Starbuck walked into the room and stood by the podium, looking at the dozen cadets who were looking back at him, their conversations dying away. "Hi," he said. "I'm Captain Starbuck, for those of you who don't know me... are there any of you who don't?"
Nobody raised a hand. It didn't surprise him. None of them were as old as Djan, by several yahrens, and most were only one or two older than Zeff. He'd been seeing them around the childcare center, the instructional center, the rejuvenation center, the courts and fields for... gods. Sixteen yahrens. He wasn't sure of all their names, but he knew most of their faces.
"Okay, that's kind of embarrassing unless I think of myself as a legend, so I think I will. You're encouraged to, too." That got him a laugh. He relaxed a little. If they could laugh this might go all right. "So, since I'm sure you're wondering what I'm doing here instead of Farrell, he appears to have done something fairly stupid to himself and won't be here. Good," he looked around the small room. "No one seems upset to hear that. I'm not replacing your favorite teacher... I know how that is."
He decided against using the podium; it wasn't like he had notes, after all. That's what happened when you got dragooned into substituting on no notice at all. He perched on the corner of the desk and said, "They told me this was a class in Tactics. They also told me someone would be happy to tell me what particular battle you're supposed to be going over today. I hope they weren't lying..."
"Cimtar, sir," several voices answered.
"Cimtar?" he repeated. He looked around again. It was a name to them. An important name, to be sure, like Molechai, Hasara, Semtek, Falora, Polon... but just a name. Nothing had ever made him feel so old in his life. "None of you remember Cimtar, do you?"
"No, sir," a couple of them answered.
"Of course not," he said, and looked at his boots for a moment. When he looked up, they were all waiting for him to speak. He shook his head helplessly. "The thing is, I really don't know what I'm supposed to teach you about tactics from Cimtar. About the only thing I can think of that we learned at Cimtar that ought to be passed on... and this is probably one of the most important things you'll ever learn. Take notes. It might not be on the final, but it'll save your life some day."
He was serious and apparently they could tell. The three in the back opened their notepads.
"Okay. Why did the Galactica survive Cimtar?" He looked around the room. "You." He gestured at the dark-haired kid he thought belonged to Athena's friend Altair.
"Because we got warning from the Viper patrol--" he stopped talking as Starbuck shook his head.
"Nope. In your defense, that's the basic story. But it's wrong. Or rather, it's not right enough. By the time then Captain Apollo got here with the warning, there was no time left to do anything. Which is why almost no other ships, and no battlestars, survived. Why did we? Because we were already on full alert... because Ops had a hunch. And that's your lesson."
"Sir, I don't think I understand." He did know that kid, her name was... Morag.
"Okay," he said. "It's simple, but it's different. It goes like this: Ops had a hunch. The commander, the colonel, the bridge officer--Sub-Colonel Omega, by the way--they had a hunch. And they ran battle stations. Personally, I was sitting in the ready room, playing pyramid--yes, I was winning, in fact I was holding a perfect pyramid in purple with a capstone--and suddenly, out of the blue, they scrambled us. We bitched all the way to the launch bays, and we strapped in and sat and bitched some more, and then we got the word and we launched. Because we were already ready. Very nearly no one else launched. Just the one ready squadron off the other battlestars. That's it. And the other ships weren't at battle stations, ready to fight, laser cannons primed and so on and so forth. Ops got a hunch." He looked around. "The lesson of Cimtar is: trust Ops. When the folks in blue get hunches, listen to them. It's what they do... see the big picture, spot the details that just don't match up. It's not Tactics. But it births Tactics. Bitch if you want, and know sometimes they'll make you waste centares cramped up and uncomfortable and trying to remember when was the last time you hit the turboflush. But never lose sight of the fact that when they're right, it's all the warning you're going to get."
"Sir?" Another familiar face without a name, a blonde this time. "What about the actual battle?"
"Battle? Cimtar wasn't a battle," he said. "Cimtar was a rout. It was a ruin, a debacle, an overthrow, a disaster, a complete and total loss, an overwhelming and utter defeat. It was not a battle. If you look "self-inflicted wounds" up in the dictionary, it refers you to Cimtar. There are no lessons from Cimtar. Unless you want to learn the Cylon side... first sucker your opponents by telling them what they want to hear. Then get them to bring their entire force to one place, leaving their home unguarded. Then send overwhelming numbers against both them and their homes, unexpectedly. Then chase them when they run... It's nice if you can do it. We didn't learn any lessons at Cimtar we shouldn't already have known. Baby lessons. Don't trust a Cylon half as far as you can throw one. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't throw away your weapons until you can see your enemy's doing the same thing. Don't leave your home unguarded just because the barbarians say they've decided to play nice... Nothing there we didn't already know. We just got tired. We wanted it to be over, and we thought if we just wanted it hard enough it would be true. We bought the lies. We let ourselves get seduced. And we got fucked over. And we're lucky we escaped with as much as we did. And we can't go home again because home's not there any more."
The class was silent. Starbuck had a feeling he'd gone way off the lesson plan. He hadn't done it on purpose, but he wasn't about to apologize for it, either. He looked around at the grave young faces and sighed to himself. Frack, they're going to be Warriors; they deserve the truth. He looked at his wristchrono. "Okay, we seem to have most of the period left. What's on tap for next time?"
"Semtek," one of them said. There was always one who read ahead...
"Semtek?" He perked up. "Oh, now there was a battle. There's a lot I can tell you about Tactics from Semtek. Given that "tactics" basically means "making it up as you go along"--and who knows why?"
"No plan survives contact with the enemy, sir," Altair's kid said.
"Absolute truth," he nodded, and jumped to his feet and grabbed a marker. "The Semtek system," he said, drawing on the board, "a delta-class world, three alphas and one ringed gamma..."
After class, two of the cadets approached a bit diffidently. "Sir," one of them said, "I wanted to say, my dad won't talk about Cimtar. At all. I never understood it... Thanks for telling us what it really meant." She blushed slightly. "And for talking to us like we're grownups."
"You're in that uniform," Starbuck said. "You're grown. And you're welcome."
She blushed again and fled. The other, Altair's kid, said, "Me, too, sir. I mean, my dad sometimes talks about Cimtar. Just generally... he was on the bridge that day, long-range scanners. He had nightmares about it... used to, anyhow. It means a lot that the pilots understand."
"Most of us do, anyway," Starbuck said. The kid's name came, suddenly. "Musa, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir," he seemed surprised to be recognized. "One other thing, sir..."
"Yes?"
"I was hoping you'd let me take Zephyr to the Triad championships next secton. My dad says there'll never be another team like you and Sub-Colonel Apollo, but--"
"Flattery will get you a lot of things, Musa, but not my daughter." Starbuck grinned at him.
"Oh, no sir... I mean, that just sort of slipped in there, involuntarily, it wasn't part of my actual plan... I mean..."
Starbuck took pity on him. "You may ask her. She's of the opinion that Triad is overrated, but she might go to the championships. Just be aware of one thing--if you offer her any kind of insult, I'll have to rip your arm off and beat you to death with it." He smiled to show he wasn't serious. But they both knew he was.
"Oh, yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean, I wouldn't--"
"You and I might not agree on what an insult was. And if we did, she might not. But I'll know if she comes home hurt. And you'll know."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"You're going to be late, Musa," Starbuck pointed out. The boy scurried out.
Zephyr went to the championships. Musa, she said, was 'nice enough.' Starbuck stopped worrying about him, even though he asked her out on a couple of other occasions.
Two sectares later Apollo was telling him, "I'm serious, Starbuck. The cadets said your two substitute tactics classes were the most useful classes they had all semester."
"That doesn't speak well for the quality of their instructors."
"Maybe not. Tigh thinks you should join the staff--"
"Are you serious?"
"I am. And so's Tigh, more to the point. Not full time, you'll still be the squadron leader. But three classes a secton, Tactics."
"I'm not academy material, Apollo."
"We have to take what we can get," Apollo teased and then got serious again. "Look, Starbuck, you're a good teacher. You're the best with the new kids when they start patrols, and clearly you impressed the hell out of those cadets in the classroom. Nobody's suggesting you teach math or engineering, but you're a past master at 'making it up as you go along', which incidentally is a very good definition."
Starbuck hesitated. He'd enjoyed teaching those two classes, he couldn't deny it. "Okay," he capitulated. "Tactics. But I still say you've lost your mind. Both of you."
Starbuck lay awake in his bed, looking up at the ceiling. He didn't look at the chrono, but he was guessing it was a centar before the alarm was due to go off... Purple was on early shifts this secton, but he wasn't exactly staying up late nights. He blew out a breath and listened to the silence. He couldn't believe how quiet the quarters were now that Zephyr was in the cadet barracks. Even though the sleeping rooms were fairly well soundproofed, Zeff pretty much permeated the place when she was home.
He had to grin to himself at that thought. Apollo and Boomer had said the same thing about him back at the academy. Zac had been pretty quiet, he'd thought; compared to Apollo, though, maybe he'd been bouncy. He'd sure been bouncy that last day... Was Zeff what Adama's kids would have been like raised to express themselves? Or was she the product of her upbringing more than her genes, exuberant in self-defense? He didn't know. What he did know was, the place was very quiet with her gone.
And not likely to get much livelier, either. He scrunched the extra pillow up a bit and thought about the last time somebody had been in bed with him. That young man who worked at the field... field. Starbuck snorted. It wasn't a field, it was a empty bay that the commander had decided a dozen yahrens ago to give over to outdoor sports... another term that made him laugh. Outdoors... kids Zeff's age and younger, they didn't know what "outdoors" was. Outdoors to them was vacuum and cold and death.
But be that as it may, that's where he'd worked, that young man... Theas. Starbuck remembered his name; he always remembered their names, until the next one came and displaced them at any rate. Which meant he might well be remembering 'Theas' for a long time. He'd met him at one of Zeff's fieldball games, a fairly attractive dark-haired young man who'd noticed himself being noticed and made a dead set at Starbuck. That hadn't happened in a while, not that persistently, not from someone so much younger than him; it had been incredibly flattering, and he'd let the young man succeed. Zeff had been spending the night with some of her team-mates and Starbuck had brought Theas home. He could remember the feel of the hard, lithe body in his arms, the exhilaration of someone working very hard to drive him out of his mind and the intoxication of returning the favor... he'd enjoyed every centon of it. But it hadn't happened again. There'd been no real connection. There hadn't been one since...
He gave that some serious thought. Cassie? Gods, had it been that long? Not that he hadn't had bed-partners between Cassie and Theas; though it was true that, especially when she was little, Zeff had made logistics awkward, Starbuck had specialized in 'awkward schedules' at the academy. Finding the time had never been a problem. But anyone he'd felt more than a physical attraction to?
Cassie. That was it. Not counting the couple of times he and 'Theni had helped each other through a bad patch... and those were easy to not count because both he and she had known they weren't falling in love.
In a moment of ruthless self-examination--something he tried to do every couple of yahrens whether he needed it or not--he'd realized that having Apollo turn him down so completely had not in the slightest affected his feelings for the other man. He had apparently never really had any hopes--just what he'd said to Boomer and to 'Theni, believing it to be a lie--and he still loved Apollo just as he had before. That emotion had even survived a six-sectar deep-freeze; never once had he been anything close to angry at Apollo. He'd been angry at, oh say Cassie, lots. Lots and lots. He hadn't been sure what that realization actually meant. It surely hadn't meant he didn't want Apollo in his bed: he did. Still. Maybe it just meant that he'd always known he wasn't being unfaithful to his one love by having lovers... and maybe it had meant that he could actually think about settling down with someone. Assuming he could find someone. Which was the stumbling block to date.
And maybe--most likely--it had been the reason why he'd pretty much stopped going after anyone who caught his eye. Because if he wasn't killing time waiting for things to "work out", then, well...
He sighed. Then he should, in 'Theni's favorite phrase, 'grow up, Starbuck.' But there just wasn't anybody out there like Apollo.
Screw growing up, he thought. I'm okay as I am.
Several corridors away, Athena, too, lay awake, unable to get back to sleep. She'd slipped out of bed to go to the turboflush a centar ago, at least, and had been lying there ever since. She wasn't sure why... she hated to chalk things up to hormones but she supposed there was a reason such an excuse existed. She knew when you couldn't sleep you weren't supposed to stay in bed, you were supposed to go someplace else so your mind wouldn't start associating your bed with not sleeping. But, quite frankly, she couldn't see any attraction at all to being awake in the front room, even watching IFB, instead of being awake in bed watching her husband sleep.
She listened to Omega breathing in the darkness next to her, feeling the warmth of his body. She wondered how their mother had tolerated those yahrens-long separations from their father. Not that she wanted, particularly, to think of her parents as sexual beings, though she supposed they must have gone at it pretty good to get three kids under such time constraints. But she liked just having Omega around, liked someone else in the quarters, in the bed... she missed him when they were just on different shifts. Perhaps their mother was more of Apollo's temperament, she mused. He didn't seem to mind when duty kept him and Sheba apart.
Of course, part of that might be because it was Sheba... Athena slapped herself mentally. That was too unkind. She hadn't expected it to last this long, but it was over fifteen yahrens now. And Apollo seemed content.
Of course, Apollo got a great deal of emotional sustenance from others. Father, her, Djan. And of course Starbuck. Athena sighed softly into the night. Starbuck was always there for Apollo. She remembered when Djan had graduated from the Academy. Sheba hadn't been there. She and most of Silver Spar had been on a long-range patrol... she'd volunteered, saying, reasonably, that somebody had to and they were good at it, and this way Apollo didn't have to detail anyone.
All so reasonable, on the surface. All so... so Sheba. You couldn't argue with it. You just couldn't feel like it was ... well, nice. Djan was her stepson, after all. She'd just said it wasn't as though she and Djan had ever been really close, which was true but shouldn't have been, and that he'd understand a lot more if she were gone than if, say, Boomer or Jolly couldn't be there. Or Starbuck, she'd added as if it were an afterthought.
Athena had gone to her brother's quarters to make sure he was presentable (somebody had to) and not found him, and then he'd shown up, perfectly put together, with Starbuck and Zephyr. Athena had thought then, how like Apollo to go there. How like Starbuck to dress him... And like Apollo not to think of how Starbuck felt about it all. It wasn't that Apollo didn't know. He just couldn't identify with it, and he didn't think about it. And poor Starbuck just went on loving him. She did so wish he'd meet someone new, but not only didn't he want to, who was there?
She wondered how he was getting along now with Zeffie gone. It wasn't as if they didn't see each other, but, she realized, this would be the first time in his life, probably, that Starbuck was living by himself. Even after the academy he'd always been in a Viper unit, which meant a barracks, even if it was a Bachelor Officers' Barracks, with shared rooms instead of open bays like enlisted personnel got. It would be an adjustment for him.
Beside her, Omega turned restlessly in his sleep. She reached out and rubbed the back of his neck gently, moving her hand down to stroke his back and shoulder. He quieted; she hoped he was shifting into a better dream. She had wondered once if she was just attracted to men who had nightmares, but a little thought had convinced her that it was far more likely that most men, most people, her age, especially Warriors whether in brown or blue or tan, had nightmares. Cimtar, The Destruction... how not? Especially men who were so much in control during their waking moments. Like Omega. Like, though she didn't sleep with him, Apollo. Like Starbuck.
Moving her hand soothingly on Omega's back she wondered how Starbuck coped with his nightmares, alone. She could remember him coming awake in the early hours, sweating and gasping for breath, needing to be grounded, held, loved back to calm. Like Omega still did sometimes... but he'd been much too long alone. She smiled at him and wished Starbuck could be half as happy as she was.
Or Apollo, though that brought her back full circle. Was Apollo happy at all? With Sheba? He seemed to be, but he was so good at seeming... He had always been. Found out what you wanted him to be and showed it to you. Not like Starbuck did, as protective coloring, but because you--Father, instructors, colonels, commanders, Father again--must know best what he ought to be. Warrior, Sub-Colonel (Strike), dutiful son, faithful husband, good father... where was Apollo in all that? Elder brother. And of course, when he's the indulgent elder brother, she got lost at the fair, and Zac got killed... She was surprised Djan had ever had any fun. Apollo had certainly climbed walls over the latitude Zeffie had been allowed.
"Athena?" Omega was awake.
She looked at him. He blinked sleepily at her and asked, "Is everything all right?"
She smiled. "Everything's fine."
"Did I wake you?"
She made it a habit to mostly tell him the truth, so when she felt she had to lie he wasn't expecting it. But she didn't have to lie this time. She shook her head. "No, not at all. I'm just lying here thinking."
"What about?"
"This and that. Nothing so important I wouldn't rather be asleep. I'm just awake."
"Wakeful nights are a part of it," he said softly, putting his hand gently on her belly. "And not the worst."
"You're so encouraging," she said, putting her hand on top of his.
"Want me to rub your back?" he offered.
"Ummm," she said. "Yes, love. That would be so nice." She rolled over and rested her head on her hands.
He sat up and leaned over her, pulling her sleeping shift out of the way and taking her shoulders in his strong hands. He was so good at this, easing all the tensions out of her, even when she didn't think she had any. He kneaded her neck and worked his way to her ribs. She sighed and relaxed, enjoying it. After a few moments she heard him singing almost under his breath and probably not aware he was--he sang a lot around the place, songs she'd never heard, secular and maybe heretical and very old. She liked them. Usually.
"The White Stag goes running, the forest is dim," he sang softly, "The White Stag goes running and who follows him? O run through the shadows that lie 'neath the moon! Who follows the White Stag will not come back soon."
She turned over, catching his hands and holding them against her breasts. "That's such a sad song," she said.
"What was I singing?" He replayed it and smiled a bit sadly at her. "Sorry, dearheart."
"Don't be," she said. She raised one of her hands to his face for a moment, then pulled his head down to hers.
He took his weight on one arm and leaned into the kiss, making it long and slow and very, very thorough. She forgot her brother, her friend, her family... everything but this man and this moment. And after, when he cradled her in his arms against his heart, pulling the blankets around them, she slept.
Bojay sat in the small chapel, having lit every candle there. Every yahren it got worse. One had to trust the gods knew what they were doing, but... How could anyone have put that slut Starbuck in a position of authority over children? How could he be made a teacher of the new generation? Didn't anybody realize that if that generation became as wicked as this one, it would only mean another forty yahrens' wandering in this starry wilderness?
Bad enough that they had let the whore's daughter become a cadet.
But that the Serpent, the Whoremonger, the Worm Incarnate was instructing the youth, seducing them with honeyed lies, luring them away from the true path, the road to righteousness? How could that be permitted to continue?
Was it not clear to everyone what he was? Was it not clear what he'd done to Apollo? Look at him--sixteen yahrens married and no child. No child of the Blood. Just that boy... half-Libran and unworthy to follow even this corrupted House.
Though at least born in wedlock, of known lineage. His mother had been Caprican, and his father at least a well-born Libran... and he was a dutiful son to his step-father. But not of the Blood. Could they not see that he had been displaced by the twin sons Adama's daughter had borne her Caprican lord? True Princes of the Blood, heirs of the glory that was Caprica. They must be protected against the corruption that festered in their House, their uncle and his unnatural ways...
Something had to be done. This was obvious.
Bojay prayed for guidance. Every day.
Soon, he knew, soon he would be told what to do.
"Oh, my gods," said Jolly. "Look at that... does that take you back or what, Boomer?"
Boomer looked. A group of brand-new third year cadets were taking advantage of their newly granted privilege to use the O Club (twice a secton, set hours). They all looked impossibly young. Maybe he'd been that young once, but he doubted it... still he thought he knew what Jolly was talking about. Or who, rather. Because Cadet Zephyr was at the front of the group, scanning the room for a table.
Boomer narrowed his eyes at her. There was something, he couldn't quite put his finger on it, something familiar about her stance. He knew Apollo and Jolly and most people found echoes of Starbuck in her, but he never had. Not physically, anyway. She acted like him, yes, but she didn't look like him. It was something else...
It was the hair throwing them off, he thought. That thick mane of dark red hair spilling across the shoulder of her new jacket with the shiny cadet-captain's rank insignia was so very much unlike her father's that you worked harder to see him in the rest of her. But Boomer remembered Starbuck at that age, and Zephyr wasn't like him. At all.
He supposed she was like her mother, whom he'd never seen. Nobody had but Sheba. Well, and Salik, but he was no help. Neither was Sheba, for that matter. She hadn't cared. When pressed, she said, "She wasn't very tall. And she had dark hair. And I thought she looked old but I suppose she really just looked sick..." Sheba couldn't even remember what color eyes the woman had had. "I thought they were blue but they must have been brown. I wasn't really paying any attention to her. She asked for Starbuck, after all. Not me."
Not Apollo, you mean, Boomer had always thought. But it was odd all the same. Because Zephyr was tall, as tall as Starbuck. And if she looked like her mother then the woman hadn't been what Boomer had privately thought of as Starbuck's type.
Most people would have laughed at the notion of Starbuck having a type... he could hear Sheba now, for instance: "What would that be? Breathing?" But if you were willing to be a little liberal with the meaning of 'type', Boomer thought one had existed right enough. He'd be willing to bet that if you'd kept track over the yahrens you'd find that Starbuck leaned towards long hair, blondes, and blue eyes. Certainly if you were talking with him and suddenly lost a chunk of his attention, it was odds-on that she was blonde... But that was a preference, and easily discarded. Boomer had seen him with women as dark as Boomer himself, with close-cropped caps of hair, and with eyes as dark as night. Starbuck's type was fairly well-defined and nothing to do with coloring or hairstyles. His type was shorter than him and, well, willowy. Graceful. Delicate. Feminine. Funny, given what he liked in men, but then again Boomer didn't get that whole 'liking in men' thing in the first place. Physically, Cassie had been Starbuck's perfect woman. Probably, Boomer figured, why he'd tried so hard to make it work out with her, even though they weren't compatible. They both needed someone to steady them, someone plain and down-to-ground to hold them in orbit, someone they could dazzle but not fool... Like him. Like Apollo. Not like themselves.
But if Zephyr looked anything like her mother, Boomer was very surprised she'd kept Starbuck's eye. Let alone got money out of him. There wasn't the slightest bit of willow about her. Graceful, yes, but it was a powerful, athletic grace. She strode instead of tripping. She lounged instead of draping. She was rangy and strong and striking, and not a bit delicate. But she was naggingly familiar... and right now at this moment more so than she'd ever been before. Something about her eyes, about the air of controlled excitement, and the way she was standing...
And then she moved, grinning at her companions and tossing a line off over her shoulder as she headed purposefully toward a corner table and it was gone. That attitude was purest Starbuck, especially when she dropped carelessly into a chair, leaned back and signaled a servitor, and then surveyed the room like she was waiting to be entertained.
Who knew? Boomer thought. Maybe Starbuck had lost a bet. Or been drunk...
They were sitting close enough to hear the orders: ale all around except Zephyr, who ordered ade instead. Her friends immediately started razzing her, but she just leaned back with that smug Starbuck statement and reminded them that she was flying the next day.
"Now, her dad wouldn't have come here if he couldn't drink," said Jolly.
"Sure he would have," said Boomer. "If we'd been allowed into a bar with real Warriors when we were cadets we'd have been there every micron allowable. And you know it. And flying the next day--he'd have made sure everybody knew he was the first in his class to get the controls."
"I suppose you're right," he admitted. "But, please--'real' Warriors?"
"You know we are," Boomer said. "We're their role models. They're our future. It's all incredibly depressing, isn't it?"
"So depressing," said Giles, joining them, "Bojay can't stand to be in the same room with them. Which I think is a good argument for letting them in every night."
The other two turned to watch Red Squadron's commander stalk out of the Club, disapproval in every line of his body.
"So what's got up his butt tonight?" ask Boomer. As if I don't know her name already.
"Who knows?" said Giles. "Damn if I don't wish the gods would tell him to go start a mission somewhere. I purely hate getting three-centar sermons every time we go on patrol."
"File a complaint," said Jolly. "You don't have to listen to that."
"Yeah. Complain my squadron leader is too religious? That'll go over well. Anyway, we only have to listen every eleventh time... We take turns listening to him and the rest of us go on the reserve freq. Whoever's listening has to tell us if he says something we need to hear."
"I didn't hear that," said Boomer. As Wing-Second, he didn't want to know Red Squadron was not on the ops freq; as Boomer, he wondered why somebody hadn't accidentally fried Bojay yahrens ago...
Jolly hadn't been paying attention. "Now tell me that doesn't take you back, Boom-Boom," he said.
Boomer looked; Zephyr was shuffling a pyramid deck, and two of Red Squadron's other pilots had joined the cadets' table. He grinned, remembering Starbuck telling him, in an unguarded moment, "I never really thought about it before, but women have little hands. Tall as Zeff's getting, she still has a little trouble palming a deck."
Boomer had asked if that meant she'd be safer to play cards with.
Starbuck had looked wounded. "Safer? Just what do you mean by that?"
Boomer had just laughed. Now he shook his head and said, "Gods preserve us all. Two of them."
Farrell still looked at the flight rosters out of habit. Maybe out of pique. After all, that had been his job for a long time, and just because somebody up the chain of command thought it was important to keep Starbuck happy... Farrell knew the combat veteran was a better pilot than he was--hell, he was the best pilot the Fleet had had, pre-Cimtar--he just didn't think that mattered. Or rather, he thought that didn't make him a better teacher. Farrell thought the gifted ones were bad teachers, because they hadn't had to learn it themselves, and they couldn't explain it. Not well. Not usually.
And he'd been keeping an eye on Starbuck since they gave him the position of flight instructor at the beginning of the semester. Farrell wasn't stupid: he could see the writing on the wall. First Starbuck got the tactics course, now flight... what was next? Military Theory and History? And Farrell's out the door with a nice desk-chrono with a well-worded gold plaque on its base?
Not this tactician. So he still checked up on everything Starbuck did as flight instructor. And it finally seemed to be paying off. If he could only figure out what this meant.
The first four students were going out for actual hands-on outside-in-real-space training. They should have been the four with the best scores in the simulators, which would be, in top-down order of their skills, Cadets Zephyr (who'd inherited her old man's hands as well as his attitude, it seemed), Clarsarc (now there was a nice boy), Rounder (a uncertain quantity, not the hottest jet in the array but a good pilot), and Keili (a snip of a girl who needed a boyfriend, but also a good pilot). However, there'd been a change made in the roster: instead of Rounder, Cadet Scotti was going instead. And Scotti was, in the first place, not a good pilot. Oh, she wasn't a bad one, but there were several others as good if not better than her. And in the second place, she was the reason Keili needed a boyfriend.
Farrell pondered that for a few centons. He didn't have many classes with the third-yahren cadets any more--Starbuck had most of his--but he did have Senior Theory. And he did have eyes, and he'd seen that Cadets Clarsarc and Zephyr spent time together. He wasn't sure he believed that a man would connive at getting cadets some what he'd call quality time in a shuttle if one of them was his daughter, but then again, that man was Starbuck... Of course, it could have been Scotti who'd done it: she wasn't much of a pilot but he'd seen her comp scores; she could have hacked in and changed the roster easily enough.
He reached for his keyboard to change it back, and then paused. It would be more salutary for them all if he left it like it was and they turned around to watch him coming on board instead of Captain Popularity... Yes, indeed. One good luck at Scotti and he'd know if she'd done it. If she had, it was an internal Academy problem. If she hadn't, well, he could challenge Starbuck about it afterwards.
And he could always say he just felt the captain shouldn't be on his daughter's first flight, for several reasons. If he needed a fall-back position.
He pulled up the roster and changed his and Starbuck's duty assignments for the day and fired off a memo to Starbuck. Then he headed for the shuttle bay to run a pre-flight and watch the cadets arrive.
And head off Starbuck in case the man didn't check his inbox.
Starbuck was supposed to take the cadets out on the first flights. But at the last minute, somebody, Tigh or Adama or Apollo or somebody, decided he shouldn't take Zeff on hers. It had annoyed him, to be honest. There would be three other cadets in that shuttle, did they think he had all of them eating out of his hand so much they'd let him cheat for her? Wouldn't that be nice? Or did they think she'd do something crazy to impress him? That was less annoying, but not by much.
He knew it wasn't because they thought he wanted her to get marks she hadn't earned in flight, for lords' sake. Flying mattered; it wasn't history or something like that. She wouldn't get herself killed because she forgot the date of something... He was complaining all the way to the top about this. If he was the Flight Instructor, then by all the gods he was the Flight Instructor. If not, well, he had enough to blackmail Apollo into sending somebody else here.
He was in a pretty bad mood. He looked at his students--he was taking Farrell's history class while that man, who probably hadn't flown anything but a shuttle in a decade--took the cadets out. It wasn't fair to the students, and he decided, on the spur of the moment, to let them go. He'd assign the reading and send them to do it somewhere else. Like he could have answered questions they had, anyway...
They all took off before he had a chance to change his mind and he had a couple of centares to kill. So he wandered down to the childcare center to look in on Athena's boys.
They recognized him of course--they were very nearly as intelligent as Zeff had been--and came running to greet him. Well, as much as kids not two yahrens old could come running, anyway. Kairos wanted to be picked up, he always did, so Starbuck obliged him, while Lykos grabbed his knee and demanded to be read to. Starbuck ruffled their brown hair, one after the other, and--Lykos standing on his foot and giggling--made his way to the book nook, lurching exaggeratedly. He sat down on the floor--that was harder than it used to be, never mind getting up--and Kairos snuggled in his lap. He was a loving little boy, happiest when being held. Lykos was rambunctious. They both looked like their father, but Starbuck had a hard time picturing Omega as a rambunctious child. He was affectionate enough with 'Theni, after a slowish start, but still Starbuck figured the kids had more their mother's personality. Although Lykos reminded him even more of Zac.
He'd said that to 'Theni, just a couple of weeks ago. She'd agreed with him. She could still get all teary on Zac's birthday, but she'd laughed, and made him and Omega laugh too, recounting the things Zac had done as a little boy that she hoped Lykos would never think of doing. It had been a bit odd, because there were flashes of Zeff in those stories. It really startled him anymore to think of her as Zac's. He'd said a silent prayer to Zac that evening, hoping he didn't mind that Starbuck forgot so often. He was pretty sure Zac didn't; Zeff had needed a father not a keeper, and anyway, it was Zac's fault for siring such a totally irresistible girl...
Now Lykos dragged up a big picture book about farm animals. Gods, Starbuck hoped he wasn't going to have to explain animals to these kids. Let alone farms. Too bad Athena had told Apollo, with a perfectly straight face that had fooled no one, that she'd have loved to take Muffet for the boys but unfortunately Omega was too old-fashioned to believe in drones or robots of any kind... Handy to have an excuse like that, Starbuck had thought. He'd been forced to say he wouldn't have that thing in his quarters to win a bet. It had helped that when the offer was made, Djan was still Boxey, and only ten... However, it soon became apparent that neither Lykos nor Kairos were really interested in the book, only in the attention.
And Starbuck didn't mind giving them that. Athena, as anyone who'd seen her with Boxey or Zeffie could have predicted, was a wonderful mother. And this was Omega's second set of kids, and he was a terrific father. And they had a doting uncle and cousin and a grandfather who had apparently been only practicing his spoiling ways on the children he'd had access to before the twins. Nonetheless, something Starbuck had heard Boomer tell Apollo, yahrens ago in the academy, something he wasn't supposed to have overheard, had stuck in his mind, surfacing when he held Zeff for the first time: you can hurt a child as much by what you don't do as what you do do: don't hold him, don't say you love him, don't make him feel wanted...
No chance these two wouldn't feel like that, of course, but Starbuck wasn't holding back because of that.
When Athena came into the center, he realized immediately that something was wrong. His heart lurched... Let it be Omega, he thought and was immediately guilt-stricken. But...Gods, please, not Zeffie. Not Apollo. And, please, not Djan. That would kill Apollo... Not Adama, either. Other names didn't occur to him; Athena wouldn't have looked like that for anyone else. He put Kairos on the floor and stood up.
"Starbuck, thank the Lords of Kobol," she said. "You've got to come to the Life Center."
Oh, gods, he thought, watching Athena fend off her boys. "'Theni--what's wrong?"
She set off for the nearest turbolift, matching her stride to his as he, barely realizing it, began to hurry. "Starbuck," she said, "it's not critical, but Zeff--"
"What happened?" he demanded.
"We're not sure. Something went wrong with the shuttle engines, one blew up somehow, the control panel blew... Farrell was killed. One of the other cadets was hurt, too--"
"Too?" he said sharply, hardly waiting for the lift doors to open before jumping inside. "What happened to Zeffie?"
"Starbuck, she's okay," she reassured him. "Or she will be, anyway. Some burns. And she lost a lot of blood, her leg was cut. They're bringing her up from the shuttle bay now."
"How could that happen? Didn't somebody run a maintenance check on the shuttle?"
"I don't know," she said. "Farrell would have, I suppose. The other two cadets may be able to tell us."
The lift stopped and Starbuck was out as soon as there was enough clearance. A medtech tried to get in his way; Starbuck went through him like he wasn't even there and pushed open the door. Cassie looked up in annoyance, which modulated to concern when she recognized him.
"Zeffie?" He spoke first.
"Daddy?" Her voice was thin, thready with pain.
He dropped to his heels beside the table, putting a hand on her head. He couldn't touch her hands; one was wrapped and Cassie was working on the other; it was red and raw looking. "I'm here, sweetheart," he said. "You take it easy, now, let Cassie fix you up."
An iv was replacing blood; her leg was bandaged from knee almost to hip, and a medtech was preparing a suture kit--he recognized those from his own occasional mishap. Cassie said, not ungently, "Stay out of our way, Starbuck, and you can stay. She'll be asleep soon, though."
"Daddy--"
"I'm not going anywhere," he reassure her.
"Flight Officer Farrell?" she asked.
"No, Zeffie. He didn't make it." Honesty first.
"And Clarsarc?"
Starbuck looked at Cassie. She said, "He's going to be fine, Zeffie. He's in better shape than you, as far as that goes. You did very well. Now just relax."
"Daddy?" She looked at him, her brown eyes asking if that was true.
He didn't know what had happened, but it didn't matter. It was true. It couldn't be otherwise. "That's right, Zeffie," he said. "You did good. And you're going to be fine. Just relax now."
He stayed like that until the sedatives finally kicked in. Then he stood up, determined to get some answers. He started with Cassie, who responded to his look before he could get any words out.
"She'll be fine, Starbuck. Her hands are burnt, but not badly. They'll regenerate fine. And she might have a scar on her thigh, but that's all. A week out of school, no more... you can spoil her all you want."
"What the frack happened?"
"Now that I don't know," said Cassie. "Ask someone else. We're just the doctors, all we do is patch them up. As you know."
"Thanks," he said, only mildly repentant. "When will she wake up?"
"In about five centares," she said. "Hands hurt; we want to make sure she's out."
"Thanks," he said again. "I'll be back."
"How is she?" Apollo was standing in the waiting area with Athena. He took hold of Starbuck's shoulder supportively.
"What the frack happened?" Starbuck demanded.
"She's going to be all right?" Athena asked.
"Yes, she will be," Starbuck answered. "What happened?"
Apollo squeezed his shoulder and then said, "We're not sure yet. I've got mechs going over the shuttle... one of the engines and the control panel blew. Farrell was apparently kill outright; he was piloting. Zeff was in the co-pilot's position. The other injured cadet was apparently standing between them, watching Farrell..." His green eyes were very dark, and he reached out and grabbed Starbuck's shoulder again. "Starbuck, I swear to you we'll find out what happened."
Athena hugged him. "Starbuck," she said, "weren't you supposed to be taking them? I thought we'd lost you..."
Frack, Apollo had, too, Starbuck realized suddenly. Keep it light. Don't push... "So, I guess this means I have to bitch to Tigh instead of you," he said to Apollo, adding to Athena, "I got pulled at the last minute."
"Thank the gods," Apollo said.
"What? You don't think I'd have spotted it?"
"Farrell didn't. And he was a careful man, if not half the pilot you are," Apollo said seriously. "Starbuck," he added, "you should know, the other cadets... I think they sort of panicked. Zeff brought the shuttle in."
"With her hands like that?" Starbuck winced. Then he smiled. "That's my girl."
If Starbuck had been startled (which he had been) to discover that Athena wore her death-in-the-family face for him, he was more startled to discover how many of the cadets (maybe he could start thinking of them as "his cadets" without feeling guilty about it) had been as worried about him as they had about Zeffie, Clarsarc, and the other two... who'd come to see him that afternoon as soon as they could track him down, mostly to apologize for not knowing "what to do, Captain. I've never flown for real--"
"Me, either, and I know the simulator is good, but--"
"I'm so sorry about Zephyr's hands, one of us should have been flying--"
"We didn't both need to look after Clarsarc--"
"I guess we screwed up, huh?"
Starbuck waited a minute to make sure they'd actually run down, then he said, "There's a reason you're cadets. You have to learn how to react in emergencies. You did fine. You didn't panic destructively, you kept Clarsarc from bleeding to death, and you kept out of Zeff's way while she worked. By the time you graduate, you'll be able to work while you're terrified. Don't expect to get there early."
"But, sir--"
"Look," he put a hand on each one's shoulder. "Some people are born with symphonies in their heads, or the ability to bank a shot off four walls into the goal, or to spin stories that will keep a roomful of drunks hanging on the next word. Most aren't. But they can learn to write music, play Triad, write fiction. Or play keyboards or pyramid or paint or whatever. Like fly. Everybody has their strengths, and their weaknesses. Nobody's good at everything. Don't compare yourself to genius... catching lightning in a bottle is a helluva ride but most of the time it's not necessary. You'll do just fine if you work your butts off and never quit. Some ways, you'll do better, because you'll be used to thinking about how you're gonna get it done. You won't be surprised when you're in over your heads 'cause you'll sort of be used to it. And, how it counts, three metrons of water is no different from three metrics... staying on top is what counts. Do you understand what I mean?"
"I think so, sir," Keili said. "Thanks."
"Yes, sir," Scotti added. "I hope Zeff's gonna be back soon."
"She will be," he said. "A week off... why don't you two bring her class assignments around?"
Scotti nodded eagerly. "Yes, sir; we can do that. Thanks, sir."
But the other cadets had, like the Bridge crew and the ready squadron pilots, heard that the cadet training shuttle had been damaged, come in with the flight instructor dead and two cadets injured... and they'd all thought it was him. Except Farrell's history class, one of whom--his girlfriend worked as a medical tech--had told Athena, who'd come in the Life Center to be with Zeff, that "no, ma'am, Captain Starbuck didn't take that flight. He was just in class with us, I saw him heading down towards the instructional center. The little kids, ma'am?"
Those others were the ones who kept stopping him in the corridors, or dropping in on his classes over the next couple of days, telling him how glad they were he was all right, trying to not actually say that they'd swap Farrell for him any day of the secton and twice of firstday... The more he'd been scheduled to teach, the more he'd kind of resented it, even though he'd found himself enjoying it. But apparently he was popular... maybe that meant he was good at it.
But by all seven hells, he was taking the flight training or he'd know why.
And he meant to be more successful at that than they were, so far at least, at figuring out exactly what had happened to the training shuttle...
Oh, sure, what had happened was easy enough: somebody had stuck a solenite packet into the starboard engine and rigged it to the pilot's console. First time he hit something, probably for a banking maneuver, boom. Which sent some chills down Starbuck's spine, because assuming he'd missed it during preflight, he'd have been banking a lot closer to the Galactica than Farrell had. They'd probably have slammed right into her side, taking out the whole crew. Farrell's more conservative flying had meant the shuttle's initial out-of-control spinning had been far enough away from the rest of the fleet that they hadn't hit anything, and given Zeffie time to regain control of the crippled vessel. Thank the gods she'd pestered him for sim time as a teenager. Thank the gods for those Adaman reflexes Zac had given her, that hand-eye coordination they all had. Thank the gods she was level-headed in crisis...
It was almost enough to send a man to chapel. Of course, if they'd found the solenite in time, that would have been better. Farrell was a good man who didn't deserve to die. Zeff and Clarsarc didn't deserve to be injured, and Keili and Scotti didn't deserve to be scared out of their wits, or have their confidence in themselves shaken. And none of the kids deserved to die, either, as they oh-so-easily might have.
Tigh was investigating personally. But whoever had done it had worn gloves, leaving no fingerprints or DNA traces behind. Clearly he'd had to know more than a bit about shuttles, but that didn't eliminate many on a warship. And there was no hint of a motive. No bragging or satisfied notes anywhere, no threats uncovered. Farrell's wife was devastated, not pleased. There wasn't anything more than usual cadet-stuff with the four who'd been at risk--they were good kids, not trouble-makers. At least, not the kind of trouble this was a reasonable reaction to. Keili and Scotti were lovers, which might irritate some, though whoever had put together the class roster hadn't apparently been bothered by it. Clarsarc was the cadet-colonel, a straight-five student with no apparent sense of humor, but surely nobody blew you up because you couldn't take a joke... And Zeff was highly popular with her peers, most of them anyway, and the ones who didn't much care for her did like Clarsarc...
Tigh was baffled. So was Security, but that hardly surprised Starbuck. He nosed around the bay himself, but none of the mechanics had noticed anyone out of place. It wouldn't have taken long, Jenny told Starbuck, in a white fury, for someone who knew what he was doing to rig the shuttle, and most of the time he'd be inside, out of sight... "One thing is for damned sure," she finished, putting her hand on his arm briefly, "two of my people are checking every shuttle with a cadet on it from now till the Endtimes. Or you, for that matter, sir."
Which was good, as well as heart-warming, but it wasn't getting them any nearer the answers.
Tigh couldn't even find out who'd pulled Starbuck from the flight at the last minute. Farrell had shown up to take the flight, with a computer-logged order, but when Omega tried to trace it, he ran into nothing. Not just skips and anonymity, nothing. It didn't seem to have come from anywhere. He'd put his best crackers on it, but they didn't have any better luck than he had. Either this was some bizarre suicide and Farrell had written the orders himself--which made no sense no matter how you looked at it--or "Divine intervention," Tigh suggested half-seriously.
Starbuck figured the gods could have found a better way to kill Farrell if that's what they wanted to do.
After only two days Zeff was going crazy. "Cassie said you stay in bed," Starbuck said. "You stay in bed. I find you out again I'm sending you to the Life Center and they'll fracking well strap you down."
"Dad," she said. "I'm fine."
"You damned near died on me," he said. "You're staying in bed."
She rolled martyred brown eyes at him. But that night he heard her wake up--he'd been waiting for it--and when he went to her, she clung to him and cried. For Farrell. For Clarsarc. For him. For what almost happened and what could have happened. And he held her and cried, too.
Boomer was waiting in Apollo's office the next morning.
"What are you doing here?" Apollo asked. "You just pulled a ten-centar patrol. You ought to be home asleep."
Boomer shook his head. "I missed all the excitement yesterday, but I made up for it when Cassie got home. She hasn't told anybody, but..."
"Why do I not feel like I want to hear this?" Apollo asked rhetorically. "Spill it."
"Starbuck's not Zephyr's father," Boomer said with his customary bluntness.
"What?" Apollo stared at him. "What the frack do you mean?"
Boomer shrugged. "Frankly, I don't think he needs to be told. Or her, for that matter. Cassie thinks he does... says he has a right to know. I can't see where it'll do anybody any good."
"So Cassie thinks this?"
"Well, I mean," Boomer said, "she's right. He's not. I doubt, from what I've heard, that he was paying any attention yesterday and I don't know if Zeff told him, but it's pretty obvious."
"Boomer, it's not obvious to me."
"Oh. Sorry. When she was in the Life Center, Cassie found out her blood type. She's a 3."
That didn't mean anything to Apollo, obvious or obscure. He must have looked blank, because Boomer shook his head again.
"Apollo, Starbuck's a 0. You know that."
Yes. He had known that. He was a 1. Boomer was a 2. And Starbuck was a 0. He'd given blood to both of them, and they couldn't return the favor... But you needed a 1 and a 2 to make a 3... "Gods," he said. Then, "Wait a centon, don't they get their blood typed in school any more?"
"Cassie said there was a notation on her records that she'd been incorrectly typed as a 1, and it was changed when she started training. She may not have felt there was any reason to mention it to him, or he'd have known a couple of years ago. Maybe he did... can't say it would make any difference to me if I found out that Callie or Corrie or Bren wasn't mine." He paused. "I mean, in circumstances like Starbuck's."
Apollo chuckled. "Yeah, Starbuck never thought Zeff's mother was faithful... Why does Cassie think he should know? What's it going to accomplish? He won't love her any less."
Boomer shrugged. "She thinks the woman roped him into something he'd never have done on his own. What she thinks he's going to do after eighteen yahrens, I don't think she knows either. She just thinks he has the right."
Apollo tried to assimilate it. "Boom-Boom," he said after a centon. "I think it would rip him up."
"It would to lose her," Boomer said. "But she's an adult now. That's not going to happen. Besides, it's not like Sire Bigcubits is standing there saying she's his."
"I don't know..."
"Me, either," Boomer admitted. "But that's why I told you. Cassie promised not to say anything. The problem is, it won't be hard for anybody else to figure it out." He yawned. "I think I'm going after that sleep now. Is Zeff going home this afternoon?"
"Home?" Apollo grinned. "Yeah, she is."
"I'll stop by and see her when I'm awake."
Apollo worried it over in his mind for hours. Once he'd have been sure he had all the answers when it concerned Starbuck. But that one conversation, so many yahrens ago, had knocked him so off-balance he still wasn't sure where he stood or if the ground was going to be steady under his feet... He kept seeing things in Starbuck's eyes that made him shy.
Shy. Not an emotion he was familiar with.
So now he thought maybe he'd better talk to his sister about this.
Athena came in from the twins' room and sat on the sofa next to Apollo. "Of course, I don't know," she said, "but I always felt there was something just a little bit off about the whole thing. Not like you mean, though."
Apollo looked at her puzzledly. "What, then?"
"Well, you and Cassie, both of you, checked that woman's background out, right? I remember Cassie calling her a 'twenty-cubit whore' when she let Starbuck have it that day..."
"And?"
"And, doesn't that seem odd to you? It always did to me." She shook her head at his obtuseness. "I couldn't see Starbuck paying somebody twenty cubits to sleep with him. I mean, really, I can barely see him paying anybody anything. Especially not back then, not when he was young and gorgeous and people practically queued up for him."
"Athena," Apollo tried to cut her off. He hadn't forgotten her quiet husband was in the room, even if she had.
She went right on. "I mean, okay, I can see him paying a whole hell of a lot more than that, say, four or five hundred, if he was at the tail-end of a furlon and flush and intoxicated with gambling success and topped off with alcohol and somebody offered him something really, really exotic, like, I don't know, identical triplets. With special toys or something," she made a vague gesture with her hands. "I could see that. But just plain sex? Which is all you get for twenty cubits? No. Not Starbuck. The whole idea that he couldn't get laid in Caprica City is just, well, ludicrous. It's not the money, either; he never grudged money. But he wouldn't have just bought it. Gods know, it was never a commercial transaction with him. It was a game, it was," she paused, looking upward as she remembered, a small smile quirking her lips, "exciting and fun and, well, it was a game. He spent money as part of it, not... not it itself. I know he spent more than twenty lots of times when we were dating, and sometimes we didn't even end up in bed. But lots of times he didn't spend so much as a decicube and we did. There were even times, more than once, when I grabbed him by his shirtfront and hauled him off to the nearest horizontal surface before he could say 'hi', let alone bring up money. Starbuck and a twenty-cubit hooker? It just doesn't scan."
Apollo really hadn't wanted that image in his head, his sister and Starbuck. Starbuck had always considerately not talked about her, at least not where Apollo might hear it... leave it to 'Theni. Worse, though, in a way--he'd snuck a glance at Omega while she was talking, and the man had looked more amused, even proud, at her forwardness than anything else, and now Apollo had the image of his sister grabbing him... He shook his head to clear it.
Athena misunderstood. "Did you ever hear him talk about hookers?"
"No, no, you're probably right. But, you mean you think he knew all along?"
"Well, sure. Unless Dr. Salik was in on it with the woman," she said reasonably. "After all, who in the Fleet would think of genetic testing for kinship faster than Starbuck? That whole thing with that man claiming to be his father."
"Why, by the Lords of Kobol, would he take some hooker's baby?"
Omega spoke for the first time. "Perhaps he knew her? From the Orphanage, I mean... I imagine there are not a lot of career choices for those who didn't get inducted."
"Yes," said Athena. "Or he knew the baby's father. From the service... some dead pilot he liked. How many died in the Destruction, Apollo? With no family saved? Forty? Fifty?"
"Lots," Apollo said. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"If I was right," she said simply, "Starbuck felt an obligation. Who was I to stop him acting like a grown-up for once? And anyway, she's been the best thing that ever happened to him. And he was certainly the best thing that could have happened to her."
"However," Omega said, and Apollo was amused to see how attentively Athena turned to him. "if he doesn't know, it would be a kindness to warn him. If it's as simple as blood type, it could hit him in the face at any moment."
"That's true," Apollo said, and Athena nodded. "I'll tell him," he said.
"Well," Athena said, "don't do it till she's back in school. Give him a chance to get over nearly losing her. And vice versa, for that matter."
Apollo nodded. He'd probably never forget hearing that cadet's voice saying, "The flight instructor, he's dead!" It had shaken him...
So he waited a few days. Then he stopped by Starbuck's academy office, waiting patiently while three cadets, all of whom tried to let him go first, went in to talk. One of them stayed a good half-centar and came out looking happier than he had when he went in.
"Hi," Starbuck said when he went in. "Do you know how glad I am you're not a cadet with problems?"
"I don't know; you seem to be awfully good at it."
"Who'd have guessed?" Starbuck grinned slightly. "Imagine Colonel Survan's face."
Apollo laughed.
"So, what's up?" Starbuck leaned back in his chair.
Apollo suddenly wished he'd let Athena do this. You still could, a little voice said. He shook it off. "I've got something to tell you. I don't know, maybe you already know it. And it probably doesn't matter... anyway, it's awkward."
"I can see that," Starbuck said, a trifle warily. "You find out something about that explosion? Like who did it? And you're not going to let me kill him?"
"No," Apollo said. "If I knew who did it, he'd be in Security's tender clutches already."
"What, then?"
"Starbuck... when Zeff's mother told you you were her father, did you actually check on that?"
"Oh." Starbuck relaxed. "To tell the truth, Apollo, I didn't have to check on it. I probably broke at least a couple of laws, so I'll deny it, but Aline never tried to make me think Zeffie was mine. It wouldn't have worked if she had; I'd never met her before."
"Never?" Apollo could remember everything he'd said. Of course, Starbuck hadn't been denying it... but he still felt pretty low.
"Nope," Starbuck grinned ruefully. "Didn't have much trouble convincing people otherwise. But I wanted her."
Apollo wasn't sure what his face was showing. Starbuck had known from micron one? Hadn't even needed Salik to tell him? What he asked was, "Why did she come to you, then?"
"I knew her father," Starbuck said simply. "I owed him."
"Who was he?"
"That doesn't matter. He was dead. A long time already... at Cimtar. So what was I supposed to do? If I hadn't taken her, she'd have gone to the Orphan Ship. I didn't have any standing to get her--single fighter pilots aren't good risks. Unless I say she's mine. And it wasn't like almost anybody had any trouble believing it."
"Well..."
"No. I counted on that."
"You let everybody think--"
"It wasn't important, Apollo. What was important was Zeffie, keeping her safe. Giving her a home. You know what I mean--you had Djan."
Apollo couldn't think of anything to say. He could either sound like he thought Starbuck was insane or noble, and neither of those was right. Besides, it was entirely obvious that Starbuck and Zeffie had been happy together.
"Yeah," he finally said. "You probably did break a handful of laws... so I guess I know why you never said anything. Does Zeffie know?"
"I told her a few years ago," Starbuck said. "After she found out. I mean," he replayed that and grinned slightly, "she found out, when she got her blood typed in school? And it upset her, so I told her I'd known all along."
Apollo thought of something. "Starbuck, is there any chance anybody else knows? I mean, maybe a pissed-off wife or something?"
"The saboteur?" Starbuck said. "No way. Trust me, Apollo."
"No family?"
Starbuck shook his head.
Apollo nodded. "Of course not... you'd have told them back then."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"Do?" Apollo blinked. "Nothing. She's almost an adult. I just didn't want you getting blindsided."
Starbuck smiled at him. "Thanks."
Apollo smiled back. Divine Intervention, Tigh says... Maybe. Whatever it was, thank the gods.
Cassie looked reflectively at the sample she'd taken from Zeffie while she was unconscious the sectar before. She had taken it impulsively, and had not yet done anything with it, but neither had she gotten rid of it. Boomer was so insistent that it didn't matter, but the truth was it did.
It had mattered back then. So he'd turned out to be a good parent; the fact was that the rules existed for reasons, and Starbuck had been a bad risk. Not only because he had been so very likely to be killed, leaving the child orphaned yet again, and this time possibly old enough to notice, but because he had no skills. But somehow, as always, Starbuck's lies were transmuted into virtue. Boomer, Apollo, Athena... they all seemed to think he'd done something wonderful. He was just exactly like the fairy tale character, the one who could fall into a pile of felgarcarb and come up with a diamond.
She had to admit that it didn't matter now. The girl was nineteen. Even if Starbuck had been a bad parent, someone you'd want to take a child away from--and he hadn't been, she admitted that--Zephyr was of age. No one could come between her and Starbuck. Assuming that he was telling the truth now.
That was something she'd never really been able to understand about people--and she had to include herself in there: why did they keep believing him? She'd heard an old song once, a novelty number, with lyrics of "why did you believe me when I said I loved you when you know I've been a liar all my life?" That was Starbuck. And you did believe him, over and over, and when you caught him in a lie he got all wide-eyed and innocent and forgiven... until next time, when it happened all over again. So why were they all so quick to believe him now, when he said Zephyr's father was dead?
Cassie didn't see Starbuck--not the Starbuck he'd been eighteen years ago--doing something for a dead man. Not something like this, taking responsibility for a child. Losing his whole lifestyle. Granted he'd apparently not regretted it, but in her opinion, and maybe she hadn't known him for more than a decade, but she'd been this close to sealing with him, he hadn't been the kind of man to be that altruistic. To feel that kind of obligation. He'd been too hedonistic. Too careless. Too concerned with himself.
There was only one person she could think of that he'd lie for like that. And he wasn't dead.
Well, maybe two. But Zephyr wasn't Boomer's, anybody could see that without going into arguments about whether Boomer would have patronized a whore (which he wouldn't have).
So only one man. And he was still alive. And still stood to lose an enormous amount if it came out. He was such a paragon of righteousness, and always had been... she hadn't known him back then, either, but she'd heard what people said when she came on board. His father would have been horrified--still would be. And he'd lose his wife, which might not be such a bad thing, though Cassie liked Sheba. And it might affect his career... one thing about Starbuck, he had been very nearly on the bottom then, nowhere to go but up in people's opinions as far as his morals had been. Actually taking on his bastard daughter by a whore had been a step to higher ground.
For Apollo, it would have been a disaster. And for him to have ignored it for eighteen yahrens... yes.
A Sub-Colonelcy might just open up.
And if it turned out she was wrong, well, she'd be the first to admit it.
But it was unlikely. Still, no one needed to know what she was doing. She could run her searches on her own time, when no one was around. And she could cover her motive by starting with all the pilots who'd been stationed with Starbuck, which would include Apollo. It would take a while to screen, though she could write her program to eliminate all the incompatible blood types. Since some 40% of the general population was 0... in fact, if she went back and found the woman's records, she might be able to eliminate either the 1s or 2s, which would help...
Bojay understood his error. He had trusted to machines. This needed the personal touch.
This needed to be done so there could be no mistakes. No interference. And no trying to do too much.
Farrell... Bojay didn't know what Farrell had thought was going on. He knew the man had discovered that the roster had been altered slightly to put that pair of perverts on the flight when the one of them didn't have the scores to justify it... He didn't know if Farrell had hoped or feared, had wanted to be part of whatever he thought might be going to happen or rather had wanted to put an end to it. But the result was that only Farrell had died. Farrell, a non-entity. It should have been the Worm and his spawn, and the two he'd led astray. And Clarsarc: the innocent. There had to be an innocent... it was too bad, of course, but he was perfect. Of good Caprican blood, upright and pure... he'd have been happy to die if he'd known he was saving the people with his blood.
But not even the whore's daughter, the spawn of Starbuck, had died. Instead, she was hailed as a hero by these deluded people.
He knew now it would have to be done in person. He would have to actually spill their blood in ritual sacrifice. They would have to be purified. Purged. Made clean and then killed...
Only then would the way be clear to sacrifice Adama's son, who would have to die to set the people on the right course. Adama's grandsons would lead them into the shining planet. Adama of course would not live to see it; like those who had led the people from Kobol, he be taken beforehand, unworthy to set foot on the new land, though his eyes would behold it. But his son was not worthy even of that... corrupted by the worm, he would have to die.
Bojay knew he would have to be careful in cleansing the worm and his spawn, because he would have to live long enough to kill Apollo. That death could be open; he'd be taken into Heaven to be with Cain after he had performed the final sacrifice if it pleased the gods not to protect him. He, too, though he strove to be a faithful servant, was not worthy of the new planet. But he didn't fear his death, only the untimeliness of it. The purging of the worm and his spawn was not his last task.
And the Serpent protected His own. That was clear after this disaster. That did not excuse his failings, and he had known he had had to atone with much prayer, fasting, and punishment. But the Serpent was more subtle than any other beast, and He did protect Starbuck. The Serpent had slid into Farrell, tempting him to interfere. Bojay was forgiven that now. He knew it.
For now the visions were coming again. He had been entrusted once more with the fate of the whole people.
Soon he would be granted the opportunity to purge the great evil coiled at the heart of the House of Adama. Of the noble Caprican line. Of the Galactica and the True People of Kobol. Soon.
Then with his own hands he would rip away the unwholesome growth and the evil.
He, Bojay, would complete the work of Cain. He would open the way through the wilderness and deliver those who wandered in darkness.
The time was not ripe. It would come. He would know it when it did.
Apollo was at Starbuck's, talking over an ale--Sheba and her squadron were on long-range patrol and Djan was with his squadronmates on the Star, and he was openly cadging a meal. The door opened, and Zeff's voice rang through the front room. "Daddy!" She ran into their quarters like a twelve-yahren-old instead of a senior cadet. "Daddy! I got my scores today! Guess what?"
"What?" He smiled at her enthusiasm. "You passed?"
"Passed?" She exaggerated her reaction. "Passed? Of course I passed! What kind of question is that? Oh," she noticed the other man. "Hi, Uncle Apollo, how're you? I did more than pass, Dad."
"Beat Djan's score on the flight test, did you?"
"Djan's score, pooh," she said. "I beat yours!"
"You never," he said, smiling proudly.
"Did so," she grinned at him. "By .02, but any win's a win, right?"
"You know it's because you're a girl," he said, pretending disparagement. "Girls have marginally better reflexes. If I was a girl--"
"Oh, gods, the loss to the world!" she cried dramatically.
"You mean you?"
"Well, that too," her grin matched his and she hugged him. "First in my class! Dad, I'm so happy I can't stand it! I want to take you to dinner on the Star. Dancing under the stars... you can come too, Uncle Apollo," she added generously, in charity with the whole universe.
"I wouldn't dream of intruding," he said. "But tomorrow you have to celebrate with us, me and 'Theni and Omega, and Father."
"You're on," said Starbuck. "You're sure you'll be all right on your own tonight?"
"I'll go annoy my sister," Apollo said.
Zeff hugged him when he stood up. "Thanks, Uncle Apollo," she said. She let him go and bounced on her toes like the teenager she was. Like someone he almost but not quite was reminded of... probably Djan when he graduated, though normally he wasn't so exuberant. Maybe Starbuck... remembering all the way back to graduation wasn't as easy as it had been once, and anyway, he'd been pretty caught up in his own accomplishments. He grinned at her and left them to their celebration.
"Hey," Starbuck walked into Apollo's office. "Your brother-in-law tells me we're sending a bunch of agro techs to that planet Boomer's boys found yesterday?"
"Why, yes, Starbuck, I do happen to have a few centons free, come on in."
Starbuck ignored that with the ease of yahrens. "Mind if I sit in on the meeting with Tigh?"
Apollo gave up, shaking his head. He stood, picking up a stack of pads. "Nope, I don't mind. Tigh might."
"Tigh loves me," Starbuck said insouciantly.
"Is that what you mean by 'love'? Should have told me twenty yahrens ago."
Apollo must be in a good mood, Starbuck thought. Of course, ever since the shuttle explosion six sectares ago he'd been, well, more like the early yahrens of their friendship. More apt to drop by unannounced, to lean against him, to tease... Starbuck wasn't sure what was going on and he wasn't even completely sure he liked it. It had made him break up with Morag's brother--it wasn't fair to Calum to be looking at him across the table or the bed and wishing he were Apollo--and Calum had been the closest thing he'd had to a real relationship in a very long time, even if he secretly suspected that they'd have burnt out in less than a yahren, having nothing at all in common. But Apollo's sudden reversion to their old, easy relationship had cause Starbuck to break off with the "Tribal Legends" host long before that had happened. Damn, he'd told himself at the time, you are such a complete pushover.
"You coming?" Apollo had teleported to the hallway, that was the only explanation. Starbuck trotted to catch up.
At the meeting he sat and listened while Apollo, Omega, and Tigh hashed out all the details of sending an away team of agro techs to harvest new grains to supplement the fleet's supplies and hybridize their stocks while keeping the main body of the fleet moving. Like a sharkon, Starbuck thought idly. As if if we stop moving, we die. Finally Tigh turned to him. "Is there something you'd like to add, Starbuck?"
He wondered what they'd say if he said that he thought they should stop and colonize this planet, given it was an empty delta-class. But he didn't, having had that argument as many times as he cared to. "Let me take some of the cadets along," he said.
"Cadets?" asked Tigh.
"A pre-graduation field trip," Starbuck elaborated. "It's a nothing planet, right? No trouble anywhere in sight, nobody to bother. They need to learn atmospheric flying, at least some of them. For real, not in the sims. We take the agrotechs down, they play with their grasses and whatever, and I teach the kids how to fly in air."
"Well, I don't see why not," Apollo said, looking at Tigh. "There's certainly no sign of any advanced civilization down there."
"I have no objections," the colonel agreed. "As long as the students are up to it. Final year only, I'd say."
"Sure," Starbuck nodded.
"Who did you want to take?" Tigh asked.
"Top four pilots," Starbuck said. "A reward for their hard work."
"More work," Apollo grinned.
"They would be--?" Tigh asked.
"Cadets Clarsarc, Keili, Rounder, and Zephyr."
The other men grinned at him. "Just make sure they all get flying time," Apollo said.