Chapter 10
"How the hell do they have so much ammunition?" Anders asked me as I arrived just outside the gates with Cally and Socinus.
"I don't know," I replied. "What's the situation?"
"We're pinned down here, and the marines are stuck in the heavy raider." Anders reported.
"Give me some cover," I said. "I'm going to try and get to that Raptor. Cally you're coming with me."
"What?" She asked completely scared.
"I need someone to help me go over the systems. You know them a lot better than I do." I explained.
"On three then?" Anders suggested.
I nodded. "One… two… Three!"
On three I grabbed Cally by the wrist and began sprinting towards the raptor. I swung Cally in front of me and dove to the ground. I pointed my rifle at a window and fired off four shots. The fire stopped. I quickly scrambled to my feet and ran to the raptor. Cally was already inside. Then as I ran past a ricochet bounced off and hit me in the left forearm. I winced in pain but kept on going till I was safely inside.
"Are you okay?" Cally asked frightened.
I looked down at the wound. It wasn't too bad, the bullet had just grazed my skin in a rather nasty manner.
"I'll be fine," I said. "I just need a bandage."
Cally grabbed the med kit which was still in the raptor and quickly made a neat tourniquet.
"Alright let's see if we can get this thing going." I said.
"Sir, there's no fuel," Cally said.
"Frak," I cursed. "Is the com system working?"
Cally flipped a switch. "It's on but there's nobody to talk to."
"You forget, Apollo has a radio." I said.
I grabbed the microphone, "Apollo are you there?" I asked.
There was static on the other end but then Apollo's voice came through. "Beanpole? Where are you?"
"I'm in the Raptor." I replied. "What's your status?"
"We're pinned down in the heavy raider," Apollo answered.
"Can you get it going?" I asked.
"I'm trying," Apollo said.
Shots hit the side windscreen of the Raptor smashing it and damaging the main console. The radio went dead.
"Frak!" I cursed.
"What are we going to do?" Cally asked.
"Just stay covered and let me deal with this," I replied.
I flipped a switch on the gun setting it to full auto-fire. I waited for the shots at the Raptor to subside slightly and then I peaked out the smashed section of the windscreen. I saw muzzle flashes from a gun in the window and I squeezed the trigger. A body came tumbling out of the window to the ground. Shots began hitting the Raptor and I got back into cover.
"This is not good," I muttered. "We're too pinned down here. Apollo needs to get that Heavy raider up and running."
Just at that point I heard the sound of engines. I was hoping that it wasn't Cylon reinforcements. Then I heard gun fire. I looked out the windscreen to see the prison being sprayed with bullets by the heavy raider.
"Let's go!" I shouted to Cally over the noise of the engines.
I jumped out of the Raptor and ran towards the doors. I got my rifle ready and then burst through the door. Nothing shot at me. I kept my rifle ready as Cally followed me in.
"Come on, we've got to get in and get out, as fast as possible." I said.
Anders and his men came sprinting across to join us.
"Do you know the layout of this place at all?" I asked.
"No clue," Anders replied.
"Well let's just be nice and thorough then," I said. "Quick but not careless."
I can't believe that little runt is ordering me around, I heard Anders think.
I grabbed my head. "What the hell?" I muttered.
"What's wrong?" Anders asked.
"I know what you're thinking," I replied. "You don't want to take orders from me. Which is fine, I don't care. But it's a fact that I can hear your thoughts."
"What the hell are you?" Anders demanded to know as he pointed his gun at me.
"Don't hurt him," Cally said stepping between Anders and myself. "He's human just like you and me, he's just, special."
"What do you mean?" Anders asked.
"I'm basically a psychic," I replied.
"Come on get real." Anders said. "That was probably just a lucky guess."
I shrugged my shoulder, "Whatever," I said.
I didn't feel like getting into an argument at this time. Our job was to get in, discover as much as possible about the Cylon breeding program and get the hell out.
I decided to take point. I moved quickly through the fairly narrow corridors preparing for a Cylon ambush after every corner, but nothing happened. The corridors were mostly damaged a looked to be in ill repair, probably because they hadn't been used in quire a while. We checked all the rooms but found nothing. Eventually we found a wing that seemed to be in better shape than the rest of the building. There were about a dozen women hooked up to machines, tubes were running from their stomachs. They were all unconscious, likely from sedation.
"We've got to get them out of here," Cally said.
"No," Anders cut her off. "The machines are keeping them alive. They'll die before we can do anything for them, if we can do anything for them."
"We've got to do something," Cally pleaded with me.
I looked at her forlornly and shook my head. "There's nothing we can do. Anders is right. We've just got to figure out what's going on here and get the hell out."
"How do you know?" Cally asked. "How do you know that?"
"I can read his thoughts Cally," I replied. "This isn't the first place they've hit. They've tried before and they were unsuccessful, and we're not any better prepared. We've got to accept it and get out of here."
"Let's just destroy the machines and get out of here," Anders said.
He picked up a chair began smashing away at the machinery. Electrical sparks flew in the air and blue electricity jumped about inside ruined machinery. I pulled out my combat knife and hacked away at the tubes.
"We need to take a body back for intel," I said to Anders. "Think you can manage one on your own or do you want help?"
Anders grabbed one of the dead women and hoisted her up onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry. "I'm good," he said with a sleight grin.
"Good then let's get the hell out of here," I said.
We took off down the hallway. There was still the sound of gunfire at infrequent intervals, meaning that there were still a few Cylons left. We bolted outside to the Raptor. Socinus was in it already. He had managed to repair the window with a metal plate. It would obstruct visibility but it made the ship flight capable.
"Socinus did you find any fuel?" I asked.
"We found some but it won't be enough to get back to the fleet," Socinus replied.
"Then we've got to hit a Cylon depot," I said. "Anders do you know where one is?"
"There's a fuel depot just thirty miles east of here," Anders replied. "It's only lightly defended because they don't actually keep ships there."
"Then let's do this," I said.
I fired up the engines, but I still had no radio to contact Apollo.
"Let's hope he follows," I muttered as I lifted the raptor up off the ground.
I took off east towards the fuel depot.
"You're going to have to tell me where this thing is," I said to Anders.
"It's right over that ridge up ahead. You'll be right above when get over it." Anders replied.
Sure enough when we flew over the ridge there was a fuel depot below guarded solely by eight centurions. At the sight of the Raptor they opened fire on us but it was ineffectual. I went to fire the Raptor's own weapons but then realized that there was no ammo. I dove the ship down and ran two the centurions over before swooping back up. Apollo then came in on a strafing run. The confused centurions were ripped to shreds before they knew what hit them.
I landed the Raptor and shut the systems down for safety reasons as Cally, Socinus, Anders and his men jumped out and began refuelling. I was worried about air supply. The Raptor was holding it maximum capacity of people and it was fairly cramped. The air supply was likely to run out on us if we had to be in space to long. I climbed out and waved my arms at Apollo to try and get him to land.
"What's going on," Apollo asked after he had landed the heavy raider.
"We're refuelling," I replied. "The Raptor has no ammunition. My port side visibility is minimal and we're filled to maximum capacity."
"I can take two or three guys if you want," Apollo offered.
"Thanks, please do," I said. "We've got no radio though."
"Well, try and fix it, otherwise we'll just have to make do," Apollo said.
"Refuelling is done," Cally informed me.
"Alright, guys let's get out of here!" Apollo ordered.
Everybody got back into the two ships. The Raptor was a lot more comfortable with fewer people inside. I fired up the engines and took off. Apollo led the way into space, I followed close behind using him as cover.
"Get the FTL drive ready to jump ASAP," I ordered. "This might get a little dangerous."
As we took off into space I grabbed my head. I saw a Basestar launching raiders that swooped and swarmed the Raptor, destroying it.
"How do I avoid that?" I sighed to myself.
"Avoid what?" Cally asked from the navigator's seat.
"Nothing," I replied not wanting to tell her about the doom saying image that I saw. I slammed the throttle and shot past Apollo's ship. I saw the Basestar but it was further away. It launched raider and they began to swarm towards us.
"How long till we can jump?" I asked in a panic.
"Thirty seconds," Cally replied.
"Make it twenty," I said.
They Cylons were now just entering weapons range. Fire flew past me from behind.
"Apollo is firing on us!" Socinus exclaimed. "He's a Cylon!"
"No he's not," I cut him off. "He's just trying to pass off as one to escape."
Sure enough the ruse worked. Three raiders fell in behind the Raptor. I rolled right and Apollo took them out with his heavy cannon.
"At least we can use Dradis," I said as I watched three contacts disappear.
"Ready to jump in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…" Cally announced.
The FTL drive was engaged.
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The rescue mission worked, but will the intel they gathered be enough. And we all know about Baltar. What will Beanpole discover? Or are Baltar's thoughts to hidden? Cut to commercial. Buy Bell cell phones, Petro Canada supports our athletes, yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah.
Sorry for anybody looking forward to this chapter, but the Olympics is just such a captivating events. Wish I could have qualified as an aerials skier, but Canada is just so good.