Laszlo Katona: Episode 4

While the command sent a shuttle to meet the representatives of a Tauron splinter fleet, Laszlo raced to Vergis Tower. He needed backup fast. The heaviest armed Blues, Janda, Cassidy and Wesley, would be the best option.

In Vergis the situation seemed to be going to hell. Laszlo had no capacity to process this, and anyway other Blues seemed to be on the case. Wesley looked just about ready to collapse, but Laszlo asked for her help anyway. He explained his situation with the Ha'la'tha, and asked his friends to watch his back.

The steward Cinege, also a Blue (callsign BASE), had been up to the tower for some memory scrubbing. He'd been able to identify a couple of Cylon infiltrators on the Celestra, and somehow he'd also turned up co-ordinates to a nearby system with an inhabitable planet and presumably no Cylon presence.

With the shuttle returned, it turned out that the Tauron fleet was just basically a pirate operation that would probably welcome some of the Celestrans - but would most likely toss any Capricans or insufficiently fanatical Tauron supremacists out of the airlock. This was not a reasonable option. Kobor came up with another way. He wanted to find some kind of hope that would prevent the ship from tearing itself apart, and he had an idea as to how.

Blue Squadron was reassembled in its entriety for a mission. The 12 ColIntel operatives boarded the Raptor and took off for Elysium Omega. Simon navigated the debris field surrounding the Celestra. The mission specs were put together on the run, and the Raptor jumped away.

Laszlo didn't mind getting out of the Celestra for a chance. Maybe his proximity to the Ha'la'tha skewed his opinions, but for the last 24 hours he'd been feeling that the factions on the ship were getting more and more entrenched, and that they'd end up fighting each other over control. Normally he'd have thought he'd be indifferent at this - let the people kill each other, he'd stay out of their way. Except that this was pretty much all that was left of humanity. When there are only 50000 people left alive, 150 is not an insignificant sum to lose.

Laszlo had never pondered questions of species extinction. To him a few hundred dead people were a statistic, a couple of dozen a decent body count for a mission, a single one a mere speed bump. He had no idea how many people he had killed for Ha'la'tha, in prison, for ColIntel. He didn't really care, there were plenty more where they came from. But he didn't really want to be the last man left alive in the universe either.

He realized he wanted the Celestrans to survive. More than that, he wanted humanity to survive.

Elysium Omega was inhabitable, but the cylon base orbiting Elysium Omega was in the way of any plan involving the system. A quick wireless contact revealed that the people on the station weren't the friendly sort. The squadron jumped away, to the rendezvous coordinates agreed beforehand.

Celestra wasn't there. After the FTL had recharged, the Raptor jumped back to the Free Tauron fleet, the co-ordinates Celestra had last been seen. She wasn't there either.

Plans from B to F were floated around, but most of them are moot without the Celestra. If the ship is nowhere to be found, all the remaining choices were desperate. Still, Laszlo felt proud of his friends. Even in this crisis they were a professional unit, weighing the situation dispassionately, not arguing, not blaming each other, not jockeying for position. Ideas were weighed on their own merit, built upon by others. It was like the best parts of Caprican and Tauron culture - all individuals, but all working selflessly for the good of the whole. He remembered why he had felt at home with these people, why he still loved them. He felt no need to say it.

A momentary silence fell. Somebody started to sing What A Wonderful World, like they had used to back in their missions. Others joined in.

Hours passed. Then Celestra appeared on the Dradis, and they hailed her on the wireless.

The welcome on the ship was tense, but not outright hostile. At least captain Polos wanted to hear what they had to say. She agreed with their assesment: on its own, Celestra wouldn't survive, joining the pirate fleet would be impossible after shots had been exchanged. The Cylons on Elysium Omega seemed to be isolated from the main forces. If they could be taken down, maybe they'd have a chance. And even if they couldn't, at least they'd go down fighting.

So the captain made one last announcement. The ship roared with approval. The decision might not have been unanimous, but at least it was not divided along the old lines of Tauron versus Caprican.

The Celestra jumped.

Laszlo never got to fly his shuttle into the final battle. He watched his fellow pilots Kiss and Lightbulb get into rad suits, escorted them to the secondary dock. He would have followed them out in the shuttle, but the shuttle wasn't there. So he stayed on the ship.

As the battle outside raged, Laszlo saw Bartos knife another Tauron in vengeance, saw the boatswain gunned down by security. Arin Lebara, another Ha'la'tha wanted to know who had done it. Laszlo told him that Bartos had gone down the way he chose to, gunned down by security. He didn't mention that the security guard was Galactican.

He got irradiated. He could hardly stand. Cassidy passed him some antirads.

He was nauseous and weak. He felt the ship shaking, heard a terrible noise that just wouldn't stop. He felt the wind as the air escaped through ruptured bulkheads.

Laszlo didn't know where his friends were. He wanted to go look for them, but didn't feel like standing up. Besides, he'd always known that he'd die alone, painfully and nastily. Now that death was certain, it felt wrong to try to interfere with the details. Maybe he was more Tauron than he'd expected after all.

Laszlo Katona: Episode 3

Captain Polos was missing, and wild rumors said she had been jailed by the Capricans. Elias Puskas was having none of this, and had started an actual mutiny. Engineering was now a hostile area to everyone not in Puskas' team, and he threatened to blow it up unless captain Polos was reinstated. He had also taken the presidential secretary Hallywell as hostage, which to Laszlo mattered not at all.

A team of pilots was being sent to a planet called Aegis-9, where Blue Squadron had had its last disastrous mission, one that had ended in a bloodbath and nuclear bombardment. Laszlo was not going to join the pilots on their run - the Blue presence on it was to be Simon. Instead, Laszlo went undercover to infiltrate the rebels at Engineering, drawing on his Ha'la'tha identity. His gamble paid off: the Ha'la'tha were a part of Puskas' mutiny, and he got accepted into the mutineers.

Laszlo had originally intended to take Puskas out, but that would have been suicide. Instead, Puskas got what he wanted - captain Polos got her post back - and so Laszlo got to play an undercover agent for a while. He did his best to sabotage the mutineers from within, to destroy their morale and undermine Puskas' authority, but he didn't quite dare to do it openly. It was easy enough to just let Capricans slip through when he was watching the choke point at the corridor, and whenever he was sent to run to get something approved by the captain, he'd just claim that the captain had approved whatever he wished to happen.

This was a dangerous game, and one that could not be played for long. Sooner or later someone would notice his deception, although the confusion was working in Laszlo's favor. Still, he realized that this was not his strong suit. His normal approach would have left the mutineers dead; this was not an option right now. If the Galactica crew decided to break out of the aft part of the ship, the corridor would become a deathtrap. Laszlo tried to use the news anchor Hadarhi to send Darlington a message - "tell the major I hope he gets a cancer of the ass" - an old Blue Squadron in-joke, hoping that the major would realize that Blues are working to bring down the rebellion. He realized the message would probably never reach Darlington. The journalist was way too polite to pass on what he perceived to be an insult.

Eventually the situation de-escalated, the Galacticans were allowed back into the fold and in an inspired moment of diplomacy, captain Polos and major Darlington actually managed to settle their differences and share command for the time being. For the first time ever, Laszlo actually realized why exactly Darlington had earned his stripes, and admitted a grudging admiration at the major.

Then the pilots came back, and they had prisoners with them. One was obviously a cylon, and the other looked exactly like someone Laszlo remembered shooting dead five years ago on Aegis-9. Somehow he found himself in the fore mess, where the prisoners were being interrogated. Disturbingly, Puskas was also present, still armed with a shotgun.

Someone asked Laszlo to interrogate the bearded man called Daniel. Interrogation was not one of his strengths. Normally people he questioned tended to end up dead in messy ways. Daniel obviously recognized both Laszlo and Darlington, and dropped hints about the massacre on Aegis-9. Puskas, of course, latched on to those, probably because they looked like a way to undermine the major's credibility.

So Laszlo did the only thing he thought might help, and for a chance, it was not "shoot everybody in the room and burn the place down to destroy the evidence". He told Puskas and all the other present about Aegis-9. There was an intelligence mission, a settlement on a distant world, there were 300 people, and he plus some others he was not going to name had slaughtered the lot of them. Maybe they were civilians, to many Blues they'd been a moral problem, but to Laszlo they had been just enemies, merely targets. He hadn't seen a problem in killing them back then, and he didn't give a frak about killing them now.

Puskas was disturbed at the story. Laszlo didn't care. Someone demanded to know if Darlington had been involved, who else had been involved, had the killed been Taurons, all kinds of pointless details. Puskas blew away the other prisoner with his shotgun, splattering blood all over everyone. Daniel started to weep. Laszlo wished someone else would take over this interrogation business, since it was rapidly going downhill. He wanted to get back to his own speciality.

Someone needed to do something about Puskas. Laszlo couldn't figure out what this could be. He wanted to have a private discussion with the man. Most likely it would end with one of them gravely wounded. Laszlo figured that it was more likely to be him than the engineer, but that was all right as well: with his lightly armored flight suit he'd probably survive the blast, and if Puskas shot him, he'd be in trouble with the Ha'la'tha. Right?

It was not turning out to be Laszlo's day, since next he found himself in a ceremony initiating Puskas to the Ha'la'tha. Apparently Gaspar was really impressed with the way the man was handling himself. Laszlo had to admit that Gaspar was right, in a short-sighted kind of way. Puskas seemed to be a fanatic, and fanatics were what the organization had always wanted. Fanatic was what Laszlo himself might have been, if he didn't have such a strong survival instinct.

He expressed doubts to Gaspar about Puskas' suitability, but Gaspar had made up his mind. So Laszlo joined the ceremony, along with the medic Balog, the temple guard Midoru and even the deepcover Ha'la'tha, the boatswain Bartos. Puskas was sworn in, and Laszlo felt completely outmaneuvered.

Then, just after the ceremony had ended, Bartos had left and the others had stayed to discuss strategy, the first mate Kobor turned up with two Galactica marines. Puskas was arrested. Maybe this would turn out okay after all. The man had to be tried for mutiny, but it would be the Tauron captain Polos, and the Ha'la'tha paid at least lip service to obeying the captain. Laszlo was almost able to talk Gaspar out of taking rash action - until it turned out that instead of a tribunal, Puskas was being taken to Vergis tower, to be plugged into the makeshift cylon detector being built out of the Holoband. This machine was reported to be making people insane.

There was no way the Ha'la'tha were going to let this stand.

Strings were pulled, and Puskas was retrieved from the tower. Instead he was taken to the fore mess to be disciplined by the first mate. Laszlo saw the people going into the mess. Kobor was Blue. Everybody else present, including the boatswain, was Ha'la'tha. Everybody except Kobor was armed. This would turn real shitty real quick.

Laszlo wrote a note saying "Bartos is Ha'la'tha", and gave it to Mariska Bako, to take to Kobor. If he'd taken it himself, Bartos would surely have suspected something. Right now he could only hope that the first mate would be able to resolve the situation without the Ha'la'tha deciding that he'd have to be shot or taken hostage.

Somehow Kobor managed to defuse the situation. However, it was now obvious that the balance of power on the boat was completely skewed, and the Ha'la'tha seemed to be coming out on top. Even worse for Laszlo personally was that he'd been feeding them disinformation and doing his best to make them ineffective. It would be a matter of hours before they noticed. When that happened, they'd kill him.

Laszlo Katona: Episode 2

The entire Blue Squadron was gathered together for a meeting in the fore mess. It was the first time in five years. Obviously, the new Cylon menace was even worse than the one they had fought back when they were active. Now they were active again. ColIntel was reactivating the squadron, to use the Celestra against the cylons.

After finally having caught up on his sleep, after trying to feel anything but numbness and a vague nihilistic anger during the morning ritual, Laszlo was expecting to have to fly some missions. He spent his day in readiness, but no flight missions were handed out. The cockroaches on the Celestra were all but gone - the refugees were eating all the food, there were no more scraps for the bugs to feed on. Noticing the impending food shortage Laszlo had captured some of the roaches, fried them and rolled them in scraps of cheap chocolate he had been assigned for his flying missions. The choco-roaches proved to be a popular snack among pilots and hang-arounds.

For the Blue Squadron activity, he tried to keep an eye on the Ha'la'tha. This was rather difficult, because the Gaspar, the new Próta Kéfali, had apparently vanished after openly declaring herself to be Ha'la'tha in the mourning ritual. Nobody seemed to be able to find her. Captain Polos appeared to be missing as well, and even though Laszlo had no problems following major Darlington - JAVELIN - he realized that many Taurons felt the Caprican major had committed a coup. Down among the refugees, politics was happening, and Laszlo couldn't have cared less. Civilians playing democracy while the world is ending - he scoffed at one of his fellow pilots, Spinner, actually standing for election.

Then, someone in charge decided to do something about the Vergis corporation, and suddenly there was a standoff at the stairway leading to the Vergis tower. Laszlo managed to bribe the Caprican pilot Book (with some sedatives) to give him her sidearm, and joined the siege. He didn't know about the order, but he saw his fellow Blues, Cassidy and Wesley (callsign SWEETHEART) being threatened, and went to their aid. Then he realized that a Blue in deep-cover as a Vergis guard, Janda (callsign SHINY) seemed to be on the other side. There was no way the Blues would actually fire on one of their own.

However, pretty much as expected, Kirk Emmerson of the Galactica turned up and offered to negotiate a diplomatic solution. Laszlo had to smile at this: Emmerson was also a Blue, callsign ATLAS, and his speciality was getting people to agree to whatever he wanted. Suddenly the entire siege felt like a tactical masterstroke, a way for Emmerson to get his foot in the door at Vergis. It probably wasn't planned as one, but the Squadron was always very good at improvisation.

The standoff over, Laszlo heard about a missing FTL key and went to investigate. Previously he had paid little attention to the charismatic sublight engineer Elias Puskas, and was going to lightly threaten the man in order to increase pressure on him to return the key. However, it turned out that Puskas was not easily intimidated. The engineer wanted the captain re-instated, and had the talent of a populist demagogue to get others to agree with him. Laszlo realized that this was a dangerous and a powerful man.

He shared his suspicions with Kobor. Trying to catch some news in the pilot bay, he noticed Bey Simon there as well. Then Darlington came in, and tossed a black bag at Simon. Inside was a pilot suit. Simon was also a Blue, callsign TAXI, and he'd been a Viper pilot in a previous life. He had quit after an attack of conscience, but Darlington wanted him back. Simon blew up at him, as might have been expected. Finally he accepted the job. Now there were eight pilots in total, even though Book was grounded for a while due to abusing sedatives.

Laszlo Katona: Character Intro + Episode 1

Character introduction

You might at first think that Laszlo Katona was the coolest man alive. He was a shuttle pilot on a deep space research vessel, a former Ha'la'tha hitman, his abilities honed in the brutal conditions of Colonial prisons of increasing security. In an even more secret former life, he'd been a member of a top secret Colonial Intelligence unit called the Blue Squadron. He had been the assassin, the dirty job expert in a unit specializing in dirty jobs. His call sign, SHANK, reflected this perfectly. Even his biggest weakness sounded like a strength: a decidedly un-Tauron tendency to survive at all costs.

In reality he was a bitter, cynical, emotionally burned-out sociopath who had walked out on his wife and young daughter, and gotten a job on the Monitor Celestra. He wasn't there in any kind of undercover capacity, he just wanted to run away from a bad breakup brought on partly by his criminal activities. He got a steady paycheck, reasonable amount of solitude and maybe a little Ha'la'tha gambling ring running on the side. Almost the only truly positive things left in his life were flying, and a few of his ex-ColIntel friends who were also serving on the Celestra, the same people who had gotten him the job in the first place.

As the Celestra was nearing the end of the current mission, Laszlo was considering reconnecting with his wife and daughter. Maybe not actually trying to get back together as a family - he realized that it wasn't something he was suited for - but possibly to start keeping in touch.

Then the world ended. Laszlo found himself flying evacuation flights from Tauron, to get a pitiful couple of dozen people to safety from a nuclear holocaust. He felt that in the grand scheme of things this was almost pointless, and he was cast in the role of the savior despite not giving a frak about the people he was dragging out.

Episode One - Take The Celestra

With the Capricans' arrival on the Celestra, Laszlo had to prioritize: There's your job, there's your clan, and then there's your family, in an increasing order of importance.

Piloting was the job, so Laszlo hung out with his sleep deprived Celestra mates as well as the newcomers from Galactica. He had met some of the Galacticans before, when flying shuttle missions between the two ships, played a round of cards. Pilots being pilots, everyone oozed testosterone, but pretty soon a sense of camaraderie won out. Caprican or Tauron, Celestran or Galactican didn't really matter in the pilots' quarters. They would have to fly together, and they'd have to trust each other. Enough shared background made this easy. Duties would be shared, and no matter what conflicts arose elsewhere on the ship, they would not be welcome on the cramped ready room next to the shuttle dock.

Ha'la'tha was the clan. Laszlo had rescued some important figures from the burning planet, and this had put him in the deepest part of the remains of the clan without a clan. He was unsurprised that they were going to organize, to set themselves as the protectors of Tauron once again. Laszlo kept his doubts about criminals' ability to become freedom fighters or civic leaders to himself. He would be loyal to their interests if he could, but to him there was a more important purpose still. In the eyes of the Ha'la'tha this would make him a traitor and an oathbreaker. Laszlo accepted this. Surviving in extremely dangerous situations was what he did best.

Blue Squadron was the family. The only people who meant anything to Laszlo anymore had appeared on the Celestra. While swatting away Tauron refugees whose gratitude he didn't want, wishing he could get a few hours sleep again someday, he realized that the rest of his former Blue Squadron mates were not a sleep-deprivation induced hallucination - that they were actually on the ship, arrived from Galactica. A conference with another Blue, Celestra's first mate Kobor - callsign LONGSHOT -confirmed this. All 12 survivors of the Blue Squadron were now on the Tauron ship. This could not be a coincidence.

Laszlo tried to contact many of his mates, and got hints that something was actually going down. Meanwhile the ship got into battle, there were disputes of command and Celestra's role in the second grand exodus of humanity, the civilians wanted to set up a government and the Taurons and the Capricans were scowling at each other. All this went by in a bit of a haze...

... until an artillery specialist from Galactica drew a gun in the CIC and tried to shoot major Darlington - a fellow Blue, callsign JAVELIN. The specialist got gunned down. A Blue marine, Cassidy, callsign SCALPEL, nodded at Laszlo, telling him to help carry the body. Not to the medbay, but to a more private place, the fore mess.

The specialist was, presumably, a cylon. One of the Celestran medics, Zentai, was told to do an autopsy, and to keep totally quiet about the results. Zentai didn't exactly understand what was going on, but suddenly he found himself surrounded by people he presumed to be his crewmates, telling him to do exactly what the big marine wanted. Blue Squadron was slipping out of the shadows, and falling back into their routine.

Zentai was bullied into doing the autopsy. Laszlo, now fully in his blue squadron role as SHANK the dirty job expert, was assisting him and providing security. Surprisingly, the presumed cylon appeared entirely human. Suddenly the dead body turned its head and looked at the people surrounding it. In a flash, Laszlo had his knife out, and stuck it in the heart of the cylon. "Stay dead", he told it. It did.

The body needed disposal. Cassidy was going to get a bodybag. Laszlo and a fellow blue, CIC officer Mariska Bako, callsign SPARK were locked into the fore mess, in order to start dismembering it. Both of the ColIntel agents were still high on adrenaline. It had been over five years since they had last been in combat together. Back then, they had had similar responses to danger. Since then, they had been friends.

Ten seconds after the door had been closed they jumped each other and started tearing each others clothes off. Of course, just as they were struggling out of their uniforms, Cassidy came back in. His expression of head-shaking "not this frakking thing again, you idiots" was priceless.

Briefly Laszlo was again alone with the body. He imagined it started talking to him. He realized he needed sleep desperately.