If you think looking in a mirror shows you what other people see, you'd better think again. Jude Brattenberry Kobol, Fifteenth Lord of Kobol.
Adama glared at the locked hatch to the Star Chaser's bridge, furious with himself. He should have anticipated losing the wireless transmitter, now he had no way to communicate with the Galactica. Saul seemed to have something in mind, but command is a tough addiction to throw. It burned Adama's ass that for two hours all he could do was wait. The cut on his cheek was nothing in comparison.
If he were rational about it, waiting wasn't such a bad idea. His ears still rang from the explosion in the passageway; and although Godden seemed tough, she must be close to her snapping point by now. She'd been locked up with these crazies for days.
"Oh no! Dehan? Dehan?" Adama spun around to see Commander Godden standing over a bunk and shaking a small boy-shaped form. Suddenly a brown and black streak of spider cat leapt away. On four of its six legs, it scampered across the deck and up onto a carpeted scratching post. It sat there chittering and watching Godden as she tried to wake up her nephew.
Adama went over to the bunk and put a hand on her shoulder. "What's the matter? How is he?"
"He won't wake up! I can't get him to open his eyes! Oh Lords! Holy Lords! Wake up, darling! Dehan, honey?" She kept shaking the small form. The boy looked to be about eleven or twelve, with the same bright red hair as his aunt, her strong flat facial planes, and the same slant-set eyes.
Bending over with two fingers on the boy's neck Adama checked his pulse. It was strong, and his breathing was slow but regular. He pulled up an eyelid. The pupil contracted slowly in the cabin's muted light. "He's been drugged. Probably some of the same stuff they gave Graham's baboon. He'll be okay. He just has to sleep it off. Was he giving them a bad time or something?"
"Dehan kept saying he was going to rescue us, but he really didn't do anything except talk. The refugee evacuation kept us up all night and he was out on his feet. A couple of Graham's goons hauled him away this morning and said they were just going to put him to bed. I thought … I should have watched them. But Graham was listening to Adama's morning broadcast and was on such a rip about that frakking artifact of his. I thought he might try to do something crazy, break out of line, I don't know." She hadn't taken her eyes off the boy's face.
The spider cat had already returned to sit at the corner of Dehan's bunk. They were affectionate little things; most private spaceships kept either a spider or true cat to control vermin. Although the Galactica set traps and poison, it was generally acknowledged that the cats were more effective. Adama briefly wondered what the Cylons used. It was one of those imponderables that humans would never know.
Commander Godden had calmed. With shaking fingers she rubbed the moist film under her eyes. "I'm . . . I'm sorry, Hush. It's just that he's all that I have now. I don't think I could go on without him." She turned and waved a fist at a black glass porthole on the wall. "You hear that you bastards? I lose him and you'll get nothing out of me!"
"They're watching us?" Oh frak, Adama thought, a surveillance set up. That meant he couldn't even reassure Godden by telling her Galactica was preparing a rescue.
She nodded. "Probably. They were watching me for three or four days before they jumped me. I was so stupid." As Adama went to look at the camera cover, she explained, "My father used to take me and Karen on some of his long hauls. He called it the 'babysitter.' I just never took it out. Actually, to tell the truth, when the Colonials are giving me a bad time it's kind of useful."
Adama grinned at her admission of a less than pure business career, but didn't comment. He ran his fingers around the edge of the glass bubble, but they found no way to unfasten the cover. "Can they hear us too?"
"Oh yeah. Probably could hook in an infrared scan for that matter. That Rainier's quite the techno-freak if you can get him out of his books." Godden sighed. Her back against the closest bulkhead, she slowly let herself slip down to sit on the deck.
Adama paced around, looking at the compact master cabin which had been heavily remodeled from a Colonial standard twelve. Stainless steel cabinet doors covered the aft bulkhead probably concealing things like a closet, fold down tables and benches, maybe a sink and head. A single-sized bunk as well as the spider cat's scratching post took up most of port. Shallow, glass-enclosed shelving decorated starboard. The shelves held a crazy miscellany of keepsakes -- a parade of dolls dressed in green and yellow-striped clown jumpers, pictures of people and stellar phenomena, also two gorgeous crystal clusters, one mottled deep red and another milky white. There were other smaller things on the shelves that Adama couldn't see clearly without his glasses, unfortunately still in the pocket of coveralls back on the bridge. The bridge hatch filled the forward bulkhead, and to either side of it hooks held spare ship clothes very similar to the gray-green coverall Commander Godden wore. The clean, well-arranged quarters testified to her organizational skills.
Sitting on the deck, Godden looked even tinier than she had on her feet. She was pale and drawn, probably dehydrated, Adama thought. Crying will do that to you pretty fast, especially when you're already worn out. "Commander Godden, ma'am, perhaps …"
"Oh Lords, Hush, call me Maya. I got you into this, at the very least you can call me by my first name."
Adama laughed. "You didn't get me into anything, ma'am … Maya. This is my job. But I do think we should rest while we can and frankly I could stand to use the head. Do you have one in here?"
Maya looked up and her blue eyes searched his. Her face actually relaxed a little and she smiled. "You're quite the guy, aren't you?" She waved at the cabinets in the aft bulkhead and said, "Furthest left, and be careful to keep the baffle closed. Our septic's gotten a little backed up."
He walked over, pulled the cabinet door open, and as instructed, held the baffle latch tight as he folded down the bowl. He glanced over his shoulder at Maya. She was still watching him. He raised his eyebrows.
"Sorry," Maya muttered and turned away.
A couple of minutes later he was kneeling back at her side with a cup of water he'd poured from the wash-up sink. "You should try to drink this, ma'am … Maya. Sorry I keep saying that."
She drank it down then thrust out an empty hand. "Help me up, Hush." Back on her feet, Maya tottered over to the sink, pulled a white cloth out of a nearby cabinet, moistened it, and returned to Adama's side. "My only MedicKit's out there, but let me clean up that cut for you." Standing so close that even Adama's weak eyes could see the black flecks floating in her blue irises, Maya gently dabbed at the cut on his cheek. Finishing she tossed the cloth past Adama back at the sink, but she didn't move away. One of her hands came up to stroke his face. "How did this happen?" she asked.
Adama's hand went up to cover hers. She meant the scars. Not many people ever worked up the nerve to ask him, which had been one of the better things about being the commander of a battlestar. The memories weren't good. "Which one?"
A finger gently stroked the half-healed cut on his temple. "How about this one?"
"Ragnar Ammunition Depot. We were in such a hurry offloading ammo, we dropped a shell and it blew up." Not the whole truth, but close enough. There still were very few people cleared to know about Leoben Conoy.
Maya nodded, her eyes fixed on his face. The small fingers dropped down to the havoc on his cheeks. "And these?"
"Viper accident. Ruined my eyes too." They stood so close together that Adama could smell Maya's sweet breath and feel her body heat. He couldn't look away. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips half-opened. He had to taste her.
She tasted good. For a long minute stolen from kidnappers, Cylons and command responsibilities, Adama lived inside that kiss. When he pulled away, his heart raced and his breath came fast. His arms had wrapped around Maya and pulled her close. She looked flushed. Oh Lords. He dropped his arms and stepped back. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. It's just that it's been such a long time ..."
Maya ignored him. Going to the aft bulkhead, she opened up the biggest cabinet. A bed slowly folded out. Of course! If this had been family quarters, they would have put a spare bunk in here. "Come on," she said. "I think we'll both fit on this and I could use a nap."
Adama looked at the bunk, then at Maya, then at Dehan and finally at the camera porthole on the wall.
She laughed. "I swear I'll keep my hands to myself. But like you needed a kiss, I need a cuddle. Please."
Adama still hesitated. He'd never thought of himself as a prude, but if he lay down with a woman as beautiful as Maya, his body would react on its own.
"Come on, Hush," Maya continued to coax him. "You're too old and I'm too tired to do anything but sleep."
"Too old?" Adama growled. He took her hand and together, carefully, they lay down on the narrow mattress.
Maya didn't think Hush had believed her, but she truly just wanted to feel his warm body next to hers. After spending most of her life sleeping in these narrow bunks, she knew how to take up just a sliver of sleeping space. She told him to lie on his back and she curled up to his side. Through his thin shirts and her coverall he felt warm.
To prove to the Chief that she had no sexual intentions, Maya started a random conversation. "Do you ever see Commander Adama? What's he like?"
The Chief's head rolled her way. "He's okay, I guess. Maya, there's something I should tell you …"
Certain that the Chief was going to tell her he was married or something equally disappointing, Maya said, "Shhh," and nodded at the camera porthole. Graham might be watching, she implied, and it wasn't worth the risk.
Chief Husher's head rolled away again and he looked up at the overhead. "Commander Adama's just a man, like every other man. If it weren't for all the medals and ceremony, he could be anybody in a crowd."
"You don't like him. That's surprising. Everyone else I've talked to thinks there's him and then there's the Holy Lords."
"Just a man." The Chief snugged her close and whispered, "Now be quiet and go to sleep."
And after another few minutes that's just what she did.
:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:
God is a verb. Richard Buckminster Fuller, No More Secondhand God.
Now isn't that a thought-provoking idea? What does that mean? Send me a review and tell me what you think.