A Solstice Carol Or The Cylon Empire vs. Charles Dickens by Leah (Nytesilver@aol.com) 12/24/2000 ( Stock Disclaimer: based on the series "Battlestar Galactica" by Glen Larson. Not intended to infringe on any copyright, etc., etc. Apologies to Mr. Larson, and to the memory of Charles Dickens, who never did anything to deserve what I'm about to do to their stories and characters. NOVELTY ITEM: FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!) It was bad enough, Baltar reflected, that he had briefly mistaken what must have been his own reflection in the highly polished metal of the door for the face of his late and unlamented business partner. Worse, that his reaction to the supposed apparition had startled him so badly that his response had been immediate and obvious, and not easily passed off as a sneeze or something equally innocuous. Worst of all, that Lucifer had been directly behind him at the time, and was even now, no doubt, preparing a report on his impaired mental state to be sent to Imperious Leader. And all this on the eve of battle, when six sectons of planning were about to be realized. So now he had finally retired to his quarters for some well-deserved rest, which the thought of that damned report hanging over his head would likely interfere with; and the orak steak he'd had for dinner (the delicacy of the last Cylon-held star system they'd passed through -- or at least it had been when the star system had living inhabitants - and reportedly quite edible) was sitting like a rock in his stomach. It was shaping to up to be one lousy Solstice eve. As usual. The faint illumination in the room, despite the fact that he'd turned off the lights, he could live with. The same for the shuffling sounds, and a noise that sounded remarkably like chains clinking. The moaning, on the other hand, was beginning to get on his nerves. He finally gave up trying to ignore the figure standing patiently by the bedside, clanking and moaning, and turned to look. His reaction this time was quiet calm, which pleased him no end; too bad Lucifer wasn't in the room to see it. Then again, considering what he was looking at, it was probably just as well. The apparition by the side of the bed let out a long, keening banshee wail, but then had the good grace to look embarrassed. Baltar looked it up and down. "Marlyn?" he asked. "Is that you? What in Hades is that you're wearing, a bathrobe?" He gave the specter of his former business partner another look, and raised one eyebrow, a sneer beginning to quirk up his lip. "Fashion statement?" Marlyn's ghost looked down at himself, at the heavy chain wound around his insubstantial body, and shrugged. "It adds to the atmosphere." Baltar sat up in the bed. "So what do you want? And whatever brings you around now? I was trying to get some rest. Demanding work, you know." "Yes," grated the ghost, "I do know. And that is why I am here. To tell you that you have one final chance to change your ways!" He waved an incorporeal finger in Baltar's face. "This is sounding...rather cliché, Marlyn," he answered sardonically. "Do three wishes figure into this somewhere?" "Three spirits!" Marlyn wailed, warming to his subject. "They will visit you tonight, show you how you have misspent your life!" "And this will accomplish...exactly what?" He fell abruptly onto his back on the bed as the ghostly image loomed over him. "To redeem your soul!" it wailed into his face; then it leaned back a bit, looking thoughtful. "Though I don't think it'll do you a heck of a lot of good, at this stage," it ruminated. "That account's closed, Marlyn," Baltar told it in as firm a tone as he could manage. "Go away." The ghost went away. Baltar glanced around to make sure nothing else was lurking about his quarters, then, certain he was alone, thought over the events of the last few centons and came to a conclusion. "Strange," he muttered to himself, turning over and dousing the lights once more - though he still didn't remember turning them back on. Some malfunction, he guessed. He'd have the technicians look at it in the morning. And analyze that orak meat. It had gone bad, he guessed; it was giving him hallucinations. The first spirit awakened him at an altogether unacceptable time of the cycle, with a voice that could shred plasteel. "I am the Spirit of Solstice Past," it announced gleefully. Yes indeed, very cliché, Baltar mused as he tried to regain some semblance of consciousness. He never did wake up easily. "I am here...," and here it broke off to consult what appeared to be a small datapad. After a moment it looked up, and a grin beamed over its shining, youthful face. "I am here to show you your past!" "I know my past. I was there." "I will show you --," the spirit went on with relentless cheerfulness, pretending it hadn't heard him, "what Solstice past..." It broke off to consult the datapad once again. As it scrolled forward, Baltar thought he caught glimpses of his childhood and youth flitting by, too fast to make out any single image. After a centon or two, the spirit looked up, its grin faltering. "You know, you really were a dreary child, weren't you?" "And you're blaming me for this?" "Ah!" it announced, after another flickering consultation of the pad. "Here's one!" He was at what seemed to be an office party. In fact, he remembered it, vaguely. One of his largest hostile takeovers of a rival company had succeeded, and it had been quite a bash. He didn't remember it being Solstice at the time, though. "I have to work with what you give me," the spirit muttered out of the corner of its mouth, apparently reading his mind. "Just work with me here, okay? Oh, look, there you are!" Baltar looked at the spirit in surprise. It seemed to be picking up some of his own snide, insincere tone. Then he followed its pointing hand and saw a much younger version of himself across the room. The feeling that sight engendered was a good deal more unsettling than he thought it should be; but then again, he couldn't say he'd ever given the notion any previous consideration. "Can you see how happy you were, at this time of your life?" the spirit rattled off, almost sounding like it was reciting by rote. Baltar frowned, and after a moment's pause for effect, glanced at his companion. "You do this a lot, don't you?" "You're leaving," the spirit said bluntly. Baltar blinked, and waited. He wasn't moving, and the meeting room seemed inclined to stay where it was, although its load of drunken revelers reeled around a bit. Then he realized that the spirit must mean his younger self. He looked across the room in time to see his doppelganger finish off a drink and unwind the arms of that pretty redheaded accountant from around his neck - what had her name been? He'd had an affair with her, and felt he should remember - and deposit her in a chair as she was incapable of standing without assistance. Then he did, indeed, leave the room. Baltar found himself looking at his double across the desk in his old office, though he couldn't remember passing through the several corridors and two floors between it and the meeting room. He - the younger he - was staring intently at his computer screen, tapping in commands with brief, staccato strokes, while the older he watched, and soon began to grow a bit bored. "And was it worth it," the spirit beside him, whom he'd almost forgotten, asked in its screeching voice. He rubbed the ear closest to it, trying to dispel the lingering buzz. "Was what worth what?" "To give up all your pleasure and enjoyment, in the pursuit of money and power?" Baltar thought it over for a little less than half a micron. "The pursuit of money and power is my idea of pleasure and enjoyment. Besides, how else do you think I built up my business, became the wealthiest man in the Colonies, I'll have you know?" "And where is all your wealth now?" the spirit grinned, as though it felt it had scored a point. "In an Orion vault. In the form of Orion bonds and precious metals. I had it transferred just before the peace conference. Good bankers, those Orions." The spirit looked at him a moment, opened its mouth as though to answer, and shut it again. The office faded into his familiar quarters. "Well, you're certainly my hardest client, but not my only client," the spirit told him with determined cheer. "Can't be everywhere at once, you know, have to run. Ta-ta!" It grinned rigidly as it faded out of sight, apparently into the wall. Baltar returned to his bed, which was looking better every centon. "And a scare-the-bugger-to- death to do by morning," he muttered to himself, quoting from a holovid he couldn't recall the plot of at the moment. But it seemed to fit. "Strange," he reiterated, then elaborated on it. "More than strange. This whole business is bizarre!" The lights he'd just turned off - again - turned on - again. He sighed, rolled over, slapped the button on the comm unit to call the technician to come now, and stopped dead with his mouth hanging open at the sight of a large figure standing in the room. This new glowing idiot was grinning at him, even wider than the first. Baltar found his voice. "This is ludicrous!" he shouted at the figure. "By your command," said the comm. Baltar tried to focus on one of his two immediate problems, and nearly succeeded. "No, not you," he told the comm. "I said 'ludicrous', not...I was just calling for...oh, never mind!" He snapped the comm off abruptly, thinking dismally of what was going into that report now. After a few centons of that depressing activity, he looked up at the still-smiling Spirit of Solstice Present. "Well," he snarled at the festive figure, "get on with it!" "Good Lord!" he squawked a moment later, in great alarm. "They can't see me, can they?" Because if they could, it was a miracle that none of the many people crowded into Adama's quarters had noticed him, and he didn't think his luck would hold much longer. "No," the tall figure beside him boomed out in an explosive baritone. "Nor can they hear you!" "And a good thing, too. What is it with you people and your voices? You have lungs that could implode a spaceship hull! Try and keep it down, will you?" "No one here can hear what we say." "No, but I can, and I'd like to keep my hearing, thank you. Just a bit lower, if you please." He glanced around the room. There was Adama, looking every bit the proud family patriarch; his son Apollo and a dark-haired woman Baltar seemed to recall was a daughter. That dolt Starbuck, whose acquaintance he'd had the misfortune to make before, and a very attractive blonde woman on his arm. Probably as shallow as the rest of them, he thought, though very good looking. And a small child he couldn't place at all, unless the brat was Starbuck's. He seemed occupied with a toy of some sort, a ghastly yapping automaton made up to look something like a daggit. The others in the room stopped milling around, gathered up the boy, and seated themselves around the table in a charming little holiday picture. How quaint. On the other hand, there was quite a spread on the table in front of them. Certainly better than he'd been getting, lately. Including that damn orak steak. After his guests settled down, Adama spoke. "I think that at this holiday season, we should think not of what we have lost, but what we have now." There were sounds of agreement at the table, and one derisive snort that went unheard. "O Lords --" "Oh, God," Baltar groaned, "he's off." " - for the food on our table --" "Try the orak, why don't you?" Baltar glanced at his companion. "It's particularly good this yahren." "-and for the company of those we love --" "Didn't you say something once about 'decreasing the surplus population'?" asked the spirit. Baltar thought about this for a while. "No, I don't think so..." The spirit thought about it a moment, too. "No, I don't think that was you. Sounds like you, though." "Oh, granted." After Adama finished, Apollo started in. " Don't tell me we have to sit through the lot of them having their say! What is the point of this little visit, anyway? That I'm not invited to their party?" "Well...that was sort of the idea." "I wouldn't be anyway. I wouldn't come if I were." "No, but you would have someone to spend the holiday with, surely..." Baltar just stared at him. Into the silence the little boy's voice chimed like a bell. "Lords bless us, every one!" Baltar shut his eyes, unable to stand the scene any longer. "And they're going to eat after that? Please - let's just go." The lights he still couldn't remember turning on had just been doused for the third time when they flared up again, accompanied by the strident tone of the alarm klaxon. Baltar had always sworn that sudden bursts of adrenaline gave him tunnel vision, which was as good an excuse as any to ignore the tall, grey-shrouded spectre at the foot of the bed. He raced for the command center. The view on the screens was anything but reassuring. The Galactica, in close proximity to his own ship, firing with all guns. He might have thought of some command to issue, had there been a point, or time. He might have wondered how the battlestar could have closed so rapidly with his base ship. Instead, he only managed to murmur, "Oh, no," before the battlestar's missiles fired on his ship, and a brilliant flare of light consumed the command center, his crew, his tall grey companion, and himself. Then things became decidedly odd. He would have expected, in such circumstances, to find himself dead. Or rather, not to find himself anything at all, all awareness having been erased in his own destruction. He knew that some believed in an afterlife, and now he wished he'd paid a little more attention to the particulars of those beliefs. He didn't seem to recall that any such notions involved floating, apparently unharmed, through open space, with a gaunt, silent ghost of some sort at his side. The Galactica loomed ahead. He was surely going to collide with it, and he wondered, if in his present unusual state, it would hurt. It didn't. It didn't stop his apparent motion, either. Insubstantially, he passed through the hull, into the bridge, and on through the corridors of the huge old ship. Everywhere, there were the sights and sounds of rejoicing. Cheers, laughter, people embracing each other. He passed on through the ship, into space again, and then through several ships of the human fleet. Everywhere, he saw the same signs of joy. He knew what had occasioned them. His own death. He turned to watch as the last ship passed, leaving him alone in space....and found he wasn't in space at all. There was hard-packed soil beneath his boots. A dim, ruddy light lay over a barren landscape. The wind blew cold in his face, laden with dust and the scent of sage and just the barest hint of moisture. He knew where he was. Though it had been more than half his life since he'd been here, he would always know Scorpia. But it wasn't as he remembered it. He was looking down on the city of Raamasa, heart of the inheritance that should have been his, but it wasn't as he remembered. The city was ancient, had always seemed on the point of falling to dust, but now it lay before his eyes in ruins, blasted down by the Cylons' final massive attack. The wind rose, keening around his ears. This wasn't supposed to happen! he thought to the ghostly voices of the wind. They weren't supposed to come here! You were supposed to be safe, to be here when I came back.... The wind grew to an accusing shriek, flinging itself against him from the ruined city. He turned and fled up the hill behind him. He passed through a gap in a crumbling wall, and momentarily escaped the wind and its voices. The manor of the counts of Raamasa, his family's home, which he had intended as his seat of power under the Cylons, was a hollow shell, blasted through by laser fire. He wandered, numb, past the doors sagging open and through the ruined halls, hardly noticing when he passed out of the roofless building and into one of the small courtyards. He came up short before a raised stone platform, and realized, with a sudden shock, where he was. He moved around the pyre stone and past the motionless grey figure to the far wall. From somewhere behind him, a flickering red glow played on the wall, and a sudden wave of heat at his back cut through the chill. He glanced over the names carved into the wall, the names of his ancestors, of hundreds of yahrens of counts and their families. He came to the end of the list, running his hand down the wall. He came to the name of his grandfather, his mother, his sister. There was one last name under his fingers. There shouldn't be, he knew. He hesitated a moment, not wanting to see, but finally, almost unwillingly, his hand dropped down and uncovered his own name. "But this can't be!" he protested to the shrouded spirit beside him. The flames on the stone, burning nothing, rose higher. The stone began to sink soundlessly, into the paving stones and below, leaving a fiery pit. The wind howled maniacally above the rim of the wall, disembodied voices screaming their fury. The figure pointed toward the pit. Baltar took one look, and dropped to his knees as if a rug had been pulled from under his feet. "No! This can't be my future! I can change! I can make it right! Please, give me another chance!" The wind fell to silence, the heat at his side faded away. Carefully, he cracked open one eye. The sight of his own familiar quarters, lights still on, greeted him. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Only a dream....it was only a dream after all." He scrambled to his feet, and caught sight of himself in his mirror. He straightened a sleeve, and smiled widely at his reflection. "You still have it," he told his image smugly. "Baltar, you could sell dirt to the dead!" He reached for the comm button. "Lucifer!" "By your command," the comm replied. "Is the attack still on schedule for tomorrow?" "That would be today." A quick glance at the chrono confirmed this, but the smug correction still rankled. "Whenever. I'll need a technician to check the lights ion my quarters tomorrow, and see to it that entire shipment of orak is jettisoned." Too bad, he thought, there was no way to slip it into the Galactica's stores. "Until then, I don't want to be disturbed. For anything" "By your command." He dropped into bed, turned off the lights, waited a long moment to see if they would stay off. The darkness seemed inclined to stay. No otherworldly beings appeared. He turned over and began to drift into sleep. "Got that out of my system," he muttered. "Strange, very strange." - The End -