Second Elegy, Fifth Verse
Auld Acquaintance

 

 

19 Primus 6491: Midday, ship's time
Boeotia Penal Colony

There were flies everywhere, buzzing and crawling wherever the Cylons had been.

Starbuck stayed close by him as he worked his way slowly and methodically through the base, checking every building. Parrish and a group of MI hovered too, but Apollo thought their instincts were less protective. He intercepted more than one angry glance, overheard more than one almost indistinguishable mutter: the troopers didn't like what they'd seen of this base. Apollo couldn't blame them. He'd never liked it, himself.

Instead he concentrated on checking off the dead against the data he kept on the secure datapad where he kept all the Molecay information, and in trying to retrieve what he could of the base's database. But the entire computer network had been wiped, the servers reduced to puddles of melted metal with the odd bit of circuitry sticking up out of them, and each and every terminal had been trashed. Apollo checked each one, regardless.

Starbuck lost control only once, in the block where the children had lived. Distress had him swearing and punching at the wall in frustration. Beside him, Parrish looked sick and avoided meeting Apollo's eyes. Apollo thought that Parrish would have rather punched him than a wall, any day of the secton. Instead the MI lieutenant concentrated on brushing away flies, only for them to settle on another small body an instant later. More than one of the Infantrymen carefully putting the children into body bags, had suspiciously wet eyes.

Apollo had seen worse, and for a centon he wondered if what he had seen had warped something in him, atrophied something. He glanced away from little Sabah, her dead hands clutching at Doctor Ramses' body, remembering the small fingers stroking his sleeve.

"I know," he said, awkwardly, touching Starbuck's shoulder. "I know."

And after the children, there was nowhere else he could go, no other avoidance he could make. Starbuck and Parrish, and four of the troopers, followed him to Felix's lab.

Felix lay beside his desk. There were flies here, too.

"Apollo?" said Starbuck, after a centon. His tone was sharp.

Apollo managed to look away from Felix. Starbuck was watching him, looking uneasy and anxious.

"He killed himself, this one," said Parrish. "A few of them did. They must have been cornered, no way out."

"Captain Felix knew that there really is a fate worse than death." Apollo relaxed hands that had clenched so hard that his nails had left little red crescents in the palm. He glanced at the marks, surprised, before focusing on Parrish. "The two other bodies, the ones you mentioned. Who opened the capsules earlier?"

"My sergeant. The capsules were on the bench there. She called me—"

"Did anyone else see them?"

Parrish stared. "No."

"Good. You'll both have to sign a security declaration." Apollo searched Felix's desk for what he wanted. "Where are they now? Back in the freezer?"

"Yes," said Parrish, terse.

Apollo opened the big freezer at one side of the lab, waiting until the cold air roiled away before he could be sure. As he'd suspected, the IL-A Cylon had gone. He beckoned to the troopers to lift out the remaining capsules, ordering them to put the coffins onto a nearby workbench. He had to check, but he made sure no-one else in the room could see into the coffins while he took a quick glance inside. Behind him, he heard the hiss of Parrish's sharp breath, but he'd seen these bodies too often now for sharp breaths of his own. He sealed the locks using the plastic binders and the Strategy Unit seal he'd taken from Felix's desk drawer, pocketing the seal when he was done. When he turned around, they were all watching him uneasily.

Parrish cleared his throat. "What are you doing?"

"Put them back into the freezer." Apollo said to the troopers, and turned to Parrish. "Don't re-open the capsules—they'll be checked again when the recovery unit gets here."

Parrish had the sense to send the troopers out of the room when they were done. "Are all of them like you, the people involved in this… this whatever the fuck this is? What the fuck is going on here? Kids dead, our people dead, those mutilated bodies… did you have something to do with how they got like that? Were you experimenting on these poor fuckers? Fuck, but I won't let this pass! It can't be legal!"

Apollo sat down in Felix's chair, reaching under the desk with one hand. "You can go now, Lieutenant. Get the burial detail working, would you?"

Whatever reaction Parrish had expected, it wasn't that. He stared, his jaw dropping. "Wha—?"

Apollo looked up at him, his fingers finding the release switch. "I've told you. This is classified. I can't tell you what's been going on here, and you should be grateful for that, because you really would not like it. I don't sleep well these days because of this, and I wouldn't wish what I know on anyone." Once activated, the switch tripped the circuit to allow the cover at the front of the security drawer to open. He typed in the password into the keypad and pressed his thumb against the tiny scanner. The drawer slid open. "It's legal, Lieutenant, but I wouldn't for one micron say that I thought it was moral. Please start the burials."

Parrish's hands rose and fell in a gesture that expressed only bewilderment.

"Oh, and get someone to bring me a refrigerated capsule."

Starbuck caught Parrish by one arm and tugged him away. "You'd better do what he says. He's not really a Fleet captain."

"I guessed," said Parrish, bitterly, and stamped out.

Apollo took out the little box and opened it. The data crystals were secure, nested in protective foam.

"What's on them?" asked Starbuck.

"The network here is in total meltdown. Nothing's retrievable, not from any terminal in the place. The Cylons made sure of that. But they didn't know Felix the way I did. He backed up all the data, every single night." Apollo closed the lid of the box and slipped it into his belt pouch. "I knew it would be here. Good old Felix. He's never let me down yet. Not really."

"This is what freaked you out last yahren, isn't it, when you went away for a few days? You came here, didn't you? What's going on, Apollo?"

Apollo's mouth twisted. "It's classified, Starbuck. I can't tell you."

There was a short silence, while Starbuck's mouth tightened down into a hard line that could rival Parrish's grimace for resentful anger, and the Lieutenant kicked at the leg of the desk. "Parrish is right. This doesn't feel right."

"No, it isn't. It isn't right." Apollo focused on his hands for a micron. He was tired, bone-tired, and his right hand ached abominably. He massaged it with his left. "I'll tell you this much. This all comes from T18, all those yahrens ago, and sometimes I wish you hadn't managed to get me out of there."

"For fuck's sake, Apollo!"

"T18 led to Molecay, Starbuck, and then right here where my best friend blew his brains out rather than be taken alive, because Felix knew what the Cylons would do to him if they captured him alive."

"Molecay?" A pause. "I was right. You do know something about the Pegasus!"

Apollo looked up. "Take my advice, Starbuck. If it ever looks like they're going to capture you and there's really no way out, follow Felix's example. God knows, I will."

Starbuck looked at Felix's body and quickly away again. "Your best friend, you said."

"Yeah." Apollo looked at Felix and didn't look away. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, Apollo."

"So am I." Apollo got out of the chair, to squat down beside Felix. He laid a hand on Felix's chest. "I've known him for yahrens. He was in my class at SSI and we've worked together ever since. We were good friends." Apollo's eyes stung and he had to blink hard to clear them. He cleared his throat, but his voice was unusually raspy, all the same. "I was going to stand with him this summer, at his wedding."

"Shit," said Starbuck, softly, coming closer.

"You'd have liked him, Starbuck. You two were a lot alike. He was clever and funny and he snarked and made me laugh, and he was always there, through all the fucking mess with Joss and when I was screwed up about you and Rosie, and fuck it, but we made a brilliant team. None better. He worked with me on T18 and Molecay, and you wouldn't believe how many other missions we pulled off."

"Apollo—"

"And shit, but I was mad with him about this place and in the end, Felix was right. We need to know. We need to know what the fuck the tinheads have been doing to those people and I just walked away from it. I just left him here."

"C'mon, Apollo. You can't blame—"

"And you know, Starbuck, if he hadn't been so fucking straight, I think I might have loved him a little bit."

"Oh shit," said Starbuck, again. His hand closed over Apollo's shoulder.

"Just a little bit," said Apollo.