Chapter 14

Questions and Answers

After Karl left, Kara lay down on the bunk and dozed and woke up with a pounding headache, but at least the nausea was gone. She sat up and propped her elbows on her knees, put her head down and began massaging her temples.

When Lee walked up, she didn't hear him.

"Hey, Cadet Thrace. You're being released."

Kara looked up. She knew her eyes were bloodshot even before she saw his reaction. Why did it have to be him? Lee Adama looked like he was ready for a full inspection. Perfectly creased uniform trousers, polished shoes and clean shaven face. There ought to be a law against looking that good this early on a Sunday morning.

"Cadet Adama. Don't you look all spit-shined? I feel like crap. I'm sure I look like it, too."

"No comment. Come on. I caught Colonel Parker just before he left for his usual Sunday morning golf game. He signed a release for you. You're confined to campus until your hearing, which will be sometime this week. You'll need to sign this form that you understand. Class, dorm, cafeteria, library. No McGee's. Clear enough?"

Kara got up and came over as the MP unlocked the cell. "Oh, yes sir. I understand." She took the clipboard, signed the form and handed it to the MP. He handed her an envelope that held her watch and the few cubits she had on her the night before.

She looked at Lee. "Why did Karl call you?"

"I'm a Student Advocate. I'll shepherd you through the hearing. Explain everything. Stuff like that."

"Keep me from getting expelled?"

"I didn't say I was a miracle worker. But I will help you present your side of what happened when the time comes."

"My side of it," Kara's voice was low and sad. "That's a laugh."

They stepped into the bright Sunday morning sunshine.

"Oh, frak me," Kara said and placed her hand up to shield her eyes as the sunlight shot bolts of pain into her skull.

"What, no sunglasses?" Lee asked as he got his from his shirt pocket.

"Sun wasn't out last night."

"But you were, weren't you?"

"Yeah, smart guy. I was. Look, thanks for getting me out of hack, but I just want a shower and some serious rack time right now. Have you ever tried to sleep on one of those cell bunks? The mattress is like a piece of paper."

Lee finally vented some of his frustration with Kara's attitude. "No, I haven't. I'm sure in your eyes that makes me some kind of wimp, but I take my future career seriously. Something you obviously didn't do. I think you've pretty much screwed your chances of ever launching in a Viper off a battlestar. Ever launching in a Viper at all for that matter."

"Yeah, I know I'm going to get kicked out." Her voice cracked. "I'm just a total screw-up. I always have been."

They walked in silence for several more steps, and then Lee took off his sunglasses and handed them to her.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

"Okay," he said almost roughly. "Maybe I'm just a sucker for the underdog, but I feel like there's more to what happened than an insane attack on Captain Reider. So we're going to the cafeteria and get some coffee and breakfast for you and you're going to tell me exactly what happened last night."

"No food. I can't eat right now. It'd just come back up. I got a bitch of a hangover."

"No food, then. But we both need coffee."

"Coffee sounds good," Kara said.

They took their large cups of coffee and walked back out of the cafeteria. Lee led Kara over to one of the stone benches that ringed the quadrangle where they could talk privately. Seating her in the shade, he said, "Start at the beginning, and don't leave anything out."

Kara took a deep breath. No way she was going to tell him about going to Connelly's before she went to McGee's. It was none of his business and it had nothing to do with what happened.

"I got to McGee's about 20:00. Before that I'd actually been studying, like all afternoon. I went to my usual table at the back, ordered a beer and talked to the guys who were sitting there. I was chilling, minding my own business."

"Prior to the incident with Captain Reider how many beers did you have?"

"I don't know. I didn't count."

"Guess."

'Five, maybe six. And a big mug from a pitcher somebody bought."

"Did you have anything to eat?"

"Nope."

"So that pretty much establishes the drunk part of the charge. Was Major Connelly there?"

"No, Major Connelly was not there."

"Okay. What happened next?"

"On my second, no third, trip to the head, I noticed that creep Reider had come in and was sitting by himself at a table where I couldn't go take a pee unless I walked by him. He stopped me and started giving me grief. I said some stuff back to him. Next thing I know he's swinging at me with his frakking beer bottle still in his hand. He missed. I punched him. Somebody called the MPs. I sat at the bar and waited until they arrived. I think somebody took Reider to the Emergency Center to see if his jaw was broken. You know the rest."

"Was his jaw broken?"

"It couldn't have been. I didn't hit him that hard."

"How do you know?"

"Do you know how hard you have to hit someone to break his jaw?"

Lee shook his head.

"Look at my hand. It's not swollen or bruised. It's not even sore. If I'd broken Reider's jaw, you'd have seen it on my fist. All I was trying to do was stop him from swinging at me again. The wimp went down yelping like a little baby."

Lee ignored her last remark. "Did anyone else hear your conversation with him?"

Kara shook her head. "It was too noisy. Besides, I was in his face so it was private."

Lee gave her an incredulous look. "Holy frak, Kara. What were you thinking getting in his face? He's an instructor."

"He's an asshole. And don't you get on my case. He started it. He swung at me first."

"And you're sure nobody else saw what happened?"

"While we were waiting for the MPs, one of the other faculty members was asking around for somebody to tell him what happened. If anybody did see, they wouldn't admit it. All they heard was that little cry-baby Reider yowling about how I was drunk and had slugged him because he refused to give me a better score on the obstacle course."

This was looking worse all the time. "Did you admit to anyone that you hit him?"

"Nobody asked me anything. They just listened to him lying like the loser he is."

"That's actually good. No confession on record. Okay, what did he say to you and what did you say to him that caused him to swing at you?"

"Just stuff, trash. McGee's is supposed to be a place where rank doesn't matter."

"Kara, rank always matters. I need to know what was said if I'm going to help you. I don't care if it did happen at McGee's. Right now unless we can find someone who says Reider swung at you first, it looks like you're out on your ass. I don't care what kind of creep you think he is. He's not only an instructor, he's an officer."

"I don't think he's a creep. His is a creep. And as for him being an officer," Kara spat the word, "he gives the whole officer corps a black eye. Son of a bitch tried to rape me."

"What?" Lee wasn't sure he'd heard her right. "When?"

"The same afternoon last week that I talked to you. I told you he'd been on my case. He made me do the wall over after everyone else had finished and gone. Twice. And after the second time, when I was bent over trying to get my breath, the bastard comes up and grabs me from behind and sticks his hand down my pants and starts…starts," Kara swallowed hard and shuddered in revulsion as she remembered Reider's fingers against her, remembered him trying to shove them inside her. "Starts groping me," she finished.

Lee stopped himself from reaching out to her. "Did he do…anything else?"

"He didn't get the chance to. I threw my head back and cracked his frakking nose. It must have hurt because he let me go. I made it to the trail and walked back to the dorm with a couple of first years."

"Please tell me you reported it to your dorm advisor or somebody in authority."

Kara looked down and shook her head.

The exasperation was clear in Lee's voice. "Why not?"

"I didn't think anyone would believe me. I didn't want to talk about a disgusting incident. I didn't want to hear that whiny motherfrakker deny it. Pick one. There's no wrong answer. Look, I'm used to taking care of myself. I thought that would be the end of it."

"Okay." Lee was beginning to understand exactly what had led up to the previous night. "Let's move on to what he said to you."

Kara took a deep breath and let it out. "Mostly it was something about finishing what he started on the obstacle course. Only I think he said what we started. He ragged on me about having a weakness for majors and said he'd heard I couldn't keep my pants up when a particular one was around and since that one wasn't around last night he guessed he'd just have to do….sick frakker. He was really drunk."

Lee thought of Kara and Major Connelly and felt the last swallow of coffee rise in his throat. He forced it down. "Drunker than you? No, don't answer that. It doesn't really matter. And then you said to him?"

He saw a muscle twitch in her jaw before she took another deep breath. "I leaned down and got in his face and told him there was no way I'd frak a lame Flight School washout like him. And then I think I said something about how it was no wonder he couldn't handle a Viper when he couldn't even handle the little stick between his legs. That's when he swung at me with the bottle still in his hand. Good thing he was drunk and his aim was off. Otherwise I'd still be picking glass out of my jaw."

"Lords of Kobol, Kara." Lee couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Yeah," Kara said and smiled for the first time that morning. "That last one was pretty good, don't you think? Little bitty stick. Yeah, nailed that piss-poor excuse for a man. Nailed him right to the wall."

Lee was so overwhelmed by how beautiful she was when she smiled that it was several seconds before he realized what she had said. "Wait a minute. How do you know he washed out of Flight School? That's not something just anybody would know. Faculty records are kept really confidential."

Kara looked down and the smile disappeared. "I've got my sources."

"I'll bet you have."

She ignored him. "I have a theory that Reider started picking on me because of the Viper sims, you know, because he didn't have the chops to make it as a pilot, and I, you know, smoked all three of 'em. Crap, it sounded better when I first thought about it."

"Did you discuss Captain Reider with Major Connelly before or after you frakked him?"

Kara's defiance was back. "After. Actually I think it was between the second and third times that night? Or was it third and fourth?"

"Are you frakking kidding me?"

"Yeah, Lee. I'm kidding you. We never got around to four. Not that it's any of your damned business. I'll deny it all if you try to drag him into this. I won't cost him his career, so don't even go there. I mean it, Lee. He wasn't at McGee's last night. He's got nothing to do with what happened. Nothing."

"Nothing except giving Reider the idea that you have a soft spot for instructors. Or would that be hot spot?"

"Ha, ha. Look, Reider was dogging my case long before Connelly and I ever…got together. I'm telling you Connelly has nothing to do with this. He's a good teacher. I won't cost him his career."

"You should have thought about that before you frakked him. You're a student. He's an instructor. There are very clear lines that are not to be crossed. Those rules are there for a reason, Kara. They're for your protection. Reider was very wrong to do what he did, but so was Connelly."

"Don't even start with me, Lee. And don't you dare mention those two men in the same breath. With Connelly it was totally consensual. He's divorced, and I'm not in any of his classes. And he's totally hot...for a guy his age. And it was as much my doing as it was his, probably more. It was my fault. I made a mistake. I'm very good at screwing up. So get over it."

"It's not me that needs to get over it, Kara. This is your career on the line. And his, too, the minute you get caught. And you will get caught. But don't let good advice from me come between you and your major."

"I'm way ahead of you on that. It only happened that once and it won't happen again. He and I have already talked about it and agreed. I know, it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but it did. Now let it go, Lee. It's not important to this."

"How much does Major Connelly know about Reider harassing you?"

"I've already said that is not even an option. We leave Connelly out of this. Period. End of story."

"Did you tell anybody else about what Reider did?"

Kara shook her head.

"Then maybe you can tell me how we're going to get you off with just a simple D&D?"

"I don't know," Kara said, and this time there was real regret in her voice. "I guess this screw-up is on her way out the door, huh?"

TBC…