01 - Battlestar Galactica (21 page)

Tyrol led the way, weaving among tall containers of unknown purpose, looking
for ammunition for the Vipers, heavier cannon rounds for the ship’s defensive
guns, missiles and warheads…

Everything looked jumbled. He flashed his beam deeper into the maze. He
sensed movement ahead, and was stunned to see a figure step out of a narrow
alleyway. Tyrol shone his light quickly. It was a man—wild eyed, disheveled, and
looking very desperate—and he was pointing a large automatic weapon directly
into Tyrol’s face.

Chief Tyrol nearly jumped out of his skin, but he recovered quickly. He
sensed the others starting to crowd close. “Everybody hold back!” he ordered.

The terrified man in front of him was trembling, the gun in his hand shaking,
but not so much that he couldn’t blow Tyrol’s head off if anything spooked him.
He looked like hell. He was a tall, rugged-looking fellow—but worn and ragged,
his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. Though it was chilly in here, he was sweating.
“I don’t want… any trouble,” he said finally.

“Okay, let’s talk,” Tyrol replied.

“But I’m not goin’ to jail,” the man barked.

“What?”

“Do you understand me?”
He waved the submachine gun. “I am
not…
going to jail.”

“Nobody’s taking you to jail! Just calm down.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The man was pinned by about six
flashlight beams against some large storage cases. “Frickin’ right, you’re not.”

Tyrol knew he had to keep the man talking, keep him from losing control.
“We’re not the police. We’re not here to arrest you. Now put your gun down.”

“Yeah. Maybe. So who the hell are you?” the man gasped.

“We’re from Colonial Fleet.”
You know—the one trying to save your
ass for you?
“We just came… to get some equipment from the station,”
Tyrol said. He gestured with one hand for emphasis. “You know—to get back in the
fight.”

The man laughed cynically. “What fight?”

Tyrol blinked at him in astonishment. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“There’s a war on,” Tyrol said, trying to keep his voice calm. He held out a
hand. “Give me… your weapon.”

“You think I’m stupid or something, is that it?” the man snarled. “You think
I’m stupid, you expect me to believe that?” He suddenly started shouting. “I
want passage out of here! I want a safe transport ship! With an untraceable”—he
paused, abruptly sounding calm—“Jump system. Okay?” Then the calm vanished, and
his shaking grew worse.
“Now!!”

“Look.” Tyrol answered in a tight voice. “I don’t have time to argue with
you. So here’s the deal. We’ve got over two thousand people on that ship.” He
hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Now, if you think you can shoot every single
one of us, fine. But if not…
get the hell out of my way!”

The man looked startled. He backed up against the boxes, and lifted his hand
slightly off his weapon, appealing for restraint. Slowly, very slowly, he
lowered the gun to his side.

“Get his weapon,”
Tyrol ordered, and at once three of his men were on top
of the intruder, grabbing his gun and subduing him. Tyrol turned away in
disgust. “If he moves, shoot him.”

Colonial One

“Madame President, we’re picking up a signal from a stranded military craft.
It’s a Raptor, from
Galactica.”
Captain Russo pointed to the dradis
screen, where a small blip indicated the location of the other craft.

Laura leaned over his shoulder to look. “From
Galactica?
Captain
Apollo, do you know anything about this vessel?”

Lee was reading the comm printout. “That’s Boomer’s Raptor. The last I heard,
she was part of a squadron bound for reassignment on Picon. But it says here she
has refugees on board from Caprica. Don’t ask me how that happened.”

“She’s within rendezvous range,” Captain Russo said, glancing back for
instructions.

“Then let’s do it,” said Laura. “Captain Apollo, would you stay here to help
with the details?”

“Yes, sir.” Lee slipped into the copilot’s seat recently vacated by Eduardo,
and put on the headset. Adjusting the wireless, he called, “Boomer, this is
Apollo, do you read…”

* * *

Three and a half hours later, the Raptor was parked in the cargo deck,
directly behind Lee Adama’s Viper. Lee stood at the bottom of the Raptor’s entry
way, helping the refugees step down off the craft. They looked ragged, weary,
and frightened. A woman about Lee’s age stepped down, anxiously looking for
someone in authority. “Excuse me,” she said in a thick accent. “My husband—he’s
in the Colonial Fleet. In Geminon?”

Lee assisted her down. “I’ll see what I can do. If you’ll just head right
this way…” He guided her to one of the other helpers, who was taking names and
steering people toward the passenger cabin.

“Have you heard anything of Geminon?” The woman’s voice trailed off in the
distance, as she continued to ask anyone who might listen.

“Come on,” Lee urged the next person.

“Captain?” The hand at his elbow belonged to Boomer, Sharon Valerii. She
seemed to need to talk, so he turned his spot over to a transport crewman and
walked with her. A boy, maybe ten years old, was with her. She introduced him as
Boxey—then launched straight into her tactical situation. “I’ve got two
communication pods left, sir. But that’s it. No sparrows, no jiggers, no drones,
no markers—nothing.”

“Well,” Lee said, “at least you’ve still got your electronics suite.” He
gestured at his father’s old Viper. “That old crate of mine can barely navigate
from A to B.”

Sharon contradicted him at once, and rather vehemently. “That old crate may
have saved your life, sir.”

Startled by her sharp tone, Lee said, a little sharply himself, “How’s that?”

“The Viper Mark Sevens? The Cylons just shut them down, like they threw a
switch or something—then wiped them out. All of them—including CAG—my whole squadron. Helo and I were just lucky to be
far enough away.” Sharon’s voice caught, and she had trouble continuing. “When I
was out there waiting… for someone to find me… I picked up comm chatter
way off. It sounds like the same thing everywhere. Even the battlestars. The
only ships having any success at all are either old, or in need of some major
overhaul.”

Lee blinked, trying to absorb that. He remembered his father’s insistence,
bordering on obsession, about keeping networked computers off the
Galactica
…
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a lean-faced man with
shoulder-length dark hair stepping down from the Raptor. He indicated the man
with a tilt of his head. “Is that
him?”

Sharon looked over. “Yeah.” She suddenly raised her voice. “I hope he’s
worth
it!” She turned back to Lee, anger and hurt on her face. “Sorry, sir.”

That’s the man who took Helo’s seat.
“Don’t be,” Lee said. “I hope he’s
worth it, too.” As the man passed behind him, Lee whirled and put a hand to
pause him. “Doctor Baltar—Captain Lee Adama. The president’s asked to see you,
sir.”

Baltar looked confused, and then hopeful. “President Adar’s alive?”

“No,” Lee answered. “I’m afraid Adar is dead.” Baltar’s face fell. “President
Laura Roslin was sworn in a few hours ago.”

“Oh,” said Baltar, suddenly less interested.

“If you’ll come with me. She’s this way.” Lee nudged him on toward the stairs
to the cabin.

Laura was concluding a meeting with the captain of the liner they had
recently docked with. Its passengers were now on board Colonial One, along with
all the supplies they could move quickly. Reluctantly, they had abandoned the liner itself, which had
exhausted its fuel while evading reported Cylon positions. The captain was just
saying, “If there’s any way we can help, ma’am, any way whatsoever…”

“Thank you so much,” Laura replied. She turned, spotting Apollo walking into
the cabin with the female pilot of the Raptor, and a shell-shocked Gaius Baltar.
She recognized him easily, despite the blood and grime on his face. Laura
stepped forward. “Doctor Baltar, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said,
extending a hand. “We met, at last year’s Caprica City Symposium.”

Baltar nodded with a sort of hollow, practiced graciousness—and an obvious
lack of recognition. “Oh yeah, of course, uh”—he gestured helplessly—“you’ll
have to forgive me, I’m bad with faces.”

“Oh, no,” she reassured him with a laugh. “It’s perfectly all right. I’m sure
I wouldn’t remember me, either.” She smiled, wincing inwardly at her
self-deprecation, and soldiered on. “Doctor, I need you to serve as my chief
scientific consultant and analyst, regarding the Cylons and their technology.”

He shifted position uneasily. “I’d be honored… Madame President.”

Laura wasted no time in shifting gears. With a nod to Baltar, she turned and
shook hands with the Raptor pilot, a beautiful young woman with epicanthic folds
at the corners of her shining dark eyes. She looked tired and vulnerable. But
sleep would have to wait. “Lieutenant Valerii? Is that right? Valerii?”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ve just come from Caprica, yes? Tell me your impressions of the
situation there.”

The pilot drew a breath. “Well, sir—from what I could see, the Cylons were
targeting every population center with nukes. I doubt there’s a major city left,
at this point. Helo—Helo and I stopped counting the number of mushroom clouds over Caprica City.”

Baltar seemed to stir uncomfortably at that. Laura turned back to him.
“Doctor, would I be correct in assuming that an attack of this magnitude will
trigger a planet-wide nuclear winter?”
Strangling and starving pretty much
everything still living.

“Uh, yes!” Baltar said, seeming suddenly to return to his senses. “Yes,
fallout clouds are already drifting across the continents. And the dust thrown
in the atmosphere—yes, they’re probably already altering the global weather
patterns…”

Laura nodded, and for a moment bent to look out the windows at the battered,
distant globe of Caprica. Settling the situation in her mind, she straightened
and said to Lieutenant Valerii, “I understand that your ship has a limited
faster-than-light capability?”

“Yes sir,” Valerii replied. “The Raptor’s designed to make short Jumps ahead
of the fleet, scout for enemy ships, then Jump back and report.”

“I want you to go out there and find as many survivors as you can and bring
them back to this position,” Laura said. “We will then form a convoy. We will
guide them out of the combat zone and into safety.”

“Yes sir,” replied Valerii.

But Apollo was frowning, and she knew what he was frowning about:
Guide
them out of the combat zone and into safety. And just where do you think is
safe?

Two hours later, Baltar was sitting alone in one of the leather first-class
seats, a fold-down table in front of him, littered with printouts and comm
messages. He was sorting through them, pen in hand, trying to make some kind of
sense of what had been happening. He didn’t even know what he was looking for.
But as long as he looked busy, he was halfway there.

“I see they’ve put you to work,” said a lilting female voice.

He looked up slowly searching his mind for any obvious aberrations. As he
raised his eyes, he saw Natasi—Number Six, he corrected himself—sitting in the
seat beside him, looking gorgeous in the red outfit, a seductive smile on her
face.

He looked intently back down at the papers, but barely saw them.

“Ignoring me won’t help.”

“You’re not here,” he murmured under his breath.

“No?” she said brightly.

“No. I’ve decided you’re an expression of my subconscious mind, playing
itself out during my waking states.”

That provoked a smile and a laugh. Tilting her head, she looked so achingly
good, he wanted to jump on her right now. Except that she wasn’t there.

“So I’m… only in your head?”

“Exactly.” He looked down. He was
not
going to look at her—at least
not directly.

“Hm.” She raised an eyebrow and turned her face away for a moment. “Have you
considered the possibility that I could very well exist
only
in your
head? Without being a hallucination?”

He could not resist looking at her; she was too devastatingly sexy. She was
leaning forward now, the top of her outfit revealing far more than it concealed.
He had to work hard not to tremble.

“Maybe you see and hear me because, while you were sleeping, I implanted a
chip in your brain that transmits my image right into your conscious mind.”

The thought stung him with fear. Real, blinding fear. But he would not admit
to it. “No, no—see, that’s me again.” He looked down with a smile. “My
subconscious self is expressing irrational fears… which I
also
choose
to ignore.” He took a nervous sip from his glass of soda, and tried to return to
his work.

She moved languidly from the seat beside him to sit on the table with his
papers. Slowly and deliberately, she crossed her legs in front of him. “What are
you working on?”

He was struggling desperately now. “If you were really a chip in my head, I
wouldn’t have to tell you that, would I?”

“Indulge me,” she murmured, leaning in closer.

He rubbed his bristly chin with one hand. Swallowing, he said, “I’m trying to
figure out how you managed to pull off this kind of attack. You seem to have
virtually shut down the entire defense network without firing a shot. Entire
squadrons lost power just as they engaged the enemy. The CNP is a navigation
program, but you—uh—you made changes to the program, you said you were building
in… back doors for your company to exploit later.”

“All true, in a sense,” she replied.

“That was your job.”