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Commander Adama smiled as he walked through the corridors of the Galactica, the familiarity of the path allowing him to think of other things. Life since the destruction of the Colonies had been stressful, of course, but also peculiarly reinvigorating. Before the cylons attacked he had been at the end of his career; now he found himself the commander of the only remaining battlestar, protecting a fleet of 50,000 people.
He thanked the gods everyday that he did not have to go through all of this alone. He had his best friend, Colonel Tigh, a strong right-hand man even if he could never be trusted to command a battlestar himself. He had the new president, Laura Roslin, who seemed to disagree with him at every turn and yet who balanced out his naturally militant nature. He had the entire crew of the Galactica, from the intelligence officers in the CIC to the pilots to the deck crew—all of them loyal and competent and as stubbornly devoted to protecting the fleet as he.
And then he had his family, family that he had never thought he would recover. His relationship with Lee was still rocky, uncomfortable for them both, and he knew that it might never become what it might have been if he had been a better man, but at least they were talking now. Lee's appointment as Roslin's military advisor gave them an excuse to have semi-frequent meetings, usually with Kara in tow in her position as CAG. Kara—the other member of his family he had never expected to find, especially not this late in life. After her stunt with the Olympic Carrier, where he had worried as much for his daughter as his son, he had realized that despite her utter lack of relation to the Adama family she had wormed her way into his heart as surely as if she shared their blood. That stunt had turned out to be even more valuable than Kara had probably hoped; not only had they rescued the twenty or so children on board, but they had uncovered the journal of a notable Caprican scholar which warned, among other things, that Gaius Baltar was not to be trusted and was in fact the one who had betrayed humanity to the cylons. And none of it would have been possible if not for Adama's children.
Speaking of Lee and Kara…the sound of infectious laughter drew him faster down the corridor, and he turned into an open door to find the two viper pilots snickering like five year olds as they painted a large "1000" on Flat Top's helmet, a traditional part of the commemoration of a pilot's 1000th landing. They looked up as he entered, and surprise or distraction caused Lee to drop the paint can, spilling the stuff all over the floor.
Lee and Kara stared at each other and then at the Old Man, speechless, before Kara burst out laughing, pointing at Lee, who, with all the wide-eyed innocence of youth, pointed back at her.
Adama shook his head, and tried not to smile.
Several minutes later saw the room relatively clean and the three conspirators hurrying through the corridors to the hangar. Kara began relating to Lee the story of Adama's thousandth landing—and where did she hear about these things, anyways?—while Adama protested and hedged, and it was just as they rounded a corner and the hangar came into view, the viper pilots all circling around Flat Top, that something exploded.
Twelve viper pilots had died, another seven were in the infirmary. It was a disaster of unprecedented proportions, and left the fleet—and, by extension, the human race—in great peril.
Fortunately, it just so happened that the Galactica had its own certified pilot instructor onboard. True, she was irascible, impatient, and ten times too good to be herding nuggets around in the few vipers they had left—but she was also a skilled teacher, experienced in teaching both theory and practice, and, most importantly for Adama, under his chain of command.
"Sir," she said hesitantly, sounding very unlike herself as she stood at ease before the desk in his office, "I don't think this is such a good idea. I don't know if I'm the right person for this. There's almost 50,000 people out there. Are you trying to tell me that there's not one flight instructor?"
"There's two, civilians both. I need someone to teach combat tactics. Captain Thrace, I have complete faith in your abilities," Adama replied firmly. "By all reports, you were a hell of a flight instructor. Zak used to rave about you." At the sound of his other son's name, she stiffened, refusing to meet his eyes. "Is that what this is about? Kara, you know I don't blame you at all for Zak's death. He couldn't cut it as a viper pilot; that wasn't a reflection on you as an instructor."
"Yes, sir," she sighed. She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was all Kara. "But do I have to babysit the nuggets, sir?"
"I'm afraid so, Captain," he said, a hint of humor in his voice. "You can have Lee do the paperwork and find suitable nuggets, but you're going to be the one teaching them. I have faith in you, Kara."
"Let's hope it's not misplaced," she muttered as she sketched a salute and headed for the door. He watched as the closer she got to the door the more there was a bounce in her step, and he thought that she might not have been as upset with the idea of teaching as she thought.
Kara stared skeptically at the new batch of recruits, trying not to wince as she took in their young faces and eager expressions. They seemed impossibly naïve, and nothing about them suggested to her that they would have even a whit of ability in a viper. One of them had even washed out of flight school before, for crying out loud!
"Get on your feet, nuggets!" she barked. "Pilots call me Starbuck, you may refer to me as God. Now frankly, none of you should be here in the first place, and due to the situations we don't have a simulator—which means that when you get your first experience, it'll be in a real viper. Before I'll actually allow any of you in a viper, though, you're going to have to prove to me that you know what you're doing. So take out your pencils, nuggets—it's time for a pop quiz!"
"Sir, I'm worried." Lee Adama did not—quite—scuff his boots across the floor like an errant schoolboy. "It's been nearly a week, and Captain Thrace still hasn't allowed the new nuggets to even climb into the cockpit."
"You're worried that Starbuck is being too cautious?" Adama asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice.
"She's not teaching them to fly," Lee said stubbornly. "One of the things that makes her so good is her instinct, her feel for flying. How are her nuggets supposed to learn any of that from her if she refuses to let them up into the air?"
"Lee, Starbuck is an experienced flight instructor," the older man pointed out. "I have every faith in her abilities."
"Alright," Lee said grudgingly. "I just feel like she's letting personal feelings cloud her judgment."
"And what are those feelings?"
"About Zak, and about everything she lost when he died."
Adama's eyes narrowed. "What did Kara lose when Zak died?"
Lee blinked once, suddenly seeming to realize that he had let something slip. "I thought—I knew you were close—"
"Lee, answer the question," Adama ordered.
Lee shook his head. "It's not my place," he muttered. "If you want to know, you'll have to ask Kara."
Adama watched him go, a thoughtful expression on his face as he picked up his phone and asked someone to summon Captain Thrace to his office.
Kara hurried past a few off-duty crew members as she made her way to the Old Man's office, wondering why he had called for her. As far as she knew nothing strange had been going on, other than the experienced pilots being forced to work overtime to make up for the lack of pilots flying CAP. She had been thoroughly drilling the nuggets in theory, and she knew that soon they would be ready to try the real thing—perhaps they were even ready now, but she wouldn't let them in the air until she was sure that they could manage to make it back alive.
She knocked on Adama's door, waiting until she heard his muffled response to push it open. He had been sitting behind his desk, but rose to his feet upon seeing her entrance.
"You asked to see me, sir?"
"Close the door, Kara," he said sternly. Brow wrinkled in confusion, she obeyed, then came to stand before him. "I was just talking to Lee," he told her, "and he said something that has had me wondering. He mentioned how much you lost when Zak died. What did you lose when Zak died?"
She paled, her hand immediately clenching over the engagement ring settled snugly on her thumb. Damn Lee, anyways—she had never thought that he would go spilling her business to the Old Man. "I don't know, sir," she said through numb lips. "You'd have to ask him."
"I'm asking you," Adama replied, his eyes seeming to pierce her. "Don't fence with me, Kara. I don't deserve that."
There was a loud pounding sound in her ears, and she realized it was her own heartbeat. "Zak and I…we were close," she whispered.
"How close?" he prompted.
"We…were engaged. We were going to announce it after he graduated from flight school, but after he failed basic flight, he was so determined to prove himself, to me and to you…"
"You were engaged." It was obvious that Adama was floored, but she didn't look up at him, too ashamed of the tears in her eyes, too ashamed of her lies. "And you never thought to mention this to me?" There was an undercurrent of anger in his voice, a sound that made her shudder. He had never directed his anger at her before.
"When we met—it didn't seem important," Kara said, forcing the words out past what felt like a blockage in her throat. "I didn't want you to think I was asking for anything. I thought you might not believe me."
"Not believe you?"
She felt his shocked gaze like a knife, and shrugged uncomfortably. "Zak was…everything. Perfect. And I've never been the kind of girl that guys bring home to their parents. Why would you believe me?"
"And after you had been here for a year, two years? Why didn't you tell me then, Kara?" he asked, pressing the point. When she still didn't look at him, he reached forward to grasp her chin in his hand, forcing her eyes up to meet his.
"I don't know," she whispered, the normally strong woman suddenly reduced to this heart breaking fragility. "I guess…I didn't want to lose you. You were so kind to me, so friendly, without ever asking anything other than that I be who I was."
"And you thought I would stop being kind, friendly, if I learned that you had been engaged to my son?" His disbelief was evident.
"I didn't want your kindness to come from some feeling of obligation," she said desperately, looking down. "I haven't been close to many people in my life, sir, and I would never have wanted you to feel that you had to be close to me, just because we had both loved Zak."
She dared to glance up, to examine his face, and found that for the first time it was closed off to her.
"I'm going to need some time to come to terms with this," Adama said gruffly. "Continue with the nuggets as you think best, Captain. You're dismissed."
Barely catching the sob that wanted to escape her, she nodded jerkily, then spun on her heel and hurried away. He hadn't rejected her, not yet, but now he knew that she had been persistently lying to him, and she feared that he would never look at her the same way again. She didn't know if she could live with Adama's hatred.
"Alright nuggets," she shouted, bursting into their locker room, her face clear from all of the emotion that had torn at her only minutes before—that continued to tear at her—"suit up! You're going out there in vipers, and you're going to prove to me that you have what it takes, or I'm going to bust you out of this little training program faster than you can say 'frakking hell.'"
An hour later, they were in the air, and Starbuck led them through a series of maneuvers designed to familiarize them with the temperamental vipers. Despite what she had said in the past, there was some potential there, although not as much as she'd hoped for. She was just about to tell them to try a few maneuvers when she saw something that made her heart stop.
"Holy frak—we've got incoming," she said, alerting not only the nuggets but the Galactica as well. "We're going to need you to send the cavalry. Nuggets, punch it for home," she ordered.
"The alert fighters will be there in two minutes, Starbuck," Dee's voice responded, her regret obvious. They all knew that the skirmish would be over in two minutes.
Nodding to herself, Starbuck made a decision that required no real thought at all. The two men who meant the world to her, as well as all of her friends in the world, were on the Galactica, which was in imminent danger of destruction. There was only one possible thing she could do. She forced her viper into an immediate about-face, zooming back in the direction she had come, prepared to take on all eight vipers herself.
Distantly, she heard Adama's voice over the radio. "Starbuck, are you crazy? This is suicide! Get back and wait for the alert fighters! Starbuck!" There were also other exclamations—apparently Hot Dog, one of the new nuggets, had tried to come to her aid. Having never been in a viper before, however, his skills were somewhat lacking, and he had ended up stranding himself. She knew he would be alright, if the cylons didn't destroy them all in the next minute.
Could Adama sound so concerned for someone he didn't care about any more? She didn't think so, so it was with a glad smile that she faced the eight cylons. Even as she blasted them out of the air one by one in a deadly dance, even as she twisted and turned to evade her opponents, even as she managed to shoot the same raider that knocked out a good portion of her viper, sending it plummeting toward the nearest landmass, toward certain death, she was reassured by the knowledge that there was no better way for her to die, than defending the people she loved.