01 - Battlestar Galactica (13 page)

Once Captain Russo had closed the door again, she faced him. She thought she
knew what was on that printout. “One of the passengers has a shortwave
wireless,” she said softly. “They… heard a report that Caprica’s been nuked.”

The captain’s face was immobile with shock; he seemed unable to answer.

“It has, hasn’t it?” she asked, barely keeping her own expression together.

The captain finally managed to reply. “Caprica and three other colonies.” He
handed her the printout. His hand was shaking. Laura took the printout from him.
With her other hand, she clasped his, and held it tightly.
Stop shaking. We
have to be strong. If we’re not, who will be?
She looked at the printout,
and saw that it was exactly as she had thought and feared. She wept inwardly,
but pushed the feeling away.

The captain turned from her, pulling his hand away. “I guess I, uh”—he rubbed
his chin nervously—“should make an announcement or something.”

You’re in no condition to be making an announcement,
she thought.
The
last thing they need is to see their pilot shaking, the same way they are.
“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’m a member of the political cabinet. It’s my
responsibility.” She could see the relief on his face as he nodded. “While I’m
doing that, I would ask that you”—she had to think a moment, about what she
should or could do—“contact the Ministry of Civil Defense. See what we can do to
help.”
She made her voice sound deliberately upbeat on that last note. He
accepted her offer with a desperate nod.

After reading over the printout one more time, Laura returned to the cabin
and stood at the front, where she could address the passengers. She motioned to
Billy to stand with her. She drew a breath, let it out slowly, drew another.
Then she began speaking to the passengers, in a quiet but steady voice. “The
reports are confirmed. There has been a Cylon nuclear attack on at least four of
our worlds—including the colonies Caprica… Picon… Aerilon… and
Tauron.”

The passengers were immediately up out of their seats, all talking at once—asking for more information, demanding to be taken home, or
simply crying out in fear. Laura gestured with both hands for people to quiet
down. “Please! Please stop. Please.” The cabin quieted, but only slightly. “I’m
trying to reach the government now to get more information. In the meantime, we
should all be prepared for an extended stay aboard this ship. So, uh”—she was
thinking rapidly now, on her feet—“you, please, and you”—she turned, pointing to
two of the flight attendants—“take an inventory of the emergency supplies and
rations.” Both flight attendants nodded and began moving to their jobs.

“Wait—wait a minute,” said one of the passengers. It was Aaron Doral, the
public relations officer who had guided her around the
Galactica.
He
looked distrustful and belligerent; with his PR demeanor completely gone, he
seemed a different person. “Who put you in charge?”

Laura was momentarily caught off guard by the challenge. Around her, the
faces of many of the other passengers were filled with sudden uncertainty as to
her authority. She thought of how to answer, and decided to approach it—and
Doral—head on. Just like a teacher being challenged by a student in a classroom.
Walking toward him, she said, “Well, that’s a good question. The answer is, no
one.”

She pressed her lips together, holding the printout tightly in her hands.
“But… this is a government ship, and I am the senior government official, so
that
puts
me in charge, so”—she raised a hand to gesture to him—“why
don’t
you
help me out, and go down into the cargo area, and see about
setting it up as a living space?” Before he could answer, she turned away from
his scowl and said to the others, “Everyone else, please—
please
—try and
stay calm. Thank you.”

With that, she took Billy by the arm and pulled him aside. She handed him
another piece of paper that the captain had given her.

“All right—this is the passenger manifest.” Billy took it from her, and he
was nodding, but he looked very shaky. His hand, like the captain’s, was
trembling. She paused in her train of thought and looked at him closely, meeting
his gaze. “Are you all right?”

Billy straightened a little, and suddenly seemed energized. Too energized. “
Yeah.
Yeah.” He swallowed. “My parents… moved to Picon two months ago… to be
closer to my sisters, and their families, and their grandkids, and…”

Laura sighed deeply, but refused to let the pain onto her face. She gazed at
Billy, letting him see her sympathy, but not weakness. At that moment, the
captain appeared at the head of the aisle. “Madame Secretary—we’ve got your comm
link.” She nodded acknowledgment, but before turning away, put a steadying,
motherly hand on Billy’s arm. She made sure he registered the gesture, then
hurried away to the cockpit.

Seated in the copilot’s seat with a headset on, Laura tried to decipher what
she was hearing over the wireless. It was Jack Nordstrom, an advisor in the
president’s office, with whom Laura had worked for years. It was clear from his
voice that Jack was exhausted, distraught, and probably frantic with worry about
everyone he cared about.

“Thank God you’re not here, Laura… thank God. It’s complete chaos. Never
seen anything like it.”
“Jack! Where is the president?”
“The dust in the
air. People wandering the streets.”
She spoke deliberately, insistently.
“Where… is… the president, Jack? Is he alive?”

“I don’t know. I think so. We hear all kinds of things.”
Laura let her
breath out in frustration. “Have the Cylons made any demands? Do we know what
they want?”

“No. No contact. I’m pretty sure about that.”

Insane. It was just insane. She struggled to ask this next question. “Has
anyone discussed”—she paused and shook her head, then pushed on—“has anyone
discussed the possibility of surrender? Had it been considered?”

Jack answered immediately.
“After Picon was nuked, and three other
planets, the president offered a complete, unconditional surrender. The Cylons
didn’t even respond!”

Before Laura could think of an answer to that, she turned her head at a flash
of rocket thruster, and out the cockpit window beyond Captain Russo, saw the
Viper blast away at a sharp angle. The captain was talking to someone on another
frequency. “Colonial Heavy Seven-Niner-Eight… where?” His hands worked at
the nav and dradis screens as he listened. He looked scared. “What should we
do?” He found what he was looking for, and his finger tapped a fast-moving blip
on the dradis screen. “Uh… copy that.”

His gaze jerked to meet Laura’s. His hand went to the throttle. “The Cylons
have found us. There’s an inbound missile.”

Laura craned her neck this way and that, trying to spot the missile. “Where
the hell’d our escort go?” Together with the captain, she looked everywhere. “Is
that it? It’s moving too fast.” We
don’t stand a chance…

Lee had the throttle of the old Viper pegged to the limit. How the frak did
they ever win the first war, flying these crates? He was flying purely by the
seat of his pants, trying to get in front of the missile. The projectile was
fast,
and it was flying a swerving, evasive course. And that was just what
Lee was doing with the Viper, too. The darkness of space might have seemed a
good place to try playing chicken with a deadly missile. Except the missile
wasn’t after him, it was after the transport ship carrying a hundred or more people.
Lee maneuvered smartly, pushing the aging fighter to its limits. He drew close,
then swerved sharply into its path, and flew ahead of it, rolling and pitching,
and finally breaking away from the course that was rapidly taking them both back
toward the passenger ship. The missile followed him, locked on his engine heat.
Good. Good.
Lee maneuvered hard left, hard right, trying to keep it
distracted. It was closing on him.
I think it’s good.

Close enough, and far enough from the transport. Lee gripped the stick
tightly, and with a quick application of thrust, chopped the throttle and
flipped the Viper one hundred eighty degrees around. Now he was flying backward
in front of the missile, gazing straight down the barrel of its nose. It was
arcing toward him, fast. He sighted, waited just the right amount of time, then
opened fire with both rocket-cannons. A hail of glowing projectiles flew out
from his Viper. A heartbeat later, the missile exploded.

He felt elation for one more heartbeat. And then the concussion from
expanding gas and debris hit him. The Viper caught it squarely under the nose
and flipped nose over tail, tumbling. The instruments flickered once, then went
dark. Lee cursed, struggling to bring the Viper back under control. It was all
he could do to get the tumble stopped, then slow his movement away from the
transport. He was out of the fight. He had no more maneuvering capability.

Frak!

There did not seem to be any other Cylon missiles in the area, though, and he
caught a glimpse of the transport, dwindling. It was safe, for the moment. He
thumbed his mic. “Krypter, Krypter, Krypter! This is Apollo to Colonial
Seven-Niner-Eight. I’m declaring an emergency. My systems are offline. I need
assistance.”

And then he could only wait.

South of Caprica City

Miraculously, part of the house was still standing. Even more miraculously,
Gaius Baltar was still alive. Bruised, bleeding, he sat up coughing amidst the
concrete debris and shattered glass. His ears were ringing, and his eyes were
gritty with dust.
They nuked my house. I just survived a nuke.
It was
unbelievable.

It was far from over, though. He could hear the sounds of distant explosions,
and twice as he looked around he winced at a sudden flash of light. None as
close as the burst that had destroyed his home.
Not that that one was really
so close. It must have been thirty klicks away.
He suddenly remembered, with
a shudder, the video images of Caprica City being bombed. How many people had
died in the last hour?
How did I manage to survive? What did I do to deserve
survival? Nothing…

With that thought, he suddenly remembered Natasi, the way she had shoved him
to the floor and thrown her body over his. He’d still been tossed across the
room by the force of the blast.

But without her actions, he wouldn’t have survived.
“Natasi!”
he
shouted, in a panic. He scrambled up to look for her.
“Natasi!”

He did not have to look far. Her broken body lay where it had been thrown
against the far wall. Her neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, her body was
bleeding where she had been hit by flying debris. He approached her slowly,
somberly. “Oh, Natasi,” he said, his voice breaking. He knelt beside her, and
gently stroked her hair. “What did you do? You saved me. You saved my life. Why
did you do that?” For a moment, his rage of just a short time ago was forgotten.
He lowered his head and shook with grief and terror. What had happened to his
life? Why had the world so suddenly gone insane? Was it really all his fault?

Another nuke flashed behind him, making him flinch. It felt a little closer,
close enough to shake the ground. He had to get out of here. No more time to
mourn what he had lost—the
one
he had lost. And come to think of it, now
that he was starting to emerge from the mental haze that had fallen over him,
she was not just the one he had lost,
but the one who had brought this all
upon them.
He began to feel the rage close in again. The rage and shame. He
pushed himself away from her body in disgust, heaved himself up one more time,
and looked around wildly, trying to make a plan.
Head for the hills,
he
thought. That meant going south, and east.

Grabbing a jacket, he ran for the door—what was left of it. Halfway through
the shattered opening, he suddenly turned back and rummaged through the debris
in the remnant of his living room until he found what he was looking for: his
leather briefcase, with summaries of all his recent work. All the classified
information, the information he had given to Natasi. To the enemy. He didn’t
know what difference it made, but he wasn’t going to leave it lying around the
house, where anybody could find it. Where they could find it, and know what he
had done.

With that tucked under his arm, he ran to his car. He would drive until he
could go no farther—which probably would not be very far. And then he would go
on foot. And if necessary, he would crawl, to get away from this nightmare….

No one was going to criticize Sharon for her landing this time. It had been a
bruising reentry, through Caprica’s upper atmosphere. They’d broken out of the
clouds not more than a few thousand feet above ground level. She’d steered clear
of the obvious nuke attacks, while getting them reasonably close to Caprica
City, in case there was some good they could do there. (Clearly out of the
question now.)

She was searching the ground for a feasible landing spot. “There!” she
shouted to Helo—to keep him engaged and alert. “I can put us down in those low
hills. Hang on! Tighten your belt!”

Cautiously, she turned the fuel valve back on. She only needed power for a
couple of minutes. “Try not to leak too much,” she muttered to the ship. “Just
hold on.”

Skimming low over the hills, she picked out a spot and turned in to her final
approach. Firing belly thrusters, she slowed, and lowered the Raptor to the
ground. She killed the rockets and the craft thumped into the grass and skidded
a little. Then it stopped dead on the top of a knoll.
Best damned landing I
ever made in my life.