"And it's a good chance they're mining Tylium, right?"
"Right. They've got to be doing something sinister to bother with all this protection."
"Thanks for mentioning that," Apollo said. He looked at his chronometer. "Well, I've got to hotfoot it now, and check on my ship."
As he watched Apollo stride out of the room, Adama felt pleased at the clues to a renewed confidence in his son. Perhaps all the new troubles had forced the memory of Zac's death to the back of his mind. Continuing troubles had a way of doing that. He wondered, too, if the improvement he perceived in Apollo was at all attributable to the charms of that lovely newswoman, Serina, or the way she had directed his attention to the troubled boy, Boxey.
Athena sprang into the room as if she'd been crouching by the doorway, awaiting Apollo's exit. She had a copy of the three pilots' orders clutched in her fist.
"Father," she said, "I can't believe you're doing this. Why couldn't you have listened to the others, gone to Borallus instead of this filthy, dangerous place?"
For a moment Adama felt terribly confused. It was difficult to shift his concentration from the satisfaction over his son's confidence to this new disturbance from his other child.
"What is it, Athena?"
"You're taking such an awful chance with their lives."
"Of course. They know that. They could back out without blame, you know that."
"Ah, damn, Starbuck's too much of a fool to back out of a dangerous mission."
Adama was beginning to understand the source of her rage.
"It's Starbuck you're worrying about, is it?"
Her shoulders sagged suddenly, as all the rage seemed to go out of her in a rush.
"It's not just that, Father. I'm worried about Apollo, too—you know that. And Boomer. It's just that—I don't know what it is."
"You love Starbuck and you're naturally—"
"I hate that bastard!"
Another surprise. Adama took Athena in his arms and asked her what was wrong. Holding back her tears, she told him about her discovery of Starbuck and Cassiopeia making love in the launching tubes.
"Well, so you have to fight for your young man," Adama said. "That's not so hard. You're a fighter. I'm proud of your courage and your—"
"Oh, shut up, Father. That's not what I want to hear. I'm just, I don't know, very disturbed, and I don't know what to think. I used to think I could cure myself of Starbuck, get a pill out of sickbay or something and forget about him. But, I don't know, it's this war and the destruction of our home planets and this desperate voyage to a place where we don't know what we'll find. Everything's in a different perspective now. Hopeless. That's why I'm so frightened about this—this mission. Everything's been hopeless since—if they survive this, if any of us survive, what next? Will we find this Earth you claim isn't myth?"
"Perhaps not."
"I was thinking that. We could grow old waiting. I mean we may never have the chance, the chance to—to—"
"To form permanent relationships, have children, and a home?"
"Yes."
"You know, I think it's a bit premature for you to be worrying about your old age. I, on the other hand, ought to give a great deal of thought to this voyage. When we reassemble the fleet and my resignation as president of the council takes effect finally, then I—"
"Get that idea right out of your head. You're not going to resign. You have to lead them. You're all that's left."
"We're recycling an old argument, which is not to the point right now."
Athena hugged her father. She had not done that so spontaneously in some time, and he was happy to feel the tension between them alleviate.
"Thanks for consoling me," she said.
"Just returning the favor. Remember when you had to console your old Dad."
"Well, I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn."
"You're allowed it."
After Athena had left, Adama sat alone for a long time, thinking about the conversations with Apollo and Athena, satisfied that—whatever their arguments with him—at least they were on his side.
As Starbuck waited for the launch signal, his ship vibrated under him, as eager to get into action as he was. In his mind he went over Tigh's final briefing. All they had been able to discern through the scanners was that there were at least three types of mines in the field. There was the normal explosive type, which could blast to smithereens any ship that came into contact with it, plus any other craft within a kilometer's radius. A second kind seemed more instrument than weapon. It had electronic equipment all over its surface, and nobody aboard the Galactica had ever seen any mine like it, if indeed it was a mine. The third type created the most trouble. Rather than exploding, it sent off flashes of light whose intensity was so concentrated they would blind anyone unlucky enough to set it off. Because of that danger, the three pilots had to fly the mission with their cockpits darkened and treated with a chemical to ward off the ray. Fine, Starbuck thought, if that had been the only kind of mine. But the chemical protection that opaqued the cockpit made it necessary for them to fly blind against all the mines, relying on their scanners to locate targets. In combat Starbuck liked this kind of seat-of-the-pants flying, but not in a suicidal mine-detecting mission.
Tigh's voice came over the communicator, asking his pilots if they were ready.
"Ready," Boomer's sturdy voice said.
"I'm ready," came the cool sound of Apollo. "What about you, Starbuck?"
"I'm not ready. But let's get it over with anyway."
A short tense pause, then the launch light came on and the three ships catapulted into space. Forming a neat triangular formation, they headed for the minefield. In the short interval of time it took to reach the field, Starbuck said a silent prayer to the goddess Luck, wishing her continued good health and a return of the favor.
"I'm going in for preliminary scouting," Apollo said.
"Good luck," said Boomer and Starbuck simultaneously.
"Don't jinx me with good wishes," Apollo said, laughter in his voice. "All right, I'm going to make a sweep by the nearest thingama—my God!"
"Apollo!" Starbuck yelled. "What's wrong?"
There was an agonizing wait for an answer.
"I found out what the mysterious mines were. They're not mines at all really. They're electronic jammers. Soon as I got near that one, everything in this plane started going haywire, including the controls. I was able to wrest back command of the controls and jerk the plane out of its range, otherwise I think I'd have been sucked in and then, I don't know, probably then it explodes. Come in carefully, you guys."
Starbuck flew in slowly, keeping most of his attention on the scanner, so he could avoid the jamming mines. Boomer came in directly behind him.
"Hey Boomer," Starbuck said, "don't slipstream me."
"Shows how much you know. There is no slipstream capability in spacecraft which—"
"I know, I know. We got to stop you memorizing those manuals in your bunk. I was just using a figure of speech and you give me academy lectures. I mean, get out on your own."
"Just trying to cash in on your luck, bucko."
"My luck has decidedly changed lately."
On the scanner one of the light mines was activated near the form of Apollo's fighter.
"You all right, Apollo?" Starbuck said.
"I'm fine. They were right about darkening the cockpit, though. I'd be blind now. Though I feel like I'm blind as it is. I can't see much. My scanner's doing an erratic dance. And it's getting hot, very hot. I'm veering off. Anybody make out anything else on their scanner about this field?"
"Negative," Starbuck said. "My scanner's burning up."
"Mine's gone," Boomer said.
"I was afraid of that. The jamming's playing havoc with our instruments. We shoulda stayed in bed."
"A little late for that, I'd say," Starbuck said. "What do we do?"
"Only one thing I can think of, fellas, and it's not exactly the best academy proce
dure. Seems to me we've gone by the book as long as it's feasible. Our only chance is to haul off, hold positions and blast away."
"You mean run a path right through the minefield?" Starbuck said. "With our scanners out of whack and our cockpits dark?"
"Does it sound difficult to you, Starbuck?"
"Oh, no. Duck soup. The nuts. Easy as pie."
"What if we miss a mine?" Boomer said.
"One of us'll be the first to know it. You with me?"
"I'm with you," Boomer said.
"God help me, I'm with you, too," Starbuck said.
"Let's fly!" Apollo said.
On the bridge of the Galactica, Adama and Tigh listened to the communications among the three planes avidly. When Apollo proposed running a path through the minefield, Tigh looked panicked.
"Shall I tell them to abort the mission, sir?" he asked Adama.
"We can't. Apollo has full authority."
"But we've got to stop him. This is too reckless a—"
"Colonel, there's no way we can stop him. Not only is it essential that we get our ships through the minefield, Apollo has a great deal to prove."
"What does he prove by killing himself?"
Adama shrugged, resigning from the argument. The truth was too painful to admit. Apollo might just like to kill himself in the middle of a bold heroic exploit; it would at least prove to others that he was not, after all, the vassal to his father's tyrant-king, doing Adama's bidding in a vast plot to deceive everybody.
Everybody watched the massive screen at the top of the console silently as the three sleek, delta-winged ships angled through the minefield, which was now brightly lit by two activated light-mines. The three pilots were firing everything they had, and with stunning accuracy. Mine after mine exploded and disappeared. Suddenly, when it became clear that Apollo's foolhardy plan was going to work, a cheer went up among the bridge crew.
"I don't know what to say, Commander," Tigh said. "They're clearing the path."
"Now that's precision flying," Athena said from her post, smiling at her father. It was one of his phrases, and she meant it affectionately. Starbuck's voice came over the communicator:
"I can't see a blessed thing. Are we hitting anything?"
"Be hanged if I know," Apollo said. "But it's cooling off. I do believe we made it."
"Yaaahooo!" screamed Boomer.
Then all their voices chattered together, and the exuberance of their three young heroes buoyed up the spirits of everyone on the Galactica.
Since the fleet of human survivors had disappeared, activity aboard the Cylon base ships had declined, leaving Imperious Leader more time for speculation about the minor failures within his otherwise enormously successful plan. He knew there could not be many human ships left, yet where were they? If the Cylon culture had had any inclination toward proverbs, they might have felt they were looking for a needle in a haystack—although haystacks were nonexistent on Cylon worlds, where grotesque livestock were fed blocks of nutritive substances through an osmotic process, and where needles had no point, literally and figuratively.
Perhaps the humans had worked up some kind of force-field camouflage. Imperious Leader's spy network had discovered clues that they had such a capability, and he had ordered his experts to develop anti-camouflage devices. He had not had a transmission from them since.
The leader was not so much disturbed by the technology causing the humans' disappearance as by the fact that they continued to keep out of sight. Baltar might have said it was the famous human resourcefulness, implying that resourcefulness had been a key human trait throughout their history. A human, Baltar had once said, was never so confident as when he had his back against the wall. A pompous outcry of arrogance, of course, no more than could be expected from the smug human traitor, but still a troublesome concept. The image, especially, bothered the leader. A Cylon arranged matters so that his back was never against a wall. He either plunged forward to his death or emerged victorious. There was little middle ground. But humans were always finding middle grounds. Curious.
A message came along the network from an executive officer. Some explosions had been registered near Carillon. Evidently some mines set in the protective field around the planet had been set off or had malfunctioned. On occasion that minefield caught and eliminated space pirates who had heard rumors about Carillon. Whether the humans had anything to do with the present series of explosions was debatable. However, the Leader ordered intense surveillance, because of the importance of the Tylium mining complex there. In all the years of the war the humans had not discovered that Carillon was a prime source of fuel supply for their enemy. Nevertheless, a sneak trip to Carillon might be exactly what the devious Adama might be attempting now.
This war with the humans must end for once and for all, the Leader thought. It had gone on too long, used up too much of Cylon resources. He wished to get back to the proper business of his leadership—to seek out the cracks and flaws in the unity and organization of his own race, to make the concepts of peace and order the synonyms they should be. Even now, in some Cylon worlds, the human practice of monogamy had been communicated to certain sectors of the population, and they were busy practicing it. Monogamy went against the basic concepts of the network of Cylon civilization, where it was vital that every Cylon attempt and complete as many forms or degrees of contact as possible. Monogamy contained in its disagreeable structure too many forms and degrees of limited contact, a state Imperious Leader could not abide, and he vowed to severely punish those Cylons practicing it when he could afford to devote attention to domestic matters again.
He ordered his executive officers to keep him well-informed with any clue that might suggest the invisible fleet's whereabouts. There would be no more middle grounds—not with the surviving humans.
After preliminary scanning by a scouting patrol of Red squadron planes, the livery ships were cleared to land. It was considered essential to provide the animals with some grazing and eating room. The livery ship officers had reported an increased listlessness in their animals, one which seemed to be caused by something more than just the limited rations available to feed them.
The farming ships landed soon after, and took immediate advantage of Carillon's fertile soil, whose texture and mineral content indicated a fine medium for the planting of accelerated-growth foodstuffs. At the same time, the farmer-technicians collected as much grazing material from the Carillon surface as they could, and transplanted it to the meadows inside the livery ships.
While Carillon was proving exceptionally fruitful for livestock and farming, it didn't impress some of its human visitors. Especially Boomer and Starbuck, who had been dispatched to the dark side of the planet to investigate mining possibilities.
"I'll be sure to come here on my next rest-and-recuperation leave," Boomer commented. "I just adore monotonous landscapes."
"Yes, it is lovely," Starbuck said. "Can't imagine why it isn't overpopulated."
A pilot on a viper flyby informed them that his scanners read life forms in an area a short distance from where Boomer and Starbuck were driving in their landram. Boomer broadcast the specified time check to the main expeditionary force, and announced they would investigate the life form report. Starbuck accelerated the landram and headed for the area the pilot had indicated.
"If this place is so bloomin' rich in resources, how come it was abandoned in the first place?" Boomer asked.
Starbuck shrugged.
"Legend has it the mining and colonization groups both got spooked and pulled out. Probably that's just a story, though. Looks to me like the planet was just too drab. In those days sources of supply were plentiful, plus it's off the normal trade routes, so I suppose Carillon was just written off as a bad investment."
"Then why's the old man think it's such a good investment now?"
"It's the only investment, Boomer, that's what he'd tell you."
"Yeah, he does have a penchant for finality, the commander does."
<
br /> "Yes, well—hey, will you look at that? That glow over that hill. What could it be?"
"I don't know, but it's what we're sent out here to investigate."
Starbuck coaxed extra speed out of the landram as they headed toward the aurora framing the hill ahead of them.
Not far from Boomer and Starbuck, the main body of the Galactica's survey team were coordinating their detection equipment to search for the fabled lost Carillon Tylium mine. From the point of view of a quartet of rather large insectoids who were spying on the Galactica's force from a nearby mountain, the humans themselves looked like small insects—organized and disciplined small insects. Each of these spies was about five feet tall, with large bulbous eyes near the top of oval heads, long thin trunks, and four arms, all of which were busy with either two-triggered weapons or several-lensed cameras.
One of the insectoids took aim at the formidable target of Lieutenant Jolly, but another one pushed the barrel of the weapon down. Seetol, a leader of the race called the Ovions by the few humans unlucky enough to encounter them, had for the moment decided not to kill any of the invaders. At least, not until she reported back to her queen. She gestured her soldiers back, took the camera from the Ovion who held it, and in the soft, monosyllabic language of her race ordered them away from the spying post. At a nod from Seetol another Ovion used all four of her hands to turn in different directions and at different speeds a series of four wheels concealed underneath a rock. With a just audible whine, an opening appeared in the ground and the Ovions disappeared into it.
Riding on a pod whose soft leaves sheltered them totally, the four Ovions progressed through a long, descending, subterranean passageway to a cell where the pod opened and they stepped out of it. The tunnel they now traveled through was walled with cell-like panels from which amber light glowed. They emerged from the passageway into an immense underground cavern. The giant, many-celled chamber went deeper into the ground than Seetol's keen eyes could see, and ascended almost as high. There were countless levels, each one ringed with compartments shaped like honeycombs. Within the compartments Ovion workers poked at walls, extracted nuggets of amber-colored ore, and placed them in small-many-wheeled vehicles which other workers continually drew in and out of the compartments and sent on through dark intervening corridors. To an outsider, this large-chambered mine might have looked quite nightmarish—but to Seetol, something of an aesthete among her people, it had an artistic coherence that excited her each time she stepped into it. Today, however, there was little time for aesthetic satisfaction; she had to continue her mission.
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