Battlestar Galactica 2003 is a copyright of the Sci Fi Channel. Battlestar Galactica is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. Ron Moore re-imagined Glen A. Larson's original idea; but then again, most people who would be reading this already know that. My use is in no way intended to challenge or infringe upon any established copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned or any other copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.

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Author's Note: Not too long ago, I wrote A Simple Plan, which I referred to as a "blob drabble," because much like the blob, the story had the potential to start small and keep growing. Well, I thought it was out of my system, but it wasn't. So now here's a companion piece to A Simple Plan.

Also, I guess I should briefly acknowledge the fact that I know full well this is less than original. I'm sure boatloads of fics along these lines have been written. All I can say is I haven't read any fics like it, because I've been avoiding reading fic until I have every detail of my current fic trilogy worked out (I don't want anything interfering with that). So if this resembles anything else you've read (or written), the similarity is purely coincidental.

Thanks to Twiz TV, which has scripts for the BSG eps and saved me the time of having to type out most of the relevant Episode 2.20 dialogue myself.

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The Hobgoblin of Small Minds
by
Nevermore

"Oh. Hey, what's going on?" Commander Lee Adama asked as he walked into CIC. Dualla was on the wireless, and she had an unusual, sour expression on her face.

"It's for you," she said, handing him the line, making a point not to give any specifics. That fact was not lost on Lee, but he wasn't in the mood for one of Dualla's games.

"Who is it?"

"It's for you," she told him.

"Who is it?" he asked again. Dualla ignored the question, walking away and keeping her attention conspicuously focused on the screens. Only one person Lee knew could evoke that kind of reaction from Dee. "Right," he said. Kara. Just what the hell does she need now? "What do you want?" he asked, not for the first time noticing that Dee was hanging well within eavesdropping range. Old habits die hard, I guess. Five-to-one we have yet another argument about Kara later on tonight.

"I need a favor," Kara said, getting right to the point.

Lee considered several replies, ranging from 'Kiss my ass,' to "You got balls, Thrace,' and even – for a fleeting, frightening moment – 'Whatever you need, Kara.' He settled for the thoroughly non-committal, "Is that right?"

"I hear that you're… uh… hoarding a bunch of antibiotics for the pilots."

"Where did you hear that?" Lee asked, remembering immediately that Tigh had left Galactica not three hours earlier. She didn't waste any time looking up her newest buddy, did she?

"Anders is sick. He has pneumonia, Lee," Kara explained, as if it should make a difference that she was asking for someone other than herself.

Does that mean I'm supposed to think her noble? Lee asked himself.

"I think that he may die."

Lee noticed that even in her moment of groveling, Kara didn't actually sound like she was begging. He couldn't decide whether he liked that or not.

"Commander," Dee interrupted.

"Wait one, uh," he told Kara, putting his hand over the mouthpiece as he turned to Dee. "Yeah, Lieutenant. What is it?"

"I'm not sure," Dee admitted, her eyes never leaving one of the screens. "Picking up something on DRADIS."

"DRADIS? How can you see anything in that soup?" Lee asked. "Huh, I mean-"

"There it is," Dee said.

"What is it?" Lee asked, seeing a contact flitter onto the screen for little more than a second before disappearing again. "Wait, what is that?" Contacts started popping up all over the screen, almost giving the impression that they were emerging out of the nebula's concealment, finally getting close enough for DRADIS to get a clear read.

But that's not what's going on, Lee knew. They're not emerging from the nebula – they're jumping in. They're making what I can only assume is a mostly blind jump into a nebula, and they're doing it with military precision. We don't have any ships that could do that.

"Oh my gods, it's a cylon fleet," Dee said a moment after Lee realized the situation. She was suddenly breathing harder, a tinge of panic in her voice. "They found us. They found us."

Lee watched the screen as more contacts showed up. One basestar. Two. Three. Six. Nine. No way to win. It's over. It's all over. "Red alert," he said, trying to maintain an aura of calm. "Set Condition One. Action stations."

"It's the admiral," Dee said, pointing to the receiver he was still holding. Lee didn't know when Dee dumped Kara's signal, but it didn't really matter. In a few seconds, she'll be dead, anyway. It's not like I'll have to apologize for Dee hanging up on her.

"We have to get out of here, sir," Lee said immediately, looking around his half-deserted CIC.

"We can't leave all those people behind," the admiral retorted, actually talking the situation through rather than give orders.

The cylons really caught us asleep at the wheel, Lee realized. If we'd been ready, the admiral would be barking out orders and I'd be headed straight at those bastards. But he knows we can't win. He just wants to hear me say it. "There's nothing we can do," Lee said, noticing another trio of basestars jump in, already moving to cut off escape. "It's taken us forever to get to action stations here," he added, not mentioning that, truth be told, they were still working on getting to action stations. "We're in no shape for a fight, sir."

"They'll be wiped out," the admiral said.

"We don't have a choice," Lee countered, knowing that the admiral knew damn well that there was a choice – fight and die, or flee and live to fight another day. If we stay, the cylons will wipe us out first, and then exterminate the civilians, anyway. "We need to get out of here right now."

Lee kept silent on the fact that from what he saw on his operations screen, the flight deck still wasn't prepared to launch any fighters. All he had was a pair of Vipers in the air, their pilots probably grumpy about their mid-CAP naps being interrupted.

It took frakking long enough, Lee cursed silently as the status indicators on his screen changed from red to green. His only consolation was that Galactica was just as slow on the draw; though that didn't save Lee from being absolutely humiliated at the state of his pilots, all the same. Am I going to have to go down there and be the frakking CAG as well as the commander?

"Begin jump prep," Adama ordered. "We're leaving. But we'll be back. Start your prep."

Lee noted with disgust that getting ready to run away with their tails between their legs didn't take nearly as long as it had to prepare to fight. Less than a minute later, the surviving Colonial ships, and the less-than-skeleton crews that manned them, were safely away, abandoning over thirty thousand civilians on the surface of New Caprica, to be either exterminated or captured for use as lab rats, according to whatever the cylons were in the mood for.

"Any contacts?" the admiral finally asked over the wireless.

"Nothing yet," Lee answered, his eyes practically bursting out of their sockets as his gaze remained riveted on the DRADIS screen. Dee stood next to him, just as attentive, once again the calm, cool officer she'd been before her first combat engagement while in a command position.

Not that I can hold her momentary panic against her, Lee acknowledged silently. Last time we were in battle, she was basically answering phones. And that experience made her the most qualified person for the job of my XO. Gods, what have we come to?

"Looks like we got away clean," the admiral said. "I want you over here immediately."

"Yes, sir," Lee said. "The ship's yours," he told Dualla. "Anything happens, you get out. We're not getting into a fight unless we have absolutely no choice."

"Yes, sir," she told him.

"And have them prep me a Raptor," he added on his way out of CIC. "We don't want to keep the admiral waiting."

Lee lumbered through the halls, seeing only an occasional crewman; it was impossible to notice that he couldn't remember any of them having been on the ship when he first took command. Most of the experienced personnel were enticed down to the surface, he reminded himself. After all, everyone down there was trying to build a new civilization. No way they were going to pull that off without stealing our best techs, engineers, programmers, and every other frakking person we need to keep a battlestar running and combat-ready.

Lee started to quicken his pace, but soon slowed down when he noticed he was out of breath. What the hell? he wondered, making a brief detour so he could check the nearest environmental control panel. Everything was fine, all readings in the green. That can't be right. There's got to be a problem with the sensors… has to be a lack of oxygen or something down here.

He continued his roundabout course toward the flight deck, diverting himself even more in order to check another panel. Once again, all readings were in the green. Lee thought over the situation, and suddenly realized that his lower back was a little sore. As he reached his hands around to lightly massage the small of his back, he realized that the fabric in the front of his uniform had been pulled taut. Very taut. He looked at the sleeves and his pant legs, smoothing out the wrinkles to make certain that his eyes weren't deceiving him. No doubt about it – they shrank my uniform last time it was washed.

Lee began walking again, and then stopped abruptly, suddenly thankful for the lack of crewmen. "They didn't shrink my uniform," he muttered angrily. "And there isn't a problem with the oxygen converters. I'm out of shape. I'm fat." Why didn't anyone tell me? was the first question that popped into his head. Then he realized the obvious answer to that question – because who in hell is going to tell the commander that he could stand to lose a few pounds? Or even a bit more than a few pounds? Or suggest that maybe that extra helping of noodles isn't such a good idea?

It only took a second to realize that there was one person who would have been willing. Kara would have told me to get my ass on a treadmill, he knew, unable to stifle a smile at the thought. But the smile vanished as soon as reality imposed itself on his mind. Kara's probably dead now. She won't be around to say anything ever again. All that remains is getting payback for her. For everyone.

He finally reached the flight deck, and it only took a moment to see Raven trying to catch his attention. His sigh was the only indication that he would have preferred a more experienced pilot, but once again he resigned himself to reality. If I want an experienced pilot, I'm gonna have to fly the damn Raptor myself.

"Sir," Raven said with a salute, her black hair immediately falling into her face.

"You'll want to tie that back," Lee said, giving a hurried salute of his own as he walked past her and up into the Raptor. Checklist was going through the pre-flight prep, his clipboard predictably right on his lap as he went over each one of the ship's systems.

"Sir," Checklist said, practically shooting to his feet as he saluted, his clipboard crashing to the floor.

"I want you to shave as soon as we get to Galactica," Lee told him, pointing at the blonde peach fuzz above the boy's lip. For the briefest moment, Lee tried to remember if he had ever worked as hard to fit in with older officers when he had just gotten out of flight school. But the question really was irrelevant. As young as I was, I was still a lot older than Checklist. He told us he's eighteen – and it's not like we had Colonial records to make sure – but he can't be more than sixteen, tops.

"Yes, sir," Checklist said.

"We're not paid by the hour," Lee groused as Raven followed him in and took the controls. "Let's get going."

"Yes, sir," she said.

The hatch closed as Lee sat down in the rear, resisting the temptation to go up and sit in the copilot's chair. Gotta stay in back and let myself be shuttled around like a dignified commander, he reminded himself. Not even a minute had gone by when he started reconsidering his decision. The Raptor was just lifting off of the deck, and he couldn't ignore the pain in his back and the soreness in his rump.

I'm too frakking fat to ride comfortably in a Raptor? he asked himself. This is ridiculous. Just what the hell have I been doing for the past year!

Lee thought back, slowly realizing that his transition from a Viper pilot to a battlestar commander had consumed almost all of his spare time. He was constantly on duty, whether he was in CIC or his own quarters. Lacking the physical demands of a Viper cockpit, CIC became his second home, replacing the gym. He no longer went running through the halls – he toured them, making sure the crewmen saw him and knew he was watching. Small meals monitored for nutritional value had been replaced by large platters of food sent from the surface as one VIP or another tried to ingratiate himself in order to cannibalize more of his personnel. It all made for a slew of comfortable excuses.

But none of it matters, Lee decided. I could have made time for the gym, I could have taken at least twenty minutes out of my day to go running, and I sure as hell could have watched my diet. Fact is – I got lazy. I got complacent. Every bit as much as the planet-side civilian refugees or the soldiers who fancied themselves retired. I've wasted a year of my life playing commander when I should have been riding everyone as hard as I could, preparing them for today. A lot of people died today, and it's because of me.

He settled his hands on his paunch, a sneer punctuating the realization that this was not something he would have been able to do only a year earlier. A year ago I was ready for anything, he told himself. I was fit and ready for a fight. I was only the CAG, but my pilots knew their jobs and were ready to get in it every time the cylons showed their faces. We never took more than a few seconds to get our alert fighters in the air, and I never had to stop and rest just walking from CIC to the flight deck.

"We got complacent," he muttered. "We let a foolish consistency seep its way into our routines."

"Sir?" Checklist asked.

"Nothing, Ensign," Lee said.

"Yes, sir."

"No, actually, check that," Lee said, immediately getting Checklist's undivided attention. "We got lazy, and people probably died because of it. The pilots got lazy, and I let them; the command staff got lazy, and I overlooked it; and the crewmen all got lazy, and I was so busy eating I didn't notice. We all got slow and fat, fooling ourselves into thinking we were safe. But not anymore."

"No, sir," Checklist agreed, though his confused expression made it clear he wasn't entirely certain what he was agreeing to.

"Things are gonna change," Lee promised, once again staring at his gut. Can't imagine anyone would have ever called me Apollo years ago if I looked like this, he thought, swallowing a hefty, Lee Adama-sized portion of self-loathing. Yup, things'll change. Starting with me.

Fin