PART TWO: Devastation

Chapter 7

Apollo stood on the bridge when the Old Gal crossed into the new system, waiting for a chance to speak with his father, so he got a first-class view of the orb.

It powered up and lit up the sensor screens from a short distance away and moved in close to the flagship with uncanny speed. The thing was huge, almost as large as the battlestar. It flew in close to the Galactica and hovered. A port opened and something extended, emitting a beam of light which washed over the entire Fleet in a zigzag pattern, crawling across individual ships while the bridge crew stared, amazed. Then it completed the scan, sealed up, and sent a transmission to six other orbs, suddenly sprung to life on long-range sensors. It zipped off to its original position and went dark. The entire process lasted only two centons.

"Well. I think we've been scanned," Commander Adama ran a hand through his hair. "Why didn't we know about that—that thing in advance?"

"Sir, it was dark!" Athena protested immediately. "It was laying in space unpowered. Our scans read it as a bit of space junk."

"From now on, treat space junk as important. I want to know about any potential hazards."

"Yes, sir."

"Is the report in on this system?"

"Just came in now, sir." Flag Lieutenant Omega, the man responsible for keeping the bridge running smoothly under all conditions, rose from his station, read from a printout as he approached the Commander. "There's eleven planets, three of them inhabited. There seems to be a considerable amount of space traffic in the inner system, but none out here. And it looks like there's a world nearby, number nine from the primary, composed of solid water ice."

Adama's eyes reflected hope as he accepted the report, scanning through it. "Excellent. Send this report to Apollo's terminal. Captain!"

"Yes, sir." Omega returned to his station and his fingers danced over the keys as he shot the info off to Captain Apollo's terminal with an Urgent flag attached.

"Yes, Commander?" Apollo left off speculating about the now-dark and quiescent spacecraft to go to his father.

"You need to work out a plan to restock our water supply and contact the civilians to determine who needs assistance. I want the plan ready to execute tomorrow, first shift."

"Yes, sir!" Apollo saluted and left the bridge. To get water, he'd be willing to put in a bit of overtime if needed. Not a vessel in the improvised fleet stocked an adequate water supply, including the battlestar.

The plan didn't take all that long to put together. He spent some time gathering info on how much water who needed among the ships with coms, then got estimates from Engineering on how much the incommunicado ships would need, then worked out a schedule of shuttles to haul the ice. True, several of the fleet ships were perfectly capable of atmospheric maneuvering and landing on a planet, but he wasn't about to take chances. He wanted every ship that touched down on that planet under full guard, and the most efficient way to achieve that end meant use of military craft only.

"Captain Apollo, to the bridge!"

The page interrupted him as he worked out which pilots would fly watchdog on which shuttles. "On my way," he responded into his ever-present link.

"What do you make of this, Captain?" Adama asked, as soon as his son stepped onto the bridge.

Apollo looked at the viewscreen and felt a visceral jab of fear. Cylons! A basestar, in fact. His first thought: this was what the Cylon attacks shepherded them towards, a perfect setup for an ambush. Then Apollo frowned and leaned closer. Something strange, not right… "Increase mag, quadrant four?"

Adama nodded at the tech in charge of the screen, and the view obligingly enhanced in the requested quadrant.

The something became clearer now, more troubling even than the lack of Cylon response to a battlestar on the doorstep. Damage?

"More, please."

The view enhanced again, and now all could see the detail Apollo spotted. All Cylon basestars had central corridors, one each for the X, Y, and Z axes. These corridors were fiercely guarded and allowed access to the central core of the basestar, where all the important functions were located. This basestar's Z-access gaped open, Raiders jumbled carelessly in its gaping portal, as if they'd stopped dead in the middle of a launch and been abandoned where they were.

"Spotlight?"

Again Adama nodded, and the spotlight flared into existence with all the brilliance of burning mercury. Small silver flashes bobbed up and down amidst the Raiders and in the corridor, Cylons with their red eyes stilled forever. Apollo found the sight deeply disturbing. Not even the Cylons deserved such a fate. Whatever had done this seemed far removed from a clean death in battle.

"I'd say they're no threat, Commander," he responded to the original question at last, after a long centon of watching dead Cylons drift in space. "My question is, what did this? Is it a threat to us?"

"And how can we do it in the future?" Colonel Tigh disconnected the comlink he'd been speaking into and leaned forward avidly, excitement shining in his eyes. He did not find the sight as disturbing as Apollo did. "The devastation is total! Look at them! There must be no survivors at all."

"Apollo, I want you to take a small survey team over there, in a shuttle. Our current location is just past the tenth planet, a perfect spot for an ambush. Obviously whoever built that orb got here first. I want to know what they did."

Apollo wanted to protest that his duty shift ended in less than a half-centare. Instead, he saluted and left the bridge.

By the time he reached his office, he knew who he would take with him. Starbuck, of course. Capella, Jolly, and Greenbean: skilled at recon, without any mental problems likely to cause erratic behavior in a nest of Cylons. Five from engineering, with whatever equipment they deemed necessary. With Giles, Raven, and Boomer aloft for protection, three pilots whose burning mental anguish found relief only in destroying Cylons.

He set everything in motion immediately. Even the engineering team moved quickly, and Apollo received clearance for takeoff from Core Control within fifteen centons.

Not bad. Father can't complain of any inefficiency here.

The Galactica hung so close in space to the basestar that it took less than five centons flight to reach the derelict Cylon craft. Even so, the flight provided enough time for a problem to develop.

"Let me pass!"

Apollo heard a slight scuffling noise, then one of the engineers burst into the shuttle cockpit. Apollo turned the controls over to Starbuck, then rose to deal with the intruder.

"Yes?"

"Captain Apollo, it is extremely urgent that you listen to me now."

"I'm listening."

"The radion levels on that ship are unsafe for unshielded humans. I tried to tell Colonel Tigh, but he refused to listen to me. He said it's worth any risk to learn what did this, but I don't agree."

Apollo flashed to a quick memory from school, images of people suffering radion poisoning before the Colonial Fleet perfected shielding. "I don't agree, either. If the Colonel wants his flesh to rot off his bones while he's still alive, he's welcome to do the survey himself. What's our safety window?"

The engineer relaxed as Apollo spoke. "Five centons, no more, Captain."

"Advice?" When the man frowned and cocked his head, Apollo clarified. "It's your team going to do most of the work. What do you recommend?"

"Oh! I'd suggest bringing back a body or two for further study in a safer environment."

"Okay, we can do that. Will the dead Cylons present a hazard on the return trip?"

"No, the radion emissions off one or two of them would be at a much lower level than the entire basestar."

"Fine, then. What about a flight through the central corridor? Does your lot have instruments that can read through the hull of the shuttlecraft?"

"Yes, Captain. The high-res scanner is capable of—"

"Fine," Apollo cut him off. He'd seen enough engineering types wax enthusiastic over their equipment, he could recognize the signs of a detailed breakdown of an instrument's capabilities when he saw them. "What we'll do is stop in the opening here long enough to snatch some bodies, then fly the corridor for two centons, then return the way we came. Let my people do the grabbing for you, they're more accustomed to moving in zero gravity conditions than yours. Will that suit?"

"Admirably, Captain. Thank you for listening to my warning."

Apollo nodded and returned to the shuttle controls. The conversation took a centon and a half, leaving another centon for Apollo to pass on the plan before they reached the basestar. He hit the shipwide com.

"Listen up, people. Captain Apollo here. Pilots, you need to lock down your helmets and prepare to spacewalk. The objective is to grab at least two Cylon bodies, get them into the shuttle, and get yourselves back inside. You have one centon to do it. Engineers, get ready with your scanners. Once the Cylon grab is accomplished, the shuttle will fly into the interior of the basestar for two centons, then return. Understood? Then let's move, people. Countdown begins in twenty-six microns."

He could easily imagine the looks on his pilots' faces as they frantically dogged down their helmets, making a temporarily space-safe combination with the specially constructed pressure suits. But he knew the Cylon grab lay well within their abilities, as all Viper pilots were trained in rescue maneuvers. That included snatching a body in less than a centon, because that was about the safety margin a pilot in space had.

Apollo hit the shuttle's klaxon to mark the beginning of the centon as Starbuck opened the shuttle portal to the bleak cold of space.

"You did remember to seal off the compartments, didn't you?" Apollo asked casually as he stared at the chrono.

"No, Captain, I didn't," Starbuck replied, all innocence. Then he rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Apollo, what do you think we're breathing? If I hadn't sealed the compartments, we'd be sucking vacuum right now."

"Sorry, old habits die hard." Apollo flipped the switch on the radio broadcaster, tuned to the frequency of suit helmets. "Thirty microns, people."

"D'you think they all remembered their safety tethers?"

"If they didn't, they're going to find themselves spending eternity in the company of dead Cylons."

Damn Starbuck! Apollo hadn't even considered that somebody might forget their tether. Who'd be crazy enough to try an untethered spacewalk in a hurry?

The microns turned over slowly on the chrono. Apollo warned them at ten, then counted down the final five and held his breath while Starbuck closed the portal. Once its seal indicator showed green he began accelerating, trying not to think of any of his men left behind. He hit the shuttle com again.

"Your turn, engineers. Jolly, get up here and let us know what happened."

Starbuck took the controls again, dodging the occasional disabled Raider with desultory skill. Apollo fidgeted until Jolly appeared in the doorway.

"You wanted to see me, Skipper?"

Apollo relaxed. Even Jolly wouldn't look cheerful if something had gone wrong.

"Yes. Report."

"Right, then. Three of us, three of them. We got out, grabbed, and got back in by the forty-five micron mark, because you positioned us right next to a whole bunch of the empty cans." Jolly grinned, successful and proud of it.

"Good work. Thanks. Now let's hope the engineering folks can make something of the data we're collecting now and whatever they get off the 'empty cans,' as you called them."

The rest of the operation went without hindrance. They reached a point about two-thirds of the way to the central core by the specified turn-around time. Visibly, he saw little of interest, only corridor walls and Cylon machinery, with the occasional floater. Apollo hoped the instruments were getting more interesting readings than his eyes.

The return trip proved far less exciting than the trip out, which was fine with Apollo. No distraught engineers, no planning on the fly, just a smooth, easy shuttle ride and a routine docking. Apollo and Starbuck collected their pilots and left the engineers to do whatever they wished with the bodies.

"All right, people," Apollo said, after a final glance at his chrono. "It's just past shift change, go ahead and go off duty now. Fill out your report forms later. I'm going to go and try to explain to the command staff why we were only gone twelve centons."

"Good luck, buddy," Starbuck said, with a cheery grin. "I don't envy you at all!"

"Either do I," Apollo grunted, remembering the avid look on Colonel Tigh's face. He'd not think high radion levels a valid excuse for not doing a thorough survey.

Chapter 8

Operation Icelift began precisely on schedule, thirty centons after first shift began. Apollo spent that time explaining the plan for collection and distribution of the ice and making assignments.

The operation went well, shuttles flying down to the surface of the iceworld under guard and taking off again to make scheduled stops at each ship. The vessels without communications were uniformly grateful. Many of them started out desperately short of water at the Gathering, and now, a sectar after the Second Exodus, were down to a few liters or less.

But then, towards the end of the eight-centar shift, disaster struck. Apollo flew a close guard on Gal-Prime, the Commander's own shuttle when he left the battlestar, when his Viper lurched and let loose a piercing mechanical scream.

"What the frack!"

Apollo fought the stubborn, unresponsive Viper for control and his screen came alive with tiny Orbs. They were so small, they had to be one-man craft, and each one showed the same astonishing maneuverability as the large one that scanned them as the fleet entered the system.

"Frack frack frack!"

The Viper responded enough to his frantic wrenching at the controls to alter course a fraction of a metron, meaning he didn't crash into the shuttle he was supposed to be protecting. From what he could see, visually and on screen, most of the uncountable little Orbs streamed through the shuttles and their attendant Vipers, aiming for the fleet. But some slowed to engage Vipers. Apollo saw flashes of laser fire, then hit the atmosphere of the iceworld, too fast and at a bad angle. He toggled his mike while he fought the disabled machine onto a marginally better heading.

"Core! Orbs are attacking, I've been hit. Repeat, we are under attack. I'm going down on Ice Planet Nine. Viper uncontrollable. Please advise."

There was a pause, a rather long one in fact. Apollo managed to keep the Viper at almost the correct angle for entering an atmosphere, and as a result only saw a little bit of plasma trailing off the Viper's nose. Better than a fireball, he thought grimly, as he reached the next layer of atmosphere and the plasma trails faded into nothing but scorch marks on the Viper's nose.

"Captain Apollo, this is Core. Remain with your Viper. A rescue shuttle will collect you shortly. Repeat, remain with your Viper. Core out."

Hard on the heels of that transmission came another. "Apollo? What the frack happened to you? Couldn't you handle a few Orbs on your own?"

"That's a negative, buddy," Apollo responded, disgusted. "At least, not when they creep up behind and shoot without warning. All clear up above?"

"Yes sir, Captain, sir," Starbuck replied cheerfully. "They buzzed the fleet. Not sure if they did any damage, or if they just wanted to check us out, but they're gone now."

"Good. I'm advised to stay by my Viper until I'm rescued."

The ice loomed closer by the micron. Apollo hoped the part directly in front of him was softer than it looked, because there was no turning the disabled Viper. He braced himself and closed his eyes, then powered down the Viper. No sense adding any extra speed to the impact.

Crash!

Apollo couldn't see anything when the Viper stopped its skid. The viewscreen groaned under a load of ice chunks and snow. He scrambled to unfasten his harness and release the emergency kit from its niche beneath the seat. His cheeks, exposed by his unsealed helmet, burned and stung with cold.

Better move fast, don't want to freeze trying to set up a damned shelter.

Starbuck found him just after he pulled the cord on the self-erecting gerron, a design based on the traditional shelter of the Borellian nomadic tribes. Apollo might have been happier to see him if that didn't mean the man got to see his Captain trying to get the gerron under control while the wind tried to rip the cord, his only grip on the dome-shaped shelter, out of his hands.

"What are you doing here?" he yelled, missing another grab at the gerron.

"I'm staying with you," Starbuck yelled back, making a dive of his own for part of the rambunctious shelter.

Together, they managed to get the thing under control and staked down, although both men got dangerously sweaty in the process. Then Apollo set up the radiant heat cube, a small light, and his bedroll. Starbuck braved the frigid wind to go fetch his own bedroll from his Viper and brought his heat cube as well.

"I repeat," Apollo said, once Starbuck set up the spare heat cube and opened his bedroll, "what are you doing here?"

"And I repeat, I'm staying with you." Starbuck sat down and sighed. "Not much comfort in these things, is there?"

"Don't complain. You don't have to be here. You could be stepping into a nice hot turbowash right about now."

"Which would be limited to five centons," Starbuck pointed out. "Nah, this ain't all that bad, not really. I'd rather be here, making sure you're safe, than up there wondering if you've frozen yourself to death."

Apollo snorted a laugh. "Very funny, Bucko. As if it wasn't me taking care of your hide in all those survival courses we've endured."

"Is that the way you remember it? Too bad, the Captain's memory is flawed." Starbuck grinned, then sighed again. "Honestly though, Apollo, couldn't you have wrecked somewhere warmer? Like, say, in some tropical paradise, with warm breezes and cool waves and nearly-naked beauties parading up and down the beach…"

"Nice fantasy, but it didn't happen that way, did it. I'm here, and I'm stuck until somebody comes to fetch me. You can go home any time you want."

"Yeah, I suppose I could, but I won't. That's what friends are for, right? So you never have to freeze your butt off alone?"

"I guess." Apollo yawned. "Look, Bucko, I'm glad you're here and all, but I'm really tired. Cold does that to me."

Starbuck nodded wisely. "So does working a sectar straight with no time off. So does flying three engagements, at random times, every secton, sometimes more. So does—"

"Enough," Apollo interrupted. "I'm well aware of how hard we've been working, thank you very much. The thing is, I'm tired, and I'm going to lay down. Okay?"

"Whatever you want, Apollo. Sounds like a good idea to me."

Apollo crawled into his bedroll, then reconsidered and took off his boots. There, much better. This time his feet fit into the bedroll, a lightweight but warm material, supposedly good to twenty standard degrees below the freezing point of water. Apollo fervently hoped the stuff was equal to this iceworld.

Starbuck lay down beside him, close but definitely not touching. Apollo lay in his bedroll and shivered, listening to the wind scream past the shelter, until he drifted into a not very restful doze. Would those heat cubes ever start warming the gerron? He woke several times, and even while he slept had a sense of time passing and the ever-present cold knifing through the inadequate warmth of the cubes.

At some point, Apollo's comlink buzzed. Core Control, of course, letting him know he hadn't been forgotten but no pickup was scheduled yet. Starbuck snored through the entire conversation.

Reassurance that he hadn't been forgotten must have helped, because Apollo got a few centares of sleep before the cold roused him again.

Cold is too mild a term for this felgercarb. Grumpy and cramped, Apollo huddled closer to Starbuck. Even in sleep, snoring lightly, the man twitched away. Apollo sighed and pressed still closer, burrowing into the warmth of the other man. Damn his standoffishness anyway. I'm fracking cold, he's warm, and I'm damn sure getting closer!

A gust of wind worked its way in through the supposedly weatherproof gerron and across his exposed face and he shivered. Damn the Orbs, anyway, damn them to Hades, popping out of nowhere like that and taking the Viper escort completely by surprise. Apollo writhed with remembered embarrassment. Even surprised, the Viper pilots flying guard duty proved themselves equal to the task of defending against the Orbs. All, that is, except the newly-promoted Strike Captain Apollo, who took a shot in the engines in the initial surprise attack. And damn Core, too, with their instructions to erect the emergency shelter and await pickup, they'd divert a shuttle as soon as possible to collect him.

Unfortunately, it seemed the recovery of one Strike Captain and a damaged Viper held a far lower priority than filling up the water storage tanks of the Fleet with ice and snow.

Starbuck's warmth seeped through him, gradually relaxing muscles clenched tight in the cold. Wind howled outside, and he could hear sharp little scratching sounds as tiny snow pellets impacted with the gerron. What a miserable world.

He finally drifted back off, into a state of partial awareness. He could feel Starbuck, and that helped keep him warm and happy, but the howls of the wind intruded into his thoughts in bizarre ways. He fell into a dream in which a roaring beast kept ripping Starbuck from his grasp, while Starbuck fought beast and Apollo with equal vigor. He'd wake enough to realize Starbuck still lay beside him, then drift off again, and the beast would be back, howling and tearing.

Sudden quiet roused him completely. His eyes flew open, but he shut them again to protect them from the stinging cold. The heat cubes must have failed, and the wind stilled, allowing the temperature to plummet to new depths. Starbuck tensed, and Apollo knew he was awake. Perversely, he snuggled closer, essentially daring the man to pull away. He felt a deep shudder rip through Starbuck's body, and he whimpered, shaking.

"Starbuck?" Apollo became concerned. "Starbuck, what's wrong?"

"I didn't mean to, honest I didn't," Starbuck's voice sounded high and strange. "I'm not a bad boy, I'm not evil. I didn't mean to do it!" He shook harder, hunched into a ball, trying to pull away from Apollo.

"Starbuck? Are you dreaming?" Apollo raised up on his elbow, trying to stay within his bedroll. "Starbuck?"

"No, no, no, no, no!" Starbuck rocked with every word. "Not bad, not evil!"

"Shh, Starbuck. . . it's okay." Apollo wondered frantically what to do. Starbuck's eyes were open, he didn't seem to be dreaming, and yet he certainly didn't seem to be fully conscious, either. "You're not bad, you're very good. It's okay."

"Not bad?" The unseeing eyes raised, turned towards something Apollo couldn't see. Perhaps a memory? "You know, then. It wasn't my fault!"

"No, Starbuck, it wasn't your fault, it's okay now." Apollo sat up further, so he could stroke Starbuck's hair.

Definitely the wrong move. Starbuck flinched away as though he'd been hit, and began rocking again, saying, "No, no, no, no, no. . . "

Apollo blinked, and slowly drew back his hand. Starbuck's frantic tone eased a bit, and the stream of no's slowed. With a blinding flare of realization, Apollo moved away, leaving no further point of contact. All this time… all this time, he'd thought Starbuck just didn't want to touch him because of how he was, how he preferred sex with men. But it wasn't revulsion, or anything of the sort, which made Starbuck shy away from touch like a skittish equus, it was fear. Somehow, someone had caused Starbuck to fear contact with another man. Or… with any human? He sorted through his memory, trying to find a single incidence of Starbuck touching another person, even one of his many girlfriends, willingly. They were few and far between. Someone must have taught him from an early age to fear human contact, to avoid touch at all costs.

"Starbuck," he said, gently. "It's okay now, it's all right. Can you wake up?"

"Not bad," Starbuck whispered, still in that high-pitched voice.

"No, Starbuck, you're not bad. It's okay. Can you wake up now?"

"I am awake," he muttered. Apollo felt a surge of hope. That sounded almost normal.

"Starbuck! Wake up, you lazybones," he said cheerfully, trying to sound normal himself.

Starbuck groaned and stretched. "What the frack?"

"What?" Apollo held his breath, afraid of another crisis.

"Why are my eyelashes all crunchy? And why in all Hades are my cheeks frozen?"

"Er. . . " Apollo replied intelligently. "Probably tears."

Starbuck rubbed his eyes vigorously and sat up, blinking at Apollo. "Tears? What the frack?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Apollo said, with a wry twist to his mouth. "You blew a fuse, man."

Instantly, a barrier slammed shut between them. "Blew... a fuse ?" Starbuck asked carefully, scooting backwards a bit.

"Yeah." Apollo wanted to reach out to him, hold him and reassure him that everything was fine now, but he didn't. "Starbuck. . . what the Hades happened to you when you were a kid?"

"Nothing." Defensive barriers, full strength, set to block a Cylon missile strike.

"Felgercarb. Why is it you won't let me touch you? Why did sleeping with me send you off into babbling that you're not evil?"

Did he see a flicker of reaction?

"I don't know what you're talking about." Starbuck's eyes narrowed, and he clutched at his bedroll with all his strength.

"Starbuck—" Apollo began, only to be interrupted by the whine of a shuttle landing. "Frack! Of all the lousy timing. Don't think you're getting off the hook, buddy. I'm going to find out what's wrong with you."

A flicker of panic showed in the distant blue eyes, then Starbuck rose and scrambled out of the gerron to greet the rescue party, stomping his feet into his boots as he went.

Apollo put his own boots on and followed slowly. The puzzle of Starbuck's behavior tormented him, twisting and turning in his mind. What had happened to his best friend? How could he get the secret out?

And worse yet, how had he gone all these yahrens without recognizing that Starbuck's aversion to contact was rooted in fear?

Chapter 9

The shuttle pilot apologized for the delay. "There's been an emergency situation back on board," Lieutenant Dietra said, and she looked like she'd been through an emergency, with frazzled hair escaping its usual tight confinement in a fuzzy halo around her head. Her eyes, shot through with red, seemed glazed. And oddest of all, her uniform showed streaks of dirt, or mold, or something on it.

"Worse than being stranded on an ice world?" Apollo grumbled, fastening his harness with numb hands. The emergency shelter made an untidy heap on the floor of the shuttle, right where he'd left it. He'd pulled the pins free of the snow and wadded the thing up with everything still inside rather than packing it away. Why bother? It was wet, it needed to dry before repacking it, and he wanted to leave. Now.

"Yes, Captain. I think it might be." Dietra checked to make sure the uncharacteristically silent Starbuck was outside and closed the portal. "All strapped in? Because we're leaving now."

"Good. What's this emergency?"

The shuttle's engines whined and it lifted, swaying in the wind. Dietra didn't answer immediately, instead concentrating on holding the shuttle steady and lifting slowly. Apollo wished she would just hurry up and get it over with, but he appreciated her concern with safety. The conditions outside were too dangerous for a speedy takeoff.

"It's bombs, Captain," Dietra said, once they'd cleared the worst of the winds. "Dirty bombs."

"What?"

"Dirty bombs," she repeated. "At least, that's what they're calling them. There's one on each ship that has communications, and probably one on all the others as well. The Orbs you fought? They weren't after the shuttles. There were more little Orbs than ships in the fleet, and they each had a bomb with someone's name on it. The bombs penetrated each ship's environmental compartment. They're just sitting there, but the payload is spreading, spreading… It's like a mold, or a fungus, or something. That's why they're calling the things 'dirty', because the purpose of them seems to be to pollute our environmental systems."

A precisely tailored attack, just like they cooked the Cylons. Hit the target where it'll hurt the worst.

Apollo flashed back to the dead basestar. Cylons everywhere, frozen into immobility, red eyes stilled forever, by an unknown something calibrated to fry all internal circuitry and leave nothing but a useless metal hulk behind.

"Every ship, you said?" Apollo rubbed his chin, feeling the slight rasp of stubble beginning. He wondered if anyone had managed to save the growth inhibitor technology, or if people must relearn the ancient, somewhat barbaric technique of shaving with a sharpened blade. Better check with Dr. Salik… He yanked his mind back on track. "Every ship, damaged environmental systems. How bad is it?"

Dietra coughed, deep and racking, before responding. "Sorry, throat's starting to bother me. The fuzz, or mold, or whatever, got into the main air corridors and just began proliferating immediately. It's like…" She paused for a moment, coughed again, rubbed her head. "You're Caprican, right? It's kind of like when a puffball bursts, and a whole lot more stuff comes out than could ever possibly have been in, you know?"

"I know," Apollo nodded. The puffball made up the reproductive portion of a beautiful hanging moss that populated many of Caprica's temperate zone forests. One puffball held enough spores to spread over a square metron, assuming each spore remained viable. Fortunately, only about ten percent of the spores ever survived, or all Caprica would have been dripping with the pretty parasite. "Hmm. I wonder what the purpose is? To knock out environmental and smother us to death, or does it have some other effect? Sickness, perhaps?"

"Nobody was sick when I left," the lieutenant replied, voice ragged from another cough.

"Except you."

"Me? Nah, I'm not sick," she protested. "Throat's sore, that's all. I've been awake and on duty the entire twenty centares since my shift started yesterday."

"What's our ETA?" Twenty centares put her on the same shift as Starbuck and himself, meaning they'd been on the ice world about twelve centares. No disease had an incubation period that fast, did it?

"We're close, Captain. We've almost cleared atmo now, and then it's only twenty centons to the Old Gal."

"Thanks. And did anyone find a way to destroy these dirty bombs?"

"Of course." Dietra sounded a little offended. "They were spaced immediately. It's the fungus-stuff giving people problems."

"Hmm."

Apollo fell silent, and Dietra seemed content to leave him that way. She continued to cough as she flew, sounding worse as time passed. Apollo, deep in thoughts of cleansing environmental systems, noticed her rubbing at her head on the final approach to the Old Gal.

"Dietra? Are you okay?"

"Fine, Captain," she rasped, then tried to clear her throat. "Sorry. This twenty-centar shift is hitting me rather hard. Can't wait to get back to my bunk."

Apollo accepted the answer. He'd felt the same way himself after a long shift during a crisis, sore throat, headache, and all. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe.

Could a disease incubate that fast?

Chapter 10

The sound intruded on Apollo's dream, changing what had been a rather pleasant, out-of-focus, drifting-through-clouds type dream into a jarring buzz. He dragged himself back to consciousness, swearing. The buzz resolved into his comlink. He picked it up and jabbed at the talk button.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Captain Apollo, you're needed in Medical. Now."

Who was that? He couldn't identify the voice. He shook his head and sat up, a glance at the chrono confirming that he'd only been in bed two and a half centares.

Starbuck still slept, huddled under a blanket on the top bunk. Apollo felt a fleeting urge to wake him, just to share the misery, then sighed and pulled on his jumpsuit. No need to disturb the lieutenant. He needed all the rest he could get.

So does the Captain, he thought, with a resentful glare at the comlink. Then he picked up the offensive piece of technology and stuffed it in his hip pocket.

He stopped by the galley on his way to Medical, ignoring the protests of the cooks and helpers that he should be in the mess hall if he wanted something to eat.

"I just want some caff, okay? Somebody give me some caff."

"Certainly, Captain Apollo," the head cook said, arriving to investigate the disturbance. "Here's your caff. Now get out of my territory."

The words were accompanied by a grin and a conspiratorial wink. Apollo smiled in acknowledgement and accepted the caff, sipping at the too-hot stimulant with care. The head cook had chased Apollo out of the galley on more than one occasion, but now shared choice delicacies like bread and pastries fresh out of the oven, since Apollo's revelation of a well-hidden passion for preparing meals himself.

Caff in hand, Apollo resumed his trek through the halls. As the stimulant became one with his bloodstream, his plodding steps increased in speed and lightness, and his mind cleared. By the time he reached the medical facility, he felt almost ready to deal with whatever problem awaited.

Dr. Salik met him immediately through the door.

"Captain. I need to know exactly who Lieutenant Dietra has had contact with in the last fifteen centares."

Apollo blinked. "What? Why ask me? Why not ask her?"

"Because she's sick. More to the point, I need to know which of the pilots she may have had contact with."

"Whoa, slow down here." Apollo's sleep-deprived brain struggled to wrap around the doctor's words. "Dietra's ill? She was coughing in the shuttle, but insisted it was because of exhaustion. She'd worked a twenty-centare shift by that point."

"Coughing in the shuttle? Not good, not good. What time was that?"

"Three and a half centares ago."

"And she came in here two centares ago. Contacts?"

The doctor's face stretched taut with urgency. Apollo wondered what disease Dietra had picked up from the bomb to scare the man so. "She went off duty after retrieving Starbuck and myself from the ice world. At that time… probably a few people in the corridors, maybe someone on the personnel carrier. Uh… off-duty staff… probably twenty or so pilots in the barracks, but they would have been in closed compartments, no real contact. Is this illness she's got airborne? If so, call up the third-shift-sleep staff. They'd all be in there. What's wrong with her, anyway?"

"Too vague, too vague… can't put out a quarantine for anyone in the corridors at such-and-such a time… Captain. Your third-shift-sleep pilots are now officially quarantined."

The doctor moved swiftly to the nearest terminal, punching keys with authority.

"Quarantine?" Apollo's mind immediately presented him with a nice view of the holes in his defensive flying schedule a quarantine would produce.

"Yes, quarantine. As are the two cleaning staff that brought her in, and yourself, and Lieutenant Starbuck."

"What?" Apollo's head spun, and he took a large swallow of caff to steady it. "Dr. Salik. You will explain the situation, in detail, right now. What is going on?"

The doctor favored Apollo with a long, serious look. "Come here, Captain. There's no time to waste. I'll explain while I run the prelims on you."

Apollo allowed the doctor to lead him to a diagnostic chair and start hooking him up to various sensors. "Well? I'm waiting."

"Lieutenant Dietra was brought in to my medical facility two centares ago by two members of the civilian cleaning crew. They found her on the floor, coughing so powerfully she could not stand, and burning with fever. When she got here, she admitted to feeling severe joint pain, and a headache so intense it interfered with her vision. I ran the same tests you are now experiencing and put the information into the computer." Dr. Salik gave him a stern glare as his hands prepared Apollo's arm for a blood sample. "This information will remain strictly need-to-know for now, Captain. The tests came back positive for aneirosis, commonly known as the Scourge."

Apollo twitched. "What? But surely that's not possible…"

"There is no mistaking it, Captain. The aneirosis virus is one of the reference strains in the medical database, because it is so virulent and difficult to control. It is the standard by which all other viral strains are judged, so to speak."

"And this virus, this Scourge… Dietra has it. It came in on the dirty bomb? Are other people sick?"

"Yes. All staff from Environmental and Engineering who had direct contact with the bomb or the fungus. We can expect more within about six centares, all those who had contact with the exposed staff."

Apollo thought about that for a moment: Environmental kept twelve staff on duty during each shift, Engineering more than twenty. Worst case scenario meant at least thirty-two people directly exposed to an airborne pathogen, who would then go off to the rec centers and mess halls until their turns came in the beds… exposing possibly hundreds of other people along the way. And Dietra, of course, infecting the third-shift-sleep pilots, as well as her Captain and his right-hand man.

Starbuck! Apollo looked at his wrist chrono. Seven centons before the alarm sounded off in their quarters, marking the end of third-shift-sleep period and the return to duty.

"Dr. Salik, if you want Starbuck quarantined, you'd better do it now. He's going to get tossed off his bunk by the first-shift-sleep crowd in a few centons. I'll go—"

"No you won't," the doctor interrupted, glaring. "I said quarantine, and I meant it. You will remain right here, in Medical, until I say you can leave. Understood?"

"But I can't—" Apollo protested automatically, then looked at the vial of his blood the doctor had just drawn. Were there millions of invisible viral germs swimming around in there? "I have work to do. I can't waste time on a quarantine. And four days! Why so long?"

"You can 'waste' time on a quarantine, and you will. Four days are necessary to be positive the virus does not mutate in your system, or anyone else's." Dr. Salik picked up a comlink and ordered someone to go secure Lieutenant Starbuck in his quarters.

"But what about the four other people sleeping in there?" Apollo protested.

"We'll put them up somewhere else. You two were exposed very thoroughly to the virus, and you will not spread it if I have anything to say about the matter."

"I will need to use your terminal," Apollo warned. "If you're going to keep me here, you're going to have to let me work from here."

"Not a problem," Dr. Salik agreed absently, feeding information into the diagnostic unit. "There are no interns at the moment, so an entire room is free. There's a longseat in there, and a flush too. No wash, though, so you'll have to make do with spongebaths, but it's only four days."

Apollo's comlink buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket with a humorless smile. Starbuck.

"Apollo, what the frack is going on here? There's some goon from Medical trying to tell me I can't go on duty. Now normally I wouldn't mind, but Raven's hardly my idea of an ideal bedmate and he'll be in here any centon now. Will you tell this idiot to leave me alone?"

Apollo sighed. "No, Starbuck, I won't." Dr. Salik's face relaxed, and Apollo wondered if the man actually thought he'd continue resisting the quarantine. "We're both under quarantine. Dietra's very sick. Remember her coughing? Well, that's a serious airborne illness, and neither one of us is going anywhere until Dr. Salik says so. Got that?"

The quality of the silence coming over the link spoke volumes. Apollo could easily imagine a typical Starbuck expression of outraged disbelief. "Quarantine?"

Or maybe stunned disbelief. His hesitant tone sounded rather un-Starbuck-like. "Yes, quarantine. I'm stuck here in Medical, and you're staying right there."

"But what about meals? And what about the others that sleep here?"

Apollo gave Dr. Salik a questioning look, and the man reached for the comlink.

"Arrangements will be made, Lieutenant. Don't worry, it won't be very long. No more than four days. If you've shown no sign of the illness after four days, you can return to your normal duties."

"And what if I do have it? What is this illness? Am I going to get sick?"

"Don't worry about that right now, Lieutenant. Chances are you'll be just fine, and have the benefit of four days of privacy. But pilots are too valuable to risk, and if you've got the virus, you could spread it to every other pilot you have contact with, leaving us all completely undefended. Understood?"

"Yes, doctor."

Apollo wondered how Dr. Salik did it. He'd never gotten such a meek response from Starbuck, not even when he'd threatened to suspend the man from flight duty indefinitely if he didn't quit flying by his own rules.

The comlink buzzed again.

"Apollo here."

"Where the frack are you, Captain?" The voice belonged to Destra, Hermes's second. "The shift's begun, and nobody's been able to find you or Starbuck. What's going on?"

Apollo sighed, hoped the sound didn't transmit. "Relax, Destra. Starbuck and I were exposed to a virus and put under quarantine. I'll be running things from a terminal in Medical. You can reach me by comlink any time. Hang on a micron." He thought. Destra… yes, the most senior pilot available, but who would provide the flighty second a steadying influence? Boomer came to mind. But was the man up to any kind of challenge so soon after having a breakdown? He'd better be. "You can take limited charge of the squadrons, okay? Second to me and Starbuck. And get Boomer to help you out. He knows the people you don't, and the two of you together should be able to keep order just fine in place of Starbuck and I. But I want to know everything that happens, got that?"

"Affirmative, Captain. How long will the quarantine last?"

"Four days. The doctor says we'll know by then. Just keep things running smooth for me, keep me posted, and let me deal with all the scheduling felgercarb, okay?"

"Fine, Captain. Stay healthy."

The link died. Apollo replaced it in his pocket, feeling a sense of reprieve. Destra was an eminently capable pilot, but he could blow a situation all out of proportion when he panicked.

Dr. Salik showed Apollo the intern's quarters, a compact cross between a bedroom and an office. The longseat looked typical of furniture in any medical facility, upholstered in the outrageously uncomfortable but easy to clean synthetic stuff nobody else ever used anymore, with a folded blanket and a pillow at the end to accommodate the crazy schedules of medical staff. Many of them went days without seeing their personal quarters, catching naps when and where they could.

The important thing, the terminal, occupied an otherwise empty desk. Apollo settled himself in front of it and called up the flight schedule. He glanced at the display chrono. Nearly three centares since exposure. And how long had Dietra taken to show symptoms? He counted backwards. Three centares ago, coughing. Before that, he and Starbuck sat stranded in the snow. That ordeal had lasted twelve centares. Dietra said the Orb that shot him down was a part of the bomb attack. Therefore, twelve centares or so to first symptoms. Could even the Scourge incubate that fast?

Apollo looked at the schedule, a bunch of meaningless green words arranged into a grid pattern on the screen. The Scourge. How had the Orb people known exactly what to do to devastate the entire fleet?

Apollo felt a sudden curiosity. He sent the schedule to the background and brought up a new screen, one linked to Engineering's data center. A few centons of digging through the data showed him pretty much what he expected: the Cylon basestar was destroyed by a type of radion energy that would do the most damage with the least effort. Very precise, almost surgical precision, not too much and not too little. The basestar had been devastated within a single micron. Apollo remembered the original Orb, the big one, scanning the fleet. Had they modified that beam somehow? Or did they possess some other device? And if so, why bother with an individual, per-ship attack, with something so messy as a virus? Couldn't they just fire off another precisely calibrated beam of energy and fry the entire fleet at once, without the effort of delivering an organic agent?

But perhaps they wanted the organic intruders to suffer in a way impossible for mechanicals.

The Orb people. What a mystery. Were they actively seeking out humans for destruction, like the Cylons? Or were they merely territorial, defending their space? Were they indeed seeking to inflict the maximum amount of suffering on the humans?

"Captain Apollo?"

Dr. Salik opened the door a crack and peered through, breaking into Apollo's whirling thoughts. His face showed concern.

"Yes, doctor? What is it?"

"Two things. I've had someone bring you a breakfast tray," and he passed the tray through the door and sat it on a stool, "and I've gotten your test results back."

"And?" Apollo's heart jumped into his throat.

"Positive."

Positive.

The word spun through Apollo's consciousness and settled to the pit of his stomach, where it sat and burned. Positive. For a disease that wasn't quite uniformly fatal, but came close.

"How long before I see symptoms?" he heard his voice asking.

"That varies. Probably not long, if the incubation rate is the same for a secondary infection as a primary."

"What do you mean, if? Don't you know?" Dr. Salik came into sharper focus, overriding the echoes of positive.

"We're not certain, Captain. There's something I didn't tell you. This strain, this aneirosis that came from the mold… it's pure. It matches the samples we've obtained from the time of the Exodus. We haven't seen the pure strain in nearly three thousand yahrens."

Apollo's head spun. Even he, a lowly Viper pilot, could see the serious medical implications of the situation.

"Is there anything we can do?"

Dr. Salik looked grim. "Not much. I have a small store of vaccine, reserved for command staff and Council. But it's not a cure, and this particular vaccine is not effective until the infected person is showing symptoms. As the only surviving Captain, you count as command staff, so I want you to inform me the micron you start coughing."

"The cough always comes first?"

"Usually, yes."

"And what are you going to do with all the sick people? The infirmary is limited. There are over a thousand people on board the Old Gal."

"I know." Dr. Salik frowned. "And isolation is imperative with this disease. Aneirosis kills easiest when secondary infections can't be prevented, and secondary infections run rampant where people are crowded together. Worse yet, we've never seen a single case of aneirosis in space, so we have no idea how this will play out. There's always been a plentiful supply of fresh air available, not just a contaminated environmental system."

Apollo groaned. He'd forgotten the threat went well beyond his infected pilot and a few others spreading the virus through personal contact. "The air! What are we going to do, doctor? Even if we set the battlestar down on the surface of Ice Planet Nine and did a complete atmo exchange, the algae tanks are still contaminated, as are the water tanks, and the air filters…"

Apollo had thought he'd felt despair after Hermes's death. But that paled in comparison with this hopeless, helpless feeling. "We're all going to die, aren't we."

"Nonsense." Dr. Salik spoke sharply, but his face showed doubt. "I've told the Commander what to do. We need a planet, and we need it now. We need to get everybody out of these contaminated ships before the disease spreads too far. We need fresh water, and we need the psychological advantage of open spaces and fresh air."

"What did he say?"

The other man's shoulders slumped. "Your father understood, Colonel Tigh understood, even Lieutenant Omega understood. But the Council, one Councilor in particular, resisted. Vehemently. They seem to think this is a minor problem that will go away overnight."

Apollo felt another sinking sensation inside and the despair cranked up a notch. "Sire Uri. Obstructive as always. Now what?"

"The Commander ordered the battlestar onto a course towards the nearest system we've explored with a habitable planet. It's not the greatest planet, but it'll do. He told the Council that the rest of the fleet could follow or not as they chose, but he still commanded this battlestar, and he would do with it as he chose."

A surge of pride cut through the suffocating negative emotions. "Good for him. Do you know what planet? And how long it will take to get there?"

"Ariole is the name, and it's at least five days away, maybe more if the fleet can't keep up."

"Ariole. How… unpleasant."

"There is a temperate region, though, and it will serve us well."

Apollo hoped so. Ariole was a grim world, fourth from its primary and very large, with only a narrow band of temperate climate around its equator. The rest of the planet was prone to cold and violent rainstorms. The sun, when it shone at all, looked dim and cool to eyes accustomed to the closer Caprican primary. But the doctor was right. It would have to do.

"And until then? Until we reach Ariole?"

The doctor shook his head. "We'll just have to do our best and see what happens."

Apollo sighed. "Thank you, doctor. I'll be sure to let you know when I start coughing."

Apollo reached for the breakfast tray. The doctor took the unsubtle hint and left.

The breakfast wasn't much, just some synthesized fruit and a bowl of grain mush, but it came with a large cup of caff and that made it all right with Apollo. He tried to concentrate on eating. His subconscious mind did not cooperate.

Apollo remembered all too well the story of the Scourge. He'd been exposed to the tale at a very young age, when his devout Kobolian parents shipped him off to religious camp every summer. Eight weeks at the hands of the priests, who tried so very hard to instill the proper fear of God and His Lords in young minds and hearts, along with obedience to all priests, all the while preaching love and tolerance… God loves you, but only if you look, act, and think the way we tell you to.

The first recorded appearance of the Scourge dated from the times of the Lords Themselves, before the Exodus. (Was that the First Exodus now?) History showed how the Lords developed spaceflight and went out into the unknown, seeking new people, although the Kobolian Way taught that nonhumans were unclean. They returned home after finding what they sought, already ill and carrying enough of a virulent new virus to devastate a planet. Images survived to this day in the Kobolian database, a copy of which resided on every battlestar in the so-Kobolian Fleet, of the horrific devastation wrought by the Scourge. People everywhere, dead, dying, heaped in mounds along the roadside, chasing each other away with weapons out of fear of infection… not pretty.

And then, of course, came the disease itself. Innocuous little symptoms, just a headache, a cough, some pain, fever and chills. Right up until the point when the wrath of God descended and the disease showed its true colors as punishment for the race of Kobol that dared meddle with those outside its ways. Then the disease transformed into suffering so intense, pain so agonizing, that it could only be punishment from God.

Eventually, the disease ran its course, and the Kobolian people recovered. But they remembered. And when some of the Lords gave the gift of spaceflight to the common masses, with the repeat of the caution against contact with the unclean races, the people ventured out into space and found the Cluster, a perfect place to escape the warring factions of the Lords back on Kobol.

But they brought the Scourge with them. And all of their medical knowledge could not prevent mutations, and periodic outbreaks, and punishment from God.

Apollo toyed with his caffcup, spinning it, then raising it up a little bit and letting it slide back to the tray's surface with a thump, then spinning it some more. Superstitious nonsense, all of it. God was not punishing the humans for trying to survive. God wouldn't do that to his followers.

Would He?

Apollo could remember his childhood faith, pure and shining, that God and His Lords would take care of him as long as he was a good boy. And he remembered what a comfort the rituals of the Kobolian Church could be, always so predictable. No surprises there, just the words of praise and worship offered up by thousands of generations of humans to their divine leaders.

Apollo sighed. How disillusioning to grow older and gradually realize that the Church taught fear, and intolerance, and distrust of anything that did not fit within its narrow worldview. As usual, his mind shied away from the formal outcasting ceremony, that removed him forever from the comfort of the Church and branded him apostate, traitor to the doctrines of Church and Lords, faithless and forever shunned by God.

No. Stop moping over the past. He'd been cast out of the Church as a sixteen yahren boy, and now he was a thirty three yahren man and fully capable of living life on his own terms, without the dictates of the Church to guide him. And a much wider, freer world he found outside the Church, too, filled with wonders and pleasures he'd never dared dream of before. And he wasn't going to just sit here, passive and unresisting, waiting for death to take him.

He shoved the tray to the side and burrowed into the terminal, calling up screen after screen of data, writing up scheduling plans to allow flexibility. Pilots would get sick. Even if there were no contamination at all in the Environmental systems, there had been plenty of chances for Dietra to infect people. Best treat it as though many pilots, including himself, would be very very ill, and make allowances.

Almost as an afterthought, he included the location and password for the Viper quick-teach program. What if all the pilots got sick, including the shuttle pilots? Then who would fly? The quick-teach program could give basic piloting skills in eight centares, basic fighting skills in sixteen, basic tactical and planning skills in another eight centares after that. Maybe they'd need replacement pilots.

Everyone stricken with the Scourge dies!

Apollo felt a sharp stab of fear, then pushed it aside. That only happened long ago. Now medical science provided ways to combat the ancient disease, other than praying and casting out any suspected carriers. Not everybody needed to die. The medical staff would take care of the problem.

And what of the people on the overcrowded freighters?

"Shut up," Apollo muttered at himself. He wished he would just start coughing and get it over with. This waiting already agitated him, and it'd only been a centare or so.

By the time the cough arrived, Apollo had drawn up plans for every contingency he could imagine, even down to training civilian volunteers to fly and serve as emergency crew for the Galactica. He posted everything on the pilot's BBS, so access was not limited to just one person. The cough started tearing through him as he wrote his last note on the BBS: I hope it won't be necessary, but here are contingency plans, just in case…

"Dr. Salik," he called from the door, throat already sore and voice harsh. "It's begun."

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