she explained. ‘It was the quickest and easiest way to do it, later on we'll probably put in a proper display’ she said. ‘Just remember that the more power you're pulling from the generator for other things like active DRADIS sweeps the longer it'll take to charge’ the technician advised.
Starbuck grinned. ‘Little light comes on to tell me the big bright light is ready’ she replied, ‘I like it’ she said. ‘I hope there's a safety too’ she added. Kara Thrace prided herself on flying with a devil-may-care attitude but she didn't want to accidentally zap one of her own squadron, or worse have a nugget do that to her.
‘There's a big switch labelled “SAFE” when it is’ Seelix confirmed, it was best not to put in anything complicated that might confuse the pilots she knew. ‘Flip it and it says “LASER”.’
‘Did they show you what the beam from that sucker would do to a piece of metal equivalent to the hull of a Heavy Raider?’ Starbuck asked rhetorically, ‘might as well not been there, burned right through.’
‘It won't instantly shatter a cylon bird like a burst from a KEW will though, Sir’ Tyrol spoke up from under the viper. ‘It's not a guaranteed one-shot kill unless you hit something important or trigger a secondary explosion’ he noted.
‘Plenty of tylium and ammo to set off in a raider, Chief’ Starbuck replied, ‘not to mention the engines and we know how packed in all that wiring and organic crap is’ she said. It was highly unlikely a cylon fighter would survive a hit from one of those lasers and still be in the fight, certainly for the smaller standard raiders it would be a freak occurrence at best.
‘Just warning you that the laser firing control isn't an automatic “I Win” button, Sir’ Tyrol told her seriously. ‘Okay, another couple of minutes and we can splice this into the main bus coming out of the generator’ he said to himself more quietly.
Cally still felt awkward after her “Officers are jerks” comment. ‘So how are things coming with the aggressor training, Sir?’ she asked Starbuck, trying to make amends as much as she was conversation.
‘We're running rings around the Wolvies in dog-fighting but the camera-guns say they're eating us alive, especially when closing in’ the pilot replied. ‘The lasers and PPCs are bad enough but the simulated effects of those LB-X Autocannon are a nightmare to deal with.’ she noted.
‘Those are the ones that act like big shotguns right?’ Seelix asked.
Starbuck nodded. ‘Because of the dispersal pattern you have to keep way off-boresight to guarantee not to get hit’ she said. ‘I'll say one thing, those tight regular formations raiders like to fly in will go right out of the window after the first couple of times they come up against these people’ she predicted. ‘They'll be shredded by the squadron full until they fly loose and disperse.’
Seelix grinned. ‘Almost makes you feel sorry for the frakkers doesn’t it, Sir?’ she asked rhetorically.
‘Nope’ Starbuck replied, grinning back.
Cally laughed then she saw a group of people entering the hanger and quickly looked down at the floor. ‘They're back again’ she moaned.
Starbuck turned and found herself looking at four guys wearing SLDF uniform, talking amongst themselves and periodically looking in the direction of the Colonials. ‘What's going on?’ she asked.
‘This is the third time they've been around in the last hour,’ Cally said, ‘they keep staring at me’ she complained.
Seelix laughed. ‘Cally has a fan club’ she told Starbuck. ‘At first we thought she was being paranoid but when it started to get obvious we asked one of the translators about it’ she said.
‘I'm exotic’ Cally said, her cheeks blushing bright red.
‘You're what?’ Starbuck replied, raising an eyebrow.
‘That was the word the translator used’ Seelix told her. ‘Have you noticed that basically all of the women on this planet look... well a lot like you?’ she asked.
‘Hot?’ Starbuck replied in amusement.
‘Athletic, plus tall and usually blond’ Seelix replied, she was going to add muscular but wisely opted not to.
‘Like I said, hot’ Starbuck maintained.
‘Here you're sorta average’ Seelix told her apologetically. ‘It's girls that look like Cally that aren't anywhere to be seen’ she said. ‘Too much genetic engineering aimed at producing seven-foot tall infantry I guess.’
‘He said I had unusual exotic looks’ Cally repeated herself in more detail. ‘I hate being stared at.’
Starbuck couldn't help but burst out laughing. ‘They don't think you're a freak, they're looking because they think you're cute.’ she said.
‘I told her that.’ Tyrol agreed.
‘It's embarrassing’ Cally declared. ‘I just wish they'd get lost.’
Starbuck looked at the four guys again, three of them now seemed to be remonstrating with the other one who now looked almost as awkward as Cally. Eventually with two of them pushing him in the direction of the Colonials he started to wander over slowly. ‘We're getting a visitor’ she said.
‘Aww crap’ Cally moaned as he approached.
‘He's one of their mechwarrior guys, I recognise some of their unit insignia now’ Starbuck told the others. They did combined-arms training in the area next to the airbase, you could hear the explosions in the distance some days. ‘He's a second lieutenant too according to his shoulder bars if you're interested’ she added.
The wolverine mechwarrior looked nervous as hell as he approached sheepishly. Starbuck said hello to him in his own language, she had picked up a little English during the weeks she had been here, but to her surprise he replied in Caprican. ‘Hi’ he said, before turning to address Cally directly. ‘I'm Lieutenant...’ he began then stopped, ‘I'm Geoff Cale’ he introduced himself less formally. ‘You're called Cally right?’ he asked in reasonable Caprican. ‘I asked someone’ he explained when Cally seemed surprised he knew her name. ‘Would you... I mean can I take you out to dinner later?’ he requested. ‘I got permission from the Base Commander for you to leave the base and go into town’ he said.
Cally blushed again. ‘I'm on duty’ she replied.
‘Oh’ Cale responded downcast.
‘Oh I think I can persuaded to let you have the evening off if the Chief agrees’ Starbuck told her, ignoring the glare she got from Cally in return.
‘Alright by me’ Tyrol agreed, Cally could swear she heard him chuckle under his breath.
‘Great’ Cale enthused. ‘So is that a yes now then?’ he asked Cally hopefully. ‘I can pick you up at seven, I'll book a table at the best place in town’ he promised. ‘The others all wanted to ask you but I'm the only one that took Ancient Greek at college’ he said, thanking God he hadn't dropped it in favour of something more technical.
‘I can't, I’ve got nothing to wear’ Cally told him.
‘Bet I can find you a dress before then Specialist’ Starbuck told her. ‘Leave it to me’ she said.
‘Just have her back by midnight, she's got to work tomorrow’ Tyrol noted.
‘Oh yes, sure of course’ Cale replied. ‘So if you can get a dress to wear that's a yes then?’ he asked Cally.
Cally looked up at him, he wasn't really as big as some of the SLDF Infantry or Marines she had run into but stood beside him the guy was so damn tall she thought, he would have been intimidating if he didn't look so nervous. ‘Okay’ she agreed.
The wolverine mechwarrior beamed. ‘That's great’ he said happily. ‘I'll borrow a car and pick you up at seven like I said before’ he told her. ‘I've got to get back to work now, I was on a break, but I'll see you later’ he told her. ‘You aren't allergic to flowers or anything are you?’ he asked, he knew that people who hailed from genetic stock which had been less meddled with occasionally were, even if that sort of complaint was largely unknown on New Circe.
‘Not the ones we have back home’ Cally replied.
‘Should be okay then I think’ Cale reasoned, he'd have to go and find some as well as dig up his best uniform from the back of the locker in his quarters. ‘See you later Cally’ he told her and headed back to his friends saying something which earned him a round of applause.
Cally buried her face in her hands. ‘I hate you all’ she mumbled from behind them.
‘You could have said no’ Seelix pointed out. ‘I think you would have broken his heart though’ she continued, ‘of course he could have two of them’ she joked.
‘Nah they have just the one heart, it's just larger to pump more blood’ Starbuck told her. ‘You'll have to let us know if they really have that enhanced endurance and stamina I've heard about though’ she teased Cally.
‘Maybe your new boyfriend can fix me up with one of his officer friends’ Seelix suggested to Cally sweetly.
‘He's not my boyfriend’ Cally retorted sharply.
‘And officers are all jerks anyway aren't they Specialist?’ Starbuck asked Cally rhetorically, smirking.
Cally bit back the first reply that came into her head. ‘The dress thing was revenge for me saying that wasn’t it?’ she asked.
‘No, I'm not that petty’ Starbuck replied. ‘The dress thing was just for the laughs and to see your face’ she said. ‘So what size are you anyway?’ she queried, looking Cally up and down.
‘What in hades can I even talk to him about?’ Cally asked, looking to the heavens for guidance, or at least the hanger roof which was about as likely to help.
‘Just remember that if he takes you home to meet his parents don't be surprised if they're a test-tube and a metal box’ Seelix joked.
‘Alright that's enough clowning around’ Tyrol interjected loudly, ‘Cally, Seelix get under here and give me a hand’ he ordered.
‘I'll be tracking down that dress, see you later Specialist’ Starbuck told Cally turning to leave.
‘And makeup, I'll need makeup’ Cally replied, ‘What? I'm not going on a date looking like I’m about to lie underneath a raptor’ she told Seelix who had given her a look.
Seelix grinned. ‘No just under a...’ she began.
‘I once bit a guys ear off’ Cally reminded her, ‘don't frak with me’ she warned.
‘Well that's a story you can tell him over dinner anyway’ Seelix suggested brightly.
‘Just not over a rare steak’ Tyrol sagely advised as his two deckhands started helping him with the electrical generator that ran off the engines.
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===Idle Talk between a married Couple===
SLDF Secure Bunker Complex – New Circe – 3045CE
‘This is so frakking humiliating’ Sharon moaned, she had thought that being made to mop the floors and clean the toilets was bad but it was nothing compared to this indignity. Karl “Helo” Agathon, stood beside her in her spartan quarters, just looked confused by the question which the military scientist had posed via a civilian interpreter from the university. Apparently he was an assistant of Professor Sundquist and like every other person on New Circe that spoke any Ancient Greek he had been drafted by the government to help out with the Colonials.
‘You still haven't answered the question’ the interpreter told her. ‘We have observed your spine glow during intercourse, is that involuntary?’ he asked, trying to keep a straight face.
‘Sharon's spine doesn't glow when we have sex’ Helo stated, it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard of.
‘You said the camera in my room wasn't turned on when I was with Karl’ Sharon said angrily, hiding behind one emotion with another.
The interpreter relayed her reply to the scientist who responded. ‘The camera was switched off, it was switched back on when the guard outside noticed the weird glow’ the translator said. ‘We had no idea what it was and when we saw it just caused more questions.’
‘Oh for frak's sake’ Helo swore. ‘Sharon would you tell these people that...’
‘It's involuntary but I can completely isolate the organic fibre-optics responsible to stop it happening’ Sharon told them, better to just get it over with. She had to pick up Hera from the daycare on the top level of the complex soon, although they called it “sibling company” here. ‘The circuits must have gone live again by accident yesterday when I interfaced with the computer you got from Galactica’ she theorised. Frankly slicing open her forearms and pushing a cable into her flesh had been a much more pleasant experience than this.
Helo stared at her. ‘Your spine glows when we have sex’ he said slowly.
‘Not usually’ Sharon replied awkwardly. ‘It's actually more like a short-circuit caused by synapses firing randomly in the silicon pathways of my brain’ she explained. ‘There's a fibre-optic line that runs down the centre of my spinal cord.’
‘What the frak is that supposed to mean’ Helo demanded to know.
‘If the line isn't isolated it can light up really bright when... when I come’ Sharon told him, wishing she could die and be resurrected light years away to escape.
The translator didn't quite follow. ‘Come?’ he queried.
‘My spine lights up when I orgasm, are you happy now?’ she yelled back at him.
It said something for his professionalism that the man managed to translate that before he cracked up into convulsive laughter which continued uncontrollably until tears started to run down his cheeks. ‘That's one way to know if she's faking’ he managed to choke out eventually to Helo who couldn't quite see the joke yet himself and was close to decking the guy.
‘It's a design flaw’ Sharon told Helo, ‘any cylon on a deep cover sleeper agent mission like Boomer would have the circuit isolated by default’ she said. ‘I thought I'd better tell you that before you asked the Chief how he managed to miss that for so long’ she added awkwardly.
Helo stared at the far wall. ‘I would have been happier not ever knowing this’ he said to himself.
The scientist decided that the translator wasn't going to be much more use in the circumstances and within minutes Helo and Sharon were alone again as the two locals left. ‘I'm sorry I'm a machine’ Sharon told him quietly. ‘I love you’ she continued honestly, ‘when you first walked in that door not knowing why you had been sent down here by the Admiral, and I introduced you to Hera and I saw the expression on your face I knew I'd always love you because of how much you loved our child’ she said then paused. ‘You might not want to hear this but when she was conceived... my spine glowed then too, I was worried you might have noticed.’
Helo went and sat down on the bed. ‘My attention was focused somewhere else’ he said eventually.
‘Mine too, that's why I forgot to isolate the circuit.’ Sharon told him.
‘How bright are we talking about here anyway?’ Helo asked. ‘I mean bright enough to read by?’ he queried, ‘I mean if my mind wandered and I needed to catch up with some reports...’
‘Just because I love you it doesn't mean I won't make you eat that bunk’ Sharon told him, glaring.
‘Hey this is a lot to take in, forgive me for trying to lighten the mood’ Helo responded. ‘You know if I'd gone on top we wouldn't have been having this conversation’ he pointed out.
‘I'm still a little sore from getting my ass royally kicked by three gene-spliced freaks, forgive me for wanting to dictate things’ Sharon told him sharply.
‘Next time I meet Thorpe I'm still busting him on the jaw for that’ Helo told her.
Sharon looked at the woven band on her wrist. ‘Don't, I owe him’ she said, ‘I got my baby girl back... and I got you.’
‘You never lost me’ Helo told her. ‘Maybe for a while when I first found out you were a cylon’ he admitted.
‘I forgive you for that’ Sharon told him. ‘So is the glowy spine thing really a big deal?’ she asked nervously.
‘No I'll just have to get used to it like everything else’ Helo replied.
‘It won't happen again, I'll make sure’ Sharon promised.
Karl Agathon looked at his cylon lover. ‘Like hades you will’ he told her sternly. ‘If I know anything about the military every son-of-a-bitch in this bunker will know about this within hours’ he stated. ‘If the guard outside at night doesn't see a weird glow under the door every mother-frakker I meet is going to make jokes in a language I don't understand’ he declared.
Sharon stared at him for a second then laughed when she realised he was kidding. ‘Oh put your fragile male ego away’ she told him.
‘Hey I'm the only Colonial Officer here, I've got to uphold the reputation of the Fleet’ Helo replied, laughing himself, humour made a situation like this much easier to deal with once you got over the initial shock.
Sharon went and sat down on the bed beside him and took his hand. ‘So what do they have you doing now?’ she asked. ‘If I'm not cleaning the place, being plugged into hardware or answering questions all I do is look after Hera and try to learn to speak English’ she said.
‘I should do that too’ Helo replied, ‘I mean learn their language not mop their floors’ he joked. ‘I'm supposed officially to be a Military Attaché on secondment so sometimes I'm at the airbase with Starbuck like I told you before, other times I'm at the Lord Protector’s Mansion or the Government Buildings with Admiral Adama when he's meeting Admiral Franks’ he said. ‘Roslin was at the Mansion too last time, some state banquet with our Quorum and the New Circe Parliament there’ he told her, eyes narrowing.
‘Roslin’ Sharon practically spat out the name.
Helo put his arm around Sharon who leaned into his shoulder. ‘I felt like slapping her’ he recalled. ‘She couldn't make eye-contact with me so at least she feels guilty about what she did I guess.’
‘She told us our baby was dead, how could she do that?’ Sharon asked rhetorically, filled with quiet rage. ‘If we hadn't found this planet, these people, we would have probably never known’ she continued. ‘You know I've been trying to learn about them, see what makes them tick, but they're so strange’ she said.
‘You're telling me’ Helo agreed. ‘One of the things I do sometimes is help out with people visiting from the Fleet’ he said. ‘Civilians come down in groups of a few hundred at a time and they get shown around the city, get to go out into the country for a while.’
‘Children playing in the sun and open air.’ Sharon said smiling.
‘It's not that sunny and the air is cold and damp,’ Helo corrected her, ‘it rains every other day and I mean rain by the bucketful’ he added disparagingly.
‘You were telling me about the civilians from the fleet.’ Sharon reminded him.
‘Yeah, right.’ Helo responded, getting back on track. ‘So we're having a problem with a family from Gemenon’ he told her, ‘this little girl, maybe nine or ten is running around yelling and screaming and eventually her mother snaps, grabs her and smacks her a few times hard before a local policewoman who is helping out runs over and grabs the mother’s hand to stop her’ he said. ‘I get involved, and call over a translator and the policewoman says the chastisement was way over the top and would classify as assault here and if the mother was a New Circe citizen she would be arrested but as it was she would let it go as long as she didn't do it again.’
‘I guess that didn't go down that well’ Sharon theorised.
‘No, at that point the girl's father gets involved and says that his child belongs to him and will be dealt with however he and his wife feel fit’ Helo continued. ‘I had to explain to the cop that under Gemenese law children really do belong to their parents until age eighteen at which point the policewoman just stared at me and then yells at the father that “Children are not property, you can't own them” and then she declares that “There’s no slavery under the Cameron Star” and gets on her radio to call for assistance.’
‘Assistance?’ Sharon asked.
‘Ten minutes later we're on the brink of an international incident’ Helo said, shaking his head in amazement. ‘More police turn up, people are yelling and screaming, children crying, and someone is saying on a loudspeaker that any Gemonese child that wishes to be granted asylum should inform the New Circe authorities.’ he said. ‘Fortunately none said they did because if they had I don't know what the frak might have happened’ he told her.
‘Wow’ Sharon responded. ‘I guess a few people didn't do their research’ she decided.
Helo nodded. ‘Yeah’ he agreed, fortunately it wasn’t him that was responsible. ‘In the end the Lord Protector spoke to the President directly on the wireless and told her that people from Gemenon were welcome on New Circe but they had to be told that while they were on this planet they didn't own their children’ he said. ‘If we go ahead with settlement and set up that independent state they're talking about then the Gemenese can live by their own laws there but I'll bet we’ll see a lot of teenagers cross the border to get away once they know they can.’
‘That could be awkward’ Sharon decided, ‘these people won't put politics ahead of principle, they wouldn't send the children back.’
‘Sounds like you're starting to like your new jailers there bondswoman’ Helo remarked with a smile. ‘You know they probably only gave you Hera back to get your cooperation’ he said.
Sharon frowned. ‘Maybe but I'm not sure’ she replied. ‘I don't know if I like them yet but I think I'm starting to respect them’ she told him. ‘They stick to what they believe even when it's not expedient to’ she said. ‘Want to go collect Hera with me?’ she asked, changing the subject.
Helo smiled. ‘Sure’ he replied and they stood up together. ‘Can whoever it was that looked after her last night do it again?’ he asked.
‘You're not seriously expecting us to have sex tonight are you?’ Sharon asked him incredulously.
‘I'm sorry, but I've just got to see the spine thing.’ Helo told her.
‘And now after saying that you may never and not because I'll be switching it off.’ Sharon responded, punching him playfully on the arm.
‘That's not fair, you're too hot for me to contemplate that and stay sane’ Helo responded, ‘and talking of hot when it glows does it heat up too?’ he queried.
Sharon sighed. ‘No, sweetheart’ she patiently answered his stupid question.
‘I'm sorry, but I've got all these questions and you didn't come with a Users Manual’ Helo deadpanned.
‘Hera being an only child is getting more likely every second, Karl’ Sharon told him with a definite growl.
‘Okay, I'm done.’ Helo replied, that threat didn't sound idle enough for comfort he decided.
----
==Chapter Notes==
*;Chapter Notes from the Author :Amongst the clans to be "Dezgra" (a ritual contraction of disgraced used in clan speech) was to be without honour, a unit or individual that the normal rules of conduct didn't apply to. The Wolverines don't use the contraction but they still have the concept and after hearing about what Admiral Cain and Pegasus did they have deemed it to apply to that battlestar and its crew. The Colonials didn't have very good navigational computers, simply plugging in a Cylon one massively increased the range of their jumpdrives. One supplied by New Circe doesn't make quite that large a difference but it does mean the "Red Line" beyond which its risky to plot a jump is a greater distance away and the numbers can be calculated faster. That the extremely long Ragnar to Prolmar Sector jump (which judging from dialogue was longer that anyone can ever calculated before) was thirty LY comes from a deleted line in the show whereas the notion that a normal jump for the fleet was about 5 LY comes from the writers. We see the named mining and refinery ships in nBSG. I thought it would be too convenient if the system New Circe was in had Tylium itself (the stuff seemed rare) but after settling there as long as they have the Wolverines would likely have a very good idea of the area of space they live in and could simply advise the Colonials where to look for asteroids in nearby systems. I'm estimating a viper to mass just under ten tons (it's not very large and could easily be less) that makes it around half the mass of the smallest aerospace fighters to be seen in battletech. A BT Medium Laser weighs half a ton which is the weapon I envision to be slapped under a viper, it has good range and should make a mess of a raider or a heavy raider however without the power generation of a normal BT fusion reactor designed to feed DEW's it will take a while to cycle shots.In the country of the six-foot amazonian blonds the petite brunette is queen...Franklin Hallis was a member of the Wolverine leadership at the time they told the other Clans to go screw themselves and left, I thought they might very well name a military facility after him. There was a Wolverine mechwarrior named Cale at the same time, the one here one is a descendant, genetically at least.
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