|
Title: A Bug on the Cosmic Windscreen Author: Miss Murchison Rating: PG, so far. The rating may rise. Disclaimer: Characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the creators of the new Battlestar Galactica, etc. Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine. Summary: I volunteered to write fic for people who were making donations to Hurricane Katrina victims. Willow Green asked for a crossover story in which Spike wound up in the Battlestar Galactica cosmos and several other people also expressed interest. It took me a while to decide how a vampire should make his entrance in that very different universe from the one to which he is accustomed. I couldn't decide on the title at all, so I conducted a poll. I hope to have more of his adventures with Starbuck, Apollo and the others done soon. Thanks: To Keswindhover and revdorothyl for the beta.
Kara stood to attention in front of a table where President Roslin and Commander Adama were seated, listening attentively to the story of how she had returned to the Galactica after the lengthy and bloody battle with the Cylons that had destroyed both their Resurrection Ship and the Pegasus. Billy was taking notes and Gaius was shifting impatiently in a chair he'd had to pull up to the table himself, as no one had set one out for him. Kara recalled piloting around the disorderly swarm of small ships that had been spilling out of the maw of the dying Battlestar. "My raptor was damaged in the fight with the Cylons. I landed on the Pegasus just as my life support system was giving out. The bay was almost empty by then." The 'Abandon Ship' order had been given almost an hour before she landed, and Starbuck had been the only person crazy enough to be heading for the interior of the Pegasus. She remembered the hysterical screams of some of the remaining crew, and the icy calm of most others. Someone had shoved her to the ground, unable to believe she wasn't trying to steal his precious space on a battle-scarred raptor that looked too crippled to make it to the rest of the Fleet. Starbuck had headed towards the brig, afraid that Helo and Tyrol had been left behind in the rush. Instead, she'd encountered Gaius and the Cylon. They’d been hiding, and Gaius had babbled that some members of the crew who had seen them had shot at Gina. "The Vice-President informed me that the cells were empty and he requested my assistance in returning his captive to the Galactica." Gaius had grabbed her by the shoulders, shaken her, and screamed, "You must save us!" He kept dragging Kara back towards the landing bays, insisting he’d seen Helo and Tyrol being evacuated. The only part of this behavior that had really surprised Kara had been his use of the word "us." Her opinion of Gaius had been dropping steadily over the past few weeks, but she’d been as impressed by his refusal to abandon the Cylon as she was bewildered by his insistence on saving it. "Investigation showed that the only space-worthy ship in the nearby holds was a shuttle, so I commandeered it." "Space-worthy" was probably an exaggeration. The shuttle's landing gear was FUBAR'd, and only a pilot as good as Starbuck could have handled it. Since there were no other pilots as good as Starbuck, she'd decided that the gods had provided her with a ride. She’d jockeyed out of the Pegasus' bay and managed to steer around the debris fields that were all that was left of huge chunks of the ship. And then she'd picked up a hitchhiker. She retold that story, answering questions as best she could. "Tell me, Lieutenant." President Roslin rubbed her eyes as Kara came to the end of her story. "If he isn't a Cylon, what do you think this man is?" "Umm—" Starbuck took a deep breath and let her theory tumble out in a rush of words. "Ma'am, you know that the scrolls of Pythia spoke of a lower demon who would help the people in time of crisis? I know we thought it was Sharon, but maybe it wasn't. The man I picked up talked about fighting with demons. Maybe he's one himself. Maybe he's been sent here by the gods—" "Who dropped our savior on your view screen?" Kara tried not to wince, even as she admired Roslin's talent for sarcasm. "Ma'am, I've heard it said the gods have a sense of humor." She faltered. "Some of them, anyway." Before anyone could respond to this, the creature in question entered, followed by Lee and a detail of guards, who lined up at the back of the room. In spite of Doc Cottle’s report, Kara was surprised to see her erstwhile passenger walking on his own, with only a slight limp. He met her glance with a reassuring grin and winked at her. She bit her lip. He leaned on the back of the chair that had been placed in the center of the room. “I see you’ve given me the comfy chair, but I’ve got a bit of gimpy leg at the mo’. Any chance I could borrow another to prop it up?” Starbuck started to move forward, then stopped and looked at Adama for guidance. The Commander grimaced but nodded, and she slid a smaller chair forward. As she turned back, she caught Lee’s eye and almost laughed again at his look of exasperation. She took up a position next to him and waited impatiently to hear the hitchhiker's story.
When Spike limped into the conference room with Flash Gordon at his heels, he expected to find he was the focus of all eyes. As his audience didn't expect, he acted as if he were completely at his ease. A glance told him that the twit who'd pulled him into the spaceship was standing off to one side, and the blonde pilot who was his real rescuer had just been getting the third degree about picking him up. A middle-aged woman with beautiful features, a stern expression, and an almost Slayer-ish aura of power and responsibility sat center stage, like a queen on her throne. A tall young man hovered by her like an acolyte. Next to her was a soldier who looked as if he'd seen a thousand battles and was determined to survive a thousand more. There wasn't a doubt in Spike's mind that he had indeed been taken to Apollo's leaders. Spike knew that they were burning to find out who he was and why he was there. But he had a pretty firm list of priorities too. In his book, survival came a chapter or two before determining exactly where he was and why. So as he asked for a chair to prop up his leg and watched the assembled humans watching him, the main question in his mind was how to ensure that they didn't decide their first priority was finding a way to kill him. Every vampire's favorite dodge was pretending to be human. Sometimes that was easy, sometimes it was hard, but right now it was bloody well impossible. The circumstances of his arrival here had ensured that. That was a definite disadvantage. Spike decided that the upside of his situation was that his captors or hosts—whichever they decided to be— had no idea what he really was. While in sick bay, he'd established to his satisfaction that these space cowboys had never heard of vampires, and had no tradition of chasing his kind with torches and pitchforks. The doctor and nurses had been befuddled by his lack of heartbeat and rapid recovery, but Spike had caught no whiff of the superstitious fear that meant layers of modern sophistication were being peeled back as the primal peasant emerged, ready to burst out and scream, "Bloodsucker!" Even when he'd chugged a pint of Type O, they'd just scratched their heads and written things down in their notebooks. The Bots now, those were a different kettle of evil fiends. Just the mention of those Bots made most of these space cadets shake in their boots. As Spike carefully settled his foot on his makeshift ottoman and found a comfortable slouching position in his chair, he ran through his mind what he'd learned about the Bots. They were killers. And they could seem human, if a bit too pretty to be real. In fact, they could seem a lot more human than any vampire. The model who'd been on the boat that had picked him up had a heartbeat, and old bruises. She'd breathed like she needed to. Spike looked around the conference room. This lot knew Spike wasn't human. So now he needed to convince them that he wasn't a Bot either. In other words, he had to convince them of the truth. Sounded easy, didn't it? But although Spike was no deep thinker, he was no amateur, either. He'd been around humans for over a hundred years, and he was well aware that the truth was often the very last thing the buggers wanted to believe. He leaned forward and smirked engagingly at the hard-faced woman. Her expression became even sterner, letting him know she wasn't going to put up with any apple polishing. "I'm President Roslin, and this is Commander Adama. And you are?" "Spike." He bent forward from the waist in a parody of a bow. Her eyebrows rose. Next to her, the tall youngster sat with his pen poised over a pad of paper. "Spike?" The rumbling voice of the older man was annoyed. "Is that it?" Spike leaned back. "Do I need more?" Roslin's voice was as smooth as water flowing over granite. "A first and last name are customary." Spike's eyes flew back to meet hers. "If your secretary here needs to write something down, he can use whatever names he likes. You can put me in your ledgers as Arthur Dent or John Crichton, I don't care which. But I answer to Spike." He heard a snort from the older man but didn't bother to turn his head before adding, "If you can call your flyboys 'Apollo' and your flygirls 'Starlight,' you can manage 'Spike.'" "Spike, then." The President spread her hands in a gesture of acceptance, still trying to look stern, but her lips gave an unwilling twitch that could have been amusement. "And Lieutenant Thrace's call sign is Starbuck." Spike cast a glance at the pilot who'd rescued him and saw she'd been more amused than angry at his mistake. She was looking at him almost proudly, like a cat who'd presented her owner with a particularly interesting specimen of rat. The Greek god was rolling his eyes. Good. He'd written Spike down as a buffoon instead of a threat. The long-haired git was looking befuddled (no surprise there), and the secretary chap was just as confused but more dignified about it. The chief military gent was more irked than anything else. Spike turned back to the President, and his smile became more confident. Roslin was the hardest nut to crack, he was sure of it. Spike had to find out what she cared about and pretend to care about it too. He'd have her then. And the others would follow, from General Gruff down to Flash Gordon. Once he had their confidence, he could concentrate on finding out what the bloody hell he was doing there and how to get back to his own world. "So, Spike, what brings you here?" Roslin's hand went to her belly. She was keeping her features smooth, but Spike could smell her pain. This woman was dying. Spike hoped she didn't know it. This one was coldblooded by nature; with nothing left to lose she would be ruthless. “I'm not sure. I didn't get a memo. Not even a recording that self-destructed after revealing my Mission. But I suspect some of the blokes we know as the Powers That Be had a hand in it. Come to think of it, my gang had just finished killing off some very Big Bads, but we were being attacked by some leftover minions. Perhaps some Big Good decided not to waste a hero and sent me here to help you lot.” There, that should impress the religious element, if they had one and it was present. "So you're here to help." Her tone was not an endorsement of this theory, and neither was the derisive snort from the military man. “Why you?” Spike flexed his knee. His leg had stopped hurting. He folded his hands behind his head and shoved his boot against the chair in front of him, leaning back more comfortably as his spine slouched down into as unmilitary a posture as he could manage. “Why not me? You being the White Hats and all, I’m sure they thought you deserved the best.” As he spoke, it occurred to him that maybe the others had been whisked off to different dimensions too. He’d like to think that Angel hadn’t been turned to dust next to the body of that dragon they’d brought down together, and that Gunn had been wafted off somewhere where his wounds could be healed, maybe to a society with a decent healthcare system that was in need of a good lawyer. And Blue—he hoped she wasn’t stuck with all those bloody shrimp she hated. She’d have enjoyed beating up robots, it would be more fun than a video game to her— No time for that now. “You think a great deal of yourself.” The Headmistress was looking as if she’d like to yell at him to sit up straight, get rid of his gum, and pay attention to the notes on the board. Spike was pretty sure he nearly had her where he wanted her. "I've saved the world, I have. True story. Now, I can't say I expected to be ripped from the bosom of Mother Earth and dropped out in a more literal middle of nowhere than I'd ever thought to see—" He stopped. Roslin was leaning forward, her eyes suddenly brighter, hands on the table, her pain forgotten. "Earth?" There was a volume of meaning behind that one word. Spike suppressed a grin. "Yeah, Earth. That's where I'm from." He glanced quickly around the room, interpreting reactions. He had them. All of them.
|
|
Please send feedback to: missmurchison@mchsi.com
|