Islands in the Sky

  "Damn right something's wrong. I'm in trouble, in trouble."

  Tigh's voice cut in.

  "We read you, Red leader. How can we assist?"

  Starbuck tested his portside stabilizing rocket. Normally its

  thrust could be controlled by a lever on the instrument panel. But this

  time, pressing the lever, he found it wouldn't respond to his touch.

  Instead, it coughed and swung about in an erratic rhythm.

  "I've got battle damage," Starbuck reported. "Stabilizer won't keep

  steady thrust. Put a systems analyst on the line."

  "On the line," said a voice immediately. Starbuck recognized it as

  Athena's. He glanced quickly at the small, round picture of her he had

  pasted as a souvenir at the top of the scanner panel, and could see her

  in his mind scowling over the gadgetry of the guidance system. "What's

  your status, Starbuck?"

  "This is no time for trainees, Athena. I'm in big, big trouble."

  "I'm the best you've got right now, warrior. You'll stay in big,

  big trouble if you keep talking like that. What's your fuel?"

  He looked at the gauge.

  "Low."

  "All right. Run the check with me. Alpha circuit, close and

  alternating to left servo circuit..."

  Reaching deftly past the sparking circuit board dangling from

  beneath his instrument panel, he closed off a circuit switch.

  "Alpha circuit closed and alternating," he said, "to left servo

  circuit."

  He checked the stabilizer, which was now dead, not responding a bit

  to his touch on the lever.

  "No response."

  "Omega C circuit," Athena said. Her voice was calm, aloof, sounding

  much like it did in response to his sly proposals in the ready room.

  "Closed and alternating to servo support circuit..."

  "Alternating to servo support circuit."

  He felt the sweat becoming roaring cataracts down his brow. The

  stabilizer was still not responding.

  "Does not respond."

  A small choking sound---the engine beginning to misfire.

  "My fuel is zeroing out," he said.

  Tigh's voice cut in again, addressing Athena.

  "Bring him in at zero thrust, with all stabilizers cut off. There's

  no choice."

  "Wait!" she cried. "One last check. Is your right stabilizer

  steady?"

  "Right stabilizer is steady."

  "Cross patch right servo to left."

  "Cross patching right servo to left."

  Working as patiently as possible, Starbuck made the necessary

  cross-connnections on the panel. He looked out again at the stabilizer.

  It teetered limply, stone cold.

  "No luck," he said. "I can't reverse thrust. Get everyone out of

  the way, I'm coming in hot."

  There was a pause before Athena's answer came.

  "All right, you're cleared to come in."

  Her voice sounded apprehensive.

  "You'll be coming in like a missile," she said. "The deck is cleared

  for an emergency."

  "Thanks for the comforting thoughts."

  "Don't mention it. See you on deck."

  "That's a date."

  Boomer's voice cut in.

  "Would you listen to this guy? He loses one lousy stabilizer and

  he's gotta have all the ladies out to watch him ventilate the flight

  deck. If the ladies'd only..."

  Jolly's voice interrupted.

  "Good luck, Starbuck."

  "Thanks, Jolly. Red Leader to flight deck. I'm coming in hot,

  ready or not. I hope you guys aren't counting off for neatness."

  His sweat felt like a raging sea in a torrential storm. The deck

  swung out from Galactica way before he was ready. He knew the deck hands

  inside the battlestar were in readiness for disaster, ready to mop up

  his blood if that turned out to be the necessary duty.

  He could lose this one. Well, the famous Starbuck luck had to run

  out some time. He engaged all the devices on his instrument panel that

  still functioned. His ship careened down to the deck. He could feel

  himself on the verge of blacking out as he made his descent, and he shook

  his head to clear it. Just before landing, he was able to turn the Viper

  into something resembling the correct entry attitude. He knocked out a

  series of landing strobes as the Viper touched the deck. Sparks flew in

  all directions. As his ship shuddered into the entry port and hit the

  emergency force-field cushion, he did black out...

  *****

  ...When he came to, after only a few microns of darkness, he saw the

  small emergency vehicles racing out of pockets in the walls toward the

  crashed Viper.

  Everything was okay. He was in terrible pain, but everything was

  okay. The Starbuck luck was stll as good as gold. He headed through the

  hatch.

  "Starbuck, are you all right?" Athena cried, as she ran up to him

  and into his arms. He hugged her perfunctorily, released her abruptly,

  and started walking toward the elevators.

  "For a guy who just had a whole fleet shot out from under him, I'm

  fine," he said. "No thanks to your father!"

  Athena hurried after him.

  "You watch your mouth about my father!" she said. "You have no idea

  what we've been through!"

  "Yeah? You should've seen how we spent our day. Joyriding, just

  joyriding. Keeping the Cylons off your astrums while you took on a

  pleasant little cruise away from us!"

  Athena stopped him in front of the turbo-lift.

  "Good Kobol," she said. "You really don't know what's happened, do

  you, Starbuck?"

  "You bet your life I know what's happened, little darling. You

  should get a scan of what this baby looks like from out in space when she

  quietly cafoots away from the scene of battle. A beautiful sight,

  serene----unless of course she happens to be your base ship picking up

  and sneaking away, leaving you high and dry like a ..."

  "Stop it! Listen! The Colonies, Starbuck, they're all gone. All

  of them. Wiped out by the Cylons!"

  "What are you talking about? Destroyed? How's that..."

  The turbo-lift door opened, and the raucous noise of the bridge

  drowned out the remainder of Starbuck's question. Angry, he stormed into

  the room. Nobody noticed him. The voice of one of the bridge officers

  rose over the clamor.

  "Fighter ships coming in on both decks, sir."

  Tigh moved towar dht officer and said:

  "Give me a full report. What's the count?"

  Tigh? Starbuck thought. What's he doing giving the orders? Where's

  Adama? There can't be anything wrong with Adama! He felt disoriented,

  thrust into some alternate universe where Adama no longer existed and the

  terrible cowardice of removing the Galactica from her proper place had

  somehow been transformed into heroism.

  "Sixty-seven fighters in all, sir, twenty-five of our own."

  "How many battlestars?"

  The officer paused before reveal
ing the information.

  "None."

  "What?!"

  "We're the only surviving battlestar."

  "Oh...my...God!" Tigh looked shocked. When he spoke again, it was

  ina choked voice: "Make the pilots from the other ships as welcome as

  you can."

  Starbuck strode up behind him and said:

  "It's too late for that, Colonel."

  He heard Athena, keeping pace with him, whisper:

  "No, Starbuck, not..."

  He could sense all the bridge officers staring at him, as Tigh

  turned toward him.

  "For some of those guys you want to welcome," Starbuck said, "it was

  a tossup to them whether to land here or blow the Galactica to pieces

  with a bellyful of torpedoes. Maybe they got talked out of it, or maybe

  nobody had any left."

  "What's the meaning of this insubordination, Lieutenant?" Tigh

  barked.

  "He doesn't realizewhat's happened yet," Athena interjected. "I told

  him some of it, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. I don't think any

  of them really know."

  Puzzled, Starbuck looked around him. He noticed Boomer and Jolly,

  looking just as furious and frustrated as Starbuck felt, just arriving in

  one of the elevators.

  "Realize what?" Starbuck said. "That the old man turned tail and

  ran, leaving all our ships to run out of fuel, making..."

  Tigh's angry gesture compelled Starbuck to stop in the middle of his

  sentence. The Colonel nodded toward one of the officers.

  "Put the tpes of the transmissions we monitored back on the

  scanners. For our young patriots here."

  Starbuck started to complain further, but the pictures that came

  abruptly onto four of the screens on the console effectively silenced

  him. The pain of watching the disaster on a single screen was stretched

  to unbearability when multiplied by four. Starbuck's fists clenched in

  frustration as be became aware that there was no chance he could climb

  back into his cockpit and battle those Cylon fighers that had worked

  their grisly havoc centons before.

  "I'm sorry," he said, "sorry."

  Behind him he heard Boomer and Jolly, muttering sadly, joining him

  in his remorse.

  *****

  Adama stood on the old familiar hill, inspecting the line of the

  new, unfamiliar battles scar that ran in a deep rut across his property.

  The line seemed to go off into infinity, or at least to the base of the

  row of fires that raged at the edge of the crumbling, far-off city.

  Every building there must surely be ablaze by now.

  He headed down the hill, unaware of Apollo following close. A

  faraway sound of many voice was growing increasingly louder. Glancing

  over his shoulder, Adama could see the flickering of a dozen torches

  beyond Apollo's Viper. Roaming mobs already? No matter; he could deal

  with them when they reached him. Unless they had some kind of fanatical,

  wild-eyed leader, he believed he cold handle any mob.

  He turned back and resumed his walk down th epath, the one he had so

  carefully laid, stone by stone, in the first yahren of his marriage to

  Ila. The broad, deep battle scar cut across it, too, running all the way

  toward his home. He kept his eyes away from the house for as long as he

  could, but fin ally he had to look. Once an attractive series of living

  units---he had laid out its interlinking half-circles himself, as

  diligently as he had put down the stones in the path---it too was now

  sliced down the middle by the straight-line scar of battle. One one side

  of the line much of the dwelling still stood, but the other half, the

  half containing Ila's sitting room, was now a burnt ruin. All lingering

  hope of Ila's survival left him as he stared at the damaged structure.

  There was little chance Ila had wandered off by herself. She knew his

  first impulse when free would be to return to her here, and she would

  wait. If she were here now, she would have run out of the house into his

  arms. What was her schedule for the time of day when the attack had

  occurred? Late afternoon. That was the time she usually took a nap.

  She had probably been asleep then, or been awakened by the shrill squeals

  of diving Cylon Raiders. He did not like to think of her in terror. It

  was unlikely, anyway. In recent yahrens, Ila had become slightly hard of

  hearing, although she didn't like to admit it. Anyway, she could sleep

  through anything, no matter how loud. She had probably stayed asleep.

  Stop this rambling! he thought. She's dead! Admit it to yourself.

  She has to be dead! There's no other possibility.

  Adama felt the tears well up in his eyes. Walking into the house,

  he didn't have to stop for the scanning device, which had been reduced to

  a knobby lump of debris and dangled by a wire from a jagged hole in the

  wall. The front door hung uncertainly from a single hinge. He went

  directly to the living room, to the row of holographic photographs that

  had been implanted into a wall yahrens ago. There was a single source of

  light in the room, a rectangular candle with each of its twelve permanent

  wicks ablaze. Each flame represented one of the Twelve Colonies, and

  Adama felt a momentary odd surge of joy when he saw thaty all still

  burned, as if the candle were saying to him that the Colonies must, and

  will, survive.

  He remembered the pleasure Ila had found in that candle when she had

  discovered it in a nearby town bazaar. She always delighted in searching

  for bargains, and would often go too many uneconomical laxars out of her

  way and come back arguing that her latest purchase was especially

  economical. The flickering light from this special candle cast strange

  auras on the series of pictures she had so carefully selected before

  arranging for the laser procedure that made them part of the wall. There

  were photographs of the entire family, he and Ila, Athena and Apollo and

  Zac. Zac. He cold not bear now to look upon the eager hopeful smile of

  Zac, nor could he examine the chronological half-circle of phots that

  traced Zac from child to adult.

  Adama recalled a recent conversation with his youngest son, one of

  the last talks they had had. Zac, somewhat drunk from a glass of the

  unusually potent ambrosa which always tasted so mild but provided a heady

  kick, had revealed to his father his intention to eclipse Apollo. He

  said his whole life was directed toward bettering his brother's

  achievements. When Adama had begun to provide soothing fatherly advice,

  Zac had interrupted him by telling him he simply didn't understand.

  "Father, all the time I was growing up, it was Apollo this and

  Apollo that, every second thing I heard about was some big heroic Apollo

  exploit. Don't misunderstand me. I'm just as proud of him as you and

  Mother are, as Athena is, but don't you see we all have somebody we have

  to beat. Sometimes it's just some idealized role model, sometimes it's

  somebody real. With me, it's Apollo. I love him, but I've got to beat

  hi
m."

  Adama had tried to convince Zac that there was more to life than a

  stratified sense of competitiveness, but the boy wouldn't listen. He had

  left his son that knight feeling a vague sense of failure. Had he

  invested his children with a distorted ambition to succeed? Or was it

  the war that fired up his heroic ambitions? Perhaps Adama had devoted so

  much of his life to the war, hardly taking ote of is own considerable

  achievements in it, that he had failed to give his progeny a proper

  perspective on life. Perhaps he made Zac and Apollo, even Athena, pale

  copies of himself. All of them were geared to perform heroic acts, make

  important decisions, assume leadership as naturally as others went about

  daily tasks. Yahrens ago Adama himself had accepted such

  responsibilities as natural consequences of being his own father's son.

  Was it possible that the cracks in a life devoted solely to military

  matters wold start emerging in the third generation? No---he was being

  too hard on himself. Zac may have been unjustly ambitious, but he was

  also young. Adama suspected that at the age of twenty-three he might

  have been similarly oriented toward success and just as energetic in

  talking about his future hopes. And his other children, Apollo and

  Athena, showed no signs of personal or psychological problems. Apollo,

  combinging bravery with intelligence, was a fine fighter pilot, one fo

  the best, and Athena's sharp-witted ability to synthesize information in

  order to come to a quick decision seemed to destine her for a command

  post.

  As he looked away from the pictures of his children, Adama realized

  that he was exaggerating Zac's slightly besotted declarations because of

  his own deep sorrow. Zac had just shown a natural, youthful desire to

  flee from the nest. But even as he told himself that Zac's aspirations

  were not his fault as a parent, Adama could not quite rid himself of the

  nagging thought that perhaps they were.

  For a micron he wished that all these pictures were not embedded so

  firmly in the wall. He would've liked to turn thiem around, fact them

  toward the wall, as angry people did in the ancient novels he often

  scan-read during recreation periods.

  Finally, he had to look at the pictures of Ila.

  The poses in the neat circle depicted her at several ages from

  seventeen to fifty. The most recent photo showed her smiling broadl at

  her fiftieth birthday party the previous yahren. In the background he

  and the three children stood, their figures dimly lit, perhaps put in

  shadow by the glow of her pride. He reached out to touch the figure in

  the foreground of the picture, was surprised at the framing glass which

  blocked his hand from the three-dimensional figures inside.

  He and Ila had both drunk a bit too much ambrosa the night of that