04 - Unity

by Steven Harper - (ebook by Undead)

  Kara had never liked the dark very much, even as an adult. She knew exactly why, though knowing the source of the fear didn’t make it any less intense. When she was little, her father had used the dark. Like most small children, darkness made Kara nervous, and Dad knew it. He thought it was absolutely hilarious to hide in her closet just before bedtime and bang the door open while she was climbing into bed. His harsh laughter at her screams of terror still echoed in her head. Her pleas for him to stop doing it fell on deaf ears. She needed a sense of humor, she needed to be toughened up. After a while, she took to checking the closet when the lights were still on. Once, she had searched the house, padding around in her nightgown and bare feet, unable to find Dad anywhere. At last, Mom had told her to get her butt into bed and no excuses. Sure she knew where Dad was, Kara had thrown open the closet door. The space beyond was empty, except for her clothes and a few toys. Puzzled, but feeling safer, she had turned out the light and scurried over to her bed before anything in the dark could get her. Something furry shot out from under the bedstead and grabbed Kara’s ankle in a monstrous grip. Kara’s bladder let go and she almost fainted from sheer terror. The monster, of course, had turned out to be Dad wearing a furry mitten. He had roared with laughter, and then had whipped her for wetting her underwear.

  As an adult, Kara knew there was nothing coming to get her in the dark. Or she had known that. Now Cylons attacked from the dark of space. And there had been that time a bunch of robotic Cylons had gotten aboard Galactica and cut the power. Now the darkness hid Sharon. There were monsters out there.

  But this time, Kara was armed and armored, and she wasn’t alone. Beside her, Lee squinted down the hallway. “Helmet lights?” he whispered. “Or would that give our position away?”

  “I think Cylons see pretty well in the dark,” Kara muttered back. “We may as well use the lights.”

  They switched them on, and twin beams of light speared the darkness of the corridor and put sharp edges on the shadows. “Come on,” Lee said.

  They moved cautiously along the corridor. Their cautious footsteps clanked faintly on the ceramic deck plates, and the damp air smelled of salt water and algae. A part of Kara wanted to hurry, hurry, hurry—the Fleet needed the cure that only Peter could provide. Another part of her urged caution. Sharon might have already killed Peter and just wanted to frak with her and Lee. It wouldn’t be the first time the Cylons had screwed around with someone’s mind.

  The corridor ended in a door that was so new, it still smelled of solder. Lee tried to crank it open, but his hands were shaking too badly, so Kara took over. The hinges creaked, and the sound seemed to boom through the entire ship. Lee flinched. Kara waited until her heart slowed down again before stepping through, trying to cover all directions at once with her pistol. Darkness pressed in on all sides like black cotton, and Kara felt exposed and vulnerable despite the kevlar. Her breathing sounded too loud in her ears, a beacon for bombs or bullets.

  The space beyond the door felt big and echoey. Kara and Lee shined their lights around. Huge shapes loomed like black beasts, and catwalks made lattices far overhead. Kara made out trucks and loaders and giant equipment she couldn’t name, all motionless, and found herself tiptoeing past them as if they were asleep and the slightest sound might bring them snarling awake.

  “I think this is the spot where one of us is supposed to say, ‘Let’s split up, we can cover more ground that way’,” Lee murmured.

  “Frak that,” she scoffed.

  “Well I wasn’t actually going to say it,” Lee replied.

  Kara smiled in the dark, feeling a little better. A lot better, actually. Having Lee beside her felt good, felt right. They were a great team, both on missions and off duty. And when he had kissed her earlier…

  She slammed the brakes on that line of thought. They had to find Peter, and fast, or Kara would be one of the few people still alive the next time the Cylons showed up. The thought sent cold shivers over her entire skin.

  Something clinked in the darkness above and to the right. It sounded like chains. Kara thought about ghosts as she and Lee both swept their helmet lights across the underside of the catwalk above them. Nothing moved, though Lee’s beam was a little shaky. He tried to hold it steady and failed. The light danced around like a malicious fairy. Lee made a small sound in his throat, then coughed, trying to cover it. Kara’s heart ached for him. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “Lee,” she said softly. “We’ll find her. We’ll get you cured.”

  “I know,” he replied in an equally soft voice. “I can always count on you when the chips are down and my hand is shitty.” He paused. “Especially when the chips are down and my hand is shitty.”

  Kara slowly reached out, found his hand, and squeezed it. Her heart was pounding as if she were facing a hundred Cylon raiders by herself. Lee’s hand was shaking badly, and she couldn’t tell if he was squeezing back, but it was warm.

  Lee suddenly dropped her hand and swept his light to their right. “You hear that?” he whispered.

  Kara listened, still feeling the warmth of his hand in hers. She heard a faint shuffling in the darkness, but her flashlight beam picked up nothing but a giant conveyer belt. “Footsteps?” she whispered back.

  “I’m not sure,” he murmured. “I can’t quite—”

  “Why the frak are we whispering?” Kara interrupted. “She knows we’re here.” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Sharon, or whatever the hell your name is! I’m here! Lee too! Get your ass out here!”

  Lee flinched, then seemed to realize Kara was right. “Come on!” he bellowed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Up here, guys. And no insults, please. I’ve had a hard day.”

  Kara’s beam stabbed upward toward the voice, and she saw Sharon’s face looking down at them through the mesh catwalk two stories above them, not far from the place they had checked earlier. She was kneeling on a kevlar vest and peering over the edge of it. Next to her on the catwalk sat Peter. A long chain was wrapped several times around his body. His hands were tied in front of him with more chain, and the missile ordnance, now minus the duffel bag, was still cuffed to his wrist. He was gagged with a blood-soaked piece of cloth. Kara realized the cloth was a strip torn from the uniform of a dead marine, probably the same one Sharon had taken the vest from. Anger tightened in Kara’s stomach like a screw. She thought about taking a shot at Sharon, and instantly discarded the idea. Even if the bullet didn’t carom off the catwalk mesh, it would probably just hit Peter or the kevlar vest—a fact Sharon no doubt knew very well.

  “Hi!” Sharon called down to them, as if they were meeting to go shopping. “I’ve got your medicine. It’s all here.”

  “What do you want?” Lee said.

  “First, I want you to take off those kevlar vests and the helmets and your equipment belts,” Sharon instructed. “Toss them far away. Now! Or I’ll slice a piece off of Peter here. Set the helmets on the floor with the lights pointing up so you can see—and I can see you.”

  Reluctantly, the two pilots obeyed. Kara felt naked and vulnerable once the armor came off, and she had to force herself to toss it into the gloom beyond her flashlight beam. She set her helmet on the floor and pointed the light as instructed. The helmet looked like a decapitated head.

  “Now your rifles and your pistols,” Sharon said. “And the knives you’re keeping in the ankle holsters. Move it! Or I’ll cut off a couple of Peter’s fingers.”

  Kara gritted her teeth and tossed her rifle and her pistol away. Lee did the same. He also pulled a knife from an ankle holster and threw that away. It clattered in the dark. Kara wasn’t wearing an ankle holster. She pulled up her trouser legs so Sharon could see them. Lee shot Kara a knowing look, and Kara felt a tiny bit better—Lee was hiding more weapons somewhere.

  “So you can follow directions,” Sharon said. “Good. Now take off your shirts. Both of you.”

  “Our shirts?” Lee said.

 
Sharon flicked open a knife of her own and gestured at Peter with it. His wide eyes fixed on it. “Do it, Apollo!”

  Grimacing, Lee peeled off his shirt. Well-defined muscle rippled in the dim light. Kara, who lived in close quarters with Lee, had seen him undressed any number of times, but never had she seen him strip for a kidnapper.

  “Turn around,” Sharon said, and Lee reluctantly obeyed. A pistol was stuck into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back. “That’s what I thought. Toss it, Starbuck. And don’t get funny ideas while you’re doing it.”

  “Dammit,” Lee muttered under his breath as Kara plucked the pistol out of his belt line. Her hand brushed against his back. The skin was warm and smooth, and she remembered how he had cradled her back in the storeroom. His capacity to help her, protect her, was diminishing by the moment, and wasn’t that the way it always went? In the end, it came down to just you.

  “Now Starbuck,” Sharon ordered. “Lose the shirt.”

  Rather than put off the inevitable, Kara whipped off her shirt and dropped it. The sports bra she wore underneath covered more of her than most bathing suit tops, but still she felt exposed. She caught Lee not looking and knew he was a little embarrassed, even though he was wearing less than she was.

  “Turn.”

  Kara turned, showing she had no weapons. “Okay, fine. We’re unarmed and half naked down here. What the hell do you want?”

  “A trade, duh,” Sharon replied. “Here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to send Peter down, and you, Captain Adama, are going to come up. You’ll take me to the Raptor that brought you over here and we’ll both get in. Then I’ll pilot us away. When we’re a safe distance from the Fleet—and by that, I mean, ‘when you can’t blow me out of the frakking sky’—I give little Lee a transponder and shove him out the airlock. I make a jump, you fly out to pick him up, everyone wins.”

  “Except Lee, who’ll be sucking vacuum,” Kara scoffed.

  “He’ll be in a vac suit,” Sharon said with exaggerated patience. “Cylons still follow safety regulations. Sheesh.”

  “Forget it,” Kara said. “You’re stuck here, with nowhere to go. Why should we deal with you?”

  “Because there’s only ten minutes left on the timer,” Sharon said, gesturing at the bomb. “You better take the deal, unless you want to be licking your plague cure off the walls and ceiling.”

  “So you’re giving us Peter?” Kara asked. “I thought the point was for the plague to kill all of us. You kill Peter and the mission succeeds. That’s what you were trying to do at the concert, wasn’t it? I thought you just wanted to hurt a bunch of humans, but your real objective was to kill Peter after he infected everyone but before anyone realized he was carrying the cure. Though that doesn’t explain why you didn’t just kill him in sickbay during the kidnapping.”

  “The longer he stayed alive, the more people he infected,” Sharon said. “And it was way more fun watching his followers do what they did. You humans are willing to believe anything that sounds like the truth, even if it’s false.”

  “So why not kill Peter now?” Lee asked. “You put one bullet through his head and a second one through yours. We all die and you get home faster.”

  “True,” Sharon sighed. “But death frakking hurts, you know? I’d way rather avoid it.”

  Kara caught Lee’s eye and shook her head. “There’s more to it,” she said just loud enough for him to hear.

  He gave a tiny nod of agreement. “We need to play along,” he mouthed back. Then, louder, “So you want to take me hostage.”

  “That’s the plan. I don’t think Adama will shoot at me if I have his pretty-boy son Apollo chained up beside me.”

  “How do we know you won’t just kill him and jump away once you’re aboard the Raptor?” Kara asked.

  “You don’t. And maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do. But you’ll still have Peter and the cure.” Sharon paused. “Now there’s an idea. He could start a new group—Peter and the Cure. Assuming you all survive this. You only have eight minutes and thirty seconds left on the timer.” She pulled Peter to her and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “You’re so cute when you’re tied up. Maybe I’ll just keep you anyway.”

  Above the bloody gag, Peter’s eyes were wide with fear, horror, or both. Kara thought about what it would be like to be gagged with someone else’s blood and shuddered.

  “All right,” Lee said. “I’ll do it.”

  “No!” Kara said, stepping in front of him. “I’ll go instead.”

  “What?” said Lee and Sharon at the same time.

  “Lee’s sick,” Kara pointed out. “He’s already shaking. Soon he’s going to start babbling, and then he’ll die. He won’t be worth much as a hostage if he’s dead. Besides—I’ve had practice being a hostage already.”

  “No,” Lee said firmly. “You stay here, I’ll go with Sharon.”

  “Actually, I’m the one in charge here,” Sharon reminded them from above. “But this is so cute—the two lovers quarreling over who gets to be in danger.”

  “We’re not lovers!” Kara said, with Lee echoing a fraction of a second behind her.

  “Sure, sure,” Sharon said. “In addition to easily believing a false truth, you humans refuse to believe a real one.” She tossed a pair of handcuffs over the catwalk, and Lee caught them. “Starbuck wins the hostage lottery today, I think. Tell me where the Raptor’s parked, Apollo.”

  Lee gritted his teeth. “Aft, starboard side at ninety degrees to the axis.”

  “Good boy. Now I want you to—what was that?”

  Both Lee and Kara froze, listening.

  “Who followed you?” Sharon said sharply. “I said, if anyone came with you—”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Kara said.

  “No one followed,” Lee called upward. “I gave orders.”

  Sharon narrowed her eyes, then continued. “Just remember I have a knife and about six liters of plague cure up here just waiting to rain down on you. I want you to cuff one end to Kara’s wrist, Captain. A little to your right, you’ll see the end of a chain. Cuff the other end to one of the links. If you know what’s good for you, Kara, you’ll grab the chain. And hurry—you’ve only six and a half minutes left.”

  Peter made noises around the gag as Lee obeyed. The cuff was cool on Kara’s wrist, and she kept swallowing her own heart to keep it from leaping out of her throat. Despite her show of bravado, fear gripped her chest with a cold hand. Lee looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t know the words. The muscles on his broad back bunched and moved as he fumbled around in the dim light until he found the chain Sharon had mentioned. He brought one end over to Kara and fastened the free end of the handcuffs to one of the links. It clanked. Kara looked up, trying to trace the line of the chain, but she lost it in the gloom. She grabbed it with both hands.

  “Ready-set-go!” Sharon said, and she shoved Peter off the catwalk. Kara tried to shout, but sound died in her throat as she was yanked upward. Chains clattered, and pain wrenched her shoulders. Peter rushed down past her as she flew dizzily up toward the catwalk. Kara got a glimpse of Peter’s frightened expression and of the ordnance still cuffed to his wrist. Red numbers flashed, but she didn’t have time to read them. Her feet dangled over nothing. Sharon grabbed Kara’s belt and hauled her onto the catwalk. Below, Lee was already unwrapping Peter’s chains. The moment Kara’s feet touched down, she tensed to attack, but Sharon spun her around with terrifying speed and forced both of Kara’s hands behind her. The chain clinked again. There was a click, and both of Kara’s hands were cuffed behind her.

  “Don’t try to kick me, either,” Sharon said. “I’ll whack you over the head and carry you if I have to, and you won’t like it very much.”

  “Is Peter all right?” Kara called over the edge.

  Lee and Peter both looked up. Lee had freed Peter from the chain and the gag, but Peter’s left hand was still handcuffed to the missile ordnance. The timer was counting down t
oward five minutes.

  “I’m fine, Kara,” Peter called. “Gods. Are you okay?”

  “How do I disarm the bomb?” Lee said. “I don’t recognize this setup.”

  “Well, that’s part of the problem,” Sharon said. The timer hit five minutes and the numbers suddenly jumped. The minutes counter read zero and the seconds counter read thirty. They were counting backward. “Looks like you got to save your girlfriend’s life after all, Captain. And you, Starbuck, get to see both your lovers die.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  Kara stared in shock, then fought against her restraints. “No! Lee! Peter!” she cried through the catwalk floor. It felt like she was a mile away from them both.

  Peter looked up, stricken. Lee tried yanking at Peter’s handcuffs, but they didn’t budge. The timer continued its deadly countdown. Lee grabbed it, and his hand shook visibly.

  “Pull the timer off and it blows right away,” Sharon called down, and Lee froze. “Have fun with it. Come on, Lieutenant.” And she began to haul Kara away by one elbow.

  “Lee!” Kara shrieked. “Lee!”

  Below, Peter’s face hardened. Abruptly he shoved Lee away and sprinted off into the darkness. Lee, still shirtless, snatched up one of the helmets from the floor and pointed its light toward him. The timer, glowing an angry red in the dark, showed six seconds. Peter was already climbing into the heavy metal scoop of a loader. He shot one more look up at Kara. She stared back, feeling completely helpless.

  “I’m sorry, Kara!” Peter called. There were tears in his voice. “I’m so sorry.”

  He dropped into the loader bucket. Lee dove to the floor. Even though she was two stories above it, the explosion knocked Kara off her feet. It was like being slapped by a giant hand. She landed beside Sharon, the latticed metal of the catwalk scraping her bare arms and shoulders. Automatic alarms blared. Sharon recovered her feet first, yanked Kara back to hers, and towed her toward a set of stairs that led downward. The heat sucked the air from Kara’s lungs and shriveled her hair. The hot smell of scorched metal stung her nose and acrid smoke clawed at her eyes. Then she heard the scream of tortured metal, and a section of the catwalk behind them crashed to the main floor. The section Kara and Sharon were standing on tilted backward. Kara, her hands cuffed behind her, lost her balance and fell heavily to the latticework. She slid backward with a yelp, losing more skin to the catwalk.