Chapter 12
On further inspection of the cave behind the waterfall, Lee found that it went back deep into the rock. He followed its twists and turns for a while, certain that up ahead he could see a chink of light. Sure enough, the narrow passageway opened out and above was a small slither of blue sky. Hoisting himself up and poking his head through the hole he realised that this was better than they could have hoped for. It came out in a clump of trees about half way up the slope to the far side of the lake. This meant that they now had two options of escape if the Cylons discovered them and also a quicker route back to the Cylon facility. The chamber beneath the opening was also reasonably dry which meant that they might get some sorely needed rest.
Once the baby was safely asleep, cosily wrapped in his father's jacket, they sat down to make their plans.
"First order of the day: let's assess our resources."
They both dumped the various pieces of weaponry stowed in their various pockets, belts and packs in a pile on the floor. Kara totted up their supplies.
"Four hand guns, one automatic rifle, a sub-machine gun, three knives, two boxes of explosive rounds and six extra clips. It's not much to take on a whole camp of Cylons with but I suppose it will have to do. Pity we don't have any explosives."
"Ah, I haven't finished yet." Lee was reaching into the side pockets of his pack and produced some more supplies with a flourish. "Five grenades, one large pack of C4 and two detonators."
"Now that's more like it. Sure you haven't got anything else stowed away in that thing?"
"Three protein energy bars, a clean diaper and two jars of baby food." He grinned at her.
"Well I've sometimes thought that Alex' diapers are lethal weapons, but I don't think they're really going to help here." She sat back on her haunches and looked at him. "This is a ludicrous idea isn't it?"
"Absolutely completely and utterly frakking insane."
"What were we thinking?"
"Beats me!"
"But we have to do it, don't we?"
"I think we do, yes. We can't let the fleet walk straight back into this if they come back to rescue us and there's no guarantee that they'll be coming back at all, so either way it's all up to us."
"Good, just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page with the committing total suicide in the name of humanity thing."
Using a stick they drew out a map on the cavern floor to plan their op. By the time the night was drawing in they had their plan pretty much worked out with one exception: they had no idea how they were going to get off the planet. As might be expected of any plan of Starbuck's inception, it was bold, outrageous and might just have worked if they were supported by a whole squad of marines and aerial back up. With just the two of them they knew that it would be next to impossible for them to get out alive.
"If by some miracle we do get through this, then we'll just have to find somewhere to hide and stick it out in the hope that Galactica will come back to rescue us."
"It's a bit lame as a get away plan," replied Lee.
"Do you really think that we'll need it?"
He looked at her steadily. "Nope," was all he said. She sighed deeply.
"We should get some sleep."
"Probably our last night together ever and you want to sleep, Kara?" He said, a smile playing round his mouth as he slipped his arms around her. She just snorted.
"Geez Lee, you're such a man sometimes!"
"Sorry; it's genetic. Don't tell me that you don't want to, er, go out with a bang?"
She looked at him quizzically. "Sure, it's just that I was supposed to get a top up jab from the doc. You know that if you get me pregnant again I'll kill you."
They both fell silent and looked at each other as the utter stupidity of this conversation suddenly struck them. Kara couldn't help it; she started to giggle and found that she couldn't stop, her hand held over her mouth to try and keep quiet.
"Lords, Kara, your priceless. You never give up do you? That's one of the reasons I love you so much. We're almost certain to die tomorrow but you always believe that we'll survive somehow."
"Hey, it's not over till the fat lady sings Mr pessimistic; and that's not going to be me!"
"In which case, are you willing to take the risk that my little soldiers might do their thing again?" She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.
"In my experience your little soldiers are more like a damned elite marine unit, but what the heck, I've always been a 'frak the risk' kinda girl."
The pile of clothes they lay on the cave floor may not have been the most comfortable of beds, but it soon became irrelevant in the sea of feelings flowing between them. They made love slowly and thoroughly, savouring every touch and the feel of each other. The final moment of ecstasy was so beautiful, so poignant, that Kara couldn't help a sob from escaping. Lee kissed away the tears on her cheeks, his own eyes glistening with emotion.
"I love you," he whispered brokenly as he pulled her close, bringing her head to rest on his chest.
"I love you too, Lee, so very much." She didn't say it very often, but when she did he knew that she really meant it. He placed a light kiss on the top of her head as they both fell silent and just savoured the moment. As they lay in each others arms, neither could fall asleep. Kara looked up at him, her expression serious.
"Lee, if…..if it looks like we're not going to make it, I won't leave Alex to be captured by the Cylons." He nodded, his face grim. "It's just …….I know what will need to be done, but I don't think that I'll be able do it."
"No, you brought him in to the world; you shouldn't be the one to make him leave it. That will be my job."
−
They packed up their gear in the grey light of the early dawn and slipped out of the cave. They made their way as quickly and quietly as possible up to the lake. A quick scout with the binoculars told Lee that the Cylons had increased the patrols outside the facility; getting in was not going to be as easy as it was yesterday, but it was essential that they got in undetected or the whole plan was frakked from the start. Before they could move, the silence of the early morning was shattered by a great whirring of engines from overhead. A large ship that looked like it was some sort of cargo or transport ship was flying over the mountain, accompanied by two heavy raiders and half a dozen regular raiders. They watched closely as the ships dipped behind the other side of the mountain.
"They must have some sort of landing facility over there." Kara motioned towards where the planes had just disappeared.
"Makes sense. If this is their production facility then they would need some means of getting the newly made Cylons out. Maybe that's why there were so many there yesterday: they were all being made in time for this transport pick up."
"The base star is probably here to pick up a new crew. Well this is definitely a plus for us."
"Er, how come, Kara? Doesn't it mean that there's a bunch more Cylons to fight?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
"Engage brain, Lee. They'll all be distracted loading the transport so won't be paying so much attention looking for us and we may have improved our getaway chances: you know how I leerve to steal Cylon raiders!"
"Oh Lords! You just can't resist a new toy can you?"
Alex, perched on his father's back, started to chortle in delight, thinking that his parent's laughter was somehow directed at him. Kara went to play a little with him, but Lee's sudden hand on her arm and finger to his lips stopped her. They dipped behind the nearest rocks as the tell tale sound of Cylon centurions grew louder. The baby continued to make a noise. Kara tried to shush him but without success. Just as the centurions came in to view she resorted to giving him one of her fingers to suck on and that mercifully kept him quiet as they passed.
"That was close, but it looks like this might be our chance. While those guys are patrolling round the lake there's only a pair of toasters on the entrance."
They quickly scooted round the lake in the opposite direction to the Cylons. They waited silently, as close to the entrance as they could get, but there seemed no chance of getting in without at least one of the centurions spotting them.
"I've got an idea," whispered Lee.
"I thought you had that look of intense concentration on your face!" He pulled a grenade out and made to throw it but stopped.
"Actually, you're the one who was almost a professional pyramid player, you should do it." She nodded in understanding and took the grenade from him. She took the pin out and hurled it as far as she could. It sailed into some bushes on the other side of the facility entrance and exploded. The Cylon guards immediately had their gun hands drawn and moved towards the source of the explosion. Lee and Kara slipped quickly into the same little-used entrance that they had entered through on the previous day.
"The metal toasters aren't exactly the brains of this operation are they? That must be the oldest trick in the book."
"They might not have the brains, but they're certainly pretty efficient killing machines if they have a target so keep your gun at the ready."
"Got it, sir. One for metal toasters with explosive rounds and one for the others with the ordinary bullets."
They made their way stealthily to the main cavern, thankfully without incident. There was much less activity in the cavern today; they assumed that most of the activity had moved to wherever the transport ship had landed. Looking down at the vast cavern, they searched for what they needed to put their plan into action.
"There." Kara pointed to the far side of the cavern where all the tubes feeding the pods joined up and disappeared through a hole in the rock. There was a metal ladder rising up to the hole.
"How the frak are we going to get up there?"
"I have no idea. There must be another way in. Let's just try our luck and keep going."
They quietly moved through the endless passageways. The occasional glimpses they got of the main cavern through openings in the rock told them that they were heading in the right direction and making good progress. That progress was halted when they came up to a major passageway. They stayed in the shadows of the side passage and watched as Cylons filed past in pairs. There seemed to be a never ending stream of them, but eventually the last pair disappeared round the corner.
"That must be the way to the hanger bay."
"Yeah, good to have a point of reference in this maze."
They ran across the passageway and disappeared again into the darkness of the narrow side corridors. Eventually their efforts paid off and they found a set of metal stairs sheltered from the main chamber. They clambered up them and dragged open the hatch to find themselves in a vast storage room behind the main chamber.
"Bingo!"
The storage room was full of huge tanks of whatever was needed to feed into the production pods in the cavern below. Lee and Kara started to run around them, checking on any signs as to what they might contain.
"I don't read Cylon code but I'd say this was the universal sign for explosive." Kara pointed to a tank right in the middle triumphantly.
"Yup, that's our baby." Lee pulled out the pack of C4 and started to work quickly on the tank in question. Kara took the chance to give Alex some attention. Whilst she rocked him in her arms she glanced around the chamber. The largest pipe of all didn't go into any tank but disappeared into the rock wall above.
"That must be water. I wonder if they're taking it directly from the lake. We should blow that too and flood the place; then they'll never be able to use it again."
"Not sure that we've got enough explosive for that and I don't want to waste any just in case you're wrong. Anyway, if this stuff really is explosive it should take out that pipe as well." He finished placing the explosives and started work on the detonators. "How long do you think we'll need?"
"Find Baltar, kill him, get out of here. Thirty minutes should do it."
"Should we bother with Baltar? We could just try and get out in one piece."
"No, we've got to do this right. If he survives and the fleet comes back, who knows what crap he'll make up to maintain his cover and then they're right back where they started."
"Yeah, you're right; we can't leave the little shit to his own fate. How about I set the detonation for thirty three minutes?"
"Oh yeah, now that's frakking poetic irony!"
With Alex safely back in his sling, they headed back down the ladder and set off for the main passageway they had seen before. When they reached it, they moved out in formation, guns drawn, as they headed in the direction they had seen the Cylons moving earlier. Sticking her head round the first corner, Kara was dismayed to see two "Helo" models blocking their way. Lee signalled three, two, one with his fingers and they stepped out. Even though she knew it wasn't him, Kara still had to shut her eyes as she fired her gun at the image of Karl. Both their shots were clean kills and they sprinted past the fallen Cylons. Two centurions, alerted by the shots, came round the next corner before they could reach it.
"Explosive rounds, Kara," Lee shouted. They swapped guns and took out the centurions on the run, but alarms were starting to sound in the facility. When they reached the corner they saw two more centurions guarding a doorway, their guns at the ready. They charged round the corner, blasting away and took them both down.
"Now why do you think they were guarding this doorway?"
"Let's have a look and find out"
Lee opened the door and they stepped through into what appeared to be a large laboratory.
"Well hello Mr Vice president. Fancy seeing you here!" The drawling, familiar voice made Gaius Baltar turn to see Starbuck, a trademark grin plastered across her face, pointing a weapon at him.