Involuntarily Adama hunched his shoulders. Perhaps, he thought, his body was anticipating the angry words that would come from his son.
Apollo, sitting in the simulator room observation booth, felt as if he had been cast out into deep space when the lights went down and the starfield clicked on. Even though he knew that the vipers were only partial models and that most of the ships zooming across his line of sight were in actuality small models being projected into the holographic combat simulation from another booth across the way, he found the illusion quite persuasive. He remembered his first sessions in such a simulation field. When fake laser fire had come right at his face, it had been so realistic he had thought for a brief moment that he'd been killed.
Athena ran the present session. Her voice magnified by loudspeakers, she sounded like a tough drill sergeant. She was certainly taking no nonsense from Brie and Dietra, the pair of cadets currently in the simulation-field. She barked out orders and criticized their performance mercilessly. Brie, a blonde-haired youthful woman, appeared to take every rebuke to heart, while Dietra, a dark-skinned wiry type, displayed nothing but a seasoned cynicism on her face, no matter what Athena said.
"Keep your tails up, ladies . . . Easy on the joystick, Dietra. It's not a club to beat Starbuck's head in, it's a delicate, sensitive device . . . Check your scanner, Brie . . . No, no, to your left and down . . . That's better . . . Good move, Dietra . . . Okay, let's heat it up!"
Apollo very much enjoyed watching his sister run the drill like this. On the other hand, Starbuck, squirming in the next seat, did not seem to derive any pleasure at all from his observation, perhaps because Athena invoked his name so often as a target for the cadets to shoot at.
Simulations of Cylon raiders appeared without warning behind the viper-models of Dietra and Brie. Dietra immediately set her mock-vehicle into a rolling maneuver, leaving Brie apparently alone and vulnerable for a moment before she copied Dietra's move.
"Stay on Dietra's tail, Brie . . . That's good . . . Here they come!"
The illusory battle of half-ships and shadow-thin attackers was short and sweet. After sweeping away from their marauders, Brie got off a pair of shots that, as the sensory information from the chargeless laser reached the collection of dots that were the Cylon craft, caused the raiders apparently to explode.
"I did it!" Brie screamed, her eyes aglow with joy. "I did it! I did it!"
There was a long pause before Athena responded in a voice that sounded like her father giving a subordinate due sarcasm:
"You sure did, Brie. You not only got the Cylons, you got Dietra, too."
"What?"
"After blasting the Cylons, you crossed Dietra's tail while still firing. She's dead."
Dietra managed a weak acknowledging smile and looked sympathetically in Brie's direction.
"I'm sorry," Brie murmured.
"You're sorry," Dietra said, and rolled her eyes upward.
Everybody laughed and the simulator scene was switched off. Apollo was about to direct a new test, when the ship intercom loudspeaker blared:
"Captain Apollo, please report to Commander Adama on the bridge. On the double."
Apollo switched on the observation booth mike and said:
"Have to jump. Athena, take Brie through another session and see if we can arrange everybody's survival."
"Right. Okay, Brie, this one's for the money."
He found his father and Tigh staring at the approaching void on a monitor. There was an air of gloom hanging about both men.
"Commander," Apollo said.
Adama, his eyes cold and distant, turned and said:
"How are the cadets doing?"
Apollo felt tense inside. His father could still scare him—with a hard glance or a stern question—even after the years of serving together.
"They're doing fine, sir, considering the closest they've been to a viper previously was probably at an Armament Day display."
"According to their grades and ratings, this group of cadets is doing almost as well as an honors class at the academy."
Apollo shrugged.
"Figures lie, father. We don't have the equipment or personnel to qualify for a proper academy rating. Our tests are not thorough. Our measurements are only as good as the personnel interpreting them, which is to say not very good. Against these limitations, the figures are encouraging."
"Which means, if I understand correctly, that they are about as combat-ready as we, with our limited resources, are able to make them."
"I didn't mean that at all. I—"
"Nevertheless that's the meaning I must put upon the data you've provided me."
"But—"
"We can't wait any longer, Captain."
Adama strode directly to his son. To Tigh, the anger in both men's eyes appeared to be a matched set.
"Doctor Salik has requested a medical team," Adama said, "to be sent back to the asteroid where Boomer and Jolly apparently contracted this disease. He feels it's his only chance to gain the information needed to arrive at a cure."
"Surely you don't endorse such a plan. It's liable to be a one-way mission. What about the Cylon post—"
"I suggest we send a squadron as an escort."
The full import of the commander's statement settled onto Apollo slowly. He really meant it. This was not just a discussion. He intended to send out the mission and a squadron to accompany it!
"It's precisely for that reason, sir, that the mission is not possible. There are not enough experienced pilots to—Father! No, you can't mean that. There's no way those cadets can do it. Most of them haven't logged more than solo time in a real viper. Sure, considering their experience, or lack of it, they're doing quite well. But they're a long way from being able to fly a mission! It's too risky."
Adama turned away from his son, glanced again at the void on the monitor.
"Everything we do has an element of risk, Apollo. You're a risk-taker yourself."
"But they're just shuttle pilots, cadets."
"By definition, they're warriors. And warriors, the moment they sign up, know they may have to sacrifice their lives."
Apollo shouted at his father's back:
"Sacrifice, yes, but not throw them away!"
Adama turned back to face his son.
"What do you estimate your losses would be?"
"One Cylon attack and—and I could lose the entire squadron."
They stared at each other angrily, then Adama spoke in a gentler voice:
"You could leave the, uh, the lesser qualified pilots behind."
Is that what he's thinking, Apollo wondered, that I'm registering this protest just to protect Serina? I want to protect her, yes—desperately—but I couldn't give her special treatment. Like he said, she signed on as a warrior. Still . . . it must be hard for him to make the concession. But, no, I can't allow it.
"I appreciate what you're saying, father. But in my opinion none of the pilots are qualified to fly this mission. If I hold one of them back, I have to hold them all back. That's it. You must reconsider. I can't agree to this mission."
"Your disagreement is theoretical, I presume. If ordered to fly it, you will."
The words were spoken in the clipped, precise way that Adama used to convey the strength of his will. They were the challenge, the gauntlet thrown to test the outspoken subordinate.
"Of course I'll fly it. If so ordered."
"Thank you. Your protest will be logged accordingly. Prepare your squadron."
"Yes, sir."
Apollo resisted the compelling urge to continue the argument. The autocratic coolness in his father's eyes made it clear that the discussion was closed.
Cassiopeia's gaze had been fixed on the monitoring console for so long that she was beginning to feel more like a photographic device than a human being. Each of the medical analytic units that were scanning the patients recorded similar data. The overall message of this tour of duty was, no change. All lights blinked yellow; no
reds had started flashing in some time. Doctor Salik had commented that perhaps the spread of the disease had been stabilized. No new cases had been reported in several duty-tours, after all. She almost wanted one of the patients in the cryo-tubes to go critical, so she could press a button, raise a temperature level, increase an intraven-feed, just to be doing something.
She sensed a movement behind her. Looking around, she saw Captain Apollo, his face paled by the yellow light shooting upward from Lieutenant Boomer's cryo-tube. He peered down at Boomer sadly. Glad to get a break from watching the console, she walked to him. He seemed oblivious to her approach.
"Anything I can do for you, Captain?"
Close up, Apollo's face seemed ashen, and not just because of the color-draining yellow light.
"Any new word on his chances?" he asked.
It was the same question he asked every time he stopped by life station, and he stopped by at least twice a day. She had to give him the same answer.
"Not good. Unless we can find the cause of the infection."
He looked at her, his eyes still sad.
"Well," he said, "I guess we're going to try to do something about that."
"I know. I hope that—"
"Don't say it, Cassie. Just don't say it."
He looked down at Boomer again. Involuntarily his hand reached out and touched the surface of the cold tube, stroked it as if he had accepted it as a substitute for Boomer's forehead.
Studying the captain's strained, unhappy face, Cassiopeia wanted to take the man into her arms and comfort him. Each time she saw how deeply compassion ran in Apollo, she wished a man like him could come into her life. Not Apollo, but a man like him—Apollo, after all, was in love with Serina, a woman who certainly did deserve him. Cassiopeia seemed continually to run up against and become involved with the game players, the cheerful and charming womanizers like Starbuck who, she must admit, were great fun. However, when it came to any expression of love from such a man, forget it. Starbuck'd rather hang onto the tail-end of a viper in flight than stick to a woman steadily. That was her luck, and sometimes it pained her to think of it.
Apollo interrupted her bitter reveries by saying:
"We all appreciate what you're doing, Cassiopeia."
She laughed. She had not intended to laugh, but she did.
"I don't do anything. I sit and watch, flip a lever, press a button."
"That's something like we all do."
"Yeah, I guess. But somehow it comes out different when you do it than when I do it."
"Well, I have to go muster a squadron. Just keep taking care of these guys and we'll see if we can bring you back a cure."
"I regard that as a promise, Captain."
Inside Boomer the organism that had invaded him was quiescent, numbed by the cold which the cryo-tube maintained at a steady level. Eventually it could adjust to the cold and revive, but for now it was held in suspension just like its host. Its revival would mean the end of its own existence as well as its host's. Fortunately, it was not hampered by fears of mortality, so it could not perceive its own impending doom—that, when Boomer died, it would die, too.
Gemi could hardly keep her eyes open. Every time she concentrated on the print of the book she was holding—Ancient Virgon Ethical Systems: The Other Side of Self-Absorption—it seemed to blur into dials, gauges, scanner images, and readouts, perhaps because all those items were forever imprinted on her brain from staring at them so long and so hard during the intensive training sessions, or from her one and only solo flight, which had amounted to no more than a joyride around the awesomely beautiful outside of the Galactica. She might never be able to read again.
Looking around the room, a dining area converted into a leisure space for cadets, she noticed a distinct lethargy in all her fellow cadets. Dietra sat with her paintbrush resting on her palette, looking for all the world as if she did not intend to put another stroke onto her half-finished painting of a still-life setup. Carrie was laconically trying to show Brie her collection of spice containers, with examples of the art from all the twelve worlds, but neither Carrie nor Brie seemed interested in the intricate variety of containers displayed unmethodically on the table in front of them. Everyone was just plain tired out from all the work they'd put in since classes had begun.
Gemi finally capitulated to her tiredness and closed her eyes. Immediately images of training began swimming on her inner eyelids. She drifted into a dream about her mock-viper—she was like a child, lost in its Piscean-leather seat, her short arms not quite able to reach the controls, her feet just dangling over the seat edge. Battle raged all around her. A Cylon ship was making a run toward her. Scrambling across the seat, which seemed to be growing in size, she reached out from it to the joystick. With an excruciating effort, she managed to draw the stick to her and press its firing button. She watched the Cylon ship explode in slow motion, pieces of it passing her ship like driftwood. Suddenly Starbuck was beside her in the compartment, patting her head in approval—treating her like the dream-child she was, but at least giving her attention. (Here she was third in the class, behind Serina and Dietra, and he still rarely even gave her a criticism, much less a compliment.) "I'm really a woman, you know," she said to the smiling condescending lieutenant. "A full-bodied one, though I may not look like—"
She was shaken out of her dream by Dietra.
"C'mon child," Dietra was saying.
"C'mon what? What's—"
"Action, baby. We are assigned duty."
"But that's im—"
"I know, I know. Don't rock the boat, especially not a boat the size of the Galactica. We're going to fly an escort mission. You're my wingmate, darling. So wake up and fly right, okay?"
Gemi shook the last vestiges of sleep off and ran after Dietra. Among the thoughts that raced through her mind was the vow that now was the chance to impress Starbuck. Skill in battle would have to turn his head.
Briefly, she wondered if maneuvering a viper across space would be as easy as manipulating a mockflight viper in test chamber or soloing around a battlestar.
As if held near the screen by an eerie occult force, Adama hovered by the launch control station, looking over Rigel's shoulder at the humming, buzzing, and flickering devices. Rigel, intent on studying every aspect of the launch, seemed unaware of her commander's presence.
Adama observed that neither Starbuck nor Apollo looked too happy as they approached their fighters. They both disapproved of this mission, he knew. Perhaps any combat-hardened veteran would. Adama realized that it might be folly to send out a contingent of inexperienced pilots, but there were times when such risks were necessary. As Salik had pointed out at briefing, either way we chance losing a squadron, whether the tyro pilots in their unfamiliar vipers or the afflicted ones back in sick bay.
"Medical shuttle taking off from Flight Deck One," Rigel said. "Will rendezvous with Blue Squadron at coordinates Alpha three seven."
The shuttle's takeoff was reasonably smooth, considering that it was piloted by one of the least qualified of trainees. Tension on the bridge heightened as everyone awaited the signal to launch for the new cadets, knowing that anything could go wrong on a launch, especially when most of the pilots were so inexperienced.
Rigel took a deep breath, received the signal to launch from Tigh, and announced:
"Transferring control to viper fighters. Launch when ready."
Members of the crew not vitally concerned with duties concerning mission launch gathered anxiously around monitor screens. Starbuck's voice came over the main commline:
"Remember, just like we did it on the simulators and in the individual solo flights. And don't forget how sensitive these controls are, ladies."
A couple of grumbles on the commline forced him to append:
"Ah, sorry."
"Blue Squadron," said Apollo. "Let's show the fleet how the launch is done. Blue Squadron Leader, launching."
Apollo's viper rocketed down the launch bay tube
and out. The precision and skill of his action seemed to lend spirit to the rest of the squadron. One by one they blasted into space with the efficiency of veterans, although the subsequent formation was a bit shaky and uneven. Starbuck provided a running commentary on their difficulties:
"Easy, Dietra, steady. Easy. You're coming up too fast. You should—that's better. Good job. Serina, watch your spacing. Stick tight to your leaders, all of you."
The last cadet's viper zoomed out of launch tube and suddenly seemed to lose control, go into a spin.
"Brie!" Starbuck's voice was tense but steady. "Take back control. Back on the power, back on the power. Get your autocontrol—that's good. You've got it. You're steady. You did it, Brie! You did it!"
Rigel turned away from her monitor and smiled.
"Blue Squadron launched," she hollered, and several members of the bridge crew worked up a weary but enthusiastic cheer.
"Blue Squadron leader to Galactica," Apollo radioed. "We're on our way!"
Adama gave a great sigh of relief and retreated from launch control station. He almost backed right into Tigh, who had obviously been hovering near with the same watchful anxiety as his commander.
"Come to my quarters with me, Colonel," Adama said. "We'll talk there."
Tigh followed silently. Both men said nothing until they had passed through the entranceway to the commander's compartment.
"Our course?" Adama asked.
"We're dead on course, sir. It will not be long until we have reached the outer perimeter of the void."
Adama nodded, then stared into Tigh's eyes and said:
"You disapprove of my leading the fleet into the void."
"It's not my place to—"
"Stop that, Tigh. Come down off your epaulets. I need someone to talk to."
Both men sat. Tigh looked more relaxed the next time he spoke:
"Adama, for all we know that void could be endless. And we do know from scanner readouts pulled from Apollo's and Starbuck's ships that it's so magnetically charged that we almost lost both men out there. Once we move beyond any visual contact with the stars and can't plot course, we can wind up lost, tied up in that dense black maelstrom forever. Sorry to say this, Commander, but I think I'd rather take my chances against Cylon attack."
Battlestar Galactica 3 - The Tombs Of Kobol Page 8