The major collapsed under her own weight as she looked at the various bodies that literally lined the walls, placed in cubicles for storage. The pain of the physical exertions and the adrenaline of her fear took their toll and she vomited several times before her heart began to slow down. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand her eyes then darted about in confusion.
She forced herself to stand and drew her side arm. With effort of will she took her steps toward the bodies. It became obvious that these weren’t actual humans in some sort of frozen stasis, but models of cylon beings. She started to walk towards the rear of the place but then suddenly stopped at one group. The fear that shook her body was quickly surpassed by revulsion and she fought the feeling to vomit again. This particular model group was of an old man, perhaps in his 60s but it was a familiar face. He was one of her classroom flight instructors and had taught her air command psychology. Hostilely, she hit the glass wall encasing the body, but her hand bounced off leaving no damage. She now understood how the toasters had so easily defeated them.
She crumpled to the floor in her despair. The enemy was right under their noses the entire time. Quietly the rough and tough viper jock pulled her knees to her chest and curled into a fetal position. If they were this far out and could make robots this advanced, how could humans prevail? Feeling that she had not only failed her parents, but her entire species, she mumbled, and finally began to suck her thumb. A habit she continued into adulthood under extreme conditions. Lillian finally passed out from exhaustion and lost track of time.
It was loud raping on the metal door that stirred her to consciousness. Commanding voices from outside beckoned, “Major Assuras! Open the door and you can live. We don’t have any reason to hurt you.” There were 5 cylons and one of the two 6s was being cajoling in her approach and it infuriated the 3s. She endeavored to explain with a sigh, “I don’t need to tell you there is a battlestar in orbit and even though it’s old, it’s more than a match for what we currently have on the planet. They destroy the resurrection facility and we can’t download.
Reinforcements are on their way, we just need to delay her.” Uniformly both of the 3s rolled their eyes and then acknowledged that the major had a good set of ovaries. One of them pushed Lapointe to the door and urged him to talk. He knocked gently and spoke softly, “Major, it’s me, Sydney. Let me in.” Again one of the 3s was quick to note that she wouldn’t open the door and the same cajoling 6 responded that it was according to plan. “Lillian, they will let us survive as a species if we stand down.” Dead silence came from the other side of the door. Lapointe looked at the women and enquired what was next and one of them called for a centurion to come.
It was obvious the one 6 was in charge of this as she did all the speaking. “Thumb sucking and all, she is operating according to her profile. But if for some reason she decides to retreat further into the facility, she will see all the models and that will ruin everything.” The two 3s stood quietly and listened. They gave every appearance of somehow sadistically enjoying the fact that humans were so predictable. The blonde 3 continued, “The actual resurrection bed is located directly across the hall from her. If the centurion begins to knock down the door she will run to it and lock herself in. That should subdue the threat of her seeing more than she should.”
The modern heavy robot walked up and began to hammer forcibly on the door. Not sufficient to immediately break it, but enough to show that it would bust open in several. Inside the major’s eyes went wide and she responded by jumping up and quickly spotting the adjacent room. She ran to it and slammed the door shut just as the centurion broke through. The 3s softly clapped their hands in appreciation and noted that took care of one problem. Lapointe was brought again to the next door and he spoke once more.
“Major they don’t want to hurt you and they want me to come in and talk to you.” Assuras retreated to the rear of the chamber and took cover on the far side of the resurrection bed. Despite the situation, she found the smell discomforting. She trained her gun on the door and watched as it gently opened and the big centurion pushed the lieutenant in the room and then closed it again.
“Traitor!!!” Assuras fired and the bullet whizzed past Lapointe’s head into the door frame behind him.
-----
Bear was barefoot, running through the wooded area at a steady and moderate pace. He had torn off most of clothes and covered himself in mud and various other natural pigments. His mind was singularly focused and his movements were like that of animal intent on catching it’s prey. Abruptly he stopped for a moment, crouched low and whispered in such a way that it would appear that he was having a conversation with someone. “Up there you say.” There was a pause and he stilled his breathing. “Back of the neck and back of knee joints are the week spots. But I will have to make strikes to the neck from the front or above and down. It will be difficult to get in-between the metal shroud and the head.” He proceeded to make sure his gun was secured to his body then lovingly caressed the blade of the old fire axe and softly muttered a prayer asking it’s strength to hold strong.
Sticking close to the ground, the Lieutenant began to stalk up like a wolf-dagget closing in on its victims. Around the other side of some brush was a modern centurion standing watch. It’s back was to Bear and it appeared to not notice the man sneaking up on it. His face was feral and as he got within 3 meters of his goal, every muscle in his body tensed. Pursing his lips together, he made a sound like a wild bird. His whistle aroused hundreds of birds from their perches, momentarily darkening the sky. The large robot careened his head upward to evaluate the commotion and the young man seized the moment and pounced on the machine.
His first strike rang true and struck at the front of the neck sending the head flying off in random direction. The cylon’s body then lifted its arm, guns firing, but the warrior dropped low and simultaneously managed to strike the back of one the knee joints knocking the robot to the ground. Then with a fluid motion he brought the pick of the axe into the back of the machine, causing sparks and debris to shoot off in all directions. With a calm look he smiled to himself as he enjoyed the view of the destroyed mechanism.
Bear finished hiding the remains and continued to talk quietly to the person only he appeared to hear. “Yes grand dad, I know you would have killed it in one blow but I needed 3.” He wasn’t sure how the cylons would react to a missing centurion or if their network registered the missing machine. But he figured a chopped up toaster told more than a missing one. And secretly he hoped that since he took the head off first, it had no way or knowing what had attacked it. After all, the last sound it registered was a disturbance of birds who might have been frightened by, well, anything. And while in the woods, the Lieutenant had noticed extremely large droppings of some sort of wild animal.
He spotted a well-concealed building on the far side of the brush and clearing. Running his thumb across the axe blade he confirmed that there were only nicks in the metal. He cracked a toothy smile and the crouched low to the ground once more. First he had to rescue Sasha, because he needed her to help get Cupcake. After that, he had no clue what to expect or do; he chuckled to himself, long-term strategies weren’t a family trait.
-----
Forester did everything he could to keep his opinions about the new lieutenant and his strategy for stealing the heavy raider to himself. He really gave it absolutely no chance for success, but he was going to give it his all, so that when he died, he could look his wife in the eye and say it was her bright idea that got him there. In a strange way, the Chief looked at this entire situation as a no-lose scenario. If they succeeded he would have helped in the war effort and Alana would be watching him with pride. If they failed, as he believed, he would get to hold her again. He smiled politely at Max as he thought to himself how wonderful it was to find out that there was indeed an afterlife.
Max laid out that plan one last time. Undaunted by the possibility that the centurions would not share his interest in undergarments, Max couldn’t see the fatal flaw in his plan. How do you weave fishing line around rocks, trees and other obstacles without being seen and then expect it to pull cleanly. Unwilling to argue, Forester took his orders like a soldier. But first he said to his friend, “Max… Sir, you know if Scuds wasn’t a drunk and a coward, you would never have been made an officer.” Lieutenant Maxime smiled at him and said something about how keeping his nose clean and doing only as he was told paid off in the end. But Forester just shook his head because the man was best suited to playing with girls and baking cakes. Afterall this time he still couldn’t properly park a hauler without scraping the hull. With a last minute hug between the two men, the Chief snuck off into the forest line.
20 minutes had passed and Forester was barely 40 meters into the woods. At the rate he was preceding it would be next week before he got to the other side. He paused and thought about his wife, she would call him a bigger fool than Max for going along completely with this strategy. Making a funny face he abandoned the entire “saved by ladies underwear scheme”. Instead he just made his way to the opposite side of the clearing. He could now see very clearly one the reasons becoming an officer could be so hard. You had to prove to everyone that you had a brain before they gave you the authority to order men into danger.
He reached the far side and took a deep breath. With a force of will power alone he ran out into the open clearing, started waving his arms and screaming. “Hey Toast-heads! Look at me! I’m a human!” The centurions turned around and opened fire on the man. The chief dove for the ground as dirt and debris ricocheted around him. His only cover was behind a rock that was only big enough to sit on. And it was quickly disappearing as the bullets chipped away at it.
Max was momentarily stunned to see the Chief doing something different from his plan, but he quickly recovered. Taking aim with the riffle it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he should have listened to Forester and save more than 1 bullet, in case he missed. He had cut all of them open for the gunpowder save for one. It was too late to regret his past decision so he fired and nicked the side of one of the drums, fuel spilled out onto the ground. He quickly lit the paper wick and was surprised at how fast it burned. Again he cussed because he now realized that the cotton panties would have been better used. His concern for giving his friend every opportunity to stay alive really clouded his judgement. However, luck was on his side. The fat from the granola casing was ignited and burning well enough that he decided to throw it anyway.
Like a fireball it proceeded to fall apart in the air. Burning granola, fell like spit splatters across the field and the gunpowder finally burst with a feeble explosion in the air further raining down on the ground. Fortunately one part of the plan worked well, the aviation fuel on the ground made contact with some of the burning matter and its flame quickly spread to the other fuel drums. The centurions had turned their attention and began raining their assault in the direction of the Lieutenant.
As their firing drew closer, the tanks grew hotter and finally a handful of seconds after the burning began, they exploded. The fires burned hot and force of the eruption destroyed all that was nearby including the advancing robots, but save for the heavy raider. As the fires died down the two men slowly got up from their hiding spots and looked at each other. Bewilderment slowly turned to laughter as they began to run toward each other. As the two men met, the Chief threw himself to the ground and began to roll around in the grass like a child, kicking his legs in the air. This continued for several moments and finally they began to settle, breathing heavy from exhaustion.
Max was the first to speak, “I can’t fraking believe that worked. What did you do with Sasha’s panties?” The Chief stifled a laugh as he focused on the job at hand. “We must find and remove something in the plane called a brain-box.” He then made his way to the craft.
-----
“So you’re cooperating with the fraking cylons!” Cupcake had a gun pointed at Lapointe and she wasn’t going to lower it. He quickly retorted that it wasn’t like that. That being an enemy sympathizer was the last thing in the world that he wanted to do but he had to face the cold realities of the situation. “Lillian, the war is over and we lost. Every single battlestar and ship in the fleet has been wiped out, the colonies are destroyed.” The Major ran up to him and stood in his face screaming that in war the enemy always lies to get what it wants. The Lieutenant just stood with a remorseful face.
After much screaming and yelling the major finally slumped to the floor again and pulled her knees up to her chest. She thudded the butt of her side arm against her forehead trying to figure out what she was going to do next. But there were no ideas coming forth.Lapointe once again ventured the chance to speak and she cut him off. “Sydney, shut your fraking mouth!”
The Lieutenant sighed and tried again as he pulled a small media device out of his pocket. “Lillian, they showed me this. It’s president Aidar giving an unconditional surrender. The war is over and we are out of jobs.” She just shook her head trying desperately to figure a way out of her current predicament and ignore what Sydney was saying.
“Major I’m not trying to hurt you. But the colonies are gone too. We are the only survivors and they will let us live if we don’t fight them.” She rolled her eyes at the man as he said the words. He walked over and sat down beside her but refrained from touching her. “Lillian, we are the last humans. They will let us settle this planet if we stand down.”
The Major rubbed her temples and thought about captain Reeves. She started to hope that he would do another crazy manoeuvre, like when he rescued the crew of the Poseidon, and save her from this mess. As she thought of the man she found herself asking a strange question. “They will let us settle this planet?” The idea of pursuing a relationship with Reeves was now close to the surface of her thoughts. Lapointe looked at her and acknowledged that yes they could settle the planet.
Major Assuras smirked and grimaced at the same time. The insanity of it all made her pause and consider her current state. Giant metal robots with big guns were outside the door, she knew that all her family was dead and that humanity was on the edge of extinction. But her mind pushed past this grave reality and wondered what it would be like to play house with the captain. She put the gun down and asked if Lapointe was certain they weren’t lying to him.
“Lil’ there is something else you need to know.” He paused for a moment and finally touched her cheek in a gentle stroke with the back of his hand. “Admiral Hallis has been taken prisoner and Toaster one was destroyed.” She looked at him in shock and he continued to answer the question her mind was scared to voice. “There were no survivors, Reeves wouldn’t stand down. Not even after the Admiral ordered him to.”
This had happened too fast and it didn’t make sense to her, but Lapointe rationalized it by reminding her how fast the Poseidon and the fleet had been destroyed. Her mouth opened to scream but not a single sound came forward as her entire body tensed and then dropped into a spasm. She reached up like an infant searching for help and found the Lieutenants arms slip around her body to hold her. Without realization to what was happening around her or why, Lapointe kissed her mouth hard and momentarily the pain she felt subsided. He pressed against her a second time and found even less resistance.
The Major was spent and couldn’t resist and couldn’t make sense of her surroundings. Like a drug-induced haze, everything around her became surreal and he sexually took advantage of her. Overwhelmed, her thoughts remained with the Reeves and the idea of what might have been.