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An Eclipse, Binary
by hossgal
1148 hours
The acceleration couch kicks against her spine, her skull and her knees. She leans back into it, feels Galactica throw her into space and away with a casual power that her Viper could not match, even at full thrust. But the battlestar is not done yet - to both sides she can see the rest of her flight, spat out after her, tiny needles hurtling out to pierce the night.
She must have said that last out loud, because the comm is full of snickers and Hotdog's braying laugh.
Lookit here, Cat on a mat, and making with the fancy talk.
Shut up Hotdog, or I'll talk you upside the head. But she's grinning inside.
She's a poet and doesn't know it - a new voice, one she doesn't recognize, which means it's one of the newest round of nuggets, which means it's Chatterbug, already with a rep among trainees for not keeping his mouth shut. He reminds her - and everyone - of Chuckles.
And that's still not enough to spoil her mood today, because the whole flight is forming up on her and the other lead ship, a precise ripple of fighters falling into place. It's only been nine months since she first sat in a Viper cockpit, but it seems like forever. Three flights of nuggets have been passed since she graduated and that makes her an old hand. She knows all the Vipers and their individual quirks, knows most of the pilots, too.
And when she gets to feeling stale and bored and as ancient as Galactica herself, all she has to do is be thrown out into the void and look out at the stars streaming past, and it's as terrible and glorious as it was the first day.
Fifty credits says she's here this time. Joker, now, trying to talk someone into taking another bet. There were no takers. Joker could put down fifty credits for the same reason no one else can - in the four days that Starbuck's been gone, he's won four out of five hands at the unending rec room triad game.
Starbuck's never been on time in her life, why should this be any different? Helo's drawl is lazy and light, and Cat finds his Raptor on her screen instantly - up and behind her, out of their firing solutions, but still with a clear sensor sweep.
Betcha I could make her come on time for me, and that's Chatterbug again. A beat of silence follows, and Cat draws breath to say something, anything, before Chatterbug opens his mouth again and says something that the CAG will shoot him out of the sky for.
But Hotdog jumps in first. Chatterbug, don't be an ass. She'd drain you dry and leave you whimpering on the floor, begging for your mommy's tit, before you could even dream of setting her clock.
Whatever Chatterbug might say in return is drowned out by six other laughing pilots. Cat lets the breath out in a long sigh, and flexes her fingers around the stick. She'll deal with Chatterbug later. Someone will.
Galactica to Flight 218, standby for mark.
And just like that, the chatter fell away and Cat felt the tension racket up again. Dee's precise and a bit snippy, but that's how she always is, and Cat nearly laughs, in spite of herself.
Watch for incoming Raiders. ID targets before acquiring.
Old instructions, but worth repeating. Cat knows she's not the only one who's had nightmares of blowing a Raider out of the sky, and finding a human corpse among the wreckage. Few of them talk about it. But Cat knows.
Ten seconds to mark. Five, four, three, two...mark.
A heartbeat, another, a third. Then, thousands of meters ahead, the flash of jump closure, and, almost as instantly, the bridge officer's voice. Dradis contact, single Raider, position 54 mark 18, course changing to match ours. Flight 218, go for visual ID.
On it, Cat responds, Hotdog, on me, and the couch pushes her again as she pours it on, accelerating towards the Raider. But almost before they're within firing range, the Raider is dancing and waggling its wings, and Starbuck's voice is coming through small and tinny, Hold fire Galactica, hold fire, lost sheep, coming home.
Cat leads Hotdog in a long sweeping curl over the Raider and back again, throwing her Viper into a backwards tumble-and-recover just because she can. Starbuck notices, of course, and the laughter is thick in her voice as she roundly curses Cat for wasting fuel.
Did you listen to anything I tried to tell you, Lieutenant? Who gave you your Viper wings, anyway?
That would have been you, sir. Welcome back. Then the comm is full of Dee's voice welcoming Starbuck home and calling off the attack and warning the flight to watch for any other Raiders. But Cat leaves that to the rest of the flight as she and Hotdog escort Starbuck home, trading wing waggles all the way.
1235 hours
The deck was the bustling hive it always was when they did anything with the Raider - One day, Cally swore, I am going to rig a drag truck for that thing. Or an overhead sling above the catwalk, so I don't have to reposition the crane three times to shift the Raider off the elevator.
One day. As soon as she got done with everything else.
"Chief! CIC sent word, said they wanted two more Raptors on standby!"
Cally kept her eyes on the Raider as the elevator slowly ground to a halt, then jerked down the last four inches. Another thing to work on. "So go find me two more Raptors and make sure they're fueled and stocked!" A beat and she realized the specialist was still at her elbow. "Well? Or am I supposed to be carrying them in my pocket?" The specialist disappeared with gratifying haste. Cally turned her attention back to the Cylon ship.
Time, time, it took too much time to bring the Raider in. Not as much time as it had the first time they'd taken the Raider on board, with the Chief - the old Chief, bitching and fussing as the unbalanced Raider lurched in the sling and gorged a line in the deck that had taken four hands with torches to erase. And they had gotten better at launching her, even though they'd never get her away in less time than it took to launch the entire Viper contingent. But it still tied up one elevator for most of an hour to get the Raider in and settled.
Today they couldn't wait that long. While the Raider was still on the elevator they pulled Starbuck out, all but kicking and screaming, and reeking like a dead thing after four and a half days wrapt in the Cylon fighter's guts.
Cally waved at the crane operator to hold and ducked under the Raider's wing to find out what the delay was. As she suspected, it was the senior flight instructor.
"Come on, Captain, let go already." The crewman who had Starbuck's legs was trying to take the rest of her weight, but the pilot was not cooperating.
"I'll let go when I know you've got me, drek head. Last time you dropped my ass clear on the deck."
Cally waved at the crane operator to lift. The servos whined but obeyed, drawing Starbuck away from the grip of the deckhands trying to catch her.
"Hey!"
"Captain, they've got you, let go now!" It wasn't her urging, but the threat of leaving ground that finally convinced the pilot to release her hold on the edge of the fighter's hatch and half drop, half collapse, into the arms waiting to catch her.
"Okay, okay, set me down, set me down already!" They bent to do so even as Cally stepped forward, Starbuck's cane in hand. Two of the deckhands backed away with vigor, brushing at their coveralls. The third, Dorance - his olfactory preferences overridden by the death grip Starbuck had on his shoulder - stood firm. Starbuck's face was white, and her bad leg wasn't touching the deck at all.
A voice murmured in Cally's ear, "I've got that, Chief." And it was so like the first time Starbuck had come home with a pet Cylon that Cally started, looking around for Tyrol.
But it was herself that the CAG had been speaking to, not Tyrol, her grip on the cold metal cane that he was untangling, and then he was brushing past her to present the cane to Starbuck.
"Sir. Your cane of -"
"Shut up, sir." Starbuck snatched it from him and transferred it to the other arm, setting her free hand on his shoulder.
Adama stood with his back to Cally, but she could still hear the smile in his voice. "You could thank me for that, you know." Cally pressed her lips together and sent a prayer of gratitude towards the Lords that they had Adama to handle Starbuck, so Cally didn't have to. Then she held a hand up to the crane booth, ready to signal him to start shifting the Raider off the platform.
"And start another bad habit? No thanks." Starbuck took one hesitant step, and nearly folded, face gone even paler and her lower lip caught between her teeth.
"Did you break it again? Doc's not going to let you out for recess again..."
"No, I'm fine, just stiff. Too long lying down."
"Ah. I've heard you have that problem."
The com crackled and Cally looked up at the crane box, waved a finger in negation.
"Sirs. We need to clear the lift. I can get a stretcher -"
"-No!" Starbuck snapped. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Captain, damnit, give me a shoulder."
Cally stepped back and let them move off the deck, Starbuck hobbling as fast as she could for the stairwell. Dorance began to follow, but Apollo shook his head. "I have her, specialist."
Cally called to him, "Dorance, over here." He obeyed, wiping at the crap on his chest and shoulders. Cally thrust a data pad into his hands. "Here. You're already slimed. Climb inside and run a diagnostic, soon as they get her settled." She grinned at the warring expressions on his face. "Consider it a promotion, Dorance, and nobody had to die for you to get it."
She wanted the words back as soon as she said them. Dorance's face fell, and he turned away. She forgot, sometimes, that it had been Dorance who had found the Chief, and cut him down, after the Old Man died.
"Chief!"
Starbuck and Apollo had made it no further than halfway to the stairwell before Starbuck stopped, hanging her head and breathing hard. "Chief! Chief, c'mere."
She was the Chief now, and wouldn't run, short of General Quarters. But she did hustle. "Yeah, Captain?"
"Weapons stores are still full, right stabilizer was mushy, engines down another ten percent. The FTL guidance is fraked, too - sent me to the wrong coordinates once."
"Is that what took you so long?" But Starbuck was already shaking her head.
"No. I found -" She visibly caught herself just as Apollo's grip tightened. "I need to talk to Tigh. I need to talk to him now. I found..." She shook her head again. "It wasn't the FTL. Something else."
Captain Adama was already pulling Starbuck away. "See what you can find out, Chief." Then to Starbuck. "Come on, you. You can go talk to Tigh smelling like you do, if it's that urgent."
Pilot talk. And CIC issues. Cally pushed the possibilities aside. She had always wondered, before the world ended, why the Chief had so seldom answered any of her what-if questions, or engaged in idle speculation. She had put it down to a lack of imagination.
She knew better now.
On the deck, the crew had taken the initiative and were already re-positioning the crane for the second transfer. Cally stood and watched for a moment as the Raider hung in midair - a captured bit of night, trapped under the bright lights of the repair deck.
Going to figure out what makes you work, even if it kills me, she thought at the Raider. At least then I can tell the Chief, when I see him again.
Soon as she get done with everything else.
0541 hours
Dee rubs the mist off the mirror in the washroom and stares at the woman looking back at her. She has circles under her eyes, now. When did I get those? The Commander's funeral? Gaeta's? When we sent the Dusklight the way of the Astral Queen?
The condensation creeps in again and she wipes at it with an angry palm. Fraking deckcrews, can't they keep anything fixed? The dehumidifiers have been repeatedly out of order on this deck, despite the numerous workorders that have been filed.
She should know - she's filed half those orders herself.
The water's tepid, too, which probably means there's a leak between D and K causeways again, and please Lords but someone's already called that in, because if the leak lasts until Dee can find a phone, they'll be mopping water off the deck for days.
Even as she forms the thought, the intercom bleats and issues a call. Hydro repair crew three to deck four, D causeway. Hydro repair crew to deck four, D causeway.
Dee washes her face and checks her hair again, then collects her bath things and makes her way out, past a trio of late risers, just starting on their before-shift routine. Back in quarters she drops her kit in her locker and pulls on her next-to-last clean uniform. Time to loose another sleep shift to doing laundry. She slams the door shut rudely - there are two ensigns off the swing shift still in their bunks - but Dee knows they both have worn the same shirts for the last two shifts and despises them on account. Then she laces her boots and is on her way to the CIC.
When she arrives, the first one to greet her is the CAG, bent over the plotting desk with a stylus in his hand.
"Captain." By reflex, she checks the clock. Five minutes early, which is cutting it close by her standards.
"Dee. You're looking sharp. "
"Thank you, sir." You're not. She checks the clock again. "Sir, have you been here since I left?" When she looks closely, she can see his hands are trembling, a little, and he keeps wiping his eyes. There is a patch of stubble along the left side of his jaw, where the razor missed.
"Technically, no. I took twenty minutes, under orders, to escort Captain Thrace to the washroom."
Dee sniffs the air. "That was hours ago, sir." She studies the charts in front of him, follows the track of purple and then indigo stylus ink.
"Sir, you are not calculating a jump solution on three straight shifts without sleep."
"But I am, Bridge Officer Duella."
"Sir, you can't."
"Bridge Officer Duella, are you attempting to give me an order?" The stylus trails to a halt and Adama raises his eyes to meet hers. Drusila comes to attention. She had forgotten, again, that Adama is kinder, more polite, gentler, and more cruel than any other officer on Galactica.
"No, sir."
He drops his gaze, finally. Another wipe at his eyes. "Good. Because I'll have you know that you are outranked by both Colonel Tigh - who requested the jump solution - and Captain Thrace, who hatched the highly un-orthodox maneuver that needs this solution.
"Besides, I'm not finalizing it. That will come after you double-check my calculations." Dee feels a sickening lurch in her belly. The same one she gets every time she inherits another of Gaeta's old duties.
"Yes, sir."
"You'll give the solution to Colonel Tigh when you've finished."
"Yes, sir." She swallows, then, greatly daring, asks, "How soon will we need the solution, sir?"
"What's the answer, Bridge Officer?"
"As soon as possible, sir, but not before the calculations are correct?"
He nods, keeps on writing.
She checks the clock again - one minute to shift change. She leaves Adama at the board and quietly goes through the shift change checklist with the mids com officer. The list complete, she spends a few moments wiping the exposed surfaces of her board. Dee suspects the swing officer of eating at her station, but has yet to catch him.
The officer at the scanner console straightens abruptly and announces, "Dradis contact! Two Raptors, 18 mark 54, no other contact!"
"Intercept and escort. Verify visual and password." Adama barks.
Dee nods. Flight 223, intercept and escort. She bends over her board, concentrating on the phrases Racetrack was sending over the wireless. "Sir, verification complete and correct. They send, Clear water at the heart of the world."
Adama nods. "Looks like you'll have calculations to check, Dee." He begins to rake the charts together. Dee stares at the clear sheets, at Adama's tiny, precise figures, at the trembling hands bringing them together.
"They'll have data to upload. Have it brought to the Strat Room when they have it."
"Sir? Where will you be?"
Adama smiles, a tight-lipped fatalistic grin. "In the Strat Room. Pass the word for Colonel Tigh, please, and inform him the Raptors have returned."
It takes both arms to push him off the table. Dee puts her gaze back on her board until she was sure he had left. She is not as pleased with her neat uniform as she was an hour ago.
She passes the word for Colonel Tigh, and sends a runner down to the flight deck to manually carry the data set from the Raptors. Then she thinks to order more coffee for the Strat Room. A check of the duty log shows that Adama and Thrace have been in the Strat Room continuously since 1300 hundred the day before. The Raptors had been sent out at the end of swing shift.
The day's schedule continues - deck training, another waterline leak, another catapult down, two others operational again. Dee answers the questions she can, passes the rest on to Colonel Tigh, who is ramrod straight and steel sober. He spends his shift in and out of the Strat Room.
It is after 1300 before Adama makes his way out again. He looks, if anything, far worse. "Dee, I've made adjustments to the calculations. Go ahead and run the checks."
"Yes, sir. Should I contact you when I've finished?"
"No, give them to Colonel Tigh."
"Yes, sir. Sir, we've received a message from Pres - from Ms Roslin. She requests you contact her sir, regarding the upcoming movements of the fleet."
And it is then, and not at any time before, that Adama seems to shrink. Dee stares. "Sir?"
A pass at his eyes. "I'll take it. Patch it into the, the Strat Room."
Dee hesitates. Out of nowhere Tigh is suddenly at her back. "Belay that. No contact with Ms Roslin or any civilian personnel until further notice."
Adama does not move, but his grip on the table tightens. "Sir, we will need to brief the ship's captains at some point."
"That we will, Captain, but operational needs still come first. She doesn't need to talk to you as badly as I need you seeing straight. I'll inform her she can talk to you later, and that you'll provide her the necessary information at that time. As of now, you're off duty." A jerk of his head. Dee follows his gaze to find Captain Thrace leaning on the bulkhead. "You too, Captain Thrace. Clear my deck."
And he stands there, glaring at them both, until they have made their way out.
1458 hours
Three singles, a deca, and a cluster. Two other players still in the game. Helo stared at the cards, counting the seconds in his mind until Cat got nervous and started to fidget. Four, five, six -
"Come on, Helo, make up your mind."
Gotcha. He rubbed his face, frowned.
"Give him time," Joker said, "I need a minute to count my chips again."
"You know, for anyone else, that would be bad luck, Joker, how come it doesn't work like that for you?" HotDog had folded last round, so he was free to bitch at length.
"I dunno, just lucky." It would have taken an afterburn to take the grin off Joker's face. Half the pilots in the rec room had assumed Starbuck would be playing. In her continued absence, Joker had kept up his winning streak. "Helo, you gonna draw or pass?"
Helo quit stalling and threw out the deca, face down. "Gimme one. Got to be a -"
The hatch slammed open. Everyone jumped, and Cat fumbled her drink. It fell across the table, soaking everything in its path. Crashdown stuck his head in the door.
"Helo, Get the CAG."
"Huh?"
Joker wiped rotgut gin off his shirt and yelled at Crashdown. "Hey, drek head, being duty officer doesn't give you call to come busting in like that!" Crashdown ignored him and scowled at Helo.
"Frak it, don't give me drek, Roslin's standing in the corridor and wants to see the CAG. He's not answering the intercom."
"He just went down two hours ago. Him and -"
"I know. I don't care. Get him."
Helo was already folding his cards and reaching for his jacket. Crashdown must have gotten an okay from the X- from the Commander. And it wasn't Crash's place - or Helo's - to question that. Or the wisdom of the former President trying to talk to a Galactica officer privately.
But it wasn't his place, either, to wake up the CAG when Adama had just gone off shift two hours before. Or when he'd gone off shift as the same time as the senior flight instructor for the first time in eight days.
The floorstrips barely broke the darkness in the pilot quarters. Helo pulled the hatch to as quietly as he could. Unneeded caution - when his eyes adjusted, could see around the room, curtains all pulled back, except for the lower bunk that Starbuck had claimed after she fraked her knee permanently. Helo nudged the lights up and knocked on the bulkhead.
"Captain. Visitor."
No response. He tried again, louder, then once more, on the bunk upright itself. That brought out a mumbling groan and the sound of someone stirring against the bedding. Helo coughed and said, "Captain, you're needed on deck." But snores overrode the last of his words.
No help for it then. Helo pulled the curtain aside, intending to put a hand on whatever part of the CAG was closest, and shake him into wakefulness. But the first head he saw was blond and shaggy-cut, over a back adorned by a black tattoo. So there was nothing to do but keep pulling the curtain back, letting in more and more light.
He'd seen Kara Thrace bare to her toes before - if there was anyone on board who hadn't, he didn't know their names. One got used to seeing bare skin and bare asses and tits and cocks, living cheek and jowl the way troops did shipboard. Some recruits were by raising or inclination more modest than others, but once an enlistee made it to black sky, they'd all made their peace with the lack of physical privacy, and learnt the rules - spoken and unspoken - that let everyone live with it.
One of the rules was, you didn't stare, uninvited. And sleeping was always not inviting.
He couldn't see Starbuck's face, not the way she had it pressed up against Apollo's chest, a slender thread of drool dangling from the corner of her mouth. Apollo had his head thrown back, mouth open and throat exposed, and it was him who was snoring fit to out do a Raptor engine. One arm was buried beneath their bodies, but the other was pulling Starbuck to him, her breast filling his hand. As for Starbuck, she had one leg, the bad one, slung over his hip, heel still caught behind his knee. The sheet had been kicked all the way down, until it only covered their ankles.
The rule was, you didn't stare. So Helo didn't, just took one long, slow look up and down, wondering if he and Sharon had ever looked like that, awkward and homely and utterly at rest.
Then he bent closer and reached across Starbuck to shake at Apollo, not once but twice, before the other man broke off in mid snore and dragged his eyes open. And the first thing Apollo did was draw Starbuck closer, and look down at her face.
1515 hours
The corridor outside the CAG's duty station was empty and near-silent. Hadrian kept her eyes on the bulkhead beside the duty station hatch and let her peripheral vision watch the guards posted at either end of the passageway. Beside her, Roslin waited without fidgeting. Most of the time, it was one of the things Hadrian liked most about Roslin, and one of the things that made being the ex-President's constant escort a bearable duty. Hadrian despised people who had to pace, rattle papers, draw stars and half-moons on scrap paper.
This time was different. Roslin's patience was...inhuman - a word that came with difficulty to Hadrian's mind. Inhuman meant different things, these days. More than just strange. Meant Cylons.
Roslin, for all her faults, was not a Cylon. Hadrian was sure of an increasingly small number of things, but she was sure of that.
Which made Roslin's composed waiting even more unnerving.
Without changing expression, Roslin broke the silence, her timing disquieting even if her question was not. "I wonder why they're taking so long. It's the middle of the duty day."
Hadrian let her voice follow her thoughts. "They're probably confirming the Colonel's authorization." It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that Tigh had told Roslin that he would have Captain Adama available to speak to her at some point today. Hadrian, for one, had not gotten the impression that Tigh had authorized her to talk to Adama this instant.
"But surely it's a matter of picking up the phone?"
"The attack two weeks ago severed the communications trunk between C and D decks in several places. They haven't got them all patched yet." A sidelong glance showed Roslin nodding. "You didn't know."
"I am not frequently briefed, these days, on Galactica's operational status." Roslin's tone was matter of fact, but it left Hadrian with the uncomfortable suspicion that she had revealed too much.
It was to her great relief that the hatch finally opened and the pilot motioned them in. "He'll see you now." Roslin collected her case smoothly and strode in, head high. Hadrian lengthen her stride to catch up.
But the CAG wasn't in. The room held just a desk, scattered with papers, a well-marked wipeboard, and a pair of chairs.
"Have a seat," the pilot said. "He'll be right in." Hadrian still could not place him, beyond the fact that he was an ECO and had the call sign Crashdown. It was beginning to annoy her as much as Roslin's stillness had.
Roslin sat. Hadrian did not, but took up a position to one side as Roslin began, "I'm very grateful that the CAG has agreed to meet with me. I would not have asked, except that it's a matter of -"
"Ma'am, Captain Adama was on duty for most of thirty hours straight. I had to wake him up. I surely hope this is urgent."
That got a reaction from Roslin - the first one Hadrian had seen in days. But it was only a flicker, and long gone before the hatch behind Crashdown opened and Captain Adama entered.
Hadrian came to attention. Adama gave her a flicker of his eyes and said, "At ease." Roslin never moved.
He was not, Hadrian noted, dressed for receiving anyone. Single tank, gym shorts, gym shoes without socks. Unshaven. Straight from his bunk. And, she noted, after a moment, he had not been alone there. If Roslin noticed, she gave no sign of it.
No apologies for pulling him off his sleep shift. None at all. No comment on the lines drawn deep on his face.
He took a seat behind his desk. "Ma'am, what can I do for you?"
"You've sent out the Raider, to scout a path ahead. And recovered it." Adama nodded - there was no denying what the entire fleet already knew over the wireless. "And you've sent out Raptors to confirm. The fleet is shifting course and preparing to jump."
Again, even the dead in the morgue knew that.
"What have you found?"
"That information is not for dissemination at this time."
"Please. You know I only want what's best for our people."
"Tom Zarek told me the same thing." Hadrian drew in a breath at that, then let it out slowly. It would not have mattered if she had shouted outloud. For Apollo and Roslin, there was no one else in the room.
"You had Tom Zarek killed. Is it a capital crime, now, to want what's best for what's left of humanity?"
"No. It's a crime to circumvent authority and attempt to assassinate the sitting president. Or would you have rather he succeeded?"
"Why would I want that?" That had seemed to sting.
Adama shrugged. "It would make you a martyr, give meaning to your death."
Roslin sat for a moment, studying her hands. "That sounds like something Colonel Tigh would think," she said finally.
Adama's mouth thinned. He leaned back. "I've been spending a lot of time with him."
"Is that the reason you won't tell me what you've found?"
"I won't tell you because you don't need to know."
"Captain, I am not your enemy. I want to find Earth as desperately as you -" Something in Adama's face had changed, too fast for Hadrian to follow, but Roslin had caught it.
"You don't. You're not trying to find Earth. You did find a planet, but Colonel Tigh's taking the Fleet away from it, keeping us out in space. Why?"
"Military operations are not your concern, ma'am."
"The destination and course of this Fleet is a concern of every human here, Captain! What are you do-"
The hatch behind him opens again. Roslin fell silent in mid-word. Captain Thrace, no more dressed than Adama, stepped over the threshold and closed the hatch. Adama did not look around, not even when Thrace laid her hand, briefly, on his shoulder.
"Go on."
"Captain Apollo, I -"
Adama broke in. "You can use my name. There's no danger of confusion, now."
A pause. Roslin was clearly collecting herself. "No, there isn't. And for that I am sorry, Lee, truly, truly sorry -"
"You've said so already, Ma'am. Several times." Hadrian had been told, second and third hand, of the bitter anger that the senior flight instructor had for Roslin. This was the first time she had seen it herself.
"Yes, I have. And I mean it. Tell me, Captain Thrace, are you any closer to forgiving yourself?"
Thrace's nostril's flared and the expression on her face turned ugly. Adama waved a hand and she choked back her words. "Captain, let Ms Roslin speak." The CAG 's face was not angry, only exhausted.
"Actually, I believe I was finished."
"Nothing else?"
"No. You've made your intent quite clear - a course free of reason or persuasion."
"There are times, ma'am, when the only honorable or logical course is to follow orders. Colonel Tigh has made the decision, and I support it."
"I am very sorry to hear that." She stared down at her hands again. From where Hadrian stood, she could see Roslin's fingers tremble. "As you know, it was not my original intent to lead the people to Earth. My only thought was to run, as far and as fast as we could, beyond the reach of the Cylons." She rose, solemn as Hera. "It was your father who saw beyond the journey, and made us hope for an end to flight."
She made as if to turn to go, but stopped. "I can not say which pains me more - to have lived to see that dream die, or to have been a part of its death. Good day, officers." Then she was leaving, moving towards the hatch as if to walk straight through it.
Hadrian jerked into action, hands fumbling on the latch, swinging it open before the older woman. Roslin walked though, head high, and made her way down the corridor.
Hadrian turned to seal the hatch, and froze, eyes caught by the figures inside the room.
Adama was still in his chair, but Thrace had taken the two steps to bring her to his side and hold him to her, head against her belly, his fists knotted in her shirt, her head bent over his, her arms shielding him from the universe.
Then Crashdown was blocking her view, his face a dark scowl, and the hatch was swinging shut without her assistance.
The echoes were still reverberating off the bulkheads when she caught up with Roslin and the rest of her escort. There were tears standing in Roslin's eyes, but Hadrian could not bring herself to care.
***The End***
Story Notes: Written for misskatherine. The pairing requested was Lee/Kara
or Six/Gaius. Set some time post S1. 5,580 words.
Author Notes: Thanks to the sister, who read it through even though she didn't have to, and to the lj crowd (cofax, bantha_fodder) for catching typos.
Spoilers: Through KLGII, none for S2, except if the author's spec matches Moore's. (ha)
Disclaimer: The author does not own BSG in any form or year, and is making no money off this work of fanfiction.
Please post a comment on this story.
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