Chapter 2 Past, Present & Future
"Sasha?"
The name took a moment to register as Kat moved against the tide of civies funneling down Galactica's hallway. Then the voice touched a cascading wave of familiarity. It was his voice. Only he said her name quite that way, a caress and taunt within two syllables. Her step faltered as long buried memories dug their way free.
"Sasha?" a lanky teenager had asked six years ago, and she had looked up from the book she'd been trying to study. Casting a wary gaze over the guy asking, taking in his insolent expression and way he leaned with hip hitched up on one of the arcade games and arms crossed, she'd lifted her lip into the beginnings of a sneer. Though she'd seen him around lately, she didn't know him—and figured she didn't want to. If trouble wasn't actually tattooed on his forehead, it was still clearly visible to her.
"My name isn't Sasha." she'd lied then, lowering her eyes back to the textbook.
Now, turning to face the older version, she echoed the words from her past, "My name isn't Sasha." Her eyes flitted to the passing crowd, then back to the brown ones in front as she moved in close. "My name's Captain Louanne Katraine. You understand me… Sasha and you were a lifetime ago."
He studied her for a moment before giving a small flip of his head, tossing strands of dark hair aside. His lips thinned as he gave her uniform a desultory once over.
"Right… Right. So you got this now, right." He flicked her Viper emblem and she shift away. "No hangin' with the sinners now, huh," he taunted, a bitter undercurrent to his words.
Kat leaned in, adding emphasis as she warned, "Just stay away from me. Do you understand me." She paused for a beat before turning to walk away.
Her steps faltered to a halt as Enzo asked, "Do they even know who you really are?"
Who you really are?
The question froze her body in place…and sent her mind stumbling back to life in the poorer section of one of Caprica's major cities.
For the first nine years of her life, Sasha had shared a one bedroom unit with her mom and little sister, Betta. The day a security unit came to the door and took Betta and her into protective custody was the first time she'd learned that her mom had been involved with a group of 'less reputable' sorts—and had died as a result.
The child welfare system they'd been consigned to was a sick joke. She was separated from Betta first thing, each assigned to a different foster home. Sasha had tried for the next four years to find her sister: pleading with the case workers, running away repeatedly, and generally making a enough trouble to get herself bounced from one home to another, somehow thinking that she might find Betta at the next one. By the age of thirteen she'd given up the idea that she'd ever have a family again.
Until she'd met Enzo.
Swiveling on her heels in Galactica's hallway, her eyes locked again on the man that she'd naively once believed she might make a future with. Maybe even start a family of their own one day. With jaw clamped tight, Kat covered the few yards and grabbed his elbow, yanking him toward a deserted side corridor.
"Come 'ere!" she hissed. Once she was sure they were alone, she spun to face him. "What do you want?" she demanded.
"Take it down a notch, baby. Relax." With his palms out, "I'm not looking for a business partner," he said, tone conciliatory now.
"I want you to stay the frak away from me," she ground out, struggling to keep the fear from leaking in.
"Yeah, cause if they find out who you really are, they kick you out of the service—or worse." A pause as he shift. "Now, you think I want that?" Kat twisted away, the thought of losing what she'd carved out for herself on the battlestar causing panic to knot her gut. His next words pulled her back around. "I don't want that. Cause if that happens…whose gonna feed me?"
His knowing chuckle and smile recalled another time when Enzo had been sure he'd held the upper hand on her. The third time they'd met, he'd come offering her a chance she'd never dreamed of—the opportunity to learn to fly.
Sasha's teen years had been spent trudging through school and frequenting a local mall. Her last set of foster parents didn't seem to care where she was as long as she wasn't brought home by the security forces. They'd even gone so far as to give her a small allowance, a step up from any prior place she'd lived. She'd discovered the nearby arcade and had focused her time and meager cubits in the flight simulator games, learning to stretch her turns for longer and longer periods. And when she'd run out of money, she'd watch others play and learn from their mistakes and tricks.
She'd spent so many hours at the arcade that the old woman that owned the place at one point offered her a job. Mostly sweeping and dusting. She got paid in game credits—probably so the owner didn't have to report it—and that was fine by Sasha. Over the three years she'd hung out there, Ms Tansen had kind of taken her under her wing. She made Sasha start going to classes regularly, saying she wouldn't have an ignoramus working for her, even if it was only cleaning up. And it was Ms Tansen that explained that boys were after one thing only. So, when Enzo started loitering in the arcade and finally approached her, Sasha thought she knew where his interest lay.
She'd been wrong then.
"Oh, come on," the Enzo of now chided. "You're gettin' three squares, you don't think I know that." He lightly gripped her elbows, pulling her close.
Feeling the press of her past making it hard to breathe, she forced out, "We don't. And I don't have anything stashed so—"
"Yeah, sure you don't," he cut short her protest. Leaning in, forehead pressed to hers, he continued, "Come on, we go back, baby. Since when's it a crime to take care of your own?" His voice took on a suggestive emphasis with a hint of warning leavening it as he added, "Remember...I know who you are." His eyes half closed as he slid his hands up her arms. "And I make you happy."
No! She wasn't going to let him drag her back again. She'd left that shit behind. And him with it.
Enzo hadn't come sniffing around the sixteen-year-old Sasha looking to frak, not at first, at least. When he'd shown up for a third consecutive day, she'd finally decided to hear him out just to get him to leave her alone. His offer had taken her breath away. Literally stopped it. He had an ultralight rig, and he wanted her to fly it. After the first few seconds of elation, she'd narrowed her gaze and demanded to know why. Why her? And what he'd be getting outta the deal?
It turned out that Enzo had a decent knack for fixing things. Explaining that he'd found and repaired a broken ultralight, but didn't know the first thing about flying it. Passing the arcade one day, he'd struck on the idea of getting a kid proficient in the simulator games to take it up for him. One guess whom he'd chosen. Of course, at nineteen, Enzo was out of school and looking for ways to make money. A contact he knew would pay well if he could move drugs from the mountainous sections of Caprica into the more tightly control cities. All he needed was a pilot and he was set.
Sasha was street smart enough to know that once she took a step into that world, she'd have a helluva time ever shaking free again. She'd followed Enzo along to the deserted park out of curiosity over how it'd feel to really fly. After a few simple explanations on the fragile craft's workings, she'd managed to get it airborne—and soared for the first time.
Gods! It had been everything she'd ever dreamed. And then some.
Sasha had already committed herself before Ms Tansen had braced her the following day about taking off with an obvious punk like Enzo. The woman had been curt, but honestly concerned, when she'd warned Sasha to either stay away from the boy—or not bother coming back to the arcade. If the ultimatum had come the day before, Sasha would have heeded her words. But once she'd felt the rush of watching the ground disappear beneath her, there was no going back.
But Enzo was here now, threatening the pilot she'd become.
Yanking her arms free, "Get your hands off me," she bit out, then gave him a shove and rushed away from a past she'd thought had died along with the Colonies years ago.
[ I I I I I ]
Kara's headlong flight was halted by the press of people being ushered along Galactica's hall towards the area that had been setup for temporarily housing them during the jumps through the radiation field. As she stepped back from the crush to lean against a bulkhead, she tried to slow her pounding heart.
The visit to the oracle had been a fiasco.
A farce really.
The woman had rambled on worse than Leoben. She'd even sounded like the Two that had imprisoned her for months, quoting words that she shouldn't know, things that Kara had never shared with anyone.
Her head jerked as Kara suddenly wondered if the oracle was an embedded agent. It would explain her uncanny knowledge. And the identity of the final five Cylon models was still a mystery to the fleet...
She had to tell the Admiral.
Kara straightened, then paused. If she went to the Old Man, she'd have to explain what she'd been doing with the woman in the first place. Kara grimaced, hands shifting to her hips. She couldn't afford to let him know that she was being plagued by nightmares again. The fleet needed every qualified Raptor pilot it had on this mission, and if she confessed that she hadn't been sleeping… Well, he'd be sure to ground her immediately, regardless of the mission. She could hold it together—at least long enough to guide a bunch of civie ships for five jumps.
Indecision held her knees locked in place when her gaze was caught by a blue-uniformed figure that stood rigid amidst the flow of the refugee tide. Frowning, she watched as Kat confronted a tall stranger.
Frak. Last thing they needed was a dust-up between the petite pilot and some guy that was getting in her face. Kara had heard enough grumbling from those in Dogsville that thought the military were hoarding food to guess at what had spurred the clash. She was about to push her way forward when Kat abruptly turned and walked away.
With a thankful sigh at not having to break up a civilian/military dispute, Kara also turned…and so missed when Kat halted again.
Kara's alternate course ended at the hatch to her quarters. Pausing, she promised herself to fully brief the Admiral—and Lee—once the jumps were complete. The oracle wasn't a likely threat anyways.
Well, probably not, she thought, worrying her lip.
In fact, what proof did she even have to give against the woman? That some how she knew things she shouldn't? Wasn't that what made her an oracle in the first place? On the other hand, maybe she'd been a collaborator on New Caprica, certainly more likely an explanation than that she was a Cylon. What if Leoben had sought her out and shared what he'd said about Kara? She could definitely envision the Two wanting to explore what the oracle had to say, and preaching to her in kind.
For the umpteenth time, Kara caught herself rubbing at her scarred forehead. Forcing her hand down, she clenched it at her side as she replayed the oracle's words.
She'd said that Leoben sees the truth about Kara and her 'destiny'.
As if all of his ramblings about a fated role she was meant to fulfill wasn't just another of his mind-fraks, she scoffed to herself. But then, as the memory of the woman repeating Leoben's exact words again shortened her breath, Kara held her lip between her teeth and fought the rising fear. The oracle and Leoben both seemed to confirm that her mother had be right. That Kara Thrace was 'special' in some way and that the gods expected something from her.
Eyes closed, she tamped down the panic. Hadn't Laura tried often enough in the past weeks to show her that all her mom's rantings and abuse had been wrong? That she hadn't deserved the suffering she'd been subjected to?
"Frak 'em all," she muttered, eyes snapping open. She wasn't doing this again. Wasn't going to let some crazed woman draw her back into Leoben's machinations. She'd survived it once—barely—and was pretty certain that another plunge into his version of reality would likely drown her. No. Kara knew she hadn't been singled out by the gods as an envoy. They had far better choices to pick from.
Resolving to just lay the mess before the Admiral to sort out after the jumps, she yanked open the hatch and entered to find several other pilots already donning their flight suits.
With a little over an hour until their first foray into the radiation field, Kara shoved the quandary of the oracle, Leoben, and everything but the upcoming mission aside. She had a destiny, all right. And that was to see that the fleet's ships made it to the planet beyond—and no Cylon mind games were going to prevent her from doing it.
[ I I I I I ]
The radiation field was every bit the trip into Hades that Athena had warned them about.
As Starbuck squinted against the harsh brightness, searching for the civie ship she was partnered with, she thought she saw a swirl of color in the periphery of her vision. Craning her neck, she couldn't spot anything. But then the hard lines of the large vessel she was escorting came into view. Relief flooded her and she eased her Raptor closer, already relaying the next jump coordinates.
"Apollo, Starbuck. I got mine," she responded to his query. Then bit out, "Frak! I'm just barely holding on here," as she fought to keep the shuttle steady in the intense turbulence.
Distantly she heard HotDog's frantic calls, begging them to wait as he tried to locate his ship. At Apollo's mark, Kara triggered the FTL and the stunning light compressed back into the familiar black of space. Not quite empty space, though, for they were now positioned over a planet with a thin ring and dominant blue oceans that reminded her vaguely of Aquarius.
She took a moment to shake her hands out before swinging back to the bulk of Galactica. One trip down, four more to go.