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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XIII – …At the Cost of the Present
"Wait here. The commander will be with you in a minute," the yeoman said, leaving Starbuck standing outside the commander's quarters. She watched as unknown faces marched back and forth through the polished halls. How frakking long has it been since I was on a battlestar other than Galactica she wondered, avoiding the thought that this was something she never expected to do again. She wasn't waiting long before the door opened; Kara's mouth fell open in disbelief. "Frak me…" she muttered, unable to find any other words.
"Excuse me?"
"Lee!" she screamed, leaping into her old friend's arms, clasping her hands together behind his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist, giggling maniacally as he struggled to stay on his feet. "You're alive," she said, her words mostly lost as she pressed her face against his shoulder. "How are you alive?"
"Kara, you're making a scene," Lee replied, grinning broadly.
Kara moved her head from Lee's shoulder and looked at her friend's face; he seemed uncomfortably aware of the attention they were receiving from the crewmen.
"Umm… yeah," she said, slowly placing her feet back on the floor. Once she was out of his arms, Kara slapped him. Hard. "That's for making me think you were dead," she told him, doing her best to stare down the onlookers but knowing the absurd smile still on her face was likely rendering her attempt pointless.
"It's good to see you again, too," Lee said, turning and walking down the hall, momentarily looking back at Kara, as if he expected her to follow.
"I'm supposed to report to the commander for debriefing," Kara explained, shifting her feet anxiously, hoping Lee wouldn't notice how tempted she was to blow off her meeting. "Can we catch up later?"
"We'll catch up now," Lee said with a laugh. Then, in a tone Kara thought eerily reminiscent of Lee's father, he added, "Walk with me."
"But I'm supposed to…" Kara's voice cracked when she noticed the insignia on Lee's collar. "If this is some kind of joke, you better hope the commander doesn't catch you wearing those."
"It's not a joke," Lee assured her. "Walk with me, Captain."
"You know, it figures," Kara said as soon as she fell into step beside Lee.
"What's that?"
"Well, I finally make captain, and you steal my thunder by moving up three grades to commander. How the frak does that happen?"
"Necessity," Lee answered with a shrug.
"Well, necessity and your daddy being the admiral," Kara joked.
"Sure, play the nepotism card if that's what it takes to console your bruised ego."
"Seriously, though – what happened out here, Lee?"
"Pegasus was under the command of Admiral Caine," Lee explained. "Part of that cylon task force we just hit had been slowly trailing Galactica, and Caine had been tracking the cylons. In fact, I'll bet one time we missed running into each other by a matter of hours. But Caine got ahead of them -- it was the Resurrection Ship and two basestars then – and hit the cylons, knowing the odds were against her. She destroyed one basestar and crippled another, but the Resurrection Ship got away, and most of the bridge crew – Caine and her XO included – were killed in the battle. Seems the Resurrection Ship and the crippled basestar made it to LV-426, where they rendezvoused with the three basestars there. That's about the time we showed up."
"At the Pegasus?" Kara asked.
"Yeah. The story Racetrack and the admiral told was almost entirely true. Our Raptor was out there, and we detected all of the signals from the battle. We responded and found Pegasus, which was adrift in space, crippled, its bridge shattered. We went aboard and I organized the remaining officers in C.I.C. while Major Garner took command and tried to get the engines up and running. The cylons showed up before we were ready, and we threw everything we had at them, knowing we weren't going to last long in a fight. Garner somehow got the FTL engines online before we were destroyed, but he died doing it. That basically left me."
"And now what?" Kara asked. "Tigh taking over?"
"No, Pegasus is mine," Lee answered, sounding strangely overwhelmed by the words. "What's left of the officers asked the Admiral to keep me here to take command. He agreed."
"Commander Adama," Kara said with a smile. "Has a familiar ring to it."
"Stop," Lee snapped.
"Fine," Kara relented. "But seriously, why the frak didn't you let me know you were still alive?"
"We had security concerns," Lee explained. "We have to assume there are still cylon agents in the fleet. If the cylons knew that Galactica and Pegasus were in contact--"
"We never would have been able to pull this off," Kara finished for him. "But you realize I'm not a cylon, right?"
"I know," Lee assured her. "And we didn't want to keep it from you – my father, especially – but we decided we had no choice."
"Is that supposed to mean you actually expected me to cry, and you didn't think I could fake it if I knew you were actually alive?" Kara teased.
"No, it's because I was afraid you'd be stupid enough to think people would expect you to cry for me," Lee shot back without missing a beat. "Then you'd turn on the water works, and people would have known you were faking the whole thing and that I must actually be alive somewhere."
"Sure, laugh it up," Kara said, lightly punching Lee's shoulder.
"Striking a superior officer isn't the best way to get ahead in life," Lee chided.
"So Tigh's told me," she countered.
"Anyway, your debriefing," Lee said. "I expect a report by 0800."
"A report?" Starbuck complained. "Are you kidding?"
"Find Lieutenant Collins," Lee added. "He's the acting CAG. Have him check your spelling."
"Smart ass."
"And while you're talking with Collins, I want you to reorganize the pilot assignments," Lee said. "Transfer a few over to Galactica to make sure it has two full squadrons. The rest will stay here; I think we should have almost three full squadrons on Pegasus when you're done."
"Three squadrons?" Starbuck asked.
"With Mark VII's."
"Right… the Viper fabrication facilities," Starbuck said, smacking herself in the forehead for having forgotten about the capabilities of a Mercury-class battlestar. "We planning on building some for Galactica, too?"
"As soon as we can."
"Cool."
"And I was talking with the admiral," Lee continued. "We're officially combining our fighters into a single air group, and you're going to be the CAG."
"The CAG for two battlestars?" Starbuck asked incredulously.
"It's only five squadrons," Lee pointed out. "That's not much more than a single battlestar at full strength. Once we get some more Vipers – and some pilots to fly them – we'll see about promoting someone else, and you'll get transferred to either Pegasus or Galactica. Until then, you'll rotate between the two ships."
"So I'll be under your command?"
"You won't be alone," Lee said. "Doc Cottle's coming over, too. We have a lot of people who've been muddling through with some serious injuries for a few weeks now; the Pegasus's medical staff is beyond overworked, and it's time we give them some help."
"So me and the Doc?"
"And Dee," Lee added. He spoke the name as if she was an afterthought, but Kara knew better. She'd heard the rumors.
"And Dee," she repeated. "I see."
"Pegasus is handling the cargo flights from the surface, and Dee knows the procedures and all of Galactica's pilots," Lee said. "I needed a communications officer, and she's the obvious choice."
"Of course," Starbuck said, stopping in the middle of the hall. She didn't know what pissed her off more – that Lee was lying to her face, making it seem as if he had no personal investment in Dee's transfer, or that he thought she was stupid enough not to realize the truth.
Lee stopped and stared at her, though Kara pointedly ignored everything he was screaming at her through familiar body language.
"Is that all, Sir?" she asked, already looking forward to borrowing a Mark VII and pushing it to its limits in order to burn off her anger.
"It is," Lee snapped, instantly matching her shifting moods. "Make sure I get my report."
"Of course, Commander."
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"Are you still connected to the other cylons?" Admiral Adama asked, staring into the eyes of his cylon prisoner, steeling himself to say what he needed to without letting on how much he was disgusted by some of the threats he was about to make. Don't let her guess that you're bluffing, he told himself.
As he looked at her, he couldn't help but be reminded of his ex-wife after she gave birth to Lee and Zak. Sharon was clearly exhausted, but there was something victorious, something powerful, in her eyes. Even through her pain and fatigue, she was aware of the miracle she had performed earlier that day. Despite his complicated, conflicted emotions regarding the cylon, in that moment Adama couldn't help but be awed by her.
"I'm not connected to them in the way you mean," Sharon answered evasively. Adama was certain she knew exactly what he meant, and that she could have given a straight answer if she – no, it, he reminded himself, chasing away his awe and focusing on the task at hand – had wanted to. He was not surprised that it didn't seem willing to speak plainly.
"I destroyed the Resurrection Ship," Adama said. "The cylons can't be downloaded into new bodies this far from the Colonies anymore. Now when they die, they stay dead."
"I think they know that," Sharon answered. Adama searched for any kind of reaction, any hint of joy, relief, anger or sadness. But there was nothing.
"I have a completely disabled basestar in front of me," Adama announced, reasonably certain that Sharon already knew that much, too. "I also have a weapons depot below. I have two battlestars now, and I just restocked both ships' nuclear and conventional weapons arsenals. I've started arming the civilian ships and training their crews to engage cylon raiders and repel boarding parties. I have all the weapons, ammunition, and fuel I need to keep fighting off your friends for the next couple of years. You make sure they know that."
"They're not my friends," Sharon objected. "And it's not like I can just--"
"Make sure," Adama said in his soothing, grandfatherly tone that brooked no argument and somehow conveyed a threat of violence should he be defied. "All I want is for our people to be left alone. I don't want to see any more cylon raiders. I don't want to see any more basestars. I want the cylon sleeper agents gone. I want the cylons to let us go."
"Even if I could deliver your message, they're not--"
"Yes, they will," Adama said with a confident nod. "The firepower at my disposal is comparable to a full Colonial carrier group. I have all the weapons I need to wage a war, to destroy wave after wave of cylons. And even with all that, I only need a single bullet to kill you."
"What?"
"The next time I see a cylon, I'm going to have the nearest marine put a bullet in your skull," Adama assured her. "And then they'll use a second bullet on your abomination child."
"You wouldn't." Sharon almost succeeded in looking sure of herself, but Adama caught a flicker of doubt. And that was all he needed.
"It's not up to me," he countered. "And it's not up to you. It's up to the cylons. If they want you and your child safe, they'll let us go. Otherwise, the first cylon to die will be you. And then your child and every single frakking cylon attacker will follow. That's the deal. They let us go, and you and your child will be safe. Unless they plan on coming out here in force, with no fewer than five or six basestars, they have no other tactical alternative."
Sharon remained silent, only nodding weakly.
The admiral turned on his heel and walked out, satisfied that for the first time since the cylon attack on the Colonies, the matter of security might no longer be their pressing problem. So now what?
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"Admiral," Gaeta called out as soon as the DRADIS screen updated after the FTL jump. "I'm not picking up anything; they're not here, either."
"What?" Adama said, his eyes immediately locking onto the tactical screens to see for himself. Gaeta was right – there were no contacts anywhere; the fleet was gone.
"Verify our position" Tigh ordered.
"It'll take some time," Gaeta explained. "Navigating in this soup--"
"Just get it done," Tigh snapped.
"Are we picking up any signals?" Adama asked.
"No, Admiral," Specialist Annar – Dualla's replacement – reported. "There's nothing but all the background noise."
"There's no debris," Tigh said under his breath.
Adama nodded, appreciating the fact that there was at least that much good news. He had thought it a stroke of genius to hide the fleet in this massive nebula, knowing it would be next to impossible for the cylons to find the ships unless they knew where in the nebula the human ships were. But the fleet wasn't where the Galactica had left it, and it also wasn't at the emergency jump coordinates. Having trouble finding our own ships after the attack was never part of the plan… or anything we accounted for in our contingencies.
Several minutes passed in tense silence. Gaeta frantically ran astrogation computations based on the few markers he could find in the nebula, hoping that he had correctly identified the young stars within range of their sensors, as everyone else in C.I.C. strained to see something – anything – on the DRADIS screen.
"We're in the right place," Gaeta finally said. "They're just not here, either, Sir."
"Get a signal back to Pegasus," Adama told Tigh. "Tell them what's going on, and get our Raptors back here. "We have to send out ships to find our people."
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"Captain," Major Rutger said, standing at attention, snapping Starbuck a salute as he stood in the doorway of the CAG's office.
"What do you need?" she asked, searching for the perfect way to phrase her report to explain how she'd managed to get herself shot down.
"I came to talk about Ares," the marine answered.
"And?" Starbuck responded, now looking up, abandoning her report for the time being.
"And he won't be coming back," Rutger said.
"Have you spoken with him?"
"No," Rutger admitted.
"Then how do you know he won't be back?"
"I know him, Captain. He was always a coward at heart, anyway, and he didn't expect what he found on the surface."
"And what did he find?" Starbuck asked, remembering Ares' reaction when he held the unknown cylon at gunpoint.
"Let's just say that wasn't an unfamiliar face," Rutger replied evasively. "I'm not certain it's something he'd like me talking about."
"Doesn't seem he's here to object."
"All the same," Rutger said, "I just thought you should know that he won't be back. I know you have CAP schedules to figure out."
"And why didn't you fire?" Starbuck asked, remembering Rutger backing down in the face of the lone cylon.
"Excuse me?" Rutger asked, looking shocked that the question was even being asked.
"Why didn't you fire on that cylon?"
"It seemed willing to let us leave," Rutger explained. "In case you forgot, we were standing in between two tall rows of stacked ammunition crates. Both of us – you and me. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to duck for cover. I saw no reason to start shooting if it was possible to get out alive."
"You seriously expect me to believe that?" Starbuck asked, noticing Rutger moving toward the door.
"I don't care what you believe," Rutger replied angrily. "I'm a marine, not a pilot – I don't answer to you, and I don't know that there's anything more to say. I have dozens of marines to schedule for cargo runs – I have to go."
"Of course," Starbuck said. Once Rutger had gone, she couldn't help but consider the possibilities. So Ares recognized that cylon, she thought. And he was in Special Forces before the war. Who'd that cylon been when Ares knew him? Where did Ares meet him? And does it have anything to do with the attack? She briefly considered the possibility that maybe Ares knew someone who'd been responsible for the cylons' success in circumventing the Command Navigation Program, that maybe he felt responsible for everything that had happened.
No, she decided, disregarding that possibility. If there was someone stupid enough to help the cylons like that, they would have killed him. They wouldn't have left him alive to be found and interrogated.
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"You needed to see me, Commander?" Dee asked as soon as Lee opened his door.
"Yes, come on in," he said.
Dee walked in, an eager look on her face, and closed the door behind her. "I was hoping I'd get to see you tonight," she purred, wrapping her arms around his neck, gently kissing his earlobe.
"You're being transferred back to Galactica," Lee blurted out. Dee drew back and stared at him, looking as if he'd slapped her in the face. "New orders just came through," he explained.
"I'm being transferred?" she asked in disbelief. "I just got here. I haven't even unpacked yet."
"It's only temporary," Lee assured her.
"Sure it is."
"Not that I need to explain your orders, but there's an emergency situation," Lee snapped, his voice holding a sharp edge that he found he was quite happy to hear. "This isn't about us."
"Okay," Dee relented immediately.
"The fleet's missing," Lee explained, instantly willing to share the situation once Dualla had backed down. He tried not to wonder too much about what that fact said about him. "The admiral is afraid that they may have been attacked, that maybe some of the ships escaped and are hiding. You're on a first-name basis with every ship's communications officers; the admiral wants you on the wireless to talk to anyone we might find, to make sure they know they're not being tricked into revealing their location."
"And to make sure of the same thing for us."
"Yes," Lee admitted. "No one on Pegasus knows about this, yet, so don't go spreading it around."
"Of course not," Dee responded.
"Pegasus is going to stay here and finish loading weapons and cargo, and then we'll rendezvous with Galactica."
"And everything's okay with us?" Dee asked.
"Of course," Lee assured her. "I asked the admiral to send you back when he's done with you, and he agreed."
"And what did you tell him?" Dee asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't he wonder why you were so eager to have me over here?" Dee teased, leaning in against Lee and going back to work on his ear.
"He offered me some of his staff, since Pegasus's crew lost so many people during Cain's attack," Lee explained. "I chose you and Starbuck, and the admiral didn't question that in any way. I'm a commander now – having my dad stop questioning my every decision is one of the perks."
"Along with the nice big room to yourself," Dee added.
"Yes, there is that, too," Lee admitted, lifting Dee in his arms and carrying her over to his bed.
To be continued……………………………