We used to wait. (Chapter 31/32)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 31/32)
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 7,102
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
The penultimate chapter!
Regardless of the hour at which Lee and Kara had finally found sleep, she didn’t feel the usual painful associations of being woken far too early. There was no headache along with her waking consciousness and no pressure back on her eyes as her body felt the urge to fall back into slumber. Any other morning and she would have welcomed her pillow, turning it round until she found a cold spot, begging for a few more minutes. The shifting of the mattress beneath her had her attention piqued, eyes opening to catch Lee crawling back over her to take his usual spot between her warmth and the coolness offered by the bulkhead.
Though he’d hoped to slip back under the sheets without jostling her awake, gravity had been too much of a force for him to reckon with. How he managed to escape without disturbing her had been a miracle on its own, so he thanked the Gods for small favors and merely leaned down to kiss the corner of her mouth before he finally fell back into the mattress next to her. “Morning,” Lee said, his voice not much louder than a whisper, an old habit that came from spending years in bunk rooms, trying to be careful not to disturb everyone else.
She didn’t respond, just smiled as she rolled over and against him, tucking her head into his neck and upon his shoulder. When they’d retired the night before, it had been like this that she’d fallen asleep, able to breathe him in as her dreams took over. Lee’s hand came across and rubbed soothingly at her shoulder, returning heat to chilled skin with the light friction produced. Kara ached barely all over, both from the physical labor she’d put in on the hangar deck and the number of times they’d consummated their marriage to one another. The soreness was worst between her thighs, but that, too, only brought more of a smile to her lips in remembrance of all the reasons why that part of her felt that way. “Where’d you go?”
“To get you something,” he answered and kissed the top of her head once and then a second time. His fingers moved up, running through her hair and along the uneven edges of the blunt haircut she’d given herself. He had been a fan of her hair when it used to be short, but had grown to love the length added to it over the years. When she was astride him in their previous hours, he had reveled in the simple changes cutting inches of her hair off had made, from the way she ran her own hands through her cropped hair in ecstasy to the sight of her full breasts completely unobstructed for the duration of their coupling. He was already beginning to love the changes it brought along.
“Not sure if I want breakfast in bed if it’s algae.” Her eyes shut and she dragged finger tips over the small amount of chest hair she found herself appreciating.
With his own wide grin, Lee shifted, forcing her head to slip back onto the pillow instead of his shoulder. He was prepared for the glare she would undoubtedly give him for it, but that didn’t hinder him in the least. He mirrored her position until he was on his side as well, facing in at her. The hand that hadn’t been stroking her a minute before filled the space between them then opened, revealing the two small hoops of metal.
“Where’d you find them?” On Caprica, or any of the other planets they used to call home, acquiring wedding bands had been a non-issue. A trip to a number of stores, whether they were focused on selling only jewelry or simply just held that specific department among all the others, would have produced anything the couple could have imagined. Hers could have held diamonds should she have so wished it, or perhaps another gem. At the least, they could have had something engraved within the band in commemoration of their union. Out in space, however, resources were allocated for other things like keeping their ships air tight and crafting bullets. Even if there was a jeweler on one of the ships, someone trained well enough to mold and size rings correctly, there might not have been the proper medium available. Forget something like gold or silver or platinum, anyone would be lucky enough to even receive a band of steel made from a scrap part. The rings Lee had, though, weren’t crude or poorly made. No, these belonged to someone else long before them.
“My father.”
Blue eyes pleaded with her not to be mad for spilling the news and surprisingly, she wasn’t. They hadn’t found time to discuss what they were or weren’t doing when it came to telling others about their rushed and intimate ceremony, so she could hardly fault him for telling his own father. Kara could imagine the Admiral’s grumble as he was awoken long before morning cycle and then his anger washing away with the news Lee had to share. She hoped he wouldn’t be betrayed they hadn’t included him in it. That had been her one hesitation regarding it all, she hadn’t wanted to cause him pain to know they kept this to themselves. When or if they returned, they would have to do something more legally binding, and that, Kara decided, Adama could be there for.
“They were my grandparents’, he had them on Galactica for years before the cylons attacked. He mentioned it to me after you came back, that they’d be mine if I needed them.”
The notion that the Admiral, or former Admiral as it were, had been hoping and hinting at his son marrying her left her elated. He hadn’t trusted her after her immediate return, but he had in the end, so much so that it was his wish the two of them found their lives together. Permanently. It wasn’t just that he’d obviously agreed with their marriage, but another thing for him to want to gift them with rings that had belonged to his parents, whom she knew had a rare and happy marriage. “You mean you didn’t want a tattoo?” She tried to stop herself from laughing as she spoke, pinching her tongue gently between her teeth in a wide smile.
Lee shook his head, smiling, and took the smallest of the rings from his palm. He went to search for her left hand, but she presented it to him eagerly, already waiting for what she knew was to come next. “It might be a little tight or loose. We can get new ones on Earth.”
“No,” she protested, watching as he carefully slid the circle onto her left ring finger until it fit into place. It was a tad tight, but not uncomfortably so. “I want this one.” Kara took the other ring from him just as he was about to slip it onto his finger. This was her job to do, even if it was hours after they’d said their vows and claimed the other as their own. His ring fit just right, and after it was secured, Kara held his hand, thumb smoothing over the shine of the well worn band.
“You don’t have to-”
“Lee, shut up,” she said with a bit of stiff voice. “I want to wear it.” In his eyes, Kara could see it meant the world to him that she had accepted the gift wholeheartedly. The ceremony the night before had been her doing, every detail of it, and now these rings for the two of them had been the small part he played in it all. She lifted her head from the pillow until they were a hairsbreadth apart, and finally, Kara leaned in to kiss him, slow and long.
“Does this mean you’re changing your name to Adama?” He asked once they parted, a hint of humor and mirth in his eyes.
“Quit while you’re ahead.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Kara eased her body tight against his, enjoying the skin to skin contact. “Is it wrong that it’s my first day as Admiral and I don’t want to get out of bed?”
“Not too late to go with everyone else…” Lee said with hope.
“We’re coming back,” she delivered confidently. She’d been sure for awhile that she wouldn’t return, despite the promises she’d given to all those around her. Now, though, beside Lee with their marriage barely a few hours old, all she wanted to do was to return and to finally start their lives together. In a way, this whole last mission was a selfish act rather than one for the good of the people of Earth and the refugees. Of course she wanted them to be safe as well, but the thought of having a son or a daughter with Lee, knowing that their future could be cut short at any moment, was unbearable and unimaginable. She wouldn’t be able to let herself be happy with the threat following behind them like a dark cloud. For him, for them, they were going back out there to make sure they’d be able to have a future.
Lee kissed her forehead and prayed to whatever deities were listening that she was right. “We are.”
-
The crew that would remain on Galactica gathered on the deck once again, this time to say their final goodbyes to the President of the Colonies and former Admiral. They had stayed until the end, with Adama reluctant to let his son and both of his girls go: Kara and of course, Galactica. Their things had already been sent over to Colonial One, and Lee had briefly set foot into the Admiral’s quarters earlier, the bare walls and bookshelves startling him. It was only then that the truth of it all really hit him. He would be saying goodbye to his father. For years, they had been at each other’s throats, and now the last thing he wanted to do was to let the Old Man go.
“Lee,” Bill said as his son and daughter-in-law finally made it to the front of the crowd.
“Dad.” It was all Apollo could manage to say before they threw their arms around one another, both summoning strength from one another to keep it together. Even as close as they’d been, Lee couldn’t remember the last time his father had hugged him like this, like he truly didn’t want to let him go.
They pulled back finally and Adama touched his hand to his son’s face. It was like he was just a boy once again, only a few years old and the pride of his father’s life, even if he was bad at showing his son just what he meant to him. “You bring her back.”
Lee nodded solemnly. His father was trusting him to take care of Kara, both of them knowing that she would need it. All those years he’d been at the academy and war college and then stationed on another battlestar didn’t compare to this departure he was making from his father. Now he really would be alone and be allowed to come into his own. Lee stepped aside to let Kara come forward, watching the interaction between them that unfolded.
She was reluctant but determined, not wanting to say her goodbyes because of the finality it brought along with it. “Sir.”
Adama shook his head and placed both of his hands to her cheeks. He leaned in long enough to kiss the center of her forehead, then pulled back, but kept close watch on her. “You can call me Dad now.” They both knew she’d long since considered him her father, even with the sudden appearance of the man who biologically had claim to that title. Now, though, she had a real reason for the change in term of endearment. Adama took her left hand, thumbing over the metal band there as he glanced down to it then back to her. “My mother was a good woman, she’d be proud to have you wearing it.”
Despite how much she had promised herself she wouldn’t let herself lose control, the slick coating of tears in her eyes said otherwise. She had gone from being his dead son’s fiancee, to his DCAG and best pilot. From pilot instructor to Commander. From his other son’s dead lover to part-cylon wife. He had every reason to hate her and sometimes she wondered why he didn’t. Maybe it was the revelation about Tigh and the others close to him that had softened him to the idea that her lineage wasn’t exactly the same as his. She feared the worst after it all came out, but he hadn’t turned her away, just like his son hadn’t. Instead, Bill stood on the deck and made her Admiral and now welcomed her into his life further as his son’s wife. “I’ll bring him back,” she promised the Old Man again. “We’ll see you soon.”
Adama’s hand gently brushed back some of Kara’s hair for her as he spoke. “Soon. By the way, I like the hair.” He hugged her close and she buried her face into his shoulder to hide the fact that her tears spilled forward. Bill released her eventually, taking the arm of a frail looking Laura Roslin.
“Madame President, good luck,” Kara said.
“To you too. And congratulations,” spoke Laura, looking genuinely happy for the first time in days. No one knew what Earth would mean for her, if her illness could be stalled or even cured, but Kara knew it could very well be the last time she saw her. For Adama’s sake, she prayed it wouldn’t be the end.
Bill and Laura climbed into the Raptor and the only one that remained on the deck that was supposed to soon depart was Dreilide. When Kara saw him, she felt guilty, having assumed he’d gone ahead with some of the others instead of paying witness to the affection she shared between another father figure.
His head nodded down to her hand and the ring she wore, having overheard the words exchanged. Though he wouldn’t say it, he was hurt that she hadn’t included him in whatever had marked her attachment to the Admiral’s son. The worst of it was that he knew he didn’t deserve it or have a place in her life, but it didn’t make him want it any less. She was his daughter and though she didn’t consider him much her father due to his abandonment, he had never stopped thinking about her. Dreilide looked from Kara then back to Lee, the man he’d only seen a few times, including that first night in the hallway when he was somewhat weakly threatened in regards to upsetting his own daughter. “Congratulations, Captain,” he said and held out his hand to the person who was technically now his son as well.
Lee gave a tight lipped smile and clasped Dreilide’s palm, shaking it firm. He felt regret over the tone he’d taken with him, especially with all he things he’d already done for the Colonials, and all the things Lee knew he would continue to do for them. His work was just beginning.
Kara waited for her turn and Dreilide offered the same awkward extended hand to her. She took it, repeating the gesture.
“Congratulations, Kara. Be happy and safe.”
He had a way of making her feel four years old all over again every time he said even a word to her. The conversation they’d had in his temporary quarters had changed a lot between them, but both knew their relationship was far from mended, if it ever even could be. “Thank you,” she got out, though she meant it for more than just his comments on her marriage.
Dreilide sighed loudly when his hand was his again. He looked back to the Raptor and then to his daughter. “Are you sure I can’t stay? I don’t-I just don’t feel okay letting you go out there.”
“We’ll be okay. I need you to be there for us when we get back, like we laid out.”
He had been the first to hear of her plan, ironing out some of the details that were foreign to her before she’d brought it to Lee and anyone else. It didn’t mean he liked it or felt that it was a sound concept, but he knew already there wasn’t much anyone could talk her out of. “I’ll be waiting.” He took a step back, ready to turn for the small shuttle, but was caught off guard by his daughter’s arms tightly squeezing him.
As much as she wanted to punish him further for the things he’d done, she couldn’t find it in herself to let this be how things ended between them, in case she shouldn’t return. She regretted how her mother had gone, thinking her daughter hated her, and Kara would be damned if her father thought about their last moments together, wondering if she even cared at all. Dreilide kissed the crown of her head, recalling the last time he said goodbye to her. This time wasn’t any easier, despite the years between them and the fact that she was now a grown woman. As he held her, he whispered softly. “I love you. Don’t forget.”
They pried themselves apart and Dreilide climbed into the Raptor as well. Before the door shut them inside, Kara’s loud voice barked out with every ounce of strength she had left. “President of the Colonies and Admiral of the Fleet departing the deck!” All those around them snapped to attention, including herself. She may have technically been Admiral now, but that didn’t change what Adama had been to them.
He saluted back and they all fell at ease. “What do you hear, Starbuck?” Bill shouted from inside the cabin.
“Nothing but the rain!” She loudly returned the familiar phrase, watching as the the door finally closed. She hoped it wouldn’t be the last time she saw them.
-
If Kara stood still long enough, it was almost like Galactica’s CIC transformed into the drastically different version Pegasus had held. Lieutenant Hoshi was to her right just as he had been, a few other comm officers that had served under her having joined the final mission as well. There were new faces, different faces, this time though, that served to ruin the work her imagination did. Gaeta was along, for one, mostly because Hoshi had chosen to follow her and the two men had been inseparable long before they had found Earth. Helo was gone and every time she looked over and didn’t see his face, she hoped and prayed his family and the rest of those they’d left behind were fairing well. They took a gamble on her father and despite how much she innately felt she could trust him, part of her had feared it would be nothing but betrayal. Another trick in the grand scheme of things. To get through her time away, though, she had to push those thoughts aside, needing to have faith in the man that was her father.
Gaeta approached the plotting table, and without even directly looking at him, she could tell by his gait that he had something to say. He had been the voice of opposition since they’d left the fleet, protesting that they turn around and go back, especially since the cylons that had always been hot on their heels had suddenly been difficult to find. It was like they knew they were coming for them and were deliberately staying one step ahead, though Kara knew it was impossible. It was just the luck of the draw and the vast depths of space.
“Sir,” he started, but there was a kind of condescension in his tone. “We’ve been out here five weeks. We’re going to have to start rationing food, cut down to just above starvation levels soon. No one prepared to be out here this long.”
It was what she’d heard all before, from everyone except Lee, though sometimes she swore she saw it in his eyes. It could have been her own doubt, though, manifesting where she wanted to see it the least. She’d left to accomplish something and she couldn’t return empty handed, a failure, her first and last mission as Admiral. It would mean she’d wasted everyone’s time, their energy, and most of all, their faith in her. “We can go a little longer before we have to turn back,” she insisted without looking to him.
“And what if we have to stop for repairs? What if we make a wrong jump? What if we get back to Earth and no one’s there because we missed the cut off? You’re not leaving any room for error.”
They were logical words, but Kara didn’t want to hear them. “We won’t need it. I’m the Admiral of this ship, do you have the authority to make the call when we give up? You chose to come, Felix. I won’t leave us out here to die, but I won’t turn back until we absolutely have to.” This time her eyes leveled with his own, challenging him to speak up again.
He wanted to retort, especially since he didn’t truly see her as their leader, even if Adama had given the pins signifying so to her. He would have followed Adama almost anywhere, but Starbuck? He’d begun to regret his decision, a point of contention between him and Hoshi, since his partner remained loyal to her through the end. Without a word, he stepped away and returned to his station.
“Hoshi, you have the con,” Kara said and retreated out of the CIC. It wasn’t exactly regulation to leave him in charge of the ship, but nothing about this was. Lee should have been there, since he was the XO, but she’d sent him to actually catch some sleep a few hours before, when he’d nearly fallen asleep standing up beside her. With so few crew on board, they were all working like dogs just to keep Galactica afloat. Leaving through the main hatch, Kara headed down the hallway with no clear destination in mind. She didn’t make it too far, instead taking a breather as she sat upon a crate, her head resting back into the bulkhead as she shut her eyes.
“You all right?” A familiar voice came. Leoben. One of her first acts as Admiral, aside from actually promoting Lee to Major and pinning what had been her own rank pins to his uniform, had been to set Leoben and D’Anna free, at least free within Galactica’s four walls. They weren’t to be into any critical parts of the ship on their own, such as the room that housed the FTL drive, but she had given them that ounce of liberty while she could. Some hadn’t agreed with her, but as Admiral, she didn’t really have to care.
“I just don’t know where the frak your people are,” she ground out and reopened her eyes to look to where she knew he stood by the location of his voice. “How are you holding up?”
His condition had deteriorated some, as had D’Anna’s, while they were kept from being injected with the serum Cottle had developed in order to keep their systems temporarily healthy. Just as they would soon run out of food, Kara knew she risked the lives of both the former cylon prisoners if they went much longer without a decision. He sat beside her, making no move to touch her or come any closer than necessary. Leoben had been good about that lately, respecting boundaries, and she didn’t know what had changed for him - had it been something her father said to him? The realization that she was just part cylon like him and not an actual gift from God? Or maybe the wedding ring she now wore somehow altered things for him. Whatever the reason, Kara didn’t need to know.
“I’ve got a few more jump coordinates we can try, places we used to sit because of their central location and resources,” he said from where he was.
“You still sure you want to do this?” If he backed out now, Kara knew all their plans would be for naught, but she wasn’t sure she could make him go through with what they’d laid out if he was no longer willing.
His head nodded weakly to her. “Our father told me that even though we can ask God for forgiveness, sometimes it isn’t enough to receive it. Sometimes… we have to atone.”
Leoben’s words were cryptic as usual, but for once, she actually understood the idea he was trying to get across to her. As for his use of the specific pronoun that meant they shared a father, that had been something he’d been saying for weeks now since their departure, and she never felt the need to correct him. They were different, and yet, in some ways the same.
“Besides, it won’t be the end.”
She was about to respond when the condition one alarm sounded, immediately tearing away from the hallway back to the CIC, leaving Leoben behind. When she arrived, her eyes immediately went to DRADIS and the dots that littered the screen above her. “Sitrep!” She shouted at no one in particular.
“Admiral, sir,” Hoshi started, “Picking up a lot of debris on DRADIS up ahead. Cylon, by the look of it. Biggest mass we’ve got is registering as a basestar, but heavily damaged. Not sure if there’s anyone left.”
“Bring us through as unscathed as we can.” The basestar had yet to launch Raiders, a chilling sign of what had happened out here. For a moment, she thought that another battlestar had somehow made it through the genocide as well, just as Pegasus had, and perhaps was still out there, fighting the good fight. She knew better though. The only reason Galactica had lasted as long as it had was because of the civilian fleet it carried with them that could mine tyllium and refine it, grow food and produce goods. Pegasus had been dying out there on her own. The civilian fleet, of which she formerly had her own and had left them to die, had been her saving grace. As much as she may have wished it, she knew there would be no other battlestars out here to keep them company. No, something else had transpired.
Leoben stepped beside her, drawn in by the commotion. “Contact them,” he said.
She cocked her head to the side to regard him. “What?”
“Something’s wrong. Send a signal.”
Her brow furrowed and lips pursed, considering the cylon’s words. “Send out a transmission, Mr. Hoshi,” Kara ordered and picked up her personal comm line once she knew the signal was transmitting out into the general space around them. “Basestar…” she paused, unsure of exactly how to address it. These things all looked the same to her. “This is the Admiral of the Colonial Fleet. Do you respond?”
There was silence and she looked back to Leoben. Despite the risk, she handed the phone to him. “This is Leoben,” he began. “Are you in distress?”
“Two?” A voice came over the room, and though Kara didn’t recognize it too well, some of the others who had been down on New Caprica did. It was a Six. “We thought Cavil boxed you along with D’Anna.”
“No, Natalie,” he spoke her name, innately knowing which specific model he talked with. “We’ve been with Galactica the whole time.” He paused and looked to Kara for approval of what he wanted to say. She knew and nodded in response. “We have the Five. We’ve been to Earth.”
“What? With the humans?”
“We can talk about it later, what happened to your basestar?”
“Cavil…” There was silence and Kara could hear her trying to find the energy to relay what she knew. “He lobotomized the Raiders after they shut down last time. We tried to stand against him, but he set us up. The Ones did this. The Fours and the Fives sided with him. Leoben - he took the resurrection ship with him before he did it. So many of us are dead. They’re not coming back.”
Even Kara felt sorry for what the voice on the other end of the line was saying. It was an intimate moment between sibling cylons and there was pain over Leoben’s face at the thought. Real human pain no machine could fake. Countless numbers of his brothers had died, along with the other models that had chosen to side against the Ones. She knew what that mourning felt like. Kara reached for the comm, taking it back and drawing it to her mouth. “This is the Admiral.”
“You don’t sound like Adama,” the one called Natalie said.
“You’re talking to Admiral Thrace.” She looked around the CIC to the faces listening in and watching her curiously. What she was about to do wouldn’t make any of them happy, even the ones who had supported her thoroughly. ”I’m prepared to offer you amnesty aboard Galactica for those of you willing to help us. We have a mission to complete first, and if you earn our trust, we’ll take you with us back to Earth.” She couldn’t stand to look at their reactions. It was a gamble like all the rest, and though Kara hated the cylons just as much as anyone, she had learned that they weren’t all the same. These had made the decision not to commit further wrongdoings and they suffered for it. She wouldn’t turn her back on them, not this time.
“What do you want from us?”
“Leoben’s told me that you have something called a hybrid on board, and if it wanted to, it could find the rest of your ships for us. Is this true?”
“You can’t make a hybrid do something just because you want it to,” Natalie answered.
“Could it work?” She asked again.
“Yes,” the cylon said. “It could work.”
-
When Kara stepped off the Raptor in the belly of the basestar, her eyes were left wide as it took in the surroundings. It was a ship, but at the same time not, the walls of what barely resembled a hangar covered in organic growths. This ship, unlike Galactica, was a living thing. She’d never wanted to set foot into one of these, in fact she’d had numerous nightmares about it after Caprica that involved her waking up on one, belly swollen with a cylon child inside of her. They had persisted for months, even coming up once in awhile to that very day, though less and less frequently as the contact with their enemies decreased in frequency. The air was breathable and she took her helmet off, one of the Six’s stepping forward in whatever she could manage to give her as a greeting.
“Where’s Leoben?” Natalie asked.
“He and D’Anna, they’re sick and contagious right now. If I brought him here, you’d all be dead in days.”
The Six’s face was stricken at the words, wondering if she’d made a mistake in allowing Kara Thrace to come on board. She’d never met the woman before, but had heard about her from some of the other cylons, the Twos especially. Leoben’s fascination with her was the worst of his line, though his brothers had shared an interest in her as well. “What did you do to them?”
“Nothing. You can ask him yourself. There’s actually a virus out there you’re not immune to. We have something of a cure for it, but I’d rather not put you at risk just yet.”
She began walking immediately, not sure where she was going, through the few crew members that came along with her stayed close by. Among them was Eugenia, the humanoid cylon from Earth, the only one of the four who had stayed behind with the fleet. Eugenia had her own interests and reasons in staying, some of which revolved around getting to know the man Sam had become this time, but also hope she would at some point gain intel on the Six models, the ones that had been built to look like her so much. The resemblance was chilling, and by the reaction Natalie had to her, she knew the cylon also felt something she didn’t quite understand. “You started using the hybrids again?” She asked Natalie as the cylon took the lead.
“Again?”
“Your centurions, they were experimenting with using human bodies with the hybrids, we put a stop to it… but obviously you started again, why?” Her questions were direct, even as the pace increased.
“Why do you know about our hybrids?” The Six asked.
“There wasn’t just five who made you,” she said as they finally reached the room that housed the bath the hybrid laid in, similar to the resurrection tanks they’d all awoken in at some point. “There was nine, and one of them was me.”
Natalie paused just beyond the doorway, unsure of what to say in reaction to the details revealed. Her entire life, or since she’d been turned on, she had known there to be five creators for the rest of them. Five they’d been programmed not to think about but still did anyway. She had no reason to believe the red haired woman, but she trusted her anyway, finding familiarity in her face.
Eugenia’s attention was pulled away from the leader Six and to the tank, kneeling down beside it while Kara did the same on the other side. Kara looked over to the woman, a question on her face.
“What do we do?”
“You don’t do anything,” Eugenia said, dipping her hand into the viscous liquid to seek out the hybrid’s skin in an attempt to connect with the body.
At once, the hybrid came to life, the monotone and inane ramblings beginning at full speed. “…Life support in sectors fifteen through thirty three nonfunctional. Sixty four life forms remain. Thirty-one hours to systems failure. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty. Thirty-one hours. End of line.”
Kara slipped her hand into the milky fluid as well, nearly recoiling at first touch of it. Behind her eyelids, all she could see were her lifeless bodies seemingly asleep in a similar substance. She had been in this once, been part of it all, and crawled herself out in the end. Kara was suddenly thankful she couldn’t remember any of it. She was jarred from her thought process as the hybrid went from blank to something near consciousness, empty eyes looking straight at her own. It was like she was seeing into her, down to every inch and secret she’d hidden away.
“You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You have led mankind to their end.”
She pulled her hand out of the tank, away from the cylon abomination and the ominous warning, panic spreading through her. From across the tub, Eugenia looked to Kara, already searching for the words to calm the child of her friend.
“It’s nonsense, Kara.”
“Is it?” Her words and eyes were accusing. “Are they alive?” She shouted back to the woman she hardly knew. “Or will you kill us all too? Did I send them to die?”
Around them, the hybrid continued on, citing facts and figures about the cosmos and the dying basestar she was connected to. “They’re safe,” Eugenia pleaded, hands held out in a sign of submission. “I swear to God, they’re all safe. Your father. Adama. Everyone. They’ll be taken care of.”
“You’re a frakking liar!” She shouted, not bothering to notice the bewildered looks of the Eights, Sixes, and even a Two, around them.
“Why would we do that? What’s our motivation?”
Kara shook her head rapidly, shutting her eyes to fend off everything around her. There was too much. The yelling, including her own. Too many other bodies surrounding her. And that frakking hybrid, she was going to strangle it herself if it didn’t go back to silence soon enough. “Shut the frak up!” Her attention switched to the lifeform in the tank, hands going to the shoulders of what looked like a woman, shaking the hybrid where it lay. “Where are the others! Tell me where to go!”
“…In a vacuum, the speed of light is two hundred ninety nine billion seven hundred ninety two thousand four hundred and fifty eight meters per second. The fleet will convene three light years from the Ionian nebula in four hundred and twenty seven minutes seventeen seconds. Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.”
Kara paused, the rage having gone out of her as she took in the new set of words from the hybrid. She continued to count down still, ticking away each second verbally. Her head turned to gaze over at Eugenia, face worn with worry over the outburst Kara had thrown just before. “Get everyone off this frakking ship,” she bit out, standing instantly as she released the thing that was nothing more than a computer buried inside of something that looked human. “If your people are coming,” she looked to Natalie then, wiping her arms off on the thighs of her flight suit, “You’ve got thirty minutes before we leave you behind. If you bring anything with you, I mean anything,” she insisted, fearing for the safety of her own people should one of these cylons betray the trust she was giving them. “…I’ll kill you myself.”
“What about the virus? How can you expect us expose ourselves to it, knowing we could die?”
“You’ll take the risk or you will die here. That thing is spewing on about how your FTL isn’t working, you’re leaking oxygen faster than you can stop it, and I know even you need to breathe. You’ll asphyxiate within the day.” She headed back for the door, pausing in the entrance way to look back to the room. “Come or don’t. I’m giving you the choice.”
-
“Next time, Kara, give me a frakking warning when you’re jumping ship to visit a cylon basestar,” Lee argued with her as she undressed from her flight suit in the small quarters they still shared after all the time that had passed.
“Not now,” she said eagerly, stepping back into the blue uniform pants she pulled from the bed. When they were fastened, the shirt came next, affixing each button into the proper slot until she resembled something of a Colonial Fleet officer again.
“You’re the Admiral, what if something happened to you?”
“Then you would have taken over, Lee,” she said matter of factly, gathering her hair up at the back of her head as she tied it off into the small ponytail. “We’ve got to get back to CIC.”
His fist clenched as he watched, unable to get through to her. “Gods damn it, you do what you want and you don’t give a frak about anyone else.”
“I don’t care about anyone else?” She spun around to look at him, hands raising as they wildly gesticulated through the air. “I’m doing this for everyone. For you!”
“I didn’t ask you to!” He shouted on back to her. He’d woken from sleep at the alarm of condition one earlier in the day. By time he’d made his way to the CIC, though, she had already run off, heading for the hangar deck on her ill-advised mission towards that basestar. It wasn’t just conduct not becoming of an officer, especially of the Admiral, but it had been a suicide mission, at that.
“Just stop.” She stomped her foot, the thud echoing in their quarters. Kara inhaled deeply, trying to center and focus herself. She’d flown out of control in the room with that hybrid, allowing the words it said to her to influence her far too much. That unease had carried back to Galactica inside of her, and now, it manifested again as she fought with the man that was her husband. “Fight with me later, but right now we have a few jumps to make, and you,” she paused. “You have a job to do.”
He knew to what she was referring. Lee had been dreading the day he would have to follow through with what she asked of him all those weeks ago. For awhile now, he was sure he would escape it altogether as their search for the cylons continued to yield nothing in the end. He should have known better though, should have known that Kara wouldn’t have let them return home empty handed and without some word of success on her lips. No matter what happened, he would have to fulfill his promise.
“And what about those cylons you brought on board? Where are we putting them?”
“It doesn’t matter right now. We’ll worry about it later. Let them sit in the frakking mess for all I care. There aren’t that many of them anyway. We’re racing against the clock. If we stand here fighting about this for another minute, we could miss our chance.”
Lee sighed and rubbed his scalp, looking to the floor. There was no point in arguing with her, and not just because she was even more stubborn than he was. She was right about it in the end. They had a chance to do something, and no matter the risks it all brought, they had to at least try. “What you learned over there, does it change the plans any?” Over the last few weeks, he had been preparing for a very specific mission, though more than anyone he knew making plans usually meant they all went out the window in the first minute.
Just as she’d asked the impossible of him back on Pegasus during their attack on the resurrection ship and he’d promised to have her back, even if it meant both of their deaths, she was again asking him to put his life at risk. If there was anyone else for the job, Kara would have let them do it, rather than forcing her husband to take the chance for them all. The plan had actually been for her to fulfill the role he needed to, but he had turned that idea away even before she had Admiral in front of her name. She needed someone she could trust, and of all the people in the universe, he was her first choice.
“Just like we practiced, Lee. Just like we practiced.”
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 7,102
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
The penultimate chapter!
Regardless of the hour at which Lee and Kara had finally found sleep, she didn’t feel the usual painful associations of being woken far too early. There was no headache along with her waking consciousness and no pressure back on her eyes as her body felt the urge to fall back into slumber. Any other morning and she would have welcomed her pillow, turning it round until she found a cold spot, begging for a few more minutes. The shifting of the mattress beneath her had her attention piqued, eyes opening to catch Lee crawling back over her to take his usual spot between her warmth and the coolness offered by the bulkhead.
Though he’d hoped to slip back under the sheets without jostling her awake, gravity had been too much of a force for him to reckon with. How he managed to escape without disturbing her had been a miracle on its own, so he thanked the Gods for small favors and merely leaned down to kiss the corner of her mouth before he finally fell back into the mattress next to her. “Morning,” Lee said, his voice not much louder than a whisper, an old habit that came from spending years in bunk rooms, trying to be careful not to disturb everyone else.
She didn’t respond, just smiled as she rolled over and against him, tucking her head into his neck and upon his shoulder. When they’d retired the night before, it had been like this that she’d fallen asleep, able to breathe him in as her dreams took over. Lee’s hand came across and rubbed soothingly at her shoulder, returning heat to chilled skin with the light friction produced. Kara ached barely all over, both from the physical labor she’d put in on the hangar deck and the number of times they’d consummated their marriage to one another. The soreness was worst between her thighs, but that, too, only brought more of a smile to her lips in remembrance of all the reasons why that part of her felt that way. “Where’d you go?”
“To get you something,” he answered and kissed the top of her head once and then a second time. His fingers moved up, running through her hair and along the uneven edges of the blunt haircut she’d given herself. He had been a fan of her hair when it used to be short, but had grown to love the length added to it over the years. When she was astride him in their previous hours, he had reveled in the simple changes cutting inches of her hair off had made, from the way she ran her own hands through her cropped hair in ecstasy to the sight of her full breasts completely unobstructed for the duration of their coupling. He was already beginning to love the changes it brought along.
“Not sure if I want breakfast in bed if it’s algae.” Her eyes shut and she dragged finger tips over the small amount of chest hair she found herself appreciating.
With his own wide grin, Lee shifted, forcing her head to slip back onto the pillow instead of his shoulder. He was prepared for the glare she would undoubtedly give him for it, but that didn’t hinder him in the least. He mirrored her position until he was on his side as well, facing in at her. The hand that hadn’t been stroking her a minute before filled the space between them then opened, revealing the two small hoops of metal.
“Where’d you find them?” On Caprica, or any of the other planets they used to call home, acquiring wedding bands had been a non-issue. A trip to a number of stores, whether they were focused on selling only jewelry or simply just held that specific department among all the others, would have produced anything the couple could have imagined. Hers could have held diamonds should she have so wished it, or perhaps another gem. At the least, they could have had something engraved within the band in commemoration of their union. Out in space, however, resources were allocated for other things like keeping their ships air tight and crafting bullets. Even if there was a jeweler on one of the ships, someone trained well enough to mold and size rings correctly, there might not have been the proper medium available. Forget something like gold or silver or platinum, anyone would be lucky enough to even receive a band of steel made from a scrap part. The rings Lee had, though, weren’t crude or poorly made. No, these belonged to someone else long before them.
“My father.”
Blue eyes pleaded with her not to be mad for spilling the news and surprisingly, she wasn’t. They hadn’t found time to discuss what they were or weren’t doing when it came to telling others about their rushed and intimate ceremony, so she could hardly fault him for telling his own father. Kara could imagine the Admiral’s grumble as he was awoken long before morning cycle and then his anger washing away with the news Lee had to share. She hoped he wouldn’t be betrayed they hadn’t included him in it. That had been her one hesitation regarding it all, she hadn’t wanted to cause him pain to know they kept this to themselves. When or if they returned, they would have to do something more legally binding, and that, Kara decided, Adama could be there for.
“They were my grandparents’, he had them on Galactica for years before the cylons attacked. He mentioned it to me after you came back, that they’d be mine if I needed them.”
The notion that the Admiral, or former Admiral as it were, had been hoping and hinting at his son marrying her left her elated. He hadn’t trusted her after her immediate return, but he had in the end, so much so that it was his wish the two of them found their lives together. Permanently. It wasn’t just that he’d obviously agreed with their marriage, but another thing for him to want to gift them with rings that had belonged to his parents, whom she knew had a rare and happy marriage. “You mean you didn’t want a tattoo?” She tried to stop herself from laughing as she spoke, pinching her tongue gently between her teeth in a wide smile.
Lee shook his head, smiling, and took the smallest of the rings from his palm. He went to search for her left hand, but she presented it to him eagerly, already waiting for what she knew was to come next. “It might be a little tight or loose. We can get new ones on Earth.”
“No,” she protested, watching as he carefully slid the circle onto her left ring finger until it fit into place. It was a tad tight, but not uncomfortably so. “I want this one.” Kara took the other ring from him just as he was about to slip it onto his finger. This was her job to do, even if it was hours after they’d said their vows and claimed the other as their own. His ring fit just right, and after it was secured, Kara held his hand, thumb smoothing over the shine of the well worn band.
“You don’t have to-”
“Lee, shut up,” she said with a bit of stiff voice. “I want to wear it.” In his eyes, Kara could see it meant the world to him that she had accepted the gift wholeheartedly. The ceremony the night before had been her doing, every detail of it, and now these rings for the two of them had been the small part he played in it all. She lifted her head from the pillow until they were a hairsbreadth apart, and finally, Kara leaned in to kiss him, slow and long.
“Does this mean you’re changing your name to Adama?” He asked once they parted, a hint of humor and mirth in his eyes.
“Quit while you’re ahead.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Kara eased her body tight against his, enjoying the skin to skin contact. “Is it wrong that it’s my first day as Admiral and I don’t want to get out of bed?”
“Not too late to go with everyone else…” Lee said with hope.
“We’re coming back,” she delivered confidently. She’d been sure for awhile that she wouldn’t return, despite the promises she’d given to all those around her. Now, though, beside Lee with their marriage barely a few hours old, all she wanted to do was to return and to finally start their lives together. In a way, this whole last mission was a selfish act rather than one for the good of the people of Earth and the refugees. Of course she wanted them to be safe as well, but the thought of having a son or a daughter with Lee, knowing that their future could be cut short at any moment, was unbearable and unimaginable. She wouldn’t be able to let herself be happy with the threat following behind them like a dark cloud. For him, for them, they were going back out there to make sure they’d be able to have a future.
Lee kissed her forehead and prayed to whatever deities were listening that she was right. “We are.”
-
The crew that would remain on Galactica gathered on the deck once again, this time to say their final goodbyes to the President of the Colonies and former Admiral. They had stayed until the end, with Adama reluctant to let his son and both of his girls go: Kara and of course, Galactica. Their things had already been sent over to Colonial One, and Lee had briefly set foot into the Admiral’s quarters earlier, the bare walls and bookshelves startling him. It was only then that the truth of it all really hit him. He would be saying goodbye to his father. For years, they had been at each other’s throats, and now the last thing he wanted to do was to let the Old Man go.
“Lee,” Bill said as his son and daughter-in-law finally made it to the front of the crowd.
“Dad.” It was all Apollo could manage to say before they threw their arms around one another, both summoning strength from one another to keep it together. Even as close as they’d been, Lee couldn’t remember the last time his father had hugged him like this, like he truly didn’t want to let him go.
They pulled back finally and Adama touched his hand to his son’s face. It was like he was just a boy once again, only a few years old and the pride of his father’s life, even if he was bad at showing his son just what he meant to him. “You bring her back.”
Lee nodded solemnly. His father was trusting him to take care of Kara, both of them knowing that she would need it. All those years he’d been at the academy and war college and then stationed on another battlestar didn’t compare to this departure he was making from his father. Now he really would be alone and be allowed to come into his own. Lee stepped aside to let Kara come forward, watching the interaction between them that unfolded.
She was reluctant but determined, not wanting to say her goodbyes because of the finality it brought along with it. “Sir.”
Adama shook his head and placed both of his hands to her cheeks. He leaned in long enough to kiss the center of her forehead, then pulled back, but kept close watch on her. “You can call me Dad now.” They both knew she’d long since considered him her father, even with the sudden appearance of the man who biologically had claim to that title. Now, though, she had a real reason for the change in term of endearment. Adama took her left hand, thumbing over the metal band there as he glanced down to it then back to her. “My mother was a good woman, she’d be proud to have you wearing it.”
Despite how much she had promised herself she wouldn’t let herself lose control, the slick coating of tears in her eyes said otherwise. She had gone from being his dead son’s fiancee, to his DCAG and best pilot. From pilot instructor to Commander. From his other son’s dead lover to part-cylon wife. He had every reason to hate her and sometimes she wondered why he didn’t. Maybe it was the revelation about Tigh and the others close to him that had softened him to the idea that her lineage wasn’t exactly the same as his. She feared the worst after it all came out, but he hadn’t turned her away, just like his son hadn’t. Instead, Bill stood on the deck and made her Admiral and now welcomed her into his life further as his son’s wife. “I’ll bring him back,” she promised the Old Man again. “We’ll see you soon.”
Adama’s hand gently brushed back some of Kara’s hair for her as he spoke. “Soon. By the way, I like the hair.” He hugged her close and she buried her face into his shoulder to hide the fact that her tears spilled forward. Bill released her eventually, taking the arm of a frail looking Laura Roslin.
“Madame President, good luck,” Kara said.
“To you too. And congratulations,” spoke Laura, looking genuinely happy for the first time in days. No one knew what Earth would mean for her, if her illness could be stalled or even cured, but Kara knew it could very well be the last time she saw her. For Adama’s sake, she prayed it wouldn’t be the end.
Bill and Laura climbed into the Raptor and the only one that remained on the deck that was supposed to soon depart was Dreilide. When Kara saw him, she felt guilty, having assumed he’d gone ahead with some of the others instead of paying witness to the affection she shared between another father figure.
His head nodded down to her hand and the ring she wore, having overheard the words exchanged. Though he wouldn’t say it, he was hurt that she hadn’t included him in whatever had marked her attachment to the Admiral’s son. The worst of it was that he knew he didn’t deserve it or have a place in her life, but it didn’t make him want it any less. She was his daughter and though she didn’t consider him much her father due to his abandonment, he had never stopped thinking about her. Dreilide looked from Kara then back to Lee, the man he’d only seen a few times, including that first night in the hallway when he was somewhat weakly threatened in regards to upsetting his own daughter. “Congratulations, Captain,” he said and held out his hand to the person who was technically now his son as well.
Lee gave a tight lipped smile and clasped Dreilide’s palm, shaking it firm. He felt regret over the tone he’d taken with him, especially with all he things he’d already done for the Colonials, and all the things Lee knew he would continue to do for them. His work was just beginning.
Kara waited for her turn and Dreilide offered the same awkward extended hand to her. She took it, repeating the gesture.
“Congratulations, Kara. Be happy and safe.”
He had a way of making her feel four years old all over again every time he said even a word to her. The conversation they’d had in his temporary quarters had changed a lot between them, but both knew their relationship was far from mended, if it ever even could be. “Thank you,” she got out, though she meant it for more than just his comments on her marriage.
Dreilide sighed loudly when his hand was his again. He looked back to the Raptor and then to his daughter. “Are you sure I can’t stay? I don’t-I just don’t feel okay letting you go out there.”
“We’ll be okay. I need you to be there for us when we get back, like we laid out.”
He had been the first to hear of her plan, ironing out some of the details that were foreign to her before she’d brought it to Lee and anyone else. It didn’t mean he liked it or felt that it was a sound concept, but he knew already there wasn’t much anyone could talk her out of. “I’ll be waiting.” He took a step back, ready to turn for the small shuttle, but was caught off guard by his daughter’s arms tightly squeezing him.
As much as she wanted to punish him further for the things he’d done, she couldn’t find it in herself to let this be how things ended between them, in case she shouldn’t return. She regretted how her mother had gone, thinking her daughter hated her, and Kara would be damned if her father thought about their last moments together, wondering if she even cared at all. Dreilide kissed the crown of her head, recalling the last time he said goodbye to her. This time wasn’t any easier, despite the years between them and the fact that she was now a grown woman. As he held her, he whispered softly. “I love you. Don’t forget.”
They pried themselves apart and Dreilide climbed into the Raptor as well. Before the door shut them inside, Kara’s loud voice barked out with every ounce of strength she had left. “President of the Colonies and Admiral of the Fleet departing the deck!” All those around them snapped to attention, including herself. She may have technically been Admiral now, but that didn’t change what Adama had been to them.
He saluted back and they all fell at ease. “What do you hear, Starbuck?” Bill shouted from inside the cabin.
“Nothing but the rain!” She loudly returned the familiar phrase, watching as the the door finally closed. She hoped it wouldn’t be the last time she saw them.
-
If Kara stood still long enough, it was almost like Galactica’s CIC transformed into the drastically different version Pegasus had held. Lieutenant Hoshi was to her right just as he had been, a few other comm officers that had served under her having joined the final mission as well. There were new faces, different faces, this time though, that served to ruin the work her imagination did. Gaeta was along, for one, mostly because Hoshi had chosen to follow her and the two men had been inseparable long before they had found Earth. Helo was gone and every time she looked over and didn’t see his face, she hoped and prayed his family and the rest of those they’d left behind were fairing well. They took a gamble on her father and despite how much she innately felt she could trust him, part of her had feared it would be nothing but betrayal. Another trick in the grand scheme of things. To get through her time away, though, she had to push those thoughts aside, needing to have faith in the man that was her father.
Gaeta approached the plotting table, and without even directly looking at him, she could tell by his gait that he had something to say. He had been the voice of opposition since they’d left the fleet, protesting that they turn around and go back, especially since the cylons that had always been hot on their heels had suddenly been difficult to find. It was like they knew they were coming for them and were deliberately staying one step ahead, though Kara knew it was impossible. It was just the luck of the draw and the vast depths of space.
“Sir,” he started, but there was a kind of condescension in his tone. “We’ve been out here five weeks. We’re going to have to start rationing food, cut down to just above starvation levels soon. No one prepared to be out here this long.”
It was what she’d heard all before, from everyone except Lee, though sometimes she swore she saw it in his eyes. It could have been her own doubt, though, manifesting where she wanted to see it the least. She’d left to accomplish something and she couldn’t return empty handed, a failure, her first and last mission as Admiral. It would mean she’d wasted everyone’s time, their energy, and most of all, their faith in her. “We can go a little longer before we have to turn back,” she insisted without looking to him.
“And what if we have to stop for repairs? What if we make a wrong jump? What if we get back to Earth and no one’s there because we missed the cut off? You’re not leaving any room for error.”
They were logical words, but Kara didn’t want to hear them. “We won’t need it. I’m the Admiral of this ship, do you have the authority to make the call when we give up? You chose to come, Felix. I won’t leave us out here to die, but I won’t turn back until we absolutely have to.” This time her eyes leveled with his own, challenging him to speak up again.
He wanted to retort, especially since he didn’t truly see her as their leader, even if Adama had given the pins signifying so to her. He would have followed Adama almost anywhere, but Starbuck? He’d begun to regret his decision, a point of contention between him and Hoshi, since his partner remained loyal to her through the end. Without a word, he stepped away and returned to his station.
“Hoshi, you have the con,” Kara said and retreated out of the CIC. It wasn’t exactly regulation to leave him in charge of the ship, but nothing about this was. Lee should have been there, since he was the XO, but she’d sent him to actually catch some sleep a few hours before, when he’d nearly fallen asleep standing up beside her. With so few crew on board, they were all working like dogs just to keep Galactica afloat. Leaving through the main hatch, Kara headed down the hallway with no clear destination in mind. She didn’t make it too far, instead taking a breather as she sat upon a crate, her head resting back into the bulkhead as she shut her eyes.
“You all right?” A familiar voice came. Leoben. One of her first acts as Admiral, aside from actually promoting Lee to Major and pinning what had been her own rank pins to his uniform, had been to set Leoben and D’Anna free, at least free within Galactica’s four walls. They weren’t to be into any critical parts of the ship on their own, such as the room that housed the FTL drive, but she had given them that ounce of liberty while she could. Some hadn’t agreed with her, but as Admiral, she didn’t really have to care.
“I just don’t know where the frak your people are,” she ground out and reopened her eyes to look to where she knew he stood by the location of his voice. “How are you holding up?”
His condition had deteriorated some, as had D’Anna’s, while they were kept from being injected with the serum Cottle had developed in order to keep their systems temporarily healthy. Just as they would soon run out of food, Kara knew she risked the lives of both the former cylon prisoners if they went much longer without a decision. He sat beside her, making no move to touch her or come any closer than necessary. Leoben had been good about that lately, respecting boundaries, and she didn’t know what had changed for him - had it been something her father said to him? The realization that she was just part cylon like him and not an actual gift from God? Or maybe the wedding ring she now wore somehow altered things for him. Whatever the reason, Kara didn’t need to know.
“I’ve got a few more jump coordinates we can try, places we used to sit because of their central location and resources,” he said from where he was.
“You still sure you want to do this?” If he backed out now, Kara knew all their plans would be for naught, but she wasn’t sure she could make him go through with what they’d laid out if he was no longer willing.
His head nodded weakly to her. “Our father told me that even though we can ask God for forgiveness, sometimes it isn’t enough to receive it. Sometimes… we have to atone.”
Leoben’s words were cryptic as usual, but for once, she actually understood the idea he was trying to get across to her. As for his use of the specific pronoun that meant they shared a father, that had been something he’d been saying for weeks now since their departure, and she never felt the need to correct him. They were different, and yet, in some ways the same.
“Besides, it won’t be the end.”
She was about to respond when the condition one alarm sounded, immediately tearing away from the hallway back to the CIC, leaving Leoben behind. When she arrived, her eyes immediately went to DRADIS and the dots that littered the screen above her. “Sitrep!” She shouted at no one in particular.
“Admiral, sir,” Hoshi started, “Picking up a lot of debris on DRADIS up ahead. Cylon, by the look of it. Biggest mass we’ve got is registering as a basestar, but heavily damaged. Not sure if there’s anyone left.”
“Bring us through as unscathed as we can.” The basestar had yet to launch Raiders, a chilling sign of what had happened out here. For a moment, she thought that another battlestar had somehow made it through the genocide as well, just as Pegasus had, and perhaps was still out there, fighting the good fight. She knew better though. The only reason Galactica had lasted as long as it had was because of the civilian fleet it carried with them that could mine tyllium and refine it, grow food and produce goods. Pegasus had been dying out there on her own. The civilian fleet, of which she formerly had her own and had left them to die, had been her saving grace. As much as she may have wished it, she knew there would be no other battlestars out here to keep them company. No, something else had transpired.
Leoben stepped beside her, drawn in by the commotion. “Contact them,” he said.
She cocked her head to the side to regard him. “What?”
“Something’s wrong. Send a signal.”
Her brow furrowed and lips pursed, considering the cylon’s words. “Send out a transmission, Mr. Hoshi,” Kara ordered and picked up her personal comm line once she knew the signal was transmitting out into the general space around them. “Basestar…” she paused, unsure of exactly how to address it. These things all looked the same to her. “This is the Admiral of the Colonial Fleet. Do you respond?”
There was silence and she looked back to Leoben. Despite the risk, she handed the phone to him. “This is Leoben,” he began. “Are you in distress?”
“Two?” A voice came over the room, and though Kara didn’t recognize it too well, some of the others who had been down on New Caprica did. It was a Six. “We thought Cavil boxed you along with D’Anna.”
“No, Natalie,” he spoke her name, innately knowing which specific model he talked with. “We’ve been with Galactica the whole time.” He paused and looked to Kara for approval of what he wanted to say. She knew and nodded in response. “We have the Five. We’ve been to Earth.”
“What? With the humans?”
“We can talk about it later, what happened to your basestar?”
“Cavil…” There was silence and Kara could hear her trying to find the energy to relay what she knew. “He lobotomized the Raiders after they shut down last time. We tried to stand against him, but he set us up. The Ones did this. The Fours and the Fives sided with him. Leoben - he took the resurrection ship with him before he did it. So many of us are dead. They’re not coming back.”
Even Kara felt sorry for what the voice on the other end of the line was saying. It was an intimate moment between sibling cylons and there was pain over Leoben’s face at the thought. Real human pain no machine could fake. Countless numbers of his brothers had died, along with the other models that had chosen to side against the Ones. She knew what that mourning felt like. Kara reached for the comm, taking it back and drawing it to her mouth. “This is the Admiral.”
“You don’t sound like Adama,” the one called Natalie said.
“You’re talking to Admiral Thrace.” She looked around the CIC to the faces listening in and watching her curiously. What she was about to do wouldn’t make any of them happy, even the ones who had supported her thoroughly. ”I’m prepared to offer you amnesty aboard Galactica for those of you willing to help us. We have a mission to complete first, and if you earn our trust, we’ll take you with us back to Earth.” She couldn’t stand to look at their reactions. It was a gamble like all the rest, and though Kara hated the cylons just as much as anyone, she had learned that they weren’t all the same. These had made the decision not to commit further wrongdoings and they suffered for it. She wouldn’t turn her back on them, not this time.
“What do you want from us?”
“Leoben’s told me that you have something called a hybrid on board, and if it wanted to, it could find the rest of your ships for us. Is this true?”
“You can’t make a hybrid do something just because you want it to,” Natalie answered.
“Could it work?” She asked again.
“Yes,” the cylon said. “It could work.”
-
When Kara stepped off the Raptor in the belly of the basestar, her eyes were left wide as it took in the surroundings. It was a ship, but at the same time not, the walls of what barely resembled a hangar covered in organic growths. This ship, unlike Galactica, was a living thing. She’d never wanted to set foot into one of these, in fact she’d had numerous nightmares about it after Caprica that involved her waking up on one, belly swollen with a cylon child inside of her. They had persisted for months, even coming up once in awhile to that very day, though less and less frequently as the contact with their enemies decreased in frequency. The air was breathable and she took her helmet off, one of the Six’s stepping forward in whatever she could manage to give her as a greeting.
“Where’s Leoben?” Natalie asked.
“He and D’Anna, they’re sick and contagious right now. If I brought him here, you’d all be dead in days.”
The Six’s face was stricken at the words, wondering if she’d made a mistake in allowing Kara Thrace to come on board. She’d never met the woman before, but had heard about her from some of the other cylons, the Twos especially. Leoben’s fascination with her was the worst of his line, though his brothers had shared an interest in her as well. “What did you do to them?”
“Nothing. You can ask him yourself. There’s actually a virus out there you’re not immune to. We have something of a cure for it, but I’d rather not put you at risk just yet.”
She began walking immediately, not sure where she was going, through the few crew members that came along with her stayed close by. Among them was Eugenia, the humanoid cylon from Earth, the only one of the four who had stayed behind with the fleet. Eugenia had her own interests and reasons in staying, some of which revolved around getting to know the man Sam had become this time, but also hope she would at some point gain intel on the Six models, the ones that had been built to look like her so much. The resemblance was chilling, and by the reaction Natalie had to her, she knew the cylon also felt something she didn’t quite understand. “You started using the hybrids again?” She asked Natalie as the cylon took the lead.
“Again?”
“Your centurions, they were experimenting with using human bodies with the hybrids, we put a stop to it… but obviously you started again, why?” Her questions were direct, even as the pace increased.
“Why do you know about our hybrids?” The Six asked.
“There wasn’t just five who made you,” she said as they finally reached the room that housed the bath the hybrid laid in, similar to the resurrection tanks they’d all awoken in at some point. “There was nine, and one of them was me.”
Natalie paused just beyond the doorway, unsure of what to say in reaction to the details revealed. Her entire life, or since she’d been turned on, she had known there to be five creators for the rest of them. Five they’d been programmed not to think about but still did anyway. She had no reason to believe the red haired woman, but she trusted her anyway, finding familiarity in her face.
Eugenia’s attention was pulled away from the leader Six and to the tank, kneeling down beside it while Kara did the same on the other side. Kara looked over to the woman, a question on her face.
“What do we do?”
“You don’t do anything,” Eugenia said, dipping her hand into the viscous liquid to seek out the hybrid’s skin in an attempt to connect with the body.
At once, the hybrid came to life, the monotone and inane ramblings beginning at full speed. “…Life support in sectors fifteen through thirty three nonfunctional. Sixty four life forms remain. Thirty-one hours to systems failure. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty. Thirty-one hours. End of line.”
Kara slipped her hand into the milky fluid as well, nearly recoiling at first touch of it. Behind her eyelids, all she could see were her lifeless bodies seemingly asleep in a similar substance. She had been in this once, been part of it all, and crawled herself out in the end. Kara was suddenly thankful she couldn’t remember any of it. She was jarred from her thought process as the hybrid went from blank to something near consciousness, empty eyes looking straight at her own. It was like she was seeing into her, down to every inch and secret she’d hidden away.
“You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You have led mankind to their end.”
She pulled her hand out of the tank, away from the cylon abomination and the ominous warning, panic spreading through her. From across the tub, Eugenia looked to Kara, already searching for the words to calm the child of her friend.
“It’s nonsense, Kara.”
“Is it?” Her words and eyes were accusing. “Are they alive?” She shouted back to the woman she hardly knew. “Or will you kill us all too? Did I send them to die?”
Around them, the hybrid continued on, citing facts and figures about the cosmos and the dying basestar she was connected to. “They’re safe,” Eugenia pleaded, hands held out in a sign of submission. “I swear to God, they’re all safe. Your father. Adama. Everyone. They’ll be taken care of.”
“You’re a frakking liar!” She shouted, not bothering to notice the bewildered looks of the Eights, Sixes, and even a Two, around them.
“Why would we do that? What’s our motivation?”
Kara shook her head rapidly, shutting her eyes to fend off everything around her. There was too much. The yelling, including her own. Too many other bodies surrounding her. And that frakking hybrid, she was going to strangle it herself if it didn’t go back to silence soon enough. “Shut the frak up!” Her attention switched to the lifeform in the tank, hands going to the shoulders of what looked like a woman, shaking the hybrid where it lay. “Where are the others! Tell me where to go!”
“…In a vacuum, the speed of light is two hundred ninety nine billion seven hundred ninety two thousand four hundred and fifty eight meters per second. The fleet will convene three light years from the Ionian nebula in four hundred and twenty seven minutes seventeen seconds. Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.”
Kara paused, the rage having gone out of her as she took in the new set of words from the hybrid. She continued to count down still, ticking away each second verbally. Her head turned to gaze over at Eugenia, face worn with worry over the outburst Kara had thrown just before. “Get everyone off this frakking ship,” she bit out, standing instantly as she released the thing that was nothing more than a computer buried inside of something that looked human. “If your people are coming,” she looked to Natalie then, wiping her arms off on the thighs of her flight suit, “You’ve got thirty minutes before we leave you behind. If you bring anything with you, I mean anything,” she insisted, fearing for the safety of her own people should one of these cylons betray the trust she was giving them. “…I’ll kill you myself.”
“What about the virus? How can you expect us expose ourselves to it, knowing we could die?”
“You’ll take the risk or you will die here. That thing is spewing on about how your FTL isn’t working, you’re leaking oxygen faster than you can stop it, and I know even you need to breathe. You’ll asphyxiate within the day.” She headed back for the door, pausing in the entrance way to look back to the room. “Come or don’t. I’m giving you the choice.”
-
“Next time, Kara, give me a frakking warning when you’re jumping ship to visit a cylon basestar,” Lee argued with her as she undressed from her flight suit in the small quarters they still shared after all the time that had passed.
“Not now,” she said eagerly, stepping back into the blue uniform pants she pulled from the bed. When they were fastened, the shirt came next, affixing each button into the proper slot until she resembled something of a Colonial Fleet officer again.
“You’re the Admiral, what if something happened to you?”
“Then you would have taken over, Lee,” she said matter of factly, gathering her hair up at the back of her head as she tied it off into the small ponytail. “We’ve got to get back to CIC.”
His fist clenched as he watched, unable to get through to her. “Gods damn it, you do what you want and you don’t give a frak about anyone else.”
“I don’t care about anyone else?” She spun around to look at him, hands raising as they wildly gesticulated through the air. “I’m doing this for everyone. For you!”
“I didn’t ask you to!” He shouted on back to her. He’d woken from sleep at the alarm of condition one earlier in the day. By time he’d made his way to the CIC, though, she had already run off, heading for the hangar deck on her ill-advised mission towards that basestar. It wasn’t just conduct not becoming of an officer, especially of the Admiral, but it had been a suicide mission, at that.
“Just stop.” She stomped her foot, the thud echoing in their quarters. Kara inhaled deeply, trying to center and focus herself. She’d flown out of control in the room with that hybrid, allowing the words it said to her to influence her far too much. That unease had carried back to Galactica inside of her, and now, it manifested again as she fought with the man that was her husband. “Fight with me later, but right now we have a few jumps to make, and you,” she paused. “You have a job to do.”
He knew to what she was referring. Lee had been dreading the day he would have to follow through with what she asked of him all those weeks ago. For awhile now, he was sure he would escape it altogether as their search for the cylons continued to yield nothing in the end. He should have known better though, should have known that Kara wouldn’t have let them return home empty handed and without some word of success on her lips. No matter what happened, he would have to fulfill his promise.
“And what about those cylons you brought on board? Where are we putting them?”
“It doesn’t matter right now. We’ll worry about it later. Let them sit in the frakking mess for all I care. There aren’t that many of them anyway. We’re racing against the clock. If we stand here fighting about this for another minute, we could miss our chance.”
Lee sighed and rubbed his scalp, looking to the floor. There was no point in arguing with her, and not just because she was even more stubborn than he was. She was right about it in the end. They had a chance to do something, and no matter the risks it all brought, they had to at least try. “What you learned over there, does it change the plans any?” Over the last few weeks, he had been preparing for a very specific mission, though more than anyone he knew making plans usually meant they all went out the window in the first minute.
Just as she’d asked the impossible of him back on Pegasus during their attack on the resurrection ship and he’d promised to have her back, even if it meant both of their deaths, she was again asking him to put his life at risk. If there was anyone else for the job, Kara would have let them do it, rather than forcing her husband to take the chance for them all. The plan had actually been for her to fulfill the role he needed to, but he had turned that idea away even before she had Admiral in front of her name. She needed someone she could trust, and of all the people in the universe, he was her first choice.
“Just like we practiced, Lee. Just like we practiced.”