'Look insulted. No wait...look confused. Look mostly confused and a little irritated.'

Lee's features twitched trying to keep up.

Being hung-over wasn't helping.

Tigh looked up at him expectantly and caught the parade of expressions crossing his normally contained CAG's face and his brow furrowed a little.

'Why isn't he saying anything?...This is getting uncomfortable' thought Lee.

"Major?"

"...Uh..yes Colonel?"

"I just asked you if you'd heard anything about personnel abusing their simulator privileges."

Lee felt beads of sweat pop out on his forehead.

"...Uh no Colonel, I haven't heard anything about any such incident, I don't think...to my recollection that is."

'Yeah that was really smooth'

"Someone informs me there was more than one person in simulator alpha last night. It was a simulation run that you authorized."

Tigh showed him the paperwork, which was, of course, unnecessary.

'Who the frak could have seen...?...Doesn't matter...think...'

"uh...yeah, that was an experiment in tandem viper flight."

Tigh looked perplexed. Lee continued quickly.

"yeah, a simulation of a mission gone wrong in which one of the crew gets stuck on a moon or planetary body. I was testing the feasibility of having one of the vipers land to pick up the stranded crew. In such a case flying would become much more difficult."

Lee surreptitiously rubbed his side thinking 'not to mention painful.'

Tigh looked at him thoughtfully, 'or is that contemptuously' Lee thought. It was hard to tell.

Lee could feel sweat dripping down his spine.

"The witness said they weren't wearing flight suits."

Tigh paused and added

"No tanks either... or pants."

'Frak.'

"...Yeah, that was my idea. Space being what it is in a viper, or a simulator. You can't waste any room with..."

"Clothes?" Tigh supplied.

"...Right."

Tigh perused the paperwork in front of him.

"The sign-in sheet doesn't list the pilots' names."

"Kat and Hotdog were the first duo, I must have forgot to put in the names."

'If they don't play along Kara will send them out an airlock and they know it.'

"Why did you pick those two?"

"...Because they're experienced...and pretty small. I thought I'd start with the two most likely to succeed, to see if the idea was even worth pursuing."

"Wouldn't that be you and Starbuck?"

Lee twitched a little and swallowed. 'Is this going over at all? Or is he just frakking with my head?' Tigh's face gave no clue.

"Kara doesn't share very well, I thought I would work out the kinks before I involved her." Lee explained, wincing internally at his unfortunate choice of words.

"You don't think she could help you work out the kinks?" asked Tigh... but the game was up. Tigh's apparently iron control over his face had finally broken and Lee knew that Kara was probably already doing push-ups.

A serious expression came over Tigh's face

"A word of advice Apollo?"

Lee just nodded, despondent.

"Simulator beta is roomier."