"Croft, I don't—" Apollo says.
"That's the way we'll do it, Apollo. You get your gun blown up, Leda and Wolfe get the ship. It's the only way everybody gets what they want. You can forget about the warbook fighting codes up here."
"And you, Croft," Leda says, stepping forward. "Where do you go? What do you do? What do you get?"
I want to tell her that I want her, but it's no good. You can't get Leda to give herself, no matter what deal you offer. She needs to be free, all right, I'll give her that.
"I stay with Apollo, with him and Ser 5-9 and Tenna. We'll take the elevator out of there. While we're on the way down, you two'll have plenty of time to take off and go... go wherever you can find that pleases you."
I look away from her piercing gaze and survey the panorama below us. There is nothing exceptional to see, nothing worth climbing this mountain for. Under normal conditions, with ample time for planning, it's an easy mountain, an easy climb, not worth the effort. The ice planet itself is ugly. Nothing on it is as beautiful as where we stand now, at the top of the mountain, next to an awesome weapon which we plan to blow to pieces moments from now.
"Come with us," Leda says, her voice offering nothing more than the trip.
I almost throw out all my fancy reasons and say yes anyway.
"Nope, Leda."
"Why not, Croft?"
"Can't say. Something about being responsible. Something about knocking out this weapon for whatever you want to call it, the common good or the salvation of—
"Shut up, Croft. You just want to play hero, be he-man, copy this scanner-screen image of a warrior here..." She points to Apollo, who shows no reaction. "Well, okay. Just don't give me any of your he-man speeches. We do the job because we're professionals; don't mouth off about anything else. We do it because we're the ones who can do it. You can have the glory of humankind and sprinkle it on your crops as fertilizer. We accept your deal. Okay, Wolfe?"
Wolfe sullenly agrees.
"All right, then," Leda says. "Let's get to it."
Apollo steps forward, says:
"The Galactico's time is running out."
As if to punctuate his remark, another pulse—perhaps the one destined to turn the Galactica into space ash—is emitted from the bore of the laser cannon.
"Get the explosives together," I say. "Then we get moving."
Apollo—who, after all, has taken a lot of bilge from me in the past few moments—hesitates, then nods.
"Okay," he says. "You're in charge, Croft. Get us into that pulsar station."
"You got it, Captain."
Working silently, we get the stuff together, each taking his assigned load, Leda and I splitting what Thane would have carried. Thane. I'd almost forgotten about him. What difference would it have made to the cause of Leda and Wolfe if he'd been there? What difference would it have made for my own decision? I had always really been afraid of Thane. One thing sure. Thane wouldn't have listened to reason, and he would have given the Ice Gang the edge they needed to succeed in their escape. Perhaps I couldn't have so easily stood on this godforsaken ledge and made my noble speeches and swung them to Apollo's side. If Thane had been there, perhaps I'd have gone with them. Well, no use worrying about that now, not with the job waiting to be done.
Circling around the emplacement, we arrive at the entrance to the intake tube. It opens onto a dark tunnel.
"This intake tube opens into the cooling system," I say to the rest. "The laser is inside. We've got to place the solenite just right. Our supply's a bit depleted, my fault. I let some of it go, sorry. Back in the avalanche when I released my pack. Matter of priorities. I put saving myself over preserving the solenite."
"You're prone to mistakes like that," Leda says, with the first smile I've seen from her in some time.
"According to Ravashol's geogram," Apollo says, "the key element is the energy-exchange pump. If we can wreck it, the cannon will overload and blow itself up."
"Sounds good to me. You and Wolfe and the clones hold off the Cylons, and Leda and I can lay the wire, set the timer. Let's take a look."
We crawl inside the intake-tube tunnel. It's narrow and we have to crouch down. I feel like an insect eating my way through insulation. Suddenly the walls of the tunnel begin to tremble as the laser sweep of the gun gathers intensity.
"Hang on!" Apollo shouts. "They're using the intake."
As the wind pulls through the tunnel, it's like being outside in a mountain blizzard. Holding onto the side walls, we are able to continue on. A sweep of vapor passes us, and I hold my breath, not knowing what it's composed of. When the laser emits its next pulse, the sound seems to reverberate in the tunnel for an eternity, threatening to diminish only when deafness has set in. But it stops after the firing.
Up ahead is a grid that must be used as an entrance for maintenance purposes. We crawl to it and Apollo pushes it open. On the other side we can see the immensity of the laser station's interior. The weapon, a mammoth dark gray cylinder, dominates the center of the chamber. Spreading down from its base is a central control shaft around which several Cylons are working. Huge pillars support domes in which the energy sources are apparently collected. In the Cylon manner of illumination, lights along the high castlelike walls shift irregularly in intensity. It looks like a room in which nightmares are stored.
A group of officers gather around some kind of console, directing the action of the gun. Beyond them is another officer, looking very much like them, except he's got a lot more bands of black decorating his silver-metallic uniform. The decoration, if I remember correctly, identifies him as a first centurion. He's the chief honcho, then, the one especially to watch out for. Apollo leans toward me and whispers:
"The firing station in the center..."
"Yeah."
"It controls the energy pump."
"That's our target, then," Leda says grimly.
"Right," Apollo says.
"If I get you right, Apollo," I say, "we blow that and the whole system overloads. I don't know if you realize it, but it's also going to tear off the top of the mountain. Before I set the timer, you better have that escape elevator secured. I don't want to have to wait for it to arrive from the first floor, buddy."
Apollo closes the grid and gawks at his ever-present timepiece. The wrist device glows in the dark, and flickers a bit as its coordinates change. "Three centons," he whispers. "I hope Starbuck and Boomer are at the elevator by now, or else we'll have to take the fighter."
"Listen, Apollo, I promised the ship to Wolfe and—
"If it means survival, all promises are off. Don't worry. I'll let your friends have the ship as soon as we're off the mountain. What's the matter?"
"I been worrying about how much trust you can have in me. I forgot to worry about whether or not I could trust you."
"You can't."
"I realize that now. You make a good member of the Ice Gang, Apollo."
"Thanks, I think."
The chief honcho barks something in that typical Cylon voice that sounds like a series of electric shorts. The other officers react and work some devices in their respective equipment. A surge of power resounds through the room.
"They're stepping up the rate of pulses," Apollo whispers. "They must know the Galacticcfs entered the quadrant, maybe even know its coordinates."
"We're ready when you are, Captain."
Gently Apollo lifts the grid. Gesturing to Wolfe, Ser 5-9, and Tenna to follow him, he slips out the opening. Wolfe pushes Ser 5-9 aside. Once the combat's begun, Wolfe's always extra-eager to get into the fray, no matter whose side he thinks he's on. The two clones follow Wolfe out, and for a moment Leda and I are alone. Leda is 'carefully not looking at me. She adjusts her grip on the coil of solenite wire and waits, like me, for the shooting to start. I lean toward her and whisper:
"I'd go with you, Leda, but—
"I don't want to hear about it."
And that about defines our relationship at the moment.
This is the point toward which the years of love and working together were heading. It all comes to this. I want to say it, and you don't want to hear it. If you wanted to hear it, I wouldn't have to say it.
With a series of sudden hisses, the shooting begins in the emplacement-gun chamber. I jump through the grid opening, Leda right behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Apollo blasting away from behind one of the pillars. He drops a couple of Cylons with a pair of perfect shots. Although I can't see them, I can figure where the others are by the three pillars from which .the other laser fire is coming. The Cylon gunners and warriors guarding them are trying to assemble into some order. Staying close to the wall, Leda and I seem to have escaped their notice. A communications device near us suddenly explodes from being hit by a stray Cylon shot, and Leda and I dive to the floor. Leda crawls by me, directly to the base of the energy-exchange pump. Efficiently, without a look at the battle raging around her, she begins to lay the wire. I scamper to the other side of the pump and begin putting down my wire, but I sense a movement to my right. Glancing up, I see a Cylon coming at me, his weapon drawn. Twisting around slightly, I bring out my laser pistol and drop him. Like most Cylons, he falls with a clumsy-sounding thump. No other Cylon seems to have detected my presence. Good. I can't allow them to have too much time while we're escaping. Solenite wire sticks to the side of metal without even a loop of air showing in it, and it's virtually uncuttable by normal means—but I don't know what equipment these creeps might have. If they're able to disconnect the wires, or enough of them, the gun won't go up. But if we can hold them off until the timer's set, then it's unlikely they'll be able to move fast enough to save the gun.
I return to my work, feeling an odd glow of satisfaction from the professional way I lay down the wire. Everything's working out well. At least on our part. I haven't time to check out how Apollo's attack is working out. There are sufficient notches and outjuttings to wrap the wire around, enough concave area in which to plant the explosive charges. The wire adheres easily to the flat surfaces of the pump.
Crawling underneath the pump through an arched tunnel that leads to an energy feeder, I begin to attach the timer there. Leda crawls into the tunnel from her side and methodically leads her wire toward the timer. While I manipulate the switches of the timer, she attaches the ends of her wires to it.
"How's it going on your side?" I ask her.
"Good. Apollo and Wolfe're dropping the creatures left and right. A couple of them seemed to see what we were up to, but they were dropped before they got near to me."
"Okay. Everything's set. Look out and see if Apollo's got the elevator ready."
She crawls out and is back right away.
"He's doing something with the controls beside the doorway. But it's not open yet."
"Then we wait."
I glance over at her. Her face is now tense.
"You and Wolfe'll be in the air in a couple of microns. Maybe we'll all meet again sometime, in some exotic out-planet bar or—
"I'll look again."
She comes back and says the way to the elevator is clear. Nodding, I flick the switch that irrevocably sets the timer. Now the Cylons can tear at the solenite all they wish. There's nothing they can do. The gun's going to go.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
Ila and I used to enjoy going to the theater at least once or twice during each of my rare furloughs. She recognized my need for escape and usually selected comedies or musical entertainments. But once in a while, to satisfy Ha, we went to a tragedy.
Caprican tragedy contained one significant variation over the tragedies created in the rest of the twelve worlds—the added feature of the alternative ending. The alternative ending was "intended as a kind of release following the emotional drain of the sad or awesome events of the play proper. Some audience members didn't stay around for it, claiming that the proper reaction to the fate of the tragic hero or heroine was to purge ourselves by participating emotionally in the tragedy. But I always enjoyed the alternative endings, bizarre as some of them were. Generally, they showed what the lives of their hero or heroine would have been like if they had surmounted or survived the dramatic events that had propelled them toward their disaster. Often their lives were shown as serene, their experiences having brought them emotional and intellectual growth as human beings. Because of what seemed to me a forced optimism in such an ending, I much preferred the other traditional alternative, in which the playwright generally showed that the complications of life (and, by implication, drama) continued to affect or plague the characters, although usually in not as nobly tragic a way as the main drama. I liked that. I liked the idea that we were all expected to continue the drama of our own lives past major crisis points, and had to renew our hopes, fears, and mysterious expectations on a regular basis.
Ila said such a reaction suited me, since after the pleasant intervals of furlough I always had to return to my own continuing tragedy, the war with the Cylons. She preferred the meaningful single crisis, the test of nobility or even merely of the dimensions of character, over the uncertain extensions of the alternative ending. She may have had something there. Whatever, she's dead now, away from suffering—while I have to confront one major crisis after another. I sometimes consider alternative endings—ones where the Cylons give up, or we finally destroy them, or a mysterious third force interferes and decides the outcome for us. Even more, I would rather not consider tragedy at all. Ila, I needed you here now, I needed that particular alternative ending.
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.
The Cylon Death Machine Page 20