01 - Battlestar Galactica (15 page)

An assortment of hands shot up, and people started calling out again. “Why
only three?” someone called.

“That’s the maximum load if we’re gonna break orbit,” Helo said, shouting
over them.

The man who’d been about to charge a minute ago strode forward with gritted
teeth and a clenched fist. “Who chooses the three—you?”

“No
one chooses!” Sharon called out. “No one.” She hesitated. “Lottery.”
She glanced at Helo, and he nodded in appreciation at her quick thinking.
“Everyone gets a number. We put ’em in a box, pull out three.
That’s it.
No arguing, no appeal.”

For a tense few moments, the crowd absorbed that. Helo thought maybe they
weren’t absorbing it enough. “I will shoot the first person who tries to board
before then,” he said, waving his gun enough to make the point.

That quieted them down. Sharon cast him another glance. “Helo, get out your
flight manual and tear out the pages….”

Galactica,
Port Hangar Deck

The race against time was heating up in the Viper maintenance area. The deck
was littered with service racks and forklifts. Chief Tyrol was striding from one
workstation to another, consulting, cajoling, and whipping his people into
faster action. The good news was that they’d managed to plug reactors back into
a dozen of the fighter craft—thanks to the modular swap-in, swap-out design of
the systems. And they’d filled the fuel tanks with quantum-catalytic Tylium, so
the reactors had something to burn. The bad news was that they were still
frantically trying to
calibrate
the power plants so they could fly
without blowing up, test the valves and hydraulics, check out the flight
instruments, and load ammunition into the recoilless rocket cannons.

If he had to, Tyrol figured he could have six or eight of them flyable in a
couple of hours, though how
well
they would fly was another question.
Word from the CIC was that they could expect Cylon company any time now. Tyrol was wound about as tight as he had ever
been in his life, determined to have these Vipers ready when the commander
called for them.

And every once in a while, he spared a few moments for worrying about Boomer
and Helo, from whom nothing had been heard since their brief, truncated report
that the entire Viper Mark VII squadron had been destroyed, leaving the Raptor
alone and fleeing for its life.

Combat Information Center, Ninety Minutes Later

Commander William Adama stood silent and sober as the attention-tone preceded
an announcement from Executive Officer Tigh, standing beside the dradis console
officer.
“Attention. Inbound dradis contact, rated highly probable, enemy
fighters. All hands stand by for battle maneuvers.”

Adama turned his head to meet Tigh’s gaze. “What’s the status of our Vipers?
Can we launch?”

Tigh had a handset stretched on a long cord from another console, and he was
talking into it. He looked up. “Chief says we can launch six. He needs more time
with the others.”

Six Vipers! To defend the ship?
Adama drew a silent breath. It was the
only defense they had. There was no ammunition on board for
Galactica’s
own guns. “Launch Vipers,” he said grimly to Petty Officer Dualla, who was at
her station with a headset on, watching closely for his orders.

“Vipers! Clear to launch,” Dualla said crisply.

Now they could only wait, and do their best to steer the ship away from
trouble if anything got past the Vipers.

Behind a window overlooking the launch bay, Launch Officer Kelly ran quickly
through the checklist. “Choker, this is Shooter. I have control—stand by.” On
the far side of the window, a Viper Mark IV was lined up in the launch tube,
fuming and ready to go. The pilot, Choker, glanced at him and gave a thumbs-up
inside his closed cockpit. In two other launch tubes, the identical ritual was
playing out.

“Viper One-One-Zero-Four, clear forward.” Kelly verified that all systems
were ready. “Nav-con green… interval check… mag-cat ready—”

At those last words, a powerful piston slid forward and latched onto the
Viper’s undercarriage, ready to catapult the fighter to launch speed. At the
same time, a great steel door in front of the Viper dropped down, exposing the
launch tube to open space.

“—check door open… thrust positive, and… good luck.”

The launch officer pressed the button that fired the electromagnetic
catapult. The Viper pilot was slammed back in his seat as the fighter rocketed
down a long, triangular tube.

Outside
Galactica,
the Viper shot out of the launch port in the side
of the ship, followed quickly by four more. They grouped up, waited a few
moments for the sixth and last to appear, and when it didn’t, they got their
clearance and lit their thrusters and fired off on an intercept course with the
incoming enemy.

In launch tube four, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace sat sealed in her cockpit,
steaming as she waited for the launch officer to complete the checklist. She
heard
“Interval”
—and raised a thumbs-up, eyes straight forward—
“check”
—every
fiber of her body focused on the battle she was about to join, as the launch
officer went through the items: “—
thrusters positive… stand by.”
Kara
winced. What this time?

Then she heard words she hated.
“Thrusters fluctuating. Abort takeoff.”

Frak!

“
Galactica,
Viper Eight-Five-Four-Seven, throttle down to safe.” Making
it sound like a curse, she powered the thrusters down.

“Roger, Viper.”

“
Frak
—get me out of here!” she shouted angrily.

Outside the launch tube, the crew was in frantic motion. “Let’s go, let’s
go!” Tyrol shouted. As soon as the exhaust cleared, the rear section of the
launch tube opened, exposing the Viper, and the mechanical crews swarmed over
her. “Let’s get her out of there. Cally! Prosna! Figure out what’s goin’ on!”
The two specialists were already up on a service ladder, opening the engine
compartment panels.

When the cockpit canopy lifted, Kara ripped her helmet off and glared
furiously at Tyrol. “Three frakkin’ aborts, Chief?”

“We’re on it, sir. It’s the pressure-reg valve again.”

“We should pull it!” Cally called, leaning in to look at the valve.

“We can’t,” Prosna said. “We don’t have a spare.”

Despite his words, Prosna and Cally quickly disconnected the valve and lifted
it out. If they couldn’t fix this thing in minutes, Starbuck was going to be out
of the fight—and maybe they all would be…

As they worked, Starbuck could do nothing but listen to the wireless chatter
coming in from the Vipers already out there. It didn’t sound good.

“Inbound enemy contact… bearing two-four-seven… range one-one-five…closing
…”

Kara couldn’t take it anymore. “Let’s
go!”
she screamed at the deck
crew.

Tyrol was caught up, as well. “Come on, let’s go, let’s go!”

Cally, up on top of the engine pod, called down, “We should just pull the
valve and bypass the whole system.”

“We can’t do that, the relay will blow,” Prosna said, struggling to loosen a
connector.

“It’ll hold! I’m telling you, I put that—”

“Just pull the valve!”
Chief Tyrol roared.

Overhead, someone on the wireless was shouting,
“Wedlock, you and Keyhole,
over the top…”
All those pilots out there were in combat for the first
time in their lives.
They need me out there!

In the engine compartment, several pairs of hands worked furiously to bypass
the faulty valve, while Starbuck came closer and closer to blowing her stack.

In the CIC, Adama called out commands for the maneuvering of the ship, as he
kept his ears tuned to the reports coming in from the Vipers.
“Firing. Miss!”

Adama winced. “Bow up half. Forward left… one quarter.” He was watching
the attitude readouts with one eye, and position reports of the Vipers and the
Cylon raiders with the other. “Stern right full.” The thruster controls,
scattered from one end of the ship to the other, were all under manual control.
“Engines all ahead full!” He had chosen his direction. Now he was going to try
to get
Galactica
out of harm’s way, and let the Vipers do their jobs.

“I can’t, I can’t get a lock! I can’t get a lock!”

“Ahead full, sir,” reported Colonel Tigh. “Engines report full.”

Overhead, the wireless had more reports from the Viper squadron.
“Oh wait
I’ve got it. Karen’s got him, Karen’s got him—no!”

Adama turned away, grimacing, then looked back up.

“I can’t get a shot! I can’t get a shot!”

Adama fumed. Where was Starbuck? Why wasn’t his best pilot out there?

“They’re comin’ on. Vipers, stay in formation! I can’t get a lock… ! Oh wait—I’ve
got him. I’ve got him!”

“Come on!”
screamed Starbuck.

“Ready! Ready!” shouted Prosna, slamming the engine access port shut.

“Clear the tube, let’s go!” shouted Tyrol. “Get her in!”

Starbuck smacked her helmet back on over her head and secured it. The crew
was lowering the cockpit canopy, while the chief hollered, “Move—move!”

About one minute later, flying a Viper that had “Raymond the Raygun”
stenciled on its cockpit, Starbuck shot out of the side tube of
Galactica,
a tight grimace on her face. As soon as she was clear, she kicked in her
thrusters and slammed herself into a sharp turn. She passed quickly alongside
Galactica,
then rocketed ahead, on her way to the battle.

She didn’t have far to go. The sky ahead was crisscrossed by maneuvering
Vipers… and by Cylons. It was her first look at a modern-day Cylon, and she
hated them on sight. She had just enough time to think,
Damn, I’ve never done
this before, either, never had something actually trying to kill me.
That
thought vanished as she flew straight into the chaos of battle. Her gloved thumb
was on the firing button on her stick, and as soon as she had a freewheeling
Cylon in her sights, she let loose with a volley. She missed. She looped around.
These older Vipers were a little slower, and a little different handling in
tight maneuvers, and their display screens were way more primitive.
That’s
all right, just focus on the other ships. A dogfight is the same, no matter what
your instruments…

Wheeling around, checking in with the rest of the squadron, Vipers flying
every which way across her field of view, she found herself facing a Cylon
raider, maybe the same one and maybe another. She got a good look at its red
nose sensor, sweeping back and forth. And she got a look at something else, too,
on her instruments.

“Oh, frak me!” The thing was beaming an energy pulse at her. She checked her
instruments again, and reported back to
Galactica,
“He’s radiating some
sort of weapon at me, but it doesn’t seem to be having any effect.”

And that sudden steadiness on the part of the Cylon gave her the opening she
needed. She let loose a burst from her machine cannon, and the tracers fled out
before her—and the Cylon exploded in a fireball. Her heart leapt. Her first
kill!
Galactica’s
first kill.

“All Vipers! Systems are go!” she called with a grin. Everything was still
fully operational on her fighter. Whatever weapon the Cylons had used against
the others, it wasn’t working now.

The dogfight heated up. The Viper pilots, emboldened, flew closer and
tighter. And the Cylons, screaming among them, were no longer trying to shut
them down, but were simply aiming to outfly and outshoot them. One got in a
shot, and Kara saw a Viper disintegrate in a fireball. She couldn’t tell who it
was, and didn’t have time to ask. “Hold it together, guys!” she shouted.

She maneuvered hard and fast against the quick-reacting enemy. She didn’t get
another shot, but something got a shot on her—there was a slam on her tail, and
alarms started beeping furiously as she tried to dampen the sudden oscillations
in her flight path. “I’m all right!” she shouted, trying to reassure the others,
and maybe herself, too. It took a few seconds to get enough control back to
reassure herself that she really
was
all right.

As she swung herself around, trying and failing to turn fast enough to shoot
at a Cylon passing close by overhead, she nevertheless got a good look at its
underside. The exposed rack of missiles she saw sent chills down her spine…

In the command center, Dualla turned and called a warning to the commander.
“Radiological alarm!” A beeper was sounding the same warning.

Beside Adama, Tigh stood close and said in a quiet, steely voice, “He’s got
nukes.”

In quick succession, three missiles streaked away from the Cylon. Kara saw it
and reacted in fury.
“Come on!”
she screamed, and came around faster and
sharper than she’d ever managed in her life. She opened fire on the Cylon, and
it exploded. But its missiles were in flight. Kara didn’t even pause for breath,
but continued her tight circle, following the arcs of the missiles.

It was impossible, nobody could shoot a missile out of flight with a cannon.
But that didn’t stop her from trying. She fired a continuous stream of machine
cannon fire, tiny rockets pouring out, a hail of fire chasing the missiles.

One exploded. She swerved ever so slightly, flying with deadly precision. A
second missile exploded.

The third was too far away, and it was inbound at high speed toward
Galactica.
Another Viper streaked past going the other way; she nearly hit
it with her cannon.

“Galactica,
you’ve got an inbound nuke! All Vipers,
break break
break!”