In the Whole World: Chapter 19, "Orders"
Chapter 19: "Orders"
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Some surgery referred to herein--surgery in which a female character has no control of her reproductive organs. Be advised if that's a non-starter for you (in which case, I sympathize--the scene was hard to write).
Word Count: ~2,000
Flashback. At the Farm. More than four years ago.
The Four shook his head as he made the incision in the blond woman's abdomen. "Remember, we're keeping this offline," he said to the man standing across from him. "If the Ones found out that we were using her for experimentation instead of gestation…"
"They won't." The man who thought of himself as Leoben Conoy-though individual names were prohibited by conventions stronger than law-crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the wall of the surgical chamber. "Just keep her separate from the other subjects."
"You really think you can use her ova to revive Daniel?" The Four frowned in concentration under his surgical mask, leaning closer to the opening he'd made in her flesh. "Maybe if the Final Five were…" his brain skittered away from the word alive. "John's the only one of us who's successfully reencoded DNA. And even then, you know as well as I that there's something strange about how he built the Eights…" The Four picked up a cauterizing wand and separated some of the connective tissue from the ovary.
Conoy watched impassively. "I already have the alternative coding. And access to the Sevens' memory banks."
The Four's brow shot up. "How?"
"We don't just die." One side of Conoy's mouth lifted in half a smile, at that. "God knows I've tried," he added, so quietly that the Four almost didn't hear it.
The Four knew he shouldn't have gotten involved in this business, but his pity had gotten the better of him. Anyone could see that there was a demon dogging the Twos, and he suspected it would hound them until they'd finally made up for betraying the Sevens.
Especially this one. This one, this First Two, who had defied all the Cylon precepts against personal, individual connections when he married the First Seven. Leoben had made promises to Daniel and God. He'd been studying the means of reversing the river of time ever since he'd broken his promise. The Four's shoulders tensed, just to think of it. "How long 'til they notice we're offline?" was all he asked.
Leoben shrugged. "Some already have. It's a question of what their suspicions are." His mouth lifted again, that peculiar expression that seemed to both see things from God's own view and laugh at the whole of creation. "I'd say you have ten minutes before anyone comes looking for you."
The woman-Kara Thrace, that's what the Two had called her-twitched violently. She was dreaming of herself as a young girl, going to visit her father at work; the men and women there were her brothers and sisters, and she was going to be a scientist like them, when she grew up.
The Four made his cut across her fallopian tube knowing he had less than ten minutes before she came out of anesthesia, changed his mind, and increased her dose. "Godspeed to you, Leoben," he said as he slid the woman's ovary into a cooling unit and handed it to the man.
He knew he'd crossed every line there was when he heard himself use the Two's name aloud. Deep down, he'd known-even when he'd first agreed to the surgery-that he was doing it in part because Conoy called him by name, too. Simon O'Neill.
Simon kept wrapping that name around himself like a blanket. It made him feel like someone.
"If all goes well, I won't need it," Leoben said. "I'll have all the time in the world."
Lee had written down Gabriel's explanation of his "orders". It was easier to have them written down.
You and Kara Thrace made contact with us over a year ago. You said that when you reappeared-about now-we should tell you to go figure out why her Viper exploded. We weren't sure you'd believe us, Major. But Kara said, just tell him it's an order, he loves following orders. And you said, tell me that's what Kara said, and I'll believe you.
So those were his orders. He pictured himself writing up a report of this mission, and almost laughed. His father would laugh, reading it.
The smile slid from his face when he remembered the fate to which he'd abandoned his father.
He'd begun packing for his trip. He was taking one of the Raptors; it was all that could be spared from the rescue effort. Luckily, there was no shortage of tylium, here. He'd loaded enough that he could get to the gas planet and back to Caprica six times over.
With little other cargo, it wasn't a problem. Just him, Kara's notebooks, some food, the frakking Horn of Cronus.
He didn't want to go back. He'd thought about where he might go, before this mission to Caprica had arisen. He'd thought that he might taken the Horn back to the site where Kara's Viper had wrecked, on the Cylon Earth. He hadn't wanted to go there.
But he wanted to go back to the place where she'd lost her mind, and then apparently her life, even less.
Now he was ready to go, and Olivia, the Chief, and Helo had gathered for farewells.
"Come back as soon as you can," the Chief said worriedly. "I don't think solitary missions are a very good idea at this point. We can't come after you."
Lee nodded. He was about to be like Kara-just another person who no one had any idea how to find.
That, at least, was comforting. "I'll be back as soon as possible. If I'm not back here in three weeks, we'll rendezvous back at Earth."
Helo gaze became a warning one. "But you don't have powerful enough communication devices to find the new rebel colony-"
"Then you'll have to get word to me at the old colony."
"Are you insane?" This was Olivia. "They'll put you straight to death. Right on top of your father. And then his sacrifice will be for nothing."
Lee shook his head. How could he tell them that he expected to have Kara with him-to have some kind of insane, Starbuck-fueled plan? "We're borrowing trouble," he said instead. "I'll try to meet you back here. Jumping to the gas planet, a quick investigation-it should only take a few days."
"Don't forget to sleep." Helo again.
"I won't." Lee clapped him on the back. "Listen, if I don't make it back-"
"Shut up," the Chief said. "There are rules about that kind of talk."
"I'm just gonna say this once," Lee managed. "Now that we found Earth-I'd like to have a grave. I never liked the idea of being buried in space. Even if you don't have my body. Just-some kind of final resting place."
"Seriously, Apollo, you're crossing-"
"I'll make sure of it," Olivia broke in. Helo nodded, too. "You got it, buddy."
"Right." He ducked into the Raptor, but then remembered one more thing. "Same goes for Kara's dad. When you finally get into Petra-"
This time, the Chief nodded. "We'll bring her dad home, Lee." His tone was bleak, as it had been ever since they'd found out how narrowly he'd missed a reunion with his old friend. A matter of months.
Lee closed the Raptor door, double-checked the first set of coordinates on the list that the Chief had helped him plot. He'd left Kara's notebook open to a page where she'd written down on of Hybrid Sam's ramblings that now seemed prescient and comforting: The arrow will guide him so he goes where he almost went. He will step through the doorway of the years and sacrifice a heart of fire to the cause of life.
Atop his Raptor, the Chief had affixed the Arrow of Apollo like a weathervane, and Lee knew without checking that it was pointed straight into the maelstrom.
They'd set the Hitei Kan down on a patch of land they'd be fools to try to live on. The land was half desert, the nearby sea was half salt. And Sharon didn't think they were far enough away from the colony they'd abandoned; they were only at the northern edge of the same continent.
She wanted to be somewhere where Sarah Porter couldn't find her on foot.
But she was badly outnumbered. Here, in the tent that had become dubbed the CIC, a declaration was being hammered out.
"There needs to be a clause about how they stole our weapons," Seelix objected. She sounded patient, like she was haggling over a divorce settlement and not crafting a declaration of war. "And it needs to go ahead of all the stuff about the Cylons."
"The 'stuff about the Cylons,'" interjected a Two called Caleb Callahan, "is the reason why we evacuated in the first place. We can't just shove it under the-"
"I don't think we even need a declaration of war in the first place," Hex cut in. "It's not like the Colonial Conventions on military conduct apply. We are the military. We make military law."
"That's reasoning that's no better than hers!" Cal threw up his hands in frustration. "If we're going to get sympathy from any of the humans who are left behind-"
"We don't need sympathy. We need tactics. And guns. And all the metal and crops and infrastructure that's rightfully ours, that we left behind."
"Rightfully ours," Sharon repeated, trying to keep her dubiousness out of her voice. But Hex heard it.
"Damn straight. We saved the fleet. We lost friends doing it. And we frakking found Earth! Why should they get all the privileges when they had none of the responsibilities?"
Sharon sighed. They'd been around this block a hundred times. Hex and his friends persisted in believing that the civilians in the fleet had been having one long garden party while Galactica had been, alone, at war.
She was long past thinking she could talk them out of it. It had been the overwhelming outcome of the vote that Hoshi had administered weeks before. People wanted to settle… at the old settlement. In less than a year, it had become home. Theirs.
And now they would go to war for it.
Again. Permanent war.
She missed Karl a hell of a lot, tonight. Sometimes she'd forgotten about war, when he was around.
Bill Adama shadow-boxed in his cell. He'd done his push-ups, sit-ups, lunges; he'd jogged the cell's perimeter for much of the afternoon. He'd made another of his daily requests for reading material about half an hour ago, only to receive yet another copy of the Scrolls of Pythia.
Some joke, Madame President.
He could have borne the delay of his trial if he'd thought it changed the odds in his favor. But he could hear the unrest outside, the battle cries and gunfire that meant skirmishes were ongoing. Sarah Porter had domestic conflict on her hands. She needed a scapegoat. She needed his head on a platter.
The only reason she'd put off his trial was that she hadn't found a way of ensuring she'd win it, yet.
He spun, his fist flailing out instinctively, as his door swung open. The young guard ducked.
"Hold out your arms, Admiral," the guard said gruffly. She cuffed him. "We've secured your precious battlestar. We're transferring you to the brig on Galactica."
Bill almost smiled.
There was hope yet.
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