Richard Hatch - Battlestar Galactica 3 - Resurrection

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Battlestar Galactica
Resurrection by Richard
Hatch
PROLOGUE
The void is full of death and dying.
A stinger from the great Chitain warship, easily twice the size of a
battlestar, whips past Apollo's Viper, just missing him and destroying
two other fighters. He prays to the spirit of his father and he prays to
the Lords of Kobol—he prays to anyone who will listen—to just see them
through this massacre, because he knows it's going to take a stack of
miracles to survive this day, much less win it.
As he thinks that, the tip of the stinger glows ruby-red and discharges
a deadly laser blast, vaporizing half a dozen Vipers; the brightness of the
blast is imprinted on his retinas, even though his Warrior's helm
automatically opaques when the flash of laser fire is too bright, and for a
moment, Apollo is blind. In battle, a moment is all it takes to end up
dead.
He knows his Viper is in the sighting hairs of a Chitain fighter, and
his vision is coming back, but slowly. Too slowly. He's going to have to
fire blind. Apollo remembers the position of each of the nearest fighters,
Viper and Chitain alike, before the searing light from the laser
temporarily stole his sight, and he trusts to his senses. He's a Warrior,
after all, and he has been trained all his life for every eventuality. All of
this races across his mind in a micron, and his thumb stabs the
turbolaser.
In his shimmering, dancing vision, the Chitain craft erupts in a
fire-flower, and Apollo offers a quiet prayer of thanks.
But this battle has been raging on and on for what feels like—may
well he—centons, and there seems no end in sight. They've never faced
anything quite like the Chitain before: a race so alien and warlike and
fearsome as to make the Cylons seem civilized. Like the Cylons, the
Chitain want to become the only sentient lifeform in their sector, even if
that means eliminating everyone and everything else.
If not for the intercession of the colonials' valiant ally, the Sky, this
story may end quite differently; even so, it still ends badly.
The Chitain dreadnought, itself almost indestructible, is surrounded
by a nearly impenetrable forcefield. It is only by staying close to the
ship's underbelly and harrying away at it, like skreeters on the back of a
bova, that the Vipers have any hope at all, for the Chitain can't turn
their weapons after the Warriors without destroying their own ship.
It is all chaos and confusion; red beams sizzle from a hundred
different fighters, and the war-world's stinger tendrils answer with their
own deadly voice. But the concentrated assault is working; the Chitain
dreadnought is in trouble and the aliens know it. Like a
mortally-wounded animal, the great mechanical beast is going to take
down as many of its attackers as possible, and it looks like Apollo is
going to be first.
Frak, he thinks, and grits his teeth, waiting for the inevitable blast
from the onrushing Chitain fighter.
The blast comes not from the fighter, but is the fighter, vaporizing in
a spray of brightly-burning fuel, then winking out. It's Starbuck, of
course, there to save him as he's always been.
Apollo heaves a sigh of relief, more like a laugh, and he tells Starbuck
he's going to buy him a tankard of grog in the aft ODOC. But Starbuck
says, "Don't you remember? That's not the way it happened at all."
And he's right, it doesn't end like that, not even anything close to it;
this is nothing more than wishful thinking and rewriting the ending to
be more palatable than the truth was, because a moment later,
Starbuck's Viper is caught in the rippling fireball of the warship, the size
of a small planet, as it explodes. The shock waves spread out like circles
in a pond, shattering everything they touch. The Sky don't even try to
outrun the spreading death, but accept it as part of the endless cycle, the
way of the universe.
Everything happens fast after that, but the image of Starbuck,
slumped forward in his fire-blackened, shredded Viper, never seems to
leave Apollo's vision, neither waking nor dreaming.
The colonial fleet has suffered devastating losses, more than half their
force of Warriors and starfighters, and thirty-seven vessels, including
the Agro-2. Devastating… but not nearly as devastating as seeing his
oldest friend, closer than any brother, closer than his own brother, lying
in his med-berth, kept alive only by machines. Starbuck's uniform is all
but melted to his body, and his flesh is blackened, cracked, with crazy
zigzags running off in every direction, as if his skin is a sun-blistered
mud-flat. There's been massive cranial trauma, and there's no way to
know if Starbuck will ever awaken again. If not for the slow and labored
rise and fall of his chest, anyone would think Starbuck a corpse.
Now Apollo is standing at another bedside, this time his father's, and
he is saying his silent goodbyes as Commander Adama slips away. And
even through this, Apollo cannot express his feelings, except for perhaps
an unusual brightness in his eyes, and the unusually-stern set of his jaw.
There are so many things he wants to say, and yet, he says nothing.
After all, he is like his father, and Adama knows the things Apollo feels,
even if neither one can exactly say them. Knowing is not quite the same
as being told, but it will just have to do.
So he watches him go, and a world ends for Apollo, the way a world
always ends when a father dies. Athena, much closer to her emotions
than her brother, buries her face in his chest and weeps openly. Apollo
gives her his strength to draw from; he's good at that. He's just not so
good at expressing his emotions.
They stand that way for a long time, neither speaking, Athena's
sobbing is the only sound in the room. He doesn't hear Cassiopeia enter
the room, but she must have, because she's asking him how he could let
this happen.
Apollo shakes his head; he doesn't understand. "It was his time," he
answers. "There was nothing I, or anyone else, could do."
"Liar!" she shouts, and her vehemence rocks him back on his heels. For
a moment, anger flares in him, one of the few emotions he can show, but
that anger leaves him in a sudden wash, because when he looks past
Athena, past Cassiopeia, he sees the funeral bier and the body resting in
state upon it. He knows immediately it is not Adama because there are
none of the ceremonial trappings as befits a man of the commander's
station, and Apollo's heart breaks into a wild, galloping rhythm.
Now that he thinks about it, it couldn't be Adama, because their
father died almost a yahren ago. Apollo is a strong man; he thinks he
has enough strength within him that he can loan it out to anyone who
needs it, and now, when he really could borrow some of that steel from
Athena, she's not there. Neither, for that matter, is Cassiopeia. He's
alone, and he has a bad feeling he's about to find out just how alone he
really is, because the one he's always been able to draw strength from is
Starbuck. They are always therefor one another, and only a terrible
catastrophe could prevent that. Apollo feels a catastrophe is imminent,
the way bova and avions can predict an oncoming storm.
Apollo takes a step closer, and then another; it doesn't seem that he's
willing his feet to take him to the funeral bier so much as he's simply
unable to stop their advance. He stands at the open casket for what
seems like forever, but he knows it's not more than a few seconds, and at
last he looks down.
His heart, racing out of control just a moment before, seems to stop
beating altogether and he is hot and cold, all at once, because it's not
Adama lying before him, but Starbuck, still clothed in his melted
uniform, his flesh black and blistered.
Apollo hears a low, wretched moan from somewhere in the room but
he ignores it and lightly touches Starbuck's lifeless cheek, causing a bit of
his charred flesh to flake off. He's always been a strong man, but he can't
prevent that low, anguished cry that escapes his throat or even the tear
that falls.
The sound of his own misery woke him.
Apollo blinked, looked around his darkened chambers, caught
somewhere in the borderless place between waking and dreaming,
confused by the morbid keening sound that woke him. As in his dream, he
realized that he was the source of that sound, giving time an odd sense of
folding back upon itself. And then the entire dream came flooding back,
too much like a premonition, and his heart smashed against the walls of
his chest like an avion banging against the bars of its cage.
It only a dream, of course, but Apollo still caught himself glancing
quickly around the darkened cabin, as if the funeral bier would somehow,
illogically, materialize in the room with him.
"Commander?"
The door to Apollo's sleep-chambers whisked open and Gar'Tokk
bustled in, the muscles of his big frame coiled and ready for action. The
Borellian Noman palmed the lights, filling the cabin with a cool, efficient,
shadowless glow.
"Gar'Tokk?" Apollo murmured, his voice still thick with sleep, his eyes
squinted against the light. "What?"
"I heard you cry out," the Borellian explained, relaxing a bit, but his
eyes still surveyed the room for signs of hidden treachery. "And, since you
did not retire for the night with female companionship, I assumed your
moan was not one of pleasure."
Apollo allowed himself a slight chuckle. "I'm fine," he told his
bodyguard. Gar'Tokk's thick, beetled brow creased slightly. "Just a
nightmare."
He threw his warmers back and swung his legs over the edge of his
sleeping module to the floor.
The Noman frowned. "The last time I heard anyone moan like that,"
Gar'Tokk said, "was a human warden we tortured. Nomen," he added
pridefully, "suffer their pain with silent dignity."
Apollo smiled and said nothing. If you only knew, he thought. If you
only knew.
CHAPTER ONE
THEY PRESSED on through the endless darkness, aiming toward the
light of distant stars and the hope of better days. Hope was fading, and the
stars whose light they followed doubtlessly long ago went nova. They were
steering their lives by things that no longer existed, the light of forgotten
days cast by stars that no longer gave light. No one dared think such
things, of course; that would be too much like admitting defeat.
So, they pressed on, although there were fewer of them to do so, now.
The battle with the Chitain and the Cylons had cost the colonial fleet
terribly, in terms of lives lost and lives ruined. There were very few whole
family units aboard the rag-tag fleet; so many fathers died yahren ago,
during the first Cylon raid, leaving behind women and children—children,
grown now to young manhood and the age of their fathers when they
perished, leaving behind their own women and children. Without fathers,
or mothers, these children grew up wrong, and hard, and fast, and without
much respect for anything or anyone. They were not much better than
urchins, living in corridors and crawlspaces instead of streets and alleys, a
whole subculture that existed, but no one looked at too closely. Some of
these children, those old enough to be inducted, were given the choice by
the council whether they would spend time in the brig for their crimes,
ranging from theft to assault, or be conscripted into the military and
became Warriors. Some disappeared, back into the hidden world of the
poor and neglected; others chose prison, and still others chose the way of
the Warrior.
Theirs was a terrible life; but, for some, it was the only life they had
ever known. For some, it might be the only life they would ever know.
Still, there was some faint, small glimmer of hope—the chance that the
planet Kirasolia might have once been visited by the Thirteenth Tribe, and
it was toward this distant rumor of a world they journeyed.
They pressed on… but more of them began to wonder why.
It isn't fair, Apollo thought. He wasn't the first person to arrive at this
conclusion, nor would he likely be the last. It was a destination everyone
reached, sooner or later: it was simply through a path paved with a matter
of differing events that made the journey short or long.
He looked again at the comatose figure of Starbuck, so still and so…
lifeless. It was hardly a word anyone who knew him would have associated
with Starbuck, but that was the word. His external injuries had healed,
sped along their way by the med-berth in which he slept without waking
these past weeks, but the most severe damage was internal.
Cranial pressure in Starbuck's skull had reached critical dimensions,
necessitating a craniotomy to relieve the fluid build-up before the pressure
squeezing his brain could render irreversible damage. The signs of the
surgery had already healed, but nothing else had changed about
Starbuck's condition. He slept on like a character from some long-ago
children's fairy tale, neither dead nor alive in his glass coffin; but what
would it take to wake him?
Apollo wished he knew.
Starbuck's was the only med-berth still occupied following the battle
with the Chitain; all the rest who had been injured had either healed, or…
But there would not be an or for Starbuck. People like Starbuck did not
die, not like this, anyway. He was always beating impossible odds, and
what was more impossible than this?
"What did I get you into now?" Apollo said, softly. There was no
answer, of course, except for the flat, idiot ping of the heart and brain
monitors to which Starbuck was attached. They were impartial; they
didn't care that they were recording the slow, winding down of a human
life.
Apollo was unsure how long Cassiopeia had been standing there, to his
side and slightly behind, but he was glad she was. After a while, she placed
her hand on his shoulder, and, after a while, Apollo placed his hand upon
hers.
"I suppose it would be pointless to tell you to get some rest?" Cassie
asked the commander. It was not so much a question as it was a
statement of fact.
Apollo smiled crookedly. "I might ask you the same thing, Cass," he
said. "How long have you been here, yourself?"
"Oh, no," she said. "That isn't a fair question. I'm here in the capacity
of attending med, whereas you…"
Apollo glanced back at her over his shoulder. "We're both here for the
same reason, Cass."
She let her hand fall away from his shoulder. There was nothing Cassie
could do for Starbuck, but perhaps she could still do something for Apollo.
Perhaps she could get him to live again before it was too late. She said, "I
don't have an entire Fleet depending on me." Apollo opened his mouth to
protest, but she pressed on. "There's nothing you can do for him that Dr.
Wilker can't do better."
"I can be his friend," Apollo answered simply. "I can be here for him,
like he was always there for me."
"Cut the felgercarb," she snapped. Apollo could only blink in dumb
response to her outburst. "You're here for Apollo, not Starbuck. You're
here because you feel guilty, you're here because you're the great Adama's
son and you think that means you can fix everything. Well, I'm sorry,
sweetheart, but there are some things you can't fix. There are some things
you just have to accept."
"How do we know this is one of them until we've tried everything?" he
countered. His eyes locked with hers, and it was she who looked away this
time. Apollo stood quietly for several moments beside his oldest friend's
med-berth, clearing his mind of clutter and anger. When he opened his
eyes again, they were clear and focused. He placed his hands lightly
against Starbuck's temples and let his consciousness expand in waves, as
if his mind were being broadcast on a wideband frequency. And then,
Apollo narrowed his thoughts to a wedge, like probing tendrils, and he felt
his consciousness slipping into Starbuck's slumbering mind.
Apollo's consciousness skimmed like the shadow of a cloud passing over
a lake, a dark and bottomless lake, tumbling down and down, into
unrelieved, unbroken blackness and silence. Apollo probed deeper, but the
jet blackness made it difficult to tell just how deep he had gone, and still
there was no sign of Starbuck's own consciousness.
Deeper.. .just a little farther, Apollo promised himself; just a little
more, and then, if there's no sign of him, I'll turn back.
And down his consciousness tumbled, pressing on until he began to feel
the crushing, overwhelming weight of despair and hopelessness, the cold
of the void, as if Starbuck's mind were at absolute zero. Nothing could
exist here, no thought could resonate, no memory survive. It was the cold
of the void, the cold of the waiting grave.
Are you there? Apollo's mind-thought called out, the sound of it tiny
and swallowed by the greedy darkness. Starbuck, can you hear me?
Please, if you can hear me, just answer me, just give us something, some
hope—
And then he was racing toward a distant pinprick of light, far away, the
light of other days, racing faster and harder, and for a wild, heady
moment, Apollo thought he had found Starbuck, buried alive in a mental
cave-in.
"Apollo?"
Starbuck—?
"Apollo, can you hear me? Apollo—"
Starbuck, where —
Suddenly, the light exploded all around him, momentarily blinding
him, making him cry out in pain.
"—can you hear me?"
"Yes, of course I can hear you, but where—?"
The world swam back into a gauzy sort of focus, the light so bright after
the long, deep darkness that it made Apollo's eyes tear and sting, but it
was only the light of the med-bay, and the voice was only the voice of
Cassiopeia. Her face, doubled and trebled by the prism of tears through
which Apollo viewed it, was etched with concern. Apollo palmed his eyes
dry, looked at Cassie, questioningly.
"Why did you make me break contact?" Apollo asked, anger alloyed
with confusion. "I almost—"
"You almost got lost inside his mind," Cassie finished, forcefully. Apollo
frowned because he knew she was right. He did almost get lost there, in
the darkness, where Starbuck was also lost. Lost and alone and probably
dying.
"I'm all right," Apollo argued. "I would have been fine."
"Who said anything about you?" Cassie asked. "Of course you would
have been fine; you're always fine. But what about Starbuck? The man has
a brain trauma! What do you think fracking around with his mind is
going to do to him?"
Cassie stood over Starbuck and took his hand in hers, as she had done
countless times since she first fell in love with him all those yahren ago, as
she had done so many times recently as she kept watch beside his
med-berth.
She realized she was angry with Apollo for getting Starbuck into the
one bad scrape it didn't look as if he was going to escape; she was furious
with the situation that had brought them to this. She cursed her
helplessness and she cursed anyone who couldn't help Starbuck. She was a
doctor who couldn't save the one she loved. What had she changed her
entire life for, if she still had no control over it? And she was angry
because blind, stumbling anger always attends loss, the unwanted guest
that always arrives at the worst times.
"You're not the only one in pain, Cassiopeia," Apollo said, gently. After
a moment, he circled her and Starbuck's hands with his, but neither
seemed to notice. "Don't give up." Even Apollo wasn't sure to whom he was
speaking. All of them, he supposed, himself included.
"I'm glad you're here for him, Cassie," Apollo said. "I know this has to
be especially difficult for you, given your history with Starbuck."
"I used to think there was nothing harder than watching someone you
love fall in love with someone else," she answered, ruefully. "But, what did
I know?" Cassopeia glanced back at Apollo, a sad smile on her full, lovely
face.
"You've suffered a lot of losses," she said. "I haven't had to deal with
this before, on such a personal level. How do you get over it?"
That was a good question. It was not that he didn't have emotions, it
was just that he was quite good at ignoring them. He had dealt with first
Zac's death and his mother's, and then Serina's and Adama's by walling
his emotions into a neat little pen. Occasionally one would escape, and he
would regret that, of course, because they always got hurt whenever they
did. Apollo would recapture his stray feelings, cage them, and keep a
tighter guard over them. But what worked for him was not necessarily a
good road for Cassie to embark upon. One look at her face, open and oddly
hopeful and full of pain told him that.
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