With the Weapons of a Woman
by Soledad
For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.
Author's notes: Cinerea is the official name of the butternut. In old BSG tradition, I use it here for walnuts in general, since we don't have a canon name for them.
Re: the clothing question. I was always a bit baffled that all the women seemed to have a wide selection of evening dresses aboard the Galactica. I could have understood about the military, they lived on the ship for yahrens, after all, so they ought to have some civilian garb, to, but the refugees? Besides, some of those evening dresses really looked awful. So I tried to find an explanation. ;)
Chapter 07 – Family Dinner
It was shortly before the beginning of night watch, according to the peculiar way time was counted aboard a Battlestar, when Serina finally stood at the front door of Commander Adama's quarters, holding Boxey's hand. Her stomach was of the size of a dried cinerea kernel, and she was hoping that Boxey would behave himself. This would be their first real meeting with the Commander, who, since the Destruction, had also been acting as the President of the hurriedly re-elected Quorum – an event that had taken place only four days previous – and everyone knew how important first impressions were.
Athena had kept her word. She'd come to Serina's quarters right after the end of her shift and escorted them – Boxey, too – to the so-called Wardrobe. Originally designed to serve as a depot for uniforms, this series of interconnected, large rooms near the quartermaster's office now served as a depot for any sorts of clothes, mostly left behind by dead crewmembers or collected from the destroyed Colonies. Someone from the lower ranks had apparently had the common sense to pick up clothes and household textiles, realising that the refugees would eventually need something to wear. Or to use in the turboflush.
Arriving there, Athena had produced more plastic chips; different ones in size and colour from the food chips, explaining that clothes, too, were being rationed aboard the Galactica. But since Serina was now employed by Central Data Services – at least nominally – she was entitled to four sets of garments both for herself and Boxey, who was registered as her dependant. This apparently meant overgarments as well as proper underwear. With what little she'd been able to gather among the ruins of Caprica, she'd now be able to look respectable enough to work in the immediate environment of the Commander.
Unfortunately, Wardrobe hadn't really been able to offer anything that would be proper to wear when invited to dinner by the highest nobility. The dress she was wearing right now was what she considered the lesser evil: a simple, pale blue gown, with a wide yet not too deep cleavage that left just the tops of her shoulders free and reached down to her ankles.
To prevent looking too exposed, she wore her long, shiny brown hair down, so that it covered her entire back and shadowed her bare neck and shoulders, implying an air of modesty. It wouldn't have been that bad, had in not been blue. She hated blue. It clashed with her green eyes and made her look like a corpse. Especially as she had no cosmetics products to counteract the ghastly effect. But it couldn't be helped.
At least Boxey looked neat enough in his new, golden brown trousers and tunic. The clerk in Wardrobe had even found a child-sized cape for him, which made him very happy, as he found he looked just like a warrior in it. The little scamp.
Said little scamp now tugged on her hand impatiently.
"Mommy, are we gonna in yet? They're waiting, and we'll be late!" he reminded her.
He'd accepted easily enough that Serina was his Mommy now and had gotten used to calling her that. It warmed her heart, even if it was only a sham… well, actually, it wasn't. Not truly. She had come to love the kid as if he were her own.
She smiled down into the eager little face. "All right, you imp, let's go in. Do you want to ring the bell?"
Boxey nodded enthusiastically, and so she scoped him up and held him close enough to push the buzzer. Which he did, perhaps a little too energetically; but again, he was just a child. An excited and happy child once again, thanks to the Lords of Kobol… and to Captain Apollo who'd somehow managed to cajole him out of his bleak mood.
To Serina's surprise, it was Captain Apollo who came to answer the door; she'd expected a servant or a yeoman or some other personnel to do it. But apparently, the Adamans were different from the rest of the Great Houses. Apollo was still wearing his pilot's uniform, proving that Athena had been right: this wasn't going to be a formal event. In that case he'd have been in his dress blues.
"Serina," he smiled broadly, which gave him an almost boyish look, it looked surprisingly good on him, truth be told. "It's good to see you again."
"And you, Captain," she answered, while Boxey was beaming at the man.
"Apollo," he corrected gently. "I'm off-duty now and happy about it. Hello Boxey!"
Boxey wordlessly held up his arms, signalling that he wanted to be picked up, and laughing, Apollo took him from Serina. Serina didn't really mind; for a scrawny six-yahren-old, Boxey could tire her out easily, as he wiggled a lot when he got excited.
Carrying the boy as easily as he would a rag doll, Apollo led Serina through a small foyer right into the living room of the Commander, which was spacious but not half as large as any private rooms on the Elite level of the Rising Star and almost Sagittaran in its simplicity.
Nor were there many people around the dinner table; the Commander himself, of course, wearing his uniform as always. Athena, in a simple, dark blue gown, her wavy cloud of mahogany hair pulled to one side and held in place by an elaborate silver brooch. And another uniformed pilot, whom Serina recognized as Lieutenant Starbuck.
He shone like a fane among the dark-haired, patrician Adamans. Like a fane of pure gold. Serina could understand why Athena would be attracted to him – there was a wild, untamed lust for life in him, so very different from the disciplined (perhaps even restricted) ways of her own family.
Whether the two of them would be a good match – or even a healthy one – was another matter entirely. For her part, Serina very much doubted it, but she didn't think that would keep Athena from Sealing with him if she wanted and he'd be willing, despite Deitra's prediction. It didn't keep her from marrying Boreas, either, although she should have known better.
Seeing them enter, Commander Adama courteously rose from his chair and came to greet her, every bit the patriarch not only his own family but now, due to the lack of proper civilian leadership, also that of their entire people. (She didn't consider the new Quorum as proper leaders of the Fleet and was grateful that they were still under military law.)
Back on post-apocalyptic Caprica, Serina hadn't had the time to study the Commander's face, so she used to opportunity now and decided that he didn't look like an older version of any of his children. Both Apollo and Athena must have come after their mother, as – contrary to their smooth elegance – Adama's face was a bit roughly shaped, as if cut by an axe, and deeply lined… not just because of his age. His eyes were dark brown, and while his hair was pure silver now, his eyebrows revealed that it once must have been dark, too – the only feature his children had inherited. All in all, he was an imposing figure.
"Serina, my dear," he said in a disarmingly friendly manner and, taking her hand in both of his, squeezed it gently. His hands were warm and dry like desert sand, due to the long yahrens spent in an artificial environment. "I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you chose to accept our offer. We need someone like you here, to file away an honest record."
"How could I refuse?" she replied with a smile that would have dazzled any man under a hundred yahrens. "Although I still can't understand why you would chose me, Commander. We haven't even met before, save on Caprica after the Destruction; and as a newswoman, I was never a big enough name to have caught your attention."
"True enough," Adama nodded. "But I used to know your mother and valued her work on the outer colonies highly. Not many representatives of the Planetary Council would have laboured so tirelessly for those too weak to raise their voices. I hoped her daughter would be just as reliable."
Serina inclined her head respectfully. "I'll try my best, Commander."
"I don't have the slightest doubt about that, my dear," Adama said gallantly. "And you shall have your first chance to prove yourself, first thing in the next secton. I've had an observers place reserved for you on the gallery for the next Quorum meeting. I think you'll find it… educational."
"Knowing some of the newly-elected Councillors from first-hand experience, I believe you, Commander," Serina replied, her tone mildly cynical, but her head was reeling.
A Quorum meeting! She was about to be granted access to a Quorum meeting as an official observer! That was better than anything she could have hoped for! Granted, it wasn't a glamorous assignment, not the way she'd used to imagine her career as a newswoman, but a highly profitable one. Information was always power – especially in a situation like their current one.
She demurely thanked the Commander for the opportunity, and then dinner was being served. Not an opulent one as she'd seen in the club Elite, though; it had clearly been combined from the usual rations, but in a highly imaginative way.
"Before I was allowed to become a warrior, I'd been trained to run a patrician household," Athena explained with a wry smile when she complimented her on the meal. "I never believed it would actually prove useful one day. I'm not suited to be a brave little homemaker."
"No," Starbuck said in complete agreement. "You're suited to become a warrior Queen of legends."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Starbuck," she replied sternly but couldn't quite hide her satisfaction over the compliment.
The blond pilot just smiled smugly as someone who always knows how to say just the right thing to make a woman – any woman – happy.
"Oh, I'm not sure about that," Serina commented sweetly. "It seems to get him quite far, quite fast with other women. Even the ones he'd just picked up on some refugee ship. No use to deny, Lieutenant," she added with a falsely congratulatory smile. "I've seen you at Life Station – and she seemed very impressed with you."
"That's Starbuck for you," Apollo replied before the blond pilot could have. "Beloved by men, women and children, young and old, animals and perhaps even trees. I don't know how he does it, but sometimes I think he could even charm a Cylon out of its armour."
"It's a gift," Starbuck declared blithely. "I can't help being irresistible."
But his eyes lingered on Serina's face, wary and suspicious. He must have recognized the worthy opponent in her.
She smiled at him in false innocence.
"Well, aren't you a lucky one, Lieutenant? Other people don't have high-class socialators fall for them in a heartbeat."
Athena's pale eyes turned to ice. "You patronizing socialators now, Starbuck? That's a new low, even for you."
"I'm not patronizing her," Starbuck protested through gritted teeth. "We've rescued her from one of the Gemini freighters, where she'd nearly been lynched by members of the Otori sect. She had a broken arm, so I took her to Life Station for treatment. And that's all. Ask Boomer if you don't believe me!"
Serina nodded, pretending to take his side. "Doctor Paye said they could use someone like her at Life Station, to care for the less serious cases. That would help her to get away from those fanatics… and save you the effort to find suitable quarters for her, as promised. Or aren't medical personnel housed within Life Station?"
"They are indeed," Apollo suddenly burst out in laughter. "And wouldn't Colonel Tigh just love that? A socialator, serving at Life Station aboard a Battlestar. Aboard his Battlestar!"
"I always had the distinct impression that she was my Battlestar," Commander Adama said mildly.
Apollo grinned from ear to ear.
"Believe me, Father; you might command her, but the colonel is practically Sealed to her. They say he can tell you the speed the Galactica is travelling with by the vibration of the deck plates."
"He can," Adama said, "which is a good thing, don't you think? And no, he won't be happy about a socialator serving at Life Station, but not for the reason you mean. He won't be happy with any untrained personnel being drafted into service. He likes to do things by the book."
"If that isn't the understatement of the millennium!" Starbuck muttered. He and the colonel weren't always on the best of terms, mostly due to his light-hearted disregard of the regs.
"But he will give in, eventually," Adama continued. "Life Station only has personnel to cover the needs of a Battlestar, not those of an entire fleet full of civilians. We'll have to adapt to the new situation, in more things than just in the selection of medical personnel, I'm afraid."
"None of which the Colonel – Or Commander Kronus, for that matter – would truly welcome," Apollo commented. "Considering how old-fashioned they both are…"
"I fear that you're right about that, son." Adama nodded. "Fortunately for me, that will be a battle for other people to fight."
Apollo's brows drew together in suspicion. "What do you mean?"
"I'm submitting my resignation as acting President of the Twelve Worlds to the newly-elected Quorum tomorrow," Adama replied simply. "That's what the Quorum meeting is about; and why I want an independent observer to be there and make the records," he added with a sideway glance at Serina.
The announcement was greeted with stunned silence. Everyone, including Lieutenant Starbuck, was too shocked to react right away. Several microns ticked by before he and Apollo began to speak simultaneously.
"Commander, you can't!" the blonde pilot exclaimed.
"Father, I think we better talk," Apollo declared grimly.
Adama nodded with a faint smile. "Of course; but as I told Tigh when he tried to talk me out of it, my mind is made up."
He glanced at Boxey who, exhausted by all the new impressions, had fallen asleep during all that grownup-talk, as he'd call it.
"I don't believe that what we're about to say would be suitable for the ears of a small child, though," he added.
Serina rose hurriedly. "I1ll take him home, Commander. Let you discuss the matter among yourselves."
"No," Adama stopped her. "I want you to be here as a witness, so that there would be no unfounded rumours about the possible reasons of my decision. Take the boy into my bedroom; these rooms are sound-proof, so his rest won't be disturbed – even if there should be some shouting," he added dryly.
He must have known his firstborn very well, because when Serina returned to the dining room, Apollo was already exploding into his face.
"Father, it's treasonous to even consider stepping down in the current situation!"
"Apollo!" his sister glared at her in shocked disbelief. "You have the simple mind of a mechanical drone, programmed only to fight. Have you even considered what might have motivated this decision? No, you haven't. You never…"
"Athena, please," his father interrupted. "Let's not turn what's left of our family into a vortex of invective."
"I won't let your feelings be battered around by a man who feels absolutely nothing!" Athena protested, her eyes blazing with anger.
"That's enough," Adama interrupted again. "I said I wish to resign, not to leap into a void. And I'm perfectly capable of defending my own actions."
"Not by my measure," Apollo snapped.
His father gave him a look that would make a lesser man quake in his boots. Even Starbuck made a careful step backwards, and he didn't look like someone who'd be easily frightened. The Commander stepped closer to his son, almost into his face, and they stared at each other unblinkingly.
"What's your measure?" Adama asked in a low, dangerous voice. "What heartbeat guides you in telling one man he must die while another may live?"
That seemed to shake Apollo a little, because his expression softened considerably. He grabbed his father's shoulders, as if trying to listen to him.
"Could any man have done better or been fairer?" he asked, almost gently. "Did you succumb to influence or politics or whimsy? Didn't you do the best you could?"
For a moment, Adama couldn't find the answer to that. He stepped back, letting his son's hands fall from his shoulder and turned away.
"Yes," he finally admitted, "yes. But for the first time, it isn't enough to know that I did my best. I'll sleep in some semblance of peace only when I know that I'll never have to face that agony again."
Apollo's face hardened again. "That's cowardice!" he declared, and, shaking his head in anger, he stormed off, an apologetic-looking Starbuck in tow.
"Apollo!" Athena called after him in dismay. "If you turn on him now, I…"
But her father interrupted her.
"Let him go," he sounded old and very, very tired, all of the sudden. "He's not entirely wrong, you know."
"Father!" Athena protested, tears swimming in her eyes. "You are not a coward!"
Her father raised a hand to stop the argument.
"Maybe… or maybe I am. For not speaking out soon enough, when the Destruction might have been avoided."
"They wouldn't listen to you, Commander," Serina said quietly. "The Councillors were so enamoured with President Adar's magnificent vision of peace – we all were, to tell the truth – that no-one of them would have listened to military objections."
"Commander Xaviar, at least, would have," Adama sighed. "He, at least, doubted the genuinity of the Cylon peace offering as much as I did. And his word would have considerable weight, him being the Chief Warlord of Sagittara."
"But not a Councillor; at least not back then," Serina pointed out. "And even so, you'd have been outnumbered and outvoted."
"Perhaps," Adama allowed reluctantly. "Still I should have tried, at the very least."
"Do you truly think there's someone better qualified to lead?" Athena was fighting her tears as she asked."
"There has to be," the Commander replied with a heavy sigh. "Or we're doomed."
"There's no use trying to fight him when he's already made up his mind," Athena said in defeat.
She was escorting Serina, who was carrying the sleeping Boxey, back to their quarters, not finding the strength to return to her own rooms, all alone, just yet.
"Oh?" Serina said noncommittally.
Athena nodded. "Not even Mother could make him change his mind, once he'd come to a decision… and he'd do just about anything for Mother."
"Is he going to be all right?" Serina asked in concern.
It wasn't an entirely selfless thing on her side. All their lives depended on the Commander's well-being and on his ability to make split-micron decisions – preferably the right ones. They might have managed to shake off the Cylon pursuit, thanks to Captain Apollo's cleverly-constructed camouflage field – or so she'd been told – but that made by no means certain that they'd be out of danger entirely. On the contrary – a Cylon attack force could have been hiding behind every planet, every stray moon. The homicidal tinheads were generously spread all over this galactic sector… and probably beyond it, too.
"That's what I asked him a few days ago," Athena replied with a sad little smile. "Do you know what he answered? That he'd personally recommend for catharsis treatment everyone among us who'd say he or she was all right… after what happened."
"There is some truth in that," Serina admitted. Sooner or later, the Psych techs – assuming that any of them had survived – would have their hands full counselling trauma victims.
"I asked him whatever happened to the joy of living to fight another way… you know, the warrior commonplace," Athena went on.
Serina nodded. "Yeah, I've heard about that one. What did he answer?"
"That I was aboard the Galactica; I couldn't know what it was like down, on the planet," Athena said. "That I didn't see the survivors; their faces, their despair, screaming for a chance to coma aboard… a chance to live. And there he was, like God, passing out priorities as if they were tickets for Chancery. He said, he didn't want to do that anymore."
She paused and looked at Serina questioningly. "You were down there, all the time. Was it truly that horrible? Horrible enough for an old warrior of Father's format to resign?"
Serina remembered the sectares of hope and despair; the hunger, the terror, her own desperate attempts to escape from the burning planet… and nodded slowly.
"Worse," she said. "It was worse than you can imagine. Worse than I could have imagined, and I'd visited some of the outer colonies after a Cylon attack for the studios."
Athena nodded her understanding. "Then I cannot blame him for wanting someone else to do it. To take this burden for him. He's carried it on his shoulders long enough."
"Captain Apollo seems a lot less understanding than you are," Serina commented.
"My dear brother is a good, honest man, but a bit rigid in his thinking," Athena admitted with a sigh. "It's not his fault, though; not entirely. I had it easier; I'm just Father's little girl, even if it's frustrating sometimes that he doesn't think I could keep it up with his sons. But Apollo… expectations towards him, as the firstborn and Father's heir, have always been impossibly high, yet somehow he always rose to them. Even if he had to bend backwards to achieve that lofty goal. In exchange, he'd put Father on such a high pedestal it would make the Lords of Kobol themselves dizzy."
"In other words: he idolized his father," Serina finished. She'd seem such things often enough, even in the Houses of lesser nobility. Caprican nobles were very blood-conscious as a rule and expected much from their firstborn sons. Too much sometimes, it seemed.
"Something like that," Athena agreed. "And now he's having a hard time to face the fact that Father, too, is just a man, after all. An old man whose strength is not limitless."
"He's disappointed, then," Serina guessed.
"He's sobering up," Athena corrected. "Coming out of hero worship and trying to deal with the man behind his idol."
"That can be a long and painful process," Serina said.
"But a necessary one," Athena agreed with a shrug. "He'll come around, eventually. Get over the shock. But despite his disappointment, as you call it, He'll support Father and his decision in the face of the Twelve Old Fools of the Quorum, as Starbuck likes to call them. You'll see."
"I'll take your word for it," Serina said, hoping that she was right. A division among the Adamans would have been disastrous for them all. She'd have to see how she could perhaps mediate between father and son, now that she'd be working closely with the one and – if she played her cards right – become close to the other.
"Speaking of Lieutenant Starbuck, though," she added, "would you accept a piece of advice from me?"
Athena eyed her warily. "Depends on the advice."
"It's a good, practical one," Serina promised with a grin. "If you want to keep him – start fighting for him, right now. He seems to be the kind of man who likes it when women fight for him… and that little blonde tramp will fight for him, trust me. He's her ticket out of being a socialator… a designation not really needed right now, not for quite some time to come. She'll use all her female viles to ensnare him, and she's got the advantage of professional training in that area. Unless you act very soon, won't have the chance of a snowball in Hades."
"I don't really know what I want from him," Athena admitted, a little uncertainly.
"Then make up your mind, tonight rather than tomorrow," Serina warned, keyeing in the opening code of her door, "because tomorrow might be already too late."
~TBC~