(Change of pace time. Please hold your fire for a bit.)

Part Nine

+01:55:09

(Richards)

The bulkhead was the only thing holding me once the hatch to the conference room clicked shut. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" was all I could mutter. I knocked my head against the bulkhead as we all contemplated what my impatience had wrought for us.

Ted glanced between Starbuck and me, looking alternately stricken and furious. Callisto had sympathetic eyes for Starbuck and studiously ignored the rest of us. Avery-Hunter and Taylor were looking ready to march back into the room and exercise a much older fashioned type of diplomacy.

Thankfully Ted recovered first, even if he did still sound like he wanted to do bodily harm to someone. "Well, that could have gone better." As understatements and rebukes go, it was fairly mild. I offered a reply in the same spirit.

"Please, no one say 'I told you so'," I begged, rubbing my temples. "In the meantime, any thoughts on where this is going?"

Commodore Avery-Hunter snorted. "Downhill, if Adama's over-reacting like that is anything to go by…"

"That wasn't an over-reaction from the Admiral." It took the rest of us a few seconds to pick our collective jaws up off the deck at Starbuck's statement, who shrugged in that distracted way that meant she was not going to offer any elaboration.

I decided to take her at her word, which quite honestly was something I'd been consciously resisting doing for years. There were times I had nearly convinced myself she was a plant from some Combine spook shop dropped on us for disinformation. It was easier to believe we were the victims of some elaborate con job than putting stock in her claims of being an alien and such.

The proverbial battlestar-in-the-corner taking up residence next door had effectively pulverized that comforting illusion. I was starting to feel physically sick right then. I tended to get a bit reckless when nausea threatened. "What can we expect, Colonel?"

Starbuck actually appeared to think about it for a few moments. "He'll probably want me aboard Galactica so the Doc can poke and prod every hole I've got until he's convinced I'm me."

"Like you're going anywhere off this ship..." Ted muttered, looking to me for confirmation.

"Agreed," I sighed after another beat. "Though I doubt Admiral Adama is going to just take our word on that one. Am I right there, Colonel?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Explanations may be in order then..."

Kara gave me a pointed look, causing me to nearly miss Ted's next contribution to my personal stress level. "I'd feel better if we evacuated Colonel Thrace and her..."

I nipped that one in the bud before the Commodore, his XO, or their resident muscleman could pipe up. "No, I want to keep her on-hand." I was supposed to be in charge here after all, even if I had known Callisto since she was diapers and was on poker-playing terms with the other three. "But we need to make them understand why," I added, eyes on Kara alone.

Her eyes sharpened to where I wondered if she wasn't going to try poking my eyes out. "I am not going to tell everyone..."

Could the two of us were just once have a normal conversation? "I'm not suggesting that. Just the Admiral, and in private. As in...anywhere away from...well, anywhere you feel safe to do so. Okay?"

No one looked happy at the idea, but neither did anyone raise additional objections. I figured right then I'd better find some way off this ship that didn't involve a return to Earth; I had enough people screaming at me there as it was.

Damned if I knew what I would do if the Admiral refused to take the option, or how we would handle Zarek and the rest without him and Kara around.

More than anything, I just wanted to avoid dicey topics like 'religion' or 'cultural identity' right then.

+02:23:01

No sooner had Adama left the room than Zarek let loose. "I want to state for the record, Mr. Secretary, that our people will not consent to being forced to give up our culture or history. Especially our religious traditions..."

I resisted the urge to groan. Why the hell had I agreed to take this job? Easy answer and its name was Kara Antigone Thrace. I didn't bother to glance to either Ted or the Commodore, knowing they would be no help here. This was a political matter, as they would doubtless delight in reminding me later.

Irene's instructions had been vague to the point of useless, likely as not because she was as close to the sort of massive breakdown that had sent Anthony-frakking-Baker off into La-la land. As soon as my feet were back on Earth, I was typing my resignation, handing it to the Secretary General personally, and then let her deal with these people.

Or not, depending on things went.

Well, it wasn't as if we had a manual for this or anything. I made a snap decision to go for honesty. "Believe it or not, Mr. Vice-President, we don't expect you to."

"No?"

"No. In fact, the United Nations Charter, which all of us including Colonel Thrace are sworn to uphold, guarantees the preservation of both culture and religion for all peoples. We call them the First Guarantees."

Zarek gave me what I presumed was a measuring eye. "Very poetic. What else?"

Spending close to a decade working on the Alaska find and another two years debriefing the ever-charmless Kara Thrace had taught me a thing or two about handling questions like that. Namely, you toss them back and pray the questioner is dumb enough to pick them up. "That would be my question to you, wouldn't it?"

Sadly, Tom Zarek wasn't the dumb one here. He merely smiled at me.

Happily, it seemed Major Agathon more inclined to part with information. "What do you need to know, Mr. Secretary?" If I didn't know better I'd think he offered just for the chance that it would upset Zarek.

Regardless, I'd take what I could get. The laundry list of topics that came to mind would have taken a week to recite. A couple immediate ones however needed to be heard. "First, have you had any indication whetherthe Cylons may have tracked you here? And second, how many people are we talking about aboard your ships?"

Zarek sat back and let Agathon answer both. "To the first, we haven't had a sign of the Cylons for roughly a year of our time. To the second, um, we have, uh..."

His wife jumped in as he verbally and mentally fumbled. "Forty-one thousand, nine hundred and twenty-two souls. One thousand and forty-nine of whom were found as prisoners of the Cylons thirteen monens ago. We've kept the majority of them segregated from the population for their own safety."

I couldn't help but wince, as that was roughly the same number Thrace figured when she'd 'left' her people. Two years with virtually zero-population-growth, even with those people they had recovered. Sounded like their exodus had taken a severe toll on them, even without the toasters on their collective tail.

It took me a few more beats to digest the implications. While I was busy with that, Zarek decided to open his mouth again.