03 - Sagittarius is Bleeding (38 page)

And that was when it all became clear to Laura. Her mind leaped and
everything suddenly seemed cast into a stark and new relief…

Gods… I
was right the first time… it’s not trying to terrorize me… it’s not trying to drive me insane… it’s… it’s afraid… it’s afraid…it’s afraid and it wants my help to save it from… from what…? From…?

She heard another voice in her head, and it was Sarah Porter. Laura, feeling
as if she were on the brink of something, pushed her way back to reality. Her
teeth gritted, she said, “Mister… Mister Gunner son… you may… you may
go ahead…”

“Madame President,” Sarah said, still looking concerned. “I asked if you—”

“I heard what you asked,” Laura told her firmly, which was a lie since she
was barely holding on to her own surroundings. “Mr. Gunnerson is here… we’re
all here… let’s… move along.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, and then Wolf Gunnerson reached
into the inside pocket of his jacket and removed a sheaf of papers covered with
scribbling. “I had promised Madame President,” he said, “that were I given this
opportunity, I would inform you all of the truths of our sacred writings.”

“Your
sacred writings,” Sarah Porter reminded him. She was still glancing
every so often in Laura’s direction, but she was all-business enough to want to
get business matters back on track. “Your truths. Not ours.”

“I would like to think,” Gunnerson said mildly, “that truth is truth.”

Laura knew that everyone at the table was still casting glances in her
direction. She closed her eyes, opened them, and they were all still damned Sharon Valerii. Everyone in the room was… with,
insanely, the sole exception of D’anna Biers, who was studying her closely as if
dissecting her with her eyes. Laura had no idea what to make of that, and didn’t
try to figure it out. She closed her eyes firmly, as if battling a headache, and
when she opened them, everyone had returned to themselves…

… and the words
Sagittarius is bleeding NOW
were etched on the
table.

Wolf Gunnerson was smoothing the papers, and he began to read aloud:

“The race of humans thus was ended

A blinding final winter done

The sword of demons, hot with flame

Assured no mortals left to run.

The gods were dead, had fought their last

Consumed by snake and wolf and blood

And so their last remains were gone

All swept away, as if by flood.

The rainbow bridge was all destroyed

It crashed and cracked and split apart

And in so doing did away

With humanity’s last soul and heart.

Gods’ worshippers were gone to dust

The last assault, did not survive,

Their final crash, their final burn

There was no human left alive.”

He paused, as if he was going to continue reading and then, sounding like a
polite literature professor, said almost apologetically, “It goes on for several
more pages, but truthfully, it’s just a reiteration of what’s already been said.
The writers of the Edda tended to be repetitive in order to make certain their point was made.”

The Quorum members looked at each other in confusion, as if trying to see if
anyone knew what Gunnerson was driving at.

“I can’t say that I understand, Mr. Gunnerson,” said Laura Roslin.

He gave her a vaguely pitying smile. “It’s all right there, Madame President.
A blind man could see it: We’re not supposed to be here. We were not destined to
survive. The ‘blinding final winter’ is the nuclear winter of the Cylon attack… the signal that our gods are dead. And since our gods are the only ones that
truly count, that means there’s really no point in anything else existing. The
vast majority of humanity was annihilated by the winter, as was supposed to be
the case. We, the Midguardians, survived so as to make sure the final prophecies
would be fulfilled, and we came close,” and he brought his thumb and forefinger
almost together, “this close. ‘Their final crash, their final burn.’ We were
intended to die in the heart of that vast, all-consuming star. But that was
thwarted at the last moment by Adama, displaying cleverness that Loki would have
envied. But no matter, no matter. It’s being attended to even as we speak.”

Slowly Laura Roslin stood as the rest of the Quorum continued to shift
uncomfortably in their seats, clearly not liking the sound of what they were
hearing. She whispered, so softly that they had to strain to hear her, “The
blood of humanity… on your hands… on the hands of Sagittaron… of
Sagittarius…”

“Now wait a minute!” Zarek said. “I didn’t know anything about this!”

“What this?” demanded Sarah Porter. “What’s going on?”

And now the reporters, stirred up, started firing questions. Matters were
spiraling completely out of control, and everything snapped into place for Laura
Roslin, the final tumblers clicking in her mind. Even though she made no attempt to shout, her voice still rose
above the crowd as she said, “Your precious book was never missing. You knew
your daughter had it the entire time.”

“Yes,” Gunnerson said, looking mildly impressed.

“You did it to make an impetus for this meeting. You wanted us all together.
Now.”

“Yes.”

Now all questioning and back talk had died out, and the silence was heavy as
everyone in the room waited for this exchange to come to a conclusion that
clearly only Laura Roslin and Wolf Gunnerson knew.

She took a deep breath and said, “You’re planning to wipe out the entire
Quorum in one shot.”

He inclined his head slightly. “Yes.”

“What!”
Zarek almost exploded out of his chair, and he grabbed Gunnerson
by the arm. “What the frak are you talking ab—”

Gunnerson swung his arm casually and Zarek was knocked backwards, sent
crashing over his chair. Wolf made no other motion. There even seemed to be,
insanely enough, sadness in his eyes.

“Billy,” said Laura, without budging from her place. Billy was standing
several feet away, looking shocked, uncomprehending. “Contact
Galactica
immediately. Tell them an immediate attack is very likely.”

Billy started to back out of the room, but he never took his eyes off
Gunnerson. But Wolf made no move toward him and Billy got out with no problem.
Instead Gunnerson said calmly, with total conviction, “Call whomever you want.
They can’t save you.”

“They can and they will,” Laura Roslin replied, her chin tilted upward in
defiance.

“Oh my gods!”

It was Sarah Porter. Something had caught her eye out one of the ports, and she had cried out in shock. Laura looked to see what it was
that had provoked the response.

It was the
Bifrost.

It was still a good distance away, but the ship had turned away from its
customary position in the fleet. Instead it was moving crosswise across the
flow, attempting to navigate its way toward
Colonial One.

It was on a direct collision course. If its course went unaltered, it would
smash
Colonial One
amidships, rupturing the hull of both vessels, and
both of them would explode, fireballs snuffed out within seconds in the airless
vacuum of space.

Pandemonium broke out in the conference room, which was instantly transformed
into a maelstrom of accusation, fury, and fear.

And in the midst of it all, D’anna Biers—the eye of the storm—smiled wanly to
herself and slowly shook her head.

We tried,
she thought sadly.
We tried so hard. We tried our little
booby trap the last time, after I shook Gaeta’s hand during the making of the
documentary and inserted that little listening device into it. We tried to herd
you into a situation where you would have been so completely overwhelmed by our
forces that you would have had no choice but to surrender. We could have
extracted Sharon’s baby at that point… perhaps even taken a percentage of you
prisoner and turned you into workers. You wouldn’t have been completely
exterminated. A handful would have survived to serve us, and wouldn’t that have
been appropriate? But you had to be oh-so-clever to avoid the trap. So this time… this time we finish it. Or at the very least, we cripple you by destroying
your entire membership and your civilian leaders.

We tried to be generous, but you simply weren’t willing to allow it to
happen. For this one, you have no one to blame but yourself.

We know where you’re going to Jump to. If you try to get away, we’re waiting
for you, and we’ll blow what’s left of you to bits.

Too bad about Sharon, though. I bet the baby would have had her eyes.

“Cylon raiders!”

The members of Adama’s command crew had barely had the opportunity to
register that
Colonial One
was in deep trouble when space all around them
was alive with Cylon raiders spinning out of subspace and angling toward the
fleet. They came out firing, and even though Adama had the pilots scrambling to
their vessels, he was certain they were losing out on precious time.

“Vipers away!” called Dualla.

“Gaeta!” said Tigh with growing urgency as he crossed over toward him. “Get
those coordinates for the Jump up and ready!” Despite the gravity of the
situation, he was wise enough not to say anything beyond that, nor was Gaeta
engaging in the standard operating procedure of getting verbal confirmation from
other officers in CIC as to the specifics of the coordinates. Instead Gaeta was
keeping his big mouth shut as he readied the coordinates and the fleet’s Jump.

Adama’s eyes were riveted, however, on the
Bifrost
as it approached
Colonial One.
Neither ship was especially speedy or maneuverable; both were
outfitted with FTL drives, but that did nothing for them when they were operating in standard space and moving with
the alacrity of a drunken cow.

“Fire a warning shot across their bow,” said Adama. He was furious with
himself for being hamstrung. Helo and Starbuck—Starbuck, for frak’s sake—were
on the
Bifrost
along with two of his marines. If the warning shot didn’t
take, he was going to have to seriously consider blowing the ship out of space.
This would end the Midguardian threat, but it would also be the end of his
people. Of Helo, of… of Starbuck…

A single shot from the
Galactica’s
big cannons hurtled past the
Bifrost
as it started to approach
Colonial One.
It seemed
frighteningly as if the
Galactica
was firing upon the civilian fleet, but
there was no helping that now.

The shot hurtled past the
Bifrost
without striking it. The civilian
ship didn’t slow.

Suddenly the
Galactica
was rocked by concentrated fire power from the
Cylons. The big guns were needed elsewhere. If Adama didn’t have the target
shifted to the threat of the Cylons, there wasn’t going to be a fleet to worry
about, much less a single ship.

Starbuck… Helo…do something,
Adama thought desperately.

Boxey sprinted down the corridor, dodging the confused and terrified people
who were milling about, shouting that they were under attack, demanding to know
what was going on. Kara, Agathon, and the two marines were right behind him, and
they weren’t especially gentle about shoving people out of the way in order to
get where they were going.

Enough people were looking upset that Starbuck had the distinct impression
what was transpiring was news to them. It wasn’t as if there had been some vast
group plan to try and send the
Bifrost
winging its way into
Colonial One.
It was the
actions of a few people acting independently of the rest of the ship’s populace.
Unfortunately, those few people were in control of the ship.

“This way! It’s this way!” Boxey was shouting, and he rounded another corner.
The four adults were hard-pressed to keep up with him, but they managed to do so
and then they suddenly skidded to a halt as Boxey stood outside a large set of
double doors and started pounding on them in frustration.

“This the control room?” Starbuck demanded.

When Boxey nodded, Jolly shouted “Stay back!” and un-slung his weapon. Zac
followed suit, and they opened fire on the outer door. Their weapon fire bounced
harmlessly off the reinforced armored door.

“Frak!” shouted Starbuck.

Jolly slammed a fist against the door, which didn’t accomplish much since his
fire power had already proven insufficient. “We should have packed explosives!
Anyone got any?”

“I have an exploding cigar, but I left it back on
Galactica,”
Starbuck said with bleak humor. Then something prompted her to look overhead.
She saw the grillwork and a desperate thought occurred to her. She glanced over
at Boxey, who had automatically looked up to see what she was staring at, and
then the same thought occurred to him.

“Lift me up!” he cried out.

Instantly Starbuck started to second-guess her own notion, but there wasn’t
any time for such concerns. “Helo, get it clear!” she shouted, nodding toward
the overhead grillwork. Helo reached up, grab it and yanked it clear. Starbuck
interlaced her hands, providing a step up for him. Boxey planted one foot in the
aide and she propelled him up and into the ventilation shaft.

“Wait by the door!” he called. “I’ll get it open from inside!”

Jolly turned to Starbuck, looking none too enthused about the situation.
“We’re counting on the kid?”

“Yeah!” replied Starbuck, her eyes fiery with the demented gamble. “We’re
counting on the kid!”

Lee Adama, a.k.a. Apollo, wished to the gods that he had Starbuck out there
with him, guarding his tail. He’d never felt more vulnerable than now, when he
was fighting for his own life and that of
Galactica
and the best damned
pilot he knew wasn’t there.