Thanks to ImLostForever for being a fab Beta Reader. All mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or BSG 2003 or any of the characters.

Caught in a Rip Tide

Chapter 1

Failsafe

'SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE.'The mechanical voice gave way to a low drone, a deep vibration that sent shudders through the whole building. Desmond knew what was happening. On the day that plane had crashed it had been the same; the hieroglyphs had gone red on the digital clock, the room had started to shake and over and over the female computer voice had repeated the same mantra, System Failure. System Failure. Only that time he hadn't waited long enough for the voice to give up.

He could see the small hexagonal cover now, it's yellow edges winking in the emergency lights. He crawled the last few yards, gritting his teeth as the humming vibration intensified. It made his fillings hurt. Soon everything was rattling, shaking down so hard the whole building felt like it was about to collapse on top of him. He clutched the key tighter, fighting against the unseen forces that were tugging at it, trying to pull it out of his grasp.

When he finally reached the cover and flipped up the lid, he watched with horror as it was immediately ripped out of his hands and flung against a far wall. He took a deep breath, holding the precious key as firmly as he could. With an effort he forced it into the lock, twisted hard, shut his eyes and waited.

At first nothing happened. For one tiny moment he wondered whether Kelvin had been wrong. Perhaps all this wasn't real after all – the hatch, the button - maybe John Locke had been right and the whole thing had been a scam. But just as that thought hit home and he almost began to hope again, there was a flash, a brighter light than anything he'd ever seen before, and he knew it was Kelvin who'd made the best guess, and now Desmond had burst the dam and he was going to die.

He braced himself for whatever it was that was about to overwhelm and destroy him, holding fast to every speck of courage he possessed. He was ready. He had accepted his fate. He would take the pain. But there wasn't any pain, just an intense bright, white light. Time seemed to stop. It was like he was standing in the middle of a space where nothing moved, and everything was just suspended in brightness. There was bright everywhere, it was like he was seeing white from inside himself, as if the light came from within him and was exploding all his molecules from the inside out. Was this what death felt like? Was this dying? He was going into the light, becoming light. It didn't hurt; it just felt like he was being turned inside out, it felt like the light inside him was enveloping every cell, inverting his whole body. He was being renewed. No one told him it would be like this. He looked at it in wonder, consciously surrendering himself to it, allowing his whole self to be moved and transformed. It was as if the light was raising him up, transporting him, he could almost feel the spaces between each cell. He was light. He was air. He was free.

00000

Boomer threw herself into the pilot's seat. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Racetrack glancing back through the door.

'Don't turn around!' she yelled, flipping up the control panel, 'Close the hatch!' She fired the engines hot and slammed the controls so hard that the Raptor lurched as it took off, swaying drunkenly in a crooked line. She corrected the angle, swearing softly under her breath as she pushed the Raptor to its limit, forcing it to accelerate towards the glimmer of the opening fifty yards above them. She just hoped the Cylons didn't close it and trap them inside. They must have found the nuke by now.

'Start the clock.' She shouted back to Racetrack, willing the Raptor to climb faster. She could hear Racetrack punching in the numbers,

'Spooling up the FTL…' Racetrack's voice was shaking but it sounded like she was still holding it together. Just.

Through the cockpit she could still see the membranous sides of the Base Star. It was taking too long. If they had any chance at all they had to get enough distance between themselves and that live nuke. How long had she set the detonator for? Three minutes? She hadn't counted on standing around being examined by dozens of copies of herself… she'd stood there for what? A minute? Two minutes? She'd been frozen in time, just staring at them in horror. She shook the picture from her mind, seeing instead the red walls of the Base Star give way to the black of empty space.

There was a jolt from the first shockwave as the nuke went off, then a shudder as the FTL drive kicked in.

A flash.

'What the frak?'

The Raptor was hurtling down towards the planet.

'Jump us out of here!' Boomer screamed as she fought the controls.

'I can't! The FTL's not working!'

'Godsdamn!' The Raptor tore through the upper atmosphere, jolting and shuddering like it was about to rip itself apart.

'Pull up! Pull up!' cried Racetrack.

Boomer held on grimly. None of the controls were working. The Raptor was being sucked down too fast. I'm going to die. I'm finally going to die. She watched as the world flung itself past her cockpit. Nothing mattered now. This was it, it was over.

Suddenly the controls came back. Whatever it was that had been pulling them in let go, and the Raptor bucked, almost flipping them sideways.

'What the…?'

'It's OK, I'm on it!' Carefully, Boomer eased on the back thruster, and got the nose straight again. 'Easy now.' That's what he would say. 'Just take it easy, Sharon. Loosen up.' The clouds were thick here, getting darker, faint marks of rain tracing their way across her windshield. She was mesmerized by their little rivulets, the patterns they were making, their tiny formed shapes. They seemed so innocent, so smooth. She watched the way the light filtered through them, catching the edges and making them sparkle. Until there wasn't any light anymore. In an instant the air turned from gray to black and suddenly huge blobs of rain were hammering down hard, completely obscuring her vision. She felt a thump as the wind thudded against the side of the plane, scooping it to the side.

'Frak, where did that weather system come from?' She bit down the panic and focused on keeping the Raptor steady, trying to get a fix on something through the murk. That's it, just edge the nose back up again nice and slow. Nice and slow. She wondered if he was still alive. Maybe he was dead. Maybe she'd blown up that base star for nothing.

'Boomer!'

She looked up, startled.

'Pull up!'

The Raptor tore through the last of the clouds, and suddenly the ground was all around them. There was no time, she jerked the nose up higher, making the Raptor sit up and beg. It bumped along the tops of the trees, skidding down through the canopy as it smashed its way to the ground. There was no way they were going to survive this. What kind of a pilot was she anyway? She'd messed up another godsdamn landing.

Sorry Chief. I broke your plane.