"Second Chances"
by the archduke
Disclaimer: I'm not making any money off of this because I don't own it.
Kara Thrace spent the end of civilization as she knew it passed out on the bathroom floor of a luxury suite.
It took two days for her to realize that anything was amiss. The lack of a television signal she chalked up to the unpredictability of space travel. They were probably temporarily out of range of a satellite, and there was never anything good on TV anyway. When the air conditioning went out she just shrugged and took off her pants. It wasn't like there was anyone around to watch her lay about in her underwear.
When there was no answer when she called down for room service, she began to suspect that all was not right upon the Cloud Nine. A cruise ship simply did not ignore the call of a high paying guest such as herself. If she wanted three bottles of ambrosia to be sent to her room while being juggled by a guy in a toga, they just asked her what vintage she preferred and sent it straight up. And now she couldn't get a bowl of noodles?
She searched for a pair of pants, because she had to go get some food, and she had eaten the last of her protein bars a few hours earlier. The fact that she had lived off protein bars and ambrosia for the last four days didn't bother her. She was on vacation.
Pulling on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, both of which had seen better days, she ventured out into the world at large. It was not the same one she had left behind when she had entered her suite four days earlier.
&&&
She wished she had remembered to put on shoes before she left her room. It seemed wrong to be barefoot when she found out that the vast majority of her species, and probably all other known species as well, had been wiped out. She knew she must of looked pathetic, standing in her ratty clothes, unkempt and shoeless, listening while the red-eyed woman at the front desk told her that the Cylons had attacked the colonies. When the woman began crying, great heaping sobs that she made no effort to hide, Kara turned away and for the first time really looked at her surroundings.
People were huddled together in clusters, standing against the walls, sitting in chairs pulled to the corners, or grouped in circles on the floor. It seemed no one wanted to be alone.
She took her shoeless self back to her room to finish off her last remaining bottles of ambrosia.
&&&
The constant jumping wasn't too bad after the first few days. That's when the nausea had stopped, coincidentally at the same time she had run out of alcohol. She was usually fine with traveling by FTL, and she hadn't thrown up due to alcohol in more than ten years, but putting the two together had her slumped over a toilet. The things a person learned about themselves when the worlds ended.
&&&
She had heard of the Galactica when she had been at the academy. Other cadets would talk about what sort of assignments they'd like after graduation, and she specifically remembered an argument about whether being stationed on the Galactica would be a step up, because being assigned to a battlestar was an honor in itself, or a step down because it was unequivocally the worst ship in the fleet. It wasn't even networked for gods' sake.
There was no reason for her to join in any of those conversations. She knew when she accepted admission into the academy that she wouldn't be spending five years in the service after graduation like the rest of her class. She had been recruited to play pyramid, had in fact been one of the top prospects and very heavily recruited by some of the best colleges in the colonies. She picked the academy because it was the farthest from where her mother lived on Picon and she looked damn good in the dress blues.
After graduation, and two national championships, she had been commissioned and assigned to the academy as an assistant coach for the team. The brass let her retire after the season ended. She was more valuable to them as a recruiting tool playing pro pyramid then at any other job they could have given her.
Now, after finding out that the Galactica was the only ship in the entire Fleet that had survived, she wondered how many of her classmates would have given their left kidney to be stationed on it.
It was only when she overheard a conversation at the bar about the recruitment of pilots that she realized that she was once again an officer of the Colonial Fleet. She had been told when she retired that she could be reactivated during times of war, but had paid little attention to that fact. There hadn't been a war in forty years, so she had considered those nine months she had spent as a lieutenant the full extent of her military career. But now they were at war, or something closely resembling it, because did it count as a war when they had already lost practically everything?
But she couldn't stay on the Cloud Nine forever, she was becoming claustrophobic and the fake view was pretty crappy, and it would be nice to fly again, so why not? It wasn't like there was a big demand for pro pyramid players anymore.
&&&
The Galactica wasn't as bad as she had imagined. From what she'd heard in the past and in the last few days, she'd expected a decaying hunk of metal held together with duct tape and glue. In reality, she'd say the ship had character. It was similar to what she imagined an ancient pirate ship might have been like, worn down yet functional, with an air of impending catastrophe hanging about everything and everyone. She liked it.
She only said goodbye to one person when she left the Cloud Nine, and that was only because she had to settle her tab at the bar. The bartender said he was sorry to see a familiar face go. She wanted to say that he must have seen plenty of familiar faces go in his line of work, but it was still too soon since the holocaust to say something like that. She settled on wishing him luck, and declined the offer of one more drink, on the house. It wouldn't look good to report for duty smelling of alcohol. If she remembered correctly, the military tended to frown on that sort of thing.
After being led off of the Galactica flight deck too quickly to get a read on the place, only a vague sense of bustling and shouting, she and another potential pilot who had come in from a different ship ended up taking seats with a few others in what looked to be a lecture hall. The woman she had walked in with introduced herself to everyone as Lucy Katraine, but that's as far as the introductions got.
A perfect specimen of military precision had walked in. A dormant signal must have been triggered in her, possibly by his uniform (so much neater than hers had ever been during her almost five years in the military) or the air of superiority that telegraphed itself in his walk and the tilt of his head, because she immediately sprung to her feet in a salute before he even made it to the front podium. Her instructors at the academy would have been surprised by the unforced show of respect. If any of them were still alive, that is.
She couldn't tell if he was pleased by her display of military discipline, because he did not immediately salute her back, but turned to her fellow recruits, who were still seated behind her.
"On your feet, nuggets," he said in the typical military half shout that she had ignored so many times while in school. She felt the others emulate her stance and only then did he release her with an "At ease." She couldn't help smirking a bit when she heard the stirrings of people beginning to sit, but then straightening back up when they realized she wasn't sitting down. She had never been an example to anyone before in her entire life, and it was fitting it took an apocalypse to make it happen.
Mr. Military walked up to stand in front of her. She kept her eyes trained on his forehead until he addressed her.
"You must be Thrace. Welcome out of retirement." She let her gaze flicker over his collar. Was that the pin of a captain or a major? She had once frakked a major, but couldn't remember any details above the waist. And what had gone on below the waist hadn't been that memorable either. She'd figure it out later. "Thank you, sir."
"Let me ask you something, Thrace," he began in the inquiring voice people used when they wanted to sound pleasant but in actuality had no intention of being pleasant. "Why did it take you two weeks to report for duty? We sent out a request for all military personnel, retired, reserves, active duty, cadets, basically everyone, to report ASAP to Galactica two days after the attack. Did you not get the message?"
Great. She had already pissed him off. At least that was something she was used to. A little familiarity was welcomed in this new, unimproved world.
"No sir, I did not."
"I see. And what were you doing that was so frakking important that you missed the fleetwide call to duty?"
She mentally went over her own personal timeline of the last two weeks and compared it to the rest of humanity's. While they were watching their home planets get nuked, she was…
"I was passed out in my bathtub, sir." Technically she had been passed out on the floor of the bathroom, but somehow the bathtub seemed a bit more dignified. It showed that she had at least made the effort of climbing into the tub, and hadn't just curled up on the tile floor after she had taken a piss, which is what had actually happened.
"I was on vacation," she added as an afterthought.
She heard muffled snickering from the general direction of the other recruits. Mr. (Captain? Major?) Military did not look impressed.
"Tell me why I shouldn't put you in the brig for desertion. And make it good."
Technically you had to be on duty to desert; her crime had been failure to report for duty. She had learned that distinction at the beginning of her second year at the academy, when she had been sidetracked on her way back to campus from leave by an incident at a bar in Sparta. One of her fellow players at the triad table had thought cheating was acceptable; she had eventually set him straight, but not without first getting a glass smashed over the top of her head. By the time the doctor had finished with her stitches, her leave had been over for two hours. She had ended up in the brig for a week.
She thought that the man attempting to stare her down wouldn't appreciate the distinction between the two different charges. She decided to take the practical route.
"You need pilots, sir; that's obvious or you wouldn't have sent out a blind call that included civilians. I'm military and I'm a pilot; I've also done Viper simulations. So if you can do without a Fleet trained pilot with some experience, put me in the brig. But since I'm still here, talking to you, I don't think that's gonna happen, sir."
She didn't mention that the Viper simulations had taken place due to a bet and that she had lost weekend leave privileges for a month because of it. Or that she had gotten her pilot's license after she had left the academy and gone pro, so she was only certified for recreational aircrafts. But a plane was a plane, and it wasn't like they could check her file, so she felt confident in glossing over a few of the details.
He just stared at her, his face revealing nothing. "As you were," he said as he stepped back, turning his gaze from her to encompass the rest of the recruits. She sat back down in the front row and only then did the others also sit.
He stepped behind the lectern. "Thrace is right. We are desperate for pilots, so some things are going to slide. Instead of spending a few days in the brig, she now has the responsibility of killing Cylons before they kill her and what's left of humanity. You all do.
"Viper pilot is without a doubt the most dangerous and important job in existence at this time. So if you're scared of dying, then leave right now. Because someone who will put their own safety before that of the fleet is no good to anyone on Galactica."
Silence greeted the end of his brief speech. Tension began to fill the room, as if nobody had thought about the down side of becoming a pilot during a time of war before now. Kara hated tension, unless she was causing it in others.
"Nice pep talk, sir. I'm feeling all noble and heroic now. It must be how you feel all the time."
Her outburst had the desired effect as the room filled with stifled giggles. She felt immensely pleased with herself.
Mr. Military, however, didn't look pleased at all. "Congratulations, Thrace. Looks like you're going to see the inside of the brig after all. See yourself down there now. Ask someone if you can't find the way."
So much for restarting her career on the right foot. "What should I tell them, sir? What am I charged with?"
"Insubordination. Let the guard know that I'll be down shortly to formally sign you in." He paused a moment and then spoke to the entire group. "No matter how bad things get, there will always be boundaries. You can all thank Thrace for that perfect illustration of just where the boundaries lie."
She nodded and turned to leave. She noticed the supporting looks the other recruits were sending her way and straightened her shoulders a bit more. Before she made it to the door a thought had her turning back to Mr. Military.
"Excuse me, sir? I just realized you never told us your name. Who should I say is sending me to hack?" She hoped she sounded as obnoxious to him as she sounded to herself.
"Captain Adama. Now get moving."
So he was a captain. She'd never frakked a captain before. She whistled as she walked down the corridor, not knowing if she was heading toward the brig or not. She'd figure it out later.
&&&
She spent two days in the brig and didn't learn a lesson. She hadn't the other times she'd been incarcerated, and wasn't about to start now. Captain Adama, who she learned while talking to the guards was the Commander's son and a hotshit pilot to boot, met her as she was being released. She gave a salute more ironic than sincere but he didn't call her on it.
"Follow me. I'll show you where you're bunking with the rest of the nuggets," he said as he walked out of the brig and into the corridor.
She walked beside him, matching his stride. She saw him nod to people in greeting and get nods, or sometimes smiles, in return. He seemed to be, if not liked, at least respected by the crew. She'd form her own judgment of him on her own.
He led her down several corridors before he pulled open a hatch that opened up into an obvious bunkroom. Two other recruits who she recognized from the meeting were in there, and stood to attention when the Captain entered. They seemed to have learned some things in the past two days.
"Hotdog, Kat," he acknowledged as he saluted back. "As you were." The other two relaxed and went back to what they were doing, but she could tell they kept one ear on herself and the Captain.
"Your new home, Thrace. You have an hour until you're due in training." He pointed to a spot behind her and she turned to find the bag she had packed before leaving the Cloud Nine sitting in a corner with a wrapped parcel sitting atop it.
"There's your things. Find an empty bunk and get settled. Remember, one hour, and don't be late." He turned to leave but stopped halfway. She had a perfect view of his profile. "And Lieutenant," he said with what she thought was a smile trying to break free on his face, "Try to stay out of trouble. We can't have Starbuck in the brig." He left before she had a chance to respond.
"What the frak was that about," she questioned the woman she remembered as Lucy.
"We got our call signs before we flew for the first time," she answered. "We were all talking and it got out that you used to play for the Buccaneers. Someone mentioned you were their star player. The Captain said it was too bad we had to wait to see how the "star buc'" flew, and it kinda stuck. Starbuck." She paused but continued when she saw Kara's look of consternation. "Hey, it could be worse. You could've been named after processed meat."
Hotdog gave a hurt "Hey!" and Kat laughed.
Kara grabbed her bag and the parcel and moved over to an unoccupied bottom bunk. She sat down and scooted in towards the wall for privacy and opened the parcel. It contained a pair each of sweatpants and green trousers, a couple pairs of duty tanks, one sports bra, a set of dog tags, and one duty and one dress uniform. All the tags were cut out of the clothing. That was good, because she didn't want to know the name of the dead person these had once belonged to. They were hers now.
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She was good at flying Vipers. She didn't need the Captain or anyone else to tell her she was a natural at flying because she had never, in all her life, felt as comfortable as she did in a Viper cutting through space. The Captain did ask her if she was sure she had done only simulations before, and she answered with a smirk and a "Yup."
She was settling into this new life she had now. She hated the X.O., tolerated the food, liked the cards, and loved flying. She didn't think about the friends she had lost, how she should have been high altitude training with Anders, Sue-Shaun, and the rest if she hadn't gotten suspended for punching her coach (it hadn't really been a vacation), but she was thankful to the Lords that she hadn't been with them, because then she would have been dead too.
Not very many people got second chances. She'd try her best to make it count.