Battlestar Galactica-05-Paradis

by Richard Hatch

  President Tigh was there too, as much to keep the peace as to enforce the will of the Council.

  Ryis had a bullhorn with him that would work even if there was a general power outage, a frequent occurrence at mass Gamon protests.

  "Attention, Gamon!" he shouted at the crowd. "You must disperse by 0900 hours or the battlestars will begin firing to clear the areas we need of Gamon protestors. If you still persist, we shall have to fire on your villages. This is your final warning."

  Suddenly the crowd parted for the oldest Gamon any Colonial had ever seen. The elder didn't normally make public appearances.

  As he moved forward, an anxious Ryis spoke into his bullhorn. "Seize that—"

  But before he could finish, Tigh grabbed the bullhorn away.

  "Show respect to this man!" shouted Tigh. "We don't have to kill one another. Everyone stand your ground."

  The elder stopped a short distance from the Colonial officials. The tumult died down. A crowd of tens of thousands stood in silence.

  The workman on the tower heard from his brother again.

  "Hey, Josh, it's really noisy down here. Hope you can hear me okay. Oh, you can hear me? Great! No, I don't care if your pal listens. So here's what's going on down here—"

  High up on the construction tower, the workman named Josh shook his wristcom a few times, then got his brother back on.

  "We lost you for a bit," he said.

  "Sorry about that," answered the brother.

  "So what's happening?"

  "Not much. The Gamon are standing there. The old one is smiling. Ryis is frowning. That seems to be it."

  "No one wants to listen to reason?"

  "Not really, no. I'll call you back as things change."

  The two men decided that staying on their high tower seemed like a reasonable choice.

  Deep below the planet's surface, Galactican warriors were fighting for their lives. The leg of Starbuck's uniform was smoldering but the laser hadn't taken off any skin. That was about as close as he liked to get to a blast.

  Gar'Tokk, Apollo and Boomer joined him. Apollo tried to contact Athena but to no avail. "We've got to get out of here fast," said Apollo. "More is at stake than our lives. We have to stop the Council from initiating full-scale war on the Gamon!"

  "What are you trying to say?" asked Starbuck. "Is it time for me to be a hero again and save your ass?"

  Apollo grinned. "That's in our contract, isn't it? I put my ass in trouble and you save it!"

  Without waiting for an answer, Apollo started firing with his blaster and ran in a zig-zag pattern. He didn't even bother to tell anyone to cover him. His comrades acted automatically but none with greater precision than Starbuck, looking for payback for his leg.

  Apollo ducked laser fire as he ran. He almost avoided injury but he took a hit in his right shoulder and went down. Gar'Tokk shouted a war cry but Starbuck was even louder. Acting as one, they took off after Apollo, firing their weapons like madmen.

  Boomer held back because someone had to provide covering fire. He cursed at the extensive fire power they were up against.

  Reaching Apollo first, Starbuck attempted to pull his friend and commanding officer to safety but laser fire appeared around him as if a spiderweb made of light. Somehow, he got Apollo on his shoulder just as he himself was hit and they both went down.

  Gar'Tokk's war cry could have split stone as he reached their position. Another cry emanated from Boomer, who couldn't hold back any longer and made a dash for the others. Boomer seemed to be firing in half a dozen directions at once, covering the Noman's back.

  The four came together in the killing zone just as Starbuck pushed Apollo out of the way. The next round of fire caught him in the chest and he went down ugly. This time Starbuck screamed and it wasn't a war cry.

  Now it was Apollo's turn to help his friend. He dragged Starbuck out of the line of fire and eased him into a sitting position.

  Boomer spoke for all of them. "We're dead if we don't get out of here now."

  No one argued. They could see the shadows of their attackers moving in to cut off their escape. Starbuck was fading in and out of consciousness.

  "Don't give up, Starbuck," said Apollo. "You can make it. We're going to make it!"

  Starbuck revived a bit, just in time to argue. "What's the matter with you? I'm dying."

  Ducking laser beams was not the most auspicious environment in which to have a heart to heart, but they were effectively out of the line of fire. So the conversation continued apace.

  "Hang in there, old buddy."

  "Apollo, listen, all right? I'm in too much pain to stretch this out. I want you to know that although I'm jealous of you and Cassie, she deserves someone like you."

  "You're not dying!"

  "You're not paying attention. It even hurts to move my mouth, but I'll try again. My whole life I've been trying to prove that I don't need anybody. Cassie was the first woman who got through to me! She scared me worse than death. I've never been afraid of that—as I'm about to prove. I ran away from her. You don't need to run. You can do something I never could and make her happy."

  Then Starbuck ended the discussion by passing out. There was so much fracking history among all of them. Apollo wasn't about to let Starbuck get out of it by dying!

  "Why do you think they've stopped firing?" Boomer asked close to Apollo's ear.

  "Maybe they've been eavesdropping on our personal business," he replied.

  "They're waiting for us to move," muttered Gar'Tokk.

  "Then maybe we shouldn't move at the moment," said Apollo, fully aware that however near Starbuck was to death's door, the snipers would finish pushing him through the moment they got a bead on his inert body.

  There had to be a way out, but at the moment Apollo couldn't think of it.

  And then they heard the sound of small rocks sliding—but the noise came from behind, not in front. Apollo's first thought was that they had been flanked by their attackers, but the geography of the caverns would not have allowed that. Then who—?

  "Don't shoot!" came an urgent whisper. "It's us!"

  Dalton, Trays, Rhaya and Sheba moved slowly out of the shadows, crouching, but with hands in the air. Their situation was bad enough—no one wanted to be the victim of friendly fire.

  "Where did you come from?" Apollo was stunned. His spirits soared at their presence, but just as quickly sank as he realized there were now more who could die in the bowels of these caverns at the hands of their unseen enemies.

  "Well, we had to steal our Vipers and shoot our way off of the battlestar," Trays said casually. "You know, the usual drill," he added with a grin. "Having been down here before, we knew where you'd gone. When the shooting started we had almost reached you."

  "Lords of Kobol!" Dalton exclaimed when she saw Starbuck wounded and unmoving. She knelt by his side. "Is he—?" she began but could not finish her question.

  Apollo knelt down and turned the stricken Dalton to face him. "He is seriously wounded. But he will make it out of here alive. We all will. I promise you that." Despite the apparent hopelessness of their situation, the calmness and sureness of his steely voice brought the group a spark of hope.

  "Who are we fighting?" asked Rhaya.

  "We were ambushed. Still haven't seen who's shooting," Apollo explained.

  "Wonder why they've stopped?" asked Boomer.

  "Hmm. Can't be good. Okay, let's change things around. I say we go on the offensive. Let's take the fight to them," Apollo said. He checked his blaster, made sure that Starbuck was safe and secure in a place from which they could easily retrieve him, and told the others to prepare to charge.

  "I will see their faces as they die!" promised Gar'Tokk.

  Moving as one, they rose up and charged the unseen enemy. They formed a wall of screaming warriors, aiming high as they ran. Before their enemies could so much as draw a bead, large sections of the cavern ceiling—severed by laser fire—fell on top of them.

  T
he Galacticans swarmed over the other side's position, pulled their stunned victims out of the rubble and dust and didn't take a single casualty. Gar'Tokk lunged at one of the snipers—the only one who had neither lost nor dropped his weapon—and, true to his word, broke the man's neck before he could fire, killing him instantly. The others quickly surrendered.

  "What have we here?" asked Dalton, getting a good view of the bad guys.

  Apollo recognized their terrified captives. "These are Ryis's men," he hissed.

  Aboard the Daedalus, Athena was trapped in an untenable situation. She had stalled as long as she could, but now the time to execute Ryis's heinous order was almost at hand. She could think of no other way to postpone the moment.

  President Tigh and Ryis had left the planet with affairs at a standoff and quickly returned to the battlestar. Now the two of them, and most of the Council members, surrounded Athena like a gang about to initiate a mugging.

  If only Apollo would contact her! What in blazes had happened to him? She'd already set the coordinates for the primary target, the large crowd of Gamon that still surrounded Ryis's primary building site. The only sympathetic face in the room was Tigh's. The others were combinations of nervousness and anger.

  Then there was the exception to normal human reactions. Ryis seemed to wear malice as if a well tailored suit. Only he projected a sense of joy. His primary ally, Sire Opis, sensed there was something skewed about the architect but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  Only Athena could do anything, and that would be through further inaction. But if she backed down on her cold promise to Apollo, what was to stop someone from the Council usurping her authority and giving the same order?

  She wouldn't have to worry about it much longer because the time was almost up. She fantasized spacing Ryis out the airlock. She hoped for a sudden Cylon attack.

  Her musings were brought to a conclusion as they reached zero hour. Ryis was keeping his eye on the clock and no one doubted his accuracy.

  "Are you going to perform your duty?" the man asked in a belligerent tone. She thought that giving him a solid sock to the jaw might not be her duty but would definitely count as a pleasure.

  But that wouldn't solve her problem any more than an impromptu striptease. Taking a deep breath, she reluctantly gave the order to fire upon the Gamon.

  Then came the longest slivers of time in her life. She prayed that each micron would stretch into weeks. She didn't want to bring down death and devastation on Paradis.

  With only a heartbeat to go, a message came in that allowed Athena to put the attack on hold. She'd been saved by a morbid miracle.

  "The Gamon are dying!" reported a guard serving at New Caprica City.

  "What was that?" asked Ryis.

  "Dying?" echoed Tigh.

  "Did you fire?" asked Sire Opis. "Did I miss something?"

  "We haven't fired yet," said Athena.

  "Is this some cheap trick to postpone the inevitable?" demanded Ryis.

  "The report is from one of your own men!" Athena spat back at him.

  "They're dropping dead on the spot," continued the guard excitedly. "I can't believe what I'm seeing."

  "I refuse to believe this," said Ryis. "The Gamon are playing a trick on us. We won't fall for it. I order you to fire, Athena, and do it right now!"

  "No." It was the easiest decision she'd ever made.

  Pushing past her, Ryis ordered the deck officers to fire on his command. When they refused, he shoved one away from her console and attempted to work the controls himself.

  Nothing happened because the system required more than one set of hands operating controls at the same moment. The civilian police official present, Captain Page, didn't know what to do but he had the presence of mind to realize that Ryis was out of control.

  In the background, the voice of the guard continued to describe the bizarre phenomenon of the collapsing Gamon. Athena wondered what could possibly happen next. But if she thought she was immune to further surprise, she was wrong.

  "Stop that man!" came the voice of Commander Apollo. As she watched her brother enter the bridge, she briefly wondered if she were hallucinating, then gave a quick prayer of thanks to the Lords of Kobol.

  Apollo had arrived with Boomer and Gar'Tokk, and a prisoner from their recent battle. The three warriors were a commanding presence on the bridge. The civilian police force was in a quandary, weapons part way out of holsters as they looked for guidance from their captain, whose uncertainty was contagious. At this point, he was as likely to order the arrest of Ryis. The Council members who were present began to move slowly back toward the bridge's exitway.

  It was time for Apollo to reassert his authority. President Tigh seized the moment, ordering the civilian police to, "Back off! Let Apollo speak!"

  "Thank you, Mr. President," replied Apollo with uncharacteristic formality. "I have a report to make to the Council. We have evidence that Ryis has been conspiring to foment an all-out war with the native population. He had his men trail us and attack us in the caves below the planet's surface. They would have killed us, if they could have, and blamed our deaths on the natives—ensuring retaliation from the Colonial Warriors."

  The announcement was met with stunned silence.

  Tigh cast a murderous glance at Ryis, who had finally realized that he could not fire a battlestar's weapons by himself. He was listening as attentively as everyone else.

  Apollo continued. "We discovered a crashed Thirteenth Tribe space ark in a vast cavern below the planet's surface, with vital information concerning this solar system's history and future. We were almost killed by some of Ryis's men, who obviously didn't want us to share this discovery with you. And if you don't believe me, you can ask this man, here, who was one of the unsuccessful assassins," Apollo concluded, pointing an accusatory finger at the man whom Gar'Tokk held by the scruff of the neck.

  Athena finally allowed herself to feel a deep relief that she had not launched the attack on the Gamon that could have permanently estranged her from Apollo and caused untold death and destruction.

  Tigh found his voice again. "Ryis, you are to be held under house arrest until we can determine what has transpired."

  The fight had gone out of the man. Tigh's statement had the psychological effect of restoring authority on the battlestar's bridge to where it belonged—in the hands of the fleet's elected president and its commander. With a real sense of satisfaction, the civilian police authority started leading the architect away. Handcuffs were not necessary.

  The Council members chose that moment to make themselves scarce. Sire Opis exited first, demonstrating a fleetness of foot that no one expected.

  "Apollo, can you tell us what is happening on the planet with the Gamon?" Tigh asked.

  "Yes, but first hold Ryis here a moment longer."

  The police captain stopped, and Ryis turned his face away as Apollo came over and spoke only a few inches away from his enemy.

  "Your men tried to kill us in the caves," said Apollo, gesturing again at the man being held by Gar'Tokk. "He confessed everything. If you had succeeded, the Gamon would have been blamed for our murders. You would have gotten away with your plan. The warriors would have joined you to avenge us!"

  Ryis was ashen-faced. He started to open his mouth, but closed it without saying a word—as much of a confession as Tigh and the others needed to know the accusation was true.

  Apollo grabbed Ryis by the collar. "The red giant that Paradis orbits is in its final stages of life. Gar'Tokk translated the tablets inside the space ark of the Thirteenth Tribe. They predicted thousands of yahren ago that we would follow in their wake. It's not by accident we came here. This planet's coordinates were given to me in a vision so we would have a place to rest and recuperate, not move in permanently ..and take over! What good would it do you if you had built your new civilization here only to see it destroyed?"

  Ryis stared at the man he had tried to murder. "But the reports of the scientists
I've been working with down on Paradis suggested that we have more time. Why dismiss those reports?"

  "You are such a fool," said Apollo. "The magnetic disturbances on Paradis have fouled up your readings from the beginning. We can't trust any findings taken from the planet's surface. And those we've taken from orbit confirm that the red giant is billions of years old—a prime candidate for moving on to its next stage—a white dwarf. And in the process it will destroy all life in this solar system. It may take another hundred years, or a thousand. But the odds of it beginning tomorrow are just as good. Do you still think it's a good idea to build a new, permanent colony here?"

  "I believed we had more time," said Ryis, staring at the floor.

  "You would have killed us all," said Apollo and turned his back on the man who would have finished the task begun by the Cylons.

  Suddenly, a message came in on Apollo's communicator. It was Koren. "Father! Caran is all right!"

  "What do you mean? What happened?"

  His adopted son told him of that attempt to destroy the Gamon village and how the girl they had rescued from the quicksand had been caught by the blast even as she tried to help.

  "She's in sick bay?" Apollo asked.

  "Yes, she survived the explosion."

  "More of Ryis's men trying to foment a war," Boomer added.

  "I'll be coming to sick bay soon," Apollo told his son. "I have to check in on Starbuck."

  "I need to return to the planet and see the elder," said GarTokk. Apollo nodded and the Borellian quickly left the bridge.

  "How is Starbuck?" asked Athena.

  "In surgery," Apollo told her.

  "How serious is it this time?"

  "Very serious."

  "You have to go to him," she said in a flat voice. "I—I must remain on the bridge. Make sure that Ryis's followers on the planet are informed that there has been a change in plans. Make sure no one else gets killed."

  Apollo caught his sister by the shoulders as she turned go back to her station, and saw the strain and shock on her face. Moments later they were embracing, finally able to release their pent-up emotions from the impossible turn of recent events.