Chapter 4
Following a group of untrustworthy giants down into a hole in the ground wasn't exactly Kara's idea of a good time. Unfortunately, the only alternative was to let Lee go by himself, and she was not letting that happen. He wasn't at his best in the first place — his leg had given him some trouble this morning — and in the second place she was not letting him leave her behind. She wasn't afraid of the men; not exactly. But she sure as hell didn't like them. Besides, without him around she was likely to belt one of them and get herself into more trouble than she really wanted to deal with. She'd caused enough problems for herself with disobedience of orders in recent memory. She wasn't really sure that either her wings or her commission could tolerate more.
On the other hand, she had to admit a certain grudging respect for what the minters were doing. It was filthy work, and they hadn't developed their builds by sitting in front of a computer monitor or flying a plane. It was hard, physical work and she even experienced a bit of envy as she watched a couple of the women manage equipment and ore that she couldn't have thought of lifting.
Lee was uncharacteristically silent as they listened to Cops extolling the virtues of the mine, and the problems they had solved in record time to follow the vein of Tylium. Kara thought a good deal of his reserve was due to the uneven ground they were walking on. It was difficult enough for her to keep her step in the dim light of helmets, but for him it must be torture. She had seen the night before just how much pain the injury could still cause him, so she didn't blame him for watching his step.
"Move that drill over," Cops called out to one of his men as they passed by one active section of the hole that had been carved out of the earth using hand operated and cool-engine equipment. It was slower than explosives for tearing up the ground, but much safer around a combustible ore.
The man he'd yelled at grunted, picked up a drill that must have weighed over a hundred pounds, and repositioned it without even slowing the bit. Okay, she was more than a little envious of that kind of strength. She wasn't a wimp by any stretch of the imagination, but that level of fitness was in an entirely different league from keeping healthy and staying sane.
That was another reason Kara was on edge today. Aside from the less than ideal living conditions and unfriendly company, she hadn't been able to get her run in. Lee had offered to take her, but given his pain the night before she just couldn't take him up on it. He wasn't ready to start running. She wasn't entirely sure he was ready for walking. Either way, she wouldn't put him in the position of either doing what he shouldn't or letting her down. She had even thought of taking off by herself, but knowing him he would have tried to follow, the idiot. He acted as though she couldn't keep herself together long enough to fire a blaster. The miners might be tough, or even threatening, but they'd go down just as quickly as anyone else give a well placed shot.
So they had gotten up early, dressed in clean clothes and tough boots, and had eaten a couple of nutrition packets on their way to the mine. Lee said they needed to get on some kind of equal footing with Cops if they were going to get things done, and they couldn't do it if they were in different locations. Cops wouldn't come to them, so they had gone to him. After a few minutes of grumbling and cursing, the miner had offered to show them around.
She supposed it was a step in the right direction. At the very least the miner had gone from actively insulting her and leering to purely ignoring her. In its own way it rankled just as much. She wasn't used to being ignored, and she didn't appreciate it. Only her respect for Lee had kept her mouth shut during the insults, and now even that well earned respect was running very thin. She had finally stopped asking questions when Cops acted as though he never heard her, and instead directed his attention to Lee. If he'd dismissed her once more, she would have to kill him, and she was really doing her best to stay out of hack for the rest of this mission. If she stopped giving him the opportunity, it was just possible that he might live through this tour.
Sometime since yesterday the man had decided that he didn't have much choice but to listen to the Captain. Probably it had been the implied threat of being left outside the Galactica's protection, or maybe just the fact that he was military and therefore had some options that the civilian security men didn't. She couldn't be sure. But some kind of a miracle must have occurred, because at the very least he was speaking to Lee. She tried to count it as progress, but it only underscored his treatment of her, and that purely pissed her off.
Last night had been quiet so far as she knew, and she was a reasonably light sleeper. Neither she nor Lee had heard anything going on, drunken or otherwise, during the late night or early morning hours. She knew Lee had spent part of that time awake, ready for whatever might happen, but she had mostly slept. She had offered to stay up with him, but he had insisted that it wasn't necessary, so she had slept with his good leg as a pillow while he sat and listened and waited. Eventually he had lain back down, but she wasn't sure what time that had been.
So she imagined that he was tired as well as in pain as he hiked through the interior of the mine. Kara was truly impressed by the size of the mine itself. The crew had been working here for only a couple of weeks, but they had tunneled out thousands of pounds of the ore. Considering that most of their tools were manual, and that there were only about thirty miners on the site, it was quite an accomplishment. She would have told them that if she thought they would have cared a bit what her opinion was. As it was, she didn't bother. If they could ignore her, then she could ignore them. At the very least she had no intention of complimenting them.
Kara took a moment to glare at the woman who had currently stopped her work and was sneering. Apparently the women weren't much happier to have her there than the men, but they weren't bothering to ignore her. She should have ignored it, but she was getting royally sick of it. Perhaps she was a little bit spoiled by the respect she received on the Galactica — a respect that she had earned, damn it — but open hostility wasn't something she found acceptable.
"We're workin' mostly down in here," Cops was saying as he gestured towards about ten men that were managing various large pieces of equipment. The women nearby were loading ore onto a conveyor belt that transported the ore to the surface where it could be processed and packaged for the trip to the fleet. "We got a lot more ore down here than we could get out in a couple of weeks," he added. "But that commander says we ain't got no more time than that."
Kara had the passing thought that Cops couldn't have a clue that "that commander" was Lee's father, regardless of their matching names. She chalked that up to his clear failure to pay any attention to their purpose for being there. He had no respect for any of them, rank or no, and she felt that her and Lee's entire mission was a waste of time. She had told Lee that, and more than once, but he was a diplomat at heart. She decided he must have inherited that from his mother, because even the eldest Adama didn't have this level of tolerance. On the other hand, Cops ignorance helped her to almost tolerate his level of idiocy. After all, if she could find it in her to pity him, then she might just make it through the mission without doing him bodily harm. Maybe.
"What's that machine for?" Kara finally asked, her curiosity getting the best of her. It was at least ten feet high, and was doing something to the ore before the women took it to the belt. It wasn't her fault that she liked to know how things worked. It was the same character flaw that had sent her up under her Viper beside Tyrol on more than one occasion. It was also the reason she was one of the few pilots who could do most of her own repairs, although all of the pilots were now helping with routine maintenance. She wondered how these miners would feel about knowing she not only flew the Vipers that saved had their butts, but could take one apart and put it back together as well..
Cops ignored her outright. Oh, he glanced back at her to be sure she realized that he heard her, but he ignored the question entirely. She resisted the urge to beat an answer out of him, and restrained herself only because there were a hell of a lot more of them than there was of her, and her understanding of odds went well beyond the card table. Fine. He was rude. She could deal with it. She would deal with it.
"What is this used for," Lee said clearly, coming to a stop and gesturing to the machine Kara had mentioned.
Cops glared at her again before he answered Lee. "That's the first part of the processing," he said. "It chunks out the ore so that we don't send any rock out to the heaters. Rocks mess up the system."
When Cops had turned to continue his guided tour, Kara couldn't help sticking her tongue out at Lee. He just winked, and followed behind Cops. Men. She would have felt a little better if Lee had at least tried to stick up for her a little. She would remember this the next time the pilots were making backwards comments behind his back. But at least she had the answer to her question, so that was something.
The remainder of the tour went along on a similar vein. She learned a lot about the processing and actual mining of the rock, or at least enough to appreciate why they needed people who knew what they were doing to manage it. She listened as Cops detailed the dangers of the mine, ranging from the lack of mine supports due to their lack of time to build them to the explosive nature of Tylium. It wasn't something she thought she would want to do. She also wasn't comfortable with the closed-in feeling that seemed to press down on her while she had been under ground. She had always been just a little claustrophobic — even to the point of not enjoying hugs as a child — but this was another level. She had to constantly tell herself that there was indeed enough air to breathe, otherwise she couldn't do it.
When they finally made it above ground, they all washed off at the spigot, where she had to wait to go last. Idiots. Lee didn't make waves, though. He just stood close and handed her a towel once she'd finished and refused to walk off without her. That was the only thing that kept Cops there. It was also the only thing that kept her from telling Cops just what she thought of his outdated perception of women. Gemini was gone, and it was time these relics learned some manners. If Lee would just turn his back for a moment, she might just teach them something.
Dooler had also joined them once they were back at the surface. He wasn't saying much, but she noted that he and a couple of his guards did tend to stay close. She didn't know if they were guarding her and Lee or Cops and his crew. It could have been either. She wished that she could care either way, but mostly she was just irritated. She wasn't the type of person to be ignored for extended periods of time. It simply wasn't in her. And for Lee's sake she really didn't have much of a choice. Now.
"Any suspects?" Lee asked her once they were back to their unit.
"One's as likely as another," she muttered. "If you want my opinion, that is."
He had the audacity to smile at her. "It's cultural," he reassured her. "Don't take it personally. If you were anyone else, they probably wouldn't have even let you go down into the mine. As it is, they don't know what to do with a woman who has authority. I think that's why you're being ignored. We made it clear that we won't let you be insulted, so ignoring is the best they can do."
"Right," she grumbled reluctantly. It didn't make her feel any better. Cultural or not, she hated it when people were rude. "At least they're talking to you."
"Some," he agreed as he tugged off the grubby work uniform he'd worn down into the mine and reached for another. "I'm hoping I can get a little more out of them when they get together tonight."
"Gee, fun," she remarked, her words almost dripping with sarcasm. A room full of idiots ignoring her didn't sound like a good time, but there was no way Lee was going in there without backup.
"You don't have to go," he assured her. "I can leave you locked in here. They might even talk a little better if you weren't around."
"You're joking, right?" she asked, anger replacing the sarcasm. "You'd leave me here? You won't let me go to the frakking toilet by myself, but you'd leave me here?"
"The door locks," he reminded her. "It's not like you want to be around them."
"Not a chance," she corrected. "I'm not staying here by myself." She had reached down to tug her shirt over her head, glad to be rid of the filthy material. Clad only in her pants and bra, she faced down Lee with her hands on her hips. "You made the damn rules, and you can follow them just as much as I can. There is no possible way you are leaving me here."
"Fine," he consented, pulling his clean shirt on. "Go get leered at," he muttered. "Sorry I tried to keep you out of it."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You can't go in there on your own anyway," she reminded him. "You can't talk and cover yourself at the same time. A second gun can only be a good thing."
"Well, you're not going anywhere if you don't put some clothes on," he informed her.
She managed not to blush at that. Barely. They had been dressing and undressing in one another's presence since they were children. She'd had a few moments of shyness over the years, but usually he was the one to remind her that bodies were just bodies and they'd both seen it before. For some reason, his bringing up her clothing — or lack thereof — now made her feel a bit uneasy. Damn. She had known last night that things were going to change. This was just what she was trying to avoid.
"The door's still locked, and I'm not finished," she informed him, fighting the urge to grab her shirt. It was a matter of principle now. He had seen her in her bra and skivvies before. He would just have to deal with it. "Will you or will you not be safer with me there?"
He glared at her. She'd bet she had surprised him by not backing down. He had no clue how tough she could be when she wanted to. "Probably," he admitted. "But you'd be safer here."
"I can take care of myself."
He took an obvious breath and let it out as he rested his hands on his hips in an imitation of her position. "I'm not questioning that," he said with what was clearly a forced calm. "You've saved my ass more times than I can count. I have absolutely no doubt that you can hold your own with me, Cops, or probably any other man in that is on this planet." He closed his eyes, took another breath, and continued. "But they aren't the type to go one-on-one, and one person is already dead. Have you considered that just you being there might stir them up into doing something they wouldn't have bothered with otherwise? Has it occurred to you that I'd like to get this done and get home without having to take on the whole damn crew and half of the security men? Kara, believe it or not, this isn't about you."
She ground her teeth in silence. She really hated it when he was right. This might be about principle for her, but Lee was trying to save both the mission and some lives. He had a way of making her feel very small when he put his mind to it.
"Go," she finally said, her voice as even as she could make it through the fury. She wasn't mad at him, though. She was mad at herself for not thinking. She was mad at the jerks that had made this whole mission necessary. She was positively furious that she was still annoyed that she shouldn't go.
He looked at her for a long moment, his face not revealing much, and then he let out a sigh. "Put your shirt on," he said softly. "If we're going to go, we need to get over there."
"But you just said"
"Shut up, Starbuck," he told her quietly. "Just get dressed."
She was still reeling as he unlocked the door moments later and escorted her to the one community building that the mining camp boasted. Inside, it looked an awful lot like any other campsite recreation area. The bar consisted of a cooler sitting on a table, and the entertainment consisted of about ten tables in various locations of the relatively large room. Some of the tables were hosting card games, and others were empty. Most of them, however, had two or three men sitting in quiet conversation. She couldn't help but wonder what the asses would do if she sat down and asked to be dealt in. Lee would no doubt kill her, but the temptation was there.
Lee chose one of the quieter tables, and Kara followed without a word. She had the distinct feeling that she was on borrowed time, and she wasn't going to make waves. Yet. Kara had learned to pick some of her battles. Most often, the battles seemed to choose her, but every once in a while she had the opportunity to exercise some judgement. It was good for her character, she decided. She still had no clue what had made Lee change his mind, but she was glad. She really didn't want to have him here by himself. She might be a woman, but she was the only backup he had.
Lee sat down in the last open chair at the table, and Kara decided that the better part of discretion was keeping her mouth shut and her eyes open. As tempted as she was to grab a chair and seat herself next to him, she didn't think it would go over well. There were only a couple of women in the room, and they were standing against walls rather than sitting with the men. She followed suit and took up residence against the wall next to Lee's chosen table. She wasn't being merely observant, though. She was close enough to Lee that she could cover him easily, and the wall at her back was instinctively defensive. She might be only standing, but she had a purpose whether they knew it or not. The men obligingly ignored her. She wasn't getting used to it, but she had decided to use it to her advantage.
"It's quite an operation," Lee told the man at the table. "I can't believe you guys pull so much of that ore out of the ground with no large equipment. It's very impressive."
"Mostly it's the miners," the man replied. He was fairly young, Kara thought, at least compared to the mostly forty-something minders that were around the room. He was less weathered looking, too. Maybe less hard. She figured Lee had made a good choice if he was going to look for information. The problem was, everyone knew that was why the two of them were there, so there was nothing covert about it. They were the enemy, and open targets. She had no clue how Lee expected to learn anything.
"So you're not one of them?" Lee asked.
"I'm with security," he told him with a shrug. Something about his voice was familiar though, and Kara's mind was racing to place it.
"You with Dooler's team, or private?"
"I'm with Dooler," the man confirmed. "Name's Cable. Evan Cable."
Lee shook the man's hand, and Kara finally placed the voice. It was the man that had spoken to Lee the night before. She hadn't heard the words, but she had definitely heard that quiet voice.
"Lee Adama," he told him. "And who's this?"
"Danner," the man replied.
"Miner or security?" Lee asked.
"You can't tell?"
"You're big enough to be a miner," Lee remarked with a casual smile. "But you're entirely too clean."
Danner smiled back. It was not quite as casual, but at least it wasn't open hostility. Kara counted that as a plus. "So, what are you?" Danner asked him. Kara noted absently that he hadn't answered Lee's question.
"Honestly, I'm a pilot," Lee told him sheepishly. "And a Colonial Officer. I guess they use who they have.
"Adama?" Danner asked him thoughtfully. "Like the Fleet Commander?"
Kara tensed. She didn't like the way this was going. She almost preferred the ignorant miners to the reasonable questions of a guard that might be compromised. She wondered how Lee was going to play this.
"He's my father," Lee told him with a shrug. "And my Commander. So he pretty much gets to order me around any way you look at it."
Danner and Cable both laughed, and it didn't seem too forced. Kara let herself relax back against the wall. Her hand strayed briefly to her hip, making sure that her blaster was within easy reach, but then she placed it back behind her. Actually, this was going as well as could be expected. She tried desperately to get rid of the sinking sensation that had settled in the pit of her stomach. Normally it was a reliable indicator of danger, but she didn't want to face it at the moment.
"The Commander's son?" Cops said, wandering over with a glass in hand that most definitely wasn't water. "And you can't pull any better than this place?"
Lee tried to pull off another careless shrug, but it came off as more of a nervous action. Kara didn't like the look of the way Cops was standing over him. "I guess I do what I'm told," he said simply. "When it suits me."
Cops laughed at that. The sound sent shivers up and down Kara's spine. She really didn't like this guy. "When it suits you," Cops repeated. "Like that lady suits you."
Shit, Kara thought. Lee had been right. God, she hated it when Lee was right. She really shouldn't be here. Her presence was just giving them an opening at him. Lee might have even managed to get some information out of the security guard if nothing else. She tensed, and mentally went through the motions of pulling and shooting the blaster. She hadn't had to do it in a while, but she knew that she could. If she was backup, she was going to be ready.
Lee tried the indirect route. "What are you drinking?" he asked Cops.
"Whatever I want," he replied in a voice just shy of a growl. "It's my camp, my mine, and my drink."
Lee nodded, but didn't reply.
"I asked you about the woman," Cops tried again.
"I heard you," he said simply. Lee didn't offer anything else.
Kara saw it coming before Lee did. Cops' drink hit the floor and he lunged towards Lee. Her instincts kicked in and she put her hand on her side arm, waiting to see how Lee would manage it. As much as she preferred to be in the lead, she would take her cues from him. Lee could hold his own in a fight, but if the odds got out of hand she wanted to be ready.
Unfortunately, Lee never got the chance to fight. Cops had come in from his right, and when Lee went to stand and defend himself his leg folded beneath him. The sick smile on the miner's face was his undoing. Kara stopped thinking about her training, threw her good sense out the window, and stepped forward on pure adrenaline.
Cops never saw the fist coming. Later, Kara wouldn't even remember delivering the punch, but the satisfaction that had followed it remained with her for quite some time. She simply stepped forward, pulled her right arm back, and used every bit of the momentum in her body to put her weight behind her fist as it connected with the side of Cops' face. He never saw it coming, and neither did the men around him.
It was probably that shock that saved her ass. They all stared at their fallen leader, and no one seemed to have a clue what to do with a woman who had just thrown a punch. It was as though a favorite hound had just bit off the master's hand. But it was enough for Kara. She reached a hand down to Lee, allowing him to grasp her forearm and lever himself to his feet. His letting go the second he could bear his own weight didn't escape her. Neither did his lack of eye contact. This was not going to be good.
While Cops was still on the floor, flat on his back with his eyes closed and his men standing about stupidly, Lee and Kara made a hasty exit. She didn't bother trying to talk to Lee then. She knew without a doubt that he was going to have his own say, and she knew she wasn't going to like it.