"Starboard landing deck ready for approaching single fighter, Commander," Tigh said.
"Sir," one of the bridge crewman said, "long-range scanner picks up large number of craft moving this way at high speed."
Adama and Tigh glanced apprehensively at each other, then rushed to the scanner screen toward which the crewman pointed.
"Get that pilot up here as soon as he lands," Adama ordered, checking the progress of Apollo's approach to the landing deck, "and get the president back on the codebox."
He tried to discern some meaning in the screen revealing the wall of ships coming their way, some proof of the awesome threat he felt emanating from it. The president's face, looking a bit less smug than before, came onto the communications screen.
"Yes, Commander," Adar said blandly.
"Mr. President, a wall of unidentified craft is closing toward the Fleet."
Baltar's puffy face appeared at the edge of the screen, smiling oddly.
"Possibly a Cylon welcoming committee," the trader said.
"May I suggest that at the very least," Adama said, "we launch a welcoming committee of our own?"
"Mr. President," Baltar said, "there remain many hostile feelings among our warriors. The likelihood of an unfortunate incident with all those pilots in the sky at once . . ."
"A good point, Baltar," Adar said. "Did you hear that, Commander?"
Adama could barely hold in his anger, but his voice remained steady as he replied.
"No, Mr. President. I can't possibly have heard correctly. Did Count Baltar suggest we allow our forces to sit here totally defenseless, that we . . ."
"Commander!" Adar's voice was unusually sharp. "We are on a peace mission. The first peace man has known in a thousand years."
"Mr. President—"
Tigh touched Adama's shoulder, a printout report clutched in his hand.
"A lone ship is coming under attack from the main approaching force," Tigh said.
As his plane seemed to limp through space, Zac could see on his scanner the rate at which the Cylon fighters were narrowing the gap. His information, displayed at the bottom of the screen, indicated that he had no real chance to get back to the Galactica ahead of the Cylons, and there was no way he could pump extra speed into his damaged craft.
"I may have to turn and fight the bastards," he said aloud. He was a little disturbed that Apollo was out of communication range and could not respond to his younger brother's bravado. Even though he often resented the tight leash Apollo kept him on, Zac wished he would return now to tell him what to do.
The Cylon ships opened fire and Zac's ship lurched—another direct hit. His scanner flashed, then went blank. A strange oscillating whine filled the cockpit, and the fighter slowed even more. Zac pushed on the throttle, tried to force speed out of the ship.
"Come on, baby, not much farther," he said. "Give me all you got!"
The ship vibrated as it took another hit. Zac felt the blood drain out of his face and his heart began beating rapidly.
Enraged, Adama ripped the printout sheet from Tigh's hands and waved it toward the screen, which showed Adar's now troubled face.
"Did you hear that, Mr. President?" he shouted, feeling in control of the situation now, as his anger at the officious politicians erupted. "Your welcoming committee is firing at our patrol."
Adar backed away from the camera, his body looking as if it had collapsed inside the tent of his toga.
"Firing." he said. "But . . . firing . . . on our patrol . . . that can't . . . how do you explain this, Baltar?" He looked around frenetically for Baltar, who no longer stood smugly at his side. "Baltar . . . Baltar!" He looked back at the screen. "He's . . . he's left the bridge. Adama—"
"I'm ordering out our squadrons," Adama said. The defeated man on the screen nodded sheepishly.
"Of course," he said. "Yes. Immediately. Now."
Before Adar had spoken, the bridge crew of the Galactica, responding to Adama's rapid gestures, had swung into action. Adama scowled at the screen showing Zac's fighter under heavy attack from the Cylon ambush party. He could sense what was about to happen, and his throat tightened. Zac's ship was within range of the Fleet now. The static caused by the Cylon jamming diminished, and Zac's voice suddenly reverberated loud and clear across the Galactica's bridge.
"—they're up to . . . I don't think I can—wait a minute, I see you now, Galactica. My scanner's working again. Everything's A-OK. We made it, damn it, we made it!"
Even as Adama felt the wave of happiness at his son's joy, he saw the three Cylon fighters moving in for the kill.
"NO! Watch out, Zac!" he hollered at the screen. Tigh shouted, too, in echo.
Obviously not receiving from the Galactica, Zac's voice became coolly businesslike.
"Blue flight two. In trouble. Request emergency approa—"
The Cylon ships fired simultaneously.
Zac's ship exploded, became a flash of light, disappeared.
All around Adama there was silence. Only the sounds of equipment could be heard. On the screen next to the one that had pictured the destruction of Zac's plane, the array of Colonial Fleet fighters ready for launch spread as far back as the camera eye could detect.
"What was that?" Adar's voice broke the silence. For a moment Adama could not figure out what the president was talking about. What was what? He had a flash memory of Zac smiling, in battle-gear, so engagingly eager to make a heroic name for himself. Then he turned toward Adar's image. His voice was low, bitter, crackling with suppressed rage.
"That was my son, Mr. President."
Tigh gestured crew personnel into action as the attacking fleet of Cylons came into view and opened fire. Adama turned away from the small screens and examined the massive starfield. Hundreds of Cylon fighters streaked by, firing salvo after salvo of their laser-particle torpedoes. The starfield—ablaze with the marks of flame, explosion, destruction—had suddenly been transformed into a deadly fireworks display. Two Fleet battle cruisers exploded together. Tigh looked anxiously toward Adama, waiting for his command.
"Launch fighters!" Adama shouted, "All batteries commence fire. I say again—commence fire!"
As the claxon aroused the ship and the noises of counterattack began, Adama's tightly clenched fist slammed against empty air.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
We often debate the differences between individual death and mass death. People say there is more sorrow involved in mourning the end of a loved one's life, than in mourning the tragic annihilation of hundreds or thousands or millions of victims whose identities are unknown to us. I'm not sure that's true. I have viewed the death in action of a son and also been forced to consider individual deaths and mass deaths that were all part of the same insidious event in history. It seems to me all the deaths were intricately connected to my sorrow in ways that I could never explain. The tangled, subdued sorrow over the multiple deaths of some mass disaster is, I believe, no less intense, no less meaningful, no less important, than the more dramatic outward show of grief for a person who has had the considerable misfortune to die alone.
CHAPTER TWO
As Adama directed the launching of the Galactica's counterattacking forces with growled commands and fierce, violent gestures, his counterpart on the enemy side was in a calm state of meditative relaxation as he maintained complete surveillance of his meticulously planned battle strategy. He was sitting in the exact center of the Cylon equivalent of a battlestar, a circular vehicle which tapered down almost to a point through several dark and metal-webbed deck levels. Power for the ship emanated upward from the nether point, where highly volatile liquid Tylium was mixed with neutralizing fuels and forced into the generational systems by the action of what appeared to be revolving pinwheels. Humans who had glimpsed the formidable Cylon base ships up close had unanimously described them as spinning tops.
The Cylon commander, whose name would translate into Adama's language as "Imperious Leader", sat above his officers o
n a huge pedestal whose sides were marked with hundreds of sharp-edged and barbed points that sent off sporadic threatening gleams in the shifting light of the immense chamber. On his many-eyed, knobby head, whose surface colors were various shades of gray, like shadows without sources, he was now wearing a helmet that was the Cylon version of the massive communications panel aboard the Galactica. All the same informational units that spread across one side of the Galactica's bridge were contained in miniature in the helmet. With it Imperious Leader could keep track of all phases of the battle simultaneously. At the same time the helmet was feeding him the necessary abstract information from which he could formulate the proper improvisations on the basic strategy. All of this information was being transmitted to him from a contingent of executive officers who circled the pedestal and dispatched their data in invisible beams upward to the leader's helmet. The Cylon officers were also in helmet contact with each other, so that trifling and unnecessary bits of information could be filtered out before transmission to the leader. If the transmission beams had been visible, the headquarters chamber of Imperious Leader would appear to the casual observer as an impossibly intricate spider's web. In spite of all the communication activity, the dimly lit room, populated by unmoving figures cemented in sitting and standing positions, suggested a rigid serenity, an alien gentleman's club with members engaged in apparently harmless contemplations.
In his third-brain, the one that monitored the functioning of his other two brains. Imperious Leader enjoyed a deep flow of satisfaction. His entire life had been pointed toward this moment, the final and overwhelming defeat of the alien pest that had infected the perfect unity of the universe. He had been born at a time when the war had been going on, in human measurement, for about seven hundred years. His first-brain, replacing the rudimentary one that trained and educated him in his early years, had been awarded him at the proper ceremony marking his passing from childhood to maturity. First-brains were the basic guidance system of both the Cylon citizen and warrior. Since the first-brain's activities concentrated on perceptions related to information gathering and efficient performance in whatever job had been assigned the individual Cylon at the maturity ceremony, only the simple interpretive powers were implanted in it. In Imperious Leader's case, his childhood achievements, especially the physical ones, had qualified him for the coveted job level of warrior. Even better, he had quickly ascended to fighter pilot status and won the name that would have been (loosely) translated into human language as "Ace of Aces". As a result of his mastery of warfare techniques, he had been awarded his second-brain much earlier than his peers. The second-brain gave him the abilities necessary for Cylon officers, particularly the gift of analyzing and interpreting information. When the second-brain operated in conjunction with the first-brain integrally, as it always did for Imperious Leader, one rose to the level of executive officer. He had become one of the youngest executive officers in the history of his race. He knew now that, if he removed his helmet and let his many eyes survey the officers surrounding the pedestal, he would be besieged by keen memories of himself, doing their jobs interpreting and filtering data for previous Imperious Leaders.
When the most recent Imperious Leader had reached the end of his reign (each Leader held power for a specific term: about three-quarters of a century in human time, although the Cylons used no such constricting measurements of linear time), he dictated his selection as successor. Whatever his choice, no grumbling would have been heard from the Cylon executive officers because there was no aspiration to power. Cylons believed that the decrees of their superiors at any level or in any position originated in a master plan known completely only to the Imperious Leader. For them it was only logical, since Imperious Leaders were the only Cylons with a third-brain and therefore the only Cylons in possession of all information.
Even though he displayed his reaction to none of his fellow officers, the present Imperious Leader had been mildly surprised when his predecessor had selected him. The awarding of leadership generally went to one of the officers senior in command experience. He had served long and well, but did not consider himself eligible for the supreme echelon until the next time of selection. However, with the same stoicism with which he would have reconciled himself to death in battle, he accepted the awarding of the third-brain. As soon as it had been implanted, he understood why his predecessor, who now communicated with him telepathically, had selected him. Besides being part of that telepathic network connecting the few third-brain holders who had not as yet selected their time of death, he now possessed, according to Cylon belief, the capability of limitless wisdom. While the second-brain had allowed him a substantial amount of understanding about what happened, why it happened, and how it happened, the third-brain allowed him to transcend the tyranny of mere facts, to rise above the limitations of trivial speculation, insight, and idea. With the third-brain he could connect his first-brain information and second-brain interpretations of the information to a vast accumulation of knowledge going back in time very nearly to the beginning of the Cylon culture. He discovered that not every Cylon could admit the third brain into his body and, in fact, most of his compatriots would have involuntarily rejected it. For that reason primarily, the selection of successor to Imperious Leader was always carried out with extreme care. Tests at the implanting of the first-brain indicated the few Cylons who had third-brain potential. Those who qualified were kept under intense scrutiny during the ensuing years. Some were weeded out when certain character instabilities emerged in difficult test situations, while others were merely killed in the war—a high number, since third-brain qualifiers tended to take high risks in warfare. By the time the present Imperious Leader rose to the executive staff, he was one of only six survivors eligible for third-brain implantation. The final selection was made by the Cylon in command, advised by all the former living Imperious Leaders, supplemented by analyses based upon memories of dead Leaders whose brains were preserved in the historical tanks. When he had awakened from the third-brain implantation, knowing immediately why he was the choice, he agreed thoroughly with that decision.
All of this, plus the entire history and accumulated knowledge of the Cylon race, was his in an instant.
Now he reviewed the progress of his scrupulously designed diversionary battle against the human Fleet, and he looked ahead to the main plan that was about to commence. The enemy was sure to be routed. His victory over the humans would assure his place in Cylon history. He could expect to hand over command to a successor in the far future with satisfaction, knowing he would continue to be an influential Leader, even in voluntary stasis.
His base ship now approached the main target, the most important of the twelve targets to which he had deployed the massive forces under his command. He wished to supervise personally the destruction of the planet Caprica. His spy network had informed him that it was the home planet of his chief human enemy, Adama, and he wanted the pleasure of causing its destruction for himself.
It was odd, he thought, how dealing strategically with humans as enemies for so long had forced him often to think like a human being. His predecessor had warned him that it would be necessary to utilize a portion of the massive third-brain for the contemplation of human ideas, in order to counter the enemy's moves in battle. He could not deny that the ability to copy human thought processes had been invaluable in fighting this stubborn, irrational race that was the enemy, but he had never liked the time when he had to engage that part of his brain which contained the essence of human knowledge, the clumsy stronghold of unreason that housed human philosophies. Even now, as an image of the present state of Caprica was transmitted to him from several sources, he could not help seeing the coming annihilation of the humans in their own terms. Good and evil, that was the kind of concern that perplexed single-brained, inefficient human minds. If one of them had his abilities and could penetrate the limitless dimensions of the Cylon three brains, the human perceiver would have been appalled that such simple dichot
omies as good and evil just did not exist for the Cylons. What was essential to all Cylons was preserving the natural order of the universe, and they were relentless guardians of that order. For that reason the humans had to be wiped out. Their adventuresome ways and overriding need to explore areas where their mere presence threatened universal order had irretrievably destined them for elimination at Cylon hands. Imperious Leader believed peace must be returned to the universe. The humans' unfortunate tendency toward independent thought and action could no longer be allowed to disturb the inhabitants of worlds whom they visited without invitations.
Good and evil! He detested the human portion of his mind for forcing him to consider that subject. He envisioned the deaths he would cause, the cities he would demolish, the worlds he would reduce to rubble—and saw that from the human viewpoint all of this necessary warfare was evil! The Cylons were evil. He was evil. He detested the very concept of evil, as much as he despised the concept of good. They were not opposites, and they were not mutually exclusive. Even most humans knew that. First-brain Cylons sensibly accepted the consequences of warfare as essential, and neither mourned their own deaths nor felt triumph in killing humans. Nevertheless, before initiating the destruction of Caprica, Imperious Leader found it necessary to disengage all his human philosophies, so that he could concentrate on strategy.
Two executive officers strode toward him, stopped before the pedestal, and formally communicated the request to attack, a ritual that went back to early Cylon history.
"By your command," the first officer said.
"Speak," said Imperious Leader.
"All base ships are now in range to attack the colonies," the second officer said.
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