![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaSpamming because I'm bored. Also not real writing because it's not finished or beta'd or anything. It's just a draft, really, so no worries on comments or anything. Just a post-3.20 fragment. I'm toying with trying to make it into an actual story. I think I see the edges of a plot.
And if Starbuck sounds weird - that's because she is. I mean, how would you feel if you'd just gotten spat out of a maelstrom in a viper?
So, self-indulgent rambling I'm mostly posting so's I won't lose it when my computer crashes again, but am not bothering to lock:
It's a lazy combat landing; she's too hot and she knows it. But she gives the throttle a little more leeway and steepens her angle, letting her bird free in an overpowered dive - the sheer rush of hearing the skids scream with joy against Galactica's deck. The LSO's yelling in her ear - a thunderroll of military jargon that fits her mind like "Yessir," and "Full Colours!" - until he gets cut off because queries about the state of her bird, the state of the deck, whether her radio's working, are all secondary to the Old Man's voice (so full of static even before it's put through a wireless) wanting to know, "Kara, is that really you?"
She can feel her bird buck; the whole hangar responding as another plane pounds down behind her's and pulls up, neater, tidier, no yelling from the LSO. It's the same love she felt in Kindergarten when she saw a girl who could already colour between the lines - a whole picture with not a pencil dash out of place.
"Kara -" that's the Old Man.
"Kara? -" that's Lee.
"Kara! -" that's the LSO.
Her face is split with joy. The hangar doors are closing. The deck gangs are spidering across the repressurized floor.
"Kara, do you copy? Starbuck?"
Automatically she thumbs her canopy release and detaches her helmet. She pushes herself up to the edge of the cockpit. The ladder's a couple of meters away; no one's pushed it to the edge of her bird, so she stands there, just waiting. The others wait back.
Her radio keeps crackling. It's not her name now, it's, "What the frak is going on down there? Kelly, do you copy? What's her status?"
She says, "Hey."
That's when her brother busts through to the front of the crowd. She knows that expression. It's not the elation that's filling her own face. It's horror. She frowns. All the people in the crowd; not one of them's smiling. And her brother, it's there on his face to be read - "You shouldn't be here."
She remembers she's dead. She feels foolish to have forgotten it. It pulls at the corners of her mouth.
She shouldn't be here.
She couldn't be here.
Unless.
"Chief," she calls.
He looks at her with pure terror. It's the fear she knew in flight school when the instructor called her name first, before all others. The memory snakes itself along her spine deliciously, like fear's friendly echo. She wants to tell him, it'll be okay. They've known each other forever; they're family - that's what the Old Man always said. She wants to tell him that of everyone in the hangar, he doesn't need to be afraid; they're so alike, they could be siblings.
But she remembers - and it's as abrupt as the memory of the flames eating her cockpit as the pressure split her eardrums - that he wouldn't understand. People aren't supposed to cast off lives as easily as flight suits. They aren't built to understand that even the worst pain is transitory.
"Chief," she says. "Get me some handcuffs."
No one moves.
"Handcuffs!" she shouts. The words burn through her mind with the familiarity of an over-used circuit. "Right frakking now! And then, you're going to take me to the brig."
And if Starbuck sounds weird - that's because she is. I mean, how would you feel if you'd just gotten spat out of a maelstrom in a viper?
So, self-indulgent rambling I'm mostly posting so's I won't lose it when my computer crashes again, but am not bothering to lock:
It's a lazy combat landing; she's too hot and she knows it. But she gives the throttle a little more leeway and steepens her angle, letting her bird free in an overpowered dive - the sheer rush of hearing the skids scream with joy against Galactica's deck. The LSO's yelling in her ear - a thunderroll of military jargon that fits her mind like "Yessir," and "Full Colours!" - until he gets cut off because queries about the state of her bird, the state of the deck, whether her radio's working, are all secondary to the Old Man's voice (so full of static even before it's put through a wireless) wanting to know, "Kara, is that really you?"
She can feel her bird buck; the whole hangar responding as another plane pounds down behind her's and pulls up, neater, tidier, no yelling from the LSO. It's the same love she felt in Kindergarten when she saw a girl who could already colour between the lines - a whole picture with not a pencil dash out of place.
"Kara -" that's the Old Man.
"Kara? -" that's Lee.
"Kara! -" that's the LSO.
Her face is split with joy. The hangar doors are closing. The deck gangs are spidering across the repressurized floor.
"Kara, do you copy? Starbuck?"
Automatically she thumbs her canopy release and detaches her helmet. She pushes herself up to the edge of the cockpit. The ladder's a couple of meters away; no one's pushed it to the edge of her bird, so she stands there, just waiting. The others wait back.
Her radio keeps crackling. It's not her name now, it's, "What the frak is going on down there? Kelly, do you copy? What's her status?"
She says, "Hey."
That's when her brother busts through to the front of the crowd. She knows that expression. It's not the elation that's filling her own face. It's horror. She frowns. All the people in the crowd; not one of them's smiling. And her brother, it's there on his face to be read - "You shouldn't be here."
She remembers she's dead. She feels foolish to have forgotten it. It pulls at the corners of her mouth.
She shouldn't be here.
She couldn't be here.
Unless.
"Chief," she calls.
He looks at her with pure terror. It's the fear she knew in flight school when the instructor called her name first, before all others. The memory snakes itself along her spine deliciously, like fear's friendly echo. She wants to tell him, it'll be okay. They've known each other forever; they're family - that's what the Old Man always said. She wants to tell him that of everyone in the hangar, he doesn't need to be afraid; they're so alike, they could be siblings.
But she remembers - and it's as abrupt as the memory of the flames eating her cockpit as the pressure split her eardrums - that he wouldn't understand. People aren't supposed to cast off lives as easily as flight suits. They aren't built to understand that even the worst pain is transitory.
"Chief," she says. "Get me some handcuffs."
No one moves.
"Handcuffs!" she shouts. The words burn through her mind with the familiarity of an over-used circuit. "Right frakking now! And then, you're going to take me to the brig."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 11:44 am (UTC)The 'brother' thing is going to be revealed pretty soon - it's not intended as a long, secret mystery, just a tip off that all is not right - or at least not quite the same - in the Land of Starbuck.
But I'm glad it's at least peaked your curiosity - that speaks in its favour. *gnashes teeth* Hmm. Perhaps I'll try again. And thanks for your thoughts. Call it beta-by-LJ-spam ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 01:07 pm (UTC)I definitely got something was not right with Starbuck and that left me with a few possibilities. That she is dead, or in some sort of land of the dead, and not yet returned to Galactica. That she is finding herself in some sort of AU. Or that she had a brother or could have had a brother (miscarriage by her mother) and that her reality is getting blurred with other possible realities in which he grew into adulthood and survived the attacks. Or maybe it's her version of Head Six.
If you need any more thoughts, just let me know, I like hashing out idea. Just don't ask me to correct spelling or grammar. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 10:14 am (UTC)Again it may come back to the problem I'm having with her voice, I think. It's a very specific reading I get from her almost nervous, young, joyful greeting to Lee at the end of 3.20, and her own childhood self as an avatar in Maelstrom. She no longer remembers a lot of her previous life, although she knows it all, and the fact I can't communicate that idea properly is probably at least 50% of the voice problem I'm having. It's why I was trying to use a lot of not-quite-names - "The LSO, the Old Man, the Chief, her brother," instead of personal names. Except Lee because she already used that in 3.20 and because if she's going to remember anyone's name I think it might be his, and the Galactica (about which I'm ambivalent). She perceives the world through a very different lens now - one that's more based on nouns than personal names? And a lot of Kara's natural joy is freed because she's approaching everything with a clean slate. (Though the filling of that slate and the recovery of her old identity are things I would want to deal with).
So...I'm not trying to go on an anti-Sam/Kara jag here - and I'm a little worried about squicking people with pseudo-incest, but that's not what I'm gunning for at all. It's more an homage to the ancient greek gods who were all siblings or parents or something - the place of the final five in such a pantheon, and Starbuck's place herself.
It's also supposed to tie in with the "all of this has happened before and all of this has happened again," and the idea that Sam has been her brother before and will be again. That aspect is part of the more ambitious and possibly foolish desire I have to turn Laura's chamalla induced vision-cylon fest into an actual, literal AU. But I worry that would be too high concept and I couldn't ground it in the ongoing story. (Which is basically headed towards a Laura vs Kara showdown.)
In sum...your ideas about the "brother" significance are far more interesting; which is why I should always hash out ideas with people - it really helps to sharpen things, so thanks for offering your services as a "plot-sharpener"! :)
And no worries on spelling or grammar! Spelling I tend to leave to the spell-checker. Grammar? I figure I can pass it off as "artistic license"... :p
no subject
Date: 2007-08-02 02:42 pm (UTC)Is the brother concept something you came up with? Or is that something online I have missed out on as usual? And Laura's modifications.. you mean from Hera's blood? Egads so much interestingness going on here! I am intrigued! How the hell did I miss so many of your posts? MORE!
Favourite: Chief's reaction and her description of it. Priceless.
fantastic thing you are doing
Date: 2007-07-05 06:31 am (UTC)Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!
Bye
HI i sopitikoj
Date: 2007-09-08 03:19 pm (UTC)Hi all!
Bye
i yotixon
Date: 2007-09-14 06:16 pm (UTC)Well done, this site is really great. Just wanted to say hello, keep up the good work!
For what it's worth...
Date: 2007-10-06 03:11 pm (UTC)("The others wait back." made me grin.)