Hellion
by Jean Graham

Starbuck knew the sound. At least, he thought he did. It was the
soft, pleasant purring noise that Cassie made when they -- well,
the noise Cassie made sometimes. He stirred, reaching to the
neighboring pillow to caress -- a pillow.

Starbuck sat up, eyes searching the small cabin for some sign
of her. Surely she hadn't arranged -- at no small expense --
private quarters for the evening only to abandon him when morning
came?

"Cassie?"

Nothing. But that purring sound. It was coming from under
the bed.

"Hey, Cass ... Look, I know it was a wild night, but..."

He flopped stomach-down and hung over the edge of the bed
to peek under it. The purr became a low growl.

"Ah, come on, Cass. I didn't mean--"

From the dark recesses under the bed two crimson slits glared
back at him. He squinted, focusing on a hazy, upside-down shape
just as the eyes made a violent rush at him. Starbuck yelped,
tried to sit up and got caught in the bedcovers. He landed in a
crashing heap on the floor and extricated his head in time to see
something fat and furry making a mad dash for the water closet.
The something was carrying a shiny black dress boot between very
sharp teeth.

Starbuck scrambled for the intercom, a tangle of blankets and
bare legs. "Apollo!" he yelled, "Apollo, help! There's a weird
cabbage in this creachin! I mean there's a cabin in this creach--
There's a thing in here!!!"

The speaker crackled and a nonplussed voice said,
"Starbuck, you shouldn't talk about Cassie that way."

"Huh? No! No,wait! Apollo? Apollo!

The cabin door came open. Starbuck jumped. "Oh, Cassie
-- it's you! Where'd you go?"

"To the lab to feed Snooky. Only he was gone. He's not here,
is he?"

"That depends. What's a Snooky?"

The four-legged furball emerged from the bathroom at a
trot, waddling straight into Cassie's waiting arms.
"There you are," she cooed, and cuddled and stroked it in a
way that made Starbuck inanely jealous. "Poor Snookums got lost,
didn't he?"

Starbuck glowered at the pudgy, sickeningly adorable face
of the thing in her arms and wondered out loud again what it was.

"Haven't you ever seen a hellion? They're from Virga.
This one's real name is Arlon, but I think Snooky fits him much
better. Don't you?"

Starbuck was about to be ill. "It ate my boot," he
complained.

Snooky smirked at him and belched.

"Oh, he likes anything shiny. Watch." Cassie plopped
the chubby creature down on the dresser, where it promptly fell in
love with itself in the mirror, purring and kissing its reflection.

There was a gross, sucking noise when she pulled it away. It
dropped to the floor and looked annoyed.

"Will you look at that..." Cassie leaned over to inspect
the mirror, intrigued by a large, Snooky-shaped splotch smearing
the glass.

"Yeeuch, " Starbuck said descriptively.

Mini-footsteps pitter-pattered across the room and the
cabin door went ka-swush.

"Snooky!" Cassie dashed into the corridor. Starbuck
dashed after her and ran squash into a startled Captain Apollo.

"Look out!" Starbuck bellowed. "There's a hellion loose aboard
ship and it--"

"-Starbuck."

"-eats dress boots and glues itself to mirrors and--"

"-Starbuck--"

"--leaves a geeuchy mess all over the glass and--"

"--Starbuck!"

"What??!!"

"Are you going to hunt it down -- like that?"

Starbuck looked down at his uncovered manhood and blushed.

"Oh."
 

Commander Adama was unsympathetic. "Cassie has to be mistaken," he
insisted. "Hellions are mythical. They don't exist."

"But it was there," Starbuck protested. "Right there in
our cabin -- a squat, nauseously cute little monster with pudgy
cheeks. Yeeuch."

Adama made a clucking noise. "You two must've had quite
a night. A particularly good batch of ambrosia, was it?"

His intercom buzzed and a feminine voice cried, "Daddy! Daddy!
Help! There's a monster in here!"

"Athena? What monster? Where?"

"I was in the head on deck four and this thing came along and
glommed onto the mirror and... oh ugh, Daddy, it's disgusting!"

"There!" Starbuck exclaimed. "Now will you believe me?"

"Athena, where is it now? Where did it go?"

"I don't know. But it's positively gross, Daddy. And
this gunk it leaves on the mirrors won't wash off!"

Starbuck made a face, envisioning every mirror aboard
the Galactica permanently etched with Snooky's odiously cherubic
imprint. His stomach turned sideways and tried to crawl up
his middle. "I'll find it," he vowed. "If it's the last thing I
do, I'll find it."

He spent four centons stalking Snooky through nearly
every corridor the Galactica possessed, but when at last, near
the level nine Female Recruits barracks, he met his elusive prey,
he almost didn't recognize it. The little bugger was disguised,
and twelve wide-eyed recruits in scanty Colonial skivvies
were watching, speechless, while a lumpy pink bathrobe stalked
with malicious intent toward the nearest mirror.

"Stop that robe!"

Starbuck made a flying leap at the pink lump, but it
dis-assembled into fuzzy, flying tatters on impact. He spied
the hellion a micron later, scuttling between the legs of a
startled (but shapely) recruit. (Starbuck, unfortunately, was
barred from following by a heartless slap in the face.)

Squealing chaos broke out in the barracks, but Starbuck, not
to be discouraged, plunged boldly after the stealthy intruder
-- straight into the barracks showers and a brand new orchestra
of feminine screams even louder than the first. He
had, regrettably, no time to admire the passing scenery; his prey
was making a run for the terraced steam convertor in the corner.
Twice, he lost footing on the wet, soapy floor, sliding
(half-backward) until he collided, rump first, with the
steam convertor. Snooky had already clamored to the top and
was crouching for a leap at the open ventillation duct that loomed
in the ceiling above.

"Oh no you don't!" Starbuck scrambled up the side of
the convertor and made a foolhardy dive for the fleeing alien. He
missed.

Snooky leapt for the ventillation duct.

He missed, too.

Cassie, Apollo, Colonel Tigh and a squadron of recruits
in various stages of undress arrived at the shower room door in
time to see two flailing shapes sail floorward from the top of
the steam conversion unit.

"Starbuck!"

There was an oddly muffled crash, a groan, and a chorus
of startled cries from the crowd of onlookers. Starbuck opened
his eyes to a ceiling that refused to quit rotating. It was
replaced by the far more stable vision of Cassie, whose look of
abject concern for his well-being was promptly and
mysteriously supplanted by an expression of utter revulsion.

"Oh, Starbuck! Ugh! How could you?!"

"Huh?"

Hands -- Apollo's and Tigh's -- pulled him to a
standing position and began dragging him toward the exit.

"Hey, wait a micron you guys! What'd I do to--?"

"--You don't want to know," Apollo interrupted.

"Three hectares of latrine detail," muttered Tigh, "that's
what you're gonna do."

"But I--" Starbuck twisted, straining to turn around.

Apollo restrained him. "You don't want to look."

"Really," Tigh added pointedly. "You don't."

Starbuck saw Cassie rush past and out the door. Funny, she
looked a little green.

In fact, the surrounding recruits were all looking a
little green. Starbuck couldn't stand it any more. He brushed his
well-meaning restrainers away and spun around.

"What the--?"

Starbuck turned a little green himself. "Oh," he said meekly.

Apollo grimaced. "I told you not to look."

On the floor where Starbuck had fallen lay a round,
furry shape, substantially flatter, but still vaguely reminiscent
of a hellion named Snooky. Some of the recruits were gathered,
morbidly curious, around it. The others hung back,
looking marginally ill.

"Three hectares latrine detail and four more on fleet
inventory duty," Tigh was gloating. "I'm going to enjoy this."
With Apollo's assistance, he finished dragging the distraught Lt.
Starbuck through the shower room door and out of the barracks.

Recruit Mara and recruit Terrell stood on either side of
the deceased little mess on the floor.

"What do we do with it now?" Terrell wondered.

Mara shrugged. "With a little washing, it wouldn't make a bad
rug.

Terrell drenched her with the hydrospray.