2/21/05
EXTREMITIES
Chap. 2
Lee sat staring at the floor of his cell, occasionally taking dutiful sips from the bottle of water Doc Connelly had sent along with him. Raising his eyes, they fell on Sharon Valerii sitting in the next cell over. She was sitting in exactly the same position the security officers had placed her, in the cell, several hours ago. She had not moved or spoken a word in that entire time. She just sat, staring, unseeing, into space.
He wondered briefly what was going on in her head. She had failed to respond or react to anything the Marines had tried during their interrogation of her. She seemed to have retreated into a catatonic state. Lee found it supremely unfair that she had managed to find a way to elude their questions, but he was determined that she would not elude their justice. She shot his father, right in front of him. She would pay for that crime.
The motion of Laura pacing around the small cell she shared with him drew his attention away from the other pilot. He watched the president for a few minutes, but said nothing to her. At the moment, nothing much mattered to him. His father, the only family Lee had left, was fighting for his life and the last act he had seen his only surviving son perform was one of betrayal. Lee did not regret his decision or his action, but he was not proud of it either. He had committed mutiny, an act he would not previously have considered himself even capable of. At what point had his life spiraled so far out of his control? He had just started to get his feet back under him, recovering from the shock of the holocaust and now all of this... What would he do if his father died? Lee Adama had never felt so lost and alone in his entire life.
Laura paced and fretted. She knew she was wearing herself out needlessly, but she simply could not keep still. Had she done the right thing? she asked herself repeatedly. Surely this was not what the Gods had intended. Surely They had not intended for her actions to have such a divisive response. And was she somehow to blame for what had happened to the commander... Dear Lords, please let that not be the case. No, she frequently butted heads with the man, but she would never wish him harm. She had been hoping that once he had calmed down, she could have reasoned with him, but now, with an angry and vindictive Col. Tigh in charge... She a dreadful feeling that she might very well be spending her few remaining days here, in this tiny cell.
She glanced down at Lee as she passed by him. The young captain had been silent and withdrawn since they had brought him to the cell. He had answered her questions regarding his father's condition, but he offered nothing else. She was at a loss as to how to deal with him. Half of her wanted to wrap her arms around him and offer comfort, while the other half wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake some sort of response from him. She almost thought she would prefer angry accusations and ranting from him, than this damn, stoic silence.
Equally as unnerving as Capt. Apollo's silence, was Lt. Valerii's. Laura had tried to talk to the young woman, to try to find out why she had done what she'd done, but she had gotten nowhere. The woman was even more withdrawn than Apollo, refusing to respond to questions at all.
The sound of someone entering the cell area did attract Lee's attention and both he and Laura turned to see Col. Tigh enter escorting a very bruised and battered-looking Lt. Thrace. Laura's eyes were immediately drawn to the Arrow of Apollo still clutched in Tigh's hand.
Seeing the direction of Laura's gaze, the colonel raised the Arrow to give her a better view of it. "That's right, Madam President, here it is, your precious Arrow," he sneered at her. "I hope it was worth it, because it's probably going to cost us all our lives! Thanks to the little stunt you had Starbuck pull, we've probably got another Basestar headed our way. She was followed!"
"You led the Cylons back to us?" Lee demanded, glaring at Kara.
"Not on purpose," she said softly.
With a sigh, he turned away from her. A long, heavy silence followed this exchange. It was eventually broken when Lee turned back to address Col. Tigh.
"My father?" he asked.
"They've just taken him into surgery. Doc Connelly will let me know when they're done."
Lee nodded, but said nothing.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Laura asked.
"I don't really know," Tigh said. "I've barely got any warheads left. I've got two Raptors away, searching the planet for survivors, and now my two best pilots are in the brig. Just what am I supposed to do?"
"Well, for starters, you can't keep Lee and I locked up," Kara pointed out. "As you just pointed out, you need every pilot you've got."
"She's right, Colonel, and you know it," Lee said. "You need us."
Now it was Tigh who turned away. They were right and he did know it, but that didn't mean that he liked it. In fact, he hated it. How was he supposed to maintain discipline on this ship, if Starbuck was forever allowed to do whatever she wanted, just because she was valuable? At some point, someone was going to have to make a stand and punish her for her repeated insubordination or else all semblance of discipline would be lost. You can't run a ship where one person was held to an entirely different set of rules than everyone else. He had already heard the grumblings among the other crews about her preferential treatment and now it seemed that her rebellious attitude was beginning to rub off on Lee. Eventually something would have to be done about it, but unfortunately... that day would not be today.
"Fine," he growled at last. Turning to the Marine on duty, he said, "Release Capt. Adama."
"Thank you, Colonel," Lee said softly, as the guard moved to obey.
"Whatever... but she stays where she is," Tigh said firmly, gesturing to Laura.
"But Co," Lee started to protest, but fell silent at the older man's glare. The captain knew better than to try and take advantage of the colonel's unprecedented generosity. Lee threw an apologetic look at Laura.
"It's alright, Captain, go and do your job," she said, with a slight smile.
All eyes turned to watch as the colonel entered CIC, flanked on either side by the two supposedly mutinous pilots. Tigh gestured for Lt. Gaeta to join the three as they moved to the lighted console table in the center of the large room. Spread out on the table were star charts depicting their current position within the sector that they had explored.
"Alright, very likely we will have a Cylon Basestar descending on us at any time," Tigh said quietly, largely for Gaeta's benefit. "Anyone have any ideas on how we should deal with it when it does show up?"
Silence.
"That's what I thought. Mr. Gaeta, how many warheads do we have left?"
"Three, sir."
"Three," Tigh repeated heavily. "We have three warheads to last us until we get to... wherever..."
"Sir, we could still try my original plan," Kara suggested. "You know, I set the auto-pilot in the Raider, punch out and get picked up by a Raptor."
"No, we already used a Raptor. I don't think the Cylons will fall for the same trick twice."
"Yeah, but this is another Raider. They would have no reason to suspect it."
"Tell me something, Kara," Lee spoke up. "How exactly do you propose to 'punch out' of the Raider? It doesn't have an ejection seat. It's not designed for an ejection seat. Not to mention that you barely fit inside that thing as it is. With the added bulk of flight suit, oxygen tank and helmet, how easy do you think it will be for you to climb in and out of that thing?"
"Well, I did it before."
"Yeah, and how quickly did you manage it?"
Kara was silent for a moment. "Do you have a better idea?"
"Yeah, actually, I think I do... Gaeta, could you come with me, please?" Without waiting to be dismissed by the colonel or even to see if the other officer was behind him or not, Lee left the bridge.
With a quick, uncomfortable glance at Tigh, Gaeta trailed after the captain, leaving the colonel and Kara, completely in the dark.
Lee and Gaeta stood on the port side hangar deck and stared at the captured Raider. The captain was holding several sheets of paper.
"Okay, think this through with me...," Lee said. "The Raiders are living machines. Their circuitry mimics organic functions, but it's still synthetic and it's still a machine..."
"Well, essentially the Human body is just an organic machine," Gaeta pointed out.
"Exactly, and like the Human body, they're machines governed by electrical impulses sent by the brain."
"Yes..."
"Okay, we know from Racetrack's debriefing, that the Basestars are of a similar design, just on a much larger scale," Lee said, gesturing to the report in his hand. "I think it would be safe to assume that the Basestars are the 'brains.'"
Gaeta thought about this for a moment, then nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go along with that."
"So, working with the idea that the Basestars are huge... brains... If we were to introduce a massive electromagnetic pulse wave into it, we could short circuit the entire ship, essentially electrocute it."
"You mean like an E-bomb?"
"Exactly, an electromagnetic bomb."
"In order to take out something that big, we'd need a nuclear EMP bomb and we don't have the materials to make something like that," Gaeta said, musing. "Although, I suppose we could take the plutonium from one of the warheads, but we don't have many left... And why not just use the warhead?"
"No, save the warheads, that's the whole point. We don't need the plutonium anyway, because we have plenty of materials to make flux compression generator bombs."
"FCGs... Wow, that's old school..."
"Yeah, old school enough that I don't think they'd see it coming," Lee said, with a smile.
"Yeah, but in order to do any real damage, we'd need a lot of them."
"As many as you can make. How soon can you get started?"
"Well, I could have a prototype for you within the hour and then we could test it."
"We don't have time for that. We could have a Basestar on us at any time. Just start making them. Get whatever help you need. Don't worry about Tigh, I'll take full responsibility for this."
"Are you sure about this, sir?"
Lee gave the other man a rueful smile. "I've already committed mutiny..."
"Yes sir."
"Depending on how many bombs Gaeta and his team can make for us, we put at least one FCG on every Raptor and as many Vipers as we can. The Vipers without FCGs will have to fly shotgun for the Raptors," Lee said, outlining his plan to Kara and Tigh. They were once again gathered around the console in CIC.
"We'll also load up Kara and her Raider. They're our ace-in-the-hole. As soon as we engage the enemy, she launches and joins the furball, but she doesn't engage. And hopefully, with all the activity, none of the Cylons will notice what direction she came from-."
"Yeah, and hopefully, none of our own people will get too enthusiastic and shoot me down, either," Kara interrupted, sarcastically.
"Yeah, that would be bad. You should try not to let that happen," Lee agreed in a deadpan voice. "Anyway, Kara will get in close to the Basestar, where she'll fire off her full payload of FCGs, then get the hell out of there. With the Basestar hit, there should be plenty of confusion. The Raptors and the Vipers move in to add their bombs. The Basestar dies a fiery death."
"There are an awful lot of assumptions with this plan." Kara pointed out. "I mean, even with Racetrack's report, we understand squat about the Basestars. We don't even understand the Raider and we've studied it. What if all of your assumptions are wrong?"
"It doesn't really matter. Even if they're just ordinary, mechanical ships like the Galactica, the E-bombs should still fry all of their electrical systems, leaving them, at least, temporarily helpless and at the mercy of the Vipers."
"Fine," Col. Tigh interjected, before the argument could continue. "Do whatever you have to, to make it happen."
"Actually, I already have Gaeta working on the bombs," Lee confessed.
"Oh really?"
"Yes sir, and, uh, I should probably go and check on his progress."
"Fine, Captain, you're dismissed," Tigh said, pointedly.
"Thank you, sir." Lee gave the older man a crisp salute and left the CIC.
He had barely taken more than a few steps down the corridor, when Kara caught up to him and fell into step beside him.
"You'd better be damn sure about this plan of yours, because we don't have anything else," she said.
He stopped walking and turned to face her. "Hey, it's a more theoretically sound plan then your crack-pot scheme to take out that Cylon base was and yet, somehow it worked. And, despite the fact that I thought your plan was crap and it was my ass that was on the line, not yours, I still backed you up. The least you could have done back there was to return the favor."
"It's not my job to back you up."
"Yes, actually it is, as my Deputy CAG and as my friend. But then again, I'm beginning to realize that with a 'friend' like you, who needs Cylons?"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that ever since I set foot on this ship, you have done nothing but undermine my authority. Professionally, you have been blatantly disrespectful and insubordinate. And personally, you have questioned my decisions and my abilities. You may be a better pilot than me, but that does not make me a bad pilot. And may I remind you that you have no more practical experience at any of this than I do, so who the hell are you to question my abilities?
"Now, whether you like it or not, I outrank you. I am the CAG and that means my word is scripture. And you have no business talking to my father behind my back, even if he asks you to."
"I am just trying to do what's best for the ship."
"Stabbing me in the back is what's best for the ship?" Lee yelled.
"Zac, I just don't think you're ready fo-." Seeing the cold fire flash in his eyes, she suddenly realized what she had just said. "Oh Gods, Lee, I'm so sor-."
"No, don't bother. I don't want to hear it."
To be continued...
