Fanfic: Sliver of Light Part 1
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Ron D. Moore, David Eick and the rest of the folks at the Sci Fi Channel. I just took them out to play. In my backyard. I promise to return them soon. No copyright infringement intented or money to be made. Special thanks to charma101 and the incomparable NerinaB for beta help.
Sliver of Light
New Caprica Holding Facility
47 days ago
The floor was cold and hard under her bare feet. The chill seeped into her aging joints forcing a dull ache up the length of her legs. She shuddered involuntarily, pressing her face to her knees in an attempt to still her body. Her auburn hair fell forward, cascading down her legs. The thin slip of light from underneath the door to her left did little to purge the blackness that surrounded her.
She’d been there for hours. Nerves now fraying by the minute. She could still see their frightened faces. Her students, just children, watching their teacher pulled from their lesson by a pretty Cylon skin job, the metallic clunk of machines at the tent opening. She had smiled, clamping down hard on the knife’s edge of fear that was piercing her insides. Ruffling hair, touching shoulders, she asked the young faces to focus on the lesson that Maya had seamlessly continued as she was pulled from the tent.
They had let her walk unrestrained through the settlement but she could feel the pretty skin job’s tall presence at her shoulder. She saw fear, sadness, and empathy cross the faces of the colonists they passed and held her calm. No one saw her fear; she was no longer their leader but the feeling had not left her. She would never be just an educator to these people.
Exhausted she slipped over onto her side on the unforgiving floor. Her hip and shoulder ached instantly where they took the brunt of her weight. Settling her head against her hands she focussed on her breathing, using techniques learned to help her cope with the stress and pain of her cancer. Elosha had been insistent that she learn them. Now the exercises and a bloodied tome were all she had left of the kind cleric. She found strength in those breaths. Peace. But not for long.
The door swung open and struck the jam loudly enough that she was startled awake. Blurry forms stood in the new column of light washing into her cell. She sat up, backing away from them slightly, wishing they’d let her have her glasses.
A metallic thud.
A chair appeared before her, sitting now in the direct light from the doorway. A large figure approached, leaning down to her and hauling her effortlessly to her feet and then pushing her hard down onto the chair. Her arms were pulled roughly behind her back, stretching her shoulder muscles, and clamped tightly together at the wrist. He stood behind her, waiting. She couldn’t make out the corners of her cell.
Another Cylon’s voice, decidedly female, was sugar sweet in her ear. “I’m going to let you in on something. When a Cylon is downloaded into a new body there is an opportunity to embrace a new life. It is a chance to cleanse oneself of the doubts, anxieties and prejudices that we carried in our old form. This is what New Caprica is for us. A new beginning, for humans and Cylons alike, a chance to coexist as equals under God. In peace.” She ran a warm finger along the edge of Roslin’s face. Roslin turned her head away from the sickening caress. “You were their leader and yet you have no vision. Will we always be slaves to you?”
“This is not co-existence it’s an occu-” A solid fist snapped her head back with breathtaking force. The sheer surprise and resulting blast of adrenaline forced her fully awake. Somewhere in her jostled brain came the slightly amused realisation that it must have been a rhetorical question.
The voice again, harder to concentrate on then before they‘d hit her, “This dream cannot be built in a day. We must allow for a transition, a period where trust can be nurtured and allowed to grow.”
“And this is trust,” she jerked her head backwards towards her bound hands. She could feel her face swelling where the Cylon’s fist had collided with it. The second blow was as shocking as the first. A middle aged woman, she’d never been hit like this before. None of her lovers had been abusive and she had no taste for sports. She felt a small metallic lump in her mouth along with the coppery tang of blood. She spat it out, realising it was a filling. When she could open her eyes again and look into the blur her mind spoke: I get it, don’t talk.
Pain was flowing through her in slow waves now, but in an odd way it was comforting. During her illness she had dealt with chronic pain. She had learned to turn it into strength; to feed off it’s energy as it stole hers.
“God tells us that the weeds must be rooted out and trampled for the harvest to be fruitful. You murder us in the streets, destroy our buildings and diminish our supplies. The resistance must end. We need their names, “ she held Roslin’s chin gently, oblivious to the warm blood that slid over her hand. She could feel the former President’s body shaking and revelled in it. “Names, now.”
Roslin simply resumed her breathing exercises. She found their faces in her mind. Colin, a blond boy with freckles and an adorable lisp, Toryn, all brown curls and smiles .. Karin .. blows came quickly and often .. Tomas … , the final one toppled the chair. There was pain, white hot and sharp, and a sickening pop as the weight of her body and the chair came down on her shoulder. The Cylon let her lie there in agony for several minutes before he released the restraints on her arms, pulling a scream from her mouth as her now useless arm shifted.
“Fix it,” the female Cylon indicated to another Cylon and turned on her heel and left the room. This male knelt and ran his fingers along the bones of her ruined shoulder. Satisfied he indicated to another Cylon who helped him roll her onto her back. He held her still and roughly pulled her good arm away from the injured one. She screamed, fireworks exploding behind her eyes, as the other Cylon flexed her injured arm and twisted the shoulder back into place. She lost herself willingly in the blackness that had swum into her vision.
The human woman beneath him went slack and he dropped her arm to the floor.
***
They came every forty five minutes, never letting her sleep though she doubted the pain would have allowed it anyway. Her shoulder was swollen and numb, the arm too sore to even move. The same questions, the same trade. Names to end the pain.
***
Galactica today 0240
The end of a long shift had hit Adama hard. Age and recent life saving operations had sapped the strength he had never realized he would one day be without. Sixty one year old Admirals didn’t command fleets. They sat at desks, took vacations and taught the young . He perused the reports in his hand as he made his way to his quarters, automatically returning the salutes of the officers he passed.
“Sir?” Gaeta. Not someone he wanted to see right now. He didn’t want anyone between him and his rack. Especially not someone as energetic as Gaeta.
“Yes, lieutenant,” he slowed his pace as he passed the young man but didn’t stop, forcing Gaeta to follow him.
“Additions to your schedule for tomorrow, Sir,“ Gaeta handed him yet another corner less paper. Adama scowled at it.
“The Quorum .. why?” He hated dealing with the Quorum, hated leaving the orderly discipline of his military world. But, there was always a chance he would see Laura…
“Can’t put them off forever, Sir,” Gaeta replied as if reading his mind.
“Very well, carry on.” Gaeta saluted crisply and Adama slowly returned it.
He checked his crono. Too late to talk to Laura tonight. Frakkin’ Quorum ... he cursed to himself as he spun the hatch to his quarters. He threw back the door and stepped into complete darkness.
“Don’t move, Admiral.” A female voice. Off to his left. The darkness was consuming so he held his ground. The floor was not covered by the aged carpet of his quarters but, instead, was cold, flat concrete.
“What the hell is this?” he barked, venom in his voice.
“There are many ways that Cylons differ from humans. Many ways.” the voice was still to his left and decidedly out of reach. “I brought you here.”
“Where the frak is here?” He heard another noise, quiet this time and to his right. There was a door nearby and a sliver of light that did nothing to give him any bearings. As his eyes began to adjust he thought he saw bare feet on the floor to his right. They shook with the rest of the body that must have been there.
“She can’t see you. Or hear you.” The Cylon brushed against his side. He reached out to grab hold of her and found himself pinned with his face pressed roughly into the intersection of two flat concrete walls, the cool touch of loaded weapon behind his neck. She turned him with a strength far beyond human.
Suddenly the door flung open and he watched a familiar form slip backward along the floor. Laura! Here? Why? She looked different. Her hair was longer, her clothes unfamiliar.
Three Cylons entered the room: a Godfrey, a Leoben, and a Simon. Leoben slammed a metal chair onto the floor and hauled Laura Roslin into it. Adama watched startled as her face registered a wince as Leoben secured her arms behind her back.
“This isn’t real,” he growled, straining against her confining grip.
The Godfrey Cylon was talking into Laura’s ear. Leoben stood just behind and to her left. She went to make a reply when Leoben turned and struck Laura’s face.
Adama’s whole body stiffened against his captor.
“She can’t hear you; no one here can, except me.” was the unaffected response. “As for whether this is real…go ahead, pick it up.”
Leoben had hit Laura again and he watched anguished as she spat something out of her mouth. A tooth? The Cylon let him go, cocking her weapon loudly. No one in the room reacted to his presence.
There was something small sitting in a pool of dark blood by his foot. He bent to pick it up ... a filling? ... registering it’s slick weight in his hand. He heard Leoben begin to rain punches onto Laura’s head and body. Angered, he came up quickly, hoping to catch his captor by surprise.
There was a loud crash.
Laura screamed.
Adama turned towards her and the Cylon grabbed hold of him again.
The former President of the Twelve Colonies was writhing in pain, still attached to the overturned chair. Her cries were heartbreaking.
The Cylons just watched.
And waited.
Leoben looked almost pleased.
Adama watched in horror as the Simon Cylon turned Laura over, and with Leoben‘s help jammed her obviously dislocated shoulder back into place. Simon dropped her arm and she made no more sound.
“This is New Caprica. About forty seven days ago. I was there and so now, you can be there,” the female voice again, in his ear. “She didn’t give us any choice. You, however, have one.”
He didn’t react.
“We need the location of Earth.”
He said nothing.
“Kobol. The Tomb of Athena. The map to Earth. We know you found it.” The Cylon spoke at not much more than a whisper. “You can tell us or we will find her and we will do this again until she tells us.”
“Give you the location of Earth,” Adama said finally. “So you can finish the job?”
“We want to go home.”
“You can go to hell.”
And for Adama, as it had been for this Six, the experience ended.
***
New Caprica Holding Facility
46 days ago
A foul smell beneath her nose, Roslin jerked awake. For some reason, her brain still wading in sleep or coma, she forgot herself and tried to stand. Searing pain exploded from just about everywhere. Leoben caught her and put her back in the chair. They continued to ask for names. She was nauseous. Disoriented. It hurt to breathe.
As quickly as they came they left her again, face pressed to the freezing floor. But for some reason she wasn’t cold. You’re in shock … but she could almost feel something. For the first time since she had found herself in this cell, she didn‘t feel alone. Sure, now you’re losing your mind. Her head lolled and she fell into vision:
Submersion.
Liquid cold flowing over every nerve ending in her body.
Pain dulls.
Senses mute.
The loud cacophony of her entry into the freezing water transforms into a numb rumble that marks her descent. A thin stream of bubbles rise around her.
She can breathe.
Her chest aches and her lungs throb from the weight of the water but with effort she can breathe.
Serpent like tendrils of her red hair float like an aura about her. She tilts her head up to where the muted sphere of the sun flickers lazily over the waters surface. She treads against her descent, her legs and left arm pushing against the murky liquid and succeeding in ebbing her fall. Her right arm hangs limp.
Sudden movement in the shimmering disk above catches her eye. Two elegant serpents, one sapphire, one scarlet, twist through intricate spirals, slipping over and around each other with intoxicating grace. Long s-shaped currents form behind them combining in even patterns of light and dark.
Back to the pain. A solid floor beneath her and only a finger of light to stab at the darkness. Her eyes rolled and shut once again as she descended back into vision.
A sound, dulled by the water around her, pulls her eyes from the dancing snakes.
It was crying.
A baby was crying. Blindly, she treaded toward the sound.
There she is.
An infant, born premature and no more than a few days old, is floating in a shaft of light that somehow penetrates the water’s gloom. Her good arm reaches for the child, fingertips barely grazing brand new skin. Slowly the baby slips from her reach, descending away from the light. She panics, groping, cursing her useless arm.
She gasps then as the water warms and seems to clear molecule by molecule. There was the baby.
Calm.
Cradled in the crook of an aged yet well muscled arm. His nearness is startling but she is soon overwhelmed with the sensation of warmth, as internal as it is external, as his other arm slips around her and up the skin of her back. He pulls her into his bare, bullet scarred chest, the baby’s tiny form nestled between his skin and hers. Cradling her body and the baby’s he begins a gentle ascent. He is saying something to her and she studies the familiar rough lines on his face, the intensity of certainty in the deep blue of his gaze. They are approaching the surface. She would hear him then. She looks upward to find a starry nebula where she expects to see the sun. Twelve familiar constellations decorate the sky around it. Soft pinks and purples swirl among the twinkling stars of the constellation Scorpio. The lagoon nebula, her brain provides, the first signpost on the path to Earth.
An echoing crash as they break water.
“Hera - “
Cool air on her face
Rough hands under her arms.
Panic.
Dizzying pain as her body was flung back into the chair.
“Names, now.” Female voice. Sugar sweet.
***
She’d stopped counting. Her brain felt like mush, her senses were frakked. Mostly, she just cried.
***
continued in part 2.