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escaped.None of his officers knew how, although they suspectedtheGalactica had successfully created
another camou-flage force field. None of his officers knew where they hadescaped to.
The trap should have worked. It was as if it had beensprung and had captured its quarry, and still the
humanshad found some way to wriggle out.
He came out of his reverie to find the Starbuck simulacrum looking at him and smiling.
"How did they escape?" Imperious Leader asked theStarbuck.
"Escape?" it answered. "That's just so much bilgewa-ter, bug-eyes. We beat you, that's all. We beat you
again.And we're going to keep on
Imperious Leader leaped at the Starbuck, intending tostrangle it. His hands went right through the
Starbuck'sneck, and did not alter one degree of its smile. With onegigantic effort, Imperious Leader
pushed the entire simulator off his pedestal. It crashed to the floor of thechamber. Sparks flew in all
directions. For a moment, theStarbuck stood at the center of the wreckage, thensuddenly flickered out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Croft:
After what I've been through, the bridge of theGalacticaseems incredibly claustrophobic, even thoughit's
an immense chamber. But I can't stop my shouldersfrom contracting at the box that I feel enclosed in.
Boxes,prisons, cells. That's my life. Maybe I should have takenthe opportunity to escape with Wolfe and
Leda. Theymight be still alive and I might not feel so trapped. Still, as I look around at the joyful crowd
gathered on the bridge, Ican't help but feel that their lives were traded for the livesof all around me, all
personnel and passengers on themany ships of the fleet. Perhaps it was the proper trade.
Adama is in his commander mood and praising Apolloand the expedition for the successful completion
of themission. He tosses a couple of bouquets to Athena andApollo for their flying skills. I try to feel a
part of it allemotionally, but all I can feel is that it was just a job I did.I wouldn't downplay my part in it,
especially the rope-swinging act I did with the kid, but I still don't feel that Ibelong here, drinking in the
rhetoric of praise. They used me because they had to. Otherwise, they would have leftme in my stinking
hole. The hole they're going to send meback to.
Adama has moved to Cree and is eulogizing on howbrave the young cadet was. Well, that's true enough.
I'drather have been hanging on that rope and falling in thatavalanche than be subjected to Cylon torture.
Goodwork, Cree, you deserve the praise.
Suddenly Adama is standing in front of me. I try tostraighten up into some semblance of attention, a
reflexfrom the old days, but my bones are so much in pain I canhardly move them.
"And Croft," Adama says in his resonant voice.
"I guess it's back to the old grid-barge," I say, and try tosmile as if I don't mind.
Adama smiles back. The monster,smiling aboutsending me back.
"No," he says after a pause. "I think you worked outthe rest of your time down on that ice planet. You're
needed on theGalactica, Commander."
I almost don't hear him say the last word. Commander.Reinstatement in rank. If only Leda were here,
she might just I've got to stop thinking of her now. Anyway, she'donly have said that reinstatement in
rank was just so muchbilge.
Adama grips my shoulder for a moment, then moveson. Now he faces the kid and his daggit pet, which
is doinga good mechanical version of a happy drool.
"Boxey," Adama says, "if anyone should be sent to thegrid-barge for disobeying orders..."
The kid looks scared. I almost want to protect him.The daggit squeals.
Maybe a good scare'll cure the kid of sticking his noseinto dangerous places.
But I doubt it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
First Centurion Vulpa pulled his heavy body up over thehanging cornice. The sound of the metal in his
uniformscraping against the ice surface sent echoes rolling down the mountain. He glanced down at the
uniform. Many of the black bands awarded him as decoration for valor hadbeen scraped away by his
climb. Breaks in the suit that had occurred during the crash landing of his ship hadrendered it only barely
functional. He had had tocontinue to wear it as protection against the rising coldtemperature.
There was only a little farther to go. Exercising all thewillpower that two brains could offer, he climbed
upward. By the time he had reached the summit station, he knew he had no more powers of exertion left
in hisbody. He lay still for a long time.
Finally he could force his body to rise. Withoutlooking around him, he began stepping heavily across the
wreckage until he reached the center where the remains ofthe once-powerful weapon stood. Its shell still
rosemightily toward the sky, dark gray and gloomy. But itstood on a mangled foundation. The
awesomely powerfulenergy pump was in jagged ruins. Fragments of the station, broken, split, bent, lay
about the still-intactflooring. At points Vulpa could see a helmet or uniformfrom one of his warriors
perceivable beneath some part of the ruins. A bridge of burned metal had formed across thegaping
elevator shaft. Except for the shell of the gun,nothing tangible revealed what it once had been.
Leaning his heavy body against the shell of theweapon, Vulpa resolved to go into a meditative state. The
ability to do that in the midst of a disaster such as this wasa second-brain quality for which he was
extremelygrateful.
He could meditate here, oblivious of the wreckagearound him and what it meant to his life, for a long
time.
Perhaps for the rest of eternity.
Or until a reinforcement garrison arrived.
Or until he died.
It did not matter.
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