Chapter 88 Take-offs & Landings
Galen Tyrol had gratefully accepted the order to descend to the planet and oversee the uploading of the algae harvesting mission. He desperately needed something to distract him from his failure. He was not a man usually given to wallow in guilt, preferring to learn and move forward, but in the days following the realization that he'd sent Starbuck out in a faulty Raptor, he'd been driving both himself and his crew mercilessly. So much so that he suspected the Admiral had chosen to send him below less because he was needed dirtside and more because he'd been acting the tyrant. The change of scenery and personnel had let him take an objective look at the circumstances of Kara's death.
Sure, the Captain's shuttle hadn't been properly inspected for the potential problem in the NAV and electrical systems, but they also didn't have any evidence that it was a mechanical failure that had resulted in Starbuck's disappearance. Like he had original told Apollo, everyone knew that Kara had been grounded again just hours before. Whatever may have happened could just as likely be due to actions taken by the volatile pilot.
Regardless of the cause, the fleet had to deal with the repercussions. It was bad enough losing their best pilot and flight instructor, but Starbuck's death was a massive blow to morale. Mourning had cast its oppressive shadow across the length of the battlestar; he'd witnessed it the averted eyes and subdued conversations amongst every level of the Galactica's crew. Even the Marines seemed to be taking the loss personally.
Galen briefly recalled coming across one of the nuggets talking heatedly to a pair of Marines. He'd first thought it an argument, but caught snatches of their exchange as he drew near. Sunshine and a slightly taller man whose resemblance shouted a relationship to the young pilot were obviously discussing Starbuck. As his gaze shifted to the figure just behind the two men, he easily recognized Sergeant Mathias from her time acting as Kara' bodyguard and heard her abruptly shut the pair down with a word.
"Enough!" she snapped. As two identically startled faces swiveled her way, "Neither of you's the Admiral, so stop your second-guessing right the frak now." Both close-cropped heads dropped sheepishly in acknowledgment of the reprimand but looked up as Tyrol moved to walk by. The flash of anger in the Viper pilot's eyes showed that he obviously still blamed the Chief and Tyrol had clamped his jaw shut on the multitude of defensive words he had wanted to shout in response. Instead, he'd returned to the bay and worked straight through is down shift.
Now, Tyrol grunted as he lifted one of the heavy units and shoved it aboard the waiting Raptor. Brushing dust from his callused hands, he heard Racetrack call from her position at the controls.
"Make sure those damned crates are tied down well, Chief," she said, swiping a hand across her brow. He didn't take her sharp tone personally, knowing the woman was literally blowing off steam as she sweltered within her flightsuit from the planet's hot climate. "Can't you hurry those jarheads? I'd like to get the hell off this dust ball before I combust, you know."
"I'll see what I can do, Lieutenant," he offered. Climbing down again, he surveyed the figures trudging their burdens to the three waiting shuttles. He gauged that they had maybe one more load to go then could get back to the relative comfort of the battlestar. About to head over to give a struggling Corporal a hand, Galen paused and turned at the exclamation from the cockpit.
"Motherfrakkers!"
"Lieutenant?" he called to her.
"Cylons, Chief," she snapped back in explanation. "Anyone not onboard in sixty seconds gets a permanent visa here."
Not bothering to argue that they couldn't afford to abandon any of the irreplaceable equipment, the Chief turned and bellowed, "Move your asses, people. Got Cylons coming in!" Heads jerked up in surprise, then the dust coated figures triple-timed their burdens. He ran to one of the few remaining boxes and hefted it onto one shoulder and grabbed the ties of another and staggered as quickly as he could back to hand them over to the two men already inside.
He turned and cast his gaze about for any stragglers, praying that no one had had the bad timing to head off into the brush for a call of nature.
"Godsdamnit, Chief, get in!" Racetrack yelled, and he ducked inside the already closing hatch.
As the shuttle lifted, he stumbled against one of the Marines, nearly landing in the man's lap.
"Belt in. Gonna be a rough ride," the pilot called back. He saw her glance around, to see him still standing, all the available seats already taken. "There! Now!" she ordered with a head twitch towards the empty co-pilot's station. "Just don't touch anything. Got it?" He looked over to see the brunette give him a tight grin at getting to throw his own words back at her. Racetrack was one of the few pilots that seemed hopeless at maintenance, to the point he'd given up and just warned her away—more than once.
"It's your bird, Sir," he quipped back, surprised the woman seemed to get calmer as proverbial shit hit the fan. Then again, she was an experienced Colonial pilot and this was what she did.
"Damned righ—" she broke off, sharply veering to the side as ordnance streamed by. "Frakkers. Damned Toasters. Come on you Chromedomes!" Racetrack ranted, "Frak! Clear a path, Tinhead!" She slewed the Raptor up and hard over again. Her running monologue would have been funny in other circumstances, but it was all Tyrol could do to keep his lunch down as the Raptor spun through the intermixed chaos of Raiders and Vipers.
They twisted away from one group of combatants and inadvertently directly into the path of an unengaged Raider. Time seemed to slow as Galen Tyrol looked out at the oncoming Cylon ship.
Red flashed him blind and he felt a jolt course through his body.
With a gasp, he blinked free of the moment of eternity.
What in all the twelve Lords of Kobol was that?
He didn't have time to dwell further because Racetrack threw the shuttle into a corkscrewing motion and out of the line of the Raider. Galen instinctively looked over his shoulder, sure the Cylon ship must be turning to follow them. His brows rose in confusion as he witnessed Raider after Raider break contact and streak away. He wasn't the only one, either.
"What're they doing?" Racetrack asked, gaze shifting between her Dradis screen and the starfield beyond.
"Looks like they're breaking off, Sir," he answered, as incredulous as she.
"But why?" she demanded, shifting the Raptor slightly to better view the unexpected retreat."
"Does it matter? I say we get back to the Galactica. Let the Admiral sort it out."
From in the rear section, "So say we all," one of the Marines called out in agreement.
"Yeah…I guess. Just damned strange, is all," Racetrack said, but resumed their course toward the battlestar and added thrust to hurry them along.
Galen was right there with her in finding the Cylons' departure out of character and wondering what they had up their sleeves next, but he'd rather puzzle over after his feet were firmly back on Galactica's metal decking. This jouncing about in the midst of a firefight had left him with a raging headache and a disturbed feeling that he'd missed something important.
As the shuttle settled onto the landing square and began the descent to the flight deck, Galen recalled his harried return from his last trip downside. It seemed he was destined to always be leave planets in a crushing rush: there'd been Kobol first, followed by the exodus from New Caprica, then the Temple of Five planet and now this one.
Shrugging aside the observation, his thoughts settled on what cargo he'd brought back after finding the Temple of Five. With a sideways look at Racetrack as she completed the shutdown procedures, he wondered if the pilot knew what Galen had smuggled back aboard last time? Did any of the crew know that Baltar had been captured? From the lack of even rumors, he was pretty certain that only the people at the top were aware that the ex-President was back and stowed somewhere on the Galactica.
Well, that wasn't his concern, he decided as he jumped down from the Raptor and surveyed the post-engagement chaos of his flight deck. His eyes had just locked with Cally's when the ship comm crackled.
"All hands, prepare for jump."
Not more than a breath later and the instant vertigo of the FTL came and went. Galen shook his head once to shed the sensation and then strode over to his wife, pulling her into a quick hug before turning to take up his place and began calling out commands.
And no one noticed the Chief occasionally humming beneath his breath as he directed his knuckledraggers about their tasks.
[ I I I I I ]
Kara's head jerked up and she instinctively reached for the control stick between her legs. It took a moment more for her brain to catch up that she was in the Raptor being jolted around by the cosmic storm back within the radiation field. Hands fumbled at the less familiar controls to the side and she steadied the craft.
"Right…right…got to…" Squinting against the overly bright light, she took a moment to orientate herself, then, "Frak. How long…" She checked from the mission clock and then the octagon on her wrist and then huffed a laugh in relief as she saw that barely more than a minute had passed since initiating the jump. On the heels of that observation, Kara decided she'd better not waste another moment, even though she felt an urge to swing the ship about to see if the mandala was still behind her. At least now the compulsion had subsided into a mild feeling of curiosity.
There was no way she'd be leading the fleet back through the mandala. It was sufficient that she had Earth's coordinates in the NAV computer, and they'd be able to track a direct course without having to risk the radiation field again. She was sick of this mass of blinding chaos and would thank the Lords of Kobol not to ever have to brave it again.
As she confirmed the jump coordinates for the point cappa over the algae planet, she was thrown sideways against the restraints as the forces of the storm pressed in on the Raptor. Struggling to reach the FTL initiation toggle, Starbuck saw several system lights flashing red now.
"Come on…just one more," she muttered, resisting the urge to slap the panel. Instead, she flexed a hand that had begun to shake and then flipped up the cover and then the revealed switch.
The compression of the FTL seemed somehow slower this time, but it didn't matter as soon as the comforting dimness of space replaced the storm's painful light. Kara swallowed against the renewed nausea while searching the distance for the cluster of fleet ships. The planet below was just as she remembered it from the four prior trips, yet the space around it was disturbing empty.
Where the frak was Galactica? And the civilian ships?
As she drew nearer to the planet, she noticed flotsam that slowly grew to recognizable chunks of destroyed Raiders and other twisted battle debris.
Starbuck closed her eyes as she pictured what must have happened. The Cylons had come upon the fleet sometime during or in the short hours after Galactica made her last trip through the radiation field. Thankfully, from the lack of any larger wreckage, it appeared as if all the civilian ships had made safe passage, but that was all the good she could envision when she realized that she had no idea of the next plotted jump point.
A jangle of panic coursed along her already overstrained nerves, worsening the post-stim shakes. Biting her lower lip, Kara clamped down on the building hysteria. She'd been in worse spots and wasn't going to just give up now!
"Think, Thrace," she said purposely outloud, trying to focus. "What would the Old Man do?"
She knew that the Colonials had been driven from collecting their desperately needed source of food, so now what options did they have? What were the chances of them finding another planet with usable resources within the next week?
Slim to none.
This dirt clod was it.
She shook her head, then wished she hadn't as the pounding between her temples increased. Bringing her pain-scattered thoughts back together, Kara reviewed what she could remember of Gaeta's briefing. The odds he'd given pretty much guaranteed that this planet was the fleet's only hope before widespread starvation and riots destroyed what little they had left.
The Admiral had to return to this planet…and soon.
She just hoped that the Cylons were unaware that the fleet was out of food, because then they'd believe that the Colonials had moved on and leave the area behind them clear.
Starbuck decided that what she'd do in the Admiral's place was to head away for at least two jumps, then plot a course that would allow them to circle back. She'd use a Raptor to scout the area and could then FTL back here once it was confirmed safe again. So, she just had to wait until Galactica came back.
She hated waiting.
Yet it made more sense then making random jumps and just hoping she stumbled upon the Colonial fleet before the Cylons. And truth be told, as a wave of dizziness swept over her and the nausea roiled her stomach once more, Kara wasn't sure she was in any condition to go hopping from system to system right now. The dragging fatigue was getting worse too, and she was tempted to just let her eyes close and allow it to pull her into an exhausted sleep. She figured she had at least a day before she could reasonable expect Galactica's return…and she was so frakking tired.
The sound of a crackle and hiss, barely discernible through her helmet, brought her eyes snapping open and to the instrument panel. Green indicators where rapidly shifting to blinking red as the computer registered the stream of cascading failures across the board.
After years of experience with spacecrafts, it took Starbuck only an instant to come to the conclusion that her ship was dying. The repeated trips through the cosmic storm plus the additional forces of the mandala must have damaged the Raptor more than she'd thought.
Another glance at the now flickering Dradis screen confirmed the absence of any Colonial or Cylon vessels. She had the dubious choice to either remain in space, floating in a disabled shuttle, or to try to land on the planet below. She at least knew that it could support human life. If she could make it down, she might be able to repair some of the damaged systems. At least enough to give her a means of escape if the Cylons came back first.
As a visible wisp of smoke started to rise from a corner panel, the question became whether she could even put the Raptor down in one piece. And with the only other option being to shut down all systems and hope that someone came back within the next twenty-four hours before she froze to death or ran out of canned air, Starbuck decided she'd rather trust to her own skill and make for the surface.
Praying that the ship didn't explode, she eased forward on the thruster lever and aimed the Raptor's nose down. The engines gave a small shudder but then engaged without reducing her to a mass of drifting particles. As the shuttle broke through the stratosphere, it began to shake, or at least Starbuck thought it did as she felt shudders of her own rolling in growing waves from her feet to her head.
"Frakkin'…stims," she muttered through clenched teeth. Then, as a cramp clenched her gut, "Not…now," she said, knowing that she was in the grip of the post-stim crash and things were only going to get worse. And that didn't even include the symptoms from the radiation.
"Come on…come on…come on," she chanted, half to the faltering ship as she sought to hold it on course when one of the twin engines abruptly cut out, and the other half to herself as she blinked to clear her wavering vision and swallowed down the growing need to vomit.
The same experience and skill that had kept her alive through five days of combat every thirty-three minutes, now kept the Raptor from lurching out of the re-entry path and becoming a spinning ball of flaming metal as she entered the lower level of the planet's atmosphere.
She had planned to land where the base camp for the algae harvesting had been setup, but now Starbuck just wanted to find a flat spot and hope she wouldn't plant the Raptor in too deep on impact. Just as a likely area came into sight, another cramp bent her forward against the seat straps. Forcing herself upright, she eased back on the one remaining thruster, trying to compensate for the uneven propulsion as she slowed.
The landing struts snapped on impact and the shuttle slewed sideways to a grinding stop guaranteed to deepen the bruises Starbuck already had forming from the restraints. She didn't have time to celebrate the success though as the tendrils of smoke thickened about her. The entire panel of lights now glowed a hazy red and she fumbled to shut it down before the shorting circuits burst into flames.
As the Raptor went dead, leaving only the natural light streaming through the cockpit window to light the interior, Kara began to shiver and fresh bile rose in the back of her throat. She had to get out of the shuttle…right frakking now.
It seemed to take forever for shaking fingers to free her from the harness and she banged her shoulder on the bulkhead as she stumbled into the rear section. A slap started the slow rise of the hatch and Kara grappled with the helmet latch seal and yanked the headgear off even as she duck out into the late afternoon sun. Off balance, she slipped and rolled from the Raptor's wing to land with a grunt on the hard packed ground beneath.
She pushed to her knees and retched for what felt like hours. Finally collapsing onto her back, Kara lay gasping and woozily squinting up at the open sky above. It felt so damned good to just stop and let the sun's rays toast the shivers away. Before long, though, the flightsuit became uncomfortably warm and she grimaced at the need to move. On leaden arms and legs, she crawled into the shadow cast by the shuttle and flopped once more onto her back. The wing blocked much of the view, but the portion of sky Kara could see beyond was an azure blue that was both painful and comforting as it reminded her of a certain pair of eyes.
Hope Lee's ok, she muzzily thought before exhaustion pulled her under.
An indeterminate time later, the sound of a ship roused her sluggish brain and Kara knew she probably should get up, but the effort was beyond her and she started to drift off again when she heard nearby voices.
Forcing heavy lids open, she saw a silhouette of a man blocking the now purple-hued sunset and she sighed in relief as she let herself fully release into the healing grasp of deep sleep.
Lee had come. She'd known he would.