"Dradis contact!" Everyone in the CIC whipped around to look at Gaeta. "It's a Cylon Basestar!"
"Set the fleet to code one," Adama ordered. "Prepare to jump."
"They're launching Raiders," was the next bit of information Gaeta passed along.
"How long until they intercept?" Adama inquired of his staff.
"Not long enough," Dualla replied as she looked over the information she was getting from the rest of the fleet. "Only half the civilian ships will be ready to jump by the time they're on us."
"Launch the alert fighters," he ordered. "Let's see how much time we can buy ourselves." Adama then turned back to Dualla. "Tell Apollo to get back here, now. I don't want to tip our hand yet if we can help it."
"Yes, Sir."
"Apollo, Galactica, your orders are to return to base," Lee heard over his wireless system.
"Roger, Galactica." As much as he didn't want to leave his pilots behind to deal with the Cylons themselves, he didn't have the experience for doing combat flying in a still-unfamiliar craft. He was attempting to get the hell outta Dodge when he heard Kat's voice over the wireless.
"I've got one on my tail!" she cried out, panic obvious. She didn't have any real combat experience, unlike the other pilots that were out there. She'd done pretty well in her training, but there was no substitute for real life. "I can't shake him!"
"Hang on, Kat. Keep trying to wipe him off," one of the other pilots told her. They were all too busy with their own targets to be able to immediately come to her aid; as always, the Colonials were severely outnumbered by the Cylons.
Lee made a split second decision and flipped his Raider end-over-end, heading back towards the battle. He knew he was going to have bruises from the maneuver; removing the unnecessary biological components had made the fighter a good deal more pleasant to have to sit in, but it had also left a lot more room to go flailing around in. They hadn't installed harnesses or anything of the sort yet, so holding yourself in the correct position took a lot of effort in quickly changing G-forces. During the 180-degree flip and roll, Lee banged his helmet against the wall hard enough to make his ears ring.
"Note to self; don't do that again if you can help it," he muttered. "Galactica, Apollo…I can't sit this one out. We need all the firepower we can get out here, or we're going to start losing pilots."
"Roger that, Apollo." He managed to shoot the Raider that was on Kat's tail, and knock out a couple others. A few enemy ships tried to fire at him, but more than anything else, they seemed to be confused. Lee was thankful that the Vipers could keep track of he was, even if the other Raiders couldn't.
"All civilian ships have completed the jump," a voice finally came over the wireless system. "Fighters, return home."
"Let's go, people," Lee transmitted the squad, easily falling into the position of leader.
They would think back on it later and realize how amusing it had to have looked to have a Cylon Raider heading up a bunch of Colonial Vipers on the way back to their Battlestar. At the time, everyone was just concentrating on not getting shot or blowing their landings – they were coming in fast and hard.
Kara was waiting down on the hangar deck when all the fighters came in. She'd felt like she was in the way up in CIC, and she wanted to make sure that the whole group was present and accounted for. Especially the CAG.
Galactica had completed her own jump by the time they began to bring the Vipers down to the hanger deck. The pilots started climbing out of their cockpits while Tyrol and his crew milled around, checking for damages to add to the post-flight maintenance list. When Lee pulled himself out of the Raider, Kara was waiting below it, leaning on her crutch, a glare on her face that she usually only reserved for people she was about to hit.
"That was the absolute worst landing I've ever seen," she declared before he could even get both feet on the deck. "For the Gods sake, where did you learn to fly? Maybe you and Crashdown should switch call signs!"
In all honesty, Lee's landing had scared the hell out of her. He was an extremely capable pilot, yes, but the sight of the Raider slamming to the deck in a harder landing than she'd ever seen anyone pull off had brought up a lot of memories that Kara would rather leave buried. She didn't really care about the damage he'd undoubtedly done to either her souvenir or the flight deck – that could be dealt with later. She just wanted to make sure he was all right. Any kind of landing that he could walk away from would be okay with her.
Lee knew the landing had been bad (and he was sure that he'd have a good, long conversation with the Landing Signal Officer about it) but he hadn't known that Kara had been on deck to see it. Combat landings were supposed to be hard, and trying to pull one in the Raider had redefined the word. It was a pretty good guess that he was going to be sore as hell in the morning. He could also pretty easily deduce what must have been running through Kara's mind when she saw him come in.
However, Kara was pulling the 'tough' routine so far, and Lee could play their little game just as well as she could. As crazy as it sounded, the ritual of pretending was the only way they could let each other know what they were really thinking. Anger was really code for concern; they read each other better than anyone else in the universe.
"Sorry, Instructor," he shot back, going toe-to-toe with her, "But I don't think we got to that part of the lesson yet." And that little barb meant that he understood what she was actually trying to say to him. It was an apology in disguise.
"Next time you decide you want to go play hero, do it in someone else's bird." Forgiveness. It was amazing how much they could say without the words actually being said.
"It's all about your little toy, huh?" Lee asked with a grin as he took his helmet off. "I feel so used."
Now that his face was uncovered, Kara could see the gash near his hairline where he'd banged his head during the fight. A trail of blood was running down his forehead. "Frak, what'd you do?" she asked, reaching for it. Lee brushed her hand away before taking off his gloves and fingering the cut with a wince. Half-dried blood was left behind on his fingers.
"I'm fine," he insisted. "We've gotta rig up some kind of harnessing system in that thing before it gets declared combat worthy, though." Kara studied him for a moment. Lee was hard-headed enough that even if he did need stitches, he probably didn't have a concussion. He winced again as her fingers gently touched the wound and she couldn't resist the urge to rag on him, just a little bit.
"Smarts, doesn't it?" she asked.
He rolled his eyes with a sigh. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"
Kara was grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "Oh, definitely."
"So are we even now, Lieutenant?"
"Only if you march yourself down to the Life Station and have them check out that hole in your head."
Lee raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry; which one of us is supposed to be the higher ranking officer here?"
"You are, Sir, now go."
"If I talked to a CO like that, I'd get written up on insubordination."
"Yeah, but that's because your CO is the XO. And you wouldn't write me up."
"Oh no?"
"Nope. Getting on the bad side of your lead pilot would definitely be a bad idea."
He laughed. "You really are a brat, Kara, but there's nobody I'd rather have watching my back."
"Yeah, well, right now I'm supposed to be seeing your back as you head for the Life Station, so leave."
He finally was forced to concede. Kara watched as he did a quick post-flight briefing with Tyrol before leaving the hangar deck. She still had a little bit of his blood on her fingers, and had gotten a smudge on the ring that was around her thumb. She removed the band and considered it for a moment before putting it back on her dog tags. Lee had almost been her family once, and these days he was definitely the closest thing she was going to get. Living in a time after the end of the world, family – however you defined it – counted for a lot.
"Lieutenant?" She was broken out of her reverie by Tyrol's voice. "Are you on shift?"
"I can be," she replied. "If you need an extra pair of hands."
"You want to give me a hand with the post-flight for this thing? I'm still working on making up a checklist for it." Kara nodded.
"Sure. What's first?" And they got back to work.
FIN.
Questions, comments, and (constructive) complaints are welcome. Hope you enjoyed.