Author's Note: This story is completely and utterly dedicated to the amazing and uber-talented Tame.

Girlfriend - YOU ROCK!

TRIAGE

Chapter One

Lee does the only thing he can to make sure he and Kara survive Pegasus.

In another time, in another place, a tour of duty onboard the Battlestar Pegasus – no matter how much it sucked – was a sought-after posting. Every aspiring officer in the Fleet knew how closely The Brass kept an eye on the ship commanded by the youngest female Admiral on record. Being part a military machine that had been at peace for nearly forty years, spanning twelve planets and hundreds of thousands of personnel, there were few things a junior officer could do to make his service record stand out. Serving, and surviving, any length of time under The Bitch – Admiral Helena Cain – was a sure-fire way to make sure that said service record was worthy of closer inspections by selection committees who approved – or disapproved – applicants for further accreditations.

But that was then.

Right now?

It just plain sucked.

Ever since he came on board, including his current assignment and the smug-ass look on the face of the man walking towards him, Lee Adama could honestly say that working on the Battlestar Pegasus sucked.

Aside from the fact that he had been demoted to Lieutenant, not withstanding the insult when he had been taken off Vipers and re-classified as the new, in-resident Raptor Boy, he had also managed the distinct honour of becoming the in-house kicking-dog for Stinger's snubbed manhood.

The way Stinger had taken to treating him had nothing to do with Lee being a more talented pilot, a more competent CAG or an all-around better human being.

No – Stinger's newfound hobby stemmed from a petty-ass scene in the shower room when Lee had caught the Pegasus' CAG comparing the 'flight worthiness' of their respective 'Vipers'.

Believing he had sized Lee up 'correctly', Stinger got in touch with his inner eleven-year old boy and rhetorically asked who had the bigger 'nose' and 'burners'. Keeping his head high and his mouth shut, especially proud of himself for not asking his CAG if there was a correlation between his age and the man's boot size, Lee could've cared less what the other man thought. What would make a difference was how everyone else in the squad was going to treat him, whether or not they were going to follow Stinger's lead; Pegasus was ruled by fear, not respect, and that mentality trickled down from the highest in command to the greenest rookie. Newly transferred at that point, there was no way he could count on the pilots under Stinger's command to stand up to their CAG. Then again, not everyone was lucky enough to have a best friend who was strong enough to call him out and help him be a better officer for it.

Piecing together the best way to deal with Stinger without stooping to the other man's level, he let the CAG believe what he wanted.

That lasted all of three and a half minutes.

Stinger's sudden sidelong glance had Lee sliding his eyes to see what would make the man stop gloating in mid-sentence.

A certain female Viper pilot, possessing the most dangerous curves in the Fleet, had sauntered into the shower room. Pulling at the hems of her double tanks and releasing the fastenings of her cargos, she stripped down to her sports bra and regulation panties like she was the only one in the place. Bent in half and tugging at her socks was when Starbuck's posture tangibly changed. Her head kicked up and her muscles locked as she caught a whiff of 'something's not right'. Eyes roving over every section of the room as she straightened, intent on finding what she was looking for, the corners of his lips stretched into a ghost of a smile as he watched her shoot down one fool after another who thought that their wolf-whistles, cat-calls, ass-shakes and strategically opened towels would earn them a second look from the infamous Starbuck.

Running her gaze over those standing underneath the shower nozzles, Lee saw the actual moment when she figured out why Stinger had such a haughty expression on his face. Giving her a subtle sign, telling her she was right, he watched as she dropped her socks onto her shower supplies and head in his direction. He wasn't about to wave her off as she padded barefoot across the tiled floor nor was he going to tell Stinger that trying to match the predatory gleam in Starbuck's eyes was his second biggest mistake of the day. Stinger had something that Starbuck wanted and it wasn't the 'Viper' the man was advertising in his right hand.

Keeping herself just outside of Stinger's splash zone, she raked him with her eyes and made it a point to linger over the twenty-four inches of flesh that spanned the man's narrow hips. Clocking how long he took to 'get his skids up', she turned and looked to the left. She didn't stop at 'linger'; Lee felt her gaze become white-hot as it slid in, out, and around, every muscle, dip, and hard plane on his body. A peculiar sense of stillness preceded the roaring of his blood as it churned and beat a harsh staccato underneath his skin as he found himself fully facing her and returning Starbuck's eye frak. Long buried sexual fantasies crept out of their storage locker and played out in the five feet of space that separated Starbuck and Apollo. Tendrils of sexual heat and passion snaked up their bodies and wrapped themselves around all the right places.

If he had blinked, he would have missed it. Bold and brazen Starbuck, swooping in to back up her wing-mate, was undone by a flash of Kara-skittishness

Breaking eye contact first and leaving Lee with a semi to contend with, she was back to being one-hundred percent Starbuck. Without missing a beat, a belittling smirked question, 'Enjoying the launch pad, Stinger?' nailed Stinger's 'landing gear' to the four walls of the shower room. It was the cocking of her hips that told Lee she wasn't done just yet. Craning her neck and raising her voice so that everyone in the shower room could hear her, a caustic explanation about the difference between 'grow-ers' and 'show-ers' earned her an enemy in Stinger. Making it crystal clear that Apollo would be the only 'stick' capable of 'flying her bird' had Lee drawing out his own shower until Starbuck was dry and dressed. She wasn't stupid; the way she took her time brushing her teeth and fiddling with her hair was her way of telling him that the odds on 'two against all' were better than the odds on 'everyone against one'. Joining her at the sinks, standing side-by-side and each keeping a wary eye, he could feel that she was more than primed for the crew to have a go at them.

Leaving together, Lee didn't realize how wound up he was until he was back in his rack and trying to relax. Looking up at the roof of his bunk, he wasn't seeing the snide expression on Stinger's face. Settling deeper into his pillows, he prepped his 'Viper' for 'launch' by reliving the most dangerous four minutes of his life.

That was weeks ago.

Stinger's latest assignment had everything to do with the bucket of grease cutting, scorch-mark removing, guaranteed-to-make-metal-gleam concoction the CAG ceremoniously plunked down at Lee's feet. With just as much pomp, a sponge was dropped into what resembled a failed chemistry experiment from someone's still.

Every ounce of indignation he had was channelled into keeping his face impassive as Stinger ordered him to wash Vipers. Lee couldn't stop his fist from clenching when Stinger swung his hand and, randomly, pointed to a Mark Two being taxied from the furthest repair bay. Lee didn't miss why Stinger chose that particular Viper. He would have to cross three-quarters of the deck, with bucket in tow, ensuring that every Specialist, knuckle-dragger and pilot would see him relegated to being a sponge-jockey instead of the other half of the legendary team of Starbuck and Apollo.

The temptation to pick up the bucket, grip the edges and squarely toss the contents at Stinger played out in his head even as his fingers curled around the wire handle. Using a two-fisted grip as the reason why he 'couldn't' salute Stinger as the CAG turned on his heel and stalked off, Lee settled – for the moment – for scoring another point in their on-going pissing contest.

Blank-faced, he hefted the bucket and made his way down the bay. Here and there, he caught glimpses of crewmembers off-loading from Galactica – conscripted just like him and Kara – to serve on The Beast and work for The Bitch. It was reassuring to see a few familiar faces, even if they weren't happy ones. Knowing that there were those he could count on if need be was one of two things he called 'good' on Pegasus; everything else fell into increasing degrees of 'not good'. Second Shift was always a shit-shift and Stinger made sure he was always assigned to it. Kara, on the other hand, had been switched to First Shift – sort of. That was her cross, courtesy of Stinger. Cain paying special attention to Starbuck and ordering Stinger to report her daily statistics meant that Pegasus' CAG couldn't re-assign her to performing mundane replenishing runs in antiquated shuttle crafts. He had to find another way to screw with her.

The frakker did.

As soon as he found out that Kara was naturally nocturnal and that mornings were the downside of her body's personal energy cycle, Kara's schedule was immediately changed. He remembered standing next to her, both of them reading the newly adjusted duty-board, and asking her if she knew anyone in the laundry that sewed. He didn't have to tell her what he was thinking; she already knew. Re-stitching the letters CAG to read FIC – Frakker in Charge – on Stinger's duty uniforms was put on their 'to do' list.

Getting one of her rare smiles in that moment, a true Kara-smile, gave him hope that he would only have to be dealing with Starbuck twenty-four/seven as long as they were onboard Pegasus. The crew was being even harder on her and being in full Starbuck-mode was her best coping mechanism. But it was work being Starbuck, to keep up that level of intensity and energy day in and day out. It was wearing on her and there were times when Lee thought the woman who gave Starbuck that necessary essence of heart-pricking vulnerability was gone for good. He didn't know if he had enough reserves to last, or how much longer his wing mate could hold out, until his father found a way to transfer Starbuck and himself back to Galactica. Both of them were reaching a breaking point physically, mentally and emotionally. This bizarro-world, this anti-Galactica, was truly affecting him. The first tugs of depression were pulling at him and it was becoming harder and harder to shake off those darker emotions and thoughts. Having Starbuck/Kara with him, buffering some of the uglier aspects of The Beast by re-directing a lot of the animosity onto herself, was a lifeline he wasn't about to take for granted – especially since every hit Starbuck took left a stain on Kara. What was further complicating things was that the more she extended herself to protect him, the further she emotionally pulled away from him. She wasn't punishing him, that wasn't it at all. She knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it. No, it was more the case of a baser, more human reaction: self preservation. If one had a weak spot, a vulnerability, one protected it. That's what she was doing; it didn't mean that just because he understood it that he was going to accept it. Of course, the underlying dysfunction of Starbuck believing that Kara was a liability was something that Lee wished he could scatter to the far edges of the cosmos. In his mind, he had spent days, weeks and months, convincing her that while Starbuck had a place in their world, she would be nothing without Kara.

It wasn't like they had stopped drinking, playing Triad, working out or hanging out together. Its just that now, those quiet moments when they would both be still and talk, or give themselves a chance to drop their alter egos for the sake of their own sanity and not say anything at all, were all but gone. If they laughed, it was to release built up tensions that came with the ridiculousness of Pegasus and her crew. It was a physical ache not to fly with her and he knew she felt too. No one on Pegasus could keep up with her and with Cain setting up shop in Starbuck's back pocket she had to play by the rules. He could see that the only joy she got out of flying these days was from skirmishing with Cylons.

Speaking of egos…

While his ego, and that of every other pilot on his father's ship, had accepted the fact that Starbuck was the best pilot in the Fleet, the guys onboard Pegasus took to punishing her for it. Only one dumb-ass went so far as to actually take a swing at her. He may have split her lip with a sucker-punch she never saw coming but she made sure that the ECO that swung at her spent the next two weeks with his jaw wired shut. Word had it that the man was on the waiting list to be fit for a partial plate to replace some missing teeth. Since then, Lee and Kara agreed to keep tabs on each other. Not smothering or crowding the other person, each made sure each other knew where the other was while on duty. It was a given that off duty hours were spent together, along with anyone else from Galactica that wanted to join them.

Thinking back, the last time he had physically seen Starbuck was last night. Stinger had her assigned to split shifts that included the last half of Third Shift and the first half of First Shift. Wired after being in the air, she would seek Lee out for a work-out/sparring match. Often, she would walk with him to the hanger bay and assist the Chief with prioritising, diagnosing and repairing Vipers and Raptors while Lee reported for duty. Coming back from his shift, he looked on helplessly as she spent evening after evening tossing and turning in her rack, trying to get some sleep. His hands were tied as everyone else who wasn't scheduled for duty in the Officer's Quarters played Triad, joked, laughed and carried on. There wasn't anything he could do to help her. It wasn't like they were being deliberately raucous; it was just the rhythm of the crew. Of which, Stinger was well aware and counting on to make Starbuck's life miserable. Coming from Galactica, stripped of his Captain's rank, Lee couldn't order them to quiet down. He couldn't even make a case for her as being a fellow pilot and needing to rest. If he did anything, it would only draw more attention to Kara than she was already getting. He hated that there was nothing he could do to keep the circles underneath Kara's eyes from darkening as they clocked more days onboard Pegasus.

"Morning, Apollo."

A voice to his right scrambled the mental images Lee had of Stinger looking at the duty-board and reading that he had been permanently re-assigned to ferry human waste to the reclamation treatment ship and Kara rigging the ventilation system so that just the right amount of methane was fed in to cock pit to make Stinger's new duties 'pleasant' as possible.

It was the Chief – but not Tyrol. Tyrol was still on Galactica. This was the Chief of the Deck on Pegasus; the one Kara always commented about how haunted his eyes always seemed to be and how he didn't 'look' like a Deck Chief to her. Lee remembered asking her why she thought that and watched her shrug her shoulders and say that she could tell that the Chief didn't like getting dirty. Lee knew he didn't have a counter to her insight, but he really didn't dwell on it either. As long as the planes his people flew were taken care of adequately and Kara came home every time she launched, he didn't have a problem with the man or the way he ran his deck. In fact, the Chief was efficient enough not to show up on Lee's radar and that was enough for him at the moment.

"Morning, Chief."

Eying the bucket that Lee set down, the Chief's eyes flitted between the gunk that slopped over the rim and the Viper he hadn't finished repairing. The looks the two men exchanged – the Chief recognizing one of Stinger's signature 'duty assignments' and Lee's look of 'yeah, I know what he's up to and it will only be a matter of time until the tables are turned' – was a silent conversation that didn't need words.

Instead, the Chief waved at the Viper and invited Lee for a walk-around.

"You can skip the left wing; had to practically re-attach it. The outside is cool enough to touch, but the interior metal is still way too hot. Any cold 'water'," he glanced down at the bucket, not sure what to call what was in it, "will warp the welded metal and create a delta of micro fractures."

Coming around the back end of the fighter, Lee frowned. "The housing unit on the aft burner is a little worse for wear."

"That's what it looks like now; you should have seen it come in! How the hell that pilot managed to bring this plane in with only one wing and an aft burner that resembled a wad of crumpled paper is beyond me." Reverence for the skill the pilot who brought back his bird filled out the Chief's orange coveralls. It was the mask dropping over the other man's face that stirred Lee's hackles. Lowering his voice and tilting his chin towards the deck, Lee didn't know if the Chief was talking to him or himself. "Gonna go and see if I can fabricate a new canopy for that one, maybe even scrounge up a new one."

Not sure if the Chief's sense of loyalty lay with the fighter or the pilot, Lee nodded absently when the other man clapped his shoulder and took his leave. Reaching for the sponge, a self-preserving thought had him stopping in mid-extension. Looking at the Chief's back, Lee called out, "Chief – got any gloves?"

"Third drawer down, left hand side," partially turning, the Chief pointed to a tallboy toolbox behind and to the right of Lee.

Giving the Chief a nod and making for the toolbox, gloves were found in the fourth drawer. Slapping them against his palm as he went back to the Viper, Lee took in all the bumps and bruises on the Viper and tried to figure out what the man wasn't saying.

The eerie sense of something not being right prickled his shoulder blades. Vipers were made for combat. No question. But this one, there was something… wrong… with this particular plane.

Stuffing the gloves into his pockets, he reached out and started running his fingers along the hull, letting the Viper tell him what had happened out there. Dings and dents from different angles spoke of debris coming in at different angles; the pilot had taken on multiple targets or that multiple targets had locked onto the pilot. Scorch marks and carbon scoring were the telltale marks of too many close calls and last minute evasive manoeuvres. The deeper grooves around the gun ports showed that the ship had been a primary engager. A jagged scar running underneath the tip of the nose to just underneath the cockpit spoke of a close encounter where the pilot only managed to pull up in time. Looking at the nameplate on the Mark Two wouldn't give him the identity of the pilot because there wasn't one. On Pegasus, nameplates were awarded to those with the highest kill-counts, not individual pilots who put themselves on the line every time the Action Stations alarm sounded or CAP was rotated. To Cain, having never been one herself or any of her command crew, pilots were pawns, a means to an end – completely opposite of the command philosophy he and his father shared.

Still not finding what he was looking for, he put on his gloves and grabbed the sponge. Draining it just enough so that the stuff wouldn't drip down his arm, he got to work. Rhythmically squeezing, scrubbing, dripping, rinsing and squeezing again, Lee trailed the sponge along the length of the Viper. Compared to his own Viper, a Mark Seven, the Mark Two was all curves. His craft might be technically superior, the latest model to roll off the assembly line, but the power, grace and long lines of the Mark Two gave the fighter-craft a kind of beauty that made his ship look like it was too pretty to go into battle.

His muscles bunched, rolled and released as he worked. Stripping down to his tanks, his hands traced curves and grooves, creases and seams as his mind personified the fighter he was working on. The nose of the fighter, the cockpit, the flare of the wings, the heat and power of the engine, the grace and beauty that thrusters itched to give all melded together to make a complete and potent package. There was a balance of power between a fighter and a pilot. Some pilots didn't have it within them to really fly their planes – their planes dictated what the pilot did and did not do. There were other pilots who climbed into their cockpits, owning every square inch of the plane between the circuit boards and the hull and the craft accomplished everything the pilot set out to do. It was the difference between those who were born to fly, who loved it, needed it and couldn't live without it versus the person who could fly and, in a sense enjoyed it, but resigned themselves to keep with it because they didn't know how to do anything else.

But there were those precious few. Those pilots who climbed into cockpits that seemed to have been made especially for them and planes that were manufactured just so that one specific pilot could sit behind the stick. Merging, becoming one, one felt lucky just being a spectator when such a being flew overhead as one tilted a neck to the sky and tracked it until it became one with the horizon. Those precious few who met a plane on equal footing were those who were made to fly. The respect, admiration and trust a true pilot had for his plane was tangibly returned. Things just felt different.

He had seen her work on her plane, seen how she flew it, and recognized that she was one of those pilots that he could watch for hours. Every move, every adjustment, every vector change – in battle, on CAP or just weaving her way between the ships in the Fleet – was an example of what it would look like when man and machine merged. If there were a hundred ships flying in front of him, each with identical markings, he could easily pick Starbuck out of the fray just by the way she flew.

Being on Atlantia, Galactica and Pegasus, Lee had always chalked up his relationship with his Mark Seven as containing that little bit of superstition he allowed himself that the bulk of his fellow pilots indulged in more heavily. But since the end of the Worlds, that bit of superstition had been re-enforced on two separate occasions. The first was when he sat with his Viper, counting down the hours before attacking the tylium refinery. The second was the first time he climbed into Starbuck's Mark Two.

An 'Action Stations' alarm had gone off and Kara was still down with her knee. It was just after the tylium raid and the repair work on his Mark Seven hadn't been completed. Kara was on the deck, working with Tyrol and Cally, when he came in and dropped down the stairs. She had seen him scan the hanger bay, picking out which fighter to jump into, and nodded her head towards her bird.

Sprinting to the ladder, his hands wrapping around the rails, he mentally prepared himself to be in a 'rental'. Being a reservist meant that he didn't always get to fly the same plane over and over again. Settling into a cockpit had that feeling of being in a rental car: clean, to the point of being sterile, you knew why you were there, what you were doing there and where everything was; there was no need to look for the light switch or wipers because it was the same make and model every time.

Settling into Starbuck's plane was different from anything he had ever experienced. Everything – from the moment the canopy was popped to Jammer securing the seal on his helmet – was different. Squaring himself to the seat and consoles, he didn't have much time to think about it before he was sling-slot out of the launch tubes and taking on the incoming Cylon Raiders. But sitting there, in that cockpit, after everything was said and done, he felt like he had been 'adopted' by Kara's plane. Her Mark Two handled a lot differently from his Mark Seven, there was no question about that, but he couldn't help but feel like the ship had 'looked out' for him in a similar way it protected Starbuck. It was a reach to come up with a valid parallel. The closest thing he could compare it to were the stories he had read as a child, about horses knowing the difference between those who were on their backs and had their owners' permission to ride them as opposed to those who didn't.

Watching him sit there, in her bird, Starbuck gave him a knowing grin and let him be there as long as he needed. Her intuition stayed with him for days.

His analytical mind snapped him out of his memory. The clues that were right in front of him had strung themselves together – all he had to do was read them.

Dropping the sponge into the bucket, he crouched underneath the nose of the plane and re-inspected the scar he had noticed earlier. An ugly thought creased his forehead. Tracing his hands over the rippled metal, his ugly thought became horrifyingly possible.

Coming around the front of the plane and climbing the access ladder, Lee found himself with a whole new perspective on the damaged fighter.

The aft housing unit had taken a hit, and judging by what the Chief hadn't been able to completely repair, the shot had been fired at the Viper. Taking that kind of hit would also cause extensive damage to the left wing.

His fingers had barely tripped the hydraulic release on the canopy when that uglier hypothesis took to be coming nails in someone's coffin.

Surveying the cockpit of the Viper, Lee didn't have an answer to his next question. Why was the canopy still in place? Since the Viper was that heavily damaged, the pilot should have punched out.

It was with the need to be wrong that he climbed into the pilot's seat and squared himself with the console. Forcing himself to ignore the Viper speak of a friend betrayed and the way his heart was beating deep and hard, he ran is eyes over every surface of the cockpit. A nick in the transparent barrier, on the inside right corner of the canopy, set the muscles of his jaw to work. His hand never shook as he reached for the ejection lever and gave it a hard tug.

He should have been a smear on the roof of the hanger bay.

He wasn't.

A few more nails were ready to be hammered into that coffin. The widest part of the scar was at the back of the plane, tapering off at the nose. The reason why the pilot hadn't punched out was because, besides the obvious, the ejection seat had been sabotaged. The most that had happened was that the pilot's helmet had bounced off of the inside corner of the canopy.

Vaulting out of the cockpit, feeding equal amounts of fire to his anger and the need to find someone, he took one last look at the rippled, melted, metal on the underside of the Viper.

What would generate enough heat to melt the underbelly of a Viper?

Wracking his brain, comparing one scenario after another as to what could do that kind of damage, he switched to tackling the problem logically. 'It' had to be smaller than a Viper but just as fast because if it weren't, the pilot would have been able to out run it, come about, and destroy it. No. 'It' was… 'It' was… Scanning the deck, looking for the last piece of the puzzle, his eyes fell on a team of knuckle-draggers loading missiles onto a Viper.

That was 'it' – a missile!

Swinging his eyes forward, Lee re-created the battlefield in his head. Visualizing Cylons coming at him, he conjured the pack of Alert Fighters flanking his wing. Being a primary engager meant that the Viper kept its tail to Pegasus as it defended the oncoming attack. This was a safe assumption because of the sustained damage to the aft housing unit and left wing. So, if he were charging forward, facing enemy fire, and the only birds in play that actually carried missiles were Raptors, Heavy Raiders and Vipers, that meant…

All Raiders and Heavy Raiders would be coming at him, not coming up on his six. The only crafts behind him would be those coming from Pegasus.

His mind screeched with disbelief.

The only Vipers equipped with the capacity to handle missiles were Mark Sevens – Mark Twos didn't have the ballast to counter the added weight. The only crafts that fired missiles were Heavy Raiders and Mark Sevens; Heavy Raiders only carried nukes. Recalling the battle chatter that had been relayed to the bunkroom, there wasn't a single mention of a radiological alarm!

Marching to the Chief – Stinger's orders be damned – Lee grabbed the man's coveralls; the man just showed up on Lee's radar.

Behind the Chief lay a new canopy and a new ejection component. In his hands was a helmet. It was the Chief's way of saying he had nothing to do with what happened but he was willing to make sure all the replacement parts were ready to be installed.

"Spread the frakking word." Barely moving his lips, Lee put every once of Captain Adama into his edict. "From here on out, she and I will be the only ones who will be working on her bird. Do you understand me?"

"She already told me that." A rueful expression crossed the man's face as he glanced down at the fistfuls of fabric clenched in Lee's hands.

"What the hell happened?" Lee demanded.

"You already know what happened; this is Pegasus – remember?" The sneer in the man's voice told Lee that the Chief had been betrayed more by once by those on the Battlestar.

The latent resignation in the man's voice had Lee letting go of the Chief's coveralls and feeling the desperate need to check to see if he had been contaminated by the same disease that flattened the eyes and sapped the soul of the person in front of him.

It was too late for that – Lee was infected just like everyone else. He had become symptomatic long before he picked up Stinger's bucket and there was one reason – one person – why he was still in the first stages of the disease. He had been receiving regular transfusions of Fight, Fire, and the potent cocktail of Challenge Authority from stockpiles that were already severely depleted.

"Which way?" Lee did bother asking 'who' – he didn't need to.

The Chief's orange clad arm rose and pointed in the direction of the Ready Room.

The temptation to threaten the man rose like bile in his throat. That was how things were done on this ship but that wasn't the way things were done, not on Galactica and not in the 'Book According to Lee'. To make the man fear for his life would maintain the status quo, not instigate the change that needed to happen to save Pegasus.

Shackling his temper with a deep breath, Lee leashed his fury to the locked muscles of his jaw.

"I have watched her help you time and again. If you feel any loyalty to who and what that woman is…" Lee's voice was strangled by possibility of what almost happened.

Lifting his chin and looking down at the other man, Lee ground out, "Give me a name."

"I can't do that." The fear on the man's face was tangible.

"But I can make sure nothing happens to these." Resolve set his shoulders as he moved closer to the components he had already set aside for the fighter.

Nodding, accepting the Chief's words because he had too, Lee marched off the deck and towards the Ready Room.

Wrenching open the hatch and scanning the theatre of empty seats, Lee left the room with two items on his agenda.

One: he had to find Starbuck.

Two: he was going to find the bastard who tried to kill her.

What happened next depended on whom he found first…