Fic: Lost in Space on a Desert Island (3/3)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Title: Lost in Space on a Desert Island (3/3)
Author: merrykk
Characters: Kara, Boomer, Dee, Cally
Spoilers: None, set pre-series
Length: 10,500 words
Rating: PG-13 for language and action violence
Summary: Kara ends up stuck on a Raptor repair flight that has a lot more trouble than the brochure indicated, and she has to work with a new team if she's going to get them out of the trouble in one piece.

For lyssie, who asked for “Kara, Athena and Dee on a recon mission, possibly shooting down some Cylons or human pirates. C'mon, there had to be human pirates at SOME point. (Athena flies the raptor, Dee's there for communications and also it's her turn on the roster, and Kara's there to mock raptors for their inefficiency and general lack of sexiness) - OR, Boomer could be there, which could put it pre-series or season one.”

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

The sun had scarcely moved from its former spot as all four of them crested the ridge, crawling on their bellies. Silently, Kara waved Sharon and Cally to her right, and then Dee to her left. They moved off, and Kara settled her gun into a hollow, nestling it where she could get a good shot. The sight didn’t give much range of vision, but she found the main guard, still pacing.

Glancing to her right, Sharon and Cally were making good time down the ridge near to the side of the building, flanked by a slight swell of the ridge. Kara couldn’t even see where Dee had gotten to on her left.

A few seconds later, her radio buzzed. “Checkpoint reached,” Dee’s voice came in quietly. “There are two rear guards, and I think I can hit them both. One might go around the corner, though; Kara can get that one, though.”

“Okay, we’re ready to step in,” Sharon’s voice chimed in afterwards.

“Five count, then,” Kara said, bringing her eye to the sight. “Begin count in three, two, one, mark.” She had her crosshairs centered on the guard as she counted down from five, then, trigger pulled. She’d aimed right for the thigh, unguarded. He jerked, spun around, gun raised, put a hand to his chest as if for a radio, then fell.

“Sharon, Cally, target down, move in,” Kara ordered quickly, scanning the horizon.

“Guards both down, barely,” Dee’s voice followed.

Kara waited, watched as Sharon and Cally darted towards the building, then glanced at her stopwatch and marked the time. She moved down the slope quickly, the sand falling under her feet, almost sending her falling a couple times.

“No one inside, yet; the compound’s pretty open,” Sharon’s whisper came in over the radio.

“Just find the parts we need,” Kara ordered back quickly. She reached the floor of the valley where the compound was just ahead of her. Passing the guard she’d tranquilized, not even bothering to look down at him, she pulled up outside the door that Sharon and Cally had used. It was tall and wide, almost too heavy for a human to open manually. Positioning herself at the corner, she could just barely see into the building, but couldn’t place anything in particular.

Time was wasting, and even though nothing sounded on the radio yet, Kara didn’t trust that reinforcements wouldn’t be on the way. Her trigger finger tensed, ears ready for any sound.

Her radio spiked and she almost jolted.

“Kara, enemy troops,” Sharon gasped through. “We got the first wave, but—”

Her voice broke off.

Kara was moving in, one hand on her trigger, the other on the radio. “I’m coming in; Dee, get to my exit, now!”

She kicked the door open, darted through the metal crates in the warehouse-like room, saw the split in the aisle ahead where the warehouse ended. A hand moving to her belt as she ran, she found the real ammo and replaced the tranqs in her gun.

A body lay on the floor, a woman in a kind of military gear, gun and vest, darkened safety goggles obscuring her face and contrasting with the white-blonde curl peeking from underneath. Kara saw the blood pooling out, and knew that Sharon had handled it.

Another body lay a few feet off as Kara heard sounds, turned into the room full of open machinery and spare parts.

Sharon spun around, gun ready, eyes sharp, but lifted her aim as soon as Kara appeared.

“Status,” Kara said sharply, coming forward.

“We got them before they got close to us,” Sharon said, looking over and down to where Cally was standing and ripping wires out of what looked like a mortar launcher. “Cally was amazing, she put most of a clip into the second one before I even saw him, so I don’t think they had time to send any communications.”

Kara lifted her eyebrow, but seeing the fierce look on the small mechanic’s face, it didn’t stay a surprise. “Parts?”

“We got the first one,” Sharon said, digging in her pocket and pulling out a small spanner shaped item.

Kara started moving back, grabbing the spanner and tucking it in. “I’ll get the perimeter, clear it for you when you have the second one. Speed, people!”

She moved back out, seeing and hearing nothing as she reached the exit of the warehouse again. The door had swung closed, and she wrenched it open, eyes scanning the outside in a second.

It was all clear before she heard a choking sound from her left. Her gun went faster than her eyes, and it was the guard she’d tranquilized at first. She swore loudly, because there was no way a normal human should have been able to recover that fast, and Dee had assumed the same. He’d snuck behind her, wrenched her gun arm out of the way, put a gun to her throat and held her as a shield, small as she was.

“Don’t move!” Kara ordered, mind spinning, jaw tightened. She could see Dee’s panic, but she was struggling, her moves just what they should be in the situation.

The guard seemed to have no trouble holding her, and didn’t notice Dee’s kicks, his body twisted enough away that she couldn’t strike with her free arm. “This isn’t how it should be,” he said through gritted teeth.

Kara couldn’t read his expression behind the scruffy blonde beard, but his eyes stared straight at her, piercing and strange. He looked crazed. She swallowed, keeping her aim on his face, almost ready to brave his gun at Dee’s head.

“Kara—” Dee gasped out, still struggling, still twisting against the man’s grip on her.

“This isn’t your stream to travel along,” the man said in an oddly calm voice. “Our paths shouldn’t be meeting. Drop the gun.”

Dee’s right leg kicked out wildly, and the man twisted slightly, adjusting his grip. The broad shoulder of his gun arm, unprotected by his vest, was laid open. He might be crazy, and crazy strong, but he wasn’t perfect.

“Not a chance, motherfrakker,” Kara said with a slight cock of her head, and she sent a bullet straight to his shoulder. The man’s gun hand shifted, the barrel leaving Dee’s temple. She ducked her head, drawing to the side, and Kara shot him in the thigh.

The man grunted, his arm loosening. Dee slammed her elbow into his gut and darted forward, picking up the gun she’d dropped and breathing heavily. Sending a bullet into the man’s other thigh, Kara stepped forward, kicking his gun away, and kicking his face in. She grabbed the gun, running back to the exit.

“Thanks,” Dee said, slightly breathless as she took up her defense position again.

“Part of the mission,” Kara said shortly, with a shrug, shaking off the weirdness of this whole thing. A few more minutes and they should be out.

“Kara, get in here, now!” Sharon’s voice was sharp, not so much ordering as needing.

Glancing to Dee, Kara gritted her teeth and didn’t come forward. “Sharon, we’re a bit busy guarding your asses!”

“They’re developing nukes here.”

“Shit!” Kara cursed automatically. Dee’s eyes widened. This changed things; no wonder they didn’t seem like your ordinary smugglers.

“It’s not far enough that they’ll explode, so shouldn’t we—Kara, we can’t just leave!”

This was not supposed to happen, none of this. It was beyond any mission parameters, so far beyond even command parameters. But they only had one opportunity, and Kara considered defense just a moment before preemptive offense.

“You have the part?” she demanded over the radio.

“Kara, the radio chatter’s growing strong, they know we’re here in the other buildings, they’re on their way,” Dee reported from across the way.

“We’re all ready to go,” Sharon answered.

Kara spoke firmly into the speaker. “Have Cally set charges for the C4 you have in your belt, come out with the detonator.”

“Understood!” Sharon’s voice answered.

“What are we doing, Kara?” Dee asked, as Kara started stepping back, heading up for the ridge.

“We’re blowing the hell out of this place,” Kara said, waving her hand for Dee to follow, backing up as they eyed the horizon. “Confusion ensues, we might get a few of their reinforcements, and we don’t have to come back to deal with this problem later.” As the words came out, she knew that they were wartime ones, but frak it all, survival was a war and these might as well be terrorists they faced.

Dee didn’t say anything, just stood a few feet from Kara, gun ready.

They saw Sharon and Cally rush out a few seconds later, sprinting across the sand between them. Kara took the detonator from Sharon as they started running up the hill, as Dee relieved Cally of the part, helping her up the slope, still breathless from their run across the warehouse.

“Move, move, move!” Kara ordered, and before they were at the top of the ridge, she’d pressed the red button.

The entire island seemed to shift under them, sound blasting their ears, a heatwave coming only a second behind, the last push they needed to get up over the ridge. The first building’s explosion had set off a chain reaction in something, and it had blasted out to the second one as well.

“Don’t look back,” Kara ordered, pushing her people in front of her as they ran. No time to think about the fact that they had just executed a kill order without authorization, no time to think about the fact that they’d just used all that training that they weren’t supposed to have to use in peacetime.

Stumbling, half tripping, down the other side of the ridge, they saw the Raptor ahead of them, still undiscovered.

“Their radio’s all over the place!” Dee said through gulping breaths, as they leaned against the door.

“Cally!” Kara ordered sharply, knowing that they needed the mechanic if all of them were to get off this stupidly dangerous island. She handed over the part in her pocket, Dee leaning in to help Cally with the other one.

Cally’s hands were shaking, probably with exertion as much as the fear in her wide eyes, judging by the sweat running down her face and slicking her bangs to her forehead. But adrenaline worked wonders.

Kara climbed past them, getting into the pilot’s seat, Sharon following to take the other seat. Kara started the computer, commanded it to calculate a jump to near-Tauron space, not remembering if they’d fixed the glitch enough that they could risk anything closer.

“Kara, you have to bypass the tertiary checkpoints,” Dee called from the back.

As Kara’s hand hesitated above the buttons, her mind not focusing on the right term, Sharon leaned over, inputting the controls with urgency but with purpose.

“It helps to be a proper Raptor monkey,” she said, giving a Kara a tight smile as she sat back.

“Yes, it does,” Kara acknowledged, finishing the coordinates, breathing in deeply to get her mind back in the game. She could barely remember what the morning had been like before this adrenaline high entered her veins.

“It should work, we’ve got to go!” Cally suddenly cried, and Kara heard the slamming of the metal engine door.

“Computer systems active, and I don’t see anything coming for us,” Dee reported.

Kara’s hands found the levers and wheel before her mind fully remembered what she was doing, and with a bit of a jerk and a jolt, she started the engine, pulling them out of the sand bank and up to hover.

“No malfunctions yet,” Cally called, but Kara didn’t care.

The Raptor rose up, and Kara put it into the closest to full burn that it had, driving them up to the upper atmosphere and not caring the way the Raptor rattled and pressed them back against their seats even with inertial dampeners.

“We’re jumping!” she called, just as she pressed the final command.

The Raptor compressed, the world twisted, and then suddenly it was all silent and the space around them was nothing but black.

A collective exhalation filled the Raptor. Kara leaned back in her chair and felt a laugh escape her mouth.

“Just for thoroughness, we weren’t followed,” Dee said dryly from the back. “And we’re mostly where we should be.”

“Gods, I can’t believe we just did that,” Sharon said breathily, wiping her face still sweat-dampened.

Kara nodded, swallowing, clearing her throat. “Good job, people, good job.”

“You were fantastic, Cally!” Sharon said turning back.

“I’ll vouch for that too,” Dee added, as Kara turned back.

The mechanic looked pale, but she offered a wry smile.

“Chief did good to send you,” Kara said, feeling oddly proud of her. “And Dee, why the hell did you choose CIC work anyways? Your field work isn’t half bad.”

“I have no desire to live like this,” Dee said wryly, and Kara wasn’t surprised at all.

“It seems strange now that it’s all over,” Sharon said, and Kara saw that her eyes were still bright, even though she was breathing heavily. “What was all that?”

Kara shook her head. “No—don’t do that. Look, we were all caught in a tight space. We dealt with it.”

“But how are we going to brief it?” Sharon asked, sounding a little worried.

“We don’t,” Kara said shortly.

“What do you mean?” Dee asked, gaze narrowed.

“Look, the point is, we shouldn’t have gotten involved, according to the rules,” Kara said, leaning back a little in her chair and closing her eyes for a second. “We did, and yes, we made it through, and we don’t need to have anything on our consciences. But our records aren’t going to look great with vigilante reports on them, even if we come through the court martial clean.” She glanced back, saw sobered looks on the other three faces. She grinned a little, even with all the seriousness. “Not like I think reputation should matter, but in this matter, believe me, mum’s the word is going to be fine.”

“So we’re not going to mention to Adama or the CAG that we blew up a terrorist base?” Sharon asked, an eyebrow slightly raised.

“I’m not,” Kara said with a shrug.

“You know, I think I’m okay with that,” Cally said, her tone sounding suddenly easy, as if a burden had been lifted. “I’m not even sure what I did back there.”

“Okay, Kara, you’ve got a point,” Dee said, putting a hand to her forehead.

“We did good today, and we know it, and that matters a hell of a lot more than anything else in the world,” Kara said, knowing that they had to hear it, and she was the only one who would tell them it. “So, our Raptor crashed, we scavenged the parts we needed, and we’re back. None of you got injured, right?”

“Just did the injuring,” Cally said darkly.

Kara chuckled, long and low. “All right, let’s catch our breath then, and head back to the old bucket.”

“Thank you, Kara,” Sharon said after a second, giving Kara a close look.

“Don’t mention it,” Kara said, with a twist of her lips. “Seriously, because Tigh would have my ass in the brig if he knew I took your command while supposed to be on cooldown.”

“Well, I could tell him I basically loaned it to you, but that’s too much explanation,” Sharon said lightly.

Kara nodded. Cally and Dee were wiping up in the back, and they all handed back their weapons to be put into the Raptor kit. By the time those supplies were checked, the end of the month at the earliest, no one would be able to connect the loss of a couple clips of bullets and tranquilizers to them. The air got a little steamy with all the sweat, and after nearly a quarter of an hour, Kara was ready to get back to Galactica and a shower.

“Okay, the jump to Galactica should be really simple, even if we do go a little off course,” Dee said.

“And I think I know what to tell Chief about what was wrong with it in the first place,” Cally said, settling back into her seat, the color back in her face as it should be.

“Always nice when we can say mission accomplished,” Kara said with a final smirk.

“I’d better take pilot’s seat, then,” Sharon said, shrugging.

Kara switched places with Sharon, stretching her shoulder a little, and ready for the easy little ride back to the hangar. Sharon plotted the last jump, and a few seconds later, the familiar old battlestar was in their sights again.

As they explained their emergency to Galactica before being ordered to report to the hangar deck, Kara breathed in slowly and smiled. It had been a good day. Despite what had happened, it’d been better than she imagined.

The Raptor pulled in, and Sharon drove it around into the hangar.

“Bored out of your mind?” Chief asked with a grin as Cally stepped out first.

“Don’t speak to me, sir,” she said with good humor. “Or I might let loose some choice words...”

Chief laughed and clapped her on the back, not understanding her true meaning at all, exactly as she’d intended. “Okay, give me your report then. And Lt.?”

“Sure thing, Chief,” Sharon said, following him and Cally, only tossing a last final look of thanks to Kara.

“I’ll just get the computer data to Gaeta so he can do a proper cleanup of the system,” Dee said to Kara as she hopped out, glad to feel the deck beneath her feet. “Oh, and Kara?”

Kara turned to her, hands in her pockets. “Hmm?”

“I’ve started to notice a pattern on all the missions where you accompany me,” Dee said with a wry quirk.

“Sure you have,” Kara said back, drier than a fresh cracker.

“See you around, then,” Dee said, a warm undertone of relieved humor in her voice.

Kara walked off, hands in her pockets, breathing in the not-so-distasteful indoor air of Galactica. Somehow, the magic of that little desert island had vanished from her mind. She caught a glimpse of Tigh as she walked towards the locker room—they gave curt nods, and carried on. Things were good there again, although just a tiny part of her wanted to see what kind of bluster he’d give if she gave a full report.

For that matter, though, she wasn’t treating it lightly. With no regrets, maybe, but it hadn’t been an ideal outcome. She’d decry the existence of ‘ideal’ for a long time yet, but the part of her that wanted to be the best still ate at the value of her success.

She stripped to get into the shower, her old sweat stale now that adrenaline had faded back to normal. It wasn’t hard to let the exact details of the day disappear, leaving only the feeling of accomplishment. A grin plastered her face by the end as she slicked back her wet hair and put on comfortably clean tanks.

Stepping around the corner, she saw Sharon also newly clean.

“Hey,” Sharon said.

“Hey,” Kara answered. One thing she was not going to forget was Sharon’s exemplary adaptation to various circumstances in the field. Not perfect, but beyond what Kara had expected from a new recruit. Especially given their conversation on the way there. “So, that talk of peacetime training...”

“I’m a little naive, I guess,” Sharon said, almost flushing.

“You proved it where it counts, though,” Kara said, and slapped a hand on her shoulder, adding slightly under her breath, “Which is more than most of them can say.”

Sharon glanced around at the rest of the locker room, cocky men and women joking and whipping each other with towels and betting on meaningless Viper tricks—and she grinned a little at Kara.

“Drink?” Kara offered.

“Absolutely,” Sharon answered.

They strolled out together, and Kara had more than half a mind to tell Karl to make sure Sharon got more missions. Peace or not, they needed people like her to get experience to go along with their natural talent.

Of course, not before Kara got totally drunk with Sharon first. She had a solid feeling that this was going to be fun, and though she planned to resist saying anything about the start of a beautiful friendship or any such nonsense like that—well, after a dozen drinks, who knew what anyone said.

-0-