Adama and Tigh watched the SuperViper head for the Galactica. There wasn't even enough time to engage the Galactica' s artillery to shoot at the test ship. Adama was glad he didn't have to make that particular decision. Some of the bridge personnel now crouched behind their consoles
Apollo suddenly sensed himself and Starbuck getting back into sync. "I feel something," he yelled. "We're getting some control back."
"But can we change . . . change course?"
"When I say now, push your joystick to the left."
"Okay."
"Any moment . . . any moment . . . NOW, Starbuck, NOW!"
In tandem they shoved their joysticks to the left. The ship responded immediately. It veered away from the Galactica in a smooth, controlled swerve.
On the Galactica's bridge, so many crew members exhaled in simultaneous relief that they sounded like a choral arrangement of sighs.
"Tigh," Adama said, "that was about as close a call as I can remember. Not since you and I made that suicide move against that Cylon attack. Remember, back above Tauran?"
"I remember. We almost flattened our own Vipers against the Cylon's lead ship. You got a reprimand."
"So did you."
"What I deserved for following you, I guess."
Tigh's remark made Adama laugh. They both laughed a bit too exuberantly. The bridge crew, more inclined to soberness, regarded them oddly.
Starbuck and Apollo were also laughing at that moment.
"We were almost Dramian flapjacks there," Starbuck said.
"You bet. I think I want to retire from test piloting for a while."
"Me, too."
The two spent the next few moments slowly making sure the SuperViper was indeed under their power and heading toward landing bay, which was now opening to welcome it, a great maw meant to swallow ships and remind pilots of their own vulnerability.
"Say, Apollo?"
"What is it, buddy?"
"I'm sure glad it was you with me on this one, friend. I think I'm alive because it was you."
"The credit goes to you just as much."
"Oh, I know that."
Starbuck's remark reinitiated their mutual laughter. However, on the Galactica bridge, Adama and Tigh had resumed their more serious demeanors.
"Any orders, Commander?"
"Only the obvious. Tell the R&D folks we don't believe their SuperViper is yet ready for regular flights. There'll not be any more tests for now either."
"Not for some time, anyway, I should think."
"After what I just witnessed, perhaps never. Our pilots, our people, are more important than all this fancy technology."
"I'm not sure they'll appreciate that thought, Commander."
"Doesn't matter what they appreciate. We almost lost our two best pilots out there. What is it, Rigel?"
"Captain Apollo requests orders, sir."
"Tell him to bring the damn ship in."
"Aye-aye sir."
Adama stood on the starfield and watched Apollo and Starbuck guide their ship to the landing bay. He didn't take his eyes off the ship until it had safely passed through the landing bay portal. His muscles were tense and it looked to Tigh as if the commander were guiding the ship in himself by psychic remote control.
CHAPTER NINE
All through the test flight, Cadet Hera had sat stiffly in her observer's chair, her eyes riveted on the scanner screen, her long and lean body shifting abruptly with each move of the SuperViper. Sweat broke out all over her ruddy skin. The bright light of the viewing room made her dark eyes more prominent than usual. Most people who knew her disagreed about the color of her eyes. They seemed to change with shifts in illumination and mood. Anyone watching her now would probably have called her eyes violet, a deep and intense violet. But no one in the room was watching her now. They all concentrated on the flight of the SuperViper.
When the test ship came close to crashing, Hera scrunched in her seat and shouted out instructions to the pilots. Her thin fingers kept brushing back strands of her black hair that kept falling in her face. After the ship had finally landed, she slumped in her chair, exhausted.
When she saw Starbuck emerge from the ship, she stood up suddenly and raced out of the viewing room. Arriving at the bay, she saw Starbuck sitting on a portable gurney, being examined by the pretty blond med-tech Cassiopeia. Hera knew that Starbuck and Cassiopeia had once been one of the Galactica's hottest items, so she decided to stay back, in the shadows, until Cassiopeia finished her medical duties.
Cassiopeia slowly guided her diagnostic scanner over Starbuck's body, keeping the scanner about an inch from him at all times. Her light blue eyes stared steadily at the readings on the med-scanner's row of narrow screens. When she'd finished with the examination, she announced, "Well, Starbuck, nothing registers."
"That means I check out all right?"
Cassiopeia smiled the half-smile that signaled a coming sarcasm. "No, it means you're dead. Of course you're all right. You can be King of the Health Parade."
"If you'll be my queen."
"Don't even start in on me."
Starbuck had noticed how touchy Cassiopeia had become around him, but he plunged on anyway. "What do you mean, start in on you?"
"It may have escaped your notice but we are not, in the ship's parlance, going together anymore."
"Give me a break, Cass. I'm a new man, I promise."
"No, thanks, I really liked the old one."
"Well, I haven't really changed. So, how about it?"
"Give up, Starbuck. I'm not available. Not now, okay?"
Starbuck realized he was too tired to continue to banter with her. That was a new one on him, being too tired to banter. He must be getting old.
"Okay, sure," he said. "Sorry, Cass. I just miss you."
"I'm not receptive to the hangdog approach either. There, that's all, you can go to quarters, if you want to. See you around, bucko."
Her walk away from him was, he noted, a little stiff. The muscles of her shoulders were clearly tense. She was angry with him. He wondered if that was a good sign. Not knowing whether he was merely tired or discouraged by Cassiopeia's combatant mood, he shut his eyes.
Hera thought he looked weary and sad. She was not certain she should approach him, but she was a Vailean and Vaileans rarely turned back from a goal. She walked up to him and put her right hand firmly on his shoulder.
"Nice job, pal," she said. "We thought you'd bought the retirement village there for a while."
Starbuck's reply was muttered and indiscernible.
"What say?"
He took care to pronounce his words with precision. "I am very tired, Cadet Hera. I can't talk with you now."
She didn't like the tone of dismissal in his voice, but she went on. "I didn't come here to chat. Just to check if you're all right."
"I'm fine," he replied, his voice even chillier.
His stare at her seemed sullen, angry. She was more than ever conscious of how the odd cold blue of his eyes reminded her of the skies over Vaile. What right did he have to be so angry with her? Why did she even bother with him? It seemed as if, whenever they were together, they argued. She was tired of it.
"Okay," she said. "I don't want to pussyfoot around anymore. You've been down on me ever since you came back from Yevra."
"Hera, I . . . I just don't want to talk right now. That's all I'm saying. All I'm saying."
What right had he to dismiss her so icily? She felt anger build up in her, an anger that she'd been trying to suppress for a long time now, ever since the Yevra mission. Before Yevra, they'd been good friends and might have become more than that, except that Hera, as a Vailean, tended to speak her mind. She had announced rather abruptly to Starbuck that she wished to be his woman. He hadn't liked that and had said she was wrong to make that proposal to him. It was up to him to make such proposals. He preferred to pursue his women, he had said. Perhaps if she had not been so assertive, he would have warmed to her, and things might have
worked out for them. She was definitely attracted to him, and was willing to negotiate, but her Vailean independence kept her from working things out on his terms only.
Starbuck got off the gurney, avoiding looking up into the woman's intense stare, and ambled over to a Viper. He leaned against it, facing away from Hera. She followed him and, straightening to her full height, two inches taller than Starbuck, stood behind him. "We're kinda on the outs, I guess. You didn't answer. That means it's true, I guess."
"I guess."
He mumbled the response, and she couldn't detect whether there was regret or sullenness in his voice.
"What's it about?" she asked. He didn't respond. "Never mind, I can figure it out. It's because I told the commander you were going off on your own to search for Apollo."
Starbuck's half-shrug informed her she'd guessed right. For a happy-go-lucky guy, he sure could be stubborn, she thought. Or was he right? Had she violated some personal trust—or the fighter pilots' code? At the time it had certainly seemed like the right thing to do. Starbuck had been planning to disobey Commander Adama's orders and desert the fleet to search for the missing Apollo. Hera had figured out his intentions and tried to reason with him. Adama had also gotten an inkling of Starbuck's intentions and confronted Hera about them. She had resisted the commander's urgings, but he had insightfully verified his suspicions because of the manner of her denials. Later, when Starbuck had been about to take flight, Hera had socked him on the jaw and dazed him. Then she, with the endorsement of Lieutenant Boomer and other crew members, had summoned Adama to reason with Starbuck. Instead of disciplining the rash young pilot, Adama had offered him a deal. Adama would join him in the search, but Starbuck would follow orders, including an order to return to the Galactica if the search proved fruitless. Starbuck had agreed.
Now he could barely utter a civil word to Hera. She wasn't sure whether he was angry because she peached on him to the commander or because she'd decked him in front of several of his fellow fighter pilots.
"I don't know what you're so angry about," she said. "I did the right thing. Everything worked out okay, didn't it? Apollo's safe now."
Starbuck's reply was clipped, distant. "Just because it worked out doesn't mean it was the right thing."
"Starbuck, you were about to do a damn foolish thing. Somebody had to stop you."
"You mean you had to stop me. What for, Hera?"
His accusation confused her. "What do you mean, what for?"
"I mean, why'd you care what I did?"
"If somebody tries to wreck his life, it's up to his friends to do what they can to—"
"Oh? Are we friends then, Hera? I thought I was an officer and you were a cadet and that was about as far as it went."
"Well, uh, okay then, comrades. What I did, I would have done for anybody else. Boomer, Jolly—"
"Is that so? You didn't think you had a special duty to interfere with my life? You ratted on me, Hera. Why?"
"You keep putting things in the wrong perspective. I—"
"What perspective would you like? If you didn't rat on me, what in Kobol did you do?"
The cruelty of his quietly spoken words angered and confused Hera. "I . . . well, I ratted on you, I guess. But my reasons were good. The commander said—"
"I don't care what the commander said. I don't care what you say. Don't you have some duty to perform somewhere, Hera? Cadet Hera."
She was furious at him for pulling rank. She backed away, her eyes darkening. She wanted to leave. On the other hand, she hated to allow a misunderstanding to remain between them.
"Listen, Starbuck, on Vaile, if a misunderstanding develops, we don't stand around trading clever words, we knock heads to work things out."
"I don't want to knock heads with you, Hera. Just—"
Hera took two steps toward him, ready to knock his head against the Viper. "No, wait! You and I, Starbuck, our problem is not about ratting. If Boomer or any of your buddies had interfered, you'd be thanking them. You'd all be going around buddy-buddy, patting each other on the back and talking all that brotherhood of the corps felgercarb you're all so fond of."
"Hera, why don't you take a—"
She grabbed him by the shoulders. Starbuck generally didn't like people grabbing him so suddenly. Since Hera was so much taller, he felt doubly uncomfortable.
"Listen to me!" Hera said. "You've had a grudge against me ever since I proposed we spend some sack-time together. You didn't turn me down because you didn't want to do that, you turned me down because I was the one who asked! You are supposed to make the sly suggestions. On this misbegotten ship, the women are supposed to wait around until the men, the hotshot skypilot warriors, summon them."
Now Starbuck was as angry as she was. His eyes weren't icy any more, they were fire.
"You're new here," he said furiously. "Who said you could go around telling us how to—"
"Oh? I can't speak out because I'm new. You mean I'm not one of the club, one of the hotshots at the top of the heap, a—"
"I didn't mean that. Not any of it. I mean, get off my back. I don't need any more bilge from a mouth that walks."
"Starbuck, you—"
Her wrath prevented her from saying any more. She didn't have to. Starbuck pulled out of her grasp and stalked off. She was too furious to follow him.
She stood by the Viper for a long while, unable to calm down. She had rushed here to commiserate with Starbuck and wound up in an argument with him. She didn't understand why they had to battle each time they were together.
There must be a way to make him see some sense. If only she could come up with a way to show him, some suitable revenge that would enlighten him. But why revenge? she thought, and then realized that revenge was precisely what she wanted. Not just revenge on Starbuck but on all the men of the Galactica for the arrogant way they treated the women.
Their arrogance was clear even in cadet training. The male officers gave the male cadets a kind of subtle encouragement which the females didn't receive. What the females got was, at best, some condescending approval. When they failed, the males were positively oozing with their feelings of superiority.
Seething, Hera strode out of the landing bay, her mouth working furiously as she muttered her vow to find some way to get back at the men, to prove her point.
CHAPTER TEN
If he could concentrate for long enough, Baltar felt sure he could count how many nerves there were in his body. Every one of them was tense.
His nervousness was enhanced by the dismal and spooky darkness in the operating room. The lone illumination came from the intense trio of lights above the operating table and the reflections of that light off the metal uniform of the Cylon specialist who had the responsibility of remolding Baltar's face.
Why had he put himself into this crazy, dangerous situation? Baltar wondered. Was his ego so damaged and his need to regain power so strong that he must resort to such desperate measures? What good was either his ego or his power if, in order to heal them, he had to put himself in jeopardy aboard the Galactica? Suddenly the physical pain he was waiting to undergo didn't seem worth his cherished goals. He could, after all, retire from Cylon service, to find a quiet place, live out a rather comfortable life. Was there something psychologically wrong with him, something more than a talent for villainy could explain? Villainy did not even adequately express his character. He was more than a mere villain. In human history, he was its most evil (and most successful) traitor. The death, disaster, and destruction he had caused was so enormous it could not be assessed in normal mathematical terms. If there was an explanation for Baltar's past behavior, his continuing obsessive drive toward manipulation and power, even he could not at present supply it.
The Cylon technician briefly left the operating table. Baltar sensed it was nearly time for the procedure itself. Panic took over his mind and body. He could not think and limbs began to tremble.
The specialist returned. Methodically, he jabbed at several area
s of Baltar's face with a probing instrument that looked extremely sharp. As he worked, he questioned Baltar coolly. "Do you feel this? This? This?"
"I don't feel a thing. Am I dead?"
"No. All your vital life signs are registering, your organs are all—"
"Okay, okay, I get it. I was only joking."
"Joking? Can you explain to me the joke?"
Baltar couldn't help sneering at this typically emotionless Cylon. "Not in a million yahrens," he said.
"In my profession there is little humor."
"Perhaps you should spend some time in front of a mirror. No, don't ask me to explain that one either. Hey, what are you going to do with that?"
The specialist had wheeled into place a dangerous-looking machine that had an ominous face mask dangling from it. The face mask swung back and forth like a hangman's noose, right in front of Baltar's eyes. The machine made strange gurgling and whining noises, sounds that Baltar wanted to interpret as fatalistic prophecies. Sections of the machine, on tracks, moved threateningly back and forth.
"What do you plan to do with that?" Baltar shouted. He couldn't disguise the fear in his voice.
"In order to restructure your facial appearance, it is necessary to soften your bones and reshape them so that we can then alter your facial features in such a way as to—"
"Please. Please stop." Baltar felt faint. "I don't want to hear any more about it. Just do it."
"Nothing simpler."
The Cylon set a few dials on the machine, flipped a few toggles, checked some readings, and then, in a sudden terrible move, grabbed the dangling face mask and shoved it onto Baltar's face. Baltar wanted to scream, to pass out. The face mask made his supposedly anesthetized skin feel sudden rushes of fierce pain. He wanted to push it off, but his hands had been clamped to the operating table. The technician performed some more manipulations on the machine's controls, and the face mask began to vibrate and then move in a circular motion. It seemed to Baltar to be eating its way into his head. He thought he could feel his bones cracking. His face seemed to be dying. Finally, he passed out.
Battlestar Galactica 14 - Surrender The Galactica! Page 6