02 - The Cylon Death Machine Read online

  Apollo is helping Leda. He’s snatched the medical case from beneath a pile of debris.

  “What’s it look like?” he asks her.

  “Broken arm and a couple of ribs.” Her voice is cool and businesslike now. That’s what I like about Leda, one of the things I loved once, perhaps love still. No matter what she feels about any of us, she can be trusted to do her job well. “Possible internal injuries.” She looks around at the rest of us. “Anyone else hurt?”

  “I am,” Thane says softly.

  She moves quickly to Thane’s side.

  “What’s your problem?” she says, looking into her case.

  Thane grins maliciously, edges his lean body toward hers, whispers just loudly enough so the rest of us can hear:

  “I’m lonely.”

  That’s Thane, all right. Even his little jokes come out with icicles hanging all over them. Leda, clearly furious with him, grabs her case and moves off, saying:

  “Stay out of my way. I have work to do.”

  She settles down beside Vickers again.

  “Don’t waste your time on him,” Thane says. “We’ll have to leave him behind to die anyway.”

  Always the humanitarian, Thane. This time he arouses the ire of Apollo, who shouts:

  “We’re not leaving anyone behind!”

  Thane looks coldly at Apollo. It’s the look he gets just before he’s ready to spring.

  “We’ll see, Captain. We’ll see.”

  Apollo, busy seeing to Voight, doesn’t hear Thane. I wish I hadn’t. Thane’s all coiled up inside. If that tension gets released, I don’t know if I can handle it.

  Boomer, directing his light toward another gash in the side of the shuttle, reports to Apollo:

  “It isn’t good. She’ll never fly again.”

  Great!

  “Worse,” Apollo comments, “she can’t sustain life inside. All of her systems are purged.”

  Terrific, even better!

  “Looking on the brighter side,” Boomer says, “I think the snow-ram’s operable.”

  “Let’s get her out fast, then, so we can move the wounded into her.”

  Apollo takes a step toward the gash. Outside, the sound of a far-off aircraft becomes louder quickly. Apollo tries to look out the opening. The roar grows to a deafening scream as a Cylon fighter flies over us.

  “He’ll be back!” Apollo cries. “We better get everyone out of the shuttle. Boomer, Croft, help me get the snow-ram.”

  The three of us crawl into the hold containing the snow-ram vehicle. Apollo climbs into it, and starts throwing switches. As I climb into the other side, I am startled out of my wits by a low growl. Apollo whirls in his seat and shines his light toward the rear of the snow-ram. A child and a furry animal crouch there, huddled into a corner, obviously on the verge of becoming one youthful and one furry icicle.

  “Boxey!” Apollo shouts, amazed. Apparently he knows the kid. Unless Boxey’s the animal. The child crawls forward, attempts a smile that turns out painfully weak.

  “Muffit wanted to see snow,” he says. Muffit must be the animal. It sidles to the boy’s side. It’s not an animal. It’s some sort of droid version of an animal. A copy of a daggit, I think, though I haven’t seen a daggit since God knows when.

  Apollo looks ready to bawl out the kid, but he reacts instead to the obvious fact that the kid is terribly cold and scared.

  “Come here, son,” Apollo says softly, affectionately. Did I hear right? The kid is Apollo’s son? That’s just perfect.

  The kid hugs Apollo. Apollo hugs back. Cozy.

  “I’m sorry,” the kid says.

  “It’s all right,” Apollo says soothingly. “It’s all right.”

  I resist saying maybe it’s all right with you, but what about the rest of us? The droid must be a mind reader. He looks my way and growls again.

  I don’t like this setup and I don’t like the way it’s going. Wolfe may have a gun, Thane is ready to cut throats, Leda—who knows what ever goes on in Leda’s head? Apollo’s trying to assert command over a bunch to whom command is a threat. We have no shuttle to return to the Galactica in. A Cylon fighter plane may be returning at any moment. The captain’s kid is a stowaway. I’ve got to put up with his mechanical pet growling meanly at me. There’s snow everywhere and it’s colder than a Scorpion slumlord. We’re expected to climb a mountain that might not even have a rock you can cling to without sliding off, knock off a weapon that can destroy a whole fleet, escape with our teeth intact. Nope, I don’t like this setup one bit, and it’s beginning to look like it’s going to have to be me who makes it function at all.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cylon scout ships had once again detected a flaw in the camouflage force field of Battlestar Galactica and its ragtag fleet, and Imperious Leader was quite pleased to verify that the humans, their progress slowed almost to a standstill, had fallen right into his trap. It was obvious they were trying to stay out of the accuracy range of the laser cannon on Mount Hekla. It was time to prod Adama and his vile human forces. Turning to the ring of executive officers surrounding his high pedestal, he ordered:

  “I wish to close in on the human fleet. Double our speed and inform our warriors to make ready. This will be the final battle. Send out one phalanx of the ghost ships to attack the fleet immediately. I want them frightened and aware we have discovered them.”

  Satisfied with his strategy, he dispatched the officers. The ghost-ship phalanx should serve to confuse Adama’s fleet. The development of the pilotless warhead aircraft had been one of First Centurion Vulpa’s finest ideas. If Vulpa did succeed to the position of Imperious Leader, his technologically innovative abilities should be vastly improved by the addition of the third brain.

  He reviewed the details of his plan, satisfied with the general outline of squeezing the humans between the Cylon pursuit force and the Mount Hekla weapon. Although there was no apparent reason to doubt, he decided to consult the Starbuck simulation again. Turning to the simulator, which he had not yet sent away from his pedestal, he stared at the telepathy-template and requested the simulacrum of the arrogant human lieutenant.

  “Hi, chum,” the Starbuck simulacrum said after the outline of his body had solidified. Turning his attention back to the telepathy-template, the Leader ordered that the simulacrum have memory of their previous conversations.

  “I’m still not going to help you,” the Starbuck said.

  “You can’t avoid it. Your programming impels you to answer any question according to the knowledge we have accumulated about your real self.”

  “You can take all your programming strips and eat them for breakfast, bug-eyes. Better than primaries any day.”

  “Do you know about our pilotless aircraft?”

  “Your ships are pilotless even when you guys are in them.”

  Suppressing his anger, Imperious Leader turned toward the template and ordered that knowledge of the ghost ships be added to the simulacrum’s information. The Starbuck smiled as soon as the information was provided it.

  “Trying to spook us, then. Nice play, I’ll give you credit.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sure. We humans have a natural tendency toward suspicion. Give us a force we can’t explain, or a strange shape drifting through the darkness, and we all feel a clutching in our chest, a shiver up our spine, and the urge to run for the hills.”

  “Then the ghost ships will be a successful maneuver?”

  The Starbuck appeared to think for a moment. The simulator was searching its data banks for an appropriate human-language response.

  “Doubt it,” the Starbuck finally said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s like this: Adama. You can’t fool him with magic tricks. He ain’t like the rest of us. Sometimes he’s downright inhuman.”

  “Then you believe he might not be, to use your word, spooked by our pilotless aircraft?”

  “You might spook him a little, but you won’t scare him.” />
  “What is the precise difference in terminology?”

  “Spooking requires merely a feeling that the object is mysterious; scaring requires that the object come up, smack you in the face, and convince you it’s out for your soul.”

  “I do not follow that completely.”

  “You never will, chum, you never will.”

  “I believe our strategy will succeed.”

  The Starbuck smiled.

  “Best of luck,” it said.

  Imperious Leader was surprised.

  “You wish me luck?”

  “What do I care? I’m only a simulation.”

  Imperious Leader wondered for a moment if, since this simulacrum seemed quite insane, the real Starbuck was equally mad.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Croft:

  Nothing’s so bad it can’t get worse if you apply a little human ingenuity to the situation. We could hear the Cylon fighter in the distance, swooping to ground level, then accelerating upward. There was a phantomlike quality to the sound. The fighter could locate us at any time, and all of us were too cold or injured to move out of its way with any speed.

  Boomer tries to get things hopping:

  “Okay, everybody out! Now!”

  Wolfe scrambles for the hole leading outside, Thane strolls to it. Sorting through the smashed containers, I manage to liberate a number of ice axes, some of the molecular-binding pitons, other odds and ends of climbing equipment. They wouldn’t be enough, perhaps, but we have to salvage as much as possible. Near the gaping hole, while still scrounging for materiel, I stumble across a large figure huddled in the dark. A face, angry, comes into the dim light. Leda.

  “I might have expected you to trample me on your way out,” she says.

  “I wasn’t on my way out. I was—never mind. I didn’t see you there in the dark.”

  “You never did.”

  She glares at me, but in her eyes is some delight at scoring her point. Let her have her little triumph. Nothing gained by alienating her any further. If this operation is successful, maybe we can get back together, maybe—ah, it’s no good fretting over futile wishes.

  Boomer rushes past us, not seeing myself or Leda.

  “I’ll take Vickers,” he says. “Starbuck!” Starbuck pokes his head through the entranceway to the forward cabin. “Give me a hand.”

  “I’m trying to remove the communicator,” Starbuck protests. “We’re going to need it.”

  “Sorry, you don’t have the time. Captain Apollo thinks they’ve spotted us. That Cylon ship’ll be back for another pass quick as a flash. Give me a hand with Vickers.”

  Starbuck comes into the passenger compartment and reaches for Vickers’ feet while Boomer cradles the gunner’s head and shoulders. I hustle toward the exit, immediately feel the harsh sting of fiercely blowing snow against that part of my face that’s not covered by the breather. In spite of the snow and the darkness, the gray-shape of the Cylon fighter is immediately visible hurtling toward us.

  “Here he comes!” I shout.

  The fighter dips into a strafing run. The fire from its lasers hisses and crackles across the ice field. I dive to the ground, feel the sharp smack of firm ice against my whole body. Behind me, I can hear the other members of the team scrambling out of the shuttle. Looking up, I’m just in time to watch the forward section of the shuttle burst into a bright yellow flame.

  As the Cylon fighter slips upward in a loop designed to end in another strafing run, a deep rumble sounds from inside the shuttle. The snow-ram kicking into life. With a loud roar, the vehicle smashes through the side of the shuttle, creating still another large hole. Its sleek black surface streaked by the glow of flames from the burning shuttle, the snow-ram swerves furiously into defensive artillery position. Apollo sticks his head out the snow-ram’s portside window, hollers:

  “Starbuck! Get up here!”

  “Always in demand,” Starbuck yells as he jumps up on the turret of the vehicle.

  The Cylon ship, not expecting to encounter resistance, appears again and initiates its run. Starbuck extends the long barrel of the snow-ram gun, and spinning it around, takes aim on the enemy ship as it approaches. The Cylon fighter’s guns, with their longer range, score a pair of hits on the snow-ram. The cover flies off the vehicle’s external battery. Starbuck seems not to notice. Holding back until the properly timed moment, he stares upward, sighting along the narrow barrel of the gun to the enlarging shadowy form of the advancing ship. Just as I’m about to yell at him to fire, he does. With an ear-splitting howl, he unloads at the swooping Cylon plane. The shots fly straight to their mark. The ship explodes like a meteor cracking apart. We all shield our eyes from the incandescent glare.

  Turning the vehicle around, Apollo aligns it alongside the shuttle, whose fire has now dimmed. In the dying light we assemble, at least those of us still conscious do. The snow-ram engine coughs and shakes. Something’s obviously wrong with it.

  Suddenly the kid sticks his head out the highside hatchway of the snow-ram and cries out:

  “Great shooting, Starbuck!”

  From the looks on the face of Starbuck and some of the others, I can tell Apollo and Boomer have forgotten to inform them of Boxey’s presence. When they hear the droid inside start to bark, they all jump, startled at the abrupt sound.

  Apollo, cutting off any queries about the presence of the kid and his mechanical pet, tells everyone to crowd around the snow vehicle. As we do, he lights a lamp. I become more aware of the ferocity of the wind as the fire in the shuttle finally flickers out.

  “Light the other snow lamp,” Apollo orders. “Keep them shielded.”

  Starbuck takes care of the other lamp.

  “Crowd as many as possible inside,” Apollo says. “We’ll rotate riding on top. Haals and Wolfe go first.”

  Neither Haals nor Wolfe looks like he appreciates the privilege of being first. The wind’s increasing in velocity, while the snow’s back to mere blizzard level. Starbuck hands me his light and everybody starts loading the snow-ram. When the job’s just about done, I become conscious of Thane and Wolfe standing behind me. I turn and face them, after checking that everybody else is still busy with the loading.

  “What is it?” I say as quietly and guardedly as I can across the roar of the blizzard.

  “You’re not going to guide them across to the mountain?” Thane says. Somehow his quiet voice manages to carry no matter what noise is raging around him.

  “We can make it,” I say.

  “It’s our chance to make a break.”

  Exactly what I suspected. They’ve been cooped up for too long. Their desire for escape has overcome their common sense, and they’re not going to listen to me for long before attempting to flee from the core group.

  “A break, eh? To where? We’re stuck on this ball of ice.”

  Thane’s obviously been thinking this all out. His answers are ready.

  “We can hunt. Build shelter. We’ve been in a lot worse.”

  Wolfe moves in closer and whispers in his raspy voice:

  “Maybe we can hijack a Cylon transport and make a run for a sun system.”

  “Yeah, and maybe we can clip off all the hair on your body, Wolfe, and get rich selling it as animal pelts.” Wolfe looks like he’d rather clip me. “We’re not going to run anywhere. We signed on to blow up that pulsar-type cannon or whatever it is.”

  Thane’s eyes narrow, as much a show of emotion as I’ve ever seen him manage at one time.

  “You sayin’ you’d crawl up that mountain to get your rank back?”

  I want to take that scrawny neck of his in my hands and squeeze it until life comes back into his eyes.

  “It’s low-blow time, that right, Thane?”

  “Low blows are for people who can fight back. They broke you, Croft. You used to bite, but now you’re toothless. Okay, you stay and wear their choke chain. We’re cutting loose the first chance we get!”

  I remember when these guys didn’t
used to be so stupid. Thane says they broke me. I’m not sure who they broke. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ve lost my sense of loyalty, that feeling of companionship we’d all experienced before the platinum raid. But is it disloyal to rank a selfish desire for escape and personal freedom over our duty to save the fleet from certain disaster? It doesn’t seem so to me, and I’m about to tell Thane and Wolfe that, but out of the corner of my eye I can see Apollo walking up to us, the snow crunching under his heavy boots.

  “Soon as you’re finished loading,” Apollo says, “we’ll go.”

  I glance at Thane and Wolfe. I’m pretty sure both of them have given up on me. Maybe I can convince them later.

  “We’re through,” I say to Apollo, and walk off next to the captain, feeling the two pairs of eyes of my former cohorts staring deep craters into my back.

  Next to the shuttle wreck, Leda is working furiously on the injured Vickers and Voight. Haals comes out of the shuttle, his arms sliding into the harnesses of a backpack.

  “How are they?” Apollo says, crouching by Leda. The look she gives him reminds me of a look she once used to reserve for me. Since she wants so badly to escape, the look is probably phony. Maybe it was always phony.

  “They’ll survive,” Leda says, “if we can get them to shelter.”

  “Put them inside the ram. There’ll be enough room, with Wolfe and Haals riding on top.”

  Wolfe now hovers over all of us, growling:

  “I’m not freezing, just so—”

  “I said you ride on top,” Apollo says, standing. “That’s an order.”

  “I’m not letting any punk of a—”