Zac's voice was interrupted by the sound of explosions.
"What is it. Zac?"
"Ships. Cylon ships. Coming at me. They're firing. Hold on, I'm coming . . ."
Checking the scanner, Apollo could make out four Cylon ships pursuing his brother's plane. He punched in the direct-com line to the Galactica, got only static in reply.
"They're jamming our transmission, kid. We've got to get back to the Fleet, warn them. It's a trap, an ambush. They've got enough fire power to destroy the entire Fleet."
"But Apollo, there's the peace mission, the whole Quorum of the Twelve, they couldn't—"
Apollo heard an explosion through his earpiece.
"What is it, Zac? Are you all right? What's wrong?"
Zac's frightened voice responded.
"Apollo, they hit my port engine."
"Take it easy. Look, we're not going to make it showing those louses our backs. I can see four ships on the scanner. How many you make out?"
"Same. Four."
"Damn, they only sent that many after us. It's insulting."
"Maybe, Apollo, but they're doing awfully well."
"Only because they're behind us. Okay. When I count three, hit your reverse thrusters and maximum breaking flaps. We'll give them a little surprise. All right?"
"All right."
"One . . . two . . . three!"
While the sound of his own craft's reverse thrusting was deafening in his ears, the subsequent silence of the Cylon fighters flying past him was disconcertingly eerie. Although he could not see his helmeted enemies, Apollo was sure they were confused by the abrupt maneuver. He could picture them scanning the sky, their beams of helmet light going every which way, trying to locate him and Zac.
Narrowing his eyes, he put his finger on the firing control button of his steering column. One of the Cylon ships came into range.
"Right here," he whispered, "you wretched, slimy creature."
He squeezed the trigger. The Cylon ship disintegrated, transformed immediately into space debris.
Zac's fighter came into view, pursuing another of the Cylon ships. Knowing his brother's moves, Apollo could sense him lining up his target and firing. The second Cylon vehicle disintegrated. The remaining two fighters divided and veered off. The element of surprise had gained Apollo and Zac two direct hits.
"Not bad, little brother," Apollo said. "Okay, you go after the guys on the right . . ."
Apollo directed his viper ship at the Cylon fighter on the left. Before it could swing around to attack position, he lined it up on target, squeezed the trigger, and blasted it to the far reaches of space. As he swung his craft around he could see Zac again, just in the act of firing at, and missing, the last of the Cylon attackers. Damn, Apollo thought, the kid was so often a shade too eager, too quick on the trigger. Zac's prey veered off, did a tricky loop that Apollo recognized as a skilled maneuver only the best Cylon pilots could execute. Before Zac realized what had happened, his enemy had taken up position behind his plane.
"Apollo . . ." Zac said.
"I can see. Keep them interested just a little longer. I'll be right with you."
"Interested? Believe me, they're interested!"
As Zac tried to pull away from his pursuer, his ship was hit again.
"There goes one engine," he said.
Apollo's viper swooped in on the Cylon fighter from the side, heading toward it on a perpendicular course.
"Steady," he whispered, "steady. Just don't look this way, guys."
He thought he saw one of the Cylon pilots become aware of him a moment too late, just before the ship exploded.
Sighing, turning his ship toward Zac's, Apollo said, "The day those guys can outfight us without a ten-to-one margin—"
"Apollo," Zac said, "better look at your scanner."
He looked, saw that a larger attack force had emerged from the clouds. What looked like a solid wave of Cylon dreadnoughts was heading their way.
"Ten to one, yeah," he said, "but a thousand to one, that's not fair."
"What does it mean, Apollo?"
Apollo laughed mordantly.
"It means, little brother, there isn't going to be any peace. The peace mission was a trap right from the start. We've got to get back, warn the Fleet."
"Do it, Apollo. I'm short an engine, you know. I won't be able to keep up with you."
Apollo was impressed by the note of courage in Zac's voice. He was a member of the family, all right. But family meant more than forced bravado.
"I can't leave you, Zac. Together we'll—"
"No, not together. You have to go. I'll be all right. I'll keep ahead of them, don't worry. I'll put my foot in that turbo and make it back ahead of them. Go on. You've got to warn the Fleet. There's no other choice."
"Okay, partner. Meet me in the ready room, I'll have the coffee warm."
"I don't need heat right now, thanks. Got enough coming my way."
"Good luck, kid."
Before the turbo thrusters engaged, Apollo took one last look at his brother's viper ship. Then the turbo kicked in, and the viper seemed to vanish immediately from the dark, suddenly somber sky.
The farther away his shuttlecraft took him from the Atlantia and its unpleasantly cheerful set of politicians, the more relaxed Adama felt. It was always good to return to his own ship. He longed to take one of his famous tours, go down among the crew for some casual chatting and perhaps a few slugs of the sort of brew that did not often find its way into command cabins.
"You're thinking the kind of thought you always refuse to tell me about," Athena said, swiveling her pilot seat around toward him.
"Keep your mind on your work, young lady, and let the old man maintain his privacy."
She assumed a fake pout, then laughed as she swiveled back. For a moment Adama examined his daughter's profile. He knew she was considered beautiful, especially by Starbuck and the other young officers who competed for her attentions. However, even as a loving father, he had difficulty perceiving Athena as beautiful. For one thing, she looked too much like him and too little like her mother, who was the real beauty of the family. Athena's face was angular like her father's, but the overall affect was softer, less granitic. Her nose displayed the same hint of acquilinity and her mouth the same thin-lipped straightness. Although he imagined these features as showing the world a firm look of determination in himself, he didn't think they blended well with Athena's lustrous blond hair and the one good feature she did inherit from her mother, her eyes. Every time he caught the look of his wife, Ila, in those glowing blue eyes, he found himself glancing away to avoid the longing that always accompanied his memories of Ila.
In their married life, he and Ila had been apart for more time than they had been together—this time it had been almost two years since his last return to Caprica—and that enforced separation was the one requirement of the military career that he had always despised. If it had not been for the damned war, they could have had the kind of balanced, happy life that now came only at well spaced intervals, although, as Ila often argued, perhaps their love was intensified by the long disruptions. Without them, she said, she and Adama might have become dull old married folks, never really acknowledging each other's existence. Instead, they remained bedazzled, youthful lovers who still appreciated each other's virtues. Adama had replied that she was just saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder, albeit in a more roundabout and loquacious way. Of course, she said, that—and a little more.
As he looked at his daughter now, intent on her duties, he saw a feminine version of himself. Even her body, with its attractive and clearly sensuous features, seemed to suggest useful strength rather than useless coquetry—or perhaps that was merely a father's clouded view. He loved her, would always love her, but would never in the twelve worlds be able to see her as an object of intense interest to gentleman suitors.
The communicator light flashed on and Athena quickly donned her headset. Her brow furled as she liste
ned.
"Something's wrong," she said.
"What is it?"
"Don't know, but they just put the Galactica bridge on alert."
"On alert, why—"
"Ease up, Dad, we'll find out what's up on the old bucket soon enough. Just let me get this crate onto the landing deck safely."
She engaged the landing hookup and checked out her equipment. Everything okay. The landing deck came out of its pod, expanded, and seemed to ease itself under the descending shuttlecraft. Large strobe lights were an arrow to point the way in. Athena guided the small craft to the final stopping point indicated by a flashing red deck light. When the shuttlecraft settled to a stop, both father and daughter were out of it and running.
On the bridge Adama found his aide, Colonel Tigh, squinting at his scanners intently. Tigh, a short, wiry man who had been through many battles with his commander, was not one to panic easily, yet he seemed very apprehensive and jumpy at the moment.
"What is it?" Adama said.
"Patrol ran into trouble," Tigh responded. "We're picking up signals but can't make anything out of them. Jamming of some sort."
"The trouble, what is it?"
"Can't tell yet. Pirates could be. Smugglers. Or . . ."
Adama could read Tigh's real conclusion in the man's eyes. Cylons. Definitely Cylons! Looking out the starfield at the placidly drifting command ship, he ordered the radio man to connect him with President Adar at once. When Adar answered, there still was the sound of partying in his voice. Adama cut that short.
"One of our patrols is under attack, Mr. President. We're not sure by whom."
Adar's face on the monitor altered so quickly, Adama thought for a moment there was interference affecting the picture's resolution. The skulking figure of Baltar, his chubby face showing a concern that seemed feigned to Adama, moved into the picture.
"As a precautionary measure," Adama continued, "I'd like to launch intercept fighters."
Like to? he thought. That was the kind of mealy-mouthed phrasing Adar expected from the more servile members of the Quorum of the Twelve! In the old days Adama would have said he was determined to send out the intercepts. His stomach churned as he watched Baltar lean in toward the president and whisper in his ear. Adar nodded.
"Quite right, Baltar," he said. "Commander—" Where did Adar get off addressing his oldest friend so formally? Why did he put on such official airs in front of the despicable Baltar? "Commander, as a precautionary measure, I insist upon restraint."
"Restraint? But—"
"Commander, if this turns out to be an encounter with some outlaw traffic, we could jeopardize the entire cause of peace by displaying fighters when we are so close to our rendezvous."
To Adama the Cylon choice of rendezvous point seemed more suspicious than ever.
"Mr. President, two of my aircraft are under armed attack."
"By unknown forces. We must receive proper information. You're not to launch until the situation is clearer."
"Sir, may I at least urge you to bring the Fleet to a state of alert?"
"I'll consider it. Thank you, Commander."
The screen went blank abruptly. Adar's afterimage seemed to take on sinister overtones in Adama's mind.
"He'll consider it," Tigh said angrily. He had never been able to keep his feelings in. It had lost him a starship command post at least once. "Has he lost his mind?"
"Colonel—"
Tigh looked around. Clearly he was a bit embarrassed at the way the bridge officers had become ominously silent, listening to them.
"I'm sorry, Commander," Tigh said. "It's just that . . . well . . ."
"Yes. What?"
"The patrol under fire. It's, well, it's under Captain Apollo's command."
"And if I can't depend on my own son, who can I—"
"Zac's with him. One of the men took sick and, well, Zac was on the bridge at the time and, well, there was this little matter of a disciplinary nature, a nurse, and, well, I—"
"Enough, Colonel. I understand your concern. But Zac can take care of himself as well as his older brother can."
He turned away from his aide, afraid that the man might read in his eyes that he didn't believe a word of what he was saying. In action Zac had good instincts, good moves, but was too impulsive—always had been, ever since he was a wild kid stealing rides from every shuttle or freighter that he could stow away in. The fact that Zac had raced off on patrol was still another of the wrong things that had gnawed at Adama's nerves from the beginning of this strange peace junket.
For the next few minutes the crew of the bridge worked silently, aware of the explosive tension that surrounded their commander like a minefield. Adama and Tigh spoke only to issue orders. When there were no more commands, Adama spoke to his aide.
"Anything?"
"Still nothing from the fighters, Sir. One thing I'm sure of—their transmission is being jammed deliberately. If we don't launch soon—"
"We cannot launch when it has been expressly forbidden," Adama said, measuring out his words carefully. He could feel the eyes of the entire bridge crew staring at him. "This might, however, be an appropriate time to order a test of our battle stations drill."
Tigh smiled and the rest of the bridge crew followed suit.
"Sound the battle stations alert, Colonel!" Adama shouted.
The identical smugness on the faces of the two Gemons infuriated Starbuck. The main goal of his life had just that moment become to wipe that self-satisfaction off both their faces. Sitting down at the table, with the remains of the gallery's cash reserves overflowing in his big hands, he grinned his best country-boy grin at his opponents and pushed the large pile of cubits to the center of the table.
"Okay, guys," he said. "The showdown play, right? One hand. Sudden death."
The Gemons frowned simultaneously and whispered together. Even though he was not up on their dialect, he could tell by the quarrelsome sound of their voices that they were debating the odds. They came to their agreement, nodded at the same time, and pushed the equivalent amount of cubits into the pot.
"Sudden death it is, pilot," one of them said.
"Death. Pilot," said the other.
Smiling genially, Starbuck began shuttling the cards. When the hands were dealt, one of the Gemons picked up theirs immediately while the other leaned over his shoulder to inspect it. Starbuck waited a beat before picking up his hand. He knew the nonchalance of such a pause could unnerve the already anxious Gemons and affect their play.
As he regarded the hand, he realized with a surge of exultation that he hadn't needed to employ such elaborate play-acting. His cards were all one color, and all the same symbol, the highest ranking—the pyramid! He could sense the electrified crowd reaction behind him, and started to lay out the cards for the Gemons to read and weep.
"You may never see another one, fellas," he chortled. "A perfect pyramid."
Both Gemon mouths dropped open in perfect unison. The cardholding Gemon was about to throw in his hand.
The alert-claxon blared loudly through the ready room, jarring everybody's concentration and sending several crewmembers into immediate action. A woman reading a book on a corner bunk dropped the volume and started running. A sleeper flung himself out of a chair near the card table and, awakening a moment after his instinctual rise, he plunged sideways as he tried to avoid the running woman. In plunging, his body bumped against the table. The cards, including Starbuck's perfect pyramid, slid and fluttered in all directions, some falling to the floor. When they were already dispersed, Starbuck made a futile grab at their ghosts. The Gemon watched the cards scatter, exchanged a look, then smiled together.
"Unfortunate," one of them said. "We'll have to replay hand at later date."
"Wait a minute, you—" Starbuck cried.
"Duty calls," said one Gemon.
"Duty," said the other, while picking up his battle helmet from the floor (brushing off a couple of round cards that had stuck in ridges alon
g its surface), and scooping their half of the pot into it. Their bodies tense in battle readiness, the two rushed out of the room.
"Come back here, you little—" Starbuck shouted. "Hey, somebody stop them!"
But it was too late to stop anybody. After their collective moment of shock, even members of the gallery started charging for the exits, gathering up their helmets and flight kits on the way.
Starbuck shrugged his shoulders, pocketed his half of the pot, made a mental note to distribute the cash back among his contributors (but only if they asked), and hurried to the flight-prep corridor.
Running along the luminous ceiling of the elongated chamber that was the catapult deck, a transparent vacuum tube revealed the even rows of the Galactica's fighter ships, side by side in their powerful launching cribs. As the vehicles were thrust out of the tube onto the deck itself, their pilots emerged from chutes that had carried them from the flight-prep corridor. Each pilot raced on foot to his individual ship, while ground crews activated the sleek, delta-winged craft for launch.
Starbuck emerged from his drop and sprinted to his ship. After jumping onto a wing, he executed his famous into-the-saddle leap into the cockpit. Jenny, his ground-crew CWO, belted him in. Her darkly attractive face showed extreme concern as she closed the form-fitting cockpit over him.
"What's going on?" she screamed.
"Nothing to worry about," Starbuck replied. "Probably just some kind of, I don't know, aerial salute for the president as they sign the armistice or kiss the Cylons or something."
Jenny frowned.
"That's revolting!" she hollered.
"Revolting? What's revolting?"
"The idea of kissing the Cylons, that's what, it turns my stomach."
"Don't knock what you haven't tried."
"Get outta here, bucko!"
Jenny hit the main power switch and Starbuck felt the familiar thrust backward that always accompanied the engagement of the flight systems. He took the controls and taxied to his launch point where, his craft joining the titanic array of the Galactica's iridescent vehicles, he waited tensely for orders to launch or return.
Although Adama had to keep aware of the information on all of the wall screens in front of him, his eyes inadvertently kept returning to the one that showed Apollo's ship coming into physical range of the battlestar.
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