"Where?" Jess gasped, unable to believe it. A political capital or military base, maybe, but why on Earth . . . ?
The attack had begun and Earth's only decent chance at defence had failed. With nails biting into the palms of her hands, Jess watched the replay of the attack. A massive beam of intense blue light, as wide as the wingspan on a modern jetliner, erupted from the very centre of the underside of the Cylon Base Ship. It stabbed down through the atmosphere, slamming into the surface with multi-megatons of force and a blindingly brilliant flash. The Cylon pulsar had cut through the American Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicles deployed from their missiles as though they were a gaggle of geese.
And their goose was most definitely cooked.
"Las Vegas, Nevada," Orlov reported, filtering information through a Control Centre that was going ballistic since spotting a second Cylon Base Ship suddenly and inexplicably decelerating into Earth's orbit. It had to be the Endeavour. It had filled them with hope, but hope was a fickle creature. Several minutes later and without warning, the first capital spaceship had unleashed its most powerful weapon on Earth, ripping into the planet and vaporizing Las Vegas. "Satellite imagery estimates a twenty mile blast radius."
"Twenty miles . . . what the hell's left?" Jess asked, her throat tight, as the imagery was brought up on a screen. From orbit, all they could see was a massive dark smudge where Vegas had once stood, the winds already beginning to spread the smoke out beyond the blast area. Then the satellite went dead. "Get it back!" ordered Jess.
But it was no use. The Base Ship had targeted the satellite, reducing it to dust. Several GPS satellites followed. Bit by bit, everything that could serve as a defensive purpose was being erased from the sky.
"Nothing," Surkov replied. They all stared at the last image of Vegas. A huge crater and massive fires were all they could see. If anyone had survived, it would have been a miracle. "War loves blood." He turned to his subordinate. "Get me General Roach. I would ask Captain Starbuck about the tactical plan of his commander. As yet, I am unimpressed."
"Yes, sir."
xxxxx
"Neither Lambda or Trevanian are responding," Xenia said, stating the obvious once again as the klaxon blared throughout the Ravager. "We need to get moving, Acastus. Now!"
"What in Hades went wrong?" Acastus asked, looking dumbfounded as he tried once again to raise his fellow squadron mates. He'd become almost obsessive about it, expectantly waiting for Trevanian or Lambda to respond in some jocular manner that they had destroyed any opposition and were preparing to set their charges and head for the launch bay, ala Starbuck.
"They must have been caught," Xenia surmised, her stomach flip-flopping at the idea and the bile creeping up her throat to strangle her. She forced it back down. "We'd better get going. Knocking out one mega-pulsar is better than not knocking out any. In for a quantum, in for a cubit."
"But we need to go find out what happened . . . see if we can help . . ." Acastus stuttered, his handsome young features contorting in disbelief and indecision. "We can't just leave them . . ."
"We need to complete our mission, Acastus," Xenia reminded him, looking up the ventilation shaft where they had to set their charges. At least the Cylons were unlikely to discover them in here. Suddenly this covert mission had ceased to be fun for her fellow warriors. Probability dictated that Lambda, Trevanian, Teles and Ligea were either prisoners of the Cylons or dead. If she wasn't so terrified herself, she might have taken a moment to reflect on the absolute confidence of youth and how effectively the Colonial military had utilized it over the millennia in situations like this. Throw yourself into the jaws of death while you were being all that you could be, fully expecting to come back alive. Heroes like Starbuck, Apollo and the legendary Cain had so easily made the impossible seem achievable. However, it was clear to her that that this group of young warriors were lacking that charmed existence with which these demigods in Colonial culture had been gifted. "We have to blow the upper pulsar. Now. If the others get interrogated, assuming they're even alive, they'll probably give us away."
"They would never . . ." Acastus denied hotly, his head whipping indignantly in her direction as he flushed with anger.
"Shut the frack up, Acastus. You've never been tortured. You don't know how you or anyone else would react to a Cylon brain probe. You probably don't want to remember, but even Starbuck cracked when he was captured."
"But he survived," Acastus said quietly.
"Yes, he did. But he's Starbuck. God gave him a little something extra to inspire the rest of us, to make sure we finish what we started, if only so he's proud of us when he says a few words at our memorial service. So if you want to make our strike captain proud, move your astrum, Ensign."
Acastus drew a deep breath, gathering his tattered resolve around him. "You're more than just an archivist, Xenia. What did you do before the Destruction?"
She ducked her head, refusing to let her memories drag her back into the terror that she had once lived and relived, over and over. Those records didn't even exist anymore. Except in the scarred recesses of her mind. "When I was a little older than you, I was a Colonial Warrior. A lieutenant on theColumbia."
He didn't say anything, waiting for her to continue.
"I was medically discharged about seven yahrens before the Holocaust."
"For what?" he asked hesitantly, sounding so achingly young.
"Combat Stress Reaction."
He sucked in a breath.
"It was a long time ago, Acastus." She took a shuddering breath, nodding upwards at the shaft. "Now move your astrum, Ensign."
"Yes, ma'am."
xxxxx
"You vowed we would negotiate. You offered peace!" Asar accused Lucifer, his voice trembling in fury as the thought of the complete destruction of Las Vegas and its millions of victims branded itself for all of eternity on his conscience.
"Yes, I did, but I lied," the IL replied, its lights twinkling in a warped satisfaction. "If it appeases you at all, Samael Asar, there was nothing you could have done to prevent this. It was a foregone conclusion that you would so naively fall into the role of traitor, as others have done before you. Humans, by nature, are gullible creatures, easily rendered credulous. Power is by and large a more influential tool than altruism with your kind." He made a noise that almost sounded like a laugh. "You actually took the word of a machine over one of your own. I still find that preposterous, no matter how many times I have seen it." He paused, reflecting on that. "Yours is an inferior race, meant to be overcome by my own. It was inevitable."
"You too will be destroyed!" Asar screamed, motioning for the attending UN guards to take the IL into custody.
"It matters not. The day still belongs to my Imperious Leader and to Cylon," Lucifer replied smugly, straightening up arrogantly, in an almost human fashion. He took a step closer to Asar. His voice went icy cold. "The Cylon Alliance shall rule the universe, its domination written across the stars in the blood of your pathetic race."
"Mister Secretary General!" said a functionary. Asar looked at him. "According to orbital track, the Base Ship will be over Mexico City in three minutes."
It was the most populated city in North America as well as the site of Teotihaucan, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures from the pre-Columbian period.
"Guards!" screamed the U.N. Secretary General, pointing at the IL Cylon. "Take him away!"
xxxxx
Behold the Wrath of God! The Apocalypse is Here!
The words seemed to leap off of the placard, the woman holding it out of character in her neat clothes, a small child standing at her side at the roadside. It passed by in a blur through the darkened windows as they drove by Federal Hall, Lauren securely in the back of the car between two large goons. The End of the World. Armageddon. End Time. The violent destruction of the world and the end of life as they knew it. The Cylons had reached out and turned one of the most modern, vibrant cities on Earth to burning slag. How long would it be before New York was targeted?
"Wouldn't you rather be at home with your families?" Lauren asked, while the men in suits listened to reports of the attack on Las Vegas. It had been wiped off the map. All communications with the area had ceased; there was no word about any possible survivors. Meanwhile, what was left of Samael Asar's body had been found in a bloody, crumpled heap in front of the UN. He'd jumped from the rooftop.
"Shut up!" an agent snarled from the front seat. A cold, quiet, terrifying sort of snarl.
"She has a point," said the one beside her.
The man in the front turned, a gun in his hand. It was too quick to even see it coming. At the muted thud of a silenced weapon, she instinctively closed her eyes and winced, as the warm splash of blood and tissue covered her unsuspecting form. The man beside her slumped over, dead.
"Anybody else think she has a point?" the killer asked, looking around the sedan. "No? Good."
Humanity. That largely predictable race of semi-intelligent beings, which maintained their primitive instincts, indeed prided themselves on them, no matter how many millennia of "development" had passed. Theirs was a race with a passion and an almost animal cruelty that Iblis quite simply found irresistible as he observed them, subtly influencing them when the opportunity arose, and, as often as not, he made that opportunity. Within each and every one of them was a hidden recess that, when properly provoked, declared their complicity in selfishness, greed, lust, hate, avarice, power mongering, torture, bloodshed, and even murder. A barbarity and viciousness no less robust than his own. Someone had once wisely said that there was no such thing as an "inhuman act", no matter how cruel, vile, or depraved it might be, simply because there was always somewhere a human being willing—if not eager—to commit it.
Quite simply put, they were interesting.
"Father?"
Iblis smiled as he took pride in her evolution. Ama was coming along nicely. "Yes, daughter mine."
xxxxx
"I'm having trouble keeping up with your mood swings, General," Starbuck choked out from his headlock, his body pressed up against an office wall, his arm twisted painfully behind his back, and another three armed American officers behind him enjoying the show. It seemed ironic that they'd just been celebrating not only his successful simulator run on the F-35, the surprising return of his Colonial combat boots from a watery grave, and also the arrival of the Endeavour. Five centons later everything had changed. The city of Las Vegas, a locality devoted to gaming chanceries, had been completely destroyed, Earth's usual defences rendered useless by the Cylon mega-pulsar. This seemingly only centons after Mexico City had been laid to waste. A moment later he'd been hauled in here by Roach, fury and condemnation burning in the general's eyes. Apparently, all of this was his fault. "You're getting scarier than the matron at the orphanage when she went through the Change of Life . . ."
"You bastard!" Roach hissed in Starbuck's ear.
The general eased off on the pressure for a moment, only to slam him into the wall again. Then he drove his knee into the younger man's kidney. Starbuck arched his back in agony, feeling his knees give out. If it hadn't been for the general forcibly holding him up, he'd have been on the floor. In retrospect, all he could do at this point was thank the nine Lords that Lu had already launched . . .
"They did nothing!" Roach continued, his voice raw with emotion as he maintained a superhuman grip on the warrior. "The Endeavour just sat there letting the Cylons murder our people!"
Starbuck had a feeling that the Earthman wanted to return the favour, starting with him. A sudden cold dread swept over him. "Then there has to be . . . a . . . a good reason for it!" he rasped between clenched teeth. "They wouldn't just sit there unless they had no choice."
"What reason?" Roach demanded, almost hysterically. "What possible reason could there be?" He slammed Starbuck into the wall again.
Roach wanted him dead. At first Starbuck had thought the man was just being his usual volatile self, but now it occurred to him that something else was going on here. Roach really thought Starbuck had set them up. That he had helped orchestrate a Cylon attack and was actually in league with Lucifer!. Roach was on the edge, driven there by the destruction of Las Vegas. Starbuck couldn't help but think of when the officer had killed those men at the UN without even offering them a chance to surrender, and that had been when he'd been in complete control. Now the opposite was true. If Starbuck had any chance at all of surviving this, he'd have to find an opening soon . . . after all, if Roach pounded him into the frackin' wall a few more times, he reckoned there'd be an opening init . . .
"Let him go, Roach," came a low sneer from across the room. "Now!"
"Great idea," Starbuck gasped, his face becoming one with the plaster as the burning pain in his back began to ease.
Dickins was standing in the open doorway, Ryan and Hummer flanking him. All three men were armed, which possibly didn't bode well for the officers they'd been left with. Ryan kicked the door shut behind him as the other officers in the room pulled their own weapons.
"Looks like we have ourselves a little Mexican standoff, General," Dickins said. "You shoot, we shoot."
"This isn't your fight, Captain Dickins. Just walk away right now and we'll forget this ever happened," Roach promised the old astronaut, tightening his grip around Starbuck's throat.
"That's where you're wrong. I owe Starbuck my life, General. We all do. If you're against him, you're against me."
"What about allegiance to your country?" Roach demanded. "Your world?"
"My country is sorta pissing me off about now," Dickins replied grimly. "And the way I see it, my world isn't exactly at its best, either. I thought we had aclear understanding about who the good guys were, General. Don't go psychotic on our boy just yet. Starbuck's right. There has to be a damn good reason that Dayton let the Cylons get in the first strike. Mark Dayton is like a brother to me. Closer, even. One thing I know without a doubt is that if he's still breathing, he'll come through for us. Just give him a chance and don't burn your bridges—or our strike captain—in the meantime." Dickins took a step closer, drawing a bead on the general's forehead from across the room. "Now . . . Let. Him. Go."
Starbuck could feel the tension and hostility in the general. With a rasping squeal he sucked in another breath through the building pressure against his windpipe. His chest was beginning to ache with an all-consuming need to draw a deep satisfying gulp of air into his lungs. Dying here on Earth all because of a misunderstanding really wasn't part of his plan. Then again, his plans had a way of veering off on some bizarre path that he hadn't foreseen . . .
"My wife and daughters . . ." Roach's voice cracked.
Dickins let out a short breath, realization erasing the deadly intent on his own features as he lowered his weapon. "In Vegas?"
Roach nodded sharply, drawing a ragged breath as he stood there shaking in indecision. "It was so quick . . . no time to warn them . . . even talk to them . . ."
Dickins nodded sympathetically, letting a moment of silence pass. "The Cylons are responsible for their deaths, General, not Starbuck. He's on your side. I know you want revenge, but you're barking up the wrong damn tree."
There was a long moment of silence before Roach swallowed convulsively. He ground his teeth together, struggling to maintain some semblance of control. Slowly, he loosened his grip on Starbuck, letting the Colonial Warrior slide down the wall to the floor on his knees. Starbuck slumped forward taking deep gasping breaths, one hand to his throat, his eyes shut tightly, his head resting against the wall. Roach shook his head numbly, still trying to decide if he'd been betrayed or if there was some other possible explanation. He finally turned.
"If you're wrong, Dickins," Roach said, clinging to his tenuous control over his grief and anger, "you'll be on the firing line beside your young friend here."
An officer burst into the room.
"General! The Cylon ship! It's launching its fighters!" the young woman announced.
"Frack . . ." muttered Starbuck, using the wall for support as he started to climb to his feet.
"If I'm wrong, General," Dickins replied, crossing to the Colonial Warrior and helping him up, "chances are we'll all be vaporized before you have a chance to organize that firing squad."
xxxxx
Dayton felt a cold fury burning deep within him as he looked at the scans of the scarred remains of an area that had once been vibrant with human life, many of them on vacation, indulging in some of the best andworst that western culture had to offer. Was that why the Cylons had chosen it? Because it symbolized a way of life so alien and repugnant to them? Or did Iblis have something to do with their choice of target? Exactly whose buttons was the Count of Creep pushing now?
"Commander, incoming encoded message from Wraith Two."
"Wraith Two?" Dayton echoed. Finally it was good news. "Starbuck?"
"No, sir. Ensign Luana. She's definitely in Wraith Two though, sir. But the message, according to the transmission, is from Captain Starbuck."
"Well?" Dayton asked briskly, even as the news that both Starbuck and Lu were alive eased his mind.
"Uh . . . well . . ." Pierus actually blushed, swallowing hard as he regarded the decoded message in front of him. He cleared his throat.
"Cadet!" Dayton barked.
"Captain Starbuck wishes to know what we're . . . well, uh . . . waiting for."
"Yeah, I'll just bet that's what he said." Ryan snorted, leaning over the cadet's shoulder, raising his eyebrows in amusement. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Whew, strong words coming from a lowly strike captain. I'm surprised the console didn't catch on fire with this language, eh Pierus?" He glanced at Dayton. "Hey, at least he's okay, and he's obviously met up with Lu."
"Yeah. Tell Ensign Luana to haul ass and get herself aboard," Dayton replied, forgiving the young Colonial officer his breach in protocol. Starbuck had been holding down the fort for far longer than any of them had expected. "Status?" he asked, trying to stay focussed instead of letting the guilt and doubt that was nipping at his conscience unnerve him, while he and the crew recovered physically from the celestial herky-jerky that Ama had just put them through.
"Life support fully operational. Navigation back on line. Weaponry at eighty percent, Commander," Dorado reported. "Defensive batteries coming back on-line. Shields at sixty percent. Engineering reports galley and rec areas still on emergency power cells."
"Good. Targeting scanners?"
"Diagnostics in progress. Estimate four centons to fully operational status."
"What about the Clavis?"
"Nominal, Commander," Coxcoxtli replied. "Like before we left for Morlais. No energy fluctuations whatsoever."
"Let's hope it stays that way. Colonel?"
"Phoenix squadron is refuelling," Apollo reported. "Triton Squadron is standing by."
"Apollo, report to the launch bay," Dayton ordered. "Forget the pre-flights, just kick the tires and light the fires!"
"Yes, sir!" the young colonel replied, leaving the Control Centre at a run, Jolly on his heels.
"I'm going too, Mark!" Baker declared, heading towards the corridor. "If for any reason they need someone to speak English . . ."
"Yeah, go!" Dayton nodded.
"Weaponry at ninety percent, Commander," Dorado updated him. "All defensive and navigational screens now report operational."
"Slow. Too goddamned slow!"
"That's part of the reason these ships were pulled from service," said Pierus. The commander glared at him. Now was not the time for a bloody history lesson!
Rooke had been debriefed; the lieutenant operating under their covert modus operandi, setting the stage for another Cylon sting that would go down in Colonial history. However, after sitting helplessly by while the Cylons started battering his home world, Dayton wasn't feeling very subtle. He could feel the eyes of his crew upon him as they watched. Scans indicated the enemy ship's main weapons were charging up once more. She was selecting a new target within the arc of her weapon's lock. Raiders were launching from all bays on a heading to the planet. The aptly named Ravager was preparing for its next strike on Earth, ignoring their sister ship's insistent hails.
"Son of a bitch, screw this covert crap," Dayton sneered. He punched the ship's intercraft system and announced: "General quarters, general quarters. All hands to battle stations!" The klaxon began to scream throughout the vessel. "This is no drill. I repeat, this is no drill! Battle stations!"