Chapter 36 Stumbling
Kara shot up in her bunk, her panicked eyes darting around the curtained interior. She drew in gasping breaths as she realized that she was on the Galactica and not still in the New Caprican apartment or cell. Knowing she wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep, she pushed aside her privacy drape and climbed as silently as she could from her rack.
Not that she had needed to bother she realized as she saw the other occupants of her quarters staring at her through sleep-interrupted eyes. Suddenly she knew that she must have screamed, waking her bunkmates…yet again.
With a mumbled, "Sorry," and averted eyes, she quickly pulled on her sweatpants and tank, then fled from the stares.
The head was blessedly empty when she entered, this time of the third shift it usually was. Kara splashed water on her face, trying to wash away the last of the nightmare and the looks it had earned her. Back five days, and five nights' running she'd had to fight free from the grasp of nightmares.
Gods, not again, she thought, staring at her haunted reflection in the mirror. The other dreams, the ones where Six stood gloatingly over her or beat her while Kara hung helpless, seemed mild by comparison.
But, whenever the hands returned…
Kara suddenly turned and bolted into a stall, barely making it before vomiting into the metal toilet. Leaning against its rim, she waited as her gut threatened to convulse once more. A few minutes passed before she finally decided that her rebellious stomach was not going to betray her again and she shuffled back to the sink to rinse her mouth of the bile and taste of her self-revulsion.
The Star Chamber was suppose to assuage her building rage and revulsion. It had done neither. Kara had seen Gaeta as a viable target for all the bitterness that was twisting her up inside, but when he was revealed as the Resistance's source, her need to make someone pay was denied. Again she was forced to swallow down the impotent rage, and it continued to gnaw at her.
And sometimes the rancor just wouldn't stay down.
After scrubbing her face dry, she tossed the towel in the bin and and exited the head, but paused as she looked up and down the nearly deserted corridors. Going back to her rack was useless; there wouldn't be any more sleep for her tonight. And if she went to the hanger deck at this hour it would only raise unwanted questions.
Finally deciding on the gym, Kara remained there the rest of the night, pounding the punching bag as anger and revulsion seesawed her emotions. When her hands were too sore to continue beating at the memories, she switched to weights, working to rebuild the muscle she'd lost.
The exercise should have blunted the growing rage, but it only left her cranky and sore.
Some seven hours later, she stood on the flight deck surveying the damage to her Viper after she had disobeyed Apollo's order to maintain position and, as a result, had collided with another ship.
Apollo stormed up to her in all his righteous anger and promptly grounded her. But not before she'd listened to him suggest that he airlock her. She had bitten down on her lip—and own rage—as he had stalked away.
She had frakked up again.
Life as usual in the Thrace universe.