Hermitage One, Two and Three
By Gene Hermsen (a.k.a. Sharon Monroe)
9 pages.
Download an epub file of this story by clicking here.
Epub files can be read with most ereaders and free software programs like Calibre.
Hermitage One
Lieutenant Kee of Red Squadron picked it up on his scanner first: traces of a crash site, and evidence that someone had survived. "Do we go down, Captain?"
Captain Tilden eyed his own scanners. "No Cylon activity. Go on down; Red Team #2, go with him. I'll contact theGalactica and be right with you."
In a few moments, he joined his pilots on the ground. Kee, Starleaf, Indra, and Williams were already studying the terrain. It was dry and cool, even at full daylight, with a chilly breeze scurrying the dust about. There was some spindly vegetation in sheltered spots among the rocks. The planet was mostly brown and gray; even the sky was dull blue, as if it had decided such a dismal place wasn't worth the effort of sparkling. Tilden considered that their military uniforms looked too appropriate against the blandness.
"Vacation spot of the universe, it ain't," Kee muttered to his superior.
"We're not here on vacation," Tilden rejoined. "Which way to the stuff you found?"
The stocky Oriental pointed toward the cliffside. "If my scanner reads right, just around that butte."
"Let's hope so. The Commander's coming down to check it out personally," the captain stated casually.
The members of the search team started.
"The Commander?" Sergeant Starleaf squeaked in a higher voice than usual.
"Yes." Tilden didn't pass along the knowledge that the commander himself had sent them on this search mission, his eyes burning with a secret he couldn't share with his people until his suspicions were confirmed or refuted.
They found the small shelter, composed of metal plates scavenged from ships damaged beyond repair, with furnishings made of the same scavengings. Behind the shelter, in the lee of a pile of rocks, the humans found a collection of ship parts, more metal plates, and the blasted remains of four or five Cylons.
The five warriors stared mutely. A human had lived in this shelter, surviving by cannibalizing Cylon remains and likely his own ship, surrounded by cold isolation.
Starleaf shivered and hugged herself. "Hell of a place to live," she muttered, pretending it was just the wind that chilled her, and not the thought of existing alone on such a barren world.
"You'd be like a hermit, alone in the desert trying to find your kismet. A very cold crucible," Indra added softly. "But not by your own choice. I wonder if the one who lived here escaped with his sanity...."
They heard footsteps behind them, and whirled as one, lasers drawn.
It was Commander Troy and the armed escort an officer of his rank was required to have when in a potentially dangerous situation. "Tilden?"
The captain stepped forward and made his report. "The shelter and the pile of junk are composed of parts of an old-style Viper and a Raider, also pieces of a number of blasted Cylons, sir. No sign of any occupant at present or even recently."
"No sign." Troy slowly stepped past him, eyes focused on the forlorn plates of the shelter. "Have you scanned the entire area?"
"Yes, sir. No grave, no human remains, no other traces of Cylons, no nothing. Just this shelter and pile of junk - and some scattered vegetation that looks out of place. Food-type plants, if you were hungry. Maybe what would pass for a garden in a desert like this."
Tilden was sure it was his imagination; the commander couldn't have winced.
"Except for the burnt areas to the north, in two places," Williams cut in with his deep tones. "As if more than one small ship had taken off."
Troy studied the rescue team for a moment, then turned to the shelter and went in, ignoring the wind and cold and dust. Tilden gestured the two men and two women of his search team to withdraw to their ships. The escort remained at guard outside the shelter as the captain followed his commander inside.
They were out of the wind, but it howled against the metal walls like a frustrated night specter, denied entrance to a building and flinging sand against it as if out of vengeance or to abrade a way in. Out of the wan sunshine, the place felt even colder.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"You knew something was here. Who was it? How did you know?"
The older man sat down heavily, and seemed disinclined to answer.
"Commander Troy," Tilden persisted, "there are a number of pilots who already think you're gifted with some kind of second sight, after the battle of Barnard's Star, when we drove the Cylons out of our quadrant. Is that it? You just knew something was here?"
Troy stared at his young officer, wondering if he had ever been such a youth, before gray streaked his hair, and command wore lines in his face and soul. The dark warrior, born on Earth, as had been so many in the new fleet, had an almost fearful wariness in his eyes, and Troy knew he owed this man, at least, an explanation.
"When I was still a child, long before we reached your world, there was a warrior. We had to leave him behind, but Boomer - remember Commander Boomer? - had been with him. He had the coordinates of the planet where that warrior was hoped to have landed safely. This is that planet. I had to look...."
Tilden nodded understandingly. "It looks like he was here. But that was so long ago."
"Over eighty of your Earth years. I know there was very little chance." Troy shook himself back to reality, leaving boyhood memories behind. "Go back to your ship, Captain. I'll be with you shortly."
"Yes, sir." He watched his commander thoughtfully for a moment. There were some things the Colonials and the native-born Terrans - and now their own colonists as they spread outward like an explosion's shockwave with the benefits of Colonial technology and knowledge - thought differently about. But grief, love, and friendship were human constants. The warrior that his commander searched for ... he must have been a special man, a good friend.
Alone in the shelter, feeling desolation and loneliness as he imagined his old friend must have, Troy looked around once more. He saw the helmet stuck up on a shelf, out of anyone's line of sight, and reached for it.
Starbuck.
His hands trembled as he read the name, emblazoned in the old script of the Colonies, not the common tongue of the Earth humans, which they now used almost exclusively.
"My old friend," he breathed. "So you did survive, and you were here, for a time. But there's no remains anywhere. Did the Cylons find you, and take you away? No, they would have killed you. You must have left by yourself, or with human help. Or so I choose to believe. Your luck was a legend in the fleet.... But where did you go? Are you still alive, somewhere? How did you live? Where did you die?"
He replaced the helmet carefully. Whatever Starbuck had gone through on this world, he would leave it intact. It was a poor memorial, but all he could do.
He had wondered so often what happened to Starbuck. Ever since the discovery of Earth, and the creative explosion resulting from the mingling of their cultures, he had hoped for a chance to come back and search. The Second Cylon War had interfered, as the Cylons always interfered - but even Commander Adama, his grandfather, hadn't counted on what would happen when a planet of nearly eight billion people was told they faced annihilation from the stars. The Terrans had been struggling through the birth of a truly united and interdependent world system; none of the Colonials had expected such a galvanization of effort - almost as if Earth's leaders welcomed an outside foe, a chance to unite and fight someone besides themselves. They'd been so quick to swarm into space, and almost eager to take on the Cylons. They'd fought, in fact, with a near-savagery that discomfited many Colonial leaders. The private muttering, when he was a young man, was that if the war ever ended, they've have the impossible task of civilizing their Earth brothers.
The surprising thing was that the Earthmen had pushed the Cylons back. And then pushed them out of the quadrant. And now they seriously discussed retracing the Galactica's route, drawing the other Terra into alliance, resettling Kobol, retaking the Twelve Worlds. They contemplated awesome things, to the older Colonials who still remembered defeat and the long, exhausting yahrens of exile and wandering.
Troy had volunteered to take the Galacticaon patrol of the outer edges of human space, space the Earthlings were deliriously determined to hold. It had given him a chance to look for Starbuck, and others lost on the long exodus.
Here, at least, one search dead-ended.
The Aryan pilot had called this place a crucible of fate. She was likely right. He wondered what Starbuck's fate had been.
For better or worse, it had not been here.
Hermitage Two
The search team had located the site on their last flyby of the planet. Five warriors, under the command of Captain Tilden, had landed to examine the site and wait. The commander himself was following them down. The team waited for their leader before moving away from their landing spot.
The five stared about the boulder-strewn plain. It was dry and cool, even at full daylight, with a chilly breeze blowing the dust around. There was some spindly vegetation in sheltered spots among the rocks, adding a tired green, but the planet was mostly brown and gray; even the sky was dull blue, as if it had decided such a dismal place wasn't worth the effort of sparkling. Tilden considered that their military uniforms looked too appropriate against the blandness.
They continued their search, and found the small shelter, composed of metal plates scavenged from ships damaged beyond repair, with furnishings made of the same scavengings. Behind the shelter, in the lee of a pile of rocks, the humans found a collection of ship parts, more metal plates, and the blasted remains of four or five Cylons.
The five warriors stared mutely. A human had lived in this shelter, surviving by cannibalizing Cylon remains and likely his own ship, surrounded by cold isolation. The sparse and scattered vegetation, now wild but still clinging
sturdily to life, could just barely be classified as food; there was little indication of animal life, companionship, or anything to make life easier; the human's existence must have been very bitter and difficult.
Starleaf shivered and hugged herself. "Hell of a place to live," she muttered, pretending it was just the wind that chilled her, and not the thought of existing alone on such a barren world.
"You'd be like a hermit, alone in the desert trying to find your kismet. A very cold crucible," Indra added softly. "But not by your own choice. I wonder if the one who lived here escaped with his sanity...."
They heard footsteps behind them, and whirled as one, lasers drawn.
It was Commander Troy and the armed escort an officer of his rank was required to have when in a potentially dangerous situation. "Tilden?"
The captain stepped forward and made his report. "The shelter and the pile of junk are composed of parts of an old-style Viper and a Raider, also pieces of a number of blasted Cylons, sir. No sign of any occupant at present or even recently."
"No sign." Troy slowly stepped past him, eyes focused on the forlorn plates of the shelter. "Have you scanned the entire area?"
Tilden gestured his warriors to continue their search. They scattered around the shelter and among the rocks.
Commander Troy slowly entered the metal shelter, ignoring the wind and cold and dust. His escort remained outside, but the dark-complexioned captain followed him in. They were out of the wind, but it seemed to howl a frustrated protest against the walls, crying out like some specter, fitfully hurling grit to claw at the metal. Out of the wan sunshine, the world felt even colder.
"Commander?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"You knew something was here. Who was it? How did you know?"
The older man sat down heavily, and seemed disinclined to answer.
"Sir...."
"Captain!" a breathless, high-pitched voice called from outside. "We found something...." Starleaf ducked into the shelter. "Sir, we found something, a Cylon, and...."
"Show me," Troy commanded.
The young woman nodded and led the way. Troy and Tilden followed her around a near rock abutment, the security guards trailing them. The plain extended before them, with more scattered debris, but the warriors ignored it, continuing along the rough cliff to a small sheltered spot.
The others waited with disquieting near-reverence around a pile of rocks, apparently tumbled over some small depression.
The commander ignored them, staring past his warriors to the Cylon. It was an old model Centurion, pitted and dull from exposure to the sun and wind. It looked dead, powered down, its heavy head bent forward as if bowed in grief. The pile of rocks started at its feet, and continued for just over two meters. At the other end of the rocks, lying at an odd angle over a larger stone to hold it in place, was a helmet, an old Colonial helmet.
"A grave." Troy's voice echoed as if in a sepulcher. He slowly knelt and touched the helmet. In old-style Colonial script was emblazoned a single word.
Starbuck.
"Starbuck," sounded out the man beside him. "I know that name. He was a great warrior, lost in the exodus. So this is what happened to him.... But how did you know, sir? How did you know?"
Troy spoke numbly. "I didn't know. Commander Boomer remembered, he told me before he died.... I had hoped ... Starbuck...."
"But what about the Cylon? Why is it here?" Lieutenant Indra asked, her dark Indian eyes staring through the machine. "It's almost as if ... it were a mourner at the graveside ... as if it had buried him and waited here to die itself ... but why would a Cylon mourn a human's death?"
The wind blew cold around them.
"Go back to the Galactica," the commander ordered quietly.
"What about the grave, and the Cylon?" Tilden asked. "Sir, should we do something...?"
"Leave it."
The warriors departed solemnly, leaving their commander alone with a silent grave and an equally silent Cylon.
"Uncle Starbuck," he whispered, listening to the mournful wind as if expecting an answer. "Eighty years. It has been so long, I knew there was no chance, but I had to look for you, Boomer was so sure.... Lords of Kobol, how long did you have to endure...? I'm sorry, sorry we couldn't come sooner, sorry we couldn't stop for you then....
"But we're winning now, Starbuck. We made it to Earth, found a way to talk to its people, to tell them what was going on. And they listened. They believed. They joined us, found a way to face the Cylons and drive them back. Do you know, they even talk of retaking Kobol? And bringing Terra into their new alliance? And winning back the Colonies?
"It wasn't for nothing, Starbuck. At least you didn't have to die here for nothing. If only we could have...."
His voice died. Troy gathered a shuddering breath and replaced the helmet carefully. Whatever Starbuck had gone through on this world, whatever the Cylon presence meant, however his old friend had died, this was his grave, and Troy would leave it intact. His memorial was in the ship and people in orbit around the planet. The survival of the Colonials and humanity's rebirth on Earth were his true legacy. This didn't really matter, in that greater scheme.
But Troy knew he would grieve his friend's death again as if it had happened only that day, Starbuck's and his father's and his grandfather's and so many others, all the lives and deaths that marked the trail back to Kobol and the Colonies.
But of them all, why had it been Starbuck left to live and die alone?
Hermitage Three
The Galactica search team located the site on their last flyby of the planet. Five warriors, under the command of Captain Tilden, had landed to examine the site and wait. The commander himself was following them down. Kee, Starleaf, Indra, and Williams waited for their leader before moving away from their landing spot.
The five stared about the boulder-strewn plain. It was dry and cool, even at full daylight, with a chilly breeze blowing the dust around. There was some spindly vegetation in sheltered spots among the rocks, adding a tired green, but the planet was mostly brown and gray; even the sky was dull blue, as if it had decided such a dismal place wasn't worth the effort of sparkling. Tilden considered that their military uniforms looked too appropriate against the blandness.
They continued their search, and found the small shelter, composed of metal plates scavenged from ships damaged beyond repair, with furnishings made of the same scavengings. Behind the shelter, in the lee of a pile of rocks, the humans found a collection of ship parts, more metal plates, and the blasted remains of four
or five Cylons.
For some reason, no one wanted to make the fateful decision to step inside the metal hut. Instead, the five stood mutely outside, as if afraid they might be overheard by anyone within. A human had lived in this shelter, surviving by cannibalizing Cylon remains and likely his own ship, surrounded by cold isolation. The sparse and scattered vegetation, now wild but still clinging sturdily to life, could just barely be classified as food; there was little indication of animal life, companionship, or anything to make life easier; the human's existence must have been very bitter and difficult.
Starleaf shivered and hugged herself. "Hell of a place to live," she muttered, pretending it was just the wind that chilled her, and not the thought of existing alone on such a barren world.
"You'd be like a hermit, alone in the desert trying to find your kismet. A very cold crucible," Indra added softly. "But not by your own choice. I wonder if the one who lived here escaped with his sanity...."
They heard footsteps behind them, and whirled as one, lasers drawn.
It was Commander Troy and the armed escort an officer of his rank was required to have when in a potentially dangerous situation. "Tilden?"
The captain stepped forward and made his report. "The shelter and the pile of junk are composed of parts of an old-style Viper and a Raider, also pieces of a number of blasted Cylons, sir. We haven't been inside to check for signs of recent occupation."
Troy slowly stepped past him, eyes focused on the forlorn plates of the shelter. "Have you scanned the entire area?"
Tilden gestured his warriors to continue their search. They scattered around the shelter and among the rocks. The commander moved toward the shelter, his eyes fastened on the tilted, rough-hung door.
"Sir, are you sure you should...?" Tilden caught his arm.
Troy barely glanced at him. "Yes."
"Then let me go first."
The commander nodded briefly, and waited while the dark captain moved forward into the shelter.
From what they could see, it was a small chamber, half formed of a shallow natural cave, half of metal plates rudely lasered together. The cold darkness smelled of desolation and loneliness, and dust drifted through rays of sunlight from cracks between the metal sheets. The only real light crept pallidly through the open
door.
Their eyes slowly adapted to the dimness. There were few furnishings: a generator, numerous scattered pieces of Cylons, a dust-covered pile of fabric, and, incredibly, what looked like a makeshift infant's cradle.
"What happened here?" Tilden asked, bewildered. His laser drawn, he stared at the Cylon bits. They had been disassembled, not blasted.
Troy reached out to touch the swinging cradle. It creaked, and he felt a searing certainty that another riddle of the long journey was solved. "Zee...."
"There's a helmet over there," the captain intoned.
Commander Troy glanced at it, knowing what he would see, recognizing the name on the battered equipment, scrolled in the Colonial script he knew Tilden couldn't read.
Starbuck.
He shook his head slowly.
Tilden started, staring at the pile of fabric, and slowly lowered his weapon. "Commander, I think it's...."
Troy had already seen. He moved to the pile, actually a worn sleepsack from a Colonial military-issue survival pack, and knelt beside it. Very gently, he pulled back the front flap, realizing his hands were shaking but unable to control them.
He heard his warrior mutter some prayer, but the words made no impression as tears gathered in his eyes. He had known there would be no real hope of finding the man alive, but secretly he'd expected that warrior's legendary luck to have persevered even here....
The gray face was topped by a wild shock of blond hair, dull with grit. A scraggly beard covered the chin. The eyes were closed. No breath stirred the body.
The body.
Starbuck was dead. Had been for a long time, for the climate to have ... mummified him.
"Sir? Who is ... was it?"
"His name ... was Starbuck.... He was a great warrior, a hero, and ... my very good friend, my father's very good friend...."
"I'm sorry...."
Troy found a bleak smile. "You did not cause this. And it has been so very long ... I thought it wouldn't hurt any more."
"Yes, sir. What now?"
"Leave us a few moments, Tilden."
He nodded and stepped outside, joining the escort, who were very unnerved by the area and what their commander had found.
Troy waited until the door closed and he was in darkness again. He touched the cold, dry face. So this was what "old leather" felt like. Any warrior could tell you that the cheap booktapes were cavalier in their description of death.
Long centons passed as memories flashed through his mind, recalled from a time so long ago and far away that the young Earth-born warriors outside would scarcely believe it. Starbuck playing pyramid in the old ready room, preoccupied to the extent of eating his candy ante, wondering how a kid was beating him. Starbuck
running through the corridor, answering an alert, thoughts caught in the coming battle. Starbuck on report, but hardly penitent, for fighting with one of the security men - he'd never gotten along with Reese. Starbuck nervously trying to avoid the crossfire between Cassiopeia and Athena, while spending time with Miriam, Noday, Aurora, a full dozen others. Starbuck's quiet sadness for a long time after the old man, Chameleon, died on the Senior Ship. Starbuck's shocked face the day Apollo didn't come back, the way he'd stumbled woodenly out of the briefing room and disappeared for three days, to be dragged back too drunk to walk. Starbuck with laughing eyes and a carefully held face, explaining the facts of life to a young boy, filling his father's place as best he could. Starbuck the hero, risking everything, and one day not coming back himself....
"And this is where it ended, bound to a dead world, alone. It's not fair, not fair.... You deserved so much better. You deserved to see Earth too, or at least to die among the stars you loved so, flying fast and free, still fighting and laughing at whatever fate handed you. You deserved not to die alone."
"Sir?" Captain Tilden shadowed the door. "Word from the Galactica, Commander, and Earth Command. We really have to go."
"Yes. We'll ... we'll only be a moment...."
Tilden nodded solemnly and vanished again.
Troy gathered up the now-light body in his arms, a light shower of dust falling to the dirt floor, unseen in the gray dimness of the shelter. With tears in his eyes, and his voice choked, he whispered, "We'll take you home, Starbuck. Home to the stars. Where you can be with us, and we can say proper farewells.
"You are so long overdue and missed in heaven...."
9 pages.
Download an epub file of this story by clicking here.
Epub files can be read with most ereaders and free software programs like Calibre.
Hermitage One
Lieutenant Kee of Red Squadron picked it up on his scanner first: traces of a crash site, and evidence that someone had survived. "Do we go down, Captain?"
Captain Tilden eyed his own scanners. "No Cylon activity. Go on down; Red Team #2, go with him. I'll contact theGalactica and be right with you."
In a few moments, he joined his pilots on the ground. Kee, Starleaf, Indra, and Williams were already studying the terrain. It was dry and cool, even at full daylight, with a chilly breeze scurrying the dust about. There was some spindly vegetation in sheltered spots among the rocks. The planet was mostly brown and gray; even the sky was dull blue, as if it had decided such a dismal place wasn't worth the effort of sparkling. Tilden considered that their military uniforms looked too appropriate against the blandness.
"Vacation spot of the universe, it ain't," Kee muttered to his superior.
"We're not here on vacation," Tilden rejoined. "Which way to the stuff you found?"
The stocky Oriental pointed toward the cliffside. "If my scanner reads right, just around that butte."
"Let's hope so. The Commander's coming down to check it out personally," the captain stated casually.
The members of the search team started.
"The Commander?" Sergeant Starleaf squeaked in a higher voice than usual.
"Yes." Tilden didn't pass along the knowledge that the commander himself had sent them on this search mission, his eyes burning with a secret he couldn't share with his people until his suspicions were confirmed or refuted.
They found the small shelter, composed of metal plates scavenged from ships damaged beyond repair, with furnishings made of the same scavengings. Behind the shelter, in the lee of a pile of rocks, the humans found a collection of ship parts, more metal plates, and the blasted remains of four or five Cylons.
The five warriors stared mutely. A human had lived in this shelter, surviving by cannibalizing Cylon remains and likely his own ship, surrounded by cold isolation.
Starleaf shivered and hugged herself. "Hell of a place to live," she muttered, pretending it was just the wind that chilled her, and not the thought of existing alone on such a barren world.
"You'd be like a hermit, alone in the desert trying to find your kismet. A very cold crucible," Indra added softly. "But not by your own choice. I wonder if the one who lived here escaped with his sanity...."
They heard footsteps behind them, and whirled as one, lasers drawn.
It was Commander Troy and the armed escort an officer of his rank was required to have when in a potentially dangerous situation. "Tilden?"
The captain stepped forward and made his report. "The shelter and the pile of junk are composed of parts of an old-style Viper and a Raider, also pieces of a number of blasted Cylons, sir. No sign of any occupant at present or even recently."
"No sign." Troy slowly stepped past him, eyes focused on the forlorn plates of the shelter. "Have you scanned the entire area?"
"Yes, sir. No grave, no human remains, no other traces of Cylons, no nothing. Just this shelter and pile of junk - and some scattered vegetation that looks out of place. Food-type plants, if you were hungry. Maybe what would pass for a garden in a desert like this."
Tilden was sure it was his imagination; the commander couldn't have winced.
"Except for the burnt areas to the north, in two places," Williams cut in with his deep tones. "As if more than one small ship had taken off."
Troy studied the rescue team for a moment, then turned to the shelter and went in, ignoring the wind and cold and dust. Tilden gestured the two men and two women of his search team to withdraw to their ships. The escort remained at guard outside the shelter as the captain followed his commander inside.
They were out of the wind, but it howled against the metal walls like a frustrated night specter, denied entrance to a building and flinging sand against it as if out of vengeance or to abrade a way in. Out of the wan sunshine, the place felt even colder.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"You knew something was here. Who was it? How did you know?"
The older man sat down heavily, and seemed disinclined to answer.
"Commander Troy," Tilden persisted, "there are a number of pilots who already think you're gifted with some kind of second sight, after the battle of Barnard's Star, when we drove the Cylons out of our quadrant. Is that it? You just knew something was here?"
Troy stared at his young officer, wondering if he had ever been such a youth, before gray streaked his hair, and command wore lines in his face and soul. The dark warrior, born on Earth, as had been so many in the new fleet, had an almost fearful wariness in his eyes, and Troy knew he owed this man, at least, an explanation.
"When I was still a child, long before we reached your world, there was a warrior. We had to leave him behind, but Boomer - remember Commander Boomer? - had been with him. He had the coordinates of the planet where that warrior was hoped to have landed safely. This is that planet. I had to look...."
Tilden nodded understandingly. "It looks like he was here. But that was so long ago."
"Over eighty of your Earth years. I know there was very little chance." Troy shook himself back to reality, leaving boyhood memories behind. "Go back to your ship, Captain. I'll be with you shortly."
"Yes, sir." He watched his commander thoughtfully for a moment. There were some things the Colonials and the native-born Terrans - and now their own colonists as they spread outward like an explosion's shockwave with the benefits of Colonial technology and knowledge - thought differently about. But grief, love, and friendship were human constants. The warrior that his commander searched for ... he must have been a special man, a good friend.
Alone in the shelter, feeling desolation and loneliness as he imagined his old friend must have, Troy looked around once more. He saw the helmet stuck up on a shelf, out of anyone's line of sight, and reached for it.
Starbuck.
His hands trembled as he read the name, emblazoned in the old script of the Colonies, not the common tongue of the Earth humans, which they now used almost exclusively.
"My old friend," he breathed. "So you did survive, and you were here, for a time. But there's no remains anywhere. Did the Cylons find you, and take you away? No, they would have killed you. You must have left by yourself, or with human help. Or so I choose to believe. Your luck was a legend in the fleet.... But where did you go? Are you still alive, somewhere? How did you live? Where did you die?"
He replaced the helmet carefully. Whatever Starbuck had gone through on this world, he would leave it intact. It was a poor memorial, but all he could do.
He had wondered so often what happened to Starbuck. Ever since the discovery of Earth, and the creative explosion resulting from the mingling of their cultures, he had hoped for a chance to come back and search. The Second Cylon War had interfered, as the Cylons always interfered - but even Commander Adama, his grandfather, hadn't counted on what would happen when a planet of nearly eight billion people was told they faced annihilation from the stars. The Terrans had been struggling through the birth of a truly united and interdependent world system; none of the Colonials had expected such a galvanization of effort - almost as if Earth's leaders welcomed an outside foe, a chance to unite and fight someone besides themselves. They'd been so quick to swarm into space, and almost eager to take on the Cylons. They'd fought, in fact, with a near-savagery that discomfited many Colonial leaders. The private muttering, when he was a young man, was that if the war ever ended, they've have the impossible task of civilizing their Earth brothers.
The surprising thing was that the Earthmen had pushed the Cylons back. And then pushed them out of the quadrant. And now they seriously discussed retracing the Galactica's route, drawing the other Terra into alliance, resettling Kobol, retaking the Twelve Worlds. They contemplated awesome things, to the older Colonials who still remembered defeat and the long, exhausting yahrens of exile and wandering.
Troy had volunteered to take the Galacticaon patrol of the outer edges of human space, space the Earthlings were deliriously determined to hold. It had given him a chance to look for Starbuck, and others lost on the long exodus.
Here, at least, one search dead-ended.
The Aryan pilot had called this place a crucible of fate. She was likely right. He wondered what Starbuck's fate had been.
For better or worse, it had not been here.
Hermitage Two
The search team had located the site on their last flyby of the planet. Five warriors, under the command of Captain Tilden, had landed to examine the site and wait. The commander himself was following them down. The team waited for their leader before moving away from their landing spot.
The five stared about the boulder-strewn plain. It was dry and cool, even at full daylight, with a chilly breeze blowing the dust around. There was some spindly vegetation in sheltered spots among the rocks, adding a tired green, but the planet was mostly brown and gray; even the sky was dull blue, as if it had decided such a dismal place wasn't worth the effort of sparkling. Tilden considered that their military uniforms looked too appropriate against the blandness.
They continued their search, and found the small shelter, composed of metal plates scavenged from ships damaged beyond repair, with furnishings made of the same scavengings. Behind the shelter, in the lee of a pile of rocks, the humans found a collection of ship parts, more metal plates, and the blasted remains of four or five Cylons.
The five warriors stared mutely. A human had lived in this shelter, surviving by cannibalizing Cylon remains and likely his own ship, surrounded by cold isolation. The sparse and scattered vegetation, now wild but still clinging
sturdily to life, could just barely be classified as food; there was little indication of animal life, companionship, or anything to make life easier; the human's existence must have been very bitter and difficult.
Starleaf shivered and hugged herself. "Hell of a place to live," she muttered, pretending it was just the wind that chilled her, and not the thought of existing alone on such a barren world.
"You'd be like a hermit, alone in the desert trying to find your kismet. A very cold crucible," Indra added softly. "But not by your own choice. I wonder if the one who lived here escaped with his sanity...."
They heard footsteps behind them, and whirled as one, lasers drawn.
It was Commander Troy and the armed escort an officer of his rank was required to have when in a potentially dangerous situation. "Tilden?"
The captain stepped forward and made his report. "The shelter and the pile of junk are composed of parts of an old-style Viper and a Raider, also pieces of a number of blasted Cylons, sir. No sign of any occupant at present or even recently."
"No sign." Troy slowly stepped past him, eyes focused on the forlorn plates of the shelter. "Have you scanned the entire area?"
Tilden gestured his warriors to continue their search. They scattered around the shelter and among the rocks.
Commander Troy slowly entered the metal shelter, ignoring the wind and cold and dust. His escort remained outside, but the dark-complexioned captain followed him in. They were out of the wind, but it seemed to howl a frustrated protest against the walls, crying out like some specter, fitfully hurling grit to claw at the metal. Out of the wan sunshine, the world felt even colder.
"Commander?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"You knew something was here. Who was it? How did you know?"
The older man sat down heavily, and seemed disinclined to answer.
"Sir...."
"Captain!" a breathless, high-pitched voice called from outside. "We found something...." Starleaf ducked into the shelter. "Sir, we found something, a Cylon, and...."
"Show me," Troy commanded.
The young woman nodded and led the way. Troy and Tilden followed her around a near rock abutment, the security guards trailing them. The plain extended before them, with more scattered debris, but the warriors ignored it, continuing along the rough cliff to a small sheltered spot.
The others waited with disquieting near-reverence around a pile of rocks, apparently tumbled over some small depression.
The commander ignored them, staring past his warriors to the Cylon. It was an old model Centurion, pitted and dull from exposure to the sun and wind. It looked dead, powered down, its heavy head bent forward as if bowed in grief. The pile of rocks started at its feet, and continued for just over two meters. At the other end of the rocks, lying at an odd angle over a larger stone to hold it in place, was a helmet, an old Colonial helmet.
"A grave." Troy's voice echoed as if in a sepulcher. He slowly knelt and touched the helmet. In old-style Colonial script was emblazoned a single word.
Starbuck.
"Starbuck," sounded out the man beside him. "I know that name. He was a great warrior, lost in the exodus. So this is what happened to him.... But how did you know, sir? How did you know?"
Troy spoke numbly. "I didn't know. Commander Boomer remembered, he told me before he died.... I had hoped ... Starbuck...."
"But what about the Cylon? Why is it here?" Lieutenant Indra asked, her dark Indian eyes staring through the machine. "It's almost as if ... it were a mourner at the graveside ... as if it had buried him and waited here to die itself ... but why would a Cylon mourn a human's death?"
The wind blew cold around them.
"Go back to the Galactica," the commander ordered quietly.
"What about the grave, and the Cylon?" Tilden asked. "Sir, should we do something...?"
"Leave it."
The warriors departed solemnly, leaving their commander alone with a silent grave and an equally silent Cylon.
"Uncle Starbuck," he whispered, listening to the mournful wind as if expecting an answer. "Eighty years. It has been so long, I knew there was no chance, but I had to look for you, Boomer was so sure.... Lords of Kobol, how long did you have to endure...? I'm sorry, sorry we couldn't come sooner, sorry we couldn't stop for you then....
"But we're winning now, Starbuck. We made it to Earth, found a way to talk to its people, to tell them what was going on. And they listened. They believed. They joined us, found a way to face the Cylons and drive them back. Do you know, they even talk of retaking Kobol? And bringing Terra into their new alliance? And winning back the Colonies?
"It wasn't for nothing, Starbuck. At least you didn't have to die here for nothing. If only we could have...."
His voice died. Troy gathered a shuddering breath and replaced the helmet carefully. Whatever Starbuck had gone through on this world, whatever the Cylon presence meant, however his old friend had died, this was his grave, and Troy would leave it intact. His memorial was in the ship and people in orbit around the planet. The survival of the Colonials and humanity's rebirth on Earth were his true legacy. This didn't really matter, in that greater scheme.
But Troy knew he would grieve his friend's death again as if it had happened only that day, Starbuck's and his father's and his grandfather's and so many others, all the lives and deaths that marked the trail back to Kobol and the Colonies.
But of them all, why had it been Starbuck left to live and die alone?
Hermitage Three
The Galactica search team located the site on their last flyby of the planet. Five warriors, under the command of Captain Tilden, had landed to examine the site and wait. The commander himself was following them down. Kee, Starleaf, Indra, and Williams waited for their leader before moving away from their landing spot.
The five stared about the boulder-strewn plain. It was dry and cool, even at full daylight, with a chilly breeze blowing the dust around. There was some spindly vegetation in sheltered spots among the rocks, adding a tired green, but the planet was mostly brown and gray; even the sky was dull blue, as if it had decided such a dismal place wasn't worth the effort of sparkling. Tilden considered that their military uniforms looked too appropriate against the blandness.
They continued their search, and found the small shelter, composed of metal plates scavenged from ships damaged beyond repair, with furnishings made of the same scavengings. Behind the shelter, in the lee of a pile of rocks, the humans found a collection of ship parts, more metal plates, and the blasted remains of four
or five Cylons.
For some reason, no one wanted to make the fateful decision to step inside the metal hut. Instead, the five stood mutely outside, as if afraid they might be overheard by anyone within. A human had lived in this shelter, surviving by cannibalizing Cylon remains and likely his own ship, surrounded by cold isolation. The sparse and scattered vegetation, now wild but still clinging sturdily to life, could just barely be classified as food; there was little indication of animal life, companionship, or anything to make life easier; the human's existence must have been very bitter and difficult.
Starleaf shivered and hugged herself. "Hell of a place to live," she muttered, pretending it was just the wind that chilled her, and not the thought of existing alone on such a barren world.
"You'd be like a hermit, alone in the desert trying to find your kismet. A very cold crucible," Indra added softly. "But not by your own choice. I wonder if the one who lived here escaped with his sanity...."
They heard footsteps behind them, and whirled as one, lasers drawn.
It was Commander Troy and the armed escort an officer of his rank was required to have when in a potentially dangerous situation. "Tilden?"
The captain stepped forward and made his report. "The shelter and the pile of junk are composed of parts of an old-style Viper and a Raider, also pieces of a number of blasted Cylons, sir. We haven't been inside to check for signs of recent occupation."
Troy slowly stepped past him, eyes focused on the forlorn plates of the shelter. "Have you scanned the entire area?"
Tilden gestured his warriors to continue their search. They scattered around the shelter and among the rocks. The commander moved toward the shelter, his eyes fastened on the tilted, rough-hung door.
"Sir, are you sure you should...?" Tilden caught his arm.
Troy barely glanced at him. "Yes."
"Then let me go first."
The commander nodded briefly, and waited while the dark captain moved forward into the shelter.
From what they could see, it was a small chamber, half formed of a shallow natural cave, half of metal plates rudely lasered together. The cold darkness smelled of desolation and loneliness, and dust drifted through rays of sunlight from cracks between the metal sheets. The only real light crept pallidly through the open
door.
Their eyes slowly adapted to the dimness. There were few furnishings: a generator, numerous scattered pieces of Cylons, a dust-covered pile of fabric, and, incredibly, what looked like a makeshift infant's cradle.
"What happened here?" Tilden asked, bewildered. His laser drawn, he stared at the Cylon bits. They had been disassembled, not blasted.
Troy reached out to touch the swinging cradle. It creaked, and he felt a searing certainty that another riddle of the long journey was solved. "Zee...."
"There's a helmet over there," the captain intoned.
Commander Troy glanced at it, knowing what he would see, recognizing the name on the battered equipment, scrolled in the Colonial script he knew Tilden couldn't read.
Starbuck.
He shook his head slowly.
Tilden started, staring at the pile of fabric, and slowly lowered his weapon. "Commander, I think it's...."
Troy had already seen. He moved to the pile, actually a worn sleepsack from a Colonial military-issue survival pack, and knelt beside it. Very gently, he pulled back the front flap, realizing his hands were shaking but unable to control them.
He heard his warrior mutter some prayer, but the words made no impression as tears gathered in his eyes. He had known there would be no real hope of finding the man alive, but secretly he'd expected that warrior's legendary luck to have persevered even here....
The gray face was topped by a wild shock of blond hair, dull with grit. A scraggly beard covered the chin. The eyes were closed. No breath stirred the body.
The body.
Starbuck was dead. Had been for a long time, for the climate to have ... mummified him.
"Sir? Who is ... was it?"
"His name ... was Starbuck.... He was a great warrior, a hero, and ... my very good friend, my father's very good friend...."
"I'm sorry...."
Troy found a bleak smile. "You did not cause this. And it has been so very long ... I thought it wouldn't hurt any more."
"Yes, sir. What now?"
"Leave us a few moments, Tilden."
He nodded and stepped outside, joining the escort, who were very unnerved by the area and what their commander had found.
Troy waited until the door closed and he was in darkness again. He touched the cold, dry face. So this was what "old leather" felt like. Any warrior could tell you that the cheap booktapes were cavalier in their description of death.
Long centons passed as memories flashed through his mind, recalled from a time so long ago and far away that the young Earth-born warriors outside would scarcely believe it. Starbuck playing pyramid in the old ready room, preoccupied to the extent of eating his candy ante, wondering how a kid was beating him. Starbuck
running through the corridor, answering an alert, thoughts caught in the coming battle. Starbuck on report, but hardly penitent, for fighting with one of the security men - he'd never gotten along with Reese. Starbuck nervously trying to avoid the crossfire between Cassiopeia and Athena, while spending time with Miriam, Noday, Aurora, a full dozen others. Starbuck's quiet sadness for a long time after the old man, Chameleon, died on the Senior Ship. Starbuck's shocked face the day Apollo didn't come back, the way he'd stumbled woodenly out of the briefing room and disappeared for three days, to be dragged back too drunk to walk. Starbuck with laughing eyes and a carefully held face, explaining the facts of life to a young boy, filling his father's place as best he could. Starbuck the hero, risking everything, and one day not coming back himself....
"And this is where it ended, bound to a dead world, alone. It's not fair, not fair.... You deserved so much better. You deserved to see Earth too, or at least to die among the stars you loved so, flying fast and free, still fighting and laughing at whatever fate handed you. You deserved not to die alone."
"Sir?" Captain Tilden shadowed the door. "Word from the Galactica, Commander, and Earth Command. We really have to go."
"Yes. We'll ... we'll only be a moment...."
Tilden nodded solemnly and vanished again.
Troy gathered up the now-light body in his arms, a light shower of dust falling to the dirt floor, unseen in the gray dimness of the shelter. With tears in his eyes, and his voice choked, he whispered, "We'll take you home, Starbuck. Home to the stars. Where you can be with us, and we can say proper farewells.
"You are so long overdue and missed in heaven...."