Chapter 9
Lee Adama was having a very bad day and it was still early in the morning. He had somehow thought that life would be better once he and Kara had resolved their differences, but so far it hadn't turned out that way. They still weren't officially together: Kara wanted things kept quiet until everything was resolved with the baby and his father wanted to get the changes to the military code ratified before their relationship became public knowledge. This meant that they were still sleeping in the officers bunk room and were just grabbing quick moments together in his office when ever they could. He desperately wanted to take her away somewhere private and make love to her in the way he had dreamt about, slowly and thoroughly, to eradicate any lingering bad memories of their one time together so far, but this wasn't feasible, because of both the need for secrecy and discretion and the simple practicality that they were still working all hours in response to the Cylons. Kara flying raptor patrols, filling the hole left by Boomer, was making his job easier on that front, but filling the enormous gap that she left behind in the viper schedules mainly came down to him flying an almost criminal amount of hours. He had had to submit to his own dictate and go through a medical exam. According to the doc he had barely passed, such was his exhaustion. And so he carried on just barely existing: fly, sleep, eat, fly, paperwork and not necessarily always in that order, day after day. If people were beginning to wonder why Kara wasn't flying vipers, they didn't ask. Their "gastric flu" excuse seemed to be working for the time being, probably fuelled by the fact that Kara's morning sickness had kicked in with a vengeance, but soon people were going to start putting two and two together.
This day had started off so particularly badly as a result of an unhappy night of virtually no sleep, as all the worries of the day ahead spun around his brain. Then he had had to watch helplessly as Kara suffered through a particularly bad bout of morning sickness, only able to offer the slight comfort of rubbing her back in sympathy. To say that she was less than impressed by this aspect of her pregnancy was an understatement of huge proportions. As she leaned back against him this morning she had quite clearly said,
"If you ever touch me again Lee Adama, I'm gonna rip your frakking dick off."
He had laughed nervously; it was never a good idea to ignore Kara's threats, even when you were pretty that sure she was joking. At least she seemed willing to accept any comfort he could give at these times.
Later on he was going with her to get the results of the tests on the baby, about which he was getting increasingly nervous. They hadn't really spoken about it, but he knew that she was petrified. Some how in between he had to organise the days patrols and discuss the increasingly desperate spare parts problem with the chief. His father had also decided to have something of a council of war with his senior officers to discuss their next tactics to try and break the current cycle of Cylon attacks. He was pretty sure that he needed to go out on CAP as well. All of this was running through his head as he stood quietly at the back of the ready room checking his notes for the morning briefing. A group of the younger pilots was standing a little way from him and he couldn't help over hearing their conversation. He knew that he should ignore it, but he just found that he couldn't.
"Hey, I heard Starbuck's grounded 'cos she's knocked up."
"Blimey, whoever took her on must have balls of solid rock!"
"Yeah, I wonder who the 'lucky' guy is." They all dissolved in laughter.
"That would be me, Lieutenant," said a quiet voice behind them. Their laughter died as they turned to see the CAG standing right behind them. There was a mumbled "Oh, frak" followed by a louder "sorry, sir," said in unison.
"It's not me you should be apologising to, but Lieutenant Thrace. I suggest that in the future you refrain from gossiping like a group of old women and show your fellow pilot, and I should add superior, some respect. If you've got time to stand around and rumourmonger then I'm obviously not giving you enough work to do." He paused to allow the effect of his words to register.
"Dismissed!" They all saluted sharply and beat a hasty retreat.
Oh frak, thought Lee. Now he'd really done it. Kara was going to kill him for publicly acknowledging their relationship and her pregnancy. It would be all over the ship in a matter of hours. He might as well have announced it over the frakking intercom. He made his way to the podium at the front, knowing that every eye in the room was on him, and probably not for the right reason.
−
Kara nervously paced major Cottle's office. She couldn't sit still and was twisting the ring on her thumb around constantly in her nervousness. Lee, who had decided not to confess about his lapse in the ready room given her current state of mind, grabbed her hand to try and stop her fidgeting. She looked up at him, her eyes huge pools of anguish in her face. Wordlessly he pulled her into his arms and held her. As she clung to his comforting warmth, Kara tried to sort out the turmoil that was going through her head. She'd decided that may be it would be for the best if there was something wrong with the baby, or if she just lost it naturally, as had happened some weeks previously to the Sharon Cylon who had returned from Caprica with her. The doc could find no apparent reason for the miscarriage, but said that sometimes it just happened. The toaster had been so distraught she had found a way to take her own life. Kara had been trying to help Helo, who was flying with her as her ECO, come to terms with it. He seemed to alternate between despair, rage and relief; fortunately relief seemed to be winning now. These events had brought her own situation even more sharply into focus for her; she was experiencing the same changing emotions as Helo. Right now she didn't know how she would feel if the doc said that they needed to end the pregnancy.
A discrete cough behind them made them pull apart. Major Cottle pulled up a chair. If he was surprised by Lee's presence he made no comment on it.
"There's no need to look so tragic. There's nothing wrong with this baby's DNA at all," he told them bluntly.
Kara felt a huge sense of relief followed by a rush of anxiety: so that was it, no easy way out. Motherhood here we come!
"We can't rule out physical side effects just yet, but there's always that risk with any pregnancy." He looked at Kara seriously.
"I'm afraid I have no reason to recommend a termination as a medical necessity."
"I understand, sir and its OK I'd…." she glanced up at Lee, "we'd decided to go ahead anyway, if everything was OK."
"Well then, congratulations to the pair of you."
Lee spoke for the first time.
"Can you tell the baby's sex from the DNA analysis?" He asked.
"No, I don't want to know yet, Lee." Kara thought it would make it even more real for her if she couldn't just refer to the baby as 'it' and she felt that she needed more time to adjust.
"Why not Kara?"
"Well, it's a boy." The major cut off the argument.
"Sir! I didn't want to know."
"Sure you didn't, but I can't stand the pair of you arguing about it every time you come in here for the next seven months. Now, Lieutenant I want to see you in here for a full pre-natal exam in two weeks." With that he left them to it.
Kara looked at Lee. He had a silly lop-sided grin on his face.
"Oh Lords, you're going to be frakking unbearable aren't you? Not only do you get me pregnant the first time you frakking touch me, but with a son to boot!"
He sobered a little and reached up to cup her face with his hand.
"I'm sorry Kara, I can't help it. What…what do you want to do now? Do you want me to speak to dad more about…." She put a finger to his mouth to stop him.
"No Lee, it's OK. I guess….I guess we're just going to have to have a baby!"
−
When Lee entered the briefing room his father, Colonel Tigh and Lieutenant Gaeta were already there. His father looked at him, a question in his eyes; he knew they were seeing Cottle today. Lee gave him an almost imperceptible nod and a smile. The commander smiled slightly in return, relieved by Lee's unspoken message. Having got this cleared up he turned to the business at hand.
"All right gentlemen, it's time we did something other than run from these bastards."
They all knew that this was going to become a necessity soon. They were almost at the limits of their available star charts. Without this navigational knowledge they either had to double back on themselves or move forward under normal engine power until the Galactica's telescopes had surveyed each system and allowed them to calculate a safe jump. Either way it would put them at increased risk of Cylon attack unless they did something to break free. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the Cylons had some means of tracking them. The commander had ordered a complete survey of the fleet to examine anything giving out a radio signal or transmission of any kind. They had even shut down talk radio for the past week whilst the survey was carried out.
"Well Mr Gaeta?"
"We've completed the entire survey, sir. A number of devices have been found, but in general they're using recognisable colonial signals and frequencies. There is one, however, that doesn't meet any of our specs. We found it on the Horizon freighter. It gives a very low frequency signal that is not used by any colonial system I'm aware of, which is probably why we haven't picked it up before."
"And the people on this freighter?" Asked the commander
"It's a very small ship, sir. Just 25 crew and passengers. Their samples are being run through Dr Baltar's system as we speak, but there are no immediate indicators that any of them are Cylon agents."
The commander kept his views about Dr Baltar's Cylon detector to himself. He was still sceptical about the doctor's excuse as to why Boomer hadn't been identified as a Cylon by her first test. If, as he claimed, this was because the system was not fully validated at the time, then it meant that all the samples run so far could be wrong. He had ordered all the tests run before Boomer had been correctly identified as a Cylon to be re-run, especially Ellen Tigh's!
"Thank you lieutenant. Good work. Well gentlemen, it seems we have our bait!
"Bait?" Asked Lee
"Yes. If they're using this freighter to track us then we're going to use it to lure them in return."
"If they're tracking us, how come they're not turning up in the same clockwork way they were doing before?"
"Good question, Apollo."
"I suspect, Captain, that the beacon on the Horizon doesn't give out a very long range signal. It takes the Cylons varying amounts of time to pick up the signal after we've jumped," explained Gaeta.
"Mr Gaeta, I want you to plot two consecutive jumps. All the fleet will make the first and then all ships except the Horizon and the Galactica will make the second."
"What if we're wrong and it's not the Horizon but something else? The fleet would be unprotected."
"Good point, Colonel. Make that three jumps Lieutenant, the third only to be used if there's any sign of trouble. Captain, we'll need a raptor to accompany them to report back to Galactica."
"Yes sir!"
"So now the question is how are we going to deal with the Cylons if they accept our bait?"
"Well that rather depends on how hard they bite."
"Assuming that we get at least one base star?"
"We've still got the raider. What about we just use Starbuck's aborted plan from last time?"
"Good idea, Saul. Let's get her in here."
"What if they turn up with more than one base star?"
"Then we pray!"
−
Kara joined them quickly, glad to be involved in something to take her mind off her own current situation.
"Lieutenant, we're considering resurrecting your previous plan to use the raider to destroy a base star. Did you ever get around to testing its auto pilot?"
"No sir, but I'm pretty sure it'll be OK. Everything else we've installed has worked like clockwork."
"Yes, a pity, but I think we'll just have to go ahead and use it anyway."
"When do I leave sir?" She grinned at him. The grin was wiped away by Lee's next words.
"No Kara, you can't fly this mission."
"Well no one else can!"
"No I won't let you."
"I'm sorry to have to break up this little domestic argument, but Apollo is right Starbuck; you can't fly this mission. It's just too important: we can't risk you getting sick and not being able to complete it."
"Why on earth can't she do it? She never gets sick in the air. I've never known a pilot with a more cast iron stomach."
"Because she's pregnant." It was Lee's quiet voice that answered the colonel's question. Tigh's face was priceless. If Kara hadn't been so pissed off with the whole thing she would have enjoyed it immensely.
"Oh that's just typical, just when we really need her skills Starbuck goes and gets herself knocked up." He wasn't prepared for Lee squaring up to him.
"Take that back, you bastard!"
"Gentlemen!" The commander's sharp voice broke them apart. "Saul, I suggest you apologise for that remark."
"Sorry Lieutenant," he mumbled, looking from Lee to Kara, the penny dropping and the reason behind the commander's sudden rush to change the fraternisation regs becoming all too apparent.
"Well I'll be damned!"
"So, I think that we've established that Starbuck can't fly this mission. What you can do though, lieutenant, is train up a replacement pilot and monitor the raider from the CIC."
Kara was about to argue that she would rather monitor it from a raptor in the thick of the action, when she realised that the Adama men were ganging up on her in a mistaken attempt to try and keep her safe. She knew that she couldn't fight the both of them. If the pair of them were going to be this over-protective for the next seven months she wasn't going to be responsible for her actions when she killed them!
"I'll fly the raider dad."
"No, Lee. I need you in charge of the viper squadron." Kara smirked at him at this put down: it was a small victory, but anything was better than nothing right now.
"What about Helo?" she suggested. "He's seen it up pretty close and personal."
"Good suggestion, Lieutenant. How long do you think you'll need to train him?"
"I don't know. Three or four days? Depends on how quickly he learns."
"You've got 24 hours," the commander replied. She just grinned at him, pleased to have a challenge.
"I'm already on it sir!"
