Lights
I will be your light against the dark….
Don't you know you that are a shooting star….
Dee watched the DRADIS…the lights indicating vipers were hard to ignore this morning. They had been lucky enough to have a sizable lull in activity and the pilots were drilling and working on combat pairings. It was like a dance of fireflies on the screen something strangely erotic about how the lights intertwined with their partners, a dance of skill and when necessary a dance of death. She found she could tell the difference between the experienced pilots from their younger, less graceful partners. She didn't have to look at the tags. Apollo's moves were athletic, strong and very angled. His partner for the exercise, Kat was fluttery and hesitant and she flitted about him like a butterfly. Starbuck's movements were fluid like she alone had a sense of space that the others didn't. Her image rarely wavered or blinked she was like a neon sign , her handwriting, flowing and embellished. Hotdog, his was more like a weak magnet, first clinging to his wingman then sagging behind only to slingshot back like he was tied to her with a long rope.
"Ok, good work today, head for home…and congratulations, Lt Costanza, Lt Katrine."
"Thank you Apollo, ..Heading back…"
"Yeah thanks Apollo, its an honor serving with you sir.." Kat's light hesitates, the blip hanging next to Apollo's for a second." aren't you coming?"
"Nope I need to work out some kinks with this new throttle…go ahead"
"Is it safe for you to be out here alone sir?"
"(amused) yes Lt. I will be fine.."
"I didn't mean …."
"NUGGETS, GO HOME!" Starbuck is laughing.
"We're not nuggets anymore, Starbuck!" Laughter and slight indignation from Hotdog.
"Gonna bust you back down to nuggets if you can't take orders, or do you not realize the CAG has given you one..? Perhaps he should phrase it differently."
"YES SIR!"
The blips streak towards Galactica. Dee is trying not to giggle. They have turned down the coms and she is pretty sure she is the only one monitoring the drills.
"That was the last group Apollo." it sounds like a question.
"I know" There is a strange sound in his voice and the lights on the screen inch forward lazily toward Starbuck's stopping at intervals like his pen is skipping on the paper.
"You think you can take me this time? After all that hero stuff, you think you can do it?" Toying insolent tone that lately has been missing since the addition of the Caprica resistance fighters to the ship. Dee blinked recognizing it. She was challenging him again.
"Starbuck, don't call down the thunder if you don't like the rain…" He responds, it's a scripted response and the words sound empty…there is bitterness that Dee thinks she hears. They have been using call signs exclusively for weeks now.
"I like the rain, Captain…" Starbuck responds nearly a whisper.
Dee watches the Commander acknowledge the snipit of exchange with that stoic but meaningful expression on his face and then he bustles off not wanting to listen. Dee has no such reservations. She has been watching them struggle, she feels the space between them. The last few weeks she has tried hard not to affirm the change that has taken place with them. They are more proper, more disciplined, like fine tuned fighting machines. She has watched the Captain go from the easy confidence he had been starting to let people in on back to 'Captain Tightass', more like he was when he boarded Galactica for the fist time. Only now his perfectionism was brutal and he had focused so intently on it that some of the pilots had started calling him Zeus and joking about being blindsided with lightning bolts if they screwed up. All that aside, she knew it had made them feel safer knowing he was obsessively focused. There was a calculating part of her that thought about the fact that shutting off ones emotions made you a better protector, but the consensus was that they would all rather have a small threat of error and know their leaders were as human as themselves, than feel completely safe. Human nature is always in such paradox.
She knew, because she watched him, because he was captivating, that he was hurting. Most knew also that Starbuck's new love was weighing on him though no one would EVER address it with him. Dee touched the dot on the display, wondering at him. She realized that she had developed more than respect for him when the commander had been hurt. She battled it daily. She loved Billy. Apollo was closer to worship. There was something so dark and distant in him even when he was being open and bright. Something predatory, or wild. She thought about the God Apollo, trying to put her finger on it. He was the god of the sun…well the bringing of the sun, of healing, he was born to a WOLF. That seemed to fit…he was not a jealous god, but an unlucky one in love. Eros toyed with him. It seemed the parallels were very strong and Dee felt her eyes start to tear up. She switches the com traffic to her headset.
"Don't be a tease Sir, if you are going do it …do it!"
"static…"
Dee watches at the lights suddenly flash across the DRADIS, jumping in and out of the ships the movements fast enough to cause the blinks to leave trails on her screen. Both moving beautifully steady, Starbuck's falling behind Apollo's in pursuit The images wound about each other one leading one following and then they would turn and switch, a chase, or a hunt, the coursing of hounds after a fox…it was mesmerizing. It was erotic. It was painful. The com traffic was nil. She could almost see their faces, grim lit with eerie blue light. She knew Apollo's would be a mask, no emotion, cool and reflective like the moon. In the cockpit he was Artemis, not Apollo, he was a hunter with little use for man in any form. Starbuck was more clearly, Aphrodite in the cockpit, Passionate, impulsive, absorbed, infatuated. They threaded through the fleet, causing the ships to call and check in with Dee, to make sure that they weren't under attack most of the captains' acknowledged, not really surprised when she told them drills when they identified the call signs. She knew she wasn't the only one watching them. She saw Apollo's dot suddenly disappear beneath that of cloud nine. Starbucks suddenly jerked and both realigned above it.
"Got ya…I lost you " He was gloating.
"Only for a split second Lee…" Her voice was odd.
"A split second? In this existence…that's a lifetime" the coldness, imperialness creeping back.
"I will Always catch you…" It is a plea more than cockiness.
"The problem is Starbuck, I can never catch you….." It is apparent that they are somewhere else, on a plane above the mere mortals on the ships.
"you know I always come back…."
"Its not the same…if I cant keep up, I don't deserve to win."
"Lee…"
"promise me something Kara…"
"what?" Her voice is tight, wary.
"This is ours, this space, this time, this belongs to us…you and me…" His voice is raw, but he isn't begging.
"It always has been…there isn't a pilot out there…. There is nothing out here, that can touch us. There never was."
Its not bragging, Dee knows it to be true. Apollo is Starbuck's equalizer, he keeps her handwriting on the page. He defines her. She in turn embellishes him, makes him more beautiful. Dee thinks about it. The fleet knows them, they are icons as surely as they are people. As she considers she realizes that in that they lose their humanity, they became characters in a tale. They are tied to expectations that dictate who they are, they get no choice or input She prayed for them, quietly, that they make their own words, not let the hand of public opinion still their strokes. She knew that military rank and the scripted exchanges of people living in a grim world of desperation was but one side of them. They still had choices, they still had hope. If nothing else she still had hope that they would eventually find their way. Dee whispers to herself:
"Eros be damned, Apollo, make your own way, be what you want not what you think everyone else wants you to be."
And as she says this the lights on her display began to dance again. This time it looks like a Tango, and she knows they wont be coming in until someone calls them back.