More soldiers washed into the city, firing their pulse rifles at the fleeing civilians. For every blast that the Cylons fired, a matching blast, directed with pinpoint accuracy back at the shooter, came from somewhere within the city. The flying mechs suffered the same fate as the Centurions, their turbolaser fire matched by laser fire from the city. Starbuck looked up, around, trying to find the source of the returned fire; he wondered if fleet Warriors had recaptured the high ground, or perhaps this city had its own set of caretakers, like the one of stone directly above them.
He continued to search, but there was no one.
Was it possible… ?
Starbuck laughed at that thought; he had come back from the dead! Once you crossed that feat off the list, everything else was a dawdle, just varying degrees of possible and improbable.
"Cease firing!" Starbuck shouted, his voice carrying loud and clear through the city, the buildings resonating with the sound of his words. "That's an order!"
The Warriors and armed civilians looked at one another, puzzled beyond words. "Are we surrendering?" one Warrior muttered aloud.
"A lot more people would have been alive now if we had," the civilian nearest him said.
They lowered their weapons but did not holster them until they could see which way the wind was blowing on this unlikely tactic. They didn't need to wait long, for the Cylons continued to fire their pulse rifles, and identical beams from unseen sources cut them down. Starbuck threw his head back and let fly a wild, unfettered cheer: The city defensively responded to any attack by reflecting the assault back on its aggressor!
Starbuck waved his arms, drawing the Centurions' attention to him. They raised and fired their pulse rifles, mirror laser flashes striking them a micron after they squeezed the trigger. Laughing, Starbuck ran to join Boomer and Sheba, who had suffered a deep gouge in her arm from the rampant laser fire before they'd descended into the crystal underground. Now that she had a moment to relax, the pain caught up to her, and she grimaced, hissing through gritted teeth. She hadn't been aware she was hit, but she knew it now.
Boomer looked at it, peeling back the flexi-weave of her uniform's sleeve; the heat from the pulse rifle had seared the material to her flesh, and she gasped as Boomer pulled it loose. "Missed the bone," he observed. "But you need a bio-plasteen on that as soon as we can get you to safety."
"Safety?" she asked, her face pale from the pain that pounded in her shoulder. "Where would that be, do you suppose?"
Starbuck helped her along, and they ran deeper into the city, after Apollo and his group. They didn't need to look far, for Apollo's group had come to a dead-end at the back of the cavern into which he had led them. And yet, he didn't think it was a deadend, because there were more ancient sigils carved into the crystalline walls.
Far behind them, the Centurions at last realized their own attack was being reflected back upon them, and they all ceased firing at once. They lowered their weapons and began moving forward after the humans who had conveniently penned themselves in a shallow cavern. They would capture the remaining humans; those who resisted would be crushed.
"What do we do now?" Baltar bleated to Apollo while judiciously holding Siress Kiera close to him for protection. "We trusted you!"
The corners of Apollo's mouth turned down as he shot Baltar a look. "Do I really need to remind you we're here because I trusted you?' he said.
Screams now came from the back of the group, near the mouth of the cavern, and rippled back along the line of trapped humans as the Cylons stalked ever nearer. There was nowhere to run now that would not lead the colonials either deeper into the cavern, or straight into the clutches of the Centurions.
Apollo ran his fingers along the carved figures of the Kobollian text and shook his head. Frustrated, he gripped the Star of Kobol around his neck and prayed, "Lords of Kobol, aid your people!" In seeming response to his heartfelt prayer, Talen was now standing at Apollo's side, although no one had seen her approach. She was just… there.
"What do I do?" Apollo asked her. "Tell me what to do."
But her only response was to favor him with a peace-giving smile, and to gaze at him intensely, with eyes as bright as the city of glass around them. Her eyes seemed to look into him, beyond him, passing through him like cosmic rays, but she had touched something buried deep in his subconscious and stirred it to wakeful life. He looked again at the symbols, and he remembered Adama telling him, Your brain had to be rewired. If everything else that had happened in his dreamwalk was real, then it stood to reason that much had been real, as well.
Apollo looked at Talen, nodded, and turned back to study the carvings. He blinked as they seemed to move like snakes before his eyes, crawling over one another, reforming themselves into words he could understand. Apollo placed his hand on them; they weren't actually moving, but in his brain, they continued to writhe and realign themselves into translated writings. And then, as his mind processed the information suddenly revealed to him, his subconscious transcribed the words into a melodic scale of aeolian cadences.
He stepped back and let the music flow through him and out of his mouth. Those near him could only blink in wonderment and a sure, rising sense the commander had gone quite mad, and at a particularly inconvenient moment, at that. Apollo stared at the wall, but nothing happened. He tugged at his lower lip, his brow furrowed, trying to understand what he was missing. Once again, he voiced the notes he heard in his head, and the wall shimmered oh-so-slightly, then grew solid once more. Apollo looked at Talen, who smiled softly. It was nice, but it wasn't an answer that was going to save them.
Choose wisely, both she and Adama had told him; trust your inner vision.
Apollo looked at the civilians gathered near him, and told them to listen carefully as he voiced the few, plaintive notes he felt certain were the key to their salvation. "I want you all to repeat that with me," he shouted, the acoustics of the crystal cavern carrying his voice to the end of the group. "Just do it! If you want to live, trust me!"
He turned, looked at Talen; he thought, just perhaps, she might have nodded, but it was so slight and imperceptible, it might not have been there at all. Apollo raised his hand and led the colonials through the seven notes. The acoustics of the cave amplified the chorus, taking it higher and higher until it reached a perfect resonance that shook the sigil-marked wall. Cracks, as fine as crawlon-webs, formed in the crystal face, spreading ever outward, and then they grew larger, wider, deeper, as the echo of those voices all raised together continued to vibrate the cavern, long after the singers had stopped.
Chips of crystal flaked away, falling like scales, followed by larger blocks, larger and larger, until those nearest the collapsing wall began to shriek in terror, convinced they had somehow managed to sing an avalanche into being. But the massive slabs of crystal fell away from them, collapsing into the cavern on the other side of the crumbling wall. The sound of the song reached almost deafening proportions, echoing and re-echoing off the walls and bouncing back off the sides of the crystalline buildings.
Apollo leaped over the rubble of the fallen quartz blocks strewn about the floor and into the revealed cavern, blinking at what he saw: it was the mirror image of the asteroid's interior, a shipping port built inside a massive cavern. No, not a cavern. The immense scope of the interior space, which curved off to vanish into the far distance, was like a gigantic blown egg within the center of the planet. Kobol was hollow. But that alone was not what stunned Apollo into silence, as incredible as it was. Rather, it was the sight of the entire colonial fleet that this shipping port housed, and the crew of those ships, which Apollo would have sworn he would never see again on this side of a Light Ship.
Cain, Athena, and all the rest were waiting there to greet them all as they made their way to their ships; as soon as one ferry left the platform, another ferry arrived to board more passengers.
Apollo approached Athena and Cain, his mouth hanging open. Athena slipped her arms around him and hugged him an
d, after only a micron, he returned the embrace. And, throwing decorum to the wind, Athena hugged Starbuck, as well. He did not hesitate to return the hug, and had to check himself before his hand could stray farther down her backside.
"How is this possible?" Apollo managed to ask; finding these words was not that much less a task than translating the ancient Kobollian script that had marked this cavern. "This isn't possible."
Athena laughed and squeezed Apollo's hand, hard enough to make him hiss. "Do I feel like a haunt to you?" He shook his head; no, she certainly did not. "An automated mechanism aboard the asteroid transported the fleet down here before the Tylium ignited. The technology here is even more advanced than we first imagined, but then, they did manage to traverse the universe long before the Twelve Colonies ever reached deep space. Kobol has given us a second chance… all of us," she said.
Perhaps it was one last application of the QSE technology that they were still only coming to understand, but Apollo wouldn't have been upset if anyone wanted to call it a miracle.
Behind them, the last of the colonials hurried through the cavern opening, and the wall began to shimmer back into solidity. Two Borellian Nomen, who carried the mortally wounded Gar'Tokk between them, passed through the warbling crystalline facade, just before it completely reformed and solidified.
"Get him to the med-unit!" Apollo shouted as Starbuck and the Noman loaded Gar'Tokk onto the shuttle. "We're not losing anyone else on my watch!"
Athena joined the shuttle back to the Galactica; Apollo started forward to board with them, and spotted Talen standing at the railing of the platform. She was smiling, but it seemed to be a sad smile, somehow, a smile of bittersweet resignation. Apollo stepped off the ferry, and motioned for them to wait for him. He moved nearer to Talen, feeling the strong reaction between them building like an electrical charge.
"The fleet's QSE technology has been modified," Talen said.
"You can't just brush me off like that anymore," he told her. "There are too many questions I have to ask you—"
"There is no time, Apollo," she said, and he thought there was something like regret in her voice. "You need to join your fleet, and quickly. Kobol is preparing to self-destruct in a very few microns."
Apollo was incredulous. "What? Why?" But he knew it was only a matter of time before the planet would die anyway, since the hollow asteroid no longer in orbit was destined to impact the surface; it would be a mortal blow to Kobol.
She laughed, gently, a sound of crystalline chimes, and this time, he knew that laugh. It was impossible, and yet, on this planet, he thought it was just possible… and exactly right.
"You and your people have done very well," Talen said. "The Lords of Kobol are proud of their children." She turned away and began to dissolve through the crystalline wall that had once again sealed the shipping port. Apollo ran after her, and she stood halfway through the wall, facing into the chamber. He placed his hands on either side of her, pressing nearer, until his face was only centimetrons from her's, near enough to kiss.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She smiled again, and this time he knew. "Someone who has loved you for an eternity," she said. Her features flowed for a moment, rearranging themselves into their original form, revealing the one great love of Apollo's life. It was the face he had known in his dreams, even before he had been born, before he had met her, before he had fallen, heart and soul, in love with her. It was the face he would know in any life; know her, and call her by her name. The face that still came to him, night after night, the ghost that still haunted his heart.
"Goodbye, Apollo," Serina said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SERINA!"
He began to weep, and to laugh, and he wasn't sure which he needed to do more.
"I've missed you so much…" Apollo managed. "No one else has ever been able to take your place."
"You won't allow anyone else to try," she told him, and stroked his face. Oh, gods, he remembered that; how he had missed that.
"I love you," he said. "I'll always love you."
"And I, you," Serina told him, and kissed him softly. "But you must find room in your heart for other loves."
She smiled, and he heard these words in his head: You must let go, and live. I've moved on, and so must you…
"Wait!" he cried. "Will I see you again? Serina!"
But she had already gone, fading back into the quartz wall, and for a moment Apollo was staring at the place where her face had been; but had she really been there, or was it just a trick of the light, playing on the facets of crystal? He touched the speckled, glittering surface, traced the contours of quartz that may or may not have been the face he thought he saw.
"Serina," he repeated softly. "I can't lose you again."
Apollo bowed his head, his chin touching his chest, his hands clutching weakly at the crystalline wall. It was Serina, he was sure of that, and even though his heart howled after her like a lupus at the full moon, he was oddly at peace. She was gone; this place of miracles was not going to return her to life, but it had returned her, however briefly, to his life. Apollo would always love her, and would always miss her, but he felt as if he had achieved… closure. The great wheel of life had turned and brought them back together for one last time, and now, he thought he might just be able to move on.
I've moved on… and you must, as well…
"Are you all right?" Cain asked. He placed his hand on Apollo's shoulder and gave it a fatherly squeeze. Apollo blinked his eyes dry and turned to look at the old legend. "What happened?"
Apollo shrugged. Just another miracle. To speak of it would somehow make it less, and he couldn't do that to Serina. "Everyone boarded?" he asked; he knew they were, but it was something he could speak of safely.
Cain nodded. "Probably neither one of us ever thought I'd say these words, but, you were right. I've misjudged you, Apollo," he said. "Maybe I've misjudged you all along. It looks as if you have more of your father in you than I thought."
Apollo managed a crooked smile. "And maybe more than a little of you, too, Commander Cain," he said, and placed his hand on Cain's shoulder, a reflection of the old man's affectionate embrace of Apollo. It was as close to a hug as these two were ever likely to come, but a deep sense of understanding and respect flowed between them at that moment.
Cain laughed a genuine, unguarded, non-political laugh. "Lords of Kobol help you if that's true," he said. Well, since you're still supreme commander, what are your orders?"
Apollo raised an eyebrow in question and surprise; he was shocked and moved at Cain's willingness to set aside his own immense pride and accept Apollo's advice. "We've got just under thirty microns to clear a path through the Cylon fleet and get our ships to clear space where we can jump to light speed before this place blows. We need to get word to the rest of the fleet as soon as we're back on our ships."
Cain's lips compressed in a thin, bloodless line. "The holocube was severely damaged when one of our shuttles was destroyed," he said. "We'll have to determine our destination ourselves, or jump blind."
Behind them, through the thick wall of crystal, they could hear the Centurions trying to blast their way through the barrier; Apollo suspected the force of the assault was hurled back at them, but the Cylons were, if anything, persistant, and it was a matter of time before they made their way through the wall.
"We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it," Apollo said.
"I'm sure you will," Cain said, without a trace of guile, and added, "I'll lead the way in the Pegasus, you follow with the Galactica, and the Daedelus bringing up the rear."
Apollo chuckled to himself: Cain had changed, but not that much. He was always going to be, or try to be, the alpha daggit.
"You have the honor of leading us out, Commander Cain," Apollo said, and the old man nodded in satisfaction. "Fighters will escort the battlestars and lead us all to the surface."
Cain studied the younger man, and placed his hand gently on Ap
ollo's jaw, a gesture so reminiscent of Adama that Apollo had to fight back sudden tears. "And I will have the honor of following you into this final battle with the Cylon hordes," he said. "Believe me when I tell you I don't say these things lightly: it is an honor, Commander."
Athena and Starbuck had been standing nearby but apart, to give the two commanders the chance to resolve any last moment differences, and now they stepped forward to take part in the planning of humankind's final, glorious exodus from Kobol. "There's an opening that leads up to the surface of the planet," Athena reported to Apollo.
He nodded. "Hopefully, we'll have the benefit of surprise, long enough to allow us time to escort our ships through, before we have to contend with the Cylon basestars. They have enough firepower to blow away a whole fleet of battlestars."
Cain puffed himself up with pride, and reminded the Supreme Commander, "We're not talking about just any battlestars, we're talking about the Pegasus, Galactica, and the Daedelus!"
They all laughed, the last time they would all laugh together, but deep down, close to the bone, where the truth lies, they all knew the odds were stacked against them. Even Starbuck, inveterate gambler that he was, wouldn't bet on a hand this bad.
"Hey, we've been in tough spots before," Starbuck reminded them. "Let's go get those gull-mongering tin buckets."
"Are you joining me on the bridge?" Athena asked her brother.
Apollo glanced at Starbuck. "Boomer and Sheba report we're critically short on experienced pilots. We really could use you in a Viper's cockpit instead of driving that tanker," Starbuck said.
Apollo was not just being diplomatic when he earlier told Cain there was quite a bit of the old man in him; he had never been able to completely relinquish the need to fly combat missions, preferring to balance time on the bridge between time in a Viper, but this time, his inner vision told Apollo his place was on board the battlestar. "Athena, you're in charge of the Daedelus," he decided. She opened her mouth to say something, but there was really nothing to say. Athena just nodded, pleasantly surprised by her brother's decision.
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