The Zone.
Roughly one hundred metrons of potential agony for any man who tried to cross it with an Obediator in place. It was all that separated the pirates and the prisoners.
Starbuck once again glanced up at the conductor units, housed far above their heads on the craggy cave walls above them. He had initially thought that by destroying these units, he would disable the Obediators, but Dayton had informed him otherwise.
The cyclatron in the control room powered all the conductor units, not only the Zone's, but also the mobile units most of the pirates seemed to carry to discipline their captives. It was key to eradicating their base's inner defensive system. Just as the Dynamos were the key to their outer defensive system.
And that was why he was about to carry Dayton across the Zone.
Normally, the thought wouldn't even phase him, but right now his body was begging for rest, nourishment and some really effective pain meds . . . not to mention a pair of comfortable boots. He glanced down at the material swathed around his battered feet and secured with the multipurpose koivee fiber. He had an uncomfortable feeling it recently belonged to some poor bugger who no longer had need of it. Ironically, most of the others were now wearing similar 'footwear'. At least it was better than nothing, which was the obvious preference of a few.
He sized up the NASA Commander once again as he mentally prepared himself to cross the Zone. Thank the Lords, Dayton had been on a diet of koivee for thirty yahrens, for his build reflected it, plainly once that of an athlete, with his gaunt face and thin frame. Starbuck pondered for a moment cutting off the man's long queue, but rationalized it likely didn't weigh that much.
His hand guardedly rested on his stomach, as he listened to Dayton's men jabber to him in Earth talk. Ryan had insisted on putting in a couple stitches when they considered he would be lugging their Commander a considerable distance. The fear was he would herniate something or open the wound even further. Starbuck had watched skeptically while they soaked a strand of koivee, recently removed from Porter's mouth—apparently it also made good dental floss—in the horrid liquor. Sagan, the strange barb they had used as a needle had been so dull it felt like someone was jabbing him with a stick while they pulled the 'stitches' through his skin. It had hurt like Hades Hole, but at least it worked.
"Ready?" Dayton asked, as his men finished clapping him on the shoulder and shaking his hand.
"Not really, but let's get it over with." Starbuck replied, lightening the statement with a slight smile when Dayton looked him over appraisingly. "Think light thoughts"
"I'll do my best . . . if you in turn promise to move as fast as possible." Dayton responded.
"Done."
Dayton lifted a hand in enquiry, "How are you going to lift . . .?"
Starbuck stepped towards him, pulling Dayton's arm over his left shoulder and heaved the Commander's body across both shoulders to distribute his weight in a firefighter's carry. The warrior sucked in a breath, as his recently sliced and diced abdomen protested the additional burden.
"Let me check your gut," Ryan told him, noticing the grimace.
"It's fine," Starbuck assured him, adjusting his grip on Dayton, his mind already focused on the ordeal ahead of him.
Despite the assurances, Ryan stepped in front of him, pulling up his filthy tunic, and checked his recent stitch work. The tissue was inflamed and a small amount of dilute blood seeped from the wound, but the skin edges remained intact. A clean bandage would have been nice, but just wasn't available, and the lieutenant had insisted he had every intention of being back on his base ship within twenty-four hours, so he really couldn't care less. Ryan nodded, satisfied. "It's holding. Check your watch. We're giving you twenty minutes to disable the cyclatron, then we're coming through the zone."
"Watch? Minutes?" He paused as he looked at the man, letting out a sigh and shaking his head. He still hadn't quite gripped some of their lingo. "You got that, Dayton?"
"I got it, but the blood is starting to rush to my head, so if you don't mind . . . " the Commander grumbled.
"Right. Let's do it."
Starbuck felt a few encouraging slaps to his back, not even hearing their words, as he started out at a brisk walk. He could feel Dayton's body convulse in pain as soon as the entered the Zone, and the man clung to his body like a bone crushing Serpens from the jungles of Mazuria. He broke into a jog.
One hundred metrons really wouldn't take that long. Mere microns under normal circumstances. But these circumstances were anything but normal, and he stumbled after stepping on a jagged rock with his inadequate footwear. He cursed, and wondered why in all the yahrens this place had been in operation, they had never bothered to level the damned surface. Dayton was grunting in pain, and Starbuck readjusted his load, trying to watch more carefully for further hazards as he picked up speed once again.
His thigh muscles burned as if he was running the last leg of the Tylinium Man Competition. Sweat poured from his body, and he refused to acknowledge the rest of his symptoms of exhaustion, instead, training his eyes on his final goalAfter all, the rest of these fellows were in far worse shape than he was. The unforgettable and inspiring words of his first yahren Academy drill instructor came back to him: Move your astrum, Starbuck, or I'll personally kick it from here to Aquaria.
Dayton's body suddenly relaxed. Starbuck staggered to a stop, leaning over and dumping the man in a heap on the ground. He dropped to his knees beside the Commander, gasping for breath as his lungs burned, his stomach reeled, and his recent meal of roasted rotting root and Asteroid Whiskey threatened to make an abrupt reappearance.
Dayton rolled onto his back, his hands held protectively over his aching abdomen. He reached over and grabbed Starbuck's arm, nodding at him in approval. "Good job."
"Nothin' to it." Starbuck rasped, wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve, as the cheers of the others echoed around the cavern. "Let's move out."
----------
They had already come up empty at the Waste Recycling Center. The sickening sensation in the pit of Lia's stomach was getting increasingly worse, as she both helped and watched the last of the waste pipes in the Malocchio's cargo bay get checked for her younger sister. Her eyes met her godmother's and she recognized sorrow mingled with disbelief staring back at her. That left only one more possibility and they were well aware what a trip to the Hephaestus in a non-pressurized cargo hold would ultimately signify for any human
Castor spoke briefly with another Security Officer before approaching them. He walked slowly, as if that would somehow delay the inevitable encounter. Lia steeled herself for his words, determined not to turn into an emotional wreck.
"We'll send a team to the Hephaestus to begin looking over their load." He dropped his eyes from the ensign's, uncomfortable with the stark pain he saw etched in her features. "I'll comm ahead and have the Scrappers start searching through the load."
Lia blinked back the sudden moisture that pricked the back of her eyes. "I want to go with them, Castor."
Castor chewed his lip as he once again assessed the determined young woman. "You know she couldn't have survived . . . how about we just . . .? "
"No." Lia cut him off. "I still want to be there for her." She swallowed the lump in her throat, as a lone teardrop trickled down her cheek. Absently, she wiped it away.
"As do I," Ama added, her voice uncharacteristically subdued. She closed her eyes and slightly shook her head, before turning her back on them to study the dispersed load of pipes. "I need to see her . . . " her voice cracked as it trailed off.
"All right," Castor replied, understanding that they needed the kind of closure that finding Luana's body would bring them. "Let's go."
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Bex's anger had simmered for hours as first Torg had returned from the coordinates the warrior had given them, only to reveal that there was no Colonial fighter or additional prisoner waiting there for them, then Qamar had been unable to fire up the latest addition to their force of ships. Starbuck's interrogation swirled through his mind repeatedly. He had thought they had broken the Colonial, coercing the relevant information out of him through a combination of the Obediator, and a good old-fashioned beating. But now he realized they were being played for idiots by a pro.
He stormed towards the tunnels, his mind set on forcing the warrior to repair his ship and then repeating the interrogation. An array of possible torture techniques his father's father had relayed from the good ole days, before the Obediator had been introduced, filtered through his mind. I'll be nailing his goddamned balls to a chair, so I will! Just like Gramps would have done.
"Bex!" Torg's voice called out.
He whirled to find the older man on his trail. "What?" he snapped angrily.
"Dynamo two just energized! Maybe the other ship didn't get away after all." Torg smiled, his ego assuaged at the possibility.
"Bloody hell, Torg, I was going to find Starbuck. Can you not go get her yourself?"
"You're the flight leader of the Rovers. Lead." Torg answered briefly and crisply, his eyes boring into the younger man, well aware of his penchants for afflicting pain and cruelty. The hot head needed a mission to cool off, before he killed their latest labourer.
"He played us for fools, Torg. Not only did he lie about the coordinates, he's disabled that beauty of his." Bex waved angrily in the direction of the hangar bay. "I feel it in my bones."
Torg chuckled. "Then he's more of a man than I gave him credit for. Don't worry your ugly puss about it, Bex. There'll be a rematch, to be sure. After we pick up his partner and beat the everliving tar out of him in front of Starbuck, then the lad will perhaps understand that we mean business."
"I'd rather beat the everliving tar out of Starbuck." Bex complained.
"You'll have plenty of opportunity over the years, my boy. You need to learn patience. That's something your kin understood, Bex. But you don't seem to. There's so much more pleasure gleaned from match and rematch, than by murdering someone outright." He thought of his numerous encounters with Dayton. The man had been lying through his teeth for over thirty years about coming from a different star system and a different time, but each confrontation was a welcome diversion from the daily routine. "Besides, we need the manpower. You know it."
Bex hesitated as he turned back towards the hangar. "Do you think it was true when he told us they launched without permission to find their shipmates?"
"Maybe. Maybe not." Starbuck had lead them to believe that there would be no one looking for him—that this Commander Cain would have them keelhauled for disobeying orders and using their own initiative if they made it back. Torg's first concern was that the second fighter had somehow escaped, and returned to the Pegasus for help. But that was unlikely, considering the ship's power source would inevitably shut down repeatedly after being energized by the Dynamo. It made sense that Starbuck had merely mislead them about where he towed his friend's ship, before returning to lie in wait to track down their base and his fellow pilots. "Time will tell. Or perhaps, his wingmate will." Torg laughed again, wondering if the warrior's partner was as wily as Starbuck. He looked forward to finding out.
----------
Sheba released Wilker's Remote Repair Unit from the fuselage of her Viper, and transmitted the signal that would get it close enough to the spheroid to commence phase two of the attack. She knew Bojay would already be on his way to rendezvous with Apollo at the marauder's base, and her own wing would arrive only centons behind them to act as the third wave of the task force.
For the umpteenth time in her career, she couldn't help but wonder if they had her here, backing up the others, because she was a woman. It had been an lifelong battle to prove to herself and others that she was as good as any man—as good as her father was at her age.
Apollo had complimented her abilities time and time again, but she couldn't help but notice he didn't seem to find it necessary with Starbuck, Boomer, or Bojay. The perception seemed to be that a woman shouldn't be as good as a man, so if she came close, or exceeded their expectations, they had better tell her about it.
Of course, Bojay would have pointed out that had anything happened to her back when she'd been part of the Fifth Fleet, despite Cain's belief in his only child's abilities, the Commander still would have annihilated those responsible, so maybe some of the reticence had a basis in . . .
She shook it off, as she usually did, trying to wrap her mind around the current mission. Realistically, they had her backing up the captains because they knew she would be having difficulty focusing on the job at hand. How could she not be distracted by the possibility of finding out what happened to the Pegasus. To her father. Hades, Cain could even be there . . .
She shook her head, knowing that was unlikely. If Commander Cain was missing, his crew would have the Pegasus parked on the asteroid's doorstep, blasting away at it piece by piece until the Living Legend was returned to them to lead them onward to victory and military glory. She smiled as familiar feelings stirred in her, the itch for the fight, the thirst for conflict, which made her feel as indestructible as her famous father. Her missing father.
But not much longer.