Chapter 68
Top Gun
Late in the autumn of President Adar's last year in office, the Altar of Zeus was removed from the woods near the Antioch Memorial Garden and brought to the Caprica Museum of Natural History for safekeeping where it is currently on display. The volunteer staff of the garden was unable to keep tourists and other treasure seekers from chipping pieces off the altar to keep or sell as souvenirs.
-Bartell, History of the Second Cylon War
.
Rick Rafferty introduced Lee to his chief computer technician. The young man was gangly, his nose long and hawkish, his head covered with a thick mop of brownish-blond curly hair with small streaks of green and blue in front. He wore a longer white lab coat like his boss and both had the small goatee that seemed so popular outside the military right now.
"Kevin Abinell," Rafferty said, "meet Lee Adama."
Abinell had turned around from a stainless steel table where he was soldering something on a small chip under a magnifying glass. He held out his hand after wiping it on his jeans.
"Welcome to Sadieland."
Lee took his hand. "Sadieland. That's a good one."
Rafferty said, "Kev sometimes fights me for the cot we keep out here and the privilege of spending the night. I think my wife is beginning to wonder."
Kevin snickered. "Beginning to wonder? That's an understatement. If I had time for a girlfriend, I'm sure she'd wonder, too."
Lee remembered what his father had said. He had no idea how hard these dedicated engineers and scientists and technicians had worked, how many times they had labored through the night or almost all night. He knew when they defeated the Cylons, these men and women would certainly rate some kind of recognition and reward.
Rafferty said, "I'll leave Lee to you, Kevin. You'll probably want to start him on the external setup and let him get used to the controls before you turn him loose inside Sadie."
"Right," Kevin said. "Come with me."
He took Lee behind the plastic wall. There was a computer and joystick set up on a table with two rudder pedals on the floor attached to a device that was plugged into the back of the computer.
Lee sat down on the stool in front of the monitor and touched a key on the keyboard. The small screen came alive. The screen saver was a cartoonish whip-cracking ogre with Rick Rafferty's head attached using one of the popular photo-enhancing softwares.
"I see you love your boss," Lee joked.
"Rick designed that one night while we were waiting for one of the other techs to get back with our takeout. He's about as opposite of an ogre as you could find. He's brilliant and dedicated. He never asks us to do anything he wouldn't do himself. If we pull an all-nighter, so does he. He's lucky his wife understands. Of course she's a neurosurgeon so she's not exactly sitting at home twiddling her thumbs. She dissected Sadie's brain for us."
Lee wondered how Major Parker's head would look on the ogre and then realized that Ackerman's head would fit it better. Instead of cracking a whip, though, he would be cracking heads. Lee smiled at the thought before he realized that it really wasn't funny.
Kevin was talking to him.
"You'll steer just like you do a Viper with a combination of the joystick and the rudder petals. You'll initiate the jump sequence by keying in the coordinates and pressing the ctrl and backspace keys simultaneously."
"So I don't need a jump key inserted in the ship like the battlestars do?"
"No. The Cylon FTL drive has everything built in. Of course there's no drive hooked up to this computer so you'll have to pretend it works for now."
Lee felt a moment of doubt as he had that day he had been here with his father. Would this thing work or was he going on a one-way ride into some unknown, uncharted area of space? No. It would work. Sadie would get him to Nereid and back.
"So what do you want me to do?" Lee asked
"Get familiar with the controls, especially the rudder pedals and the joystick and how they work together. The slide lever attached to the left side of the keyboard is your speed control. The little blue switch on that panel starts your cameras recording. We don't have any cameras hooked up to this setup, but when you start practicing in Sadie, the cameras will work."
"How will I see to navigate?" Lee asked.
"The monitor. It's the best we could do. We're leaving the eye-slot alone with the red eye intact. We think that might be how the Raiders communicate with each other. That and a homing signal. If there are other Raiders wherever you're going in this thing, we don't want you to look any different than the rest."
"You mean you don't know where I'm going in Sadie?"
"Need to know basis only, man. That's how we do everything out here. Even Rick doesn't know where you're taking it. We've talked. We figure it's out of this solar system, but we don't know where. It doesn't really matter to us. All we've got to do is make sure it will fly and that you can jump it. We know the military has its secrets."
"I don't know all the details yet myself," Lee said.
"Play around with it all you want," Kevin said. "I apologize for the graphics. We didn't have time to program anything state of the art. It probably looks like one of the first video games you ever played."
"I wasn't too much into video games as a kid. My brother was…and my girlfriend."
"Your girlfriend was into the games. Cool, man. Is she any good?"
"Her best friend says so. He says they used to go down to a video arcade and she'd take on all challengers in the aerial dogfight game when she was twelve or thirteen. She's in Flight School now learning to fly a Viper. She's good."
"Was she the one who was with you and your dad about six months ago? Blond? She climbed up in Sadie?"
"That's her," Lee answered.
"Man, she's hot. I…uh…don't take that the wrong way."
"I didn't. She has that effect on a lot of guys."
"Well, I'll let you get to it. If you have any questions, come ask. That's what I'm here for."
"The blue and green streak in your hair. Does it have a special significance?"
Kevin laughed. "I'm a diehard C-Bucks fan. I have this thing about always wearing their colors. Putting them in my hair makes it easy."
"So how do I start flying Sadie?" Lee asked.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot that part, didn't I? Hit esc twice. That puts you into sim mode and takes you out. While you're in sim mode, the caps lock toggles you between atmosphere and deep space. Keying in the jump coordinates and hitting ctrl and backspace will do the same thing. Like I said, the graphics are pretty crude, but it's the best we could do given the time we had."
"Thanks."
"When you get really familiar with the controls here, maybe in a couple of weeks, then we'll let you start working inside of Sadie. Same setup. It feels different, though, so it's best to get used to flying it first. You want the control coordination to be second nature before you try to do it lying on your stomach."
After Kevin left to go back to his workbench, Lee hit esc twice to enter the sim. The graphics on the small screen didn't look all that crude to him. He realized the view was approximately what he would see if he were able to look out of the eye slot of the Raider. He was sitting on a runway.
He knew the first thing he had to do was figure you how much stick and how much rudder he needed to control the Raider…the stick to control roll and pitch, the rudders to control yaw. Get all of that coordinated with the slide-bar throttle and he would be in business.
It wasn't nearly as easy as he had thought it would be. The first few attempts he made to takeoff ended with crashes onto the runway. He saw that Kevin was not without a sense of humor. Instead of immediately going back to the screen saver, the ogre with Rafferty's head whacked a cartoon pilot a few times with a crude wooden club while the word ouch was displayed in a little bubble above the pilot's head.
"Cute," Lee said to himself. At least the ogre wasn't keeping score.
An hour later Lee could consistently get the Raider off the runway and into the air. He began to form a grudging admiration for whoever had constructed the part-metal, part-organic ship and given it the equivalent of a brain. And to do it all in the twenty years between the first war and the second war was a monumental accomplishment. He had to give the Cylons…or whoever…credit.
The humans who had created the new centurion models, the skinjobs and the Raiders had to have been geniuses. He wondered who they were and if they were still alive on Nereid. His father had mentioned the disappearance of Daniel and Amanda Graystone just before the end of the First War. Were they kidnapped and killed by someone out to avenge the death of Tomas Vergis as many thought or had they possibly taken their expertise to Nereid?
He turned his attention back to the sim and practiced keying in twelve numbers and hitting the ctrl and backspace keys at the same time. Kevin was right. It toggled him into deep space. He cruised around testing the Raider's maneuverability. He saw a planet in the distance and headed for it. Once again he saw Kevin's sense of humor. The planet's one continent was shaped like a big question mark.
At five o'clock that afternoon Lee was exhausted and ready to go home.
"I'll see you Monday afternoon," he said to Kevin.
"I'll be here, man," Kevin replied. "Where else would I be."
…
Kara got home early from class on Monday. She didn't have a training flight that day and decided to go home and study for the next day's flight. She entered the apartment to find Braedon holding on to the side of his playpen and standing.
Maya was laughing and talking to him. She turned as Kara entered the room. "He's going to walk soon, a few weeks maybe."
Kara picked Braedon up. He began babbling happily and Kara was sure that she heard him say, "Kawa." He already said, "Dada," often stringing it out into a long, "dadadadada." He was having a harder time with the 'm' sound. Kara thought when he said, "yayayaya," he was talking to Maya.
"Where's my dad?" Kara asked.
"He's still at the photographer's."
"What photographer's?"
"He didn't mention it to you?" Maya asked in surprise.
"No."
"He's going to be on the cover of The Caprican Gentleman, the November issue that will come out late in October. They're doing an inside spread on him, too."
Kara laughed. "My dad is going to be on a magazine cover? What a hoot. No wonder he didn't tell me. I will seriously give him some grief over it."
"Please don't give him a hard time," Maya said. "He did not want to do this, but Laura's PR guy talked him into it. More exposure for her campaign. He thinks because your dad is good-looking that it will get some of the female votes."
"Ugh," Kara said. "I am so glad I'm going to be on a battlestar when that magazine comes out. I'd die if I was still at the Academy. My dad, a cover boy."
"Just think about him. He'll have to deal with the fallout. D'Anna Biers is coming to interview him later this week, part of some deal Laura made with her on campaign coverage. The article Biers writes is going to run in the magazine. John decided to get it all over in one week."
Kara sat on the couch. Braedon immediately wanted down. He crawled over to the terrace door.
"See the little handprints on the glass near the bottom of the door. Jennet cleans it every day and every day Brae crawls over there and puts those handprints back. Sometimes in the afternoon when the sun is off the terrace, John takes his playpen out there. Braedon loves it."
"How did things go with Sam on Saturday night?" Kara asked.
"We went back to his place and talked for a long time. I'm sure a lot of people think he's just a dumb jock, but he's not. There's more to Sam than meets the eye."
Kara almost snickered. "I'll bet."
"Not that," Maya smiled, "although the subject was discussed."
"And?"
"He understands why I'm not ready to take the next step in the relationship right now. I told him about losing Peter in the bombing. I told him about losing Hanna in the camp. I almost told him about what I did to try to save her, but I'm not ready to talk to him about that yet. I've told him enough for now. I'll see where the relationship goes from here."
"That sounds like a smart thing to do. I'll bet you're the first woman Sam has dated more than twice who hasn't hopped right into bed with him."
Maya smiled. "I'll know when the time is right…if the time is right. That's not the only big decision I have to make. Laura has asked me to move into Marble House if she's elected. She wants me to be Braedon's live-in nanny."
"What about school? What about getting your teaching degree?"
"She said I could continue to go to school."
"What does that do to you and Sam?"
"I'd still have time to date Sam. I will get some free time. Laura is going to give me a big raise plus I won't have to rent an apartment and my meals will be provided."
"That sounds like a sweet deal."
"I tried to tell her yes right away but she told me to think about it."
"Have you mentioned it to Sam?"
"Not yet. Laura just talked to me this morning. She's not rushing me to make a decision."
"I guess you could take the job and then if you and Sam get serious you could always quit."
"By get serious you mean…"
"He wants to marry you."
Maya laughed. "We can forget about that. Sam Anders is not the marrying kind."
"You might be surprised."
"I'm a couple of years older than he is."
"So?" Kara said. "Lee's four years older than me. What difference does that make? It sounds like you're looking for reasons that it's not going to work. Don't you like Sam?"
Maya smiled. "I like him."
They heard the door open. John came in, waved at them and went down the hall. When he came back, he had put on shorts and a t-shirt. He sat down in one of the chairs. Braedon crawled over to his father and John picked him up. Braedon held his hand toward the door to the terrace.
"He wants to go outside," John said. "Hold him while I take his playpen out."
Kara held her brother while her father maneuvered the playpen out the terrace door. She carried Braedon out and put him in it.
Maya walked to the door. "If you don't mind, I'll be going."
"Have fun," John said.
"Big date tonight?" Kara grinned at Maya.
"We're going to dinner."
Kara and her father sat down in two of the lounge chairs. "So how did it go today?"
He didn't look at her. "Maya told you?"
"I'll be on a battlestar when the magazine comes out. The scope of my embarrassment will be limited," she teased. "How many pilots do you think subscribe to The Caprican Gentleman?"
"I hate this stuff. I hate my life being so public."
"Maya said D'Anna Biers is going to interview you later this week."
"Don't remind me." He got up and went inside. When he came back he had a drink.
"It's a little early for that, isn't it?"
"It's after five. I deserve it today. They had six or seven different suits I had to put on and…the photographer's assistant kept…fussing with me and my hair and…frak, I don't want to talk about it."
"Was this photo shoot the only reason you've been a big grouch for the last week? You hardly speak at the dinner table."
He shrugged.
"What did you and Laura fight about?"
"I wasn't a fight. We just disagree about something."
"Is it about the refugee camp?"
"No. Bill has decided not to attempt to rescue any prisoners on Nereid. He's going to jump in and nuke any basestars in the area and then nuke the planet. Laura agrees with him."
"I can't believe that."
"They think a rescue attempt would cost more lives than it would save. It's not that I can't understand their point of view. I just don't agree with it."
"Does Lee know about this?"
"I doubt it. Bill made a military decision. The next President of the Colonies agrees with him. My feelings, your feelings, Lee's feelings, whatever they might be…don't matter."
"You're not happy anymore, are you?"
"I'm fine, Kara. I've got you and Brae. Laura and I are okay. I'm dealing with the rest."
"Karl told me at lunch today that he wants to go with us to visit the camp."
"That's fine."
"Lee's going too."
"Anyone else?"
"No. Karl didn't ask Sharon because I told him I didn't want her going along. Karl understands. I don't think he wants her to go either. I doubt she would go anyway. So it will be the four of us."
He nodded.
"We'll pick a day during the week after I graduate from Flight School. I'll get my battlestar assignment that week. The week after that I'll go to the Galactica."
"You're sure you're going to get to pick the G?"
"I'm in the top three in my class. I'm almost certain of that."
"Somebody has a birthday coming up next week. A milestone."
She grinned. "I won't have to worry about being carded anymore."
Her father finally looked over at her and smiled. "That's not exactly what I was thinking about."
She was glad to see him finally smile. "You mean after next week you can't tell me what to do anymore."
"That's not what I had in mind, either. What do you want for your birthday?"
"Nothing. Not a thing."
"The weekend before you go to the Galactica, do you want to go down to the island again?"
"Could we? I thought you'd be back at the Academy by then."
"Not until the next Monday. We'll leave Friday, come back Sunday afternoon."
"I guess Lee is invited."
Her father was still smiling. "Of course. If Laura can't go, I'll still take Brae."
…
Laura had put off talking to Tory about her relationship with Gaius Baltar as long as she could. She had told Billy the same day that Romo Lampkin had told her. She had asked Billy to be careful about what he said around Tory. They had to assume now that anything they said might get repeated.
Tory appeared in the doorway.
"Please come in and shut the door," Laura said.
Tory sat in one of the chairs in front of Laura's desk. "If this is about the extra-long lunch I took today, I had an errand to run…"
"No. This isn't about your long lunches."
"I know I was late one day last week."
"Tory, this isn't about anything you've done at work." Laura took a deep breath and began. "While my election is not certain, there is the definite possibility that I will be the next President of the Colonies."
Tory nodded.
"This is about your future employment with me should I be elected. I assume you want to continue to work for me."
"Yes. Very much."
"As President, my staff will face much stronger scrutiny from the press and everyone else. There are a number of security checks everyone will have to pass. You're aware of that, are you not?"
"Yes," Tory answered hesitantly.
"Do you not know where I'm going with this?"
"No."
"You are in a relationship with a man who is also sleeping with a Cylon."
Tory's eyes widened. Laura didn't know if Tory's shock was at the news of Baltar's relationship with Natasi or that Laura knew about Baltar and Tory's affair.
Laura continued quickly. "You can see how something like that might be perceived on the President's staff, can you not?"
"My personal life…" Tory began.
"Is my business if I'm elected and you continue working for me. I view it as a matter of Colonial security."
"So what are you saying?" Tory asked coldly.
"Make a choice," Laura said. "If you choose to continue your relationship with Dr. Baltar, you will not continue in my employment after the election."
"How did you find out? We've been very discreet."
"Certainly you didn't think you could keep something like that a secret, did you?"
"You mean Gaius told someone? I don't believe it."
"You were observed and it was brought to my attention. Dr. Baltar is something of a public figure. There are those who pay particular attention to his personal life. How do you think his breakup with Natasi made tabloid headlines the day after it happened?"
"That's just it," Tory said smugly. "He's not seeing her. They broke up. Gaius got tired of her manipulative ways."
"Yes, I'm well aware they broke up, but at some point during the last year they resumed their relationship. He was observed attending some of her warehouse sermons. It would give the appearance that he may be converting or thinking of converting to the Cylon religion."
"Gaius has no religion," Tory said. "He doesn't believe in the gods, in God or in anything that can't be proven in a scientific way."
"Then that can only mean he attends Natasi's sermons as a way of ingratiating himself with her…to keep her in his bed."
"Gaius would never stoop to something like that," Tory said, her voice betraying her emotions for the first time. "He doesn't have to. And he does not care about her."
"You must think you know him very well."
"I do."
"And you truly believe he is faithful to you and you alone?"
Tory finally dropped her eyes. "No."
"Nor will he ever be. Natasi is not the only other woman he's seeing. A man like that simply isn't capable of being faithful to one woman. He's too impressed by his own genius, too consumed with self-love to be capable of giving himself to another. He's narcissistic and selfish. In those two ways he and Cavil are very much alike. If you don't believe me about the Cylon, ask him. Watch him either admit it or lie to you."
A flinty hardness came into Tory's eyes as she said, "So I either give up my relationship with Gaius or I'm out of a job."
"You will never pass the prerequisite security check to work in my administration if you persist in seeing him."
Tory said coldly. "There are other offices that could use my expertise."
"You would still have to pass a security check. The relationship will be uncovered."
Tory finally smiled. "It won't matter if I go to work for Cavil or Doral."
Laura hoped her shock didn't show. She had never once considered that possibility. Nevertheless she recovered quickly.
"I think you would be making a very big mistake if you did something like that."
Tory stood. "I'll clean out my desk today. I won't have my employer telling me who I can and can't date."
Laura also stood. "Very well. I hate it had to come to this."
"No, you don't."
Tory stalked out of the room. Laura took a deep breath, waited a few minutes and followed.
Tory was angrily placing personal items from her desk into a cardboard box as Billy looked on in surprise.
"Tory has just resigned effective immediately," Laura said to him. "Please call Security. I want to see that she gets to her car safely."
Billy understood and picked up the phone.
Laura turned to Tory. "Please give me your identity badge and your key to this office."
Tory jerked the badge from her suit lapel and slammed it onto the desk. She opened her handbag, rummaged until she found her key ring and with some difficulty extracted the office key. She slapped it down on top of her badge.
Laura retrieved them. "I really do regret…" she began.
"Save the I'm sorry speeches," Tory snarled.
Two security guards walked into the outer office. Laura smiled pleasantly.
"Please see that Ms. Foster gets to her car safely and makes it out of the parking lot."
"Yes ma'am," one of them said to her. They understood exactly what was going on. They waited patiently while Tory threw a few more things into the box.
"Keep everything else," Tory huffed, grabbed her purse and the box and headed for the door. The two guards followed her.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Laura said, "Call Maintenance. I want someone up here today to change the locks on all these doors. I know I got her key, but that doesn't mean she didn't have a duplicate made."
"Should I call my friend in the Data Center and have her security access and password disabled?"
"Yes. Thank you. Good thinking."
Billy already had the phone in his hand. As he waited for an answer, he asked, "What happened?"
Laura rubbed her hand across her forehead. "I'll tell you later. I need to sit down for a minute."
Slowly and sadly she walked back into her office. She would give Tory a month of severance pay. Overall she had been pleased with Tory's performance. Only lately had it slipped. Only lately had she started coming in late and taking long lunches. Laura wondered how much of it had to do with Gaius Baltar.
Now Laura had to think about a replacement for Tory. But she couldn't do that today. She would do it tomorrow. Tonight she wanted to go home and hold her son. She wanted to kiss him and smell the sweet baby freshness of his skin. And she wanted her husband's arms around her.
She and John had not mentioned Nereid again. He was dealing with it in his own way like he had said he would do. She knew it was still there between them, but he had once again become her refuge, the place she turned to make the rest of the world go away.
Tomorrow she would call Bill and tell him what had happened, tell him of Tory's threat to go to work for Cavil or Doral. Tomorrow she would call Bill and talk to him, but not today.
…
The last day of Flight School and the nuggets in Major Valinski's class were restless. There would be no lesson today, no test. The only purpose of today's class was to announce the Viper Top Gun spot and the second and third places so they could pick up the request forms for their choice of a battlestar. Today was also the day that the Viper and Raptor Top Guns got a beer bath.
Pike sat coolly at his desk, arms crossed, feet out in front of him, with a smug smile on his face. He really thought he had it. Either his higher test scores had given him a lot of confidence or he had done really well on his check rides. Probably both.
Valinski made them wait. It was tradition. She could picture the instructors drinking coffee in their ready room as the moments ticked by, knowing the nuggets were squirming in anticipation.
Kara tried to take her mind off the wait by thinking about her birthday celebration the week before. Her father and Laura and Lee had taken her out to Channing's. They had a nice evening and she had drunk her first legal beer.
The evening had ended for her at Lee's apartment. She had told him earlier the week before not to get her anything for her birthday. She knew the promise ring had cost him a lot on a lieutenant's salary and he had finally agreed. She should have known he would get her something anyway.
He had smiled as she'd opened the individually wrapped gifts, the big box of stationery for writing him letters with a set of three fine-point ink pens taped on top. Second was a boxed set of paperback books by a well-known mystery writer to help her pass the time, and last was a double deck of triad cards.
"I know it's not much," Lee had said. "But I had to get you something."
"It's perfect. Did you get two boxes of that stationery?"
He had smiled. "How did you know?"
"Who do you think will run out first?"
"I will. I write longer letters."
She had put the gifts on the floor in front of the couch and had snuggled against him. "It's not real to me, yet. Going to the G."
"Going to the Triton wasn't real to me until I was sitting in that personnel transport and we were leaving the Caprica airbase. The first couple of weeks were rough, getting used to the artificial gravity, no sunlight, sleeping in a room with fifteen other people, the community bathrooms."
"My dad said I should request my first week of leave during the election week at the end of November. He wants me home when Laura is elected so I can celebrate with them."
"I fly the Sadie mission sometime during the first or second week of October…the first time we have a big thunder storm on Heliops Island."
"How will I know when you do it and that you're all right?"
"I'll call you on ship-to-shore as soon as I can…or your dad will if something happens."
"No, don't say it. It's bad luck. Don't even think it."
Lee had pulled Kara to him and kissed her, and she had tried to put her upcoming deployment and his mission out of her mind. At that moment she hadn't wanted to think about the future. All she had wanted were his arms around her.
Kara was jarred from her reverie by Major Valinski's entrance into the classroom. All conversation stopped as the nuggets, including Pike, sat up straight.
Valinski put a stack of papers on the desk and looked slowly around the room.
"Every session of Flight School, we three Viper instructors wonder which one will have the privilege of teaching the Top Gun. I know that you all had a dozen flight instructors who also taught you, but we in the classroom are the ones who get to claim you." He smiled.
Come on tell us, Kara thought. If you're going to say Pike, just get it over with.
"This session I'm happy to announce that I've got both the Top Gun and the second spot."
Kara glanced over at Pike. He was visibly puffing up. That probably meant she was second. She started to feel sick.
"Before I make the announcement, I'd like to say that it was very close. The second and third places have no reason to be ashamed. The entire class has done well. As you already know, this is the first class in the history of our Flight School where nobody has washed out. We owe that in part to your excellent training at the Academy, but also to your hard work and dedication. You're all going to make good Viper pilots. I'll start with the third spot. He's not in my class but I'm sure you all know him. Lieutenant Noel Allison, call sign Narcho."
Kara smiled. Narcho didn't think he stood a chance of making the top three. Apparently he'd done very well on his check rides.
"The second spot belongs to our own Lieutenant Eammon Pike, call sign Gonzo. Congratulations, Lieutenant Pike." Kara was still trying to assimilate Valinski's words when she heard him say. " Lieutenant Kara Thrace, come up to the front, please."
Feeling dazed Kara stood and walked to the front of the room.
"You're our Top Gun," Valinski said as he shook her hand. "Congratulations, lieutenant. The trophy is being engraved. It will be presented to you at your Flight School graduation."
Kara was so stunned that she couldn't process everything spinning through her mind for a moment. Brain fire, she thought as she said, "Thank you, sir."
"Speech, speech," someone from the back of the classroom said.
"I'm at a loss for words," Kara said.
"Starbuck speechless? Nah, not possible," another nugget said and they all laughed.
"I thought you've have your speech already prepared," Pike's comment cut through the buzz of other voices.
Kara ignored him and turned to Major Valinski. "Who got the top Raptor spot?"
Valinski looked down at a sheet of paper on the top of the stack. "That would be Lieutenant Dwight Saunders."
"Yes!" Kara said, a huge grin spreading across her face.
Valinski said, "On that note, I'll say class dismissed. You may join the other nuggets outside. One beer apiece. Remember it is for anointing Lieutenants Thrace and Saunders and not for drinking. I'm sure there will be plenty of beer waiting for you tonight at The Shark Rider."
There was laughter as the class stood and filed out the door.
The wetting-down ceremony took place outside the main Viper hangar. Someone had drawn a small chalk circle on the tarmac. Kara and Saunders were ceremoniously ushered inside the circle by a group of laughing nuggets and told not to leave the circle until every beer bottle was empty.
"Congratulations," Saunders said to her.
"Back at you."
"I owe you champagne," he said as the first spray of beer hit them and she remembered his promise to her if she beat Pike for the Top Gun trophy.
"Buy me a beer tonight at The Shark Rider," she laughed as the drenching continued.
"I think I'm going to be sick of beer by then," he said.
When the last bottle of beer was empty and they were both thoroughly soaked, they were allowed to leave the circle. There was more backslapping and congratulations. Kara looked around. Pike wasn't in the group, but that didn't surprise her. He had never impressed her as anything but a sore loser. She got a thumb's up from Narcho. Karl acted like he was going to hug her and then changed his mind when he saw her beer-soaked fatigues.
"I'll save it for tonight," he said as he and Sharon walked off together.
On the way to the locker room, she told Saunders, "I don't have an extra uniform out here at the base. I'm going to have to ride the subway home in sweats and my tanks."
"I have an extra t-shirt. You're welcome to it."
"I'd appreciate it. Thanks."
"I'll meet you outside in ten."
Fifteen minutes later she was back, the beer-soaked fatigues in a plastic trash bag, her hair still damp from her shower.
Saunders was sitting on the steps waiting for her. He was also wearing sweats and a t-shirt. He handed the extra one to her.
"Thanks." She pulled it over her tanks.
They walked to the subway entrance together. "So you'll be at The Shark Rider tonight?" he asked.
"Me and Lee."
"You get to pick your battlestar. Where are you going?"
"The Galactica. What about you? You get to pick, too."
"Probably the Triton."
"Lee was on the Triton."
"Did he like it?"
"He said it was okay."
"Narch is going to ask for the Galactica. He's trying to talk me into doing the same thing. The G is an old ship."
"It's still a good ship. It was Admiral Adama's ship."
"So, should I go for the G or the Triton?"
"Do like Lee did. Put both names on a dartboard, put on a blindfold and throw a dart."
"Good idea," Saunders said. "My decision will be made tonight at the Shark Rider."
…
The chairs were lined up twenty to a row on two sides of an aisle in the Viper hangar at the airbase. Theirs was the biggest class ever to graduate from Flight School and the first class in history not to have a single washout. Colonel Jackson Spencer complimented the whole class during his short speech prior to them receiving their wings. He complimented their determination. He complimented their willingness to help each other. And he complimented their courage.
As he had done with her lieutenant's bars, her father pinned on her wings. He fumbled with the backing of the pin before he got it fastened. She looked up at him and saw him blink back tears as she held her own in check. She saw the senior pilot's wings on his uniform as she stepped back and saluted him. She saw the pride in his eyes. Father and daughter. The torch was passed to the next generation.
She was glad that accepting the Viper Top Gun trophy didn't involve making a speech. All she had to do was remain on the stage for ten minutes after the ceremony while a photographer took hers and Saunders' pictures with their respective trophies. By the time the picture-taking session was over, she was tired of holding up the trophy and smiling.
"I forgot to bring back your t-shirt," Kara said to him.
"Bring it to the Galactica," he answered. "We didn't bother with the dartboard. Narch convinced me. I filled out the paperwork yesterday."
"I guess I'll see you in a week aboard the personnel carrier."
"I still owe you that bottle of champagne for beating Pike."
Lee walked up and shook Saunders' hand. "Congratulations."
"Thanks. Maybe I'll see you two at The Shark Rider tonight. We're celebrating again."
"Maybe," Kara answered. She had her own ideas about how she wanted to celebrate tonight, but they could go to The Shark Rider first. Next week her graduating class would be split up among the battlestars and the base on Caprica. She would probably never see all of them in one place again.
She looked at Lee. "I want you to keep my trophy for me. I want to put it on top of your bookcase beside yours."
"You don't want to keep it at Laura and John's?" Lee asked in surprise.
"It would just be something else for Jennet to dust."
"So now it's mine to dust?" Lee joked.
"Yeah, you've got less stuff to dust than Jennet. Besides, the trophies belong together just like us. And it will help remind you of me," she quipped.
"I won't need to look at a trophy to do that."
Karl and Sharon walked over to them and she and Karl hugged tightly.
"What about these wings?" Karl asked and grinned. "On all of us."
Sharon smiled shyly. "I appreciate the encouragement from you every day at lunch."
Kara grinned. "What are ex-roomies for?"
She looked over at her father and Laura who were surrounded by instructors and other parents. Her father was talking to Buzz Jessups. They were both smiling about something. Her father glanced at her. She knew what that meant. She was probably the topic of conversation.
She grinned and raised the Top Gun trophy and got a wink from him in return. She knew that she had made her old man proud.
…
Laura sat in the Tea Room absently stirring her cup of tea although the one lump of sugar was thoroughly dissolved. The last several weeks had been difficult ones for her. She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she wasn't aware of Bill's presence until he sat down at the table.
"Laura. You look troubled."
"Not troubled so much as deep in thought. Yesterday my son took his first steps on his own and I wasn't there to see them. He's not quite ten months old. I didn't think it would happen this soon. John said he was standing at the sofa when he walked in the door and Brae just let go and walked toward him. He made it almost halfway before he lost his balance."
"I missed that for Lee and Zak, too. Lee walked early. I don't remember exactly when. Zak, a little later according to Carolanne. But once Zak started walking there was no stopping him. He was into everything. Lee was more cautious."
"Like they still are," Laura smiled.
Bill nodded. "Lee always seemed to want to think about things before he got into something. Not Zak. He just rushed right in."
"How is Lee's Raider training going?"
"Fine. I understand Kara finished Flight School and got her wings…and the Top Gun trophy."
"Yes. We're very proud of her. We didn't invite anyone to her graduation ceremony. It was small. We thought it better not to call a lot of attention to the size of their graduating class."
"Kara is coming to my office Friday morning. I got several nuggets on board the Galactica for her. I'm sure one of them is a Cylon. Kara owes me a name."
"What do you intend to do with that information?"
"Have it watched for now. I've talked to Saul Tigh. He's aware of the situation."
"He's a drunk, Bill. Are you sure you can trust him?"
"I'd trust Saul with my life. I'm also going to stress to Kara again her responsibility in this whole thing. I'm letting a Cylon on one of my battlestars because she believes it will help us. I'm still not sure I'm doing the right thing."
"There are already a number of Ones, Fours and Sixes on your battlestars."
"True. And Lee thinks it's the right thing to do, too. So for now I'm going along. One suspicious move and it will be right back here in a secret Colonial prison."
"Kara and Lee and John are going to the island Friday afternoon. They're taking Braedon."
"You're not going with them?" The surprise in Bill's voice was evident.
"I have too much going on right now. The last time I took work to the island, it caused some problems with John and me. It's better if I stay here."
"Still having problems with the prisoner issue?"
"We don't talk about it. Tomorrow he and Kara are going back to the refugee camp. I think Lee and her friend Karl are going, too. John seems to want to do this. I think he may have been more affected by the camp than he let me know. I don't think Kara wants to go back."
"I don't get the impression that Kara has a problem making her thoughts known. If she has a problem going back to the camp, I think she would let John know about it."
"Kara wants to please her father. It helped my nanny Maya. She lost her six-month old daughter in another one of the camps. I think when she saw the care and attention given to the memorial garden and the names carved on that wall, I think she realized that the camps and those who died there will never be forgotten."
"No. They won't be forgotten. Nothing the Cylons did will be forgotten by those of us who saw it, and I hope not for generations to come."
"No," Laura said. "We'll never forget the genocide of billions."
"I have some news about your former employee. Ms. Foster is going to work for Doral."
"Oh, dear gods. That's what she threatened to do...go to work for him or Cavil."
"She's done it."
"I'll have to say that disappoints me a great deal."
"She'll be out of a job again around the time of the Solstice. Her employer will be in one of our secure prisons or he will be dead."
Laura sighed. "Yes, you're right. Have you talked to Dr. Baltar lately?"
"He's slipped down on my list of priorities during the last several months."
"Perhaps we should both pay him a visit. Since we know he's seeing the Cylon again, perhaps he's made some progress on his research into the virus."
Bill shook his head. "I wouldn't count on it, and I think we're running out of time for him to get any help from her. As soon as we destroy that basestar, we will have lost our opportunity. She'll never help us then. She'll be in the same prison with Doral and Cavil."
"Maybe the answer lies on Nereid," Laura said.
"We'll never know, will we?"
"No," she said sadly. "We've got to pin our hopes on Gaius Baltar."
…
They met quietly on Tuesday morning at the small airport where John kept his ship, and they were in the air before 8:00. None of them had much to say. It was over nine hundred miles to Antioch and a three hour flight. Kara sat in the pilot's seat. Her father sat beside her.
Lee and Karl sat behind them, one on either side of the aisle.
"I almost didn't do this," Karl said to Lee. "But I thought if Kara can take it, I can, too."
"I think it will mean a lot to her to have you with her today," Lee said.
"Sometimes I wake up when it's still dark and I think I'm back there."
"Kara never talks about the camp…at least not with me. She wouldn't even look at the before and after pictures I found on the internet. I think she and Maya have talked, but that's only because Maya was in the camp near Kinsdale."
"Kara saved my life…when I got the flu. She kept spooning water and soup down my throat. I don't remember much but I remember her putting her blankets on my cot and sleeping with me to keep me warm. It was so damned cold. We'd run out of fuel for the heater. I dreamed it was snowing. I kept dreaming about snow."
"I didn't know it was that bad," Lee said.
"It was a lot better at that little house," Karl went on, "until we lost the power and lost everything in the freezer. We were starving. I never told Kara, but I was glad when the soldiers came. I was glad when they told us they were taking us to the camp. Kara didn't want to go, but I knew if we stayed there, we might not make it until spring."
Lee thought about the years Kara and Karl had spent in the house and in the camp, years that he was at home or at the Academy. Years he took warmth and food and comfort for granted. He knew there was no way he would ever really understand what they had been through.
"I'm glad you're going to be with Kara today," Lee said again to Karl.
"I didn't sleep much last night. I'm going to try to sleep now."
Karl moved over to the window seat and put his head against the side of the ship. He closed his eyes and Lee knew he was both remembering and trying to forget.
Three hours and ten minutes later Kara brought the ship into the big airport in Antioch. They had flown over the city and she saw parts that were still as they had looked when the Cylon bombs had finally stopped falling. Other parts looked new or under construction. She landed the ship on a new runway not too far from one that still held craters.
She taxied to the private section, pulled the ship into the designated spot and did her power down procedure.
Her father pulled the headset off and stood. He squeezed her shoulder. "Good job, baby, as always. It's time to stretch my legs."
"Don't you mean leg?" The words were out of her mouth before she realized she had said them, just about the time that she realized she was struggling to get her breath.
Her father stopped. "Are you okay?"
"She managed to say, "Fine. I'll be out in a minute. You go ahead."
Lee and Karl were standing on the tarmac when John came down the two steps.
"I've got to rent a car," John said.
"Go ahead," Lee said. "I'll wait for Kara."
He waited almost five minutes before he climbed the steps. Kara was still sitting in the cockpit. He slipped into the copilot's seat.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Then why are you sitting here?"
"I don't know. Maybe coming up here was a mistake. Maybe you and Karl and my dad should go ahead to the camp."
"Kara, you can't sit in the ship for a couple of hours. At least get out and come into the terminal."
"It was night when we landed at Singer's airport…the night Tom Zarek and his men took my dad away."
Lee reached over and slipped his hand into hers. "Nobody is going to take your father today, Kara."
"You're right. I'm being stupid. Let's go."
Lee waited for her to get out of the seat and then he followed her. Karl was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps.
"Major Gallagher is waiting in the car. The camp is twenty miles south of here."
They stopped for lunch at a restaurant near the airport. After they ate, Kara went to the restroom and splashed cold water on her face. She could do this.
Her father knew the way so he drove. Karl sat in the front and she and Lee sat in the back. Lee held her hand the entire way. She saw only one sign pointing to the camp. Finally her father pulled into a parking lot that was two-thirds empty.
"The lot was full the day Laura and I were here. There was overflow. People were parking in the grass and on the sides of the road."
"I can't imagine why anybody thought this would be some big tourist attraction," Kara said.
She got out and looked around. She didn't recognize anything at first and then in the distance she saw the woods where she had found the stone altar.
"Where do you want to go first?" John asked.
"You wanted to make this trip," Kara said to him. "You decide."
"Let's start at the memorial wall. It's this way."
They walked down a wide crushed-stone path that wound through an acre of small shrubs and flowers. There were several Please Stay on the Walkway signs and another one asking visitors not to pick the flowers.
When they rounded the last curve in the path, the impact of the white granite wall took Kara's breath. It was set against the hillside and seemed to stretch for a mile. She could see rows upon rows of names. Thousands and thousands of them.
"Oh, gods," she said and stopped walking. She had never realized there were so many.
Karl turned and walked back to her. Lee let go of her hand and she and Karl embraced. Karl took a ragged breath and then another. Kara wasn't sure if she was the one who was shaking or if it was him.
He finally choked out, "My name would have been on that wall if it wasn't for you."
She tightened her grip on him, but the tears wouldn't come. She knew they were there, bottled up somewhere inside of her, but they wouldn't come yet.
"You'll always be my brother," she said softly to him. "I'll always love you."
He wiped his eyes under his sunglasses. He didn't have to say anything. She knew how he felt about her.
Slowly, arm in arm they walked to the wall. There were bouquets of flowers at random intervals on the ground, small ones, large ones, single flowers. Someone had left a poem wrapped in plastic. There were candles in small glass jars that had burned out. Small flags of several of the Colonies were stuck in the ground. Kara touched a name. Jean Barolay.
"So many," she said to Karl.
"Too many," he echoed. "The Cylons will pay for each of them."
"What about Sharon?"
"She's not a Cylon," Karl said. "She's one of us now."
Lee walked up beside them. Kara took his hand again. Slowly they moved down the wall until they came to where her father was standing.
"Hugh Connelly's little boy," he said. "Ethan."
"I never knew his name," Kara said.
"I asked Stacey," her father said. "Hugh never talks about him."
They found Jared's mother's name, Martha Daniels and then Maggie's mother, Cheryl Edmondson.
They walked on and found Maya's daughter's name, Hanna Laird.
Kara felt her eyes sting as she thought of Maya sitting on the ground sobbing with her hand over Hanna's name. She thought the tears would come now, but they didn't. So much grief. So much heartache carved into this wall. Karl was right. The Cylons would pay.
They walked all the way to the end of the wall, past thousands of names. Kara spotted the name before Karl did. Carrie Warner.
She clutched Karl's arm. "I thought Jared had deleted her name from the death list."
"I think this was done from the death certificates," her father said.
Kara looked at Lee. He touched the name on the wall before he looked at her and she realized that the wall had finally gotten to him. She let go of Karl's arm and put her arms around Lee. He held her so tightly that it hurt.
"I'm glad her name wasn't left off the wall," Kara said softly. "She should be remembered like everybody else who died here and in the rest of the camps."
They followed her father as he walked toward the center of the garden and the big fountain that was ringed with stone benches. They reminded Kara of those around the quad at the Academy.
There was an elderly couple sitting on one of the benches. The man had his arm around the woman and she was crying. On another bench a middle-aged woman sat alone, a copy of Pythia open on her lap, her mouth moving silently.
They were much closer to the woods now. Kara thought she recognized the tree that had stood just beyond where the chain link fence had been cut, the place she had always gone through to make her journeys into the woods. The fence was gone, but she knew the path to the stone altar lay beyond.
Karl had never shared that experience with her. Kara looked at Lee.
"There's somewhere I need to go with my dad."
Lee nodded. She knew he understood.
Karl was sitting with his hands clasped between his knees and his head bowed. Lee walked to the fountain and watched the water cascade over the three bowls into the bottom pool. A breeze blew the spray against his face. He touched the wetness, felt the water, the symbol of life. Today it felt like tears.
Kara and her father walked silently along the edge of a grassy field that she tried to relate to the seemingly endless rows of tents that she remembered. A breeze ruffled the long grass in the distance making it look like waves on the ocean. She felt the breeze lift her hair. The smell was sweet like new grass in the spring. All traces of the garbage and the rats were gone. High overhead a hawk soared, its wings spread on the wind.
She was surprised when she got to the woods to see a little sign stuck in the ground with an arrow pointing toward another path. Altar of Zeus.
"It's open to the public now," her father said, "What's left of it."
"What do you mean what's left of it?"
"The area around the altar hadn't been touched for over a thousand years and now the only thing that's left is the altar itself. The smaller stones and everything else have been taken away, stolen or looted. That's what Connelly told me. I didn't make it down here the day Laura and I were here. We ran out of time."
"I still want to go see it," Kara said. "It was special to me when I was here."
The path that wound down to the creek had been widened and was also covered with crushed stone. They passed the spot where the two older boys had attacked her and Connelly had saved her. She pushed the memory aside and kept going.
They didn't have to crawl through the small opening in the rock. It had been cut into a seven-foot arch. The mossy glade beyond was almost unrecognizable. The altar now sat in the middle of a roped-off enclosure.
She walked up to the rope and ducked under it. Her father followed her.
She touched the altar. Memories flooded her.
"I brought a little toy plane here for you," she said. "And a bullet from Mom's gun. I used to come here and think about you and her. I knew she had died on Picon. I thought Zarek had killed you. I thought you were together. I always wore her dog tags with the Viper pilot's ring. I used to come here and pray that you were happy."
She ran her hand gently and lovingly along the top of the altar. She wondered what had happened to the little plane and the bullet. She closed her eyes and time momentarily shifted. She smelled damp pine needles, the smell of the woods. The years fell away and for a moment she felt the loss she had felt then, deep and aching, and then it was gone. The three men who loved her most were with her today. Each had his own reasons for coming, but she also knew they had made the journey for her.
She drew a deep breath and then another. She felt her father's hand on her shoulder. She knew he had choked up even before she turned and put her arms around him. He held her tightly and the tears finally came for her, the tears she hadn't been able to shed before.
She had finally shared the last piece of the camp with him, a piece that would always live in her heart, a place that wasn't mud or cold or names on a wall, a place where she had remembered him and her mother with love.