Setting: Mid-way through the events in "Act of Contrition".
Spoilers: Up through episode 1.04.
------------------------------------
Day 14
Consider it official. I will never be a politician. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but I must acknowledge that I have very little talent as an impromptu speaker. Whatever my strong points may be, spur-of-the-moment eloquence is not among them.
I stood in front of my pilots today... those few that remain... and I could see in their eyes that they expected... even hoped... for some kind of inspiration from me. They wanted comfort and encouragement. I'm supposed to be their leader. They were looking to me to help guide them through this latest tragedy.
A freak accident on the flight deck killed 13 of my people yesterday evening. 7 others were seriously injured – 2 of them may yet die, and another will never fly again. I barely knew any of them on a personal level, but for those who have been serving here on Galactica since the before the Holocaust, those pilots were far more than statistical casualties. They were partners. Friends. Family. We've all seen so much loss that you could almost begin to get numb to it, but these deaths and injuries have hit the squadron very hard. After all that we've been through together in recent days, to lose so many of our number now... so needlessly... it's just impossible to make any sense of it.
There is no way to talk that kind of pain and loss away. Yet I know that my pilots wanted me to say something in the briefing room today... to drop some pearl of wisdom that might make some sense of this ongoing insanity. And I couldn't come up with a blessed thing. I feel like I let them all down. Thankfully, Dad did what I could not. He didn't talk the pain away by any means, but he told us all what we needed to hear; in spite of all this madness and disaster surrounding us, our lives DO yet still have a purpose, and a very important one at that.
Dad has always cringed over the notion that a senior military leader must be both a warrior and a diplomat. In truth though, he has a natural gift for public speaking, especially when he isn't reading off of a page. He has a way of speaking to people, rather than at them. He didn't bring that gift home with him very often when I was growing up, but there is no denying it's an integral part of his success as a battlestar commander. It's quite clear to me now why this crew has such a strong sense of loyalty and respect for Dad. They know he loves them, and they love him for it.
I may not be very good at speeches, but I think I have done better one-on-one with my pilots. During the funeral service today, I noticed that a few of them were struggling to hold it together. Carrie lost her two best friends yesterday. Morgan is new to Galactica (a refugee from Columbia) but he survived only because two other pilots were standing directly in front of him when the comm drone exploded. The other two pilots both died. Morgan was unscathed. After the funeral, I went to talk to each one of them, separately of course, and they were both reluctant at first to talk to me. With just a little encouragement though, they both opened up and I think it helped them. They both claimed it did anyway.
Kara worries me a little bit too. She's been quiet ever since the accident. Very quiet. And the expression I saw on her face during the funeral... I've seen that expression before. At Zak's funeral. Kara's going to be a tough one though. She's never been one to engage in serious conversations, especially when they're about her. She's meeting with Dad right now. He plans to assign her to the duty of training new Viper pilots. There's no one better qualified, and we certainly need new pilots ASAP. But I can't help wondering if she might find it difficult to transition back into flight instructor mode, especially considering how that phase of her career came to an end. If she has any reservations or doubts though, she may be more likely to address them with Dad than with me. The two of them are far closer than I ever realized before I came here. Sometimes I think she's more like family to him than I am.
I wonder if Dad knows... about Zak that is. I don't think he does. When Kara "confessed her sins" to me back at Ragnar, I know it was the first time she'd ever spoken of it. I really don't think that she's broached the subject at all with him. Surely there would have been some detectable fall-out. He was the one who orchestrated her transfer from flight school to Galactica. If he's the one who is now asking her to go back... how can the subject of what happened to Zak not come up? I think I need to brace myself for potential turbulence over the next few days.
I've actually thought a lot about Zak today myself. The funeral service, the ceremony and protocols, reminded me constantly of the day I buried my little brother. At times it felt like I was reliving that event. Yet most surprising is that, as painful as those memories are, I no longer feel the anger along with them that I once did. I'm not sure what brought about this change over the past two weeks, especially since I've held on tight to that anger for two fraking years. Maybe I've just begun to see my father in a different light. Maybe it's because the loss of my brother no longer makes me unique among my peers. When everyone around me now has actually lost more family than I have, it's difficult to engage in self-pity. Maybe... maybe it's because I realized that even if Zak had listen to me instead of Dad, and pursued a career in engineering instead of flight... I'd probably still be mourning him today. He probably would have been planetside, probably at Picon Fleet Headquarters, when the bombs started falling. Maybe, in the end, it was better that he was spared the horror of that day.
Bottom line is this: I couldn't have saved my brother and Dad couldn't have saved him either.
There. Took me two years, but I've said it. To myself, at least.
Now, how long is it going to take me to say it to my father?