01 - Battlestar Galactica (3 page)

Tyrol, a seasoned leader of the hangar maintenance crews and one of the most
respected noncommissioned officers on the entire ship, wore an uncommon
expression of eagerness and maybe a bit of nervousness. “Thank you for coming
down, sir. We’ve been looking forward to showing you this.”

“Well, so have I, Chief. Whatever it is,” Adama said. He kept a dry
expression on his face, but his curiosity was definitely piqued.

“If you’ll just follow me, sir.” Tyrol led him around an array of machinery
and spacecraft with maintenance panels propped open. A small crowd of enlisted
deck hands accreted behind them as they proceeded. Tyrol brought Adama to a
craft covered from nose to tail with a black tarp. It was clearly a Viper, the
lines of the space fighter unmistakable under the covering. “What’s this,
Chief?”

A grin twitched at the corner of Tyrol’s mouth as he stood in front of the
craft, waiting for the rest of the crew to crowd around. He seemed about to
speak, then simply gestured to several of the deck hands, who hurried forward
and swept the tarp smoothly off the concealed craft.

Adama stared. It was an old-style Viper, a fighter from the days of the Cylon
war. “Mark Two,” he said, in genuine wonder. “I haven’t seen one of these in
about twenty years.”

“If the commander will take a closer look…”

Adama shot Tyrol a puzzled glance and stepped closer. Then he saw it—the
name, stenciled on the hull, just below the lip of the cockpit canopy:

LT. WILLIAM ADAMA

“HUSHER”

He laughed. So that’s what they’d been up to, painting his name and his old
call sign on the vintage warbird. But Tyrol was still talking:

“…at the tail number, Nebula Seven-Two-Four-Two Constellation.”

Adama’s mouth dropped open, as he read the registration markings on the
Viper’s tail.
N7242C.
They hadn’t just painted his name on any old
warbird.
“Oh my God.
Where did you find her?”

Tyrol was openly grinning now. “Rusting out in a salvage yard on Sagitarron.
We had hopes the commander would allow her to participate in the decommissioning
ceremony.”

Adama turned in disbelief. “She’ll fly?”

“Oh, yes, sir. We’ve restored the engines, patched the guidance system,
replaced much of the flight controls…”

Adama hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. “You guys are amazing.” He reached
out to touch the hull of the craft. Viper N7242C. How many times had he flown
this fighter, forty years ago? How many times had it survived Cylon attack to
bring him safely back to the flight deck?
My God,
he thought.

“…she’s fueled, armed, ready for launch, sir.”

Laughing quietly, Adama ran his hands over the aft engine cowling.

“Commander—”

He turned back. “What? More?” Tyrol handed him a flat package wrapped in
brown paper. Adama chuckled. “Somebody’s bucking for a promotion around here.”

Tyrol grinned and glanced at the deck crewman standing beside him. “I believe
that would be Prosna, sir. He found this in the Fleet Archives. He was doing
some research for the museum.” Prosna lifted his chin slightly, but did not
crack a smile.

It felt like a plaque of some kind. Adama tore the paper open and lifted out
a picture framed in dark, heavy hardwood, square with all four corners cut off.
It was a photo of himself as a young fighter pilot, standing in front of this
same Viper, with two boys.
Sweet Lords of Kobol.
Zak and Lee must have
been about seven or eight at the time. They were beaming with pride as they
stood with their father and his Viper. Adama felt his mask of command begin to
fail as a host of unexpected emotions welled up in him.
They look so happy.
A
lump formed in his throat as he fought to keep his composure, to hold back
the tears that were welling in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, looking up before
he could crack, looking all around him to include the entire assembled crew.
“Thank you all.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” said Tyrol. And as Adama stood, continuing to stare silently at the photo in his hands, Tyrol quietly
dismissed the crew.

Adama stood motionless, lost in the past, lost in the photo, for a very long
time.

Galactica,
Officers’ Wardroom

The triad game was already well underway when Colonel Saul Tigh entered the
officers’ wardroom and headed shakily for the coffee table. He helped himself to
a coffee cup, but did not fill it with coffee. From his pocket, he produced a
small metal flask. He unscrewed the top and carefully poured a generous shot of
whiskey into the coffee cup. If anyone noticed, nobody said anything. Colonel
Tigh, the Executive Officer of the ship, was off duty. If he wanted to have a
drink or two, there was nobody
here
who could tell him no. And it sure
helped steady his nerves, and take the edge off that headache that pounded
insistently at the back of his skull.

Besides, maybe it would help him shake things up a little here. These people
were having too damn much fun.

Tigh pulled out the last remaining chair at the card table and sat down
across the table from Lieutenant Kara Thrace—Starbuck, to the flight group.
“Uh-oh,” she muttered, without looking up. Whether she was talking about his
arrival or the cards she was holding, he couldn’t tell for sure. He’d find out; an opportunity to taunt
Kara Thrace was something he could never resist.

“I’m in,” said Tigh, and waited while Thrace dealt him a hand of cards.

“Here we go.” That was from Helo, on his immediate left. Helo was the flight
officer for the Raptor pilot sitting to
his
immediate left—Sharon
Valerii, better known as Boomer.

Lieutenant Thrace’s short blonde hair came just over her ears and eyebrows.
She cultivated a tough-guy look, and was cockily smoking a cigar. She aimed it
at Helo and said, “If you’re gonna play with the big dogs—” She pointed to the
table. Helo dropped his chips onto the pile.

“No fair,” complained Boomer, squinting at her cards. Not such a good hand,
maybe.

Colonel Tigh tuned out the banter while he examined his cards. Finally he
looked up, as Thrace said with a laugh, “Ohhh, Helo—when are you gonna
learn?
First you’re flying with crooks, and then—
ow!”
—Boomer had just
smacked her on the arm—“and then you’re bettin’ against Starbuck!”

Tigh let out a snort. “Starbuck. Now there’s a call sign.
Star-buck”
—he
gave a string of chicken sounds—
“buck-buck-buck-buck-buck!
Where’d you
get that nickname, anyway? Was that
before
you were thrown in the brig as
a cadet for drunk and disorderly, or
after?”
He glanced over his cards,
not meeting Thrace’s eyes.

Unperturbed, Thrace leaned back and blew a stream of smoke from her cigar.
“After,” she said smugly.

“After,” he echoed, searching for a snappy comeback but not finding one.
“That’s right it was… after.”

“I’m in.” Helo tossed in some more chips. “Bet’s to you, XO.”

Brought back to the game by the sound of the chips, Tigh muttered, “I’m in,”
and followed Helo’s chips with a few of his own.

Lieutenant Thrace had never dropped her gaze from him. “How’s the wife?” she
asked, in slow, measured tones.

He stiffened, words lodging in his throat. God, no wonder he hated her.
Anger, and the whiskey, made his skin burn—but he was damned if he was going to
rise to the bait. Around him, the other players continued their banter,
oblivious to the power struggle that had just begun. He barely heard them…

“…that pyramid game on Geminon?”

Arrogant bitch. Yeah, his wife was probably banging some other man right now.
Wherever she was.

“What were you doing on…?”

He hadn’t spoken to her in the last month, and had no reason to think he’d
speak to her in the next.

“…girl there I know.”

“What girl don’t you…?”

“The wife is just fine,” Tigh said evenly.

Lieutenant Thrace grinned and sipped from her mug. “Talk to her lately?”

Tigh knitted his brow and scowled at his cards, pretending he hadn’t heard.
He raised his coffee cup to his lips, with an effort mastering the slight
trembling in his hand. The whiskey burned as he swallowed.

Lieutenant Thrace had turned back to the game. “All right. Thirty for me”—she
threw in more chips—“and it looks like I’ll have to bring this
lovely
little game to a close, because”—she slapped her cards down onto the table—
“full
colors! Ha-hah!”
Grinning like a kid with candy, she began raking the pile
of chips toward her.

Tigh felt the fury rising in his chest. Thrace was doing a little dance in
her seat now, singing and crowing. There were no words to express his disgust at
her smug superiority. No words, but…

With a roar, he stood up and shoved the table over onto her. Chips and cards
flew across the room. Thrace looked startled for an instant, then lunged. Her
fist landed on his chin before he could react, and he fell backwards over his
chair, crashing to the floor. Stunned, and more than a little dizzy, he fought
his way back to his feet, fighting off the helping hands of nearby crewmen.
Thrace had been pulled back by Boomer and Helo, but she was struggling to break
free. “I’m fine—I’m fine,” she snapped. After a moment, they let her go. She
pushed her hair calmly back out of her face, then lunged for him again. Helo
grabbed her, and this time pushed her well clear of Tigh.

The colonel gathered himself, summoning all of his faculties to speak clearly
through the alcohol haze. At last he had her where he wanted her. He pointed a
finger at Thrace, a deliberate calm tightly wrapped around the steel anger in
his voice, controlling the quaver that threatened to betray his real condition.
“You have finally gone too far. And now you’re done.”

She sneered.

“Lieutenant—consider yourself under arrest, pending charges. Report to the
brig.”

Thrace never dropped the sneer, but she did give him the satisfaction of
looking surprised. She bent down, picked up her fallen cigar. Obviously making a
deliberate effort to look unperturbed, she glanced around the room with a slight
smile. “Gentlemen,” she said and, jamming the cigar between her teeth, turned
and swaggered from the room.

Tigh watched with scarcely contained fury. This time he had her. This time he
would break her for good.

The photographers would be arriving soon, and Commander Adama had to get
ready. He pulled a clean dress uniform jacket out of his closet. “Are you really gonna press charges against Kara?” he
asked, turning to look at Colonel Tigh.

Tigh was sunk into an easy chair in Adama’s stateroom. He looked anything but
at ease. “For striking a superior officer? You’re damn right I am.” Tigh pushed
himself up and walked across the room to Adama’s desk.

Adama grunted and refrained from saying a few words that came to mind. “I
heard you started the day off pretty early.” He was increasingly worried about
Tigh’s drinking problem. If they weren’t both so close to retirement, he would
be forced to do something about it. Saul had always been a drinker, but until
the last few months, he had managed to not let it get in the way of his duties.
Of course, until the last few months, his wife Ellen had been a lot more
discreet about her infidelities.

Tigh picked up the framed photo that Adama had received from the hangar crew
earlier in the day. “I wasn’t on duty,” he said with quiet defensiveness. He
studied the picture as he carried it back to the easy chair. “Now, where did you
get this?” he asked in amazement.

“Tyrol’s deck gang scrounged it up.” Adama still found it hard to believe. He
sat on the edge of his bunk and began taking off his boots. “I couldn’t talk you
out of it, could I?”

Tigh gave one of those silent snorts that Adama could have heard in the next
room. “Not a chance. She’s insubordinate, undisciplined—”

Adama interrupted. “She’s probably one of the best fighter pilots I’ve ever
seen in my life. She’s better than I am. Twice as good as you.”

“Like hell,” Tigh growled. He tapped the photo. “How long ago was this?”

Adama shrugged, wiped his face and neck with a towel. “Must’ve been about
twenty, twenty-five years ago. I don’t know.” He put the towel down. “Listen. I’m not going to defend what she did.
Especially the crack about your marital problems. But you
did
kick over
the table first.”

“I did not…” Tigh stopped suddenly and paused in thought. “Unless I did.”

Adama just looked at his old friend for a moment, thinking of the long years
they’d been together—of all the bar fights, all the Cylon fights, all the
battles with military bureaucracy. Tigh had always been the one with the
incendiary temper, and Adama the one to intervene with a cooler head. “You did.
What do you say you drop the formal charges and just let her cool her heels in
the brig until we’re home.”

Tigh sat silent for a beat or two, then—by way of conceding—said, “You
always did have a soft spot for her. Damned if I can see why.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just a crazy old man,” Adama said with a soft smile.

“Yeah,” said Tigh. Beneath the gruffness of his words, Adama knew, was the
unspoken trust between men who had been together through war and peace, honor
and shame. “You sure as hell are. Just like me. No wonder they’re about to put
us both out to pasture.”

Adama laughed. “A couple of old warhorses, eh?”

Tigh grunted. “More like a couple of old mules, if you ask me.”

Caprica Medical Center, Caprica City

Caprica City, capital of the Caprica Colony, largest city on the planet
Caprica, was a modern metropolis. Traffic flowed nonstop through the air, along
the ground, under the ground, and on the water offshore. Its skyscrapers and
towers jutted into a blue sky. It was the epitome of hope, prosperity, and human
achievement. The sight of the skyline was enough to make the heart soar.