Epically awful, that's how he would describe his day. It was bad enough that he hated feeling like he had let Jake down with his inability to protect his new brother from harm, but then there was the fight with Pallus and his less than stellar behavior in front of the boys. Even more disastrous was feeling like he had betrayed and abandoned Rene as the Commander coerced her into divulging her secrets followed closely by finding out the Cylons were on their tail.

And just to make sure he lived up to his reputation as the man who could really screw things up, he thought he was going to end that cluster frak of a day with a long range recon with a man who had threatened his wife and family. Lords, he was truly delusional.

It was hard for him to believe that he'd left Rene to calm down Lizbet and the kids while he followed Crius down the corridor away from their quarters. His only thought had been, "How do I get myself into these messes? Everyone said marriage was hard. Man, they weren't kidding."

He sighed deeply as he glanced at his new wing mate sprinting ahead of him towards the bridge. Crius was panicked and Starbuck began to understand why Rene thought the air refresher systems on the Galactica weren't working properly. He'd been told by his old flight instructor that panic made your brain crave more oxygen. In the heat of battle, and especially when dealing with a damaged viper, you had to consciously slow down your breathing, or you could literally suck your life systems dry.

He'd tried to follow his old flight instructor's advice, taking a deep breath while the soft voice in his head, the one he'd started hearing while on Caprica, whispered in his mind, "This is what life is like for the Rats, one crisis after another. They are not doing as well as you think they are."

He didn't know why he thought that he had the power to do anything to fix the situation created long ago on the Zakar and now spilling over to the Galactica. He just knew that no one he cared about should fly with Pallus, probably not even himself. He had fixated on the fact that if he couldn't change things, well he had friends who could.

"There's always a solution. You just have to find it," the voice that sounded like Apollo whispered in his head. He spun around to head for the launch bay instead of the bridge. The newly promoted Colonel of the Zakar could have changed things for him, but he'd also reasoned that his friend might just say "I told you not to rush into sealing with Rene. It's just your first day and this is how it begins?"

At the thought, Starbuck chided himself, "Knock it off. You're becoming as dramatic as the Rats. You've been married for more than a few days and it is just a patrol with a bad pairing of pilots. Easy to fix. Plus, it could be worse."

Why did he have to challenge the Lords like that?

Sure the day was bad, but there wasn't a red alert, and he still had the hope that like the time before, they had found the Cylons first and could take them by surprise. He extended his wishful thinking and reasoned that fleet security might be right, Jake and Nik were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Think positive. Lead by example," he reminded himself.

He called out to halt Crius' frantic steps. "Give me a centon. I need to think about how to do this right."

His wing mate had paused and not questioned him, unless you counted his beseeching gaze and rocking on the balls of his feet. Starbuck had appraised his wing mate, recognizing that Crius had lived his life for the four yahrens prior to finding the Galactica by going from one calamity to another. The man had saved his friends and family from unspeakable abuses each day and had still kept it together. If Crius could do that, Starbuck could hold it together and think his way through the problem.

But seeing Lizbet fall apart so easily had unnerved him. Sure, she was shy and anxious on good days, but having a full blown melt down wasn't like her and it had riled up all the kids. Nearly everyone in the Copper Squadron depended on Lizbet more than anyone else to watch their kids. She was good at keeping the little ones organized and feeling safe. "Should they be doing that, relying on her?" he wondered, wishing that he'd followed up on the suggestion that more than just Rene needed psych evaluations.

But he'd been focused on the immediate problem, not on the whole situation. Changing the recon patrol would be a fight. Omega was a stickler for posted orders and schedules. Trades, even mutually agreed swaps, were never approved when the man was in charge. He couldn't blame the guy, not with the knowledge that the last schedule change Omega had approved came back to explode in his face, literally. It had led to Zac's death and the beginning of the end of their worlds.

His breath caught the way it always did when Zac's death and his part in it ambushed him like the ghost in a bad horror vid. He'd been unable to save the kid, in fact worse than that. The red alert and cylon attack had taken him a quadrant away to face innumerable odds while his own Battlestar flew away. It was in defeat they had finally gone looking for somewhere to refuel and luckily found the Galactica. In a viper with a throttle stuck on full, he'd barrelled into the landing bay, his anger even hotter than his turbos. It had taken Athena several tries to get through to him about what had really happened. The nightmare didn't become reality until he'd made it to the bridge.

Compared to the panicked frenzy of battle, the bridge had been muted chaos. Hands were in motion, words were being spoken, but the faces of the officers were death masks of shock. In the center of the silent storm, the commander was professional and calm. Starbuck suspected that quality alone had saved what was left of humanity. When Adama turned to acknowledge his presence on the bridge, the man's eyes were filled with anguish driving home the truth of Athena's words. Starbuck looked away, and as luck would have it, his gaze had landed upon Omega. The then Lt. Colonel had met his eyes with a look of reproach, that quickly morphed into deep remorse as the man's shoulders sagged. Starbuck had heard the phrase, "the weight of the guilt is the weight of the world" in an old poem they all had to learn at the academy, but he hadn't understood the meaning until that moment.

In a weird way, knowing that Omega blamed himself more than anyone else for the death of the commander's youngest son made it easier for Starbuck to shoulder his own regrets. Zac and Apollo's patrol should have been boring, a mere formality to maintain some sense of normalcy while the fleet prepared for peace. Omega had given the approval for the inexperienced pilot to fly with Apollo before the Captain knew the switch had been made. No one thought they would be in any danger.

But since that fated patrol, not a single schedule change had been approved by Omega unless a pilot was dead or close to it in the Life Center. Most pilots knew they had to take up any swaps or shifts in rotation with the Strike Wing Captain. In the past that would be Apollo, and he usually told you to jump the chain of command and talk to Colonel Tigh. While the Colonel could be strict, as a former viper pilot, he also understood that Pilots knew better than anyone else if they were able to fly and how a roster could be rotated.

The problem was, at the time Tigh wasn't assigned to the Galactica. With the addition of Dante's fleet, everything had changed, and Starbuck had been too busy with his new family to work out how to use the kinks in the chain of command to work in his benefit. He'd been focused on his own changes and hadn't kept up with his fellow pilots in the other squadrons. Despite what many of his friends thought, he would actually follow the chain of command for a recon change and start with the Strike Wing Captain, only there wasn't one as Starbuck's promotion hadn't been announced, not yet. Even after his promotion, he couldn't just change the roster without repercussions. The next step would have been the Officer of the Day on the Bridge. Since the destruction that would be Omega, so they would just skip that step and jump to the Colonel, but with the changes, Omega was the Colonel and they lacked an OD.

Heaving another sigh, Starbuck had taken a step towards the flight deck. Launching to the Zakar seemed his only option as he suspected if he jumped over Omega's head and went straight to Adama, it could ruin a perfectly good working relationship in the future making his own promotion pointless.

He paused and ran over his reasons as to why the recon rotation should be changed. His logic was flimsy at best, so Starbuck formed a better plan of attack. He looked to his wing mate, grasping that Crius had spent the last sectars keeping a keen eye on the duty roster, making sure the Rats avoided interactions with any of Dante's old lackeys.

"Is Gage on duty?"

"I don't think so. It was Omega that went off on me about teamwork. I was too busy wrangling with him to notice."

Starbuck nodded, figuring out the command rotation from Crius's words and his recent run in with the Colonel on the Zakar and turned back to the living quarters for Command. He didn't need to go far, just a compartment away from the Commander. Pressing the door signal long and hard, he calculated the time from when Gage stopped Starbuck's fight with Pallus that the Colonel should be right in the middle of sleep cycle. Starbuck punched the button in several quick successions, the code for an emergency, before pressing it long and hard again.

When he finally answered, Gage was shirtless, his pants and boots on and the shirt was in his hand. "What now? I told you to go home."

"I need a favor, and you owe me for what happened at the sealing." Starbuck spoke without preamble. Gage's look of surprise, followed by suspicion slowed Starbuck down for a micron, but he practically heard Crius's pounding heart as the man shifted on the balls of his feet, just barely containing himself. "I need to change up the recon roster, and you owe me."

Gage stepped back, gesturing for the two men to enter his office. "I thought I told you to stay home with the kids. We've started the investigation and Adama was clear you are not to be a part of the investigation. Besides, they think they've found someone responsible."

"Who is it?"

Gage shook his head, "Some guy named Zethus. Don't think you would know him, but he has a record and we found Jake's coin pouch on him."

"So they still think it was just a robbery? You know it was more than that right?"

Gage was about to speak, but Starbuck held up his hand stopping him. "We can deal with that later. This is about something else," Starbuck reached out a hand to steady Crius before his wing mate could take the step into the room. "I'm taking Pallus's place on the recon."

"The recon? That's been delegated to the Zakar. That's not my decision. That's your buddy Apollo's concern, not mine," Gage said while taking a good look at Crius. "What's happened now? Get in here so we can talk."

Starbuck hesitated, but Gage reached out for Crius, dragging the two of them in tandem and waited for the door to close.

"Look, about the sealing," Gage started, "I should have stayed out of it and I'm sorry. I just wasn't thinking straight and I…"

Starbuck had cut him off before the man could make any confessions that frankly Starbuck didn't want to hear. Rene had a complicated past with the Colonel, hades with everyone she considered family, and at that moment Starbuck hadn't wanted to contemplate where he himself might fit into the maze of entanglements if his marriage took a wrong turn and crashed and burned.

He cut off Gage, not wanting to rehash the man's complicated feelings, still focused on the immediate problem.

"They've got Pallus flying with Crius. Easy fix, I'm Crius' wing mate and Pallus is attached to the Zakar. I'm taking the patrol. You just need to log it, got it?"

Gage jerked back at Starbuck's insolent tone before straightening. "That's 'sir' to you, got it? And you're not cleared for flying."

Starbuck clenched his teeth before nearly snarling, "Yes I am and, sir, you are going to change that roster. If you won't take Pallus off the recon, then I'm taking Crius off and going in his place. Crius is ill, isn't that right, Lieutenant?"

"You getting killed doesn't solve anything!" Crius snapped at him.

"What is going on?" Gage shifted from Starbuck to Crius. "Besides Starbuck attempting to take Pallus's head off?" Starbuck was about to say something sarcastic, but Gage held up his hand stalling him. "We checked his logs. He was where he was supposed to be the whole patrol. He didn't attack Jake."

"This isn't about that. It's about changing a roster," Starbuck lied attempting to remain calm.

Gage shook his head. "And you came to me? Why? I don't control that. I don't control anything. You have more power than I do, and that's not saying much."

"You can just sign off on it. You're a Colonel for Sagan's sake," Starbuck huffed in exasperation wishing he had followed his gut and launched for the Zakar again and spoken to Apollo, but then again, even his buddy hadn't seemed to grasp the power of his rank. "I thought you cared about the Rats or was it just Rene?"

Gage winced and looked away, avoiding the topic altogether as he answered, "My rank doesn't get me very far here. I'm never left alone on the bridge and all my decisions are second guessed. It's almost like they don't trust me. Huh, I wonder why that is? Could it be requests like this?" Gage's sarcasm was uncharacteristic. Starbuck had thought the Colonel enjoyed being in the fleet, but once again he had misjudged the situation.

"For the love of Hades," Starbuck cursed under his breath. He didn't have the time to get everyone into therapy. "I just want to change a recon rotation and you more than anyone else should understand why. I'm not asking you to do anything above your paygrade."

Gage crossed his arms and fixed a stern glare on his face while Starbuck did the same. Who knew how long that staring contest would have lasted if the lights hadn't shifted to red and the klaxon blared.

"Frak!" Cursing, he turned to grab Crius and sprinted down the corridor to catch the battle transports that were the fastest way to the launch bay.

Crius tried to ask him questions as they ran, but Starbuck didn't have answers. He too thought that the enemy had been out of range, but it was a full alert and that meant the attacking force had to be large.

He was in his cockpit situating his helmet so it was more comfortable as he lowered his canopy and gave the thumbs up back to the deck crew before he realized the crewman helping him was Rene. She was patting his canopy, the final check that the seal was good, before she hopped down to prep his viper for launch.

He wished that he'd taken the time to notice it was his wife that was prepping him for battle. It would have completed the heroic fantasy he was deluding himself with, the kiss by the maiden before he faced insurmountable odds. It could be the magic that would tip the battle in their favor, helping him feel like he was invincible. Or at the very least, one last kiss before meeting his maker.

But his canopy was sealed, the fuel lines detached, and the command to launch issued while Rene turned away to prep the next pilot. Nothing had changed in his yahrens as a viper pilot, at least not once the stick was in his hand. They were warriors and they did their jobs, as automatic as the Cylons.

He'd launched and formed up his squadron. It wasn't until he reached for the long range telemetry that he noticed Rene had wedged a holo between his screen and his gyroscope. It was the shot of him holding Kalea in one arm, Leia in the other, Lara hanging onto him and Jason and Cain with their arms around him. His breath caught at the sight of it and he damn near turned his viper back to the Galactica. The desire to keep them safe was stronger than anything he had ever felt before.

Swallowing it down, he took the holo from its place and shoved it into his jacket. When he first saw that holo placed there by his wife, the weight of keeping his family safe, and knowing that he would willingly die doing it, added too many G forces to his viper. But tucked safely next to his heart, surprisingly it had the opposite effect, making him feel lighter. He had several reasons to fight, to live and to return like the hero should.

"Alright Bucko, that's enough with the self-pity," he said aloud to no one.

He cleared his head and put himself in the moment, with his squadrons around him, the old one Blue and his new one Copper. He took command and requested coordinates for the attack as it was not evident to the naked eye through his canopy or on his scanners. The vicinity was clear and the Galactica waited for every single viper to launch from each warship before Omega's voice issued the recall across the comms.

As the Captain, he was one of the last ones in. It was Jenny that helped him in the landing bay, but he still found himself looking for Rene knowing full well that it was different crews for the launching versus landing. He tossed his helmet to Jenny, the question on his lips when she answered.

"It was a drill. It didn't go well. They want you in the briefing room."

Not knowing if he should curse or laugh in relief, he thanked her and headed for the briefing that was sure to be long and unproductive. By the time he arrived, all of the other officers had assembled. He slumped into a seat as the numbers were rattled off. It had taken nearly thirty centons to get all the pilots assembled and the vipers launched. The only other time the numbers had been this bad was when half the pilots were too hungover to fly after Iblis' epic party.

"And this drill was in the middle of a day cycle. If this were a real attack to occur during a sleep period, well we might as well all say our prayers for the last time and crawl under the covers." Adama's words stung deeply, because they were accurate.

The briefing dragged as Starbuck's promotion was announced and his first task was to answer for the squadron's poor performance. No one cheered his announcement that he was setting up trainings and more drills.

It was centaurs later before he was done. His boots dragged as he headed for his quarters, knowing more paperwork would be waiting for him when he reported for duty in the morning.

"Worst day ever," he thought as he entered his dimly lit quarters and tossed his jacket on the sofa.

"Tell me about it," Jake had muttered from under a blanket on the couch, shoving Starbuck's jacket to the floor. "You're supposed to knock."

In all the commotion, Starbuck had forgotten that it was his own suggestion that Jake stay with them.

"It's my quarters and I shouldn't be interrupting anything that involves you," he groused as he collapsed into a chair checking his chrono. It was late and the only thing that had gone right was that neither he nor Crius joined Pallus on that long range recon.

"How are you doing?" Jake asked with bleary eyes.

"I should be asking you, you're the one who got beat up. Where's Rene and the kids?"

Jake nodded a head toward the kitchen. "I made her get something to eat. Lizbet and the boys have the girls."

Starbuck nodded, glad there had been someone there for Rene while he was tied up with briefings. "They think they found one of the guys who attacked you. I'll check in the morning."

Jake had just grunted to him, and Starbuck had grunted back, thankful for the progress the two had made. He was too tired to deal with any Rat minefields tonight.

"Saved you dinner," Rene said poking her head out from the kitchen, coming out with a plate full of grilled protein and fresh greens.

It had turned his day around, the warmth of coming home from a bad day to find the ones you loved waiting on you. The food had been some of the best he'd ever eaten even though it was just reheated leftovers. It had been served by his beautiful wife, glowing with the child she carried, his child. She had set the plate down on the table and come to him, wrapping her arms around him. He'd pulled her into his lap and the problems of the day melted away as he leaned down to kiss her.

He could feel the warmth of her lips on his and held onto the memory of the simple pleasure of coming home after a long day. She'd made him eat, as she and Jake talked around him of the coming changes, what needed to be packed for their move, what quarters would be needed and how things should be arranged. It was banal conversation, and lords he needed. They had discussed Cain and his entering the training, and when Jason might begin his own, not as a pilot, but perhaps a bridge officer, or mechanic.

After he was done, Rene took his hand and helping him get ready for bed, tucking him in almost like a child before joining him, curling up in his arms as Jake put out the light, mumbling, "Thanks for letting me stay."

"Anytime brother," he said. "Tomorrow will be better."