Triage

TRIAGE
Chapter One

Lee does the only thing he can to make sure he and Kara survive Pegasus.


In another time, in another place, a tour of duty onboard the Battlestar Pegasus – no matter how much it sucked – was a sought-after posting. Every aspiring officer in the Fleet knew how closely The Brass kept an eye on the ship commanded by the youngest female Admiral on record. Being part a military machine that had been at peace for nearly forty years, spanning twelve planets and hundreds of thousands of personnel, there were few things a junior officer could do to make his service record stand out. Serving, and surviving, any length of time under The Bitch – Admiral Helena Cain – was a sure-fire way to make sure that said service record was worthy of closer inspections by selection committees who approved – or disapproved – applicants for further accreditations.
But that was then.
Right now?
It just plain sucked.
Ever since he came on board, including his current assignment and the smug-ass look on the face of the man walking towards him, Lee Adama could honestly say that working on the Battlestar Pegasus sucked.
Aside from the fact that he had been demoted to Lieutenant, not withstanding the insult when he had been taken off Vipers and re-classified as the new, in-resident Raptor Boy, he had also managed the distinct honour of becoming the in-house kicking-dog for Stinger’s snubbed manhood.
The way Stinger had taken to treating him had nothing to do with Lee being a more talented pilot, a more competent CAG or an all-around better human being.
No – Stinger’s newfound hobby stemmed from a petty-ass scene in the shower room when Lee had caught the Pegasus’ CAG comparing the ‘flight worthiness’ of their respective ‘Vipers’.
Believing he had sized Lee up ‘correctly’, Stinger got in touch with his inner eleven-year old boy and rhetorically asked who had the bigger ‘nose’ and ‘burners’. Keeping his head high and his mouth shut, especially proud of himself for not asking his CAG if there was a correlation between his age and the man’s boot size, Lee could’ve cared less what the other man thought. What would make a difference was how everyone else in the squad was going to treat him, whether or not they were going to follow Stinger’s lead; Pegasus was ruled by fear, not respect, and that mentality trickled down from the highest in command to the greenest rookie. Newly transferred at that point, there was no way he could count on the pilots under Stinger’s command to stand up to their CAG. Then again, not everyone was lucky enough to have a best friend who was strong enough to call him out and help him be a better officer for it.
Piecing together the best way to deal with Stinger without stooping to the other man’s level, he let the CAG believe what he wanted.
That lasted all of three and a half minutes.
Stinger’s sudden sidelong glance had Lee sliding his eyes to see what would make the man stop gloating in mid-sentence.
A certain female Viper pilot, possessing the most dangerous curves in the Fleet, had sauntered into the shower room. Pulling at the hems of her double tanks and releasing the fastenings of her cargos, she stripped down to her sports bra and regulation panties like she was the only one in the place. Bent in half and tugging at her socks was when Starbuck’s posture tangibly changed. Her head kicked up and her muscles locked as she caught a whiff of ‘something’s not right’. Eyes roving over every section of the room as she straightened, intent on finding what she was looking for, the corners of his lips stretched into a ghost of a smile as he watched her shoot down one fool after another who thought that their wolf-whistles, cat-calls, ass-shakes and strategically opened towels would earn them a second look from the infamous Starbuck.
Running her gaze over those standing underneath the shower nozzles, Lee saw the actual moment when she figured out why Stinger had such a haughty expression on his face. Giving her a subtle sign, telling her she was right, he watched as she dropped her socks onto her shower supplies and head in his direction. He wasn’t about to wave her off as she padded barefoot across the tiled floor nor was he going to tell Stinger that trying to match the predatory gleam in Starbuck’s eyes was his second biggest mistake of the day. Stinger had something that Starbuck wanted and it wasn’t the ‘Viper’ the man was advertising in his right hand.
Keeping herself just outside of Stinger’s splash zone, she raked him with her eyes and made it a point to linger over the twenty-four inches of flesh that spanned the man’s narrow hips. Clocking how long he took to ‘get his skids up’, she turned and looked to the left. She didn’t stop at ‘linger’; Lee felt her gaze become white-hot as it slid in, out, and around, every muscle, dip, and hard plane on his body. A peculiar sense of stillness preceded the roaring of his blood as it churned and beat a harsh staccato underneath his skin as he found himself fully facing her and returning Starbuck’s eye frak. Long buried sexual fantasies crept out of their storage locker and played out in the five feet of space that separated Starbuck and Apollo. Tendrils of sexual heat and passion snaked up their bodies and wrapped themselves around all the right places.
If he had blinked, he would have missed it. Bold and brazen Starbuck, swooping in to back up her wing-mate, was undone by a flash of Kara-skittishness
Breaking eye contact first and leaving Lee with a semi to contend with, she was back to being one-hundred percent Starbuck. Without missing a beat, a belittling smirked question, ‘Enjoying the launch pad, Stinger?’ nailed Stinger’s ‘landing gear’ to the four walls of the shower room. It was the cocking of her hips that told Lee she wasn’t done just yet. Craning her neck and raising her voice so that everyone in the shower room could hear her, a caustic explanation about the difference between ‘grow-ers’ and ‘show-ers’ earned her an enemy in Stinger. Making it crystal clear that Apollo would be the only ‘stick’ capable of ‘flying her bird’ had Lee drawing out his own shower until Starbuck was dry and dressed. She wasn’t stupid; the way she took her time brushing her teeth and fiddling with her hair was her way of telling him that the odds on ‘two against all’ were better than the odds on ‘everyone against one’. Joining her at the sinks, standing side-by-side and each keeping a wary eye, he could feel that she was more than primed for the crew to have a go at them.
Leaving together, Lee didn’t realize how wound up he was until he was back in his rack and trying to relax. Looking up at the roof of his bunk, he wasn’t seeing the snide expression on Stinger’s face. Settling deeper into his pillows, he prepped his ‘Viper’ for ‘launch’ by reliving the most dangerous four minutes of his life.
That was weeks ago.
Stinger’s latest assignment had everything to do with the bucket of grease cutting, scorch-mark removing, guaranteed-to-make-metal-gleam concoction the CAG ceremoniously plunked down at Lee’s feet. With just as much pomp, a sponge was dropped into what resembled a failed chemistry experiment from someone’s still.
Every ounce of indignation he had was channelled into keeping his face impassive as Stinger ordered him to wash Vipers. Lee couldn’t stop his fist from clenching when Stinger swung his hand and, randomly, pointed to a Mark Two being taxied from the furthest repair bay. Lee didn’t miss why Stinger chose that particular Viper. He would have to cross three-quarters of the deck, with bucket in tow, ensuring that every Specialist, knuckle-dragger and pilot would see him relegated to being a sponge-jockey instead of the other half of the legendary team of Starbuck and Apollo.
The temptation to pick up the bucket, grip the edges and squarely toss the contents at Stinger played out in his head even as his fingers curled around the wire handle. Using a two-fisted grip as the reason why he ‘couldn’t’ salute Stinger as the CAG turned on his heel and stalked off, Lee settled – for the moment – for scoring another point in their on-going pissing contest.
Blank-faced, he hefted the bucket and made his way down the bay. Here and there, he caught glimpses of crewmembers off-loading from Galactica – conscripted just like him and Kara – to serve on The Beast and work for The Bitch. It was reassuring to see a few familiar faces, even if they weren’t happy ones. Knowing that there were those he could count on if need be was one of two things he called ‘good’ on Pegasus; everything else fell into increasing degrees of ‘not good’. Second Shift was always a shit-shift and Stinger made sure he was always assigned to it. Kara, on the other hand, had been switched to First Shift – sort of. That was her cross, courtesy of Stinger. Cain paying special attention to Starbuck and ordering Stinger to report her daily statistics meant that Pegasus’ CAG couldn’t re-assign her to performing mundane replenishing runs in antiquated shuttle crafts. He had to find another way to screw with her.
The frakker did.
As soon as he found out that Kara was naturally nocturnal and that mornings were the downside of her body’s personal energy cycle, Kara’s schedule was immediately changed. He remembered standing next to her, both of them reading the newly adjusted duty-board, and asking her if she knew anyone in the laundry that sewed. He didn’t have to tell her what he was thinking; she already knew. Re-stitching the letters CAG to read FIC – Frakker in Charge – on Stinger’s duty uniforms was put on their ‘to do’ list.
Getting one of her rare smiles in that moment, a true Kara-smile, gave him hope that he would only have to be dealing with Starbuck twenty-four/seven as long as they were onboard Pegasus. The crew was being even harder on her and being in full Starbuck-mode was her best coping mechanism. But it was work being Starbuck, to keep up that level of intensity and energy day in and day out. It was wearing on her and there were times when Lee thought the woman who gave Starbuck that necessary essence of heart-pricking vulnerability was gone for good. He didn’t know if he had enough reserves to last, or how much longer his wing mate could hold out, until his father found a way to transfer Starbuck and himself back to Galactica. Both of them were reaching a breaking point physically, mentally and emotionally. This bizarro-world, this anti-Galactica, was truly affecting him. The first tugs of depression were pulling at him and it was becoming harder and harder to shake off those darker emotions and thoughts. Having Starbuck/Kara with him, buffering some of the uglier aspects of The Beast by re-directing a lot of the animosity onto herself, was a lifeline he wasn’t about to take for granted – especially since every hit Starbuck took left a stain on Kara. What was further complicating things was that the more she extended herself to protect him, the further she emotionally pulled away from him. She wasn’t punishing him, that wasn’t it at all. She knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it. No, it was more the case of a baser, more human reaction: self preservation. If one had a weak spot, a vulnerability, one protected it. That’s what she was doing; it didn’t mean that just because he understood it that he was going to accept it. Of course, the underlying dysfunction of Starbuck believing that Kara was a liability was something that Lee wished he could scatter to the far edges of the cosmos. In his mind, he had spent days, weeks and months, convincing her that while Starbuck had a place in their world, she would be nothing without Kara.
It wasn’t like they had stopped drinking, playing Triad, working out or hanging out together. Its just that now, those quiet moments when they would both be still and talk, or give themselves a chance to drop their alter egos for the sake of their own sanity and not say anything at all, were all but gone. If they laughed, it was to release built up tensions that came with the ridiculousness of Pegasus and her crew. It was a physical ache not to fly with her and he knew she felt too. No one on Pegasus could keep up with her and with Cain setting up shop in Starbuck’s back pocket she had to play by the rules. He could see that the only joy she got out of flying these days was from skirmishing with Cylons.
Speaking of egos…
While his ego, and that of every other pilot on his father’s ship, had accepted the fact that Starbuck was the best pilot in the Fleet, the guys onboard Pegasus took to punishing her for it. Only one dumb-ass went so far as to actually take a swing at her. He may have split her lip with a sucker-punch she never saw coming but she made sure that the ECO that swung at her spent the next two weeks with his jaw wired shut. Word had it that the man was on the waiting list to be fit for a partial plate to replace some missing teeth. Since then, Lee and Kara agreed to keep tabs on each other. Not smothering or crowding the other person, each made sure each other knew where the other was while on duty. It was a given that off duty hours were spent together, along with anyone else from Galactica that wanted to join them.
Thinking back, the last time he had physically seen Starbuck was last night. Stinger had her assigned to split shifts that included the last half of Third Shift and the first half of First Shift. Wired after being in the air, she would seek Lee out for a work-out/sparring match. Often, she would walk with him to the hanger bay and assist the Chief with prioritising, diagnosing and repairing Vipers and Raptors while Lee reported for duty. Coming back from his shift, he looked on helplessly as she spent evening after evening tossing and turning in her rack, trying to get some sleep. His hands were tied as everyone else who wasn’t scheduled for duty in the Officer’s Quarters played Triad, joked, laughed and carried on. There wasn’t anything he could do to help her. It wasn’t like they were being deliberately raucous; it was just the rhythm of the crew. Of which, Stinger was well aware and counting on to make Starbuck's life miserable. Coming from Galactica, stripped of his Captain's rank, Lee couldn't order them to quiet down. He couldn’t even make a case for her as being a fellow pilot and needing to rest. If he did anything, it would only draw more attention to Kara than she was already getting. He hated that there was nothing he could do to keep the circles underneath Kara’s eyes from darkening as they clocked more days onboard Pegasus.
“Morning, Apollo.”
A voice to his right scrambled the mental images Lee had of Stinger looking at the duty-board and reading that he had been permanently re-assigned to ferry human waste to the reclamation treatment ship and Kara rigging the ventilation system so that just the right amount of methane was fed in to cock pit to make Stinger’s new duties ‘pleasant’ as possible.
It was the Chief – but not Tyrol. Tyrol was still on Galactica. This was the Chief of the Deck on Pegasus; the one Kara always commented about how haunted his eyes always seemed to be and how he didn’t ‘look’ like a Deck Chief to her. Lee remembered asking her why she thought that and watched her shrug her shoulders and say that she could tell that the Chief didn’t like getting dirty. Lee knew he didn’t have a counter to her insight, but he really didn’t dwell on it either. As long as the planes his people flew were taken care of adequately and Kara came home every time she launched, he didn’t have a problem with the man or the way he ran his deck. In fact, the Chief was efficient enough not to show up on Lee’s radar and that was enough for him at the moment.
“Morning, Chief.”
Eying the bucket that Lee set down, the Chief’s eyes flitted between the gunk that slopped over the rim and the Viper he hadn’t finished repairing. The looks the two men exchanged – the Chief recognizing one of Stinger’s signature ‘duty assignments’ and Lee’s look of ‘yeah, I know what he’s up to and it will only be a matter of time until the tables are turned’ – was a silent conversation that didn’t need words.
Instead, the Chief waved at the Viper and invited Lee for a walk-around.
“You can skip the left wing; had to practically re-attach it. The outside is cool enough to touch, but the interior metal is still way too hot. Any cold ‘water’,” he glanced down at the bucket, not sure what to call what was in it, “will warp the welded metal and create a delta of micro fractures.”
Coming around the back end of the fighter, Lee frowned. “The housing unit on the aft burner is a little worse for wear.”
“That’s what it looks like now; you should have seen it come in! How the hell that pilot managed to bring this plane in with only one wing and an aft burner that resembled a wad of crumpled paper is beyond me.” Reverence for the skill the pilot who brought back his bird filled out the Chief’s orange coveralls. It was the mask dropping over the other man’s face that stirred Lee’s hackles. Lowering his voice and tilting his chin towards the deck, Lee didn’t know if the Chief was talking to him or himself. “Gonna go and see if I can fabricate a new canopy for that one, maybe even scrounge up a new one.”
Not sure if the Chief’s sense of loyalty lay with the fighter or the pilot, Lee nodded absently when the other man clapped his shoulder and took his leave. Reaching for the sponge, a self-preserving thought had him stopping in mid-extension. Looking at the Chief’s back, Lee called out, “Chief – got any gloves?”
“Third drawer down, left hand side,” partially turning, the Chief pointed to a tallboy toolbox behind and to the right of Lee.
Giving the Chief a nod and making for the toolbox, gloves were found in the fourth drawer. Slapping them against his palm as he went back to the Viper, Lee took in all the bumps and bruises on the Viper and tried to figure out what the man wasn’t saying.
The eerie sense of something not being right prickled his shoulder blades. Vipers were made for combat. No question. But this one, there was something… wrong… with this particular plane.
Stuffing the gloves into his pockets, he reached out and started running his fingers along the hull, letting the Viper tell him what had happened out there. Dings and dents from different angles spoke of debris coming in at different angles; the pilot had taken on multiple targets or that multiple targets had locked onto the pilot. Scorch marks and carbon scoring were the telltale marks of too many close calls and last minute evasive manoeuvres. The deeper grooves around the gun ports showed that the ship had been a primary engager. A jagged scar running underneath the tip of the nose to just underneath the cockpit spoke of a close encounter where the pilot only managed to pull up in time. Looking at the nameplate on the Mark Two wouldn’t give him the identity of the pilot because there wasn’t one. On Pegasus, nameplates were awarded to those with the highest kill-counts, not individual pilots who put themselves on the line every time the Action Stations alarm sounded or CAP was rotated. To Cain, having never been one herself or any of her command crew, pilots were pawns, a means to an end – completely opposite of the command philosophy he and his father shared.
Still not finding what he was looking for, he put on his gloves and grabbed the sponge. Draining it just enough so that the stuff wouldn’t drip down his arm, he got to work. Rhythmically squeezing, scrubbing, dripping, rinsing and squeezing again, Lee trailed the sponge along the length of the Viper. Compared to his own Viper, a Mark Seven, the Mark Two was all curves. His craft might be technically superior, the latest model to roll off the assembly line, but the power, grace and long lines of the Mark Two gave the fighter-craft a kind of beauty that made his ship look like it was too pretty to go into battle.
His muscles bunched, rolled and released as he worked. Stripping down to his tanks, his hands traced curves and grooves, creases and seams as his mind personified the fighter he was working on. The nose of the fighter, the cockpit, the flare of the wings, the heat and power of the engine, the grace and beauty that thrusters itched to give all melded together to make a complete and potent package. There was a balance of power between a fighter and a pilot. Some pilots didn’t have it within them to really fly their planes – their planes dictated what the pilot did and did not do. There were other pilots who climbed into their cockpits, owning every square inch of the plane between the circuit boards and the hull and the craft accomplished everything the pilot set out to do. It was the difference between those who were born to fly, who loved it, needed it and couldn’t live without it versus the person who could fly and, in a sense enjoyed it, but resigned themselves to keep with it because they didn’t know how to do anything else.
But there were those precious few. Those pilots who climbed into cockpits that seemed to have been made especially for them and planes that were manufactured just so that one specific pilot could sit behind the stick. Merging, becoming one, one felt lucky just being a spectator when such a being flew overhead as one tilted a neck to the sky and tracked it until it became one with the horizon. Those precious few who met a plane on equal footing were those who were made to fly. The respect, admiration and trust a true pilot had for his plane was tangibly returned. Things just felt different.
He had seen her work on her plane, seen how she flew it, and recognized that she was one of those pilots that he could watch for hours. Every move, every adjustment, every vector change – in battle, on CAP or just weaving her way between the ships in the Fleet – was an example of what it would look like when man and machine merged. If there were a hundred ships flying in front of him, each with identical markings, he could easily pick Starbuck out of the fray just by the way she flew.
Being on Atlantia, Galactica and Pegasus, Lee had always chalked up his relationship with his Mark Seven as containing that little bit of superstition he allowed himself that the bulk of his fellow pilots indulged in more heavily. But since the end of the Worlds, that bit of superstition had been re-enforced on two separate occasions. The first was when he sat with his Viper, counting down the hours before attacking the tylium refinery. The second was the first time he climbed into Starbuck’s Mark Two.
An ‘Action Stations’ alarm had gone off and Kara was still down with her knee. It was just after the tylium raid and the repair work on his Mark Seven hadn’t been completed. Kara was on the deck, working with Tyrol and Cally, when he came in and dropped down the stairs. She had seen him scan the hanger bay, picking out which fighter to jump into, and nodded her head towards her bird.
Sprinting to the ladder, his hands wrapping around the rails, he mentally prepared himself to be in a ‘rental’. Being a reservist meant that he didn’t always get to fly the same plane over and over again. Settling into a cockpit had that feeling of being in a rental car: clean, to the point of being sterile, you knew why you were there, what you were doing there and where everything was; there was no need to look for the light switch or wipers because it was the same make and model every time.
Settling into Starbuck’s plane was different from anything he had ever experienced. Everything – from the moment the canopy was popped to Jammer securing the seal on his helmet – was different. Squaring himself to the seat and consoles, he didn’t have much time to think about it before he was sling-slot out of the launch tubes and taking on the incoming Cylon Raiders. But sitting there, in that cockpit, after everything was said and done, he felt like he had been ‘adopted’ by Kara’s plane. Her Mark Two handled a lot differently from his Mark Seven, there was no question about that, but he couldn’t help but feel like the ship had ‘looked out’ for him in a similar way it protected Starbuck. It was a reach to come up with a valid parallel. The closest thing he could compare it to were the stories he had read as a child, about horses knowing the difference between those who were on their backs and had their owners’ permission to ride them as opposed to those who didn’t.
Watching him sit there, in her bird, Starbuck gave him a knowing grin and let him be there as long as he needed. Her intuition stayed with him for days.
His analytical mind snapped him out of his memory. The clues that were right in front of him had strung themselves together – all he had to do was read them.
Dropping the sponge into the bucket, he crouched underneath the nose of the plane and re-inspected the scar he had noticed earlier. An ugly thought creased his forehead. Tracing his hands over the rippled metal, his ugly thought became horrifyingly possible.
Coming around the front of the plane and climbing the access ladder, Lee found himself with a whole new perspective on the damaged fighter.
The aft housing unit had taken a hit, and judging by what the Chief hadn’t been able to completely repair, the shot had been fired at the Viper. Taking that kind of hit would also cause extensive damage to the left wing.
His fingers had barely tripped the hydraulic release on the canopy when that uglier hypothesis took to be coming nails in someone’s coffin.
Surveying the cockpit of the Viper, Lee didn’t have an answer to his next question. Why was the canopy still in place? Since the Viper was that heavily damaged, the pilot should have punched out.
It was with the need to be wrong that he climbed into the pilot’s seat and squared himself with the console. Forcing himself to ignore the Viper speak of a friend betrayed and the way his heart was beating deep and hard, he ran is eyes over every surface of the cockpit. A nick in the transparent barrier, on the inside right corner of the canopy, set the muscles of his jaw to work. His hand never shook as he reached for the ejection lever and gave it a hard tug.
He should have been a smear on the roof of the hanger bay.
He wasn’t.
A few more nails were ready to be hammered into that coffin. The widest part of the scar was at the back of the plane, tapering off at the nose. The reason why the pilot hadn’t punched out was because, besides the obvious, the ejection seat had been sabotaged. The most that had happened was that the pilot’s helmet had bounced off of the inside corner of the canopy.
Vaulting out of the cockpit, feeding equal amounts of fire to his anger and the need to find someone, he took one last look at the rippled, melted, metal on the underside of the Viper.
What would generate enough heat to melt the underbelly of a Viper?
Wracking his brain, comparing one scenario after another as to what could do that kind of damage, he switched to tackling the problem logically. ‘It’ had to be smaller than a Viper but just as fast because if it weren’t, the pilot would have been able to out run it, come about, and destroy it. No. ‘It’ was… ‘It’ was… Scanning the deck, looking for the last piece of the puzzle, his eyes fell on a team of knuckle-draggers loading missiles onto a Viper.
That was ‘it’ – a missile!
Swinging his eyes forward, Lee re-created the battlefield in his head. Visualizing Cylons coming at him, he conjured the pack of Alert Fighters flanking his wing. Being a primary engager meant that the Viper kept its tail to Pegasus as it defended the oncoming attack. This was a safe assumption because of the sustained damage to the aft housing unit and left wing. So, if he were charging forward, facing enemy fire, and the only birds in play that actually carried missiles were Raptors, Heavy Raiders and Vipers, that meant…
All Raiders and Heavy Raiders would be coming at him, not coming up on his six. The only crafts behind him would be those coming from Pegasus.
His mind screeched with disbelief.
The only Vipers equipped with the capacity to handle missiles were Mark Sevens – Mark Twos didn’t have the ballast to counter the added weight. The only crafts that fired missiles were Heavy Raiders and Mark Sevens; Heavy Raiders only carried nukes. Recalling the battle chatter that had been relayed to the bunkroom, there wasn’t a single mention of a radiological alarm!
Marching to the Chief – Stinger’s orders be damned – Lee grabbed the man’s coveralls; the man just showed up on Lee’s radar.
Behind the Chief lay a new canopy and a new ejection component. In his hands was a helmet. It was the Chief’s way of saying he had nothing to do with what happened but he was willing to make sure all the replacement parts were ready to be installed.
“Spread the frakking word.” Barely moving his lips, Lee put every once of Captain Adama into his edict. “From here on out, she and I will be the only ones who will be working on her bird. Do you understand me?”
“She already told me that.” A rueful expression crossed the man’s face as he glanced down at the fistfuls of fabric clenched in Lee’s hands.
“What the hell happened?” Lee demanded.
“You already know what happened; this is Pegasus – remember?” The sneer in the man’s voice told Lee that the Chief had been betrayed more by once by those on the Battlestar.
The latent resignation in the man’s voice had Lee letting go of the Chief’s coveralls and feeling the desperate need to check to see if he had been contaminated by the same disease that flattened the eyes and sapped the soul of the person in front of him.
It was too late for that – Lee was infected just like everyone else. He had become symptomatic long before he picked up Stinger’s bucket and there was one reason – one person – why he was still in the first stages of the disease. He had been receiving regular transfusions of Fight, Fire, and the potent cocktail of Challenge Authority from stockpiles that were already severely depleted.
“Which way?” Lee did bother asking ‘who’ – he didn’t need to.
The Chief’s orange clad arm rose and pointed in the direction of the Ready Room.
The temptation to threaten the man rose like bile in his throat. That was how things were done on this ship but that wasn’t the way things were done, not on Galactica and not in the ‘Book According to Lee’. To make the man fear for his life would maintain the status quo, not instigate the change that needed to happen to save Pegasus.
Shackling his temper with a deep breath, Lee leashed his fury to the locked muscles of his jaw.
“I have watched her help you time and again. If you feel any loyalty to who and what that woman is…” Lee’s voice was strangled by possibility of what almost happened.
Lifting his chin and looking down at the other man, Lee ground out, “Give me a name.”
“I can’t do that.” The fear on the man’s face was tangible.
“But I can make sure nothing happens to these.” Resolve set his shoulders as he moved closer to the components he had already set aside for the fighter.
Nodding, accepting the Chief’s words because he had too, Lee marched off the deck and towards the Ready Room.
Wrenching open the hatch and scanning the theatre of empty seats, Lee left the room with two items on his agenda.
One: he had to find Starbuck.
Two: he was going to find the bastard who tried to kill her.
What happened next depended on whom he found first…




TRIAGE
Chapter Two
________________________________________________________________________
Lee does the only thing he can to make sure he and Kara survive Pegasus.
________________________________________________________________________

Age – it had to be his age catching up with him.

For as much walking as he did criss-crossing the corridors of a ship as big as Pegasus, Jack Fiske – somehow – always found himself huffing and puffing by the time he got to wherever he was going.

Feeling the strain in his chest as his breath got shorter, he was never so relieved to see the hatch to his quarters. It was the one place where the long arm of Admiral Cain didn’t extend.

Punching in his security code with one hand and freeing his brass with the other, he could hear the bottle of ambrosia stashed in his desk drawer calling his name.

Shouldering the door inward, he smelled the blue-tinged cloud of smoke crawling along the ceiling of his quarters before he saw the nearly bald man sipping his hoarded green beverage from one of two shot glasses and sitting behind his desk.

“Might want to shut that, Jack.”

The last thing – or person – he expected to see was Saul Tigh.

“Don’t think you want Cain knowing that you and I are going to have a conversation she most certainly wouldn’t like.”

Leaning even further back in Fiske’s chair, Tigh indulged in another deep draw on the man’s cigarette and chased it with another mouthful of the man’s ambrosia.

Setting his glass down and not caring where the ashes fell, Tigh had to admit that he was enjoying the way Fiske was trying to keep his florid face from giving anything away. He’d bet five cubits that Fiske wasn’t even aware that he was re-buttoning his uniform jacket and hiking his pants up over his gut. Those two things alone made the trip over to The Beast almost worthwhile. Almost, but not quite; it wasn’t enough to make him overlook why he was there. The fact that Fiske hadn’t exploded with indignation at seeing someone in his private quarters, that same person who by-passed the intricate security precautions Fiske had put in place, and helped himself to Jack’s well-hidden private stores of cigarettes and booze, convicted the man of being involved. If he were innocent and found Galactica’s executive officer lounging in his office, Fiske would have been justifiably irate. As it was, Fiske closed the hatch and regarded him the same way someone would if they were ordered to take a bone from a dog and were still figuring out the best way to do it. The man didn’t understand that the ‘bone’ Tigh had couldn’t be taken away.

Watching Fiske step cautiously towards his own desk turned the ambrosia in Saul’s mouth to antiseptic. Every single one of the twenty-odd scenarios he spun in his mind during his flight from Galactica, and rummaging around in the man’s quarters, involved Jack putting up some sort of fight. Or, at the very least, some sort of diatribe ‘justifying’ what he had done. The man’s cowardice over-rode the taste of the alcohol on his tongue and erased the pleasant buzz, courtesy of the third such cigarette currently pinched between his fingers, which until now had made his vigil relatively enjoyable.

“Haven’t had this kind of stuff on Galactica for a while.” Knocking back the liquid still in his glass more for show, Tigh breathed ambrosia fumes in Fiske’s face and lied. “Smooth.”

“Saul – if I had known you were coming, I would’ve had CAP escort you in and met you in the hanger bay as soon as you came on board.” Cracking a wry grin, Jack’s friendliness was limited by the suspicion his eyes. Nor was it lost on either one of them that he didn’t reach out to shake Saul’s hand.

Pouring himself another shot kept him from telling Jack that the man sucked at the fine art of subtlety. Sloshing the ambrosia around in the glass and seriously wondering if he could choke it down, Saul fired a low-level ordinance barrage at point blank range.

“How do you think I came on board, Jack?” Leaning back and giving Fiske every ounce of cavalier-dredged smugness the man deserved, Saul had to force himself to swallow the green swill that clung thickly to the shot glass.

“Seems that someone forgot that once upon a time, I too was a Viper pilot,” Feeding on Fiske’s disgrace, Tigh’s smug look graduated to a tight smirk.

Gods, it had felt good to fly again, even if it did re-enforce the fact that his body couldn’t handle the g-forces of launching on a day-to-day basis. Fun and games aside, it felt even better to lay his cards down – the reason for all the cloak-and-dagger – for Fiske to read.

The man sitting across from him shit a brick as he loosely figured out what Tigh was alluding to; Saul had actually got his ass into a Viper. The reason why no one knew Tigh had come on board was because he was part of that CAP that had been, deliberately, diverted to Pegasus. Using the Pegasus’ condescending attitude as part of the plan, specifically the way the deck crew perceived the ‘hodgepodge’ collection of pilots Galactica called a squadron, a tall, fit, older man would have blended right in – especially if he knew his way around a flight deck. Cain’s people were conditioned to count the number of bodies getting out of their crafts, not to ask for names, ranks and serial numbers of those in the hanger bay.

“It’s come to my attention that you and I each have a problem to solve, Jack,” Tigh drawled.

“You know me, Saul. Anything I can do to help.” Playing it cool, as neither one of them could smell the load of crap in the man’s pants, Tigh was mildly amused as Fiske finally decided to weave his fingers together and rest them on his stomach. “My people are your people.”

Drawing a deep drag of the cigarette – more to burn it down than to actually enjoy the now extinct leaf – Tigh watched Jack’s face become fixated on the glowing tip. Exhaling all over Fiske again, the office chair creaked as Saul leaned forward.

“See – that’s the problem – they aren’t.” Maintaining the upper hand, Saul’s barefaced insinuation made Jack flush a little bit more. Unable to resist pricking the man’s pride, he laid out Fiske’s tactical mistake. “You and your people got sloppy, Jack.”

Hearing the other man’s sputter that he didn’t know what Saul was talking about, Tigh held up his hand in the same way he would silence an overly talkative cadet that was getting on his last nerve.

“You all have gotten so used to looking behind you and watching out for the person in front of you that you’ve forgotten to check your horizontal axis. You aren’t the only ones out there anymore.” Cigarette in hand, Saul tapped his fingers against the face of an oversized, octagonal, envelope and doubled the size of the thousand-pound dagget sitting in the room.
“You see, Jack, pilots are a rare breed of soldier. They’re trained to be the best. They use their eyes and their gut to stay alive. But the number one thing you’ve got to remember about pilots is that there’s always someone watching their back – whether it be a wing man, a commander or a DRADIS system.”

Choosing his words deliberately, Saul identified exactly who knew what Fiske had done, condoned or turned a blind eye to, when the attack on Kara Thrace went down. Tightening the screws, drawing on the memory Bill’s clenched jaw and terse words when Gaeta showed them the stills that were created, made Fiske shrink even more in his chair.

“It’s interesting what your Tactical Office – who has a genius IQ - can accomplish when his commander sees something on the radar screen that he doesn’t like. I never knew it was possible to create prints of a DRADIS display, including those from other ships in the Fleet, before this morning. Did you?” Rhetorical question aside, there was no mistaking just how far down his nose Tigh was looking at Fiske.

“I’ll look into this immediately! If any of my men did anything to jeopardize the life of someone else…” Fiske’s hurried promise was steeped in self-preservation.

Knowing first hand how volatile the younger Adama could be when he was properly ‘motivated’ by a sense of moral conviction had Tigh pouring one more shot of ambrosia. With the deliberateness of moving a chess piece and calling ‘check’, Tigh set the drink on top of the envelope and cut Fiske off at the knees.

“Not this time, Jack.” Tigh slid the envelope – along with the shot of ambrosia – towards Fiske. “That’s already being taken care of.”

Confidence in a certain Captain’s skills lilted the reason why Jack Fiske wasn’t going to do anything but keep turning a blind eye to how the rest of this was going to play out.

There was no mistaking the expectant look on Saul’s face; Fiske knew exactly what Tigh was waiting for him to do.

Effectively trumped by his Galactica counterpart, Jack signed Starbuck and Apollo’s ‘get out of jail free card’ with the two swallows it took to drain his glass.

Standing up, Galactica’s emblem caught and flashed in the light as Tigh’s arms filled out the sleeves. Tigh rested a strong hand on Fiske’s shoulder on his way to the hatch. It was his way to telling Jack Fiske that he was now a permanent fixture on Saul’s personal radar.

Bsg……….xxx……….bsg……….


The resounding clatter of Stinger’s body hitting the metal storage lockers wasn’t nearly enough payment for what the bastard had done.

Keeping his grip on the man’s lapels, Lee hauled Stinger around and jarred the man’s spine against the lip of the metal desk behind them. With the hatch dogged – all but sound-proofing the room – and a pair of boots left hanging on the latch – guaranteed that Lee would have all the time he needed to wring an answer from Pegasus’ CAG.

Stinger was grimacing in pain and Lee had hardly broken a sweat. No surprise there. One couldn’t over heat when one’s blood was running cold with justifiable retribution.

“Answer me!” Lee’s voice was a dangerously tolerant growl that filled Stinger’s office.

“Frak… You…” Tongue lolling to the side, swiping at the trickle of blood seeping from when he had bit his own cheek, Lee could actually see Stinger grapple with the temptation to spit at the man who was kicking his ass.

“Frak me? I’m not the one who screwed up, Stinger. I’m not the one who was so intent on riding my ass that I went and assigned myself to the very Viper I tried to bring down.” Jaw working hard at clenching and unclenching, Lee cocked his head at Stinger and made very word a sentence. “That. Was. YOU.”

Relaxing his grip and rocking back on his heels, Lee managed to look and sound amiable before his eyes narrowed and his lip curled into a snarl.

WHAM!

“Let’s” Pulling his fist free of Stinger’s side, Lee barely felt the impact in his arms, hips and shoulders.

WHAM!

“Try.” Stinger’s solar plexus swallowed his knee; folding the CAG in half made it easier for Lee to re-grip the man’s plackets and haul him upright.

WHAM!

“This.” Not caring that the man was wheezing for breath or that he’d be pissing blood for the next couple of days, Lee nailed Stinger’s kidney.

“Again.”

Watching Stinger flinch as he said, ‘again’, brought a feral glint to Lee’s eyes. He had him – all that was left was for Stinger to start filling in the proper nouns.

“Who gave the order, Stinger?” Lee demanded to know. Fists curling the fabric in his grip like reins, the hem of the man’s shirt lifted. Pale skin was already marbling as the underlying bruise bloomed as Lee gave the other man his sincerest promise. “I can do this all day.”

“Tell me what I need to know and this stops right here, right now.” Dangling a reprieve in front of the man’s pain threshold proved that Lee had the capacity to be reasonable – in spite of the man’s rat-bastardness.

Giving Stinger a chance to make up his mind, Lee used the moment to look at the man with layered vision. One perception belonged to an idealistic captain and War College graduate who understood that the person he was beating to a pulp was once a fairly capable pilot, and more than likely a decent human being, who had been warped and damaged by serving under Cain for far too long. The other part of him was looking at piece of shit who was breathing good air someone else might need later on in life and who didn’t deserve to walk and breathe at the same time for trying to shoot Starbuck out of the sky.

It was the second point of view that was in control at the moment and that was fine with him as he had yet to hear Stinger answer his question.

“You are so frakking lucky. If she had found you first, the only thing you’d be seeing would be the operating lights in Medical as they put your ass back together.” Lee was inches from Stinger’s face but in his head he saw Starbuck’s infamous right hook – one he had first hand knowledge of – knocking this frakker into next week.

That got him an answer – but not one he was expecting. The gleam in the other man’s eye told him Stinger knew something Lee didn’t.

Pivoting one more time and hauling Stinger’s body up and around, they were back where they started – Stinger grunting with pain as he was slammed up against the storage lockers one more time. Changing things up a bit – not wanting Stinger to think he couldn’t be creative – Lee brought his considerable forearm level with Stinger’s wind pipe.

“What?” Applying just enough pressure to purple Stinger’s face, Lee lanced the man with an even harder look of ‘you had better tell me now’.

“She….” Dragging in a shallow breath, Stinger found a stray kernel of stupidity and used it to goad Lee. “Did…”

“She did, ‘what’?” Leaning forward, Lee watched the colour of Stinger’s face darken.

“She….” Air supply limited to what he had in his lungs, his words were hissed rather than spoken as Stinger tried to levy some sort of emotional leverage against the man he sorely underestimated. “Saw… Me…”

Flexing his forearm muscles, pressing more of his arm against Stinger’s throat was Lee’s non-verbal way of ‘asking’ the man to elaborate.

“Came in hot; landed her bird.” Recent memory had the man seeing something other than the section of wall behind Lee’s shoulder; lack of oxygen highlighted the edges of his face and outlined his lips with a distinctive shade of blue.

Reducing the pressure just a hair, enough for the man to tell him what he needed to know, Lee waited for him to continue.

“Pulled a cigar from somewhere; lit it – on the deck and in front of everyone – and smoked the damned thing as she sat in her cockpit. Bitch kept looking at me as she blew frakking smoke rings in the air.”

His last few words were nearly inaudible as Lee corrected Stinger on his use of adjectives concerning his best friend.

“Got out of her Viper; came up to me and snubbed out her cigar – smearing the ashes everywhere – on my report.” Reliving the moment on the flight deck when he was working with the Chief accounting for all the crafts and taking Lee with him, the man justified himself. “Had to do the whole thing over. The bi-… she walked off without looking back.”

Stinger was the embodiment of everything that was wrong, vile, and corrosive that stemmed from Cain’s methodology; the man so deep in the throws of the Pegasus Syndrome that he couldn’t even see that what he did was wrong.

Changing his centre of gravity one more time, Lee spun the man around one more time. Locking one of Stinger’s arms behind the man’s back and pressing upwards, almost to the point of dislocating the CAG’s shoulder, Lee used his considerable strength to face-implant Stinger’s nose to the desktop. Bending over the man, one hand clamped around Stinger’s wrist and the other across the base of his neck, Lee administered two back-to-back doses of ‘antibiotics’.

“Rule Number One: we shoot Cylons – not each other.” Emphasizing every word, Lee made sure he spoke directly into Stinger’s ear as to not be misunderstood.

Giving the man enough slack to nod his head in agreement, Lee re-tightened his grip.

“Rule Number Two: discipline and abuse are two different concepts.” Providing Stinger with a viable example, Lee applied more pressure on the man’s shoulder. “This is ‘discipline’. Popping your joint from your socket? That would be ‘abuse’. Understand?”

The way Stinger puffed out the word ‘yes’ fogged the section of desk that was immediately around his nose and mouth.

While Lee Adama’s inner idealist sought another ‘rule’, Apollo provided one of his own.

“Rule Number Three: Starbuck always makes it home.” Absolute was an understatement for the tone Apollo used. “I don’t care if the order came from you or someone else to take her out but listen to me now and listen to me good.” Apollo’s breath was hot enough to burn his words into Stinger’s memory. “From here on out, I don’t care if you’re somewhere on ship taking a piss or flying out there with her, she makes it back to the barn.”

“You are damn lucky she’s such a frakking good pilot.” Lifting the CAG off of his own desk and shoving the man away from him carried enough force to make Stinger stumble as he re-adjusted to life without Apollo kicking the shit out of him.

Making sure the other man knew exactly how things were going to be from this point on, as they pertained to any more attempts to kill Kara, Lee tossed one more promise at his CAG’s feet as the man shakily heaved in lungfuls of air.

“If anything happens to her, you can count on there being people who will stand in line, twice, to carve their names into your sorry ass.” Knowing whom the man was afraid of the most, Apollo gave Stinger a Starbuckesque smirk. “Of course, that’ll be after Cain gets a hold of you.”

Not bothering to straighten his clothes, Lee reached into his pockets and plucked out an envelope. Four small words, written in his father’s script, stood out against the white background.

Take care of this.

Spreading the corners revealed a DRADIS snapshot, given to him by a Viper-outfitted Tigh, depicting exactly which Pegasus craft fired a missile at Starbuck’s Viper. It was a three-day pass and a ‘get-out-of-jail-free-card’ all in one.

Slapping the photo down next to Stinger, Lee turned on his heel. Watching a grown man step-shuffle to a chair to nurse his ‘wounds’ was something he could live without seeing. Not to mention that Stinger was a lost cause. The infection in the man had reached a point where Stinger had actually made a shift in his personal logic to such an extent that there was no way of reaching the man he used to be. The ‘antibiotics’ Lee administered was an exercise in containment to keep Stinger from further spreading the disease.

Undogging the hatch and leaving the boot where it was, Lee left Stinger’s office. The fact that he still didn’t know who was behind the attack on Starbuck wasn’t lost to him, but what he told Stinger wasn’t entirely the truth. He did care; it was just that the few who’d feel threatened enough by Starbuck to actually pull something like this were, aside from Stinger, beyond his reach. Given the fact that Tigh – the last person he’d ever suspect of protecting Starbuck – was the one who passed him that envelope, that end of the problem was already being addressed.

Breathing heavily with the need to empty his lungs of the contaminated air he inhaled that reeked with the stench of rotten officer, he had to admit that the air in the corridor wasn’t much better. It would take a long time and a lot of ‘disinfectant’ to purge the disease from the Battlestar. But she – Pegasus – was worth it, as were the people who called her ‘home’.

Stinger’s re-education and subsequent ‘first aid’ cost him time he hadn’t intended on spending.

Assuming Stinger hadn’t been lying when he said that she was physically in one piece when she landed, it had been hours since Starbuck came back on board. The connotation that she walked off the flight deck without even finishing her shift added to his concern, as did the memory of the nick in her canopy from where her helmet collided with the transparent barrier when she tried to punch-out.

FRAK!

Pegasus was a big-ass ship; twice the size of Galactica and engineered to be manned by a third of the crew. There were so many cargo holds, launch bays, air locks, civilian and staff areas that the only way someone was going to be found was if they wanted to be found. Aside from a systematic, organized, deck-by-deck manhunt, anyone who wanted to truly disappear could actually do that on Pegasus.

His perception of the iconic figure – the winged horse of Zeus, the carrier of thunderbolts and messages of the Gods – had changed. He no longer saw a beautiful, white, fully-fledged steed galloping among the clouds. Not that he ever had much faith to begin with, but even he had to admit that he bought into the romanticized versions of the ancient tales and fables to a certain degree. For him, now, Pegasus was a mare sullied by a master who didn’t deserve her and took her gifts for granted; driven relentlessly and forced to battle her way across the cosmos while being denied a place to light; scarred and believing that she was the only one of her kind.

But she wasn’t alone. She had found Galactica and Galactica knew exactly where Pegasus would find refuge.

That thought had him stopping in mid-stride and rolling his eyes at himself. Turning on his heel and taking a left at the next junction, he knew exactly where to find Starbuck. All the times she told him that he thought too much rang true. He didn’t have to systematically search all the places he thought Starbuck would run and hide; Kara would run until she couldn’t run anymore.

Lengthing his gait, his walk became a trot. The carpeted hallways muffled the sounds of his boots as his pace increased to a light jog. Navigating away from the more heavily trafficked areas, he picked up speed until he was full-on running.

Pegasus was a Mercury-class ship, just like Atlantia. Having served on Atlantia, making his way through the maze of corridors that led to the outer-most levels of the ship was like superimposing his past with a one of the possible futures his life could have entailed if the worlds hadn’t ended. In another world, in another time, he may’ve had a shot at commanding one of these massive vessels. Then again, who’s to say he would’ve even stayed in the service? Zak’s death was an event unto itself that challenged his perceptions as to what was – and wasn’t – important in life. And yet, he’d surpassed his old man and made a name for himself as the officer and man that he was – not because he was a strategically married war-hero’s son – by making Captain before he turned thirty.

Dropping down service stairs two at a time, landing safely by gripping the handrails, Lee pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He couldn’t play the ‘coulda-shoulda-woulda’ game. Not right now. Right now, his best friend, resident gad-fly and wing mate needed him and had to be his focus.

Who was he frakking kidding?

He needed her. He needed to see her, for himself, to make sure she really was in one piece. To trace the outline of her body and know that her heart was beating and that her lungs were exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide.

His pace slowed.

His own breathing became less ragged.

His fear tripled as he ran out of ship to cross.

Facing the doorway of the foremost observation room, there was no where else for anyone to go. It was the last barrier between the hull of the ship and the cold vacuum of space.

A palm waved over the motion-sensor pad triggered the retracting door.

Just like on Atlantia, located away from any of the main areas, one of the most beautiful places on the ship was one of the least trafficked areas. Few could accept that a warship would have such a tranquil place, let alone bring themselves to visit there. It was a paradox that challenged the mind as much as it was actually built to help crewmembers remember the beauty in the universe. Or, looking at it from a more realistic point of view, the engineers screwed up. They ended up with an extra ‘room’ and the designers didn’t know what to do with it. Unable to ‘shave’ it off the finished design and still keep the clean lines that was the hallmark of the Mercury-class ships, it was made into an observation area and tagged as a psychological necessity for the crew. The only ones who went there were those who knew where it was. Lee would bet that Cain’s command didn’t include the warm fuzzies that came with watching a particularly stunning ion storm make its way across the cosmos or the deadly beauty of a gas-giant’s heaving atmosphere.

Stepping into the dark room, the door automatically closed.

Starlight was the only illumination he had to weave his way around the chairs, chaises and tables scattered strategically to create nooks and private areas for people to meet socially and enjoy each other’s company.

It was the oversize shadow that clung to the far side of the Observation Window that set his course.

He couldn’t help himself.

What was meant to be a careful approach became a near desperate rush.

The noble intention of putting himself and his needs away was pushed aside.

The ‘best friend’ persona he had perfected found itself clapped in the same irons that normally kept his possessive, primal, and protective persona, the one that innately recognized that he loved this woman, shackled.

His boots were toed off before he reached her.

The buttons on his jacket were freed and he was barely aware of it pooling around his elbows before he let it fall to the floor.

His double tanks were still gripped in his fists as he gained her side, despite the darkness in which she stood.

Flinging them behind him, his hands were free to trace the contours of her face, the slope of her cheek, the pillowy temptation of her lips and the softness of her hair. Unable to see details, the slight crinkling of the strands underneath his fingers told him she hadn’t hit the showers yet. Smooth slickness and the bite of zipper teeth against his chest told him she hadn’t even taken off her flight suit.

Pulling her close, he proved to himself that her heart was still beating by crushing her lips to his.

But was she still breathing?

Hard, rough, and pulsing with the need to know, his fingers gripped the tab of the zipper and separated the two halves of her suit. Not breaking his kiss, as if his ardour was the only thing keeping her heart beating, he pushed the flight suit down her shoulders and yanked it – along with her g-shorts – down until both were pooled at her feet.

He felt her body rock as she stamped her way out of her flight suit and pulled her bootless feet - somewhere, somehow, Starbuck had taken off her boots – free of the heavy, protective gear.

Hauling her against every hard plane he had, he wrapped his arms around her waist and slid them down and over her hips, cupping the firmness that tightened under his hands. His fingers warmed with the heat of her body. Her chest expanding and contracting against his pecs was the physical proof he needed to know that she was still drawing breath.

He had not idea how his pants got undone – whether he did it himself or if Starbuck’s more than capable fingers released the clasps – but cool air wafting against his backside was the only prompting he needed to step out of the pile of fabric that was his pants and skivvies.

Heads buried in each other’s necks, Lee draped her arms around his shoulders and felt his way along her flanks. Hooking her thighs with his strong hands, it was only seconds before he had his hips bracketed by the crooks of her knees and her heels bouncing against his hamstrings.

One lithe, powerful movement and he knew.

He knew he and Kara were alive.

Buried to the hilt in hot, wet, slick, welcoming Kara; it was better than any fantasy, dream or wishful thinking. Squeezing his eyes shut and unable to pull away from the intoxicating aroma wafting up from Kara’s body, he wanted – needed – this to last.

So…

Frakking…

Tight…

Step-shuffling, never severing the connection seared into his soul, he stopped when he braced Kara against the window.

The primal growls that rattled his chest as he began to thrust nearly undid him.

Feeling the weight of her head no long on his shoulder and hearing the muted, soft sound of her head coming to rest against the transparent barrier, he opened his eyes to look at the woman who never ceased to give him what he needed whether it was a kick in the ass, the vehemence of a staunch supporter, or to see for himself that she was still alive.

A pair of flat eyes, fixated on something only she could see and an expressionless face stilled his hips.

Oh, Gods…

She had it – the Pegasus Syndrome.

How could he have missed it? Why didn’t he pay attention to the fact that she let him get this far without saying something or doing something that had, in the past, stopped this moment from happening?

Pegasus was about fear, subjugation, rules, regulations and a sense of forced identity.

Which was the exactly the same, but at the same time, the complete opposite of what they – Kara and Lee – were about; fear of commitment, Fleet rules and regulations on fraternization – not to mention that they each shared the same paternal figure – and the need to be Starbuck and Apollo, Captain/Lieutenant Adama and Lieutenant Thrace when they were out of the cockpit – especially when the two of them were in the same room.

But right now, it was just him and her – Lee and Kara – and the stars.

Focusing intently on her face, he shifted slightly. A distant light – perhaps no more than starlight refracted off of some surface in the room – appeared and disappeared in the corner of one of her eyes.

It was the glint of hope he had been looking for.

He could do it.

He could bring her back.

She was still there, somewhere. He just had to reach her.

Settling her more completely against the window freed his hands. Cradling the side of her head with one hand, the other he used to turn her face until her green eyes were angled so that she could look directly into his blue eyes.

“Kara?” Licking his lips, tasting her mouth on his tongue, Lee called out to her.

There was no where else for her to look, but there was no way she was seeing him.

“Kara?” He wasn’t going to give up on her. “Kara – listen to me, it’s me – it’s Lee.”

An ache in his legs had him rocking his body and resettling the connection between him and Kara. Losing his footing for second, he leaned forward. Air hissed over his teeth as the tight hold she had on cock squeezed him even more intimately as he pressed even deeper into her body.

Recovering, he caught the tail end of some semblance of recognition flit across her face. It wasn’t enough to spark her eyes, but the slackness around her mouth was no longer there.

Her body was reacting but her mind, her soul, the very things that had gotten him through his own bout with the disease, were – not so much gone – elsewhere. Locked away for their own good.

Locked away….

Locked away….

Anything that was put away could be brought out again.

Sex was something she knew, was familiar with; her sexuality was intrinsic to who and what she was and is. It was going to be the anchor he was going to use to reach her.

Gathering her in his arms, keeping her tight and protected, it was a handful of steps before he reached the nearest couch. Carefully sitting down and leaning back, making sure she had enough room to lock her heels behind his back, he pulled her forward so that her face was just inches from his own.

Slowly at first, he started to lift his hips. It was the kind of torture that healed his soul as much as it nearly broke his self control.

For him, every thrust, every rocking motion, every caress of her velvety heat exorcised another Pegasus demon.

For him, watching her, it was like witnessing a flame touching piece of paper. For a moment, it’s like the paper is impervious to the flame but then, suddenly, it goes everywhere, fully involving the paper until it is consumed.

That terrifying deadness to her eyes lasted a handful of thrusts before a near manic light flared bright and hot. Jerking her body and trying to pull away, Lee reached out to her with a steady hand.

At least, that’s what he thought she was trying to do.

It was a moment before he realized she wanted her feet free for an entirely different reason.

Her hands came up and gripped his head roughly. Her tongue, thrusting into his mouth was even harder. Firmly sealing him against her lips, her hands roamed through his hair, down his neck and wrapped around his wrists. Lifting and twisting his hands, Lee’s palms were filled with the luscious weight of Kara’s breasts. Tightly furled nipples poked at his calloused palm and his fingers learned to pinch and twist the rosy tips until they were red and wanting.

He didn’t miss the desperate way Kara had pulled her legs out from behind his back and tucked them underneath her so that she would have better leverage to ride him deep and hard.

Pulling off of him, bracing her hands on the tops of his shoulders and tossing her hair out of her eyes, she looked down at where they would join and took aim.

Sure and true, fully seated and utterly consumed, she rose and fell on him. Meeting her every downswing with an up-thrust, he kept one hand on her breast while the other pulled her mouth to his.

The pin-pricks of sweat that gave their skin an ethereal shine in the starlight ferried the infection out of their minds and souls.

Wrenching her mouth off his, Lee’s breath was hard and fast as he leaned her back slightly. Latching onto her upper arms just as she was coming down, he kept her in place as his hips acted on their own volition. Quick, deep, rapid-fire thrusts were powered by his strong, muscled body. Hands tightening reflexively, his orgasm ripped through him; mouth dry, he pressed hot, breathless kisses against the dew-wet skin of Kara’s body, tasting nothing but the sweetness of a woman loved.

Head tossing from side to side, eyes flashing, fully flushed by her exertion, potent, a sudden series of cries mirrored the body-encompassing tremors that travelled underneath her skin as she broke around him.

Fingernails digging into him, he never felt. Not when he could look up and see a pair of green eyes looking down at him like they were truly seeing him for the first time.

The flattened, defeated look was gone.

In its place was the woman who made living with Starbuck worthwhile.

Still perched above him, still intimately connected, still joined in a way that rarely happened between lovers, Kara’s chin trembled ever so slightly.

“It was bad out there, Lee.” Barely more than a whisper, her voice raspy from her recent orgasm, that fact that she was even telling him what happened out there was a concession he didn’t miss. “There was a Raider in front of me, spinning and firing. I banked and pulled up on the stick. That’s when I felt something graze me; next thing I see is the burn of a missile. It hit the incoming Raider. I had no where to go and even less time to get there. A bit of the Raider was what clipped my wing and burner. I tried to punch out, but nothing happened.”

Lifting his legs, taking Kara with him, he shifted both of them until she was lying flat on her back and he was on his side, looking down at her. Tracing a gentle hand over the contusion he could feel underneath her hair, he made a note that in Kara-speak, head-to-canopy impacts translated into nothing.

Finding his voice deep and thick, he asked, “What did the medic say?”

“I never saw one.” Her admission led to one more. “They tried to kill me today, Lee; I couldn’t. This is…”

“Pegasus,” Lee finished her sentence, the same one he heard earlier from the Chief. Gods knew how he hated hearing those words strung together.

This was not how he envisioned their post-coital conversation but at least they were talking without the protection Starbuck and Apollo provided.

His thoughts paused as he saw her catch an eyeful of his skinned knuckles.

“Who told you?” Defensiveness underscored her question as she tried to put some space between their bodies.

Levelling a look that told her he was speaking the truth – and keeping her where she was – Lee’s answer was honest, “Your Viper.”

Accepting him at his word, her eyelashes formed crescent moons on her cheeks before rising again. She knew he was fluent in Viper-speak, but he could see her next question coming.

“Stinger frakked up, Kara.” Succinctly telling her what she wanted to know, he cracked a grateful eyebrow. “That, and Galactica is watching our backs.”

“Lee – are we going to be okay?” What was once a whisper was little more than a hesitant murmur.

There were so many answers in his head, not to mention that the very same question was one of the reasons why he nearly succumbed to the Pegasus Syndrome. Almost – but not quite. He has someone a lot closer that Galactica watching out for him and he was going to be damned if he was going to let this place, this ship, destroy Kara.

“I don’t know, Kara.” He wasn’t about to lie to her. “I do know that ‘two against all’ are better odds than ‘everyone against one’, if that means anything.”

The dark hid his hopeful look but his voice gave away some of the feelings he had been hoarding.

Quiet for a moment, each looking at the other’s body rather than each other, Kara placed a slightly uncertain hand on his chest. Resisting the urge to speak first, he rolled his lips together as he waited for her.

“How much time do we have, Lee?”

Sliding on top of her as she slid underneath him, he braced his weight on his elbows. Dipping his head and kissing her hard and deep, he indulged in several minutes of evocative nipping and licking. Feeling her arch against him, brushing his hips with her curls, had him leaving a trail of marks from her jaw to each of her nipples. Dampening each one in turn with his tongue and mouth, he lifted his head and looked at the woman he nearly lost.

Remembering the photo he smacked down on Stinger’s desk, the temptation to say ‘three days’ dried in his throat. They did have a thee-day pass and they were going to use every minute of it, but he didn’t want Kara – or himself – to focus on a time frame when they should be taking advantage of the time they had. Every doctor he had ever been too had always added ‘rest’ and ‘plenty of fluids’ as the secondary protocol to any medical recovery.

“Long enough to make what happened today a distant memory, Kara.”

Nodding her head, finally accepting the other end of the lifeline she had tossed him when they had first come on board, she took him up on his promise.

“Make me forget, Lee….”

Bsg……….Xxx……….Bsg……….

Fin…