Disclaimer: I don't own BSG or any of the characters. I just manipulate them in my free time.
Callsign
Chapter 1
I had known Felix Gaeta for eight years, a long time in layman's terms, but not so long when I considered that we were the last humans at the end of the world, that thousands of years of history had been blinked out of existence, that the entire human species would have to begin again, from the beginning, our cycle of life altered dramatically.
Four years before the beginning of this war, I had been a Communications assistant assigned to Galactica's CIC, having just finished basic training. Felix and I had received our assignments together and were stationed together aboard the battlestar. We spent much time together, running errands and making our way up the ranks of the Colonial military, each eventually earning the rank of Lieutenant. Between work and sleep, we spent a lot of time talking, discussing sundry items and fleet-essential protocol alike, as well as our personal lives. Naturally, we became very close friends, but nothing more; even if there had been some sort of romantic feeling between us, Felix was more interested in the men of the fleet than the women, and I was the first that he told about his relationship with Louis Hoshi, fresh-transferred from Pegasus. And he was the first person I had told whenever I became attracted to a new, muscle-bound member of the fleet, as had been a frequent, frivolous occurrence.
Despite our relationship, I still didn't know how to address him, even after eight years, even after spending so much time together. I didn't know if I should call him Gaeta, or Lieutenant Gaeta, or Felix, his first name, or Alessandro, his second name. It was such a small thing, a name, but like many minutiae, names had become the defining mark for many survivors of the Cylon offensive against the Twelve Colonies. Without a particular moniker attached, some felt, we were only numbers, statistics in the battle to preserve the human race. Although I left behind the ability to fly when I was discharged, I kept the callsign my fellow pilots had bestowed upon me. To my comrades I was Lieutenant Philomela K. Sandry, but I was also "Sundance".
Felix and I had joked for years that we would give each other callsigns, nicknames like the ones given to Viper pilots and Raptor teams. However, such joking, like most forms of pleasure, had vanished from habit after the Cylon destruction of the 12 Colonies and a constant state of war had come into effect. Since the war began, I had been drafted by the Raptor pilots, and had been honorably discharged once my eyesight began to deteriorate to the point of needing corrective eyewear. After my discharge, I opted to not leave Galactica and live aboard the Cybele; I wanted to stay where I was familiar, and I didn't want to lose the only stability any of us had left. I returned to the CIC, assuming the duties of an officer of Communications, shortened to Comm Two. It was a strange method of job transition, but then, it was a strange war we were fighting. At the start, the future was the true ideal worth fighting for. After the debacle of settlement on New Caprica, the fleet had dwelled in the present, to make up for lost time and to forget the ultimate damage caused. But of late the present and the future had lost meaning, and the sole focus of much of the fleet was the past, and the ideal of revenge against computer-like beings that had nearly destroyed everything we knew. But the goal of revenge was not an easy one to attain, especially because now war had infected the crew of the fleet so that now we were fighting an internal war within the battlestar rather than bonding to fight against the Cylons.