"Roger, Galactica. Starbuck out."
"Captain," Adama said, beckoning to his son, who was also listening closely. "Lieutenant Gaeta, stay, please." Adama, Tigh, and Lee joined Gaeta at the plotting table, where the most current chart of the Ragnar storm was laid out as a backlit transparency.
"How the hell did they find us?" Tigh growled as they gathered around the chart.
"Maybe that thing we found on the dradis display was some kind of transponder," Gaeta said darkly.
"Or," Lee suggested, "either Leoben or Doral might have gotten a signal out."
"It doesn't really matter," Adama said. "They've got us."
"Why aren't they coming in after us?" asked Gaeta.
Tigh answered in a cynical voice. "Why should they? They can just sit out there and wait us out. What difference does it make to them? They're machines. We're the ones that need food, medicine, and fuel."
Adama turned from looking at the nearby vertical situation board and looked around among the three of them. "I'm not going to play their game. I'm not going to go out there and try to fight them." He paused for a moment, then looked at Gaeta. "Can we plot a Jump from inside the storm?"
Tigh looked incredulous. "With all this EM interference mucking up the FTL fix?"
"I tend to agree, sir," Gaeta said. "I don't think we should even attempt a Jump until we've cleared the storm threshold." He indicated one of several concentric circles on the vertical board.
Lee spoke up. "If we're going outside the storm, we'll have to be quick about it. They'll launch everything they have, first glimpse they get."
"We could stick our nose out just far enough to get a good FTL fix, and then Jump," Tigh said. As the colonel spoke, Adama was momentarily distracted by the sight of the young presidential aide, Billy, crossing the CIC and speaking to Dualla. It didn't look like a business conversation; he looked like a shy teenager approaching a girl to say hello.
"And what about the civilians?" Lee asked, drawing Adama's attention back.
"Oh, they're probably safe for the time being," Tigh said.
This time it was Lee who looked incredulous. "You mean leave them behind?"
"The Cylons might not even know they're here in the first place," Lieutenant Gaeta said. "They're probably only after us."
"Now, that's one hell of an assumption," Lee retorted.
As Adama listened to his officers arguing the possibilities, his gaze wandered back across the CIC, to where Dualla and Billy were, quite obviously, attracted to each other . . .
Billy, whose heart rate had doubled when D. smiled and said hello, was trying to put words to a very awkward situation. "I—I'm getting ready to head back to the transport." He cleared his throat and shrugged, feeling that he should say something more than just that, but not sure what.
Dualla's eyes conveyed disappointment, but with a heart-stopping intensity. She could not have looked more beautiful. "Oh," was all she managed.
Billy struggled to muster the words. "I know this is awkward . . . but what happened in the passageway . . ."
"Yeah," Dualla said, with a sheepish grin. "I don't know why I did that. Sorry."
Sorry for what? Billy thought. Don't be. Don't ever be . . .
* * * *
Colonel Tigh responded somewhat indignantly to Lee's persistent questions about the civilian fleet. "We can't very well cram fifty thousand men, women, and children aboard this ship," he growled.
"I'm not suggesting that, sir." Lee was adamant in making his point. "I'm just saying, we cannot leave them behind. They should Jump with us."
Gaeta replied, "I just don't see how we can manage that without jeopardizing the ship."
Lee looked impatient. "We pick a Jump spot. Far enough outside the combat zone that—"
"What the hell is outside the combat zone at this point?" Tigh interjected.
Adama, only half listening to his senior officers, had been watching Dualla and Billy. He couldn't hear a word they were saying, but everything about their demeanor and their body language suggested that he was watching two young people falling in love. His thoughts flashed back to his recent conversation with President Roslin, and in that moment he realized what a fool he'd been. "They'd better start having babies," he said suddenly.
That drew a startled gaze from Colonel Tigh, and then from Lee and Gaeta. One by one, they turned to look across the room to see what Adama was watching. Tigh asked in a dry tone, "Is that an order?"
"It may be before too long," Adama said wryly. "Okay, we're going to take the civilians with us. We're going to leave this solar system and we're not going to come back."
Tigh shot him an accusing look. "We're running."
Adama drew a deep breath and faced his old friend. "This war is over. We lost."
"As far as we know, we're the last surviving battlestar," Tigh said. "If we flee from the system, the people left behind don't stand a chance."
"They don't stand a chance anyway, Colonel," Adama replied. "We can't save them."
In the face of Tigh's disbelief, Lee suddenly said, "My father's right. It's time for us to get out of here." His assertion was clear and firm.
My father's right. Adama could scarcely believe he'd just heard those words. But he didn't have time to dwell on it. He had just proposed a bold move, and he wasn't entirely sure how to pull it off.
Colonel Tigh clearly knew he was overruled. "So where are we going, Commander?"
Adama reached under the table and pulled out a wide-view star chart. He studied it for a moment, then pointed to a cluster of stars thirty or so light-years away. "The Prolmar Sector."
"That's way past the Red Line," Tigh protested.
The Red Line. The distance beyond which their calculations were considered too uncertain, too risky for a single Jump. And yet, how else to get beyond the reach of the Cylons? No one knew where the Cylons were based, but the Prolmar Sector was at least in the opposite direction from Armistice Station. So in a game of wild guesses, it seemed a better bet than many they might choose.
Adama turned to Gaeta. "Can you plot that Jump?"
"I've never plotted a Jump that far, sir," Gaeta said worriedly.
"No one has. Can you plot that Jump?"
Gaeta took a moment to think about it. "Yes, sir."
Adama nodded. "Do it . . . by yourself."
Gaeta acknowledged, took the chart, and headed for the FTL station.
Tigh looked very worried. "The margin of error at that distance . . ."
"I know. It's a big risk. We could be way off, we could land inside of a sun. But at least we won't be here with the Cylons." Adama turned to the vertical situation board and changed the subject. "This is a bad tactical position. We'll pull the Galactica out . . . five klicks. Send out the fighters." He traced on the board with his hand. "The civilians will come out behind us, cross the threshold, and make the Jump—while we hold off the Cylons."
He turned back and faced Lee. "Once the civilians have made the Jump, every fighter is to make an immediate combat landing. We won't have much time."
"I'll tell them," Lee said.
"I want all my pilots to return." He fixed Lee with his gaze. "Understand?"
Lee stood unmoving for a moment. "Yes, sir, I do." Every muscle in his neck seemed taut. Then he turned and headed off to the pilots' ready room.
Adama and Tigh both watched Lee go. Then Tigh leaned across the table and said, "So could I ask what changed your mind?"
Adama felt about six layers of emotion pass through his face, then clear away. "You can ask," he said, with a straight face. Tigh finally let out a wry chuckle, and Adama matched it.
Tigh's next question was a lot more sobering, though.
"So what do we do about our prisoner?"
* * * *
Ragnar Station, Interior
"What? You can't—you can't—you can't do this!" Doral's cries echoed through the metal-walled chambers of the Ragnar Station. Tigh accompanied a crew of two guards and two crewme
n carrying cases of supplies, as they force-marched Aaron Doral into a huge, unused compartment within the Ragnar Station.
"You can't just leave me here to die!" Released by the guards, Doral spun around and shouted his desperate plea.
Tigh answered in a steely voice. "You've got food, water, all the luxuries of home." Even as he said it, he was turning to go back to Galactica. The guards and crewmen followed.
"I'm—I'm begging you! Don't do this! I'm not a Cylon!" Doral cried behind them.
"May be, but we just can't take that chance," Tigh said with finality. "For all we know, you could be the one who gave them our position."
"I'm not a Cylon!" Doral screamed.
The guards, backing out of the entrance, pulled on the heavy steel doors. "What kind of people are you?" Doral shouted, as the heavy doors shut with a thunderous boom. There were two further clanks as locks slid into place.
Through the heavy steel doors, they could still hear his shouts:
"Don't leave me . . . !"
Chapter 46
Leaving Ragnar Anchorage
"Action stations! Action stations! Set Condition One throughout the ship!"
The warning voice echoed repeatedly as Commander Adama turned off the main corridor, went down a set of steps, and strode into the CIC. The place was afire with tension. The crew were doing their jobs with deliberation overlaid with urgency. Colonel Tigh met him. "The fleet is ready to Jump, sir."
Adama nodded. "Lieutenant Gaeta," he said, crossing the center of the CIC.
"Yes, sir."
He handed Gaeta an octagonal paper bearing a complex series of numbers. "Disperse to all the fleet. Final coordinates." He'd had two other people plot the Jump independently, and used their results as a check on Gaeta's calculations. Gaeta's work was confirmed. The start-point coordinate was still missing; that would have to await their emergence from the storm.
"Yes, sir." Gaeta took the paper and went at once to the nearest comm station. He would be transmitting the coordinates not by wireless, which the Cylons might intercept even through the storm, but by short-range ship-to-ship laser transmission. If they'd been at sea, they might have used blinker lights, in a cascade from one ship to another.
Adama spoke quietly to his XO. "Stand by to execute battle plan."
The fleet was moving. Galactica led the way out through the maelstrom of Ragnar's atmosphere, taking a carefully chosen course that would keep as much of the fleet hidden as long as possible from the Cylons. The green clouds swirled their toxic dance. Lightning flashed along the edges of the ships.
It was an armada such as humanity had never launched before, except perhaps in the days of the exodus from Kobol, in the distant past. There were ships of every size and description: small freighters and transports, enormous passenger liners, private yachts, tankers, a ring-ship, one of just about every kind of ship known to the Twelve Colonies. It was motley, it was ragtag, and it looked as though it couldn't possibly stick together in a coordinated fashion. And yet it did.
Galactica was now approaching the outer limits of the storm, close to the point where they could take their final reading and make the Jump—and also close to where the Cylons would detect them with ease.
As they reached the outer fringe of the atmosphere, the battlestar began a slow turn, bringing herself broadside to the expected position of the Cylons. Galactica's purpose was to defend the Ragnar storm exit point. If she could protect the civilian fleet from the Cylons even for a few minutes, it would give the fleet the precious seconds it needed to make the Jump.
Only a matter of moments, now.
"Weapons grid to full power," Colonel Tigh ordered, striding through the CIC. "Stand by enemy-suppression barrage."
On the outer hull of Galactica, forty-eight gun batteries swung into position, both rapid-fire cannon and longer-range heavy cannon. In the last battle, there'd been no ammunition for these guns, but now their magazines were full. On the other hand, they'd faced only a few raiders before; now they were up against a much more fearsome enemy, the Cylon base stars.
As the gunners made ready to fire, Galactica emerged at last from the interference of the storm, into what should have been the calm of space.
Gaeta, on the short-range dradis, saw what most of the crew could only imagine with dread: Cylon raiders swarming away from the nearby base star, like bees from a hive. They were too many to count by sight, but the dradis console told him the news. "Incoming seventy-two Cylon fighters, closing at one-two-zero mark four-eight!"
"FTL, get your fix and transmit to the fleet!" Adama ordered, watching on the overhead dradis monitor. He hated to give the Cylons time to disperse for attack, but they were still out of range. Until . . .closing, closing . . . now. "Enemy suppression fire—all batteries execute!"
His command was echoed by Colonel Tigh, on the all-ship: "All batteries, commence firing."
The outer hull of Galactica came alive like a manic fireworks finale. The long-range cannon pounded out heavy fire against the enemy, thud-thud-thud-thud, relentlessly. The rapid-fire cannon erupted in streaming volleys, creating a jet stream of deadly fire raining outward at the incoming raiders.
The emptiness of space was filled with swarming killers, the scythelike Cylon raiders breaking in seemingly random zigzags, the hail of fire from Galactica, and then the white-hot streaks of the fast-boosting Cylon missiles, aimed at the battlestar and the fleet behind her. For a few moments, it looked as if the suppression fire was doing nothing. And then the Cylons started to explode, repeatedly, in great blossoms of fire . . .
From within the ship, it sounded like a continuous drumroll, over the bass-drum pounding of the heavies. Adama watched, grateful for every gunner who managed to pick off an incoming missile or an approaching fighter. Finally, Gaeta called out, "Perimeter established!"
The suppression-barrage had created a bubble of relative safety immediately surrounding the ship; now the Vipers were to widen the bubble and keep the raiders at bay. "Launch Vipers," Adama ordered.
The voice of Dualla called out over the all-ship, "Vipers, cleared to launch."
In the port launch bay, Captain Kelly gave the word, and Vipers sped down multiple launch tubes, flung into space by the magnetic catapults . . .
In the lead squadron, CAG Lee Adama, call-sign Apollo, led his wing of Vipers in a sweep, starting by getting them the hell out of the line of fire of Galactica's gun batteries. His call went out to all the Vipers: "Broken formation, Razzle-Dazzle, don't let 'em use their targeting computers! And for frak's sake, stay out of Galactica's firing solution!"
In another Viper, Starbuck nodded, keenly aware of just how difficult that was going to be. Cylons everywhere, freewheeling dogfight—and pull it off without getting directly between Galactica and the enemy.
From Galactica came the final instruction, Dualla's voice calmly passing on the order: "Vipers engage fighters only. Leave the base star to us."
"Okay, people, let's do it."
At Apollo's signal, the Vipers shot outward in irregular formation, opening fire on the approaching raiders. In moments, all was chaos again, as fighters dodged and swerved, engaging the enemy. Some Cylons exploded, but so did some Vipers.
Apollo was hard pressed to track the immediate adversaries, keep a watch on the squadron at the same time—and do so without the aid of onboard computers. He was flying the way he had not flown since his last war games: spinning, twisting, flying tight and fast, and mostly by the seat of his pants. To his right, he saw one of his wingmen explode, hit by a Cylon missile. Cursing viciously, he dodged a raider, brought another into his sights, and let loose a burst on the cannon. It exploded. But there were so many more, far more of the Cylons than of the Vipers. He made a hard pitch up and a left turn, just in time to see another of his wingmen explode. Frak!
No time to think about it; three more raiders were buzzing around him. He kept turning, flipping, shooting. Another enemy gone. Several more coming in . . .
*
* * *
Colonel Tigh's command went out to the fleet: "Galactica to all civilian ships. Commence Jumping in sequence."
As still more Cylon missiles streaked in, some this time aiming for the civilian ships that were beginning to emerge from the storm, bright flashes of light signaled the departure of one ship after another through the folds in space that would take them to safety.
Galactica was holding the perimeter, but just barely. The Cylons were pressing the attack inward, and the Vipers could not avoid giving up ground. It was only a question of time until the Cylons broke through.
The Cylon missile tracks were getting closer, overwhelming the ability of the gunners or Vipers to stop them. In the CIC, Gaeta's voice shouted a warning: "Incoming ordnance!" An instant later, the CIC shook from an explosion on the outer hull—then another. More than one screen shattered or went dark. The hits were probably not nukes, but were bad enough.
Tigh was on a handset at once. "Damage control—!"
Apollo's jaw set with grim determination as he and his crewmates fought against the steadily turning tide. How many ships away? His thumb squeezed the trigger, and another burst bracketed a Cylon above, below, then dead center. He veered out of the explosion path.
As he came back around, he saw another flash, and another of his shipmates died.
A flash, a different kind, and another civilian ship was away.
His headset was filled with chatter from the other pilots, warning each other, giving breathless encouragement, cursing with rage. Apollo remained silent except for the occasional barked order. All of his attention was on flying, shooting, and keeping an eye on Galactica and the fleet. Another ship away—a big one, too, just before a Cylon missile streaked right through the spot the ship had occupied an instant before.
Another target in sight. Kill the frakking thing. He squeezed a long burst, longer than he should, but it ended in a blossom of exploding Cylon.
Still another coming in, though, and he couldn't come around quite fast enough. He saw the streak out of the corner of his eye, then felt the bone-crushing SLAM of the impact, and his Viper spinning out of control. Frakking hell! He fought to stabilize it, but his left wing was gone, the engine on fire, and all he had left working was a handful of thrusters.
Battlestar Galactica (New Series) Page 22
