Thy Kingdom Come- Chapter 3-4
The blood was all over the wall. Felix spotted the limp body of Sharon in Helo’s arms. Helo didn’t even notice him come in.
“Helo!” Felix shouted frantically. “What the frak happened?”
“It was the only way,” said Helo, head hung, looking into the eyes of his dead wife.
“Only way for what?” Felix asked, wondering what could possibly have merited murder between the two of them.
“To get our daughter back.”
Hera? Hera was alive? How? And how had they found out? When had they found out?
Felix thought for a moment. The cylons had come to negotiate. Which meant they had been on this ship. That was how Sharon and Helo had found out. But how would the cylons have gotten their hands on a child that had supposedly died two years ago? Those frakkers. Felix hoped for Helo and Sharon’s sake that they hadn’t just been playing mind games.
Felix walked up to Helo, still holding Sharon in his arms. Felix couldn’t even look at her. He helped Helo set her on the ground, which was when he noticed the blood on Helo’s uniform. It was darkest on Helo’s hands- the way he’d been holding her, his hands covered the exit wound. It hadn’t even phased Helo.
Felix went to phone the Admiral. Brass needed to know, just so someone could get the body out of there. As he hung up the phone, he noticed it was covered in a bloody handprint. His bloody handprint. Felix had never seen so much blood in his life. He’d killed cylons on New Caprica, a lot of cylons, but only face to face once, and he’d been too blinded by rage on that ocassion to take note of the aftermath. Seeing it like this was something else entirely.
Helo sat down on a chair. He stiffened up, eyes solidly on the door, Sharon’s body at his feet. Felix couldn’t handle it. He had no idea how Helo did. Felix left the room abruptly and stood outside waiting for the Admiral to show up, trying not to think about what he just saw and how frakked up the whole situation was.
They’d wheeled Sharon’s body away in a body bag. Felix was glad he didn’t have to see the blood all over again, but it was already too late to erase it all. All he had to do was look down at his hands for the reminder. He could hear the Admiral and the President inside chastising Helo. Felix couldn’t bring himself to stay. He’d talk to Helo later, perhaps, if Helo felt like talking. If Felix felt like talking. But not now.
Felix reentered the CIC, where things had remained unchanged. What had only been a few minutes to the people in this room had felt like hours to him.
“Nice of you to rejoin us Lieutenant,” Colonel Tigh said sardonically. Felix didn’t give the comment second thought. Instead, he headed straight to his station.
Louis came down to check on him. “Where have you been?” he asked. “You were supposed to be gone five minutes, it’s been twenty.” Was that all it had been?
“Something came up,” said Felix, willing Louis to go back to his station and leave him be.
Louis didn’t leave. “Are you okay?” he asked after a brief pause.
“I’ll be fine,” replied Felix, his back to Louis as he stared at the DRADIS screen. “She’ll be back.”
There was another brief pause, then the sound of Louis’ boots trailing off behind him. Louis would find out about it later from someone, Felix was sure.
Felix heard the CIC hatch open, then the unmistakable clack of heels enter the room. The Admiral and the President were back. Felix didn’t dare turn and look at them.
“What was the emergency?” he heard Colonel Tigh ask.
“I’ll tell you later,” said Adama. Felix looked over his shoulder to see what sort of expression the Admiral was wearing. His face was stone cold. The President looked none too pleased.
No more than five minutes later, a flash of movement caught Felix’s eye. Louis was running down to the CIC floor. Felix wondered if they’d finally gotten word from the ground. “Picking up a massive energy pulse from the central star,” said Louis.
That snapped Felix out of his trance. Sharon was a cylon, she’d be back. But if that star exploded, nobody else would be. Felix checked the readings on a nearby screen. “Sir, it’s a helium flash, the star’s going nova.”
“Nova’s gonna obliterate the entire planet in less than an hour,” stated the Admiral. Felix didn’t know how he could possibly be so calm.
Felix checked the DRADIS screen again. Still no sign of their ships on the ground. If those ships didn’t move now, there was a good chance they’d be gone forever. Dee was still down there. A few markers disappeared from the DRADIS screen. “Admiral, the cylon fleet just jumped away.”
“They don’t wanna be here when that nova shock front gets here, and neither do we,” said Colonel Tigh.
“Launch rescue mission now,” the Admiral ordered. Felix didn’t want to point out that it may have been too late for that already. Doing so would mean giving up on Dee, and having seen Sharon killed today, Felix didn’t want to lose any more friends.
“We don’t have much time before the nova fries everything in the system,” reported Felix, as he jumped away from the DRADIS station and off to another. He checked the helium levels again to make a quick gauge on time- too little- before darting off again. As soon as those birds docked, the ship would need to jump. That meant prep began now. Instinctively, Felix began running through the steps and checking go stations.
“It’s gonna be a photo finish,” said Tigh.
You can say that again, thought Felix.
‘Too long. Dammit they’re taking too long,’ thought Felix frantically. The ship was ready. All stations were go. The only thing they needed was the confirmation of success, then they’d be out of there. But it was taking too long in Felix’s opinion. Tigh was right when he said it’d be a photo finish. It might be even be closer than that.
“All rescue ships from the planet accounted for,” reported Louis, finally. The flares hadn’t hit them yet, but it was still too close for Felix’s liking. Supernovas were not something to be frakked around with.
“Count us down,” ordered the Admiral, to no one in particular.
“Commence FTL,” Felix relayed to jump support.
“Commencing FTL,” the station reported back to him. Go time.
Felix began counting. “Three. Two. One.” Jump.
The shrinking feeling, then the jolt. A split second, then they were out on the other side. “Report,” ordered the Admiral. They’d made it safely. The fleet was already waiting for them.
Once Felix felt he was able to breathe again, it dawned on him: this was the first time he’d jumped the ship since before New Caprica. It had been almost two years, and yet it still came so naturally to him. What was more, no one in the CIC seemed to question him when he’d taken over the command. Like it was natural to them too. Felix had been in the CIC for weeks, but he’d simply been on the sidelines up until this moment. Now he was a tactical officer again.
The report came up from Tigh that all of the ground personnel, minus a few casualties, had made it back safely. Additionally, Sharon had made it back to the ship, two-year-old in tow. It seemed, came the report from Tigh, that she had also brought a “friend.” Galactica now had yet another cylon prisoner.
Chapter 4
Felix, Admiral Adama, Colonel Tigh, President Roslin, Helo, and Chief Tyrol all stood together around a table in the lab. Felix was dying to know who Sharon had brought back with her, even if he didn’t know what he would say to whoever it was, but he’d been ordered to the lab for research once the words “Eye of Jupiter” made their way up to the CIC. The scriptures said it was a sign pointing to Earth, which Felix wasn’t sure he believed, but he liked working in the lab, so he wasn’t going to complain. The cylon in the cell surely wasn’t going anywhere; no one knew that better than him.
“I think the Chief is right,” said the Admiral, reflecting on what Tyrol had reported when he’d arrived back on Galactica. “I think the nova does look like the mandala inside this temple.”
“Do you think the thirteenth tribe had a vision of what was to come?” asked Roslin. Felix wanted to shake his head. He liked Roslin; she was usually such a sensible, no-balls-about-it woman, but he just couldn’t reconcile the visions with the rest of her. Visions, commands from higher powers, were usually for the weak-minded. Like cylons, for instance.
“I don’t know what else it could mean,” said the Chief, scratching his head.
“Maybe they saw another nova and drew a picture of that. You’ve seen one nova you’ve seen them all,” said Colonel Tigh. Felix snickered. As if the Colonel saw supernovas up close on a regular basis. The Admiral had heard him, and gave him a look that said “get serious.” Felix felt a bit sheepish for a moment. He was on the Admiral’s good side now, but it wasn’t a solid good side.
Felix pulled out the star chart he’d been working on since he’d gotten the order to look for any sort of clues about the meaning of the supernova. It had shocked him to see what he found on the chart, but the coincidence was downright eerie. Felix laid the chart on the table in front of the group. “Well, there was another nova. Seen 4,000 years ago, round about when the temple might have been built. It’s 13,000 light years from our present position. It’s a cloud of gas known as the Ionian Nebula.”
“Maybe it was a road sign,” said the Admiral, “showing the direction that they headed to next.” Felix had never been so sure about Earth. But his belief in coincidence only went so far, and it all seemed too complicated to just be random. Maybe there really was a thirteenth tribe, and maybe they really had found Earth. Or at least tried to.
The next day, Felix decided to see who it was that had come back with Sharon. Felix wasn’t sure how he’d react. Would he want to take out his aggression on them, the way Tigh and Starbuck had with him? Would he feel nothing at all? Something else he wasn’t anticipating?
Felix opened the outer hatch door cautiously. The cylon was sitting down, so he couldn’t see her entirely, but the bleach blond hair was unmistakable. Once he got closer and was able to see her face, he stopped. He recognized her instantly. This wasn’t just any Six. This was Gaius’ Six.
Felix picked up the phone, and motioned her over to do the same. “Six,” he said, greeting her. “Do you have a name you’d rather I call you by?” It felt strange calling her by a number, even though she was cylon. There was something in the look on her face that told him her allegiance no longer lie with the cylons. It didn’t appear to be like the way he and Sharon had changed their minds; it just seemed as if she wanted something different.
“Caprica,” she answered.
“I thought you didn’t like being called Caprica?” Felix asked, recalling that brief conversation on Colonial One.
“Gaius calls me Caprica.” She was still in love with him. Felix immediately felt sorry for her.
“Did you see him while you were on the basestar?” Felix asked. He wasn’t sure if she would have wanted to be with him, in love or not. She had seemed so disenchanted with him by the end on New Caprica. Not that he blamed her.
“He lived with me,” she explained. “And a Three,” she added dejectedly.
“Oh,” said Felix. That would explain why she looked ready to trade in her old life.
“How are they to prisoners here?” Caprica asked.
Felix wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. Surely she wasn’t looking for the full story of Felix’s life for the past few months. But he’d gone through so much that he wasn’t sure a simple answer was possible. Felix looked down to contemplate his reply. It was then he noticed what he had on: his uniform. There was his answer.
“As long as your allegiance is with us? You’ll be fine.”
Felix couldn’t sleep. He’d been fine the night before, even with a toddler now sharing the small room as well, but tonight he couldn’t seem to block it out. The wall had been cleaned, but when he looked at it, all Felix could see was the fresh blood spattered all over it. The fact that Sharon was asleep on the bed nearby didn’t seem to ease his mind any. When it had happened, Felix thought he was unnerved because he’d seen Sharon die. Now, as he lie awake, he realized he’d been unnerved because he knew she’d be coming back. Somewhere along the line, he’d stopped thinking of Sharon as a cylon. She’d become just another human to him, and the harsh wake-up call otherwise had rocked him. He didn’t like the reminder that she was something different. He didn’t like the reminder that he was something different.
Felix tossed back the covers and stood up from his mattress on the floor. He wouldn’t be able to sleep here. Careful not to wake Hera, he opened the hatch and slipped out of the room.
Felix’s path led him to officers’ quarters. He would need to sneak out before reveille, but tonight he’d stay there. It would probably be the only time he would sleep in his old quarters ever again.
Felix opened the hatch to his old bunkroom and crept inside. He quietly made his way to Louis’ bunk- it was easy to find, as it used to be his.
Felix pulled back the curtain just enough to see that Louis was asleep.
“Louis,” Felix whispered, poking him. Louis snored.
Felix prodded him again, but Louis didn’t budge. It was clear he wasn’t going to wake up. Felix wasn’t sure if he should be doing this- they’d never slept together before- but Felix really, really didn’t want to be alone tonight. He was sure Louis wouldn’t mind.
Felix pulled back the curtain a little further, removed his boots, and slipped into the rack with him. Wedging himself between Louis and the wall, Felix pulled the curtain closed again, wrapped his arm around Louis, and lay his head on his shoulder. He didn’t have any trouble sleeping the rest of the night.
Louis’ alarm clock blared. Felix kept his eyes closed, not wanting to get up just yet. He heard Louis groan, then felt Louis shift underneath him.
“Felix? What are you doing here?” Louis asked, the sleep evident in his voice.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Felix mumbled.
“Because of what happened the other day?” he asked. As Felix had predicted, word had gotten around the ship pretty fast.
“Mm hm,” replied Felix.
“She came back,” said Louis simply.
“I know,” said Felix. He knew he had to leave, get out of there before anyone else woke up, but he didn’t want to move. Without the relative privacy of his old cell, this might have been the only chance he would get to talk to Louis about Sharon for a while. He hated to say that he had liked something about being locked up, but the ability to be alone easily was something he missed.
Louis ran his fingers through Felix’s hair. “It’s alright. I don’t think she’ll be doing it again anytime soon.” That was certainly true. “And you know that what you are doesn’t matter at all to me.” Felix knew. Louis had already told him more than once. But it was nice hearing it. “Now get off, you’re squishing me.”
Felix finally rolled over and let Louis out of his rack. He should probably leave as well. They’d see each other on shift shortly. “Thanks,” he said. “For letting me stay.”
“Anytime you need to, baby. My bed is always open,” replied Louis.
A grin spread across Felix’s face. He wiggled his eyebrows at Louis. “Is that an invitation?”
Louis picked up his pillow and threw it at him.
Chapter 5