Battlestar Galactica 4 - The Young Warriors Read online

  To get back to the original Megan, she died while the society was still smug and self-satisfied about its apparent success. She probably thought she had been mistaken, that a society based solely on advanced ethical principles could survive just fine. The deterioration came after her death. Corruption, petty crimes, more than petty crimes, and—above everything else—a substitution of selfishness (a kind of take-what-you-want-because-it-might-never-come-your-way-again philosophy) for the original idealism reduced the colony to a sorry state. Even then it might have saved itself. My mother and father, Megan and Renkin, were making headway in a revision of the colony's laws. Their revisions would have initiated a system based on the original Megan's beliefs. But then the disaster came. The tincans. We had no reason to expect them. We kept no skywatches. And, anyway, we were off in a corner of the so-called civilized universe. Antila has no military value as an outpost and there are thousands of other planets with better resources. The climate here is bad for the tincans. They died almost as frequently as our original colonists. But I guess death is no problem for the tincans, who are dispensers of death, after all. And their impulse for conquest apparently includes even unexploitable and valueless planets.

  So the tincans came and the colony was finished. Some colonists escaped and are hiding in the distant hills, satisfied to scrounge like rats for their daily existence and happy that tincan patrols never bother with them. Some, Kyle's band of children, inhabit the jungle around the garrison and attack the tincans whenever they can. And some, like my mother (my father was murdered by the tincans, but I have never described his death in this book, and will not. Ever.) are captives of the tincans, kept in a damp darkness and declining gradually in health and spirits.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ratzi kept forcing spoonsful of stew on Starbuck while he listened to Miri's calmly-related history of the Antilean colony. The stew tasted vaguely sweet, as if there were a trace of fruit in it. The pain in his leg was subsiding; its throbbing had become irregular. From time to time he glanced down at the poultice, wondered what magical potion was contained beneath those bandage wrappings of blue-green triangular leaves.

  The colony's history interested and perplexed Starbuck. At first he regretted the oppression of the Scorpion government, but then the Scorpions were notorious even among the Galactican fleet survivors for their eager support of oppressive measures and their volatile temperaments when things did not go their way. What Miri said about the repression of thought in all the twelve colonies was simply not supported by fact. On Caprica, Starbuck's home planet, the government had not been particularly militaristic in its ways. Nor was the society repressive. Yet, he recalled, he grew up thinking almost exclusively about the war and the part he would play in it, so perhaps the state control was more subtle on Caprica. Still, Caprica would not have sent this group of pariahs in a wretched freighter to a hostile environment, he was certain of that. Whatever else might be said, Caprica was definitely not Scorpia.

  He also could not avoid noticing the correspondences between the Antilean colony and the peaceful river settlement of his second therapy room fantasy. I wonder, he thought, if there are always hidden threats to any apparently peaceful society, even for people as idealistic as the Antilean pariahs. Did humans in groups always threaten their own well-being by such splits into factions, and the inability to hold firm to their best thoughts, their most attractive ideals? Or did this group simply fail, not so much because of its beliefs, but because the nature of human progress was not in maintaining a rigid adherence to delimited philosophies but instead in a successful response to change.

  Starbuck's reflections on Miri's telling of the history, together with the warm food and especially the numbing of his pain, relaxed him so much that he drifted gently off to sleep, just as Miri was beginning to describe the Cylon invasion of Antila. He dreamt of his childhood. In it he was about eight or nine. He was crouched behind a rock, his attention riveted on a toy instrument panel. Not far from the rock his scale-model viper flew toward the model of a Cylon raider, which was being operated by a friend who himself was hiding somewhere near. The friend, like all children who played this game, did not like to take the part of a Cylon, but somebody had to be the enemy when you played vipers and raiders. It was truly more fun to be the controller of the viper, since—in addition to the superior maneuverability of even a toy viper—you also had the psychological advantage over the already dissatisfied manipulator of the enemy craft. As the two models approached each other, Starbuck abruptly plunged his into a quick turn and short dive. He intended to come up on the raider from beneath and try for a direct hit lowside. But his playmate anticipated the move and set the raider into a modified pin-wheel spin. Starbuck awaited the raider's emergence from the spin, and he pressed the button on the miniature joystick of his toy panel to fire a shot. He was too eager and missed the raider by a mile. That was all right, he could line it up easy for the second volley. But there was no second volley. Starbuck almost always got in two bursts of laser fire before a playmate could get off his first shot, but this time his playmate showed extraordinarily quick reaction time, and a beam from the raider split the viper in half. The viper dropped into tall grass and, for a moment, the mock-fire flared. All systems on his panel clicked off with a flash of light and a low grumble. The child Starbuck had always resented losing, but he had to congratulate the playmate. As was his custom when he was eight or nine, he leapfrogged over the rock that had concealed him. Climbing out from under a bush on the other side of the playing field was his playmate. But it was no-one Starbuck remembered from his childhood. No, but he knew him. It was Kyle, looking arrogantly triumphant and ready to continue the battle with bare fists.

  He came awake suddenly, expecting to see Kyle starting a swing at him. But nothing inside the cave chamber had changed. Ratzi was still sitting beside him silently, spoon in stewpot. And Miri was still standing near the cookfire. The fire was dwindling to ash, but that was the only difference.

  "Was I sleeping long?"

  "Not long. Probably long enough to help your leg get better."

  He stretched the leg. Amazingly, there was little pain left, just a twinge when the leg was held straight out.

  "You cured me. How'd you do it?"

  Miri shrugged.

  "A little powder changed into a paste. I don't know any names for it. I've always been able to do it. Megan says I'm gifted that way."

  "Megan?"

  "My mother. She's—"

  "Dead," Kyle said, striding into the room. "Our mother is dead. She was killed along with our father when the tincans came and responded to our flags of truce with artillery fire. The tincans killed many of us before we were finally subdued."

  Miri seemed about to protest but her mouth hardened into a firm line. Starbuck wondered what she was holding back.

  "You don't seem so subdued," Starbuck said. "You all seem to be surviving very well, for children."

  Kyle's voice broke as he shouted:

  "We are not children!"

  Starbuck knew he should be amused by this adolescent's posturings, but instead he was angry in return.

  "What are you then, all you eight and ten and fourteen year olds, if you're not children?"

  "We are warriors!"

  Starbuck laughed, and that laugh did more to infuriate Kyle than any words could. For a moment his arms flailed and he could not speak. Ratzi ran to him and touched his arm, but he pushed her away. She stayed slightly behind him, ready to help if he ever acknowledged a need. Miri watched Kyle's anger passively.

  "I knew you would not understand," Kyle said. "We've been robbed of any sense of childhood. We are at war, that makes us warriors."

  Starbuck's anger immediately left him at these words. Proclaiming his adulthood, Kyle seemed more a child than ever.

  "All right, I get your drift. But your thinking's dangerous, Kyle, for yourself and for the others. Even if you're right and you have somehow achieved manhood prematurely, they're ju
st children—little boys and girls. But not young warriors!"

  "That is what we are, lieutenant, just as you say, young warriors."

  "You do speak like a leader, Kyle, I'll give you that. But don't you see how you are endangering the oth—the children. They can be killed or captured."

  Kyle laughed, a bit too proudly for Starbuck's taste. "We are too swift," the young leader said. "Our attacks too precise, too well-timed, too well-planned."

  Starbuck was surprised.

  "You attack them?"

  "They are the enemy," Kyle said laconically. "They took all we ever had, set up their station in our settlement, killed many of our parents. So now we hurt them. We strike at their ammunition depots, fuel dumps, patrols. We saved you from one of their patrols today, lieutenant."

  "And I thank you for it. But—"

  Starbuck stopped, realizing that anything he could say would only antagonize Kyle further. The young man's defiant stare made him uneasy and, although his leg was without pain now, he was feeling too exhausted to argue.

  Two children, twins from the look of them, rushed into the cave and announced that a tincan patrol had been diverted from pursuit with a false trail the twins had laid down. Kyle crisply thanked them for their report, then apologized to Starbuck for the laxity of discipline in their demeanor. Starbuck said he thought they were quite disciplined—for their age. Kyle glared at him, then muttered he had his duty to attend to (placing special emphasis on the word duty), and he left the cave chamber, his raised shoulders clearly displaying the immense anger he was holding in. Seeing the wound to Kyle's pride, Starbuck immediately regretted the sarcasm of his remark.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FROM MIRI'S BOOK:

  Starbuck watched Kyle go. When he looked back at me, there was a hint of sadness in his eyes.

  "You'll have to excuse Kyle," I said. "He thinks he's so, well, grown up since he's had to assume responsibility for the other children."

  "I shouldn't have been so hard on him."

  "Nobody's been hard on him for a good long time. It might just do him some good."

  Ratzi offered Starbuck another spoonful of food. He waved it away. Ratzi's reaction was disappointment, as it always was when someone refused her help. She needs to serve. I've tried to argue her out of it, make her a bit more independent, but I soon realized that she was not happy unless what she did had a clear benefit to someone else. Especially Kyle—although our newcomer seemed to have immediately charmed her, too.

  "I'm stuffed," Starbuck, observing her pout, said. "Really. I didn't realize how hungry I was. It's good. Really."

  His praise satisfied Ratzi. She carried the bowl away with the pride of a soldier just awarded a distinguished service medallion.

  Starbuck gestured toward the high pile of books against the near wall.

  "Who reads?" he asked.

  "We all do. Books and paper are prime commodities on Antila. Quite scarce at the moment, although the tincans have a room full of unused paper in their garrison. I stole some of it for my book that last time I—"

  I stopped talking abruptly, wondering what it was about Starbuck that made me so chatty. I didn't usually give away secrets that easily. Not even Kyle knew about the storeroom of paper. I wanted to keep that discovery to myself for the time being, not let anyone find out I hoarded paper in order to record my secret thoughts. A vain project, perhaps—vain both in the sense of futility and vanity—but, if Kyle ever does need paper, I'll give him some. He has this odd passion for writing cryptic messages on oilskin, anyway.

  I also doubted that Kyle would want me to inform Starbuck about the secret passage into the garrison, either. He had already, after all, told Starbuck that Megan was dead, when in fact she was in the tincans' prison. I sneak into the garrison regularly to see her.

  "I can tell there's something you don't wish to talk about," Starbuck said gently.

  I nodded.

  "Well, I won't ask then. But about the books, you say you all read them?"

  "Except for a couple of the youngest children who aren't ready yet. They choose war games over education."

  "You sound bitter."

  "I am, a bit. I want them to have some knowledge, something else to understand besides the ways of this awful planet, and the details of warfare. Most of Kyle's band feel they don't need any education, but Kyle forces them to attend my classes as part of their routine duty."

  "Classes? You're their teacher then?"

  I felt myself blushing, because he seemed so impressed with that small feat.

  "I do my best," I said.

  "I always like to meet a woman as long on brains as she is on beauty."

  Now my face was really red, I was sure. And for two reasons. First, because I am as susceptible to glib flattery from a handsome male as anybody but, second, because of the veiled insult to women attached to the compliment. At that moment he seemed as arrogant as Kyle when Kyle boasts about male superiority. I always rankle at Kyle and, for a moment, I felt a similar anger at Starbuck. Yet, the grin that went with the words was ingratiating, and I thought that he simply might be trying to please his nurse. Men are like that sometimes, Megan told me—when they are sick, it becomes the primary goal in their life to please the nurse. I decided not be angry with him. I liked him so much, anyway, it would have disturbed me to fight him.

  "So," I said, trying to be as matter-of-fact as I could, "you think I'm pretty?"

  "Miri, when you arrive on the Galactica, you'll have suitors galore."

  I started to say that 'suitors galore' was not my idea of a worthwhile goal, when I realized all of what he'd just said.

  "Back on the Galactica?" I said, shocked.

  "You can't stay here. You and Kyle and the whole band of children, we'll get you off this backwater ugly planet. It's the best thing. Especially with your parents, well, gone and the settlement in shambles, as it will be after I take charge and we make the attack on it, myself and whoever comes to rescue me. The children can just retire from warfare as of now. There'll be no reason to—"

  "Wait a minute, wait," I cried. "You're talking too fast. We can't go!"

  "And just why not?"

  I could not answer without divulging information that Kyle wanted kept from him—about Megan and all.

  "I can't tell you now," I said weakly.

  I didn't know what to do. I would have to sneak into the tincans' garrison again. I had to talk with Megan.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Spectre was so furious that he considered scrapping the entire mud-splattered patrol.

  "Did I hear right?" he said to its leader. "You were all sprawled on the ground, pushed there by a mob of little children, and you could not get off a single good shot?"

  "Yes, honored commander sir," said the leader. When one of Spectre's minions appended the honored to his automatic response, it was clear he was apprehensive. And Spectre had disassembled warriors for smaller mistakes than this.

  "And the pilot escaped."

  "We are tracking the guerillas, but you know how effectively they lay down false trails, sir."

  Angrily, Spectre dismissed the patrol and told Hilltop to send out another search party immediately. Hilltop announced that the new patrol had already been formed and dispatched. Spectre was impressed. This Hilltop was proving to be a fine aide, a very fine aide. He might shift him from temporary to permanent duty.

  His consideration of Hilltop's promotion was rudely interrupted by the sudden sound of an explosion outside the garrison walls. The floors of his office rocked with tremors. Rushing outside, he saw that a part of the original fuel dump was in flames. Hilltop, his outfit gleaming from reflected fire, sped forward, demanding explanations for the explosion and fire. When he had received them, in addition to a sealed packet handed Hilltop by a centurion, he reported back to Spectre:

  "Fuel dump sabotaged, sir."

  "The children?"

  "Yes, so it appears. They left this packet behind, actually threw it to o
ne of our warriors."

  Hilltop gave Spectre the packet, which Spectre carried back to his office before inspecting it. Inside the animal-skin wrappings was a rolled-up oilskin.

  "A message, Hilltop. For the first time the children's army is communicating with us."

  "Perhaps they offer peace, sir, a truce."

  Spectre perused the message.

  "No, I'm afraid it's hardly a matter of peace, unless double-cross has become a pacifistic strategy. But this is better than a truce, Hilltop. It is an offer that we can turn to our advantage. Come with me."

  "May I ask our destination, sir?" Hilltop said, as he struggled to keep up with his fast-gliding commander.

  "The prison. Hilltop. Our business is at the prison. I must talk with one of the humans there. One Megan, do you know anything about her?"

  "Wasn't she a leader of the colony here?"

  "One of the fiercest, Hilltop. I've been trying to break her for some time. If you humiliate their leaders, you reduce the courage of your enemies. I have never been able to humiliate Megan. She is sick and weak. She can hardly talk. But, in her weakest voice, she is still defiant. It will be a pleasure to observe this final humiliation."

  They reached the prison, a grain silo before the Cylon takeover. The prisoners were kept in some makeshift cells in the silo's upper reaches. They had named their prison the tower. All of its windows were covered over, and even Spectre felt a hint of gloom when he entered its bleak dark interior.