THE SCHOOL OF FEAR

CHAPTER 3 PART 1

After the holocaust, the full scope of the Cylon plan for human extermination gradually became clear. Not only had the Cylons planned to destroy the Colonial Fleet and eliminate resistance on the Colonies themselves, they had plotted the destruction of any fleeing survivors as well. A Cylon task force had been waiting at Borallus. And, a few yahrens later, when the Colonial military’s need for further tylium supplies prompted a second look at Carillon, a planet whose geology promised the presence of heavy reserves of the rare substance but the exploratory reports on which had been negative (considered somewhat suspicious in the light of later events since Baltar had been in charge of the expedition), the Colonials found that it too had been a trap. The Cylons and their Ovion minions had departed, but the evidence they had left behind had been all too obvious.
Carillon’s tylium reserves had been severely depleted by the Cylons, and since the perfection of antimatter drive tylium was less important of a substance, yet there still was a small Colonial mining and refinery operation there. Many civilian ships still depended on it and its more potent byproduct, solium.
Serina thought that Carillon would make an excellent ancillary story to her planned series on the expedition to Kobol, and she was able to prevail upon Apollo to take her down and show her the treachery the Cylons had planned. The Cylons and their Ovion helpers had constructed a vast hotel and casino on the planet. Baltar, who had informed the Cylons of the planet’s resources (his treason was so immense in scale that it defied comprehension), used travelators he controlled to arrange secret tours to Carillon, promising the unwary vacationers tax-free gambling, cheap lodgings, the finest foods at the lowest prices, and other, largely unmentionable delights. After the guests had been thoroughly fleeced, a percentage of the profits going to Baltar, naturally, the Ovions used them as food for their hatchlings. Since the guests were sworn to secrecy, they simply disappeared and their friends and families back in the Colonies didn’t know where to begin looking for them. It had been, Serina recalled, a minor mystery in the months leading up to the Cylon attack. Her producer had even suggested it as a story topic.
Now the casino and hotel were empty and abandoned. Dust coated every horizontal surface, hangings of beautiful fabrics were tattered with rot. Furniture lay overturned, broken glass crunched underfoot. The corridors were lit only by their hand torches.
“I have to get my cameraman down here,” Serina declared. “What beautiful and ironic visuals this will make.”
“They were waiting here like a crawlon in its web for any survivors. And on Borallus and Orion. It was well planned,” said Apollo.
“Would it have worked?”
They had stopped in the empty casino. Smashed gaming tables lay scattered about the floor. Apollo bent and picked up a stray pyramid card with some thought of presenting it to Starbuck as a souvenir. “You’re asking me if we could have been destroyed in the holocaust? It’s a miracle we survived. It’s been analyzed and wargamed again and again. The only reason we escaped-the only reason-is because Commander Adama launched on warning, contrary to President Adar’s orders. That enabled the other battlestars to launch full spreads of fighters and survive the ambush to return to the Colonies and fight off the Cylon attacks there. It’s the only way we could have won.”
Serina studied Apollo for a centon, then she commented, “Your father is a very great man.”
Apollo had to smile. His father was, indeed, a very great man. But he was also human. Serina saw him as Adama, the Commander of the Fleet, leader of the victory over the Cylons, but Apollo remembered the man who had carried him on his shoulders, the man who had so proudly presented Apollo his baby sister and later his brother, the man he had seen standing alone in the ruins of their home, tears streaming down his cheeks, clutching a holograph of his wife, Apollo’s mother, whispering heartbrokenly, “I was never there when it mattered, Ila. Never.” His mother would have disagreed, Apollo knew.
“What are you thinking about?” Serina asked.
“Just thinking that great men have real lives that usually get trampled underfoot by the historians.”
“True. And deservedly, sometimes. Some people you’re better off not knowing about their personal lives. It can be horribly disillusioning.”
“It reminds me of the controversy over that biography of Cain several yahrens ago, the absolute furor on Scorpia when it turned out he’d been involved with a socialator on Gemoni after his wife died.”
“They made too much out of that. She loved him and I suspect he loved her,” Serina said.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“And what about when they come to write about you, Commander?”
Apollo leaned back against an upright gaming table, crossed his arms, and inquired, “Is this part of that interview I promised you?”
“Background material, anyway,” Serina said, dusting off a place on the table and sitting beside him.
“If anyone’s looking for scandal, they’re going to be disappointed. I’m a pretty boring guy,” Apollo said.
“You have a daughter by a woman you were not sealed to...who was sealed to someone else at the time,” Serina remarked.
“That’s too well-known to be scandalous. Miriam did not have a very good sealing, though there was some reconciliation after the holocaust.”
“Temporary, I take it.”
“Very. It was arranged, and they were not suited.” Not, Apollo recalled with a wry, internal smile, that he and Miriam had been any better suited than Miriam and the hapless Aleksandros.
“How was your daughter raised?”
“Well, that was kind of complicated. She spent part of her time on Sagitara with Miriam or her parents when Miriam was on duty, part on Caprica with me or my father. She’s more Caprican than Sagitaran, I think.”
“I’ve read her book. It’s very good.”
“She’s a very talented young lady,” Apollo said, his pride in his daughter obvious.
“Are you disappointed she didn’t join the military?”
“I’m thrilled that she didn’t join the military,” Apollo said sincerely.
Serina eyed him with new interest. Clearly Apollo was not one of those one-track militarists she found so disturbing. “What do you think should happen to the Fleet now that the Cylon War is over?”
“It’s very possible we can make some cuts, at least move more of our forces onto a reserve status. But we have to be very careful. There may be threats out there we know nothing of. It’s a very big galaxy, and we and the Cylons only ever explored a fraction of it.”
“Do you think expeditions like this are a good use of the military?”
“No one wants to go exploring more than I do,” Apollo said, “It’s always been one of my dreams to just aim out beyond the Colonies and go...but this is a stupid use of the military. This expedition is insanely inefficient. Don’t quote me on that, by the way. But we ought to be able to do some useful reconnaissance out beyond Kobol.”
“I keep hearing about the Delphian Empire.”
“It’s pretty certain we’ll be paying a visit.”
“I’d like to be in on that.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but it may not be much of a story. Supposedly there’s nothing there any more.”

“Ten microns to warp...mark,” Ares said.
“We’re on station,” Leah reported.
“Four, three, two, one,” Rhiannon counted down, and engaged the scout’s FTL drive.
An endless, subliminally unpleasant instant later, they were elsewhere. New and strange star patterns glittered outside the cockpit ports and off to one side a dim red sun glowed, close enough to show a disk, almost cool enough to view with the unprotected eye.
“Scanners show one planet, close to the star, tidal locked,” Ares reported as information began to flood in from the scout’s sensors. “Has an atmosphere...pressure’s low but it’s breathable. Some low grade plant life on the sun side, evidence of moderate volcanic activity—I’d guess that’s where the atmosphere comes from—surface temperatures moderate on the sun side, cold on the back. No other life signs. Other scanners show all clear.”
“We’d better take a closer look. Set a course, Leah.”
“Working on it.”
As Leah worked out the navigation, Rhiannon used the scout’s sensors to compare star spectra with spectra they’d taken before their jump. The results were good. “We’re about ten light yahrens from where we started, and in the right direction,” she said, pleased in spite of herself. Though she didn’t particularly care for warp scouting, that didn’t prevent her from wanting to be good at it. “I’m going to cut the gravitics now and scan for other portals,” she warned. As the artificial gravity faded Rhiannon felt a surge of nausea but she fought it down. After several centons, she reported, “There’s one on the other side of the system, well above the ecliptic. We’ll move on to it after we scan the planet.” Reactivating the gravitics, she felt the return of weight gratefully.
“Course for the planet laid in,” reported Leah.
“Arrival time about a centare and a half, normal speed, unless you’re in a rush,” Ares said.
“Who’s paid to be in a rush? Normal speed.”
“Normal speed, aye.”
“Rhiannon?” Leah asked.
Rhiannon turned to her. She could have insisted that her tiny crew use the courtesy title ‘captain,’ but that seemed a ridiculous conceit since they were all lieutenants and the same age. Leah looked, she noticed, a little more blank than she usually did when her implant was on-line. “What is it?”
“I’m having some problems with my implant.”
Not for the first time, Rhiannon wondered what it would be like to have a tiny computron sharing her mind. “What kind of problems?”
“Feedback, I think,” Leah said vaguely.
“Deactivate it. We’ll scan the planet and then return to the fleet. I suppose they’ll have to check it out when we get back.”
Apprehension crossed the navigator’s face. “Yes, they will. Can I leave the bridge?”
“Of course.”
After she’d gone, Ares could not resist commenting, “I always thought she had a short circuit someplace.”
“Maybe, but she’s a damn fine navigator,” Rhiannon replied. “And she’s not strange, just...kind of lonely.”
“Sad, I think,” Ares said, more seriously. “Not my type, though,” he added brightly.
Stuff it, Rhiannon thought unkindly. “I’m going to go talk to her.”
“Fine, I’ll watch things here,” Ares said, setting the autopilot and pulling a crystal reader out from under his console.

Rhiannon had not been in Leah’s tiny cabin before. Like the others, it was cramped and bare except for a few personal touches, a colorful hand-hooked spread on the bunk, a pile of book crystals and a reader on the bedside table, and a Ground Forces bayonet, of all things, hung on one bulkhead.
“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” Rhiannon said as Leah let her in.
“I’m fine now,” she replied. As Rhiannon had noticed before she seemed considerably sharper with her implant deactivated. They sat down side by side on the bunk, there being no other place to sit except the deck, and Leah continued, “I was having these...flashes. Very unpleasant. Getting worse.”
“Has this happened before?”
“Yes. Everyone has them off and on for two or three yahrens until everything gets adjusted. I just don’t like the idea of having to go through all that calibration again.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, it’s just nasty,” Leah explained succinctly.
Indicating the bayonet on the wall, which seemed the most out-of-character of Leah’s visible possessions, Rhiannon asked, “Who did that belong to?”
“My father. He was killed on Borallus.” Rhiannon tried to conceal her reaction, but evidently failed. Leah, thinking Rhiannon felt sorry for her, which was only partly true, went on, “I never knew him. It was before I was born.”
“I had a...friend who was killed on Borallus.”
“I heard,” Leah said sympathetically. “Your lover?”
“Not really. Once in a while, but not really.” Too often, Rhiannon thought with a shudder. “My friend, yes. She....” Rhiannon could not continue. It had long since occurred to her that the worst thing about Briseis’ death was that it had happened inches away from her. If she’d been flying with someone else, maybe it wouldn’t have hit her as hard, but it had been so indelibly horrid.... “It was bad,” she summed up inadequately.
“I can tell it’s been very hard on you. You seem to be under a lot of strain.”
“That, my so-called friends, and Ares, damn him. I’m supposed to fall in love with him or something.”
“He is very nice,” Leah pointed out.
“That’s true, he is, but it’s not the point. I like him, but I’m just...not that type.”
“Indeed. You ought to tell him.”
“That’s what my mother says.”
“There, you see?”
Rhiannon was silent for a centon, then said, “We haven’t really sat down and talked before.”
Leah smiled. “You and Ares think I’m strange.”
“Well....”
“I am a little off,” Leah admitted. “I didn’t used to be like this, but now...I just can’t quite seem to focus on things sometimes. Being a navigator has some privileges, but it’s not all wonderful. I lost some friends, you know. I had one at the Command Academy...after I got out of navigator school he couldn’t wait to get out of my life permanently. Evidently I had become too weird to tolerate.”
Frowning, Rhiannon opined, “What a jerk!”
“Apparently he was. I seem to meet a lot of that type,” Leah said sadly. “You?”
“I just...try not to get involved with people,” Rhiannon admitted.
“Why? Because you’re afraid of losing them?”
“Being in the military is like that.”
“All of life is like that,” Leah corrected. “If you let yourself love someone, you open yourself up to inevitable tragedy. But it is worth it.”
“I’m sorry I ever thought you were an airhead,” Rhiannon said, “because you’re not.”
“Just slightly off.” Leah looked at her for a centon; Rhiannon met her eyes levelly, wondering faintly what was going on. Then Leah said, “You seem lonely.”
“I am lonely. I just haven’t had the inclination to do anything about it.” As you had the extreme misfortune to witness in the mess last secton.
“Would you like to do something about it?”
Rhiannon blinked, startled. Then she commented cautiously, “I didn’t think....”
“Neither did I. I can hardly believe I’m doing this,” Leah said. “I seem to be watching myself from outside my body, do you know how that is? I mean, another woman...I’d never even thought of such a thing, but...the thing is, I like you. I’ve been...well, sort of admiring you from afar,” she confessed.
As far as she knew, Rhiannon had never been admired from afar before. The idea of someone quietly pining after her was marvelously appealing. A pleasant, healing wave of desire flowed through her. I thought I was never going to feel like this again. “You don’t have to admire me from afar,” she said softly. “I’m right here.”
Leah put her arms around her. “Quite solid, too.”

The cockpit door snapped open. Ares didn’t bother to look up from his book; as Rhiannon dropped into the seat beside him he said, “We’re about ten or fifteen centons out.”
“Good. Set up for a polar orbit, follow it with an equatorial, full scans, and then we’ll head for home.”
“Okay,” he said, putting his reader back into its nook. “One polar, one equatorial, full scans. How’s the navigator?”
“The navigator’s fine. In fact, the navigator is fantastic,” Rhiannon added sadistically.
Ares’ head snapped around and Rhiannon saw the blood drain out of his face, which was interesting-it was something she’d read about in novels but wasn’t sure could actually happen. You knew all along, she wanted to tell him, but instead said simply, “Lay in the course and execute when ready.”
“Uh, yes,” he mumbled numbly, turning back to his console.
I am enjoying this, Rhiannon thought. I ought to feel a little bad about it, but no, not at all....

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