I do not own Battlestar Galactica
Chapter 24 – Rising Son
The newly minted Major Lee Adama sat in the back of the raptor waiting for his transport to arrive on his new posting. He remembered his meeting with his father Admiral Adama where the admiral had given him his new job
Flashback…
Lee Adama stood on the side of the Admiral's desk as the old man told him the situation
"The Battlestar Artemis lacks any experienced officers after Cain had the previous command crew executed. Commander Zanuck is suffering from stress related illness and needs a capable officer to ease the strain. So I want you to take over as his XO and start getting the crew better organised" his father told him
"Will Zanuck be able to stay in command long?" Lee asked and his father shook his head
"I spoke with Cottle, he says that he's already had two heart attacks, the next one could be fatal if he doesn't step down" this father told him
End Flashback…
He felt a slight jolt as the raptor landed and was lowered by the lift into the hanger bay. He waited till the raptor had stopped moving and opened the hatch, looking out at the deck around him and shook his head sighing when he saw what was going on.
The deckhands were milling about the hanger deck completely at random, no co-ordination or particular focus. Eight of them were working on a raptor that was perfectly fine, while only two or three were working on mending vipers that were shot to hell.
A trip through the ship did little to improve on his first impression; a stop by the pilot's briefing room and he saw a lieutenant struggling to describe a way too elaborate strategy for the next time they engaged the Cylons to the other pilots who were openly scoffing at the plan. The marine's barracks were filled with men who turned up to work when they felt like it, but the CIC was worse.
No-one seemed to know what they were doing; who had what job and they kept accidently mixing up roles. They kept going to the officer standing in the centre of the room and asking him the same questions over and over again and the officer was wheezing as he grasped the centre console for support. From the age of the man and the Commander rank pins on his neck, Lee knew that this was Karl Zanuck.
He went up to the man and saluted before saying "Major Lee Adama reporting for duty sir"
It took a moment for the tired old man to look up and see Lee standing there and he managed to stand straight before giving a slight salute back and responding without any touch of enthusiasm
"Major welcome to Artemis, being on this ship will probably take a few years off your life"
Lee was taken aback by the man's statement but being a ship commander these days seemed like a risky business. Commander Fisk had just been assassinated after he had become involved in the Black market; his father had assigned Captain Aaron Kelly to investigate and find the killer while Barry Gardener had assumed command of Pegasus which was becoming known as an unlucky ship very quickly in the rest of the fleet
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lee looked over the reports that he had managed to get from the various departments on the ship and saw the extent of the situation. He quickly realised that getting this ship running properly was a job more than any one man could handle, he would need help. So he picked up the phone in his new cabin and asked the communications officer to put him through to Galactica.
Gaeta responded and Lee asked him to put him through to his father the Admiral. A short moment later the deep voice of William Adama sounded on the line.
"Yes major settling in over there?" his father asked and Lee told him
"Well enough sir, but honest to the gods this ship is a complete shambles"
"Well that's why I sent you, to get her into shape again" his father told him and Lee said back
"I know sir but this is way too big of a job for me to do alone, I'm going to need help training up new officers"
"What do you need?" his father asked, Artemis was a major military asset and they needed her at peak efficiency
"Well I have thought of a few people who might be helpful" Lee told him
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
One was sitting in his cell, fuming over his failure, being the prisoner of the people he despised with all his being, he cursed that his parents, the five had made him so like them it disgusted him to look in the mirror and see that human like face staring back at him. It gnawed at him every day, their failure to wipe the humans out; they'd had their boot on the throat of humanity and failed to step down hard enough.
He heard noise outside his cell and saw a company of Colonial marines led by a man that he had only seen in passing recently, his father Saul Tigh who turned to the marines without glancing at him
"Bind his hands and if he gives you any trouble, shoot him" the marines followed his orders. One decided not to resist but asked the Colonel with a sneer
"Well are we going so I will be tortured Colonel Tigh, are you salivating at the thought of me screaming in pain?" but Tigh then put a smile that made One stop feeling so smug
"Toaster it's been decided that it is too much effort keeping you alive so we are taking you to be executed, and just to let you know that since we put you in this cell the Resurrection Ship that was following the fleet has been destroying, you can't resurrect anymore"
The words hit One with the force of a nuclear explosion like those his kind had used to wipe out the Colonies, no resurrection, he was about to die, really die. His mind couldn't process it and he just started muttering
"No, no this can't be" before blinding panic took him over and he struck one of the marines in the face with his elbow and grabbed at his rifle when he felt a searing pain in his chest and a loud bang. He stopped and looked down to see the gaping hole in his chest with blood starting to seep slowly out of it and looked up to see Tigh had a smoking pistol in his hand. As One fell to the ground he couldn't find the breath to speak, but manage to murmur in the lowest voice possible that no one but One himself could hear
"Pa-pa"
Before the darkness claimed him
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Gina was still confined to the Galactica infirmary under suicide watch, at the suggestion of a counsellor they had given her a full clean up and make over; washing and styling her hair, a pedicure and a manicure as well as dressing her in fresh clothes. It was a sleeveless white shirt, black bra and knickers with a set of blue jeans and green running shoes. The idea as he explained it was that if she looked good she might start to feel good. How well this would work given everything that Gina had been through was still unknown but they hoped that it might be a start.
Gina sat looking at her reflection in the cup of water that they had given her, she almost didn't recognise herself, and one of the nurses had even called her beautiful.
Beautiful was the last thing she felt, but she was broken from her thoughts when she saw the door to her room open and the last thing she had expected walked in. It was one of her sisters, another model six. This one had the platinum blonde hair that her model was known for and was dressed in a stylist white suit. The other six walked over to her and introduced herself
"Hello Gina, my name is Selena" the other Six said "I was hoping that we might talk"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lee the next day was waiting on the hanger deck as the raptors carrying his help had arrived. He waited for the ship to be secure before walking forward as the hatch opened letting the passengers disembark. He saw Starbuck was the first one to get out, her custom smirk blazing for all to see. Lieutenant Margaret Edmondson or Racetrack as she liked to be known followed with Deck Chief Galen Tyrol and marine Sergeant Major Tyber Jones and lastly his newly discovered sister Lieutenant Amelia Cartwright.
"Welcome to Artemis" Lee told them and Starbuck in her cheeky way answered
"Aren't we forgetting something? Major" she teased and he smirked when he remembered
"Captain Trace is that anyway to speak to a senior officer?" he asked after he had left Galactica Starbuck had been promoted to take his place as CAG "Let's get to the briefing room so I can get you up to speed" They moved through the corridors of the ship till they arrived at the destination and Lee closed the door looking at his gathered helpers
"Right now that we can talk I'm going to tell you why I asked you to come. This ship is a complete mess crew wise. There is no real co-ordination inside departments, let alone between departments. I need you to help me train up some new officers to head up departments"
They all looked unsurprised, clearly his father had told them the problem but Racetrack had a question
"Well that's all well and good sir but why I' am I here?"
Lee turned to her and told her "Before you were a pilot you were junior tactical officer on the Battlestar Meridian. I need you and Lieutenant Cartwright to help me get the CIC straightened out."
Racetrack objected "But sir I don't have the necessary qualifications to act as tactical officer on a Mercury class. I'm rated for Valkyrie and Dawn class ships"
Lee threw a book to her and she saw from the cover it was the manual for tactical officers on Mercury class ships before saying "There's your bedtime reading. Tomorrow we get started be ready for a difficult day" before he walked out after telling them where they were bunking. Starbuck turned her seemingly perpetual smirk on Racetrack as the rest of them looked at her with surprise in their eyes
"You were a bridge officer?" Starbuck asked teasingly, imaging the brash and easily annoyed raptor pilot she knew as a CIC drone
"Yeah I was till I found out that I liked flying better than I liked long hours on the CIC carrying out the same tasks say after day, but at least I can do something other than fly and get into fist fights Starbuck" Racetrack shot back, not liking to be reminded of the drastic change in direction that her career had taken. The reason she had just given Starbuck was an outright lie, she did like flying but was ambitious enough to want to climb the ranks to the top. The truth was that her CO on the Meridian Commander Odin Powell had been a lecherous bastard but an influential one who had tried to force her into bed by threatening her career, a word from him would have buried her at the bottom of the promotions list and busted down to enlisted crewman. She had joined flight school to escape with her career more or less intact
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I know what they did to you on Pegasus" Selena said sadly, glad that Telmaya had been merciful with her "But no-one will ever do that to you again Gina, you'll be safe here"
"Safe" Gina scoffed "They are all the same, humans I mean. Disgusting creatures who only think of their own gratification"
"The same could be said of Cylons" Selena said sadly and Gina looked at her shocked
"What did you say?" Gina said angrily
"What I saw back in the Colonies disgusted me. The human prisoners that we took, did you know that the attractive female ones were dragged out of their cells by centurions kicking and screaming so that the Ones and the Fives could use them as living sex dolls, raping them long into the night sometimes for days on end before laughing at their tears and throwing them to the Fours so that they can use them in their experiments" Selena told her sadly
Gina was too shocked to speak; that her own people could drop to the level of depraved animals was hard to bare. Selena gave her a sad smile before telling her
"Calling them uncivilised animals puts us as greater than them so we can feel superior and justify anything we do to them, the same way that they call us machines makes them feel superior to us so they can do anything they want" Gina flinched at being called a machine remembering all the times the crewmen of Pegasus had called her that as they smacked her around while they violated her body.
Selena took Gina in her arms as Gina started trembling and surprisingly rather than flinch away, Gina leaned in closer, drawing strength from the protection that her sister's arms offered.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The next day on Artemis, the officers Lee had brought to the ship began work. Chief Tyrol arrived on the hanger deck and went over to the cluster of deckhands that had gathered below the gantry that he climbed up a set of narrow steps to reach the top of.
"Right listen up" he shouted to gain the attention of the mob below him who all turned to look up at him "I'm Chief Galen Tyrol and until I say otherwise I'm your new boss. It's my job to get you knuckle heads into shape. Are there any questions?" He looked around daring any of them to ask him something
And of course one of them did "Will you be changing the duty shifts?" one of them asked and Galen nearly banged his fist on the rail but he restrained himself and said
"If you feel the need to ask that then damn sure I'm changing the duty shift, you'll spent more time here then you will in your racks that's for sure" and there was a collective moan from them which immediately stopped when he added
"Right now we are going to work on getting the vipers ready for the next battle with the Cylons"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Starbuck meanwhile was having the same luck with the pilots, namely none at all.
"Right you are all back to nuggets as of now, I'm Captain Kara Thrace, your new CAG and I' am your worse nightmare"
Some of the pilots did look intimidated by her but some of the bolder ones spoke up
"I bet you haven't been laid for a while" one of the older male pilots joked. Some of them laughed but stopped when they saw the violence in Kara's eyes when she walked over and kneed him straight in the balls
"Better men than you have tried, but as of now your asses belong to me so if none of you monkeys want to join your buddy on the floor, we'll get started"
They all shuddered at the words, except the man on the deck who just kept moaning from the pain
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Over on Telmaya, Sharon was receiving a full examination from Doctor Tally Forego using the much more advanced medical facilities of the Pasteur which was still docked in Telmaya's landing bay.
"It's a girl if you wanted to know" Tally told her patient who smiled back at her "And developing nicely, no signs of complications" Helo looked up from the ultrasound image of his and Sharon's child to ask nervously which grasping Sharon's hand
"So everything is okay right?" Tally smiled at the father to be
"Absolutely, there is one thing though which is why I asked Ms Roslin to be present" Tally said looking over to the older woman standing not too far away looking almost in awe at the image of the foetus on the screen "The blood that I extracted from the baby has some truly amazing properties, if transfused into Ms Roslin it can destroy the cancerous cells and cure her"
Laura was stunned, a cure she had been expecting to be dead in a few weeks relieved to know that at least the fleet would be safe in Hal Forrest and the Assembly's hands. She was still distracted largely by the wedding that she had just attended between Dee and Billy who had spontaneous announced that they were getting married and wanted her as a witness with Billy's family and Cally from the Deck gang on Galactica.
"Are you sure?" Laura asked and Tally nodded telling her in her smooth Gemenese accent
"Absolutely, I can do it without endangering the baby and today if you want"
Laura looked over to the parents of the baby looked at each other before nodding, showing that they would allow the procedure to go ahead. But Helo asked her a question she hadn't been expecting
"You know I didn't think that a woman from Gemenon would become a doctor. Don't you have rules against modern medicine?" and Laura nodded her own experience with people from Gemenon had poses the same question.
Tally frowned before saying with a sigh "Alright if you must know. When I was a little girl a doctor from Caprica came to live on Gemenon with his new wife. He used to let me look at his books and tell me about all the things medicine could do for people. But when I told my parents I wanted to be a doctor like him they were horrified. They and their neighbours chased him off Gemenon for corrupting the minds of the youth away from the Gods as they called it. They beat me to within an inch of my life most of the time after that saying that until I repented I would continue to be beaten till I had embraced the gods again" she paused noticed the horrified looks on her audience's faces
"Under Gemenese law I belonged to them, so what they were doing was entirely legal. I stuck to my guns despite the violence, I still believe in the gods but I wanted to help people. Then one day when I was thirteen, a group approached me on the street where my family lived. They were an underground movement devoted to the protection of minors from abusive parents on Gemenon and they offered to get me off world and give me a new identity with a family on Caprica that they were connected too. I took them up on their offer to get away from all the violence at home and the foster family they found for me were great. I got a scholarship to study medical science in exchange for a few years' service in the fleet medical corps and I never looked back. Now I'm doing what I always dreamed of helping people and I have a great boyfriend in Tyber Jones" she said with a smile and slight blush on her cheeks
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In a cell on Rycon D'anna Biers was struggling with her conscience. Seth Trakiss' words had hit her more deeply than she had liked and she had started to question a lot of things
The war had always been a way to express their love to god, wiping away the flawed creations so that they, the perfect beings could shape the universe in his image. But the more she thought about it, the less sense the war made
'If God preaches that we are all his children and that peace and love are the qualities we must give to all then why all the killing in his name? Why must we kill at all? What is the point since we can't know what God wants as mere physical beings?'
While she thought this, the more the real cause of the war became apparent to her, it was stupid and ridiculous but it was the only reason that'd fit, a dislike for the unlike. The Colonials were different from them, not just being a different species but having their pantheon of gods that insulted their One God religion. So they had wiped it away as best they could to sooth their own hatred for different beliefs
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Kara was ready to bang her helmet covered head against her flight instruments by the end of the second set of exercises she led the pilots through. They were all right pilots but there wasn't a potential CAG in the bunch. Not one of them had the potential to lead, at least well or think strategically enough to plan a battle. The way it was going, another officer from outside would have to be brought in to lead this lot when she had gone back to Galactica.
The Chief was having better luck with the deck gang; a specialist named Fuller was showing a good degree of skill at prioritising repair schedules now that he had witnessed Tyrol doing it. He was a civilian conscript but had been lucky enough to have his family saved by Zanuck.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Now dressed in her standard blue uniform Racetrack or Lieutenant Edmondson as she was otherwise known was standing on the CIC directing the tactical station after getting a crash course via the manual she had been given. It wasn't that different to what she had done on the Meridian, but the continual confusion over who had what jobs was making her want to pull her hair out. Finally after the Comm officer interrupted her for the fourth time in the last two hours her patience snapped
"Right that is it!" she yelled at the CIC staff that stopped in their tracks to look at her "Since you lot apparently didn't pay any attention at the academy I will give you a refresher course" she started to establish firmly what each person did in a way that was saw to make them remember, by putting the fear of the gods into them. Lee watched from the side of the room and pondered
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lee stood with Zanuck and Kara in front of his father the Admiral on board Galactica a week later, showing him the reports of efficiency that the Artemis was achieving.
"There is a remarkable improvement" Admiral Adama remarked "But I see that there is still no new CAG" he looked over at Kara questioningly
"It's just that not one of those idiots has the chops to be a CAG sir, I'd have to recommend that an officer is brought in from another ship" she told him
"You did pretty well as CAG over there I see" Lee remarked and his father frowned at him but he reluctantly acknowledged that Kara had done a good job of leading those pilots. It would mean a sacrifice on his part but it had to be done for the sake of the fleet
"Right so Starbuck, I will transfer you to Artemis and promote Lieutenant Katraine to CAG here on Galactica. Starbuck, do you think that she is up to the job?" he asked Kara who was taken a back for a moment before she answered
"She's come along way sir, but she's still a bit green" Kara said not wanting to leave Galactica but had to give Kat the credit she was due, the Admiral nodded and told her as he wrote a note down
"From you that's high praise, she'll learn soon enough. So is there anything else?"
"I'm afraid so sir" Zanuck said handing him a sheet of paper "I must tender my resignation, my body just can't take it anymore sir"
Adama took the sheet and looked at it reluctantly before getting up and shaking Zanuck's hand "The fleet will be sad to lose you"
"Artemis will be fine without me sir, its new CO will make it the pride of the fleet" Zanuck said giving Adama a knowing look that was not missed by Kara and Lee
"Sorry sir but who is taking over as CO on Artemis?" Lee asked, he almost forgot to breathe when he saw his father pick up a small box on the desk that had been obscured from his vision by some files and walk over to him and opened the box, revealing two new Commander Rank pins inside
"Congratulations Commander the Artemis is your command" and handed the box to Lee who accepted it without thinking. He managed to after a few seconds say
"Thank you sir" and saluted as his father pinned them on his neck, replacing his Major pins
"Look good on you" Kara said smiling a genuine warming smile which he returned
"Any thought about who you want as your XO?" his father asked
Lee nodded and said "Lieutenant Edmondson took charge of the CIC very well and she has knowledge of bridge operations. With your permission, I'd like to promote her to major and make her my executive officer"
"Agreed" Admiral Adama said immediately
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sorry for the delay, got a hand injury slows my writing
Does anyone think I should add another Battlestar? Give me some feedback on what you think