"You really don't know where Earth is?"
Why was he surprised? Lords, the way the last few days had been going, it was no fracking wonder that the only men from Earth that Starbuck knew of, other than the Silent One, who had turned out to be one of their team anyway, would have no clue how far away Earth was. Not only that, but Dayton had also pointed out that in addition to their relocation through the wormhole, there could have also been a time disturbance. Earth could either be yahrens ahead or behind of when they had left in the year of their Lord, 2010.
"Yes. Difficult to believe, isn't it?" Dayton replied. Had things changed significantly since they had left? Who was to know what technological advances could have been made in thirty years? Did it even matter? Hell, if the Colonials ended up on Earth's doorstep, and mankind wasn't up to the task, it could mean the end for them all. Maybe he shouldn't be so keen to help these people . . . His wife, his children, maybe even his grandchildren . . . all wiped out because he wanted to go home . . .
Starbuck simply shook his head in return. It essentially meant that they could study Earth, and learn about her culture, history, people . . . but . . . the burning question, the answer that every pragmatic person in the Fleet sought—were the people of Earth technologically advanced enough to help in their fight against the Cylons—Dayton couldn't truthfully answer. From the look of Dayton's ship, and what he'd told Starbuck about the Earth he'd left, it did not seem so.
Earth. It had been the symbol of hope for so many people for so long. That carrot at the end of the proverbial stick that kept them going day in, day out. What if their arrival at their final destination only resulted in disaster for the people of Earth? Would the addition of the Pegasus make a difference? She had facilitated the escape for the Fleet in the incident at Gamoray, but it was hardly a decisive military victory. And with Cain at the helm of the Pegasus running his own show, the strength of two Battlestars had been a moot point. What was the Commander thinking staying out of sight, and not letting Adama in on his little secret? Hades, Starbuck was beginning to wonder if doing things his own way was more important to the Juggernaut than his people's ultimate survival. Maybe they had misjudged Cain. Perhaps the pedestal that his people had designed for the great Commander was a bit too lofty.
"Frack . . . " A busy day yesterday, a night with little sleep, and another eventful day starting with an unconscious Strike Captain, and culminating in instruments of pirate torture and manual labour. Hades, did he even have anything to eat that morning before patrol? Generally he started his day with a large java or two, but not invariably. His memory seemed hazy around the edges and the dourness of the situation along with the exhaustion hit him as if the artificial gravity had suddenly increased twofold. He blinked as his vision gradually blurred until all his could focus on was the miniscule point of sharpness in the middle of . . .
"Sit down, Lieutenant." Dayton reached out, gripping Starbuck's arm, as the warrior seemed to weave. He guided the pale man to the nearest cot. "Put your head between your knees." He pushed Starbuck into position.
"You okay, Bucko?" Dorado asked, kneeling down on his other side. "Did you eat anything since you arrived?"
"Waiting . . . for the midnight buffet to open." Starbuck grimaced as the thought of putting any more koivee in his mouth turned his already unsettled stomach. There wasn't enough room in there for the aptly named rotting root and an Obediator.
"You're okay." Dorado answered for him, more for Dayton's benefit when he heard the trademark quip. He tried to thrust a roasted piece of root into his friend's reluctant hand. "Eat it. You need to keep your energy up. Koivee has a high sugar content and a complex long-chain carbohydrate density. At least it's good for that, if nothing else."
"Let me check the stomach first, Dorado." Dayton instructed him, pushing Starbuck's shoulders back until he was supine on the cot. He pulled up the lieutenant's shirt, revealing the small wound left by the Obediator's insertion. Old blood and dirt were smeared around the inflamed wound, but the serosanguinous exudate seemed to be slowing. He palpated the abdomen, relieved when a slight grimace was the only response. Dayton had seen more than one man die only days after the Obediator's insertion, when peritonitis had set in. Then there were others, like Rooke, who had simply wasted away over a couple months. "Looks okay."
Starbuck peered down at the seeping wound as he propped himself up on his elbows. He quickly averted his eyes, not fond of suddenly having a window to his abdominal cavity. Fortunately, his regular inoculations had immunized him to a wide range of infectious agents. He hoped his immune system recognized any germs as similar enough. "Is there a doctor in the group?"
"Several, but I don't think you need one. It should heal fine." Dayton told him with a rueful smile. Not one of the doctorates was in medicine, but then that wasn't what the man had asked. "What you need is nourishment, Lieutenant."
"Right." He agreed dubiously. "But first, tell me something. Who are these guys? I mean we're from the Colonies. You're from Earth. What about them?"
"I could probably answer that as well as Dayton, Bucko. Believe me, we've discussed it extensively." Dorado shrugged once again thrusting the roasted root into the warrior's hand. "Eat it. After I see you take a bite, then I'll answer your question."
"I'm not six-yahrens-old, Dorado." Starbuck protested, looking with disgust at the grey, swollen, moist koivee that reminded him of a piece of rotting flesh.
"Then stop acting like you are. Eat it. That's an order."
"An order?" Starbuck raised an eyebrow as he looked at his friend. All indications of rank were long gone from the bedraggled uniform.
"Congratulate me. I'm a captain now. Eat it, Lieutenant."
"You're a Captain?" Starbuck grinned. "The pickings must have been slim, buddy."
"Actually, I believe we all outrank you here, Lieutenant. Eat the koivee." Dayton said pointedly.
"Call me Starbuck."
"Eat the damn koivee, Starbuck." Dayton repeated.
Starbuck blew out a deep breath before putting the root in his mouth. With his teeth, he scraped the flesh from the fibers as he had seen the others do. The moisture hitting his tongue would have been blissful had the root not smelled like Giles' locker in the Fitness Center. He couldn't help but screw up his face as a shiver of revulsion ran through him. "Frack, that's awful," but he swallowed it regardless, knowing his blood sugar level was in his boots . . . correction, his former boots.
The others laughed as they looked on. "It'll grow on you. You're just not hungry enough yet." Dayton told him.
"I'm not sure I ever will be." He smiled wanly as he took another bite. At least it was easing his thirst. He looked to Dorado and Dayton. "Well?"
Dayton nodded. "From what I've pieced together—and remember, their history is a bit sketchy—they say they were part of a group of explorers that headed out from their Mother World—no one seems to remember its name—to find a new planet to settle. Along the way a group of scientists decided to settle the asteroid belt instead, partially because they were weary of the long voyage, and partially because they believed the existing natural resources could sustain them in what everyone else would consider an inhospitable environment."
"They wanted a challenge?" Starbuck asked.
"I suspect that among this group, several must have specialized in survival in hostile environments, as well as the refinement of ores and the conversion and creation of energy systems. A man with a passion will endure the worst of situations to realize his dream."
"Sounds like you just summed up your own situation." Starbuck suggested.
"Perhaps." Dayton looked to Dorado to continue.
"Well, it turns out they were wrong. Oh, the bare necessities are here all right, but man generally doesn't want to merely exist, at least not in the long term, they want to flourish. Perhaps if it had only been the core group of scientists, they would have been content to continue on, but the settlers they brought with them wanted more. It wasn't long before they started sending out small patrols to look to supplement their meager lifestyles."
"Piracy." Ryan, who had been silent up until now, inserted. "It became the way of life. No matter the race, as long as they could scavenge anything usable. Prisoners were used to harvest the koivee, and mine the ore. Much like today."
Starbuck looked to Ryan with a frown, and then at the group as a whole. "Your Standard is improving by the micron."
Ryan grinned in response. "As is your articulation." And then, "What is a micron?"
"About a second." Dayton translated. "I believe the actual transformation of settlers to pirates would have occurred over generations."
"Too bad the food never got any better." Starbuck mentioned.
"You'll adapt." Dayton told him.
"The frack I will!" said Starbuck. "I have no intention of slaving for these astrumoids, in between torture sessions."
"We have little choice" explained Dayton.
Starbuck ignored that, looking to Dorado. "Do you still have the knife?"
"Of course." Dorado pulled the knife from his sleeve, where he had secured it with koivee fiber to his arm. "It sure peels the koivee a lot easier than a stone does."
"Peels the koivee?" Starbuck groaned. Even if the food was terrible, Dorado was evidently still a slave to his stomach. "That wasn't quite what I had in mind."
"Just what are you thinking, Starbuck?" Dorado asked, suddenly getting a bad feeling about that familiar glint in his friend's eye. The crazy look. He remembered that look from the Academy. It always boded poorly.
"Cut that thing out of me."
----------
Three little words. Three wonderful words.
"It's not Starbuck."
It had been like losing Zac all over again, maybe even worse. After all, as much as Apollo loved his little brother, he had spent enough yahrens away from home in his early career that Zac had almost seemed like a stranger to him when they had reunited aboard the Galactica before the Destruction. Seldom had the family managed to arrange furloughs at the same time, and Adama was reluctant to pull rank, never being one who put his own needs before those under his command. Though Apollo knew his mother, Ila, had berated the Commander often enough for just that, feeling she deserved to be reunited with her entire family more than once every two or three yahrens.
Starbuck, on the other hand, had turned into one of his best friends at the Academy. They had learned a lot about one another in his last yahren when Starbuck had ended up discovering a smuggling operation lead by the Academy's executive officer, establishing the basis for a strong and enduring friendship. Apollo graduated, going on to become a decorated pilot. Starbuck stayed for his final yahren, furthering his cadet training on various ships. They'd lost touch. Then, when they had both been assigned to the same Battlestar yahrens later, it had been like old home secton. Starbuck hadn't changed a bit.
There were few people that Apollo could truthfully say he could read like a book, but Starbuck was the exception. Not that he claimed to always get it right, but he wasn't far off. And Starbuck sure as Hades let him know if he was.
"The Viper was assigned to the Battlecruiser Cygnus, which was assumed destroyed at Molecay. Either that isn't true, or . . . " Adama informed his son.
"Or it was one of the fighters that the Pegasus picked up at Molecay before heading into deep space." Apollo finished. He smiled at the way Bojay's face lit up like the skies of Caprica during Festival.
"We picked up a couple warriors from the Cygnus, Commander. Lieutenant Helis and Ensign Szabo. Helis was killed about a yahren ago in a skirmish over Gamoray, but Szabo was actually laid up recovering from a nasty head injury when Commander Cain ordered our squadrons to the Galactica. He was a bit superstitious about always flying the same ship, especially after limping away from Molecay in her. As you probably realize, Sir, he wasn't among those that transferred over from our Life Station." Bojay explained.
"Dr. Paye is checking his records to attempt to identify the remains." Colonel Tigh interjected. "But tell me; if Cain ordered all the wounded to evacuate to the Fleet when he headed out to take on Baltar's Task Force, why did Szabo remain?"
"I'm not sure, Colonel. I heard rumours of a few that refused to leave him, no matter what. I wasn't in that position with Cassiopeia standing guard, as you might imagine." He smiled ruefully at his memory of the med tech's single-minded determination that he would survive. "Sazbo's ship was down with battle damage. He was from an odd sect; one descended from the ancient knights. They believed that a Colonial Warrior and his sword must never be separated. To do so was bad luck. In the modern age," Bojay shrugged, "it was a warrior and his Viper. That's my guess, anyway."
"Well, in some small way, Ensign Szabo has done us a service," said Adama, "even in death. We now know that the Pegasus survived."
Bojay nodded, musing over the new information. "So Cain made it. He really made it." Bojay was torn between tremendous happiness that his base ship was still out there in one piece, and the loss of yet one more Silver Spar pilot . . . but he had thought all them lost not long ago. "Have you told Sheba, Commander?"
"No. I only just . . ."
"Told me what?" Sheba asked as she entered the War Room on the tail end of the conversation. Apollo and Bojay were both grinning at her inanely. Not exactly their usual pose. They looked like they'd been hanging out with Starbuck. Drinking. "What's going on?"
Adama smiled warmly at the warrior. "Sheba, the Viper we found isn't Starbuck's. In fact, it's from the Pegasus. Your father is still out there somewhere."
Sheba, despite the outward show of hope and apparent refusal to accept the obvious, had, deep inside, given up hope long ago. She'd never forget the kindness of Adama, Apollo and Starbuck, as they stood around her biostretcher that fateful day trying to buoy her spirits when Cain had disappeared amid the spectacular fireworks of one Colonial Battlestar taking on three Cylons Base Ships. But even as they tried valiantly to make her believe that the Juggernaut had once again achieved the impossible, she felt in her heart that she had seen the last of the Living Legend.
Cain had raised his beloved daughter to be many things, one of which was a realist. Her career had only ingrained the lessons that her father had begun. There was no way the Pegasus could have survived, despite all the honey-coated words of Count Iblis to the contrary. She had poured over every conceivable possibility in her mind, in the darkness, when sleep refused to come. Her father was dead. The Pegasus destroyed.
Her knees buckled.
Apollo reacted lightening quick, reaching for her as she started to slump to the floor. He was simply too far away, and ended up on his own knees, facing her as she kneeled before him in shock. "Sheba?"
She stared at him, her brown eyes pooling with tears, shaking her head in denial. Even as Apollo brushed her hair back from her face, and smiled at her with that compassion and understanding that she had come to love, she still had trouble accepting the announcement as the truth. She had steeled herself to accept Cain's demise and to move forward, and here they were telling her that he was back.
"Alive?"
It was but a whisper.
----------
"Are we getting anywhere?" Boomer asked Reece, as the Security Officer left the interrogation room and closed the door.
Reece let out a deep sigh. "I'm not. Kaden is one cool customer, Lieutenant. He says they went over to the Malocchio to procure some Empyrean Ale from the Tankard. Apparently, the owner has a bit of a side business in off-sales." He made a mental note wondering if he could use that detail against the owner to barter for information. After all, off-sales from unregulated liquor distribution centers were against existing code. Not because the Commander or the Council had anything against a bit of the old home brew, but because some of the stuff that had surfaced was downright lethal. "What about Corporal Komma's work with Oriana's computer?"
"He said a prayer over the hard drive before he even looked at it." The line was delivered with the most solemn of expressions.
"You're kidding me."
"I wish." Boomer replied. "Doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."
"Where are Lia and Ama?" Reece asked. He had actually been relieved that the Empyrean Necromancer had departed. The woman intimidated the heck out of him for no good reason.
"Back on the Malocchio. They're checking in with the Imperial Guard to see how the search is going."
"Castor is liaising with Kella. They'll go over that Freighter with a fine tooth comb." Reece assured the lieutenant.
"That's great, providing Luana's still there."
"You don't think she is?"
"No idea." Boomer glanced at his chrono. Apollo hadn't been gone that long, but still it was long enough to know whether or not the body was Starbuck's. Hopefully, he would hear something soon. In the meantime, he needed to find his buddy's betrothed. "I just feel like we're. . . doing nothing!" There was absolutely nothing he could do to affect the outcome of Starbuck's fate right now, but the situation with Luana was different. They could make a difference. Two men who likely knew exactly where she was were in separate interrogation rooms right now playing innocent. There had to be some way to get around that, short of holding a blaster to their temples and threatening to incinerate them.
The door to the second interrogation room opened and a blasé looking Willem came out, shutting it behind him. He looked to Reece immediately. "Anything?"
"No. He's tighter than a fossilized mollusk. You?"
"He knows something. He's nervous. Won't crack though. Not for me." Will looked over at Boomer who was as tense as a cadet on his first solo flight. "I have an idea though. Maybe the lieutenant here can help. If he's up to the task?" He quirked an eyebrow in the warrior's direction.
"Tell me what's on your mind. I'm willing to try just about anything." Boomer replied with interest.