Chapter 35

Pilot Error

The morning after his brief trip to McGee's, Lee went to the park and jogged for several miles then came back to the house and did sit-ups and push-ups until his muscles burned. He took a shower, helped his mother fix lunch, and sat and talked to her. Finally she went to her room to take a nap, and Lee walked out into the back yard.

The rope swing moved gently in the breeze. His father had put up that swing for him and Zak when he was only six or seven. Lee went over to it and gingerly tested it before he put all of his weight on it. Despite the weathering of twenty years, it held. He grasped the ropes, leaned back and shut his eyes. He let the swing move slowly with him. Sunlight, dappled by the leaves overhead, moved across his face. A memory surfaced.

Dancing lessons when he was fifteen, the sixteen-year-old blond he'd been partnered with, losing his virginity to her at her family's lake house a few weeks after their first class. The lounge chair on the deck because she'd forgotten the key, leaning back and shutting his eyes as she straddled him, the dappling late afternoon sunlight on his face. He hadn't been her first, but he hadn't cared. He tried to remember what she looked like, the girl who had taken his virginity, but he kept seeing Kara's face.

Lee went into the house and left a note for his mother who was still napping. She had already told him to take her car if he wanted to go out.

He drove out to the air base. Although he was dressed in civilian clothes, he had his military ID. It got him onto the base. He asked the MP at the gate where the pilots trained, and was directed to a small building near the airfield. Parking in a visitor spot, he got out and went in. Someone in the hall directed him to an office near the end.

The door was standing open, and a dark-skinned man was sitting at one of the desks going over some papers. Lee tapped on the door and the man looked up. He looked vaguely familiar and Lee realized that he had seen him at Zak's funeral.

"Yes?"

Lee looked at the desk nameplate. "Captain Valinski. I'm Lee Adama."

"Oh, yes, come in, please. Sorry, I didn't recognize you out of uniform." Valinski got up and they shook hands. "I'm really sorry about Zak. He was a fine young man."

"Yes, he was."

The other desk in the room was bare except for a desktop calendar, a pencil holder, and three empty picture frames.

"Lieutenant Thrace?" Lee gestured.

"Gone," Valinski answered. "End of last week. She's on the Galactica by now. I hated to see her go. She's a good instructor. And the best Viper pilot I've ever seen. But I understand it. Besides losing a student, she's lost her confidence and that's not good for someone who's responsible for others. She'll get it back, though. I give her just a couple of years before she'll be teaching again."

Lee gestured to the empty picture frames on Kara's desk. "Looks like she left something behind."

"She took the pictures. Said she wouldn't have room for the frames." He chuckled and pointed to the dozen or more pictures on his side of the room. "She said she would donate them to my growing collection."

Lee said. "Pilot's quarters are pretty spare on a battlestar. What were they? The pictures?"

"Her graduation from the Academy I think, and getting her wings, and the bigger one was her and Zak and you, on the ball field."

Lee knew the picture. His mother had given one to him as well. It had been only a few months since that ball game and yet it seemed like an eternity.

"Were you there when it happened?" Lee asked.

"Not on the field, no. I was in the classroom that afternoon. I didn't know there was a problem until I heard the sirens."

"Do you know what happened?"

"Lieutenant Thrace didn't tell you?"

"I didn't ask her. We didn't talk about it at all."

"It happened when he was landing. I heard he came in too hot and too high and overshot the landing zone. It's not uncommon for a rookie. The tower told him to go around again, but we're not sure he heard. It looks like he tried to set down anyway and was out of runway before he got on the ground. There was no reply from him to the tower waving him off so there may have been some problem with his communication equipment. And if that was down, there may also have been other instrument problems."

Lee realized Valinski was making excuses. Even a nugget, a rookie, even without the tower shouldn't make a mistake like that during the daylight. When his CAG had said training accident, Lee had imagined something catastrophic like engine failure. How could Zak have missed the landing zone? Anybody who had passed basic flight should be able to set a Viper down on a runway during the day without any help from the tower.

The captain went on. "The fire trucks were rolling before the Viper had stopped tumbling, but…" He looked away for a few moments. "I heard that it took two firemen to hold Lieutenant Thrace. She was going into the wreckage to get him. I can assure you they did everything they possibly could to save him."

"I wasn't questioning anyone's efforts. I'm sure everything possible was done…so you're saying this is going down as pilot error?"

Captain Valinski looked uncomfortable. "I haven't seen the final report. It won't be ready for weeks, yet, maybe a month or more. What I've told you is strictly off the record. It's just what I heard. I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have said anything."

"No, I appreciate your candor." He shook Valinski's hand again. "I hope you get another instructor soon."

Valinski nodded. "I got one coming in the first of next week from Picon. I'll be happy if he's half as good as Lieutenant Thrace."

Lee had an answer now, to something that had plagued him since the accident. And further confirmation that Zak didn't belong in a Viper. The report would come back Pilot Error and he had his father to blame for it.

...

He seemed to be on a roll. Where to now? He started his car, left the base, and at the next intersection found he had turned toward the Academy. He was going backwards in time, back to the beginning, back to the place he and Kara had met.

He parked in the visitor lot behind the Admin building and walked around it to the quad. It looked exactly the same. To his right was the cafeteria, across the quad was the science building. In the basement of the science building were the simulators. In a way that's where it had all started.

He slipped into the amphitheater and took a seat. A cadet was flying the third and toughest sim or rather struggling through the sim. What would he give to have been here the day Kara went through them all? He sat there for half an hour in the cool dark until the student's time was up. Another five minutes and the student left. Lee went down to the simulator.

"Colonel Burgher, sir. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Lee Adama." Lee extended his hand.

Conrad Burgher took it. "Of course. I remember all of my good students. I'm very sorry about your brother."

"Thank you, sir."

"What brings you back here?"

"I'm back on Caprica for a couple of days to see my mother. A little R&R. I wanted to stop by the Academy and say hello to a few friends."

"Where are you stationed now?"

"The Atlantia."

"Ah, the fleet's newest and best battlestar. Flying a Viper?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mark VII?"

"Yes, sir. A fine machine. Colonel, I wonder if I could ask you something about Zak?"

"Ask. I can't guarantee I'll answer."

"Do you think Zak had what it takes to be a pilot?"

Burgher frowned. "Where are you going with this, Lee?"

"When we were growing up, Zak never showed any interest in flying. Then suddenly he transferred his acceptance at Caprica U to here. I think my father was responsible, but I might be wrong. Maybe Zak really wanted it. I'm just trying to understand how Zak ended up…I'm not really sure where I'm going with this."

"Zak wasn't my best student, but he certainly wasn't my worst. Not by a long shot. He struggled some with the sims, but that's not necessarily a bad sign. There's no predicting absolutely who will make a good pilot and who won't. There are indicators, of course, but they aren't always right."

"What was your take on Zak then? Hypothetically, of course?"

Burgher looked away for a moment. "Had I been guiding his career, I would not have put him in a Viper. Of course the person who would know best would be his flight instructor, Lieutenant Thrace."

"I couldn't talk to her. She and Zak…had a relationship."

Burgher frowned again "I wondered. She and I had lunch a few days before the accident. She hinted that she would soon have something to tell me. Something of a personal nature."

"They were engaged."

"I'm so very sorry…for both of them. I guess that's part of what sent her running back to the stars. Kara came by to see me last week and told me that she was on her way to the Galactica."

"My father arranged it. Getting her on the Galactica so fast. Well, I've got to shove off. It's good to see you again, sir." Lee extended his hand and Burgher shook it.

The colonel cleared his throat. "Give my regards to Lieutenant Thrace the next time you see her. Tell her…I wish her the best. I will miss her."

"You can count on it, sir…the next time I talk to her. I hope I can do that soon."

TBC…