On the corner of his desk Colonel Paul Tigh lined up his evening regimen of three pills -- a muscle relaxer for back spasms, a sleep aid and the same vitamin supplement the nutritionists fed all the active-duty military personnel. Two of the three pills were new to him and he was so tired from supervising the re-wiring of the CIC he'd forgotten which was which.
A few weeks ago after the Colonel complained of fatigue and insomnia the doctor started him on a sleep aid. Then just yesterday his frakking back had suddenly locked up on him. After a hurried consultation with the doctor in the almost completely disassembled sickbay, the muscle relaxer had been changed too.
It was all too much for the Colonel to keep track of, but since he wasn't fond of pain, he took his pill doses religiously, and if he sometimes thought that a slug of ambrosia would do the same trick and taste a hell of a lot better, he kept that between himself and his private demons.
Except for a half dozen technicians, they'd offloaded all of the Galactica's medical staff today. Zodiac needed them far more than the Galactica's skeleton crew. Besides there wasn't much left onboard to doctor with.
Pouring water out of his carafe into a steel coffee cup, Tigh gulped the pills down one at a time, each with a separate swallow of water. He couldn't even chug-a-lug anymore. It was hell getting old. Now there was something to be grateful for -- most likely he wouldn't be getting any older.
The doctor had said the new muscle relaxer would take about a half hour to kick in and Tigh already knew to a nicety the sleeping pill's effects. Like everyone else he had plenty of packing to do whenever he had a spare minute and now was as good a time as any. Unbuttoning his jacket, he hung it on a hanger in his locker. His shoes followed. If he couldn't get drunk, he could at least get a little more comfortable.
Sitting down at the desk he began emptying out the drawers and tossing the crumbs of his life into the last of the six boxes he'd been allocated for shipping down to Zodiac. He'd already packed his private journal with instructions for it to be passed on to his (Lords help us!) children when they came of age, as well as the astrometric FTL navigation manuals from above his bunk and a miscellany of clothes, flags and memorabilia. Who would have thought a traveling man could collect so much? He'd already packed most of it up once, three years ago right before Judgment Day, when he'd still been expecting to rot away in a quiet planet-bound retirement, probably as a divorced and lonely bastard with nothing to do but stare at his navel and get drunk.
This time he was packing it up for good. For better or worse, he would be leaving it behind on Zodiac.
Tigh took the screwdriver out of the top left drawer, arose and went to the Third Wing Vigilante emblem on the bulkhead, his only remaining link to his assignment in the first Cylon war. He and Bill had served together then -- Saul and Husker, the two best pilots in the fleet.
When a knock sounded at the hatch, Tigh had about half or the placard's screws removed. He didn't stop what he was doing. Since his ship phone had been out for months and been declared irreparable, whenever he was needed in CIC they sent down a runner. "Come," he shouted. The hatch swung open.
"This better be good," he continued as he put down the screwdriver. "I was about to go to bed." He froze in astonishment when he saw who stood in the round opening. Oh frak, and here he was half undressed.
.
Doctor Carmen Massinger, sometime geophysicist and long time mother of an idealistic teenager, smiled uncertainly at Galactica's executive officer. "Well, I'll do my best, Colonel, but I make no promises."
Although she'd expected to surprise Colonel Tigh with this unannounced visit, he looked like a Highland pronghorn caught in a rover's headlights, frozen with fear and waiting to be shot. He was out of uniform and a bit disheveled. His eyes were the size of quarter cubits, and his fair, nearly transparent skin had turned slightly pink.
If she'd put him on the spot, Carmen felt badly. The Colonel had made sure her son Gil would not be chosen for this final mission, and she owed him a lot. Maybe her best bet would be to drop this off and get gone. Holding out a tall bottle loosely wrapped in a white bag, Carmen said, "I just wanted to give you a little gift." The Colonel unfroze enough to drop his eyes and look. "I was told you take a nip now and then."
An immediate smile confirmed the veracity of her information. "I've been known to, yes," the Colonel said. After quickly glancing back over his shoulder into his quarters, he half shrugged as if saying to himself 'what the frak?' and stepped aside. "Won't you come in?" he invited her with a shallow bow. "I'm afraid it's a bit torn up, but if you don't mind a little chaos, I'd love to share a drink with you."
Carmen smiled in relief. "Chaos is my middle name, Colonel Tigh. It's a key supposition in planetary theory, you know."
Shoving aside boxes with his stockinged feet, the Colonel nodded. "Let me just clear you a path here. Why don't you take the chair?" When he bent over to move one last box and to pull the chair out, the overhead light glistened on his smoothly bald pate. He straightened and one of his hands went to support his back. "I'm afraid all I have are coffee cups to drink out of."
Carmen handed him the bag and sat down, saying, "Believe me, Colonel Tigh, I dropped all the social niceties a long time ago." As he pulled out the unlabeled clear bottle and began to work on the long plastic stopper with his thumbs, she continued, "It's vodka. At least I think it is. My assistant Kirby has, er, a friend who knows someone …"
"That's okay, Doctor. I'd just as soon not know. I'd hate to have to arrest anyone. And please call me Paul."
"Certainly … Paul. And my name is Carmen, please." The stopper popped out with a dry smacking sound, fell on the desktop and rolled drunkenly toward the edge. Carmen caught it and her fingers absentmindedly stroked its roundness as she watched the Colonel fill two Fleet steel cups to the rim. As he handed her one, she handed him the stopper.
"I don't believe I've ever drank vodka straight up," Carmen said.
The Colonel chuckled. "Not much different from water until it hits your stomach." After sitting down on the bed, he took a mouthful and with a slight jerk of his chin encouraged her to do the same.
She took a sniff and a good sip. The liquid had almost no odor at all and even less flavor. She tasted the cup's steel rim more than anything else. But it had kick. After oozing down her throat, it exploded in her gut like a nuclear bomb and sent shuddering shockwaves of relaxation both up to her scalp and down to her toes.
The Colonel had a beatific, worshipful look on his face. "Doctor Massinger … Carmen. You are my hero. If there's anything I can do for you, just name it."
"You've already done more than I can thank you for, Paul." He blushed again at that. Such a bashful man. The Colonel's reputation as a hard ass had him painted all wrong. He was shy.
Carmen took another swallow of vodka, and without thinking about it, her hand took hold of the chair. Her head had begun to float. Kirby had said the stuff was a hundred proof, although without a quality-controlled distillery she wondered how he knew.
Arising from the chair she sat down next to the Colonel on his bed. "I propose a toast," she said, raising her cup and clanking it against his. "Let's drink to tonight."
The Colonel nodded. "Tonight it is, and tomorrow be damned." They drank together. He smiled at her. He was so close she could see every detail of his face, every small scar, wrinkle and age discoloration. He looked male and wonderful. Carmen had not been with a man since before Judgment Day. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was her gratitude, but he was affecting her. It must have showed. He leaned toward her and she didn't feel like moving away. No, not at all.
And then his lips were on hers and he tasted even better than he looked. His kiss was gentle and exploratory. It asked rather than demanded and although it lasted long enough to get her heart beating fast and her head swimming, it wasn't nearly long enough.
After pulling away, the Colonel said, "Wow!" He shook his head then made a face that drew every facial muscle tight. He looked at her. "I'm not sure if it's you or the vodka, but I'm getting a real buzz off of something."
Carmen laughed but she was a little concerned. The Colonel had lost a great deal of color and eyes were unfocused. "Why don't you just lie down for a few minutes, Paul? I'm supposed to be on the next shuttle down to Zodiac. I should I step over to CIC and tell them to take off without me."
He nodded as he sunk back. "I think I'll just do that." Turning on his side, he watched her go to the hatch. "Don't stay away long," he called after her.
"I won't," she promised.
Out in the deserted passageway, Carmen took a second to orient herself. The Commander's quarters were to the left and the third opening down, at the junction of the mid-ship cross passageway with this one. That made the passageway to CIC to the right, down the stairwell and then the next two right turns. As a geophysicist and mapmaker Carmen always made a point of figuring out locations and directions. She took off.
The two marines who always stood at either side of the CIC's huge hatch nodded at her. As part of the settlement team, she'd been around enough in the last month to become almost a crewmember.
Inside CIC Lieutenant Gaeta knelt on the deck taping down bundled cabling. All over the tiered compartment men and women in orange coveralls labored with screwdrivers and wrenches while other men and women sat in chairs at screens and consoles trying to ignore them. Before Judgment Day and the war, the Galactica's "brain box" must have been a tidy and organized place, but every time Carmen had been there over the last few years something had been under repair and parts and wiring had hung from the bulkheads or equipment like guts from a butchered carcass. Tonight CIC looked more than half dismantled. Row after row of consoles had been ripped up and removed.
"Doctor Massinger, what can I help you with?" Gaeta said as he straightened up.
Carmen told him and seconds later she was on a com. calling the compartment she'd been sharing with her son on the far side of Galactica a good fifteen-minute walk away. Gil had more or less correctly assumed that his mother was responsible for his demobilization. She'd been on the settlement team after all. So they'd barely spoken for days.
"I thought you were in a hurry to start a new life, Mother," Gil said after she explained that she was going to wait for the next shuttle down. He pronounced the word "mother" like an epithet. "You wanted Zodiac, not me. I should be staying here on the Galactica. I should be with my friends and flying a Viper."
Carmen didn't have a chance to answer that because Gil hung up with a slam. She didn't let it bother her. He was going to live. Nothing else mattered. He'd eventually get over his teenage dreams of heroism.
After thanking Gaeta, she left CIC and made a quick way stop at the unisex head. A few minutes later she arrived at the Colonel's hatch and this time she didn't knock. Smiling to herself, she pulled it open.
"Hey, Paul. You can sure tell the janitorial crew's been offloaded. The head's a mess," Carmen said as she closed the hatch behind her.
There was no response. "Paul?" She walked into the compartment. The Colonel was still exactly where she'd left him, but his eyes were closed and his mouth hung slackly open. Sitting down on the bed, Carmen chided him as she shook a shoulder, "Hey, sleepyhead. This is not doing my ego any good."
The Colonel didn't respond. He didn't so much as twitch. His breathing was slow. Carmen was afraid to touch his face, but after a few hesitant jerks of her hand, she stroked his cheek. "Paul?" No response. Worried now, with a thumb she pulled up an eyelid. His pupil reacted to the light, but she wasn't quite sure what that meant other than that he was alive. And even her finger in his eye hadn't brought him awake.
Coming to a decision, she stood up, hurried out into the empty passageway and down to the Commander's quarters. She knocked hard. "Commander Adama? Commander, Sir?"
.
Time crawled. That was the right word for it. There were others -- "slithered," "tumbled," and "squeezed" -- all those words fitted some aspect of the desperate waiting Adama had felt for days, but "crawled" was by far the best.
Outside of the tiny porthole in the Commander's quarters -- his own private window on the universe -- specks of multi-colored light sparked in a thickly black midnight. Although without the promise of a dawn, how could it be midnight at all? The desk chrono. said twenty-four hundred, but it was the middle of the night only here on the Galactica and on the radioactive slagheap that had once been Picon Fleet Headquarters. Everywhere else it was merely now.
Adama had given up trying to sleep. He left the porthole, sat down at his desk and flicked on the desk lamp. Pushing the chrono. to one side he opened a container of papers and began to sort them into three piles -- Zodiac, mission critical and trash. If he couldn't sleep, he'd make himself useful.
He glanced at the top item -- a copy of Doctor Massinger's geophysical report. It indicated that Zodiac's day clocked out 25 minutes and 18 seconds shorter than Picon's, and its year eight days longer. Some numerically minded academic would make his name eternally famous by figuring out a new chrono. and calendar, probably by adding a new month he'd name after himself.
Adama threw Massinger's report in the trash. The Galactica could have no links back to Zodiac on the Galactica. Not even themselves if they were captured. Tyrol had rigged a nuclear torpedo in the engine room for a self-destruct.
And long after they blew themselves to a bloody spray of protein and been forgotten, humanity would probably know the name of that frakkin' academic. People were remembered for the damnedest reasons.
Take Adama's father, for example. More than likely Colonel Campbell Adama wouldn't be remembered as a brave soldier and a fine pilot. A hundred years from now, if humans even still existed as a species, the Colonel would be remembered for fathering among his five sons, one William.
It was so unfair, Adama thought. His father had been a far better tactician, bringing one of the twelve original battlestars, the Europa, through the first Cylon war unscathed, while his scapegrace son William had graduated from the Academy in the bottom third of his class, mostly due to a regrettable tendency to frak around. It had taken two years of combat and the loss of two brothers to burn it out of him. Now Billy Keikeya wanted to record William Adama's failings for posterity and had asked him to ship down his personal papers. It was enough to turn a man into a pyromaniac.
Adama considered the worn bundle of paper letters he held, browning at the edges and brittle at the folds. After his divorce he'd moved everything he'd really valued onboard the Galactica, including a few keepsakes like these letters from his father. He gently placed the bundle in one of the open boxes at his feet. Sometimes the biographer became more famous than his subject. Billy deserved a shot at renown. For three years he'd been one of the vital lynchpins holding the Colonial government together. And besides that, Adama had a whole new generation of children to think of -- both his son's and his own. Maybe having a famous ancestor would give them a leg up. Frak, and here he'd thought he was done with fatherhood for good.
Adama knew he wasn't the only one thinking of the future. In twenty hours, the Galactica would finish off-loading everything and everyone not mission critical, and throughout the ship two hundred and twelve humans would be boxing up pieces of their lives for posterity.
On the bed Elena groaned and rolled over so she faced the desk. Adama quickly bent his lamp away from her. When she didn't wake up, he went back to his paper shuffling.
Adama had been at this for days. Mostly it had been rote work to soothe nerves jangled by hysterical politicians, procedural hitches and mechanical traumas. But occasionally it was painful. Picking up a lined-through copy of Galactica's crew list he just stared at it, remembering. After two-thirds of the crew had volunteered for their final mission, he and Tigh had had to pick out the mission team. He'd made hundreds of marginal notes about qualifications -- some of them none too kind.
He started when Elena said at his shoulder, "You should let one of your clerks to sort through that for you." Pushing his robe down, she began massaging his shoulders. "Why don't you come back to bed for a while? You couldn't have slept more than two or three hours."
Adama tossed the crew list into the trash box, slipped an arm around Elena's legs and rubbed a stubbly cheek against her hip. Breathing in the sweet scent of their earlier sex, he kissed firm muscle through a silky black something that was far more erotic than standard military pj's. Lords knew where Elena had scrounged it up. "You didn't get any more sleep than I did, Lights. Why don't you go back to bed and I'll join you in a few minutes?"
She chuckled. "Because you won't." Her fingers brushed through his short hair. Bending over she kissed his brow. "Wait here," she said and left his arms cold and lonely.
"Wasn't planning on going anywhere." Thank God for Elena, Adama thought as he watched her float across the room like a midnight cloud. She'd held him together while his ship had come apart.
At the bulkhead Elena flicked the room lights then began rummaging in the carryall she'd been living out for the last week. Holding up a half-liter bottle with a familiar label of a three-masted sailing ship, she asked, "Glasses?"
"Just the one in the head. Where in the frak did you get ambrosia?" An ATF sweep on the Brushfire six months ago had cleaned out the last known still, but this looked like the real thing from back on Caprica, more precious than gold.
Elena called out from Adama's private head, her voice reverberating inside the tiny space, "Medicinal supply off the Paracelsus. Just told my pharmacist I needed a gift for the Commander, and he dug it out of his secret stash. The man's a compulsive stockpiler, practically a packrat." Emerging, she poured the clear plastic water cup half full of golden yellow and handed it to him. "We'll have to share."
He swirled the ambrosia and took a sip. "This really is Candle Sun."
Elena laughed as she hiked herself up, and sat on the edge of Adama's desk. "Jerry only stashes the best."
Shaking his head, he took another sip. "Amazing."
He handed the glass to Elena. She took it but didn't drink, just stared thoughtfully into its depths. From the look in her eye, Adama figured she had something on her mind. "Okay, spill it, Lights. What's eating you? Something going wrong with your baby project?"
Without lifting her head she looked at him. "No, no. I was just wondering … about Lieutenant Valerii. Why it took so long to find her."
"You mean to find out she's Cylon?"
Elena nodded. Taking a delicate sip from the water glass, she made a face. Raw ambrosia can do that to the ill-prepared.
"Probably because she was the only one of her kind."
Elena's eyebrows lifted in a question. She took another sip, this time without the face.
"On Judgment Day, someone -- I've always assumed it was Baltar -- left a note on my desk saying that there are only twelve human Cylon models."
Adama retrieved the glass of ambrosia and took his turn. He was already feeling a slight buzz. Lords, he must be getting old for it to take so little. He continued, "You remember that chromosome cross-typing we had you do that first year? Looking for matches?"
"Frak, how can I forget? It took us three months."
Standing up, Adama pushed Elena's legs apart and moved in between them. The silky black gown went up too and his free hand stroked bare skin.
Both of hers slipped under his robe and petted his chest muscles like he was a big spidercat. She paused. "Does the gene typing have something to do with the Cylons? I don't understand. I thought you were establishing family groups."
After Adama took another nip that warmed up both his throat and his head, he gave her the glass. One of her hands left his chest to take it, but the other slipped down and around to his backside. Despite the distraction, he replied, "Of a sort. We were looking for unexplained twins." He stepped closer and leaned into her, until their faces were mere centimeters apart. His hands slid around her waist.
Her eyes on Adama's lips Elena murmured, "Yeah, I remember now." Her face changed as she remembered something. She pulled back slightly. "Kimmy found an identical set of three and went off on this rant about why couldn't he be back on Caprica so he could write a paper and make himself famous." Captain Kim Alterman, Elena's second in command, had died a few months ago in the last Cylon attack.
Elena, either remembering or trying to forget, moved her eyes away and swayed back from Adama as she took a drink. He let her go.
Adama sighed. The intimate moment had passed. Stepping out from between Elena's legs Adama sat down at his desk once more. "Kim couldn't have written a paper. They were Cylons, three women scattered all over the fleet. I've never told you, but with your crew's help we rooted out and executed sixteen spies."
Elena looked troubled. "You're sure they were all Cylons?" Doctors fought death. They didn't like to cause it.
"Reasonably sure." Taking her free hand Adama squeezed it. "It was necessary, Lights. A command decision. We did our best to make sure."
Elena shuddered. Passing him the ambrosia, she said, "But you didn't get all twelve models, I take it."
Adama looked into the glass. There was only one swallow left. He tossed it down before he said, "No, only seven models that time, including a couple of matches with Conoy and Doral. But after that assassination attempt last year, we netted three more. Remember your second batch of chromosome-typing?"
"Ten then."
Adama nodded. "And when the Redleken caught Valerii we had eleven." He knew what Elena must be thinking. There was still one Cylon model left. They'd barely had time to Redleken screen the Galactica's volunteer crew, much less the 40,000 civilians and demobilized military down on Zodiac. Adama was sure there wasn't a Cylon left on the Galactica other than Valerii, but the planet below was another matter.
They were staring at each other when someone began pounding on the hatch.
.
Fumbling at the buttons of his uniform jacket Lee Adama ran down the passageway, Kara Thrace tight on his heels. Minutes ago his ringing ship phone had rudely woken them in each other's arms. If it hadn't been his father on the other end, Lee would have told the caller where to go. Politely, of course, but firmly. But his father's summons had been preemptory and specific. Lee had been ordered to Colonel Tigh's quarters … immediately. It would have been ludicrous if his father hadn't sounded so angry.
Lee had a bad feeling. His father never qualified orders with words like "immediately" and he never, ever lost his temper.
Behind him Kara muttered a steady stream of invective, "You gotta be kidding. Tigh's quarters at 2 a.m.?" But she wasn't about to be left behind, and he wasn't about to order her. They'd just found each other. He put out his hand behind him and she grabbed it for a quick squeeze.
As they passed CIC Lieutenant Gaeta joined them. He had the red leather-bound bridge coding manual in one hand and the command control lockout keys in the other. Neither was supposed to leave CIC. "Commander said to hurry," Gaeta told Lee as he pulled alongside.
Two more passageways and a stairwell and they arrived. A medical corpsman was backing out of the Colonel's quarters, stepping carefully over the high sill, the handles of a collapsible stretcher in his hands. The stretcher held the Colonel's long body lying on his side. His face was so pale he looked blue. Another corpsman walked alongside squeezing rhythmically on a rubber bag like device stuck in the Colonel's mouth. A third followed carrying the other end of the stretcher. The quartet of patient and caregivers headed down the passageway toward sickbay, their movement as coordinated and precise as a grand ballet.
This was definitely not good. The Colonel had looked more than passed out. He had looked half dead.
And within Tigh's quarters the Commander looked outraged. He, Doctor Lighter and the geophysicist Massinger stood together in a small knot. Off to one side, a corpsman was packing up a med kit. Massinger was dressed, but his father and Doctor Lighter were both in robes and slippers. Apparently Lee and Kara weren't the only ones who'd been in each other's arms tonight.
"He only had one drink," Massinger was saying. "Just one. I swear." Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy. She'd obviously been crying.
"Yeah, right. Not in this lifetime," Lee heard Kara mutter behind him. Lee had never seen the Colonel tight, but he'd heard the stories.
The Commander waved for Lee and Kara to come closer as Doctor Lighter asked Massinger, "And you drank out of the same bottle he did?" She held up a half liter bottle filled with what looked like water. A lot of it was gone.
Massinger nodded. "It's supposed to be vodka. I bou … … a friend gave it to me." She sniffled. Lee took a towel off the Colonel's wall rack and handed it to her. A watery-eyed glance conveyed Massinger's thanks as she wiped her face and blew her nose. The geophysicist seemed to spend a lot of time crying, first the breakdown at the committee meeting a few days ago, now this. "Paul has been so kind. I wanted to do a little something for him. The techs said he enjoyed a drink now and then, so I thought … I didn't mean any harm. Is he going to be alright?"
Doctor Lighter had removed the bottle's plastic stopper and sniffed the contents. Making a face, she shook her head. "We don't have the equipment left on Galactica to do a chemical analysis, but since Carmen here seems okay, I'm going to assume there's nothing wrong with this."
Lee nodded, remembering the rash of methyl alcohol poisoning deaths that had provoked the crack down on the stills.
The Commander growled, "Well, Doctor Massinger, sometimes good intentions aren't enough. Why don't you go with Specialist Rockne here and he'll check you out just to make sure?" He nodded to the corpsman who stepped forward, took Massinger by the elbow and led her away.
At the hatch, Gaeta briefly touched her arm and said, "I'll let Lieutenant Gregory know what's going on, Doctor." For some reason that started her crying again.
Gaeta entered the compartment and joined Lee and Kara. He whispered a question. "How good an FTL navigator are you, Captain Adama?"
Lee glanced at him in surprise. "I'm way out of practice. I haven't plotted a jump in five or six years. Why?"
Kara had been staring at the Commander, a worried expression on her face. She looked at Gaeta and before he could open his mouth to reply to Lee, she asked, "Who's next after Tigh in the chain of command for this mission? It's Lee, isn't it?"
The look on Gaeta's face said it all.
While they'd been talking Doctor Lighter had swept up a small handful of pill vials off Colonel Tigh's desk and begun reading the labels. "Oh frak," she said with feeling. She turned to the Commander who'd been glaring after Massinger with an expression hot enough to melt bolts. "Bill, I have to get down to sickbay. Paul needs …" She stopped and said, "Oh frak," again, this time with even more passion. "You've offloaded all the sickbay equipment and supplies, haven't you?" It was practically a cry of pain.
His dad turned to look at Doctor Lighter, his face concerned. "Yes, pretty much. How bad is he?"
"Bad enough." She looked up into his eyes. "He's not going to fly to the Cylon home world with you, Bill. How fast can I get him on a shuttle to Zodiac?"
The Commander's face clouded. "Fifteen minutes soon enough?" The Doctor nodded sharply and she turned to go, her attention all focused on taking care of her patient. The Commander called after her. "I'll send your clothes down."
Sighing, he turned back to Lee, Kara and Gaeta with his head hung down and fists clenched. For a moment he wasn't a battlestar commander, but a tired and worried old man whose best friend had been hauled away on a stretcher. Lee put a hand on his father's shoulder and asked, "Dad, are you going to be okay?"
The Commander's head came up with his power mask already back in place "I'm fine, Lee. Lieutenant Thrace, find a working ship phone. Saul's phone has been out for months. Get that shuttle prepped A.S.A.P. Captain, Lieutenant, you're with me."
In another moment the Colonel's quarters had emptied out. After dousing the lights and closing the hatch behind him, Lee jogged down the deserted passageway to catch up with his father and Gaeta who were already talking together in low tones.
.
Lee shook the coffee carafe to see if there was any left. There wasn't. Since all the mess hall staff had disembarked, if he went down there, he'd have to personally make some more. Maybe later before he started studying, but right now he needed to talk to his father.
After Gaeta had finished going over the bridge coding manual with Lee, he'd left to catch a few hours of sleep before they were due in CIC for a run-through on the realigned ship controls.
Lee already knew quite a bit about Galactica's operating systems. During the last three years of war the old war wagon had been battered like a hockey puck and had been in constant repair. When Lee and his pilots weren't flying Vipers they'd helped out the decimated maintenance crews, doing everything from wiring to plumbing to sheet metal work. They'd all learned a great deal fast. But the Galactica had been turned topsy-turvy for this final mission, and Lee would need an intensive brush-up if he was going to fly as X.O.
The Commander had used Gaeta's lesson time to get dressed and he now sat in uniform across the conference table from Lee. He had a small tight smile that Lee recognized as nervous tension. Given the loss of a key officer, the Commander might very well be re-examining the wisdom of their attack plan. He and Tigh were close. Working as a team they'd saved the Galactica and the Fleet time and time again over the last three years.
Even battlestar commanders sometimes need encouragement, and when appropriate it was one of the X.O.'s jobs to give it. Lee told his father, "We're doing the right thing, you know. It's still necessary."
"Is it?" he asked. "We could wait a week until Paul can fly again."
"You can't be certain he'll be ready." Lee picked up one of the file folders scattered around the tabletop, pulled it open and shoved the file across the table. "And from what Gaeta showed me here, we'll be lucky if Boomer lasts a few more days." Lee hadn't seen Valerii since her capture, but from Gaeta's description she was living on air, water and wishful thinking. The Redleken generator that helped her control her inner Cylon was also killing her.
The Commander just glanced at the open file but didn't pick it up. His eyes were mostly for his son. "Are you sure you're ready for this, Lee?"
With his father, Lee had always found honesty was the best policy. "Frak, no. But I never will be completely ready, not in a year, not in two years. I'm not you, Dad. I don't have tylium for blood. I'm just a humble Viper pilot, but I think I can make noises like an X.O. long enough to pull this off. I know the plan, I know you and I know most of Galactica."
They looked steadily at each other. His father broke first. Shaking his head, he told Lee, "I just wish to hell there was some other way. You're my son. I want you to …"
Lee was probably the only officer on the Galactica who dared to break in on his father's train of thought. "If there was another way, I'm sure you would have thought of it, Sir. You're the finest commanding officer I've ever served under. You have no idea how proud I am that you're my father."
That brought the Commander up short. A slow, soft smile stole across his face and he answered Lee, "You have no idea how proud I am that you're my son."
They sat for a moment in the awkward silence that strong emotion often evokes in men, not quite daring to look at each other because they were afraid of what they might say or do. "Well, you'd better tell Kara, get some food and read as much of that as you can before Gaeta's back up. And I'd recommend that sequence. Kara's going to be fit to be tied," the Commander finally said but when he looked at Lee his eyes said something more. His mouth could have been reciting the Colonial anthem for all the difference it made, because his eyes were saying, "I love you."
"Yes, Sir. I'm going down there right now," Lee answered, but his eyes spoke too and what they said was just as true. "I love you too."