That little piece of levity didn't go over too well with the distrustful officer. Clearly Arawn was insulting him but since his commander wasn't making an issue of it he really had little he could do. The developing battle saved him from continuing the conversation he was obviously losing and with a final hate filled glare he turned back to his displays.

Arawn was rather ambivalent regarding the entire exchange. The officer was clearly dead set against him and had been since they had first met. Equally clearly however his opinion had a limited amount of weight in the decision making process, as such he could be ignored for now. With that little detail dealt with Arawn turned his attention back to the sensor displays. He wasn't familiar with the style but as usual his knowledge of human convention served him well. The screen was some form of pseudo-three dimensional display. Clearly they lacked holograms for true three dimensional displays and their limited computers seemed to struggle with what they had. He was forced to admit it might just be convention though as they seemed to display the information in the end.

At the centre of the display a large number of blue dots seemed to hide behind the central symbol which clearly represented the ship he was currently on. The deployment suggested these ships were non-military. Either that or the commander was an idiot. He'd go with non-military with the benefit of the doubt for now. That would make this ship an escort for a convoy. The red symbols denoting the enemy ships looked to be right at the edge of the sensors however far that actually was and as he watched they spawned multiple smaller signatures. Fighters judging by how they moved in formation which would mean those wingless deathgliders would be launching soon. Almost as soon as that thought passed through his head more blue signals appeared and the woman beside him spoke.

"Ready Vipers launched commander. Forming up to engage." Which neatly answered one of his other questions. Viper, a good name for a fighter, far better than the Tau'ri imagination less number scheme. Not a patch on Goa'uld names mind you. Any fighter with Death in its name was clearly superior. Judging the woman he was near actually had an important job to do he decided to use his guard to answer his questions. He wasn't immune to explosive death in space so letting the people who were doing the fighting get on with fighting seemed like a good idea. With a thought he dropped his shield and gestured the guard near with a curled finger. The guard hesitated for a moment before moving and there was the slightest check in his step as he cleared where the shield used to be which amused Arawn once again.

"Smart replies aside I don't recognise your written language so who exactly is it attacking you right now?" The guard clearly wasn't expecting this but he'd been one of those who witnessed several of Arawn's tricks and his certainty of reality was ever so slightly unsure. When he spoke he'd clearly just decided to roll with it and think later which Arawn briefly cheered at as it was another step to cement his place.

"It's the Cylons again." The hatred in his voice was clear which indicated this war was a bad one. "They've been after us since they nuked the colonies trying to kill the last of us. The fleets all that's left. Damn Machines" Arawn had to suppress a curse at that. It seemed his luck as only somewhat good. Yes he'd survived a plasma beam to his face and landed on a ship of religious believers but he'd managed to land on the losing side of a war of extermination. This would be a challenge. Then the last two words filtered through his thoughts, machines. Human killing machines. That had a terrifying familiarity to it. Keeping his voice calm he continued to question the guard.

"These Cylon machines. They aren't made of hundreds of self-replicating blocks that can self assemble into different machines are they?"

"Lords above no!" The guard replied quickly with a worried look. "If they could do that they'd have wiped us out in the first war. The toasters are big human shaped machines with glowing red eyes." he stopped to take a quick breath. "We beat them the first time but this time around they caught us by surprise, they had human-like infiltration models. We have one in the cells," the guard paused giving Arawn a look, "Not the ones you were in, different ones. About those block machines?" he ended in a hopeful tone. Seeing no reason to keep it to himself after the question he'd asked Arawn answered with feigned boredom.

"A machine race I encountered in the past. Little more than machine locust whose sole purpose was to make more of themselves and kill anything that got in their way. For some reason also felt the need to make human models. They were destroyed some time ago. Wanted to make sure you hadn't found some we missed." Once again sprinkling truth in with the lies. His description of replicators was spot on but his suggesting his pantheon destroyed them rather then got its collective posteriors handed to them was somewhat stretching the truth. Though you could argue Ba'al, arrogant flop that he was, was instrumental in their final defeat.

"Incoming!" The shout interrupted whatever the guard may have said and centuries of battle experience had him reaching for a hand hold. Luckily he had too as the impact was far greater than he'd been expecting. He'd been expecting a light tremor at such an early stage of the battle. What he'd got was a severe lurch and he could swear he saw a couple of structural beams flex slightly. "Nuke strike on dorsal hull, sections five through ten, armour holding!" His jaw dropped in disbelief as he held himself in place with one hand on the console beside him. Nukes were not unheard of as Tau'ri used them in large numbers. Even Goa'uld used them for such grand purposes as removing offending mountains to get at nice rich mineral deposits but these primitives seemed to be lacking in energy shields of any kind which meant tossing nukes around was a quick way to lose all your ships. Of course thinking about it that's exactly the sort of exchange a machine would find favourable. He'd have to figure out a way to design some shield systems these primitives could build. To hell with sitting in a ship without shields.

"Fleet jumped commander!" A man on the other side of the room shouted bringing him back to himself. A quick glance at the sensors showed the marks he'd assumed denoted non-military ships had disappeared, though most of the area was a mess of duelling fighters.

"Recall all Vipers and prep the ship to jump." The commander was admirably calm in the battle. His objective was obviously to escape with civilian ships which sat very well with Arawn. He could no doubt help them turn this war around when he got in power but he had to live that long and a nuclear exchange without shields was not conducive to a long life. They'd no doubt take a few more hits when the fighters fell back to land and reduced their coving fire but even with his limited information Arawn knew they couldn't afford to just leave the fighters to die. The fleet likely couldn't replace them. Knowing the next few minutes would be rough he redoubled his grip and set himself firmly. Sure enough another nuke managed to slip past the defences and impacted this ship, this time causing one of the large screens to shatter. It ended with a single growled command. "Jump"

It was the most disconcerting feeling Arawn had ever experienced. For a brief moment it felt as if his brain had left the rest of his body behind and had to wait for it to catch up. Whatever that method of FTL was it wasn't Hyperdrive. He could see the civilian fleet which suggested the jump was just that. Movement from one place to another instantly. He mentally rubbed his hands together, that kind of drive would be a massive tactical advantage. He couldn't wait to find out how it worked. Which was odd contrasting with their otherwise primitive technology. Further ruminations were cut off when the woman beside him spoke up.

"Deck Chief reports eight percent casualties in the Vipers and Starbuck took shrapnel on her approach. He said it doesn't look good. They're taking her to medical." For a moment Arawn was rather ambivalent but it dawned on him that if a specific pilots injury deserved a shout out to the commander then she must be important. That led neatly on to yet another way to gather support. He could feel the weight of his personal healing device on his hip. He learned that lesson six hundred years ago when touring a temple built to his glory. He'd caught his foot on a step and, somehow, managed to break his toe. Of course he couldn't show that their God was a clumsy idiot and so he had to act as if everything was normal for six hours before he got back to his ship and had it fixed. No way he'd be going through that again.

"Right, sounds like medical next." He met the guards eye as he pushed off the console. It was clearly an order to lead him there but before the guard could cave in once again an irritating voice sounded from behind him.

"And just why are you going to medical?" Once again the distrustful one was stepping in. This time though Arawn was more intent he not.

"God of the Underworld if you would recall." Arawn spoke as he looked over his shoulder.

"So what you go down there and Bless them? Take their souls?"

"I was considering more telling them to bugger off and live personally. It looks like you need pilots and what's the fun in being a God if you don't break the rules every now and again?" With that leaving everyone in the command centre staring he stepped out into the hall, the sound of his guards boots hurrying to catch up behind him.

8888

It wasn't far to the infirmary and his guiding guard wasn't wasting his time almost running down the corridor. No doubt he would have been running if Arawn had given any indication he would run. Obviously he had no intention of running as it did not befit a God but he did walk with a very brisk pace to show how serious he was. Delicate balance all things considered. On the one hand he had an image to uphold, while on the other he'd lose a lot of projected goodwill if he didn't save the named pilot, star-something-or-other. Luckily the ship wasn't all that large and they reached the medical bay in short order.

Clearly most of the people in the room were in for minor injuries, probably tossed about when the nukes hit, and didn't that still send a shiver of dread down his spine, nukes without shields. There wasn't many pilots either as he only saw a handful of flight suits, most of which stood staring with horrified concern at another looking rather the worse for wear with a couple of doctors beside her. Probably the star-whatever he heard about...

"Hang in there Starbuck, the Doc's will have that out of you soon," one of the other pilots standing closer to her than the others spoke.

Starbuck! That was the name, probably do well to remember it. It was definitely a shrapnel wound, if you could call the three foot shard of razor sharp metal impaling her abdomen shrapnel. Perhaps sword would be a better word.

Shaking off the momentary lapse in his train of thought Arawn strode forward shouldering past the pilots who stood nearby. The words of discontent this generated drawing the attention of the pilot standing by her side and causing him to spin in place. The change in stance brought Starbucks face into view and she really didn't look too good. Which meant all nice diplomacy to heal needed to get tossed out the metaphorical airlock.

"Who the Frack are..."

And speaking of tossing, Arawn's hand flashed forward, gripping the pilots collar before pulling and throwing him back the way he'd just come. Super human strength, the gift that just keeps on giving, so long as you remember you have it that is. The other pilots he'd shoved through should catch the one the threw. The sound of cursing followed by multiple bodies hitting the ground came from over his shoulder. Or they could all fall over, that was an option too.

"Now then, Starbuck isn't it?" Arawn began as he stood beside the bed, the sounds of his guards stopping the pilots from jumping on him. He did so love putting himself into situations where others actions reinforced his growing narrative in their own minds. The doctor was looking at the ruckus with confusion written plain on his face. Starbuck on the other hand seemed far more with it in comparison, which was rather impressive considering she was impaled currently.

"Who the Frack are you?"

"Arawn, God, in this specific case pertaining to you, of the underworld." Her eyes widened slightly before another question formed on her lips. Flashing his eyes he continued before she could get a word in. "Now don't get me wrong, I'm not here to ferry off your soul to the afterlife. You worship a different pantheon so it's not my job and damned if I'll do Hades job for him. I am however willing to prevent you dying. It seems to me that this fleet needs its fighter pilots so I'm willing to bend the rules slightly." Leaning forward he lowered his voice. "Really Hades is so lazy he probably won't even notice, but just to be safe you may want to consider converting afterwards." It didn't hurt Hades had been vaporised in an assassination some sixty years prior. He wasn't going to be spouting any contradictory stories.

Leaning back with a sly wink he pulled out his healing device. By now the pilot he had tossed was back by his side, clearly having caught some of the conversation and perhaps having been given a word or two by one of the guards. Either way he wasn't attacking so that was going well.

"If you're fracking with me I swear death won't stop me cracking open your skull."

Ignoring the threat being carried on the rapidly weakening voice he swept his eyes across the room, making sure his eyes flashed brightly to add weight to his following words. "Hold her down, " he met her eyes once more, "this is going to hurt a hell of a lot more coming out then it did going in." The doctor and the pilot pressed down on her shoulders while two more held her legs.

Holding his hand above her stomach he activated the healing device with a quick thought. The gem lit up and bathed her in light as it began knitting together damage. Step one completed, heal the surrounding impact damage caused when it struck her. That would stop most of the bleeding in areas away from the metal itself and hopefully stabilise her long enough to survive pulling out the shrapnel. Now for the painful part. He curled the fingers of his free hand around the wider end of the shard and began to slowly pull it out. That's when the screaming started. Technically he was slicing her to ribbons inside with a piece of jagged metal as he did this, so the screaming was to be expected. Though to give Starbuck her due, she held remarkably still. It took a certain kind of mental fortitude to not thrash in agony when experiencing this much pain.

The jagged end protruding from the other side of her abdomen disappeared from sight, the hole in her skin flowing back together in moments. He could see out of the corner of his eye shocked expressions on the faces of those around him as they stared. It wasn't over yet though, still a good foot of sharp metal to pull free but at least the pain was lessening at this point. Technically the further it came towards being out the less of her abdomen was being shredded with every seconds motion. Thankfully this meant less screaming. By the time the last piece of the shrapnel blade came free even Starbuck was able to watch, the pain having receded. The last wound stayed open for a few more seconds drawing some confused looks before a small handful of metal pieced fell out and the flesh closed.

"Always make sure you get all the shards," Arawn muttered to the others as he placed the shrapnel on the bed beside Starbuck before laying that hand on her stomach while he waved the healing device a few more times. Mostly showmanship at this point. With a final hum of satisfaction he switched off the healing device and stepped back. Starbucks hands began exploring her newly healed abdomen even though she still looked pale.

"Any other major injures, and by that I mean life threatening not oww my finger hurts." He was willing to do more miracles but honestly he was not going to set a precedent by healing minor injuries. Seeing no-one volunteering he tucked away his healing device and began to stride from the room. Just as he reached to door he spun around and looked back.

"Starbuck!" her head snapped towards him, mouth moving as if she was trying to find words, clearly having almost died and then having a miracle performed on her had thrown her mental balance way off. He levelled a finger at her "I expect at least one votive offering from you." he made sure to inject a good deal of playful mocking into his tone before walking out the door before she could reply.

Things were certainly coming together.