Chapter 2

Surprise Meeting

Lee sat alone at a small table in the Officer's Club at the Caprica Airbase and pushed an empty glass around in small circles. He wasn't drunk, but he wasn't sober, either. For the last two hours as dusk and then darkness had descended over the base, he had sat at the same table, ordered a number of drinks, and watched the ships take off and land. There were fewer Vipers and Raptors now and more large transports. And there was more activity on the far side of the base where the cargo terminals were.

Tomorrow morning he would take a small transport out to the hangar where his Viper was waiting, and he would obey orders. Go to the Galactica, lead the flyover team during the decommissioning ceremony and then return to the base. With a little luck he could be sitting right here in twenty-four hours having a drink. Maybe by then he would figure out what he was going to say to Gianne. He'd promised his mother today at lunch that he would call her, and he intended to honor his promise.

More important to him right now though was what he was going to say to Kara tomorrow. "Hi, Kara. We were friends once, is there any chance we can be friends again?" Probably too abrupt. Or what about, "Hi, Kara. I know the last time we saw each other we both said some things and did some things we shouldn't have. I was hoping we could put it behind us and start over." He probably shouldn't bring that up at all. What about the truth, then? What about, "Hi, Kara. I know I haven't called or written, but I have missed you." No, she wouldn't believe him. Maybe it would be better if he just said, "Hi, Kara. How are you?" That was probably best. Just greet her and see how she reacted. Take his cue from her.

Besides, the first time he saw her they would probably be in the pilots' ready room, and he would have to be careful what he said. They wouldn't be alone which was probably best. At least he wouldn't be tempted to do something stupid like try to hug her. That would probably get her fist across his jaw.

He picked up his empty glass. He could manage one more drink tonight. He was flying tomorrow, but he could still handle one more. He looked around for the waiter, and not seeing him, Lee got up and made his way to the bar where he got a double.

"Lee Adama, son of a gun. How are you?"

Lee looked around to see who had called his name and spotted an Academy classmate. He took his drink and walked over to the table. "Lincoln Tevers. Captain Lincoln Tevers. Congratulations."

"Ditto, Captain Lee Adama. Join me, won't you? So what are you doing here?"

Lee sat down. "Heading to the Galactica tomorrow for the decommissioning ceremony. And you?"

"Babysitting."

Lee raised an eyebrow.

"Admiral Nagala's youngest son starts Flight School here next week. I've been assigned to show him the ropes, introduce him around, mostly keep him out of trouble. He's a pistol, that boy is."

"Where is he now?"

"Trying to pick up that hot-looking pilot. He told me if I saw them leave together not to come looking for him."

Tevers inclined his head toward the far end of bar.

Lee followed the gesture and saw a tall, good-looking young lieutenant chatting with a very attractive brunette. At that moment the woman looked up and Lee caught her eye. She smiled and he returned it. He knew her. He had served with her for several months during his first year on the Atlantia. Her name was…was…a big question mark.

She picked up her drink and walked over to their table with young Nagala at her heels. "Lee Adama. Remember me? We served together on the Atlantia a few years back."

"Sure. I remember you. I just don't remember your name," he confessed.

"Margaret Edmondson. My friends call me Maggie. Other pilots call me Racetrack."

"Right, Racetrack. Raptor pilot. So what brings you to Caprica?"

"Picking up two administrative types. Something to do with the gift shop they're opening in the starboard launch bay. I'm taking them back to the Galactica tomorrow morning. What about you?"

Lee went through his story again. "Would you like to join us?"

She sat and Lee introduced her to Tevers. Tevers in turn introduced him to Jace Nagala who had already pulled his chair close to Racetrack's.

"So how long have you been on the Galactica?" Lee asked.

"Almost two years now. Your father is the best commander I've ever served under. I'm not in love with his XO, but the CAG is all right and your dad is great."

Lee nodded. He was definitely glad he had gotten another drink.

Racetrack continued. "You have a couple of friends on the Galactica, too. Karl Agathon and Kara Thrace. They've both mentioned your name.

"I'll bet it was in the same sentence with some colorful profanity. Kara, anyway."

Apparently anxious to join the conversation, Nagala said, "Would that be the same Kara Thrace who's perfect sim scores are on a plaque at the Academy? The same one Colonel Burgher talks about like she's the god of Vipers or something."

Racetrack said,"I don't know about the plaque, but I can tell you Kara's sure the Galactica's Top Gun."

Tevers answered him. "That's her. We were all at the Academy together. Me and Lee and Kara. In fact Lee is well acquainted with your Top Gun Viper pilot. He took her to our senior dance."

How the frak had Tevers remembered that?

Lee answered casually, "She and I ended up without dates. It was a last minute thing. We went as friends. That's all."

"Yeah, I hear you. That why Colonel Winters ran you back inside? Just two friends out there on the terrace in the dark talking, right?"

Lee felt his ears start to burn. Was there a camera on them that night?

"Actually we were just out there talking. The band was so loud that the terrace was the only place you could hear. And Colonel Winters didn't run us back inside. We finished our cups of punch and came back inside so we could dance."

Well mostly we were talking. We did dance to one song out there in the dark, a long slow song called Every Time My Heart Beats, and afterward I kissed her. And Kara kissed me back. Oh, yeah, she kissed me back. Flying Vipers wasn't the only thing Kara Thrace did well. Almost seven years and he still remembered that kiss, and tonight the alcohol made it that much easier to remember how it had felt. How warm her lips and tongue were and how soft and the way she hadn't held anything back. That was what got to him the most. When Kara Thrace decided to do something, whether it was fly a Viper sim or kiss him on a dark terrace in the moonlight, she didn't hold anything back. Lee shifted in his chair. He couldn't start thinking about that kiss right now. Not unless he wanted to risk embarrassing himself.

"I hear you." Tevers said. "Just out there talking and drinking punch. For nearly an hour."

He glanced over at Tevers just in time to see him wink at Racetrack and Racetrack grin and raise her eyebrows in reply. They both knew what happened outside at Academy dances. Damn Tevers and his big mouth. The burn began to spread from Lee's ears to his cheeks. The last thing he wanted was Racetrack going back to the Galactica and saying something to Kara. That would not be good.

"Look, it wasn't like that with me and Kara. Like I just said, we're only friends."

"I hear you. Want to know why I was watching you two?"

Lee sipped his drink again. "Do I have a choice?"

"Just thought you'd like to know."

"So shoot."

"I guess I'd better admit first that I had a thing for her back in those days so I guess you could say I was jealous. I asked Kara to the dance a couple of weeks before. She turned me down flat. Said dances weren't her thing. Then I see you two come walking across the dance floor, get a cup of punch and head outside. Guess you changed her mind. I thought it was weird that she was in her uniform instead of a dress, but hey, whatever floats your boat. It didn't look like it was bothering you too much."

Lee drew a breath and blew it out. There was a reason Kara had worn her dress uniform to the dance, but it was none of their damned business.

"I told you that Kara and I…frak, just forget it."

"Hey, no hard feelings. Ancient history. The better man got her." Tevers chuckled.

"Look, Tevers," Lee's voice reflected the fact that he was on the verge of losing his temper. "Let's get one thing straight. Nobody got Kara Thrace."

Tevers was grinning. "Yeah, yeah. I got over my little crush. You still have a thing for her, don't you? Hey, Racetrack, who's Kara's boyfriend on the Galactica? I'll bet Lee here would like to know who the competition is. Anybody we know?"

"She doesn't have a boyfriend on the Galactica or anywhere else that I know of. She's mostly a loner except for her buddy Helo. They grew up together or something. Before she came on board the Galactica she…"

"Well, damn, Lee," Tevers interrupted her. "Your romance must be more serious than I thought. It sounds like Kara is saving herself for you."

"What I was trying to tell you before you interrupted me," Racetrack said to Tevers with irritation in her voice, "is that just before she came on board the Galactica, Kara lost her fiancé in a training accident. He was Lee's brother."

That finally stopped Tevers.

"No kidding. Sorry, man, I'm sorry. I hope you know I didn't mean anything by what I said. I was just kidding with you."

Lee tossed back the rest of his drink. He would like to have stayed longer and talked to Racetrack, but he'd had as much of Tevers as he could take.

"I've got an early call tomorrow. The next round's on me." He stood and pulled a twenty-cubit note from his pocket and put it on the table. "Enjoy. Nice meeting you, Nagala. Good seeing you again, Racetrack. Good flight back tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you on the Galactica."

"Good flight to you too, Apollo. I look forward to seeing you lead the flyover team. I'm sure Starbuck is on it. If you weren't leading the team, she would be. Like I said, she's the G's Top Gun."

"I'm not leading the team because I volunteered. It was some PR guy's idea."

Tevers gave him a thumb's up. "PR guys. Don't you love them? Hey, ditto on the good flight. Give my regards to Kara. You know I saw her fly those sims at the Academy. Well, the last two of the three. It was one of the most awesome things I've ever seen."

Lee managed to walk out of the Officer's Club without any hint that the whiskey was affecting him, but by the time he got to his room, he was really feeling that last drink. Not quite drunk, but way past sober.

He took off his uniform, hung it carefully in the small closet and lay on the bed. Kara Thrace. Tomorrow he would see her for the first time in almost two years. Since Zak's funeral. No, more specifically since the night of Zak's funeral. What had happened that night had haunted him ever since. How many times had he thought about it? Thought about her?

Tevers was a bigmouth, but he had been right about one thing. Lee Adama still had a real thing for Kara Thrace.

The first time he heard her name he was a month into his fourth year at the Academy, the beginning of a year that would see him graduate third in a class of eight hundred eighty-three, and after the Academy, finish first in his Viper class of fifty-four in Flight School. His Top Gun trophy was on a bookcase in his old bedroom at his mother's house.

Kara had done the same thing. Despite a less than stellar record at the Academy, she'd graduated first in her Flight School class and also taken the Top Gun trophy. He wondered where it was now, that visible reminder that said Best of the Best.

He should have known she'd make a topnotch pilot, though. He should have known since he'd first heard her name.

…

In the autumn of his senior year, late one afternoon he was in the locker room of the gym after a hard workout, freshly showered and getting dressed when a couple of third-years came in. They were rowdy, shoving each other and laughing.

"Finish telling me about Colonel Burgher," said the sandy-haired cadet. "I would so have given anything to see it."

"I would so give anything to have Colonel Burgher's computer right now so we could play it back," the red-haired guy said. "I heard that at the end of the third sim he couldn't even talk. He tried to say something and it came out a squeak. A couple of times." They all cracked up laughing.

Lee couldn't resist. "What could possibly have reduced Colonel Burgher to squeaking?"

The cadets straightened up. "We heard a third-year aced all three of Burgher's Viper sims today. Went straight through them without a mistake. Got a perfect score."

Lee looked at him with all the skepticism he felt. "Not possible." But three heads were nodding back at him in the affirmative. "You're telling me that a third year cadet smoked the beginner, intermediate and advanced sims? Boom, boom, boom. Just like that?"

"Yes sir, just like that."

Lee was still trying to wrap his brain around the thought that anyone could beat all three Viper simulations, much less one right after the other. "What's this superman's name?

"That would be superwoman's name, sir. Kara Thrace."

"You guys are really funny. Did one of you actually witness this feat?"

"No, sir," the redhead said. "But Jessup and I both heard about it from somebody who did."

Jessup was nodding again. "History was made in that sim room today. It must have been awesome, totally awesome. We heard she got a standing ovation. Everybody was kind of like, frak Burgher and his rule of silence, she deserves it."

"Kara Thrace," Lee said. "Wonder why I haven't heard of her before if she's that good? A hot sim jock gets a name pretty quick."

"Probably because it was her first time in the simulator."

"No way, guys, that's just not possible. No one could beat all of those sims the first time out. I doubt Colonel Burgher could beat all three sims first time out, and he wrote them."

"Well, it happened. Ask Colonel Burgher. I'll bet when he stops squeaking, he'll tell you all about it." They cracked up laughing again. "Uh, we've got to get ready for P.E., sir."

"Sure," Lee went back to his locker. Kara Thrace. High on his list of things to do in the near future was to meet Kara Thrace. He still didn't believe it had happened, but if it had, he wanted to meet someone that good with a stick, even if it was only the stick of a simulator.

TBC…