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 -