Exodus, Part II continued
The air shines with dust and smoke and soot as Gaeta sprints away from Colonial One. He can still hear explosions, but as if from a great distance; what pounds louder is his feet on the dirt and the thud of his heartbeat against his ribs, against his eardrums, striking as loud as any concussive blast.
Overhead, the sky shimmers and sparks as, one by one, the grounded ships take flight and jump away. He draws in a breath that sears his lungs with ash and nearly knocks him over with the force of his coughing. He stumbles; rights himself; keeps running.
The Resistance listed key rendezvous spots in their last message, and his window to reach the nearest one is closing fast.
A streak of black and white dashes across the road in front of him, near enough to yank Gaeta up short. It prances back a step, spinning fretfully as it -- he -- scents the air. A despairing whine cuts through the deep bass boom of a far-off bomb.
"Jake!" Gaeta shouts, the name at least half a wheeze. The dog's head whips toward him, ears perked high. Gaeta bends over his knees to catch his breath, holding out a hand. "Here boy. Come on."
Jake pelts across the dirt, leaping to rest his paws on his arm and sniffing around Gaeta's cheeks with another anxious whimper. "Down," commands Gaeta; Jake obliges, falling back in a puff of dust as his tail windmills. "Stay with me, okay?" He slaps his thigh twice, sharply, as he straightens and picks up the run again. "Stay here with me, Jake. Come on."
Jake keeps at his heels the whole way, legs jackknifing together and apart as they race on. Two Raptors scream by in another bone-shuddering rumble. Gaeta can barely feel his legs, can barely breathe for the pain in his chest. He ignores it all, and once he reaches the designated clearing, it's not a struggle to ignore it anymore: his stomach drops to his shoes.
The Raptor's there. And the ECO's closing the doors.
"WAIT!" Gaeta screams. How he manages to get any volume with the air choking him, he'll never know. Between each gasping breath: "Oh gods, wait, please wait -- "
The ECO hears, and lifts her head. She stops. Pushes the door wide again.
Relief nearly succeeds where exertion failed, then, as it floods him so utterly his legs almost fold up beneath him. Gaeta pushes himself on for five more seconds. Jake takes the lead in that span, leaping into the craft at the ECO's beckoning, and Gaeta, gulping down air as if it were water, falls against the solid metal door frame a beat later.
Strong hands hook under his arms and haul him onto the deck. "You all right?" asks the ECO brusquely, and Gaeta, flat on his back and coughing what feels like an entire riverbank worth of sediment out of his lungs, can only nod.
She slams the hatch shut. "Full ride, let's get the frak off this rock," she barks to the pilot, answered by the near-immediate rumble of the engines shuddering up through the deck. Slowly, Gaeta pushes himself to sitting, dragging the sleeve of his jacket over his eyes. Jake pads a tight circle in the confined space of the craft before he settles at Gaeta's side, nosing his elbow; Gaeta drapes his free arm around the animal, fingers digging into soft fur, and doesn't answer.
It's over, he thinks, and presses his face to his jacket sleeve again.
He's almost glad he's not in range of any windows to watch the ruins of New Caprica disappear beneath them.
(He hopes, too, that if nothing else survived, a single Eight made it through alive.)
Eventually, when he feels like he can breathe, Gaeta lowers his arm and looks up at the other passengers. Almost none of them return his glance, finding the grating, the walls, or the panels in the rear of the craft to be far more enticing.
One of them does. Colonel Tigh, the stub of an unlit cigarette pinched between his bandaged fingers, glares at him balefully from one corner of the ship. A yellow square of gauze still covers his right eye.
Gaeta meets his lopsided gaze and swallows. "Sir," he begins, and that's as far as he gets.
"For your sake and mine, Mr. Gaeta," growls Tigh, "you had better keep your frakking mouth shut for the rest of this little flight of ours."
A lump forms in Gaeta's throat and sinks down, cold and hard, to the pit of his stomach. Nodding out an automatic compliance, he pushes himself straight enough to fold his legs, which Jake takes as an immediate sign to hook his head onto Gaeta's thigh and peer up at him imploringly.
He looks down and smiles, very faint and very shaky. "Good boy," he whispers to him, inaudible over the sound of the engines, as he rubs a spot behind his ears.
When he steps back onto Galactica for the first time in over a year, Gaeta's greeted by the utter pandemonium of a celebration well under way. Jake, still shaken by the thunder of the earlier explosions, wants nothing to do with it: he stays in the Raptor as the passengers disembark.
Gaeta touches a hand to the skin of the Raptor and looks up at the high arcing ceiling of the flight deck, the sight blurred by dust, exhaustion, a strange relieved joy to see her again.
"Adama!" the crowd chants around him. "Adama! Adama!"
He kept his promise. He came back for them --
The ones of us still left, rises up the next thought, like bile in the back of his throat.
Oh, gods, do the crowds seem too small after that, with so very few people standing in the belly of the ship. As Tigh makes his way out, Gaeta presses himself flat against the Raptor to let him pass. He doesn't watch him go.
Instead, Gaeta closes his eyes, overwhelmed and sick, and feels nothing but the thin metal skin of the battlestar -- and beyond it, the vast emptiness of space, devoid of life.
Overhead, the sky shimmers and sparks as, one by one, the grounded ships take flight and jump away. He draws in a breath that sears his lungs with ash and nearly knocks him over with the force of his coughing. He stumbles; rights himself; keeps running.
The Resistance listed key rendezvous spots in their last message, and his window to reach the nearest one is closing fast.
A streak of black and white dashes across the road in front of him, near enough to yank Gaeta up short. It prances back a step, spinning fretfully as it -- he -- scents the air. A despairing whine cuts through the deep bass boom of a far-off bomb.
"Jake!" Gaeta shouts, the name at least half a wheeze. The dog's head whips toward him, ears perked high. Gaeta bends over his knees to catch his breath, holding out a hand. "Here boy. Come on."
Jake pelts across the dirt, leaping to rest his paws on his arm and sniffing around Gaeta's cheeks with another anxious whimper. "Down," commands Gaeta; Jake obliges, falling back in a puff of dust as his tail windmills. "Stay with me, okay?" He slaps his thigh twice, sharply, as he straightens and picks up the run again. "Stay here with me, Jake. Come on."
Jake keeps at his heels the whole way, legs jackknifing together and apart as they race on. Two Raptors scream by in another bone-shuddering rumble. Gaeta can barely feel his legs, can barely breathe for the pain in his chest. He ignores it all, and once he reaches the designated clearing, it's not a struggle to ignore it anymore: his stomach drops to his shoes.
The Raptor's there. And the ECO's closing the doors.
"WAIT!" Gaeta screams. How he manages to get any volume with the air choking him, he'll never know. Between each gasping breath: "Oh gods, wait, please wait -- "
The ECO hears, and lifts her head. She stops. Pushes the door wide again.
Relief nearly succeeds where exertion failed, then, as it floods him so utterly his legs almost fold up beneath him. Gaeta pushes himself on for five more seconds. Jake takes the lead in that span, leaping into the craft at the ECO's beckoning, and Gaeta, gulping down air as if it were water, falls against the solid metal door frame a beat later.
Strong hands hook under his arms and haul him onto the deck. "You all right?" asks the ECO brusquely, and Gaeta, flat on his back and coughing what feels like an entire riverbank worth of sediment out of his lungs, can only nod.
She slams the hatch shut. "Full ride, let's get the frak off this rock," she barks to the pilot, answered by the near-immediate rumble of the engines shuddering up through the deck. Slowly, Gaeta pushes himself to sitting, dragging the sleeve of his jacket over his eyes. Jake pads a tight circle in the confined space of the craft before he settles at Gaeta's side, nosing his elbow; Gaeta drapes his free arm around the animal, fingers digging into soft fur, and doesn't answer.
It's over, he thinks, and presses his face to his jacket sleeve again.
He's almost glad he's not in range of any windows to watch the ruins of New Caprica disappear beneath them.
(He hopes, too, that if nothing else survived, a single Eight made it through alive.)
Eventually, when he feels like he can breathe, Gaeta lowers his arm and looks up at the other passengers. Almost none of them return his glance, finding the grating, the walls, or the panels in the rear of the craft to be far more enticing.
One of them does. Colonel Tigh, the stub of an unlit cigarette pinched between his bandaged fingers, glares at him balefully from one corner of the ship. A yellow square of gauze still covers his right eye.
Gaeta meets his lopsided gaze and swallows. "Sir," he begins, and that's as far as he gets.
"For your sake and mine, Mr. Gaeta," growls Tigh, "you had better keep your frakking mouth shut for the rest of this little flight of ours."
A lump forms in Gaeta's throat and sinks down, cold and hard, to the pit of his stomach. Nodding out an automatic compliance, he pushes himself straight enough to fold his legs, which Jake takes as an immediate sign to hook his head onto Gaeta's thigh and peer up at him imploringly.
He looks down and smiles, very faint and very shaky. "Good boy," he whispers to him, inaudible over the sound of the engines, as he rubs a spot behind his ears.
When he steps back onto Galactica for the first time in over a year, Gaeta's greeted by the utter pandemonium of a celebration well under way. Jake, still shaken by the thunder of the earlier explosions, wants nothing to do with it: he stays in the Raptor as the passengers disembark.
Gaeta touches a hand to the skin of the Raptor and looks up at the high arcing ceiling of the flight deck, the sight blurred by dust, exhaustion, a strange relieved joy to see her again.
"Adama!" the crowd chants around him. "Adama! Adama!"
He kept his promise. He came back for them --
The ones of us still left, rises up the next thought, like bile in the back of his throat.
Oh, gods, do the crowds seem too small after that, with so very few people standing in the belly of the ship. As Tigh makes his way out, Gaeta presses himself flat against the Raptor to let him pass. He doesn't watch him go.
Instead, Gaeta closes his eyes, overwhelmed and sick, and feels nothing but the thin metal skin of the battlestar -- and beyond it, the vast emptiness of space, devoid of life.