"That's the deal, Starbuck."
Adama's voice was firm. Starbuck stared into his metallic blue eyes, knowing the commander always meant what he said. If Starbuck made the vow to follow orders on this one, he'd have to go through with it. He might be devious, he might be something of a con man, but his word was sacred. Finally, he nodded slowly.
"All right, Commander. Your way."
"Good, Starbuck, good."
Adama offered Starbuck the Kobollian handshake, a rare privilege. It was a fairly complicated ritual which began when the elder offered both his hands thumbs up and fingers spread. Starbuck accepted and finished the ritual with Adama.
"Initiate pre-launch procedures immediately," Adama ordered.
"Yes, sir!"
On the Galactica bridge, Tigh checked the monitors which displayed the scene in launch bay. Tigh was now in charge of the ship, command having been handed over to him by Adama only moments ago. Athena stood beside Tigh, who punched a button and, on central screen, enlarged a picture of Adama in the cockpit of a Viper. He was busily giving his launch CWO final instructions.
"He looks good," Athena commented. "Happy even."
There was a trace of anger in Tigh's reply: "Happy to be in harness again."
"You don't approve?"
"He's endangering his life. He hasn't flown a mission in—"
"I'm scared, too, Colonel. And I wish he wasn't doing something so foolhardy. But I'm proud of him, too."
Tigh smiled.
"Yes, I know what you mean. I think the whole ship has a feeling of pride about this.
In the launch bay the final preparations had been completed. Starbuck sat in the cockpit of his Viper, next to Adama's. Adama flipped on his interViper commline.
"Ready to launch, lieutenant?"
"Ready, sir!"
"Launch control. Open launch tubes."
"Launch tubes open."
Adama yelled the order to launch with the fervor of a young cadet. The pair of identical ships zoomed down their respective launch tubes and out into the darkness of space. While he noticed a few aches and pains that had never appeared before at initial thrust, Adama was overjoyed with the feeling of being in a Viper again.
For good luck, Adama and Starbuck flew their Vipers once around the Battlestar Galactica before heading off into the unknown.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The cool breeze and the freshness of the air made Apollo wonder if he had indeed so recently been a raving maniac about to kill his own comrades in a meaningless battle. Carrying the heavy load of Sarge across the battlefield, then through one ravaged field after another, before finally discovering unscarred ground and locating this river, had been laborious but had seemed to cleanse Apollo of all the evil warlike impulses that the belt on one side and the drugs on the other had instilled within him. The wind drying the droplets of water that had collected on his chest from his quick swim in the river seemed to cool his temper as well. Watching the quiet slow movements of some large antlered animals in a herd on the other side of the stream, he remembered how peaceful Yevra had seemed to him when he had first awakened in that meadow—so long ago now. He wondered how much time had passed since that day. Well, no use worrying about that now, he thought. Sitting on the bank of the river, he finished laundering his tunic in the cool clean water.
Near him Sarge slept. In repose, Apollo noticed, the reptilian creature looked different. The meanness in his face had vanished. In a way that humans could be said to look almost human, Sarge now looked almost reptilian. He made a soft humming sound, created by a slight vibration of his nostrils. Apollo wondered whether the sound was the reptilian version of snoring.
There were no new bloodstains on Sarge's bandages. Apollo had made the bandages out of the sleeves of Sarge's uniform. The quiet breathing sound and the absence of new blood were good signs that Sarge was on the mend.
Apollo finished his laundering and placed his tunic flat on a flat rock. Sitting back against another rock, he wondered how far the Galactica and the fleet had proceeded while he had been stuck on Yevra. It would be quite a challenge to try to find them again. Perhaps the Vipers, with their limitations, would not be able to locate the Galactica. Well, time enough to consider all that later. First he had to free Croft and Sheba, then find the Vipers. At least he was no longer under control, not by either army, so he was better off than he had been. There was some reason to hope, at least.
He glanced over at Sarge just as the reptilian creature's strangely sad and humanlike eyes opened. For a while Sarge merely gaped at Apollo. He was clearly disoriented.
"Feeling any better?" Apollo asked.
Sarge glanced at his wound and said, "Yes. There is little pain."
"Do you remember anything? How we got here?"
"No. You nearly killed me."
"Well, true. Sorry about that. I wasn't exactly myself. They have these drugs, see, they use for control and . . ."
"Yes, I know. The drugs were once outlawed. But you can't trust the Pelters. They are insidious. They will do anything to—"
"And won't your side do the same things?"
"No! We fight fair."
"You steal lives from people who have no concern with your war and you call that fair?"
Sarge grimaced from a sharp dose of pain that seemed at the center of his wound. He said: "We . . . need . . . soldiers. There are . . . never enough soldiers. We have to recruit them from . . . somewhere."
"So you just take over any planet you can use for the war and use its people, people who haven't even heard of war before."
"Don't be stupid. Everyone knows about war."
"Perhaps. But not everybody practices it as a way of life."
"Apollo—"
Apollo gestured, trying to wave away the argument. "Forget it. My life has been devoted to war, too. Just like yours. I understand that part of it at least. What else do you remember?"
"I thought I had died. Then I looked up and, and you were there. You picked me up, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"And you carried me here?"
"You could lose a little weight, Sarge."
Sarge was genuinely amazed that Apollo would go to the trouble of lugging him away from the battlefield for the meaningless purpose of saving his life.
"How far did you carry me?"
Apollo shrugged. He reached down to touch his tunic, checking to see if the sun had dried it yet. It was still damp.
"I have a poor sense of distance," he said.
"But far. It must have been far. The war has not touched this place. You can tell. It reminds me of . . . of . . ."
Sarge was recalling his home, but he didn't want to admit that to this human.
"Of where, Sarge?"
"Someplace. I don't remember."
Suddenly he was asleep again.
"Oh, you remember," Apollo said softly. "I'm sure of that."
He smiled.
The tunic now dry and feeling soft and fresh against his skin, Apollo lolled on the riverbank and tried to make plans. The ripples of the water seemed to emphasize the rippling aimless quality of his thoughts. He knew he wanted to rescue Croft and Sheba. He couldn't leave Yevra until they were free, too. And he wanted to save Xiomara, also. As he thought of her, an unsettling feeling came over him. He missed her, he realized that. He wasn't sure whether it was because he had come to depend on her so much, or whether he was falling for her. He imagined both her faces, the one he usually saw and the mysterious and beautiful other one that he glimpsed from time to time. He wanted to see her again very much.
Well, he'd have to get back to all of them. In doing so, he'd have to risk being captured again. If he couldn't find a way around the control their belts and sweatbands exerted, they might even be the ones to capture him. At any rate, their conditioning would make it difficult for them to act freely. It would be useful to discover how to remove the controlling devices. He remembered his abduction by the Pelters and how Tren had so easil
y flipped off his control garments. How had he done it? Couldn't ask him. He was just a part of the body count now. When he had been a soldier, Apollo had tried many times to remove the belt without success.
He looked over at Sarge, who had again come quietly awake. It was clear, however, the focus of his eyes was not on Apollo. He was thinking hard on something.
"A cubit for your thoughts," Apollo said.
"Cubit?"
"Money. We call certain of our coins cubits."
"And you pay for each other's thoughts?"
"No, that's just an expression. Sorry. Just asking you what you're thinking about."
"I won't give that out for free either. You like to know each other's thoughts?"
"Well, it isn't an overwhelming motive, but we do exchange our thoughts from time to time."
"That would be repulsive to me."
Apollo held up his hands, giving up.
"Whatever you say, Sarge. Let me check your wound."
He sat beside Sarge and reached for the bandage. In return Sarge swiped at his face. The blow caught Apollo on the side of his head, knocked him backwards, and momentarily dizzied him. Sarge sprang up and tried another punch. Apollo was ready for the attack this time and he dealt a rain of blows on the reptile's hard body. He could feel his knuckles being skinned with each contact. Sarge backed off, Apollo's blows and his own weakness forcing him to give in. He sat down again.
Apollo took Sarge's gun from behind the rock where he had hid it earlier. Gesturing with it, he said: "In case that isn't enough. I don't care to wind up trading blows with you, Sarge. I can leave you here to die or we can cooperate. What do you say?"
"Cooperate."
Sarge's almost meek voice indicated his reluctance.
"Okay. I see I'm going to have to keep a good watch on you."
Sarge straightened his back. He was insulted.
"I said I would cooperate."
"Sorry. I know so little about you. Didn't realize your pride."
They didn't talk again for a long time. Sarge dozed off for brief periods. Once he awakened to find that Apollo had prepared a kind of vegetable stew out of edible material he'd located. He knew which plants were all right because a part of the training he'd received from Sarge had dealt with how to survive on native foodstuffs when detached from one's unit. After the stew, Sarge felt much better.
"Apollo," he asked, "why did you save me?"
"I was bored. It killed some time for me."
"Tell me the truth. You want me to cooperate with you, you must cooperate with me."
Apollo stared at the river a moment before speaking again. "All right. First and foremost, I couldn't stand by and watch you die. Especially since I'd shot you."
"Oh? You didn't want my death on your conscience?"
"Something like that. Oh, I can kill an enemy when the situation demands it, but I was out of my head, under their control. I saw you as an enemy, true, but only because my conditioning instructed me to see you that way. Just as the conditioning from your side makes your soldiers see their enemy as dreadful and evil beings."
"They are dreadful and evil beings."
"See, you're conditioned, too."
The spines along Sarge's arm seemed to change color, to a deep almost glowing green. Apollo sensed this was the look of anger for Sarge.
"I am not, as you say, conditioned," Sarge said.
"Really? Well, it wasn't forced on you as it was on us, perhaps. It just came naturally to you. At war long enough and it's easy to convince anyone that the other side is some scourge, some lower-than-Iow monster that must be annihilated. Our war is like that, too. Most of our people hate the Cylons. Considering their viciousness, there may just be good reason for it, but sometimes I wonder what the beings in the metallic suits must be like. We rarely get to know any of them, you know."
Apollo relaxed and told Sarge about the war he'd grown up with. Much of his explanation of the war required him to talk about his father. He told about how the Cylons had ambushed a peace conference they had set up. He told how the Cylons had destroyed the twelve home worlds and forced the Galactica and its ragtag fleet on its long flight. He told of his father's quest for Earth.
"Sounds like a worthy goal, this Earth," the Sarge commented.
"Not everyone thinks so. We have a small war going on among our people, some on the side of seeking Earth, others who think we should pick any habitable planet and start our society there. My father keeps us going."
"He must be a great leader."
"He is. But even he has his doubts. I think he'd like to rest, give up the search. But something urges him on."
Sarge watched Apollo grow silent and waited a respectful time before speaking again. "I know that something. And I know the desire to throw it over and rest, also."
Apollo smiled.
"You have some doubts about this war?"
"Some? No, many. I had wanted to be an officer once. That ambition was revived when you and your companions became my squad. But I see now it was a futile dream. I am not officer material. I was always a footsoldier and will always—"
"You mention officers. I just realized, I never saw an officer in the field. Where are the officers?"
Sarge's sound was hardly recognizable as a scornful laugh. It was an eerie revolting noise. But Apollo had heard it before, in training, and he knew what it meant.
"The officers never come to the field of battle," Sarge said. "Perhaps that was why I wanted to be one, so I could get away from the war myself. The officers of both sides remain in their command bastions, guiding the events of the war with their devices, their machines. The only time you ever see an officer is when you are summoned to the bastion to be punished. And sometimes those who are punished never leave the bastion. I hate officers, Apollo. And, you guessed right, I hate this war. But I have always been brought up with the belief that I must do my duty. I always do my duty. Now you know about me. Are you satisfied?"
"It's not a matter of satisfaction. But I'm glad you told me about yourself. I gather that's a rare treat."
"Very rare. I never tell anyone about myself."
Apollo leaned toward Sarge. Sarge could sense the man's urgency.
"Will you help me, Sarge?"
"Help you? In what?"
"Well, initially, to free my friends. Croft and Sheba and . . . and Xiomara."
There was a different sound in the way he said Xiomara's name, Sarge observed.
"Xiomara. I was not aware she was one of your warriors."
"She isn't. But I've . . . that is . . ."
"You've grown fond of her?"
"Well, yes. You're surprised?"
"Surprised? Not at all. I am aware that some of your people regard Xiomara as having a disagreeable appearance. I know, for example, what the one named Beskaroon has done to taunt her. But I cannot see her that way, I see all of you the same. I cannot define differences. That should not surprise you. I know that you think of me and others of my species as ugly."
"Well, Sarge, I wouldn't say that."
"Would you say repulsive then? Repellent?"
"Closer."
"See?"
"No, I don't see. I was just joking. You are different to me."
"Well, others see me as ugly. I know that. Just as they see Xiomara in the same fashion. You are perhaps different, Apollo."
"No, not really. I see . . . ugliness. But it doesn't matter. It isn't important."
"You don't say that with certainty."
"I'm not certain."
Apollo became moodily silent. Sarge decided to change the subject.
"You were asking me to help you in freeing your friends."
"Yes."
"What do you need from me?"
"How to do it."
"Oh, an easy task then."
"You don't need to help me physically. I just need to know how to free them. How to get those damn belts off them. How to free their minds. The rest I can take care of."
&nb
sp; "You are very confident."
"I'm, well, good at what I do."
"I can see that." Sarge felt the pain of his wound again and shifted to a more comfortable position. "All right, I'll help you. It is simple, anyway. There is a metal stud in the middle of a series of five metal studs at the rear of each belt."
"I've seen. I must have tried to work something with belt-studs many times when I was trying to get out of the belt.
"You cannot free yourself from your own belt. Another individual can, by twisting it one way, then the other, then the first way, and pushing. It's easy, really."
"And that's all."
"Well, you said you could do the rest."
Apollo grinned.
"Right."
"You know, I believe you can. And you know what else?"
"What?"
"I'm going to help you do it. I should be ready to travel by morning."
"Sarge, I don't know what to—"
"Please stop talking. I need to get back to sleep."
Sarge fell asleep instantly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Croft knew he had to die. This time out would be it, he was sure. He could hardly wait.
Xiomara watched him carefully. She would try to interfere, but he would outmaneuver her.
Funny how his will to die had made him stronger. Just knowing he would soon be out of this hellhole had invigorated him.
He glanced toward Sheba. He was sorry that, in his life, he'd never persuaded her to yield to his romantic proposals. What was really odd was that now he could have been successful with her. As she had declined in spirit, she had become quite malleable. Unfortunately, he no longer had the urge to pursue that particular quest. He wondered if he should make the attempt, just this once on the night before he would die, but he realized that even that small effort was impossible for him now.
Looking beyond Sheba, he noticed Beskaroon ogling her. Beskaroon had just been attached to the elite squad as a replacement for Apollo. Some replacement! The man would be an irritant to the squad if they could work up the energy to be irritated. They were all too listless to pay much attention to the loutish Beskaroon. Even Xiomara ignored the several insults Beskaroon had made about her face. Instead of deteriorating under control, Besky actually had become stronger. He thrived on it. He loved the shooting and killing that the controlling garments forced him to do. It was hardly force with him. Perhaps he was merely a survivor. A total rat, but a survivor.
Battlestar Galactica 13 - Apollo's War Page 17
