01 - Battlestar Galactica (11 page)

“Stand by,” she said to Dualla, after giving the preliminary information.
“Helo?”

Back at the instrument panel, Helo was scanning the area.
“I show ten—no,
no, make that five Cylon raiders on course three-two-four mark one-one-zero,
speed seven-point-one. Time to intercept…”
There was a long hesitation.
“Seven minutes.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”
That was the CAG.

Sharon could see most of what Helo was coming up with on her own dradis
display, though she couldn’t enhance the image the way he could. She answered
for him, “There’s a lot of jamming going on out there. The Cylons are using a
lot of sensor decoys. We’re sorting through them, but—”

“Understood,”
said the CAG.
“Just take your time. Guide us in. We’ll
do the rest.”

“Yes sir.”
Just do it one step at a time,
Sharon thought, swallowing
bile.
One step at a time… into your first taste of combat. Don’t be
scared…

Galactica,
Combat Information Center

In the CIC, Gaeta was using colored grease pencils to mark out the tactical
situation on a large light table, using readings from their own dradis, as well
as information received from
Atlantia. A
series of lines traced the
positions and courses of a number of Colonial forces, relative to the closest
worlds. “So that would put our squadron about here,” he said, marking a spot in
blue between
Galactica
and Caprica. “Now, it looks like the main fight is
shaping up over here, near Virgon’s orbit. Even at top speed, they’re still over
an hour away.”

Adama frowned over the display. “Plot a course along this axis”—he traced a
finger over the table—“and keep Virgon between us and the battle. We might be
able to get pretty close before the Cylons are even aware—”

As Gaeta acknowledged, Adama looked up and saw Dualla returning to the CIC,
with Kara Thrace right behind her. Tigh was following Kara’s appearance with a
frown. She tossed him a mocking half-salute, then presented herself soberly to
Adama. “Commander?” This time her salute was thoroughly professional. “Ready for
duty, sir.”

“Good.” His voice was terse and grim; he didn’t have time to think about the
nonsense between her and Tigh.

Kara waited a heartbeat for Adama to say something more, then blurted, “Where
the hell did the Cylons come from?”

Adama looked up. “All we know for sure is that they achieved complete
surprise. We’ve taken heavy losses. We lost thirty battlestars in the opening
attack.” He said it matter-of-factly but just voicing the numbers made his heart
heavy.

Kara didn’t flinch, at least not outwardly. But her voice conveyed disbelief.
“That’s a quarter of the fleet.”

“I need pilots, and I need fighters.” He stared hard at the plotting table,
trying to see a way out of the seemingly hopeless situation.

“Pilots you got. I just passed twenty of them, climbing the walls down in the
ready room. But fighters—” She shook her head. The last active wing had left
yesterday for Caprica and Picon. There were just a few Vipers, undergoing
maintenance, last she’d heard.

Adama turned to meet her gaze squarely. “I seem to remember an entire
squadron of fighters down in the starboard hangar deck yesterday.”

For an instant, Kara’s face was filled with incredulity—
a squadron of
obsolete, worn out, deactivated Vipers?
—and then the incredulity gave way to
resolve, as she realized the same thing he had. Those retired Vipers were their
only hope. “Yes
sir,”
she said, saluting smartly—and spun away and left
the CIC at a dead run.

* * *

The starboard hangar deck had truly been turned into a museum, and had the
subdued lighting of a museum gallery, with soft-focus beams aimed at the Vipers
on display. Kara had a momentary feeling of invading the peace of the place, as
she, the other pilots, and the hangar crew dashed onto the floor and began
pulling down the velvet-rope guardrails around the meticulously placed Vipers.
Then someone turned on the bright overhead floodlights, and the feeling
vanished. Suddenly they were liberating fighting ships, ships needed on the
front lines. Museum signs and placards soon littered the floor, torn in haste
from the craft.

Everyone seemed to know instinctively what to do. The pilots started making
walk-around inspections of the fighters, while the deckhands made quick checks
under access panels, removed wheel chocks, and began moving tow-tractors into
position. Kara strode alongside the nearest Viper with Chief Tyrol and squinted
through the cockpit canopy. “Are you sure they’ll fly?” she asked doubtfully.

Tyrol paced energetically, swinging his arms as he surveyed the collection of
fighters. “Well, the reactor cores are all pulled, of course—but they’re stored
hot, and they’ll pop right back in. Then all we have to do is recalibrate,
restore the hydraulics and batteries, refuel, load the ordnance, and you’re
ready to go.”

Kara looked back at him, biting her lip. “I thought all the ordnance was
taken off back at Rhapsody Station, everything but what the CAG’s squadron took
with them.”

Tyrol looked pained. “Yeah, most of it’s gone. In fact, the only reason we
have any at all is that Caprica Base wanted us to offload some there.”

“So, we’ve got—”

“We’ve got about enough to load up your cannons. Not a hell of a lot more.”

Kara took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“The biggest problem is getting these things over to the port launch bay.”

Kara looked sharply at Tyrol. “Why can’t we use the starboard launch?”

“It’s a gift shop now.”

“Frak me.”

“All right, let’s go!” Tyrol called out. “Everybody pick a bird, we’re going
to the port launch bay! Get the tows on the ones closest to the service passage,
and let’s get ’em moving! Reactor crew, get back to portside and start breaking
the reactor cores out of storage! Let’s go, we need to get these birds flying!”

The first Vipers were already in motion, on their way to the port hangar.

Things were for the moment quiet in the CIC, as everyone did their jobs and
prayed for better news. Still no word on a place to find ammunition. A course
had been plotted that would take them to the biggest fight, but right now they
had nothing to fight with even if they got there. The commander was very quiet,
waiting for developments, especially word from the hangar deck—and word from
the CAG’s squadron.

Petty Officer Dualla was scowling over the latest incoming comm printouts
when Lieutenant Gaeta peered over her shoulder. “What’s the latest, D.?”

She felt a knot in her stomach as she said, “A lot of confusion. I’m not
getting much solid information from the fleet, but I keep seeing these weird
reports about equipment malfunctions.”

“Why’s that weird?” Gaeta asked.

Dualla shook her head. “It’s the
number
of malfunctions. It’s
happening all through the fleet. One report said an entire
battlestar
lost power just before it came into contact with the enemy. They said it was
like someone just turned off a switch.”

Gaeta frowned at her. “And?”

“Apparently that was the last message from her, on an emergency transmitter.”
Her voice faltered. “Before she was destroyed.”

Gaeta didn’t answer, but his face was grave as he turned to report to the
commander.

Galactica
Viper Squadron, Near Caprica

The CAG’s squadron was rapidly approaching the reported position of the Cylon
formation. Its numbers and configuration seemed to be changing every time they
took a new dradis reading; the electronic interference was infuriating. At the
surveillance panel behind Boomer, Helo was giving minute-to-minute updates on
the long-range situation. “We’re down to
two
confirmed Cylons now.
Approaching visual range on their formation.”

The CAG, leading the Viper formation, called back, his voice distorted by
interference on the wireless,
“Okay, Boomer, we’ll take it from here. You
back way off.”

“Roger that,” Sharon replied—and hit the maneuvering thrusters, lifting the
Raptor out of the Viper formation, then allowing it to fall back behind their
advance. She had her fingers crossed, and she was scared to death. She knew they
all must be. Even the CAG, all toughness and confidence, was flying into his
first kill-or-be-killed combat mission. He never let it show, but he knew his
limitations; they all did. And Sharon…
Stop it. Stop thinking about it.
Do your job, just do your job and don’t let anyone down, all right?

“All right, boys and girls,”
the CAG was saying.
“Break into attack
formation. There might be only two of them out there, but I want you to stick
with your wingman and do not get overconfident.”

The Vipers were nearly out of visual range, ahead of the Raptor. Boomer
followed their progress by their wireless chatter, and by the little blips on
the dradis screen, brightening as the little hoop-shaped lines of the scanner
beam rotated past them. Still only two…

“Anybody know what these things look like?”
someone asked. Scott, Boomer
thought.

He was answered by a female voice. Erin.
“The pictures I’ve seen of old
Cylon fighters, they looked like a big flying wing.”

A third voice:
“Those pictures are forty years old. How do we know
what they look like now?”

“Just shoot at whatever you see,”
answered Erin, with a laugh that was
maybe a little too carefree to be real.

“Okay, keep the chatter down,”
the CAG interjected.

“Boomer,” said Helo, behind her.

Sharon looked again at her dradis screen. The number of Cylons approaching
the Vipers was multiplying rapidly.
Oh frak.
“CAG, Boomer. We’ve got a
lot more contacts coming up. We’ve got a couple of squadrons, at least.” She was
trying to count them, but the display kept changing too rapidly. “Look sharp,
you guys…”

In the dark of space, where nothing lived, the Cylons came in search of prey.
They were silver, sleek, and powerful, with gull wings that swept sharply
forward and inward at the tips, like great claws. The machine intelligence that
drove them was relentless and implacable. They feared nothing; they would stop
at nothing;

there was nothing they would not destroy, if it bore the scent of humanity.

The nose of each raider was a shrouded metal head. In another time and place,
it might have been taken for the helmeted head of a warrior, a visored knight on
his way to a joust. But as it drew close to its quarry, the visor opened, and
where there might have been eyes there was only a single red glowing spot, and
it swept back and forth, back and forth, as it sought to identify its targets.

And then its deadliest weapon of all was unsheathed, as its silent and
invisible electromagnetic talons stretched out to find its enemy’s pitiful
computer networks, and turn them off. Like flipping a switch…

Jackson Spencer, the CAG, felt a satisfying rush of adrenaline as he caught
first sight of the enemy, emerging from the glare of the sun, dead ahead. He
heard the warning from Boomer, but they were committed. “All Vipers, weapons
free. Let’s go get ’em.”

Together, in perfect formation, the twenty Vipers fired their main burners
and accelerated toward the enemy. So far, he still saw only two Cylons on his
small dradis screen. As they drew closer, he could just make out their shape.
They looked almost batlike, with hooked wings. It was impossible to tell what
their weaponry was, or what method of attack…

What the frak—?

Spencer glanced down at his instruments. Every single display was flickering
and distorting. An instant later, they went dark. He had no instrumentation.

And… he had no power, of any sort. Thrusters were gone, lights were gone,
ventilation was shut off. Complete systems failure. The Viper was suddenly
drifting, turning, all attitude control gone. Spencer blanched, feeling more
helpless than he’d ever felt in his life. There was no way he could lead the squadron. He quickly keyed
his mic. “I’ve lost power! Jolly! Jolly, take over! Jolly, can you read me?” He
turned his head to the right, trying to visually keep his bearings with the rest
of the squadron.

His heart sank. All of the Vipers were dark, drifting. They’d
all
lost
power. A couple were pitching slowly end over end. He looked to his left, just
as one of the other Vipers careened toward him and slammed into the side of his
ship, then bounced away. Shaken, he started running through his emergency
checklist, but there was nothing he could do; he was dead in space, helpless.
And so was his entire squadron…

Boomer gazed at her dradis screen with growing fear.
What’s happening to
them? Why are they drifting like that?

Helo leaned over her shoulder. “What’re they
doing
?”

“I don’t know. They’re just going straight in,”
Sharon replied, struggling to keep her voice steady.

“The comm chatter’s gone. They’re not talking anymore.” Sharon keyed her mic.
“CAG—Boomer.” Shut her eyes for an instant. “CAG—Boomer. Do you read?” She
glanced back at Helo, her fear now turned into full-blown horror.

The Vipers tumbled, coasting straight into the jaws of the enemy. Spencer had
tried everything. He kept trying, snapping switches, struggling to get some
spark of life out of his ship. Main power was dead. Auxiliary power… he
couldn’t tell, because all the meters were dead. He continued calling on the
wireless: “Boomer—CAG. If you can hear me—they must have done something to our
computer systems. Some sort of electronic jamming. I’ve never seen anything like
it.”