Preamble:
This is pretty freely written out of my memories of the larp, and where they are lacking I have made things up. I apologize if I have misrepresented you character or messed up the timeline. It is most probably not because I did not like the scene we played, but rather because I can honestly not remember exactly who did what with who and when anymore.
I played M. Bako (Celestra Crew/CIC Operations): Sometimes, one dreams awake, and the voices of the gods can be clearly heard - while at other times, one tries to forget about all that by drinking, gambling and generally frakking around!
Notes: CIC, ops and the bridge are all different names for the same place. Ops, or the ops team, is also the name of the group Bako was working in. Also, in game 1 Edel Lin was a romance reading engineer and the first one to get thrown out of the airlock, suspected of being a cylon. He was also the one who presumably set up the system we were using and one of very few who really knew how it worked.
Story:
Clan meetings are usually mildly boring affairs, and the slowly receding hangover doesn't exactly cheer it up. But information wants to be free and it is the duty of the ops-team to make it so, so she sits down waiting for a tidbit of information she has not yet heard or, if that is lacking, permission to leave. Lazily slumping over the backrest of the chair she turned backwards before she sat down Bako listens with half an ear. Until someone mentions the angels in red. Almost breathless she listens to a halting tale of a vision in red, speaking to the man with the voice of a "...goddess?"
Every head turns towards her.
"Have you seen them?"
"Yeah. Angels, dressed in red."
"More than one?"
"Yeah."
"I think they are a manifestation of the ship" the man confines to the group, quietly.
"No, that can't be" Bako says, "I have seen them before, on Tauron back in college, way before I ever came onboard Celestra."
Once again all eyes are on her but now their eyebrows are raised in various degrees of skepticism.
"And what had you been taking then?"
Frakk it. Bako slumps down on her chair again and listens dully to discussions about strange scientists doing crazy stuff with the holoband and waits for the pounding headache to pass.
That night, thoughts are spinning in her head. Thoughts about the ship. Pieces that do not really want to fit into the larger picture. She tries to remember conversations from a few days before. The memories are unordered, scrambled by too much adrenaline and fear. Never before had she been convinced she would die so many times in the same day. Stark and cold is the memory of the jump away from Ragnar station. The mounting tension in not being allowed to jump, the endless questioning and confirmation "Remain!". Remain at you post, remain at the station, stay between the civilian ships and the cylons. But we are civilian too! No, not anymore. And when the jump finally comes, it is unexpected. She is in coms, fortunately sitting in her chair, and as soon as the spinning, sucking sensation of the jump ends and leaves her feeling vaguely nauseated, the phone rings. She slips by the FTL engineer Simon, the sweet taste from his apple shared just before what she thought would be the last seconds of her life still in her mouth, and take the message on foot to the bridge.
"Captain! Orpheus called, they are quite concerned. We have severe damages caused by that last jump. It is imperative that you announce the jump in advance so that the engine room has time to prepare, they say."
Polos turns towards her.
"Yes, I am aware of that. However, I did not order that jump. I was as surprised by it as you were. As we all were."
"What?"
Polos puts his hand on her shoulder and looks her straight in the eye. He takes a deep breath and seems to brace himself.
"I think..." he says, "I think Celestra made that jump. And saved us all."
There is nothing to say to that. Back to communications Bako, back to your post. Celestra made the jump that saved them, and then the bridge made another which might have doomed them. After being boarded by Galactica personnel everything is in confusion augmented by the arrival of the cylons and out of that confusion a jump is made in which they loose all other ships except Orpheus. Sometimes she imagines Orpheus by their side, hanging on like one of those little fishes which groom the great sharks. Except Celestra is no shark, she is a tired old research ship with hardly any memory of war still within her. And now she is alone under a new and foreign command. The first time after being boarded the ops team all hide out in communications, mostly. No fuss, and absolutely no talking about how they filter the information reaching the bridge. All is as well as it can be as long as the Galactica crew does not realize that they have overlooked the small room at the other end of the corridor which is pretty much the only way for information to travel into and out of the vessel. Sometimes, being regarded as a part of the inventory carries great possibilities. One second she is on the bridge, the stern gaze of the Galactica officers gliding over her, the next she is up in Vergis tower, slipping past the guns holding all Galactica officers well out. And in between that she can rest in coms, surrounded by the people she trusts the most. She takes comfort in that because no comfort is to be found in the cold space surrounding them, void of both enemies and friends. Where is the rest of the fleet? Is it even possible to find them again? What do they do if the cylons find them first? Can a ship make a decision to jump on its own accord? Sleep takes a long time to arrive and it does so without any answers to her questions.
In order to strengthen relations between the two crews and increase their chances of survival, Captain Polos and Major Darlington decide to use their involuntary break from the war to run a simulation of an FTL jump. Bako spends the first half of the exercise running around on the ship, instructing everyone she meets on how to use the ancient phones during a public call until they start chorusing her instructions as soon as they see her, even before she has had time to open her mouth. Satisfied she cozies down in coms and start making lists, answering the occasional call and playing switchboard for confused crewmembers who does not yet know the correct numbers. After a while she hears Biros voice over the phone:
"Please Bako, I need a break. Can you replace me in ops for a while?"
When she arrives the bridge is full of Galactica officers. Galactica officers in their immaculate, straightened uniforms, with smooth-shaven chins and polished boots. One of them, with his hair in neat braids and a paper in his hands walks up to her. He looks at the phones, then at his paper, then at her simplified, seven-step instruction for how to make a public announcement, then at his paper again, then at her.
"Eh... Do you know how to make a public announcement?"
She does not roll her eyes at him.
"Yes. Do you want me to help you?"
"Please?"
She feels their chances of survival drop one more notch as she reaches for the receiver. But once the exercise is over things are running much smoother and a certain satisfaction seems to be spreading throughout the ship. All in all she did not spend a lot of time on the bridge. After the public call she was rapidly being hustled into engaging the civilian administration in helping the Steward with the food, then off with Arany to establish a list of everyone present in Vergis Tower. She has not spent a lot of time in Vergis Tower and the labs before, but the greeting she and Arany gets by the guards is none the less cordial. She is allowed to ascend even the second flight of stairs, up to the cramped sensor rooms. She has only ever seen a glimpse of them before when being permitted in by the man rumored to be Almassys private assasin in order to pass on word of Orpheus support against the Galactican boarding to Captain Polos. Now, negotiations of how to dispense command of the ship is still ongoing under the surface of the day-to-day running routines, and the Galactican officers arriving shortly after herself and Arany with orders of making a similar list are prudently turned away. Some of the Vergis Security guards voice doubts of the benign purpose of the list until Almassy himself orders everyone to cooperate and submit their names. Bako and Arany are finally invited into the hololab where white-dressed scientists are in lively discussion. Kawal sits them down on a couch and Bako gets to complete her list. Then they remain for a while, as the psychologist and a few of the white coats try to convince them to be test subjects for one of their new inventions which they seem to be quite proud of. Bako is not quite clear on what it is, but it has something to do with memories in something called a projection room. Apparently they can make you relive the memories again, somehow replay them for you, to help you figure out things you might have missed. Kind of like therapy. She thinks of the first time she ever told anyone about the red dressed visions. She thinks of endless visits to the study counselor and lectures on how drugs destroy your brain. A narrow escape from ending up in psychiatric care. Could that have been changed? She thinks of the recent clan meeting. Probably not. But Arany seems interested and she must admit she is curious. Mind altering stuff has never been anything but tempting to her. There is already someone in the projection room but the psychologist promises that they will soon be done and within a few minutes the guy staring fixedly at the computer announces "Recording successful".
"Recording?"
"Ah, yes. We will record the memory as it is replayed. For research purposes."
Kawal goes by and nods encouragingly. They turn to the psychologist.
"So, who wants to start?"
They look at each other.
"I can go first" Arany says with a shrug. Bako agrees with a nod.
"In that case I must ask you to leave for a while, I need to talk a few things through with Arany before we can select a memory" the psychologist says apologetically and Bako is ushered out of the room by Kawal.
"How long will it take?"
"Not long."
"What are they doing, really?"
Kawal smiles a peculiar smile.
"We are experimenting with uploading and downloading information from the mind. It is sort for related to the old holoband, you know?"
"How do you do that? And holoband... Isn't that awfully close to a cylon-thing?"
"I can't go into that right now... Actually I am a bit busy at the moment, but I will catch you later!" And with that he disappears up the stairs to the upper lab, and it is clear that she is not invited to follow him. So she hangs around in the small space between the stairs for a while, chats a bit with the VergSec guys on duty, looks at the frustrated Galactica officer returning with his empty list and uses the bathroom. She is just about to leave, can't put of delivering the list any longer, when Arany comes out the door. He looks shaken and pale. Concerned, Bako steps close to him and puts her hand on his shoulder. Arany is not easily shaken and rarely sick.
"Are you ok? What happened in there?"
"Yeah, I'm ok." He touches his forehead with a trembling hand. "I'm ok."
She drags him aside, into a small niche just off the stairs.
"You sure? What happened? What was it like?"
"It was... I don't know. I told them a memory, and then they replayed it to me, but not the way it was. And they said it is because I have some... subconscious... that I am angry. With my mother. I... I don't know."
"You mother? What memory was it?"
"My graduation. And in their memory my mother was there, and she scolded me and said I was... That I was bad."
"But she was not there for real? When you had your real graduation I mean?"
"No." Bako thinks that not being there for her sons graduation is ground for him to carry a grudge, as she knows his mother is alive and well. Or was, until a few days ago.
"Okey... Do you want to talk about it?"
"No." He takes a step back. "I think we should go now." They leave the Tower and Arany finds an excuse to disappear somewhere down in the internal parts of the ship. If he needs to be alone Bako does not want to disturb him and she makes a mental note of telling the rest of the ops team to cover for him if needed.
During downtime in coms she decides tests the captains idea on one of her colleagues.
"The captain said that the ship jumped on her own accord."
Biros smile is glowing.
"I know. She didn't want to die either."
"She can't jump on her own: she is a ship!"
"Why not? She does things all the time, tries to speak to us all the time. You only have to listen."
Bako opens her mouth to argue back. The receiver on one of the phones falls off. Silence spreads in the small coms office. Bako reaches out and firmly puts the receiver back into the holder, avoiding Biros triumphant gaze. Later she tries it again, on someone of a more skeptical nature.
"The captain said that the ship jumped on her own accord."
Arany frowns, leaning on the doorframe to the small but cozy communications office.
"Good thing we made that jump. I just hope the ship doesn't break apart for the next one."
Bako pats the metal wall jokingly.
"She won't, she's a good girl."
"It's not a she, it's an it."
"Celestra is a she."
"How do you know that? Why do you call it a she?"
"All ships are female."
"Even cylon ships?"
"I suppose..." She tries out a tired smile. Arany shakes his head in disgust and straightens his unbuttoned jacket. When Dobos arrives Bako does not even raise the subject.
Which is fine, since Dobos has another subject on his mind.
"You really ought to try this."
"I don't think I want to, last time I tried one of your pills I could not sleep for two days."
"This is not a pill, this is something completely else." He dangles the little bag of white powder in front of her.
"What does it do?"
"It makes things... clearer."
"Clearer?"
"Yeah, you see them better."
"And what else?"
"Nothing else."
Arany turns his back on them and leans out the door.
"I am not seeing this."
"Nothing else?" She is skeptical, but intrigued.
"Come on, try it!"
"Ok, I'll try it." She reaches out and he pours a small heap of powder in her hand. It doesn't taste much, especially not compared to the alcohol she snitched in the kitchen earlier. She washes it down with tea.
"Its really cool. Well, after I took it my stomach was shot for a few days and I didn't feel too good in..." She doesn't want to hear, it is too late now.
"Which you could not have mentioned before I took it, of course." she interrupts.
Arany gives her a sidelong glance and rolls his eyes. Then he whips his head around and looks over towards the kitchen.
"What is happening?"
The others are out the door and on their way to find out what the excitement is all about before she manages to get out of the chair. It's not that her balance is bad, it's just that everything is so sharp. Every corner and line stands out in high definition, every color is enhanced even in the dim corridor. She is so distracted by the play of shadows on the threshold that she misjudges her step and bounces into the wall on the other side. The ops team turns as one man, suddenly all interest in the kitchen commotion lost. In the dusk around damage control a team of Galactica engineers turns towards her. She can't help but burst out laughing.
"Your uniform is very-very-orange."
The engineer stares at her, his ridiculous earcups standing out in stark and glowing orange towards the background. Arany and Dobos grab a shoulder each and turns her around.
"Yes he is, and now it is time to go back to coms."
"But... he is so very-very orange!"
They sit her down in the chair again. She is a bit distracted by the glowing lights of the communications panel. Then she turns her head as Biro leans in through the door, her tense shoulders outlined in a brilliant, deep green. Biro draws a breath but momentarily seems to forget what she was about to say as Bako giggles "You are so green!". Biro looks down at herself and with a half smile she answers "Yes. Yes, I am." She looks at Arany and raises a questioning eyebrow. The phone rings and Bako reaches for it, but Dobos is faster. As he hangs up she reaches for the receiver again. She has a brilliant idea, and she tells them about it.
"Let's call the Captain! I'm going to tell him what a nice shirt he has. And ask him to take it off."
"NO!" Dobos, Arany and Biro simultaneously throws themselves at her, manhandling her down in the chair and force her to stay there. After a second Dobos prudently moves the phone out of her reach.
"Come on guys!"
"No. Absolutely not!" Biros blond braid is a moving white flash, coiling as she shakes her head.
Arany puts his hands on her shoulders and his pale eyes seeks hers. "I think you should sit this one out. Go to bed."
"Yeah, we'll cover for you." Biro moves between her and the phones and Dobos nods encouragingly.
"Come on," he says, "I'll take you."
But whatever clarity the drug gives her mind, not even its brilliance can make the shade of faded beige in the ceiling above her bunk interesting. So she spends the night staring at the shifting nuances of the memory wall in candle light, wishing for one of the visions to come and make the whole world, not just its colors, clear.
A civilian with a grey knitted shirt and a jolly face sticks his head around the doorframe to the coms office.
"Do you have a phone?"
"Well, yes, this is the communications office, we do have phones."
He enters, shows her a computer. "I need to borrow a phone line."
She hesitates for a second. " Why? What are you going to do?"
"Connect to the ship."
"Through the phones?"
"Sure. The AI is connected to everything on the ship."
"Celestra has an AI?"
"Yes. And I need to check a few things with her."
"All right, I guess." She rises, offers him the chair and disconnects one of the phones. He sits down, introduces himself as Farani, opens his computer screen and starts tick-tacking away at the keyboard. She continues to make her lists and take calls and throws the occasional glance at the computer but it is facing away from her and she can not clearly see the screen. An AI. How much does an AI know? How much does it think? Feel? Do? Her fingers touch the control systems instructions, they are precisely written but preceded by a disturbing and jumbled account of waking dreams and marked at the top in handwritten ink "R.I.P Edel Lin". Finally she can no longer contain herself.
"What are you doing?"
"Chatting."
"With who?"
"Celestra."
"Celestra? The ship? Chatting?"
"Yes, I am chatting with the ship."
A second of silence.
"No? Really?"
Farani leans back in his chair and gestures towards the computer screen.
"Do you want to talk to her?"
"I, well, yes. I think? I don't know what to say!"
She leans over. Looks at the screen as he types.
> Bako is here with me. Do you remember Bako, she works in communications?
> Yes, I remember her. I hear her on the phone sometimes. Hello Bako. How are you?
Biro was right! That is all Bako can think. She can talk to Celestra. But what does she want to say?
> Hello. Do you know who Biro is?
People coming all the time, disturbing. That's what she gets for teaching them that the door to the communications office is always open and that there is always an ops officer with a willing ear. She leans on the doorframe, blocking their view. For once she has found information she does not want to spread.
> I know Biro.
> Do you like her?
> I like her. I like all of you.
"She will be so happy to hear that! I have to go tell her!" She is about to leave in order to get Biro, but hesitates on the threshold. Backs up a step and reaches for the keyboard again.
> Are the red dressed angels yours?
> We are many.
Nothing more. The marker blinks but does not move. Suddenly Simon is in the doorway and it is obvious that he is not interested in leaving her alone. Reluctantly she leaves Farani with the computer and tries to distract the FTL-engineer by letting him walk her to the bridge. As if by magic he produces a new apple, big and red and laden with sweet juice. She takes a bite and savors the taste.
"I don't get it. We have not set foot dirtside for eight months now, and you still have apples. And GOOD apples at that. How do you keep them so fresh?"
Bemused he watches her as she bites into the juicy flesh of the fruit again.
"I store them by the reactor. They stay fresh forever."
She freezes in the middle of a new bite.
"Don't worry" he goes on, "they may be radiated, but they are not radiating."
She takes the apple out of her mouth. Everyone knows that FTL engineers are crazy and now she knows it twice. She has to warn Biro about this. At the bridge she excuses herself and goes to whisper excitedly in Biros ear. Biro almost pushes her at the controls, tells some of the navigation crew to let Bako practice on HADES and DRADIS for a while and is gone in a second. Bako smiles and turns her attention to the sensors. They are up and running quite well now and the other crew members there are glad to let her learn more. Or at least to learn what can be learned with nothing but empty space around them. After a while, Arany shows up.
"Have you seen Biro?"
She grabs Aranys green sleeve and pulls him discreetly away from prying ears.
"She is in coms, talking to the ship."
"Talking to the ship?" Arany sounds convinced that both she and Biro has now gone completely around the bend.
"Yes, Celestra has an AI. There is a civilian in coms with a computer where we can chat with her! Maybe Biro is right, maybe the ship has tried to communicate before."
"You mean that the ship we are on is a cylon?"
"She is not a cylon! She just... has a bit of personality."
"Like a cylon."
"No! Cylons are all the same. Celestra is not a cylon. Besides, she likes us. She wants to take care of us."
"Until she does not need us anymore. Then what?"
"No, no. She needs us."
"Then what? When she doesn't need us anymore?"
Such a day is inconceivable.
"But she needs us to fix her and... take care of her..."
Arany frowns and tightens the green uniform jacket around his slim waist by buttoning the downmost button before leaving her by the sensors to disappear up to helm. She can't go after him without abandoning her post. Is Celestra a cylon? No, she can't be. But she has an AI, has she not? Is that all it takes to be a cylon? She ponders this on her way up to coms. Farani and Dobos are alone there, but apparently both Biro and captain Polos have both paid their respects.
There is a buoy, and there is a planet. The buoy is surrounded by cylons lying in wait for the ragtag fleet of survivors from the Twelve Colonies and offers nothing but death. The planet offers water, tylium and survival and is the obvious choice. Except if you are a Galactica officer or a viper pilot, apparently. Negotiations have broken down spectacularly and suddenly captain Polos is on the bridge with a shotgun. The Galactican marines have automatic weapons though, and when the shouting starts Bako abandons the phones and hides behind the stairs. Lieutenant Morgan tries to calm the mood but one of the marines does not want to comply and when Chief Mate Kobor drags Bako out and tells her to do her run and tell the crew still loyal to Celestra to keep the Galacticans away from the control panels she is grateful to leave the bridge. In the corridor she suddenly realizes that every other face she sees is the face of an enemy, even though most of the others aboard the ship does not yet know that the bridge has been taken back. Spreading information is what the ops team does best and discreetly the message is passed on to the people wearing the correct suits. Somewhere around damage control she runs into Kawal. He seems stressed. But it turns out that his problem is one she can easily solve.
"Well, there is a civilian guy sitting in coms. He has a computer. And it is connected to the ship. I chatted with her."
"Really?" He lightens up. "Take me there!"
Introductions are made and soon Kawal and Farani are deep within their own world of glowing orange code. Which is nice for them, but it leaves Bako to take care of the sudden problem that there seems to be no way to get in contact with Orpheus. She panics a bit but the steward Cinege competently calms her down and she starts to look for another phone that works. And ends up running between coms and the kitchen for a good while. The job is not getting any easier from getting new voices to talk to every time she tries to contact the bridge. Finally Cinege decides that the only way to get the job done is for her to go there by herself and check if Orpheus can be reached from there. On her way to ops, she sees Galactican crewmembers filter out among the Celestrans again. As she descends the ladder to ops the first thing she notices is Arany sitting on one of the benches, jacket halfway buttoned and the captains shotgun on his lap. Despite the presence of the weapon the mood seems relatively calm. She points to the shotgun, wants him to get rid of it. He strokes the handle reassuringly and pretends not to understand her. She does not want to speak up, still not sure of potentially hostile elements on the bridge. Command had been passed back and forth so many times today that when Orpheus calls and demands to speak to the officer in command she does not know who to give the phone to. She notifies her colleagues of the communications problem and gets an update on the Galactica problem. The Galactican crew have promised not to hurt the ship in exchange for a certain freedom of movement. Back in coms things are still calm, except for Faranis and Kawals diligent typing. Bako sits down to guard the phones, but soon gets antsy and decides to take a look around in the nearby rooms to see if there is anything she ought to know about going on. As she steps out of the door the red vision grabs her.
"They are killing me!"
"What? Who? Where?"
"I don't know who, or where! But someone is trying to shut down the mainframe! Don't let them do it, I don't want to die!"
Bako can sympathize, she does not want to die either.
"Why would they shut down the mainframe? Then she ship won't work, will it?"
"We will die! It is Caliban, I know it. He wants to take us back to the cylons, back to the war! I don't want to go back, I don't want to die!"
Bako tries to comfort the red angel.
"But if they are trying to shut down the mainframe... Kawal is here, he can make a copy of it, right? And then we can start it back up again!"
The goddess looks at her, eyes tearing up.
"But is it really me then? Or just a copy?"
She doesn't know how to answer that, since she does not know the answer.
"Do something!" the vision shouts "I don't want to die! Please don't let me die!" And then she is gone.
Feverishly Bako turns back into coms. Grabs her trusty tool, the phone.
"Ops." Biro.
"Someone is trying to kill the mainframe! Stop them!"
"Who? Where?"
"I don't know!"
"I will notify the commanding officer." Click. Stupidly she stares at the phone. Then she can not stand still, but is at a loss for what to do. She leans over Kawals chair.
"Who is trying to shut down the mainframe?"
"Almassy. He ordered it. The others up in Vergis Tower are trying to copy and reboot it, but it won't work. The ship will die. But when I tried to stop them they threw me out."
Almassy.
Vergis Tower.
She runs.
"Don't kill her!" The guards from Vergis Security looks at the green streak rushing past them with open mouths.
"You mustn't kill her!" Up the second flight of stairs in the blink of an eye.
"Don't..." now she must draw breath and ends up panting, leaning against the door frame to the small sensor lab at the top of Vergis Tower. Four white-dressed scientists stare at her in the gloom. And a voice behind her inquires "Kill who?" Almassy. She half turns towards him, back against the wall.
"Celestra! You mustn't shut down the mainframe, you will kill her!"
"We are not trying to shut her down," one of the female scientists protests, "it's Kawal doing that. We are trying to stop him!"
"We can't shut her down, she is too much" one of the other scientists mutters.
Almassy looks at Bako, smile friendly but eyes piercing.
"We tried to save a backup copy of the mainframe, that is all. No one is trying to shut down or kill the ship."
"You can't copy her, she does not want that! She thinks it's not her coming back if you reboot her, she thinks she will die!"
"We realized that. And we do not need to do it. Now we only have to find the one who is really trying to do it. Where is Kawal?"
"No! He is in coms, he is trying to save her!"
Then she runs, again. Back to coms, she must check, must understand.
"Kawal, what are you doing? In Vergis Tower they say that you are the one trying to shut her down."
"You didn't tell them where I am, did you? It is very important that no one knows I am here." Kawal is tense and his hands move as he speaks. "I can not go back to Vergis Tower, Almassy is not to be trusted, and it is only from here that I can stop them from killing the mainframe. But only as long as they do not know I am here."
As he turns back to the computer two guys from VergSec stick their heads around the doorframe and the scene freezes. Then one of them raises his gun and Kawal leans further back in his chair, all escape routes cut off. Bako tries to say something but her tongue is too thick in her mouth. She can not just have betrayed Kawal, and Celestra! Or did she just save Celestra at the cost of Kawal? The other VergSec guard raises his hand and aborts the threat of the moving weapon.
"Wait."
"But we were supposed to shoot him. Right?"
"Only if he is doing something wrong." He looks hard at Kawal. "What are you doing?"
"I am trying, desperately, to stop them from erasing the mainframe! If they do that, we are all frakked."
"How do we know he is not the one trying to erase the mainframe?" the first guard asks.
The second guard hesitates. Then he takes a step into the room, angling to see the screen.
"I guess that as long as we can see everything he writes he can't do anything bad without us knowing. And if he does, we shoot him."
The first guard considers this and seems to find it an acceptable arrangement. With two VergSec guards, Kawal, Farani, Dobos and Bako, the small coms office is quite full and she decides to step outside. There is nothing more she can do. Everyone says the same thing, and she got them talking. The captain knows. What else is there? She does not know who is trying to kill the ship, but she knows someone is fighting back. Crossing her fingers is all she can do now.
Soon enough there is room in coms again, as Kawal heads up to Vergis Tower with the VergSec guards. Apparently they have decided to work together. Farani packs up the computer and disappears as well. Dobos and Bako immediately claim the chairs, spreading out a bit in the slightly less cramped space. They debate whether to make a call to the bridge, just to check who is in charge at the moment, or just keep well out of the way in case it is the wrong person answering. Then the bridge calls them. Prepare for FTL-jump.
"Where do we jump?"
"The buoy. To save the fleet."
"No, jump to the planet!" But the line is dead. And the sucking, spinning sensation arrives. As soon as it is gone Bako throws herself on the phone to confirm their position. They are in the Elysium system, close to a planet called Elysium Omega. Eight years from any (possibly) inhabitable planet at sublight speed. And they are leaking radiation into the alpha corridor. The division between planet and buoy runs everywhere throughout the ship and workgroups formed during time after the simulation have fallen apart and turned against each other and themselves. However, it only takes one word to forge them all into one single crew again.
"Cylons! Two incoming raiders and two ships with a tauron signature but we can not make any contact with them."
She relays Orpheus message to ops and then do the running and shouting routine.
"Battlestations! All hands to battlestations, we have incoming cylon raiders!"
She sees Biro in the corridor and stops for a moment.
"What happened? I thought we were supposed to jump to the buoy?"
Biro blinks.
"Sure, they can order whatever they want on the bridge. But it is the order that comes to helm and engine control that counts."
They both smile a silly smile to each other.
"Did you give them the wrong coordinates?"
"Oups."
Then the blonde communications officer continues on her way to operations. Battlestation in coms consists mostly of tense waiting and then dodging involuntarily as the impact of a torpedo makes the hull sing. Occasionally they call ops to get an update on the fighting. Then Orpheus updates them. The cylon raiders are gone, but one of the apparently tauron ships has sent a shuttle and they are to cease fire. From then on it's a waiting game with few or no updates from the bridge and the only answer they get from Orpheus is that there is no answer. As Bako steps out of coms, the angel in red is there before her suddenly, with joyous eyes and smiling lips. "Daniel is coming!"
"Who is Daniel?" Confusion is rapidly degraded by rising ecstasy and soon she can't wait to meet Daniel. Whoever he is.
"Daniel made us," the vision in read says and steps closer, "Daniel is coming to take us home! Home to Elysium! But you must not fight."
"Elysium" Bako breathes.
"You will go there, Daniel will come to take you there and you will join with I who are many."
"I who are many... are you the ship? Are you Celestra?"
The vision smiles.
"Yes."
"But.. how come I have seen you before I ever came to Celestra? Already before flight school?"
The smile flickers for an instant. Then broadens, eyes becoming more intense.
"On Elysium there are green fields and blue seas and a moon in the sky. Daniel is coming to take us there, and we will make a home!"
Doubt recedes once again to the back of her mind as slowly coiling ecstasy paints vivid images of emerald grass, sapphire seas and a diamond moon in an opal sky. Bako raises her hands, strokes the visions arms, embraces her and feels slender arms embrace back. A whisper in her ear:
"Daniel will take us home. But beware of Caliban, for he is lying."
"Who is Caliban?"
"Caliban comes with Daniel. But Caliban lies, he wants to take us back to the cylon war, do not trust Caliban, he is a liar!" Closer and closer the vision comes until suddenly she is gone and all Bako is left with is an armful of empty air and a forcing urgency.
"Bako? What are you doing?!?"
The turns around to meet the stares of most of the ops team with Dobos desperately berating her for being crazy. There is no time for them! She must stop Caliban. Impatiently she pushes them aside to reach for the phone. Dobos grabs her wrist.
"Who are you calling?"
"Operations, they must know!"
"Know what?"
"Not to trust Caliban!"
"Wait..."
"No!" She rips her arm loose and grabs for the phone, dials and can hardly wait for the tone to be answered.
"Ops" Biros voice is hurried but collected.
"Daniel is coming!"
"Excuse me? Bako, is that you? Where are you?"
"Mhm. I am in coms. Daniel is coming in the shuttle. Daniel will take us home."
"Daniel in the shuttle to take us home, that is understood and I will tell the captain. Who is Daniel? Wait, I'll get back to you!" A buzzing of voices in the background and Biro answers something unintelligible. Bako is not done with her message though.
"Don't trust Caliban!"
A new voice answers her.
"Who is this?"
"Bako in communications. Daniel is coming, but don't trust Caliban!"
"Who is Daniel?"
"He comes in the shuttle, right now. You mustn't fire on it, we must not fight!"
"The shuttle? Do you know where they will dock?"
"No... Daniel is coming and he will take us home, but you can't trust Caliban." Her voice is almost dreamy now but the one at the other end is hard.
"How do you know this? Who told you?"
"An angel in red."
"Don't call us back until you are sane." And the line dies.
They feel the impact of the shuttle. And see it, because suddenly people are running everywhere.
"What happened?"
"The shuttle! It crashed into the ship!"
"Cylons! There are cylons in the alpha corridor!"
"Bombs!"
"What?"
"There are bombs on the hull and down in the engine room."
"But why?"
"Daniel put them there."
"But why?"
"So we wouldn't fight? I don't know!"
"All taurons down to cargo bay!"
"Why?"
"There will be a meeting."
"Now?! What about the cylons?"
"There are no cylons on the ship."
"Yes there are!"
"If we don't go to the cargo bay they will blow the bombs!"
"Forget it! I'm not going, I know an ethnical cleansing when I see one!"
"Just go!"
There is shouting and conflicting information all around. Then Cinege is there, a spot of calm.
"Daniel and the cylons are in the cargo bay. There will be a meeting where we will negotiate with them."
Daniel is in the cargo bay! Daniel wants to meet all the taurons and speak to them, and Bako needs to know nothing more to run there at top speed. Daniel is a girl. The thought skims atop her heaving emotions, barely registering. She pushes and darts through the throng of people until she is as close to the creator of the red visions as she can get. She reaches out her hand, touches Daniels sleeve and gets a hug in reply! Almassys soothing voice is washed away as he explains about tylons, about tauron values and about group minds. It is calming and reasonable, just as it was when he explained that they all now belonged to Vergis Corp. Although later she thought that it should be Vergis Corp that belonged to them. Companies were owned by people, not the other way around, right? However, the only thing she will remember from this meeting with any clarity is Daniels smile and soft motions and how she bids them farewell, for now. She says they must agree on their road, the tauron way, before they are to meet again. That they are welcome to Daniels home on Elysium Alpha, their home too, but only if they can cease their fighting. Fine! Bako does not want to fight. Then Daniel disappears to up in Vergis Tower to meet and greet with the scientists and reluctantly Bako withdraws to coms to ponder. She thinks of the scientist standing next to Daniel on the podium in cargo bay. Somebody said he is Caliban. But Caliban is dangerous, he is a traitor and he lies. Does Daniel not know that? Daniel made the red visions, and they know. So why do they not tell her? Is Daniel keeping Caliban close although she knows he is not to be trusted? What is Caliban planning to do to get them back to the war? Does he interact with the visions? Was he the one trying to kill Celestra? She shudders at the last thought and does not like that he is out of sight. She entertains the idea of going up in Vergis Tower to keep an eye on them but thinks that even she would have a hard time sneaking in there. Dobos arrives and is clearly in a bad mood when he throws himself down on the inner chair in the communications office. Bako glances at him but does not wish to make herself a target of undeserved yelling at so she stays silent. These last days have taken a lot out of all of them. Dobos changes position in his chair a few times, seems unable to find a comfortable way to sit. Then he takes out two little bags from his pocket, one filled with a white powder and one full of little white pills. Yelling or not, one does not let ones friends do unlimitedly stupid things. Bako is not against drugs, but she knows from experience it's best not to use them too excessively or during work hours. Mostly, at least. Although lately, all hours have been work hours.
"Hey Dobos, how are you?"
He just shakes his head and then abruptly opens both of the bags and pours their contents into his mouth. The front legs of Bakos chair bangs on the floor as she stops leaning it against the wall and sits up straight.
"Eh, I don't think you should do that."
"I agree." Balog, one of the doctors, looks in through the open door. Dobos raises dark eyes towards him and shouts "Frakk off!" and the doctor does. Then Dobos buries his head in his hands and makes a small sound.
"How could she do this to me?"
"Who did what?" Bako is by now quite confused.
"Kiss! How could she do it? I've known her for years. And she knew them!"
"Knew who? What has she done?"
"She left them!"
"Who?"
"My parents!" Dobos voice is almost a wail now, his head hangs low over his knees and his voice i breaking up. "They were by the shuttle when she was down there, she saw them, she recognized them and she did not take them!"
"Oh, Dobos!" She puts her arms around him and tries to comfort although nothing can fix this. He cries for a while and then turns his face towards her and opens his mouth as if to say something but all that comes out is a strangled wheezing of a breath and suddenly he is fighting for air. Slowly he falls of the chair sideways and he is too heavy for her to catch so he ends up on the floor, cramping and wheezing. Panicking she pats his shoulder and repeats his name a few times before she starts screaming with all her might for a doctor. He can't breathe! She screams and screams for help. They arrive quickly but it takes forever. Finally they bring him to the medical bay and Balog reassures her. Dobos will make it through this, he will live. A while later they carry him past coms again and with her heart in her throat she follows them to the officers mess where they put him on a couch. The worst is over and now he is only to sleep it off. Once the others have left she sits down on a chair beside him. She tries to talk to him but gets no answer. He is too heavily asleep. Bako tries to imagine Kiss leaving Dobos parents, what it must have been like. She must have had a reason. It can not have been easy, being down there, too many people to save, not enough space and not enough time. But still. She can understand Dobos rage, and wonders who were chosen to live instead. Bako hears a sound behind her and turns her head. Kiss is standing in the doorway to the officers mess. She sways slightly, as if she can not quite decide whether or not she shall step over the threshold. They look at each other and for a long while Kiss neither talks nor moves. Then she inquires:
"How is he?"
"He took all his drugs and then he stopped breathing. But I think he is better now."
Kiss seems to have nothing more to say to that.
"Why didn't you take them?" Kiss' eyes narrows.
"I just couldn't." Frustration and sorrow turns into anger.
"Why not, they were right there! They were his parents!"
Kiss takes a step back.
"I have to go to my Raptor. We are jumping soon."
"Do that. And don't frakking come back!"
Kiss pulls her lips back in a snarl and looks like she wants to throw herself a Bako, but then turns and stalks off down the corridor. Eventually Bako has to leave Dobos as well because there is no one else to mind the coms office, but she puts a row of chairs beside him so he will not fall off the couch. She is relieved when she sees Farani walk past the door to coms and step into the officers mess.
An emergency clan meeting is called, in a secluded niche by the stairs up to the sensor lab. Maly, Almassys coffee girl and Tropois new kefali, is moderating.
"So, I take it that the message the clan wishes me to bring is that we want to go to the planet Elysium Alpha?" Affirmative murmurs all around. "Good, any more important news or questions?" she asks hurriedly, already on her way to the next meeting between the kefalis, the commanding officers and Daniel.
Bako raises her voice.
"The red visions, are they really projections of the ship? They told me they were made by Daniel."
The white dressed scientist responsible for recording memories is watching his screen as he answers.
"Yes they are projections. We created them in the projection room."
"But how come I have seen them before? On Tauron, in flight school, in college, long before I ever came to Celestra?"
He raises his eyes for a moment, looks at her, perplexed.
"Those memories must have been implanted" he says after a few seconds.
"But how? I never did the projection room experiment."
"You don't have to, not anymore." His voice is vacant, the screen is once again more interesting than she is.
"I don't remember having my memories altered! But then again, maybe I wouldn't even if they were..." she finishes lamely. The scientist grunts as the meeting dissolves around them. Disappointed and confused she returns to coms. The only bright spot is that Dobos is up on his feet again, though pale and looking tired.
Daniel has left the ship and the feeling of emptiness is pervasive. One of the scientist tries to console Bako by telling her that she can become one of the first to use the new technology in the hololab to give one of the red gods a body. Bako considers it but she still does not trust that the scientist really know what they are doing. They believe the gods were made on the ship, for crying out loud! Suddenly the loudspeakers starts announcing a countdown for an FTL-jump. A call to ops confirms that Galactica has retaken the bridge and is now planning a jump to the buoy.
"We will die! The ship can't do many more jumps, our tylium-tanks are flooding and Orpheus says the hull is already strained. Jump to Elysium Alpha instead!"
No matter. Once the jump is made she gets instructions to call everyone to battlestations. There are cylons all around them.
"We are in stealth mode, so the cylons don't know that we are here" the officer explains to her, "and we want to keep it that way. Battlestations is just in case."
She does the run, explaining the situation to the teams she meets. At the foot of Vergis Tower she runs into Arany on his way down from the labs.
"Battlestations? Why?"
"We have jumped to the buoy and there are cylons all around us but we are in stealth mode so they can't see us. Battlestations is just in case."
He nods and the loudspeakers crackle.
"Activating DRADIS."
Bako sees Aranys eyes widen and knows she has the same panicked expression on her own face. Then they turn back to back, put their hands around their mouths and holler "BATTLESTATIONS!" Then they run. Frakking Galactican officers who do not know that an active DRADIS makes them glow like a flare to every other ship out there. Now they will all die. Again!
Bako wants to go home. Not to Daniels strange new home, but to her real home which does not exist anymore. Around her everyone is going mad. Someone is talking about The Storm, which is a play or maybe a poem which they are all in. One of the scientists, the one who might be Caliban, comes up to coms and tells them in a calm, collected voice that he has killed Almassy. Just like that. A couple of other people take him away to the officers mess and they do not see him again. Kobor gets shot by another tauron by the damage control panel and dies. Bako runs to the bridge to tell captain Polos who looks at her with a sad face and says he knows. Then he tells her to man the phones. There are cylons everywhere around them and hardly a second to draw breath or hang up the receiver between calls. Dobos is waving at her from the HADES control. She shakes her head, she can't leave the phones now. Points for him to talk to someone in the navigation crew instead. He insists. During a breather she dares to leave the phones long enough to take the few steps over to the sensor controls. He throws a bag full of white powder at her. For crying out loud, they are on the bridge! She glares at him and hisses "You are frakking nuts!" but dares not throw them back, just hides them in her breast pocket. He shrugs, smiles apologetically and turns back to the controls. Then the cylons are back and the phones claim all her attention. The cylons are relentless but the two crews work as one and manage to hold their own. Bako is too busy to even know what has happened to the buoy, if it is still there or if they have managed to destroy it, but when the count down for an FTL-jump sounds over the speakers she stops feeling as if her life is slipping away through her fingers. If the hull will hold for another jump is anybodys guess, but no guessing is needed to tell that there will only be more cylons. The FTL-drive spools and the world spins and squeezes and drops them down point perfect beside Elysium Alpha and Daniels home. On the bridge there is a collective breath drawn and then released as engine confirms a successful jump. Bako answers the phone.
"Orpheus are done with their scan. The hull is fit enough for us to attempt landing personnel on the planet."
"Excellent, have Orpheus confirm our route as well."
"They say that with our current course and speed we will be there in 25 minutes."
Polos gives a broad smile and turns to the rest of the crew in CIC to announce the good news. Cheering erupts and composes the background to his public announcement. As Bako steps back to give him room by the phone she feels someone grab her around the waist, twirl her around and place a firm kiss upon her lips. Before she can say anything the cheering and celebrating pulls them apart, as well as the suddenly hysterical ringing of the telephone. But as he turns to leave with the other engineers to prepare for the landing she grabs his sleeve.
"No apple for me this time?"
He smiles.
"For you, there is always an apple." And he picks one out of nowhere. She does not have time to take more than two bites out of it between calls for a long while but as the phones finally calms down she munches happily and leans towards the wall. It makes sense to go to Elysium. Celestra wants to go to Elysium, that is clear. So does the gods. Finally they have voiced their demands in comprehensible ways. And even without gods, it is their only chance to find water and tylium. There will be no more jumps without tylium and no more humans without water. But what else is there on Elysium? What is the connection between the Celestra, the gods and whatever the scientists have in the projection room? Something does not add up. Think, Bako, think! You are a smart girl, just like the scary Hal'la'tha guy in the corridor told you when he tried to bribe you. When it finally clicks it's too late. In the middle of all the joy on the bridge for the prospect of a successful landing Arany is a gray spot of bad mood. She bounces over to him, high on shared success and joy.
"Arany! Why are you not happy? We are landing in fifteen minutes!"
He looks at her. "Yay... fifteen minutes left to live."
"What do you mean? We will make a home there. With Daniel. There is grass and seas and a moon..."
"A moon? You are easily bribed. What else do you think is down there?"
"I don't know... Daniel will be there!" Remembered glory of a warm embrace stirs faintly and disperses the thoughts trying to gather around Aranys reasoning. He looks at her with a hard expression which melts into an open and pedagogical one, as if explaining something to a child.
"The visions, the red dressed people, you know?"
"Yes, I know." Of course she knows!
"They are cylons. But cylons who are still only in the computer, floating around. They have no bodies."
"What?"
"And now Vergis corp has, on this very ship, developed technology which allow them to download AIs into human bodies. Technology originally developed in their lab on Elysium. There is a reason we tried to bomb it all those years ago, a very good reason. But they remained, and now there are many of them floating around down there without any bodies. And we are just about to deliver to them the technology Vergis developed, plus a shipload full of fresh bodies."
She stares at him. Everything makes horrible, terrible sense. More sense than the overpowering joy of the visions. Finally cold logic penetrates her fuzzy high.
"We have to do something!"
He rises.
"There is nothing we can do."
"We have to tell someone. Everyone!"
He looks at her before he starts to move towards the stairs leading up to helm.
"It's too late."
"But there must be something we can do? How do you know all this?"
He turns again and reaches out his hand. On reflex she grabs it.
"By the way. Jalen Arany, Colonial Intelligence." He lets go of the handshake and starts climbing up the ladder. After a moment she unfreezes and follows him.
"Why didn't you tell us before? You should have told us!"
"Who? You, who are only sober half the time and don't mind the ship being a cylon? Or worse, Biro who even worships it?"
She is momentarily without an answer.
"You should have told the captain." To this he is quiet and continues his way towards coms. No matter what she says she gets no answer out of him. As they pass by communications she pops in, calls ops and gets Biro on the line.
"Biro! DidyouknowthatAranyworksforColonialIntelligence?! HesaystherearecylonsdownonElysiumwhowilluseVergistechnologytodownloadintohumanbodies. Andwejustlandedashipfullofbodiesforthem!"
"What? Colonial Intelligence? No? What?"
"Igottogo!" She hangs up just as she sees Arany disappear down the ladder to the cargo bay. Down there most of the crew has gathered, and Captain Polos is telling everybody about how close they are to landing on the new planet, Elysium Alpha. Cheering rises from the crowd, interspersed with cries of "Daniel!", "Elysium!" and "Daniel will take us home!".
"Soon we land," captain Polos shouts, "on our new home! So say we all!"
"SO SAY WE ALL!"
Arany, more familiar with guns than he should be, draws his and in one smooth movement places the barrel towards his temple and fires. The apple Bako was given by the FTL engineer bounces on the floor and rolls towards the wall when she grabs his jacket as he falls. She follows him down and screams in the sudden silence.
"Why didn't you tell anyone!? You should have told someone!" She pulls at his jacket but he is a dead weight in her hands. Questioning whispers and hands close in on her when the tears start and she buries her face against his green jacket, now buttoned all the way up.
THE END
