A Book By Its Cover
This story and all themes and ideas contained in said story are the sole ownership of J.L. Scott. Any copyright infringements can be prosecuted in a court of law.
To borrow a phrase: Battlestar Galactica no mine...no money, no sue, please?
"Commander, it's been almost four days" Roslin said softly. She had come all the way to Galactica to have this conversation in his quarters, privately. She felt sorry for Adama, she truly did. She liked the idea of losing his son no better than he. That young man had had a brilliant mind; military, political, moral. He was the type of person that she was glad had survived because someone would have to take over when she was gone. And that time was creeping closer ever so quickly. There were days she did not want to be herself.
"Lee will find a way home" Adama answered. He sounded so certain, as if there were absolutely no doubt to be entertained by anyone because the mere suggestion that his son would not be returning was ludicrous. He had risked the entire Fleet in order to save Lt. Thrace. What would he risk to save his son?
Lee's bloody knuckles looked back at him from the rock they were grasping two feet above his head. Ariel hadn't been kidding when she'd told him that they had a difficult hike. The trees were still growing in abundance, though the underbrush was thinner now, and rocks poked out like nasty pimples in the face of the mountain. A hill she called it. A foothill. Most of the hiking he was able to do on his two feet, but they had just started up an even steeper slope and he was all but rock climbing now. He'd never seen the appeal in that sort of sport.
"Almost there" Ariel called down to him. He couldn't look up. She was wearing a dress, after all. Lee pulled himself up and was happy to find that they had reached the summit of this particular peak and were going to take a rest.
"I told you there was water up here" Ariel laughed as she splashed water from a small pool, just big enough to dip one's feet in. Lee dipped his hand in and wiped his face off. The air was cool but rock climbing was sweaty work. He looked beyond where Ariel was sunbathing, her eyes closed, and saw that the "hill" seemed to plateau here. The rock was actually jutting out creating a mini cliff, expanding from a denser forest than the one they had just passed through.
"There are craters all around here and they fill up with water from the rains. Most of them are pretty deep, so the water stays fairly clean" Ariel explained. Lee got the distinct feeling that she loved this planet, loved all the little things she knew about it, was proud of it. Proud of a planet. He drank some of the clean rainwater and let the warmth of the sun beat into his skin, expelling the chill from his sweat evaporating into the cold air.
"How much farther?" he asked.
"Not much. It's on this plateau, actually, so no more rock climbing" Ariel's foot pushed his back. He knew her feet were bloody, like his knuckles, but she hadn't said anything. He should offer to carry her the rest of the way.
"We could probably get there before dark if we hurry" she finished. Hurry? Lee felt as if he could barely move, the only thing keeping him going were the adrenaline and the thought of getting pretty Ariel Nimon back to the Galactica. Galactica needed the color.
"So what is this place anyway?" he wanted to know. She never had told him. She sang while they hiked, songs he recognized but his Father knew better. Old songs. Songs her father had taught her? The secluded father who was very demanding, never satisfied with what he got? Were all fathers thus?
"It's um…kind of a…well, a sort of, you know…uh…retreat I guess" she stumbled over an explanation and it was the first time she'd ever done so. She was hiding something. She didn't want to tell him what it was. Was he walking into a trap? Was it Cylons? How was it that she was never as tired as he was, never needed water as desperately as he did, always knew when the Cylons were coming? Was she just another model?
"It was where my father would go when he was disappointed with me, or he just didn't want to be with people anymore" she told him, "Sometimes he would stay for months before he ever came back down to the village" The pain in her voice. Human. "Well we should…" he stopped. She had suddenly become very rigid, staring off into the air.
"Do you see that?" she asked, pointing. Lee followed her finger. There was a dot in the sky. It was getting bigger. How had she even seen it before this? He watched as it got bigger and then his heart stopped. He could see it, see exactly what it was.
"It's a Cylon raider" he told her, jumping to his feet and turning to pull her by her strong, delicate hands to her own, noticing the wince when pressure had been returned to her feet.
"One of those ships?" she asked, squinting at it to see it better. It was much closer now, easy to identify.
"Yes" Lee answered, pushing her towards the woods, taking a step after her. The raider was moving fast. The rock they had been resting on exploded as the raider fired, throwing dust and chunks and hunks of boulder flying through the air. In the woods, Ariel pushed herself off of her stomach and looked around. Lee lay face down only a few feet away. Bits of rock were still raining down. Ariel pulled Lee's head into her lap.
"Apollo?" Lee's eyes opened slowly and he winced. He had escaped any damage from flying rock but the force of the explosion had knocked him down. His head hurt. His leg hurt. His head was in Ariel's lap again.
"Are you okay?" she asked, "Follow my finger" She moved one long skinny finger back and forth in front of his face and he followed it with his eyes. Then her hand descended and cupped over one eye. She bent her face close to hers so that he could smell her breath falling on his nose and it smelled sweet, despite the days of meat and no toothbrushes. She removed her hand and it drifted lightly to his temple.
"Well, your pupils are dilating" she reported, "You don't have a concussion"
"Good" he replied, pushing himself to his feet and she following. He could hear the raider making another pass. He took her hand and they ran, fast. The raider followed behind them, letting volley after volley down into the woods, only meters behind them. It couldn't see them, couldn't see where they were. It could only fire in a logical pattern, and one thing humans would always have over machines was the power of the illogical.
"Focus, Gaius" Six whispered in his ear and Gaius returned his attention to the press conference. Roslin held them weekly, to keep the Fleet abreast of any changes, decisions, to keep her face in the news he supposed. He generally did not take part in the conferences, but as Vice President, re-elected, he was expected to show his face. He could be sitting in his laboratory running tests on blood samples, slowly etching away at his 61 years of work still left to do. He preferred to be here.
"…and we need to conserve our fuel so for now we're staying put, sending out raiders to look for another source of supplies. Meanwhile staying put increases the chances that Captain Adama and President Nimon will somehow find their way back to us" Roslin was saying and there were flashes going off. She smiled and took questions, but Gaius's mind drifted off again.
"God has a plan for us, Gaius" Six murmured in his ear, nipping at his lobe, "All of us. Even President Nimon"
The raider continued making passes infrequently, but Ariel and Lee were now far off course and so safe from the exploding, burning forest. Lee thought he had caught a tear in her eye when she'd turned to see the damage being done, but it had been fleeting and her feet had carried her away too quickly. He couldn't keep up.
"There's something wrong with your leg" she finally said, stopping and so making him stop as well. He had been trying not to notice, not to let her notice, but he had a feeling that very little escaped her notice.
"We can't stop. They'll be sending troops up here if they think we're still alive" Lee told her, trying to limp past her. She caught his arm. Continually surprised by her. Her grip was strong.
"And judging by that raider that keeps blowing bits of my forest up they still think we're alive. But that's a problem that will have to wait. What's wrong with your leg?" she wanted to know and Lee found himself sliding onto the ground, his leg extended painfully and her hands running up and down making his flesh burn.
"It's not broken" he replied, "I'll be fine"
"Yes, until infection sets into these cuts and we have to cut your entire leg off" Her fingers were feeling the back of his calf and thigh, poking through small holes in his flight suit to brush against his skin. Her finger tips were cold and soft. Lee hadn't noticed the cuts until she said something and now he could feel each one, burning pieces of splintered rock gouged and embedded in his skin. His head began to throb and he realized he must've hit that too, and though Ariel had told him he didn't have a concussion it didn't mean he wouldn't have a headache. Now all the pains of the past, what, three days? were coming back and his throat ached from lack of water and his stomach growled from lack of food and his eyes grew too heavy to hold open and he couldn't move, not another step.
"You're going to have to flip over" Ariel was telling him, her voice breaking through the haze he'd let himself dip down into, "You're going to be very awake in a moment" He was on his stomach and her cold, soft fingers were moving in his pants. And then pain. She was picking the slivers of rock out of his leg and it was painful. He didn't know how long it took, but it was too long and when she finally stopped he had to wait for the pain to ebb away before he could turn back over, a mask on so she wouldn't know.
The tips of her fingers were bloody, she wiped them on her muddy, torn skirt adding to the stains from the berries she collected every morning. Lee never saw any berry bushes.
"I can't do anything about the blood now" she said, "But it's not bad. You won't bleed to death, anyway"
"Thanks" Lee grunted. He ran his own hand down the back of his leg and pulled it away with spots of blood across his palm. He wouldn't bleed to death. He might die anyway.
"Come on" she used her weight as leverage and pulled him to his feet. He could put weight on the leg but couldn't run as fast as she. He couldn't run as fast as she before.
"We'll just have to run through the night too" she said, "We can't risk stopping now, and anyway we're close" Lee was thinking of a cozy little cabin with big comfy chairs and a fireplace, with food on the shelves. The sun was creeping close to the horizon and he could only hope that when she said close, she meant close.
