CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When he was informed that contact with the command post in the Hekla foothills had been lost, Vulpa was disturbed but not worried. Abrupt storms on the mountainside frequently interfered with communication between headquarters and summit station. Nevertheless, the interference was inconvenient at this moment. Just before communications were interrupted, Vulpa had been informed that objects appearing to be a battlestar and a number of smaller ships had entered the quadrant. A preliminary fix had been established, and Vulpa had directed that the weapon be set to send pulses toward that fix. There was a good chance the Galactica had already been destroyed. He ordered the emplacement communications officer to continue attempts to contact headquarters, and asked the gunnery master for more power and a faster pulse rate from the gun itself.

As he listened to the satisfying thunder of the laser-gun-pulse releases, Vulpa considered how he would return in triumph to Imperious Leader’s base-ship. He would have to be decorated, another thin-lined black band around the shoulder, or perhaps the more prestigious award of a thicker band at waist level….

He very nearly missed the beginning of the humans’ attack. There was a brief flash of movement near an intake tube, and Vulpa turned to see a human leaping from behind an energy pillar, his laser pistol drawn and already firing. A Cylon gunner fell. Another human jumped out of the intake tube and fired. A trio of Cylon officers, Vulpa’s bodyguard, gathered around him and almost blocked his line of sight toward the attackers. Two more figures jumped out of the grid opening. Vulpa could not believe what he saw. Unless they were humans in disguise, these were two of Ravashol’s clones. And they were helping the human attackers!

The chamber was quickly filled with the blazing light and floating steam of the attack. Fire and crossfire obscured any sensible view of the action for Vulpa. To his left, one of his guards fell, his uniform on fire. For a moment Vulpa was fascinated with the corpse, clearly dead but with the red light in his helmet still actively piercing the layers of smoke. The humans, always more agile than Cylons, seemed to be leaping everywhere, taking up new positions behind new pillars. Gunners and warriors were falling at a rate near that of the now accelerated pulse rate of the laser cannon. The reserve squad of warriors from the garrison rooms joined the battle.

Vulpa’s center bodyguard fell. The remaining guard pushed his commander back against the wall and started firing at anything that moved toward him, as if he did not care whether his target was human or Cylon as long as they did not endanger the commander. But a line of laser fire hit the last bodyguard at neck level. Sparks shot out from the wiring leading to his helmet and he tried to get off one more shot before dropping heavily to the floor. Vulpa, clinging to the wall, started easing his way along it, toward the elevator.

The smoke cleared momentarily and he saw that three of the humans were now gathered around the elevator, fending off attackers. Vulpa, drawing his pistol, tried to take aim on the tall young man who was the apparent leader, but one of his own warriors got in the way. Vulpa had to retreat. This was no time to get into the battle. His ship, he must get to his ship, alert the rest of the garrison at the command post, bring them back here to repel this strange quartet of human attackers. What were they doing here anyway? he thought as he ran toward the tube leading to his aircraft. Why did they want to destroy the small number of Cylons at the gun? The gun! Were they going to try to do something to the gun? They could not stop it so long as it was set on automatic. Only Vulpa or the gunnery master could do that. And the gun could not be destroyed—Ravashol had stated firmly that the material composing the gun was indestructible. The mechanism was too complex for them to tamper with in any way. Ravashol had provided the factor that allowed only specially imprinted gloved Cylon hands to operate the shut-off plate which would stop the gun’s automatic steady firing. Ravashol had vowed that—but Ravashol was also responsible for the clones. He had been their protector, in fact, when the Cylons had wanted all batches destroyed. And now two of Ravashol’s clones were involved in this sneak attack! If he had lied about the clones, then perhaps he had lied about the gun.

Vulpa felt an impulse to protect the gun, but the battle raging behind him was too fierce. He risked too much—his squadrons of warriors, the gun emplacement, himself, his ambition—to chance getting killed checking out such a suspicion. The important goal was to board his ship and gather troops to return here and vanquish the humans.

He looked back. How could only four attackers do so much damage? Cylons had fallen everywhere, it seemed. Smoke and fluttering sparks flew up from their bodies. Their red lights dimmed and went out. But this was no time to mourn the fallen. The official mourning would come later, in proper organized ceremonies. Vulpa turned to run through the gangway tunnel to his ship.

And found a short stocky human blocking his way and aiming a laser pistol at him. Vulpa threw himself against the wall as the human fired.

* * *

The light-spears were now coming toward the fleet with shorter time intervals between them. A supply ship had been hit and apparently swallowed up by the powerful beam. By quick alterations of course, the Galactica had missed being hit twice.

Athena studied her father’s grim face. He stood at his post, gripping the railing that ran in front of him, and seemed stymied by the laser cannon’s fierce attacks.

“Is there anything we can do to counter the force of the pulses?” he asked Tigh. The aide shook his head no.

“We’ve analyzed them from every angle, looked for some way to anticipate them, but we simply don’t have sufficient data. If only the expedition had been able to—”

“Don’t give up hope yet. The expedition may still be functioning.”

Tigh seemed about to protest, but instead returned to duty. Athena knew that the colonel, knowing the efficiency with which Apollo worked, did not expect her brother to stretch out the mission time to the last possible micron. She hoped Tigh was wrong. But she could not help but feel despair over the mission. If they were going to destroy the cannon, they should have done it by now, they should—

Her thoughts on the subject were rudely interrupted by a light-spear that passed so near the Galactica that Athena was certain that, if she had time go out and check the superstructure surface, she’d discover singe marks there.

Imperious Leader was pleased with the progress of the attack. The trap was just about sprung. The Galactica had been forced into the quadrant where the pulses from the laser weapon would be most effective. He had ordered that the coordinates of the Galactica be transmitted regularly to Vulpa on the ice planet, then had continued the pursuit of his own fleet after the human ships.

Just after the coordinates had been transmitted, the Cylon fleet had lost contact with the garrison on Tairac. That was an annoyance, but a slight one. The Galactica was definitely trapped between the pursuit force and the ultimate weapon. There was no way it could escape.

Why was the Starbuck simulacrum, who had been informed of each phase of the action, and had to know that annihilation was imminent, grinning and keeping so quiet?