CHAPTER ONE

 

 

This time the trap must work.

It must, the Imperious Leader of the Cylons had commanded, snare the human fleet completely. The humans should not be able to execute one of their sneaky last-minute escapes. There could be no overlooked malfunction in the trap’s mechanisms. For too long now the Cylon forces had chased after Adama’s assemblage of mismatched ships (a captured prisoner had referred to them as a ragtag fleet, a meaningless term since it could not be translated into the Cylon language).

His executive officers, tired of battling the human pest, had acceded readily to the Leader’s plan to force the human ships, especially the Galactica, into the range of the awesomely efficient laser cannon on the ice planet Tairac.

Imperious Leader was particularly pleased that the final destructive assault should originate on Tairac because the garrison there was commanded by the exiled first centurion, Vulpa. It was fitting that the outspoken Vulpa should deliver the final blow. He would learn obedience and regain status at the same time.

The Leader recalled vividly the day he had been obligated to send Vulpa, one of his most valued officers, into exile.

“Perhaps we should abandon pursuit of the humans,” Vulpa had suggested in the middle of a briefing. The executive officers closest to Vulpa had immediately moved away from him, knowing that the oddly ambitious first centurion had finally overstepped the proper bounds.

“Abandon pursuit?” the Leader had said. Vulpa took the question as an invitation to pursue the subject. The Leader knew he was drawing Vulpa into inevitable errors of Cylon decorum, and he was sorry to have to do so, but there was no other choice when a Cylon acted in an un-Cylon-like manner.

“I suggest,” Vulpa had said, the arrogance in his voice quite above his station, “that we allow the humans to continue their foolish quest toward the far reaches of known space. As long as they do not contaminate any part of our own dominions, they do not pose a threat significant enough for the continued waste of Cylon time and personnel. We have, after all, achieved our goal. Except for that small band of fleeing survivors and the remaining enslaved humans on some outworlds we control, the human race has been exterminated. The war has been won.”

“You wish to criticize my decision?” Imperious Leader had said politely, giving Vulpa a final chance to back down from his unsuitable position.

“Leader,” Vulpa had replied, “your wisdom and judgment are vitally needed back on our home worlds. You would even be cheered for abandoning the—”

“Silence, First Centurion Vulpa! You assume my right of omniscient judgment. As long as a free human is left alive, the chance they could return in large numbers at a later time is a threat that cannot be abided. Humans breed faster than Cylons, even though their lifespan is shorter. Do you not remember how their resourcefulness made the war against them last too long, longer than it should have? Even now the human insects are winning battles and skirmishes against us. Remember how a small squadron of human viperships wrecked our attacking wall of fighters at the Battle of Carillon. I cannot rest until we have achieved the goal of human extermination. A period of exile, First Centurion Vulpa, should aid you to realize the importance of my objectives—and, perhaps, lessen your unfortunate impulses toward ambition.”

As Vulpa had slunk off the command deck, Imperious Leader had almost felt sorry for the punished centurion. However, he had known for some time that Vulpa would draw such punishment eventually. Vulpa’s excessive displays of ambition had to be countered. He clearly hoped to be the next Imperious Leader, and he did not lack qualifications for the position, if only he would stop exhibiting his ambition for it so openly.

Ambition was rarely observed among Cylons. Imperious Leader had not had an inkling of what the word meant until he had been awarded third-brain and absolute power over the Cylon Alliance.

Vulpa, however, had always been something of a renegade Cylon. As a fighter pilot, while still at first-brain status, he had been more aggressive than his peers, so suicidally aggressive that it seemed surprising that he had survived to second-brain and then executive-officer status. Normally Cylons at Vulpa’s level knew how to maintain a showing of absolute obedience whether they felt it or not. Imperious Leader hoped that the exile would force some sense into him, since he so obviously did have the potential to become the next Imperious Leader, plus abilities that would make him exceptional at the job.

Now it seemed that Vulpa’s exile would work out to the Cylons’ advantage. He was the best possible officer to have on the ice planet Tairac. An officer with Vulpa’s abilities was, after all, required at the mainspring of the trap.

As always, Imperious Leader enjoyed working out the details of his plan. Details were comforting. If his head, now covered by a massive communications helmet, could have been seen by the intricate network of officers arrayed around his pedestal, they would have observed a glowing aura shining from each eye. The few humans who had ever seen the impressive alien leader had felt both awe and revulsion toward him, partially because of the creature’s many eyes, partially because of his uneven and out-of-balance body (which, in its bulk, resembled a pile of jagged and lumpy stones), and partially because of the large-pored aspect of its swamp-gray skin. As his abilities to mimic human thinking processes increased, he discovered just how repulsive he looked through their eyes. Their perception of him as an ugly beast made him hate the human pest even more. Especially since, to him, a human was the ugliest sight imaginable in a universe that contained a diversity of ugliness.

As he awaited the first reports of the beginning of his present strategy, a sneak attack on the fringe of the ragtag fleet, the Leader reviewed his overall plan. He could find no flaws, but there were gaps. He needed to acquire the kind of information that would prevent such gaps from becoming another of the humans’ lucky escape routes. Another session with the simulator might provide him with data about human behavior that could lead to key insights about their seemingly erratic patterns of motivation and action. He had already learned several odd lessons about them from conferring with various simulacra. He ordered an executive officer to have the simulator transmitted to the command chamber. It was there before him, on his pedestal, exactly at the end of his request.

Nodding toward the telepathy-template at the center of the simulator console, he requested mentally the simulation of Commander Adama, head of the human fleet. As usual, Adama proved too difficult a task for the simulator. The edges of his simulacrum were fuzzy. Too little was known about the commander—there was not enough information about him stored in the simulator data banks, and so it could not provide a successful duplicate. Whatever the Leader asked of it, the indistinct form of Adama supplied insufficient data. Frequently it was not able to answer at all and just stared at the Leader indifferently. No insights or revealing associations of thought could be gleaned from the Adama simulacrum. Brusquely the Leader ordered it away, called instead for Adama’s son, Captain Apollo. The resolution of the Apollo simulacrum was sharper. Humans regarded the young man as handsome. Knowing that made the Apollo simulacrum more repellent to Imperious Leader. Fortunately, he could disengage synapses within his third-brain to cut off physiological reactions to the simulation. He asked the Apollo a few questions, but could discover little more than he had learned from the simulacrum of Commander Adama. Apparently the simulator’s information concerning the son was nearly as scant as that concerning the father.

Imperious Leader called for a scan of information that might suggest names about which the simulator had accumulated more data. Since most of the Cylons’ information about humans was extracted from prisoners, the simulator often contained better information about key officers in lower positions of command, those who had more direct dealings with combat warriors. On the scanner’s list, he recognized the name of Starbuck, a heroic sort of human (or at least they thought so), mention of whom seemed to occur often in Cylon interrogations. He ordered the template to provide a simulation of this Lieutenant Starbuck.

Suddenly seated in front of Imperious Leader was a human with eyes so bright and searching they reminded him of the rays of light that emanated from Cylon warrior helmets. The Starbuck figure immediately broke into a broad smile. Humans seemed to derive some odd sort of pleasure out of smiling. The Leader was glad he had cut off physiological reaction to the sight of humans, or else he might not have been able to endure the sight of this smiling bright-eyed human.

“Hi, chum,” the Starbuck simulacrum said. The greeting surprised Imperious Leader, since simulacra—programmed, after all, from simulator data banks—rarely initiated conversation.

“I am addressing Lieutenant Starbuck of the Battlestar Galactica, am I not?”

“Knock it off and tear it up, Cylon. You know I’m no more Starbuck than you’re a blooming lily of the valley. I’m a reproduction and I’d strangle you if my hands had any substance.”

The Leader glanced briefly toward the simulator template, wondering if something was wrong with the device. It was highly unorthodox for it to program such independence into a simulacrum—unless, of course, that independence was so much a part of the man’s character that it could not be removed from the mental, emotional, and physiological profile that had been extracted by the simulator. It was possible, Imperious Leader thought, that this Starbuck might be extremely useful, if only as a study of independence of thought in humans. Much could be learned from the brashness and insulting demeanor of this young officer replication. Connections might be established that could fill just those gaps in Imperious Leader’s strategy.

“How many ships remain in your fleet, Lieutenant?”

The Starbuck laughed.

“As many as the specks of dirt between your toes, Cylon.”

“Cylons do not have toes.”

The Starbuck seemed genuinely surprised.

“Then maybe we don’t have any ships,” it said.

“Come now, Lieutenant, we know that there are still many ships in your—”

“Then you’d better inspect the dirt between your toes more closely, Cylon.”

“But I told you Cylons don’t—”

Imperious Leader stopped talking. Not only did the Starbuck simulacrum initiate conversation, it also interrupted. This interrogation was going to be difficult, and perhaps extremely unpleasant.

 

When the Cylons’ sneak attack came, Commander Adama was in a classroom aboard the research-ship Infinity, lecturing to the greenest-looking bunch of flight cadets he’d ever seen. They looked to him like grade-school children who should be learning the history of the twelve worlds rather than the intricacies of viper aerodynamics and warfare maneuvers. One of the youngsters in the first row appeared to be not much older than Adama’s adopted grandson, Boxey. From the glazed look in the cadet’s eyes, the commander wondered if he might even trust six-year-old Boxey at the controls of a viper more than this dazed young man. He had been assured that the new crop of cadets were all of proper legal age, but the dangers they’d have to face after graduation from their abbreviated course of training were so considerable, so awesome, that he wished they did not have to be quite this young. Still, they were all volunteers. When the call went out to the hundreds of ships in the fleet, the command staff had received enough applications to man the ships and flight crews of at least a hundred squadrons. If only they had enough ships to form a hundred squadrons.

The desperate plight of the fleet was not made any brighter by the inadequate and makeshift conditions in which the new warriors were trained. A research ship didn’t substitute for a fully equipped and staffed space academy, even though the faculty had been able to convert enormous labs into gymnasiums, mock-flight areas, and simulated battle-condition testing chambers. Adama recalled the space academy he’d attended on his native planet, the destroyed Caprica. The Caprican Academy had been manned by the most brilliant military strategists in all the twelve worlds; the classes aboard the Infinity were conducted mostly by officers too disabled to maintain their posts and pilots who’d been severely wounded in combat. The Caprican Academy had boasted the finest technology available. Any flight, combat, or support situation could be reproduced within its walls or at its many stadiums for war maneuvers. The facilities on the Infinity were acceptable so long as you didn’t inspect them twice.

However, such improvisation was the key to the fleet’s continued success in evading the main force of their Cylon pursuers. Every person on every ship was putting in double time to improve the efficiency and speed of the overall fleet. Half a dozen freighters had been converted to flying foundries, which in turn converted scrap metal and other materials into vipers for the Galactica’s crew of fighter pilots. Everyone in the fleet had become a scavenger, searching for metal and electronic supplies within their ships and on the few planets they encountered with obtainable material. Considering the sources for their construction, the viperships now leaving the foundry were remarkably well-manufactured vehicles. It was true, of course, that they were more often subject to technical and mechanical failures than those vipers from the original squadrons. That was only natural, considering the haste of construction, the substitutions, the strain on already overused metals, all of the compromises that made the newer vipers a bit less maneuverable, a bit more subject to the kind of malfunctions that often accompanied improvisation.

Still, Adama was continually amazed at what experienced pilots could do, even with substandard equipment. A pilot like Starbuck, Boomer, or Apollo could do wonders with any flying crate put under his control. But space-academy cadets didn’t have the instinctive abilities to correct course, or whirl out of a spin, or work a smooth landing when all the equipment around you was sending out sparks. At that, their record under fire was not bad so far—a tribute to the command abilities and protective instincts of the experienced pilots and flight officers. Starbuck, for example, inspired so much confidence in his squadron that a cadet on his first launch out of the Galactica tubes frequently accomplished miraculous aerodynamic feats. Even Apollo, more militaristic than other young officers, more distant from the crews under his command, had performed wonders in helping the new cadets. It was just too bad that they were unable to train them better, unable to give them more flights just for practice. Fuel conservation and the constant danger of Cylon attack made flights that weren’t concerned with battle, scouting, or planetary exploration impossible. Too many cadets were being lost in skirmishes that experienced warriors would have survived.

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

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

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

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

“Your friend Lieutenant Starbuck isn’t reluctant to boast a bit about his exploits.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m beginning to wonder if they know where we are at all times.”

“Think you might be right there.”

Athena’s agreement added to Adama’s suspicions. She had command-level abilities and, in fact, had turned down important posts in order to remain aboard Galactica. He had always found her opinions valuable, even when they disagreed with his own instincts.

“What’s the report on the ambush?” he asked her.

“Only one of our ships hit. The foundry ship Hephaestus. Some highside damage, nothing serious, nothing they can’t handle.”

“Cylon casualties?”

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

“We lucked out again then.”

“Starbuck says he’s donating a large bequest of luck to be spread over the entire fighting crew.”

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

“Something’s troubling you,” she said.

“Luck’s troubling me. We’ve had too much of it. We’ve stayed ahead of the Cylons for a long time. Some of that’s skill, some of it’s luck.”

“Well, it’s natural I suppose to worry about luck turning, but—”

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

“I’m afraid I don’t—”

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

“Mmmm, that’s pretty fanciful. If I didn’t know you better, I might say paranoid. And if I didn’t know…”

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

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

She took a deep breath before answering.

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

“Still, it’s an interesting bit of data, and that’s why Tigh wanted us to take note of it.”

“Exactly.”

“What do you think it means, Athena?”

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

“It’s worth considering.”

“Fits your puppetmaster theory rather neatly, don’t you think?”

“As I say, it’s worth considering.”

Athena laughed.

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

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

“You’re not supposed to call me Dad during duty hours.”

“What do I get, company punishment for insubordinate affection?”

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

“You’ve convinced me. Sir.”

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

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

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

 

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

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

“Lieutenant Starbuck, sir?”

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

“What is it, Cadet Cree?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, yes sir, but—”

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

“Look, Cadet Cree. When you’ve been on a few combat missions, you’ll know all there is to know about aggressive initiative, okay? Until then, you obey Starbuck’s Golden Rule.”

“Golden Rule?”

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

“That doesn’t sound very—”

“Kid, now’s one of those times when you keep your trap shut.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”

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

“I think the young warrior’s learned a lesson,” Boomer said.

“What’s that?” Starbuck asked.

“Now he knows what it’s like to be starbucked.”

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

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

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

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

“Launch two!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Cadet Cree, is that you?”

“Yes sir,” came the agonizingly adolescent voice of Cree.

“Come any closer you’ll melt your front end off.”

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

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

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

“Our instructor never let us raise—”

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

Cree paused before answering:

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

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

 

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

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

“We have our new flight path,” Tigh was saying. “The corrected course is locked in.”

Adama studied the course and the change of vector that Tigh’s hand traced.

“I don’t like it,” he said softly.

Tigh seemed surprised.

“But it’s the only course that makes sense, Commander,” he said. “And look how it’s keeping us even farther from—”

“Still don’t like it. Anything that dovetails this simply, this conveniently, must be examined more closely. For our own safety.”

One side of Tigh’s mouth tilted upward in an ironic smile.

“I thought you’d be jubilant,” Tigh said. “We destroyed sixteen Cylon ships in that last assault.”

“How many of them were manned?”

Tigh hesitated before answering:

“We scanned five. No indication of Cylon pilots in any of those cockpits. But, Commander, in the middle of combat you know that scanners can’t be accurate, can’t be—”

“Yet it is not unreasonable to assume that the Cylons are sending unmanned craft against us.”

“Well, as speculation, it’s—”

“They may want to have us destroy those attackers. To lull us.”

Tigh nodded.

“That has occurred to me, I admit. You read my report. On the other hand, their task force has fallen back to”—he pointed to the starfield map—“that point. It’s a considerable distance, and seems to indicate they’ve lost track of us again.”

Adama stared at the cluster of lights in the sector of the map which Tigh indicated.

“No, I doubt that. I think they’re still there, right behind us. Just keeping their distance. And so are their base-ships.” He turned away from the star map. “One thing is sure, we can’t go back.”

“When have we ever done that?”

Adama understood the undertone of frustration in his aide’s voice. Tigh often expressed his wish they could stop fleeing the Cylon task force, could just turn around, dig in, and blast the Cylon war machine out of the skies.

“Look here,” Adama said.

Taking a small cylindrical tube out of his pocket and setting its laser-directed light for a thin line, he directed the ray toward the map, first raising it toward the top of the starfield.

“Above us is the planet Cassarion, listed in the warbook as a Cylon outpost. We cannot move in that direction.” He lowered the light, sent its beam toward the lower portion of the map. “Below us, the Sellian asteroid belt. Millions of fragments from the world the Cylons destroyed. We couldn’t get through it. Apollo, Starbuck, and Boomer’d have no chance of blasting a path through that mess, as they did back at that Carillon minefield.”

“Our only course is clear then,” Tigh said. “Straight ahead. The point scouts report a safe passage.”

“It was too easy,” Adama said softly.

“Commander?”

Adama raised his voice.

“That last defeat of the Cylon attackers, their sudden retreat…”

“But the Galactica was bearing down on them.”

“Yes… so it appeared.”

A glimmer of understanding came into Tigh’s dark eloquent eyes.

“And what is the truth?” he asked.

Tigh was challenging, demanding an absolute.

“Not truth perhaps,” Adama said. “More than truth. Instinct. I think we’re being carefully maneuvered, herded toward that… that safe passage ahead.”

Athena, now standing by her father, suddenly spoke:

“But why?” She glanced toward the starfield map, seeming to see in its lines, arcs, and flickering lights the black void with its few stars that was the reality represented by the symbols on the map. “What’s out there?” she whispered.

“I don’t know, Athena. Ghosts maybe. Hostile planets, friendly ones. Maybe this time we’ll stumble on Earth, if it’s not, after all, the imaginary product of legend.” He turned back to Tigh. “I think we should send out more scouting patrols. What is it, Tigh? You’re reluctant. Why?”

“Commander, we’ve pushed our star fighters around the clock. They’re bushed.”

“We all are. You’re worried about more than that, aren’t you? Well, what is it?”

“Sir, it’s just that, well, we’re having to throw in more cadets from the academy now. Too many. It’s dangerous.”

Adama thought of the cadets he’d seen earlier, and the emotional exhaustion he’d felt from addressing them. He wanted to tell his aide to bring everybody in, recall all vipers. But that was impossible.

“Of course it’s dangerous. But we’re somewhat lacking in alternatives for the moment, with a Cylon task force probably tailing us, and who knows what out there.”

Tigh nodded, the reluctance still showing in his saddened eyes.

“Colonel, we must increase the scouting contingent, even if it means sending up cadets.”

“Dad?”

Adama glared at his daughter, showing disapproval at her familiarity on the command bridge. She caught his meaning, drew her slim body to attention.

“Commander. I’m checked out for scouting in a viper. Reassign me.”

Both Adama and Tigh smiled.

“Athena,” Adama said, “you’re much too valuable here.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, clearly disappointed.

Tigh turned to a bridge officer and ordered that the duty roster be flashed onto the main screen, in order to see who was still available for scouting patrols. Starbuck’s voice over the main commline interrupted Tigh’s command:

“Blue Leader to Base. We’re coming up on a small planet. Dead ahead. Can you give us a quick scan?”

Tigh nodded toward the scanner section leader, who immediately fed the lieutenant’s request into the ship’s computer system.

“Base to Blue Leader. Scanner readout coming up.” He turned to Adama, concern in his eyes. “Commander?”

“What is it?”

“An object in Sector Sigma.”

The officer switched the readout onto Adama’s screen.

Grids flashed and words appeared in the screen’s corner. The shape of the planet reported by Starbuck came into resolution. Adama ordered a deeper probe-scan. The planet was so dark, so shrouded in a nearly black cloud cover, that only a slightly more detailed resolution could be managed. As each category covered by the probe flashed by in a corner of the screen, the same conclusion was flashed: insufficient data.

“Starbuck,” Adama said into his commline mike.

“Yo, sir.”

“Do you observe a sun or any other astronomical or geologic phenomenon around the planet?”

“No, sir, not a blessed thing.”

Adama turned away from the console.

“What is it, sir?” Athena asked. “Why doesn’t Starbuck observe anything? It doesn’t—”

“Perhaps it does, Athena, perhaps it does. We need more data.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We have a small planet here, not much more than an asteroid. It seems to be floating through space on its own, no sun anywhere detectable. It might be the remnant of some exploded planet from a star system long since disintegrated. Or it might be… something else.”

“Sir,” Tigh said, “are you thinking what I think you are? One of the Cylon asteroids?”

“Exactly, Tigh.”

“Cylon asteroid,” Athena exclaimed. “I don’t get it. An asteroid’s a geological—”

“That’s correct. I forget, Cylon asteroids would be before your time. There was a time, early in the thousand-year war, when the Cylons discovered a way to power asteroids across space, sometimes at phenomenal speeds, for combat purposes. They became sort of geologically formed fighter craft. We were never able to discover how they did it, as we’ve been unable to discern a great deal about Cylon technology.”

“And this could be one of their—what would you call it, war weapons?” Athena asked. “This minor planet?”

“Well, it’s a bit large, but perhaps. This might be one of their abandoned units. Or maybe not abandoned.”

Adama’s voice had become ominous.

“We need more data. Probably it’s just what it looks like, a drifting asteroid.” Adama turned to a bridge officer. “What’s the report on it show now?”

“Structure: Crystalline elements table M-one.”

“Surface?” said Tigh.

“Frozen seas. Fields of ice. Blizzard conditions marked by di-ethene storms.”

Both Adama and Tigh looked pained by the new information.

“Di-ethene?” Athena said. “I never heard of—”

“The word’s a corrupted form of a much longer word,” Tigh said. “One too long to memorize. It’s a gas. A Cylon-manufactured gas.”

“If I remember correctly,” Adama said, “di-ethene is often formed as a waste product from the style of laser weapon the Cylons’ve evolved. Their weaponry pumps out di-ethene, usually into the ground, sometimes into the air. It’s very dangerous, especially if it escapes to a planet’s surface in the form of clouds or mist. In the proper density, it can be fatal to us—one of the few instances I know where the discharged elements from a weapon can be just as dangerous as the firepower of the weapon itself.”

Athena hunched her shoulders.

“That gives me the cold creeps.”

Adama smiled.

“Cold is the word for it, all right, at least on this particular planet. What’s your view, Tigh?”

Tigh glanced briefly at father and daughter, then at the watching bridge crew, before speaking tersely:

“Environment: Hostile!”

 

When Starbuck finally got a good look at the dark cloudy planet, he felt his hands go cold. He wondered if he was reacting to the planet’s spectral appearance or whether the intense cold that no doubt existed on its surface sent out actual penetrating waves of frigidity, perhaps to warn off intruders. He flicked on his commline to Galactica, and said:

“Nice place. Didn’t I see it listed in the R & R guide? You want us to orbit the equator or is there a torrid zone for—”

“Keep out of its gravitational pull,” ordered Tigh in a solemn voice. Tigh didn’t like flippancy in transmissions to base, but had long ago given up ordering Lieutenant Starbuck to maintain the proper gravity while communicating.

“Will do,” Starbuck said. He cut off the Galactica line and switched over to direct-comm among the vipers in the formation. “Okay, guys,” he said, “all youngsters move up ahead and lock in a holding pattern while Boomer and I get a closer scan of the surface. If you—”

“Lieutenant Starbuck. Sir.”

The annoying squeak of Cadet Cree again.

“Yes, what is it, Cadet?”

“I made a first in Scanning Procedure finals at the academy. I could go along with you, get a little actual experience at—”

“This is no time for practice, Cree. I’ll give you a spot quiz later. Meantime, obey your orders. Your instructor did tell you guys about obeying orders, didn’t he?”

“Yes sir! Lieutenant, sir!”

“All right then. You guys, peel off. Cadet Bow, you’re in command.”

Starbuck could picture Cree choking at that last order. The overconfident young cadet obviously saw himself as command material. Well, he’d learn. Learn or catch a laser beam in the throat; there weren’t many other alternatives for eager new cadets nowadays.

The vipers broke formation. The three cadet ships moved ahead as ordered, although Starbuck thought he could detect a shade of recalcitrance in the way Cadet Cree executed the maneuver.

“Let’s go, Boomer!”

The ships of the two experienced lieutenants arched away from the cadet ships and edged cautiously toward the asteroid. On the commline Starbuck heard Cadet Bow:

“Shields… Cree… Keep visual contact. Hold formation, Cree.”

Bow’s voice was deeper, more mature than Cree’s, but there was still a cadetlike tentativeness in the sound of it.

On Starbuck’s control panel, the Galactica commline light flashed on. He flipped the communication switch.

“Galactica, reading,” he said.

Adama came on the line.

“Starbuck,” he said, “the planet below you has an atmosphere. Some di-ethene content, breathable otherwise, although the cold can descend to unbreathable levels. I don’t want you or any of your squad to get too close. The di-ethene indicates the possible presence of Cylons or other alien habitation. Be careful. Take a look and return.”

“About the di-ethene. It’s in cloud form?”

“Sometimes.”

“Dense?”

“Sometimes.”

“You don’t have to worry. We won’t go anywhere near that planet. Right, Boomer?”

“Do you have time to put that in writing?”

“Boomer, sometimes—”

Starbuck was interrupted by a sudden blinding flash of light that seemed to come from the other side of the asteroid. Where the cadet ships were.

“Bow!” he cried into the direct-comm. “What was that?”

“I wish I could tell you,” Bow replied. “Biggest darn light show I’ve ever seen. I’m going to check it out.”

“No, wait for us,” Starbuck said, but he could see on the control-panel scanner that Bow had already peeled away from the other two cadet vehicles and was heading toward the point where the light had flashed.

“C’mon, Boomer,” he said, “let’s hop to it. That kid’ll—”

“Got you, bucko.”

Both flight-command vipers curved into gradual loops and flew toward the cadet ships. As the cadet fighters came into view, Bow speeding far ahead of Cree and Shields, a brilliant beam of light suddenly emerged from the planet’s cloud cover. Throbbing and fiery, it soared skyward, almost with a gliding ease. It headed toward Bow’s fighter. Too late Bow started to brake the ship and change his flight angle. The beam of light intersected Bow’s foundry-manufactured viper, which now looked like a speck of dust dimly illuminated in the brightness of the gigantic light-spear. Bow’s fightercraft was seared jaggedly down the middle before it erupted into a shapeless melting mass, then exploded. The explosion’s flames seemed dim by comparison with the brilliance of the force that had destroyed it.

The light-beam sailed off into space, as if launched on a steady even course, leaving no trace behind of the disintegrated craft.

The words now coming over direct-comm from the remaining two cadet ships were jumbled, inchoate, hysterical. Both pilots had changed their courses to fly toward the area where, moments ago, Cadet Bow’s ship had been.

“Cree! Shields!” Starbuck shouted. “Back off! We’re on the way!”

“What happened?” Boomer said as he brought his viper up beside Starbuck’s.

“He was picked off!” cried Cree. “It’s some kind of energy beam. Got Bow, wiped him out, came at him like a pulsar—only bigger, much bigger!”

Remembering Adama’s cautionary words, Starbuck said:

“What do you think, Boomer? Some kind of laser cannon? With, say, a pulsar-styled beam?”

“It can’t be! We’re way out of range. Never saw one that could pick off a target that accurately, from ground through a cloud cover. I never saw that good a tracking device, especially not for that distance and situation.”

“Okay.”

Starbuck flipped the communication switch to the Galactica and shouted:

“Blue Leader to Base! We’re under attack! Ready the landing deck. We’ve lost a ship and we’re coming in!”

As he began to set his viper for the return course, Starbuck checked the whereabouts of Shields and Cree. They were both heading toward the dark asteroid.

“Cree! Shields! Set for return course. Now!”

But both pilots, unheeding, headed their craft straight for the planet’s cloud cover.