PHD #341: Go Beyond
Go Beyond
Summary: Late at night, Cidra and Devlin discuss the mysterious whale-ship and its implications for their future. Klaxon observes.
Date: 02 Feb 2042 AE
Related Logs: Anything to do with the mystery ship or Knossos, and Klaxon's discovery.
Players:
Cidra Devlin Klaxon 
Pilot Berths
There are bunks and there are pilots.
Post-Holocaust Day: #341

It's never precisely dark in the berthings. Time of day has no real meaning on a battlestar, after all, apart from the change in shifts. But the lights are a little dim at the moment, as it's getting on into third shift and most who aren't on duty truly are asleep. Presently Cidra is neither. She's seated at the center table, smoking a cigarette and going over some papers in a folder she's apparently brought with her from the Navy offices. Also on the table at present sits the cage of the canary, Captain Klaxon, who's become more or less the Air Wing 'mascot' since his rescue by Leyla from Wreath of Roses. Cidra's off-and-on feeding him some grain-substitute she apparently nipped from the galley through the bars. He's pecking at it and twittering. The CAG watches him with the faintest of smiles, albeit a slightly sad one.

Devlin slides out of his bunk, slipping quietly down the ladder and tugging the curtain closed behind him. From the outfit (non-military-issue boxer-briefs) and the way his hair is looking (sort of mashed about and sticking up oddly) and the way he rubs at his eyes (sleepily) it's not tough to guess that the ensign is just waking up. He does not seem thrilled about it, but scratches at his chest and leans his forehead against his locker before the twittering brings him around. "Evening, Cidra," he greets the major, wandering over, "And Cap'n Klaxon. How's it going?"

"Decoy." Cidra replies to the greeting without really looking up. Scattering a few more crumbs into the cage for the bird, who twitters in Devlin's direction when he is 'addressed.' The little creature does enjoy the attention. "Taking early shift this day? I was on the last one. Been off for a few hours now but I could not sleep, you know?" Not that restless is precisely unusual for the CAG of late. At least she isn't bunking in the chapel anymore…well, not so often.

Devlin smiles a little as the bird seems to respond and he steps closer, wiggling his fingers at the cage. He leans against a chair and then nods, "Yeah, I drew the short straw again," he says, smile tipping crookedly, "And Psyche's got the next one after me. Worst kinda days." He scrubs at his face with a hand and then nods, "Yeah, happens. Still sleeping in the chapel sometimes?" he asks, "I haven't run into your there late so much lately, seems like."

"Not often." It's a sort of non-answer that Cidra replies with, as to her sleeping arrangements. "I do try and go before CAP. Always before CAP. But it is more…a regular thing." As opposed to the irregular things. "It does help to focus thoughts at times. Even if I am not sure I come to better answers due to it." The bird is singing now. Not too loud. It is a small thing. But it's a tuneful sort of chirp. She returns her attention to her papers now. Photographs, more rightly. Images of a hull wall with large images painted upon them, somewhat shadowed at the edges.

"I try to fit in it wherever I can," Devlin nods, "Haven't got much of a schedule with rotations shifting all the time and stuff." He shrugs and scratches at the back of his head, leaning over to peek at Klaxon again before catching site of Cidra's papers. "Are those…" he trails off, a little sheepish about having peeked, it seems, and apologetic, "Are those from that mystery ship everybody's talking about? The one that's maybe from Kobol?"

"We do not know where it is from truly," Cidra says. "But they are the images Sweet Pea and Flasher retrieved, yes. Or copies, rather. Would you like look at them? I have been looking at them for the last hours but found no further answers. Still, they are very interesting to look at." Her attention drifts away from the photographs now. Listening to the bird with that faintest of sad smiles on her lips.

"If that's okay?" Devlin replies, "Yeah, I'd love to." He pulls out the chair he's been leaning on and takes a seat, sliding the photos over across the table and peering at them. "Wow," he says, "This is wild." He touches the symbols, mouthing the names absently, moving through photos with clear interest. "I know it's not…confirmed or anything," he says, "But… what do you think it is?" he asks, "I mean… do you have a guess?"

"I do not want to guess," is Cidra's firm and quick answer to that question. "This ship could be anything, Ensign. It could be a Cylon trap. Speculation at this juncture is not wise. A proper team shall return to go over it and see if they can get a better idea of what it is." That's all she has to say to that. And she, she did spend the last hour and change staring at them. Not now, however. Now she's staring at the canary. "He signs very prettily, does he not?"

"Sorry," Devlin replies, looking both chagrined and a little disappointed. He turns back to the photos, shuffling through them again, more slowly. "This is like the knife we found in the museum," he says, touching the lightning bolt above the bull, "All the weird Zeus the Bull stuff in Knossos." He touches it again, and then scratches absently at the tatau on his chest and looks up at the bird. He blinks a couple times and then nods, "Yeah, he does. Not too loud, either. Nice having him around, really. I was afraid he'd keep us awake or something when he first showed up."

"Connections…" Cidra murmurs. "Well. Perhaps that is not so strange. The images seem to have some correlation to the ancient tribes. Taurus and Tauron. The bull. Gemenon, the twins. These are all old symbols, Decoy. They go beyond your Knossos. Beyond my Gemenon…" Her eyes still rest on the canary. "I wish he could speak. Not parrot, like those Scorpion toy birds. But truly speak. Tell us of all he saw on Wreath of Roses. He must have some fine tales. What do you know, my Klaxon…?"

"Knossos claimed to go beyond Knossos," Devlin points out, smile quirking a little, "That was half the point. A Knossos on Kobol, they always claimed, and that's where the artifacts came from, or near enough." He shrugs, admitting, "Nobody could ever prove it. I hope they figure out a way to prove what this ship is, one way or another. It'd be nice to know." He glances down at the photos again and then back up once more. "He knows how to survive, that's for sure," he says of the bird, "Bet he could tell us all sorts of interesting stuff. Should we let him out?" he asks.

Cidra reaches out to open the doors of Klaxon's cage. Extending a hand in, clicking her tongue softly. The bird jumps on her fingertips. He's clearly been someone's pet for as long as he's been tweeting and is used to that sort of thing. "He can still fly. His wings have not been clipped. Be careful with him, though. Many dangers for him if he gets out of the berthing aboard a battlestar."

"Will he try to fly away, you think?" Devlin asks, brows rising in some concern, "We haven't got to take him out, I was just wondering. Maybe he'll just stand on the table or your hand, or something." He hunches down a little, looking at the bird from closer, watching him on Cidra's finger. "If… if it is really old," he asks, a little tentatively, looking back up, "That ship, I mean. If… I mean, just supposing. If it's really from Kobol… do you think we'd try to go there?"

"Go there?" Cidra looks up from the canary to Devlin, though she takes care to hold her hand very still. "Our ancestors fled Kobol, across the vast reaches of space. If this…relic is a ship of Exodus, is a symbol of whatever they were fleeing when they departed. The better of students of the scriptures than I have many theories on that score, but it must have been a terrible thing that drove them to the heavens. To scatter."

Devlin keeps an eye on Klaxon, tipping his head so he can see the bird out the corner of an eye as he looks at Cidra. He reaches up, movement slower than natural so as not to disturb their feathered friend as he scratches at his chest again. "Yeah, I know," he says of the exodus, nodding. He's quiet for a moment or two, and then adds, "But, I mean… there were so many of them, you know? Could whatever it was really have been worse than this?"

"The danger of asking whether or not it could get worse, Decoy, is that invariably the answer is always 'yes'," Cidra says. A touch wryly, but with no humor. She extends her arm, right fingers out, where the canary is perched. He's making no move to fly away. "Do you wish to hold him?"

"Heh," is Devlin's half-hearted sort of reply, lips curving faintly, and just for a moment. He looks at the bird, and after a thought nods, "Sure," and extends his hand as well, fingers out beside Cidra's to try to coax the bird into making a swap. "We have to… go somewhere sometime, though, don't we?" he asks, with only a quick little glance up, "I mean… when we've gotten all the survivors we can and everything, and made the strikes we can make against the Cylons… we've got to go somewhere, don't we?"

Cidra is silent for a beat, but she does nod an affirmative. "Yes. We must go somewhere. The colonies are irradiated. Death, even in the parts of them that the Cylons have abandoned, will creep over them like a slow cancer. And the Cylons hold this system tightly, their fists around the inner colonies. We must find a path to a new home for humanity, once all that we can save has been saved."

Devlin watches Klaxon climb onto his finger, nodding at Cidra a little. "Yeah," he says, "I mean… the bit of Aerilon we were on seemed nice. I could almost see how people were wanting to stay there, you know? But… give it a couple months, tops, and it'll all be gone. We can't fly around here forever. We've got to try to start over somewhere, I guess." He runs a hand through his hair again, it nearly long enough to hide his fingers, and shakes his head a little, admitting, "I still can't really picture it. Starting over from scratch. Ending up somewhere where there's… nothing. You know? Totally undeveloped. I keep sort of imagining we'll find somewhere that's already got cities waiting for us to live in." He smiles crookedly, "How dumb is that?"

"We have done it before, if you believe the Scriptures," Cidra says. "That, if nothing, the Exodus teaches us. Our tribes broke then, of course, warred with each other on separate planets. I hope we have learned some lessons from that. But, they did it. They traveled gods-know the distance from Kobol and survived, to build new worlds. I believe we have the fortitude to do the same."

"We have," Devlin agrees with a nod, more a believer in those Scriptures than some, maybe even many. "We can't afford to break now," he agrees, "We're too few. It's bad enough as it is, if it got worse while we tried to settle somewhere?" He shakes his head, and then looks at Klaxon for a long moment, shaking his head again. "We have to," he agrees with Cidra once more, "We have to have it. We've managed this far. If we can make it to a new home…." He trails off, and focuses on the bird, and then finally says, "I should go get ready for CAP."

"Clear eyes and steady hands, Decoy," Cidra says simply to Devlin in parting. She'll continue to sit and contemplate, with the bird.

"You too," Devlin replies, carefully passing the bird back, hands steady for that, at least. He rises, and pushes his chair back into the table before heading away.

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