Ch 22

Kara had wandered off to a quiet corner of the flight deck and Lee followed her, trading their opinions on the people from the Pegasus and what they were all about.

"Where under the Gods do you think they've been Lee?"

"I haven't got a clue but just think about this, if they made it out of the attack all right what about others? You know there are people still on Caprica, how about the other colonies too?"

"Lee I'm not sure I'm following…oh, I see." She could tell by the pained look of longing in his eyes exactly who he had in mind. Kara didn't want to get his hopes up only to have him crushed again at a later point so she didn't try to bolster him. "Lee if she was at the base, which she should have been, well…it just doesn't look very good. You read the reports, Picon got hit and hard. No one on Caprica had heard anything from other survivors but that's most likely because there weren't any."

She could see his soul die just a little more when she said it but it was better than lying to him. There'd been more than enough lying between them. Kara dropped the subject and tugged at his sleeve to follow her as she saw Racetrack walking across the deck with one of the Viper pilots from Pegasus. The two were acting like old friends and then Kara's attention was drawn to his Viper and the line of marks under the cockpit. She edged closer to his ship to see what they were and was shocked to find small pictures that looked like Cylon raiders.

"Is this a scorecard? You guys put scorecards on the side of your ships?" The condescension in her voice was obvious.

Racetrack reminded Kara that she too kept score, just not painted on her ship. Kara still couldn't fathom it and she turned to the other pilot with a sneer, "Do you have caps and t-shirts too?" This made everyone, even the Pegasus pilot, laugh until the stern looking man they'd met earlier walked up behind them.

"Where's the Galactica CAG?" he snapped.

Lee spoke up and the other man sneered at him and turned away from the others. He made a stiff lipped comment about how keeping track of kills boosted morale and how it would soon be put into effect over here as well now that Admiral Cain was the commanding officer.

That really needled Lee and he spat out his opinion of the idea, "The name of my Commander is Adama, which should be pretty easy to remember, because it's my name."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind daddy's boy. Let's see your ordnance lists."

Lee decided right then and there that he was not going to let this man get to him. They were both Captains so there was no rank to pull. Lee was a CAG in his own right and he deserved just as much respect as this other man did. He pivoted sharply and faced the end of the deck where his meager office was, "this way."

Once Taylor had looked at the requested paperwork and found it to be in suitable order he changed the subject to the way that Lee had been running the CAP and how the pilots reacted to him. They talked shop for a few minutes and Lee felt a bit more comfortable but he still didn't trust Taylor.

"You really should come over and see how a tight ship is run. My 2CAG and I have worked our pilots into a finely tuned machine."

"Pardon me but what the frak is a 2CAG?"

"Well we have enough pilots to have two separate shifts. It works well so that the men are rested and there is always adequate coverage for the ship, plus we can always muster the other shift if need be. So there came a need to have another officer in charge. Admiral Cain suggested having a commander equal in power or rank to me but subordinate so that there would be no question of who was the main CAG. So I answer to Admiral Cain and my 2CAG answers to me but we work as a team and it does work. I wasn't sure she could hack it at first but she's shaped up nicely in the past few months."

"Huh, sounds like a pretty good system you've got." Lee looked almost wistful at the idea of having a shift off and not having to drop his life at a moment's notice to race for his ship.

"So why don't you and your second in command come over to Pegasus later and we can talk about our working order over there, maybe give you two a few pointers to make this old girl run smoother."

Lee stiffened at the smarmy attitude Taylor had, but he was interested in the goings on at the other ship and he figured the best way to find out why he felt so edgy around them was to confront them. "Sure sounds good. Let me collect Lt. Thrace and we'll come over in say, an hour?"

"Good, I'll just be going off shift then and I'll have more time to talk with you, show you the ropes. I'll leave clearance with the LSO for you two and we'll see you then," Taylor walked towards the door of the small office and back out to the deck as if he couldn't wait to get away from Lee which did nothing to make him more likeable.