Another Way
Chapter 8: Twilight
Some days, it just did not pay to get out of bed, Cally mused as she fished for two rags from the laundry bin. One she spread on the floor and stepped on. Once balanced, she undid the zipper of her coveralls and let the sodden material slap wetly against itself as she sloughed off the bright orange safety gear. The other rag, the smaller of the two she wrapped around her hand, fingers to wrist. Once 'gloved', she opened her locker. The last thing she wanted to do was re-clean her hands after getting cleaned up. Why she ever let the Chief talk her into training some washed-out nugget into being a Raptor Repair Specialist, was beyond her. No, that was not true, she chided herself. He asked with that half-pleading-half-sheepish grin of his and she said, 'yes', before she could say no. Now, courtesy of 'Mr. I've Got This I Know What I Am Doing', she ended up on the receiving end of an out of control, pressurized coolant hose and wound up being sprayed with the thick, viscous fluid from head to heel. Banishing the trainee – who had the gall to laugh at her as her hands struggled to get a firm grip on the whip-like line – to the launch tubes with orders to give the tracks a thorough scrubbing and re-lubrication; she gave Tyrol an unabashed look of contempt and stomped off the deck. Like she wasn't dirty enough already at the end of a shift, now she had to contend with leaving smears of coolant trailing from the hanger deck to her quarters.
Still using the rag as a barrier between her grit, grime, grease and coolant covered hands and her personal belongings, she grabbed everything she would need for a much needed shower and headed towards the Enlisted Head.
Spinning the hatch door shut, she made her way to the farthest shower and turned the spray on low. Only rooks made the mistake of trying to use high pressure to chip away at the layers of crud that came with a full eight hours of working the deck. Turning the water up to full blast only spread the stuff to the walls of the shower stall while adding to the length of time needed to become slime free. Not to mention having to clean the tiles so that the next person would not walk into a grease pit.
Working methodically, she used the de-greaser, soap and shampoo in tandem. The one saving grace in taking the time to properly scrub the deck from her body was that no matter how dirty her nails got, by the time she was done washing and re-washing her hair – once was never enough – her cuticles were soft and unblemished. Spinning the soap between her palms made her smile. Her hands were small but strong. She could re-fit a gimble, piece together the central thrusters on a Viper or restart a heart.
Cutting the water, she wrung out her hair and enjoyed the girly feeling of the wet ends falling past her shoulders. Her smile faded and she became pensive as she wrapped herself up in her towel and left the Head. To her, Vipers were synonymous with Starbuck and Starbuck was synonymous with Apollo. Apollo was synonymous with The Old Man. The Old Man was Galactica and Galactica was her home, which meant that she had a family – granted some members of the crew were more 'distant relations' rat her than 'first cousins' or siblings – but family was family.
Fluffing her wet hair to help it dry as she crossed the short distance back to her quarters, she felt her thoughts waft over the people who fell into the different tiers of 'family'. The Old Man was like a sage, wise, wonderfully gruff great uncle – one to be respected and emulated to a certain degree. He had a lot to teach and share having led a colourful life and she would be remiss not to listen to what he had to say and learn by the example he set. Chief Tyrol was… well, he wasn't family in the pervy sense of her wanting to commit incest with the man, but day she let him know that she wanted him to help her make a family had yet to arrive – if it ever did considering the state of war they all lived under. Jammer was like a nephew – someone she had to keep an eye on and help along while standing far enough back to let him make his own mistakes and live his own life without a lot of interference. Apollo was like an older first cousin to her. Ever since the events on the Astral Queen, she knew he would not let anything happen to her if he could help it and she made sure, to the best of her abilities, that he always came home. She appreciated him for who he was, what he could do and felt familial pride in having such a good guy on her side, but she was not attracted to him beyond acknowledging that he is one hell of a looker. Starbuck was like… her place in Cally's life was tough for even Cally to figure out. Pulling on the hatch door that opened to her quarters, she settled on Starbuck being like a first cousin, but from the other side of the family; a peer to Apollo, shouldering the same responsibilities, but having grown up in a completely different atmosphere, away from everyone else. She brought to the family table her own perceptions and ways of doing things that somehow blended with the way things were done while still being separate and unique.
Sweeping the bunk room, she was relieved to see that no one had backtracked for some rack time, that the room was just as empty as when she left. Dropping her towels into the hamper and rolling her saturated coveralls in the make-shift drop-cloth, she padded barefoot across the room. Starbuck – Lt. Thrace – was the fiercest warrior she knew, including Apollo. True Apollo was a force to be reckoned with, but he needed a reason to be motivated into decisive action that was beyond or outside his assigned duties. Starbuck was continually in motion and only needed a direction to divert her energies, reasons being only known to her. She was also the first to take responsibility for her actions. Clocking Tigh, jumping away in the Raider, putting herself between anyone who had something to say about Helo or Apollo; she was the only one allowed to get in their face about anything. Anyone else who tried to malign either one of those men brought the wrath of Starbuck down on their heads. Not to mention putting herself between the Cylon fleet and Galactica every time she launched and making sure her pilots were taken care of, the birds were seen too and that Apollo fleshed out the maintenance roster with enough pilots so that the deck crew could get necessary down time entitled to anyone who worked as hard as they did.
She does not realize what she means to this crew. That was what it came down too. People wanted to do things for the pilot, woman, crew-mate and fellow soldier and she just did not get it; her prickles and thorns inconsequential to what she gave out on a regular basis. And that was not referring to the black eyes, face implants and cracked ribs handed out on the boxing mats. It was the way Cally heard the edict to the medic to take care of, 'her pilot', when Kat was wheeled away on a gurney all strung out from stim-abuse. It was the way she helped herself to parts and creepers to start working on damaged Vipers and Raptors without having to be told where to start or backtrack over what she did to make sure that she did everything right. It was the way she led at the Triad tables and let others tell tales of glory in the Mess Halls. It was the way she looked out for the Chief by pulling Apollo aside when the two men, each possessing 'Type A' personalities, clashed. Some people only saw the loud mouthed, insubordinate pilot who had a death wish.
Stepping up to her locker, a piece of folded paper was wedged into the jamb. A smile stole across her face as she gently pulled it free. It was the third surprise she had found affixed to her locker in the past three weeks. Opening it up, tears crowded her still damp lashes.
It was a pencil sketch of her, leaning against one of the walls of the hanger bay, looking wistful and introspective. In the background was a pair of Vipers and the Chief, in-profile, gesturing to someone out of frame. Soaking up the hand-drawn image, she could actually remember that particular day. She had taken five minutes to stop and look around her, for some reason she needed a moment to pull herself together before moving on to the next task. She did not even know that Starbuck was on the deck, that was how engrossed she was in her own thoughts, but the pilot must have been close by to draw this picture and infuse so much emotion into the sketch. Squinting at the perspective the picture originated from, Cally smiled. Starbuck must have seen her from the overhead companionway.
"If they only knew," Cally said out loud to an empty room, referring to her earlier thought about some of the 'drawbacks' to Starbuck's personality as she carefully stowed the precious drawing with the other two she had received. She had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to receive as many pictures as the number of time she had put the paddles to Starbuck's heart during those first eight days when they did not know if the Lieutenant was going to live or die.
The most common misconception was that Starbuck was solely motivated by selfish desires, with only her own needs being primary goals. On the surface, that was true – if someone did not look at the reasons for the drinking, smoking, anger and apparent apathy she projected. It took a shallow person not to see what was just underneath the surface. The reason why she presented a 'living for the moment' persona came from knowing that Viper launches did not come equipped with a guaranteed round-trip ticket attached to the throttle. Her anger was directed at those who she expected to meet the high bar she set for herself. Her apathy came from feeling too much and not being able to give vent to the vast quantities of emotions bottled up inside her unless there was a squadron of Raiders coming at her and her squadron in attack formation. Her ferociousness came from having to make sure those who flew, lived, bunked with her had a home to come back to knowing she had done absolutely everything in her power, prowess and capabilities to ensure that as many people as possible made it to Earth. And, in Cally's Book, Cally thought, that over-wrote whatever else she did. Even if she thought Starbuck's personal investment in making sure everyone else was onboard might one day be the reason why one day Cally might be asked to affix a different name plate to Starbuck's Viper.
Swiping away tears that over-flowed from her eyes, a sense of regret tinged the moisture she rolled between her fingertips. If the day ever came when she had to attend a memorial service for Starbuck or Lt. Thrace she would stand tall and proud at her 'cousin's' funeral. No, the tears sprang from the realization that while she knew Starbuck fairly well, and Lt. Thrace almost as equally, she did not know enough about Kara to offer a proper eulogy pertaining the person that gave birth to two amazing individuals.
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"Don't you have a toaster to frak, Helo?" Starbuck snarled at the larger man who had the audacity to put his frakking oversized-ass feet on her frakking creeper and pull her out from underneath the Viper she was frakking repairing.
"Nah – did that already today. Gave the Marines quite a show, wouldn't want to do that again though. Hate it when they drool." Helo snipped back, unfazed at her attack.
"Right – thanks for the update. My life is now complete." Resettling her back against the creeper, she made to slide back underneath the damaged bird, but Helo's boot was still on the board and it was the equivalent of an emergency brake being applied at full force. She was not going anywhere until he let go or until she made him let go. Upping the ice in her voice she asked, "Do you mind?"
"You know what, Starbuck? I do, actually." Helo looked down at her, only because he was standing as she was lying prone. "You see, I have this problem-"
"Go see Doc Cottle and don't be embarrassed. It could have happened to anyone, Helo – who knows how many 'sockets' she has been 'plugged into'."
Helo felt his face flush as Starbuck attacked Sharon. But he also knew why. Starbuck could insult him all day and he would fire back retort after retort in self defence and have fun doing it because, underneath it all, they were friends. For Starbuck to lash out at Sharon meant that she knew what he was going to say and was going to do her damnedest to make sure he stomped off before he said what was on his mind. He was not about to let that happen, but the Gods as his witnesses, she was testing his control.
"Nice try – but not quite enough to make me go away or instigate a fist-fight, Starbuck." Absently stoking his jaw at the precise place her famous right hook would land if she decided to take a swing at him, he took stock of the woman stretched out on the repair board.
Shadows hovered underneath her eyes and she was wearing the same coveralls he saw her in before he left for CAP at the start of First Shift, fifteen hours ago. Combined with the way he saw her arms tremble with muscle fatigue as she struggled to hold a panel ajar while trying to re-thread a fibre-optic cord at the same time only strengthened his resolve to do what had to be done.
"Nah, I'm here to talk about you resubmitting a re-worked flight schedule to Tigh while Apollo is off-ship supervising a re-fuelling op." Helo did not remove his foot as he let his words float up to the ceiling of the hanger bay. "As well as to discuss the number of times your name appears on Tyrol's duty roster."
"I have no idea what you are talking about." Starbuck's terse denial had all the warmth of Picon ice storm and rang with the jaded truth only a used-transport seller emulated. "All I'm doing is pitching in. Unlike some people – I'm qualified to work on Raptors as well as Vipers. I don't know if you have noticed that we are a little short handed at the moment – you know – since the worlds ended and everything."
She's good; I'll give her that, Helo sniffed as he dismissed her obvious dig at the time he spent on Caprica.
"I'm talking about you, being awake for more than twenty-four hours at a stretch. I am talking about you, re-working the flight schedule so that Apollo and I have fewer rotations. Or don't you think I would have noticed." He threw her word back at her and listened to his pointed remark bounce off her Starbuck-re-enforced armour.
"So? Why should you care? Gives you more time to be with your favourite appliance, Apollo a chance to do whatever CAG-like things he needs to do and it gives me more time in the air." Pushing herself off the creeper and using her leg muscles to stand, she climbed to her feet and stopped just short of his personal space. "Perhaps I need to refresh your memory but you all filled in for me for the six weeks it took for Cottle to re-instate my flight status. I am simply returning the favour."
Helo felt his arm get twitchy and looking down at her right hand clenched in a ball, her fist connecting to his jaw was only a moment away. That meant he was getting close, which was the only reason why he pushed aside his frustration and evened out the tone of his voice.
"So what are you saying, Starbuck? You are trying to make up for lost time? You think that lounging about on the shores of the River Styx qualifies as a seaside vacation? Because, let me refresh your memory, you have filled in, taken over and rounded out so many CAP rotations, mission ops and shuttle runs that you have amassed enough vacation time to take a Twelve Colony Tour, ten times over." Helo countered her argument with one of his own, one of the few he had been rehearsing in his head ever since he headed towards the hanger bay.
"Well, you know how it is. I hate taking vacations so close together – makes me feel like I am slacking. Plus, where am I going to store my next souvenir?" She looked at him as if that was the root of her problem, where to keep knick-knacks she acquired that came in forms of Cylon Raiders, Heavy Raiders and given-up-for-dead Raptor E.C.O.'s.
"When was the last time you went on vacation, Starbuck?" He scoffed at her excuses.
"Caprica is lovely, especially seen through the haze of post-nuclear, annihilation-grade radiation. Before that – there was this lovely little barren rock of a moon I had the pleasure of touring and then there was my lovely little trip though the back-country of Kobol – lovely scenery there." Her tone was caustic, but Helo could feel the cracks forming in her voice and in her eyes. He had her and managed to keep all his teeth.
"You call those vacations?" He felt a smile spread across his face as he called her bluff only to be rewarded with a slightly guarded one that did not reach her eyes.
"Yeah, well – that's the beauty of semantics my friend." Starbuck shrugged her shoulders in temporary defeat.
Feeling the change that came over his friend, Helo waved a hand at the Viper behind her. He knew he had won for the moment, but if he was going to get any kind of answers out of her he would have to keep her distracted in order to hear what she wanted to say and not let her say what she thought he wanted to hear.
"Need a hand with that?"
He watched as her head followed the direction in which his fingers pointed.
"Yeah – that would be great. Re-threading that cable is more of a two person job, but I…" Her voice trailed off as she waved her hand at the downed space craft.
"Didn't want to pull anyone away from what they were already doing." Helo finished her sentence accurately because she nodded knowingly. Pressing on the creeper with his boot, a simple twist of his ankle had the rolling board turned sideways so that they both could fit on it and work side by side, "Ladies first."
Smirking at his chivalry, he saw her swallow whatever smart-ass comment came to her mind and waited while she settled her lower back against the board. For a split second, he was re-living setting her down on the cold deck seconds before performing CPR on her to restart her heart. Blinking himself back to the present, he saw that she was looking up at him with a watery gaze. "Don't Karl. Don't go there, okay?"
Karl – not Helo. Nodding, giving her what she needed, he hunkered down and took up space to her left.
"Tell me what to do." He might not know what he was looking at, but he knew she did and she would tell him what he needed to know – on more than one level.
"Just hold this panel," she pulled a trapdoor flush against the undercarriage of the Viper. "Keep it out of the way for me, I can get the rest."
"I can do that," he reassured her, letting his eyes twinkle in a way he knew always made her smile.
A rumble of light chuckling vibrated the board they were lying on. "Brains and beauty all in one convenient package – what more could a girl want?"
Working as a team, Helo had to give her the same compliment – without the sarcastic connotation. She was brains and beauty wrapped up in one convenient package. One had to be blind to miss the kind of curves her body carried. More than one man had to leave the Physical Training Centre due to certain manly reactions to her working out her frustrations on the punching bag or pushing herself hard on the weight training equipment. The sad part was that on some level, she took it as a rejection of her femaleness to have perfectly competent sparring partners decline training with her because she thought she was not as desirable as other members of the crew, not realizing that these counterparts had the need to keep their arousals away from her legendary skill at emasculation and restricted to the showers or the dead of night when the illusion of privacy was at its peak. Or the fact that she was just better than they were and instead of seizing the opportunity that sparring with someone of superior skill provided, they ran with their precious egos cradled in their jocks.
Viper repair was not for the dull-witted or those who went to weekly Half-Assed Support Group meetings. One wrong miscalculation pertaining to any aspect of putting a bird back together equalled death and she made it a point to work on every plane every one of her friends flew.
He had seen the art that crowded the walls of her apartment in Delphi, the canvases stacked five deep along the baseboards and listened to her father's music. He had sat in her well-worn leather chair as his friend sat on her sofa and watched her convince herself that she had failed on some level even though she had gotten the Arrow and went one-on-one with a Cylon – won – and lived to tell about it. He heard about the tylium raid she planned that Apollo pulled off brilliantly. He was there when she punched Tigh because the XO stooped to picking on her call sign when he was loosing at cards while playing against her. Hearing her pretty much lay it out there that if anyone had a problem with him – that they now had a problem with her – made him almost wish he had feelings for her of a romantic nature. But he didn't. His heart belonged to Sharon, pure and simple as that. Besides, he would not know what to do with a woman like her and he knew it. Hell, he was barely keeping his head above water with just being her friend and brother. There was only one man he knew of that had a handle on what made Kara, Starbuck and Lt. Thrace one person and even that was going to be a long time coming – for both of them. One did not have to be an oracle to see that.
Passing her a pair of casing-strippers, he kept his eyes on what she was doing as he did his first 'flyby'.
"You know, you never did say what happened to you on Caprica."
"Nope," she agreed with him and weaved the slack in the cord around her fingers and did not say anything else.
"You were gone for three days, Kara."
"Wow, Karl – you're counting all by yourself now? I'm impressed." Starbuck quipped derisively. Speaking to herself more than him, she added, "You learn something new everyday." Both hands buried deep inside the Viper, she kept her face forward but asked, "Can you pass me the spanner? It's to your left."
Reaching for the tool, he set it on her stomach knowing she would grab it when she needed it. And then he let the silence stretch – and then stretch some more to the point where she had to say something.
"I was shot, Helo. You know that. You re-bandaged me, remember?"
She was still staring straight ahead but her hands had stopped moving. She was thinking about something and that something had her distracted to the point where she could not focus on what she was doing.
"I am talking about the way you looked when you came out of that place, when Centurion fire was making divots in the dirt where you tripped and fell. You had this look about you… I had never seen you look scared, Starbuck." Helo made sure his voice had as much honesty in it as possible.
Her elbows sank to the creeper but her head stayed turned to the bird.
"Helo – Karl – I… "
"What is it, Kara. I am your friend. I care about you."
Holding his breath, her own breathing ragged for several respirations, it was a long moment before she tilted her face towards him and actually looked at him since he initially offered to help her fix the Viper.
"I know, Karl. But you cannot help me. No one can help me but me." Her voice had an element of finality that triggered warning flags in his mind.
"What are you talking about, Kara? We are a team. You, me, Apollo, The Old Man – there is nothing we can't do."
Starbuck was a lot of things, but melodramatic was not among them. To hear her draw a line in the sand as to what could and could not be done for her, to save her, raised every big-brother instinct he possessed towards someone he saw as more of a sister than a friend.
"No Karl, you are not listening." The shadowed look in her eyes changed to wary hardness in the span of a heartbeat.
"I am not buying this. Since when has Starbuck ever backed down from anything?" Helo felt her pull away and become all Starbuck again as Kara was shuttered away.
"Helo – listen to me. It is not Starbuck they want, the pilot responsible for shooting down Raider after Raider. It is not Lt. Thrace, officer in the Colonial Fleet that they want to take prisoner and extract tactical and political information from. It is Kara Thrace – the woman – that they want. Don't you see? They want what I can," her voice cracked for a moment and it took several seconds for Kara to finish Starbuck's sentence. "They want what I can give them, if they ever get a hold of me."
Colonial training included preparing male and female personnel for the uglier side of interrogation when performed by an opposing faction. Call signs were created as a way for personnel to be active in combat without ranks being given away in the heat of battle. But for the Cylons to go after the personal aspect of someone – even the enemy – was something he never contemplated. But there was something more that she was going to say and if he stopped her now, he might not get another chance to help his friend.
"Remember what Sharon said – that I am special, that I have a destiny?" She looked at him, waiting for him to recall that moment as he pressed a fresh bandage against her lower abdomen. Letting acknowledgement flicker in his eyes was his way of encouraging her to finish what she was saying. "It was not the first time I had heard that, but it was the first time I knew what they meant."
What she had figured out he could only guess at because she had turned back to the exposed wiring of the Viper and was lifting her hands once more to finish the job she started.
"Kara – have you told Lee about any of this? The Old Man," Karl heard himself ask a question he already knew the answer to.
"I can't tell them, Karl." Her eyes were open but her using his given name had him thinking that she was not seeing the plane's undercarriage.
"Why the hell not – why keep this from them?"
"Because they can't know that the Cylons want Kara. And I cannot lie to either of them – for some reason – they see right through my bullshit." Swallowing hard, she added, "Lee has enough of his own demons, I cannot add mine to the mix. Nor can I be the reason why there is one less Adama in the world. Keeping one Thrace does not justify losing one Adama – believe me. I have walked that path and I know where it ends. "
Helo heard resignation round out her words. At least she had thought about it, telling them, even if she had dismissed it as an option. Her last sentence, he didn't know what to make of – hopefully she would explain her statement so he would know what she was talking about.
"Kara – Lee knows about your nightmares. That you do not sleep in your rack at night, or haven't been for weeks, that you make whatever rest you do get last more than a day, sometimes up to two days at a time. Why do you think that cell in D Deck is always left open, the cot is dressed and anyone who needs to be incarcerated is diverted to E Deck for detention?"
"Frak!" Her arm came up and for a second he thought she was going to belt him. Instead, she flung her arm up and covered her eyes. Long, lean muscles pulled smoothly underneath her skin from shoulder to wrist, but he had never seen her look more vulnerable. The adage of a girl trapped in a woman's body sprang to mind only to be instantly rebuffed. She was a woman dealing with a problem no woman should ever have to face.
"That is not why I am not sleeping – not totally anyway. Karl, if I tell you something, you have to swear not to repeat it." Her eyes glittered as he saw her collect her words. "I am afraid to sleep. I feel like something is coming. And that it is something bad."
Helo pursed his lips. He was at a crossroads. He could either assuage her fears or quantify them.
"Kara, anyone who has been through what you have been through will suffer from nightmares. If you didn't, you would not be human. We hurt, we cry, we dream, we re-live our lives in a surreal fashion through our subconscious and that is manifested through our dreams." He knew he was speaking the truth and he hoped she would accept even a part of what he was saying.
"Every pilot – Raptor, Battlestar, Frigate, Viper and alike – we all carry a certain amount of superstition around our necks or across our shoulders because of who we are and what we do. The important thing here Kara is that you are not as alone as you think you are. Very few people don't like you and those who you have succeeded in pissing off to no end," he paused and accepted the Starbuck smirk that lit up her face, "respect you."
Her smirk waned and was replaced by a clouded look in her eyes and a sombre expression. She had listened to what he had said, but she wasn't buying it.
About to say something, her voice was instantly drowned out.
"ACTION STATIONS – ALL HANDS SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP! REPEAT! ACTION STATIONS – ALL HANDS SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP!"
Jumping up, they both scrambled to the lockers that lined the wall underneath the companionway. Pulling out flight suits, they both set out to do their jobs.
Over the intercom, the call went out for all alert fighters to be launched.
Starbuck took control of the deck.
"Chief – let's get these birds in the air."
Sweeping the hanger with her eyes, she evaluated who was filing onto the deck and who should where.
"Duck, Hot Dog, Kat and Beehive – you are Blue Wing and Beehive you will be group leader. Monkey Boy, Spokes, Rat Trap and Ambush – you all are Red Wing and Rat Trap will be group leader. Helo and Racetrack, you two are Search and Rescue; Seelix and her E.C.O are already in the air as part of the CAP. If you need them, hail them. Got it?"
Starbuck paused as people nodded in acknowledgement of her orders.
"Coda, you're with me – we are going to pick up the two fighters from the CAP and be Black Wing. Keep your groups together, comm channels open. Things will change fast out there. Protect the fleet; bring home the CAG and get yourselves back onboard – that is the mission. And for frak's sake, stick to your wingman people!"
Hustling into the Raptor, Helo did not need the checklist to prepare for launch. Rattling off items from memory, his eyes fixated on Kara's bird as she paused long enough to allow the specialist to secure her collar before locking down her helmet and sliding her canopy into place.
For some reason, he did something he never did before, something he did to alleviate the prickling feeling that itched between his shoulder blades.
Lt. K. Thrace: Starbuck, the letters emblazoned on her Viper, her name plate on her Mark II, filled the view port of his Raptor and made him want to call out her name and stop her from launching.
Stamping down Kara's words of foreboding, he buckled in and prepared to launch.
The sling-shot 'whoosh' of being propelled into the fray drowned out his words he quietly murmured.
"Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer. Keep your eyes on your daughter Kara Thrace this day..."
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