Thirteen

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Love and Marriage

Commander Saul Tigh had thought that going to Babylon 5 would mean a bit of a break. Whenever he had the time to think about that, he would shake his head and laugh, because things had never been this busy in his entire military career. However, he was having the time of his life, in an odd sort of way.

He hadn't had a drink if weeks, because he simply hadn't had the time to drink water, much less ambrosia or what the Earthers called whiskey. He barely had time to eat, and only did so when looking over reports from the various stations on the ship. He shuttled between Galactica, Pegasus, and Babylon 5, and would try and catch a nap or a quick snack in between. He barely had time to sleep, which made his wife, Ellen, even crankier than usual.

She was over on the station, because the accommodations were better over there and she had volunteered to help with the civilian transition to Babylon 5. Saul Tigh was glad his wife had taken the position, because it got her out of his hair.

He had thought her lost in the attacks, but she had somehow escaped Picon when, at the airport, some anonymous person had found her unconscious body and put her on the Rising Star. She was found three weeks later by then-Commander William Adama, and brought over to the Galactica.

Ever since then, Ellen Tigh had poked and prodded her husband to stand up for himself more, especially after Commander Adama was shot by Galactica-Boomer after she had gotten back from destroying the Cylon base star above Kobol. He had made some bad decisions during that time, but when Adama had recovered enough to take command, Tigh wasn't read the riot act for his blunders.

Now, though, for some reason, he felt confident in his abilities. Sure, Gaeta had turned out to be a Cylon, but the crew in the Combat Information Center had come together and made up for the loss. As he walked into the CIC, he actually had to hide a smile as he watched his crew work.

It struck him as kind of funny that it was his crew now, and that Galactica was his ship these days. Granted, Admiral Adama still used this as his flagship, but Adama was busy these days coordinating with the Earth Alliance personnel on Babylon 5, and had given Tigh full control of the reins to his old ship.

Tigh went to the table in the center of the room and began looking over the reports waiting for him. Today they would begin the transport of the new Vipers from Babylon 5, which Deck Chief Galen Tyrol had been in charge of constructing with the assistance of B5's maintenance people. They were once down to less than three-dozen Vipers, but now had a full compliment of Vipers, upgraded with Earth Alliance technology as well as weaponry. The original Viper pilots were having a blast training with them as they went through maneuvers with the Earthforce pilots assigned to his ship.

Roughly half his crew compliment these days were Earthforce regulars, as was his executive officer, Captain John Matheson. At first, Tigh was wary of the telepathic officer, but he had come to take Matheson's abilities for granted, as they had quickly gelled into a solid team. Matheson, Tigh had to admit, was a damn fine second-in-command, and his track record aboard the Excalibur during the Drakh crisis said as much.

Matheson was over at Petty Officer, 2nd Class, Dee Dualla's communications post, coordinating the fighter exercises with the pilots. Dualla was still getting used to the new systems, but she had adapted much more quickly than Tigh had thought she would, and that went for the entire crew as they got used to the integrated systems.

The systems were designed to be highly resistant to the Cylon virus, but Tigh was still worried about it. Adama and he had insisted on a way to isolate computer systems aboard the Colonial battlestars if an attack took place, and the Earthforce personnel had reluctantly agreed to do so. Having President Hollifield on his side did help with that matter, though, so his mind was at ease in that regard.

He settled down and began to study the reports, listening to the pilot chatter with one ear as he read about the improvements made to the Raptor heavy transports. He didn't even think once about alcohol, or even his wife, for that matter.

Ellen Tigh was miserable. She sat at the bar in the Sky High lounge, staring at a mural behind the bartender, which was of some skyline from Earth. She didn't know where it was, since she had never been there, but had overheard that it might have been some city called Chi-town, or something like that. All she knew was that she wouldn't find living in a city known for its winds to be that appealing.

She gave her husband a passing thought, then snorted at it. He was too busy for her these days for her to control, and the fact that he had sent her over to the station for the dumb job he had "volunteered" her for irked at her. She thought she had made progress with him, but, in her mind, Saul was till Adama's bitch.

Her mood picked up when an attractive man came over to sit beside her at the bar. It would surely be scandalous for her husband to have her been seen with Tom Zarek, but she didn't give a damn. If Saul didn't give a damn about her, why should she care whom she was seen with? Besides, as she smiled as Tom said hello to her, she had much more in mind for the presidential candidate.

"So what's a beautiful woman like you sitting here all by yourself, drinking whatever the hell your drinking?" Zarek said.

Ellen Tigh laughed and replied, "It's something called brivari, from Centauri Prime. Kinda like ambrosia, except smoother. So how goes the campaign?"

Zarek ordered some brivari himself, then paused as he sipped from the alien alcohol, and nodded in approval. "Good stuff! It goes well. Roslin's support has really slipped since she was cured of her cancer. Kinda ironic, isn't it? Having your life saved and having your political career damaged by it."

Ellen smiled and drew closer to Zarek. "Roslin's way over her head, and she's ripe for the taking. Speaking of that, someone else is ripe for the taking." She leaned in closer and kissed him on the lips.

Zarek was taken aback for a moment in surprise, but smiled at the gesture. "Wonder what your old man would think of this?"

"Frak him! The question is: your place or mine?" Ellen said, raising an eyebrow. Zarek thought for a moment and said, "Yours. Mine's kinda messy at the moment." Ellen laughed as she took him by the hand and led him out.

One thing was for sure; Zarek drunk was better than was a sober Saul in the sack. Ellen could still feel Zarek inside her and smiled at the thought of more sex when he woke up. Normally she was annoyed when her lovers fell asleep on her, but given the kind of schedule that Zarek was on these days, she didn't mind a bit. But she was still in need of some loving, so she slid him out of her and slid down his body to wake him back up in a highly pleasurable way.

Chief Galen Tyrol loved his crew on the Galactica, and wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. However, if he had to trade them for another crew, then the people from Babylon 5 would be his first choice. He hadn't thought they would be able to construct new Vipers and make them space worthy as fast as they had, but they had been able to accomplish just that. Now, the Mark II's were used as backup fighters these days, as both Colonial battlestars had full compliments of what were being called Viper IX fighters these days. They got the nickname "Niners" after a sports team that Galen had never heard of, something about a city called San Francisco and a sport called "football". He had seen a clip of it while over on Babylon 5 during a break, and wondered why they called it that, when a foot hardly ever met the ball.

He sat in the bar with the female version of himself on the station, a husky Mexican female named Fabiana Cortez. She was a strong, stocky woman, taller by an inch to Tyrol. Some people might call her "fat", but they wouldn't dare say that to her face, because Tyrol thought she would probably break their heads open and scoop out their brains for pet food. She was focused on another version of football, which she called the "real" football, as they sat in the corner watching a match between two clubs from her native Mexico.

Tyrol thought it must be a very important match, as the America verses Chivas Guadalajara contest was played in Nueva Azteca Stadium, which, according to the English commentator, sat close to 125,000 people. Fabby, for short, was out of uniform, instead clad in the traditional red and white striped jersey of Chivas, while Tyrol sat in his regular uniform. They were part of a crowd of Mexicans on the station, with some other Hispanics mixed in and speaking in a strange language that Tyrol had found out the be called "espanyol". Since he had enough problem with his own language, he let Fabby translate for him.

The match didn't go well for Fabby's team, because, much to the delight of the yellow-clad fans in the bar, Chivas took it on the chin from their America rivals, 5-2. Fabby was bummed out as Tyrol walked her back to her quarters in Blue sector, which was near his own on the station. "Sorry about the match, Fabby." Tyrol said, surprised at how hard Fabby was taking the loss.

Fabby wiped the tears from her eyes and said, "I know you don't understand, but we haven't beaten those bastards in five years, and they've knocked us out of the playoffs each of those years. I thought we had the team this year to beat them, but…" she sighed and added as they arrived at her place. "Would you like to come in?"

Tyrol hadn't expected to be jumped on as soon as he got into her place, which was ornately decorated with items from her native homeland, most of it revolving around her favorite football team. As soon as he turned around, she embraced him and gave him a huge kiss on the lips. When her lips moved off his, he managed to say, "What was that for?"

"I've had a crush on you ever since you got here, and I thought I would act upon it for once!" she smiled, and Galen could smell the tequila on her breath. He'd had a few shots of it himself, as well as few steins of something called "cervesa", so he wasn't entirely sober himself. "With the way of the universe these days, you have to grab what you want sometimes." She kissed him passionately again, and he returned the kiss as well.

"Well, when you put it that way…" he said as he returned the favor. Then came a mad scramble of taking off clothes and heading to the bedroom, where Fabby pushed him onto the bed and straddled him to ride him like a bronco. Galen didn't know how good he was in his inebriated state, but he must have impressed her as she yelled out a lot of phrases in her native language.

She collapsed upon him after the climax, and kept on speaking what he had later heard was called "Spanish" by the non-Hispanics on the station. She dozed off on top of him, but since he didn't really want to go anywhere at the moment, he didn't even bother rolling her stocky body off of him. Besides, he thought, she's very well proportioned.

His former lover, the Galactica-Boomer, came to his mind, as well as that of Cally, the one who had, much to his shock, been revealed to have been a Cylon as well. He had forgiven Cally of shooting Boomer, never realizing until later that Cally had done it to prevent the Colonials from conducting experiments on her. Now, he didn't know what to think, except that if Fabby was a Cylon, then the Colonials were really screwed.

However, he didn't think she was, because he didn't think there was anyone quite like Fabby. She was the best mechanic he had ever known, and had more than impressed him with her ability to get the new Vipers constructed well ahead of time. She had told him when he asked about her intense work ethic about the derisive remarks that the "gringos" used to make about "lazy greasers" who always seemed to procrastinate. With the way the heavily Hispanic compliment of her maintenance team working like mad on his project, he'd hate to see what those "gringos" called work ethic.

The one thing that he had discovered about her was that as much as she worked hard, she partied harder. She didn't whore herself around or anything like that, but she was a fixture after work at the bar, owned by her sister Isabella, and called "Babylonia Mexicana" for some reason. On this evening, she had practically dragged Tyrol to watch the match, and, now that she was in his arms, Tyrol was very glad she had done so.

Fabby stirred and awoke, looking at him and sleepily smiling at him. "Buenos noches, senor Tyrol!" she said seductively, as she moved up his body to kiss him. Tyrol had no idea what she had just said, so he just said, "Hi." She smiled, slid over to cuddle him from his side, and whispered into his ear, "When this is all over, I'm taking you back to Mexico and teaching you Spanish. What do you think of that?"

He looked at her and said, "Sounds good to me!" She smiled at him, then grabbed the back of his head and pulled him in for another kiss, which led to more lovemaking that went deep into the night.