02 - The Cylon Death Machine Read online

  “But why the airfield?”

  “We’re going to hot-wire a Cylon ship and go off looking for them.”

  “Oh.”

  “That all right?”

  “Sure. I just thought you wanted us to do something difficult.”

  Boxey had been awakened briefly by the sound of loud explosions and the lighting up of the sky. Muffit had barked. Boxey had told the daggit to be quiet and gone back to sleep.

  Now he was awakened by the lurch of the ship in which he slept. A rumble from the front of the ship sent tremors through its walls.

  “We better get out of here, daggit,” Boxey said, but he had trouble getting his body to move. It felt numb all the way through.

  “Go get Dad, Muffit… or Starbuck!”

  The daggit barked again, seemed to hesitate, then shoved its snout against the exit hatch of the ship. It came open narrowly, and Muffit squeezed out. The hatch slammed shut behind it. Boxey could hear Muffy’s barking outside. He tried to force his body toward the hatch. It was no use. He couldn’t move fast enough. Just as he’d reached the hatch by crawling, the ship started throbbing and Boxey could feel it lift off the ground.

  Boxey didn’t know whether to be thrilled or scared. He’d always wanted a ride in a Cylon ship, he just wasn’t sure now was the time.

  Athena steadied the rescue shuttle just below the cloud cover and ordered a crewman to establish contact with the expedition. After a brief colloquy with a strange-looking man named Ravashol, who told her that Apollo, Starbuck, and Boomer were safe, she set the crew to their proper tasks. The medical officer reported ready. The pilot who’d be driving the snow-ram reported ready. The warrior contingent, brought here in case any Cylons attacked during the rescue operation, reported ready. As she was about to set the rescue mission going, the communications officer reported:

  “Activity on the airfield below. Cylon ships revving up.”

  “Are you sure it’s Cylons? Ravashol said the garrison was wiped out.”

  “I can’t tell who’s piloting the ships. It looks like nobody’s in some of them, from the scanner probe.”

  “Ghost ships! Equipped with warheads maybe. Alert the escort force but tell them to hold fire until intent of attack is established.”

  Athena’s brow furled. She tightened her grip on the controls of the rescue shuttle.

  Five of the Cylon ships on the airfield below lifted off simultaneously, followed quickly by a sixth ship from a rear rank. Athena asked for a further scanner probe, and was told that the rear ship contained personnel; outline indicated a lone Cylon. The other ships were definitely of the designation ghost ship, and were warhead-equipped.

  “Any hint of hostile activity?” Athena asked.

  “Not yet.”

  A moment later one of the Cylon ships gave a sign of hostile activity. It flew right at a colonial escort viper. Reacting rapidly to Athena’s hasty order of “Fire!” the viper shot at the ghost ship. Hitting it head-on, the viper’s fire caused the Cylon ship to burst into flame and plunge toward the planet’s surface. It exploded before hitting the ground.

  “The other Cylon ships are maneuvering into attack positions,” the communications officer said.

  “Blast them out of the skies!” Athena ordered.

  Vulpa had put the first ghost ship into operation too hastily. He should not have sent it up against one of the vipers. The human craft was too maneuverable, could evade the ghost ship too easily, explode its warhead before it could do any damage. Clearly, the better strategy, if he were to get any revenge at all, was to destroy the larger, less maneuverable rescue ship. Fiddling with the controls, he set the guidance system for an attack on the human rescue shuttle by two of the remaining ghost ships.

  Boxey, feeling warmer now from the exertion, pulled himself forward into the cockpit of the Cylon ship. He realized his ship was part of a line of ships. Up ahead was what looked like a shuttle from the Galactica. He hoped it was from the Galactica.

  Next to him one of the other ships flew forward with a loud surge of power. It ran right at what Boxey recognized as a colonial viper, the kind he hoped to fly someday. It looked like the fighter was going to crash right into the viper.

  “No, don’t,” Boxey cried aloud. “Shoot it down, warrior!”

  Which the pilot of the viper promptly did.

  “Good shooting!” Boxey yelled, then watched two other ships pull out of the line and head toward the formation of Galactica spacecraft.

  Athena recognized the move of the two ghost ships immediately. One would loop up and attack the rescue shuttle from above, while the other would zero in from below.

  “Intercept!” she ordered.

  Two vipers intruded themselves between the lower attacker and the rescue shuttle. Catching the ghost ship between two lines of fire, they set it aflame. Another shot and they got the warhead. The ghost ship exploded. The shock wave rocked the shuttle, and Athena was able to level it off again with extreme difficulty and quick reflex responses. She wished she were in one of the vipers. Any ship lighter and more maneuverable than this rescue shuttle.

  “The other ghost ship!” her communications officer said. “It got two vipers. Blew itself and them right out of the skies. It’s horrible.” He turned to the console. “There’s a message coming in. It’s Dr. Ravashol again.”

  Ravashol’s voice sounded strained, desperate. He asked to speak to the officer in command.

  “What is it?” Athena said.

  “The ships attacking you. They are nonpersonnel guidance-system craft that—”

  “Yes, I know all that. Don’t worry. Three of them are already destroyed. We’ll get the others, then—”

  “No, you can’t! One of them may have one of your people on it. A boy. A—”

  “Boxey?”

  Ravashol briefly conferred with a tall muscular blond man dressed in thick furs. Turning back to face the screen, he said:

  “Yes, that’s the right name. Somehow he got on one of the Cylon ships. Captain Apollo’s on his way up in a Cylon fighter.”

  “All right, doctor.” She turned to the communications officer and said: “Report.”

  “The other two ghost ships are closing in together. Looks like they’re ready for attack. The ship in the rear is definitely guiding them.”

  “Can you tell which ship Boxey’s in?”

  “No. Scanner probe’s not come up with that information.”

  “All right. God, we might have killed—we’ll have to execute evasive action until we’re sure whether or not Boxey’s in one of those two ships! Tell the fighter escort to pull away. They are officially out of combat.”

  “But—”

  “I can’t have one of them going off half-cocked and shooting down the ship Boxey’s in. As soon as one of the ghost ships makes a move at us, we’re just going to have to evade it. Those are your orders.”

  “We can send one of the vipers after the guidance ship, then—”

  “No. That’s risky. The guidance ship just might be able to explode the warheads on the ghost ships by remote. I don’t even know if the lousy Cylon’s aware of Boxey being in that ship.”

  Feeling her body tense, she gripped the controls as she heard the communications officer shout:

  “One of them, it’s coming right at us!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Croft:

  The way Apollo skims across the fields of ice, you’d never think he just got done climbing a mountain and attacking a laser station a short time ago. He’s even still wearing half his climbing equipment. An ice-ax in holster bumps against the side of his hip as he runs. Ser 5-9, keeping up with him and giving him directions, is even more loaded down than Apollo. The clone still has a full pack and all his equipment.

  Anyway, how do I know it’s only been a short time since we got off the mountain? I haven’t been keeping track. I don’t know how long I sat by Leda’s body. It could have been centons. Leda. I don’t want to think of her. I don’t
want to think of that. At every step I take, I seem to think Leda’s dead, Leda’s dead, Leda’s—I’ve got to stop it. She knew the risk she was taking, she accepted it. I would’ve been the same. But Leda’s dead. And I’m not. I should be. Leda’s…

  I try to take my mind off it. Looking up, I can see the rescue ship hovering beneath the cloud cover. Dimly outlined in the darkness, it seems like a somber queen bee, with the smaller vipercraft buzzing around it like drones.

  I have to put on an extra rush to catch up to Apollo and Ser 5-9. Just ahead of us is the Cylon airfield, next to the wrecked command post. A group of the clone children are gathering at the edge of it. Apollo runs up to them, shouting:

  “Where’s Boxey?”

  There’s a desperation in his voice I’ve never heard before. A child answers:

  “We don’t know. He told us to hide in the ships. He went on ahead there.”

  The child points to the front rank of Cylon aircraft. Suddenly a fighter behind us starts throbbing with power. Ahead of us five ships in the front rank rev up. Apollo runs toward them, Ser 5-9 and I following a few steps behind. As we get near the five ships in front, the hatch of one of them squeezes open and what comes out of it but the kid’s daggit-droid! The hatch springs shut behind it, as it scampers up to Apollo, barking loudly. Apollo seems to understand the bloody droid-animal.

  “What is it?” I ask Apollo.

  “Boxey’s in there, I think. He must be, if Muffit was. In that ship. It’s a ghost ship.”

  “What’s a—”

  Before I can finish the question, Apollo whirls around and starts running toward the ghost ship—just as it begins to lift off the ground. We’re all forced backward by the swirling tornado in its wake.

  I’m recovering my balance as Apollo grabs my arm and starts pulling me toward the nearest Cylon fighter. All of the ghost ships are in the air now. Stopping by the fighter, he turns to Ser 5-9, yells:

  “Throw your mountaineering equipment aboard, then get to Ravashol! Have him send a message to that shuttle that Boxey’s in one of the ghost ships. Hurry!”

  Ser 5-9, reacting immediately, is hurling mountaineering equipment aboard the Cylon ship before Apollo finishes his orders. First there’s his pack, then his ice-ax, then a whole package of pitons—he must have been hoarding them. Apollo, after dumping his climbing material onto the pile, pulls me onto the fighter. Ser 5-9’s coil of rope follows me aboard; then the clone turns on his heels and sprints off. He is surprisingly agile for a big man running on an ice surface.

  Apollo is busy monkeying with some wires beneath the control panel of the Cylon craft.

  “You can really fly one of these things?” I yell.

  “In theory.”

  “In theory! You mean you’ve never—”

  “No.”

  I glance around me. The insides of the ship are weird, all pinwheels and improbably rounded gears, and other things I can’t begin to make out. I turn back and stare at Apollo, trying to keep my mouth from hanging open.

  “There,” he says, getting up and taking the pilot seat.

  “There what?”

  “The controls are easy, but they’re keyed to imprints of electronic wiring inside Cylon gloves. Fixing those wires should inform the monitoring devices that I’m a Cylon.”

  “Listen, Apollo, you’re so alien to me right now, you’re beginning to look like a Cylon.”

  He doesn’t bother to respond, but fingers a couple of buttons and levers. The fighter kicks into action. I find myself falling into a copilot seat at the upward thrust of the ship.

  Above us, I can see a ghost ship in the middle of blowing up. I glance over at Apollo. The strange controls are keeping him busy; he hasn’t time to comment. I wonder what I’m doing here, and why he’d insisted on shoving me into this ship. His eyes look insane with desperation. What in bloody Scorpia is he planning? I think I don’t want to know.

  As we zoom upward, I watch two ghost ships, apparently guided by the fighter that’s staying to the rear, suddenly zero in on the rescue shuttle, one from above, the other from below. The one going after the shuttle’s underbelly is knocked out by a pair of vipers, but the other one very nearly succeeds in blowing up the rescue ship. It’s stopped by two vipers, who are themselves caught and destroyed by the subsequent explosion. Other vipers seem on course to attack the remaining two ghost ships.

  “No, don’t, don’t…” Apollo mutters.

  Suddenly all the vipers peel away from the shuttle.

  “Ser 5-9 got through to Ravashol,” Apollo shouts. “They know Boxey’s in one of those last two ships.”

  I almost don’t want to say it, but I do:

  “How do you know Boxey wasn’t in one of the ships that went down?”

  “I’ve kept track of the markings on the ship he was in. It’s the one up there on the right.”

  I look where he points. That particular ship has left the other one now and is heading right toward the rescue shuttle. For a moment it looks like it’s going to crash right into the front of the shuttle, but at the last moment the shuttle dips and flies under the ghost ship. The ghost ship flies up into the cloud cover. Just before it enters the clouds, its course is already being redirected by the guidance ship.

  “Okay, good,” Apollo says. “Whoever’s flying the shuttle’s an expert. That was precision flying!”

  “I’m sure it was. But what good’s it going to do? If I get you right, that Cylon thing’s got a warhead and it’s not going to stop searching out the—”

  “We’re going to have to stop it. We’re going to have to get Boxey out of there.”

  Did I hear what I heard?

  “Just how do you propose to—”

  “Tell ya in a flash. Just let me take care of that other ghost ship before it gets the shuttle.”

  Manipulating the strange controls with a tense efficiency, Apollo heads for the other ghost ship, which is now bearing down on the shuttle. The shuttle has just pulled out of its dive, but it manages to veer off rightward to evade the attack of the warhead-equipped fighter. Before the ghost ship can have its course redirected toward the shuttle, Apollo dives our ship right at it, then pushes a multilined template in front of him. Laser fire shoots out from the front of our ship. A few tongues of flame, and the ghost ship is a real ghost now. I hope Apollo was right about which ship Boxey’s in.

  The last ghost ship comes back out of the clouds. It’s heading directly for the highside of the shuttle. It looks like there’s no chance the rescue ship can get out of the way, but at the last possible moment it surges forward with a blast of power and the ghost ship goes unsinged through its flaming wake. The ghost ship goes into a deep dive. Apollo mutters:

  “No, it can’t crash. It can’t—”

  It doesn’t. The attacker is pulled out and buzzes the ground. If Boxey is really in it, he must be having one hell of a fun ride. That Cylon pilot’s showing considerable skills at precision flying by remote.

  Apollo turns to me, talks quickly:

  “Okay, Croft, it’s up to you now.”

  “Up to me what?”

  “Listen and don’t interrupt. The climbing stuff, you know how to use it. Anchor the rope here, and climb down to the ghost ship, get Boxey out with your fancy equipment. That’s it. It’s our only chance.”

  “It’s not even a chance, it’s—”

  “Do it!”

  The desperation in his voice puts an end to it. Sure, I’ll do it, I say to myself even as I start gathering the equipment, what do I care? I might as well die, too, like Leda. Even as I contemplate my own death, I work out a plan. It probably won’t work, it shouldn’t, but I don’t like to try anything this dumb without a plan. Why shouldn’t it work? All I’ve got to do is work my way down to a ghost ship that’s engaged in attacking a shuttle while the revered Captain Apollo keeps still another ship that he’s never flown before steady enough for me to do my job without falling from the rope to the icy surface below. I can do that, c
an’t I?

  As I anchor the rope to an ice-ax which I’ve wedged between the base of the copilot seat and another jutting piece of ship whose function I can’t even guess, I notice that the belay’s no worse than some I’ve set up on mountainsides. I tell Apollo a few hand signals I’ll be using that’ll let him know how to fly while I’m operating below. Then I grab three molecular-binding pitons, and using my famous Scorpion slip knot on each, I connect them all with a length of rope. Attaching another piece of rope to a second ice-ax, I coil it and secure it on my shoulder. I check to verify that my laser pistol is still in my holster. Taking still more rope, and with a few more applications of my famous Scorpion knot-work, I jerry-rig several loops at the end of the climbing rope I’m going to use. Some of the loops are small enough to slip a boot into, which is exactly what I intend to slip into them. Another two loops are big enough to fit me rather snugly, albeit without much style, at chest and waist levels. I weight down the main climbing rope with a lot of junk I find around the interior of the Cylon ship. Apollo keeps looking over his shoulder, as if to say: Aren’t you ever going to be ready?

  “Good flying!” he shouts suddenly. Apparently the pilot of the shuttle has executed another great maneuver! Swell!

  After setting the rope to its stiffer cablelike tension and kicking open the side hatch of the Cylon fighter, I throw the rope out the hatch. The weight at the rope end keeps the rope from dragging directly behind the ship, but the angle downward still looks less than favorable to me.

  “Check with you later, Apollo,” I scream, and don’t wait for his answer. Grabbing the rope and gripping it tightly, I hurl myself backward out of the open hatch of the ship.

  As I descend I try not to notice the intense cold, the fierce wind, the memories of Leda clinging to the rope in the elevator shaft. The cold and wind are easy enough to ignore—they’re no worse than on some mountains—but the memories of Leda are hard to dispel.

  I reach the bottom weighted area of the rope and slip my booted feet into two of the loops I’d knotted. Looking down, I can see the ghost ship below me. It’s heading toward the shuttle again. Somehow Apollo’s keeping pace with it. Concentrating on the ghost ship itself, I’m only half aware of the evasion maneuver of the shuttle. Waving my hand in the gesture telling Apollo to descend closer, I then watch the ghost ship come toward me. Suddenly I’m right next to it. I have to act fast, since I don’t know when the Cylon guidance pilot might pull the ship away from me. Checking that the chest and waist loops are secure, I quickly slip my body into them, thus freeing my hands to work. I gesture to Apollo to edge me closer to the ghost ship. He does. I jam the three pitons, set on metal penetration, into the side hatch of the ship. Just in time. Before I can do anything about attaching the ice-ax to the rope linking the pitons, the ship seems to drift away from me, the hatch now out of reach. That’s okay; I figured on that. I take out my pistol and quickly but deliberately fire toward the hatch. Although I’m not up on the technology of the superstructure of this bloody ghost ship, I place the shots where the locking mechanism and single hinge of an ordinary Cylon spacecraft hatch should be. My shots seem to be accurate, at least the abstractly designed scorch marks at each area look right.