Section 1.2 : Sword of Honour

01 Sextus 6489
Colonial Military Academy, Caprica :

"Do you think it will rain?"

Apollo glanced at the window. "No. The sky's clear. It's none too warm out there though."

"I'm too hot, anyway," said Athena.

His mother said something he couldn't quite catch, drowned out by the usual litany of nerves that they got out of his sister. Apollo stared out of the window, letting both Athena's complaints about the fit of her jacket and his mother's soothing murmur wash over him.

It had been a cool spring, and summer wasn't shaping up to be any better. In the unseasonable Sextus weather, the Colonial Military Academy compound was pitilessly grey. Only the slender metal flagpoles foresting one end of the parade ground, and the fresh wind that had sprung up overnight and had each silk rectangle snapping and straining against its halyard, lent colour and movement to the overall greyness. It had looked pretty much like this six yahrens previously when he'd been a part of SSI's annual pilgrimage across the Great Divide of the Academy's grounds to use the parade ground for the graduation of its own elite few.

If he pressed up against the window and craned his head to the left, Apollo could just see the familiar roofline at the very far end of the Academy's extensive compound. There was more than symbolism in the way that the Strategic Studies Institute turned an elegant back on the more plebeian neighbour in whose grounds it was housed. Apollo had felt at home and at peace there, on the single teaching day he had at SSI each secton. He didn't really belong in the Academy. He'd turned his back on it a lifetime ago. He'd turned his back on a lot of things.

He focused on his own regimental flag, dissatisfied, and watched as a dark mass across the far end of the parade ground resolved itself into a group of figures. Top Brass, given the amount of gold and silver braid bedecking them. One figure detached itself and walked briskly towards Athena's dorm building, threading a path through the growing crowds massing nearer the buildings.

Adama.

Apollo quickly drew back from the window, out of sight, turning to face his mother and sister, Athena was pulling at the collar of her dress jacket. It was the last time she'd wear cadet grey. After today, after she took her Fleet oath, she'd be in the same dark blue colours that their father always wore, serving on their father's battlestar.

"Why didn't you choose combat duty?" he asked, abruptly. "You're a fair pilot."

"I didn't want it."

"You're as good as Sheba is. She chose combat last yahren, didn't she?"

"I'm not Sheba." Athena pointed to the ceremonial sword in his hands. "Are you going to give me that?"

She raised her arms to let him buckle on the belt that held the sword. It was a family heirloom that their father, and the Lords only knew how many generations before him, had carried on graduation. Apollo hadn't carried it. He hadn't expected to, he hadn't asked to; and by the time it was (reluctantly, he thought) offered to him, he already had the new and gloriously decorative sword that Joss had had specially made for him, a sword untainted by any familial tradition. He was making his own tradition, he'd said when he refused the old, useless weapon he'd never believed his father would let him touch.

He risked a kiss to her cheek when he'd fastened the belt around her slim waist. To his surprise, she didn't protest or wriggle: Athena wasn't normally given to encouraging or offering stray embraces, but she even hugged him back.

"You look lovely." Ila raised a ridiculous scrap of be-laced linen to dab at one immaculately made-up eyelid. Apollo couldn't see any actual tears. Ila met his gaze without flinching, and he smiled, letting her know that he privately applauded the effectiveness of the gesture. She smiled back unblushingly, sharing the little conspiracy.

"Do you think Dad'll get here on time?" Athena asked, once she'd got the sword settled to her exacting standards.

"Your father hasn't missed a Passing-out Parade for over thirty yahrens." Ila's small, beautiful hands twitched the sword into what she evidently felt was a more becoming angle. "His shuttle was due to arrive two centars ago. He'll be here."

"It's just that I wanted to see him before we have to muster for the Parade."

"He's on his way," said Apollo. "He arrived with Uncle Jak a few centons ago. I just saw him." He gestured at the window and the parade ground beyond.

Ila gave him a sharp glance. "Good."

"But where's Zac? I'll bet he's off canoodling with that cheap little blonde he's been seeing. If he's late, I'll never forgive him."

"I've got Zac precisely where we want him." Apollo was as familiar as his sister with their younger brother's irritating habits. "He's under lock and key."

Ila's sharp eyes brightened with amusement. "The brig?"

"Well, no, although I thought about it," admitted Apollo. Even though he'd given his last lecture two days earlier, he was still counted as a tutor at the Academy with all its duties and rights, including the right to order punishment duty for any defaulting cadet. And it couldn't be denied that Zac had seen the inside of the Academy brig more than once, if not by Apollo's hand.

"You'd better go and get him."

"Yes, Mamma." Apollo wondered which 'him' his mother meant. He looked his sister up and down, and saluted her smartly. "Ensign."

For once, he'd said something that pleased her. Blushing, Athena saluted back. "Sir!"

Adama had arrived at the foot of the staircase outside Athena's room, settling the dark blue dress cape around his shoulders, repairing the ruffling the sharp wind had given the parade-ground perfection expected of commanders. He carried the ensemble off well, a lot better than Apollo could, but then Adama was broader shouldered and stockier and evidently didn't have to fight the malign dress cape from the instant he put on. Apollo ran down to join him.

"Athena's worrying that you'll be late." Apollo stopped on the last step, knowing the nod of approval was for his fast progress down the stairs. On Adama's last, brief, home visit, Apollo had still occasionally used a cane.

"I'm never late." Adama took a good long look at him and nodded. "You look better each time I see you."

Apollo grinned and took the last step down. "I couldn't look worse!"

"That's true. You looked terrible on the hospital ship." Tentative, as he always was when they were first reunited, Adama raised his hands and rested them on Apollo's shoulders. "You look very well now, thank God. I'm delighted to hear you've accepted Fleet."

"I'm getting used to the idea, myself." Apollo made himself stand still, not to flinch.

Adama nodded, and just for a micron he pulled Apollo in close, his hand on the back of Apollo's head, smoothing his hair. Adama had had two flying visits home since Telnos and Apollo had been touched by the length of time his father had tried to spend with him each time, as well as by the attempts at more overt affection. It was still a little awkward. Adama had the air of a man trying to make up for lost time and not always knowing how to do it.

Apollo could feel his father's warm breath across his neck and ear as Adama murmured something. The muttering was Kobolian, but what the scholar in Apollo considered to be the bastardised version appropriated by the church, not the pure Kobolian he preferred. A blessing, he realised, unsurprised.

"And if you're both finished with this affecting reunion," said Ila from above them, "Athena's waiting."

"Yes, dear." The Great Commander could be surprisingly meek. Adama pulled back, casually straightening Apollo's wayward cape as he did so. "Just completing inspection."

Apollo grinned at his father, recognising maternal disapproval over their restraint. "She always cries when she first sees me after I've been away," he said, letting his father know the standards to be met.

"I can imagine."

"Over-emotional, would you say?" Apollo grinned up at his mother, getting in a little jab over her earlier performance with the handkerchief. She scowled at him.

Adama's mouth twitched into a small, grave smile, acknowledging the moment of harmony, their alliance against the female half of the family. Then he basely switched sides. "Well, no, I wouldn't. Not when there's the remotest chance that your mother might hear me."

"Daddy?" Athena appeared at the head of the stairs, looking and sounding like the shy schoolgirl she'd been. Apollo thought she hadn't called their father by that childish diminutive for yahrens, and he raised an eyebrow in Adama's direction, wondering what had provoked it.

Adama smiled up at her. Ila gave Apollo the pointed look that suggested his absence would be a very good thing indeed. She'd spoken to him about it earlier, and even if he'd protested he wasn't in competition, he'd agreed to give Athena a clear run.

"I'll go and get Zac," he said, obligingly.

"We'll talk later," promised Adama, and started up the stairs. He paused and turned. "Where is Zac?"

"I've got him locked up in my office."

"I'd thought you'd finished here."

"I will have in a few days, when this yahren's tests are over. He'll be looking through the strategy exam paper I left in the top left hand drawer, thinking he's got one up on me at last."

Adama smiled. "I take it he hasn't?"

"No, not yet. That's the test paper for my SSI class."

"It's only a matter of time," warned Adama.

Apollo grinned, under no illusions whatsoever about his little brother's abilities. "I know."




As soon as Athena, blushing and excited, had been sent off to the final yahren muster, Ila hooked her arm through her husband's. They made their way to the spectator stands, moving through the crowds of parents and military top brass. She nodded and smiled greetings, as usual managing to meet the social demands life made on her without letting them impinge even slightly on what she was really thinking.

"When Athena was little and this excited, she'd be sick," she observed. "I think she's grown out of it, but I'll be glad when the ceremony's over."

"Mmn," said Adama. "I'm delighted to see him looking so well, Ila. When I think that when I saw him last he was still on a walking cane, it seems a miracle."

"That was almost five sectars ago. He's pushed himself pretty hard to get this far; too hard, sometimes, I think, but his doctors managed to keep him under control." Ila tried again. "Athena did well this yahren, don't you think? The commandant's been very complimentary about her."

"Yes – very well. It's just what I expected of her, but I'm pleased." Adama frowned. "He doesn't look happy."

Ila sighed very softly and let the tide take her where it willed. "No. He's not. He wasn't happy with Joss, and he's not happy without him. But I thought that was what you wanted, Apollo without Joss."

"Yes," said Adama, but then he could hardly deny it.

"Then you have to accept the consequences, which aren't all as beneficial as we'd like."

"I know you don't approve, but I wanted him to remember he had choices, and I wanted him away from Joss."

"You never did forgive Joss, did you?"

"Did you?"

Ila shrugged delicately. No, she hadn't forgiven, but she was better at compromise than Adama was and she'd grown fond of Apollo's lover. She nodded distantly at a Fleet officer whose name escaped her, not letting her annoyance show, remembering a strong willed young man in a hospital elevator and her eldest son's unhappiness. "You might want to think about whether you chose the best means to cut him loose. More people than Joss got left, you know, and I dare say they aren't happy either."

"But he's cut Joss adrift. That's good."

"Apollo is the one doing the drifting, and in some odd directions."

Adama said, complacently, "In some more acceptable directions. She's a very nice girl."

Ila shrugged again, amused that the thought of Apollo living un-Sealed with Shield Lieutenant Rosalyn was a matter for congratulation, no matter how nice she was. In anyone else, it would have drawn Adama's most measured condemnation for immorality. But, of course, anything was better than Joss. It was all relative, even sin.

"Oh, I don't deny that, although he's very close-mouthed about what's really going on there."

Adama glanced at her. "He hasn't said anything to me, either. I've not dared ask outright, but I'd thought that since she was living at the apartment…"

"I thought so too, but he doesn't say. The apartment's not that small, you know, and there's two bedrooms. It could be perfectly innocent. And don't get your hopes up too high. She's spent her leaves there this yahren, but she's not been on Caprica for sectons." Ila paused, then said, thoughtfully, "I wonder how he likes being the one left behind while Rosie is away on one of those jobs he loved so much?"

"He left her the pendant in his will."

"That's true, too. I'm just saying that I wouldn't expect a Sealing announcement any time soon. I don't think it's Rosie, for him. I don't know what Rosie thinks, poor girl." Ila smiled when she saw her two tall sons waiting near the VIP stands. "I'm glad he was home so long, though, and I'll miss him dreadfully when he goes to Demeter next secton. For one thing, Zac's been so much easier to manage. He'll go out of his way to do anything Apollo asks him to."

Adama snorted, and she smiled again, satisfied with the little revenge, knowing that it had hit home. Zac went out of his way to do the opposite of anything Adama wanted him to do or to do something he knew would send his father into a towering rage. Adama would never admit it, but he resented his eldest son's influence over his youngest as much as he gave thanks for the way it mitigated some of Zac's wilder flights.

"Athena's looking forward to joining you on the Galactica," said Ila. "I'm delighted she's been posted there. It will be nice for you two to spend some time together."

"I won't be able to mother her, Ila. Just because she's my daughter doesn't mean any special treatment – just the opposite, in fact. I have to be fair. I can't give her any more attention than anyone else on my bridge gets."

Ila made her mouth soften from the hard lines it was wanting to take and let the lightness cut like barbs. "Well, that'll be a great deal more than she's used to."

Adama only glanced sideways at her before being distracted. His impatience smoothed out into pleasure. "There's Cain and Bethany. We'd better join them."

"How delightful," said Ila.




"How's Thenie?"

"Nervous. You mustn't tease her."

Zac grinned. "It's irresistible. Almost as much fun as teasing him."

"Do you never actually think about anything serious?"

Zac gave this a micron's consideration. "Not if I can help it. I'm more of a feeler."

That got the half-smile that he loved to provoke from his elder brother. "That explains some of your class ratings, then. You feel your way to a D grade."

"Your aversion to cutting me any slack in class took fair play and anti-nepotism to extremes, you know. I've done all right this yahren, haven't I?"

"Yes," conceded Apollo. "You did okay."

Given how hard he'd worked, in Apollo's classes at least, Zac thought that a little grudging, but he felt his face grow hot with pleasure. He suspected that Apollo considered it a ringing endorsement.

"Then be grateful I didn't blight your teaching career and don't make snarky comments when he gets here. Otherwise I'll be treated to another lecture about how hard I'll have to work hard to get onto a battlestar. Which, I might add, I'm not sure I want, anyway." Zac rather thought that he might like to take Shield, when he thought about the future at all. From the little Apollo would ever say, and that was damned little, Shield sounded exciting.

Apollo said less than even damned little. Zac saw the green gleam as Apollo glanced sideways at him, but his brother remained provokingly silent.

Zac was rather put out at the lack of fraternal interest. "What, no lecture on duty and honour and service?"

"It's your decision. You don't need me to tell you that he'll be disappointed. He'll kick up a fuss if neither of us joins the family firm."

Zac ran a hand inside the tight collar of his dress greys, reflecting that Apollo was missing the entire point. Of course their father would fuss and therein lay the amusement. Of course, he wasn't sure that he wanted the same sort of fuss that Apollo's rebellion had generated, but he was equally sure he'd agonise less over it than Apollo had. Zac made a habit of sailing unscathed through life. It left more time for the important things.

"You escaped," he pointed out.

"Temporarily. I'm going to the Columbia, don't forget."

"Temporarily. And don't you forget that at least it's not the Galactica. Just because you got away, don't think that I'm going to be left behind to be your sacrificial lamb on the family altar. If I do decide I don't want it, then he'll have to make do with Thenie. That'll be nice for him, if she stays as snippy as she was at breakfast."

"It's a big day for her and she's stressed. You do know about the effects of stress? You have done human biology, haven't you?"

Zac smiled. "Oh yes. I'm making quite a personal study of it."

"Zac!" protested Apollo and, to Zac's delight, he laughed; a rare thing, these days. "The little blonde?"

"Letal. She's Aquarian."

Apollo nodded, and held a hand about shoulder high. "I know which one. About this high and the best developed mammary glands in your yahren."

"Oh yes," sighed Zac. He raised his two hands, cupping them around imaginary breasts. "Oh yes."

"I'd wondered how the laws of physics have been bent to allow a body that slender to support a chest of that magnitude. I might have known that you'd have been making a personal study of the phenomenon."

Zac laughed. "She has some impressive underpinnings."

"Underpinnings? I'd have thought she'd need scaffolding to hold those up. You could set at dinner for six on that chest. Has she seen her feet since she hit puberty?"

"Who the hell's interested in her feet?" marvelled Zac.

Apollo grinned, shaking his head. "You are such a gentleman."

"Was I the one who brought this subject up? I hadn't realised you even knew which one it was this secton." But Zac was gratified all the same. Apollo normally loftily ignored Zac's romantic entanglements, claiming, when challenged, that he wasn't good enough at the math and the man hadn't lived who could devise a computerised tracking system with a sufficiently high data-handling capacity.

"I didn't. I can't keep up with your love life. It makes me dizzy. Athena mentioned her and then I worked it out."

"You're one to talk about dizzy," jeered Zac. "At least I know what I want!"

"Oh, so do I," said Apollo. "I can't always have it, that's the problem."

Zac looked at him sidelong, wondering if he'd gone a bit far in commenting on Apollo's unexpected swing into straightness. His brother looked as grim as he sounded, but Zac didn't think that Apollo was talking about Joss. He wondered, again, just where Apollo had vanished to in those sectons after leaving Joss – or more to the point, maybe, just who he'd vanished with. Hand on heart, Zac could say that he'd given it his best and most charming shot but not even he had been able to wheedle the information out of their mother. It might have been Rosie, he supposed, although she wasn't a secret, exactly, however much emphasis Apollo put on his private life being precisely that.

He refocused as Apollo, more adroitly than Zac would have given him credit for, turned the conversation back onto Zac's predilection for well-endowed blondes.

"You better not say anything in front of Dad about her, unless you want him in High Kobolian mode, lecturing to the spiritually fallen. He hasn't got over the last one yet."

"Which one was that?" asked Zac, trying to recapture the lighter mood. "You're usually at least half a dozen girls behind me."

"If it comes to girls, I'm dozens behind you." Apollo laughed again, the grim introspection seeming to melt away.

"Yeah, but I bet you got a few lectures."

Apollo's smile didn't falter. "There's no lecture stern enough."

"I wish I could say the same. And I wish Dad came with a volume control some days."

"Keep quiet about your sins, then, and he may not find out."

"I don't want to keep quiet about Letal. I'm seeing her tonight," said Zac, satisfied with the results he was getting. Apollo looked younger when he laughed, less as if the entire planet weighed him down.

"I doubt that. The old man won't let you off being family today, especially since it's his first day back. You know what he's like."

"Too true I do. Won't you help get me off?"

"No."

Zac sighed, accepting defeat gracefully. "I hate it when you come over all responsible and he comes over all pater familias."

"I'm not being responsible. I need an ally. I thought I saw the Juggernaut a few centons ago and you know what that means."

"Felgercarb!" Zac knew very well their father would insist on him breaking his date with Letal and joining the Cain family in domestic disharmony for the rest of the day, even, he thought with dread, right through to supper. Without Apollo's support, he didn't have a hope of escape.

"It's only dinner."

"Family dinners! With Cain the Glorious! I can understand why people leave home."

"Cain was little more than a contributory factor," said Apollo, in a dry tone.

"Beautiful! Even I couldn't think of a better put down for the man." Zac rose up slightly onto his toes to get a better view over the heads of the crowd, thinking he'd caught a glimpse of their parents. Yeah. That was the trademark paternal silver hair all right. "We'll have to listen all night to how he won his bloody medals. You know, Dad thinks you influence me. Maybe I could follow your example and get myself disowned."

Apollo looked at him steadily, until he regretted saying it and grimaced apologetically, knowing Apollo would understand. His brother nodded and they both turned back to watching their father greet Commander Cain and Bethany, Cain's frail-looking wife who was little more than a faint shade in the Juggernaut's huge shadow.

"You wouldn't like it," said Apollo.





01 Sextus 6489, evening
The Adaman family mansion, Osaiya

"I appear to be in trouble with your mother," said Adama, dropping into a chair beside Apollo. He offered the liquor bottle. "Again."

Apollo shook his head at the offer. He didn't like to drink too much, and he was getting close to his self-imposed limits. "Fast work. You've only been home for about seven centars."

"Not quite my best, but close to the record."

Apollo laughed. "What have you done this time?"

"The usual."

Apollo stared out across the bay. Although he'd lived in the very centre of the city for almost a decade now, he still missed this view from the big terrace on the cliff, the sweep of the west-facing bay and the lights of the city away off to the right. His room, when he'd lived here, had faced onto the bay. He'd always loved the view and it was only after Telnos, when he'd crossed the threshold of his parents' house for the first time in almost nine yahrens, that he seen and loved it again. He wanted to make the most of it.

"Ah. My fault then." He let his voice rise in a faint question.

"Fault? Of course it's not your fault. But I have to admit the disagreements are usually about what your mother deems as me interfering." Adama was quiet for a long centon or two, sipping on the liquor, his eyes so watchful that Apollo was hard put to it not to squirm. He was twenty seven yahrens old and a captain and he had medals of his own—he'd be damned if he squirmed. "Are you angry about that as well?"

Apollo didn't answer straight away. Caprica's sun was just dipping below the horizon, and he watched carefully for the odd cobalt-blue flash that always slanted across the ocean just before the sun disappeared altogether and the bright Caprican day melted into twilight. Something to do with the way the light refracted on the horizon line, he remembered vaguely from school, but he wasn't good enough at physics to know exactly what. He sometimes wondered what he was good enough at, except falling in love in the most inappropriate way. Still, there was something satisfyingly, heart-breakingly beautiful when the blue flash came, and he let himself savour it, let it remind him of losing himself in another kind of blueness.

Eventually he said, slowly, because his father had grown tense in the silence and he had to answer, "No. I'd have left Joss eventually. We wanted different things and I was getting very tired of compromising. You just added the catalyst to the mix, that's all. I'm not mad about it."

"But not happy either."

Apollo said, surprised, "I'm happier now than I was for the whole of the last yahren with Joss."

"I suppose that's some consolation." Adama sat back in his chair.

Apollo quelled his surprise at Adama's perception and that his supremely self-confident father apparently felt the need for consolation. He watched as the last of the sun slid below the dark horizon line and listened to the noise from the dining room behind them. Cain's loud voice was dominating, as always.

"And the catalyst?" asked Adama, very quietly.

Adama had never asked before. Whatever his father had thought had gone on with Starbuck—and the old man wasn't so naïve as to believe that nothing did—he'd granted Apollo an adult's privacy about it. He'd never asked, never alluded to it, never hinted.

Apollo reached for the bottle, using his right hand. It was another satisfying moment when his fingers grasped it and he was able to pour himself a drink, splashing only a little liquor onto the table top. He took a gulp of the spirits, welcoming the burn. Catalysts were never a permanent part of any chemical reaction: his father ought to know that. It was basic chemical theory, after all.

"Catalysts come and catalysts go," he said, when the burn subsided.

Another long uncomfortable silence, then Adama sighed. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

"He's well," said Adama.

"Who is?" Apollo stared his father right in the eyes.

"Can I come and join the grown-ups?" asked Zac. He paused, his hand on the back of Apollo's chair, sharp blue eyes looking from one to the other. "Or am I interrupting something?"

Apollo caught at Zac's wrist and pulled him into a chair. "No. Sit down."

The wink that Zac sent his way was all too knowing. "Good. Can I have some of that? You'll forgive me for saying this, Dad—"

"Possibly, but don't rely on it," said Adama. "And water that down. You're too young to be drinking hard liquor."

Zac obeyed, adding soda to the small amount of liquor that Apollo had handed him with no more comment than an exasperated roll of his eyes at his brother, who prudently took no notice of that or of their father's implied criticism of him for indulging Zac with spirituous alcohol. "All right, but you can't stop me from telling you that Commander Cain is better than a sedative. He's telling the baby bedtime stories in there and it's putting me to sleep."

Apollo cocked an eyebrow. "Baby?"

"I think he's managed to reduce Thenie to a mental age of about twelve. She seems to think that it her duty to fill in for Sheba and she's hanging on his every word. She hasn't the sense to run away. Mamma and Aunt Bethany have, though. They've gone through to the sitting room to talk about whatever it is women their age talk about."

"Lovers and new clothes," hazarded Apollo, thinking of a hospital surgeon who would have laid heart and scalpel at his mother's feet if she'd given him a microgram of encouragement.

"Probably." Zac sipped at his drink. "Dad, is something wrong with Aunt Bethany? She doesn't look well."

"I don't think she is."

"Oh." Zac frowned. "I don't think Cain's noticed."

Adama stiffened at this infelicitous, but accurate observation. Apollo said, softly and quellingly, "Zac."

"Sorry. So, what are the grownups talking about?"

"I was just about to ask your brother how he is, not having had the chance all day," said Adama.

Zac had always fought against any tendency to try and reduce Apollo to invalid status. "He's fine, and not allowed any more sympathy for at least the next five yahrens. Sorry, Dad. You missed your opportunity to feel sorry for him."

"I usually do miss things.

Adama spoke so quietly, that Apollo was sorry for him. He remembered a conversation on the Galactica, with Adama bemoaning the separation that his command imposed on all of them. He spoke quickly, to fill up a space that might become maudlin and uncomfortable. "You wouldn't have wanted to be here when I was throwing up all the time—"

Zac sniggered. "Lords, no! I've never seen you display that much creativity in anything before. And so sweet tempered!"

" – but I'm fine now," said Apollo, rolling smoothly on over Zac's tactless interruption. "They wouldn't let me back if I wasn't."

"I know. But all the same..."

"I've even taken up Triad again. That's partly why I went for the Columbia, rather than a destroyer—the attraction of a full sized Triad court. I'm enjoying playing again and I don't want to give it up."

"You used to be pretty good at that, once upon a time."

"When I was Zac's age, maybe. Do you remember coming to the finals in my last yahren at school?"

Adama nodded. "I remember wondering where my mild-mannered son had got to. You played like you were waging all-out war."

"I won, though."

"You did indeed. I was very proud of you."

"Why'd you give it up?" asked Zac. "You played right through SSI but I can't remember you playing after you graduated."

"Shield ships are hardly big enough to have a Triad court."

"Well, okay. But you were home often enough to play in minor league, surely?"

Apollo paused, and shrugged. "I didn't have that much time when I was home."

"I'd forgotten Joss doesn't like Triad," said Zac, with his usual sweet malice.

"No," agreed Apollo, wondering why he felt like laughing. He really ought just to brain the impertinent little beggar, but Zac was Zac and pretty much immune to chastisement. It was far better not to react to him.

It was a lesson their father seemed yet to learn. "You're out of order, Zac."

"Only if you allow him to be," said Apollo, thinking that for all his experience of command and fatherhood, Adama really didn't have a clue when it came to keeping Zac under control. Probably because the merest ensign on the Galactica had seen far more of the Commander than Zac ever had.

Zac just grinned and finished off his drink with a flourish.

"And don't even think about asking for more," said Adama.

"I'm nineteen, not nine, you know. Nearly twenty."

"Not mentally," said their father. He turned his considerable attention back onto Apollo. "Are your knee and hand really up to Triad?"

"They are. I'm still pretty damn good at it. Of course, I haven't played competitive Triad for coming up to five yahrens and you won't believe how slow I am these days. They paired me off with the beginners to start with."

"Shameful," said Zac.

"Oh I don't know." Apollo grinned at his father. "What's really shameful is that I'm still one helluva lot better at it than Zac is."

"Hey!"

"Less interest in Aquarian ladies' underpinnings and you'd be a great deal healthier." Apollo enjoyed the simmering look that Zac threw at him, and the pained expression on Adama's face.

Adama turned the pained expression onto his youngest son. "Who is it this time?"

Apollo was relieved to have diverted Adama's attention. He raised both hands to chest level, cupping them as Zac had done earlier, and smiled when Zac glared at him. Yeah. Zac still hadn't got one over on him. Not yet.




Ila tucked her hand under Apollo's arm and went with him to the hovercar bay, her long skirts swishing against the gravel in echo of the surf hissing against the shingle at the foot of the cliffs. "I'm sorry you're leaving so early."

"It's not that early. And to be honest, Mamma, I've had enough of the Juggernaut for one evening. He's strong meat and he's giving me indigestion."

"I know, but it's good to see Beth." There was something in her voice that reminded Apollo of Zac's comment on Aunt Beth's health, but before he could say anything, Ila had moved on. "You know your father will be home for a few days? We'll see something of you, I hope, before you leave for the Columbia."

There wasn't much point in protesting that he wasn't going into hiding. His mother would just laugh, anyway. "Of course you will. Besides, I've been issued with a command to lunch tomorrow."

"Just you and him."

"Yeah. That'll be fun."

"A little male bonding is in order, I believe." Laughter thrummed in her voice like an undercurrent. "It should do both of you good."

Apollo paused beside the red sports car that Joss had bought him yahrens ago, when he'd graduated from the Kobolian. When he'd been on active duty he'd used it very seldom, although it got him to the Academy daily now. It was still in really good condition, almost mint. Zac eyed it wistfully every time he saw it and was incoherent for centars whenever he was allowed to drive it. Maybe when he left next secton, he'd let Zac use it.

"Maybe." He ran a hand down one smooth red wing. The metal was cool under his fingers. "It might if he'd stop talking about things I don't want to talk about."

" He's a little anxious about you, still. You gave us quite a fright."

"It was a yahren ago, Mamma!"

"Yes, but the poor man hasn't had much of a chance to see you. And he's feeling a little guilty about his contribution to you and Joss breaking up."

"Only because you make him feel guilty."

"Oh well." Ila smiled. "It's my job. He shouldn't have interfered."

"But he does, anyway."

"And so he feels guilty, anyway." She turned to put both her hands on his shoulders. She'd always liked doing that, he remembered, whenever she had something she particularly wanted him to take notice off. He didn't think that he'd been a hard child to get to pay attention; it was just something she liked to do, a contact that pleased her. Now she had to reach up to him to do it. "You don't talk to me, either, about the things that mean a lot to you. I suppose I was hoping I'd provoke a reaction if I set him on you."

"Thanks."

"I worry about you, too, and what you think about Athena going to the Galactica. You never say."

He couldn't knock her hands away and step back, not without hurting her. Maybe that was why she did it, to force him into a place where he couldn't hide. He tried to find a way of telling her, and yet saying nothing more than she already knew. "I don't want to be there, on Galactica. I never did. I never will."

Her face turned up to his, a pale oval in the faint light from the distant house. He couldn't quite see her expression, but her eyes were wide and colourless in the dusk. "If it were me," she said, "I'd hate it that she'll see him every day and I couldn't. I'd hate it that your father sees him every day and I couldn't. But I couldn't bear to be there and see, and not have. I couldn't bear even to think about him."

To his own surprise his breath hitched in his throat. He choked it down before it could mature into a sob, but he knew that she'd heard it.

"Oh, my poor darling." She slid her hands down his arms and pulled in close. "My poor darling."

He put his arms around her. He was so much taller than her now that he could rest his chin on her hair. He thought she murmured something else too. He thought that she said something about poor Starbuck, too. He shied away from wondering if Starbuck had someone he could rest his chin upon, and for a long time he stood and listened to the sea washing onto the beach below, thinking instead of the flash of blue he'd seen when the sun had set.

"I'm all right, really," he said at last, thinking that he should be grateful for what he'd got. He had Rosie, for now, at least.

"But you don't want to talk about it."

"No."

Not now, not ever, not even with her, however unnerving her analysis of what he was feeling and that equally unnerving ability she had to put it into words he wouldn't, couldn't, let past his lips. She waited for another long time, her face in the shoulder of his dress jacket.

"You're getting cold," he said, feeling her tremble.

She nodded and stepped back, pulling away. "I'll talk to him. He won't mention it again. Don't go away from us, Apollo. Promise?"

"I haven't gone away, so far." He kissed her cheek, her skin warm and scented. He opened the car door, sliding into the driver's seat.

"No," she said. "But she hasn't got there yet."

"Don't, Mamma. Please don't—"

"She doesn't know. I did as you asked. I didn't tell either of them."

"There's nothing to tell."

Ila leaned down and returned the kiss. "No. I wish there were, darling. How I wish there were."

It stabbed too close again.

"You'd better go back to Aunt Bethany," he said, and drove away, watching in the rear-view mirror as she walked back up the path to the house, her head bowed and her arms wrapped around herself as if to ward off the chill.




Rosie was still up when he got back to the apartment. Despite what he'd said to his mother when he'd left, he was mildly surprised that it was earlier than he'd thought—an evening spent in Cain's bracing company did tend to stretch itself out into a secton or six.

"You should have come with me." He stooped to kiss her.

"Why. Did you need my protection?" She wound her arms around his neck.

"Something like that. I wish you'd come."

"It was a family thing, and I'm not family." She grinned up at him, and added before he could do more than open his mouth to protest, "And we both know I'm not going to be."

"Rosie."

"It's all right. I've been happy as we are, and I think you have too." She made it a question.

"Yes" He didn't want more, not even from Rosie, even though he did love her dearly. He just didn't love her enough, and they both knew it. He was, as ever, touched by her generosity.

"So no need to change anything, especially now." She pulled him down onto the sofa beside her. "How was the meeting with your Dad?"

"Spiky."

"You or him?"

"Me, I think. It was all right, really. Not too bad, I mean, but he did want to talk to me."

"Significantly, you mean."

"Very. I had to hide behind Zac a lot."

Rosie laughed. "You're more inarticulate than most men, and that's saying something."

"That's why I wanted you there. Zac's a bit inadequate as protection, even when I keep mentioning his philandering as a diversion. I think Dad's beginning to see through that one."

Rosie's expression was thoughtful. "Did your mother wonder why I wasn't there?"

"No. I haven't told anyone you're home." And he added, slightly on the defensive, "What does it have to do with them?"

"Inarticulate and secretive."

"It's private, you and me. They'd just want to talk about it, and I don't like it."

Rosie smiled. "Especially if it's your dad?"

"I'm just not used to having him there to talk to. I'm not comfortable with it."

"Is he?"

"No. No, I don't think so." Apollo laughed, a little ruefully. "He thinks it's his duty, though, to be there for me."

"Whether you want it or not. Poor boy."

Apollo wasn't sure if she meant him or his father, so he only shrugged.

"Has he given up on you, then?"

"Not likely. You don't get to be a battlestar commander and not be a dozen shades of stubborn. I got the raised eyebrow and the imperial command to lunch tomorrow. Alone, he said. I don't think I can get out of that. Mind you, I prefer his approach to Mamma's, when she's in full flood. It's less wearing."

"You and your father," said Rosie, "are very much alike."

And before he had time to be insulted, she had wormed her way onto his side of the sofa and was in his lap.

"I'm glad you're back early. Let's go to bed."

They hadn't made love when she got home, the day before, and he'd had to tell her that his posting had come through. There'd been a lot to say and a lot of emotion, and comfort had been sought and given; just not through sex.

"Are you sure?" He wasn't at all sure himself. It had the same valedictory ring to it as Joss's offer.

"I'm sure. We've still got a secton before you go, and I don't want to waste any of it."

He bit at his lower lip in indecision, once again struck by how generous she was. The pendant he'd given her nestled in the hollow of her throat, catching the light and he reached out to touch it. His fingers closed around it, the backs of them brushing against the soft skin.

"We both knew it would happen," she said sadly. "And we both knew that it wouldn't be to Shield and the Hype."

The same way that they both knew it would be the end for them. The same way that they both knew that he wouldn't consider not returning to duty, not even to preserve what they had. He wouldn't do it, and she wouldn't ask.

Zac might laugh and try to evade the triple goddess who ruled their lives: duty and honour and service. Apollo knew his little brother wouldn't succeed. She had always come between Apollo and what he wanted or might come to want, and even Zac wouldn't escape Her. It was something in the genes.

There wasn't anything he could do about it. So he kissed Rosie instead.





35 Septimus 6489
The Office's Club, Battlestar Galactica

Starbuck kept his distance to begin with, careful only to observe until he decided what his reaction to this turn of events should be. Often, in those first sectons, he'd sit in his quiet quarters, holding Apollo's shield in his hands like a talisman, clutching it so tight that when he released it, its hard edges had imprinted themselves into his skin. The slight pain couldn't distract him from the larger one that he still hadn't managed to subdue and it couldn't distract him from trying to decide what he thought about having Apollo's sister always in front of him, reminding of what was over and done.

One blessing was that she didn't look very like her brother. She had the same dark hair and pale skin, but her eyes were blue and from what little Starbuck had seen of them, looked always a little anxious. The smile was brittle.

As if, he thought, she was uneasily conscious that she was trying too hard.

He thought they were an odd mix of their parents. Apollo was as tall as Adama, although not as bulky and solid-looking, but his looks came straight from his mother. He had the same prominently high cheekbones and wide-spaced green eyes that made Ila such a beauty, even in middle-age. Athena was the opposite mix. She had all of Ila's rather petite slenderness, emphasised by the unflattering bridge uniform, but she was the softened, feminised version of Adama: same shape face and nose and eyes, although in the case of the latter, Adama's eyes had certainly never been seen to be anxious. She was a pretty girl, he couldn't deny that, and might even one day mature into a lovely one; but she was not as beautiful as her mother and lacked her mother's style and grace.

Now, in the Officer's Club, Starbuck turned his attention from Ensign Athena sitting at the other side of the room and concentrated on his cards. It was all very well reflecting on the turn of the genetic dice, but he was better off not reflecting at all. The past was a very dangerous country to navigate and he'd lost the route map long ago.

That game won, he riffled the cards in his hands. "Right, gentlemen, I believe that some of you may still be in possession of some of your pay. Time to rectify that sad state of affairs. My deal, I think."

"You've cleaned us out, Starbuck," said Boomer. "I've nothing left to lose. I've got so little of my pay left that I'll be selling myself behind the refuelling stores just to get to the end of the sectar."

Starbuck sighed, looking at others. Kyle shook his head, empty hand held up in surrender. Jillia rather thought she might be joining Boomer in his new career and Starbuck forbore to comment that the only difference from normal would be that she'd be taking money for it, reflecting that his own reputation wasn't so hot that he could afford to cast aspersions upon hers. Boomer stared at him steadily, gaze slightly accusatory.

Starbuck sighed again and gave it up. "My round then."

Athena got to the bar at the same time that he did. He wondered if she planned it, when he saw the uncertain smile she had for him. The one he gave her in return was his very best, most dazzling, most consciously charming.

"We've not spoken yet. I'm Starbuck."

"I know." Athena regarded him gravely with those anxious blue eyes. "I've been told all about you."

"All?"

"The other girls in the barracks had a lot to say."

Starbuck smiled, relieved that was all she meant and that no-one else had talked to her. But then, what he knew of the Commander made him trust the man not to betray a confidence, especially his eldest son's. "What you mean is, that you were warned about me."

She nodded.

He looked down at her, searching for the resemblance and seeing nothing to wrench at him. There was too little to raise Apollo's ghost. He'd been foolish, putting this off for so long.

"Well, although you can ascribe the calumny to their jealous natures, let me assure you that it's all true. I know this is a little late, but welcome to the Galactica, Ensign Athena. Can I buy you a drink?"