Battlestar Galactica 05 - Paradis

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Battlestar Galactica Parasdis by Richard Hatch
Prologue
So long as the music was in his head, he knew what to do. He could fly any mission and become one
with his Viper. It was natural to put away those parts of himself that might make him hesitate for that
crucial micron separating life from death.
It was impossible for a civilian to grasp what drove him. He had a knack for letting go in that special way
where he saved his life because he didn't care.
Cylons did not understand a human warrior any better than a civilian would understand him. Cylons
were part of a true collective. A Colonial warrior was an individual who chose to be part of a greater
whole to serve and defend every person's right to be free.
Personal survival meant nothing to a Cylon, but that was as much a weakness as a strength. They had
nothing to sacrifice.
This warrior was in love with life, as many women could testify. But he was also ready and willing to
throw that life away if he could damage the enemy. That paradox enraged Imperious Leader. Mankind
was made up of creatures that could not be predicted.
Mankind produced warriors like Starbuck.
The women in his life ached to put music in him. But the music was already there, a song of clear
horizons and empty space; the beauty of a blank radar screen after he had done his part emptying the sky
of Cylon fighters.
Starbuck had become an even more dangerous warrior as he grew older. His love for his daughter,
Dalton, made him braver, not more cautious. Now he had more for which to fight!
The twenty-five yahren of suffering and dying in the long quest put steel in his soul. He felt a greater
appreciation for Apollo as his best friend grew into the grueling responsibility of commander of the fleet
after the death of Adama.
Apollo had to worry abouteveryone in ways that Starbuck did not.
Apollo had to make decisions about those who would live and those who would die. Starbuck only had
to fight and be willing to die, if necessary.
Across the great divide of leadership, the two men faced each other and accepted their different duties.
They both heard the same music—which is not always true of leaders and those who must carry out
orders. Apollo would always have his warrior soul.
If Imperious Leader ever saw into the minds of these two men, he would want to exterminate them
before all other humans. He would understand that they were even more dangerous than he first
imagined. Not all human beings would struggle to the end because of the love they felt for their friends
and their species. Only heroes do that.
The hardest kind of love pays any price for freedom. These men are heroes. The tragedy is that they are
not meant to live in any kind of paradise.
Chapter One
There were too many eyes. That's what Baltar hated most about the nightmares. The eyes followed him
everywhere, like a skyeye. But these things were all wet and living, not a robot camera. They were the
many cold eyes of Imperious Leader, followed by the watery eyes of Count Iblis in human form. And
finally they were the eyes of every person who had ever died because of Baltar's betrayals! There were
even the sorrowful tear-filled orbs of his long dead parents.
Every single one of them judged him, again and again. But since there were no ears to hear his
protestations of innocence, only he could hear himself. Baltar judged Baltar.
Each time he dreamed the nightmare, it lasted a little longer. And there were variations, always for the
worse. The dream sometimes began in the past when he first stood before Imperious Leader and
schemed against his own kind. Although humanity had grown weary of a war stretching out over a
thousand yahren, the Cylons had no problem. They only functioned well if provided with an unyielding
purpose. Time meant nothing to them.
In the dream, Baltar was told more than the Cylons had ever revealed in his actual experience of their
peculiar hospitality. His sleeping mind was every bit as curious as his waking self was when it had
information. Did the dream mean something? Had he uncovered the key to their alien philosophy, and
was trying to tell the secret to himself? Or could the dreams be some form of communication from the
Cylons?
"Baltar!" a voice thundered from the head of the Cylon leader, his myriad eyes pulsing with malice. "You
were the perfect ally against your own people and do you know why?"
Baltar preferred not to answer. Instead, he fled down corridors without end. He was cold. The corridors
were dark, except for a sickly illumination revealing jagged edges of a gray, metallic world. Then the
Great Traitor fell and tasted blood.
Lifting his hand to his face he could discern crimson droplets on his fingers. The light became stronger
and he could see the red spots rise from his hand to form red eyes floating in front of him—the eyes of
Imperious Leader that would not leave him alone.
Again the other eyes, the damnable vast quantity of other eyes, gathered around until they were as many
as the stars in space.
He staggered to his feet and prepared to run some more. But then something changed. Even in the
dungeon of his sleeping mind he finally refused to be intimidated.
He stood his ground. Baltar demanded that his own nightmare make sense or go away! One by one, the
eyes winked out until all that remained were those belonging to Imperious Leader, whose monstrous
head formed silently around these little, dancing points of fire.
"Why was I the perfect traitor?" Baltar finally asked.
"Because you never loved," came the dry, sad answer.
The three-lobed brain of Imperious Leader could not abide human love. No matter from how many
directions the brain analyzed the problem, co-existence was impossible with beings corrupted by such an
emotion.
Love was unpredictable. It put the loyalty that one individual felt towards another ahead of the group.
Love was anti-survival. Love was death. Love was hatred of any species stupid enough to practice it.
"Cylons find you evil, Baltar, because you are dysfunctional—a special case. You do not serve your
own species, but you do have one Cylon virtue. You do not let concern for any individual detract from
your larger purpose."
The dream sometimes ended there, with Baltar reliving his audience with Imperious Leader aboard the
Cylon base star, surrounded by Centurions just waiting for the command to execute the lone human.
He got dizzy watching the searching eye in their helmets scanning for enemies and then settling on him,
pulse rifles pointed at his head.
Sometimes Baltar wished that he could reach out and blind the universe. Then he could hide forever.
Beginning in the Ur cloud, the nightmares became increasingly more bizarre. Now that the battlestar
Galactica orbited Paradis, it felt as if someone had pulled back a curtain to reveal more of the world that
had been left behind. While all the other Colonials prepared to explore a new planet, Baltar was forced
to look back. He didn't want to see what was there, leering at him as if to say that he could never escape.
The voice from his past—the voice of Imperious Leader—haunted his present: "Our purpose is no
longer clear! We are nothing without one purpose. There is a breed of Cylons that would choose another
purpose! This cannot be. There can be only unity in the Cylon Empire. Choice is anathema! There cannot
be a revolt of Cylons. It's as if we're dying from a disgusting human cancer. Biological Cylons must not
oppose technological Cylons!"
There was despair in a voice that had never before expressed such an emotion. "Not even a cogitator
can solve the insoluble," it wailed. "The problem is beyond the scope of ten Lucifers. What is this new
force that would rise up in a biological Cylon to resist the absolute supremacy of a three-lobed leader?
Can it be something you infected us with, Baltar? Were you a carrier of love?"
"How could I be," he defended himself, "when only a moment ago you were saying I have a Cylon
virtue? If I'm a carrier, thenhatred is my virus!"
"Explain!" demanded Imperious Leader. "There are contradictions, paradoxes, ironies. We do not
appreciate such mental torment. Explain!"
Baltar didn't want to answer. It was his dream and he didn't have to answer if he didn't want to!
Especially not when another face was forming to harass him with wicked questions. It was Count Iblis as
the man had been thousands of yahren in the past. He was stroking a loathsome reptilian creature, his
pet.
"You are not the greatest traitor to your kind," announced Iblis.
"That honor belongs to me. I found the planet Cylon and with genetic engineering and advanced
cybernetics gave birth to the ultimate enemy of Man. How do you possibly compare to me?"
"I've never been in competition with you!" Baltar screamed. "Get out of my mind, damn you. Find
someone else to haunt!"
Each time the dreams became more detailed and he woke up feeling worse, in cold sweats or with
severe headaches.
This time he thought he was still dreaming because Athena was standing by his sick-bed—Athena,
whom he'd rather dream about than a Cylon civil war!
As if to reinforce the feeling that he was still in a dream, Athena said: "We have good news for you,
Baltar. When you're fully recovered, we have a job for you. You're going to be a teacher."
"It's a red sun," said President Tigh, peering into a scanner on the bridge of theGalactica .
"An old sun," echoed Athena, checking out her monitor on the bridge of the Daedelus.
The battlestars were having a conference call. They always did when something was important. There
was nothing more crucial than finding a temporary home for the exhausted and damaged Fleet.
"One day I will write a poem dedicated to hydrogen," said Dr. Salik wistfully, surrounded by his favorite
scientific equipment.
Omegas, a bridge officer, exchanged glances with Rigel who took a break from keeping track of the
many ships converging on this quadrant of space. Lately, the top science officer was behaving oddly. He
wasn't as boring as he used to be when he just did his job.
Tigh was in a poetic mood as well. "What do you mean, doctor?" he prompted the older man.
Salik studied the screen showing the planet Paradis. The battlestars were moving into parking orbits that
matched the planet's period of rotation. The period of analysis had begun, the fun part for the scientists.
Salik took advantage of his captive audience: "Paradis is a habitable planet, with evolved life forms, but
the odds are against that. You see, when a star becomes a red giant, it swells up to many times its original
size and routinely devours any planets close to it. Before it swelled, the planets closer in would have been
in the habitable zone, and this planet would have been too far from the star to be congenial to life. So it
has only become habitable since the sun entered its red giant phase, which means that life evolved here
quickly. Or, it evolved elsewhere and traveled here, or was brought here, after the initial solar
expansion."
"So what does this sun have to look forward to?" asked President Tigh.
Salik finished the impromptu lecture. "Impossible to say. Red giants can be extremely stable and last for
a half-billion years or more. Or, they can go through cycles, shrinking down to the white dwarf stage,
then expanding again to the red giant. There can be many of these cycles before the star ends its life.
Given its size, I would say that it will end as a black dwarf—cold and dark. However, it might be more
energetic than that, and end its life as a neutron star—impossibly dense and heavy."
"Let's not hang around for that," volunteered Troy, coming onto the bridge of theGalactica .
"We always find interesting planets," said Athena. "Maybe that's a good omen—maybe it means that
ultimately we'll find Earth!"
Salik nodded. "When we do, I'll write my epic poem about hydrogen." Now Tigh and Athena
exchanged glances. There was nothing to do but let the eminent scientist get it out of his system.
"Life has made a bargain with hydrogen, as well as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur. My point is that
it would be a bleak and empty universe without the hydrogen atom."
Tigh returned to the subject at hand. "Speaking of empty, Paradis is anything but!"
"There seems to be an equal amount of water and land," said someone's voice, deep in Salik's
laboratory.
"That's promising," said Athena. "Maybe we won't have any more problems with hunger. There's been
too much privation among our people. I'd rather face a thousand Centurions than starvation."
After their recent troubles, she spoke for all of them. Tigh pondered his screens. "There is life on
Paradis. And now we will add ourselves to that biosphere."
"There is no evidence of high technology," said Abhug, a recent addition to Salik's staff, an eager youth
who spoke with a certain smugness.
"We are still scanning for different life forms—flora and fauna," said Athena. "Aren't you a bit premature
with that assurance?"
The young scientist was unfazed. "The important thing is the lack of evidence that anyone's down there
who could resist us. There are no satellites in orbit, no artificial spheres or visible architecture of any sort!
There is no evidence on the surface of cities or weapons systems."
Troy got into the act. "You're still jumping to conclusions. They could be underground."
"Unlikely," countered Abhug. "With a hospitable environment, they would have no reason to go
underground. Seems to me this planet is ripe for the picking, whether it's inhabited or not."
Tigh sighed. "Inform Commander Apollo of our current results. I hope no one needs to sleep any time
soon. Our work is just beginning. I want to know everything that's down there."
"You mean before we check it out in person?" asked Athena with a smile.
Tigh had enjoyed a reputation for vigilance ever since he'd been a colonel. He added, "We know we can
live down there. I want to know about any microorganisms that might threaten us. I also want to know if
the place is as damned pristine as it appears because I don't think we should import any diseases we can
avoid with proper treatment first.
"Basically, we need to do yahrens of work in the next few days. Anybody got a problem with that?"
No one did. "I appreciate your dedication," said the president. "And cheer up. Sleep is overrated."
This was one of the good times for the Viper pilots—they all had a job to do. Starbuck and Boomer and
Bojay, Troy and Trays, Dalton, Sheba, and all the rest—now had a chance to show their mettle in
atmospheric flight. Although they had racked up many more hours in space than in atmospheres, the long
quest for Earth had led them to several planets where they'd had to hone their aerodynamic atmospheric
flight skills.
Viper pilots adapted to anything and everything.
Apollo didn't begin the mission alone, but he wanted to go solo more than any other flyer. He was
ambivalent about his emotions when it came to this. The responsible thing in a military operation was to
hold functioning units together. The man in charge had a special responsibility to reign in the "loner"
tendencies of all good fighters.
But those were rules for other times and places, before the Colonials were reduced in numbers and set
adrift in the universe. Now there were only so many brave, able professionals to go around.
With Apollo giving the order, the Viper pilots split off from each other and began the exploration of
Paradis.
With the constant hum of his apex pulsar engine penetrating into his bone marrow, Apollo grasped his
navi-hilt and flew into the depths of the atmosphere. It felt good.
The last time he flew, it had been to do battle in the Ur cloud. Maneuvers in the cloud were the same as
operating in space. Then he had accelerated toward battle, convinced it was all over for him when he
saw the number of Cylon fighters bearing down.
Now he remembered that day in a place with no days. Whatever Paradis had to offer, the dangers
couldn't begin to approach the level of risk in the Ur cloud. Paradis just had to be a vacation after that.
Apollo had promised himself that he would never be blinded in battle. When he had flown into the cloud,
hundreds of flashing spots in front of his eyes suggested that fear of losing his sight was the least of his
problems. Each spot had been a Cylon fighter!
The odds of survival had been small. When the Chitain attacked in force and inadvertently saved the
Colonials, Apollo again appreciated what his father had taught him long ago.
"Don't believe that the enemy of your enemy is your friend," Adama had said when Apollo was only
fifteen. "Wisdom lies in recognizing what makes someone your enemy in the first place. If they wish to
destroy you even if you have done them no harm, they will be equally unjust with others. They will make
other enemies because it is in their nature. Form your alliances on the basis of self-defense, not
self-delusion! And don't make the ultimate mistake of acting as your enemy does."
These were good words to carry with him as Apollo checked out this new world. Adama had spoken
thus to his son before the Great Betrayal forced him to lead his people across the universe.
Apollo tried to live up to Adama's standards as the burden of command came to rest on his shoulders.
The Cylons taught a stern lesson. There was no moral confusion in resisting an enemy that sought
genocide.
Adama faced the harshness of life when he'd lost his son, Zac. The loss of Zac had hurt Apollo as well,
but the current Commander of the Fleet had lost his father as well as his brother. With each loss, his
commitment to his sister grew. For Apollo, resistance to evil was entirely personal.
The Cylons made it easy to treat lesser opponents with a certain degree of fairness—to put things in
perspective. Adama's advice had served Apollo well when dealing with Jinkrat and a rebellion born of
desperation. Starving men aren't the same as Cylons or Chitains.
As he explored Paradis, he hoped there would be no enemies. That would make for a nice change.
Down below he witnessed the pleasant cloud formations in the planetary atmosphere. They reminded
him of the surreal experience of the Ur cloud. As the Cylons and Chitain destroyed each other, a wave of
energy had been released that tore an opening in space-time. That fortuitous cataclysm had allowed
humanity to return to the universe of stars and galaxies.
Once he was safely aboard theGalactica again, Apollo took time for a brief meditation. His thoughts
could have been encapsulated in this prayer:
"Let us resist the enemy without becoming like him. Let us find a new source of tylium and other
supplies. Let us enjoy the good fortune of finally escaping the Cylons. And if it's not asking too much, the
next time I take my Viper into a cloud, let it be composed of water vapor in the atmosphere of a livable
planet."
Sometimes prayers were answered.
The thin strands of wispy cloud racing by the Viper were all about life as opposed to the blank negation
of the Ur cloud. Apollo liked to be in a thick soup of life. The current reports of the scientists were
tantalizing, to say the least.
Salik reported evidence of a humanoid life form that was in a primitive stage. In other words, they didn't
have high-tech. It was too soon to estimate population size or draw any conclusions on how widely
distributed the humanoids were over the planet.
The Colonials could be here for some considerable time, given the disastrous condition of the fleet and
all the work that needed doing. Apollo hoped they could keep culture clash to a minimum.
But at this very moment, he didn't want to think about that. For a few centari he didn't want to think
about the mission, even though he had a specific destination he'd kept from the other Viper pilots.
For a few blessed moments he wanted nothing but to pretend that he was a tourist. When he was in
resonance with his inner light he had no desire to conquer new worlds. He only wanted to see them.
So Apollo descended from the stratosphere into the lower clouds. They formed an ethereal landscape
with snowy cliffs rising out of a vast continent that wasn't there. The red sun's light gave them a burnished
quality. For one mad micron he felt that he could step out of his Viper and walk on them.
He didn't have to. The promise of real continents lay below. He would go down and gaze upon solid
ground, mindful that on alien worlds appearances could be as misleading as any cloudscape.
Breaking through the lower cloud banks, the first thing he noticed was a riot of color. Then his warrior
training zeroed in on what seemed to be flashes off a metal surface—but closer scrutiny revealed smooth
boulders reflecting the sunlight.
Descending lower, he had a much better view of the forest. A river also reflected sunlight. The sight of
fresh water was as refreshing as if he'd just drunk from a bubbling fountain. There were trees and
grasses. There were flying animals that were the first cousins of birds and flowering plants. The river
rolled on underneath him, a blue ribbon leading into a deep ravine.
He did not linger over the valley but leveled off and flew on, traversing a vast plain toward a purple
mountain range. The experts had told him the atmosphere was rich in oxygen and that the air was safe to
breathe. But they could not describe the morning fresh scent that Apollo let into his cockpit as soon as he
was low enough to depressurize and allow the planet's air to ventilate his craft.
There was always the risk of disease-bearing microorganisms but nothing out of the ordinary showed up
in the initial tests. They would have to take the risk as they so often did. Considering the different
environments the Colonials had survived in up to this point, the risk was probably greater for the new
worlds they entered than for themselves.
Gar'Tokk had taught Apollo to be philosophical about such matters. The Noman had also instructed him
in ways to respect new worlds as much as could be reconciled with the exigencies of survival.
After what the Colonials did to the Nomen, Apollo did well to listen.
A sudden gust of fierce wind made the Viper dance. It helped remind him that he wasn't merely
sightseeing. He used his comlink and communicated with Athena.
"I'm headed for the coordinates where you said there is evidence of the greatest concentration of
humanoid habitation. I'm counting on your assessment that I won't be running into a ground-to-air
missile!"
She chuckled. "If they shoot anything at you, it won't be more than a spear or an arrow."
He smiled inside his helm. "That might not be as trivial as you think. I've seen some pretty sturdy trees
down here."
"Have you seen any sturdy animals?"
"Feathered flyers that look like birds, a flock of 'em. They were pretty large."
"Were they pretty, too?" Athena asked.
"Yeah. Beautiful!"
"Koren wants to know if you run into any monsters."
"Tell my boy that when we encounter monsters they usually come in our size, fly spaceships and shoot at
us. I'd trade them all in for some gentle giants that just want to eat us!"
"I know what you mean," his sister agreed. "Analysis suggests this planet is rich in minerals and energy,
not to mention natural foods."
Apollo bit his lower lip. "Sounds like we're going to be doing the eating."
The Viper flew on, a lonely piece of advanced technology speeding across the surface of a pristine,
sleeping planet. Against the face of the planet the immense battlestars were specks, slowly joined by a
host of smaller metallic containers carrying the last remnants of humanity.
They had escaped from an enemy that lived and died by all things metallic. The Cylons were nothing
without their machines and had become part machine. But human beings could live outside a metal
cocoon. They could walk away from their metal hives and breathe the air of Paradis, eat the food and
drink the water.
To Apollo, freedom was more than a condition of the spirit. It was also a physical thing. It was about
choices. It could also be a place.
What would the natives be like? He had to admit to himself a feeling of disappointment that there was
intelligent native life. But better to discover and deal with them now than after the Colonials began to live
up to their name by colonizing the planet.
The inhabitants might be primitive by the standards of space travelers—but to an animal the gulf
separating a battlestar from a mud hut was negligible.
Apollo checked the latitude and longitude that Athena had provided. Shortly, he saw the settlement in
the distance. The small structures had an elegance of line that was simple and clean. The moment he saw
them he made his decision.
It would be wrong to fly over the village and frighten the natives. That was not the way to meet a new
people. He didn't exactly expect them to fall down in a swoon and treat the Viper as a chariot from the
gods. Apollo chose not to meet them in that fashion because it would be bad manners.
He landed.
He left the Viper and removed his helm.
It was good to stand in this verdant world without any kind of artificial life support. Bending down, he
picked up a leaf, savoring the fresh odor in his nostrils and resisting an impulse to put it in his mouth.
The village waited for him over a rise. As his boots crunched twigs and leaves with every step, he
considered again the reasons for his decision. The Natives were not just pre-high-tech. Neither the
battlestar's scans nor his brief reconnoitering had turned up evidence of any armies.
All indicators suggested peaceful inhabitants.
But he wanted to be certain. In another moment he would make first contact. However it turned out, the
responsibility rested on his shoulders alone.
Suddenly he heard a strange sound up ahead, the lowing of a gigantic horn. Then something touched him
on the shoulder. He spun around. Who could have gotten behind him without making a sound?
He turned to look at the tall figure now standing before him. The humanoid was a good two feet taller
than Apollo, which also made him taller than Gar'Tokk. But in every other respect, the native could be a
Noman.
"This is a small universe," Apollo muttered under his breath as he extended his hand in greeting.
Chapter Two
You look like Athena!"
At first the young girl did not realize that Baltar was addressing her. One glance at his expression
changed that. She could feel herself blush.
"You mean I look like Commander Athena?" She barely got the words out, proud that she had not
stuttered.
"I never lie about important things," he assured her, "such as the charms of someone kind enough to be
my nurse. Did you know that Athena has actually visited me here? She has a job for me."
The young nurse hadn't expected a conversation like this in sickbay. Not knowing what to say, she
fluffed up his pillow and said nothing.
"I wouldn't dream of boring you," he said, and then winced.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I used that dirty word. Dreams! They are giving me the most horrible headaches in history. Can you
give me something to help with my head?"
"I'd like to, but I'm not your doctor. Haven't you told anyone about the headaches?"
He nodded. "They don't give me anything strong enough."
"Well, I won't lie to you and say I can do anything about it."
He clapped his hands. "Excellent! You don't lie either. As for me, I only prevaricate when the subject at
hand is power and destruction, life and death, and other such ephemera."
She laughed nervously. She had been warned about Baltar. It was a kind of honor providing medical
attention to someone as dangerous as the man who had once betrayed the entire human race and
sacrificed his home world of Caprica to the Cylon enemy. But this was the same man who sustained
injuries putting down a dangerous coup led by Sire Aron.
If Baltar had not acted, she might not be alive right now and tending his wounds. Baltar had saved
Apollo and Starbuck and the others whom the girl considered personal heroes. And of course he'd once
been a member of the Council of Twelve! Naturally, the girl was reticent in his presence.
"What is your name, young lady?" he prompted her to talk to him some more.
She blushed again and almost whispered, "Elayna."
"Thank you for treating me so well."
He had not spoken falsely. She did remind him of Athena, Apollo's regal sister and a woman he could
not get out of his mind. It amused him to think how horrified they would all be if they knew how he really
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