01 - Battlestar Galactica Read online

  “Where do you live now?” he asked.

  With an effort, she shook off the memory. “With a bunch of other people on a ship called Galactica.”

  “Isn’t that a battlestar?”

  “That’s right,” Sharon said. She thought a moment. “Hey, I have an idea. Maybe you could live there, too…”

  In the rear compartment of the Raptor, Gaius Baltar sat huddled with all the other refugee passengers. He was cold, miserable, and lonely. He had never felt so alone in his entire life. No one was speaking. He could hear nothing except the throb of pumps and the hum of equipment in the compartment surrounding him. Until…

  “You know what I love about you, Gaius?”

  The voice was familiar; so familiar, for a moment he thought it was right inside his head. He looked up and started to look around—until he froze at the sight of Natasi, seated directly across from him, wearing that red, low-cut spaghetti-strap number that drove him wild with lust.

  “You’re a survivor,” she said softly, huskily, leaning forward until he could feel her breath.

  Natasi? Here? No, that’s not—

  He blinked and averted his gaze for a moment, shaking his head like a dog. None of the other passengers seemed to have noticed. They were all sitting, huddled as he was, in a state of shock. The nearest one was the old woman he had helped to get on board. He shifted his gaze back to Natasi. But there was no one there. Just the old woman, and the others. Not real. I’m hallucinating.

  But it sure had seemed real—Natasi had looked as real as—

  He suddenly came down hard on his own thought. No, it was not Natasi. Even Natasi was not Natasi—she was a frakking Cylon.

  Model number six of twelve models. He began to tremble, thinking about it. Model number six. Maybe that’s what I should have called her: Number Six. She didn’t deserve a real name.

  The old woman was looking at him curiously now, and that’s when he realized he’d been starting to talk to himself. He managed a slight, tortured smile, rubbed his stubble-covered chin. And turned his thoughts back to the inside, back to where someone was trying to drive him mad….

  CHAPTER

  30

  Galactica

  The ship was closing up as though readying itself to spin a cocoon. All the Viper patrols had returned, and the launch bay and landing bay doors rumbled closed and locked into place. In the engineering bowels of the ship, great gears and magnetic sequencers ground into action, and the entire port and starboard launch pods began to retract into the great hull of the ship. The entire procedure took ten minutes and forty-three seconds. When they were finished, Galactica looked noticeably leaner.

  In the CIC, the Executive Officer was going around the horn with final checks: “Nav?”

  “Go.”

  “FTL?”

  “Go.”

  “Tactical?”

  “Go.”

  “Flight ops?”

  “Go.”

  “Sublight?”

  “Go.”

  “Helm?”

  “Go.”

  Satisfied, Colonel Tigh spoke this time to Commander Adama. “The board is green, ship reports ready to Jump, sir.”

  Adama was standing at the plotting table, glasses on, mood subdued. He was showing no emotion, no sign of the blow he had just suffered. He spoke without wasting a single word: “Take us to Ragnar.”

  Colonel Tigh turned toward the FTL console. “Lieutenant Gaeta, execute the Jump.”

  The attention-tone sounded as Gaeta spoke into the shipboard PA. “All decks prepare for immediate FTL Jump.” Gaeta reached down to the FTL console, gripped the handle of the FTL safety interlock, and pulled it out of its repository. On the end of the chrome handle were two long, bright-glowing blue crystals. He lifted it clear of the Safety slot and inserted it carefully into the Jump slot. Once it was in place, he twisted it firmly ninety degrees to the right. The mechanism clicked into place, and several lights came on across the board.

  Gaeta spoke into the PA again. “The clock is running. Jump in ten… nine … eight…”

  On the hangar deck, everyone was scrambling to find a seat for the Jump—not because the transition would be bumpy or jerky, but because it could be so disorienting. Chief Tyrol clapped his hands, trying to get everyone moving. Specialist Cally sat uneasily on a toolbox right next to the nose of a Viper. She winced with each second of the countdown. As the count reached two, she murmured to anyone listening, “I hate this part!” No one answered; no one needed to.

  In the CIC, Adama and Colonel Tigh stood ramrod straight, facing each other across the plotting table.

  As Gaeta’s count reached zero, the room surrounding them seemed to flex, all the angles changing at once, like a four-sided prism distorting and flattening, and finally folding in upon itself. The moment itself seemed to stretch out, as the fabric of space-time bent and folded…

  If an outside eye had been looking closely and quickly enough, it might have seen the ship twisting in upon itself, for a fraction of an instant—before it vanished with a diamond flash…

  And half a solar system away, it reappeared in the same way, and unfolded into the sky above the gas giant planet of Ragnar. Directly below, in the upper atmosphere of the planet, was the whirlpool of a massive storm, a reddish-tinged mark against the dreary olive green of the rest of the clouds.

  Adama looked around at the monitors, but the information he needed was not there. “Report,” he called quietly.

  Gaeta ran quickly from the FTL console to the nav, where he worked with the nav officer. “Taking a bearing now.” Frowning at the readouts, he finally straightened. His face was sober, but by the time he had finished delivering his report, he was grinning. “We appear to be in synchronous orbit, directly above the Ragnar Anchorage.”

  Shouts and hand-clapping broke out around the CIC. Gaeta raised a hand in salute, and reached out to shake the hands of his nearest fellow officers.

  At the plotting table, Adama actually smiled. Unbelievable. He glanced at his XO. “The old girl’s got some life in her still.”

  Tigh laughed briefly. “I never doubted it for a moment.”

  Nodding, Adama called out, “Lieutenant Gaeta—secure the FTL drive and bring the sublight engines to full power.” He turned back to his XO. “Colonel Tigh—”

  “Sir.”

  “Let’s update your chart for a course… right down into the eye of the storm.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Tigh began happily rearranging the transparent charts on the plotting table, the voice on the PA called: “Attention, Magazine Safety Officers, report to the CIC…”

  Preparations were underway for the rearming of Galactica.

  In her bunkroom, Kara Thrace was finally getting out of her flight-suit, and trying not to come unglued at the news of the shocking losses of this very young war. Most especially, the loss of Lee Adama. It was like being hit with Zak’s death all over again. As she opened her locker, revealing a small mirror on the inside of the locker door, her gaze fell on a photo she’d kept stuck in the mirror’s frame—a photo of herself with Zak, laughing and hugging, taken just a couple of weeks before Zak’s death. Though he was a shy man, laughing was always easy for Zak to do; he had eyes that just naturally seemed joyous, full of life. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

  Kara let out a long breath. She stretched the picture out to its full original length, revealing the third person who had been folded out of view: Lee Adama, the serious one, the born pilot and ace student. For all their bickering, she’d loved Lee like the brother he’d almost become to her, and maybe a little more. The ache this picture produced in her heart was doubled, now.

  Blinking back tears, she gazed at picture, blurry to her now, and murmured softly, “Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer. Take the souls of your sons and daughters lost this day…” She paused, swallowing back the lump in her throat, and continued, “…especially that of Lee Adama, into your hands…”

  Hanga
r Bay B was a quiet place now, and somber. The bodies of sixty-some fallen crewmembers were stretched out in neat rows on the floor, zipped into ticketed white body bags. They weren’t all there, of course; many had not been recovered—the pilots lost in battle, and the crewmen swept out into space during the emergency vent. But those who were here served as a sobering reminder of the price this ship, this crew, had paid already.

  Launch Officer Kelly walked down the rows, carrying a fistful of dog tags, a grave expression on his face. He had not forgotten, nor would he ever forget, that many of those lying here might yet be alive if the XO and Chief Tyrol—and he—had not killed eighty-five people in the process of saving the ship. The fact that it was necessary did not take away the burning pain and anger.

  More victims were being carried in past him. And he was certain this was not the end. He hoped there would be enough room in here for all those who would die before it was over.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Colonial One

  President Laura Roslin came to, groggily, and pushed herself painfully to a sitting position. Where am I? It took a moment to realize that she’d been sprawled on the deck of the cockpit. The two pilots were in their seats shaking their heads and rubbing their necks—they must have blacked out, as well. Power was just coming back on, the console lights flickering to life. What the devil just happened? Two Cylon missiles coming at us … She last remembered having about three seconds left to live—three seconds to regret her foolish stubbornness in forbidding a Jump to safety. Because of the other ship. We would have left them to die. Instead, I stupidly decided we should all die…

  Except they hadn’t.

  “Captain Russo,” she said, struggling to her feet, her voice a raspy croak. “Why are we still here?” She steadied herself on the back of the pilot’s seat, squinting over Captain Russo’s shoulder.

  The captain’s voice wasn’t much stronger than hers. “I’m not sure. I think the missiles’ warheads went off prematurely. Maybe Captain Adama can explain. Do you know where he—?”

  Laura suddenly remembered. “He said he was heading below. You don’t suppose—”

  Russo cast a sharp glance over his shoulder. “We’d better get down there. Eduardo, you have the controls.”

  Racing down the staircase to the cargo deck, Laura was first to see Lee Adama sprawled on the deck unconscious, near some very large coils that had been offloaded from Galactica. Captain Russo grabbed a first-aid kit and was right behind her as she ran to Lee and crouched at his side. “Captain Apollo!”

  He stirred and blinked his eyes open. With Captain Russo helping from the opposite side, she brought him to a sitting position. Lee’s eyes slowly came back into focus. “That was fun,” he croaked.

  Laura and Russo looked at each other, and suddenly began laughing, even though they had no idea what they were laughing about.

  “I think it worked,” Lee said woozily as he struggled to get up.

  “What exactly did you do?” Laura asked.

  Blinking, he said, “I basically just used… the energy coils to manipulate the p-power of the hyperdrive.” Breathing hard, he continued, “Captain, you… spun up the hyperdrive… before the president ordered you to stay. I used the coils to h-harness that energy and p-p”—he struggled to speak—“put out a big pulse of electro… mag-magnetic energy that must have… disabled the warheads. Ohhhh—” He started to collapse, but Laura and Russo caught him and supported him until he could stand again. “I’m—I’m hoping—that it looked like a nuclear explosion.”

  Laura’s heart leaped. “So that’s what that was!” She felt hope for the first time in what seemed like a very long while.

  He nodded. “So, uh—”

  “Will it fool the Cylons?”

  His face darkened. “I don’t know. But, if—if they weren’t fooled, then they’d be on top of us by now.”

  Laura involuntarily looked up, as though she might see through the walls and the hull, to confirm that there were no Cylons on top of them.

  Captain Russo spoke for the first time. “Does the rest of the fleet know about this trick?”

  Lee grimaced. “I doubt it. It was just a theory we toyed with at war college, but”—he shook his head—“it never used to work during war games. In the simulations, the Cylons would see right through it and destroy their targets anyway.” He chuckled painfully.

  Laura absorbed that for a moment. “The lesson here,” she said with a glance at Captain Russo, “is not to ask follow-up questions, but to say, thank you, Captain Apollo, for saving our collective asses.”

  Lee nodded and grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  “I’ll thank you, too,” said Captain Russo. “And now, I’d better get back to the cockpit and check on the other ship.”

  As they made their way back toward the staircase Lee began, “Now, if I could suggest—”

  “Evacuate the passenger liner,” Laura interrupted, “and get the hell out of here before the Cylons realize their mistake? I’m right with you, Captain.”

  Lee chuckled, falling back to let her go up the stairs ahead of him.

  As she climbed the stairs, though, Laura’s thoughts were very much on the need for tough choices ahead. She’d thought she was being tough by determining to stand by the passenger liner when the Cylon appeared. But only luck, providence, and the ingenuity of Captain Apollo had saved them. She had to assume that next time they would not be so fortunate.

  CHAPTER

  32

  Galactica, at Ragnar

  The great ship was gliding slowly down toward the dark immensity of the Ragnar atmospheric storm. It was harder than it looked: Bringing a ship down from synchronous orbit to the point directly below it was not like riding an elevator. It required careful orbital calculations, precise application of power, and a fair amount of brute force if you were in a hurry. Galactica was in a hurry.

  In the CIC, Colonel Tigh was calling out instructions: “Five seconds to turn three.”

  “Five seconds, aye, sir,” answered Gaeta.

  “And turn.”

  Gaeta took over: “Bow pitch positive one-half. Stern pitch negative one-quarter. Bow yaw negative three-quarters…”

  They were in the outer atmosphere now, dropping closer and closer to the swirling storm.

  * * *

  “Passing into the ionosphere,” Petty Officer Dualla called, relaying the latest readings. Even as she said it, the ship was starting to vibrate from the buffeting of high winds in Ragnar’s atmosphere.

  Commander Adama picked up the phone and addressed the ship: “All hands. Be ready for some chop.”

  As the ship continued to descend, crews from the engineering and hangar decks were gathering equipment and tools near the main D Level airlock. They moved without undue rush, but with grim determination.

  And outside the ship, the clouds darkened, and the winds grew stronger, threatening to blow the ship off her course down into the eye of the storm. Lightning flashed, illuminating and occasionally connecting with her hull. And far down in the mists of the turbulent atmosphere, a shape slowly emerged from the foreboding gloom—the long spindle of Ragnar Station, with three wheellike rings counter-rotating about its lower end.

  Galactica approached slowly, bucking the ever-shifting winds. Dropping cautiously past the length of the station, she approached from beneath, like a submarine rising to dock with an underwater station. This was the most difficult part of the docking procedure. Tricky enough in space, without gravity or buffeting winds, it was ten times more difficult here.

  And yet, still they drew nearer, closing on the docking module that protruded from the bottom end of the spindle. The great Galactica was the size of a toy truck compared to the immensity of the Ragnar Station. There was some final jockeying at the end, and then the magnetic locks pulled the ship’s hull and the docking collar firmly together. Once soft-seal was achieved, large mechanical latches secured the two vessels with a series of thunks that reve
rberated throughout the ship.

  In the CIC, Lieutenant Gaeta slid a single control lever on the airlock panel, pressurizing the join between the two airlocks. A small mechanical gauge beside the control lever rotated into the green, and Gaeta looked up and reported, “Hard seal.” He followed that with several other atmosphere and pressure checks, and reported them positive. “Cleared for boarding, sir,” he said to Adama.

  On Level D, in front of the airlock, Specialist Cally checked a similar gauge. She turned to Chief Tyrol. “Hard seal secured, sir.”

  Tyrol, speaking into the phone handset, reported, “We confirm, sir.”

  “Go find me some bullets, Chief,” Adama ordered.

  “Understood,” Tyrol replied. He hung up the phone. “All right! Let’s move out.”

  His men were already spinning the wheels to undog the hatch. The large port swung open, and the crew moved quickly through the airlock into the Ragnar Station.

  The ammunition depot, inside the station, was guarded by huge, rusty doors that would not have looked out of place as castle gates. The crew forced them open on their creaking hinges, then moved in quickly with searchlights and weapons at the ready. The cavernous space within was dark except for the lights they brought with them, and it echoed with every move they made.

  “All right, people, let’s be quick about this,” Tyrol called. “Cally, find the switches and generators and get some lights on in here.” Without waiting for the lights, they moved in through the great warehouse. Crates and larger containers were stacked everywhere, in an apparently random and hurried fashion. The crewmen flashed their beams around, finding munitions symbols and caution messages in large letters on most of the containers and caged storage areas. They were going to have to be fast but thorough, sorting out the ordnance that could be used on Galactica from that which couldn’t.