CHAPTER ONE

 

 

The contact sensor implanted in Zac’s jumpsuit at mid-back sent waves of tingling impulses up and down his spine. The sensor system detected an anomaly in this sector of space; its mild pulsing stings notified Zac to check it out. Excited anticipation joined the induced impulses as he keyed in the automatic search and watched data, both in numbered and diagram form, accumulate on his scanner screen. When he had first returned to the battlestar Galactica as a green ensign grown overconfident with the informational input of space-academy training, Zac had been counseled by his father. Commander Adama, not to become too excited about the war or anything connected with it. The war had been going on for a thousand years, Adama had said, no need to welcome it as if it were your best friend. However, Zac had never been able to lose the thrill of zooming through space in his very own sleek-lined fighter plane and blasting Cylon craft into pieces of infinity. Now that he was a lieutenant, at 23 years old way past his majority, he still felt the same eagerness for battle he had known on his first launch from the Galactica’s spacedeck.

His scanner now displayed the flaw that the warning system had located. Two unidentified aerial devices hanging near an old moon, called Cimtar on the star map, that orbited around the decaying orbit of the single planet of this out-of-the-way, never inhabited solar system. A perfect spot from which to ambush the Colonial Fleet. As part of a vanguard patrol for the Fleet, it was Zac’s duty to investigate this bizarre, lurking threat.

“Something…” said the voice of Apollo. Apollo’s whisper was so sibilant, his words were so precisely enunciated, that Zac could have sworn his brother was right there in the cockpit with him instead of scouting in another fighter some distance away.

“Yeah,” Zac said, “I see them. What do you think?”

“We’ll think about it after checking it out. Might be a Cylon patrol.”

“Maybe. Awful long way from home, though. Where’s their base ship?”

“No base ship maybe. Long-range reconnaissance craft, refueling vessels carrying extra Tylium. Strange….”

“What, Apollo?”

One thing Zac had learned as a cockpit jockey was to listen to any of his brother’s suspicions.

“I’m not picking up anything but static on the far side of those guys, Zac.”

Apollo was right. Zac glanced at his scanner, saw only the two mysterious blips and an odd, steady field of static interference beyond them. The static appeared to indicate a storm, but no storms had been charted earlier for this sector.

“See what you mean,” Zac said. “I thought there was something off with my scanner.”

“Could be a storm, though that doesn’t make…”

Apollo’s voice drifted off, leaving behind a note of puzzled concern in the staticky silence. After a moment, Apollo said, “If it is a storm, the Fleet’ll be coming right through it, and soon. We’d better go have a look. Kick in the turbos.”

“But Apollo, the standing orders on conserving fuel specifically forbid use of turbos, except under battle conditions or making the jump back to base.”

Zac could have predicted his brother’s irritated response.

“Kid, don’t let that peace conference back of us interfere with your judgment. Until we get official notice of a signing, anything goes. These are still the front lines.”

On his ear-receptors, Zac could hear the thunderous acceleration of Apollo’s ship as final punctuation to his rebuke. Okay, he thought, let’s get to it. Pre-battle tension enveloped his whole body. It felt good. Zac ferociously pushed the trio of turbo engagement buttons and shoved his foot down on a pedal. The resulting thrust drove him back against his seat.

 

As they hurtled toward the old moon, Apollo felt uneasy that there should be any kind of disturbance within the unpopulated Lianus Sector. It just didn’t check out. The orders his father had sent out specifically commanded that all ships, whether war or merchant, should transmit their exact locations at all times. There was no reason that any of them should have forgotten, no strategic or trade reason for them to take the dangerous chance of hiding out. When you eliminated all the known twelve-colony ships, including outlaw craft, there was only one solution. Cylons. It wasn’t a solution Apollo particularly wanted to come to.

Zac’s voice came through the com.

“Hey, brother?”

“What is it, kid?”

“I know why I drew this duty. Tigh’s shafting me—no, mark that out—Tigh’s teaching me a lesson for that little rest-and-recuperation escapade with Paye’s chief nurse in sick bay. But how did you get stuck with this patrol?”

Zac always had to know everything. Sometimes his youthful curiosity annoyed the hell out of Apollo.

“Oh,” Apollo said, “I was figuring that, once the armistice is signed, they’ll be turning out all of us warriors, sending us to one of those planets where they force you into so much organized leisure you go out of your mind with boredom. So—I just wanted one last bite of a mission.”

“Uh huh,” Zac said. “Say, it wouldn’t be because you wanted to ride herd on your overeager young brother, would it? I mean, watchdogging me for the duration of this—”

“Stop that, Zac. I’m not watchdogging you. Not at all. Like I said, I—”

“You sure, big brother?”

Apollo hated the sarcastic emphasis on the word big. Sometimes his kid brother could be a royal pain in the blastoff tubes.

“Don’t be silly, Zac. You’ve got a fine battle record—not to mention the tiresome old datum that you came through with the highest marks in the history of the academy. I don’t need to ride herd on—”

“Forget it, Apollo.”

The com crackled in silence for a moment, then Zac spoke again:

“Say, what’re you going to do when the armistice is signed? Really go to one of those boring leisure planets?”

Apollo smiled. He was not sure that Zac, who always needed somebody around to talk to, would understand what he was about to say.

“When the war’s officially over, I don’t think I want to settle down on any planet. Just long enough to refuel and relaunch.”

More crackle from the com before Zac’s voice came through again.

“Well, what are you planning for the postwar time, Apollo?”

“Not sure. But there’s a lot of space still to explore. That’s the real challenge, Zac—deep star exploration. Who knows what we’ll find beyond the twelve colonies?”

“Long as it’s not more Cylons. They give me the creeps. You looking forward to peace with them? I mean, really?”

“If you mean, do I believe in peace with the Cylons, especially one that’ll last until the ink dries on the treaty, my only answer is, I don’t know. But I don’t think we’d better be discussing it over the com. If we’re being monitored, it might be a little embarrassing back aboard the Galactica.”

“Yeah, how about that, Galactica? Your face red, Colonel Tigh, sir?”

“Stop that, Zac. Keep your mind on the patrol. Cimtar’s just ahead. Let’s roll over and have a good look, huh?”

“Roger dodger, old codger.”

In an instant they were hovering over their objective, a space vehicle that was large and ponderous, wasted looking. It seemed to float aimlessly, bobbing like a baitless fishing lure in its own portion of the sea of space. Above it was the old moon, below it a purplish layer of clouds that Apollo did not recall as being a normal feature of the barren, uninhabited planet.

“What is it?” Apollo whispered.

“Tell ya in a flash,” Zac replied.

 

* * *

 

Zac punched out the combination that would identify the vehicle pictured on his scanner. The intensity of the scanner picture changed as various profiles of existing airships were compared with the antiquated conveyance under study. A match was quickly made and the identification appeared in printed form below the picture.

“Warbook says a Cylon tanker,” Zac reported. “Scanner reads it empty.”

Apollo’s voice became agitated.

“An empty tanker? What in the twelve worlds is an empty tanker doing out here?”

“And where’s the other ship, the one that—”

“Screened off by this one apparently. Undercover, far as I can make out. Funny—wonder what they’re hiding.”

“I don’t know, but it’s awfully close to those clouds.”

Zac felt impatient, not ready to wait for his brother’s orders. When he made captain like Apollo, he could give the commands. Of course, by then Apollo would be an admiral or something, and probably still be telling Zac what to do. Even though he had looked up to his gallant brother since childhood, even though his own prestige at the space academy had been enhanced by the tales of Apollo’s heroism that he had recounted to his classmates, Zac was eager to get out more on his own, perform the kind of seat-of-the-pants flying exploits that had made Apollo so famous on all the battlestars.

Why was he thinking like this now? Here his father and the other great leaders of the twelve worlds were on the Atlantia working out a peace agreement, and Zac was still hoping to become a great war hero. Something askew in his thinking there. He would have to talk it all out with Apollo later, when they got back to the battlestar and had their regular post-mission talk.

“Well, kid,” Apollo’s voice whispered softly in his ear. “We came to look. Let’s get up closer.”

“Be careful, Apollo,” Zac said, and was immediately astonished by his own uncharacteristic caution. “I have a funny feeling about this.”

“Funny feeling, eh?” Apollo’s voice was now warmer, touched by a note of brotherly affection. “I always told Dad you behaved more like a native of Scorpia, that you didn’t seem to belong on Caprica.”

“Still, I have this funny feeling….”

“You’re not old enough to have funny feelings, pilot!” Zac nodded even though Apollo couldn’t see him. It wasn’t unusual for him to have such an immediate physical reaction to a rebuke from his brother. “Anyway,” Apollo continued, “while we’re stuck out here on patrol, Starbuck’s pulled a couple of those Gemons into a card game, and I want to get back before he cleans out those suckers.”

Looking out his sideview, Zac watched Apollo’s viper peel off in order to sweep around the ancient freighter. Feeling very much the younger brother, Zac set his flight pattern to follow, hitting at the course buttons angrily.

 

Commander Adama’s angular cheekbones seemed the work of a skilled diamond cutter. But his cold, penetrating eyes could not have been designed by even the finest of artisans. The members of his crew feared Adama as much as they loved him. There was a popular superstition aboard the Galactica that, when the commander became angry, those powerful eyes retreated into his skull and gave off rays that made him look so inhuman he might have just materialized as a god from some new alien mythology. Although tall and strong, he had none of the muscular man’s typical clumsiness in normal movement. His gestures were smoothly graceful, and there was an ease in his bearing that made even his enemies comfortable with him—at least when he was comfortable with them.

He stood away from the others, his fellow leaders from the Quorum of the Twelve. Their toasts to their new-found peace rang falsely in his ears. In front of him, as if arranged for his own private viewing, the millions of stars visible through the Atlantia’s starfield reminded him, as it reminded all contemplative men, of his own insignificance in this universe. And, even more, of the smallness of the historic event being enacted behind him. Men fought wars, cheered the coming of peace, then always seemed to locate another war to keep the peace from becoming too comforting.

This peace, especially, disturbed him. There was too much strain to the enthusiasm, too much simplicity in the negotiations. He didn’t like the fact that the absent Cylons were controlling the event like distant puppet masters—sending a human go-between and arranging the ultimate rendezvous for treaty signing at their own chosen coordinates in space.

President Adar, looking every inch the wise man of tradition with his long gray beard and flowing toga, had called the settlement the most significant event in human history. The array of candlelight on the banquet table, catching the blood-red jewels on his silver chalice, had lent a religious aura to the official toast. And the subsequent unctuousness of Baltar’s response to the toast left a bad taste in Adama’s mouth. Why had the Cylons used Baltar as their human messenger for this conference? Although a self-proclaimed count, Baltar was little better than a trader, a dealer in rare items. He was rich, yes, overwhelmingly so, but not a fit liaison between the humans and Cylons, not the proper carrier of sacred trusts. Why send a corpulent merchant whose unhealthy skin suggested the tarnishing of coin when power-hungry diplomats were available?

Who could ever know what went on in the alien mind? There might have been some reasoning among Cylons that led to the choice of the overweight, soft-looking trader. And, besides, who was Adama to judge the facets of the peace? He had never known peace; he had geared his entire life to the fighting of the war. He knew nothing, factually or philosophically, about peace.

Adama returned his attention to the celebration, which was in its final stage of formality. Adar embraced Baltar. The trader’s ornate, colorful garments, especially the long, flowing velvet cape, made the president’s simple robes appear rustic. The two men seemed alike only in the high boots each wore—a bizarre link, since Adar’s boots clashed so strongly with the austere lines of his white silken toga. Even in this respect, Baltar’s footwear, with its scroll-like decorations, appeared more sumptuous. It was ridiculous, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve having to warm up officially to the merchant-messenger. Adar’s voice boomed across the Atlantia’s dining room:

“You’ve done well, Baltar. Your tireless work has made this armistice conference possible. You have secured yourself a place in the history books.”

A place in the history books, indeed! Adama thought. The man didn’t even deserve a decent burial within a footnote.

It always annoyed Adama to hear his old friend Adar speak so officiously and with such an overtly political manner. They had gone to the space academy together, Adama and Adar. The alphabetical proximity of their names had continually thrown them together in classes, a solid example—they always claimed—of fate cementing a valuable friendship. Their comradeship had been secured later when they had both been assigned to the same battlestar fleet as fighter pilots. After being elected President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Adar had continued to rely strongly on Adama’s advice. Until now.

The obsequious look of humility upon Baltar’s face forced Adama to concentrate again on the starfield. His shoulder muscles tightened as he heard the trader’s reply to Adar.

“The Cylon’s choice of me as their liaison to the Quorum of the Twelve was an act of providence, not skill.”

Party noises intervened and Adama could not hear Adar’s subsequent remarks to the trader. Good, he did not want to hear any more politicking. He had enough of that already today.

“You look troubled, old friend,” Adar said. Adama had sensed the president’s approach, but he chose a bit of petty insubordination by not taking note of it. Suspecting Adama’s antagonism, Adar spoke with the patronizing nasality that was his trademark when he was opposed. Fussily stroking his full gray beard as if he were considering shaving it immediately, he said, “Well, I see the party isn’t a huge success with all my children.”

Although he rankled at Adar’s patriarchal phrasing, Adama decided not to reply in kind.

“It’s what awaits us out there that troubles me,” Adama said, pointing toward the bright starfield. Adar smiled his best condescending smile.

“Surely,” he said, “you don’t cling to your suspicions about the Cylons. They asked for this armistice. They want peace. For myself I look forward to our coming rendezvous with the Cylon representatives.”

Adama studied the president’s bland, confident face, and considered addressing him in the blunt vocabulary of their space-pilot days. No, Adar had been too far removed from the field for too long to understand plain language anymore. Adama resorted to diplomatic phrasings.

“Forgive me, Mr. President, but—but the Cylons hate humans deeply, with every fiber of their existence. In our love of freedom, of independence, our need to feel, to question, to affirm, to rebel against oppression—in all these ways we are different from them. To them we are the aliens and they’ll never accept our ways, our ideas, our—”

“But they have accepted. Through Baltar, they have sued for peace.”

There was a finality in Adar’s voice, a this-is-the-end-of-the-discussion command. Adama stared at the bearded man who, even though they were contemporaries, looked so much older. He knew there was no point in opposing him at this supposedly joyous moment. As in any battle, there was also a logical point of retreat in political disputes.

“Yes,” Adama said, “of course you’re right.”

And of course Adar had come to him requiring this capitulation. Pleased, the president stopped stroking his long beard so nervously, and grabbed his old comrade by the shoulders. The man radiated confidence. Adama wished he could be that assured, but Baltar’s vigilant stare only added to his present uneasiness.

Leaving Adama alone, Adar strutted back to a group of the more jubilant Quorum members. Adama, sullen, walked along the rim of the giant starfield which composed nearly one-half of the dining chamber. He stopped at a position from which he could observe his own ship, the battlestar Galactica.

He took great pride in the unanimous acknowledgment of the Galactica as the greatest fighting ship in the Colonial Fleet, and the most efficiently run of the Fleet’s five battlestars. Commissioned at least two centuries before its present commander’s birth, and commanded by Adama’s father before him, the Galactica had survived thousands of rough encounters with the enemy, no mean achievement when one considered the notorious Cylon deviousness. With the destruction of the Atlantia’s sister ship, the Pacifica, Adama’s craft had become the largest fighting battlestar in the Fleet. And since he had taken over command its record had become as impressive as its size. The most heroic exploits, the most suicidal missions, the highest number of Cylon kills were all now part of the Galactica’s gallant history. If this peace lasted any time at all, the battlestar would surely be declared a monument to human achievement.

While it appeared to drift placidly, the Galactica was actually “idling” at near light-speed. Its slowness was due to the fact that it had, as guardian to the Atlantia during the peace conference, to keep its pace down to the Command Battlestar’s speed. No wonder. Where the Atlantia was a hive of bulkily designed sections, the Galactica was a slim-lined, multi-level vehicle whose functional components allowed for the rarely achieved combination of size with speed. In regular space it could traverse distances nearly as fast as the fighting craft launched from it. Its fuel system provided the most power possible from the mixture of Tylium with lesser fuel sources. Its launching decks could be activated within minutes, emerging as long extensions from the cylindrical core of the vehicle, and its guidance systems had been refined—at Adama’s orders—so that his pilots could land on an InterFleet Memo without smudging a single letter.

Adama was equally proud of the efficient social system within the ship. A commander could not wish for a more cohesive crew—amazing when one considered the thousands of people required to keep a battlestar going. His daughter Athena was always saying the crew worked well because they knew they had a fair and understanding commander. While he chided her for the sentimentality of the observation, he was pleased that the skillful performance of everyone on the Galactica testified to the abilities of Adama as commander. (His father had predicted that Adama would surpass his own achievements after he regretfully retired from active command, and the prophecy had proven out—so far.) Yes, it was a fine ship and a fine crew. Even his impulsive children—Apollo, Zac, Athena—shaped up when it came to the needs of the Galactica and its commander.

Now, though, more impressive than his battlestar’s efficiency within or without was the image of beauty it created set against the background of flashing stars. So delicate were its lines, so multifaceted the jewel of its blue-gray surface that a casual observer looking out from the viewing wall of the Atlantia’s starfield would not in the least suspect that its dimensions were so monumental, its overall size so huge. Adama recalled his father saying that the Galactica was the size of a small planet, that a traveler could use up most of a lifetime walking its corridors without having to retrace a single step. He had learned later that the old man’s description was somewhat exaggerated, one of the outrageous tall tales he had so savored in the telling. Still, the Galactica would be a mighty challenge for the dedicated hiker. Viewing it now, he was struck for a brief moment by the feeling of disbelief that it was his domain, his world. He had felt that way when command had originally been transferred to him two and half decades ago, and he now felt it quite deeply again. He grew impatient to return to the Galactica as soon as possible, to escape from the emptiness in the joyous sounds of the Quorum’s victory celebration.

 

Starbuck didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know that a gallery of onlookers had formed behind him. When he had a pair of rubes like these two on the line, word always spread through the ranks of the Galactica, and people came running to the ready room. It was considered a privilege to be in on the kill. Starbuck’s gambling acumen had become so famous that his name was now a part of fighter-pilot slang. To be starbucked meant that you had allowed yourself to be maneuvered into a situation in which your defeat was inevitable. It was in the vocabulary of battle as well as in that of the gambling tables.

Like an actor, the handsome young lieutenant knew how to play to an audience. He let his face, so clean-cut for a man so diabolically shrewd, assume a mask of naïveté, as if he had just boarded the battlestar fresh out of space academy. Awkwardness substituted for the normal grace of his movements, and he leaned into the table like a man who wondered how he had gotten himself into this mess in the first place. All part of the setup. The gallery knew it, just as they knew he was ready to sweep down on his foolish opponents like a Cylon patrol from behind a cloud cover.

This time his marks were a pair of Gemons from the planet Gemini. Apparently Starbuck’s notoriety had eluded them, for they held their round cards with a cavalier sureness characteristic of men positive their hands are the winning ones. Like all Gemons they resembled each other, even though their features were quite dissimilar, one thin-faced, the other with a hint of chubbiness. Something in the expression of the Gemons, a placidity bordering on inanity, seemed to make all of them look alike. Gemons were among the most intelligent members of any battlestar crew, but when it came to gambling they were often the easiest victims of all.

Starbuck was ready now. He could feel victory on the smooth surfaces of his cards, as if it had been encoded there as a private communication for his hands only. Keeping his voice steady, he announced:

“Just to keep the game instructive and because you’re new to it, I’ll only wager… oh, say, this much.”

Coolly he pushed out half his stash, an evenly stacked high pile of square gold cubits. His dark blue eyes hid the mockery of his opponents which he felt inside. The two men looked quite astonished. Simultaneously, and with a duplicate raising of eyebrows. As they had done all game, they passed their single hand of cards back and forth, while whispering together about their next move. Some smiles and a pair of chuckles activated the previously stoical gallery. They all had a stake in each of Starbuck’s strategic moves. As each of them had arrived, Starbuck’s buddy, Boomer, had collected cash from him to add to Starbuck’s cubit-pile. Now they were sensing their own profits.

“Despite the humbleness of this hand,” said the Gemon who now held the cards, “for the honor of our home colony, we must challenge you.”

“Honor. Challenge. Gemini,” said the other Gemon. Whichever one spoke, the other usually echoed the main points of his statement.

The Gemon with the cards pushed forth a pile of cubits equal to Starbuck’s wager. Starbuck could feel the gallery tense. He was about to speak, say it was time to call, when the Gemon quietly spoke again:

“And for the glory of Gemini, another equal measure.”

“Glory. Equal. Measure,” said his partner, who now took the hand back and himself pushed the pile of cubits that would double the stakes. Feeling the nervousness of his gallery, Starbuck knew it was important to continue feigning his relaxed manner.

“Well,” he said, fingering some long strands of his cornstalk-yellow hair, “in the name of our planet Caprica and for her everlasting glory, I’ll measure your increase and double it.”

If they hadn’t been packed so closely together, some members of the gallery might have passed out and fallen to the floor. Starbuck shoved in all his remaining cubits and sat back confidently. He felt a tap on his shoulder, and he looked up into the tense black face of his buddy. Lieutenant Boomer. Who else but super-cautious, never gamble unless it’s surer than a sure thing, intellectual Boomer?

“Where is the remaining portion of your bet?” said the cardholding Gemon.

“Remaining. Bet.”

“Just a moment,” Starbuck said. “Come on, guys, up with the rest of it.”

The gallery seemed to take a collective step backward. Boomer acted as its spokesman:

“Could we speak to you for a moment? In private.” Turning to the Gemini, he said: “Only be a flash, fellas.”

With an exaggerated courtesy. Boomer led Starbuck away from the table. Out of sight of the Gemons behind a nervous wall formed by the onlookers’ gallery, they were joined by Lieutenant Jolly and Ensign Greenbean, the Mutt and Jeff of the fighter crew, whose physical appearances made it clear why the Galactica’s crew had awarded them such descriptive names. Jolly was hefty, a strong but overweight young man—while, of course, Greenbean was tall and thin. The conference among the four men was conducted in heated whispers.

“Are you crazy?” Boomer said. Boomer, who rarely sweated, now wiped away lines of glistening perspiration from his brow.

“Were you listening?” Starbuck said. “This is for the glory of Caprica.”

“Glory, Caprica,” Jolly said.

“Are you a Gemon, too?” Starbuck said, smiling. “Look, have I ever steered you guys wrong?”

The faces of the three men, especially Boomer’s, displayed the message that of course he had.

“All right,” Starbuck said. “Once or twice. But this is the real goods, I can take these guys. Look at it this way, we’ll double our money. They’re trying to buy the pot.”

“You told us they didn’t understand the game,” Jolly said.

“Evidently they caught on fast,” Boomer growled, but he sighed. He was always a pragmatist, whether in gambling or in a furious encounter with the enemy. All that reading on his bunk viewer had made him a thoughtful analyst of any situation, and for this one he could see that cutting losses was simply just not practical—the investment was much too high.

“We’ve got to do what Starbuck says or we lose everything we’re already got in the game.”

Boomer moved among the gallery, forced its members to cough up enough to cover Starbuck’s impulsive wager. Handing a neatly stacked pile of cubits to Starbuck, he told him to go to it. Starbuck nudged the cubits to the center of the table and turned his cards over.

“Beat that,” Starbuck snarled, his voice sending up an unsettling echo through the stillness of the room.

The Gemon smiled and revealed his cards. The gallery stared at the tragedy revealed by the pasteboard circles, then collectively they sagged as they had to watch the Gemon rake in the golden cubits.

 

For a brief moment Apollo got a good look at a second tanker, the one that had been revealed as the companion of the first on his and Zac’s scanners, before it disappeared into the cloud layer. He couldn’t tell whether the move was a strategic one, or whether the apparently empty ship had simply drifted into the portentous clouds.

“There’s the other ship tucked in nice and neat,” he said to Zac. “Now what is she and what’s she doing?”

He restrained his urge to chase after it. He wasn’t ready yet to follow a possible ghost-tanker into possible jeopardy. Not until he had made every other kind of check first. However, as soon as he tried to punch out a scanner program, the scanner’s screen began presenting a meaningless jumble of symbols. It was as if something inside those clouds were trying to lure him inside, one of the space Loreleis so dear to saloon storytellers. After trying every check he could think of, he told Zac of the failure of all his sophisticated equipment to get a fix on the mysterious clouds.

“I get the same mess from a scan of that tanker back of us,” Zac said. “Whatever I try, just a jumble.”

“Somebody’s jamming us.”

“I don’t know. Warbook says they’re both freighters.”

“My foot. If they’re jamming us, they’re hiding something. There’s no choice. I’m going in there.”

“But the cloud—”

“I’ll take the chance.”

“All right, but I’m not sure I like the idea of us flying in blind.”

“Not us, kid. You stay put.”

“I can’t—”

“If I need you, I’ll call you to come in after me, Lieutenant.”

Apollo headed his viper ship directly into the cloud mass. He heard Zac’s agitated voice over his communicator:

“This jamming’s knocking out my scanner now.”

Inside the clouds Apollo tried to work his own scanner again, and received the same jumble.

“Nothing but a harmless cloud cover,” he said. “Not heavy at all, not as dense as it looked. I don’t see why they’d send up all that electronic—”

Breaking through the other side of the clouds and looking down, he suddenly saw why. Below him was an immense Cylon staging area and he had flown right smack into the middle of it.

“Apollo, what’s going on?” said Zac.

As far as Apollo could see there were Cylon warships, with their odd curves and arclike limbs. In one of the ships he could see the usual triad that composed a Cylon fighting crew. Two helmeted pilots sat side by side. Their tubular shaped helmets covered what Apollo knew from a closeup examination of Cylon corpses to be many-eyed creatures with heads that apparently could alter shape at will. In the center of the helmet was a long but narrow aperture from which emerged fine concentrated beams of light. No human had ever discovered whether the light was generated by the Cylons themselves or was some facet of the helmet’s technology. Now, as Apollo stared at this particular trio of Cylons, he was startled to see one of their helmet lights swing upward toward his viper. At the same time the Cylon observer motioned to his fellows to follow his gaze. Apollo punched a reverse loop on the directional touch plate. His ship rolled upward and over, and screamed off in a tight turn. At the same time, he radioed to Zac:

“Let’s get out of here!”

“Why?”

He caught sight of Zac’s ship as he came out of the clouds.

“I’ll explain later.”

Zac’s viper promptly rolled over to follow his brother’s accelerating craft.

“Apollo,” Zac said, “for a couple of harmless tankers, it seems to me you’re burning up an awful lot of unnecessary—”

Zac’s voice was interrupted by the sound of explosions.

“What is it. Zac?”

“Ships. Cylon ships. Coming at me. They’re firing. Hold on, I’m coming….”

Checking the scanner, Apollo could make out four Cylon ships pursuing his brother’s plane. He punched in the direct-com line to the Galactica, got only static in reply.

“They’re jamming our transmission, kid. We’ve got to get back to the Fleet, warn them. It’s a trap, an ambush. They’ve got enough fire power to destroy the entire Fleet.”

“But Apollo, there’s the peace mission, the whole Quorum of the Twelve, they couldn’t—”

Apollo heard an explosion through his earpiece.

“What is it, Zac? Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

Zac’s frightened voice responded.

“Apollo, they hit my port engine.”

“Take it easy. Look, we’re not going to make it showing those louses our backs. I can see four ships on the scanner. How many you make out?”

“Same. Four.”

“Damn, they only sent that many after us. It’s insulting.”

“Maybe, Apollo, but they’re doing awfully well.”

“Only because they’re behind us. Okay. When I count three, hit your reverse thrusters and maximum breaking flaps. We’ll give them a little surprise. All right?”

“All right.”

“One… two… three!”

While the sound of his own craft’s reverse thrusting was deafening in his ears, the subsequent silence of the Cylon fighters flying past him was disconcertingly eerie. Although he could not see his helmeted enemies, Apollo was sure they were confused by the abrupt maneuver. He could picture them scanning the sky, their beams of helmet light going every which way, trying to locate him and Zac.

Narrowing his eyes, he put his finger on the firing control button of his steering column. One of the Cylon ships came into range.

“Right here,” he whispered, “you wretched, slimy creature.”

He squeezed the trigger. The Cylon ship disintegrated, transformed immediately into space debris.

Zac’s fighter came into view, pursuing another of the Cylon ships. Knowing his brother’s moves, Apollo could sense him lining up his target and firing. The second Cylon vehicle disintegrated. The remaining two fighters divided and veered off. The element of surprise had gained Apollo and Zac two direct hits.

“Not bad, little brother,” Apollo said. “Okay, you go after the guys on the right….”

Apollo directed his viper ship at the Cylon fighter on the left. Before it could swing around to attack position, he lined it up on target, squeezed the trigger, and blasted it to the far reaches of space. As he swung his craft around he could see Zac again, just in the act of firing at, and missing, the last of the Cylon attackers. Damn, Apollo thought, the kid was so often a shade too eager, too quick on the trigger. Zac’s prey veered off, did a tricky loop that Apollo recognized as a skilled maneuver only the best Cylon pilots could execute. Before Zac realized what had happened, his enemy had taken up position behind his plane.

“Apollo….” Zac said.

“I can see. Keep them interested just a little longer. I’ll be right with you.”

“Interested? Believe me, they’re interested!”

As Zac tried to pull away from his pursuer, his ship was hit again.

“There goes one engine,” he said.

Apollo’s viper swooped in on the Cylon fighter from the side, heading toward it on a perpendicular course.

“Steady,” he whispered, “steady. Just don’t look this way, guys.”

He thought he saw one of the Cylon pilots become aware of him a moment too late, just before the ship exploded.

Sighing, turning his ship toward Zac’s, Apollo said, “The day those guys can outfight us without a ten-to-one margin—”

“Apollo,” Zac said, “better look at your scanner.”

He looked, saw that a larger attack force had emerged from the clouds. What looked like a solid wave of Cylon dreadnoughts was heading their way.

“Ten to one, yeah,” he said, “but a thousand to one, that’s not fair.”

“What does it mean, Apollo?”

Apollo laughed mordantly.

“It means, little brother, there isn’t going to be any peace. The peace mission was a trap right from the start. We’ve got to get back, warn the Fleet.”

“Do it, Apollo. I’m short an engine, you know. I won’t be able to keep up with you.”

Apollo was impressed by the note of courage in Zac’s voice. He was a member of the family, all right. But family meant more than forced bravado.

“I can’t leave you, Zac. Together we’ll—”

“No, not together. You have to go. I’ll be all right. I’ll keep ahead of them, don’t worry. I’ll put my foot in that turbo and make it back ahead of them. Go on. You’ve got to warn the Fleet. There’s no other choice.”

“Okay, partner. Meet me in the ready room, I’ll have the coffee warm.”

“I don’t need heat right now, thanks. Got enough coming my way.”

“Good luck, kid.”

Before the turbo thrusters engaged, Apollo took one last look at his brother’s viper ship. Then the turbo kicked in, and the viper seemed to vanish immediately from the dark, suddenly somber sky.

 

The farther away his shuttlecraft took him from the Atlantia and its unpleasantly cheerful set of politicians, the more relaxed Adama felt. It was always good to return to his own ship. He longed to take one of his famous tours, go down among the crew for some casual chatting and perhaps a few slugs of the sort of brew that did not often find its way into command cabins.

“You’re thinking the kind of thought you always refuse to tell me about,” Athena said, swiveling her pilot seat around toward him.

“Keep your mind on your work, young lady, and let the old man maintain his privacy.”

She assumed a fake pout, then laughed as she swiveled back. For a moment Adama examined his daughter’s profile. He knew she was considered beautiful, especially by Starbuck and the other young officers who competed for her attentions. However, even as a loving father, he had difficulty perceiving Athena as beautiful. For one thing, she looked too much like him and too little like her mother, who was the real beauty of the family. Athena’s face was angular like her father’s, but the overall affect was softer, less granitic. Her nose displayed the same hint of acquilinity and her mouth the same thin-lipped straightness. Although he imagined these features as showing the world a firm look of determination in himself, he didn’t think they blended well with Athena’s lustrous blond hair and the one good feature she did inherit from her mother, her eyes. Every time he caught the look of his wife, Ila, in those glowing blue eyes, he found himself glancing away to avoid the longing that always accompanied his memories of Ila.

In their married life, he and Ila had been apart for more time than they had been together—this time it had been almost two years since his last return to Caprica—and that enforced separation was the one requirement of the military career that he had always despised. If it had not been for the damned war, they could have had the kind of balanced, happy life that now came only at well spaced intervals, although, as Ila often argued, perhaps their love was intensified by the long disruptions. Without them, she said, she and Adama might have become dull old married folks, never really acknowledging each other’s existence. Instead, they remained bedazzled, youthful lovers who still appreciated each other’s virtues. Adama had replied that she was just saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder, albeit in a more roundabout and loquacious way. Of course, she said, that—and a little more.

As he looked at his daughter now, intent on her duties, he saw a feminine version of himself. Even her body, with its attractive and clearly sensuous features, seemed to suggest useful strength rather than useless coquetry—or perhaps that was merely a father’s clouded view. He loved her, would always love her, but would never in the twelve worlds be able to see her as an object of intense interest to gentleman suitors.

The communicator light flashed on and Athena quickly donned her headset. Her brow furled as she listened.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Don’t know, but they just put the Galactica bridge on alert.”

“On alert, why—”

“Ease up, Dad, we’ll find out what’s up on the old bucket soon enough. Just let me get this crate onto the landing deck safely.”

She engaged the landing hookup and checked out her equipment. Everything okay. The landing deck came out of its pod, expanded, and seemed to ease itself under the descending shuttlecraft. Large strobe lights were an arrow to point the way in. Athena guided the small craft to the final stopping point indicated by a flashing red deck light. When the shuttlecraft settled to a stop, both father and daughter were out of it and running.

On the bridge Adama found his aide, Colonel Tigh, squinting at his scanners intently. Tigh, a short, wiry man who had been through many battles with his commander, was not one to panic easily, yet he seemed very apprehensive and jumpy at the moment.

“What is it?” Adama said.

“Patrol ran into trouble,” Tigh responded. “We’re picking up signals but can’t make anything out of them. Jamming of some sort.”

“The trouble, what is it?”

“Can’t tell yet. Pirates could be. Smugglers. Or….”

Adama could read Tigh’s real conclusion in the man’s eyes. Cylons. Definitely Cylons! Looking out the starfield at the placidly drifting command ship, he ordered the radio man to connect him with President Adar at once. When Adar answered, there still was the sound of partying in his voice. Adama cut that short.

“One of our patrols is under attack, Mr. President. We’re not sure by whom.”

Adar’s face on the monitor altered so quickly, Adama thought for a moment there was interference affecting the picture’s resolution. The skulking figure of Baltar, his chubby face showing a concern that seemed feigned to Adama, moved into the picture.

“As a precautionary measure,” Adama continued, “I’d like to launch intercept fighters.”

Like to? he thought. That was the kind of mealy-mouthed phrasing Adar expected from the more servile members of the Quorum of the Twelve! In the old days Adama would have said he was determined to send out the intercepts. His stomach churned as he watched Baltar lean in toward the president and whisper in his ear. Adar nodded.

“Quite right, Baltar,” he said. “Commander—” Where did Adar get off addressing his oldest friend so formally? Why did he put on such official airs in front of the despicable Baltar? “Commander, as a precautionary measure, I insist upon restraint.”

“Restraint? But—”

“Commander, if this turns out to be an encounter with some outlaw traffic, we could jeopardize the entire cause of peace by displaying fighters when we are so close to our rendezvous.”

To Adama the Cylon choice of rendezvous point seemed more suspicious than ever.

“Mr. President, two of my aircraft are under armed attack.”

“By unknown forces. We must receive proper information. You’re not to launch until the situation is clearer.”

“Sir, may I at least urge you to bring the Fleet to a state of alert?”

“I’ll consider it. Thank you, Commander.”

The screen went blank abruptly. Adar’s afterimage seemed to take on sinister overtones in Adama’s mind.

“He’ll consider it,” Tigh said angrily. He had never been able to keep his feelings in. It had lost him a starship command post at least once. “Has he lost his mind?”

“Colonel—”

Tigh looked around. Clearly he was a bit embarrassed at the way the bridge officers had become ominously silent, listening to them.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” Tigh said. “It’s just that… well….”

“Yes. What?”

“The patrol under fire. It’s, well, it’s under Captain Apollo’s command.”

“And if I can’t depend on my own son, who can I—”

“Zac’s with him. One of the men took sick and, well, Zac was on the bridge at the time and, well, there was this little matter of a disciplinary nature, a nurse, and, well, I—”

“Enough, Colonel. I understand your concern. But Zac can take care of himself as well as his older brother can.”

He turned away from his aide, afraid that the man might read in his eyes that he didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. In action Zac had good instincts, good moves, but was too impulsive—always had been, ever since he was a wild kid stealing rides from every shuttle or freighter that he could stow away in. The fact that Zac had raced off on patrol was still another of the wrong things that had gnawed at Adama’s nerves from the beginning of this strange peace junket.

For the next few minutes the crew of the bridge worked silently, aware of the explosive tension that surrounded their commander like a minefield. Adama and Tigh spoke only to issue orders. When there were no more commands, Adama spoke to his aide.

“Anything?”

“Still nothing from the fighters, Sir. One thing I’m sure of—their transmission is being jammed deliberately. If we don’t launch soon—”

“We cannot launch when it has been expressly forbidden,” Adama said, measuring out his words carefully. He could feel the eyes of the entire bridge crew staring at him. “This might, however, be an appropriate time to order a test of our battle stations drill.”

Tigh smiled and the rest of the bridge crew followed suit.

“Sound the battle stations alert, Colonel!” Adama shouted.

 

The identical smugness on the faces of the two Gemons infuriated Starbuck. The main goal of his life had just that moment become to wipe that self-satisfaction off both their faces. Sitting down at the table, with the remains of the gallery’s cash reserves overflowing in his big hands, he grinned his best country-boy grin at his opponents and pushed the large pile of cubits to the center of the table.

“Okay, guys,” he said. “The showdown play, right? One hand. Sudden death.”

The Gemons frowned simultaneously and whispered together. Even though he was not up on their dialect, he could tell by the quarrelsome sound of their voices that they were debating the odds. They came to their agreement, nodded at the same time, and pushed the equivalent amount of cubits into the pot.

“Sudden death it is, pilot,” one of them said.

“Death. Pilot,” said the other.

Smiling genially, Starbuck began shuttling the cards. When the hands were dealt, one of the Gemons picked up theirs immediately while the other leaned over his shoulder to inspect it. Starbuck waited a beat before picking up his hand. He knew the nonchalance of such a pause could unnerve the already anxious Gemons and affect their play.

As he regarded the hand, he realized with a surge of exultation that he hadn’t needed to employ such elaborate play-acting. His cards were all one color, and all the same symbol, the highest ranking—the pyramid! He could sense the electrified crowd reaction behind him, and started to lay out the cards for the Gemons to read and weep.

“You may never see another one, fellas,” he chortled. “A perfect pyramid.”

Both Gemon mouths dropped open in perfect unison. The cardholding Gemon was about to throw in his hand.

The alert-claxon blared loudly through the ready room, jarring everybody’s concentration and sending several crewmembers into immediate action. A woman reading a book on a corner bunk dropped the volume and started running. A sleeper flung himself out of a chair near the card table and, awakening a moment after his instinctual rise, he plunged sideways as he tried to avoid the running woman. In plunging, his body bumped against the table. The cards, including Starbuck’s perfect pyramid, slid and fluttered in all directions, some falling to the floor. When they were already dispersed, Starbuck made a futile grab at their ghosts. The Gemon watched the cards scatter, exchanged a look, then smiled together.

“Unfortunate,” one of them said. “We’ll have to replay hand at later date.”

“Wait a minute, you—” Starbuck cried.

“Duty calls,” said one Gemon.

“Duty,” said the other, while picking up his battle helmet from the floor (brushing off a couple of round cards that had stuck in ridges along its surface), and scooping their half of the pot into it. Their bodies tense in battle readiness, the two rushed out of the room.

“Come back here, you little—” Starbuck shouted. “Hey, somebody stop them!”

But it was too late to stop anybody. After their collective moment of shock, even members of the gallery started charging for the exits, gathering up their helmets and flight kits on the way.

Starbuck shrugged his shoulders, pocketed his half of the pot, made a mental note to distribute the cash back among his contributors (but only if they asked), and hurried to the flight-prep corridor.

Running along the luminous ceiling of the elongated chamber that was the catapult deck, a transparent vacuum tube revealed the even rows of the Galactica’s fighter ships, side by side in their powerful launching cribs. As the vehicles were thrust out of the tube onto the deck itself, their pilots emerged from chutes that had carried them from the flight-prep corridor. Each pilot raced on foot to his individual ship, while ground crews activated the sleek, delta-winged craft for launch.

Starbuck emerged from his drop and sprinted to his ship. After jumping onto a wing, he executed his famous into-the-saddle leap into the cockpit. Jenny, his ground-crew CWO, belted him in. Her darkly attractive face showed extreme concern as she closed the form-fitting cockpit over him.

“What’s going on?” she screamed.

“Nothing to worry about,” Starbuck replied. “Probably just some kind of, I don’t know, aerial salute for the president as they sign the armistice or kiss the Cylons or something.”

Jenny frowned.

“That’s revolting!” she hollered.

“Revolting? What’s revolting?”

“The idea of kissing the Cylons, that’s what, it turns my stomach.”

“Don’t knock what you haven’t tried.”

“Get outta here, bucko!”

Jenny hit the main power switch and Starbuck felt the familiar thrust backward that always accompanied the engagement of the flight systems. He took the controls and taxied to his launch point where, his craft joining the titanic array of the Galactica’s iridescent vehicles, he waited tensely for orders to launch or return.

 

Although Adama had to keep aware of the information on all of the wall screens in front of him, his eyes inadvertently kept returning to the one that showed Apollo’s ship coming into physical range of the battlestar.

“Starboard landing deck ready for approaching single fighter, Commander,” Tigh said.

“Sir,” one of the bridge crewman said, “long-range scanner picks up large number of craft moving this way at high speed.”

Adama and Tigh glanced apprehensively at each other, then rushed to the scanner screen toward which the crewman pointed.

“Get that pilot up here as soon as he lands,” Adama ordered, checking the progress of Apollo’s approach to the landing deck, “and get the president back on the codebox.”

He tried to discern some meaning in the screen revealing the wall of ships coming their way, some proof of the awesome threat he felt emanating from it. The president’s face, looking a bit less smug than before, came onto the communications screen.

“Yes, Commander,” Adar said blandly.

“Mr. President, a wall of unidentified craft is closing toward the Fleet.”

Baltar’s puffy face appeared at the edge of the screen, smiling oddly.

“Possibly a Cylon welcoming committee,” the trader said.

“May I suggest that at the very least,” Adama said, “we launch a welcoming committee of our own?”

“Mr. President,” Baltar said, “there remain many hostile feelings among our warriors. The likelihood of an unfortunate incident with all those pilots in the sky at once….”

“A good point, Baltar,” Adar said. “Did you hear that, Commander?”

Adama could barely hold in his anger, but his voice remained steady as he replied.

“No, Mr. President. I can’t possibly have heard correctly. Did Count Baltar suggest we allow our forces to sit here totally defenseless, that we…”

“Commander!” Adar’s voice was unusually sharp. “We are on a peace mission. The first peace man has known in a thousand years.”

“Mr. President—”

Tigh touched Adama’s shoulder, a printout report clutched in his hand.

“A lone ship is coming under attack from the main approaching force,” Tigh said.

 

As his plane seemed to limp through space, Zac could see on his scanner the rate at which the Cylon fighters were narrowing the gap. His information, displayed at the bottom of the screen, indicated that he had no real chance to get back to the Galactica ahead of the Cylons, and there was no way he could pump extra speed into his damaged craft.

“I may have to turn and fight the bastards,” he said aloud. He was a little disturbed that Apollo was out of communication range and could not respond to his younger brother’s bravado. Even though he often resented the tight leash Apollo kept him on, Zac wished he would return now to tell him what to do.

The Cylon ships opened fire and Zac’s ship lurched—another direct hit. His scanner flashed, then went blank. A strange oscillating whine filled the cockpit, and the fighter slowed even more. Zac pushed on the throttle, tried to force speed out of the ship.

“Come on, baby, not much farther,” he said. “Give me all you got!”

The ship vibrated as it took another hit. Zac felt the blood drain out of his face and his heart began beating rapidly.

 

Enraged, Adama ripped the printout sheet from Tigh’s hands and waved it toward the screen, which showed Adar’s now troubled face.

“Did you hear that, Mr. President?” he shouted, feeling in control of the situation now, as his anger at the officious politicians erupted. “Your welcoming committee is firing at our patrol.”

Adar backed away from the camera, his body looking as if it had collapsed inside the tent of his toga.

“Firing.” he said. “But… firing… on our patrol… that can’t… how do you explain this, Baltar?” He looked around frenetically for Baltar, who no longer stood smugly at his side. “Baltar… Baltar!” He looked back at the screen. “He’s… he’s left the bridge. Adama—”

“I’m ordering out our squadrons,” Adama said. The defeated man on the screen nodded sheepishly.

“Of course,” he said. “Yes. Immediately. Now.”

Before Adar had spoken, the bridge crew of the Galactica, responding to Adama’s rapid gestures, had swung into action. Adama scowled at the screen showing Zac’s fighter under heavy attack from the Cylon ambush party. He could sense what was about to happen, and his throat tightened. Zac’s ship was within range of the Fleet now. The static caused by the Cylon jamming diminished, and Zac’s voice suddenly reverberated loud and clear across the Galactica’s bridge.

“—they’re up to… I don’t think I can—wait a minute, I see you now, Galactica. My scanner’s working again. Everything’s A-OK. We made it, damn it, we made it!”

Even as Adama felt the wave of happiness at his son’s joy, he saw the three Cylon fighters moving in for the kill.

“NO! Watch out, Zac!” he hollered at the screen. Tigh shouted, too, in echo.

Obviously not receiving from the Galactica, Zac’s voice became coolly businesslike.

“Blue flight two. In trouble. Request emergency approa—”

The Cylon ships fired simultaneously.

Zac’s ship exploded, became a flash of light, disappeared.

All around Adama there was silence. Only the sounds of equipment could be heard. On the screen next to the one that had pictured the destruction of Zac’s plane, the array of Colonial Fleet fighters ready for launch spread as far back as the camera eye could detect.

“What was that?” Adar’s voice broke the silence. For a moment Adama could not figure out what the president was talking about. What was what? He had a flash memory of Zac smiling, in battle-gear, so engagingly eager to make a heroic name for himself. Then he turned toward Adar’s image. His voice was low, bitter, crackling with suppressed rage.

“That was my son, Mr. President.”

Tigh gestured crew personnel into action as the attacking fleet of Cylons came into view and opened fire. Adama turned away from the small screens and examined the massive starfield. Hundreds of Cylon fighters streaked by, firing salvo after salvo of their laser-particle torpedoes. The starfield—ablaze with the marks of flame, explosion, destruction—had suddenly been transformed into a deadly fireworks display. Two Fleet battle cruisers exploded together. Tigh looked anxiously toward Adama, waiting for his command.

“Launch fighters!” Adama shouted, “All batteries commence fire. I say again—commence fire!”

As the claxon aroused the ship and the noises of counterattack began, Adama’s tightly clenched fist slammed against empty air.