Another Way: Chapter 13
The Back Side of Valour: Part Two
It took him all of five minutes to realize that his office was the last place he wanted to be.
The silence was screaming in his ears. The walls were crowding his desk. His mind had started mapping out the black op his father had told him to plan – despite telling the Old Man to go frak himself. Maybe not in so many words but his context made it near enough to call it done.
He had to get out of there.
He needed to disappear for a while.
Tough challenge when onboard a ship with two thousand other crew members and no opportunity for shore leave. But he was still on the clock. He had to be accessible at a moment's notice should anything come up. That meant seeking sanctuary in one of the more remote holds of the ship was out of the question.
Closing the hatch to the CAG's office, he started down the hall. Mentally running down his list of options, one suddenly made perfect sense.
Sometimes the best hiding places were those that were in plain sight.
Xxx Bsg Xxx
Slipping into the Ready Room and being seen by only one person was easy. Especially since that person was Helo and that was because he had gotten up to throw away a lollipop wrapper at the same time Lee opened the door. Exchanging nods, Lee added an extra head movement that asked Karl not to let on that he was there. A brief hand signal from Helo conveyed that the E.C.O never saw Lee enter the room.
Grateful for Helo's quick up-take, he settled into one of the seats in the far corner.
There were only a handful of people in the room and all of them had their focus on the screen and the images playing against the white backdrop.
Squinting his eyes, trying to place what he was watching and where it came from, Lee caught Helo's eyes one more time and mouthed the word, "Who?"
Helo mouthed back the name of the person Lee needed as he sank his six-foot-three frame into the chair. "Gaeta."
Tapping his head against the backrest of his seat, Lee remembered Kara approaching Gaeta with an idea.
She had acquired hours of videotapes and digital recordings and asked him if he could make a series of training tapes for her to use with her nuggets. Footage was supplied by cameras mounted on Vipers and Raptors, and other vessels that had recording capabilities who were willing to tape CAP runs when the Colonial fighters cruised by the civilian ships. He knew Gaeta had been close to finishing his project for Kara because she had laughed about it while she was in sickbay as she was recovering from her hard landing. Gaeta had told her that he had even made her a 'blooper' reel, of sorts. He remembered watching her, trying to imitate Gaeta's mannerisms – in a completely non-derogatory-steeped-in-fondness kind of way – as she shared that Gaeta alluded to some really great moments on those tapes that he just could not bear deleting and that she would recognize them when she saw them and that she would thank him for it when she did watch the bonus reel.
If it took him a moment to place what he was seeing, it was another moment before he registered what he was hearing.
It was them – flying a CAP. Her voice, his voice, their banter; it was the bonus reel that was playing up on the screen. Someone, somewhere, must have gotten a hold of it and decided that it was worthy of being played for the entire Air Group; or at least those who could bear watching it despite the 'star' of the film being classified as Missing in Action and Prisoner of War.
This is what he needed. Memories of Starbuck as Starbuck – not the litanies of 'would have', 'could have' and 'should have' that echoed in his mind whenever he poured over the footage that ended in her surrender.
What he didn't need was a time and date stamp to remember when this particular patrol took place.
Watching the screen, listening to their voices, he slid down into his seat and let the memory be the escape he so desperately needed.
Xxx Xxx Xxx
"Has anyone ever told you that you are such a brat, Starbuck?" Lee asked over the comms.
"You know, Apollo – for some reason I get that a lot." Starbuck's wide smile transmitted across the wireless as clearly as her words did. "But I don't know why." She was laughing at herself at the same time as playing along with him. "If you don't think you can do it, who am I to push you into an embarrassing situation?"
"Need I remind you that reverse psychology will get you nowhere with me? As for your pathetic attempt to 'shield my ego' – please! You embarrass me every chance you get." Lee made sure his indignation was more hollow than solid.
"Yeah – you're right – I do. But can you blame me? You blush like a girl!" Starbuck justified herself – at his expense. "It just makes me want to put pink and purple streamers on your precious Mark Seven and draw heart-shaped flowers on the roof your bunk."
"Starbuck – you do that and I'll make sure you live to regret even thinking about messing with my Viper or frakking with my rack," Lee promised. The edge to his voice made it seem like he was challenging her to do something like that just so he could try and top what she did to him as he got back at her.
"Well if you would just do what I tell you to do then we wouldn't have this problem now, would we?" Starbuck countered, picking up the more-mitten-than-gauntlet that Lee threw down.
"That was smooth, Starbuck – turning this around and back to what you want. And what is it with this 'we' business? Here I am, flying my CAP, guarding the Fleet, and you have to go and get all rowdy. You never stop, do you?" Lee didn't bother to keep the amusement out his voice.
"Apollo – you would be the first one to be disappointed if I did." Starbuck laughed. "And you are SO far from being innocent, Apollo – just 'flying your CAP'. Nice one – that and a duffle bag full of Helo's lollipops will get you a cavity." He could hear her eyes rolling. Switching up her tactics, she completely changed her tone of voice guaranteed to make him consider caving into her latest scheme. "But seriously – come on, Lee. What have you got to lose? We have three more hours and my gut is telling me that we are in a Cylon-free zone."
"Oh Gods, not the whining; you promised that I could have one CAP without you delving into your storehouse of Pyramid metaphors or whining." Lee winced in self-preservation. She could do it too – make every word, every phrase, every sentence come out as a whine. His ears would be clawed off his head and stuffed into his helmet by the time they got back to Galactica if she whined for the next three hours. "Starbuck, speaking as your CAG, friend and fellow human being, I really think I look better with ears than without them."
"And speaking as your Flight Instructor, you doing a few simple manoeuvres for the sake of my nuggets isn't asking too much." Starbuck countered.
"But I haven't had to do those since Basic Flight." Lee got her back by steeping every word in a pitiful, petulant child-like whine.
"That is playing dirty, Captain." Starbuck grimaced but she knew she deserved it. "Come on, Lee. It will be fun. I'll even make it worth your while," she promised.
"Oh yeah?" Lee asked. His curiosity was piqued, "How's that?"
"I'll let you beat me tonight at the Triad game," she offered.
"What did you say? I couldn't quite make that out over the sound of you thumping your own chest." It was his turn at the caustic come-back.
"Not bad, not bad, Apollo – you're getting better. Still playing for the minors, but you're on your way." Starbuck cut his jibe with one of her own.
There was no way Lee was going to let her get away with that crack.
"In your dreams, Starbuck," Lee clarified the only place he played in the minors. Going back to her 'offer', he ragged on her a little more. "I can beat you anyway. You'll have to do better than that, Lieutenant."
"No you can't. Maybe it's when you're dreaming, Captain, is when you beat me," she scoffed good-naturedly. "Hmmm…. Let's see."
"Tick-tock, Starbuck," Lee couldn't resist goading her.
"Give a girl a chance to think, will ya?" Starbuck quipped back.
"Woman, Starbuck – you are definitely one-hundred percent woman. As to whether or not you've got a brain to think with, that has yet to be decided. I think Tigh is chairing that committee." Lee made sure his second sentence sounded as dubious as his first sentence was complimentary. His third sentence was just something he couldn't resist adding.
"Nice try, Apollo. Is this how you handle all your women?" Starbuck poked fun at at his latest attempt to distract her from making him do what she wanted him to do.
"You know how it is, Starbuck. Those who can – do. Those who can't – teach." Lee jabbed at his best friend with a one-two combination that had them both laughing.
"Frak you, Apollo," she was still laughing. She thumped her canopy as she realized he finally topped her for once. "Frak; that was a good one Apollo."
Banking around The Intrepid and cutting between the mining ship and the Aerilon Maiden, he could hear her drumming her fingers against her throttle even as she unconsciously adjusted her position when he dropped back and took formation behind her and she slid into the lead position It felt good not to have to spell out everything with a command like he did with other pilots or have to be the leader all the time.
"How about this – what if I give you one of your birthday presents early?" Starbuck dangled the proverbial treat in front of his inner five-year old.
"Now who's playing dirty, Lieutenant?" That was just evil, offering up not only the fact that she remembered when his birthday was but that she also got him not one, but more than one present. And, she also knew how much he liked presents. Frak, she was right. He was part girl. "Damn, Starbuck – you're right. I am part girl."
Exaggerated thumping of his flight gloved hand against his canopy had Starbuck salvaging his masculinity.
"No Apollo – I would definitely say that you are one-hundred percent, premium grade, send-a-thank-you-note-to-your-mama-for-bearing-a-child-like-you, MAN. The only thing that's girly about you is that you're prettier than most of the women in this Fleet."
"And the award for slinging the most back-handed compliment – or insult, depending on your point of view – in one war goes too…" Leaving out the name 'Starbuck' from his sentence didn't mean he was talking about anyone else.
"Want me to start whining again? Because – you know – I will." Starbuck threatened. Just to prove her point, she started. "Lee-eee…"
Coming up on her six, Lee put the plan that had been forming in head into action.
"Stop – don't even go there, Starbuck." Lee took his hand off his throttle and crooked both elbows in exasperation. "I say we settle this like adults."
"Oh yeah – and how do you propose we do that Apollo?" Starbuck asked. It was her turn to have her curiosity piqued.
Coming up very close to her Viper, Lee looked over at her and made eye contact.
"Frak, Apollo – watch what you're doing!" Starbuck admonished, but it was too little, too late.
"Tag! You're it!" Lee whooped, touched his wing to her fuselage and then kicked in his burners.
"You frakker! Just wait until I get my frakking hands on you –"
Her playful growl told him how much fun they were going to have.
Cutting her off in mid-sentence, he fired back, "Now Starbuck, you of all people should know you can't frak what you can't catch!"
Up and down the Fleet they flew – tagging each other with their planes, giving as well as they got. Weaving, bobbing, and tricking the other into rolling, tumbling, setting up plays so that the 'tag' got passed back and forth with a dizzying frequency.
At one point, she ran her tail fin along the entire underside of his bird, causing sparks along his length but not causing any damage.
"See Apollo – the secret to having teeth is knowing how to use them."
Not to be out done, he 'kissed' the nose of her Viper with the back end of his Mark VII, hit his turbos and called out to his wingman.
"Starbuck, it's about time you kissed my ass!"
Watching her catch up to him, spinning as she pulled up directly underneath his Viper, he turned off his brain and let instinct rule the hand wrapped around the throttle and manipulate the pedals underneath his feet. He felt, rather than saw, that she was inverted, that the bellies of their two planes were facing one another when he let his Viper reach out and 'connect' with hers.
Drawing her into a vertical climb, he started to spin, making them spiral around each other higher and higher – in perfect synch – as she followed his lead. At the same time, they tacked and changed from a vertical axis to a horizontal vector, levelling off but never breaking the grace, power, speed or precision of the spiralling they were wrapping around each other.
The gasps from those in the Ready Room pulled him from his reverie and jolted him into the present.
Watching the horizontal spiral, it looked like the two Vipers were out of control, spinning around each other, combustion eminent. That is, until realization set in that it wasn't lack of control that was causing the ships to tumble and roll, but the kind of control that comes along once in ten-thousand pilots and that there were two pilots, who didn't have to communicate with words, doing what they did just because they could.
It was breath-taking to watch. It was dangerous to show the nuggets because there was no way any of them would be able to do what they were seeing. Hell, he was seeing something he was having trouble believing and he was there. It was also erotic. It was like watching lovers come together only to demand that the other person give everything they had in order to accept everything the other person had to offer.
He shifted in his seat as he watched their play-time transcend to a different level. Everyone felt it. It was clear why Gaeta kept this footage and spliced it together the way he did.
They were still matching each other, tumble for roll, but they were running out of room. The front of the Fleet was approaching, the point where they would have to stop and turn around. But neither one of them wanted too. He knew he didn't and the fact that she gave any indication that she was ready to stop never came over the comms. In fact all that was heard was the powerful drone of their burners. The primal thrum that reverberated in the Ready Room came from the two pilots known as Starbuck and Apollo.
He never heard her call it out, but then again, he didn't need too. She started to bank to the left and he followed even as they continued to twist around each other. This was by far the most dangerous, exhilarating, challenging aspect of their Viper-frakking. One wrong move, one miscalculation, one variation in speed as they pushed the depth of the turn and took on the new vector would send them ploughing into each other and ricocheting across half the ships in the Fleet.
But this was Starbuck and Apollo. This was Lee and Kara. This was them. This was the epitome of poetry in motion, the beauty found in a time of war and the public display of the depths of the passions that ran between their two souls.
Banking left, recovering the gap that stretched between them and the Fleet, and decelerating, it took five more revolutions for them to slow enough to fire their thrusters and coast.
Looking at the screen, his memory and the image merged.
They had stopped, for the most part. Their engines weren't glowing with the brightness that came with flying at maximum velocity and they were coasting on the momentum they had accumulated. Why CIC hadn't hailed them to stop before now hadn't even entered his mind. All he knew was that he was looking up as she was inverted, flying over him, matching him wing-for-fuselage, breathing just as heavy as he was, and sweat gleaming in the glow of her lighted helmet. Beads of moisture seeped past his collar and made his flight suit suction to his entire body. Looking up at her, her canopy feet away, the way endorphins were coursing through his blood system and making every part of him tingle and throb had him convinced that he came in mid-flight. The look on her face was what he always imagined a well-frakked Starbuck would look like: slightly smug, a little bit dazed, pupils dilated, cheeks tinged with colour, hair damp with exertion, still panting and looking for more.
Thank the Gods the tape did not show their faces – only their Vipers.
It was her voice, punctuated by her drawing breaths into lungs strained from exertion, which echoed around the awe-struck room.
"So Apollo – tell me – when was the last time you had someone on top ride with you so well?"
"Never." His declaration was raspy with laboured breathing that came after a hard workout. His heart-rate and respirations had yet to come down even as he looked up at her flying over him, upside-down. "I hadn't found anyone worthy of the position before now, Starbuck."
He was her match, right down to the panting, double entendre and the truth that stripped away the veneer they both spent their lives polishing to a high finish.
Her verbal Starbuck smirk and his Apollo-channelled cavalier-ness broke the spell their flying invoked in the Ready Room. A spattering of applause and a couple of well-whistled wolf calls permanently cemented – Apollo and Starbuck – their place at the top of the pilot hierarchy.
It was also what drove him from the room. It wasn't what she said nor was it blatant connotation in his response; it was what they represented that he will never have again with anyone, ever again.
Watching them fly together was a poor substitute for the real thing. There could be a hundred Vipers in the air, all identical to the one she would be flying, but the instant he put his bird into the fray he knew he would find her. Her flight signature just 'clicked' with his to the extent that they would inevitably be drawn to one another. It was something that could not be defined with words; it was something that happened between Starbuck and Apollo that transcended where ever Lee and Kara stood with each other.
Lurching out of the room, the temptation to draw up against the cold steel of the Battlestar to steady himself was a real consideration. That is, until a wave of nausea clenched his stomach and squeezed hard.
Walking as quickly as he could, he made it to the nearest head and jerked open the hatch. Bolting for the nearest stall, the clanking of the privacy latch falling into place was the only thing he heard before the harsh bite of bile chewed at his throat and ate at his gums. Gagging into the commode, bracing his arms at full length, it was all he could do to keep from falling over as his knees buckled.
A fresh wave of body wracking bucking followed a cruel realization.
His father was right.
The Cylons could chase them all the way to Earth, but now they didn't have to because they had Kara. Everything the Fleet had survived, hardships endured, would be in vain if the forty-eight thousand people who fled twelve separate nuclear wastelands discovered that their one hope mirrored the desolation they left behind.
Shaking arms, trembling chin and an overall clamminess wasn't enough. His guilt over treating his father so badly and the extent that his thoughts were now travelling, especially in the wake of seeing – firsthand – something he will never have again, seized his body. One more realization made his stomach heave one more time.
If the Fleet were to survive – if mankind were to survive – whatever stronghold or ship Kara was being held captive within would have to be destroyed. And she would have to be included in that devastation.
Xxx Bsg Xxx Bsg Xxx Bsg Xxx
Adama was not comfortable with his hand, but it was the only card he had to play.
Looking at the only other individual in his quarters, he steeled himself to ask the one question he never thought he would ask.
"Do you understand the mission?"
"Completely." The answer was neither cocky nor hesitant. It was matter of fact and solid; that understanding made it the truth.
Satisfied for no other reason than he believed the word spoken, he went to the hatch and swung the door open. Motioning to the pair of MP's standing watch, he stepped back and let the two officers escort Sharon Valerii out of his office and back to her holding cell.
He found himself murmuring familiar words at the retreating back of the Cylon.
"Good hunting."
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"Don't you dare!"
"I won't let you!"
"Let me go!"
"I will frakking kill ALL of you if it is the last thing I do!"
She was fighting them – again.
Where she got the energy to kick, scream, holler and struggle amazed him. In a way, her defiance was an honour that deserved its own special reverence despite it being an exercise in futility. The Centurions that held her bindings could not be pried with human hands. What she was going to be made to do was not going to be denied, even if she was physically weakened by Three's latest attempt to convert his Persephone.
He stood back and watched as she was forcibly stripped of her clothes and pressed into the apparatus. He kept his expression neutral – after all, this had nothing to do with him, she chose this path, not him – as the electrodes pierced her flesh and the contents of several syringes were fed into her bloodstream. From the floor rose the perimeter of her immersion tank.
"Stop it!"
"You will so regret this."
"You can't make me…"
"I won't… let… you… do… thisss… to… them…"
Her protests became more sporadic as each chemical compound took effect and electrical impulses over-rode and re-routed her nervous system. Her mouth movements became less pronounced as her connection became more complete.
Only when her fingers stopped trying to reach her restraints did he approach her – only when the glow of her humanity waned in her eyes did he look down at her and speak.
"Kara. You fight when you should love. Now we need someone who lives to fight."
Lifting his gaze to where Simon stood, the darker skinned Model answered, "She is just about ready."
Brushing her hair off her forehead, her nakedness lying in her vulnerability not in her lack of apparel, he gently chided her like an errant child that had to be punished for their own good.
"I told you Starbuck might have a role to play in God's Plan."
At that, Kara's body went tense. Her muscles locked. Her eyes snapped open and her lids went wide. Whatever she was looking at was not in that room. The vat began to fill with a thick, viscous fluid. Gallon after gallon flowed into the tank, rising over and covering length of her reclined body, including her ears. The valves were turned off when the warrior was completely submerged. The oval of her face, luminous in the frame of her bath, was the only part of her that floated above the fluid-line.
Gliding his hands along the sides of the tank, Zak walked away from Kara and pressed a button on the console linking the room to the command centre.
"Launch the Raiders."
Xxx Bsg Xxx Bsg Xxx Bsg Xxx
The Cylons had found them.
Again.
The call for Alert Fighters to be scrambled had pilots and E.C.O.'s racing to their ships and taking their cues from Cally as to who was launching in what sequence to defend the Fleet and see that everyone jumped to safety.
Bsg Xxx Bsg
Standing in CIC, Captain Adama was stoic. This was not the first time he wasn't on the launch deck when Raiders jumped in-system and it wouldn't be the last.
Co-ordinating with the Commander and calmly handing out orders as to how to best protect the Fleet and the fighters in the air, he silently ticked off which of his pilots would be going against the incoming Raiders as Alert Vipers appeared on the radar.
Looking up at the DRAEDIS console, there was something odd about how the signals were lining up on the display screen. Something he knew he could figure out if he had more time to sort through the intel.
Flicking his gaze from the overhead screen to Captain Kelly, he issued an order that did not need the Commander's approval.
"Spread the word through-out the Fleet that any ship with recording capability and line-of-sight is to tape whatever they can before jumping away. All footage is to be sealed and expedited to Galactica for analysis and processing once all vessels have re-convened at the rendezvous point."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Captain Kelly acknowledged the command and sent Captain Adama's missive.
Xxx Bsg Xxx
"Ready, Chief."
The words were a statement, not a question or an answer.
Pulling the canopy into place and verifying that the seals were secure, Tyrol climbed down off the access ladder. Dragging it with him only to set it against the wall just outside where the safety shield would come down from the ceiling and separate the airlock from venting the Battlestar, he hit the oversized red button.
Warning lights flashed as the seal fell, separating himself from the pilot inside the Blackbird as the blackness of space yawned beyond the tailfins.
Pulling a remote control from his pocket, he made contact with Sharon one last time before remote triggering the chucks that braced the stealth ship against the makeshift ramp where 'she' rested. Pressing a second button activated the hydraulics, raising the nose of the craft to an angle that passed the responsibility of launching the plane to gravity.
Sharon's nod of acknowledgement lasted as long as it took for 'Laura' to free-fall into space and kick on 'her' burners.
For all her sins and all that 'she' represented, Galen didn't know who he prayed for when he cast a plea to the Gods that, for once, whatever had happened before did not happen again.
Xxx Bsg Xxx
Coming out of a FTL jump, the BaseStar saw the Fleet arrayed in front of them and accessible on almost any attack trajectory they chose to deploy.
Simon moved away from the banks of instrument panels and cascading waterfalls that streamed information across the BaseStar and looked down at the blond woman who understood her place in the Cylon manifesto. Scrutinizing the woman closely, he was satisfied when he saw only the faintest traces of Kara and Captain Thrace flitting around the edges of her face. With anticipation, he verified her status with Number Two, that the bio-computer-mechanical connection between the warrior and the Raiders had achieved complete interface.
Crouching down and bringing his mouth even to where the fluid lapped against her hairline, Zak spoke to the Instrument God gave him. The prophesy alluded to the one who, having experienced all suffering mankind can afflict on its brothers and sisters, would bring the Grace of God to Humanity. During his seclusion, the Leoben Model had made convincing arguments that love and inter-species procreation was the only way to secure the future of the Cylon race, to push their evolution to the next level. He did not understand, like Zak did, that God had made the Cylons in His image through Humanity's Hands. The Cylons were exactly as they were meant to be, no more – no less. To believe so otherwise would be committing the ultimate sin which could lead to his people being expelled from their Eden and scattered like the humans who knew only war, pain, grief and jealousy: vanity. No. The Grace of God is the peace that He passes to those who entrust themselves into His love and care. The only way to bring that peace to mankind is the deliver them unto God, lifted up on the victories made in His name, on the Wings of a Broken Dove.
"Move all fighters into position, Starbuck. You have the board."
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