Kara didn't know what the Cylons called their home world, although a long string of hexadecimal code seemed likely -- something on the order of "beep-beep-boop-boop-bop." CIC had labeled it "Hell," a good pick, but as Kara flew down through its atmosphere she came up with something better -- Maelstrom.
On most G-class planets the powerful upper troposphere winds calmed down within a klick or two of the planet surface, but on Maelstrom aka Hell, low turbulence was still corkscrewing them around like an ice cube in a mixed drink as Kara brought them on their proposed landing site. They'd passed through the screen of satellites without a hitch.
Valerii had been right about Cylon Central Control. It had been a dead giveaway. Maelstrom was as flat as a parking lot and devoid of both water and vegetation -- except for one fifty-square-mile area that could have been Caprica City in mid-summer. Long-range scans had revealed streets, trees -- the works. It lay before them, a single huge tower in its center and the rest of the city laid out like a park.
But as the saying goes, getting there was more than half the fun. If the drone had handled poorly over Zodiac, it was a frakkin' impossibility here. To add to Kara's aggravation, the grav generator had automatically conked out when it registered Maelstrom's field, and approaching the ground her mental horizon went into a tailspin. The drone's stick vibrated like a sex toy, her hands were almost numb, and her arms were about to fall off from fighting the frakkin' thing. Tyrol should have put in a copilot seat so one of Kelly's brutes could sit up here and help. Too late for that now.
On the upside, their flaky flight path added plenty of credibility to the emergency landing cover story that Gaeta had programmed. A touch on the big red "idiot" button on the com console would broadcast it to Cylon Central. They should be getting a warn-off any second now -- or a cannon shot.
The drone's com bleeped in Kara's helmet phones and the monitor lit up with alphabet soup, which after a rippling pass of Gaeta and Tyrol's translation program re-arranged itself into intelligence. "Deflect or be destroyed in thirty seconds," the screen said.
"Jam it up your ass," Kara muttered, but licked dry lips. Show time. With a thick, suited thumb, she pushed Gaeta's red idiot button and transmitted the Cylon equivalent of, "Sorry, bud. My tail's on fire. Need to set down pronto."
In seconds they'd either be vaporized or cleared for emergency landing.
A new ladleful of Cylon alphabet soup poured into her monitor. The translation program rippled through and it formed a single word: "Cleared."
Kara snorted. Just like that, huh? Apparently, like Valerii had claimed, the Cylons didn't waste valuable resources protecting the old home site against a low probability attack mounted by certifiably insane humans, who were after all, almost extinct. It wouldn't be logical. After announcing to Kelly, "We're a go. Be ready to rock and roll as soon as we stop moving," she focused on the rapidly approaching sea of green.
The thing that still considered itself to be Sharon Valerii was vaguely aware that she rode in a Cylon drone and that she was approaching the source of what her God had called 'love.' Even through the nauseating Redleken waves she could feel the emotional tug of the Cylon billions below her.
But she kept herself focused on one thought, one certainty: Despite what her God was telling her, that tug on her mind wasn't love, not human love like she'd shared with Boxy and with Galen. The memory of that made it easier for her to fight back against the insidious Cylon worms wiggling around in her mind. For love of Boxy and Galen she'd survive, may the lords help her, if she could.
So when Starbuck landed the drone with a heavy jolt, a jump and a shudder Sharon knew what she had to do.
"You still alive, Valerii?" Kelly asked as he unbuckled her and hauled her to her feet. That great lump Private Gamert leaned close and offered a ride. She shook her head 'no' but wasn't too proud to lean against him as she stood swaying.
While the ramp was dropping down, Starbuck argued with Kelly. The plan gave Kelly the option to leave his pilot here to keep the drone ready for a fast dust off. Starbuck didn't like that at all and snarled, "I'd rather die fighting than running," but sat back down in the pilot's chair. Her helmet visor distorted her facial expression by it didn't look nice.
"She'll wait," Kelly grunted to Gamert.
Like hell she will, Sharon thought as she stumbled out into bright daylight and the rumbling and clanking activity of the city square. She'll be along. It's in her nature.
.
On the draedus Commander Adama watched the Vipers try to keep death away from the Galactica. There was nothing he could do to help them except keep pounding on the deathstar. Damn that was a big bastard, the biggest he'd ever seen. The 'stars that had been tracking them for the past three years had been less than half its size.
Adama held on to the edge of the cracked chart table and tried to keep his breathing and expression calm. If he stayed calm, so would everyone else in CIC.
On a bulkhead a big red digital readout showed their fired shot tally. It continued to mount, the numerals in the furthest right column a blur. The first shells from the dorsal batteries had glanced off the deathstar's radiating arms. Within fifteen seconds, the gun crews had readjusted and fired again. Those rounds would arrive on target any second. If they were very, very lucky they'd hit a soft spot -- a launch tube, landing bay or the open end of a maneuvering thruster.
Three of the Vipers out there carried nukes to launch at the deathstar, but they had to get close enough, which they were trying to do right now, circumventing the dog fight. One of the three had already been blown up. If only they'd had another ten Vipers. And while you're wishing, Adama scolded himself, why don't you wish up another battlestar? He shook his head and looked around CIC. Anderson was hurrying over to the helm to relieve Gaeta, who was running for the FTL console.
The Galactica's landing pods had been kept locked shut and the board was green for a jump, but the Viper squadron held the Galactica in place. To FTL now meant abandoning them, since the battlestar couldn't jump back. FTLing around in an active combat site or even close by was danger business. Hundreds of unexploded wild shots became fast, untrackable contact mines, and if the Galactica jumped on top of one those, even something as small as a five-ought could take them out. The FTL field multiplied yields a thousand times.
Adama didn't want to lose all the Vipers in his first engagement; but if he had to, he'd jump clear and find more deathstars to beat on. He had to keep every frakkin' one of those red Cylon eyes on the Galactica. The boys knew it was a possibility. Frak, it was a likelihood.
Lee still stood behind Krebold and had picked up a spare set of phones. He was probably listening to the Viper traffic. Suddenly raising a fist above his head, he let out a yell and the draedus started jumping.
Adama hoped like hell that was one or both of the nukes.
.
Lieutenant Eric Widen, also known as Rat Frak for reasons he didn't want to think about and would never tell his mother, had watched as a large Cylon fighter had launched two nuclear missiles at the Galactica. Along with the other two closest Vipers he had immediately broken off and pursued. Just like Starbuck had taught him in his initial Viper training a year ago, the Rat jammed his stick up all the way and held it there. "You get a hundred, maybe two hundred k-p-h beyond rating if you hold it to the bar. One of those little undocumented tricks you'll pick up if you live long enough."
Rat Frak wanted to live long enough to learn all the tricks, but it was crazy out here. Space was almost solid with the white streaks of tracer rounds, what with the Galactica pounding on the deathstar, it pounding on her, and all around Cylon fighters and Vipers pounding on each other. So far only the Vipers had had much luck. The Galactica had squawked them a score of sixteen Cylons, but Rat Frak had also seen two of his comrades blown up. All he'd gotten himself was a nice black gouge running down the white nose of his Mark II from a shell that glanced off his canopy. Apparently even Cylons fired the occasional dud.
He was close enough now to take a shot at the nukes, but his first burst missed. A few of his shells spattered against Galactica's hull but most streaked off into space. Then the other two Vipers joined him and a three-way crossfire blew the nukes back to the Colonies. Thank the frakkin' lords they hadn't armed.
A few seconds later the three Vipers zipped through the debris cloud at high speed, banked just in time to miss the Galactica by less than a half klick and reversed course to return to the main fray.
They weren't quite there when the deathstar went nova, filling space with white light that limned every craft into high relief. The Cylon fighters stopped firing immediately, and when the explosion's energy wave hit them, they tumbled in crazy abandon like sprigs of thistledown in the wind. The Vipers shook and fought against the turbulence.
"Would you look at that?" the Rat murmured over the wireless to no one in particular. Around him Cylon after Cylon tumbled around in space. "Get the big bug and you get 'em all."
That was definitely a new piece of intel. Must be a Cylon modus operandi peculiar to home world sector.
High Card was singing his victory song, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm somethin' to see!" It must have been his nuke that had taken out the Big Bug. High Card was Rat Frak's best bud, but he was just a little crazy.
Keener's voice reported into Galactica, and a moment later Rat Frak heard, "Return to Ninth Heaven. This is a recall. All Vipers return." He couldn't hear much after that. There were too many war whoops over the phones. The Rat took his place in formation, but being a practical type of guy he wondered if he'd have time to take a leak while the deck crews refueled, rearmed and reloaded their Vipers for the next launch.
.
Kara had always thought individual Cylons must be incredibly stupid. A firefight with a single tin head was a lot like taking potshots at a pumpkin. You just flew with a wild hair up your ass and they had no frakkin' idea how to fight back. Too easy, Sergeant, as Kara had said many times in basic training back when she was sixteen and knew everything. Too easy, gimme something harder.
But even an idiot would have noticed the interstellar drone sitting here in the middle of the city square, or would have been mildly curious about the armed humans that had entered the city's central tower through a pair of giant doors.
Valerii had said no, that curiosity was optional Cylon programming and apparently she was right. Kara hadn't seen so much as a turned eyestalk through the ramp access in the deck.
Traffic walked, rolled and buzzed by constantly -- chrome toasters just like in the history books, some similar but leaner models, a pair of walking scissors -- all legs and no head, a refrigerator shape that floated on an air cushion, and something that looked like a beach ball with eyes. It could have been a beach ball, but the closest beach was about a thousand-year road trip away.
Kara sucked in her breath. A troop of women dressed in ugly gray knee-length shifts walked in ragged rank and file in the direction of the main tower. A moment later they entered the doors that Kelly had used. Their faces had been the same color as their clothes and had the care-worn look of the permanently trodden upon. Kara had seen plenty of that back home in the Caprica ghettos. They could only be slaves, human slaves.
Frak Kelly, Kara couldn't sit here any more. Nothing was going to get any of them out alive if the Cylons started shooting. In fact, frak the whole battle plan, Kara thought. Lee was probably already dead and she wasn't going to sit here and die without firing a single shot to avenge him. Standing up she struggled out of her helmet and metal collar. Sidearm in hand she cautiously oozed down the ramp, expecting to be stopped at any moment.
.
"Well, which way, Valerii?" Captain Kelly asked his patience shredded to tatters by the constant stream of Cylons that marched, rolled and strolled past him and his anxious team. But so far it was as if the tin heads couldn't see the humans in their midst. The inattention was more than freaky, it was terrifying and it made Kelly ill with anticipation. He wanted to bolt up every side passage looking for safe haven or at least a good solid wall to put his back against and start shooting.
Instead he and his team followed Valerii down the gray marble hall. To their right and left, floor to ceiling glass windows opened into room after room of what looked like either coffins or outsized cribs. Between the oblong boxes patrolled two-meter tall stainless steel ogres that sprouted multiple folded arms from the top of their domed heads.
Stopping in front of a pair of glass doors, Valerii pressed her palms against them, but she was too weak to get them open. "Here. This one," she said.
Kelly gestured for Gaines to wait just outside while he, Gamert and the rest checked the area. Gaines brought his firearm to ready and standing with his back tightly against the glass viewing window, he looked both ways down the hall, back and forth, back and forth, his head swinging fast enough to make Kelly dizzy. Gaines seemed about ready to jump out of his skin. They all were.
As far as Kelly could see the room was identical to all the others they'd passed. It definitely didn't hold the sought after monolithic central cybernetic processor or even a communications terminal, just coffins and a pair of stainless steel robots trundling heedlessly back and forth on their mysterious mission.
"What the frak is in here?" Kelly asked, walking toward the closest open box. "We're looking for central control, not the morgue." He looked down. Inside lay glorious golden skin, rounded curves and small pointed breasts. Long black hair streamed from her head and curly short black hair painted a midnight "V" where her legs joined her body. It was one of Sharon Valerii's Cylon sisters, healthy and untouched by the Redleken generator. It breathed slowly and evenly. Kelly stepped half way to the next box. It held the same … the one after that was empty but the next held another Valerii and so did the next and the next.
"Damn you for a frakkin' traitor," Kelly snarled. Raising his weapon he spun back on her, but Valerii had collapsed to the floor in a pile of orange coverall, bones and flaccid flesh. She could barely hold up her head under the weight of the Redleken helmet. Heppenmeier had a pistol out and was moving in for an assassination-style headshot, but Kelly muffled a shout of, "No!" and waved at the pair of stainless mechanicals that had turned in their direction. So far the 'bots had made no other move, but their red eyes scanned back and forth, weighing and analyzing the organics.
Valerii's head tilted up with difficulty and she mumbled so low that Kelly had to take a step in her direction, "Processor's up fifteen … floors … take stairs five more doors. Can't make it … never was. Let me die here … maybe a chance for me. Please." The words came in gasps, as spaced out and broken as the woman that said them.
A chance … a chance. That's what they all wanted was a chance. "Alright, but the helmet stays on. Gamert, tie her up."
"With what?" the big man protested.
Kelly rolled his eyes. "I don't know, your dirty shorts maybe? Find something!"
From the hall Gaines stuck his head in the doors. "Something big's coming," he said. "I recommend we vamoose outta here!"
After waving his men to exit the room, Kelly unclipped the Redleken control from his belt, turned its dial up all the way, tossed it in the nearest empty coffin box and ran to follow, leaving Valerii still on the floor, her muscles contracted and moaning in endless breathless gasps.