With the Weapons of a Woman

by Soledad

Fandom: Original Battlestar Galactica (the one and only).

Genre: Action/adventure, Drama

Rating: 14+, just to be on the safe side.

Series: None, although it uses the same settings as my "Lost Years" series.

Disclaimer: The context and the characters of Battlestar Galactica belong to Glen A. Larsen and Universal Studios, as do all the characters that appear in the show. Some aspects of the cultural background have been established by fellow fanfic writer Karen and used with her generous consent. The majority of the background trivia and all original characters belong to me.

Introduction

"Battlestar Galactica" was my first love as sci-fi shows go. I've first seen it in the late 1980s, when it was a relic already, the copies had a poor quality and the whole thing ran on German TV, with German dubbing. I was instantly hooked nonetheless. Despite the often inconsistent plotlines, the sometimes crappy writing and the sketchy characterization, the old show had a unique charm that was never recaptured. Not in the forgettable Galactica 1980, and most certainly not in the so-called re-imagined show that I won't even waste any words for.

I don't care how much longer the new show had been on the air – or how many devoted fans it has. I'm not one of them. For me, there is and always going to be only one "Battlestar Galactica" – the original one. Deal with it… or simply ignore my stories, as they will always only be about the classic.

Now, this particular story is about Serina, whom I started off to like a lot. My very first BSG episode was "The Tombs of Kobol", and I found her quite heroic… at first. But in hindsight (and after much thought and reading lots of fanfic) my original sympathy slowly faded away. After having re-watched the episodes featuring her in original and on DVD, I found her selfish, manipulative and ruthless – which might be a result of inconsistent writing or of the fact that her character was turned upside down on a whim. I don't exactly know why, but I've come to dislike her very much.

Characters I dislike usually make me think about them a great deal. I want to figure out why they've turned out the way they have, what were their motivations, what has shaped them. This story is the result of such considerations about Serina's possible past. It's in no detail canon, only one of the many possibilities. You're welcome to disagree; we all have our own version, I suppose.

Interestingly enough, as I was writing the story, I've come to tolerate her a little better again. I don't think I'll come to actually like her by the end, but she's become more than she used to be for me, and that's good, I guess.

PROLOGUE – PRODIGAL DAUGHTERS

For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Author's note: The Count of Lorraya – or indeed, Lorraya itself as an Aquarian province – is Karen's invention.

Scandals were a rare thing in the reserved circles of Caprican nobility; even minor ones. The Caprican elite had been bred and trained for countless generations to deal with their little indiscretions… well, discretely. After all, the Great Houses could count their ancestors back to the Lords of Kobol themselves – at least theoretically. They had both the power and the money to cover up just about anything that would reflect badly on their historically important names.

It was therefore fairly shocking that thirty-some yahrens before the Destruction two rather outrageous events happened, within a couple of yahrens of distance from each other.

The first one was Siress Electra's unfortunate involvement with a quite… unsavoury man of no rank, no breading and no money at all – not to mention of questionable character. With that, the family dealt quickly and efficiently, sending her away to her mother's people on Leonis and marrying her off to Sire Uri, President Adar's right-hand-man, a yahren or so later. Fortunately for everyone, the child born from her scandalous affair had died right after birth, so there were no further inconveniences to deal with,

The second such event was the shocking action of Siress Lyra, the youngest member of the Caprican Planetary Council, who'd gone and Sealed with a commoner, behind her parents' back and without their consent. And while civilian unions could be divorced, Sealings could be not, and thus the family – a moderately wealthy and not particularly important one with a small residence on Naiacap – couldn't do anything against the mésaliance.

Oh, they disowned her, of course. But that was a family matter, and while it did result in her losing her seat in the Planetary Council as a councilwoman, they kept her employed as the one to deal with public relations. After all, she was young, talented, and stunningly beautiful, with an uncanny knack to get people do what she wanted from them – and remarkably ruthless in pursuing her goals.

All these useful traits she passed down to her daughter and only child, Serina – alas, together with the less useful tendency of falling for the least suitable man, fast and hard.

At least Serina had the common sense not to seal with her Boreas. They'd had a civil union, right when she came of age, and that was all he'd ever have, keeping her an easy way out if she wanted. She'd learned from her mother's mistakes, even though she was bent to make her own ones.

She didn't divorce Boreas, after all… well, hadn't yet would have been the better word for it. Partly because of their little son, who needed a father, and partly because as a married woman, Serina could afford liberties that would have led to disapprovingly raised eyebrows, had she been unattached.

It was a stupid prejudice, for sure, but Caprican society was a little stiff. Most of the Great Houses of Caprica followed the rigid, orthodox Kobolian faith that judged women according to their partners or male kin's reflected importance. A woman without a protector would have been considered either as woefully abandoned or as one of questionable moral attitude.

Of course, had she been nobility, many things would have been easier. She never forgave her mother to have Sealed with such an unsuitable commoner – not that she'd even remember her father. Lyra, while she couldn't divorce him, sure as Hades threw him out on his ear as soon as she'd come to her senses (which happened four or five yahrens after their Sealing). She did it very publicly, and that fact earned her some semi-acceptance from her own circles again. Enough to rebuild some of her old contacts and alliances.

Siress Electra – or Siress Uri as she was called now, following some arcane Leonid custom and having taken on her husband's name – was one of those contacts, and the most useful one of all. Especially after Sire Uri – despite being a Leonid – got elected as the Governor of Caprica and became one of the great orchestrators of the Renaissance.

Many young, talented men and women were given the opportunity to prove themselves in those days. Granted, most of them came from the lesser nobility, but the financial progress created jobs and chances for the common folk as well, despite the war. But again, the war had been going on for so many centuries already that no-one could remember what life might have been like before.

Sire Uri's townhouse in Caprica City had become the gathering place for young men and women from different colonies, all eager to find a position matching his or her special talents and ambitions. Due to Lyra's friendship to Siress Uri, Serina was, if not exactly welcome, but at least accepted among them. In hindsight, those yahrens proved very useful, as she got acquaintanted with a great deal of people from the highest circles, patricians and lesser nobles alike, some of whom would even remember her later, when she was no longer one of them.

That day came sooner than she'd have counted on. She was barely twenty when Lyra died in an unexpected Cylon raid, while visiting one of the outer colonies – a simple agricultural world that sold its products directly to the Caprican Planetary Council.

Fortunately, she'd been a shrewd businesswoman and left her daughter with enough money to last for a few yahrens, until she could stand on her own feet. Boreas, as a little clerk of the city administration, barely earned enough to feed himself, let alone an entire family. But with her death, many of the doors that had been open for Serina, closed with a finality that was truly sobering.

She understood the reasoning. Her mother had been a noblewoman, despite having fallen in disgrace. She was not. In Caprican society, it was always the father whose origins counted, and Serina's father had been a commoner – and a cubitless one at that. She was the result of an embarrassment, and now that her mother was out of the picture, most people didn't want to be reminded of the scandal that had led to her existence in the first place.

One of the few doors still open to her was that of Sire Uri, and she didn't hesitate to use what little chances were left to her. Having inherited her mother's practical mind, she persuaded Boreas to let her sell Lyra's spacious house in the countryside and move into a small apartment in Caprica City, where she had the best chance to become a media personality. She knew enough about the upper ten thousand – or about the upmost thousand, for that matter – to turn that knowledge into good money eventually, but she was still too young to get any sensible work beyond being pretty and making kava.

So she accepted a scholarship at the Art and Media School as one of Sire Uri's protégées – and the support of a young Aquarian nobleman who'd become interested in her. Not interested enough to Seal with her, for which she'd have discarded Boreas without a second thought, but interested enough to provide the financial means for a lifestyle required if she wanted to keep cruising in the circle of nobility – if not as an equal, then as a newswoman, always hunting for the next interesting piece of gossip.

Knowing people's dirty little secrets helped her to get the opportunity she needed to get her hands on the serious topics. Those meant headlines and a constant presence in the visual media, which was her next goal. She knew once she got enough screen time she'd win. Her exquisite beauty transferred well onto the screen. She could sell the audience just about anything, if she batted her long eyelashes prettily enough.

Her patron, Patroclus, came from one of the respected patrician families of Aquarius. In fact, his father was the Count of Lorraya, and while he could afford to choose a profession of his own liking – being a third son and thus having no family obligations towards politics or the military – he was also wealthy enough to keep a maitresse. Even such a beautiful and… costly one as Serina.

He'd chosen to study medicine and was said to be a capable doctor who loved his work. So he had no objections to Serina working on a career of her own, as long as she was available whenever he wanted her – either in his bed, or to adorn his arm on some grand social event. He carried her around like some rare prize, like a valued possession; but while doing so, he unwillingly provided her with the opportunity to gather knowledge about the power games going on silently behind the scenes. For an ambitious newswoman, it was Heaven.

The three yahrens they'd spent together were not unpleasant; and Boreas had quickly learned to stay quiet, if he didn't want to lose his family entirely. Aquarians being a lot more open-minded than Capricans, Patroclus also introduced Serina to a great number of refined tricks that could increase sexual gratification – a training that proved most useful in the future.

Their mutually satisfying affair ended when Patroclus had taken his final exam as a surgeon and was assigned to the Rising Star, the modernest, most exquisite luxury cruiser, owned by Sire Uri, as the head doctor of the ship's infirmary. His departure meant for Serina that she'd have to fend for herself and her little son in the future – as Boreas didn't really count, hadn't counted for quite some time. He was just a name that shielded Serina from the malevolent gossip she couldn't have repelled as a single mother with a child.

By that time, she'd already landed a good job by one of the greatest networks of Caprica City and had IFB firmly in her eye. She wanted to send reports from the front line, to become famous, a living legend of newscasting. Fame would mean more money and, eventually, a more suitable husband; perhaps even a return to nobility by marriage.

She was on her best way to achieve her goal. But then came the unexpected peace offer from the Cylons, and life on the Colonies changed forever.

~TBC~