Battlestar Galactica 4 - The Young Warriors Read online

  The new aide announced that his name was Hilltop. Spectre did not even recall naming this one. Obviously, when he had completed the circuit that animated it, he must have glanced out a window and caught sight of the top of a hill. Spectre tended to name his creations by that sort of method—a bit pedestrian but easier than thinking about it, and certainly preferable to preserving the appellation of the actual Cylon who had once inhabited the Centurion outfit, before dying of one of the numerous diseases that the Cylons had been so susceptible to on Antila. In order to maintain his garrison at minimum acceptable strength, Spectre had had to build his own robot versions of Cylons—and good jobs they were, too, except for their tendency to break down at odd times. He could have requested higher commands to assign more warriors, but he did not want the Cylons to know of his rebuilding efforts and, anyway, replacements would just have succumbed to the dangerous Antila climate. Besides, the loss of combat personnel was generally viewed as a significant weakness in command and could become the kind of detail included in a report that would seriously affect promotion. Spectre, true bureaucrat that he was, wanted no bad marks in his personnel file. So, it had been preferable to stick with his own creations. The machines were more efficient than their sentient originals, anyway. Spectre, one of the most versatile ambulatory cybernetic sentiences ever manufactured, had always believed in the superiority of his kind.

  "What is my duty, Commander Spectre, sir?" Hilltop asked in the polite, if a bit scratchy, voice that Spectre had programmed for ultimate courtesy. Courtesy was important to Spectre, and he enjoyed the sound of it.

  "You are to supervise the shifting of the main fuel dump closer to headquarters. The children's attacks have come too near to it lately, our recent losses in personnel make it impossible to guard effectively. We can't afford to lose valuable fuel."

  Actually, they could afford to lose a significant amount of fuel. Spectre was a hoarder by nature. During his tenure on Antila, he had managed—through adroit manipulations of supply forms and clever insights into the habits of supply officers everywhere—to stockpile materials of all kinds, shapes, and forms. He had rooms filled to the ceiling with items he had acquired. Some materials were not even useful at the present time, but Spectre believed in storing away for the future and covering all contingencies. Still, the fuel, by his standards, had become something of a problem, even though he had requisitioned enough of it to power a larger headquarters than his, plus a fleet quadruple the size of the few outdated flying vehicles he had managed to obtain. The Cylon Spacecraft Bureau was decidedly difficult to hoodwink, and further was notoriously stingy in its allocations. Spectre had yet to find a way around their latest set of restrictions. He would eventually, he was sure. He was superb at finding ways to get what he wanted without offending officers above him. He understood bureaucracy so well, and his data banks were so replete with bureaucratic information, that he could discover a route to any type of supply so long as he had an urgent need for it and such a route existed. Spectre had been designed to be the perfect bureaucrat and, when the dampness of Antila was not damaging his circuits or creating a bypass where none was supposed to be, he was the perfect bureaucrat.

  He adjusted his anti-rust shield as he left his office and walked into the morning mist that lay like a shroud across this swampy area of Antila landscape. It was important that he stay operative—a healthy leader was an efficient leader. Long ago, when he had been only an advisor to an actual Cylon commander, his boss had been meticulous in seeing to the care and protection of Spectre. After that commander had succumbed to a particularly ugly plague, a sickness that so affected his brain (or, in his case, brains), that he removed a real Cylon from the chain of command and installed Spectre in his place. Spectre became an executive officer, a position he held only a short time, since the officers ahead of him died of several interesting and various Antila diseases. Antila was an unattractive backwater planet and a low-priority assignment, Spectre knew, but where else could he have risen legally and officially to command of a garrison? Even though he hated the place, he hesitated to put in for a transfer. Real Cylons might bust him back to a lesser rank, and he liked being commander, liked it very much.

  A pair of centurions detached themselves from the fuel dump work detail to report to Spectre and Hilltop. Behind them, other warriors of the garrison were busily and mechanically moving fuel drums and gear from their former unprotected location to a place inside the garrison walls.

  "Your work is satisfactory," Spectre told the centurions after they had formally made their report. The red lights on their helmets brightened momentarily, a signal of satisfaction which Spectre had programmed into his creations. Since one could never know a real Cylon's opinions from observation, Spectre had installed this improvement on his own creations.

  "Hilltop!" Spectre called.

  "Yes, Commander sir."

  "After the fuel and materials are safely inside the fortress walls, fortify the walls. Fill in cracks, increase guard posts, set traps—you know the drill."

  "Yes, I do, but Commander sir-—"

  "Yes, Hilltop?"

  "Won't it be dangerous for the garrison buildings to have so much volatile fuel so close to them?"

  "Not at all. The containers are triple thick with impenetrable metals. Spontaneous explosions within are extremely rare and usually minimized by container thickness. We must protect our supplies from our enemy, especially since their raids have increased. Go to it, Hilltop."

  "Yes, Commander sir. By your command."

  Spectre watched the centurions labor for some time. Their work was admirable, timed precisely and with a meticulous teamwork that sentient beings were capable of only rarely. That was why he preferred his recycled Cylons to the genuine article.

  "Commander sir," interrupted another centurion.

  "Yes, uh—um, your name, soldier?"

  "Treebark, sir."

  "What is your business, Treebark?"

  "Guard patrol craft in the middle trisector intercepted two vipercraft piloted by humans, sir. Communications Center officer would appreciate your presence for his report."

  "Yes, at once."

  The centurion gave the complicated four-stage salute that Spectre had invented to replace the overly-brusque, stiffly ceremonial regular Cylon salute. Treebark accompanied his leader through the garrison gate and to the communications center. The news that there were colonial vipers in the area pleased Spectre. There were scant military reasons for his garrison's existence, after all, and this news would fortify any report he made, enabling him to justify the garrison's continued presence on this bleak planet.

  Inside communications center, the news did not please him quite so much. Six of the seven raiders on patrol had been obliterated by the pair of vipers, much too great a loss of personnel. He would have to alter the casualty numbers on any dispatch pertaining to the incident. Better yet, he would not mention the loss of personnel or vehicles.

  However, the results of the battle had more dire ramifications. This patrol represented the last set of Spectre's Cylon constructs that were programmed to pilot. The lone survivor of the patrol could not defend the planet alone, and the garrison had already sustained too many losses to detach any more warriors for piloting duties. They would have to get along without pilots for a while, until he could figure out how to manufacture a few—perhaps he could work out something in a new design from his stockpile of materials. For the moment, the best he could do was listen to the report of his communications officer.

  "One viper escaped, sir, and it is presumably returning to origination point. The second was crippled by a hit on its underside and was last observed heading toward Antila. We are tracking the craft."

  "Order the patrol to return."

  Spectre wondered, as the communications officer turned to his console to follow the order, whether such a primitive construct could appreciate the irony in calling a single surviving raider a full patrol. After the officer had transmitted the orde
r, Spectre commanded:

  "Contact the base star."

  He did not particularly want to communicate with the base star at this time, but official procedure said he should. Right now he should do his best to impress the superior officers with his efficiency and military prowess. That might mean embellishing the data just a trifle. Spectre did not mind that. His career had progressed so smoothly precisely because of his abilities to embellish information.

  He was also pleased that the base star, commanded by the renegade human Baltar, was too far away to intervene at this time. Baltar's second-in-command could pose something of a problem. He was an ambulatory computer named Lucifer, a construct of a later series than Spectre's—and Lucifer never missed a chance to remind his presumed inferior of the difference in their respective classes.

  Still, as long as he kept them at a distance. Spectre could handle them. By keeping ahead of whomever he had to deal with, Spectre could handle anybody.

  Lucifer had been congratulating himself on how well everything was going. The ship was in perfect running condition, and operating efficiently at all levels of procedure. Baltar, the nominal commander of the base star, was staying out of Lucifer's way and not making those blunders that humans were so prone to. The area of space they were patrolling was quite peaceful. True, they had lost track of the Galactica since its escape from Kobol, but Galactica was Baltar's obsession—Baltar's and that of the supreme commander, Imperious Leader. Lucifer was not obsessed with the humans' sole surviving battlestar and did not care if they ever located it again. He did not want to have to concern himself with Galactica's extremely resourceful crew again. Although he did have some fond memories of one of them, a brash young lieutenant they had held prisoner on the base ship for a short time. What was the man's name? Starshine? Starluck? Something like that.

  Aside from the minor annoyances, matters seemed so much in order that Lucifer considered turning himself off for a while and letting subordinates take over. There appeared to be nothing to disturb the even flow of events aboard ship, and Lucifer felt content. If he had been human, he might have worried, since most humans know that such contentment is dangerous, that just when you feel everything is going well, that's the time when something is about to go wrong.

  Something went wrong.

  Its name was Spectre.

  As soon as Lucifer saw the familiar visage on his screen, and recalled what a scheming, deceptive, ambitious representative of their species Spectre was, Lucifer knew—without even a review of his data banks—that he was in trouble. His first inclination was to break abruptly the communication and pretend that it had not happened. However, he was programmed for a meticulous attention to duty (a program he had designed for himself, after all), so he had to listen to Spectre's report.

  If the sudden reappearance of Spectre in Lucifer's existence were not enough, Baltar now swaggered into the command sphere while Spectre was beginning to give his report. The news roused the human out of his lethargy and an approximation of life began to appear in his beady eyes.

  "Who, uh, who is that, Lucifer?" Baltar asked.

  "Antila garrison commander reporting."

  "Antila."

  Lucifer ritualistically explained that Antila was an obscure outpost in Omega Sector. Obscure? he thought—if Spectre had not chosen to make this communication the outpost would have been completely forgotten.

  "Its commander's name is Spectre . . . I believe. Like me he is an ambulatory cybernetic development, but from another series. Before my time. Rather limited in ability, actually."

  "Limited, eh? He's a commander, is he not? Even of an out-of-the-way outpost, that is some achievement for one of you thinking machines."

  Baltar had a way of emphasizing the word machine when he talked to Lucifer, especially when he did so to remind him that not only was he a subordinate on this ship, he was subordinate to a human and not a Cylon! Lucifer did not enjoy the implications of the word machine as Baltar used it. Baltar meant that Lucifer was merely an arrangement of metal without any genuine sentience. Apparently the man had forgotten that Lucifer had told him that he had a soul, one that he had created himself and housed in his right shoulder. Lucifer felt that the biggest miscalculation he had ever made was saving Baltar, already a traitor to his own race, from a deserved execution by the Cylons and then grooming him for an advisory role. He had not suspected that Baltar would exploit his abilities to grab away the base-star command that Lucifer should have had. Well, all that was now oil flushed out a chute, and Lucifer had to go on, doing the best he could, which meant finding ways to circumvent the often foolish plans that Baltar conceived.

  Baltar gestured Lucifer out of his seat and replaced him at the console, his narrow eyes narrowed further in a squint at the visage of Spectre on the screen in front of him.

  "Spectre, I am commander here. I wish to hear your report."

  Although an ambulatory cybernetic sentience could not duplicate a human or Cylon facial expression, Lucifer noticed that Spectre tilted his head slightly, raised his left shoulder, and leaned toward the recording camera, a trio of movements that gave the illusion of an expression of sincere concern. Lucifer now remembered just why the sudden appearance of Spectre had disturbed him. He could not trust Spectre.

  "Honored Baltar, sir, I recognize the privilege of reporting to you directly. You honor myself and my series."

  "Fine. Just fine. Report, Spectre."

  The tone of Spectre's voice became more obviously regulated. The limb that was out of sight had probably made an adjustment in vocality in order to present the illusion of conversational intimacy. Lucifer never stooped to such mechanical tricks. How sly this Spectre was!

  "Sir, we have intercepted two viper fighters and captured one."

  Baltar glanced up at Lucifer, a supercilious pleased smile on his repellently human face.

  "Excellent, Spectre, really excellent. And the pilot of the captured craft, have you interrogated him?"

  "Ah . . . the patrol that apprehended him has not yet returned."

  Why, Lucifer wondered, was he so sure that Spectre was lying? Was he so prejudiced against a different, albeit inferior, class of ambulatory computer that he could not judge it fairly?

  "Are you aware of the general order concerning captured human pilots, Spectre?" Baltar asked.

  "Oh yes, sir. I read and record every general order and memorandum that is sent out from base star headquarters. You wish me to discover, through intense interrogation, even including the risking of the prisoner's life, the present position of the Battlestar Galactica."

  "You understand the order perfectly, Spectre."

  "Naturally."

  Spectre's attitude of self-confidence drew an even broader grin from Baltar. His eyes seemed to say about Spectre, this is my kind of officer. If Lucifer had been human, he would have cringed at that moment.

  "I shall await your next communication," Baltar said. "And Spectre?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "You have a wonderful opportunity here. Use it well."

  "Oh, I will, sir. You can depend on me."

  "I do believe I can, Spectre, I do believe I can. I will be waiting . . ."

  "By your command."

  Spectre's image faded gently from the screen. Another effect controlled by Spectre, Lucifer thought. Baltar stood up, wearing his arrogance like a cloak around him. His tiny eyes blinked a couple of times, and he raised his left eyebrow as he said:

  "Well, Lucifer, this Spectre does seem to have done rather well . . . for an early model."

  Baltar started to laugh, obviously enjoying his dig at his second in command.

  "Early models have their uses," Lucifer said sullenly, while considering half a dozen uses he had in mind for Spectre.

  Spectre turned away from the communications console to find Hilltop now standing at his side.

  "You were listening?" Spectre asked his new aide.

  "Yes, Commander sir. You did inform them that we had captured the pil
ot when in fact we don't know where he—"

  "I know, I know. That is called command privilege, Hilltop. Learn it well. We shall require a search party—"

  "I have already dispatched a search party, sir."

  "Very good. You do learn well."

  "What if the pilot evades the searchers?"

  "Impossible."

  Although Spectre was aware that of course the pilot could evade his warriors, he had also calculated that, since the human was not familiar with the terrain and was quite possibly injured, the odds were on Spectre's side. Like the true bureaucrat he was, he had learned that a confident attitude and demeanor could cover up an array of minor errors of detail. In fact. Spectre believed that he had postulated all the possibilities already and had devised an explanation, diversion, or prevarication to cover any eventuality.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FROM MIRI'S BOOK:

  Another unicorn dead. One of the wild ones. I think it had been attacked, perhaps by a lion, although there were no wounds or marks of battle on the parts of it I could see. It looked peaceful really. Its head was lying at the base of a tree along the bank of a stream. Its horn had hooked onto a gnarled, snakelike root, and its body, prevented from sliding any further, was only half in the muddy water. I knew if I cut off its horn, the heavy animal would slide all the way in. But I needed the horn. I'm almost out of medicines. It is sad that such a beautiful animal has to die in order for me to make a curing potion. I cut through the horn. As always, my knife slid easily through it. Instinctively I made a grab at its head as it started to slip away from me. It went beneath the water so gently that I wasn't able to see any ripples through the thin mist which clings to the water.

  I heard sounds on the other side of the stream, the unmistakable squeaky sounds of a bunch of the tincans stumbling through underbrush, on patrol no doubt. I decided to spy on them, see what kind of strange event could remove the tincans from the security of their fortress. They so rarely leave it nowadays. They don't even come out to trap us any more.