Chapter 4
Lee Adama settled himself into the cockpit and slipped his helmet into place. He went mindlessly through the pre-flight check, having done it so many times that he didn't need the clipboard that he used to rely on. The only other pilot he might trust to pre-check by rote would be Starbuck. He smiled softly as he realized that she could do it, and probably in a quarter the time it took him.
Okay, so he was methodical. Some might call it compulsive. Kara just said he was damned picky.
He liked to do things right the first time. What was the old Caprican saying? There was never time to do things right the first time, but always time to fix what you messed up by rushing the first time. He preferred to just get it done. If that had earned him a reputation as a hard-ass, then he'd deal with it. He had dealt with more than that as the Commander's son.
With pre-flight complete, he checked in with the Launch officer, and then waited patiently for control to be transferred to his Viper. This was always the most tense part of the routine long patrol: waiting for launch.
His wait was slightly excessive this time around. After more than ten minutes without transmission, he checked in with flight.
"We read you, Captain Apollo," came the clearly annunciated, and clearly feminine voice of his flight control officer. "Our apologies for the delay. We have some personnel changes on the roster. Continue holding, and you will be cleared as soon as your wingman is available for launch."
He considered that the run around, and tried again. "Control, is there a problem?"
"No further information is available at this time."
He rolled his eyes and began tapping one foot in agitation. No information his butt! They knew exactly what was going on, but they weren't in the mood to share.
Moments later, he received word that his wingman was in place. Apparently that had been the issue, although he couldn't figure out what the big deal was about getting Jolly into his Viper. Even if it weren't Jolly, several pilots were always sitting in quarters waiting for something - anything - to do. Surely it couldn't take twenty minutes to get someone flight ready.
Unless, of course, they were having difficulty finding someone willing to fly with the Commander's son.
Initially, he'd thought moving back into Squadron quarters was a good idea. He didn't like VIP treatment, and he'd missed the camaraderie that he'd enjoyed when he'd just been one of the guys. But he'd never been stationed on his father's ship before, and certainly not when the great Commander was effectively running the entire fleet. It seemed to have given him some sort of elevated status that, combined with his rank and history, had made him more than a little unapproachable.
The younger pilots seemed downright scared of him. The older, more experienced ones were wary, as though he were a spy in their midst. About the only few people still talking to him, at least among the pilots, were Kara, Sharon, and a couple of others that had been in flight school with him way back when.
The humor of it was that if anyone should be wary of him, it should be Sharon. He had been the instructor to buck her down from Viper class to Raptors. It hadn't been that he didn't like her, but just the opposite. She'd been a decent pilot, but she didn't move or think terribly quickly under pressure. In a Raptor, you had a little longer to figure things out. In a Viper, you had to react almost before you thought, or you were dead. She was an excellent pilot - she just didn't belong in a Viper.
She had resented the decision when he'd made it. She had even appealed above him, and been denied. But since the war had started, and she'd found out just what could be expected of a pilot, she seemed more than content to pilot Raptors. The irony of it was that she had improved enough that he'd easily recommend her for Vipers now, and he'd told her as much the week before. She'd laughed at him, saying that he'd had it right the first time. In any case, she seemed comfortable enough with him now, and she wasn't one of the ones that bobbed to attention every time he walked into the room.
Kara had never, and likely would never, be impressed by him. That was a good thing. It was nice having an equal, whatever her rank might be. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said she should have made Captain, and probably before he had. She could fly circles around him if she was given the chance.
"Viper one-nine, clear forward."
The disembodied voice finally gave him the permission he'd been waiting for, and he quickly went through the final mental checklist before talking a deep breath, bracing his head against the pad, and waiting for the final clear to launch.
"Viper nav-con green, interval check, thrust positive and steady. Good- bye."
Apollo touched a button on his joystick, and the launch tube flashed by in a strobe of white lights. His eyes were focused clearly on the black dot at the end of the tube. He released the breath he'd been holding since launch, relaxing as he exited the Galactica and shot towards open space. He felt his body relax as it only did when he was out here, flying among the stars, in total control of his own destiny.
He glanced over his right shoulder in time to see a second white flash exit the Galactica's launch tube, and wondered briefly who he was flying with. It was supposed to be Jolly, but something must have happened to cause the delay. Once he would have worried, but over the years he'd flown with the best and the very worst, and he knew that he could keep the team together whichever way it went.
"Viper one-nine to Viper one-seven," he said clearly into the mouthpiece of his helmet. "Who am I flying with today?"
"Three guesses," came back in a pleasant voice that put a smile on his face. "But you'll only need one."
"Starbuck!" he said, both surprised and pleased. He resorted to the call signs naturally, without conscious thought. He knew she would do the same. "I thought we were on opposite shifts this week."
"We were, but Jolly's down with a fever. They asked for a last minute volunteer, and I couldn't think of anything better to do than get out of that place for a couple of days."
"I understand," he told her with feeling, and also with an unconscious measure of relief. He had flown with the worst that the Galactica had to offer in the way of pilots, but that didn't mean he liked it. Knowing that he was flying with the one pilot that could keep him in his place was downright refreshing.
"So, what's the drill?" she asked quickly. "Tigh didn't get a chance to brief me."
Apollo ignored the less than respectful reference to their Executive Officer. He understood her dislike for the man, and wouldn't call her on it, but that didn't mean that the bridge crew needed to be privy to the fact that she didn't call him by rank. "Change to blue frequency," he commanded, flipping from the more commonly used flight channel to a frequency that was concealed to all but the immediate flight team.
"Frequency clear," she reported. "What's the big secret?"
"No secret, really," Apollo said with a smile. "I just want to leave them guessing." He smiled as he heard her soft laugh fed directly into his right ear. His left continued to monitor flight instructions and redirections from the Galactica, but that would soon be shut down and they would be on their own. "Honestly, though," he said, getting back to business. "This is a standard look-and-see. We've located a habitable planet that the Galactica will be in range of within the next week, and we're to inspect for feasibility, fuel, water, and food. No life signs noted, but we're also scanning for any Cylon presence, whatever that may look like. Lords know where they might have spread to."
"Why not send the Raptors? That's what they're designed for, and they could do it FTL."
"Inadequate armament," he replied. "What we're looking for is in range, and may be useful either for supplies or habitation, depending on what we find. But a Raptor assignment would be more likely to raise eyebrows than a Viper long-patrol."
"Ah," she sent back, her voice showing no surprise. "So we don't want to get the little kiddies hopes up until we know what we're passing by."
"Exactly."
"Makes sense," she told him. "How far out are we heading?"
"Kicked in, it'll take us about two hours, then we'll have at least seventy- two to make a preliminary scan before the fleet gets close. Some of those ships are barely crawling now, and will be until we can get repairs complete and refuel. Between here and there, we won't have much contact. We don't want to leave wireless trails back to the Galactica."
"Got it. Short range only."
"For now, settle in and set course to point four three, and kick in the turbo on my mark."
"Course set," Starbuck said with a smile in her voice. He knew she loved to fly. "Let's go."
"Three, two, one. mark."
As one, both Vipers lurched forward on identical headings, their pilots completely in tune with one another. No other words were necessary.
"Flight Captain to wingman," Apollo said in a gravelly voice, compliments of hours of silence and the high-oxygen environment in the cockpit. "Ready to get this done?"
"Willing and able," Starbuck replied. "Your mark?"
"Slow on mark, three, two, one."
"Mark," they said together, their turbo wash dropping from a blinding flare to a gentle flame.
The Vipers slowed as one, descending towards the planet like twin arcs of light.
"Atmosphere acceptable," Starbuck reported, consulting the environmental computer as soon as they were into the atmosphere. "A little high on the oxygen, though. We may be a bit dizzy, but we won't need the breathers."
"Combustibility?" Apollo asked.
"Slight risk, but not high," she reported.
Apollo nodded, then remembered that she couldn't see him. "Check."
"See anyplace you want to land?"
He checked over his computer displays before glancing through the cockpit window and verifying the mechanical report. "Change heading to three-delta- seven. About thirty miles further."
"Check."
They cut speed together, following standard procedure for a surface landing. Everything was going exactly by the book. Apollo started to get nervous. Nothing ever went "by the book".
An audible explosion confirmed the first rule of Planetary Exploration: if it can go wrong, it will.
"I've got a problem, Apollo," Starbuck said quickly, but with no real fear in her voice. She could coast it in from here if she needed to, and had before. Assuming she kept her head, and her wings.
"Report," he prompted.
"I've lost left lower thruster," she said. "But that's not the problem."
"Well, that's not good," he retorted.
"Remember me getting that high O-2 reading?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, blowing this fire out is going to be something."
"Set down," Apollo said firmly. "Here, now."
"But."
"Now," he reiterated. "Once you get it down, we can do something about the fire before you get toasted."
"Right."
Apollo pulled up, swinging back around from where he'd been in the lead so he could see the extent of the damage. She had indeed lost one engine, but the other two were in immediate danger as well. Flames were shooting from the entire lower left quadrant of the Viper, and smoke was very obviously filling the cockpit.
"Can you see anything?" he asked her anxiously.
"I. maybe. feel."
Her speech was broken by coughing, but he got his answer. If she couldn't speak, it wasn't likely that she could see her instruments. "Listen to me, and do exactly as I say. Cut power now."
She didn't reply, but the Viper immediately slowed as Apollo slid in beside her, matching speed and altitude. He concentrated on his actions, describing where his hands were, where his controls were. He went through each and every step by the inch, in enough detail that a blind man could land the Viper. In this case, a blind woman. It wasn't really hard. He knew that each of them had logged more hours in the Viper than it took to memorize her controls.
It was a tense five minutes before he could get them both on the ground, shut down systems, and pop the canopy on his own Viper. He jumped out and slid to the ground, landing at a run towards Starbuck's damaged Viper.
The canopy was just lifting as he reached it, and one jump took him up to the wing, where he could balance and force the canopy the rest of the way. He reached in, grabbing its pilot by the arm as she coughed deeply and struggled to catch her breath. He pulled her body up, surprised at how light she really was compared to the men he'd hefted in rescue training simulations, and tucked her under one arm so that he could jump down. He held her up as she tried to walk, got her to a safe distance from the flames, and then went to his own Viper for a fire retardant. He wasn't trusting that what was in Starbuck's Viper would be intact, and was not willing to waste time looking.
By the time he had the flames under control, the coughing and retching that he'd been only half aware of had stopped. He double-checked the hot areas, applied more of the retardant, and then went to check on Starbuck.
"Are you burned?" he asked anxiously, dusting ash from her uniform and checking for damage to her clothing and pressure suit.
"I'm." The coughing began again, followed by another bought of retching, so he continued his inspection of her with efficient hands and little assistance. When he unzipped her flight suit to check for any blisters, she pushed at his hands ineffectually.
"The suit is hot, Kara. I need to see if you're burned."
"Not," she coughed out.
"You don't know that," he corrected. "You have so much adrenaline in your system that you wouldn't feel anything less than an amputation, and probably not that."
"I can check," she told him, and he was pleased to hear that at least she could get a few words out, now.
"It's your back I'm worried about! Don't get shy on me now, Kara. I've seen it all before."
The words seemed to stun her so that she at least stopped fighting him. He finished unzipping the suit and tugged it off to the waist. He followed procedure with the pressure suit as well, peeling it down her arms and taking a close look at her back. There were a few pink areas, and one that was blotchy red, but nothing he could see beyond a simple first-degree heat burn. The suits were designed to isolate the pilot from heat and flame, and for the most part it had done its job.
"Nothing permanent," Lee reported, holding the waist of her suit away from her body so he could check her upper buttocks. "But you're gonna have some sore spots by morning."
"Fine," she told him quickly, grasping her pressure suit and starting to tug it back on.
"Wait," he said simply. "You may as well strip of the PS now. You'll be more comfortable in just the flight suit, and the pressure suit might seal in the burns to make them worse."
"Fine," she said, exasperation in her voice. "I'll change, just. go somewhere else."
Lee rolled his eyes. He'd thought they were past the male-female issues that sometimes arose on deep probe. Neither was ignorant of the opposite gender, and they'd changed in front of one another more than once in the past. Not wanting to press the issue, and remembering his own discomfort as they got ready to shower several days before, he stood up and went to inspect their surroundings and check out the damage that had been done to her viper.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The fire had finally been contained, and the two functional engines were protected. The flames had not ignited the tylium that fueled the Vipers, so theoretically they should be able to get it airborne. Theoretically, because they didn't know what had caused the explosion in the first place, so he had no way of predicting if it would recur.
He took a step back from the Viper and looked around. They had set down, by necessity, probably twenty miles from where he had planned. The preferred site had water, natural cover, and a high enough vantage point to defend it if necessary. This was a lower elevation, both flat and dry. The sky had been disturbed by the Viper passage, and the temperature of their afterburners made rain from the dense clouds rather likely. It wasn't ideal to leave the Vipers here, and yet until they could get a good look inside Starbuck's Viper they didn't dare try to move it.
He turned around to face Kara, finding her back to him as she finished sipping herself into her flight suit, pressure suit over her arm. He would have to do the same thing before they did much more. The suit designed for the vacuum of space was making him sweat like crazy in the planet's warmth.
"How do you feel?" he asked as he approached her and reached for the suit. She passed it to him, and shifted her shoulders around experimentally.
"Like I fell asleep in the sun," she admitted. "But it beats the hell out of being cooked alive." She took a deep breath, met Lee's eyes, and softly told him. "Thanks. I couldn't see a thing, instruments or otherwise."
"You would have done the same for me," he replied gently, patting her gently on one arm, rather than on her sore back. "And you have."
She nodded at that, then looked around. "I messed up the game plan."
He shrugged. "We can work with it. But we really need to find out what happened to that engine."
"Could be anything," she admitted. "Tyrol has been plugging Vipers together from scraps since the war started. Could be a bad capacitor, a fuse, or just about anything. They've also been bypassing some of the safeties to keep them flying when they didn't have the parts they needed."
Lee nodded. "And we aren't likely to figure it out before those clouds cut loose," he reminded her. "We need some cover."
"I'll start putting up the emergency shelter," she told him. "Why don't you get the food and testing supplies out of the Vipers, and when the rain's over one of us can start the preliminary survey from here while the other works on my Viper."
"Who's in command here?" he asked with a smile.
"Oh, sorry," she said, and actually looked sheepish. "I'm not used to working with someone who knows his head from his ass. What's your orders?"
Lee looked at her and broadened his grin to a true smile. "Set up the shelter," he told her. "I'll start digging out supplies."
Kara nodded, and they went to work.
Lee Adama settled himself into the cockpit and slipped his helmet into place. He went mindlessly through the pre-flight check, having done it so many times that he didn't need the clipboard that he used to rely on. The only other pilot he might trust to pre-check by rote would be Starbuck. He smiled softly as he realized that she could do it, and probably in a quarter the time it took him.
Okay, so he was methodical. Some might call it compulsive. Kara just said he was damned picky.
He liked to do things right the first time. What was the old Caprican saying? There was never time to do things right the first time, but always time to fix what you messed up by rushing the first time. He preferred to just get it done. If that had earned him a reputation as a hard-ass, then he'd deal with it. He had dealt with more than that as the Commander's son.
With pre-flight complete, he checked in with the Launch officer, and then waited patiently for control to be transferred to his Viper. This was always the most tense part of the routine long patrol: waiting for launch.
His wait was slightly excessive this time around. After more than ten minutes without transmission, he checked in with flight.
"We read you, Captain Apollo," came the clearly annunciated, and clearly feminine voice of his flight control officer. "Our apologies for the delay. We have some personnel changes on the roster. Continue holding, and you will be cleared as soon as your wingman is available for launch."
He considered that the run around, and tried again. "Control, is there a problem?"
"No further information is available at this time."
He rolled his eyes and began tapping one foot in agitation. No information his butt! They knew exactly what was going on, but they weren't in the mood to share.
Moments later, he received word that his wingman was in place. Apparently that had been the issue, although he couldn't figure out what the big deal was about getting Jolly into his Viper. Even if it weren't Jolly, several pilots were always sitting in quarters waiting for something - anything - to do. Surely it couldn't take twenty minutes to get someone flight ready.
Unless, of course, they were having difficulty finding someone willing to fly with the Commander's son.
Initially, he'd thought moving back into Squadron quarters was a good idea. He didn't like VIP treatment, and he'd missed the camaraderie that he'd enjoyed when he'd just been one of the guys. But he'd never been stationed on his father's ship before, and certainly not when the great Commander was effectively running the entire fleet. It seemed to have given him some sort of elevated status that, combined with his rank and history, had made him more than a little unapproachable.
The younger pilots seemed downright scared of him. The older, more experienced ones were wary, as though he were a spy in their midst. About the only few people still talking to him, at least among the pilots, were Kara, Sharon, and a couple of others that had been in flight school with him way back when.
The humor of it was that if anyone should be wary of him, it should be Sharon. He had been the instructor to buck her down from Viper class to Raptors. It hadn't been that he didn't like her, but just the opposite. She'd been a decent pilot, but she didn't move or think terribly quickly under pressure. In a Raptor, you had a little longer to figure things out. In a Viper, you had to react almost before you thought, or you were dead. She was an excellent pilot - she just didn't belong in a Viper.
She had resented the decision when he'd made it. She had even appealed above him, and been denied. But since the war had started, and she'd found out just what could be expected of a pilot, she seemed more than content to pilot Raptors. The irony of it was that she had improved enough that he'd easily recommend her for Vipers now, and he'd told her as much the week before. She'd laughed at him, saying that he'd had it right the first time. In any case, she seemed comfortable enough with him now, and she wasn't one of the ones that bobbed to attention every time he walked into the room.
Kara had never, and likely would never, be impressed by him. That was a good thing. It was nice having an equal, whatever her rank might be. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said she should have made Captain, and probably before he had. She could fly circles around him if she was given the chance.
"Viper one-nine, clear forward."
The disembodied voice finally gave him the permission he'd been waiting for, and he quickly went through the final mental checklist before talking a deep breath, bracing his head against the pad, and waiting for the final clear to launch.
"Viper nav-con green, interval check, thrust positive and steady. Good- bye."
Apollo touched a button on his joystick, and the launch tube flashed by in a strobe of white lights. His eyes were focused clearly on the black dot at the end of the tube. He released the breath he'd been holding since launch, relaxing as he exited the Galactica and shot towards open space. He felt his body relax as it only did when he was out here, flying among the stars, in total control of his own destiny.
He glanced over his right shoulder in time to see a second white flash exit the Galactica's launch tube, and wondered briefly who he was flying with. It was supposed to be Jolly, but something must have happened to cause the delay. Once he would have worried, but over the years he'd flown with the best and the very worst, and he knew that he could keep the team together whichever way it went.
"Viper one-nine to Viper one-seven," he said clearly into the mouthpiece of his helmet. "Who am I flying with today?"
"Three guesses," came back in a pleasant voice that put a smile on his face. "But you'll only need one."
"Starbuck!" he said, both surprised and pleased. He resorted to the call signs naturally, without conscious thought. He knew she would do the same. "I thought we were on opposite shifts this week."
"We were, but Jolly's down with a fever. They asked for a last minute volunteer, and I couldn't think of anything better to do than get out of that place for a couple of days."
"I understand," he told her with feeling, and also with an unconscious measure of relief. He had flown with the worst that the Galactica had to offer in the way of pilots, but that didn't mean he liked it. Knowing that he was flying with the one pilot that could keep him in his place was downright refreshing.
"So, what's the drill?" she asked quickly. "Tigh didn't get a chance to brief me."
Apollo ignored the less than respectful reference to their Executive Officer. He understood her dislike for the man, and wouldn't call her on it, but that didn't mean that the bridge crew needed to be privy to the fact that she didn't call him by rank. "Change to blue frequency," he commanded, flipping from the more commonly used flight channel to a frequency that was concealed to all but the immediate flight team.
"Frequency clear," she reported. "What's the big secret?"
"No secret, really," Apollo said with a smile. "I just want to leave them guessing." He smiled as he heard her soft laugh fed directly into his right ear. His left continued to monitor flight instructions and redirections from the Galactica, but that would soon be shut down and they would be on their own. "Honestly, though," he said, getting back to business. "This is a standard look-and-see. We've located a habitable planet that the Galactica will be in range of within the next week, and we're to inspect for feasibility, fuel, water, and food. No life signs noted, but we're also scanning for any Cylon presence, whatever that may look like. Lords know where they might have spread to."
"Why not send the Raptors? That's what they're designed for, and they could do it FTL."
"Inadequate armament," he replied. "What we're looking for is in range, and may be useful either for supplies or habitation, depending on what we find. But a Raptor assignment would be more likely to raise eyebrows than a Viper long-patrol."
"Ah," she sent back, her voice showing no surprise. "So we don't want to get the little kiddies hopes up until we know what we're passing by."
"Exactly."
"Makes sense," she told him. "How far out are we heading?"
"Kicked in, it'll take us about two hours, then we'll have at least seventy- two to make a preliminary scan before the fleet gets close. Some of those ships are barely crawling now, and will be until we can get repairs complete and refuel. Between here and there, we won't have much contact. We don't want to leave wireless trails back to the Galactica."
"Got it. Short range only."
"For now, settle in and set course to point four three, and kick in the turbo on my mark."
"Course set," Starbuck said with a smile in her voice. He knew she loved to fly. "Let's go."
"Three, two, one. mark."
As one, both Vipers lurched forward on identical headings, their pilots completely in tune with one another. No other words were necessary.
"Flight Captain to wingman," Apollo said in a gravelly voice, compliments of hours of silence and the high-oxygen environment in the cockpit. "Ready to get this done?"
"Willing and able," Starbuck replied. "Your mark?"
"Slow on mark, three, two, one."
"Mark," they said together, their turbo wash dropping from a blinding flare to a gentle flame.
The Vipers slowed as one, descending towards the planet like twin arcs of light.
"Atmosphere acceptable," Starbuck reported, consulting the environmental computer as soon as they were into the atmosphere. "A little high on the oxygen, though. We may be a bit dizzy, but we won't need the breathers."
"Combustibility?" Apollo asked.
"Slight risk, but not high," she reported.
Apollo nodded, then remembered that she couldn't see him. "Check."
"See anyplace you want to land?"
He checked over his computer displays before glancing through the cockpit window and verifying the mechanical report. "Change heading to three-delta- seven. About thirty miles further."
"Check."
They cut speed together, following standard procedure for a surface landing. Everything was going exactly by the book. Apollo started to get nervous. Nothing ever went "by the book".
An audible explosion confirmed the first rule of Planetary Exploration: if it can go wrong, it will.
"I've got a problem, Apollo," Starbuck said quickly, but with no real fear in her voice. She could coast it in from here if she needed to, and had before. Assuming she kept her head, and her wings.
"Report," he prompted.
"I've lost left lower thruster," she said. "But that's not the problem."
"Well, that's not good," he retorted.
"Remember me getting that high O-2 reading?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, blowing this fire out is going to be something."
"Set down," Apollo said firmly. "Here, now."
"But."
"Now," he reiterated. "Once you get it down, we can do something about the fire before you get toasted."
"Right."
Apollo pulled up, swinging back around from where he'd been in the lead so he could see the extent of the damage. She had indeed lost one engine, but the other two were in immediate danger as well. Flames were shooting from the entire lower left quadrant of the Viper, and smoke was very obviously filling the cockpit.
"Can you see anything?" he asked her anxiously.
"I. maybe. feel."
Her speech was broken by coughing, but he got his answer. If she couldn't speak, it wasn't likely that she could see her instruments. "Listen to me, and do exactly as I say. Cut power now."
She didn't reply, but the Viper immediately slowed as Apollo slid in beside her, matching speed and altitude. He concentrated on his actions, describing where his hands were, where his controls were. He went through each and every step by the inch, in enough detail that a blind man could land the Viper. In this case, a blind woman. It wasn't really hard. He knew that each of them had logged more hours in the Viper than it took to memorize her controls.
It was a tense five minutes before he could get them both on the ground, shut down systems, and pop the canopy on his own Viper. He jumped out and slid to the ground, landing at a run towards Starbuck's damaged Viper.
The canopy was just lifting as he reached it, and one jump took him up to the wing, where he could balance and force the canopy the rest of the way. He reached in, grabbing its pilot by the arm as she coughed deeply and struggled to catch her breath. He pulled her body up, surprised at how light she really was compared to the men he'd hefted in rescue training simulations, and tucked her under one arm so that he could jump down. He held her up as she tried to walk, got her to a safe distance from the flames, and then went to his own Viper for a fire retardant. He wasn't trusting that what was in Starbuck's Viper would be intact, and was not willing to waste time looking.
By the time he had the flames under control, the coughing and retching that he'd been only half aware of had stopped. He double-checked the hot areas, applied more of the retardant, and then went to check on Starbuck.
"Are you burned?" he asked anxiously, dusting ash from her uniform and checking for damage to her clothing and pressure suit.
"I'm." The coughing began again, followed by another bought of retching, so he continued his inspection of her with efficient hands and little assistance. When he unzipped her flight suit to check for any blisters, she pushed at his hands ineffectually.
"The suit is hot, Kara. I need to see if you're burned."
"Not," she coughed out.
"You don't know that," he corrected. "You have so much adrenaline in your system that you wouldn't feel anything less than an amputation, and probably not that."
"I can check," she told him, and he was pleased to hear that at least she could get a few words out, now.
"It's your back I'm worried about! Don't get shy on me now, Kara. I've seen it all before."
The words seemed to stun her so that she at least stopped fighting him. He finished unzipping the suit and tugged it off to the waist. He followed procedure with the pressure suit as well, peeling it down her arms and taking a close look at her back. There were a few pink areas, and one that was blotchy red, but nothing he could see beyond a simple first-degree heat burn. The suits were designed to isolate the pilot from heat and flame, and for the most part it had done its job.
"Nothing permanent," Lee reported, holding the waist of her suit away from her body so he could check her upper buttocks. "But you're gonna have some sore spots by morning."
"Fine," she told him quickly, grasping her pressure suit and starting to tug it back on.
"Wait," he said simply. "You may as well strip of the PS now. You'll be more comfortable in just the flight suit, and the pressure suit might seal in the burns to make them worse."
"Fine," she said, exasperation in her voice. "I'll change, just. go somewhere else."
Lee rolled his eyes. He'd thought they were past the male-female issues that sometimes arose on deep probe. Neither was ignorant of the opposite gender, and they'd changed in front of one another more than once in the past. Not wanting to press the issue, and remembering his own discomfort as they got ready to shower several days before, he stood up and went to inspect their surroundings and check out the damage that had been done to her viper.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The fire had finally been contained, and the two functional engines were protected. The flames had not ignited the tylium that fueled the Vipers, so theoretically they should be able to get it airborne. Theoretically, because they didn't know what had caused the explosion in the first place, so he had no way of predicting if it would recur.
He took a step back from the Viper and looked around. They had set down, by necessity, probably twenty miles from where he had planned. The preferred site had water, natural cover, and a high enough vantage point to defend it if necessary. This was a lower elevation, both flat and dry. The sky had been disturbed by the Viper passage, and the temperature of their afterburners made rain from the dense clouds rather likely. It wasn't ideal to leave the Vipers here, and yet until they could get a good look inside Starbuck's Viper they didn't dare try to move it.
He turned around to face Kara, finding her back to him as she finished sipping herself into her flight suit, pressure suit over her arm. He would have to do the same thing before they did much more. The suit designed for the vacuum of space was making him sweat like crazy in the planet's warmth.
"How do you feel?" he asked as he approached her and reached for the suit. She passed it to him, and shifted her shoulders around experimentally.
"Like I fell asleep in the sun," she admitted. "But it beats the hell out of being cooked alive." She took a deep breath, met Lee's eyes, and softly told him. "Thanks. I couldn't see a thing, instruments or otherwise."
"You would have done the same for me," he replied gently, patting her gently on one arm, rather than on her sore back. "And you have."
She nodded at that, then looked around. "I messed up the game plan."
He shrugged. "We can work with it. But we really need to find out what happened to that engine."
"Could be anything," she admitted. "Tyrol has been plugging Vipers together from scraps since the war started. Could be a bad capacitor, a fuse, or just about anything. They've also been bypassing some of the safeties to keep them flying when they didn't have the parts they needed."
Lee nodded. "And we aren't likely to figure it out before those clouds cut loose," he reminded her. "We need some cover."
"I'll start putting up the emergency shelter," she told him. "Why don't you get the food and testing supplies out of the Vipers, and when the rain's over one of us can start the preliminary survey from here while the other works on my Viper."
"Who's in command here?" he asked with a smile.
"Oh, sorry," she said, and actually looked sheepish. "I'm not used to working with someone who knows his head from his ass. What's your orders?"
Lee looked at her and broadened his grin to a true smile. "Set up the shelter," he told her. "I'll start digging out supplies."
Kara nodded, and they went to work.