New Fic: Edge (6/30)

[lurker2209]

Author: Lurker2209
Spoilers: Through Razor, a few references to S4. Nothing for 4.5
Characters/pairing: OC heavy, ultimately K/L
Warnings: This chapter is rated PG-13, as a whole the story is R, for mature themes, violence, profanity, etc
Disclaimer: The show belongs to Ron and Sci-fi, et al. But Petra is all mine!
Summary: What if rough patches are all you’ve ever known?  For more a decade the fleet has wandered the wilderness of stars.  The hope of promised Earth dims.  Destruction seems inevitable, either by the overwhelming force of the cylon armada, or the ravage of cold space.  Humanity grows desperate, none so desperate as young Petra Thrace.   Survival is a game she knows well, even if it is always rigged against her.   “If you wanna to survive here, you gotta always remember one thing: Nobody gives a frak.”
Cross-posted: to
beyond_insane and bsg2003fics 
A/N: You'd be completely justified in assuming I had abandoned this story.  I'm excited to say it's complete, all 70,000+ words of it, due to the wonder of NaNoWriMo.  I'll be posting once a week or so, as I continue to edit. As the chapters are novel-length, each is divided into several posts. I want to also give a big shout-out to artemis90 and uberscribbler  for being awesome beta's.

Previous Chapters

Chapter 1, Orphans: A, B, C
Chapter 2, Sharps: A, B.
 
Chapter 2: Sharps
Part C
I couldn’t sleep. Joining the Fleet was a brilliant idea and the excitement of it all kept me awake. I kept walking through the silent corridors of The Rising Star planning what to say to the recruiter, remembering the way my mother had walked and talked. Or maybe I needed to act more like the nuggets who had always been so nervous to get into the cockpit and eager to do everything right. The recruiter wouldn’t like it if I acted like a know-it-all, as if I was better than everyone because I already knew the ropes.

I wondered if anyone there would recognize me. It had been four years, almost five. It might be best not to say anything, not to expect anything from anyone like the Chief or Helo or Hotdog. Recruits probably didn’t even see the Admiral at first. Besides, if anyone did recognize me as Petra Thrace, they’d figure out I wasn’t sixteen. If they knew who I was, they’d probably just send me back to child services. So I’d better keep it a secret until I was too good a pilot to send away.

Would they let me sign up for flight training right after the six-week basic training course? Probably not; I’d have to prove myself, earn my way doing all the scut work on the ship first. That was okay, just being on Galactica would be enough. Even if they made me spend a few months in the kitchens before someone let me take the flight entrance test. But when I did take it, I’d get the highest score. Frak, I remembered half the protocols and engine parts from just listening to my mom and the other pilots. I’d be a natural. The thought of my first CAP filled my imagination. A whole squadron of raiders would jump in to surround the Fleet. With guns blazing, I would point my viper into the thick of them. Before the alert vipers could even launch, half of them would be blown to bits. I’d be a hero. And then, I’d tell them who my mother was.

Finally I found a public restroom and fell asleep against a wall. I dreamed I was in the debriefing room for the first class, my mom walked in to teach us. Except the entire class was taking place on a cylon base ship and Hera kept telling me everything was okay. When I woke up, I tried not to think about it. I hadn’t had a dream like that in a long time, where I dreamed my mom was alive. There had been a lot of them when I’d first been in foster care, with Hagget. I splashed water on my face; I didn’t want to think about him either. I had to hurry, the Recruiter’s Office opened at eight and it was already seven-thirty.

* * *

“Look, Effie, isn’t it?”

I nodded; I was going to have to get used to that name.

“Effie, it’s great that you want to join the Fleet. We need more young people with your enthusiasm. But for now, you need to go back home and give that ID back to your friend or big sister.”

I sat in the Fleet Recruiter’s Office.  Everything about the interview had been going so well. But he still saw through me.

“I’m just short, like my mom and dad.” I tried again; I had to.  But his eyebrow slid up his forehead and I knew he was never going to buy it.

“Maybe, but you’re still not sixteen. You might fool FleetSec in a crowd or some factory manager who doesn’t care to look closely, but this is the Colonial Fleet.  We don’t let kids do the fighting.”

I bit my lip. I only had one card left to play, but I had to try.

“But I’m not just any kid. I know every inch of Galactica. I can tell you how a Viper engine works. My mom was Kara Thrace. Starbuck.”

The recruiter chuckled. Chuckled!

“That’s a new one, kid. Starbuck’s kid! We get a lot of kids in here who want a pilot slot ‘cause they claim to be Hotdog’s lovechild, or Crashdown’s, or even sometimes Apollo’s. But Starbuck’s kid? You’re original; I’ll give you that.”

“It’s true. She was my mom. I’ve got her dog tags back in my room.”

“Back in your room?  Right. Look, even if you were Starbuck’s kid, you’re not sixteen. So instead of letting you join up, I’d have to call up the Child Welfare System. Do you want that?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, then. You come back in a couple of years when you’re sixteen.”

I stood and walked out. There was no reason to stay and keep arguing. He wasn’t going to let me go back.

“And kid?”

I turned around.

“You want to be a pilot when you’re sixteen, an officer? Then, quit lying.  It won’t get you anywhere.”

I wanted to punch him. I wasn’t lying. But it wouldn’t do any good. I took a deep breath and walked out of the office.

At the end of the corridor, in an alcove near the lift, was a small porthole. On this side of the ship the strange stars were obscured by the formation of the fleet. I could pick out the Aurora, the Persephone, and the Hitei Kan. Behind the Hitei Kan was the oddly shaped Liberty, the cylon baseship we’d captured when I was seven. Helo was probably back there already, with Athena and Hera. I tried not to think about them. It was easier to just look at the stars.

The brightest star - a sun, really - was Vigrid. Beyond it, I could just make out the tiny, red disc that was the gas giant Hoddholt and its safe blanket of cylon-proof radiation. Hoddholt was a refuge that had kept us alive for years, but for the past weeks the fleet had been orbiting a nearby moon, Mimis. Mimis had water we badly needed. If the cylons didn’t attack again, I might be able to take a shower soon. The water-mining was supposed to finish up soon. As I watched the ships move, the bulwark of Galactica  came into view.

They weren’t going to take me back. Galactica was no place for an orphaned kid. After all, that was why they’d sent me away - saying I was better off with Julia. I walked away from the window. It was too hard to see Galactica there, as if the ship herself was taunting me.  Sixteen. It seemed unreal, distant as Earth, four endless years. Four years ago I had a mother.

Tears built up under my eyelids. Throwing my head back and swallowing didn’t stop them. I wiped them out of my eyes with the heel of my hand. I couldn’t do this. I knew if I started crying I’d never stop. Because I couldn’t go back to Galactica. Because I knew now that no one was going to come rescue me from this life. I was on my own.

Why was the fleet like this? Why was everything so unfair? And then I wasn’t crying anymore, because I was mad. So many horrible things happened and no one ever did anything about it.  No one cared about the kids in the placement system, or which grown-ups took them and if they were nice people or nasty ones that hit you… or worse.

Fine then. So what if nobody wanted me? I didn’t need them. I didn’t need any of them. I had my ID card and my knife. The rest of the universe could go frak itself. I started walking down the hallway to find the lift and get to the hangar deck. Time to get off this ship. Time to go somewhere. I’d figure it out. I could go anywhere I wanted -almost anywhere. But what was the frakking point of going anywhere?

I started to hear music, like people singing. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere in the echoing corridor. As I walked, I realized it was coming from a small room, and not just any room, a small temple. The hymn ended and I walked inside as the priest began the catechism.

“Ex Caligne, Chaos. Ex Chaos et Caligne, Nyx, Dies, Erebus, Aether…”

I twisted my wrist in front of my chest in the adoratio gesture as I entered the room and joined the last row of worshippers. The Gods would know what I was supposed to do now. They were Gods.

The service ended.  I stood in the back of the sanctuary, waiting for some kind of revelation.  Most of the people left, talking quietly. A few paused in front of one of the shrines to make an offering. But a knot of people gathered near the front of the room. I walked forward to see what was going on.

“Please, I need to talk to the Oracle. I have an important decision to make,” a woman with expensive-looking clothes demanded the priest.

“I can make a generous donation,” protested man in a nice suit.

“The Gray Lady will see who she wishes to see,” the priest said firmly. “She follows only the dictates of the Fates.”

“But I…” the woman tried.

“And she already knows who seeks her. Wait here.”

The priest disappeared into the other room. I waited. Finally he returned. He looked over the group of petitioners, and finally his eyes settled on me.

“The Gray Lady will see you, girl.” He obviously disapproved. The Gray Lady might only care for fate, but the priest seemed to prefer the rich man’s money.

The other room was more of a closet. An old woman sat inside, a lamp to her left. I sat close in front of her, legs crossed, since there wasn’t anywhere else. Here, face to face with her, I didn’t know how to ask what I wanted.

“Tell me child, what brings you here?”

“I want to know what to do. I want to know my fate.”

“Your fate…” the old woman laughed, a loud sound from such a tiny frail person. It was kind of spooky.

“You should know,” she continued, suddenly stern, “you of all people must understand, that fate, even Fate herself, is sometimes victim to chance.”

“Then I-”

“You spite the Fates, child, from the first moment of your existence. You spite fate,” she repeated sadly, “and all lies in shambles.”

I sat stunned, silent. How could I be so important?

“It’s not your fault,” she spoke again, gently.

“I’m just, I’m just so lost,” I admitted.

She smiled wryly, “You, of all people, can never be lost.”

“Huh?”

“To be lost, is to be out of place,” she said, as if I was missing something obvious. I frowned.

“Earth may be lost,” she continued, “the Harbinger lost, the Fleet lost in space, but not you. You are never truly lost. I cannot see your fate, child, but so many things are lost. Perhaps is their fate that you find them.”

“Perhaps?” Wasn’t she supposed to know that?

“It’s all up to you.”

She bowed her head. It was a clear dismissal. I stood and slipped out through the curtain. I didn’t understand most of what she said. She didn’t actually answer my questions.

Was I really supposed to find Earth? I was just a kid. And they wouldn’t let me even join the Fleet, let alone fly, so how could I possibly find Earth? She’d also talked about the whole fleet being lost, but since I was in the fleet now, I didn’t see how trying to find it made any sense. Then there was this ‘harbinger’; I didn’t even know what that was. But maybe those were just examples. Maybe I should start small and work my way up. Outside the temple, I decided that the first lost thing I needed to find was my bag on the Zeusuda. The maybe I would find some ‘lost’ cash. As I pushed the button for the lift, I decided I really needed to appropriate some ‘lost’ water. I needed a shower, badly.

I stepped out of the lift into the corridor and had to jump aside to avoid getting ploughed down. But the running FleetSec officer stopped and turned to face me.

“There you are!”

I spun to the opposite direction, but I took only two steps before his rough hands grabbed my shoulders. I panicked at his touch, tried to pull away, to get away from him. He pulled my arms behind me roughly and snapped the cuffs on them. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t calm down. The second he grabbed my arms I was back I that room on the Picon Princess with the blue wallpaper and the painting of an ancient castle.  I tried to push the images away, but they kept coming.

“You should have kept running until you were off the ship, kid.  Did you think I wouldn’t remember what you looked like?”

Finally he let go of me, and I started to breathe again. Stupid panic attacks.

I looked up at him. What in Hades was going on? This had to be about the break in.  But when had he seen me?

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said.

“Don’t bother lying.” He marched me down the hall. I flinched when he touched me again, but I managed not to freak out again. “I got a good look at you. I’m Nathan Lane, and I never forget a face.  You’re going to tell me exactly who put you up to this and how they pulled it off.”

“Huh?” I had to get away from him. If Simon had done something stupid after I left to get FleetSec involved, I wasn’t taking the fall for it.

“Who was it? The Soldiers of Perfection? The Sons of Ares?”

Wait, what? The Soldiers of Perfection were a bunch of nutso cylon-lovers who even Baltar had disavowed. The Sons of Ares were constantly calling the Old Man a coward for not hitting the cylons harder. Why would FleetSec think either of them had anything to do with breaking into the Office of the Department of Education?

“What’s your name, girl?”

O crap!  I couldn’t give him my real name, and if I told him Effie, I couldn’t use that ID to get off the ship.

“Claire. Claire Quine.”

“Give me your ID.”

“I lost it.” Of course, if Lane searched me he’d find the fake. Please, Lady Artemis, don’t let him search me. Aside from the matter of the ID, the idea of his hands on me again gave me chills.

Thankfully, Lane pushed me along the hallway. I noticed that it was deserted. None of this made sense. Something weird was going on. I had to get away from him soon.

When we walked onto the flight deck, the bustle of civilian shuttles and trade haulers from yesterday was gone. A few grounded shuttles sat on the deck. The only people walking around were FleetSec officers. Lane dragged me over to a crowd of poorly dressed people who were standing in one corner under the watch of other FleetSec officers.

Lane asked one of the officers watching the uneasy crowd where the sergeant was.

“Left to see to something. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’ve got to find him. I found her. That girl I saw. See,” he pointed at me, “she was there. She’s responsible for this. I know it.”

“Maybe,” the other officer, didn’t seem to care much one way or another. Typical. He scratched his full, reddish beard. “She’s just a kid, Lane. You really think she could be behind the bombing?”

Bombing? Was that what they thought I’d done. Oh, frak.

“I don’t know anything about any bombing!” I interrupted.

“You shut up,” Lane jerked on my arm to make the point. “She’s part of it. It’s clever. No one would suspect a kid. No one but me. And she’s hiding something. I know it. She doesn’t even have ID.”

“Just put her with the detainees until the Sarge gets back.”

“No, I’d better find him. Right away. She might know something. What if there’s another one?”

The second man shrugged. Lane led me to a stairway at the edge of the crowd. He unlocked the handcuffs, then fastened one of them around the staircase that came from the upper level. The other one he snapped back onto my wrist. I was afraid he was going to search me then, but instead he grabbed my bundle and starting rifling through it. That was better. The bundle just had the school uniform.

“Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do it. I was talking with the Oracle. ”

“Yeah, what’s this?” He waved the school clothes at me. “Exact same thing I saw you wearing two hours ago, running away from the explosion.”

“No, no. Two hours ago..” I tried to remember how much time had passed, “I was talking to the Fleet Recruiter.”

“I’m sure,” He laughed. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even understand what I was being accused of, so how could I lie my way out of it?

“You’d better stop lying to the police, or it will just get worse. The President’s alive, but two good FleetSec men are dead tonight.”

What!?

“You think about that while I get the Sergeant. It’ll go a whole lot better for you if you tell us the truth.”

I tried to process his words as he walked away. Two people were dead and he thought it was my fault? They thought I’d tried to kill the President? I couldn’t think of anything Simon and I had done that would lead to this. It had to be some huge mistake. I had to convince Lane I wasn’t the girl he’d seen. The other officer had been a little skeptical. It was just nuts.

“This is outrageous!” A loud voice carried above the others in the crowd, which was bunched together not far from where I was cuffed to the staircase. The stairs were in a shadow and no one in the crowd had noticed me yet. I didn’t want the attention, but I was curious what this man had to say. I shifted, not quite out of the shadows, but enough to hear better.

“They’ve been detaining us for hours now.” The speaker was thin, with taped together gloves, and he seemed more alive, more angry, than the others. “Apparently, we don’t meet their security criteria.”

Someone asked a question that I didn’t hear, but the response was louder.

“The rumor is someone put a bomb in the President’s Office. Walter here says he felt it.” The crowd thinned a little as ‘the thin man’ presented his witness. Walter looked pretty drunk but beamed at the sound of his name.

“Shook like a shell exploding,” he injected enthusiastically.

“The President is expected to live,” the Thin Man continued. “I heard it on the wireless. They have no evidence against any of us. And yet, they’ve corralled us here like animals.”

“It ain’t right!” someone else yelled.

“What are they going to do with us?” a woman asked.

“Throw us off the ship!” the Thin Man announced dramatically. “They’ve been hauling people away in shuttles for the last hour.”

“Not right. We haven’t done anything wrong,” the crowd clamored.

“It’s absurd,” The Thin Man said. “They say we’re a security risk. But it’s all a pathetic excuse! An excuse to cleanse their precious ship of riff-raff like us. They think we’re not worthy of breathing their air!”

The people around him murmured in agreement. The thin man’s anger was spreading. Even I was a little mad, despite that a part of me thought all these people had it lucky. They didn’t have any handcuffs on.

“Hey you. Shut up!” the bearded FleetSec officer called into the crowd.

“You’ve already violated our Article Twenty-One Rights by detaining us without just cause. Do you really mean to deny us the Right to Free Speech as well?” The Thin Man didn’t seem afraid. If anything he looked to be enjoying having an opponent. He was either brave or stupid. Probably both, but he talked smart.

“I mean to keep you from starting a riot. You’ve all just been guests on this ship, at the pleasure of Captain Balmer and now you’re being asked to move on to some other ship. We have to keep order.”

“The only thing you’ll keep is tyranny and oppression, and you’ll only keep it if good men refuse to stand against their oppressors.” The crowd cheered; it felt like a crazy haze of power. It was like they could do anything, even if FleetSec had the guns. Of course, FleetSec didn’t always have ammunition. Maybe the Thin Man was trying to cause a riot. A riot would be a great way to escape the cuffs, but since all the shuttles were grounded, how would I get off the ship?

Suddenly three of the FleetSec officers pushed through the crowd, towards the Thin Man. The crowd pushed back, and the bearded officer pulled out his weapon. The Thin Man punched him hard in the gut, to the cheers of the crowd. But the officer struggled to his feet. I could see his gun flash, catching the light. Then I heard the crack as he fired. The crowd fell silent as the Thin Man fell backwards. I guess this time FleetSec did have bullets.

Another officer reached down to feel the neck of the fallen man. He shook his head, so two of the officers carried the body away. The shocked, frightened crowd stayed quiet; a few people sat down on the floor. A baby cried. This was a disaster: a clusterfrak like nothing I’d gotten myself into before.

Note: The 'catechism' should be properly attributed to Hyginus' Fabulae. Rough translation is "From Mist: Chaos. From Mist and Chaos: Night, Day, Darkness, Sky...."