14 Days After Cylon Attack
Coordinates Unknown
It had all happened so fast.
One moment they were laughing and smiling, on their way to a celebration, Starbuck telling stories. "So, the commander ever tell you what happened on his thousandth landing?" The next they were running toward the blare of alarms. "Attention: Fire on the port hanger deck." And preparing for a funeral. "Uniforms for the services will be dress grays."
While hollow words of faith echoed in his ears, he remembered all the memorials that had come before. "The burdens of this life are with us but a short time." The difficult conversations followed after. "I need new pilots and I want you to train them." With confessions of betrayal trailing, unexpected, in their wake. "Zak... failed basic flight." Then the Cylons found them. "Holy frak, we've got incoming!" And in a moment, she was gone.
"No I.D. or visual on Starbuck." She was gone.
It had all happened so fast, but the search…the search wasn't fast enough.
It was small strips of color on the grid map of a desolate moon after forty hours of pilots squinting through polished canopies. It was pulling the CAP and every capable civilian ship, watching as tylium reserves plummeted. And through every sleepless hour, every minute, every second, Bill waited for a transmission over the wireless saying that they'd found her. But every hour, every minute, every second, there was nothing.
Nothing, while fury and desperation coiled together, a twisting, searing knot in his chest.
Nothing, while they ran out of ships, fuel and time.
"Blue flight reports bingo fuel, sir."
Still nothing.
"Have them stay on the search. Send the tanker to them," replied Adama, his eyes fixed on the clock as the final seconds slipped away. When his tactical officer didn't respond he asked, "Is there a problem, mister Gaeta?"
"It's just that trying to tank in that turbulence, sir, will be extremely hairy. I suggest we wait until the clock has run down…then tank them up on the way back to Galactica."
"Did someone call them back to Galactica?"
"Um, I just assumed—"
"The search was over?" He couldn't stop.
"That it was hopeless?" Not until she was found.
"That we should write Starbuck off as dead?" Jump away and leave her behind. "Is that what you're telling me, mister Gaeta?"
"No, sir."
"Then what are you trying to tell me, mister Gaeta?"
The clock ticked down to nothing. It didn't matter. He'd made a promise.
"You have your orders."
He had to save her. Even after everything that she'd done.
He had to bring her home. Even if it was only in pieces.
-xxx-
"Until I say stop." Those were the words that Laura had hoped she wouldn't hear.
Now that he'd said them, she knew what had to happen next, but she dreaded it all the same.
"Prepare a shuttle to the Galactica."
She had seen this coming over the course of the last forty-seven hours as Lee and Commander Adama continued their search for their missing pilot despite the mounting dangers. She sympathized, she had made the same mistake that they were making. In her first act as President of the Colonies, she had chosen to stay with a ship while the Cylons threatened to destroy them. "We're not going to abandon all these people." She had made that mistake before she understood the reality of what humanity was facing. "If we stay…" The possibility of annihilation changed everything.
Someone was going to have to tell them to stop.
That was the first question Colonel Tigh asked when she stepped off the shuttle.
"I came here to talk," she answered him. "Not to give orders."
"It may take an order."
"Why?" When he didn't respond, she brought him to a halt. "Colonel Tigh, do I need to know something?"
"It's gone beyond military needs. It's personal. For the Commander and for Lee too." She had realized that much already.
"Because of Lieutenant Thrace?" Laura resumed their walk toward Adama's quarters.
"Because of her," he admitted, "and because of Zak Adama."
"The commander's dead son…"
"It's complicated. It would take about three weeks to explain."
"We've got about three minutes, talk fast."
"Kara and Zak were engaged and ever since the funeral, she's been stationed here. As far as Lee and the Old Man are concerned, Starbuck's family."
"I think I understand, Colonel." There was more to it, certainly, but it wasn't that difficult to fill in the blanks. "Thank you."
She paused just long enough to take a deep breath before stepping through the open hatch.
"President Roslin," announced Tigh.
"Madam President."
"Skip the formalities, you both know why I'm here." And they were both going to hate her for what she was about to do, but it had to be done. Like the ships she had ordered left behind. Like the Olympic Carrier that she had ordered destroyed. It had to be done for the good of the fleet.
"Termination of a pilot's rescue mission is a military decision." Adama's voice was steady, calm. His entire demeanor was that of tightly controlled stoicism, stoicism that Lee was plainly struggling to match.
She was going to have to press.
"That's a bunch of crap. This isn't military, it's personal. Neither of you can let go of Kara Thrace because she's your last link to Zak."
"You don't know anything about my brother—"
"Don't even begin, Captain. You've lost perspective." What was it you said? We're talking about the survival of our race. She glanced at Adama. "As have you.
"Under normal circumstances it would just be sad that the two of you can't come to terms with Zak's death. In this situation, you're putting your pilots at risk and you're exposing the entire fleet to possible attack every moment we stay here." We don't have the luxury of taking risks and hoping for the best, because if we lose, we lose everything.
"We've been at risk of an attack since day one," countered Adama. "The Cylons won't be missing the patrol for at least o ne more day."
A guess. He used to prefer facts. Facts were better than rationalizations.
"Colonel Tigh, how much aviation fuel has been expended in this operation?"
"Forty-three percent of reserves." Fact.
"Almost half. That's unacceptable. And operations in the moon's atmosphere have put one third of your fighters out of action." Fact. "That is also completely unacceptable."
"Crap 'unacceptable'," he retorted. "Whatever it is you feel about this, the recovery of one pilot is a military matter."
The venom in his reply warned her, if she ordered him to stop, he was just going to say no, out of sheer obstinacy if nothing else. She opted for one last appeal to his conscience and to Lee's as well.
"All right... it's military, fine. And you're both officers and you're both honorable men and you're both perfectly aware that you are putting the lives of over forty five thousand people and the future of this civilization at risk, for your personal feelings." Adama broke eye contact with a downward glance. She was right and he knew it. "Now, if the two of you, of all people, can live with that, then the human race doesn't stand a chance. Clear your heads." If you don't let go, we'll never survive.
Colonel Tigh followed her out of the room and walked beside her through the corridors. Thankfully, the commander's quarters weren't far from CIC otherwise her memory of the path between the two locations might not have been enough to keep her from getting lost.
"Before anything else, Bill's a soldier," assured Tigh. "He'll call it off."
"I hope so, Colonel, but you won't mind if I stick around to make sure."
"Course not. Madam President."
-xxx-
Commander Adama's expression was still a mask of detachment as he gave the order to start the clock, but Laura could hear the difference in the quiet way that he spoke, his words drained of emotion. It was how she had sounded after decisions to sacrifice lives.
"Madam President, would you like to return to your ship?" he asked.
"Thank you, I'll stay here. I'd like to see how the professionals do it." Taking time to return to Colonial One would only delay the jump. Best to have it over and done.
"As you wish." He turned away and paused to look up at the Dradis readouts one last time. "Execute jump, Lieutenant Gaeta."
"Aye, sir. Jump clock is running. Navigation?"
"Go!"
"F.T.L.?"
"Go!"
"Tactical?"
"Go!"
"Flight Ops?"
A warning noise went off.
"Contact! Dradis contact. Incoming, bearing zero-six-zero carom three-zero-eight."
Laura's gaze leapt to the Dradis screens while they strove to identify the cluster of pixels that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Cylon raider.
They found us.
"He's on an intercept course. He'll be on us before we complete the jump, sir."
"Action stations, launch Vipers."
Roslin struggled to keep track of everything that was going on around her as the alarms sounded and the crew scrambled to respond to the impending threat.
"Action stations, action stations. Launch the Alert fighters, Raider approaching."
"Gun captains report weapons manned and ready."
"Where the hell are the Vipers?"
"Most are being fueled. Hotdog and Apollo are in the tubes."
"Why only one this time?" she asked when the screens didn't immediately begin to fill up with red.
"Could be a lone recon mission," replied Tigh. "Or the vanguard for a base ship about to jump on top of us."
"Either way," continued the commander, "we're gonna have to take it out before we can jump."
The main speakers crackled with noise and then finally picked up on an incoming transmission.
"Galactica, Apollo. Target in sight."
He was out there alone and Roslin felt a familiar sinking sensation of worry creeping back into her awareness. She knew that he was a more than capable pilot and that he'd taken on a Cylon raider by himself not so very long ago.
"Lords, this bastard's good."
He had also been nearly killed several times already as well.
"They're closing fast. Port guns have a firing solution."
"Hold still, you little—"
The last time it was Kara Thrace who had come to Captain Apollo's rescue, but she wasn't going to be there to save him anymore if something went wrong.
"What the? I've lost him! Galactica, I repeat: he is nowhere to be seen."
"Dradis?"
Roslin suddenly wondered how Adama did it.
"No help, their reports have merged."
How he sent his pilots out to face a methodically brutal adversary whose success was favored by the simple mathematics of attrition.
"Launch tube status?"
How he sent his family, his son, out into the infinite black where death was everywhere.
"Still fouled. We'll have a Viper away in forty-five seconds."
"This'll be over in forty-five seconds."
She had left people to die, but to her they had been at best numbers and hope. Not friends. Not family. She hadn't really had either left to lose when the Cylons attacked, but now—
"Holy…Galactica, the Cylon is now flying in formation with me, right above my head. This thing is acting weird."
"Put me through." By the time Adama picked up the nearest phone there was another burst of noise over the wireless.
"HA HAAA! It's Starbuck!"
"What? Come again, Apollo." How could it be?
"Galactica, the Raider is marked "Starbuck"! It's written under the frakkin' wing!"
Laura smiled and had to fight back tears of relief as the crew around her applauded and cheered. Kara Thrace was alive. Impossible, but...let it be true. Let hope be made be real. Just this once.
"Bring it into the bay! If it does anything, take it out!"
Their lost pilot had rescued herself.
"Wilco, Galactica, but I tell you what: it's has got to be her. This thing is flying with some serious attitude."
It was a miracle, at least that was the phrase that the president would have used if she believed in that sort of thing. A miracle was the only phrase that she could use. There were no other words for what had just happened. She tried to find them anyway.
"Commander Adama," she said, hoping to catch his attention.
He dropped his gaze reluctantly from the screens overhead. "Commander, I want you know; I've never been happier to be wrong."
It came as a surprise when he contradicted her yet again.
"You were still right, Madam President. We got lucky this time, that's all." He looked as if he had more to say, but one of the officers called out with the information he'd been waiting to hear.
"Flight deck is secure and confirmation has been received that in addition to Apollo we now have aboard Lieutenant Kara Thrace and one Cylon Raider, sir."
"Very well," he replied. "Resume jump count."
-xxx-
After they completed the jump and all ships were accounted for, Bill excused himself from CIC. Eventually he ended up in sickbay, separated from Kara by a few empty beds and curtains, still struggling to sort out the mixture of emotions that had been coursing through him since she had admitted that she was responsible for Zak's death. "You did it because you were engaged." Part of him knew that it wasn't all her fault. "Because I made a mistake." It was his too. "One of us wouldn't have even have made it into flight school if his old man, his daddy, hadn't pulled the strings!" And yet the rage was still there. It had fueled two days of searching without sleep and little food and was still there, a tightness in his chest, squeezing everything else out.
That was, until he saw her.
Kara was in bed, eyes half closed under the harsh fluorescents of sickbay, one of her legs braced and wrapped in an air cast. Two days ago she had left him nearly in tears and thrown herself in the path of eight Cylon raiders. Now she was here because of her guilt and his grief, with a knee injury Cottle had colorfully described as "like a smashed melon" and the distinct possibility ahead of her that she might never fly Vipers again.
Despite everything, he realized, she was still family. That hadn't changed. And it meant that it was up to him to mend what he could.
"How you feeling?" he asked, his voice gentle.
"Been a hell of a lot worse. Don't have any ambrosia, but the doc can fix you up with some really nice stuff." Her attempt at humor faded fast. "It's not bad, is it? The knee?"
"Doc says it's too early to tell, but knowing you, you'll be fine." The look on her face told him that she knew he was lying.
"Kara..." It was time to let go.
"Yeah."
He brushed her hair back with one hand. "You did good," he assured her and bent down to kiss her on the forehead. "You did real good."
By the time he pulled back the pressure in his chest had finally eased and when he exhaled it vanished completely. She was alive, he could forgive, that was enough.
"Need anything?"
"A stogie would be nice."
"I had a feeling." That was a bit of a lie of course, but he had one with him all the same. She smiled and even let out a small giggle while he handed it over.
"My last one," he said with a smile of his own, "so enjoy." That part was true. He'd been saving it in hopes of a victory after so many recent disasters. Having her back was as good a victory as any as far as he was concerned.
"Thank you."
"Get some rest." He gave her hand a small squeeze before he left and went in search of his quarters for some much needed sleep.