"Give in to it, last son of the House of Kobol," the Count advised; "believe me, the pain will get worse… much worse."
Apollo didn't see how that was possible, but then, Iblis torqued the agony up another notch and Apollo realized, on this much, at least, the Count was telling the truth.
"This is but the merest fraction of the agony of every micron of my existence," Iblis told him. "Imagine what pain like this can do to a man, over the millennia." Iblis chuckled. "But then, you won't have to imagine much longer, will you? You'll discover first hand what it can do, as I discovered for myself, thanks to your cursed ancestors."
"Stop it!" Starbuck roared, and fired his laser at Iblis; Cain and a score of other Warriors likewise trained their sidearms on the shadow figure, but the blasts were swallowed by the Count's darkness.
"There's no need to rush," Iblis assured them in a calm, patient voice. "I'll get to all of you after I deal with your friend."
Apollo slumped to his knees, his arms hanging uselessly at his side, twitching and jerking helplessly, his head thrown back, mouth open in a silent rictus of pure agony. Veins stood out in bas relief against his neck and temples, throbbing and pulsing until it seemed they would simply explode. Gods, why didn't Iblis just kill him and get it over with? Even death had to be better than this.
"I have one other, little thing I'd like to show you," Iblis whispered, like a dry wind rattling dead leaves and grasses. And suddenly, Apollo's tortured mind was filled with a series of rapid images, and he saw Count Iblis and Adama's distant ancestor, going back many generations, both in line to replace the retiring elder and the Council Head of the House of Kobol. There was a deep and powerful love between the two men, who were brothers, as deep as the love Apollo felt for Starbuck. But Iblis, a scientific genius, was also deeply jealous of his gifted, older brother. And, although he tried his best to outdo him, time and again, Iblis could never understand why his scientific accomplishments never meant as much to their father as his brother's wisdom, charisma, and strength of character. More images, more poisoned emotions, all told from Iblis's biased and corrupted point of view: Iblis felt as if their parents had always favored his brother, as it seemed all children believed, never affording Iblis the respect his accomplishments deserved.
Faster now, Apollo was forced to relive all of Iblis's pain as his brother continued to best him in every possible way, until the final blow, the last insult, when the brother was awarded the position of council head. Iblis plotted in dark secrecy to have his brother murdered, a crime almost unheard of on Kobol. The new council head discovered the plan, and even then was willing to forgive his brother, but was forced by the council to discipline Iblis. Faster, still, the images of Iblis working to create his master race, until this, too, was discovered, and the Kobollians had no choice at all but to banish his beloved sibling to Cylon. All of these images came to Apollo in less than a microcentari, but they felt to his agonized soul to last yahren.
One by one, the lasers the Warriors were firing at Iblis failed; one moment they had power, and the next, they were dead, the charge dissipated. "Frack," Starbuck muttered, checking his weapon. The power pack indicator read completely drained.
"You're going to beg, Adama-son," Iblis promised Apollo, his eyes glowing brighter still. As they did, Apollo's sufferings increased with an almost exponential progression. "You're going to beg as I did all those long yahren ago; you're going to renounce your heritage, the House of Kobol, even your very father, before I let you slip away from this life."
Apollo thought the joke was going to be on Iblis, because he didn't believe he would live long enough to renounce anything, even if he wanted to. He toppled backward, unable to catch himself, but Gar'Tokk was there to support him. The Borellian Noman knew no attack he could muster against Iblis would accomplish anything, but he could at least perish with his master. "I think we finally found that suicidal situation you were asking about," Gar'Tokk grunted against the pain. "And now we know the answer."
Apollo wanted to tell him not to throw his life away so foolishly, but he couldn't form the words, either with his tongue or inside his own mind.
Athena, unable to watch her brother's suffering, leaped from her place on the platform and gripped his hand tightly. For a moment, new life and strength flowed into him, and he blinked his eyes, focusing on her concerned face.
"Athena?" he managed. But then the circuit of pain expanded, enveloping her as well. Athena's mouth slipped open and her eyes rolled back into her skull.
"We have to form a shield!" Starbuck shouted, running forward into the line of fire. He gripped Athena's hand, lending his strength to her, and she, in turn, lending her strength to Apollo. Now, Boomer and Sheba and Cain and Cassie and Dalton and Troy, more and more Warriors and brave civilians from all the dead worlds ran forward and held hands, and still more came, until they formed a living circle that surrounded Iblis. Each link in the human chain fed his or her strength to the person next to him or her, letting it flow round and round, as fluid as the tides. It was a coming together of mind and spirit, a unification such as the woefully divided fleet had not seen for many yahren.
Apollo's eyes once again grew focused and determined and full of resistance, as he felt himself refilling with life. The web of energy Iblis was spinning circled around the group, accelerating, until a powerful bolt discharged from Apollo, directed back at Iblis. Far from weakening Apollo's resolve, Iblis's tortured tale strengthened Apollo, and made him feel closer to Athena, closer than he had felt in longer than he could recall. The Count screamed in pain as the feedback grew more and more powerful, more lethal.
The men and women forming the shield that surrounded Iblis saw what was happening and concentrated their wills, letting the energy flow along the circuit, hand to hand to hand, back to Apollo. Iblis was a creature of darkness and despair, and could not withstand so much life and hope; it was anathema to him, as sunlight is to a vampire. He threw his head back and shrieked, unable to stand the pain any longer.
His body exploded in a spray of black embers and hellfire, and the scream echoed and re-echoed throughout the great hall. The black particles swarmed and swirled on the air, graying as they did, skirling up and up, to the ceiling, until they finally faded from sight altogether.
"Did we… ?" Athena was the first to break the silence and ask the question they all wanted to ask.
Apollo shook his head. "I doubt it. Iblis isn't a physical creature. The most we've done is hurt him. I don't know if he can be destroyed." He retrieved the Star of Kobol from its place upon the platform and returned it, with a silent prayer of thanks, to its rightful place around his neck.
"Apollo," Cain began, his hand resting on the commander's shoulder; he was looking at Apollo in a new light. He had always admired Adama's son; now, he respected him. Adama was still very much alive, in his children. "That was one of the bravest, most selfless acts I've ever been privileged to witn—"
Another explosion, larger and directly overhead, crushed the ceiling of the cavernous hall. Boulders and huge blocks of stone from spilled down into the center of the auditorium, crushing those few who were unfortunate enough to still be standing there. Most of the colonials had made their way to forward, to join in the living circle to defend Apollo against Iblis. But they were still doomed if the Cylons were left to ravage the planet unchecked.
Light from above filtered down through the veins of dirt and dust that hung thickly in the air. Cain looked up, squinting against the grit. "I want everyone in the ships' crews to head for the asteroid," Cain ordered in a loud, clear voice.
"You can't be serious," Apollo said, gripping Cain's arm. "Even if we make it to the asteroid, the Cylons will blast us out of the sky before we can even begin to fight back."
"Those are my orders!" Cain barked. "As supreme commander—"
"The vote was never taken," Apollo reminded him. "I am still in command."
Cain spat his rage and frustration. "Then I'm seizing command from
you and ordering you and all the rest of the ships' crews up to that asteroid!"
Another blast, farther away, but still powerful enough to shake loose smaller boulders and dirt, rattled the hall. They could debate who was in charge and what was the best way to proceed until the roof collapsed and made the whole matter academic. Apollo raked his hand through his hair, glanced up, over Cain's shoulder, and saw Talen standing there.
"The dream," he said, their eyes locked, "was it real?"
She said nothing, but she had given him his answer earlier. Choose wisely, she had said, as had Adama. To say more than that would remove the article of faith. Apollo hesitated only a moment, then stood up and addressed the hallful of terrified colonials. "Our only chance of surviving this is to head further down into the city," he said, loudly and clearly.
Athena looked at him as if he had begun speaking in some forgotten, incomprehensible language. What he said made no sense. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "What—"
He cut her off. "I believe there's another city beneath this one," he said. "A city that leads deep into the bowels of the planet."
"You believe?" Cain repeated.
Apollo looked at him; he would not back down on this one. "Sometimes, faith is all we have," he said. "I don't know how far down the city extends, but it may be our only chance of evading the Cylons until we can formulate a plan of escape or negotiate a surrender."
"No surrender!" Cain thundered.
Apollo turned, his arm held out to encompass the colonials who were huddling in blind fear at the back and sides of the hall. "You tell that to them!" he said, his face almost touching Cain's. "You tell them we'd rather all die than negotiate surrender! Haven't these people lost enough already, without losing their own lives, too?"
"Do you really think the Cylons will let any of us live?" Cain asked, a note of amusement in his voice. "If we surrender, we're doing their dirty work for them."
Apollo shook his head. "They need some of us alive for research," he reminded the old war-daggit. "We might be able to leverage some kind of deal with them… something, anything, that keeps us all alive until we can form a plan of escape."
The matter seemed to be at a deadlock, until Starbuck stepped forward to stand beside his oldest friend. "I'm in," he said. As if there were ever any doubt. But it helped decide matters for others, and Boomer and Sheba stepped away from Cain and walked to Apollo's side. More civilians and Warriors joined the commander.
Apollo and Cain stood looking at one another; if Cain had anything to say, he kept it to himself. Apollo turned to Athena, who bit her lip and shook her head. She was not ready yet to trust her inner vision. "We need to do this," Apollo said to Cain. "Now." He nodded.
With Iblis' influence gone, the exits were opened once more, and Cain and Athena and their fellow Warriors made their way out of the hall, heading for the shuttles. Athena paused at the doorway and looked back at Apollo and, forcing a smile, she gave him a thumbs-up, and ran out of the building… but not before blowing Starbuck a kiss. He caught it and held it to his heart.
Starbuck thought again that maybe the time had come for a serious relationship, and laughed; how typical of himself to start thinking about such things when death seemed imminent.
"What's so funny?" Apollo asked.
"Just thinking," he answered, "the more things change, the more they remain insane."
"The same," Apollo corrected. "Remain the same."
"You said it," Starbuck said with a wide grin, and gave his friend a Warrior's handshake. "Let's do this."
Apollo and Starbuck, with Gar'Tokk nearby, took point and led their followers out through the rear exits. The damage to the underground city had been more extensive than anyone might have guessed; a huge section of the cavern ceiling had collapsed under the barrage of the plasma cannons and buried or crushed many buildings and dwelling units. It was only by the grace of the Lords of Light that the great hall and its occupants had been spared the same terrible fate.
Through the rip in the earth, Apollo and his group could see the shuttles as they bulleted away from the planet, past the Cylon Raiders and their hail of turbolaser fire. The shuttles had their own shields and defense systems, and Apollo prayed it would be enough to get them safely to the asteroid.
As he thought that, a Raider targeted one of the shuttles with its lasers, but another shuttle raked a barrage of firepower along the Raider's side, shredding it in half before it could bring its own lasers into play.
"Keep running," Apollo ordered, forcing himself to look away from the aerial pandemonium. Strobes of light, the flare of plasma cannons and turbolasers, washed down through the opening in the earth and painted the buildings in bold strokes of red, but whatever was happening up there, they could not afford to let themselves be distracted. They had to find the underground entrance or risk death or capture.
Baltar had grabbed Siress Kiera and joined Apollo's group of refugees. To his credit, Baltar thought he might still be of some use in negotiating a bloodless surrender to the Cylons, if capture did seem imminent.
Apollo tried to recall the path he had taken in his dreamwalk, and the harder he concentrated, the more indistinct and hazy his memories became. Cold sweat began to dot his forehead and upper lip. Gods, what if it really was just a dream? He was gambling their lives on an ambrosa-fueled hallucination!
He shook his head and pushed that thought away. He couldn't allow himself to doubt. He had listened to his inner vision, as he had told Athena she must, and he had chosen accordingly. The comm-line he wore at his belt chirrupped and he snagged it, opened it. "Apollo, here" he hailed his caller. The little holo-vid projected Athena's flickering, three-dimensional image to him.
"Athena, here," the image crackled back, the transmission sputtering from the massive charges of energy from Cylon weapons filling the air around them. "We're almost there," she reported. "We're going to make it…"
Apollo breathed a sigh of relief. "Stay in contact," he told her, and added, "And don't take any foolish risks."
She laughed. "It's been nothing but risks these past twenty yahren," she reminded him. "It's you I'm worried about. At least we'll have battlestars and Vipers; you… you just have a dream and a hole in the ground."
"Well, of course it sounds bad, if you put it like that," Starbuck muttered to Apollo, and, despite the situation, they both laughed like naughty children.
Far above Kobol, the shuttles bearing the Warriors back to their battlestars and Vipers reached the asteroid; a command from the shuttle's computer to the asteroid's opened the concealed docking bay, and the shuttles jockeyed into position. As soon as the first shuttle landed, its passengers disembarked and began running for the battlestars.
Cylon Raiders had tracked the shuttles to their destination, and Athena realized with some horror that that had been their plan, all along, to discover where the fleet had been hidden. Well, she thought, grimly, nothing to do for it now but see it through…
The first wave of Raiders fired their turbolasers at the docked shuttles and peeled away; the shuttles jumped as the lasers struck, then exploded in a spray of burning fuel and shrapnel.
Emergency fire controls kicked into life, pumping thick foam from vents in the ceiling and walls and floor to extinguish the blaze. Athena thought that if their luck just held, they were going to get through this. The shuttle in which she and Cain were passengers docked, and they leaped out before the hatch had completely opened and pelted across the foam-slick runway—she for the Galactica and he for the Pegasus.
Laser fire scorched the air behind Athena's head, and she felt the tremendous heat singeing her back. She looked around, saw a Raider had followed them into the docking bay and was targeting the Warriors as they ran from the shuttles to the battlestars.
"Oh no you don't," Athena grumbled, and turned from the battlestar and ran for a control panel in the nearby wall. She found the one she was looking for and slammed her fist against it; instantly, a thick spray of the
fire-dampening foam gushed from the ceiling and walls, blanketing the Raider's canopy. The fighter, blinded now, veered sharply, scraped against the ceiling, then racketed off the wall and finally slammed into the foam-covered floor, where it slid out of control, slewing wildly, pulsars still firing. The Raider lifted, dropped, lifted once more and plowed straight on into the wall.
It fell again, and this time did not rise.
"What's going on up there?" Apollo's voice sputtered across her comm-line. It had been open all the while, and he had doubtless heard the Raider's none-too-quiet demise.
"Nothing serious, just a little disagreement with one of the neighbors. I think we're going to make it," Athena reported back, running for the Galactica. Cain had already boarded the Pegasus and was powering up her engines. The other battlestars were ready to launch; she was the last to board. "What's your situation?"
She looked out through the asteroid's open doorway, and realized that whatever Apollo's situation, it had to be better than theirs. Apollo answered, but she couldn't hear him over the runaway thudding of her own heart and the pounding of blood in her ears. Filling the starfield and continuing to grow in size as it closed the distance, was a Cylon Class IV basestar.
"Athena?" Apollo's voice again, breaking up on the ether. The air around the basestar was charged with plasma as the deadly cannons were trained upon the asteroid and powered up. Her inner vision told her they were in a world of sorrow.
She shook herself out of her torpor and boarded the Galactica. The ship's crew had already begun firing the engines; all that was left to be done was for her to order the battlestar away. It was still not too late, she told herself as she ran for the bridge. "Prepare to launch!" she shouted into the ship's comm-system, relaying her order to the bridge crew.
More plasma cannons along the weapon-prickled face of the basestar swung about to bear upon the asteroid. The first blast from the cannons struck the asteroid and shook it violently, like dice in a gambler's hand. Emergency klaxons shrieked and power was diverted to the shields. Dozens of fires erupted around the docking bay as equipment shorted and sparked. The force of the cannon fire had actually rocked the asteroid from its orbit above the planet, and it began to lose altitude. Mighty engines buried deep within the ship of rock and steel kicked in, and pulsars fired from secret exhausts, correcting their orbit automatically. Another set of alarms added their strident message to the first, but they weren't saying anything Athena didn't already know: they were royally fracked.
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