Adama's grandfather had owned Cylons. "More'n a hundred," as he used to tell the rapt little Billy Adama. "All exactly alike 'cept for the numbers on their necks. Damned stupid id-juts. Couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. 'Bout ran my factory broke."
"But grandpa!" the little boy had protested. "They're winning the war!"
"There's just too frakkin' many of 'em! They're as thick as bees on a horncow carcass!" At that point Grandma had come in and scolded her husband for cursing in front of their young grandson.
Little Billy Adama had found the carcass imagery disturbing, to say the least, but he'd never forgotten it. More than fifty years later the Cylons were still as thick as bees on a carcass and they had stingers to match.
The Galactica had jumped twice again, each time a tiny increment closer to the Cylon home planet. The deathstars weren't ignoring them anymore. Six brutes had clustered around their last site and pounded holes in the Galactica's shields, although not yet breaking through the extra insulation. There were already three deathstars at the new site and Adama expected the earlier six to FTL in at any second.
The shot counters had stilled. Abby and Bertha, the dorsal A and B railguns, had run dry, and they were reduced to calling the deathstars bad names. He'd told Lee to cork the Vipers in their tubes. They had very little ammunition left. The enemy suppression batteries still had a few minutes, but he'd need covering fire when they launched Shiva.
This last jump had to be perfect, no mistakes. They were going to be practically bouncing off the atmosphere. Gaeta looked up from the plotting table and nodded, refraction from the cracked glass streaked like war paint from his chin up to his brow. Anderson was already at the jump computer keying in.
Lee stood next to Adama, poised on the balls of his feet like a fighter, his hands balled into his fists at his side. He wasn't used to waging war by remote control. Adama knew the feeling. It had taken him years to lose the urge to pummel the consoles and he still kicked them now and then.
"Execute when ready," Adama said. "Launch Vipers on clear space confirm and, Amy, get me a line to the Shiva crew."
.
Chapter six of the Holy Scrolls tells how the first Colonials left Kobol chased by the man-eating World Snake, a metal monster with feet that crushed human bodies into pulp and a mouthful of fire. Here on the Cylon home world it had been reborn. That thing out there was a man-eater, pure and simple and it was after them.
Tucked into the tiny closet with four of his men, Kelly panted and watched through a tiny slit as an articulated, shiny gold mechanical a dozen meters long reared up half way to the vaulted ceiling of the corridor intersection. Pushing the closet's door gently closed, he felt around for a light switch. There wasn't one so he leaned back, tried to get control of his breathing and thought.
Two straight lines of sound sensor holes had run down the whole length of the Snake. It probably could hear them out its asshole. And instead of the usual Cylon-style black slit/red light visor, round "eyes" had plated its head with only the area around the neck joint free. It probably saw like a horse or horncow, Kelly thought, everywhere but directly behind.
They'd lost Gaines. He lay out there crushed, the black box of the transmitter on the floor a three meters further on. The box's Cylon-like oscillating red light had boggled the Snake's robotic brain. After staring into it for one frozen, hypnotic moment, the Snake had gently shoved it away. Peeking out again, Kelly could see the red ball still swinging its tick, tick, tick. If they could recover it, there was still hope.
Kelly turned back to the other four men. A tiny sliver of light from the door reflected off the faces. "You and you," Kelly mouthed, pointing at Gamert and one of the nameless recruits. Shedding his rifle and pulling a long-handled grenade from his belt, he gestured for them to do the same then he pantomimed what he wanted them to do: Arm a grenade, thrust it into the Snake, run like Hell.
Turning to Heppenmeier and the other recruit, the one with the flame thrower/hard shot combo, Kelly swung his hand through the air, flat and palm down. That meant, "Cover us."
Another look through the door. Outside the Snake had made a gyration, placing a shiny gold ass in their direction. It had given up its high horse vantage point and now it's head swung close to the floor like it was scent-hunting the humans.
"Now!" Kelly shouted and Heppenmeier and Recruit One burst out of the closet. Firing continuously they ran in opposite directions around the parameter of the intersection. Kelly, Gamert and Recruit Two followed pounding toward the Snake.
The firearms made a racket like an interstellar freighter coming in for a landing.
Recruit One alternately triggered the flamethrower and machine gun of his combo, firing mostly for the Snake's head. Some of the eye sensors had cracked. It didn't like that much and screamed what could only be hexadecimal curses. Turning in Recruit One's direction, it knocked him and the combo half way across the room, opened its mouth and threw a little flame of its own.
Although Recruit One was already up and on the run, his cloth helmet cover and body armor caught fire, and yelling he fell to the floor and rolled. From the other side of the room Heppenmeier had been firing his electromag fruitlessly the whole time.
Finding this activity totally engrossing, the Snake didn't spot the men coming up on its tail.
Gamert's long legs got him there first with Kelly only a half step behind. Recruit Two, a smaller man, brought up the rear. In a smooth ballet they armed their grenades, thrust and spun to retreat. On the run again, Kelly waved for Recruit Two to beat his ass back the way he'd come. He ran. They all ran.
The world exploded.
.
Kara had followed the parade of gray human women deep into the Cylon tower, not really sure what she was looking for other than a place to die. She'd recognize that when she found it: It'd be somewhere with a lot of Cylons, preferably stacked from floor to ceiling.
Leaving the marble-lined ground-floor corridors, the gray women had climbed at least a dozen flights of stairs maybe more. Passing out of the stairwell through a set of blank double doors, they were walking a wide door-lined hall when a hoarse boom echoed up from below.
It couldn't be Shiva. That would make the building wag like a metronome or maybe even flatten it, depending on where it hit the planet. This just rattled Kara's ears and made everyone in the hall stagger. That's when one of the slave women saw who had been following them and began to scream.
"Hush. I'm not going to hurt you," Kara said, gesturing her peaceful intentions with one empty hand while quickly hiding her pistol with the other.
"No, you're most certainly not," a familiar woman's voice said from behind her. "Hand the gun over, Lieutenant Thrace, or it will be my pleasure to shoot you."
No, it couldn't be, Kara thought. But that loathsome voice had been unmistakable.
There were times when one really, truly hated being right about a person.
She slowly turned to look at Serena Adama, who was as usual beautifully dressed, coiffed and painted. Her manicured hands held a tastefully compact automatic weapon.
"Come now, Starbuck," Serena cooed. "You used to tell Lee that I made Cylons look like … what was it you said? 'A pack of pansies'? Don't you trust your instincts?"
Kara debated charging the smaller woman but decided if she wanted to commit suicide, there'd be plenty of time later, and if worse came to worse, there was always the poison pill in her flight suit pocket. Taking out even just a copy of Serena would have been pure joy, but Kara intended to up her Cylon score by at least a couple of dozen before she died. And the gray slave women huddled together like a flock of ragged, anxious pigeons behind her were directly in the line of fire. Somehow Kara was pretty sure that Serena wouldn't care much if she hit one of them.
Slowly bending over she put her handgun on the floor and straightened with raised hands. "Oh, I've got good instincts alright, I'm just surprised there's more than one of you. How do you ever figure out which is the prettiest?"
Serena snorted, daintily blowing out only the tiniest puff of air. "Sticks and stones, Kara, sticks and stones. Now turn around and follow those slaves. God has asked to see you."
.
"Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir, I will." Socinus dropped the hand that had been pressing the spacesuit helmet against his right ear and nodded to the handful of deck crew gathered around him. After refueling, re-arming and reloading the Vipers in the launch tubes and doing some emergency patchwork on 33562 and 89767, they'd been told to put on their suits and get ready for Shiva launch.
Ever since they'd been standing around in the starboard landing bay kicking gravity-booted heels waiting for this moment. "Commander Adama says to get Shiva ready. And he also says pray for the Lords' blessing."
The deckhands scattered. They'd been practicing this for the past three days and had it down perfect, at least in theory:
Step one -- open the landing bay.
Step two -- untie the asteroid and adjust the inertia regulators sticking out of it like cloves on a ham. For that Chief Callie had helped Socinus rig a gang switch, but one of the port bow regulators still tended to come off a millisecond late, making the whole rock tip in that direction, which led to …
Step three -- correct Shiva's float.
Step four -- using a fraction of the rock's inertia, pull it out of Galactica. And finally …
Step five -- the one there'd been no way to practice. Regulators full off and all of Shiva's momentum re-invested for an irresistible, unavoidable collision with the Cylon planet. It had to be launched close in and quickly enough that a deathstar couldn't intercept. It had to be done right.
Halfway to the inertia controls, the FTL jump distortion hit Socinus. He just staggered and plowed on. He'd been through that hell four times today already, and his inner ears were numb and his gut empty. As he arrived at Shiva's control center inside the forward portal, the pod began to grind open. Of course there was no sound in the airless bay, but he could feel the old battlestar's worn-out gears vibrating the deck. Outer space opened up before him with a truly impressive panoramic view of a very ugly gray planet.
Waving to the crewmen ready to release the tie-downs, Socinus picked up the jury-rigged switch. That's when he began to feel the "thump, whoosh, thump, whoosh" that Vipers were making in the launch tubes below. Even with Shiva filling the starboard landing bay, they'd had to use its tubes. There'd been no other way to launch out fast enough.
The tie-downs loose, the unhitched lines floated free like snakes swimming in water as Socinus first flipped the gang switch then quickly eased the control just a half hair to swing Shiva's nose slightly to starboard and straighten her out. The deck hands were running for the bulkheads and access hatches as fast as their magnetic boots would let them, which wasn't very fast. The rock floated, magnificent and ready to hammer death into the Cylon home world. Easing the control forward, Socinus began to guide Shiva out of its temporary home.
In front of the landing pod's portal, space shimmered with the distortion of an arriving FTL jump. A second later the rapier sharp arms of a deathstar solidified and Socinus's view of his target disappeared.
Within seconds space became thick with Cylon Raiders, two of which were slotting for a run at the landing bay portal. Shiva had cleared less than half of its length, and Socinus had no place to run and a job still to do. His hand hovered over the gang-switch, unsure whether the deathstar could deflect the Shiva asteroid or whether he should risk ripping off the landing bay with an early launch. He was supposed to get a launch order, but it might never come. He continued to ease it out, but slowly, oh so slowly. While the inertia generators still operated, even a rail gun hit could deflect it.
.
This time Rat Frak had been the third Viper out of the starboard tubes. Bad luck of the draw, he figured. Everyone knew the first Vipers out were the most likely to be picked off, but he burst clear, banked over and was immediately squeezing his trigger in reflex, missing the Raider that had popped into his sights like a rabbit out of a hole but catching the next one behind it. It exploded with a satisfying flash of light and shrapnel.
It wasn't hard to hit a Raider. They were everywhere. Raiders were streaming from a deathstar's launch ports like ants at a picnic.
The Cylon homeworld filled most of nearby space, a gray unforgiving ocean of gravity that would swallow him whole if he didn't respect it. Rat Frak never fought so close to a planet. He felt crowded.
And CAG and CIC had said the deathstars were crowding the Galactica, which was a fantabulous understatement, as Rat's mother would have said. Another deathstar shimmered in and practically rammed her head on. A third flashed in just aft of her thrusters.
Rat Frak was close enough to Galactica see Shiva's nose sticking out of the starboard launch bay and two Raiders that were going in for a kill. He got closer -- close enough to see the red of their oscillating eyes and the white of their cannon fire. "Piss on you," he muttered as he pulled the trigger and a stream of shells cut the first Raider in two.
His trigger clicked on empty as he flew through its debris and the Rat didn't try to pull up to miss the other one. Poking out the red eye, he hit the central brain case straight on, and together they exploded in a ball of white fire.
.
When the draedus went crazy, showing deathstars so close they looked like moons, Lee Adama gave up his last scraps of hope for survival. They were as surrounded as an ancient wagon train on the Caprican plains. His Vipers were putting up a magnificent fight, but they were outnumbered, outgunned and almost out of shells. Standing next to Lee, the Commander kept his eyes focused on the draedus panels and only occasionally barked out an order or a question, either to the others in CIC or into the headphone microphone he held. He hadn't yet ordered the asteroid launched.
The Galactica's guns had gone completely dry.
There wasn't really much they could do or say except wait.
Kara was dead. Lee knew it; he felt it in his bones, a certainty that didn't go away or soften, but his heart didn't have time to hurt. Three deathstars were pounding them with heavy rail-gun fire and the CIC shivered and shook. The launch pods must be doing the same, which did not bode well for Shiva's launch stability.
The Cylons may have guessed the Galactica's plan, if computing probability differentials could be called guessing. The deathstars had moved in too close to deploy nukes safely so what were they trying to do? Board Galactica, ram it or just scare the shit of them? He didn't know. His father probably did.
A new hit shook CIC badly enough to knock both Lee and his father to the deck. A close-by set of temporary wires burst into flames, fire racing away from it to the bulkheads where instrument panels began to explode.
Lee sat up but his father didn't. Blood streamed from a cut in the older man's forehead. Grabbing the headphones that had been in his father's hands, Lee screamed into the microphone, "Launch, Lords frak it! Get it out of there! Launch!"
He didn't know if the Shiva crew heard him or not. The whole ship tipped toward port and everyone tumbled across CIC.
.
Recognizing the long burn scar down the Viper's nose, Socinus had watched with awe as it took out the two Raiders. The Rat had given up his life so easily. Would he be able to do the same?
It may come to that very soon. During Galactica's tormented writhing, Socinus had been forced to tip Shiva more and more to keep the trajectory pointed planet-wards. Half of the asteroid hung out of the landing bay, the other half scraped the overhead. When it launched, this whole end of the bay would go with it. And probably Socinus too.
Over his suit phones, he heard a launch order. It didn't sound like the Commander's raspy voice, more like his son the acting X.O. But it was a valid order and a call to arms and death. Socinus was ready. All hesitation gone, his thumb came down firmly and every one of Shiva's inertia generators switched off.
The piece of rock left its human handlers in an orbital speed hurry, its aft end cutting through the landing pod's metal overhead and girders like a dull knife through wet paper, pulling and ripping long gashes all the way to bulkheads.
Hitting the portal's rim, it bent out the frame. A rough piece of rock broke off and tumbled along inside the hull until it followed Shiva and the loose, torn off pod pieces out the door.
This pod will never close again, Socinus thought.
Then he realized that he was still thinking, still alive, which meant he had to try to stay that way. Turning, he ran for the airlock and the passageways that led to Galactica's main hull. He yelled into his suit phones as he pounded along, pulling each magnetic boot painfully free, "Evacuate the pod! Evacuate the pod! They'll have to jettison it to get Galactica away from here." He hoped his crew had already left.
With his back turned to the wrecked portal, Socinus didn't see Shiva hit the deathstar, spearing the evil octopus through its dead metal heart. And even if he had looked, he wouldn't have seen the asteroid emerging from the other side because it didn't. Asteroid and deathstar fell together toward the planet's surface.
In the airlock Socinus turned off his mag boots and slammed his gloved fist into the inner-hatch override switch's glass covering. He squeezed through the slowly widening opening and ran for all he was worth down the corridor, trying to reach the main hull gate before it slammed shut. He had ten seconds.
He made it, sliding in under the closing gate like a pyramid player slides into home. Behind him, on the other side of the closed gate the explosive charges that freed the starboard landing pod had begun to go off, the reports vibrating through the hull and dully thump, thump, thumping in the passageway's thinned out atmosphere.
Over Socinus suit phones he picked up the Viper recall. "Thirty seconds to closure," CIC said. "Combat landing, port landing bay only."
Staggering to his feet in the half-deflated space suit, Socinus began tipsily walking toward the port landing bay. They were going to need deck hands over there.
He was less than half way across the Galactica and still had half of the space suit on when he heard over the PA, "Jumping now."
.
At first Sharon Valerii's eyes refused to open more than a slit, even when she felt the robotic nursery attendant pick her up and place her in a tightly enclosed space -- probably one of the empty coffins.
The spasms that wracked through her body left her with barely enough energy to keep her heart beating. And she focused her entire attention on that until she felt something smooth, narrow and metallic under her hand -- the Redleken control. Galvanized by the possibility of relief, her eyes popped fully open; and moving her thumb slightly, she switched the Redleken off.
But Sharon still couldn't remove the helmet or do anything else but pass out. So that's what she did, and blackness closed in on her like the Lords' blessing.