THE LOST YEARS
by Soledad
INTERLUDE: THE LOST WARRIOR
Author's notes:
For disclaimer, rating, etc. see Chapter 01.
The description of fizzbin loosely follows the one given in the 2nd season Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action".
Admiral Cartwright (Star Trek VI) and Sire Solon were played by the same actor, Brock Peters. Hence the joke.
Chapter 03 – Lieutenant Doe
Omega wasn't the gambling type, had never been, but even he'd come to realize that a visit in the Carillon Bar, on the entertainment level of Semiramis, was usually worth his time. The establishment was owned by a high-class Gemoni socialator by the name of Arsinoe, who'd used to be the shrewdest businesswoman of her native planet, and thus one could watch the wealthy circles of the New Colonies in action. Which was a useful thing to do if one wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes.
It wasn't a cheap place, for sure, but not so expensive that even mid-level Federation officials couldn't have afforded a drink or two, even though more usually would have been beyond their purse. As for the gambling tables, one could simply stand and watch the games – usually card games, as Arsinoe despised the more common chancery machines, saying that they destroyed the atmosphere. There were enough other gambling places on the Arcade – one visited Arsione's establishment as much for making contacts as for the gambling itself. And this mingling between Federation officials with influential businessmen and politicians from the New Colonies was what Omega wanted to keep tab on. Despite the smooth surface, political situation was brooding on the respective worlds as well as between them. One could never have enough information.
It turned out he was not the only one with that particular interest. Commodore Hunter, the military governor of the Starbase, also often spent some time in the Carillon Bar. As she'd explained Omega at the beginning of their working relationship, there were more than enough shadowy businesspeople from various Federation worlds who needed some careful… supervision.
So, after Aggie had been left to the tender mercies of the school principal – not that she'd have been frightened or anything, she was used to deal with people working in childcare – Hunter had invited Omega to meet her in the Carillon Bar. She had her own, small table in one of the far corners, where they could talk, undisturbed by the music played in the foreground. They both valued these unofficial meetings, where they could discuss more freely Federation politics, the matters of border defence, exchange information about new technological development and a great deal of different topics, including family and children. Hunter came from a far-away human colony, originally populated by the descendants of Hopi Indians, where group marriage was the norm and people lived in an almost symbiotic relationship with nature. Omega, being a thoroughly urban person himself, found that fascinating.
"The crowd isn't too big tonight," he judged, eyeing the small groups of gamblers who surrounded the various card tables. They were mostly human, save from a few who looked like oversized felixes, with either reddish or shiny black fur covering their sleek, limber bodies. He'd met intelligent felinoids before, but not in such numbers. They had been a dying species back in the Old Colonies and had been completely eradicated by the Destruction.
Hunter looked around, too, and nodded.
"It's still early," she explained. "The true nightcrawlers won't appear before midnight. I prefer this time, though. One can't have a sensible conversation when the party is in full swing here."
"But isn't that the time when the worst perpetrators do their business as well?" Omega asked.
Hunter shook her head. "No, those are professional gamblers who live and die for chancery – mostly die, I'd say, sooner or later. Security keeps a constant eye on them, of course, but they're very predictable: the unfortunate victims of their own addiction. No, the really big deals are made during the calmer, quieter times. The big players don't want to draw attention."
"Which is why you show presence here frequently, isn't it?" Omega grinned.
"Of course," Hunter agreed cheerfully. "It makes them… uncomfortable. I like them uncomfortable. They're more prone to making mistakes that way."
Omega nodded thoughtfully. Hunter had indeed a natural gift for intimidation.
"Don't you mind your border guards gambling in here?" he asked then, nodding towards one of the card tables, where half a dozen black-clad pilots from the border patrol were playing a highly complicated game, the rules of which seemed to make no sense at all. They used a standard Terran deck of cards, but from what Omega could catch from their sometimes heated conversation, the rules changed on certain days of the secton. Expressions like half-fizzbin or sralk flew back and forth over the table.
Hunter laughed. "Oh, them! They're just trying to actually play fizzbin – which is virtually impossible, of course."
"Is it?" Omega asked in surprise. "I was told that it's played on the planet Beta Antares IV."
"Actually," Hunter explained, grinning, "A game named fizzbin never really existed. Jim Kirk fabricated it to confuse the guards on Sigma Iota II and to make it possible for the landing party to escape. That's why the rules are so terribly complicated that no one could figure out how to play the game to begin with."
"Such little details never bothered a true gambler, though," Omega began to see where it was all going.
"No, Hunter agreed. "For the last five years or so, every professional gambler in the Federation – or outside of it, for that matter – has tried to produce a working set of rules for the game. So far, no one has succeeded. But it's highly entertaining to watch them try."
With that, Omega couldn't argue, and so they listened to the players for a while. The discussion among them could only be described as… arcane.
"You see, it's a bit complicated," a huge, blonde-maned human whom Omega recognized as Ilya Petrenko, formerly Hunter's board gunner on the Aerfen, nowadays the commander of the border patrol. "Each player gets six cards, except for the player on the dealer's right, who gets seven."
"Why the one on the right?" another pilot, apparently new to the game, asked.
Petrenko shrugged. "Those are the rules. Pay attention! The second card is turned up, except on Tuesdays."
"On Tuesdays," the other pilot repeated with glassy eyes.
"Mm-hmm," Petrenko nodded. "Or, as Doe would call it for some reason, on Secondday."
"Oh, look what you got!" the third pilot, obviously Doe, with a lieutenant's straps on the sleeves of his black uniform, said. "Two jacks! You got a half-fizzbin already."
The newbie pilot, who was obviously played for a fool, tried to concentrate very hard. "So, does this mean I need another jack?"
"No," Petrenko cried, alarmed. "If you got another jack, why, you'd have a sralk."
"A… sralk?" the poor newbie was utterly confused.
"Yes," the pilot named Doe nodded gravely. "You'd be disqualified. You need a king and a deuce, except at night, when you'd need a queen and a 4."
"Except at night?" the newbie seemed to suspect that he was being led on, but the other two looked at him with completely blank faces.
"Right," Petrenko said, and then he peeked into the hand of the newbie in delight. "Oh, look at that! You've got another jack! How lucky you are! How wonderful for you!"
"Haven't you said that getting another jack would get me disqualified?" the newbie tried to get his thoughts straight but with no result. The pilot named Doe laid a calming arm around his shoulders.
"That was different," he explained patiently. "If you didn't get another jack, if you'd gotten a king, why, then, you'd get another card, except when it's dark, you'd give it back."
"If it were dark on Tuesday?" the newbie had completely lost his lead already.
"Right," Doe nodded. "But what you're after is a royal fizzbin, as it seems to me, and the odds in getting a royal fizzbin…"
"Oh, c'mon, Doe," Petrenko complained, "you know as well as I do that getting a royal fizzbin is astronomically impossible."
"No more impossible than a perfect pyramid," Doe riposted. "All you need is a good system."
"There's no system in fizzbin at all," Petrenko said patiently. "There's not supposed to be one, you know. It's been created to be chaotic and completely unpredictable. It's the ultimate game of chance."
"Every game has a system," the other pilot insisted. "You just need to work it out, that's all."
Petrenko howled with laughter and slapped the smaller man (well, small compared with him anyway, but few people could have messed themselves with him where sheer size was considered) on the back.
"That's our Doe! Always looking for the perfect system," he turned back to the newbie. "Don't listen to him. The odds for getting a royal fizzbin are astronomical, believe me. Now, for the last card. We'll call it a kronk…"
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
The rest of the discussion was lost for Omega, as he was preoccupied by some nagging familiarity that he couldn't give a name yet. There was something in the voice of the pilot named Doe that reminded him of something – or someone, he only needed to figure out what or whom. He turned his seat to take a closer look.
The man on Petrenko's side was of middle height and of slender built, his hair so short-cropped that it would have been hard to guess its colour. But his short beard was dark gold, so he had to be blond, originally. Said beard concealed his features a great deal, but the bright blue eyes and the killer cheekbones came to full effect nonetheless. He was a very handsome man, but behind his jovial façade there was something that gave Omega the chills. Those crystal clear eyes had what old warriors used to call the thousand yahrens glare – they were the eyes of someone who'd known death… and probably worse.
"Commodore," the colonel asked quietly, so that they wouldn't be overheard. "This pilot of yours, this Lieutenant Doe – who is he? Where is he from?"
"That's a good question," Hunter replied thoughtfully. She, too, had lowered her voice, so that it was barely above whisper. "We don't know. He's been found somewhere on the lowest levels of the Base, almost two years ago. He was in a desolate shape and couldn't remember anything but his given name: Gabriel. We suspect that he'd been held captive somewhere and severely mistreated, including having given mind-altering drugs."
"For interrogation purposes?" Omega guessed.
"That, or out of simple cruelty," Hunter answered with a shrug. "We're on the verge of unexplored space here. The lowest levels are full of people who'd come here with high hopes – and when these hopes failed to come true, they had nowhere else to go. We're the last station here – the ultimate terminus for many people. Some of them are even good people, they just had a lot of bad luck. That happens, unfortunately."
"And is there nothing that could be done for those unlucky ones?" Omega asked. Hunter shrugged again.
"We are trying… but it's not easy. You see, Colonel, we might have come a long way from the Dark Ages, but human society is still far from perfect. The Federation is a useful alliance, but it's no paradise, either. The unlucky and the poor – they'll always be with us, as well as the heroes and the gamblers and those who make profit of the misery of other people. That's the nature of the beast. It would be naïve to think that we can change it – not for a long time yet, anyway."
"How comes then that such a homeless person, and one with a complete memory loss at that, could become a lieutenant of your border patrol?" Omega asked.
"After the doctors patched him up a bit – which took them moths, let me tell you – he asked for something to do in exchange," Hunter explained. "He showed some talent with computers and other electronic equipment, and so we let him work in the shuttle bay, for food and a small closed to sleep in. One day, one of our Tennet-5 hunters had some engine problem. He offered his help and the pilot took him out for a test flight. The engines died on them halfway back, but Doe somehow managed to bring the machine back… we still don't know how. In any case, we had his piloting skills tested afterwards, and he turned out a better pilot than any other we'd already had. So we offered him the job, he accepted – and we haven't regretted that decision to the present day. He's good, really good."
"But why do you call him Lieutenant Doe?" Omega asked. "Didn't you say he won't remember anything?"
"Not much anyway," Hunter admitted. "It's an old Earth tradition to use John Doe as a placeholder name for a male party in a legal action or legal discussion whose true identity is unknown or is intended to be. The custom dates back to the reign of Edward III, the King of England, as Lt. M'Botabwe so generously explained to me. Our Lieutenant Doe can at least remember his given name, so we christened him Gabriel Doe, so that we can at least create an official file for him."
"Still, why make him a lieutenant?" Omega frowned. "Didn't that cause problems with the other pilots, who've earned their rank through years of service?"
Hunter shrugged. "He's just a field lieutenant. It's general custom by the border patrols that all pilots are lieutenants – sounds better when they have to deal with agitated ship's commaners. They aren't part of Starfleet anyway, so we can affors small irregularities," she gave Omega a curious look. "Why all the questions? Do you happen to know the man?"
"I'm not sure," Omega said slowly. "He has a certain… likeness to one of our ace pilots that we have lost under… unknown circumstances."
"Well, he certainly could be one of your people," Hunter agreed. "He already spoke Standard when we found him, but he'd been living in the underbelly of the Base at least half a year by then. He definitely does have the same accent as you. When did that pilot of yours get lost?"
"Before we crossed the singularity that brought us into your corner of the universe," Omega replied grimly.
"How could he have ended up here as well, then?" Hunter wondered. Omega shook his head.
"He could not. It's impossible. Vipers can't make suchl ong flights through deep space without refuelling. He was sent out to deep patrol, about a sectare… a month," he corrected himself, "before we found the anomaly. He never returned from that patrol."
"Not that you'd know," Hunter said.
"Had he returned, I would know," Omega replied. "I used to be the bridge officer of the Galactica at that time – every launch and return ran through my duty station."
"Then he must have found a way to follow you," Hunter guessed.
"No," Omega said. "That's just not possible."
"If I have learned anything in my long years of duty, it's the fact that virtually nothing is impossible in deep space," Hunter said thoughtfully. "Is there any way to confirm his identity? Do you have records from your warriors in the databases?"
"Of course," Omega nodded. "I can download Lt. Starbuck's – that was our pilot's name – medical file from the Galactica's crew manifest. We can compare them with the ones your doctors made of this Lieutenant Doe. A DNA-test could bring some light into the issue. I can do this quickly and discretely while Aggie is getting tested for school."
Hunter gave him a sharp look. "You don't want to make your suspicion public just yet, do you?" she asked.
"No," Omega said. "That man over there does have a more than fleeting likeness to Starbuck, but to my best knowledge, he can't be Starbuck. And if he's not… Starbuck had a lot of friends who were badly shaken by his loss and are, in fact, still grieving for him. It would be unencessarily cruel to make them false hopes, only to destroy those hopes again."
"I see your point," Hunter agreed. "But what if the impossible has happened, and our Lieutenant Doe is, in fact, your Lieutenant Starbuck?"
"In that case, I'd be even more cautious," Omega said slowly. "That man there might look and gamble like Starbuck, but his eyes are dead – and he's lost his memory. Things like that don't happen without a very good reason. Our Starbuck was the most resilient man I've ever met. He always bounced back onto his feet, no matter what. By Hades, he even came back from Cylon captivity unharmed! For him to become that… that person over there, he'd have to go through unspeakable things. If he is Starbuck, that means whoever had held him captive, must have broken him thoroughly. I don't think he'd wish to remember again – or his friends would want to know."
"I understand the sentiment," Hunter said, "but what if he didn't seek refuge in amnesia instinctively? What if his mind was wiped clear deliberately, because he'd seen or heard something he wasn't supposed to? The medical tests show that he'd been tortured, for an extended period of time and very thoroughly. If he hadn't simply fallen in the hands of some sick pervert, his jailers wanted information. It might be of great importance to learn what that information was. Lives can depend on the return of his memory… if he is the one you believe he is."
"Perhaps," Omega allowed reluctantly.
"You are concerned about hie mental well-being, which is a very noble gesture," Hunter continued, her voice still low but urgent. "But consider this: the way he is now, he might live out his life without ever learning who he truly is. Would you wish that for a friend?"
"If he is Starbuck, that would be nothing new for him," Omega pointed out. "He'd lived with a memory loss all his life. He couldn't remember a thing from his childhood – not even his true name."
"Isn't that strange?" Hunter said. "Lieutenant Doe can't remember anythong after the age of about six. His cihldhood memories are quite vivid, or so the doctors say, although he can't put names to the places or people he rmemembers. The only name he knows is his own."
Omega's eyebrows climbed up to his hairline. "Could that be a coincidence?"
"Theoretically?" Hunter asked, although Omega's had been a rhetorical question and they both knew it. "Of course it could. Coincidences happen all the time. This particular coincidence, however, seems just a bit too… convenient for my taste."
"You are thinking the drugs," Omega siad slowly. "While they blocked his memories of the immediate past, they might have removed the block from his childhood memories at the same time, yes?"
Hunter nodded. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"How should I know?" Omega riposted, his frustration very evident. "I'm not a doctor!"
"Neither am I," Hunter answered, "but for this, you don't need a degree. Just some good, old-fashioned logic."
"You think so?" Omega was less than sure about it.
Hunter nodded. "Look. A child had gone through a terrible trauma and blocked his memories in order to survive. Decades later, as a grown man, he went through another trauma, a just as horrible one, or perhaps even worse, and his memories were blocked again, either by himself, or, what's more likely, by the drugs. But no human being can survive with a completely blank mind. So, his subconscious reached out for something to hold on, something safe. Most people find childhood memories safe and comforting. So the mind worked itself through the first blockade and laid at least some of those memories open again. Our man has found a name and an identity, and that probably saved his life and his sanity."
"If he is Starbuck," Omega repeated with emphasis.
"If he's not, checking out his background won't do him any harm," Hunter said.
"Agreed," Omega said, after a moment of consideration. "So, how are we going to do this?"
"You can establish a link to the Galactica from my office," Hunter offered. "I assume you can download information from the databases through a secured channel without anyone knowing which files you've accessed, can't you?"
"Of course," Omega replied with a faint smile. "I'm the executive officer, after all. The only one with a higher security clearance is Apollo, and he can't even come close to my familiarity with the board systems. Having served as a flag officer all my life does have its advantages."
"Is that the same sentiment as 'rank has its privileges', which we're never supposed to misuse?" Hunter asked with biting irony. "No, don't answer that. It's enough if I know where and when I have to bend the rules to make things work. When are you supposed to fetch your kid?"
Omega glanced at his wrist chrono. "I still have three cen… three hours left. And she'll contact me anyway when she's done. She has a wrist communicator on her."
"Good," Hunter rose. "Come to my office in, say, forty minutes. I have to make a few calls, but by then, I'll have all the data that we have on Lieutenant Doe ready for you… not that it would be much, mind you, but better than nothing."
With that, she nodded and left, without wasting her time with goodbyes. After all, they were going to see each other in less than an hour.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Omega spent the next half an hour with watching the ongoing fizzbin game between the pilots of the border patrol. The rules – if they, indeed, existed in the first place anywhere else but the players' imagination – hadn't become any clearer in this time. On the contrary, they seemed to grow new, twisted tentacles with every new round. He didn't think he'd ever be able to understand the game – or, indeed, see its attraction. Quite frankly, it was utter nonsense.
But he wasn't really interested in the game anyway, so not understanding it didn't bother him at all. It was Lieutenant Doe he was watching, trying to find more similarities between the man without memory and the long-lost Starbuck. More important similarities than just the gambling, the blond hair and the incredibly blue eyes.
He wasn't sure he could see any. Sure, the beard didn't make it easier to figure out the lines of that lean face, but the man seemed yahrens older than Starbuck should have been, and the short-cropped hair made the shape of that blond head look very different. There were deep lines around the man's mouth and in the corners of his eyes, and his body language completely lacked Starbuck's easy-going openness.
No, Omega decided, there was no way this man could be Starbuck. There were similarities, yes, but those were superficial, and just how many people who didn't have the slightest blood relation did look startlingly alike? One only needed to think of Admiral Cartwright and Sire Solon, who looked like identical twins, despite the fact that they hailed from two different peoples.
This had to be another such genetic coincidence. What else could it be? Sometimes complete strangers looked alike. That was all.
Why, then, was he trying so desperately to persuade himself that his first instinct had been wrong? Why did he feel a sudden bout of dark foreboding rise in his mind?
He shook his head in disgust. He needed to stop. This was counterproductive. He had to leave this place and go somewhere else where he could think clearly. Besides, the forty microns – minutes, he corrected himself absent-mindedly – were almost over. Hunter expected him in her office any time now.
He rose to leave. As he walked by the card table on his way out, Lieutenant Doe looked up from his cards unexpectedly. His bleak but very vigilant eyes searched Omega's face warily.
"Do I know you, sir?" he asked. His voice, too, was achingly familiar, but deeper and rougher than Starbuck's had been.
"No, I don't think so, Lieutenant," Omega replied slowly.
For a moment, there was doubt in those bright, suspicious eyes, then the man turned back to his cards with a shrug.
"So, you're interested in the game, then?"
"Not really," Omega admitted, "although its chaotic nature does have a certain fascination. But I'm not much of a gambler anyway. The only game I ever play is pyramid, and that, too, happens rarely enough."
"Pyramid?" Now there was slight amusement in that semi-familiar voice. "We should play a game or two together, if you fell like it. I promise not to filch you too badly."
"I can't," Omega said apologetically. "Not right now, that is. But I'll be on the Base for the next few days. Another time, perhaps."
The lieutenant inclined his head in agreement. "Another time," he repeated. "You know where to find me."
"Yes," Omega said, after a moment of stunned silence. "Yes, I do."
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
On his way to Hunter's office, he was still pondering over the unexpected invitation. What might have moved Lieutenant Doe to invite him to a game of pyramid – well, to make contact with him in the first place? They'd never met before… or had they?
Well, he had been watching the man all afternoon. Perhaps Lieutenant Doe had felt his eyes on himself – battle-hardened veterans who'd been to Hades and back always could tell when they were being watched. It was an instinct – the instinct of a hunted predator that had learned how to survive.
Perhaps the man was simply curious. He must have gotten used to the inquisitive stares, but he didn't know Omega, so he wanted to check him out. Or perhaps he hoped that Omega had met him before and could tell him who he truly was?
No. There had been no hope in those eyes at all. Just tolerant amusement and mild curiosity. Perhaps a little suspicion, too. After all, the man couldn't know for sure that the people who'd so severely mistreated him in his now-forgotten past weren't still out there, looking for a chance to finish the job.
And Omega had to agree with Hunter that that was a disconcerting thought. Anyone who was ready to subject a human being to severe and prolonged torture, just to keep their secrets safe, couldn't be up to anything good. Whether he liked or not, they needed to reveal the secret of Lieutenant Doe's identity, one way or another.
The question if Lieutenant Doe was, indeed, Starbuck or not, was of secondary importance in this context.
TBC