THE SCHOOL OF FEAR

CHAPTER 12

Overlooking the crowd from her place standing on a gantry pulled up to the cockpit of her striker, Rhiannon suspected that most of Gamoray’s human population must have come to the air show, and it seemed that she’d met most of them as they lined up in an orderly row to climb the gantry, look into the cockpit of her striker, make a few suitable comments, and then go down to make room for the next people. There were so many that Rhiannon thought they would have done well to put the other three strikers that had come down on display to meet the demand. Everyone she’d met had made a favorable impression, but try as she might, and she did try hard, she could not shake the memory of the sound she and Leah had heard in Cain’s house. It inhabited her nightmares, and of late they’d gotten so bad that she’d had to ask Columbia’s life officer for something to suppress them. It was impossible, though, to connect the sound to these people. Were they, these men, their women, their fresh-faced and eager children, building Cylons, planning to take over or destroy the Colonies? It isn’t possible! she told herself. What were the connections between these people, Cain, the crew of the shuttle who had attacked them, and whoever was trying to keep the Colonials in the dark about what was going on on Gamoray? It was beyond her. There were plenty of puzzle pieces, but no discernible pattern as yet.
Finally it was time to shoo everyone away and prepare for her demo. Normally, getting ready to fly focused her mind wonderfully, but today she was too distracted to calm down. Her crew chief, Sergeant Toron, noticed her upset and drew her aside.
“All right, sir?” he asked.
“Yes and no.”
The sergeant smiled slightly. “Today, you are Sagitara. Don’t let us down.”
Rhiannon had to smile back. “I won’t, Sergeant, I promise you that.”

Miriam watched her daughter put her striker through its paces over the head of the crowd with a professional eye, commented to Noday, “She’s got it all down.”
“She’s always good,” Noday agreed.
The engine noise from the striker overpowered the sound of conversation around them until at one point Rhiannon pulled the striker around in a turn to make an approach directly at the crowd. At that point she was coming in nearly as fast as the sound from her engines and a sudden hush fell. In it, Miriam heard Colonel Bojay, who was standing behind her, comment to someone with him, “Fracking show-off striker pilots, nothing more useless in combat.”
As Rhiannon swept over and the sound hit them like a hammer, Miriam turned to look at him. Noday flinched a little—she would have been rather worried had Miriam glared at her like that—but Colonel Bojay inquired blandly, “Commander?”
“I do not happen to be wearing my black uniform at the moment,” Miriam said, “but if we were home, I would call you out for that.”
His wife, clinging to his arm, paled at the threat, but Bojay looked unmoved. Noday took Miriam’s arm; after a centon she turned back around. “He knows who I am,” Miriam said. “How dare he?”
“They’re just....not very respectful.”
“They’re not afraid, and that scares me,” Miriam replied.

Leah was making her way through a solitary dinner aboard the Columbia, feeling lonely and out of sorts in Rhiannon’s absence, when someone sat down beside her, patted her on the shoulder, and said, “Hello, Leah.”
The newcomer was Lieutenant Philia, her counterpart in Galactica’s scout crew and a classmate at Navigation School, a tall, darkly beautiful Aquarian woman. Leah was somewhat pleased to see her. Philia was probably the worst navigator she knew, but was a good person. “I’m surprised to see you,” Leah said. “I thought they were sending you back to the Colonies.”
“Soon. We’re supposed to get a new scout like the one you have,” Philia said. “I have something I wanted to show you.” She had been holding something in her lap; now she laid a large paper envelope on the table.
“What is it?”
“Well, we were taking some of our personal stuff off our scout and we took out my cameras. Did you ever see them?”
“No, but I heard about them.” She’d overheard Ares talking to Rhiannon about what he described as Philia’s ‘weirdo hobby’ of taking star images. What Ares did not know was that Philia processed her photos and sold them back in the Colonies as highly-regarded and profitable art works.
“Well, I had almost forgotten, but I had wanted to get some photographs of Gamoray and its moon coming back this last time and only now did we pull the crystals and develop the images. It didn’t come out particularly well....” Opening the envelope, she pulled out a sheaf of flat two-dimensional photographs. “Our timing on our run was a little off and we came in mostly over nightside so you can’t see any detail on the planet. But we did accidentally pick up a couple of ships in a high parking orbit.”
Leah moved her food aside and drew the photographs closer. She went through them one by one, then picked one up and took a closer look.
“Isn’t that an odd-looking ship?” Philia pressed.
“It is,” Leah agreed. “Why didn’t you show these to Commander Apollo?”
“I didn’t think he’d be interested,” she said innocently.
Leah sighed, recalling Rhiannon’s comments that suggested she thought of Leah as being less than military. Leah would have hated for her to know that there were navigators who were far less militaristic than she. “Philia, the rest of your information was useless because they jammed your sensors, but this could be a warship and it’s not a type I recognize.”
“Well, we were sort of out of favor after we got back because we mis-timed our run....”
“Commander Apollo ought to see these. In fact, the Fleet Commander should,” Leah pressed. “And right away. It could be important.”
“Surely they’re on the planet.”
“They should be getting back soon. Come.”
Leah talked the senior cook into letting them use the terminal in the kitchen. While food preparation staff and various unfortunates assigned to kitchen duty in return for some infraction bustled about them, the two navigators leaned over the console. Colonel Protogora was evidently officer of the deck and she answered their call.
“The Fleet Commander? No, he isn’t back yet, nor the Commander either. Is there something I can do for you, Leah?”
“Are either of them expected back soon?”
“Not until tomorrow morning, I believe. Let me check...no.”
“Are any of the other commanders back?” Leah pressed.
Seeming a little confused by the request, Protogora checked. “Commander Miriam is aboard Victory; everyone else is still planetside.”
“Can you put me through to her?”
“Is this important?”
“Very.”
The senior navigator seemed inclined to take Leah at her word, and in a few microns put her through to Victory’s bridge. Apparently Miriam had left standing orders that if Leah called she should be put through, and the bridge officer she briefly spoke to transferred her without question.
“Yes, dear, what is it?” Miriam asked as she appeared on the screen. Leah explained briefly about the photographs and her expression became interested. “Get them over here right away, the original crystal too if you have it,” Miriam said, “I’ll send a shuttle.”
“Should I come, Commander?”
“You come. Leave your friend there,” Miriam added, clearly already wording her report to Apollo on that subject.

Judging by the way Miriam and Noday treated her they considered Leah one of the family; clearly they were pleased to see her.
“It’s a shame you were on duty,” Noday said. “Rhiannon put....on quite a show.”
“I wish I’d seen it; I’ve never seen her fly a striker.”
“Well, it’s something,” Miriam said, slightly distracted as she fed the crystal Leah had brought into her computer terminal. “She’s good, I’ll give her that. Probably not as good as Dirce yet, likely better than I was, though. All right, what have we here?” she muttered as Victory’s computers digested the data and started constructing a composite, enhanced image of the ships Galactica’s scout had photographed. “Noday, come look at this.”
Noday leaned over Miriam’s shoulder to get a better look at the screen. Leah, curious, joined them.
“It’s smaller than a battlecruiser,” said Miriam as a scale appeared next to the image, “but not much.”
“It’s stealthed,” Leah said softly, watching as the computer sketched out the ship’s telltale elegant curves.
Miriam nodded. “Passive stealth design. Likely not quite as good as ours, but probably effective enough. A warship for certain.”
Noday agreed. “Not much reason to passive-stealth a commercial ship when you can use active stealth that’s almost as....good and doesn’t compromise payload space.”
The computer formed another image. Instead of the conjectural three-view it had just shown, this one was a direct enhancement of the best of the images. It revealed a large open hatch on the closer ship’s upper bow section.
“Weapons bay,” Noday guessed.
“Oddly placed,” Miriam mused.
The computer was struggling to reconstruct what was in the bay. The image was shadowy and it had little to go on. Gradually, detail formed.
“What is that?” Leah wondered, pointing at the cluster of tiny cone-shapes that had appeared in the bay.
“EVs,” Miriam said softly.
“Have to be,” Noday replied. “But what the hell...nearly all military targets are in space. Why would you....want to...?”
Leah knew what an EV was. The term was military shorthand for an entry vehicle, an ablative covering designed to permit something, usually a warhead of some kind, to survive entry into a planet’s atmosphere. Leah said into the silence, “That looks like a first-strike weapon.”
“A first-strike weapon against cities!” Miriam erupted. “Those...those unspeakable....” She switched her terminal over to comm mode. “Bridge!”
“Bridge,” Athena replied. “Commander?”
“Get the Fleet Commander up here now. Priority One, secure channel.”
Obviously startled though she was, Athena confirmed, “Priority One. I’ll contact him immediately.”
To Leah, Miriam said, “I think you’d better go. And you know better than to discuss this with anyone, correct, Lieutenant?”
“Yes...yes, sir.”
Softening a little, Miriam said, “I’m sorry to throw you out like this. We always like to see you, Leah.”
“I understand.” At the door she hesitated and said, “This means that there’s going to be a war, doesn’t it?”
“If I have anything to say about it, a very short one,” Miriam replied.

“That,” Starbuck said dryly, “is not a defensive weapon. And,” he added to Miriam, “I’m sorry I doubted your daughter and her, um, friend.”
“None of this makes any sense!” Apollo exclaimed. Considering the somewhat manic atmosphere of the hurried meeting in Miriam’s quarters his outburst was hardly unexpected.
“You keep saying that, and I get tired of hearing it,” Miriam replied. “Clearly, this is Cain’s megalomania....”
“I can’t believe he’s in on this!” Apollo shot back.
“Who are you to defend him?”
“Enough,” snapped Aeneas. “This constant bickering is getting us nowhere...and it is getting on my nerves.”
“Besides,” said Starbuck, “what difference does it make if Cain is involved or not?”
“A considerable difference, in my view,” said Adama. “Like Apollo, I can’t believe that Cain would do anything like this. However, we have no evidence that there are factions on the planet.”
“There must be,” said Apollo positively. “You’ve got Cain and a lot of civilians who, from what I saw of them at the air show this morning, seem pretty normal to me, on one side. On the other, you have the young maniacs like the ones who tried to attack the scout crew and who guard this Count Iblis’ offices. And who in hades is all that security aimed against?”
“Some other group we don’t know about,” Commander Akamas suggested.
“It’s possible,” Adama agreed.
“Who the hell is that man?” Miriam demanded, meaning Iblis. She added, “If Cain isn’t in on it, some of his senior crew must be.”
“Bojay for certain,” Starbuck said.
“What makes you think that?” Apollo asked. “I’ll admit he’s changed, but....”
“I agree with Starbuck,” said Miriam. “I had a brief run-in with him at the air show. Not only is he not afraid of us, he’s not even slightly impressed.”
Decisively, Adama said, “I have to get back to the Colonies. Apollo, inform your scout crew that I’ll be going with them.”
“What are your plans, sir?” Aeneas asked.
“I’m going to send at least another squadron. I don’t know what I’ll be able to scrape up for it...when we were home they were putting a lot of ships into dock for refit. Bad timing, but who knew? I’ll be writing orders for you before I go, Commander, but I can give you the gist of them now: you will take no offensive action. The rules of engagement are as follows: fire if fired upon. If any of the Gamoraen missile ships attempts to leave the system you are to intercept and destroy them; you may in this case fire without warning. You may use stealth tactics. If you suspect that a breakout is likely or imminent, I suggest you put the battlecruisers into position to ambush anything heading for the two portals that lead to the most direct route home. You can use Columbia’s scout to cover a third portal, and when Galactica’s scout gets back you can cover a fourth. Use the battlestars to cover the fifth and final portal and to reinforce the battlecruisers if necessary. If you believe a breakout is likely you have the option to formally impose a blockade and destroy any ships that attempt to circumvent it. You have permission to do whatever reconnaissance you believe necessary of Gamoray and the system. Unless they do something that seems suspicious I would recommend you wait until just before our other ships are likely to arrive, but that’s at your discretion. Is that clear to everyone here?”
Starbuck asked, “Will you be asking the Council to declare that a state of war exists?”
“No. That isn’t necessary yet. A state of emergency, yes, you can take that as a given.”
Apollo said, “Sir, I think we have to find out as soon as possible whether Cain is part of this or not. I believe we should send Cassiopiea down to meet him.”
“I would tend to second that, sir,” Miriam said.
“Your discretion, Commander,” Adama said to Aeneas. “Again, I’d be inclined to put it off.”
“And our office on the planet?” Aeneas asked.
“Leave it for now. It’s best to assuage any suspicions they might have for as long as possible.” Adama rose from where he had been seated behind Miriam’s desk. “I’ll be departing as soon as Galactica’s scout is ready. Commander, you can expect reinforcements, but not for over a month. Until then...do your best.”

The first thing Apollo did upon returning to the Galactica was to order a comprehensive review of the status of his ship’s weaponry. Then he gave his scout crew their orders. Lastly, he asked Serina to come to his quarters.
As the door closed behind her he said, without preamble, “Our scout is returning to the Colonies. I think you should be on it.”
Serina had not even had time to greet him. Taken by surprise, she stared at him for a centon, then asked, “Now what brings this on?”
“The situation is deteriorating. Caprica is taking my father and Amala home; this is no place for civilians.”
Serina seated herself formally before Apollo’s desk and inquired, “Don’t you think that a representative of the media ought to be here?”
“That has nothing to do with it, and you know it. I just....”
“Don’t want me to get hurt?” Serina supplied.
“No,” Apollo said quietly.
“Do you know how many reporters died on the front lines during the Thousand Yahren War?”
“More than I care to know.”
Serina nodded. “Sometimes it’s my job to go dangerous places. This is the story of a lifetime, and I’m the only reporter here. But that’s not why I want to stay.”
“This has been getting kind of out of hand, hasn’t it?” Apollo said glumly.
Serina shook her head, bemused. “Why, why do you fight it?” she wondered to the general air.
“A battlestar commander is no prize,” Apollo said. “This isn’t my job, it’s my blasted life.”
“Your father found time for other interests.”
“He was never home. I don’t think that’s fair to anyone.”
“Apollo, I don’t think either of us is thinking about a family. At least I’m not. You have your daughter, I have a son. I am fairly independent. I would survive your absences. Not entirely cheerfully,” she added with a smile. “But the situation isn’t the same as your father’s.”
“Maybe not...besides, it’s dangerous,” Apollo continued.
“We already discussed....”
“No, not staying here, getting involved with me. Did anyone tell you what happened to the last one?”
Serina laughed, delighted. “Your daughter told me. I understand that her sister found the woman an irresistible challenge. How sweet.”
“You weren’t there!”
“Apollo, don’t be silly. She has her navigator and in any case as far as I can tell I’m exclusively interested in men. Though at times like this I wonder why....”
“All right, I’m making excuses,” Apollo said. “You can stay...but I wish you’d go.”
“I am going to stay. And the other?”
Apollo smiled, resigned to his fate. “Even I know when to surrender.”

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