CH 31

When they reached the Old Man's office they waited for permission to enter and when they did, they both felt the waves of tension in the room. Commander Adama was sitting at his desk, glasses in front of him, massaging his head as if he had a tremendous headache.

"At ease. Have a seat you two."

They looked at each other to see if the other knew what was happening as they sat and both edged nervously to the front of their chairs.

"I've just come back from the Pegasus. Admiral Cain has informed me of an unidentified Cylon ship that's been following us. It's being protected by two basestars and several lesser ships. The Admiral wants to do a recon mission to find out what this ship is and then if we can come up with a suitable tactic we're going to take it out." He looked at them waiting for the excitement to creep up to their eyes and he was soon rewarded. They both started babbling about tactics and recon and he had to quiet them.

"I'm not done. That was the good news. Here's the bad news. Admiral Cain is integrating the crews. She's read over our logs and has decided that the crew will function better if they are moved around a bit. I can't say I agree with her but I have my orders."

"But that's not so bad sir," Kara said, "some of the people over here could use a bit of butt kicking if you ask me."

"I'm not asking you and I wasn't asked either. The Admiral gave me a list of people to be transferred to the Pegasus immediately and your names are the top of the list."

Lee bolted to his feet. "What? Transfer to the Pegasus?"

Kara was right behind him. "Why the frak should we do that?"

"Because those are your orders."

Lee and Kara immediately started railing about that and their voices were raising rapidly to yelling. "We can't just let her come over here and frak up our entire roster on the eve of a major Cylon operation…" Lee groused as Kara was saying, "That's a load of crap! She's just trying to frak with the Galactica, because their CAG has a stick up his ass…"

The elder Adama had had all he could take. "That's enough! You're officers. Act like it. She's given you an order. You will carry it out." His tone left no question in Lee's mind but Kara always had to push the limits.

"Permission to speak freely?"

"You may not. We've all gotten used to bending the rules, having our way, letting things slide. Well, that's over. You wear the uniform; you will accept the rules that go with it. You've been transferred. Pack your gear and report to the Pegasus CAG. Dismissed." He felt awful turning his back on them but an order was an order and the sooner they learned that the easier things would be in the future when Admiral Cain really started throwing her weight around.

Back in their rack room they were both slamming the doors of their lockers and throwing their gear around, neither saying anything until Kat walked in and asked them what was going on. Kara explained it in the most unlady-like terms she could and Lee thought he even heard her say a few things that would make a Cylon blush. Kat hung her head and slumped to her bunk, wondering aloud what the frak was happening to them all.

Lee had already pulled his gear from his locker and set about putting it all into his duffle bag when he came across the picture of him and Lauren that he kept. He fell onto his bunk and stared at the picture for a minute, thinking that maybe it would be alright since now he'd be on the same ship as Lauren at least. Plus, Kara, Lauren and he would be together again and nothing could stop them if they put their minds to it.

He sighed and put the picture back in his pocket, then finished stuffing his gear into the small bag. When Kara was done they walked together to the flight deck.

Lee tried to cheer Kara up as they went, "At least we'll be on a bigger ship with, hopefully, a better kitchen. Maybe they will even have real coffee! Can you imagine?" He looked to see if she was amused at all and all he saw was the loathing for Captain Taylor that she'd brought to a boil. Lee knew that there had to be some way to keep her away from Taylor or there was going to be a whole mess of trouble.