Part 38
Just a little further, just a little further . . .
It was Starbuck's mantra as he stumbled along in the darkness, each step precipitating a lancing pain through the back of his skull, which in turn caused another session of dry heaves. This new agony totally eclipsed all his other nuisance pains acquired since this mission had begun, although the jolt of electricity his arm had taken was beginning to burn with a new intensity that he was finding it difficult to ignore any longer. The whole package was complete and utter misery, and in reality could be only marginally better than a quick and violent death beneath the strafing runs of four squadrons of Vipers.
Or so he kept telling himself.
"Almost there, buddy," Apollo encouraged him.
"If you give up now, Darlin', I'll personally kick your astrum from here back to Caprica City," Saraesa added with her usual panache. "If they'll have you."
Starbuck simply couldn't rally the strength required for a comeback, and that in itself was more disheartening than all the pain and suffering. He'd love to give Saraesa the full benefit of his most caustic wit, since she had tried to dump him on a mountainside, and leave him to an untimely death. His legs were on auto pilot, trudging along between the other two, not even aware where his next steps would fall. His eyes were half-closed, and too bleary to focus anyhow.
Just a little further, just a little further . . . Lords, he would give just about anything to just be able to lie down for five centons!
"There it is," Apollo announced, more than a little relief in his tone as he spotted the transport. By now he was limping heavily, favouring his injured leg heavily.
"Wait a centon," Saraesa inserted suspiciously. "What's a Colonial shuttle doing here?"
"What do you think?" Apollo returned dryly, as they broke through the vegetation.
Saraesa hesitated, and Starbuck floundered as his left side sought to stop, while his right followed Apollo's lead, and kept on going. Inevitably, he collapsed to the ground somewhere between them, groaning wretchedly as the sudden jarring caused his stomach to react convulsively once again. Too weak and exhausted to move, he lay there spitting out the accumulation of acrid mucous in his mouth, as the back of his head threatened to split open and release the demons ricocheting around his skull.
"You know damn well that this is the colonel's shuttle, Apollo!" Saraesa exploded. "We can't take the colonel's shuttle! It's against the rules!"
"Oh?" Apollo challenged her. "Show it to me in the handbook, Saraesa."
"Okay, so maybe it's not written specifically," Saraesa conceded, "but it's certainly implied!"
"Just like infiltrating the Arduum's observation level, and utilizing the surveillance system is generally considered to be against the rules?" Apollo inserted. "Yet you and Starbuck did that too."
Yeah, it was all out in the open. It was a sure sign that Apollo was exhausted when he was flagrantly breaking the rules of the Arduum. Warriors were not to even utter the words during the exercise.
"It was his idea!" Saraesa returned defensively as Apollo knelt down beside Starbuck. "By the way, I know he conveniently forgot to mention it, but we also ended up locking the colonel in a storage locker. Namara's going to have us cleaning turbo flushes with our toothbrushes until graduation."
"You did what?" Apollo replied, aghast. Then he started laughing aloud. "Star-buck!"
"Hey, you're both breaking the rules by . . . by talking about the colonel and the Arduum." Starbuck gasped as his stomach finally stopped heaving. He took a couple deep breaths before he continued. "But since I'm easily led astray . . . there was no other way, Apollo. Besides, I didn't realize until later that it was Colonel Namara . . ." He still remembered the sudden feeling of impending doom when the surveillance vids displayed Namara's flushed and angry visage, as he tried to escape the tiny room that his cadets had locked him in.
"I'm not criticising you, buddy," Apollo replied reassuringly. "I agreed with you from the beginning. They've drilled into us in officer's training from day one at the Academy, that we utilize every opportunity to our advantage. The Arduum is no exception. Yeah, we might have reinterpreted a few rules, but we still achieved our goal and finished the mission."
"Well, I for one would like to finish the mission alive . . ." Starbuck told him, after having a few blessed moments of rest. He glanced in the direction of the shuttle, and then up at Saraesa, holding her gaze. "If you don't mind."
She didn't flinch. "It wasn't personal, Starbuck."
"Really?" he managed to drawl. "I guess I have a hard time believing that."
"I was just doing my duty. You were a liability."
"Yeah? That's not the first time I've heard that, lady . . ." Bitterness dripped from his words.
"Starbuck, don't," Saraesa inserted, taking a step forward, holding out her hand and then dropping it after her eyes met his icy blue ones. She spoke hesitantly. "I've never had a . . . a friend or colleague . . . that would take the chances that you two do for each other . . ."
"Little wonder," Starbuck returned, feeling a twinge of guilt when she dropped his gaze, and turned to look back at the shuttle. After all, it was just an exercise. But it felt so damned real with everybody role playing, and both he and Apollo getting injured . . . The terror he'd felt was certainly real. "Hey, you were in a tough spot . . ." He shrugged, not really knowing what to say. The damage had been done, and it wasn't like they would be seeing anything of each other after this assignment. He'd never laid eyes on her before the Arduum, and probably never would again afterwards.
She turned guardedly, and nodded at him briefly.
Starbuck sighed, and glanced at his chrono. The solenite charges that Apollo had planted were figuratively exploding as they spoke, as the Control Centre, fuel bunkers and munitions dumps simultaneously erupted. All over the Cylon Base, the mass devastation would be registering in the Arduum's network, and Cylons would be responding accordingly. Hopefully, by dying. They would never even detect the massive air strike moving in that would finish them off. "On the lighter side, we started this whole thing out by stealing the colonel's ride, and I just can't resist the irony that we're doing it again. We have to take his shuttle."
"How's that?" Saraesa asked from metrons away, as she slowly turned and made her way back to them.
A little more reluctantly this time, she moved in beside him as she and Apollo hoisted Starbuck up to his feet. He sucked a sharp breath in between his teeth, and held on to them tightly as his head began to swim, and his knees started to buckle once again.
Just a little further, just a little further . . .
"You tell it," Starbuck groaned to Apollo.
"Starbuck and I were in town on secton-end a couple days ago," Apollo began to explain as they half-dragged the warrior towards the shuttle. "He'd already had a few warnings about being out past curfew, and was going on report if they caught him again. Anyhow, we lost track of time, and the next thing we knew we were scrambling for a way back to the Academy."
Starbuck smiled slightly, as he regained his feet, trying to focus on the memories of that night, instead of the throbbing in his head. Apollo was editing out all the best parts with his recounting of their adventure. Gambling, womanising, and carousing from one hot spot to the next . . . truthfully, they'd had way too much to drink as they celebrated Apollo's natal day in the heart of Caprica City's nightlife. It had been Starbuck's responsibility to make sure they made it back on time . . . and then somewhere along the way it had ceased to be important to him whether he was put on report yet one more time for exceeding curfew. Grog and ambrosa often had that effect on him, he'd noticed.
"Starbuck spotted a military transport and somehow talked me into believing that we were simply doing our duty by returning it to the Academy, since it obviously belonged there to begin with," Apollo continued as they boarded the open shuttle, none of them surprised that it was unguarded. In the universe of the Arduum, it didn't exist. It merely transported the Sentinels of the Academy training exercise here to observe the cadets involved, as they carried out their various assignments.
"And the transport belonged to Colonel Namara?" Saraesa guessed with a wry chuckle. "I never met him until I was chosen for the Arduum. He's an imposing man."
"Uh huh," Apollo nodded, as they set Starbuck down in a seat. "Of course, the sentries on duty at the Caprica Academy gate reported it to the colonel when he arrived hopping mad in a civilian hack a couple centars later."
"Busted," Starbuck murmured with a smile. It had been worth it. It had been an outstanding night, and the added adventure of actually getting back before curfew had been the pièce de résistance.
"Is that what you two are doing in the Arduum?" Saraesa asked, as she took the co-pilot's seat.
A technologically advanced simulated Academy training exercise, the Arduum was usually reserved for upper classmen, and considered a defining field test before graduation. All cadets were outfitted with control helmets and visors that digitally identified "Cylons" and "Colonial Warriors". Sensors in the clothing of participants registered "shots" fired by sim-compatible weapons, and the data was then rendered as a "kill", "injury", or "miss". Once "in the game", participants weren't to deviate from their assigned role, or interfere if they were "killed". Points were awarded for leadership, teamwork, marksmanship, map reading and land navigation, communications, tactics, combat, field engineering, field medicine, innovation, and physical conditioning. Cadets were both monitored and evaluated throughout the exercise by Sentinels through networked surveillance systems in the Base. In the event of serious injury, it was permissible to concede defeat and request assistance, but doing so would result in failure. Failure was "death". Oh, and bonus points were awarded in the event that the mission was a success.
Apollo nodded, taking the pilot's seat, and settling into it with a groan of relief. Slowly, he stretched out his leg. "Yeah, somewhat. Colonel Namara decided to throw us to the daggits, and assigned us a mission that had a low probability of success."
"Especially hung over," Starbuck added, belting himself in as the rear hatch began to close. He felt his body sinking into the seat, and ignored the fact that he was covering Namara's command position with mud. "Anyhow, he told us if we didn't avail ourselves well, that we would be up for expulsion from the Academy." He still couldn't believe that an immature, drunken prank had almost lead to their expulsion, and technically still could. Colonel Namara really needed to get a sense of humour. "Is the scanner array in this bird wired into the Arduum's network?"
"No," Apollo replied as he looked over the instruments, while the engines hummed to life. "I'm not reading any telemetry from the Base."
Centons later, they were airborne, and heading out, in the opposite direction of an approaching attack force.
"I'm reading Vipers! Coming in en masse from the east. No response detected from the Cylon Base," Saraesa reported. "Looks like we made it out before the strike, and your mission is a success. One more Cylon base is about to be blown to Hades Hole!"
"What was your assignment?" Apollo asked.
"Totally unrelated," she admitted. "I'm from the Tauran Academy. Just as I said, I was supposed to get these data crystals back to Caprica City." Then she smiled. "As far as I know, there's no such race as the Darthinians. Has a nice ring to it though, don't you think?"
"Where did you get the Seal of the Lords?" Apollo asked. "Is it real?"
"It's just a copy," Saraesa replied.
"Damned convincing," Apollo replied.
"It's supposed to be," she replied, glancing back at Starbuck.
"What's the ETA to the Academy?" Starbuck asked, his head tilted back against the seat, and his eyes closed. He might actually catch forty winks before they arrived . . . if Apollo let him.
"About a centar, Starbuck, but don't fall asleep," Apollo returned. "How's the head?"
"My head feels like an ovum that was just cracked open," Starbuck returned honestly. And his left hand had gone numb, and his arm was beginning to swell up. But that was another story. "How's the leg?"
"If it gets any worse, I'm going to jettison it out the jump chute," Apollo returned. Then he frowned as the comm began to crackle to life. "Oh oh . . ."
"This is Colonel Namara of the Arduum Base. I order the mong-raking miscreants that are in that transport to return to base immediately! That's my shuttle, goddamn it!"