"They are running out of time," Iblis reminded Ama, "at this rate the Clavis will remove them from this star system before they even find the Cylons."
She probed him, searching for the secret behind the Clavis, but only coming up against a formidable barrier. Was Iblis purposely delaying the discovery of the Ravager to wait out the Endeavour's seemingly inevitable departure? It didn't seem to fit. What then?
"They will find a way. Malus . . ."
Iblis laughed cruelly.
She told herself she could get very tired of that laugh.
xxxxx
Lauren took a lungful of air, counting slowly and silently to ten before speaking again. "All I'm trying to say is don't trust anyone."
It was so silent that she figured he'd disconnected.
"I can't live that way." Another deep breath. "I just can't."
"Actually, you have it wrong. That's the only way you can live right now."
This time the line did go dead. At the same time an alarm beeped. She glanced at her monitoring system. A perimeter alarm had gone off. Two contacts, both closing in on her quickly. Another so-called safe house was no longer safe. It was time to move again. She was running out of places to go and people to trust.
xxxxx
Lieutenant Rooke sighed heavily, decoding his new orders. He was supposed to assign Luana to shadow the fleeing Cylon Raiders in hopes they would lead the Colonials back to the Ravager. The problem being . . . Lu had disappeared.
He could only presume that the Clavis had pulsed again, this time sending the Wraith at the very least out of scanner range. He hadn't even picked up any correlating spatial distortions to signify a possible reappearance elsewhere after she had vanished.
That only left one option.
He'd have to send three Hybrids, directing them to remain just outside of scanner range, as they tailed the Cylon Raiders. Played right, they could track their course back to wherever the Ravager was hiding. It could work. Worst-case scenario, they'd have to use their vocal modulators to bluff their way through a possible situation that they had all been drilled for. Best-case scenario, they'd find the Cylon Base Ship.
"Acastus, Trevanian and Lambda . . ."
xxxxx
Beep.
Apollo looked at his scanner readout. The larger of the two small moons of Mars, which Dayton had called Phobos, was dead ahead. He slowed his approach and digested the data in front of him.
"Hmm," Dietra murmured beside him, adjusting the scanner. "Colonel, look at this!"
"Dorado wasn't kidding," Apollo muttered as the information scrolled up.
The moon was ever so slightly spiralling in towards the planet, losing a tiny amount of altitude with each circuit of Mars. Dorado had said something about "gravitational tides" having this effect. But it was the moon itself, rather than the complex dynamics of its orbit, that had his attention now.
According to the instruments, there was a measurable decrease in magnetic field strength near the moon, along with an almost one for one correlation in plasma density increases. Meaning, or so the computer said, that something that was affected by the solar wind, was, albeit very slowly, venting from inside the moon. He waited while Dietra ran a more precise scan. Yes, the moon was largely hollow, as the scans from the last flyby aboard the Endeavour had indicated.
"Hollow?" Dietra said incredulously. "A moon this size? How can that be?"
"Yeah." Apollo nodded. "Incredible."
Adjusting thrust and trajectory, they put themselves in orbit around the tiny world, intensely scanning the ground beneath them. Apollo's mind reeled as he read the results on his screen. The body of Phobos was unquestionably hollow, with an average thickness of three hundred metrons for the "hull" of the moon. Lords of Kobol! As the scans progressed, he could see interior structures starting to show: beams, massive bracing, support trusses, what looked like levels and passageways. All, like the hull itself, made of highly dense, armour-bonded tylinium.
"Colonel, I'm reading an active power source somewhere inside," Dietra said. "It's weak, barely registering actually, but it's there, sir."
"My God," he replied, wondering what they had stumbled upon. "Something still works in there?"
"So it seems, Sir, although you've got me as to how. It looks like this whole thing was pummelled."
They passed over a section of the moon, the original hull plating clearly visible beneath scores of metrons of dust and debris. Some of the "plates" were the size of the Endeavour!
"What kind of technology could have built such a . . . such a behemoth?" Dietra wondered aloud.
"It had to be Kobollian, but . . . I don't think any of us were expecting anything of this magnitude," Apollo replied.
"It's exactly this magnitude that I associate with them," Dietra replied. "I'll never forget that constant sensation of feeling dwarfed while I was on Kobol, and again on Mars looking up at that pyramid, as well as some of the ruins. Everything seemed huge."
The scanner beeped again as they passed through some kind of gaseous vapour.
"Sir . . . I'm reading air," Dietra reported. From deep inside the ancient hulk, atmosphere was still slowly being lost to space. "And it's breathable."
"This is unbelievable," Apollo replied. "Imagine, technology like this right in Earth's backyard, and they didn't even know it was here!"
"I remember Paddy saying that Phobos and Deimos, its sister moon, weren't even discovered until the Earth yahren A.D.1877," Dietra told him. "He mentioned something about Mars being in opposition then, and every telescope on Earth being turned this way."
"Don't you find that odd?" Apollo asked, after a moment. "I sure do."
"How so?"
He shrugged. "It just seems that if they'd already been observing Mars for a few hundred yahrens by then, that they would have seen the moons."
"A difference in technology?" she suggested. "Old-style telescopes with glass lenses and mirrors. Pretty primitive."
"Maybe."
While incredible in technology and execution, Phobos was also in sad shape. It had been slammed and battered by myriad impacts. A few, large and deep, had certainly wreaked havoc with the place, perhaps bringing it close to destruction. And, if the scans were right, the forces involved in the dynamics of its orbital decay were slowly exerting an ever-increasing stress on the body of the moon. The parallel and often right angle lines of pits or depressions in the surface followed what scanned out as seams in the hull. Bit by bit, the moon was being torn apart by the gravitational pull of Mars. Eventually, if it did not crash into the planet first . . .
"Holy frack!" Dietra exclaimed, whipping her neck to starboard. "Was that what I thought it was?"
"Where?" Apollo asked, coming about before he spotted it. He blew out a short breath. It was a tall, squared structure, jutting out of the surface of Phobos, reaching about seventy-five or so metrons into the sky. "A tower?"
Dietra nodded. "Some kind of monolith. Can we make another pass?"
"Definitely."
They manoeuvred around and circled it, finally drawing to within arms length of it. It was made of tylinium, covered in dust tossed up by impacts and set with what scanned out as airlocks and sensor arrays. It was hollow and seemed to offer ingress. But the area was thick with dust, and the solid surface was dozens of metrons down, putting the Hybrid fighter at risk for disappearing into the regolith.
"What do you think, Colonel?" Dietra asked, her own thoughts clear by the tone of her voice.
"Despite the miniscule gravity, I'd say its too risky, Dee. The commander would have our hides if they had to launch another rescue mission."
"I was hoping you'd say that," she smiled ruefully.
"Been flying with Starbuck too long?" he couldn't help but tease her. After all, she had been assigned as Starbuck's co-pilot since the Endeavour squadrons had been formed. He could almost hear his friend discussing the odds and trying to decide whether expediency would outweigh risk.
"We balance one another. Sometimes I'm too cautious," she replied seriously, evaluating herself.
"Too cautious? I remember you once leading a greenhorn squadron into combat against orders to save a certain strike captain's astrum."
She smiled. "The first rule in the Book of Starbuck: protect your wing leader. That was you, sir."
"I remember when our officers used to quote the manual . . ."
"Starbuck threw out the manual, Colonel. Now we quote the Book of Starbuck."
He glanced at her, quirking an eyebrow.
She grinned.
Together, they laughed.
"Lieutenant," he chuckled, "let's see if we can find another way in."
The gigantic crater at one "end" of Phobos turned out to be artificial. Beneath the outer shell, they scanned trusses and support beams. Around the edges, they detected the remains of condensed tylinium over a metron thick. Once, this crater, or at least parts of it, had been domed over! Just like on Mars! Dietra just shook her head. Apollo said nothing. They flew in close, doing a visual check on the surface.
"It looks like some sort of landing bay entrance port or huge airlock," he said, squinting to see an accumulation of dust as well as bent and twisted wreckage that blocked passage.
"We won't get a ship in that way," Dietra said. "Even one this size."
But it wasn't the only way. Partway around the moon there was another opening, larger than the Galactica's landing bay ports. Lining up, they directed all scans inside and flipped on the powerful searchlights. After a moment, Apollo wound his jaw back up from off the floor, and slowly began to move the ship forward. Within microns, he was fully surrounded by Phobos, and couldn't decide whether to be excited or afraid.
"Would you look at that!" Dietra exclaimed. "Jaysus bloody Murphy!"
"Oh my God!" Apollo breathed as they passed over what had once obviously been a landing bay deck. Now, it was littered with debris. Rocks, hunks of twisted metal and plastics, and, according to the scans, organic material! Something had once been alive inside here. From above hung more debris, conduits, cables, and Lords knew what else, still somehow anchored to the interior. With practised skill, they manoeuvred around the wreckage . . .
Dietra screamed as something came up against the ship . . . something humanoid. She abruptly choked off the sound, putting a hand to her mouth. "Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be," he replied, feeling shaken himself.
Entangled in hanging wires was a frozen and desiccated figure, like a mummy. Shuddering, he flew past through a massive set of half-open blast doors that for unknown reasons had never closed, leaving the interior exposed to space. From the scans, the bay had also been equipped with what looked like a variation of the force-field barrier that the Galactica used. The blast doors must have been some sort of back-up system, in case of a threat of catastrophic decompression. Then they were past the jumble of destruction . . .
And into a massive hangar bay. Casting his lights around, he could see a vast steel deck, mostly free of wreckage.
"Well?" Dietra asked.
"Let's set her down and take a look."
"I had a feeling you were going to say that."
"Now you're really starting to sound like Starbuck!" Apollo grinned.
"He'd be pleased to know that, sir."
Gently setting down, they powered down the ship, leaving everything but scanners and the tracking beacon on standby. Making sure their suits and helmets were secure, they depressurized the cockpit.
It felt . . . very strange as Apollo sat there spellbound, looking out into the gloom. "You realize we're the first living things to enter this place in millennia?" he said quietly.
"Just as long as we leave that way too, sir" she replied, her voice tense as she stood up and headed aft. A moment later the hatch was open.
Slowly, trying to adjust their movements to the microgravity, they climbed down the ladder, and gingerly lowered themselves to the deck. Once down, they activated their magnetic boots, and drew their lasers.
"Dee, turn on the recorder in your suit," he said, doing so himself. "They're going to want to see this back on the Endeavour."
His illuminator did not penetrate far into the inky blackness, but the multi-spectral imaging in his helmet more than made up for it. The hangar bay they were in was enormous, larger than those on a Battlestar. Far above, Apollo could see rows of illuminators, all now dark, some hanging from ripped cables. Partway up one wall was some sort of control gantry, accessed by an externally mounted lift. Moving closer, he saw that the lift was jammed partway up, with no way for them to reach it, or power to fire it back up. In the other direction, the bay continued on deeper into Phobos. They moved that way, scanners in hand, until they came to another air lock. This one was wrecked, the door hanging at an angle, the frame buckled outwards.
"What happened here?" Dietra wondered aloud.
"I wonder if it was part of the same catastrophe that destroyed the Mars settlement?" A creepy feeling moved over him suddenly, an almost primal feeling, as if he were being watched. It was irrational, he told himself, looking over at Dee. There was no life here. None. Yet . . .
He forcibly shrugged off the cloying sensation and straightened his shoulders. Studying the air lock another moment, he stepped inside . . .
And gasped as he saw they indeed had company. Another corpse, this one unsettlingly well preserved, lay there, caught up against part of the door. Its space suit was ripped, and its mouth hung open in a silent, long-faded scream.
"Sagan . . ." Dietra said. "Is it human?"
Apollo scanned it. "Yes, human DNA." Whoever it was had died suddenly when whatever had happened to Phobos had happened.
Across the airlock, the door was likewise open, and with little effort, they managed to slide it open further, bringing down a tiny rain of dust. Once through, they found themselves on some sort of long felix-walk or observation gallery. Far away, across the cavernous space of the moon's interior, Apollo could see points of intense light. It was the sun shining through openings and gaps in the station's hull. Dimly illuminating the opposite side, it made plain the true immensity of this place.
"Lords! Just . . . Lords!" Apollo said as he took it in.
Close to eighteen hundred cubic kilometrons of space opened up before him. The entire moon enclosed more space than any space station or asteroid base Apollo had ever seen or heard of. Letting his brain wrap itself around the immensity of the concept, he checked his scanner. While this inner core of the moon was airless, he did scan chambers scattered about the interior that still read as pressurized.
"Makes me wonder if some survived the final catastrophe," Apollo mused aloud. "Did a few make it to secure areas and seal themselves in from the massive decompression of the moon? Did they manage to escape afterwards, or were they sealed in still?" He paused in thought, looking around. "Did their refuges become tombs?"
"I feel like I'm on a tomb tour today," Dietra replied tensely, thinking of the corpses they had found so far. "Let's get moving."
Apollo shook off his lugubrious musings as they continued along the gallery. Numerous airlock and doors opened on to it, some to elevator shafts, some still closed and intact. But it was the almost-frighteningly huge inner space that drew his attention. Adjusting his helmet's optics and the scanners, he looked out over the railing of the felix-walk.
Dietra gasped beside him.
It had been a world struck dead in an instant. As far as his scans could reach, the inner side of the hull "below" him, and from one end of Phobos to the other, had been engineered into a pseudo-planet! Hills, valleys, buildings clustered almost like towns, littered the "ground". A huge area, showing traces of frozen water, had once been a lake, its waters flowing around this purpose-built paradise in a system of artificial rivers! Now dead, the barren dirt had once been thick with vegetation, or so the scanner said. The whole inner surface of the moon had been engineered into a habitable world. For those who had once called this place home, it must have seemed like living on the surface of a real planet, with trees, crops, blue sky, and water in abundance. Either through grav-plating or the rotation of the entire station, the perfect environment had been created, capable of supporting a population of perhaps millions! Even now, debris and bodies hung in the dark void, grotesque signposts to the ancient civilization that had once flourished and then died here.
It had all ended in moments, snuffed out by whatever horrific forces had torn Phobos open to space. Apollo shook his head. It was incredible. Not just such technology, but also that it could be rendered impotent in a moment by the blind forces of nature. Or, perhaps, the blind fury of men, if the theory that two distinct groups from Kobol had fallen out and come into conflict were in fact true.
"Colonel."
Apollo looked again at his scanner as something began to flash. Zooming in, he saw a point far "below" him begin to give way as stress built up in a junction of beams and supports. Then, it seemed to pass as the moon moved on its orbit, and the vastly complex interplay of forces changed. Apollo swept the area again and then saw something else, even more interesting. The power source they had scanned outside was registering on his machine. It was weak, but real. He swept it again and again . . .
"Holy frack!" Apollo swore so loudly it hurt his ears. As he zoomed in on the source, he saw it. Saw them. "Dietra!"
"I don't believe it!"
Ships! Far "above" them, directly opposite the centre of the transformed region, ensconced in the crawlon web of gantries, were three large vessels. Apollo found himself gawking, like a child on his first visit to a museum, as he took them in. Each ship vaguely resembled an archaic Colonial battlecruiser in their basic lines, but in size were closer to the Galactica. With two of them, parts of their interiors were exposed, sections of the hulls incomplete or stripped out. The third looked close to completion. It was from one of them that the energy readings came. Was it a fuel core, still active? Had the shafts of sunlight touched some still-operational solar panels? Had the ships been under construction when the end came, or could these, perhaps, be the very vessels that had brought them from Kobol, so long ago? As he scanned, he began describing his impressions into the recorder. Another shaft of sunlight peeked through a gap, illuminating one of the enormous vessels.
"Colonel, it's the crater we saw on the surface!"
The exit to space, from which such ships could have come and gone. Had they had more time and equipment, it might have been their entry into Phobos.
"Lords of Kobol!" he said. Both artificial planet and shipyard, together. "Utterly incredible!"
As he studied them further, he could see that the ships were askew, as if the final disaster had knocked them out of their berths, leaving them tangled in umbilicals and supports. Apollo swallowed. This whole base, station, whatever. It made him feel small, like a flint-knapping cave dweller suddenly finding and trying to come to terms with a nuclear energy plant. Whoever had built this place had been giants compared to his people. But then it was said that the Kobollians had possessed knowledge and skills far, far above anything known today. Even to the Cylons. He had thought that to be merely legend. Until this day.
"Colonel . . ." Dietra said.
"I know, Lieutenant. Me too."
Like her, he wanted to get up there, to get his hands on those ships, to get inside, to divine their secrets. To see if they could actually fly one! Hades Hole, he wanted to do that with the whole station! But they had a mission to carry out and a Base Ship to locate and destroy. He lightly slapped her on the shoulder. Regretfully and resentfully, they turned away, retracing their steps back towards the bay. Carefully making their way out, he decided to pick up a token of his visit, a small, box-like object, sticking up out of the debris. Putting it in his pouch, Apollo followed Dietra into the Hybrid. Climbing in, they powered her up, and slowly headed back out into space.
xxxxx
"My turn, Daughter," Iblis snarled.
It was a game of strategy where she had to anticipate Iblis' next move, while fortifying her champions. The disadvantage was that he knew who all the players were, while she did not.
"Then take it."
He looked at her for a moment as if unsure how to take her words. Then, he smiled.
"As you wish."
xxxxx
"By-your-command."
"Speak, Centurion," Syphax commanded as he entered the Control Centre of the Ravager.
"Long-range-telemetry-indicates-almost-total-destruction-of-our-patrol-sent-to-investigate-the-disappearance-of-Patrol-Four."
It was astonishing enough that Syphax almost blew a diode. Standing stock still, he turned his head to look at the other. "Destruction?"
"Affirmative, Commander."
"We were defeated. By a primitive enemy?"
"Affirmative, Commander."
"I must say, I find it somewhat . . . bewildering. How can that be?" Syphax mused aloud. Their recent investigation of a spatial distortion had turned up nothing. At first he had dismissed it as an anomaly, but now he was not so certain. "Have I underestimated these humans?"
"It-appears-so, Commander."
"I was not talking to you, Centurion."
"I-was-unaware-of-that, Commander."
Syphax paused to consider his subordinate officer. "Did you say almost total destruction? Almost?"
"Two-Raiders-escaped."
"What did these human vermin use?"
"Initial reports indicate some kind of surface-to-air missiles."
"Hmm," Syphax said. "It appears that the primitive probes are not an accurate indication of the humans' defensive network, after all. Have our patrol transmit their telemetry with a full report."
"By-your-command."
xxxxx
In the main administration area of "Area 51", Starbuck pressed himself into a comfortable chair and took another sip of "fresh" coffee, closing his eyes in appreciation of the energy boost he was already feeling. As drugs went, coffee was definitely on his all-time high list of useful stimulants that could keep a warrior going long past the time when his body wanted to call it quits. Between him and the two generals, at least now they had a military strategy in place to defend Earth against any more Cylon fighters, assuming the Ravager still carried the customary four squadrons. Surkov and Roach were spreading the word with their international colleagues, letting every nation in a formal organization known as the United Nations in on their plan. Now, all that was left was for a decision to come down from the deliberating United Nations Security Council—whatever that was—which the American President was this very centon flying out to personally address. According to Graeme Ryan, getting the fifteen members to agree on anything was quite difficult. Especially with the five permanent members—the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France—having the power of veto. Seemed that, much like in the Twelve Colonies, a bunch of bureauticians had to first decide whether they should make an effort to save Earth before dedicated soldiers could do what they already realized needed doing.
Oh well, all that said and done, it was out of his hands for now, giving him yet another chance to dwell on Luana and what had happened to her when the Clavis had pulsated. It was the part about having a warrior for a wife that he hated. That all-consuming worry that no man was immune to. He tried to console himself that she was a good pilot; she wouldn't be flying the Wraith if she wasn't. If Baltar had been watching over him, maybe Ama was watching over her goddaughter. It make perfect sense. Now stop thinking about it, Bucko, or you'll go spacehappy.
He rested his head back against the plush headrest, kicking up the footrest as he'd been shown, and sighing at the sensation of his body sinking into luxurious padding. Dickins had insisted he try the chair, which he called a "lazy boy", saying that every red-blooded man deserved one at some point. Now this was living! A guy could get seriously used to furniture like this, designed for comfort instead of bleak Colonial utilitarianism. It actually made a guy a little sleepy, despite the coffee, especially with a full stomach.
Which brought him back to his first taste of American food. What was it called again? Oh yeah, a hamburger. It was like sinking your teeth into a little slice of heaven as exquisite flavour exploded in your mouth with each bite. It was savoury, meaty, saucy, and he could eat it with his hands! Sagan's sake, it was probably the first taste of real meat he'd had since that roasted Black-Backed Bobak on Planet 'P'. And he hadn't needed to catch it or kill it! His mouth began to water again just thinking about it. That stuff they called . . .uh, ketchup. Now there was something he could make a pile from back in the Fleet! That and those odd-looking strips of something called French Fries. Lords of Kobol! The whole thing hadn't been much to look at, but if this was any indication of what he could expect from Earth food, then . . .
His chair seemed to dip to one side. Starbuck's eyes shot open to find a grinning Dickins gazing down at him, leaning on the chair. Hummer was dozing across from them. The old astronaut's hand was on the rim of his cup, apparently steadying it.
"Looked like a head-bob to me, kid," Dickins told him. "Why don't you get forty winks while you can? No Cylons on the radar so far, other than Lucifer being delivered to the stockade."
Starbuck nodded, letting Dickins take the coffee. "Not a bad . . ."
Roach burst into the room, uniform jacket gone, tie askew, destroying all semblance of a restful environment, his face redder than a Cancerian Crustacean.
"What . . .?" Starbuck tried to ask.
"Idiots!" Roach exploded. "Goddamned idiots! I swear if we'd just get rid of politicians, the world would be a better place!"
"Better for who exactly?" Grae asked across the room.
"Look at this!" Roach ignored the comment, grabbing a handheld device and pointing it at a huge screen on the wall. Pictures rapidly flew across the screen until the general found what he was looking for. "They're covering some of the Security Council deliberations at the UN."
A man was standing up and orating at a table that was on a sunken level surrounded in an incomplete circle by curved solid raised desk with seats, and behind that, free-sitting chairs. An enormous mural dominated the room that looked as though it was filled to capacity, and then some.
"What is needed is a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation."
"Bah!" Roach grunted, pressing the control again as the screen changed. "Same crap for the last hundred years."
"We are witnessing the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a small number, while the world's problems require from the international community that it act on a common basis."
"I think I need my languaphone adjusted," Starbuck murmured.
"You see!" Roach raved, turning the screen off. "I just heard from the President again, Starbuck. He's in flight to New York and has decided he wants you and the Cylon there with him at the UN to show these robot-hugging peaceniks who and what these robots really are! You can take your Wraith and land it at the helipad at the UN Complex. I'll send an escort along so you don't lose your way."
"Me?" Starbuck choked out, jumping to his feet, holding up his hands in a instinctive self-defensive stance. His hamburger almost made an unwelcome reappearance as his stomach flip-flopped at the idea of standing in front of all of those Earth bureauticians, like Apollo had at Terra. "I'm a warrior, not a bureautician!" The last time he'd even been in the Council Chamber came to mind, and just the memory made him queasy. "Voted least inspiring in my class, by the way, and most likely to be stripped and moduled!"
"Don't sell yourself short, kid," Dickins slapped him on the shoulder. "If you can convince both Malus and Mark Dayton to join the Colonial military, and Commander Adama to refit a hunk of junk Base Ship as a Covert Operations Ship, then I'd wager that convincing fifteen or so Earth politicians that the Cylons are really bad guys when they've already proved it hands down should be child's play for the son of Chameleon."
"There are more than fifteen people there, Dickins! A lot more." He pointed to the screen. "And it's being broadcasted!"
"Most of them are just observing. They don't matter. They're background, just like the mural on the wall above them." Dickins smiled. "And at least a third of the fifteen are women. Just give them that famous smile and you'll have them eating out of your hand."
Starbuck snorted, shaking his head. "Oh frack, I really don't want to do this! Ten to one my languaphone will stop working right at the crucial moment," he muttered, grimacing. "Dayton, where in Hades Hole are you?"
"He's late. You said so yourself," Dickins returned. "And I wouldn't be surprised if someone was aiming to make him that way. Besides . . . aren't you the official Earth Liaison Officer, designated so by Commander Adama himself?"
"That was different. That was when there were only five of you in the Fleet, Dickins," Starbuck returned, "not nine billion. Believe me, if Commander Adama was here, he would be hiding Earth's daughters from me, not showcasing me in front of your world leaders."
"Hummer and I will come along to back you up, Starbuck," Dickins offered. "And keep an eye on that Cylon."
"Probably a good idea, Captain Dickins," Roach said. "Your input could be invaluable."
"Are you sure about bringing Lucifer?" Starbuck inserted, conceding he'd be going whether he liked it or not. "I think we'd be better off running him through a garbage compactor or dropping him from 30,000 metrons. He's trouble."
"Always of a conservative opinion," Dickins sniffed in amusement. "That's what I love about this guy."
"General!" Colonel Hundal burst into the room. "Air Force One just exploded en route to New York!"
"Dear God Almighty. . ." Roach gasped, paling. He closed his eyes, bowing his head into one hand, the other reaching for the wall for support. "Who would . . ." He shook his head, dazed. Then his head jerked upright, fury etched into his features. "Mason! I'm going to kill him!"
Starbuck shook his head in confusion at the rapid change in topic and the obvious effect it had on the general. "What's Air Force One?"
"The plane that was carrying the President."