21 Years before cylon attack (Day 365)
William Adama age 44
Location: Caprica – Delphi Base Housing
"Viper seventy two forty two comin' in hot." William dumped a wriggling five year old Lee onto his bed and scrambled to bury him in his white and red covers before he could get away. Lee pulled his blanket off his head then flopped down onto his pillow with a goofy smile. William took a moment to check under the bed and open Lee's disaster of a closet and check that too. "Well, the room has passed inspection, no monsters in hiding. Deck secure?"
"Deck secure," replied Lee after he was finally settled in.
"No more sneaking into our room tonight or I'll have to revoke your flight privileges, understood?" Lee nodded. "All right then, lights out." William turned off the lights and closed the bedroom door behind him. He stood in the dark hallway and sighed. It had been a little over a year since his unit graduated from Spec Ops training and this morning had been the start of his second round of leave. It was becoming more of a shock when he came home and saw the changes in his sons that had been wrought in his absence.
The last time William had been home, Zak had still been mastering the trick of walking and when Lee had just turned five he had become increasingly prone to throwing the most gods awful tantrums. They had gotten progressively worse as time went on and after two months of screaming and yelling and crying and fighting, William had been deployed.
Now, nine months later, Zak was adept at getting into the oddest places, like earlier today when William had found him sitting on the top of the refrigerator. Lee was not only quieter, but he seemed to have finally accepted his brother as a part of his family. He had insisted that he be the one to get Zak down off the fridge and had climbed up on the counter to get within reach before anyone could object. After successfully rescuing his brother, Lee had spent had the rest of the afternoon by Zak's side, keeping him occupied, instead of trailing after his father all day like he used to do.
William sighed again before he left his spot outside his son's room and walked down to the end of the hallway. He fumbled for the doorknob and tried to slip into the bedroom as quietly as possible so that he didn't wake Carolanne again, but he wasn't quite familiar enough with where everything was to navigate properly in the middle of the night. He ended up bumping into something on the way and suppressed a grunt of pain. Carolanne heard it anyway and asked him if he was okay.
"I'm fine," he whispered. "Go back to sleep."
The sad irony of the situation didn't escape him. Here he was, a special agent who, six months ago, had finished a round of advanced tactical ground assault training with his team, and who could traverse through a veritable maze of obstacles and hazards without difficulty, yet he couldn't make it across his bedroom without injuring himself.
He put one hand out to find the edge of the bed before he ran into that too. Once he found it he paused to tug off his gray shirt and stripped back down to his boxers. He climbed into bed and felt along the left side of the mattress for Carolanne. His hand brushed her back and he felt her shift position.
"Lee all right?" she mumbled.
"He's all tucked in." William rolled over onto his side and draped an arm over her. "I thought he outgrew sneaking into our room."
"He did." William meant to ask what had happened with Lee, why everything was so different from what he remembered, but he drifted off before he could form the question aloud.
-xxx-
20 Years before cylon attack (Day 1)
William was awake at the first ring of the phone. His pillow muffled a curse. He lifted up his head and opened his eyes to find the phone on the nightstand on his right. He picked it up.
"Adama."
"Captain Adama." The man on the other end had a flat monotone that reminded William of his long past encounters with the shore police. "I am to inform you that you've been recalled. You are to report to Cerberus by fourteen hundred today for briefing and special assignment."
"Understood." He fumbled a moment to hang up the phone, pushed back the bed covers and then sat up with his legs hanging over the side of the bed. He rubbed his face with both hands. The digital clock next to the phone read 5:47.
"Bill, what did they want?" He didn't look back at her side of the bed. He could feel her gaze on him while he reached for his dog tags and put them on. "Bill."
"I have to go." He leaned forward to grab his t-shirt, dark brown tank top and pants off of the steel gray carpet.
"But you just got home, they can't—" His jaw clenched while he tugged on his shirt, stood and tucked it into his pants. He left his belt unbuckled until he could find his uniform jacket.
"Anne," he warned. "Don't start this again. You know I'm on alert status. They can recall me anytime they want." He scanned the area, but the light that filtered in through the window blinds wasn't bright enough to illuminate the whole room. "You don't seem to want me here half the time anyway." Carolanne had sat up in bed with the covers pooled around her. Her pale blue eyes were fixed on him and her lips pinched together in a reproachful frown.
"Do you think I like taking care of two boys without you here to take them off my hands if I get tired?" Not on the dresser…not at the foot of the bed…not in the closet…damn it. "They at least want you here. Do you have any idea how much Lee misses you?"
"Yeah, I had to put him back to bed twice. Where's my jacket?" He stooped to check under the bed. "Lee must have taken it, but I didn't see it anywhere in his room…"
"Bill!" William looked up over the edge of the bed. A muscle spasm sent a wave of pain across his neck and shoulders.
"What?" he snapped. He knew she wanted him to explain where he was going and why, but he didn't have anything better to say this time than he had the last time they had gone through this. He pushed himself to his feet. "What do you want me to do? Go back to being a deckhand on tramp freighters that barely pay worth a damn? Is that you want?"
"No." Her resolve buckled under the pressure of his glare. "No, but—"
"But what? I'm a soldier Anne, it's—" He forced himself to calm down. William walked around the foot of the bed and knelt down in front of Carolanne. He reached for her hands and held them in his own. "It's all I know how to do. I know I'm not around a lot, and I'm sorry for that, but it's a sacrifice that has to be made so that we can have a place to live. So our boys can go to good schools, so they can—so they can grow up in a safer world than I did. I'm doing this as much for them as for me."
William believed what he told her, in a sense, but only because the world he had grown up in had been full of controversy and war. The war had taken its toll, but he knew that he'd gotten off light. Unlike his friend Saul, William didn't get nauseous at the faintest whiff of machine oil, nor had he seen his shipmates torn open at the chest and left to die at the hands of rampaging Centurions. But he had seen enough then and he had seen enough now to know that what he was leaving to do would make a difference not just for his sons, but for all the people of the Colonies.
He leaned forward to kiss Carolanne and tell her that he loved her, but she turned her face away. He ended up kissing her on the cheek.
"I love you anyway," he said. He got back on his feet and headed for the door across from him. He paused on his way out to grab the duffel bag that he hadn't had even had the time to unpack and left the room to find out where Lee had hidden his jacket.
-xxx-
They were quiet. None of his team joked or laughed while they changed into their flight suits onboard Cerberus. They had every reason to be quiet today. Since they had last been on leave William and his unit had undergone further training and had been upgraded to the newest Viper Mk IVs. After that, Cerberus had been reassigned to operate out of Sagittaron and provide air support for the anti-terrorism Marine squads as they conducted surgical strikes against SFM strongholds. Today was the culmination of all their efforts; at oh five thirty this morning the tribunal had come back with a verdict and a sentence. After a three month trial, Tom Zarek had been found guilty on all charges and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Per their request, William and his team were to escort Zarek's transport to the Tauron correctional facility and ensure that he arrived without incident.
William glanced covertly at his teammates while he removed his day uniform and donned his flight suit. Xander, already geared up, sat at the edge of his bunk with his eyes closed as he held a wooden figurine of Mars in his clasped hands. Nia kissed her silver and black Colonial seal pin and set it in her locker next to her uniform. Danny rummaged through the mess in his duty locker for his lucky cubit. He never flew without giving it a flip to see if today was a good day to fly. The past few months of their active duty it had been coming up tails, bad days all. It was hard to tell from the solemn look on Danny's face, but his slight nod before he replaced the coin led William assume that this time it had hopefully come up heads. Alexa wiped down her recently sharpened combat knife and fastened it to her utility belt. Tobias tucked his photo of his siblings into the side pocket of his flight suit over his right arm.
William set his carefully folded jacket on the top shelf of his locker. He had found his jacket earlier that day in Zak's room. Lee had apparently used it to cover Zak in lieu of his blanket. It had been a delicate operation to retrieve it, but William had managed to gather his things and leave home without waking either of his boys.
"Raptors Five Sierra, Primus Fourteen Bravo report to the hangar deck for launch and rendezvous with Demons Twenty Foxtrot. All hands prepare for Echo phase of mission Tango Zulu."
William grabbed his lighter from the shelf and slipped it into the nearest pocket on his suit. Time to go.
-xxx-
"Tauron Ground Authority to prison vessel Kaiadas you and your escort are cleared for atmospheric entry on bearing four eight one, carom zero four zero."
"Zeus to all units—Prepare for final approach and descent," said William from the cockpit of his Mk IV.
The flight from Sagittaron to Tauron had been uneventful. No rogue vessels had impinged on their flight plan and their Vipers were all functioning within normal parameters. There was nothing anomalous on Dradis and nothing other than the prison ship and escort within visual range except the azure glow of Tauron's Aldebran Ocean peeking out from behind a white swirl of clouds. They were well outside the commercial transport and industrial shipping lanes and appeared to be nothing more than the standard escort for a prison vessel. Everything was going smoothly.
"We're going in standard hex-lat formation," continued Adama over the wireless. "Raptors on perimeter. Demons on points one through six. Primus will cover seven through twelve. Decelerate to match Kaiadas and correct attitude to forty degrees."
"Why are we stuck on tail?" complained Danny.
"Because it's the most dangerous slot," replied Alexa. "Frakkin' moron."
"Give Bulldog a break Kalypso, he's not the only one eager to touch ground," said Tobias. "It's just plain wicked to wake me at oh six hundred, send me packing all the way to Picon and Sagittaron, only to spend all day flying home."
"Hades," Alexa replied. "Take a clue from Snipe and don't be such a frakking whiner—"
"Would you all shut the frak up!" The lead pilot for the Demons had been a grating, but thankfully silent presence until now. Marcus Adar and his team had made it through their training intact and were posted on Hyperion, operating out of Tauron. They had made contact with Cerberus in orbit around Sagittaron and sent the Demons to aid Primus in the escort mission as part of Tauron's security policies.
"Why don't you shut it Marksman," snapped Alexa. "You didn't spend half the year dodging the SFM's mobile AA batteries or watching Marine convoys get blown into red mist by IEDs. Say one more word and I'll rip your lungs out through your—"
"That's enough Kalypso," said William. "We're not here to pick fights. We all wanted to see this one put away so let's cut the chatter and get it done. Nomad, adjust your course. You're still within Kaiadas' projected atmospheric wake."
"Roger," replied Nia. "Course corrected."
"All units, brace for atmospheric entry. Changeover to autopilot and wireless blackout in fifty seconds." William leaned back in his seat and did one last confirmation on his readouts. Everything checked out fine, but it didn't help ease the knot in his stomach. Atmospheric entry was his least favorite part of flying and he was apprehensive about doing it in a Viper that lacked the flight history and familiarity of the Mk II, but then again a Mk II always felt like it was about to shake apart and the Mk IV was supposed to provide for a smoother ride.
Either way the moments that demanded the highest degree of perfection in flying would be the ones over which they had least amount of control. For three minutes or more, he'd be flying completely blind with the computer running attitude and velocity adjustments for most of the descent and his wireless would be practically useless. He would be on his own and reduced to a passenger in his own plane for far longer than he was comfortable with.
William felt the craft vibrating and had to resist the urge to squeeze his eyes shut as the noise changed from a rattle into a roar. Smoother ride my frakkin' ass. His breathing became irregular while he watched the temperature gauge climb. He gripped the controls until his hands hurt even though there would be no altering course if something went wrong. He started his count to keep himself calm.
One thousand one
One thousand two
One thousand three
One thousand four
One thousand five
….
Two thousand fifty six
Two thousand fifty seven
Two thousand fifty eight
Two thousand fifty nine
Three thousand zero
Three thousand one
Dear Gods I hate this—
By the time he regained manual control of his Viper and was able to assess the mission status he was on the verge of an anxiety attack. He broke out into convulsive laughter once he saw that everyone had made it safely and they had held formation the entire way down without a single position error. It was machine perfect. The Vipers' autosystems had all performed as expected.
"Kaiadas to Tauron Ground Authority all escort ships accounted for. Request clearance to land."
"Kaiadas, clearance granted. Control tower seven niner will be your landing coordinator. Safe landing. Ground Authority out."
Inside of an hour they were on the ground, Zarek and a handful of other prisoners were transferred to a barge and headed to the island detention facility. The mission was a success. Adama's apprehension turned out to be all for nothing. They were debriefed in orbit around Tauron onboard Cerberus and would be released to finish off the rest of their leave plus two days. Everyone would resume their interrupted plans except for William.
Saul was still on the freighter run between Caprica and Tauron so William decided to stick around for a few days until Saul's ship came in. He figured he could use a drink, or three, before he caught a transport back to Caprica.
AN: For anyone curious, Zarek's sentencing date is the change over day from one year before the attacks and another since his parole date was the day of the attacks. It does not correspond with the first of the Colonial year, but more like mid-September on Earth's Julian calendar (yes I figured out how their calendar corresponds with ours). And Kaiadas is the name of a Greek location where prisoners were executed, great name for a prison ship I thought.
Apologies for the extra long delay on this one. RL was busier than planned, but now I'm free for half the week every week until August so forbidding any other large interruptions I'll have more time to write and post. I do plan on getting this done before Razor starts tearing gaping holes in my conjured backstories ) . Thank you all for reading (and reviewing...pretty plz). -SVR