He looked up slowly, searching his mind for any obvious aberrations. As he raised his eyes, he saw Natasi—Number Six, he corrected himself—sitting in the seat beside him, looking gorgeous in the red outfit, a seductive smile on her face.
He looked intently back down at the papers, but barely saw them.
“Ignoring me won’t help.”
“You’re not here,” he murmured under his breath.
“No?” she said brightly.
“No. I’ve decided you’re an expression of my subconscious mind, playing itself out during my waking states.”
That provoked a smile and a laugh. Tilting her head, she looked so achingly good, he wanted to jump on her right now. Except that she wasn’t there.
“So I’m … only in your head?”
“Exactly.” He looked down. He was not going to look at her—at least not directly.
“Hm.” She raised an eyebrow and turned her face away for a moment. “Have you considered the possibility that I could very well exist only in your head? Without being a hallucination?”
He could not resist looking at her; she was too devastatingly sexy. She was leaning forward now, the top of her outfit revealing far more than it concealed. He had to work hard not to tremble.
“Maybe you see and hear me because, while you were sleeping, I implanted a chip in your brain that transmits my image right into your conscious mind.”
The thought stung him with fear. Real, blinding fear. But he would not admit to it. “No, no—see, that’s me again.” He looked down with a smile. “My subconscious self is expressing irrational fears … which I also choose to ignore.” He took a nervous sip from his glass of soda, and tried to return to his work.
She moved languidly from the seat beside him to sit on the table with his papers. Slowly and deliberately, she crossed her legs in front of him. “What are you working on?”
He was struggling desperately now. “If you were really a chip in my head, I wouldn’t have to tell you that, would I?”
“Indulge me,” she murmured, leaning in closer.
He rubbed his bristly chin with one hand. Swallowing, he said, “I’m trying to figure out how you managed to pull off this kind of attack. You seem to have virtually shut down the entire defense network without firing a shot. Entire squadrons lost power just as they engaged the enemy. The CNP is a navigation program, but you—uh—you made changes to the program, you said you were building in … back doors for your company to exploit later.”
“All true, in a sense,” she replied.
“That was your job.”
“Officially.” She cocked her head slightly. “Unofficially, I had other motives. We had something, Gaius. Something …” She searched for the word, and smiled. “Special.”
“This is insane.”
As she continued, her voice trembled with emotion. Her eyes were vulnerable, full of hurt. “And what I want most of all … is for you to love me.”
“Love you?” he whispered.
“Well, of course, Gaius. Don’t you understand?” She reached out and stroked his cheek, curved her hand behind his neck. “God is love.” Using both hands, she pulled him forward and kissed him. He could no longer resist.
“No!” he cried, suddenly coming to his senses. Alone in his seat. Around the cabin, a few people looked oddly at him. He just smiled awkwardly, and drew a quivering breath, and looked helplessly out the window. Finally, with unseeing eyes, he forced his gaze back down to his work.
CHAPTER 34
RAGNAR STATION, AMMUNITION DEPOT
The munitions warehouse was chaotic with activity. Forklifts were hauling away large pallets of ordnance for loading onto Galactica. Under the glare of overhead floodlights, the crew were checking everything they could find for possible use on the ship. A small tractor towing carts of lightweight bombs sped past an elevated forklift with a towering pallet of smaller explosives. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” Chief Tyrol shouted. “Take it easy, guys! Just slow down!” He looked like a nervous wreck, but he seemed to be keeping things under control.
Commander Adama took it all in with his eyes even as he walked across the depot floor, talking to Leoben, the man they had found hiding in the back. He was telling Leoben a little about what had been happening—not for Leoben’s benefit, but in hopes of loosening him up a little, getting him to talk. Leoben had yet to give a convincing explanation of what he was doing here. Adama had some suspicions; but he wanted to tease what he could out of the man before he jumped to any conclusions.
“We don’t know much more than that,” Adama said over the noise, casting his voice over his shoulder to Leoben, who was walking with an armed guard behind him. “It’s just imperative that we get our equipment and get out of here.” He stopped and peered up at some high shelves, then down at a bulkhead door in front of him. He pointed. “What’s in there?”
Leoben shambled up to stand beside him. He shrugged. “Stuff.”
Adama glanced at him in annoyance. He gestured to Leoben to help, and they pulled the large hatch open. It was dark inside the compartment; he couldn’t see a thing. “Need a light.” As he reached back to take a lamp from one of the crew, he said to Leoben, “Where’s your spaceship?”
Leoben gestured awkwardly. “Docked on the other side of the station.”
Adama gave him another sharp look. His crew had scanned the station for other ships on their way in. It was possible they’d missed one, if it was small. But not likely. In the background, he could hear Tyrol shouting, “Be careful! Don’t stack’em so high!” Adama glanced that way for a moment, then back at Leoben.
The man was fidgeting, and sweating profusely. He held out his hands toward where the loading was going on. “Okay, those warheads over there”—he gave a little laugh—“okay, here’s the deal. They would have brought a nice price on the open market.”
Adama just stared at him for a moment. “So you’re an arms dealer, huh?”
Leoben shook his head, not in denial but as if to ask why that should be a problem. “People have a right to protect themselves, I just supply the means.” He spread his hands in innocence. But he was still trembling.
Adama gazed at him, trying to assess what part of what Leoben was saying might be true—if any of it. He shone the lantern in Leoben’s face, which was pale and beaded with sweat. The man seemed to be breathing fast, too. “You don’t look too good.”
Leoben opened his mouth, but seemed not quite sure what to say. Before he could respond, though, Tyrol’s voice cut the air. “Be careful with that, all right? Hey! Be careful with that! Look out!”
Adama turned just in time to see a large, caged rack of bombs overbalance and topple. As it crashed to the deck, crewmembers scattered for cover. When it landed on its side, one of the cage doors popped open, and out rolled a single shiny metal canister with red stripes around it. Its activation light came on and it was blinking red. “Take cover!” someone yelled.
Adama saw it coming toward them. With a yell, he grabbed Leoben and hurled him through the hatch into the dark compartment, and dove that way himself. He’d only begun the movement when the bomb exploded, throwing both of them through the opening, with a great thunderclap of light and heat.
As he hit the deck, he nearly blacked out from the concussion. But the force of the blast slammed the hatch closed, landing them both in blackness.
Chief Tyrol and Specialist Cally were the first to reach the hatch that had slammed shut on the Commander. It was flaming with residue from the bomb. “Commander! Commander Adama!” Cally shouted outside the hatch. She couldn’t get close enough to touch the hatch. The waves of heat drove her back.
Tyrol was busy trying to get around to the side. “Stay back stay back! It’s hot it’s hot it’s hot it’s unstable!” Tyrol was yelling. He shone a flashlight down onto the hatch area, trying to find an attack point for getting the damn thing open. It was going to be tough, he realized; the heat had warped and possibly fused the metal. It was a miracle no
ne of them were hurt out here; the bomb must have put out intense, but localized, heat. He whirled around and pointed to a couple of crewmen. “You guys—go back to the ship! We need handlifts, fire equipment, and a plasma torch!”
“Wait—wait!” Cally was pulling at his arm. “Chief—listen!”
Inside the compartment, Leoben was laughing maniacally, as Adama coughed, trying to clear his lungs of the smoke and the smell of welded metal. The hand-lantern still worked, thank the gods. They struggled to their feet.
Outside the hatch, Adama could hear someone shouting his name. “Yeah!” he shouted back. He managed to get another breath. “Anybody hurt out there?”
“No sir!” he heard. It was Chief Tyrol. “We got some equipment coming, sir. We’ll get you out of there, but it’s gonna take a while. This hatch looks like it’s fused pretty good.”
Adama grimaced. The last thing they needed was to spend manpower extricating him and mystery man here. “No!” he shouted. “Get all the bullets and equipment into the ship first! We’re okay—don’t waste time on us!” He squinted, trying to see where this compartment led. “Is there another way out of here?” he asked Leoben.
“Yeah, sure,” Leoben said with a smirk.
Adama chose to ignore the smirk. He turned back to the hatch. “Listen, Chief! We’re gonna go out another way!”
“Sir, I don’t think that’s a wise idea,” Tyrol called back.
“You’ve got your orders. Tell Colonel Tigh he’s in command until I return.”
There was a slight hesitation, before he heard Tyrol acknowledge, “Yes sir.”
Adama turned to Leoben and gestured with the flashlight. “Let’s go.”
Leoben shrugged and slouched away down the dank, smoky passageway that looked as if it led much deeper into the station. In here the place looked more like a dungeon than a munitions warehouse. Water was dripping from the ceiling; evidently there was a leak somewhere, or malfunctioning environmental controls.
Adama rubbed his face with a grimace and followed Leoben into the gloom.
CHAPTER 35
RAPTOR 312, PATROLLING FOR SURVIVORS
Sharon Valerii frowned, completing the calculations for the short-range Jump. This would be her sixth Jump, and it would have to be her last. She had expended a lot of fuel in a mostly fruitless search for survivors. Not completely fruitless—she had located one small freighter with a crew of three and a cargo of fresh citrus products, and another rickety ship carrying textiles, electronic parts, and a few passengers. She’d sent both on to the rendezvous point. But it was hard to say that one of just two military ships in the growing ragtag bunch should be burning up its precious fuel searching the skies for so little.
Still, the president had given her an order.
She checked the plot, checked the spin on the FTL drive, and executed. In a moment, there was the familiar feeling of folding into herself, passing through a strange space-time boundary, and unfolding again. She blinked to clear her head, checked the dradis for Cylons first and survivors second—then, when she found nothing, turned on the wireless scanner.
Almost immediately, she heard a distant transmission in the blind. “This is refinery vessel Tauranian to any Colonial ship. Is anyone out there? Please acknowledge.”
Sharon’s heart leaped for joy. A refinery ship! That meant fuel for the neet—or at least the possibility of mining some. She checked the dradis once more, switched to a more distant scan, and saw it this time—a faint blip at the periphery of her field. She set course toward it with a short blast, conserving fuel—and as soon as she had it in sight, she keyed the wireless. “Tauranian, Colonial Raptor Three-One-Two. I have you in sight. What is your condition?”
There was a short delay, and then an answering voice that sounded breathless with relief. “Raptor! Am I happy to hear from you!”
“Same here, Tauranian,” she answered. And it was especially true, now that the ship was coming into view. It was indeed a full-sized asteroid-miner and refinery rig, much of it an enormous collection of fuel tanks, bound together in the shape of a huge shoe box. “Please tell me you’ve got some Tylium in those big, beautiful tanks.”
“Almost full. What’s going on, Colonial? Is it true the Cylons have come back?”
Sharon’s thoughts darkened. “Afraid so. It’s bad. Real bad. There’s not a lot left back on the home-worlds. Do you have functional FTL?”
“Holy frak …” There was silence for a few moments. Then: “Affirmative to the FTL.”
Sharon guided her Raptor alongside the ungainly but precious ship. “Good. I’m sending you a set of coordinates. I need you to Jump at once to rendezvous with the fleet.”
“What fleet? Who else is there?”
Sharon hesitated, struggling to voice the awful truth.“Everyone who’s left.”
THE GATHERING FLEET
There were now fifty-some ships gathered in formation around Colonial One, five hours out from Caprica at normal flight speed. The ships were of every shape and size, from private yachts and couriers to the massive, multi-domed botanical cruiser Space Park, which President Laura Roslin and Billy were presently visiting. Under a beautiful clear dome, they walked through a lush garden with the skipper of the Space Park, a large, soft-spoken black man with bright, kindly eyes. He was dressed in a short-sleeved, white uniform shirt with gold bars on the shoulders.
“Most of the passengers are from Geminon and Picon, but we’ve got people from every colony,” he told Laura. They were threading their way among crowded groups of passengers, who were either moving nervously through the garden, or huddled together in shock. Many of them looked as if they had gathered here under the dome for no reason other than the hope of finding comfort in numbers. Everywhere they walked, people could be heard asking one another if they knew of any word from this homeworld or that.
“Give Billy a copy of your passenger manifest and a list of all your emergency supplies,” Laura said to the captain.
“All right. What about the power situation?” the captain asked. “Our batteries are running pretty low.”
“Captain Apollo will be making an engineering survey of all the ships this afternoon,” she replied.
“Ah—” said Billy, behind her, causing them both to turn. “Actually the captain said it would be more like this evening before he can coordinate the survey.”
“All right—this evening, then,” Laura said. “But you will get your needs tended to, Captain. You have my word on it.”
“Thank you, Madame President,” the captain said, shaking her hand.
“You’re welcome.”
They continued to stroll through the gardens, savoring a moment of respite. It might well be her last chance, Laura thought, to enjoy such a moment of tranquility. They came upon a young girl, seven or eight years old, sitting by herself on a long, unfinished wood bench, beneath a canopy of low, tropical trees. The girl was holding a rag doll in her hands, twisting and kneading it. She looked up at their approach, but did not speak as Laura sat down on the bench beside her.
“Hi,” Laura said, pulling off her glasses to gaze at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Cami,” the girl said, in an untroubled tone.
“Hi, Cami. I’m Laura.” She studied the girl with a soft smile for a moment. “Are you alone?”
Cami nodded.
The captain spoke up. “She was traveling with her grandmother. But the grandmother’s been having some health problems … well, since the announcement. Not to worry,” he emphasized, gesturing toward the girl with his hand, “we’re taking care of her.”
Cami seemed to have decided that Laura was trustworthy. She suddenly spoke, in precise syllables. “My parents are going to meet me at the spaceport. In Capri-ca City.”
“Spaceport. I see,” Laura replied, swallowing back a hundred things she might have said.
“We’re going to dinner,” Cami continued. “And I’m having chicken pie. And then we’re going home. And then da
ddy’s going to read to me. And then … I’m going to bed.”
Laura reached out with a smile, and gently smoothed Cami’s hair. Then she nodded to Billy and the Captain, and rose. “We need to be getting back,” she said softly.
COLONIAL ONE
The cabin was quiet, for which Laura was profoundly grateful as she leaned back against the headrest of the leather seat. She needed time to think, to rest. So much to be done. So few resources. Fuel shortages, food shortages, thousands of people on the thin edge of despair and panic. The weight of her responsibility as president was like nothing she had ever felt, or imagined. I need time to absorb it all. Time to come up with answers. But instead of answers, her thoughts were full of memories of that little girl in the park. So young, to be going through something like this. As if it’s any better to be old. Old and dying of cancer.
“Madame President?”
She focused her eyes. “Captain—”
Lee Adama sat in a facing seat, holding a piece of paper. “We got a message from Lieutenant Valerii. She’s found a fuel refinery ship. Filled with Tylium.” A big smile cracked his face.
Fuel for the spaceships? Her heart lifted, though she was too tired to show it. “Oh. Good. About time we caught a break. That brings us up to about what—sixty ships so far? Not bad for a few hours’ work.”
Lee grinned briefly. “No, sir.” He quickly became more sober. “But only about forty of those ships have faster-than-light capabilities. We should start transferring people off the sublights onto the FTLs as soon as possible.”
“Yeah.” She closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them again, sensing that he had something more to say.
He did, and there was urgency in his voice. “I don’t think we should stay here much longer, sir. Sharon reports picking up signs of some Cylon sensor drones, probably looking for survivor ships.”
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