Gold Squadron (inspired by reply 18, Ch28-Z)

[Skyler]

Skyler and Wraith made there way down the wide corridor leading to the engine room. Up ahead it would narrow to the standard width for corridors on board ships, but here it was three times the standard, to allow livestock loading access to the flight deck. The eerie silence was interrupted by Wraith..

"What the Felgercarb???" as Wraith looked at the bottom of his boot at the substance that clung to the tread

Skyler glanced back and down, cracked a half smile..."Yep, thats what it is, bovine by the looks of it.... lets go, and watch your step."

"Great, crazy trying to take over the fleet, idiots killing them selves, bomb could be anywhere and now I gotta watch out for land mines."

As Skyler led the way to the engine room Wraith caught up with him, having wiped most of the foul lump from his boot.

"So, how do you know so much about a Livestock ship Boss?"

"You don't remember, its a little before your time, back when I first graduated from the Academy on the Galactica. The safety standards on all the ships have improved since then. It was still several yarhens before we stopped the routine safety inspections. Once a Secton, Warriors would inspect ships in the fleet for Solium Leaks, Pluton Poisoning etc. I must of pulled the Livestock ship tour 80% of the time. Most of the guys liked to steer clear of critters, and the little presents they like to drop."

"So, what do you expect to find?"

"Hopefully a nice little bomb somewhere near the Tylium Tanks."

"You make it sound like thats a good thing."

"It is... best place to put it to destroy the ship. Besides, if we goof disarming it, you won't live long enough to know about it...."

"Great way to instill confidence there..... You do know about bombs ..... right?"

"Yeah, I saw a program on the IFB's Learning Channel one night. Great stuff, just cut the red wire.... or was it the green wire? Doesn't matter, as long as we don't cut the black wire.....no wait.... Red equals Dead..." Skyler scratched his head as he walked..."It was a couple of yarhen ago, it will come back to me...." he smiled so Wraith couldn't see and continued to wards the Engine Room.

[BRIK]

Walking slowly and carefully through the ship's corridors, Brik and Ike were in no hurry to get to the bridge. They had both learned as ground-pounders that, in these situations, hurrying leads to DYING.

Something around the corner fell over. Both men fell into a crouch and Ike took point to risk a look around the corner with a mirror tool that he had tucked into a small compartment on his blaster's holster. All four warriors on the Livestock ship carried similar items of interest common to experienced warriors.
The mirror revealed several ragged individuals carrying small arms capable of only a heavy stun and others (he assumed to be the leaders) carrying true blasters every bit as lethal as his own. The question of how these civilians got them could wait for later.

Communicating the situation to Brik, the two friends chose a course of action.

[BRIK]

Brik hoped that this would work...he HATED the idea of having to open fire on other humans.

Picking up a small piece of trash (about small pebble sized), Brik tossed to piece of rubble down the hall. When the scrubbs looked to see what caused the noise (only a moment), he used the moment to cross the corridor to gain cover behind some supply crates (corridor storage space was a fact of life all over the fleet).

By the time (next moment) the insurgents were turning back around the two warriors stood and fired several blaster shots into and around the crowd, causing lots of noise, sparks and confusion...the kind that makes the un-trained and un-tried panic and drop their weapons. All according to plan.

"Colonial Warriors! Stop were you are and drop your weapons or be shot!" Brik yelled after the last shot and only a moment before he fired another shot to the wall behind the rebels.

[Skyler]

Skyler and Wraith entered the Engine Room... Not much had change since Skyler last inspected it for Solium leaks yarhens ago. He quickly made his way around to the fuel Storage Tanks...

"This is where I would put it to do the most damage." Skyler stated as he crossed to the other side of a huge tank. "the primary tank, there are larger tanks on the decks below this one, but this is the one that feeds the engines. It is always full, as the engines burn fuel, that pump" Skyler pointed to a large piece of machinery "drafts fuel from the storage tanks and keeps this one at a constant level" again, he pointed to a sight glass, which confirmed Skyler's statement of it being full. "If this caught fire, it could travel down the supply pipes and back to the storage tanks and boom.... the livestock ship becomes a huge fireball...."

Looking around Wraith doesn't see anything that could be a bomb "OK, I don't even want to know how you know so much about engineering, or why you have a 'place' you would put a bomb to do the most damage..... I don't see anything that looks like a bomb anyway, so now what?"

"Well, I didn't mean right in this very spot, to easy to spot and disarm, it would be out of the way, somewhere it wouldn't stick out." Skyler looked around and spotted a table with a few shop rags thrown over something. Carefully pulling the rags away he found a clear acrylic case. "Like here...." After looking over the bomb Skyler gave a low whistle... "This guy is good...."

"What do you mean good?" Wraith asked.

"Mercury Switch, so any movement, like trying to dump it into space and BOOM." Skyler pointed to a small clear flat cup. much like a medical culture container with a small glob of silver liquid in the center with exposed wires ever millimeter or so...."and it has a timer so if we let it sit to long... BOOM!" as he pointed to a small device with number counting down on the display.

"OK, what do we do, beside pray...?" Wraith asked, concern growing in his voice......

"Well, the trigger, either way is the Mercury switch.... tipping it makes the connection and BOOM!"

"Will you stop saying BOOM! every time....." Wraith was getting annoyed.

"Sure... if we removed the top, we should be able to disconnect the switch from the explosive element..." Skyler looked around and found a tool box and removed some hydro-spanners and started to remove the screws holding the top on, then stopped dead.....

"What?" Wraith asked....

"I just noticed." Skyler pointed at a series of small wires running up the seams of each of the four corners, each small wire embedded into the hole made by the screw, "the screws complete another circuit.... remove on, break the circut, tip the tray and ..... Well, you know...."

"Great.... so you are saying we can not disarm this bomb.... Can't we just cut the red wire.... I saw Riggs do it on Lethal Blaster on the IFB Movie channel last week. Not a problem...."

"Yeah, and Riggs blows everything up as well, if you remember.... I need to think...

"Bout time...." Wraith mumbled under his breath...

Skyler studied the bomb as the counter neared the ends of its journey then as if struck by lighting he turned and started digging in the tool box. He came out with a hand held drill and a small bit attached. "OK, if we can drill two small holes in the sides of this box, we can pass two wires through and place them under the mercury tray and get them close enough to start to arc and heat up...."

"I know you are crazy know.... you are going to start to arc weld inside a bomb.... won't that make it go boom?"

"Well, the mercury should cook off before the heat gets hot enough to blow the explosive..... in theory?"

"In THEORY? We are all dead..." Shrugging his shoulders.... "What do you need me to do?"

"First, pull that cover off the pump motor, inside you will find lots of wire. Pull the longest ones out and drag it over here... I will start to drill the two holes."

The Warriors set out doing what had to be done. Skyler finished the drilling about the time Wraith had the wires out and within reach. Grabbing a pair of wire strippers, Skyler removed a 1/4 inch of the wire insulation and held the tips together, creating a spark....

"OK, here goes nothing..." and Skyler eased the wire into the holes and lined the exposed ends up under the tray. In less than a micron a blue arc of electric current could be seen dancing between the wires, directly under the mercury. Microns ticked by as the counter marched on to wards 0. The mercury danced around on the tray, the heat from the arc effecting it, stress cracks developing in the tray and steam and smoke rose inside the box... in a few microns it would start to effect his view, a few microns after than, the bomb would effect everyones view. Wraith started a mental countdown...... 20...19...18...17... and it went, the smoke filling the small box.... 8....7.....6....5....4...3...2...

A loud crack as the tray split from the heat of the boiling mercury, dumping what little remained into the bottom of the large box a millicenton before the timer tipped the tray. Both Warriors exhaled a long held breath.

"Wraith, you call Brik on the com and let him know what we have, I will secure this device...."

[BRIK]

Now that things were calm, Brik and Ike took a good look at their "rebels".
All of them had a look in their eyes that could only be described as LOST, as well as being rather pale and watery-eyed, like they might be sick...with the exception of a man towards the back of this small crowd of maybe half-a-dozen. This man had hatred and fire in his eyes and seemed oddly familiar.

Also, something else seemed to be struggling to get Brik's mental attention...<like they might be sick...vials...>
"LORDS OF KOBOL! ! ! !" Brik cried almost unconsciously...as first one, then all of them in succession (except the madman) fell over, eyes rolling back and landing with sickening thumps and small vials falling from their outstretched hands, having held weapons in one hand and DEATH in the other. Interesting metaphor.

Metaphor could wait until later.

The madman turned and started to run for the end of the corridor and it's blind corner. Apparently this man was a leader who did NOT believe in dying for the cause. Madman or not, that was more intelligent than the escape chosen by the other minions.

Aiming low, Ike and Brik simaultaneously fired at the fleeing mans legs, wanting to take him into custody without doing lethal injury. Both men possessed the skill to attempt such a shot as well as believe in the possibility that the shot may do as hoped and merely wing the man, bringing him down but essentially being a flesh-wound.

As luck would have it, both warriors had practiced enough for the Lady of Fortune to give them a true prize: BOTH shots were mere flesh wounds...to opposing legs! This man would be in a lot of pain any time his legs rubbed together for quite some time.

Catching up to the (now unconscious) man and turning him over to place him in restraints, Both men gasped as they caught a close look at his face.
It could NOT be the man that they first thought it to be and therefore must be a descendant of some sort, son or nephew, even grandson.
Slapping restraints on to the man's wrists, Ike looked at his friend and said
"THIS is about to get interesting."
"You, my friend" replied Brik, "have a gift for understatement."

[BRIK]

With their new and interesting (and slightly frightening) prisoner secured and rather light, Brik picked the madman up, tossed him over a shoulder like furniture and proceeded with his squadmate Ike toward the bridge.

Along the way the scene that they had just witnessed was, apparently, repeated all over the ship...for all they knew, all over the FLEET. Also apparently, the encounter with the previous group of lunatics was at the same time as whatever signal or schedule gave them the suicide order.
The only living souls on the ship were prisoners of the now-dead saboteurs. The largest group of incarcerated personnel was in a meal hall near the bridge and included the vessel's commanding officer, Captain Gloval, a tall and capable-looking man with a handle-bar mustache and a pipe.

"Captain Gloval, I'm Lt brik of the Callisto, Gold Squadron and this is my wingman Ike"
The three men shook hands.
With a thick accent the Captain began,
"Lootenant, eet is good to see you and yorr wing-man aboard my ship. The crazy peaople that I'm sure you've had to battle used to be regularr personnel aboarrd this vessel, the 'SDF-1'...that is 'Space Dairy Farm One' . Do you have any idea what may have caused this crisis?"

The two Colonial Warriors tell as much of the story as they've been able to piece together to the good captain, including the recent 'fight' and the unusual nature of their prisoner, causing the man to raise an eyebrow in suprise.
"Amazing. And shameful, the waste of many fine people."
"I agree, sir. Well" looking at Ike, "we need to check in with the Callisto and take in our prisoner. I gladly return your vessel to you, please call if you need help."
"Certainly" he said with a roll of his r's
"Nikki!" he called to a pleasant but official looking young woman "Organize a dozen people into search parties and go over every inch of this vessel for more prisoners. If you find any bombs call me personally and notify squad leaders Hunter and Fokker" at which time the door slid shut behind the two mwn as they made their uneventful way back to the bay and their beloved vipers.

Checking their prisoner once more for possible weapons and the like, Ike and Brik loaded their firmly (and overly) shackled suspect into Brik's viper and both men happily boarded their ships, put on their helmets and began the pre-flight routine as the cockpit canopies moved into place. While waiting, Brik toggled his communicator and hailed the Callisto.
"Callisto this is Lt Brik aboard the Livestock ship 'SDF-1' reporting in. we found one group of Pierce's followers alive. As we attempted to take them prisoner they all fell over, dead. We believe that they had taken their poison before we found them. However, we DID manage to capture what we believe to be the cell-leader. So far he remains unconscious but we believe that he will be easy to identify. As impossible as it may sound, Callisto...it appears that we have captured a young..."

[BRIK]

Brik found the words harder to say than he expected.
Well, he figured that he may wind up a laughing stock but the report had to be made.

"Callisto, we have captured Baltar"

[Skyler]

Skyler removed the top of the bomb casing, now that it was inert, and pulled the explosive material out of the base and secured it in a small tool box. In its current state you could shoot it and it wouldn't go off, but attach a blasting cap and cough to hard and.... well... you know.

"Major, I got through to Brik and Ike, they have liberated the Bridge and captured the Cell leader or something. They are preparing to launch and return to the Callisto with him now. What should we do?"

"We finish up here and join them." Skyler said as the tucked the tool box under his arm and headed towards the door......

[BRIK]

Brik was somewhat comforted by the blank looks and silence on the other end of his comm channel.

He continued...
"I assume that this man is not in fact THE Baltar...my guess is a descendant of some kind. Please have a security detail and medical team ready, he is to be considered dangerous and has been mildly injured. He IS under restraint and will remain so until otherwise ordered. Lt. Brik out."

He took a deep breath and placed the unconscious man in the small space for baggage in his viper. He found himself hoping that the man would be uncomfortable.

"Ike, prepare for lift-off and stand by. Skyler, this is Brik...we're preparing for take-off with our prisoner. Do you require assistance or need us to wait for you two? If not, we'll see you on the Callisto."