Thirteen

Chapter Ninety-Five

Home Invasion

It was just her luck. Starbuck was about to be ambushed when Anders pushed her out of the way, only to be shot himself by a Centurion that had snuck up behind them. To make matters worse, she had been shot anyway in the leg. Starbuck had managed to fire off some rounds to ward off the enemy before dragging her fiancé behind some rubble in the remnants of the spaceport.

But her bad luck wasn't as bad as she had thought as she lay in the mobile medical unit, as the wound from her leg had actually come from a ricocheted bullet and was easily fixed. Anders, despite being shot five times, had them hit him in places where they didn't do a whole lot of damage, and wouldn't have because of the flak jacket he was wearing. They had gotten through, but the jacket had killed most of their velocity and deflected them away from his vital organs. His survival was helped by Helo trailing behind them and blowing the sneaky Centurion away before it could do more damage.

Once she was sure Anders would be okay, she got herself dressed and used some crutches to help propel herself into the command headquarters to follow the battle. David Sheridan led the ground forces in her stead, sharing command with Helo and Boomer, and they were just about to enter the Cylon base after enduring the advance through open ground, where they had taken a huge amount of casualties. The sounds of combat were heard through the speakers as they kept track of all the units that had entered the base.

"Taking heavy fire from that position over there! Bronco, can you clear out those tin cans for us?" Helo asked one of the Marine sergeants in his group.

"Sure can! Hang on a second and I'll toast those babies properly!" Bronco replied. The sound of a PPG bazooka going off was soon met by huge explosion, and smaller sounds of grenades being launched followed, with the resulting blasts coming seconds later. "That cleared those bastards out!"

Helo waited a moment and then said, "Looks like it to me! Okay, let's move!" The sounds of footsteps crunching the ground came through the link, and Starbuck's imagination began to shape what was visually going on in her mind. She had learned too much about ground combat during this operation to not have an idea of what Helo and the others were going through.

As they approached the largest building in the base complex, resistance grew thicker as they grew closer. Centurions were teaming up against their forces in ways that they hadn't done before, and ambushes were more prevalent. They took more losses the closer they moved towards what looked to them to be where Vacit and the main Cylon leadership were held up.

They pressed their assault through the night, and Starbuck needed a break from watching the reports come in. She told the others to inform her if something drastic happened, then went back to check on her fiancé. He was asleep when she entered the infirmary, so she pulled over a chair and sat down beside him. When she touched his arm, his eyes opened up and he looked over at her. "Hey." Anders said as he smiled at recognizing her.

"Hey. How do you feel?" Starbuck asked.

"Like I've been shot, Captain Obvious!" Anders replied, and Starbuck gave him the raspberries before laughing softly, trying not to disturb the other wounded patients in the mobile unit. She took his hand and gently kissed it, brushing it against her cheek. "I'm okay, Kara. Gods only know why, but I'm still here and the docs say that I'll be fine with some rest. They'll be moving me out when things calm down enough to allow transports to head up to the fleet."

She was about to say something when Ivanova walked into the room. "Kara?" she said.

"What is it?" Starbuck asked, then she saw the look in Ivanova's face and realized that something had gone very, very wrong. "What's happened?"

Ivanova struggled to say it, which only meant it was very bad news. "Helo and Boomer…are gravely wounded. They're on their way here. Medics are bringing them in, but the message we got was that they were both messed up pretty bad!"

Starbuck looked over at Anders, who nodded to her to let her know it was okay for her to go. She quickly kissed his hand and placed it back down beside him, then walked out of the room with Ivanova and went to the triage area to await the patients' arrival.

When Helo entered the room, she realized it was bad. "Bastards got the jump on us! Apparently one of them got hold of one of our grenade launchers and used it against us. Helo's lost both his legs and bleeding heavily. Boomer got hit with a lot of shrapnel, and we've had a hell of a time staunching the bleeding. I'm sorry, Starbuck, but we did the best we could!"

Starbuck nodded and looked at her two friends. Helo was unresponsive as they worked to save his life, moving him quickly to a surgical table. They were doing the same with Boomer, and all Starbuck and Ivanova could do was wait and get a better account as to what had happened.

It turned out that the Centurions had gotten the grenade launcher from a previous ambush where they had temporarily overran a position and killed several foot soldiers. The machines had lured Helo's unit into a trap and they had been attacked from a perfect ambush position. One of the grenades had gone off near Helo and took off his legs just above the knees. Another blast had ripped apart several other soldiers, and Boomer had been caught up in the storm of debris from yet another one that had landed long and had blown up in a supply area, which threw lots of small parts at her.

The surgeons did their very best to save them, but the damage was too extensive. Both had lost a huge amount of blood, and even though they had enough synthetic blood to give them each a transfusion, it wouldn't have been in time to prevent irreparable damage from being done to their bodies. Helo, mercifully, expired first, while Boomer held on for most of the night until her body just shut down on her. When they covered Boomer up with her bed sheet, it was too much for Starbuck, who turned to Ivanova and buried her face into her shoulder as she broke down.

Ivanova patted her head and gently said, "Go ahead and cry, Kara. There's no shame in that!" The entil'zha's eyes were also misty and Ivanova was having a hard time in composing herself.

It wasn't long, though, before they regained their strength and came back into the command center. By then everyone knew what had happened and didn't need to say anything else about it. The time to mourn would come later. Now, though, their forces were just about to enter the heart of the Cylon command center, and the final victory was almost at hand.

Kevin Vacit could hear the intense firefight from the ventilation ducts that brought air down to the underground bunkers where he and Talia Winters were hold up in. Talia Winters tried to hold up a brave face against everything was going on, but her fear was radiating from her and lit her up in Vacit's mind's eye like a Christmas tree. Vacit, though, was annoyed and angry with all that wasn't going on, and was busy trying to come up with anyway to escape his fate.

Lucifer, one of Vacit's main IL-series leaders of the Cylons, came into the room, bowed before Vacit and said, "Imperious Leader, the enemy has breached the penultimate perimeter two levels above us! Do you wish to attempt to flee and regroup somewhere else?"

Vacit contemplated for a moment, but then he felt the mind of his enemy in the area. An idea came to him and he quickly sent a telepathic message to Winters, whose eyes lit up when she realized what he was asking of her. She looked at him wide-eyed for a couple of moments, then nodded her head at him. Vacit smiled and turned to Lucifer, saying, "Tell the enemy that we wish to discuss terms for surrender."

"Surrender? Imperious Leader, please! We can't give up! What will we do?"

Lucifer begged of Vacit.

"Don't worry. I'm going to ask them to let those remaining leave the planet and head away from the system. Just trust me, Lucifer!" Vacit said.

Lucifer replied, "If it is your will, then so be it. By your command, we'll surrender." Vacit nodded and Lucifer went off to inform the others. Shortly thereafter, the gunfire ceased. Winters looked over at him and asked, "Sure you want to do this?"

Vacit nodded and said, "We have no choice, Talia."

An hour later, Starbuck, Ivanova, and Hollifield were outside Vacit's headquarters, awaiting for him to emerge. Under the terms of the surrender, all the remaining Centurions were to surrender and deactivate themselves, while the IL-series would surrender themselves to the allies and place themselves under arrest.

They were all awaiting Vacit to come out of the headquarters and turn himself over to them. Hollifield was losing patience with him, so he asked for a megaphone and spoke into it, "Vacit, you have five minutes to come out or we'll come in after you! We have plenty of former Psi Cops and former Bloodhounds here to be sure you can't try any tricks."

Vacit emerged with a gun in his hand and Talia Winters in his grasp. The gun was a PPG and had a full charge, and Vacit held it to the side of Winters' head. "Hollifield! Where are you? Show yourself!" Vacit yelled.

"Cover me! I can protect myself well enough. Just don't fire on him unless he kills the hostage first!" Hollifield said. He then got up and said, "I'm here, Vacit! What do you want?"

"Send away the troops or I kill Ms. Winters! I know you want me alive, Hollifield, and the only way you'll get that is to send your forces back!"

"Why, Vacit? You're not in any position to bargain!" Hollifield retorted.

"You want to know why you are the way you are? You want to know the truth about the Colonial gods? You want to know what the Vorlons were really up to? Come inside here and we'll talk, and I'll tell you everything!" Vacit said.

Hollifield looked at Ivanova, Cain, and Starbuck, then back to Vacit. "Deal, on the condition that all the other Cylon machines turn themselves over to my forces. I want it just to be me, you, and Ms. Winters."

Vacit agreed and sent out all the remaining Cylons in the building. Once they were all clear, Vacit said, "No one's left in the building! You can tell, I know you can! So what will it be?"

Hollifield turned to Ivanova and said, "Send the troops back. I'm going in there!"

"Are you mad? He wants to kill you!" Ivanova said.

"That's true, Mr. President! You don't know what he's got planned!" Starbuck added.

Hollifield smiled and said, "He doesn't know what I know, nor what I can do. Besides, if he even tries to kill me, he won't succeed. I know he's powerful, but he's not as powerful as I am!" He walked around the collapsed wall where they had been standing and towards the building.

As he made his way slowly to Vacit, Ivanova said, "Of all the people to be with that bastard, why her?" She shook her head.

Cain replied, "He's using her to mess with us, I'm sure of it! He knows he's lost the war, so what's his game now?"

"Whatever it is, it had better not be killing Hollifield, or else I'll take my time in killing that ancient creep!" Starbuck said.

Hollifield finally made it to the entrance to the building and said, "I guess I'm to go first?"

Vacit nodded and gestured with his gun for Hollifield to enter the building, following him with Winters still in his grasp. Instead of looking scared for her life, she looked like someone who was not afraid to have her brains fried by a blast from the PPG. When they turned into the building, Talia caught a glimpse of Ivanova and shot her an evil smile, which sent a chill up her spine.

"Get those Psi Cops and Bloodhounds up here! I don't give a damn what he said, I want them ready to go if that bastard kills the president!" Ivanova said into her link. She looked back with worry, wondering what was going on deep inside that building.