The Cylon Death Machine Read online

  BATTLESTAR GALACTICA-02

  THE CYLON DEATH MACHINE

  By Glen A. Larson & Robert Thurston

  Copyright © 1979, by MCA PUBLISHING, a Division of MCA

  Inc.

  All rights reserved

  Published by arrangement with MCA PUBLISHING, a Division of MCA Inc.

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  Berkley Edition, JANUARY, 1979

  FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:

  Croft.

  Who is he? Where did he come from? Am I really a part of his memories, or just a substitute for authority figures in general? Even when he described the incident where we crossed paths, and I pretended to remember it because he needed for me to remember it and I needed him for the mission, I could not recall a single aspect of the brief adventure.

  Later, when I had some time, I went to my quarters and requested from Galactica's computer a printout of my journals covering that time period, the time when he claimed I'd supervised the capture of his gang and the ship containing their booty while they were fleeing from their raid on the Cylon platinum mines. Studying the pages, the only reference I could find to the incident, or an episode which could have been the incident, was this:

  Routine was interrupted today by an apparent pirate ship that stumbled into our sector, seemingly the result of a miscalculation in course. Ship tried to escape, but when they had our pursuers in their sights, their commander refused to fire on us, and ship and crew were easily netted. Tigh says their holds were quite rich in plundered cargo. I told him to take care of the matter fairly and to send the prisoners to the proper judges.

  Could that commander have been Croft, could that cargo have been the platinum? Why didn't I record the name of a man who allowed himself and his gang to be captured rather than firing on his own kind? Wouldn't the fact that the cargo had been Cylon platinum be worth noting?

  The note seems to indicate I didn't even see these particular brigands, yet Croft insists we had a face-to-face confrontation. I should recall such a meeting vividly. After all, wouldn't I have been impressed that the leader of a pirate group had once been a full-fledged commander of a garrison, and wouldn't I have recorded my bewilderment that such a vital and intelligent man had corrupted his worth in a petty crime? The escapades of such a daring renegade commander deserve more than just a passing mention in my journal, I think.

  There is nothing in the surrounding entries to indicate that I was busy with some more important matters that might have prevented my entering a full report of the incident. Further, the journal note that remains is so routinely worded, so militarily matter-of-fact, that I can't believe that I wouldn't have let at least a hint of Croft's personality or the uniqueness of his exploit enter my journal. What could have been going in my head at the time that caused me to miss the essential point of the episode? I can only believe that internal evidence suggests that the entry is about a different group of crooks and that Croft has mistaken me for somebody else, some other commander performing his normal duty.

  Still, if it was Croft and his gang, I am sorry'I do not remember him or the details of his capture that have been so large an obsession for him during his confinement aboard the prison grid barge. To Croft that episode seems to have been the major event of his life. It's too bad that, while he dwelt on his hopes for revenge so fiercely, our confrontation was only a forgettable moment for me, an entry in my journal that calls forth no pictures of the event it describes.

  CHAPTER ONE

  This time the trap must work.

  It must, the Imperious Leader of the Cylons had commanded, snare the human fleet completely. The humans should not be able to execute one of their sneaky last-minute escapes. There could be no overlooked malfunction in the trap's mechanisms. For too long now the Cylon forces had chased after Adama's assemblage of mismatched ships (a captured prisoner had referred to them as a ragtag fleet, a meaningless term since it could not be translated into the Cylon language).

  His executive officers, tired of battling the human pest, had acceded readily to the Leader's plan to force the human ships, especially the Galactica, into the range of the awesomely efficient laser cannon on the ice planet Tairac.

  Imperious Leader was particularly pleased that the final destructive assault should originate on Tairac because the garrison there was commanded by the exiled first centurion, Vulpa. It was fitting that the outspoken Vulpa should deliver the final blow. He would learn obedience and regain status at the same time. The Leader recalled vividly the day he had been obligated to send Vulpa, one of his most valued officers, into exile.

  "Perhaps we should abandon pursuit of the humans," Vulpa had suggested in the middle of a briefing. The executive officers closest to Vulpa had immediately moved away from him, knowing that the oddly ambitious first centurion had finally overstepped the proper bounds.

  "Abandon pursuit?" the Leader had said. Vulpa took the question as an invitation to pursue the subject. The Leader knew he was drawing Vulpa into inevitable errors of Cylon decorum, and he was sorry to have to do so, but there was no other choiqp when a Cylon acted in an un-Cylon-like manner.

  "I suggest," Vulpa had said, the arrogance in his voice quite above his station, "that we allow the humans to continue their foolish quest toward the far reaches of known space. As long as they do not contaminate any part of our own dominions, they do not pose a threat significant enough for the continued waste of Cylon time and personnel. We have, after all, achieved our goal. Except for that small band of fleeing survivors and the regaining enslaved humans on some outworlds we control, the human race has been exterminated. The war has been won."

  "You wish to criticize my decision?" Imperious Leader had said politely, giving Vulpa a final chance to back down from his unsuitable position.

  "Leader," Vulpa had replied, "your wisdom and judgment are vitally needed back on our home worlds. You would even be cheered for abandoning the—"

  "Silence, First Centurion Vulpa! You assume my right of omniscient judgment. As long as a free human is left alive, the chance they could return in large numbers at a later time is a threat that cannot be abided. Humans breed faster than Cylons, even though their lifespan is shorter. Do you not remember how their resourcefulness made the war against them last too long, longer than it should have? Even now the human insects are winning battles and skirmishes against us. Remember how a small squadron of human viperships wrecked our attacking wall of fighters at the Battle of Carillon. I cannot rest until we have achieved the goal of human extermination. A period of exile, First Centurion Vulpa, should aid you to realize the importance of my objectives—and, perhaps, lessen your unfortunate impulses toward ambition."

  As Vulpa had slunk off the command deck, Imperious Leader had almost felt sorry for the punished centurion. However, he had known for some time that Vulpa would draw such punishment eventually. Vulpa's excessive displays of ambition had to be countered. He clearly hoped to be the next Imperious Leader, and he did not lack qualifications for the position, if only he would stop exhibiting his ambition for it so openly.

  Ambition was rarely observed among Cylons. Imperi­ous Leader had not had an inkling of what the word meant until he had
been awarded third-brain and absolute power over the Cylon Alliance.

  Vulpa, however, had always been something of a renegade Cylon. As a fighter pilot, while still at first-brain status, he had been more aggressive than his peers, so suicidally aggressive that it seemed surprising that he had survived to second-brain and then executive-officer status. Normally Cylons at Vulpa's level knew how to maintain a showing of absolute obedience whether they felt it or not. Imperious Leader hoped that the exile would force some sense into him, since he so obviously did have the potential to become the next Imperious Leader, plus abilities that would make him exceptional at the job.

  Now it seemed that Vulpa's exile would work out to the Cylons' advantage. He was the best possible officer to have on the ice planet Tairac. An officer with Vulpa's abilities was, after all, required at the mainspring of the trap.

  As always, Imperious Leader enjoyed working out the details of his plan. Details were comforting. If his head, now covered by a massive communications helmet, could have been seen by the intricate network of officers arrayed around his pedestal, they would have observed a glowing aura shining from each eye. The few humans who had ever seen the impressive alien leader had felt both awe and revulsion toward him, partially because of the creature's many eyes, partially because of his uneven and out-of-balance body (which, in its bulk, resembled a pile of jagged and lumpy stones), and partially because of the large-pored aspect of its swamp-gray skin. As his abilities to mimic human thinking processes increased, he discovered just how repulsive he looked through their eyes. Their perception of him as an ugly beast made him hate the human pest even more. Especially since, to him, a human was the ugliest sight imaginable in a universe that contained a diversity of ugliness.

  As he awaited the first reports of the beginning of his present strategy, a sneak attack on the fringe of the ragtag fleet, the Leader reviewed his overall plan. He could find no flaws, but there were gaps. He needed to acquire the kind of information that would prevent such gaps from becoming another of the humans' lucky escape routes. Another session with the simulator might provide him with data about human behavior that could lead to key insights about their seemingly erratic patterns of motivation and action. He had already learned several odd lessons about them from conferring with various simulacra. He ordered an executive officer to have the simulator transmitted to the command chamber. It was there before him, on his pedestal, exactly at the end of his request.

  Nodding toward the telepathy-template at the center of the simulator console, he requested mentally the simulation of Commander Adama, head of the human fleet. As usual, Adama proved too difficult a task for the simulator. The edges of his simulacrum were fuzzy. Too little was known about the commander—there was not enough information about him stored in the simulator data banks, and so it could not provide a successful duplicate. Whatever the Leader asked of it, the indistinct form of Adama supplied insufficient data. Frequently it was not able to answer at all and just stared at the Leader indifferently. No insights or revealing associations of thought could be gleaned from the Adama simulacrum. Brusquely the Leader ordered it away, called instead for Adama's son, Captain Apollo. The resolution of the Apollo simulacrum was sharper. Humans regarded the young man as handsome. Knowing that made the Apollo simulacrum more repellent to Imperious Leader. Fortu­nately, he could disengage synapses within his third-brain to cut off physiological reactions to the simulation. He asked the Apollo a few questions, but could discover little more than he had learned from the simulacrum of Commander Adama. Apparently the simulator's infor­mation concerning the son was nearly as scant as that concerning the father.

  Imperious Leader called for a scan of information that might suggest names about which the simulator had accumulated more data. Since most of the Cylons' information about humans was extracted from prisoners, the simulator often contained better information about key officers in lower positions of command, those who had more direct dealings with combat warriors. On the scanner's list, he recognized the name of Starbuck, an heroic sort of human (or at least they thought so), mention of whom seemed to occur often in Cylon interrogations. He ordered the template to provide a simulation of this Lieutenant Starbuck.

  Suddenly seated in front of Imperious Leader was a human with eyes so bright and searching they reminded him of the rays of light that emanated from Cylon warrior helmets. The Starbuck figure immediately broke into a broad smile. Humans seemed to derive some odd sort of pleasure out of smiling. The Leader was glad he had cut off physiological reaction to the sight of humans, or else he might not have been able to endure the sight of this smiling bright-eyed human.

  "Hi, chum," the Starbuck simulacrum said. The greeting surprised Imperious Leader, since simulacra— programmed, after all, from simulator data banks— rarely initiated conversation.

  "I am addressing Lieutenant Starbuck of the Battlestar Galactica, am I not?"

  "Knock it off and tear it up, Cylon. You know I'm no more Starbuck than you're a blooming lily of the valley. I'm a reproduction and I'd strangle you if my hands had any substance."

  The Leader glanced briefly toward the simulator template, wondering if something was wrong with the device. It was highly unorthodox for it to program such independence into a simulacrum—unless, of course, that independence was so much a part of the man's character that it could not be removed from the mental, emotional, and physiological profile that had been extracted by the simulator. It was possible, Imperious Leader thought, that this Starbuck might be extremely useful, if only as a study of independence of thought in humans. Much could be learned from the brashness and insulting demeanor of this young officer replication. Connections might be established that could fill just those gaps in Imperious Leader's strategy.

  "How many ships remain in your fleet, Lieutenant?"

  The Starbuck laughed.

  "As many as the specks of dirt between your toes, Cylon."

  "Cylons do not have toes."

  The Starbuck seemed genuinely surprised.

  "Then maybe we don't have any ships," it said.

  "Come now, Lieutenant, we know that there are still many ships in your—

  "Then you'd better inspect the dirt between your toes more closely, Cylon."

  "But I told you Cylons don't—

  Imperious Leader stopped talking. Not only did the Starbuck simulacrum initiate conversation, it also interrupted. This interrogation was going to be difficult, and perhaps extremely unpleasant.

  When the Cylons' sneak attack came, Commander Adama was in a classroom aboard the research-ship Infinity, lecturing to the greenest-looking bunch of flight cadets he'd ever seen. They looked to him like grade-school children who should be learning the history of the twelve worlds rather than the intricacies of viper aerodynamics and warfare maneuvers. One of the youngsters in the first row appeared to be not much older than Adama's adopted grandson, Boxey. From the glazed look in the cadet's eyes, the commander wondered if he might even trust six-year-old Boxey at the controls of a viper more than this dazed young man. He had been assured that the new crop of cadets were all of proper legal age, but the dangers they'd have to face after graduation from their abbreviated course of training were so considerable, so awesome, that he wished they did not have to be quite this young. Still, they were all volunteers. When the call went out to the hundreds of ships in the fleet, the command staff had received enough applica­tions to man the ships and flight crews of at least a hundred squadrons. If only they had enough ships to form a hundred squadrons.

  The desperate plight of the fleet was not made any brighter by the inadequate and makeshift conditions in which the new warriors were trained. A research ship didn't substitute for a fully equipped and staffed space academy, even though the faculty had been able to convert enormous labs into gymnasiums, mock-flight areas, and simulated battle-condition testing chambers. Adama recalled the space academy he'd attended on his native planet, the destroyed Caprica. The Caprican Academy had been manned by t
he most brilliant military strategists in all the twelve worlds; the classes aboard the Infinity were conducted mostly by officers too disabled to maintain their posts and pilots who'd been severely wounded in combat. The Caprican Academy had boasted the finest technology available. Any flight, combat, or support situation could be reproduced within its walls or at its many stadiums for war maneuvers. The facilities on the Infinity were acceptable so long as you didn't inspect them twice.

  However, such improvisation was the key to the fleet's continued success in evading the main force of their Cylon pursuers. Every person on every ship was putting in double time to improve the efficiency and speed of the overall fleet. Half a dozen freighters had been converted to flying foundries, which in turn converted scrap metal and other materials into vipers for the Galacticrfs crew of fighter pilots. Everyone in the fleet had become a scavenger, searching for metal and electronic supplies within their ships and on the few planets they encountered with obtainable material. Considering the sources for their construction, the viperships now leaving the foundry were remarkably well-manufactured vehicles. It was true, of course, that they were more often subject to technical and mechanical failures than those vipers from the original squadrons. That was only natural, considering the haste of construction, the substitutions, the strain on already overused metals, all of the compromises that made the newer vipers a bit less maneuverable, a bit more subject to the kind of malfunctions that often accompa­nied improvisation.

  Still, Adama was continually amazed at what experienced pilots could do, even with substandard equipment. A pilot like Starbuck, Boomer, or Apollo could do wonders with any flying crate put under his control. But space-academy cadets didn't have the instinctive abilities to correct course, or whirl out of a spin, or work a smooth landing when all the equipment around you was sending out sparks. At that, their record under fire was not bad so far—a tribute to the command abilities and protective instincts of the experienced pilots and flight officers. Starbuck, for example, inspired so much confidence in his squadron that a cadet on his first launch out of the Galactica tubes frequently accom­plished miraculous aerodynamic feats. Even Apollo, more militaristic than other young officers, more distant from the crews under his command, had performed wonders in helping the new cadets. It was just too bad that they were unable to train them better, unable to give them more flights just for practice. Fuel conservation and the constant danger of Cylon attack made flights that weren't concerned with battle, scouting, or planetary exploration impossible. Too many cadets were being lost in skirmishes that experienced warriors would have sur­vived.