Boomer sat quietly in the cockpit of his Viper. He had been reciting from memory his favorite passage from the Book of the Word when he heard Tolen's stand-by command. He felt isolated inside his cockpit. It was a feeling he had experienced many times before. The cockpit of a Viper was like a home to him; he knew every inch of it. Yet each time he sat by himself inside his Viper, inside the metallic womb of the launch tube, he always recalled his very first solo flight. It always came back to him with vivid clarity, as if it had been only yesterday.
He remembered hearing the instructor's voice over his helmet comcircuit as he had nervously checked his instruments for the sixteenth time. He remembered how sweaty his palms had been, how his heart had pounded and how the bottom had seemed to drop out of his stomach.
"All right, Cadets, this is where we separate the men from the boys, the warriors from the ground crew. Three of you will launch and follow your prescribed flight paths. You will each separately go through your drills, then you will converge and go through the same maneuvers in wing-to-wing formation. I'll be watching carefully. Those of you who want to go on and become Viper pilots and aren't just out for a joyride, here's where we find out if you've got what it takes. Stand by to launch!"
Boomer remembered his hands shaking as he gripped the controls and thinking, "I hope I'll pass, I hope I'll pass . . . Then they had launched and the moment he cleared the launch tube, the vertiginous feeling went away. Suddenly he realized that he was ready, that he knew what he was doing, that he would pass with flying colors. Boomer wondered if the feeling would go away this time as well. Compared to the test he was about to take, that first solo flight was nothing. As he listened to the final countdown, Boomer thought, "I hope I'll pass, I hope I'll pass . . ."
Sheba sat in her cockpit with tears streaming down her cheeks. Another woman might have felt that life had cheated her, but not Sheba. When she had been a girl, she had seen her father only infrequently. After all, he was a warrior, the greatest warrior in the colonies, her mother had told her, and the people had need of him.
"We must not resent the time your father spends in the service of the people, Sheba. He is a very great man and we must learn to share him. We must not be greedy."
Although it had been very hard, Sheba had learned to live with her father's long absences. It made her love him more and appreciate the time he did spend with them, but it also resulted in her placing Cain upon a pedestal, a not uncommon situation with fathers and daughters, but in her case it was much more profound.
She had grown up as the daughter of Commander Cain, the Juggernaut, the living legend. She had never really had a normal childhood. People treated her differently. She was special. She was Cain's daughter. Even her friends, who might have resented her for being the daughter of a famous man, always wanted to talk about her father with her. She saw the way that she was treated, because of who she was, she heard the stories of the exploits of Commander Cain and she knew that everyone considered him a hero. And when it came to hero worship of her father, Sheba took a back seat to no one.
Then her mother had died. It had been a horribly difficult time for Sheba. Toward the end, the wasting disease that had claimed her mother made her delirious. She would lie in bed, not knowing where she was, not even recognizing Sheba, calling vainly for her husband. When Cain finally arrived, it had been too late.
Cain had been devastated. Sheba had to deal not only with her own grief, but with her father's as well. She had never seen him in such a despondent state. She had never imagined that he was vulnerable. He would sit at home, handling his wife's things and staring at her holographic likeness, a numbness in his features. He would not eat and many times he would not even hear Sheba when she addressed him. They would sit at the table in silence, with Cain staring off into infinity and ignoring the food before him. Sheba desperately wanted to help him. She tried everything she knew, but nothing helped.
"I'll take care of him," she had said to herself. "With mother dead, he needs me now. He's my responsibility."
But Cain had not needed her. Sheba had not understood that at the time, had not known that what he needed she could not possibly give him. When he met Cassiopeia, he began to become his old self again and Sheba hated her for that. Cassiopeia had not been much older than she was and Sheba could not understand why Cain turned to her, a total stranger, and not to his own daughter. And how could he have forgotten her mother so soon?
All the ingredients were there to make Sheba a bitter woman. She had lost her mother, then it seemed that she had lost her father as well, to a woman barely older than herself. And shortly after that, Sheba lost her world when the Cylon armada destroyed Caprica. Still, out of all that tragedy, there had come happiness for Sheba. She had become a Viper pilot, serving aboard her father's ship. When their fleet had been wiped out at the Battle of Molecay, they had fled to the stars, certain that they would never see other humans again, that they would never see their home. They had no home to go back to. Yet Sheba had been happy. She had her father back again. She shared his exploits, fighting side by side with him, and nothing would ever come between them again. Sheba had been happy until Cassiopeia had returned from the dead past.
She had misjudged Cassiopeia. She was a grown woman now and she could understand a great deal more than when Cassiopeia had first entered her father's life. She knew that, in a very large sense, it was Cassiopeia who had brought her father back from the abyss. Cassiopeia and time had healed Cain's wound. She could not have done that. Sheba knew this and she understood it, but still she could do nothing about her feelings toward Cassiopeia. If only Cassiopeia had been different, if only she had been something less than what she was, it would have been a simple matter to detest her. Sheba would have felt justified in her feelings. But Cassiopeia was a good woman. She had courage and selflessness, all the qualities Sheba admired.
"Damn it," Sheba swore in a half-whisper, "it's just not fair!"
"Stand by to launch," said Tolen.
"Well, you've done it this time, Starbuck old chum," the pilot said to himself. "This time you really got in over your head. Three-to-one odds. Not good. Could be worse, but still not good. Anyone with any sense would simply fold. Anyone but Starbuck, that is. No, Starbuck always toughs it out. Starbuck always bluffs his way through somehow. Here he is, the Viper ace, sitting in his cockpit and waiting to be launched into action. Waiting to power out there on full thrusters and meet the dreaded Cylon armada; waiting to single-handedly dive into a cloud of fighters, biting, clawing, kicking and scratching his way into immortality with lasers blazing, waiting to see if this blind panic he's feeling will go away so he could stop talking to himself already . . ."
"Stand by to launch," said Tolen.
"Oh, shit," said Starbuck.
"Launch!"
Starbuck was slammed back against his cockpit as his Viper hurtled down the launch tube.
"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"
"Starbuck! Are you all right?" Apollo's voice came over his comcircuit as they left the launch tubes and started to form up.
Starbuck realized that he had inadvertently chinned on his comcircuit as they launched.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I just said this is it."
"It sounded more like—"
"Never mind what it sounded like, just fly, willya? I got enough to worry about without you droning in my ear."
Apollo smiled and shook his head. Starbuck was all right.
"Fighters launched and taking up a spearhead in front of the Pegasus," Tolen said.
"Enemy in range," said Sheba.
"Okay, baby," Cain replied, "it's up to you. Clear me a way right through 'em."
"You got it, Commander."
The Cylon squadron commander could not believe what he was seeing. One lone battlestar against three base ships and all their squadrons. The humans must have lost their minds.
"They are heading directly for us," the Cylon squadron leader said. "Prepare to engage."
; "Commence firing," said Apollo.
The Vipers cut loose with their laser batteries the moment they were within range. The Cylon fighters returned their fire and the space between them as they closed rapidly became an intricate latticework of deadly light. There were casualties on both sides, and the Cylons flared off from the attack, allowing the Vipers a way right through them so that they could regroup and take them on their next pass.
"Regroup," the Cylon squadron leader ordered his pilots. "The fighters will return to defend the Pegasus."
"Our Vipers blew a nice clean corridor right down the middle of their forces," Tolen said, "but they're coming in on us from all sides. We're in for it."
"Maintain course," Cain said in an icy voice. "Straight ahead, full speed. We've got to stay behind our Vipers as they cut through the second wave."
The Pegasus powered her way through the Cylon fighter squadron, taking several hits as she plowed through the crazily spinning ships that converged around her.
"The battlestar is not stopping to engage us," one of the Cylon fighter pilots reported to his squadron leader.
"Fools. They'll be trapped between our first and second attack flights. Unless they hope to scatter our second formation and make a run for it. Pursue and destroy."
The Cylon fighters regrouped and pursued the Pegasus while their second wave engaged the Vipers. The human pilots kept up a steady stream of fire, barely giving their laser batteries time to recycle.
"Starbuck . . ."
"Yo," the pilot replied to Apollo's voice over his comcircuit.
"There are so many of 'em, you can't miss."
Starbuck smiled mirthlessly at Apollo's efforts to keep their spirits up.
"Yeah, but I just lost Bunker and Taggs," he said. "We're getting it from all sides. The laser fire's so thick you could walk on it."
Cain was all over the bridge, taking reports from damage control and manning scanners himself in an effort to locate the base ships that had launched the Cylon assault.
"Where are they . . ." He slammed his fist down onto the console. "The damn fighters are like flies out there, they're throwing off the readings . . ."
Time. Time was crucial. They had to make Baltar think they were attempting a diversion in order to buy time for the Galactica and for themselves.
"Sir," said Tolen from another console, "we've located them!"
Cain was at his side in an instant. "How close?"
"We can reach them within perhaps another hundred centons," Tolen replied.
Cain shook his head. "Too long. We've got to cut it closer. And I can't push this baby until Baltar's taken the bait."
"Suppose he doesn't?" Tolen said grimly. "He must know that Imperious Leader is no longer on Gomoray. Suppose he doesn't break off the assault and send his fighters on ahead? What then?"
"Going to be damned interesting, won't it?" said Cain.
"I'll say one thing, Commander," Tolen said, glancing from his screens to Cain and back again, "whatever happens, life aboard the Pegasus has never been boring."
Sheba's voice came on over the p.a. system.
"Silver Spar Squadron, regroup to protect the Pegasus," she said. "She's under heavy attack."
"Negative!" said Cain, bending forward quickly and speaking into his command console mike. "Belay that order! Squadrons are to continue straight ahead! Repeat, squadrons are to continue straight ahead!"
"If you don't get some protection," Sheba said, "you'll be trapped between their first and second attack waves!"
"We won't need protection if we keep on going," Cain said. "You have your orders."
"Yes, sir."
The first attack wave of Cylon fighter craft had regrouped and caught up to them, and the Pegasus came under heavy fire. One of the fighters scored a direct hit on the external scanner turrets as it made its pass. The turret was knocked out and the power flowed back along the lines as the system overloaded. Tolen was sitting at his console when the screen went crazy, and before he had time to so much as take a breath, the power surged through the console and it exploded in a shower of sparks, throwing him clear across the bridge.
"Tolen!" Cain ran to his side. Tolen was motionless. "Get me to the life station! We've got a casualty on the bridge!"
Starbuck reversed on the Cylon craft pursuing him and blew it into fragments. He quickly looked back over his shoulder.
"Apollo! Pegasus is taking heavy fire . . . We can't keep on going, we've got to go back and help Cain."
"But Cain's orders were to punch a hole through the second wave so that he could bring the Pegasus through after us."
"Dammit, there isn't going to be a Pegasus! The Cylons are swarming all over her!"
"You're right," Apollo replied, having seen for himself Cain's desperate plight. "Let's go."
Their Vipers left the spearhead formation and turned to head back for the Pegasus. As they were pulling out of the formation, Sheba, who was spearheading the squadrons, took a direct hit, even as the Silver Spar group broke through the second wave of Cylon fighters.
"Sheba! Are you all right?" Apollo said. Her Viper was moving very erratically.
"I don't think so," she replied, her pain evident in her voice.
"Can you control your Viper?"
"Uhhh . . . Just barely. My guidance system is shot up. I can't fire, lasers won't respond . . ."
"Okay, I'll move in front of you . . . Try to follow me in. We're going to make a try for the Beta landing bay on the Pegasus."
"Thanks, Apollo . . ."
Starbuck moved in to cover Sheba from the rear. The second Cylon attack-wave formation had been broken up, but they were regrouping even as the Pegasus closed with them, trying to follow on the heels of the Viper squadrons before the Cylons could regroup and cut her off. The first Cylon attack wave was in pursuit, its lead ships making passes over the battlestar and trying to walk their fire into the bridge.
"I just hope the Pegasus is still around when we get there," Starbuck said.
The Cylon squadron leader in charge of the first wave communicated with Lucifer, aboard Baltar's ship. Lucifer received the message and hurried to relay it to Baltar.
"Baltar, another report—"
"Excellent! The Pegasus is destroyed and our forces are on their way to Gomoray to take care of Adama once and for all," said Baltar, with a vulpine grin on his face.
"Not exactly," Lucifer replied.
"What do you mean, not exactly?" Baltar snapped. "What's happened?"
"The battlestar and her warriors are not stopping to engage our fighters. The first-wave squadron leader reports that the Vipers broke through their formation and that the Pegasus followed in the wake of their spearhead. The Vipers have now contacted the second attack wave and it seems they are following a similar strategy."
Baltar frowned. "They're not engaging? But that's impossible, surely they were sent to stop our . . ." His voice trailed off. "Of course! Why didn't I see it before?"
"See what, sir?"
"Now it makes perfect sense," said Baltar. "They are a decoy. They're attempting hit and run tactics, trying to break through our formations in order to lead our fighters off, make them pursue and burn off fuel while Gomoray remains under attack!"
"A very clever plan," said Lucifer.
"Yes, but I see right through it," Baltar said with glee. His face was smug with self-satisfaction. "It's not going to work. Break off the attack. Order our fighters to continue on to Gomoray. We will finish off the Galactica and then return for the Pegasus after we've saved Imperious Leader."
The second Cylon attack wave began to converge upon the Pegasus, joining the first wave, which had already closed with the battlestar as it sought to follow full speed in the wake of her Viper squadrons.
"We can now finish her off," said the second-wave commander to the leader of the first attack wave. At that moment, Lucifer's voice came over their comcircuits.
"Squadrons are to disengage at once and move with all dispatch to
Gomoray, repeat, squadrons are to disengage at once and continue to Gomoray."
"But we can destroy the Pegasus . . ."
"You have your orders," Lucifer said.
Both attack waves veered off from the Pegasus, reformed and continued on course to Gomoray.
"Boomer!" said Starbuck.
"I see it," Boomer replied, "but I don't believe it!"
"He was right," said Starbuck. "By Kobol, Cain was right again! They took the bait!"
"Say again?"
"Later. Let's get aboard and see how bad off the Pegasus is."
As they approached the battlestar, they could see that the Cylons would have finished her had they not broken off their assault. Cain might have minimized the damage he had taken by flying evasive tactics, but he had continued dead on course, doing what he could to fight off the Cylons with his laser batteries. As they landed and left their fighters, they could see that the damage control teams were working overtime. Several electrical fires had broken out in the landing bay and smoke was everywhere. Three of the external scanner turrets had been knocked out and the Pegasus had lost one of her aft laser batteries. There was no telling what other damage had been caused to her hull and circuits. Cain had survived yet another firefight, but only barely. If the Cylon squadrons hadn't taken his gambit and broken off their assault, nothing could have saved the ship. If Baltar had delayed in ordering them to break off their assault, the Pegasus would have been destroyed. Cain had cut it awfully close and it was fortunate that Baltar must not have known just how badly off the battlestar was.
Cassiopeia was exhausted. There were a lot of wounded. She was bending over Tolen as Cain entered the life station.
"How is he?" Cain said with concern.
"He's taken a pretty heavy shock," she replied. "Burns, broken ribs he must have sustained when he was thrown clear of the console. There's some internal hemorrhaging—"
"Dammit, Cassi, is he going to live?"
"He'll live. I'm not so sure about many of the others."
They were bringing in even more wounded. They were getting first priority. There had not been time to ascertain the death toll. There was no point in counting; her concern was with the living, keeping them alive.
Battlestar Galactica 6 - The Living Legend Page 13
