Section 1.7 : Dhow

38 Quartus 6490
Shield Ship Dhow

Van Trion met him on the flight deck, although she had to hop nimbly out of the way as the Viper came to a stop in a space that Apollo had to concede was a little snug about the shoulders. After more than two yahrens away, one of them spent on the immensity that was a battlestar, he realised that he'd almost forgotten how tiny Shield ships were.

"Couldn't you find anything bigger?" asked Van when he'd wriggled out of the Viper and joined her on the deck.

There was a barb under the outwardly friendly greeting that Apollo noticed immediately. "Be grateful I didn't bring the shuttle. That was what the Pegasus transport officer offered first, until I told him it would be almost as big as the Dhow. Cain said I was to have a Viper instead."

"Generous."

"I guess." Apollo took a deep breath as he looked around, like someone who'd been running and had finally stopped to take breath, his whole system dizzy with it for a micron.

"Nice to be back?" asked Van.

He nodded.

"I took my rotation out in MI. The day I got back and they gave me the Dhow, I kissed the deck.." Van frowned. "Right where your Viper is dripping lubricating oil."

Apollo forced a smile. "Sorry."

The look she gave him was sharp, assessing. "I know it's not quite home..."

"It's close enough, Van. I've missed this."

"Well, welcome home." She looked him up and down. "Want a change of clothes?"

Apollo scrambled back up to the Viper and fished out his belongings from the space behind the seat: the backpack Felix had given him, the refrigerated unit and the small kitbag that he'd had the foresight to bring with him. "Brought my own, thanks."

"Come on, then." She walked with him into the decontamination chamber at the back of the flight deck. "We're smaller than the Hyperion, I think."

"A bit."

"All I meant was that we don't have much in the way of guest accommodation. We'll reach Molecay in seventeen centars. If you want to get some sleep, you can use my bunk."

So, that was what the assessing look was for. He must be looking worse than he'd realised.

"Do I look that bad?"

Van laughed. "No, but the little I saw of the Commander, he seemed like small doses would go a long way. I thought that you may need some R&R."

"He's… bracing," acknowledged Apollo, following her into the decontamination chamber at the back of the flight deck. He sought for something to say that at least bowed its head to the truth. "He wasn't too bad, I guess. I had to spend a centar in the OC each night listening to the tale of how he won the battle at Taxos. That was wearing, but it was about the worst of it."

"Interesting story?"

"Not really, although I knew someone once who suggested it might make for good operatic burlesque, complete with fireworks and patriotic tableau at the end."

Van laughed. "Sounds delightful."

"His officers never seemed to tire of hearing it. It's a funny sort of ship." Once more Apollo felt the unease that had afflicted him on the Pegasus. He shook it off. He was home: he could afford to stop worrying about the influence of personality cults and how they might stack up against solid worth. "I could recite it to you, if you like."

"Pass." She took the bench opposite him. "Can we talk?"

"In here?"

"Well, no-one's likely to disturb us in here. Like I said, Dhow's a small ship and there's not a lot of places to be private. What can you tell me about this job, Apollo? I know that you were hamstrung at that briefing meeting and couldn't say more than you did, but it doesn't smell right. It doesn't smell right at all."

Apollo looked away for a centon, while Van waited patiently, thinking about how much to reveal, how much to hide. He found himself staring at small things, at the thin line of grease that ran the length of the door down its edge, slightly fluffy with dust; at the myriad shades of grey in what at first glance was a featureless little chamber, every slight dent and scuff mark varying the uniformity, at the shape of the locking mechanism... he wondered at his capacity for displacement. He hadn't realised it was so developed.

"I find it hard to believe that they'd expend so much resource and energy on Rets," said Van, letting him have a centon's breathing space before resuming the attack. "A battlestar and a destroyer? That's one helluva lot of firepower."

"Rets aren't worth the effort, you mean?" She'd inadvertently offered him another diversion, and he knew it. But the respite was temporary: he'd have to tell her something. She and the rest of the Dhow's warriors would be down there with him. They'd see it.

"No, I didn't say that, although there's a lot of people would. No-one trusts a Ret. But if it were me, I don't think I'd choose death over captivity, even with all the problems being a Ret might—would—bring. I'm not that keen to die and while there's life, right? Even being a Ret has to be better than being dead."

"Mmmn," said Apollo, who may have agreed with her before the Molecay project had changed his mind irrevocably about what might constitute a fate worse than death.

"So I'm not that hypocritical about it. I see we can't leave people to rot with the Cylons. I just can't imagine that we usually wheel out a battlestar to go and get them, that's all." She watched him. "The base is an oddity, Apollo. You know as well as I do that most bases are purely military outposts, governing and protecting a slice of Cylon space. They don't keep humans alive. There's nothing on Molecay to explain them being there."

"I know." Apollo hesitated only a micron or two. "All right. For you only. No-one else is to know until I do the briefing before we do the drop."

"Agreed."

"And I can't tell you everything."

She grimaced. "And why am I not surprised?"

"Only Cain knows all of it. It's not that I don't trust you, Van."

"But I'm not Strategy Unit."

"No. Sorry."

She shot him a sidelong look, eyes narrowed. "I'd heard rumours you were, though. Don't you find it hard, splitting yourself two ways?"

"I live with it." Apollo drew a deep, steadying breath. "You're right about how odd the base is, and you're right that the few Rets that we've ever got back in the past were lucky to be alive because the Cylons rarely let humans live. The Rets on Molecay have been there for yahrens, in that base. We think that Molecay is more scientific than military, and that the military presence there is providing a purely defensive force for the base alone, rather guarding an entire sector the way they usually do. You know yourself that there's a more standard base only three systems over. That one's the guard daggit for this bit of space."

"Scientific." Van held his gaze, made the deduction he expected of her. "The humans are lab rats."

"That's the theory. We're going in to find out if it's true."

"And if it is? Do we know what the Cylons are doing with them? I mean, it's not like the tinheads don't already know a lot about our physical strengths and weaknesses. They've killed enough humans for that. Something psychological?"

"Maybe. We won't really know until we get there."

"But you have a good idea. Come on, Apollo. I'm not stupid. This is serious, or you wouldn't have brought the Pegasus into it."

"Of course it's serious. But until I get there, I don't know how serious."

"Really."

Apollo sighed. She was as persistent as he'd be if their positions were reversed. "Really." He sighed again, silently, at the look she gave him. "I mean it, Van. I have some suspicions about what I'll find there, but believe me, you do not want to know about it unless you want to have the same sleepless nights I do. But until we're in that base and can see for ourselves, I don't really know. Not for sure."

Her mouth tightened, but she nodded. "That bad?"

"If it's what I think it may be, then it's worse." He leaned back on the bench, stretching the kinks out of his back.

"Then I don't know if this will make you feel better or not." Van held out a folded slip of paper. "I printed it for you, since it's so official it has General Martens' signature on it. It came for you a centar ago."

Apollo unfolded the paper. It was the General's authorisation giving him temporary brevet rank to major, for the duration of the raid. Well, that certainly explained Van's attitude and the faint air of offence.

"She said that it would make sure that there'd be no conflicts when we were on the ground. She's put me and the Dhow under your command."

"She didn't need to do that."

"No, she didn't. You didn't ask for it?"

"No."

Van stared at him. It was a few microns before she nodded acceptance. "It made me think about what we were going to find there, if she thought I'd need that to co-operate, that I'd need to be forced."

It was to protect her, Apollo realised, although a meagre protection at that. If they had to leave Molecay without bringing any of the prisoners out with them, because he'd ordered that they be left behind to die when the base was destroyed, then it was a fig-leaf of a legal defence that Van could claim she was only obeying orders. His orders. He wondered if, at the point when she realised that, she'd be able to square it with her conscience.

He knew he'd have trouble squaring it with his own.

He sought for something to say. She was older than he was, more experienced and had to have two or three yahrens seniority over him. Half her disquiet had to be resentment at having a junior captain set over her, given authority over her and her ship and her people. Especially her people, if she was anything at all like he was himself, agonising over every injury and death, however unavoidable. And to have to hand over that responsibility to someone else, to have to rely on someone else's judgement on a job when it was her crew's lives and well-being on the line... well, he'd be seething. He was lucky that she was politer and more restrained, more graceful, than he would be in like circumstances.

Mentally cursing the General's interference, he spoke carefully. "I'm sorry about this, Van. The decisions down on Molecay have to be mine, because I'm the only one who knows enough about all this to make them. They may be very uncomfortable to make and uncomfortable to live with afterward. But that doesn't mean that I have to command the job. They're your people. You know them and I don't. I'm just looking for a ride down there and backup while I do what I have to do."

She'd given him a sharp look when he'd hinted again at the significance of this raid. "I've got my orders. It's your raid and we'll do what you want us to do to make sure you pull it off. But I don't like it, Apollo, and I don't like it that no-one will tell me what it's all about. And," she added, with a touch of venom, "hints that it's all too awful, aren't helping."

"Sorry." He leaned his head back against the wall of the chamber. "All I can tell you, and all that I'll tell the crew before we hit dirt, is that depending on what I do find down there, we may not be bringing all the prisoners back up with us. We may not be bringing any of them back."

She frowned. "But the whole point is a rescue."

He shrugged.

"Apollo, we'll be blowing that base to hell!"

Apollo let his head roll back and closed his eyes for a centon. "Precisely," he said.




Van's cabin was tiny, the same size as his own old cabin back on the Hyperion. But it had a shower—sonic, but he'd take what he could get—and it had a bed. He dressed in tee and shorts after his shower, leaving the cherished black uniform to swing for a little longer on its hanger on the closet door.

He was getting obsessive about checking everything. The refrigerated case first, fitted with its thirty jars of preservative, each already labelled in Felix's firm script. The first time he'd checked the case, when Felix had handed it over, Apollo had appreciated the thoughtfulness. Felix had snorted derision, pointing out that it was self-preservation, calculated to save him a job later. Felix had never been in battle, but even he realised that it could be a little difficult to label up specimen jars in your best handwriting while dodging laser fire; and he complained enough about Apollo's scrawl under normal conditions.

Besides the little neatly-labelled jars, there was space in the middle of the case for more specimens, although without the preservative, Apollo wasn't hopeful about getting more nodes back in one piece. The refrigeration unit was still showing fully charged: he flicked the test button twice, to be sure.

Then the backpack. The Link sat snugly in its protective case, a row of shining data crystals beside it. Each of the five modified scanners were fully charged and ready; the sixth, the one he'd come to think of as his own, was charging in the power point at the head of Van's bed. Two small cases of tools, for collecting Cylon neural tissue. Two cameras, along with several extra data crystals and extra power packs. The little case of hypos... he closed that up again, quickly.

All ready.

Sixteen centars. He wasn't sure that he could sleep, but maybe here he could try; here, home at last.





39 Quartus 6490, 07.00
Shield Ship Dhow

Van woke him three centars out from Molecay.

"I'm glad you were able to sleep." She turned her back to give him privacy as he got into his Shield blacks. "You look better."

He managed a tight grin back at her when she turned around again. "I needed it. Thank you. Did you manage to get some rest?"

"I've had most of the crew on down-time. I bunked in with Khaled, my lieutenant. You'll meet him on the bridge later."

"I could have bunked in with him. You didn't need to turn out of your own quarters."

Van laughed and shrugged. "Khal snores. I'm used to it, but you wouldn't have got a micron's sleep. He's a bit disgruntled, by the way. I'm leaving him up here to mind the shop and he's a mite put out by that."

Apollo gave her a thoughtful look.

"I want to keep him out of whatever crap you have lined up for us, Apollo. He's young yet."

"Yes." Apollo lifted the backpack and the refrigerated case onto the bed and left them there, ready. "Your office, to go over everything again?"

"How long have you been on a battlestar?" she asked wryly, leading the way. "You do remember that my office is a computer station squeezed into the back of the bridge?"

"It'll have a desk and we can print out the schematics and take a look at them. Most battlestars have offices bigger than the Hype's entire bridge. I'd really forgotten how small Shield ships are."

"I'd have thought my massive cabin would have reminded you." Van stood back to let a couple of crewmen pass, nodding at their sketchy salutes. They both stared at Apollo as they passed. "I'm lending you my top sergeant as your right-hand. Haydn's a twenty-yahren veteran and as tough as they come. He'll watch your back while you do whatever it is you're going to do."

"Thanks," said Apollo, and meant it.

He followed her onto the bridge. It was as tiny as he remembered the Hyperion's to be and just for a micron or two he allowed himself to fantasise that this was Hype, this was his bridge, and the Lieutenant turning to greet them wasn't a short, wiry native of Aries who snored but his own Rosie , who didn't. It only lasted a micron. Rosie and the Hype were far away, Tarrant was Hyperion's captain now, and he didn't think that Rosie was his own anymore. Even when he got back home for real, Apollo wasn't expecting to get the Hype back. He dreamed about it, but he wasn't expecting it.

Lieutenant Khaled greeted them quietly, too discreet to stare as openly as the crewmen had. He cleared away various bits of flotsam from the small desk and returned to the command chair, giving his attention to the Dhow's sneaking run in to the target.

"Where's the rest?" asked Apollo, while waiting for the schematics to print.

Van turned the monitor and brought up the sensor array. "Pegasus is where she should be, coming up from beta sector. We'll hook up with her in another centar. That group of signals there must be the Hertford and the two transports. They should reach the shelter of the second planet in another couple of centars. Looks like everyone's on target and on schedule."

"And no sign that the Cylons have picked up on us, yet." Someone handed Apollo a mug of caff, and he thanked them absently, concentrating on studying a printout from the Dhow's sensor arrays while the caffeine cleared the last remnants of sleep from his brain. "When was this done?"

"Within the last half centar."

Apollo scanned it closely, noting the tiny spot that was this sector's main defensive military base, a good three systems away. There were no energy signatures to indicate that they'd been spotted or that the defensive base was launching to intercept them. "It all looks quiet."

Van nodded. "As the grave."

"Well, providing they don't get any early warning, we should get a good run at Molecay: seven or eight centars, at least."

"I hope we don't need that long."

"Me too." Shield was used to fast runs in and fast runs out, and any prolonged time sitting on the ground tended to make the average Shield Warrior a little nervous. "How many units do you have, Van?"

"Seven. Five warriors each unit, plus Haydn and me and Khal. I'll be leaving Khal and one unit up here."

Thirty warriors for the raid, then. It would have to be enough.

"It'll be dusk by the time we get there."

She nodded. "Not that it makes a lot of difference, given they use infra-red."

"Makes us feel better though."

Van snorted, and pulled the schematics from the printer. "Here you go. This one was taken at dawn, midsummer—Molecay's summer that is. The base is set in the middle of an alluvial plain, in the bend made by a river that runs mostly east-west. Perimeter fences are here." Her finger traced a circle.

"Heavily fortified." Apollo could have drawn the base in his sleep, from several different elevations and with full artistic perspective, but he pored over it anyway, checking and rechecking to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

"You can see here the main buildings and these appear to be the holding pens where the prisoners are kept. We've never got close enough to do an accurate count, as we obeyed orders about not going in on the ground. This one here was taken at noon, late autumn; from the shadows you can get a better idea of the size of the pens..."




"This is Sergeant Haydn, Apollo. He'll be sticking to you throughout the entire operation. This is Major Apollo, Sarge."

Apollo held out his hand, hoping he was hiding his discomfort about the temporary rank that General Martens had cursed him with. Haydn shook hands respectfully, but his eyes were as watchful and as measuring as Van's. Apollo smiled slightly. Haydn was wearing the same expression that his own Sergeant Tim would have worn, the respect masking a wariness that wouldn't be assuaged until Apollo had proved himself where it mattered—on the ground. That Apollo was Shield counted in his favour on whatever mental scorecard the Sergeant was measuring him against; but on the demerit side, he wasn't Dhow.

"I'm pleased to be working with you, Sergeant," he said, etiquette preventing him from using the more familiar 'Sarge'. He hadn't earned that right yet, and perhaps never would. "This is going to be messy and I'm glad to have you nursemaiding me."

"Whatever's needed, sir," said the stolid Sergeant.

Again, the stolidity was Tim incarnate, unwilling to unbend until this unknown officer had proved himself. "We have to bring back some samples. They're as important as anything else we get. Who's your top team leader?"

"Corporal Danzer." Haydn glanced at Van Trion for confirmation. The Captain nodded. "She's next after me, Major."

Apollo nodded. The best corporal out of the lot, then, and the one marked for promotion. Danzer would be good. "Thank you. There are some specific and important samples that I need her to collect. You know that each centurion has a node of organic material. Do you know how to remove it?"

The Sergeant flickered a glance sideways at Van, the only outward sign of any perturbation he may have felt. "No, sir."

"It's not on my usual training schedule," said Van, dryly.

"It's easier to extract than you might think. Once we've taken the base, I'll want Danzer and her team collecting nodes from as many centurions as possible."

"I don't think she or anyone else will know how to remove the stuff either, sir."

"I'll show Danzer how, when we get there." Apollo grinned, tightly. "They'll have to bring her the heads."

Van Trion managed to look impassive. Haydn just nodded.

"There's a good reason for this. And I need another recommendation now." Apollo's hand drifted down to touch the scanner on his belt, reassuring himself that it was there. "We'll have six units down there with us—"

"I'm leaving Haines's unit up here to man the ship," put in Van, speaking to Haydn.

"—and once we've secured the base, we need to check on the prisoners. This operation isn't as simple as just herding them together to get to the transport ships. I need to know what we'll be carrying. I have five modified scanners to be used to check the freed prisoners and any one of them who shows up on the scanner is to be separated from the rest. Discounting Danzer's team, who are the five most methodical people in those units, the ones who can be trusted to do this thoroughly?"

"I'll pick you out the people you need. What are they looking for, sir?"

"The scanners are preset."

Haydn's eyes narrowed. "Very well, sir."

"Thank you. It's important, Sergeant."

"Just in case you hadn't cottoned on to it, this really isn't a normal raid, Sarge," said Van, quietly. She glanced up as the rest of her small crew filed into the main compartment – as on the Hype, it served as recreation room, dining room and briefing room. Haydn went off to organise them, and Van turned to Apollo. "They'll just have to bring her the heads?"

Apollo nodded.

"You're not for real. If this is what you freaks at the Strategy Unit come up with, remind me not to be jealous of your privileges."

"I don't think I have any," said Apollo.

He looked the warriors over, aware that beside him Haydn was dividing his time between getting the warriors settled and watching Apollo. He counted them quickly: thirty, as promised. He waited until they'd all settled in, the rows of watchful faces fixed on him, most carefully expressionless. Van introduced him.

Then he took a deep breath and started.




Dhow and Pegasus would go in together. Pegasus would take out all the Cylon outer defence markers and destroy the base Raider squadrons. Three squadrons, Van's people had estimated; around sixty Raiders. Par for the course for a Cylon base, really, and plenty of playmates for the Juggernaut.

Hertford and the two transports would move into position and wait, the Hertford's job to protect the transports at all costs. Hertford's thirty Vipers would be riding picket on the transports, protecting them from stray Raiders. A slow waiting game for Captain Illych, but they couldn't afford to leave the lightly armed transports vulnerable and unprotected. The transports were crucial. There was no point in releasing the prisoners if they had no way of getting them off Molecay, once freed.

Dhow would go in when Pegasus engaged the Raiders, take the base and free the prisoners. Pegasus, having defeated the Raiders, would move into geo-stationary orbit above the base. Apollo would call in the transports' shuttles: Pegasus's Vipers would meet them half-way, and take over escort duties from the Hertford's fighters, and bring the shuttles into the base to take off the prisoners and then escort them out again, handing them over to the Hertford half-way back.

Dhow would leave, after seeding the rest of the base with solenite explosive. Apollo, back in his borrowed Viper, would co-ordinate the destruction of the base: blowing it up from below simultaneously with the Pegasus striking from orbit and vaporising the surface with laser missiles.

Run for home; Pegasus, the two transports and Hertford in tight formation with their Vipers constantly in the air, the Dhow ranging ahead to scout their way back, watching for enemy reactions – because by then all the Cylon bases in the sector would be on alert and they'd have to fight their way home, probably.

And that was it, in essence. The Plan.

Apollo reckoned that if you rattled it off fast enough, it could almost sound convincing.





39 Quartus 6490, 10.65 Colonial Time
Dusk on Molecay

They came into the system from the opposite point to where Molecay was on its orbit, using the sun to hide them, relying on its flaring electromagnetic fields to camouflage them and deceive and confuse the Cylon listening stations until they were so close in that the Cylons could do almost nothing about it.

Pegasus led the way, Cain completely focused on the job of tripping the base's defence grid and taking out the defensive Raider squadrons. Sixty Raiders were more than enough to keep Cain happy; not to mention, said Apollo (if only to himself, and sotto voce at that), keep the man gainfully and usefully employed. Cain relished the job. At the edge of the system he launched all Vipers, seeking out and destroying the automated watching stations that formed the outer perimeter of the base's defence system. With her Vipers gathered around her, Pegasus made a lunge forward to reach the base and engage the hastily-launched Cylon defenders.

Apollo, listening in to the communications traffic, left Cain to it. The Commander certainly didn't need unsolicited advice from a mere captain on how to do his end of the job, and was attacking the base defence lines with his usual gusto. And while Cain played, the Hertford and the two transports moved to take up their holding position behind the second planet in the system, an arid and unenticing little ball of dust whose only useful purpose was to hide the transports.

Apollo and the Shield Warriors were already on the ground by then. As soon as the battlestar had engaged the Cylon squadrons, Van had abandoned all attempts at subterfuge and had Dhow racing for the planet at full speed. This was no usual sneaky, sneaking Shield raid.

This was, effectively, invasion.




Small as the Dhow was, she was fitted with ten Raptors and two small, sleek shuttles. They used them all, and the Viper Apollo had borrowed. Although the Raptors escorted the shuttles into Molecay, guarding against the unlikely event that Cain would let any Raider stray away from him and the joyful game he was playing out in the rest of the system, their main task was to blast their way into the base, creating confusion and getting as many holes punched into the ground defences as they could manage.

Fast and hard landings were not Apollo's favourites, but a fast and hard landing was needed here. By the time that the Pegasus had sliced through the Raider squadrons and was approaching close orbit, he and the Shield Warriors had hit the ground running and were already inside the main perimeter, leaving their shuttles, the Viper and half the Raptors parked a few hundred yards from the perimeter fence. The rest of the Raptors flew guard over their heads, taking out as many Cylons as they could see.

Quite a juggling act, not to damage the buildings too badly and not to damage the holding pens at all, trying to spare the prisoners as much as possible.

Within five centons of hitting the ground, they were inside the perimeter, scrambling over the tangled remains that were all that was left after the Raptors' laser shells had torn through the fence. The warriors all carried lethal laser rifles, short and squat and compact and thoroughly effective. The so-called laser shells fried a centurion's 'brain' if you hit it in the head or essential circuitry if you got it in the chest. Apollo tended towards chest shots himself. There was more to aim for, less chance he'd miss, and he didn't trust himself to go for the fancier head shots in the heat and speed of battle when all that mattered was that the tinheads went down and stayed down without damaging any of his warriors. He'd take no chances with their lives if he could help it.

No more chances than he had to, anyway.

Apollo ran with Danzer's team, the one assigned to protect him, Haydn at his right hand side and Van close by. The Sergeant was never more than a yard or two away from Apollo, and just beyond him ran Danzer, the refrigerated case slung over a shoulder that was broader than Apollo's. Haydn was efficient and competent, every move composed and economical. Apollo didn't know whether or not to envy him that. While this was where he belonged, where his heart was, he couldn't be as unemotional about a job: his heart rate increased, his pulses raced and his mouth got dry. Elation, excitement, fear – he felt any or all of these, he didn't know which, but then he thought that he was introspective enough without analysing himself to that degree. He only knew that he couldn't get through a job without the emotions that keyed him up, that heightened every sense and had his mind racing, computing the chances, the odds, the options, adjusting constantly to whatever was happening. Beside him Haydn was stolid, seemingly unmoved, watching his back: a good sergeant, Apollo thought, another Tim.

What seemed now to be half a lifetime ago, Apollo had described Molecay to Felix as unpleasant kind of place. With hindsight, he could see that his judgment had been clouded by emotion. Even without knowing then what the Cylons might be doing to their human prisoners, he had hated the idea that they were being held on Molecay at all. Telnos had taught him how terrible it could be, living under Cylon occupation. However frightened and lonely and hopeless he'd been on Telnos, it would be worse for those on Molecay.

But, unlike Telnos, Molecay was not, in itself, an unpleasant place. The river ran mostly east to west, its greenish water dull under an overcast, darkening sky. In the middle of the valley floor it took a sudden bend to the south before turning sharply west again, the base sitting in the bend as if in the crook of a riparian knee. But the river valley itself was green with late Spring; and even if many of the plants and animals were unfamiliar, the general feel of the place was, surprisingly, as hopeful as Spring on Caprica.

And in this strange, green, pretty Spring-like place Apollo ran and fought and fired at the slower, clumsier silver cyborgs coming against them; breathless, excited, yelling orders, trying to see where every other one of the Shield Warriors were, trying to ensure that they got into the base with the fewest possible casualties, trying to count the enemy, trying to kill the enemy, trying not to get killed, trying to be everywhere at once... trying to win.




It didn't take as long as he'd feared. Cylons were not the fastest moving, or the fastest thinking, life-forms in the universe. Apollo had concluded a long time ago that whilst he couldn't hope to match one of the huge silver bodies for sheer strength and endurance, he more than outmatched them in wit and speed. His reaction time, any human's reaction time, made the Cylons look clumsy and sluggish in comparison. Adrenalin gave him the edge.

Adrenalin had brought him, unharmed, to the centre of the base, to the long low building that they suspected held the laboratories. He leaned up against the building wall, chest heaving to get air into lungs that were still labouring with the strain of supporting a body so focused on the animalistic urge to run and fight that his heart had pounded until his chest ached. The blood still thrummed in his temples, slowing now, giving him the mild headache he always expected after combat. He ignored it. It would clear on its own in a centon or two. He looked around, checking on everyone, kneading the tightening muscles above his artificial knee. It had held out well. He was a little slower, as his Triad playing had shown him, but his surgeons hadn't lied when they'd said they'd give him almost full mobility.

The noise was always what Apollo remembered most about a fire fight. Oddly, he was only peripherally aware of it while the fight lasted, registering the shouts and screams and explosions and using the data they brought him as he assessed and reassessed what was going on around him. But he wasn't able, while he was in the thick of it, to analyse them and put them into their proper place. It was usually the point at which everything grew quiet again that his brain processed and replayed all he'd heard, as if the memories had been parked somewhere safe until he had the time to deal with them.

So it was only now, while he got his breath back and kneaded the kinks out of his knee, that his mind added the audio track to the memories that were stored there. And now he remembered the noise the rifle had made, the whooshing whoop of short bursts of intense energy being flung from the muzzle, the yells of fright and anger from the troopers. Someone had been screaming.

He looked around quickly for the source, trying to do a quick head count. Thirty yards away someone was on the ground, a huddled mass of arms and legs, another warrior bending over them. The screaming had died away into a pained gurgling.

Van landed beside him, slumping against the building wall with an audible whoof, sighing out a relieved breath. Apollo arched an eyebrow at her.

"We've got all the tinheads, I think," she said. "Most of them are probably up there with Cain right now anyway, not leaving a lot of centurions down here."

"Our status?"

"Two down, status unknown." She looked over to the downed warrior, her face tight with the weight of responsibility. "The paramedic's checking now. What next?"

"Can you take a look at the prisoners and get the people Haydn picked out to start scanning them? And then join me in here." He indicated the building with a jerk of his head.

She gave him a very sour look, but nodded and jogged away, calling on one of the Corporals as she went. Apollo looked around for a centurion. One was lying on its back a few yards away, chest-hit and immobile. Circuitry spilled from the hole in its chest, thin tendrils of smoke coiling up from the exposed wiring. Memory replayed to remind him that he'd got this one himself, that it was one of his kills He walked over to it.

"Danzer."

Both sergeant and corporal were right beside him in a flash, Haydn helping her ease the refrigerated storage box from her shoulders.

Apollo used his hand laser to take off the head. "Here, see this thin line running along the back of the cranium? It's a sort of seal. You can slit it with a knife – " He substituted the laser with the knife that normally lived tucked into the top of his boot. "Apply a bit of pressure here, and it will fall open."

The head opened like a sliced metallic melon. The node lay in its nest of wiring and circuitry, the small and wrinkled remnant of what had once been an organic Cylon. He took out one of the sets of tools that Felix had provided; a basic toolkit, just a couple of cutters and tweezers. It was all he needed. Apollo cut through the wiring quickly with the small pair of cutters and used the tweezers to lift the node carefully, dropping it into the jar that Haydn was holding out. He wiped his fingers on his pants, even though he hadn't had to touch the loathsome grey lump.

"That's all it takes. Okay?"

"Think so, sir." Danzer located another downed Cylon nearby and came back with the head. "Nice knife, sir. Can I borrow it?"

Surprised that she didn't have one of her own, Apollo handed it over.

"Thanks. Didn't want to ruin the edge on mine." She grinned, cheekily.

Apollo grinned back, acknowledging the hit. "It had better be sharp when I get it back!"

She chuckled, slitting the seal and levering the head apart. "Easier than I'd expected," she said, dropping the node into a jar. "Okay, sir. I can handle this."

Apollo and Haydn left her to it. Her team was already head-hunting. The rest of the warriors were facing out across the base, checking for hostiles and working their way to the holding pens. Van was at the fence of the nearest cage. Apollo could just see the prisoners, a few braver ones moving up the fences now that the short, brutal fire fight was over.

Haydn paused at the door and glanced at Apollo, waiting for instructions. Apollo darted across to the other side of the door.

"Now," he said, softly.

Haydn took out the door mechanism with his hand laser. When it slid open, they both flattened against the building wall, using it for cover, waiting. Nothing. No bolt of energy from a Cylon photon rifle, no bulky centurion bodies. Dead quiet and still.

Apollo went in first, moving fast, leaping to one side and getting out of the bulls-eye that the doorway made, flattening against the inside of the wall this time, searching the gloomy interior for any sign of trouble. Haydn leapt in behind him, laser ready, alert to anything that moved.

"Clear, I think," said Apollo.

The building was enormous, a factory spreading out before him, easily as big as a battlestar's landing bays. The lighting was dim and peculiarly blue, filling the place with shadows, but what little Apollo could see of the machinery, none of it made much sense. Certainly none of it looked like the schematics that Felix had so helpfully downloaded for him. Most of the equipment seemed to come up seamlessly out of the floor and down from the ceiling... the whole building was one machine, Apollo realised, with the equipment meeting at waist height to form long, slender pods, each with a clear cover, stretching off into the shadow, row on serried row. The dull blue light, occasionally sparking with intense sapphire, came from fibre optics integrated into the machinery. The whole place was humming with power, the low vibration just on the edge of hearing. He felt that it was resonating uncomfortably inside his bones.

He didn't like moments of truth. They made him sick. He had to move, he had to look to see whether or not his fears were justified, to see whether or not those poor sods in the holding pens had been dissected, had been harvested into grotesque raw materials to create monsters.

He didn't move.

"Sir?"

He glanced at Haydn. His ears were buzzing and he could feel the sweat prickling at the corners of his eyes and on his upper lip. He blinked rapidly.

"Sir?"

Apollo shifted his laser into his right hand, rubbing a damp palm against his pants leg to dry it. His mouth filled with saliva, making him swallow hard. And again.

"Wait here," he said, astonished at the hoarse croak his voice had become. He took a step forward.

This was what the job was all about: confronting moments of truth and, in the process, confronting your own capacity for inhumanity.

Over to the right, something rustled and moved. Apollo jumped and swung to face it, heart pounding, bringing up his laser. But Haydn was faster. The Sergeant fired twice and whatever it was back there in the dim recesses of this place blundered noisily into one of the pods and slowly folded down into itself, slipping out of sight.

"What the hell was that?" Apollo's voice shook as badly as the laser in his hand.

"Dunno. Not human, anyway." Haydn sounded calm enough. "Too tall and it didn't walk right."

"We'd better check." Apollo abandoned his original intention of leaving Haydn at the door and forced himself into a run, trying not to look into the pods he was passing and the dark shapes under the curved, clear canopies.

"Fuck!" Haydn had looked, then, more closely than Apollo was allowing himself to do. "Fuck! Major!"

"I know," said Apollo. "Later."

The thing, whatever it was, had fallen between two pods. Impossibly tall for a human, it wore a long robe of colourful metallic fabric, glittering where the subdued lights caught it. Its arms were flung out, thin and bonelessly floppy; looking useless, something done for show, for an attempt at verisimilitude with the human pattern the Cylons had used as a model. The head was a clear dome, tapering to slenderness at the top, with a sketchy red mouth and round, pretend eyes: a clown's face, the makeup applied by an amateurish hand. It looked obscene.

Whatever this was, it was no worker drone. It looked nothing like a centurion.

Apollo bent down over it, laser at the ready. Inside the clear head he could see what looked like an unusually large node, scattered with tiny, pinpoint lights. Even as he looked, the lights dimmed and went out.

Haydn was completely shaken out of his previous calm. "What the hell is that?"

"IL-series Cylon. Nearly at the top of their evolutionary tree. I've never seen a whole one before."

The noise Haydn made shrieked of disgust and fear. "What the hell is this place?"

Apollo straightened, looking up to see Van walking slowly towards them. Her face was white, the mouth drawn down.

"Sergeant, go and hold the door and don't let anyone else in. Get someone to bring me some refrigerated body bags."

Haydn didn't move.

"Sarge!" said Apollo, more sharply. The man's eyes moved in his direction, wide and frightened. "Body bags, sergeant, and go and hold the door."

Haydn shuddered, but the sharpness had been enough to bring him back. He turned away slowly and made for the door. Van nodded briefly as he passed her.

She looked down at the IL Cylon for a micron or two, using her foot to prod at it. When she turned the horrified, troubled gaze to him, she'd evidently dismissed the Cylon from consideration.

"Did you know?" she asked. She pointed to the pod the IL Cylon had fallen behind, hands shaking as badly as her voice. "Did you fucking know?"

Now he had to look.

Now he couldn't put it off any longer.