Part Two
It took only a few centons for Starbuck to complete the delicate adjustments that were needed. He thrust the altered laser into Komma’s hands and stepped back from the wreckage to assess the best place to begin work. It didn’t look too easy. The tangle of metal was precariously balanced, and to remove too much at once could well topple the whole structure. He paused to wipe an arm across his forehead. It was getting hot, and it was hard to breathe in the fume-laden air. Tigh was right. Time was critical, and he was wasting too much of it staring at a wreckage of metal that refused to focus properly.
"Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Komma asked, seeing him sway on his feet.
"Yeah," Starbuck reassured him. "Say - are those lifting chains still free in their pulleys?"
Komma twisted around to pull tentatively at the fine chains that had pooled over Apollo’s side. They ran freely for a while and then jammed, leaving him with an armful of lightweight linkage securely fastened at one end.
"Great." Starbuck was pleased. "We’ll need those, I think. How are you doing, buddy?"
Apollo didn’t answer for a micron. The weight of steel on his hip and leg was an oppressive pain that wouldn’t go away. He’d lightly said that all they needed was to free him, but he knew he would need a lot more help than that to reach the other end of the pod.
"Just get on with it, will you, Starbuck?" he requested, unable to hide the pain in his voice. "We haven’t got all day!"
"Right." Starbuck stepped briskly forward, feeling the walkway sag beneath his weight. A few centons and they’d all be out of this crazy situation. All he had to do was ...
A giant hand slammed the cargo pod sideways without warning, sending a rumble of sound the length of the interior as loosely-packed cargo shifted and split. The walkway juddered violently, tilting even further towards its missing supports, and Starbuck, with one foot raised in the middle of his stride, slipped.
The momentum of his step carried him sideways, over the waiting edge, and down. He flailed wildly, desperately, trying to catch the twisted rail, to prevent the inevitable, to save himself. Komma, realising his peril, lunged after him, one hand securely wrapped in the anchored chains, reaching for the vaguest hope, the barest touch.
Too late.
With a cry, Starbuck fell down into the dark and the flame, into the smoke-veiled depths of the compartment below. He tumbled forever, it seemed, over and over, until, with an ominous accompaniment of sound, he landed somewhere among the litter of cargo and chemicals; somewhere in the arms of Hades.
"Lieutenant!!" Komma’s cry echoed with the anguish of despair as he watched the slender thread of hope that Starbuck had women within him twist and tumble into the waiting darkness below. "STARBUCK!!!"
It was no good. He was gone, and the only sound that drifted up to the precarious walkway was the muted roar of chemical flames.
Komma lay at the metalled edge, gasping for breath he couldn’t find. He didn’t know what to do. One moment everything was going so well, everything was going to be all right. And now Starbuck was gone.
The pod lurched again, another violent, angry move that shifted the hanging weight of the OLM and brought a stifled gasp of agony from Apollo. Another rumble of reactive sound, and a flare of coloured flame within the darkness. Somewhere in the hidden depths below him the fallen warrior would be lying, injured, maybe even dead.
Something inside the portly Corporal finally snapped. He had been confused, hurt, afraid, even despairing. But now, with the sudden self-revelation that he alone could make the choice that would decide the looming future, with that looming awareness, he knew where event was taking him. Starbuck had known what to do: how to rescue their trapped companions, how to act, how to react. And Starbuck was somewhere in the darkness. Waiting. Relying on a quiet, unassuming computertech to save all of them.
Without any hesitation, his mind peculiarly clear, Komma lifted the weight of chain from his arm and dropped its silver length over the edge of the walkway.
"Komma?" Apollo’s voice was anxious. He could see the man lying at the walkway’s edge only by twisting himself painfully to one side. He’d heard Starbuck fall, knew what that despairing cry had meant; one inner pain to add to the searing ache in his legs, his side. Always he’d been able to act, to do something to cauterise the wound left behind by a lost comrade, but now he was truly helpless, trapped by circumstances and forced to do nothing but watch as his friend was taken from him.
"Hang on to that laser, Captain." The Corporal’s voice was strangely calm. "We’ll need it later."
"What ...?" Apollo nearly screamed his frustration. He couldn’t see what the man was doing, couldn’t reach out, couldn’t move ... A wrench, and a flare of pain, and he was lying on his side, watching in sheer disbelief as his last remaining hope, the one man left free, calmly swung himself over the edge of the precarious walkway and disappeared into the waiting inferno.
"KOMMA!" This time he did scream, not from fear or pain, but from his inner tension. Komma was doing what he would have done - he was going after Starbuck, and he’d done it without hesitation, almost without thought. The terror in the Captain’s gut was not for himself, but for a man he had scarcely noticed - a man who had just proved himself to be a warrior indeed.
"Apollo?" Tigh called from the depths of the wreckage. They were alone now, the two of them, trapped together, waiting on the return of their only hope.
"It’s okay, Colonel." Apollo didn’t know why he was so sure. "Starbuck fell with that last explosion. But Komma’s gone after him - they’ll be back soon."
It was simple, really, Komma’s mind considered the situation as he swung over the edge, concentrating on the circumstances so as to push the awareness of the drop beneath his feet to the back of his mind. He couldn’t help Apollo without some kind of assistance; he certainly couldn’t help the Colonel, trapped even deeper in the wreckage - but he could help Starbuck. And Starbuck had known what to do. All he had to do to rescue him was to climb down these slender chains, into the darkness and the roar of the waiting fire, down into the thickening fumes, find an injured man (he wouldn’t consider the possibility of his not surviving that fall. Starbuck had survived - he always survived!), and then somehow get the two of them back up those same chains and onto the precarious walkway. Nothing to it.
Nothing, that was, but the sheer terror that had locked his hands to the chains and tightened inside him so that for a micron he could do nothing but hang above that numbing drop and wonder what he had been thinking of in that moment of decision. It wasn’t the height; it wasn’t even the beat of heat on his legs, wafting up from the depths and mingling with the choking fumes that surrounded him. It was the audacity of his even considering he could be a hero. He wanted to be back on the GALACTICA, listening to the sound of a Cylon attack on the hull and knowing that there were warriors out there doing their best to protect him and the ship. He wanted to be occupied with incoming reports and the transfer of data files, so that the terror of the attack was pushed from his mind by the need to be working. He wanted to be somewhere, anywhere but hanging over an inferno with the knowledge that the lives of three other men depended on his actions. It was the awful awareness of how important he had suddenly become that glued his hands to the chain beneath them. He wasn’t a coward - he could be as brave as the next man while at his post, doing his duty without complaint while others cracked under the strain of constant battle and the pressure his section were continually under at such times. He knew that. But he was a computertech, for Hades’ sake, one small cog in a huge machine, just an operator with a little bit of skill in handling an operating system and the user interfaces. He could quote the system commands to retrieve archive files in his sleep, if need be - but he wasn’t a warrior the way Viper pilots were, not a man used to dealing with death without a micron’s hesitation. So why was he suspended over a pit of fire with no air in his lungs and the sweat burning into his eyes?
Because he had to, that was why. Nothing else was important. Not the thought of where he was, or where he would like to be. Not the potential dangers his over-vivid imagination was suggesting to him. Just the simple requirement that he get on with the job. The way he always got on with the job - step by step, everything in its place, everything worked out one thing at a time. He’d passed into the computer section straight from the recruiting office with the highest aptitude result that the officer had remembered seeing. They had told him not to worry that others could complete tasks in less time than his careful pace - he always did things thoroughly, and the work he produced never required checking. He was good at his job, and if it wasn’t for the war he would probably have been able to progress slowly from operator to systems operator to programmer, and maybe even end up in a development team. He would have liked that. He was good with his hands, and had taken over some of the hardware maintenance in his section after one of the technicians had been killed on Carillon. But the war and the destruction of the Colonies had got in the way. Men couldn’t be spared to pursue private study, and even if they could there was probably no-one left with time to teach them. He’d probably spend the rest of his life as a Corporal, handling input and retrieval of data, carrying out system dumps and dreaming of what might have been.
That was if he had much of his life left, of course. He was creeping down the chain with studied determination now, the thoughts in his head serving to distract him from the flare of heat and the thickening of the fumes. It was strange, too, how the acceptance of the necessity of the job had overwhelmed all the terror. It was still there - he could find it at the back of his mind, ready to spring out with paralysing speed if he let it - but there was no time now to be afraid. He was doing the job he had to do, and the Komma that watched the leap of flames grow ever closer and imagined what their touch could do to him was a long way away from the man who climbed down the length of chain with quiet acceptance of the situation. He could be afraid later. Or not at all. He was beginning to realise that half of the fear was a direct result of being helpless. When danger threatened that you could do nothing about - that was terrifying. But the kind of danger he was in now - well, he was doing something about it! And once you realised that being afraid simply got in the way of getting the thing done - if you stopped letting your imagination run away with you and just did what you had to do ...
A sudden sheet of flame roared past him with an angry sound. The heat wrapped around him with choking intensity, driving the last gasp of air from his lungs, and his sweaty grip on the chain, which had slowly been becoming hotter the longer it hung over the inferno, slipped. He fell maybe five or six metrons before he was able to regain a hold, the metal tearing through his hands with painful speed. He hung for a moment, unable to breathe, unable to move, cursing himself for being smug, just because he had found that he was braver than he had thought.
He started down again, just as cautiously, trying to ignore the fact that the metal had either become painfully hot or he had done more damage to his hands in that long slide than was good for them. There was no longer even time to think; a few microns after his partial fall, his feet hit something hard, off to one side, and he was in among the packages, dropping onto soft bundles that he couldn’t see properly. His eyes were streaming and his throat burned. There seemed to be no oxygen down there, and his skin tingled with the impact of chemical vapours.
From the bottom it was obvious that the fire was burning in scattered patches, action and reaction depending on the way the various compounds had been packed. Another explosion rocked the pod, the violence of it throwing him off his feet. He only remained upright because of his grip on the chain, and the force of the reaction toppled the bundles he had been standing on sideways. The top one split, sending an avalanche of yellow crystals down the side of the pile and into a cracked ceramic container at its feet. Almost immediately a cloud of smoke began to pour from it. Komma backed away as quickly as he could, wrapping the end of the chain around his forearm so as to keep it within him, using its secured length as a support as he clambered over the chaos of packing.
He slipped once, ending knee-deep in some viscous fluid that was somehow still cold, his left hand buried in another sack of crystals which spilled into the pool, making it bubble ominously.
"Frak!"
He was more annoyed than afraid now. He couldn’t see, the light from the fires obscured by streaming eyes that had to be forced open. And the surface underfoot refused to support him properly, slipping away from his weight in unpredictable directions. He stumbled over something else, swearing as he did so, to put his hand on something soft, something that groaned a very human groan.
"Starbuck?" Komma nearly lost his grip on the chain trying to find a foothold. That would have been fatal for both of them, and he fought for balance, ending on his knees by the warrior’s side.
A pool of blue flame burned behind them, throwing a lurid light on the still figure sprawled on a pile of sacking. He had hit quite hard, the impact absorbed by the contents of the boxes beneath, crushing the containers and scattering glass and fluids into the general mayhem, but the man himself had been cushioned by the collapse. He lifted an unwilling head at Komma’s touch, resigned to his death by circumstance, and took a few microns to focus on his rescuer.
"Komma?" he groaned through vapour-burned lips, wondering why he was still alive and pausing to consider, while waiting for the reply, that maybe he wasn’t still alive. Maybe this was Hades and he had been condemned to lie here forever with visions of rescue fading in and out as an agonising torture.
"Lieutenant?" Komma’s voice was real enough, a whispered question through reluctant lips. "Are you hurt bad?"
Afterwards, Starbuck swore that he had known all along that Komma would come after him. Afterwards he said all sorts of things that made the man concerned squirm with embarrassment whenever he heard them. But for now all he could do was stare in total astonishment at the unexpected sight of his rescuer.
"What in Hades do you think you’re doing, you son of a she-daggit?!" He found his voice despite a burning throat and an unaccountable weight in his chest. "Are you crazy or something?"
"Something, I hope." Komma helped the man scramble to his knees, noting the wince of pain that accompanied Starbuck’s attempt to use his right arm as much by instinct as by anything else. The air was so thick with smoke and fumes that not even the louring light of chemical fires penetrated very far.
"I think my shoulder is broken." Starbuck’s whisper was made through clenched teeth. "There’s no way I can climb out of here."
Komma frowned up at the length of waiting chain. Now he had found the missing warrior, he wasn’t quite sure what to do next. One step at a time, he reminded himself. First thing was to get out of these fumes before one or both of them collapsed.
"That’s okay, Lieutenant," he announced. "Just so long as you can hang on to me. I’ll get you back up there."
"Sure," Starbuck sighed, leaning his dizzy weight on his companion’s shoulder. "You’re just gonna climb all that way with my weight as well as your own? Forget it, Corporal. Tie the chain on me and haul me up after you. I might last long enough."
Komma shook his head, reluctant to speak in the poisonous atmosphere. He knew what he was doing. If he left Starbuck in these fumes much longer he would be hauling up a corpse - and that would be no good to any of them.
"Just hang on," he ordered, taking a firmer grasp of the chain and slipping his other arm around the Lieutenant so that they were face to face. Starbuck sighed again, and wrapped his good arm over Komma’s shoulder, getting as firm a grip as he could manage.
"Okay," he muttered. "But if you start to slip, I’m letting go."
Centimetron by painful centimetron, Komma started the ascent, lifting them both on hands now so numb as to be beyond pain. The weight on his shoulder threw his balance, and they climbed slowly, stopping often for him to try and regain his breath in an atmosphere that denied them both oxygen.
"I don’t believe this," Starbuck muttered as they slowly rose above the level of the flame. He could feel every muscle in Komma’s shoulders strain with the effort, but they were rising. After a while it became easier to breathe.
"How are you doing, Lieutenant?" Komma enquired as he paused yet again.
"Just fine." Starbuck’s answer was heavy with astonishment. "How about you?"
Komma found a short laugh, then regretted it as he covered the fit of coughing that followed it. "No problem," he gasped. "You don’t weigh as much as I do."
"What in Hades has that got to do with it?"
The Corporal started to climb again, moving upwards with studied determination.
"Everything," he answered, on his next pause. "See, I was born on Atalan. Third generation, they tell me."
"Atalan?" The reference gave Starbuck something else to think about, other than the swinging drop beneath them and the pain that seemed to have swallowed him up. "Wasn’t that a mining colony?"
"Yah." Komma was finding it harder to catch his breath. "At least, it was until the Cylons destroyed it."
"I got it!" Starbuck finally made the connection. "Atalan was a high gravity world, right?"
"Right." Komma wasn’t quite sure why they were having this conversation, but it seemed to make the agonising climb easier somehow. "A full gee above Caprican norm. The first yahrens of my life were spent developing muscles designed to carry twice my weight. I’ve been stronger than I looked ever since."
"Komma," the Lieutenant concluded thoughtfully, "you’re one dark equine, and no mistake. What made you join the Service?"
"Circumstance." The tech grimaced into the dark. "I was no more than a few centars old when the first Cylon raid struck Atalan. I lost everything - including my name. Spent the next ten yahrens living underground under constant attack. By the time I was evacuated to Taura I found I didn’t like the open air. So I joined up as soon as I was old enough. I don’t feel quite so vulnerable aboard a Battlestar."
Starbuck started to laugh. "Vulnerable, eh? That’s a good one, if ever I’ve heard it. And what do you mean - you lost your name? Hades, I was orphaned in the raid on Umbra. Still knew what my name was."
"You," Komma told him, with a hint of old bitterness, "were presumably old enough to have been given one. They dug me out of the wreckage of the Life Center - I could have been the son of one of fifteen different families."
Starbuck didn’t know what to say. He knew what it was like, growing up in an orphanage, with no idea of your parentage and no advantage of family to give you a start in life.
"I’m sorry," he said. It didn’t sound very adequate.
"Don’t be." Komma was regretting being so frank. "It was a long time ago."
They continued to climb in silence, Starbuck cursing himself for his curiosity.
Apollo was beginning to think that time had ground to a halt. It seemed like yahrens since Komma had disappeared over the edge of the walkway, and his absence had been marked only by the continuing sound of fire and explosions from the darkness below.
"Colonel," he called, needing to hear another human voice. "Do you think we’ve been missed yet?"
There was a long silence before he heard Tigh’s answer. It came as a gasped sentence, words spoken disjointedly, as though their utterer were reluctant to let them go.
"Not yet, Apollo. We finished early, and the GALACTICA won’t be expecting us for a while."
Apollo sank his head to the coolness of the steel beneath him. The Colonel sounded bad - and there was nothing he could do to help him, nothing he could do to help himself, nothing but wait and pray. It was no way for a warrior to die, this painful descent into threatening oblivion, trapped like a snared lepus. A warrior’s death should be quick and clean, a flare of brilliance in a moment of sacrifice. Like Zac, leaving this life in a white-hot micron; like Serina, giving hers for the people whom she loved; like Starbuck. Apollo knew that his moment of hope had been nothing but self-delusion; he would die here, in the dark and the heat, in the bitter fumes of other men’s negligence ... die as his comrade had died, consumed by elemental flame; and know that perhaps, with the bitterest irony of all, his father would never know what had become of him.
"I’m sorry, Boxey," he murmured to the steel. "I’m really sorry."
A sound alerted him - a scraped, metallic sound. The sound of the thick-linked chain ragged over the steel edge of the walkway. Hope flared in him like a drug, like a flame.
"Colonel!" He fought down the impulse to struggle against the bonds that held him. "There’s weight on the chain again. I think they’re coming back!"
He heard Tigh laugh softly behind him. Perhaps he too had resigned himself to death, made his peace with the world and abandoned his hope. Apollo felt strangely ashamed that he should have ever doubted his chances of rescue - as if he had forgotten the defiant message that another Captain had once sent a looming attack force demanding his surrender. ‘I live yet’, the man had answered, holding to his post and buying time for the civilians under his care. That Captain had died in that battle, one man against a hundred Cylon centurions, but his sacrifice had saved thousands. ‘I live yet.’ It was a lesson of history that the tutors at the Academy had drummed into their raw recruits with relentless efficiency. It was the message that had inspired Adama to lead this hopeless fleet on its tireless quest. While life survived there was always a chance. Always.
He watched the shifting chain with a dry mouth, willing whoever climbed it to achieve the impossible. He couldn’t breathe as a hand appeared at the walkway’s edge. His heart was in his throat as that groping hand scrabbled for a firm grip on the tilted edge; and then Starbuck rolled over it to lie gasping on the angled walkway, his face a stark-etched profile in the dimness of the emergency lighting.
"Oh, boy!" the Lieutenant announced, his voice cracked and dry. "Do I need a drink!"
"Starbuck!" Apollo couldn’t keep the relief from his voice. The man concerned rolled onto his side and grinned at his friend.
"How you doing, buddy?" he asked.
Apollo found his eyes were wet; he wasn’t sure if it was because of the contaminated atmosphere or simply because he’d thought never to see his friend again. Whatever the reason, he had a lump in his throat and he fought it down with difficulty.
"‘I live yet’," he quoted softly. Starbuck widened his grin.
Take two tired, injured men, one laser pistol and an impossible situation. Add a deadline for which time is rapidly running out, and ask for miracles. You’ll get them. One way or another.
It took ten centons to cut Apollo free; ten centons in which ever micron was an aeon of agony. It wasn’t just the shift of weight on the dark-haired warrior’s side and hip, which found him biting back screams. Nor was it the way that Starbuck’s vision kept shifting in and out of focus so that he had to stop and fight the dizziness that threatened to engulf him. Mostly it was the sheer effort that it required to keep going, micron after micron.
Komma did most of the heavy work, ignoring screaming muscles and the way his skin seemed to be on fire from his feet up. He was past pain by now. He wouldn’t even have noticed if Starbuck’s aim had slipped and taken his hands along with the metal. Piece by piece they tore their way into the tangled wreckage of the OLM, throwing each discarded item to the hungry flames below - flames that roared ever higher beneath them.
Eventually, with a protesting scrape of steel against steel, the main supporting girder lifted, twisted, and fell away, spilling Apollo into Starbuck’s knees.
The Lieutenant half-collapsed over him, fighting a rising nausea and the urge to give in right there. It would be so easy, just to close his eyes and let it happen ...
"Starbuck!" Apollo’s voice was sharp. "Stand to! Red Alert!"
The warrior snapped back to attention with the automatic response of the fighting man, then realised where hew as and sighed.
"It’s okay, buddy." His voice was blurred. "I’ll make it."
Apollo wasn’t so sure. He had watched his friend’s strength fade, although not his strength of purpose; but the man had not thought beyond the point they had now reached. One more of them was free - but they were a long way from being safe.
"Starbuck," he said gently, realising that the man was past rational decision, "why don’t you just start down the walkway with the end of the chain and secure it when you get there?"
"Huh?"
"Look," his Captain continued, having given the matter some thought whilst waiting to be rescued, "if you can get the chain across, then I can pull myself after you using it. It’s my legs that hurt, not my arms."
Starbuck thought about it. "The Colonel ...?" he questioned.
Apollo put a reassuring hand to his friend’s good shoulder. "Komma will bring him," he murmured. "He’s getting him now."
A metron away, crawling under the remaining bulk of the wreckage, Corporal Komma was wondering if he could ask to be transferred to something less dangerous. One of the peripheral gunships, perhaps, or maybe even pilot warrior training. At least if the Cylons shot at you it was all over in a micron or two. None of this sensation of sitting on top of a ticking time bomb, or being forced to your limits - and beyond them.
He found Colonel Tigh pinned to the bulkhead by the fractured metal, a steel pin rammed into the man’s shoulder and another through his side. The surface of the textured plate beneath him was sticky; he had lost a lot of blood.
"Komma?" It was the faintest of sounds, a breath of a whisper, but it sounded like thunder to the Corporal’s ears. The Colonel was still alive and conscious. All he had to do now was get him out.
"Cut the pins." Tigh knew it was no good protesting that he should be left. "And cut them as close to me as you can. The heat will cauterise the wounds."
A centar before (was it only so long that they had endured this nightmare?) Komma would have refused to do such a thing. He would have taken time to find some other way, to avoid inflicting further pain. But there was no time. It was only sheer good fortune that had so far prevented the raging inferno below them from spreading to the other compartments in the pod, and when it did, as it inevitably would, there would be nowhere to escape to. The whole cargo unit would go up like a Cylon mine.
He cut the pins. Tigh didn’t scream as the white heat from the tightened beam flared down the metal into him. He threw back his head once - and lay still, sensation blessedly denied him by oblivion. Komma wished he could join him, but he hadn’t come this far just to give up on the final triad ball.
"I wonder if I can get put on report for this," he muttered to no-one in particular as he manhandled the Colonel into the narrow gap between wreckage and walkway. "I wonder if I’ll live to care," he added, emerging into a gathering of acrid smoke. Apollo greeted him with an acknowledging hand to the arm, trying to keep the thickening fumes out of his lungs.
"How’s the Colonel?" he risked, catching sight of Tigh’s drawn face cradled against the comptech’s shoulder. Komma would have grimaced at the question, but his face hurt.
"He lives yet," he muttered. "Where’s the Lieutenant?"
"Over there." Apollo indicated the knuckle-whitening sag of the walkway ahead. Along its tilted length, Starbuck was crawling, drawing himself along on one hand with studied determination.
If there is one thing that learning to fly a Viper does for you, it teaches you how to overcome a sense of vertigo. Even so, it wasn’t easy for Apollo to haul himself across the waiting walkway with the surface at an angle of thirty degrees and the railing at the lower edge twisted and torn away. Every movement set his injured hip and legs afire with pain, and the distance seemed to go on forever. He knew that Komma was behind him - once away from the roar of the fire, the sound of the man’s laboured breath was a constant reminder of his presence - and he knew that to stop would probably mean he would be unable to start again. But in the whole of his life, the crossing of that walkway was probably the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
"Come on, buddy." Starbuck’s voice was a distant encouragement. "You can do it. It was your idea, remember?"
The far hatchway was a lifetime away. Several lifetimes by the time he reached it. Reach it he did, with Starbuck’s good arm hauling him into the waiting airlock and out again, into the corridor. He rolled over and over, unable to stop his momentum until he ran into the door on the far side of the junction. There he could only lie and watch as his wingman lifted the unconscious Colonel over the entranceway, watch as the timebomb ticked down to its last tick and released a gout of flame that ate the inside of the pod with ravaging speed. The connecting wall finally breached, the chemical reaction spilled into the remaining storage compartments, flaring into renewed fury.
"Dump it!" Apollo screamed, realising that the whole thing could ignite at any micron. Somehow Komma scrambled through the airlock, fire at his feet, and then the door whooshed shut behind him as Starbuck half-dived, half-fell at the control panel.
"Dump it," Apollo advised again. "If it goes, it’ll tear this junction apart!"
Lieutenant Boomer was prepared for practically anything as he fisted open the massive cargo door with its crudely-painted spirit Cross. After all, he’d just seen one of the cargo pods from this level twist away from its anchor points and tear itself apart in space, in spasms of internal fire. Ever since Captain Pineus had reported his state of emergency - explosive detonation somewhere on his ship, potentially an attack of some kind - the crew had run a gamut of rumours that went from major technical failure, through an all-out Cylon invasion, to the vengeance of some supposed ghosts that nobody mentioned but everyone believed in. The problem was that this was also the last reported position of Colonel Tigh and his party; and whilst Boomer was well aware that Starbuck had a habit of finding trouble, he was desperately hoping that this time he had managed to avoid it.
The warrior peered into the waiting corridor cautiously, not knowing what to expect. Certainly not what he saw. In one hurried movement he holstered his laser pistol and ran along the impossible curve with barely a moment’s thought.
Along the twist of the entranceway Corporal Komma was staggering, one hand on the wall for support, his touch leaving bloodied handprints on the white surface. His uniform was stained and torn, his face smudged and contorted with effort and pain. Boomer reached him in time to catch him; the computech was breathing in long, painful gasps, and his strength had finally given way.
"My Lord, Komma! What in Hades happened to you?"
The man didn’t answer immediately. He was gasping, fighting through the haze that threatened to swallow him, and only the urgency of his message kept him from unconsciousness. The Lieutenant carefully leaned him back against the wall, his own face written with concern.
"Help ..." cracked lips managed at last. "The Colonel - they need help."
"You need help," Boomer muttered. "Jolly! In here! Hang on, Komma - I’ll get you a medtech."
"No time," the injured man gasped, eyes bright and unfocused, his hand groping at his supporter’s arm. "Starbuck ...!"
Boomer face set in grim lines. He didn’t know what had happened, but Komma’s condition didn’t bode well for his companions. He called for Jolly a second time, trying to reassure the man beside him with a comforting grip over the clutching hand, but the contact stung, chemical taint on the darkened skin.
"Lords of Kobol," the warrior swore softly, realising that the stains on Komma’s uniform were acid burns. "JOLLY!"
Flight Sergeant Jolly barrelled through the hatchway, taking a moment to register the sight of the two men halfway up the wall, before reason triumphed and horror overtook his surprise.
"Call for medtechs," Boomer instructed rapidly, supporting his fellow-crewmember as a fit of coughing replaced the rasping breath. Komma was coughing blood; the Lieutenant glared angrily at Jolly’s shocked expression.
"NOW, frak it! Komma - Komma!"
The Corporal focused on his questioner with difficulty. "Lieutenant?" he fought out. The warrior winced inwardly at the need to keep him awake, but there was one question he had to ask.
"Where are they, Komma? Where’s the Colonel?"
"Pod ..." The injured man was shaking with the effort. Boomer’s heart sank to the bottom of his boots, thinking of the cargo pod he had seen destroyed. Perhaps they were too late, after all.
"Pod ..." Komma repeated, then more strongly, "In the second pod. We got out just in time. Help them ..."
"We will." Boomer glanced up at Jolly, who had rejoined them after calling for medical assistance. "Stay with him, Jolly. I’m going on ahead. Send a medteam after me."
"Will do." The burly Sergeant crouched beside the injured man and watched as the dark-skinned warrior raced into the dim-lit cargo level. He hoped he would be in time.
Apollo awoke to a comforting cocoon of warmth, to find his father’s face before him, worry written deeply into the familiar brow.
"Father," he murmured, a weight of distant sleep on him. "I had the strangest dream ..."
"No dream, my son. But it is over now. Rest and relax. You are in good hands."
Comforted by the words, Apollo let himself drift away again, lifted into a place where the world was young and his wife waited for him ...
Doctor Salik found Adama a professional expression of concern. "He needs rest, Commander. Come back tomorrow - you can talk to him then."
Commander Adama sighed. "He will be all right?" he asked.
"Yes." The doctor guided him out of the room, past another support casket where Cassiopeia sat, monitoring Starbuck’s ragged breathing with drawn eyes. "The injured bones have been reset, and the rest is simply a matter of recuperation."
"And the others?" Adama put a hand to Salik’s arm, drawing him to a halt at the door. The doctor looked at the floor thoughtfully.
"The Colonel lost a lot of blood ..." he began, then sighed. "Commander - I will be honest with you. Your son and Colonel Tigh have suffered traumatic injury. I have every hope of their recovery, you understand, but it will take time. As for Starbuck - the total extent of the damage has yet to be determined, but as soon as we finish the tests and neutralise the last of the poisons he has taken into his system, then ..."" He shrugged; a professional shrug. "He’s young. He’ll get over it."
Adama said nothing. He merely stared expectantly at the head of Life Center with patient eyes. Salik looked away.
"Komma," he considered slowly, "is another matter." He examined his hands as though he could find all his answers in them, but they revealed nothing new. "He went through much the same contamination as Starbuck did. Except - Adama, I don’t know what he walked through, but we had to cut the boots off him, and a lot of leg muscle went with them. And his hands - there’s sectons of regeneration work there! He’ll recover - eventually; but it’s going to be a long climb. I doubt he’ll be fit for full duty for sectars."
Adama frowned, looking back at the lifepod that concealed the sleeping shape of his son. "What do you recommend?"
Salik followed the line of his gaze with a sigh. "A period of recuperation, followed by light duty - or possibly study," he suggested thoughtfully. "He’ll be in and out of here for a while, that’s for certain. He’s going to need something to take his mind off things ..."
Adama looked sharply back at Salik in some surprise. "What are you saying>?" he enquired.
The doctor laughed quietly. "Oh, I don’t know for sure, Adama. But I was talking to Tutor Astoroth the other day ... she’s looking for someone to take under her wing."
"Is she now?" The Commander found the thought amusing. "Well, well. So our revered Academician has finally got tired of teaching nothing but children. M’mm. We could do with more computer people of her calibre. I’ll have a word with Tigh when he’s fit enough. It may be possible to arrange something ... Thank you, Salik. Whatever would I do without you?"
"I wouldn’t know, Commander. I wouldn’t know."
In the quiet depths of space the stately pace of the Colonial Fleet continued without pause as four further cargo pods were jettisoned from the side of the freighter LEVIATION. They spiralled away from the other ships, to be destroyed by the impact of Viper fire. For a while their incandescence put on a spectacular display, but in the end the fleet left their dying sparks far behind.
Apollo watched from the viewport until he could no longer see the vivid flare of their fire. Then he turned and limped away down the passage, back to the Life Center and the game of pyramid he had promised his friend. His friends, he corrected himself with a smile. He’d never take Komma for granted again, that was for sure.
After all - if it were not for him, the belly of LEVIATHON would have swallowed them all!
Return to
Alpha Launch Bay