Battlestar Galactica 11 - The Nightmare Machine

by Glen A. Larson

  "They're on me, Apollo. On this . . . this uniform. This was the one. They're right here."

  He stared down at his clothing, then grimaced as if it was crawling with bugs.

  "Oh God," he said, "get them off me."

  Apollo released his hold on Greenbean and said firmly:

  "We will, Greeny. Don't worry about that. We'll find them."

  He leaned back, smiled at the others. They were all silent, affected deeply by Greenbean's testimony.

  The voice of the old man, sounding distant, broke the silence.

  "See? I knew he was all right, that kid. I could tell, right when I looked at him first time."

  The words were followed by an easy, shuffling sound. Apollo looked into the darkness, tried to see the old man. But he wasn't in sight. Apollo called for him. There was no response. He was gone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Adama was vaguely aware that the stars were blinking out, one by one. Caprica and the rest of the twelve worlds had vanished long ago. He hadn't even been aware of their going. Floating now in space, he felt like an empty shell, a balloon animal sailing aimlessly along air currents. There was little inside him, he knew. Even the guilt had dissipated.

  He would soon be in complete darkness, all stars gone, and he didn't care. He wanted to blink out as the stars were doing.

  In the distance, as if coming from the end of a long, long hallway, he thought he heard a voice, a familiar voice. It was saying, "He's sinking." He didn't know what that meant. He didn't care to figure it out.

  In the Life Center, Adama had been placed in a life-support cylinder, a long tubular device with scores of microscopic tubes, looking like threads, running into it. His skin was white, corpselike. His breathing was labored.

  Salik turned away from the cylinder and said to Athena:

  "He's sinking."

  "No!" Athena screamed. Tigh held on to her.

  Salik told his nurses to increase the heartbeat-inducer rate and maximize the controlled blood flow. They scurried to obey him.

  Boxey stood against a wall and tried not to look at Adama. It reminded him too much of going to see his adopted mother, Serina, before she died.

  "Will grandfather be all right?" he said to Jolly, who had volunteered to come with him to Life Center.

  "Sure, scout, he'll be fine."

  "I think you're lying to me," Boxey said.

  Jolly didn't know what to answer to that. He smiled weakly.

  "He looks bad," Boxey said.

  Salik walked to Tigh and Athena.

  "I'm running out of solutions," he said.

  Boxey heard that, and began to bite his lower lip. Jolly scrunched down, not an easy move for a man carrying so much bulk, and put his arms around the boy.

  A young cadet-trainee hesitantly entered the Life Center, looking like he'd rather not be there. Tigh acknowledged him, and the young man came forward and recited the message he'd been practicing all the way there.

  "Sir, Flight Officer Omega reports that the forces of Sire Uri have arrived at bridge level, and are approaching the bridge. They are growing in number rapidly. A squad of security personnel have deployed themselves throughout the bridge, in strategic tactical spots. Their commander has ordered them to be weapons-ready. Omega told me to tell you that he doesn't know how long he can keep the lid on. He says he believes your presence might effectively ease the tension."

  Tigh nodded.

  "Thank you, warrior," he said. The messenger was clearly awaiting his answer. Tigh walked slowly to Adama's cylinder and gazed at him. It didn't look like he would survive much longer. Tigh very much desired to be with his old friend to the end. In case Adama became conscious, even for an instant, he wanted Adama to see him there, so he could tell his commander that he would carry on the quest for Earth.

  But he was needed on the bridge. What would Adama have advised him to do? The question was unnecessary. Loud and clear, Tigh could hear Adama's voice telling him to proceed to the bridge. Tigh turned to Athena and said sadly:

  "I'm sorry, Athena. I have to go. I don't want to but—"

  "I understand," Athena said. "And so would he."

  Tigh nodded grimly and, with one regretful look back at Adama, left the Life Center. Athena and Salik stood side by side next to the cylinder. Against the wall, Boxey tried to be a proper junior warrior and hold back his tears. He could not.

  It wasn't clear whether the devil's pit chute for space-waste had been operative recently. There were traces of rust around the rim of its hatchway cover. Apollo and the rest surrounded Greenbean, except for Starbuck, who stood in the shadows, glowering.

  "Okay, Greeny," Apollo said. "Take off your clothes."

  "Right here?" said Greenbean, wide eyed.

  "Right here. We've got to get rid of them, incinerate 'em and send 'em out the ship."

  "But . . . but there are . . . ladies here."

  Cassiopeia laughed, and said:

  "Don't worry, Greenbean, we won't look."

  "Not so you'd notice anyway," chimed in Sheba.

  "Come on, Greenbean," urged Boomer. "You ashamed of fleet-issue underwear or something?"

  Reluctantly, Greenbean started to take off his uniform. When his tunic was off, Apollo took it from him and said:

  "Let's not take any chances. These buttons are breakable. Let's break them up. Use anything you can."

  Boomer slammed a button with the butt of his pistol. Sheba and Bojay used flight tools. Dietra bit one to see how hard it was, then crushed it beneath the heels of her heavy stylish boots.

  "Knew this overpriced footwear'd be good for something besides the pain of fashion."

  Cassiopeia carefully collected the fragments and shards of the crushed buttons.

  Adama looked to his left. He was right. A star had winked back on. And there was another one. At the same time, a wave of energy seemed to enter his floating body. Suddenly he felt like going somewhere. But where? What direction?

  Then he thought he heard Athena whispering to him. He could not discern what she was saying, but he propelled his body toward the sound of her voice. He began to accelerate very quickly.

  Finished with the buttons, Cassiopeia's collection of debris swept into an even pile, Sheba held up one of the buttons she'd broken.

  "Look, Bojay," she said. "You can see the circuitry inside here. It's shielded, that's why nobody detected it. The person who made this must be a genius."

  "A sick genius, if you ask me."

  Greenbean peeled off his trousers, leaving himself in standard-issue military undergarments. His skinny legs looked more sticklike than usual coming out of the wide flaps of his undershorts. His whole body blushed. Which, Apollo noted, was at least a step up from the pallor of suicidal gloom.

  "What now?" Boomer asked.

  "Rip up the cloth," Apollo said. "Or cut it. Anything. We're breaking circuits here, if I understand correctly."

  Except for Starbuck, they all pulled at sections of the lightweight cloth until it tore. Soon, Greenbean's uniform was in tatters.

  Adama felt like a comet, his body going faster and faster in a flight across the universe. He now saw more than faraway stars. There were planetary systems, asteroids, strange undefinable globules.

  Ahead of him he made out a strange faroff light. As Athena's voice grew louder, he felt himself driven toward the light.

  "Please, Dad," Athena's voice was saying. "Come back, you've got to. Got to."

  "Don't worry, Athena," Adama said to himself. The light ahead of him expanded rapidly.

  In the Life Center, Athena turned to Salik, who was giving a nurse an order a few meters away, and cried:

  "Doctor! He mumbled something. I couldn't hear what, but he said something!"

  Salik ran to her and stared down at his patient. New color had rushed back into Adama's face.

  The group stood and stared at the messy remains of Greenbean's uniform, the pile of it now transferred to the inside of the space-waste chute.


  "Every speck of it in there?" Apollo asked.

  "You couldn't find an atom of it out here," Boomer said.

  "All right then. Gentlemen and ladies, draw your weapons."

  They all pointed their pistols at the pile of clothing. They fired, the beams from their pistols forming a bright set of lines all converging on Greenbean's former uniform. The clothes exploded in flame.

  As the fire burned, thin wispy pieces of blackened cloth rising momentarily above the flames, Greenbean felt his gloominess lift away from him, as if being consumed by the fire itself.

  Starbuck, too, suddenly felt weightless. He shook his head, as if to force out the angry images there. He couldn't believe what he had been doing, couldn't accept that he'd actually tried to kill Greenbean.

  Tentatively, he stepped toward Greenbean and, without speaking, put a hand on the young ensign's shoulder. Greenbean started at the touch, but realized it wasn't an attack. He smiled back at Starbuck's friendly smile.

  Adama soared across the vastness of space, moving faster than the Galactica's top speed. Worlds flew by, stare kept pace with him. He now heard Athena clearly.

  "He's coming to!" she was shouting. "Look, Salik, look."

  He did feel as if he were coming awake. A quick image of a room replaced the universe for a moment. Then he was back flying again. Ahead of him, there was a brilliant glowing planet. It seemed familiar to him. It must be Earth, he thought, it must be Earth. Near it, the Galactica hovered. He dove quickly toward his ship.

  The space chute flames had died down. There was just a smoldering flat area of burned cloth and objects.

  "Okay, Bojay," Apollo said, "you get the honors. Flush it out. Turn the pressure system to maximum!"

  Bojay flipped the hatchway door shut and turned the valve wheel that put the chute into operation. The odd gurgling, whirring, and whooshing noises inside the chute were a pleasure to hear. There was a final explosion of strange sounds, and they knew the debris had been swept out of the chute by the equivalent of a gale-force wind.

  "There she goes!" Sheba hollered and laughed.

  Greenbean looked happy for the first time in centons. He laughed, too. His whole body shook.

  "You chilly, Greeny?" Cassiopeia asked.

  "A little."

  "C'mon, guys," Starbuck said, "let's get out of here. I've had enough of the devil's pit. I want to get to someplace else. Some sane place."

  At the elevator, Greenbean held back. It was clear to one and all that he was too embarrassed to return to the populated sectors of the ship in his underwear.

  "C'mon, Greenbean," Boomer said, "we'll form a shield around you up there, get you to your quarters."

  "Yeah," Starbuck joined in, "we can be a viper flying wedge for you."

  Athena stood by the cylinder and smiled down at her father. Boxey, also smiling, stood next to her, holding her hand.

  "What am I doing here?" Adama said. "Athena? Salik?"

  "You were ill, sir," Salik said.

  "No, not ill. Something else."

  "What?"

  "I don't know. I was there, Athena. Really there, on Caprica. I saw your mother again. I saw the attack. I saw—"

  "Hush," Athena said. "It was just a dream."

  "A dream?" He found that idea hard to accept. "It didn't feel like a dream. I was there, Athena. There, and on the Galactica—before the Cylons attacked. I saw what I'd gone through. I saw things I hadn't seen before. I—"

  "Take it easy, Father."

  "Yes," Boxey said. "Shut up, grandpa."

  While Adama gathered strength, Athena filled him in on how the strange guilt illness had spread through the ship. He listened to her for a while, then was distracted by a memory.

  "Athena," he said. "Just before I flew back into the ship—in my dream—if it was a dream—I saw Earth. I'm certain it was Earth."

  "I'm beginning to believe you, Father. Maybe it was."

  "Maybe. It glowed. There was a feeling of . . . of welcome for us emanating from it."

  Athena smiled wistfully.

  "It would be nice," she said.

  "I'm sure it was Earth," said Adama.

  For the first time, Tigh realized that Uri really did have the advantage of numbers. His followers crowded onto the bridge and jammed the corridors outside. They were a desultory crowd, and they didn't appear to be reasonable at the moment. Uri, his beady eyes making a slow scan of the bridge, smiled sneeringly and said:

  "Ah, Colonel. I don't see your security forces. I heard there was security personnel awaiting us."

  "There were," Tigh said. "I sent them away."

  Uri's mouth opened slightly in mock astonishment.

  "Ah, the stand, is it? You're taking a stand against us? We're too large for you, Tigh. You have to let us go. All you have to do is order up the shuttles to carry passengers down to Vaile. A simple solution. Everyone may come, if they wish."

  The crew on the bridge gazed at Tigh expectantly. He was tempted to just throw up his hands, and throw out the crowd, let them go wherever they wanted, let them ruin the social stability of Vaile with their misguided churlish attitudes and ideas. But he could not allow that.

  "No, Uri," Tigh said firmly. "There'il be no shuttles down to Vaile, except for the normal supply and trade runs."

  Uri's voice was soft but resonant.

  "Tigh, you can't order us around. I gave you your chance. Now it's up to us. Clear the way. We're taking over the Galactica."

  Tigh drew his pistol, pointing it directly at Sire Uri.

  "Don't even think of it, Uri," he said.

  Uri hesitated. He was not one to put his own life on the line. However, he didn't mind sacrificing others. He dropped back behind the front rank and tried to look like a commander inspiring his troops while carefully keeping bodies of his followers between himself and the enemy artillery.

  "Don't listen to him," Uri yelled. "They won't dare to shoot."

  The front ranks surged forward, pushed by rearguard rabble rousers more interested in violence than their cause,

  Tigh brandished his weapon and hollered:

  "I order you—"

  The rest of what he said was lost in the clamor of the crowd. Tigh raised his pistol, knowing he might have to shoot a warning shot. The front rank of the mob, growling and yelling, moved toward him. He tensed his finger on the trigger.

  Then the crowd stopped, and the noise died down. The people down front seemed to be looking past Tigh, over his shoulder. He followed their gaze and turned to see Adama standing at the other end of the bridge. Athena was beside him, and Salik a couple of steps to the rear.

  "Adama!" Tigh shouted, startled at the apparition of what he knew must be a ghost.

  "Don't mind me, Colonel," the ghost said. "I'm off-duty. Carry on."

  The mob no longer had any urges to take over the bridge. Gradually, it dispersed. Uri was nowhere to be seen. He had slipped away as soon as he had assessed the situation. Some members of the mob couldn't figure out why they'd been there in the first place. They had no great desire to leave the ship, go to Vaile. No longer under the influence of Lucifer's guilt machine, they were back to normal, or at least their many and varied versions of normality.

  The bridge crew, relieved, returned to their jobs.

  "Well done, Colonel," Adama said. He looked surprisingly vigorous, especially for one who'd been unconscious in Life Center the last Tigh had seen him.

  "If it weren't for you—" Tigh said.

  "All I did was spook them a little," Adama said. "They think I'm a ghost, you know."

  "Yes, I did, too."

  "You know what, Tigh? I thought I was a ghost there for a while, too."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Eagerness and excitement seemed linked in a chain that ran all the way from the launch bay up to the bridge. Everybody was spoiling for the fight. While only the pilots would go out and confront the enemy directly, they knew the rest of the flight would be with them in spirit.

  Now, as
the flight crew awaited the signal to launch and the command officers reviewed the final aspects of strategy, there was an exaggerated mood of happiness throughout the ship. Everyone who'd been affected by the guilt transmissions felt as if burdens had been lifted from them. Even the unaffected smiled more as they saw that their comrades and friends were back to normal.

  Adama showed no signs of having been brought to the edge of death by Lucifer's sabotage. He was energetic, alert and ready to fight a major battle by choice instead of as a retaliation to Cylon pursuit.

  There was a good chance, he believed, that Galactica's strike wings could score a major surprise victory over the Cylons. If his calculations were correct, Greenbean's information, elicited in long interrogations, provided a reasonable estimate of the coordinates of Baltar's base-star. With Apollo leading the attack, the Galactican forces might just track it down and ambush the ambushers. It was better than waiting for Baltar to send out a wall of Cylon raiders against them. For once, the enemy might be the sitting duck.

  "Colonel Tigh!" Adama said, after he'd examined the battle plan for the last time.

  "Yes sir."

  "Are all squadrons ready to launch?"

  "Ready."

  "Then launch."

  In launch bay, the pilots, itching for action, chattered noisily on the commcircuit.

  "Lieutenant Starbuck?" Apollo said.

  "Captain?"

  "How're you feeling, good buddy?"

  Starbuck was happy to hear the affection in the tone of his old friend.

  "If you mean, is my noggin back on straight, the answer's yes, I am as sane as I ever was."

  "Then we're all in trouble."

  "You got it. And hey, pal?"

  "What?"

  "Thanks."

  "For what?"

  "Don't be coy, hero. You know, for seeing me through, and making sure I didn't do anything stupid."

  "I did that?"

  "Spit marbles, skypilot."

  Apollo's laughter roared over the commline.

  "Glad to have you back with us, bucko."

  The signal to launch came. The vipers zoomed down the launch tubes in precise order, then formed up outside the ship and headed out. Flying side by side in at least threescore ranks, the viper formation, dense and symmetrical, was a handsome, harmonious sight. Adama viewed it with admiration and a wide smile.