"Arrival at Armistice Station" or "The Erotic Adventures of Colonel McHorny"
 

Here's my attempt to novelize the first few pages of the remake script. I did it in order to try and imagine why a devoted family man who makes a point of carrying framed pictures of his wife and son would sex it up with a woman he's known for ten seconds. I couldn't even attempt to answer some more general questions about this scene, such as why does Number Six feel the need for sex at all? Why would the Cylons sacrifice three of their kind to eliminate one human (and a seemingly useless one at that)? Why wouldn't they just blow up the station from afar? Most importantly, why would they destroy the station at all and risk telegraphing their upcoming secret attack? Why put the humans on guard? Why destroy a useless station?

To explain the colonel's motives I had to add an extra point-of-view character who now becomes the father of Boxey, instead of the colonel. I wanted to quit writing halfway through, because I knew it ended with unexplained heavy petting and an explosion that the script never really explains. I'm assuming it was a bomb, but who knows? Was Number Six the actual bomb? Was it planted on the station or on their ship? All unanswerable questions.

I might have attempted to answer them if I were a glutton for punishment. And if you read all 1,500 words here, then you're the one who's a glutton for punishment.




Armistice Station distinguished itself from the
surrounding starfield with a lack of speed that almost
seemed to mock him. It would grow larger in the cockpit
window for another hour before they finally docked, and
then the real fun would begin -- two full days of the
colonel's unique brand of company, which of course was
no company at all.

He didn't realize he had been drumming his fingers
against the helm control until he caught a disapproving
sideward glance from his superior. "Sorry, sir."

"How many times have you shared this assignment with
me, Lieutenant? Five? Six?"

There was no hint of reproach in the colonel's voice,
just that flat tone to which the lieutenant was accustomed.

"Eight, sir."

The colonel folded his hands across his lap with
exaggerated patience. "Then you know we're going to be
here for a while. I suggest you accept that, then relax
and make the best of it. There are a lot worse duties in
the fleet."

"Yes, sir. It's just that I haven't seen my family in
some time. I've got a leave coming when we're through here,
and I'm afraid I'm just a little antsy right now."

"You're always antsy, Lieutenant."

He regretted mentioning his eagerness to see his family.
The colonel wouldn't be able to relate. He wasn't a family
man, didn't even seem to enjoy human contact. Perhaps that
was why he had served as courier officer for the past five
years -- so that once a month he could spend these empty
days aboard the equally empty station. It was a meaningless,
even wasteful, assignment –- the Cylons hadn’t been seen or
heard in over forty years –- but he had no doubt the colonel
relished it.

From past experience, the lieutenant knew that only a
minimum of dialogue would be exchanged during their
stay –- all of it of an official capacity -- which is
why the colonel's next words were so surprising.

"How many children do you have?"

Maybe he's loosening up, the lieutenant thought. Maybe
these two days won't seem as endless as they have before.

"Just one," he said. "A boy. Boxey. Just turned six
and growing like a weed."

The colonel nodded once, then gazed forward silently.
The conversation was over, and it had been nothing if not
brief...but a personal question was so out of the ordinary
that it seemed to the lieutenant as if a first step had been
made on a long road.

In the cockpit window, Armistice Station grew larger
by imperceptible degrees.

* * *

Six hours later, the walls of the empty station were
already closing in on the lieutenant. He had no official
duties to perform, was here only because military policy
dictated that the courier officer be accompanied by an
assistant. He was certain that if the policy were ever
amended to exclude an assistant, the colonel would offer
no complaint. And neither would he.

He paced the bare steel corridors, his footsteps echoing
dully.

Any hope he had entertained about his superior beginning
to behave more sociably had been long since shattered; the
man was his usual reticent self, having sealed himself away
in the conference room immediately after they had docked.
If asked, he would claim to only be following procedure -- but
the conference room had not been needed once in its entire
history, and never would be. The Cylons were as uninterested
in maintaining diplomatic relations with human beings as the
colonel himself. He was in there solely for the solitude it provided.

Even so, the lieutenant briefly considered going in
to join him for a few minutes. He could attempt some
small talk, perhaps even venture a personal question of
his own. But he knew the colonel –- who would be idly
going over some paperwork, or just sitting back reading
a book or doing a word puzzle -- would glance up and
give him that same disapproving look he'd given him in
the transport.

The lieutenant wandered into the small lounge area
instead. He sat down heavily, folded his arms across his
chest. The chair was not particularly comfortable, but he
checked his impulse to get back to his feet and managed to
stay seated long enough that he became dimly aware of his
head growing heavier.

His footsteps bounced back at him from familiar steel walls.
He was pacing in front of the door to the conference room,
debating whether or not to go in. When he stopped moving,
his footsteps continued to echo, and the irrationality of it
made him uneasy. The lights in the corridor suddenly dimmed,
yet it felt less like a power failure than an immense and
oppressive shadow falling over him. He cringed beneath the
weight of this shadow, sensing a presence above him.
Reluctantly, he peered up toward the ceiling, which had been
swallowed by the gloom. He saw nothing, but knew there were
unseen eyes staring back at him. He shivered violently and
started to run, only to find himself jerking awake in the
lounge chair.

He moved hastily down the corridor. The dream
images were already fading, a vaguely disturbing residue
in his head, but they left enough of an impression that
he entered the conference room without questioning
himself.

When he yanked open the hatch, the colonel gave him
a surprised look, but not necessarily the unhappy one
he had been expecting earlier. They stared at each other
for a long moment. The lieutenant didn't know what to say,
didn't even know why he had found it so important to come
here.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I was just wondering...I mean, I had
a feeling something might have hap-"

He heard the heavy footsteps an instant before the colonel's
eyes shifted to the hatchway behind him. Turning, he watched
a pair of chrome metal figures enter the room, red eyes tracking
back and forth. He took a hesitant step back against the
wall as the two Cylons silently assumed a flanking position
beside the hatch.

The colonel appeared to share the lieutenant's same
sense of shock. Why were the Cylons presenting themselves
today after so many years of silence? And why, in defiance
of diplomatic protocol, were they armed?

The lieutenant and the colonel had stored their pistols
in the weapons locker on the transport. There was no
chance of reaching them without exiting through the
same hatch the Cylons now appeared to be guarding.

The colonel visibly reined in his surprise, and just as
he opened his mouth to speak, a beautiful raven-haired
woman stepped through the hatch, moving as smoothly
and precisely as the machines that had preceded her.
With her delicate features and feminine grace, she was
the last thing anyone would have expected to find in the
company of the two hulking metal centurions.

She glanced at the lieutenant, gave him the subtlest
of winks, and said, “Hello, sleepyhead.” Then she focused
only on the colonel, whose mouth still hung half-open,
and sat down across from him at the small conference table.
She smiled a coquettish smile that made the lieutenant
more uncomfortable than the realization that she and her
mechanical escorts had been looming over him as he slept.

The colonel smiled back at her. It was an awkward gesture,
the kind of nervous yet willing smile a teenager on his
first date might produce.

The strange woman reached across the table, softly
cupped the colonel’s chin and kissed him tenderly on the
lips.

Despite the surreal circumstances, the lieutenant found
himself wondering if the man’s reclusive tendencies ran
much deeper than he would have previously believed.
He had the sudden yet unshakable conviction that this
was as close as he had ever gotten to a member of the
opposite sex.

When the woman pulled back, all traces of her smile
were gone, as was her overt flirtatiousness. She gazed
into the colonel’s eyes with an air of perplexity. "Are
you alive?" she asked.

"Yes." From the look on the colonel’s face, it seemed
he was not just automatically responding to the obvious,
but making a conscious decision. “Yes, I’m alive.”

"Prove it."

She rose fluidly from her chair, glided over to where he
sat and pulled him into a sensual embrace, her hands
slipping nimbly under his shirt. The colonel did not
resist. His hands, in contrast to hers, moved fumblingly,
exploring areas of the feminine form they had no doubt
never before encountered.

As the lieutenant watched them helplessly, a muffled
explosion shook the walls, and he knew instinctively that
the transport was no more.

At the sound of the blast, the colonel appeared to come
back to himself. He struggled to free himself from the
woman’s grasp, but her arms were clamped around him
snugly, pinning his own arms to his sides with an unnatural
strength. She tightened her grip, and his face contorted
with agony, and perhaps also with the bitter realization
that his life was ending even as it had just begun.

When the horrible sound of snapping bones filled the room,
the woman’s smile returned. But it was a new smile, one
all to herself.

As he had done in his dream, the lieutenant shivered,
then ran.

He knew that he had no chance of making it past the two
Cylons, knew that he had seen the faces of his wife
and son for the last time. But in that final instant, he took
comfort in the fact that he had known them at all, and that
he had lived before he died.

Then the room, and the station around it, tore itself apart
in a massive concussion of sound and flame.

Glutton #1 reporting.

Verdict: Better and more enjoyable than Moore's version.

Thanks, RG.

Glutton # 2
Now that IS an improvement. :cookie:

Glutton #3

You're hired.