The Cylon Death Machine Read online

  The main theme of Adama's speech was the need for caution, a message that he had to reiterate often even with his experienced officers. It was not cowardly, he insisted, to draw back from a planetary or intraspace phenomenon when your instruments recorded even the slightest threat of danger. It was not cowardly to retreat from a battle with Cylons when the alien forces outnumbered you by fantastic odds. It was not cowardly to carry back an important message to the fleet even when it meant leaving some of your fellow pilots behind to fight an apparently hopeless battle.

  Looking down at the cadets' faces, Adama could see that although they strived to look respectful to an officer whose name was legendary among them, they still were not ready to accept his message. Adama wasn't even sure he offered it with complete sincerity. He recalled Apollo's misery when the young man had been forced to leave his brother Zac under intense Cylon fire in order to return to the Galactica and warn the fleet of the impending Cylon ambush. Zac had been killed, and a long time passed before Apollo stopped feeling guilty over his brother's death. Even now, Adama wasn't entirely sure his son had surmounted his guilt feelings. But Apollo had acted correctly and his alerting of the fleet had led directly to the few human survivors' eventual escape from the massive Cylon war-thrust.

  It seemed tragic, to Adama, that Apollo, perhaps the most heroic of all Galactica's combat officers, never had a moment when his emotions allowed him to actually feel like a hero. It was just an epithet awarded him, like a medal he never took out of its storage box to wear proudly.

  "I'm glad Apollo is so reticent about his heroism," Adama's daughter, Athena, had said when her father had broached the subject to her. "Never trust a hero who boasts about his heroism."

  "Your friend Lieutenant Starbuck isn't reluctant to boast a bit about his exploits."

  "Well, he's an exception to a lot of rules. And don't think I didn't take note of your sarcasm."

  Adama knew his daughter felt something like love for Starbuck, so he didn't pursue the subject. She always pretended her feelings for the bold and immodest young officer were not as deep as Adama knew they were.

  The alarm warning of the Cylon attack blared out in the middle of Adama's lecture. To their credit, the cadets were on their feet and on the move immediately. Adama dropped his notes to the floor and rushed to the launching bay where his shuttle, piloted by Athena, awaited him. As soon as he was secure in his seat, he felt the welcome lurch as the shuttle hurtled forward through the launching tubes and out of Infinity.

  "What is it this time?" he asked his daughter, who was listening to the garbled series of messages coming over the shuttle's commlines.

  "Nothing too frightening," she responded, "A bunch of Cylon fighters broke through a flaw in the camouflage force field. We might as well drop the force field for all the good it's doing us. Save the energy. The Cylons seem to detect us often enough."

  "I'm beginning to wonder if they know where we are at all times."

  "Think you might be right there." Athena's agreement added to Adama's suspicions. She had command-level abilities and, in fact, had turned down important posts in order to remain aboard Galactica. He had always found her opinions valuable, even when they disagreed with his own instincts. "What's the report on the ambush?" he asked her. "Only one of our ships hit. The foundry ship Hephaestus. Some highside damage, nothing serious, nothing they can't handle."

  "Cylon casualties?"

  "Not specified. Boomer's message was, quote, we annihilated a majority of the creepy red-lights before they turned tail, unquote."

  "We lucked out again then."

  "Starbuck says he's donating a large bequest of luck to be spread over the entire fighting crew."

  Adama's laugh was too short an outburst, and Athena looked over him, worried.

  "Something's troubling you," she said. "Luck's troubling me. We've had too much of it. We've stayed ahead of the Cylons for a longtime. Some of that's skill, some of it's luck."

  "Well, it's natural I suppose to worry about luck turning, but—

  "No, that's not even bothering me. Anyway, I think luck's just an instinctive control of our natural human resources. What's bothering me is that our luck seems a bit too pat, a bit too calculated."

  "I'm afraid I don't— "Sometimes I get the definite feeling that the Cylons have some strings attached to us and are just pulling at them like puppetmasters. As if their sneak attacks are not meant to succeed, as if they're just proddings to force us into certain course patterns, as if—

  "Mmmm, that's pretty fanciful. If I didn't know you better, I might say paranoid. And if I didn't know..."

  She lapsed into a concerned silence, pretended to check gauges she had just checked a moment ago.

  "Well, out with it," Adama said. "What were you going to say?"

  She took a deep breath before answering.

  "I reviewed a report on the last Cylon ambush, the one where our guys wiped out nearly the whole contingent of their fighters. Tigh underlined a part of it for me, put a question mark in the margin. Our scanners seemed to indicate—I emphasize seemed—that there had been no life form of any kind within a couple of the destroyed ships. Of course the scans were random, and they might be incorrect, especially since collected under battle conditions in which not all Cylon ships were scanned efficiently. Still..."

  "Still, it's an interesting bit of data, and that's why Tigh wanted us to take note of it."

  "Exactly."

  "What do you think it means, Athena?"

  "Not sure. What's the possibility that the fighters were remote-controlled, operated at a distance by Cylons inside the ships that escaped?"

  "It's worth considering."

  "Fits your puppetmaster theory rather neatly, don't you think?"

  "As I say, it's worth considering."

  Athena laughed.

  "I detect a touch of mockery in your laughing, young lady."

  "It's just that, even if your boots had wings on them, you'd resist jumping to conclusions, Dad."

  "You're not supposed to call me Dad during duty hours."

  "What do I get, company punishment for insubordi­nate affection?"

  "A couple weeks pulling prison barge duty might do you a world of good."

  "You've convinced me. Sir."

  The Galactica now hovered before them, reminding Adama of some kind of brilliant gem (a steely, brightly glowing jewel set against black velvet in the Universal Museum on Caprica). Next to the Galactica, the rest of the fleet looked pretty much like paste items on a costume-jewelry necklace. These vehicles carried the only survivors of the vicious Cylon ambush that had destroyed twelve worlds and most of their people.

  Adama felt a twinge of pain in his chest as he recalled the day when, helpless on the Galactica bridge, he had watched the twelve worlds go up in flames, had listened to the transmissions of human suffering, had observed the planets fall to the enslaving Cylon forces one by one, had sent out the clarion call to assemble those humans who could escape Cylon capture and bring ships to the fleet. The ships' continued survival in the face of Cylon assaults testified to the courage of the remainder of the human race, the inherent courage within all humans. Vessels designed for commercial, transportation, or supply purposes had managed to perform like fighting ships. One marked Colonial Movers, We Move Anywhere had, with makeshift armament, turned back a squadron of Cylon fighters single-handedly. Its achievement was already being transformed into song and legend among the people in the ships of the fleet.

  Adama felt proud of the way his ragtag fleet had performed so far. However, the fear that one day there would be an attack in which human ingenuity and fortitude could not overcome the overwhelming Cylon odds haunted the dreams of the Galacticds commander.

  Every time Starbuck settled his neck back into the neckbrace and watched Jenny, his flight-crew leader, close the canopy around him, he wished the same wish. If only he could have a cigar right now...

  Hundreds of times he'd asked Boomer, who was an e
xpert on the botanical aspects of smoking devices, to develop a cigar that wouldn't be crushed against the front of the canopy or fill the small enclosed area with dense smoke, and could additionally be fitted through breath­ing and communication gear. Boomer had laughed heartily and said that while he thought it was possible to contain the smoke within a proper-sized burning cylinder, and even possible to find a way to adapt it to the breathing gear, he doubted whether Core Command would approve such a revolutionary device. Core Commands were always aeons behind in accepting the really innovative combat notions, Boomer had commented dryly.

  "Lieutenant Starbuck, sir?"

  The high voice, distorted perhaps by the static in the transmission, sounded adolescent, a bit whiny.

  "What is it, Cadet Cree?"

  Starbuck saw the boyish cadet's face in his mind. Childlike eyes, eager mouth, tousled hair—did he imagine it, or did Cree have a number of freckles across the bridge of his nose? No, there were definitely no freckles. Cree was just the sort of wide-eyed kid who looked like he should have freckles, that was all.

  "Lieutenant, sir, what you said at the briefing—about exercising all caution and not firing until—

  "Yeah, yeah, kid. What is it, did I use too many two-syllable words or what?"

  "No, not that. I understood. It's just that we were taught that there were times when aggressive initiative was—

  "Stow it, Cadet. That's academy lecture and it's all just so much felgercarb when you're in the cockpit of a colonial viper, get it?"

  "Well, yes sir, but—"

  Starbuck sighed. It seemed that every third or fourth cadet was like Cree—still not ready to join a squadron, too eager to spout ill-digested textbook lessons, and yet so unwilling to even consider death and pain.

  "Look, Cadet Cree. When you've been on a few combat missions, you'll know all there is to know about aggressive initiative, okay? Until then, you obey Star-buck's Golden Rule."

  "Golden Rule?"

  "Keep your trap shut when somebody wants something from you, plan on how you're gonna get them later, and never volunteer even when the mission looks like the boondoggle of all time."

  "That doesn't sound very—

  "Kid, now's one of those times when you keep your trap shut."

  "Yes, sir, Lieutenant."

  A soft chuckle on the line. Starbuck's wingmate, Boomer.

  "I think the young warrior's learned a lesson," Boomer said.

  "What's that?" Starbuck asked.

  "Now he knows what it's like to be starbucked."

  Starbuck smiled. In flight-squadron slang, to be starbucked meant to be maneuvered into a losing situation, whether in a gambling game, a battle, or an argument.

  A blue light began beeping on the viper's control panel—the command bridge's warning that all ships were ready for launch. The deep mellow voice of Colonel Tigh, the commander's aide, came over the line:

  "Deepspace advance probe. Blue Squadron up." Starbuck tensed his body, knowing he was to launch first. "Launch one!"

  Starbuck was slammed back against the cockpit seat and neckbrace as his viper began its long accelerating thrust out of the launch tubes of Battlestar Galactica. On the line, Tigh's voice bellowed:

  "Launch two!"

  That would be Boomer's ship being catapulted out the second bay. Starbuck steadied his viper as it cleared launch tube and zoomed in a wide arc above the massive command ship. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Boomer executing the same maneuver with his fighter, then hovering beside Starbuck's viper.

  "Flight Academy unit, stand by," ordered Tigh. "Cadet Cree, Cadet Bow, and Cadet Shields. Prepare to launch."

  Each of the cadets' ships was launched in its turn and the five fighters of the advance probe formed a star formation in front of the Galactica. Starbuck tapped a signal button on his control panel to alert the other fliers to engage their turbos for forward thrust. All five fighters, even the three makeshift vipers fresh from the foundries, were accelerated evenly by their pilots. Behind them the command battlestar appeared to fade abruptly and become a distant point.

  Starbuck felt cold shudders as he surveyed the apparently empty space around him. Even the flickering far-off stars gave him no confidence that there was really anything out there. Oh, there's something out there, all right, he thought. If there's nothing else, there're Cylons out there. Out there somewhere. Behind us, ahead of us. Even above and below us. He laughed softly, thinking how Boomer was always saying, in off-duty bull sessions, that there were no such concepts as above and below, in front and behind, when you were alone in space. Each tilt of your ship, the smallest alteration of your flight angle, each failure of your instruments to record correctly—all of these changes shifted your reality as well. Boomer was fond of phrases like "altering reality." In a way, Starbuck's long-standing friendship with the courageous, intelligent, and skillful Boomer kept shifting his own reality in positive ways. Boomer steadied him whenever the angles of his own life tilted, rescued him when he got himself into really deep trouble.

  Starbuck checked the scanner panel which now displayed, in electronic silhouettes, the flight formation. One of the ships had edged out of formation and appeared ready to veer off on its own.

  "Loosen it up, Boomer," he said. "The man next to you is about to fly up your tailpipe."

  There was a short pause before Boomer, evidently checking which pilot was out of line, spoke:

  "Cadet Cree, is that you?"

  "Yes sir," came the agonizingly adolescent voice of Cree.

  "Come any closer you'll melt your front end off."

  Cree's viper edged back slightly. But just slightly. Imagining the freckle-faced—no, not freckle-faced—kid screwing up his unlined brow in childish puzzlement, Starbuck was surprised to find himself simultaneously amused and annoyed by the foolish daring of the young cadet.

  "Our instructor ordered us to keep tight," Cree announced with authority. He probably has a blackboard in his cockpit with him, Starbuck thought.

  "Your instructor is back at the base, probably playing seven-eleven with a glass of grog at his elbow," Boomer said. "You, my fine young skypilot, are on a deepspace probe. There are risks that you don't get past by stopping your mock-flight vehicle and raising your hand to ask your instructor a question!"

  "Our instructor never let us raise—"

  "Cadet! Even this kind of routine flight is different from anything you experienced on the training ship Infinity. It's not like failing a simulation. Overheat and you evaporate. Pfft. Get off my tail, okay?"

  Cree paused before answering:

  "Yes. Yes, sir."

  Starbuck studied the scanner, watching Cree draw his ship back and take his proper place in the star formation. The kid would have to be watched or he'd be converted to space debris the first time anything went wrong. No matter what the mission, there was always a com­plication—a ship so hastily built it couldn't stand the stress of battle, or a pilot who should be flying model ships in his hand across a playroom. Starbuck sighed. To some people the present difficulties of the Galactica's fighting squadrons might be shrugged off as fortunes of war. He had too many problems seeing war in such terribly materialistic terminology. If there was any financially oriented figure of speech that applied, it was that war—at least the kind of battles Starbuck and his kind had to fight—was the gaming pot with each side anteing and raising until one displayed the winning hand. Or, as so often happened with Lieutenant Starbuck, the victorious player managed to avoid having his bluff discovered.

  Adama watched Colonel Tigh trace a flight-path line on the starfield map. Tigh's long thin aristocratic fingers seemed to be about to create their own individual paths across the map. Long ago, during the thousand-year war that had ended so abruptly with the fake Cylon peace offer and their subsequent annihilative ambush, Adama and Tigh had been combat pilots together, sharing a reputation for bravado and accomplishment much like that enjoyed presently by the brash and daring young lieutenants Starbuck and Bo
omer.

  The two combat teams, one from the past and the other in the present, were alike in hundreds of ways. Both teams had distinguished combat records. Both were the obvious choices for the most dangerous missions. Both were even composed similarly, each containing one white man, one black. And (Adama would have been embarrassed to admit) there were distinct similarities in the personality makeup of the past and present duos. Although he would never have acknowledged it to Starbuck, Adama had been a similarly brash young man, plunging recklessly into risky exploits, especially if they seemed designed to test him. And, in many ways, Tigh had been Adama's Boomer, courageous and equally daring. Boomer and Tigh, however, both knew when it was time to apply the brakes to adventurers like Starbuck and Adama, knew when caution should replace bravado as the watchword. It was a pity that Tigh had not won the battlestar command post he so richly deserved. He had been, unfortunately, as incautious in speaking his mind in the wrong places as he had been wary in battle, and the result was that the command posts had been denied him. Adama had reminded him time and again to measure his words, but Tigh always blurted out what was on his mind, usually with some eloquence, without regard to the situation. On the Galactica command bridge, Adama valued Tigh's frankness, depended on it in fact. Still, he deserved that command post—and Adama would have obtained it for him, if there had been any more battlestars left to command.