the call of duty. It had been a nice moment, a fine moment, the last
time they'd joined in warmth as a family. Now Zac was dead---and Athena
didn't want ot think deeply about that now.
She tried to shake the sorrowful thoughts out of her heard by taking
a reading of her equipment. However, she couldn't help but watch the
monitors often. Planetside, things were worse. There were fires
everwhere. Buildings were still falling down. Bloodied and burned-up
corpses were tucked into doorways and corners of debris as if arranged
for some sick snitrad's pleasure viewing.
"First Zac, now this! They trused us to protect them!" She sensed
her father looking disdainfully her way. "How could we let it happen?
Why were we guarding a bunch of corrupt buriticians instead of our homes?
We let it happen. We let it happen."
She looked toward Adama, saw the pain in his face again, wished she
hadn't spoken. He was the commander. When she said how could we let it
happen, she knew that inside he heard why did you let it happen. She
wouldn't be able to take that back. Yes, it was true, but she wouldn't
be able to take it back.
For the next few microns she performed her duties while still in the
dream state. But all the concentration she oculd work up would not push
the gruesome memories of destruction out of her mind. If only Starbuck
were here to cheer her up, she thought---but she didn't even know where
he was. They had left him behind with the other they had---they had
abandoned! He had to come back. At least Starbuck had to come back.
She needed him now.
Tigh called everybody's attention to the largest monitor screen.
The Cylon bases ships had now been located. One of them could be seen in
closeup, the other two in the distance. All of them were launching more
fighters. Another officer locked in scenes from all of the Colonies.
Each picture showed Cylon fighters on bombing runs.
"What are the reports from the other eleven Colonies, Colonel?"
Adama asked.
"I'm sorry, Commander. There's no hope."
"But there's always----what about Sagitara? They have the most
sophisticated defense system in all the Colonies. Perhaps there's still
time..."
"Sorry, Commander. The planet is in flames."
Athena had never seen her father so pale, so close to fainting. She
took a tentative step toward him. He saw her and waved her away. He
turned to Tigh.
"Prepare my shuttlecraft," he said. Tigh appeared as startled as
everyone else who heard the commander's request.
"Your shuttlecraft, sir?" Tigh said.
"I'm going down on the surface of Caprica, Tigh."
"That's out of the question, Commander. You can't take the risks."
"Carry out my order, Tigh!"
"I can't sir. If the Cylon scanners should pick you up when you get
out of our camouflage force field, they'll kill you."
"I'm going with you," Apollo said.
"Yes," said Athena. "Me, too."
Adama touched her arm, spoke softly:
"You stay here. We'll be all right."
"But I must!"
"No. You're needed here."
She capitulated to the firm tone of command in Adama's voice. As
elder brother, it was Apollo's right to take this particular trip, even
though it was usually her job to pilot the shuttlecraft for her father.
"We'll go in my fighter, father," Apollo said. "You're the last
surviving member of the Quorum. If we run into a Cylon attack ship, at
least you'll have a chance."
"The captain's right," Tigh said. "And, since I'm the one who has to
fill your shoes if anything happens, well, I must insist you go down in
the fighter, Commander."
Adama nodded at Tigh.
"You proceed to rendezvous with the survivors of the Fleet. Make
all necessary preparation. You must proceed as if I might not return."
"Not return?" Tigh said. "You'll return, Commander."
Tigh extended his hand and the two men, old friends as well as
fellow officers who had served together for more than thirty yahrens,
clasped each other's wrists as they shook hands.
*****
From the Adama Journals:
Nobody likes being called a coward. I didn't even understand the
misconceptions placed uponmy withdrawal of the Galactica after the Cylon
ambush.
There is a fable that goes back so far in space lore that nobody
knows its basis. A moon miner in the solar system that contained the
fabled Earth works the natural satellites of the various planets. A
miner is like no other space adventurer, braving the desolate areas were
even warriors would cower in fear, just to dig out those materials vital
to human progress. Moon miners, according to legend, live more
ferociously than any other heroes in the space fraternity. At a party on
some outworld of the system, honoring one of the usual holidays devoted
to harvesting or history, a group of moon miners party happily.
Suddenly, their celebration is interrupted by the roar of a loud, ugly
voice. A strange, ugly man, dressed in a bizarrely colorful variation of
the basic green mining outfit, strides into the center of the party.
Nobody has ever seen him before or knows where he comes form.
Immediately he chides th eminers for their cowardice and offers them a
challenge. "You should," he says to them, "choose the bravest of your
number and I will allow that designee a shot at him with the weapon of
his choice." Our hero, named Solar in many versions of the story,
springs forward and makes his choice. In many versions it's a vehicle,
usually a bulldozer equipped with the surface-mining scoop. Aiming the
bulldozer at the ill-mannered intruder, Solar runs it at him full force.
With the scoop he knocks the villain so high in the sky that the man goes
into temporary orbit. But he comes down, lands on his feet, and tells
the miner-hero that they'll meet again, on the next occasion of the
holiday, and it will be Solar's turn to receive a blow. "But where will
I find you?" Solar asks. "It'll be your business to find out for
yourself," the villain responds. Among moon-miners, the implication of
cowardice is the worst insult and so our hero spends the next yahren,
experiencing many adventures, including the usual romantic dalliances, in
search of the domain of the rude intruder. But nobody he meets seems to
know where the villain lives.
Finally, the legend has it, the moon miner co mes to the original
moon, the one that circles Earth. He's never been there before, never
known its magical properties, never even glimpsed the legendary home
planet of the Thirteenth Tribe from the vantage point of its own moon.
If he finds the villain and lives through the experience, he vows to
descend to Earth, perhaps spend his remaining days there.
On the moon his adventures continue, but he begins to despair of
ever finding the goal of his quest and t
aking the return blow. However,
on the day fated for their meeting, he encounters an old hag nestled in
an abandoned scoop within a manmade crater, and she instructs him. The
villain dwells in an orbiting castle in the sky above the moon, and Solar
must launc himself there. "Why must I launch?" he asks. "Why can't I
just hop the daily shuttle or a passing freighter?" She says that the
boastful villain claims that the miner will prove himself a coward if he
comes up by shuttle or any safe conveyance.
Solar secures himself upon the track of a mass-driver, a long
beltlike device used to launch products of the mines to a precisely
located receiver-scoop vehicle, called a catcher, where it's transferred
to an orbiting space station. He sets the mechanism going, and he begins
to be pushed along the mass-driver track. At first slowly, then faster
and faster. As his speed increases, he gradually rises a few hectars
above the trace of the mass-driver, and then a few hectars more, kept
from flight only by plates designed to prevnt a payloand form being flung
into space ahead of an exactly computed time. With acceleration he
speeds up the final launch slope. Restraining plates drop away and he's
thrown into space, into the dark sky above the moon. A living corporeal
payload, Solar speeds through the vacuum of space. His rate of speed
increases to six hundred maxims per centon. In front of him, the
villain's floating green castle appears, as if out of nowhere. At the
last micron it puts out its own catcher and rudely interrupts the
moon-miner's flight.
Naturally, our hero would have been broken into a million pieces,
just like a mining payload---but this is a fairy tale, and he awakens in
the bedchamber of his host. The villain now extends his hand in
friendship and says that the debt is paid. Solar has verified his
bravery, he is no coward. And---who knows?---in stories where villains
are instantly transformed into comradely hosts, perhaps Solar the moon
miner does realize his dream of visiting Earth.
There were times when my own apparent cowardice made me feel like
the moon-miner, as I faced the destination where I might be broken into a
million pieces. However, I could not count on awakening comfortably in
my opponent's bedchamber.
*****
CHAPTER THREE: WE WILL FIGHT BACK
When the Galactica withdrew from battle, Starbuck almost fell out of
his cockpit in anger.
"What's going on?" he radioed Boomer.
"Don't ask me. The Commander's calling the shots."
There was an edge of sarcasm in Boomer's voice, the tone of the
hardbitten pilot who knows full well you cannot trust anybody in
authority.
"But he can't leave us hanging out here like..."
"Hey, you guys," Greenbean's voice broke into the transmission.
"What's up? The Galactica's pulling out."
"You noticed!' Starbuck said. "I don't...it must...there's gotta be
a good reason."
"Sure there is," Boomer said. "It's dangerous around her. A guy
could get...heads up, Greenbean, you've got a pair on your tail."
"Pull up yourself, Boomer," Jolly's voice cut in. "You're in
somebody's sights yourself. I'll try to get 'em off."
As Starbuck zeroed in on the sinister fighters pouncing on Boomer,
he looked back at the deaprating Galactica and muttered more to himself
than to anybody who might be listening.
"There's gotta be a good reason."
He had scant time to be introspective about the mystery of his
mother ship's hasty departure as scores of Cylon fighters impolitely
demanded his attention. Several times he was nearly trapped in one of
their insidious and dreaded pinwheel attacks, in which a dozen Cylon
vehicles surrounded their target and each, in a complex, intricate
sequence of arclike sweeps, bore down on the human flyers. A pinwheel
was a particularly tough style of attack to evade, but Starbuck had been
up against evry deceptive tacitc known to the vicious, iniquitous Cylons
and could time his own moves to match theirs---and wipe out many of them
in the bargain.
Time and the fact that the Cylons greatly outnumbered the humans
took their toll. Soon Starbuck discovered that his weapons charge had
diminished to a dangerously low level. With no Galactica around to
return for recharging, he could become a sitting duck for even the
greenest of Cylon centurions. He searched the sky for another
battlestar, where he could make an emergency landing for new fuel and new
armament charges. He found the Solaria, but it was under heavy attack
from a squadron of Cylon Raiders. Starbuck could see, through its
portals, the flickering of hundreds of fires inside the battlestar. He
directed his own fighter toward the besieged Solaria.
"I'm with you," said a voice in his ear. Boomer, streaking by just
above him. The Cylon pilots hadn't seen either of them yet. They zeroed
in on the target.
"I got him on the left," Boomer said.
"And me on the right," Starbuck said.
Boomer and Starbuck released their laser torpedoes synchronously. A
second later the Cylon ship exploded, leaving thousands of lazily
floating metallic traces in its sector of space. Another rCylon fighter
emerged from the far side of the Solaria, took aim at the battlestar,
fired a massive charge, and hit it amidships. Starbuck could see the
Solaria begin to split in half as the Cylon fighter pulled away. Cursing
malevolently, he bore down on the enemy and, relishing vengeance, sent
the ship to oblivion with what seemed to be the last good shot he had
left.
"Nice shooting," Boomer said.
"Yeah, but a little late," Starbuck snarled, as he watched the final
stages of the Solaria's disintegration.
He located another Cylon fighter in the distance and started toward
it. But his common sense took over from his rage. Testing the firing
button on his steering column, he heard the faint whine that told him
that the weapons charge was now below efficiency level. He veered his
own ship to the right, to escape any attack the Cylon craft might
attempt. However, to his amazement, the several enemy ships he could
discern now all went into an abrupt arcing turn and headed away from the
human forces.
"What's up?" Starbuck said.
"Total defeat is what's up," Boomer said. "The Solaria was our last
battlestar. Minus the Galactica,of course, which seemed to find it
militarily necessary to turn tail and--"
"Stow that, Boomer. We don't know what happened yet."
"Okay, okay. Whatever they've destroyed the fleet, the slimy louses,
and there's no use hanging around."
Jolly's voice cut in.
"They're turning tail. Let's go get 'em!"
"No!' Starbuck cautioned. "We've barely got enough fuel as it is."
"To do what?" Boomer said. "To joyride around this sector? Where do
you propose we
land. Lieutenant Starbuck? There's nothing left for..."
"The Galactica has left," Starbuck said. "I suggest we try to find
it."
"Right," said Jolly, "and when we do..."
"We shoot it down," said Boomer.
"Tone it down, Boomer," Starbuck said. "Let's make time to hear
their side. They must've had a good reason to pull out when they did."
"Yeah," said Jolly. They're cowards!"
Starbuck heard Boomer's soft malicious laughter in tacit agreement
with Jolly's accusation.
"How do you propose we get to the Galactica, flyboy?" Boomer said.
"You gonna take us by the hand and guide us home?"
"We'll find it, don't worry. First, we've got amake it to one of
the fueling space stations or we're not gonna get off the pot."
"What make you think the Cylons didn't take out all the fueling
stations?" Boomer asked. "I mean the question with all courtesy, of
course, skyrider."
"We'll just have to find out, won't we Boomer?"
"If you say so."
Boomer's plane banked and swept off from Starbuck's portside wing.
Jolly followed suit. After a moment of hesitation, so did Starbuck.
Fortunately, the refueling stations, which were hidden from Cylon
view by camouflaging force fields, were all intact, and the squadrons
were able to refuel. With the scanner transmission no longer jammed,
they worked out the coordinates for the Galactica right away. Starbuck
was puzzled by the fact that the battlestar was in the region of their
home planet. That location only seemed to support Boomer and Jolly's
accusation that Adama had taken the Galactica away from the fray for
cowardly reasons. During the long trek back, as they made two more hops
to fueling stations, Starbuck convinced Boomer, Jolly, and the other
fuming pilots of the need for caution----not only to wait to find out
what had happened, but to save themselves and their planes. Still, he
could feel his own rage build to the boiling point.
As they neared the Galactica, Starbuck ordered the flight patterns
set on a direct line to the battlestar's landing deck. When he pushed
his own course button, however, sparks from the control panel flew
suddenly all over the cockpit. At the same moment a piece of the
instrument panel popped out and dangled from its morrings. The ship
tried to waver from the dictated flight path. Trying to keep it straight
manually, Starbuck had to deal with the electrical shorting directly.
His mind telling him to work slowly, he forced his fingers to keep wires
apart and try to sort out the problem.
"Reading you, Red leader one," said a voice on the communicator.
"From here something appears to be wrong with your craft."