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respectit. You can't evade it no matter how sophisticated yourevasion procedures are."
"What do you suggest?"
"Destroy it before it destroys you."
Apollo wanted to ask Thane how he proposed todestroy a strange new weapon, but the man had
disappeared as oddly as he had materialized.
Killian, alerted by Starbuck to the sudden attack,arced his viper into a long curve, heading on a line
towardthe trio of Cylon fighters that flew just behind the ghostship with the lethal warhead. One of the
Cylon shipspeeled away from the tight formation and headed forKillian.
"Starbuck!" Killian shouted into his commline mike."Dive for the cloud cover!"
"Won't work. They'll outrun us."
"Don't worry. I'll block for you."
Even as he said that, Killian pressed his firing buttonand placed a dozen quick laser shots in a small circle
that first ripped off the rear section of the Cylon plane, thentransformed it into a blazing fireball. In
reaction to the loss of a ship, another Cylon fighter swerved towardKillian's viper.
Everybody in the shuttle was hurtled backward in theirseats as Starbuck accelerated. The sound of the
engineswas, to Apollo, like a shriek of fright.
"Starbuck!" he yelled. "This isn't a fighter! You'lloverrun the turbines!"
 "Tell that to the Cylons," Starbuck yelled back.
The shuttle plunged into the cloud cover. The onlylight in the cockpit came from the scanner which
displayed Killian's battle in the skies above them. Theysaw the second Cylon fighter shatter under
Killian's cool and accurate firing. The last fighter and the warhead ship had altered course to pursue the
shuttle. Starbuck tried to find more power in the shuttle's engines, but all that hecould discover was a
louder shriek.
Killian zeroed in on the last fighter but it evaded his fireand came in under his viper. His ship rocked as
theCyIon's shot hit him amidship. He checked his scanner fordamage report. The lousy Cylon had
destroyed thelowside engine. Before Killian could pull out of the spin he was now in, the Cylon fired
again and knocked a bigchunk out of Killian's ship. Employing all the piloting instinct he had at his
command, Killian pulled his viperout of the spin. Damage report showed a fuel line had been severed.
The viper would blow up at any moment.
The Cylon fighter was streaking toward him. Killiantried to shoot at it, but his laser did not respond to
thetouch of the firing button. So that was out, too; it hadbeen hit. Veering his ship to the right, he escaped
the next burst of Cylon shots. But he knew that he could not evade for much longer. This time he had,
after all, drawn his number.
Starbuck's voice came over the commline:
"I can't get this wreck going any faster. There's no wayI can maneuver out of that warhead's way.
There's no
"Shut up, Starbuck," Killian cried. "That thing's myjob."
Evading the Cylon fighter one more time, Killianaimed his ship at the warhead-equipped shell. Engaging
the turbos at full thrust of the remaining engines, heaimed his viper directly at the warhead ship. He
shouted acurse that had a long-standing tradition aboard theGalactica.Killian's viper and the warhead
ship collidedjust above the cloud cover of the ice planet. The explosionthat resulted from the crash
spread across the sky in amassive fireball that rushed toward the remaining Cylon fighter. The Cylon ship
tried to curve away from it, but before it could complete the arc, it was sucked into andenveloped by the
widening flame.
The shuttle lurched violently and Starbuck's glovedhand came off the throttle as if the device had
suddenlyturned red-hot.
"What is it?" Apollo screamed.
"Either we got hit by a stray shot or this speed's toomuch for the shuttle. I don't
"Captain Apollo!" Leda cried from the entranceway tothe passenger compartment. "Everything's flying
aroundback here. The wind's terrific! Something's split in theside of the ship, I think. Can't identify where
in all thedebris, but
"Try to hold control, Starbuck," Apollo cried. "I'll check this out."
"I'll try, but the ship's maneuvering like a balloon that's come untied."
 Apollo rushed back to the passenger cabin. He spottedthe dark split along the ship's side immediately.
"The skin's ruptured! Grab your breather gear!"
Everyone clamped on their breathers in quickmotions except for Croft, whose moves were methodi-
cal, and Thane, who attached his breather to his faceslowly, looking as if he didn't care whether he wore
it ornot. Starbuck's voice came over the intercom:
"The ship won't respond. We're dropping down into ablizzard! Visibility zero. Surface coming up on all
instruments. Counting down! Three! Two! One! Zero!Heads down!"
A loud rumble went through the ship, sounding like awarning that the shuttle was about to shatter into a
thousand pieces. Buffeted by the violent winds, the shuttlewent into a spin that made its passengers grasp
at the air,looking for something solid to cling to. SuddenlyStarbuck pulled the nose of the ship upward
just before itmade ground contact and skidded across the surface.Whirling snow created a fierce small
blizzard inside thevehicle. The ship's sudden stop was thunderously loud, had all the bone-breaking
power of a three-G force, andfelt to the shuttle passengers like death.
The bridge crew of theGalactica fell silent as themonitoring screens blanked out suddenly. Adama,
alerted by the silence, looked away from the reports ofCylon pursuit and into Tigh's tense eyes.
"We've lost signal from both ships," Tigh said.
Adama, recalling his conversation with Apollo aboutexpendability, felt cold pain at the pit of his stomach.
"Any reception at all?" he asked.
"The viper channel is dead. No lights. Telemetry indicates total destruct."
"Who was it?"
"Killian."
Adama remembered the mustachioed officer vividly.His experience and combat instincts would be
missed.
"And the shuttle?" he asked Tigh.
Tigh paused before answering:
"The emergency channel kicked in. All reds. Telemetryindicates heavy structural damage. We could
reach forthem on high band."
"No. Maintain silence."
"But "
"I want to try to reach them as much as you do, Tigh.But we can't. We can't reveal our position."
If he could have talked to his son now, he would havetold him that expendability or nonexpendability
hadnothing to do with the fact that Apollo had beenprogrammed out of the mission computer search. It
hadmore to do with the fear of having to deal with the exhausted emptiness of this moment.
Vulpa hovered over the communications panel, wherehis operator studied the action in the clouds above
Tairac.
"One ship destroyed," the operator said. "One prob-able." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]