Section 2.4: Minerva's Owl

 

When philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old.
By philosophy's grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood.
The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

G. W. F. Hegel 1770-1831: Philosophy of Right (1821) tr. T. M. Knox

 

 

 

12 Octavus 6490
Evening on Boeotia (2 am, Galactica time)

"I thought you'd be going with me to Caprica. I wasn't expecting you to leave just yet."

"There's nothing to stay for." Apollo leant into the cockpit to stow his kitbag behind the seat. He glanced over his shoulder as he spoke.

Felix still stood beside the landram, arms folded. In the backwash of light from the ram's headlights, he looked pained, his face half-shadowed. "There's a lot of work to do here."

"There's a lot of work to do here that I don't care to be involved in."

"You can't back out now!"

"Watch me." Apollo fished up his helmet and dropped back to the ground. "Did you seriously expect me not to notice the laboratory on the first floor where all your geneticists and biologists are working?"

"It's necessary, Apollo."

"It's immoral. Look, I came here to do a preliminary assessment on what we had so far. I've done that. You don't like the report I wrote—"

"You know I don't disagree with you."

"But you don't want me to say anything about how and why the Cylons started lobotomising their prisoners. Tough, Felix. That's the scariest part. After what you're doing, of course."

"I'm under orders."

Apollo shrugged.

"And so are you!" snapped Felix.

"Then maybe it is time I stopped taking orders and went back to the Kobolian." Apollo half-turned, stopped, took a deep breath. "Are you going to sign the report with me?"

Felix's gaze shifted, avoided Apollo's "Of course I am! I don't disagree with it. I just don't want us to go into that committee meeting emphasising something that's no more than speculation."

"Speculation is responsible for getting us here. Fine. I'll hold you to that. It remains a joint report, and I will be seriously pissed off if you put in any disclaimers."

"Oh thanks! You really do trust me, then."

"I used to," said Apollo, and even in the artificial lights of the 'ram, he could see that Felix reddened.

"What about the Intelligence Committee meeting on the eighteenth? You should be there."

"It doesn't need both of us and it's harder for me to get away from the front line. I've got a job to do on the Galactica. You can make the presentation."

"So, you trust me to do that, at least."

"I'll submit the report from the Galactica when I get back."

"That's a negative, then. Thanks a bunch, Apollo."

"If it's a joint report that you support, then why should that bother you?"

"I've told you that I agree with the report, and I do. I'll present it fairly, but I'd rather you were there to do it with me." Felix added, with a touch of malice: "They'll probably insist on you attending, anyway."

"Maybe," agreed Apollo, who privately thought Felix was right. "We'll have to see."

Felix kicked at a clump of grass. "I think you're being over-emotional about this, Apollo."

Apollo shrugged. "That's the way I am. Let's be clear about it, Felix. What you do here after I've gone is entirely up to you and I have no part in it. All right?"

"You're over-reacting!"

"I don't think so. Tell me, just who are you going to get to host it for you?"

Felix grimaced and kicked at a little more grass. "We're probably yahrens away from that."

Apollo threw out one arm, gesturing back to the base, a mass of dark buildings and yellow-lit windows. "So? You've made damn sure they're going to be waiting for you when you're ready. They're going nowhere."

"Hey! I didn't plan this, you know!"

"I don't hear you arguing against it." Apollo looked away, staring back at the prison facility. When he had his expression under control again he glanced back at Felix. "My part in this is finished. I'll tidy up one or two loose ends. I'll continue to try and work out how long it took for the Cylons to spawn each generation and I'll look for data on the lobotomies. But don't come to me about what you're doing now."

Felix's mouth twisted. "End of the perfect partnership."

Apollo turned back to his Viper and started up the access ladder. He hauled himself into the cockpit. He didn't look back. "Yes. It is."






12 Octavus 6490
Evening, the Battlestar Galactica

"You're back early."

Apollo straightened hurriedly as his father approached him, stiffening into the semblance of a proper salute, but Adama brushed this off and embraced him for a micron or two. Apollo, assuming that Tigh had disappeared back onto the bridge after sardonically greeting his prodigal captain and therefore wasn't witness to this unprofessional behaviour, allowed his father the moment of inappropriate paternalism. Adama drew him into the office.

"There wasn't much I could do, to be honest," he said. "And I'd had enough of it."

Adama gave him a long, assessing look. "You can either tell me about it voluntarily or I can drag it out of you word by slow word, but I will not let you stew over this, Apollo."

Apollo shrugged. He'd already decided how he'd deal with his father's inevitable concern. "You're a Council member and you'll get to read the Intelligence Committee papers and reports eventually, right?"

"You know it."

"Then consider this an advance copy." He held out a data crystal. "The report to the Committee for the next meeting. They won't like it. You won't like it."

Adama reached out slowly and took the crystal. "That bad?"

"If what I suspect is true, then yes, it's bad. It's worse than bad." Apollo rubbed a hand over his face to wake himself up a little. It had been a long flight from Boeotia and he hadn't started out fresh. Adjusting back to Galactican time would be difficult, but if he was clever about it and forced himself to stay up for a few more centars, he'd be so tired that he'd actually sleep. "It scares me, Dad."

Adama's expression was hard to read; concern and a kind of stoic apprehension, Apollo thought. "That isn't reassuring."

"No. I ought to let you know that I'm going to refuse to have anything more to do with the project. At least, with the direction it's taking now."

"I see," said Adama, but his expression suggested that he didn't.

"There's a section in the report on their current work. You'll see why I've decided that." Apollo paused, and shrugged. "That could get me in some trouble with the Unit."

"Is that code for you being in trouble with the Supreme Commander?" Adama regarded him thoughtfully. "Do you want to be a trifle more explicit, Apollo?"

"Read that first."

Adama sighed. "All right. I'll read it and then we'll talk. Where are you going now? Bed?"

"I look that bad, do I?"

"You look like you could do with some sleep, yes."

"I didn't sleep well, while I was away." Apollo's mouth twisted into what he hoped came out as a smile. "You may not, either, after you've read that."

"Perhaps. You should get some sleep, though."

"I'd rather get myself back onto proper ship's time and back into the routine. I'll take command back from Kyle in the morning."

"Sure?"

"The busier I am, the better."

Adama nodded. "All right. Where will you be if I want to talk to you about this?"

"I'll clean up and go to the OC for a couple of centars. I could do with the distraction."

After another of those hard, assessing looks, Adama let him go with little more than a nod of acquiescence. He left his father staring at the data crystal with the same suspicion that rabbits viewed a snake, although no-one in their right mind would think of his father as a rabbit. The Lords knew, though, that this snake had a particularly poisonous bite.

A quick visit to his quarters to leave his kit-bag and take a welcome shower, and Apollo headed for the OC. He felt better, almost anticipatory. He couldn't tell Starbuck or anyone else in the OC about Boeotia, but that didn't matter. He could just take a few centars to relax in their company, to enjoy being with them, to forget Felix. Maybe he'd even let Starbuck take money off him in Pyramid, he was so glad to be away from the prison colony and its desperate inhabitants.

Boomer looked even more like a snake-hypnotised rabbit, his eyes wide and anxious. "Starbuck?"

"About my height," said Apollo helpfully. "Blond. Blue-eyed. Plays cards a lot."

"Sure. I remember. Starbuck." Boomer shifted uneasily in his seat. "It's just ... well, I mean..."

"Boomer."

Boomer blew out a noisy breath, looking exasperated. "He's not with us tonight." He looked past Apollo.

"Boomer." Apollo turned to follow the direction of Boomer's gaze.

He hadn't seen Starbuck, when he'd come into the OC. The corner Starbuck where sat was dim, low-lit, and it was only when Starbuck moved that Apollo saw the sudden gleam of light on the fall of blond hair, the curl of fumerello smoke, and the pretty redhead sitting beside him. They were both laughing, intent on each other. Starbuck raised the girl's hand to his lips and sparkled at her over it.

Apollo had seen that sparkle before.

"Thing is," said Boomer, apologetically. "He's got a date."

"Yes," said Apollo. "I can see that."




"I'm sorry to call you back from the OC."

"I wasn't in the OC," said Apollo.

"Oh – well, in that case, I'm glad not to have ruined your evening." His father gave him that long assessing look again. "Although I thought you were going to try and relax a little."

"I went to the OC." Apollo decided that prevarication was useless and the old man was capable of seeing right through any attempt to divert him. He rubbed at his chest where a constriction had plagued him for the last centar, an ache that caught at his breathing. Rubbing at it eased the tightness a little. "I just didn't stay in the OC. There was nothing to stay for."

His father raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"I don't think I was very good company."

Adama let it go. He touched the datapad on his desk; the crystal Apollo had left with him was embedded in the data port. "No. I can see why. I can understand it getting to you." The glance he gave Apollo was clear, measuring. "I think that you're getting better at using understatement."

Apollo shrugged. "I did say that it was worse than bad."

"As I said. Understatement." Adama quirked a half-smile at him. "It's disconcerting when what I expect from you is histrionics."

Apollo appreciated the effort, but his father's expression showed the strain. "I've given up being a drama queen. Takes too much energy."

They were in the bridge office still. His father had technically been off-duty since just after Apollo had arrived back on the ship—not that Adama would ever consider himself off duty—but Captain Saskia had the swing shift on the bridge right then and even Colonel Tigh had taken himself off for the night. Adama must have spent the time reading and re-reading the report before calling Apollo back to the office to discuss it.

Adama put his hand on the controls on his desk. "I thought we'd talk here. I can increase the security here." He pressed the controls as he spoke. "It's not that I don't trust the crew out there, but you and I are the only two people on this ship with sufficiently high security clearance to discuss this. I wouldn't tell even Tigh."

"That'll make me popular."

"He's already irate about your security rating." Adama put a datapad down on the desk and folded his hands over it. "We'd better not provoke him further. So, let's start with the people you rescued. Are they being actively mistreated?"

"No. Certainly not physically, anyway. The guards are all Infantry and tough as hell, but I observed them for days and they were remarkably patient with the prisoners. Even when they were hauling one of the Molecay-born off a nurse, they used only appropriate force and let the man loose as soon as he let go of the nurse. They weren't vicious."

"Prisoners," echoed his father, arching an eyebrow.

Apollo shrugged. "It's accurate." He mulled it over for a few microns. "I'm more concerned that the prisoners aren't being... it's hard to explain. Although they aren't being mistreated, they aren't exactly respected, either. One of the Telnos Brethren there, a man called Cassim, survived relatively intact. He was lucky; his son was in one of the pods and his wife was lobotomised. They won't allow him contact with his wife in case, and I quote Felix here, they jeopardise one of their best sources of information. They're scared he'll have a breakdown."

"That's a difficult one. If I thought the regime there was abusive, I'd raise merry hell at the Council meeting about it But if they can bring medical opinion to bear to show that their decisions had a medical basis... well, we maybe can't fight that, however distasteful we find it."

Warmed by his father's implicit partisanship, Apollo nodded. "I know. I just wanted the Council to be aware that it bears watching, how those people are being treated. Particularly in the light of some of the research." He couldn't help it. His lip curled as he said the word.

"And what about Felix?" asked Adama, quietly.

Apollo shook his head. He felt the constriction in his chest again, making the breath hitch in his throat, but after a centon he was able to answer calmly enough. "We've been friends since SSI, did you know that? We've always worked as a team, ever since we graduated. And he was so stupid as to try and fool me!"

"Oh?"

"Oh. As in: 'You don't need to bother with what we're doing in the labs, Apollo. You're an historian, not a scientist, remember?'. And he thought he'd get away with that?"

"I don't suppose he did, really," said Adama, as judicious and balanced as ever. "He may have tried some misdirection, of course, or he may have being trying to spare you something he knew would discomfort you. Only you can judge that."

"Is there a difference?"

"Only in intent. And again, only you can judge that."

Apollo shrugged. "I'll have to think about it. It'd be hard to trust him again."

"You take things too personally, as if they were deliberate betrayals."

"Sometimes they are. Often."

"Apollo," chided his father.

"I know. I do try, with the rational arguments, with logic, with being sensible, reasoning everything away. But that all evaporates when you see it in front of you, the proof of something you didn't want to believe." Apollo scowled. He rubbed again at the left side of his chest, trying to ease the tightness. "It makes a difference, getting the proof right between the eyes."

"Felix is a scientist. They have an urge to investigate the unknown."

"Oh, Felix was always interested in how they did it, what they got at the end of it," said Apollo, impatiently. "He had one go before I left for Molecay, combining human and Cylon DNA."

"I remember."

"He was just being too clever, because the Cylons aren't doing anything that delicate, or that intimate. They're just fusing together a slice of human pre-frontal cortex with an ordinary Cylon neural node, and then cooking it up inside a human host for a while. It's like grafting roses, grafting the species onto the stock host."

"Which is which, in this case?"

Apollo shook his head. "I don't know. I'm not a scientist and the Lords know I'm no gardener. Felix took me through what he'd found inside the IL-A and the two human hosts I brought back. The fusion was pretty complete and it had grown. The final IL-A brain was as big as a human's." He added, thoughtfully, "The lights inside the brain have to have something to do with the grafting process, helping the synthesis along somehow."

Adama grimaced. "So what you're saying is that the people in the pods had had their entire brains removed and replaced with the graft, which then grew inside their skulls."

"I dress it up a bit in the report, but yes, that's it." Apollo shivered. He folded his arms across his chest, wondering at the cold. "And now Felix is working on replicating the process."

Adama thought about it; frowned. "Where will he get the pre-frontal tissue from?"

"That's a good question, don't you think?"

"The answer will be even better."

Adama's tone was so grim that Apollo was warmed by it. Forewarned, Adama would demand answers at the Council; be his usual upright, unassailable, unstoppable moral self. The people on Boeotia could ask for no better champion. The warmth felt uncommonly like pride and affection, and for a moment or two Apollo forgot the distress and his chest stopped hurting.

Reminded of something, Apollo smiled. "I don't know why they call Cain the Juggernaut when they had you."

Adama smiled, faintly. "Cain is louder than me."

"Hmph," said Apollo, but it was half a laugh.

His father's smile broadened. It was a rare moment of complete harmony, and when Adama leaned over the desk to reach for Apollo's hair, his hand smoothing down to tug gently on the over-long bits at the front, Apollo let him. Adama settled back into his seat, and Apollo wondered which of them was the more comforted.

"And then," said Adama, after a micron or two, "there's your theory about the Cylons having help."

"There's no proof."

"No. The case you make is interesting and compelling, all the same. It's very disturbing." The smile was wintry now, and thin. "If, as you say, lacking in concrete proof. I can't imagine any sort of human who'd work with the Cylons. This, as much as the biological experiments, is the stuff of nightmares."

"Welcome to my world."

"If these traitors exist—and I'm not deliberately doubting your analysis, Apollo—"

"There really isn't any proof, Dad. I just can't see how the Cylons came up with the idea or how they learned to do lobotomies, not without help."

"I realise that. I just don't want us going down that particular road and closing off any alternatives."

"I haven't done that," said Apollo, rather defensively. "I've been very careful not to do that. It's not logical to decide that argument's unassailable when I know it isn't."

"No. Did they teach you logic at the Kobolian?"

"They taught me all the philosophical disciplines," said Apollo. He grinned, rather reluctantly. "That religious upbringing ruined me for some of the more metaphysical debates."

"Oh?"

"You need a very open mind for metaphysics and it took me a while to shake off the conditioning. You have too many certainties, you Kobolians." Apollo saw the swift smile, and was grateful for yet another attempt by his father at comfort, at distraction. "I was always top of the class in ethics, though."

"I'll take the credit for that, too." Adama looked down, his fingers smoothing down the side of the datapad and he was back to business, the moment of relief over. "If you're right and men were involved, do you think they still are working with the Empire?"

"I've no idea. There was no sign of any human scientists on Molecay; no sign at all."

"It's almost inconceivable, Apollo."

"Then, hopefully, I'm wrong."

"Unfortunately for us, I have the feeling that we'll see about that."

"The survivors don't have much in the way of solid, reliable memories of Molecay, but Felix has agreed that it'll be added to the debriefing sessions. If anyone remembers seeing a free human there, Felix will pass the information on."

"I thought you said you wouldn't work on it anymore?"

"Nothing to do with Boeotia, except that, and believe me, I'm having enough trouble squaring even that much with my conscience. I agreed I'd continue to look for data on the techniques they used, see if I can work out how long it took them to breed each IL-A generation and check for evidence that Molecay was the sole manufactory. And that's it. I've told Felix I won't help him with what's he's doing."

"Well, we'll ride with the punches on that one." Adama glanced at the calendar on his desk. "The Intelligence Committee meets in six days, with the next full Council meeting the day after. I'll be going back to Caprica. We'll just have to see what the Intelligence Committee makes of it."

"Misnomer, if ever I heard one," muttered Apollo.

"I'll tell the Supreme Commander you said so." His father paused, shaking his head. "You really choose your moment to trust me," he said, sounding bewildered.

"I do." Apollo's face burned. "Trust you, I mean."

A wry smile. "Just, let's not talk about it, eh?"

"Better not," agreed Apollo.

"You and I are not good about talking about anything emotional, Apollo."

"Definitely your son, then."

"I'm afraid it looks like it. I don't think you can pretend to be the cuckoo in the nest, anyway."

"I don't why you should look so smug about it. It's crap, anyway, what I just dumped on you."

"It appears to be what I'm here for, in all my incarnations, to be dumped upon." Adama turned that level, assessing look on him again. "Are you all right? I don't mean about this." He waved a hand at the datapad. "I mean, are you feeling well?"

"Fine."

Adama frowned. "I'm not so sure. Did you pick up some bug on Boeotia, or something?"

"I shouldn't think so," said Apollo. "The decontamination system didn't detect anything. I'm not sick. Why do you think I'm sick?"

"Because you keep rubbing at your chest and your breathing isn't right."

Apollo took his hand away from his ribs, hurriedly. "I'm fine," he repeated.

"You were always prone to chest infections, when you were a child," said the over-protective father, displaying an inconvenient memory that was all the more amazing given that Adama had rarely been around to witness any of Apollo's childhood ailments. "Perhaps you ought to see Salik."

"I'm okay. It's probably just breathing canned air again, that's all, after Boeotia." Apollo repressed the urge to squirm.

"If you say so," said Adama.

This time, it was an urge to swear that Apollo had to repress. That wouldn't get him anywhere, either. "It's nothing."

"If you say so," repeated Adama, with the same level of scepticism. "I suggest you go back to your quarters and get some sleep, anyway. You look all in."

"Yes. All right. I am tired." Apollo got up to make his escape. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." The Commander looked up. "Oh, and Captain—you will go to your quarters by way of the Life Centre and have Doctor Salik check you over. And that's an order. Sleep well."




Salik, of course, had found nothing wrong because the ache in Apollo came from nothing that was susceptible to anything in the good doctor's armoury. Not even, thought Apollo sadly while he was poked at and prodded and made to say "Aaaaah", not even the very best drugs, licit or illicit. And Salik wouldn't give him those, even if he asked.

The sense of betrayal was as ridiculous as it was unfounded. He and Starbuck were most explicitly not together. Starbuck owed him nothing. Starbuck was free to sparkle at anyone he wanted to. Starbuck was betraying nothing and nobody. Most assuredly he wasn't betraying Apollo. But there was a difference, to paraphrase what he'd said to his father, between the rationalisations and seeing, with his own eyes, the proof of them being most explicitly not together. No. The aching tightness was not going to be succumb to any medicine that Salik had to offer.

When he did, eventually, reach his own quarters, Apollo was beyond tired. He sat at his desk and ached. He thought about stupidity and the way that the rules fucked up people's lives. And he drew fat, black diagonal lines through all the days, bringing himself up to date, and wishing he could score thick black lines through all the world's duplicity.




Ninety-two days down, and counting.






Day 93: 13 Octavus 6490
Battlestar Galactica

Senior Lieutenant Kyle appeared to be developing an enviably philosophical take on life. He greeted Apollo's unheralded return with resignation, and if he was disappointed at having command snatched away from him again, he had enough self-control to cover it with a polite shrug when Apollo appeared in the Duty Office. "The return of the prodigal! Have a good time?"

"No." Apollo nodded at Boomer, who looked apprehensive and worried, and dodged Jillia's more exuberant welcome by being carefully oblivious to it. "What's been going on here?"

"Nothing much," said Jillia. "It's been quiet."

"So quiet," said Kyle, "that I had Salik check out my hearing. I thought I was going deaf."

Apollo managed a grin. "What was Salik's diagnosis?"

"Hypochondria," cut in Boomer. "Didn't see you in the gym this morning, Apollo."

"I wasn't in the mood."

Kyle talked over the pair of them. "I had this high-pitched whining noise in my ears all the time, like tinnitus. So next time, take Starbuck with you, will ya? There's only so much sulking your long-suffering deputy should have to deal with—and that's me, in case it slipped your mind."

"You never let it slip anyone's mind," observed Jillia.

Boomer rolled his eyes heavenwards. "Hypochondria with megalomaniac complications. Salik says it's a terminal case."

"Because I'll kill him," sing-songed Jillia, sweetly.

"Well, it hadn't slipped mine." Apollo did the honourable thing to make amends and managed a little ego-stroking. "And if it had, then Colonel Tigh will probably make a point of telling me that he'd barely noticed I was missing. I think he likes you better than me."

Kyle grinned, appeased. But his enviable philosophy evidently had a malicious tinge, because he didn't let up on the little digs about Starbuck. "He doesn't like being left behind," he explained. "And I couldn't keep him distracted."

"No," said Apollo, finding some wry philosophy of his own, perhaps more epistemological than metaphysical, based as it was on a too-accurate knowledge. "Wrong colour hair."




The morning command meeting passed without incident. Colonel Tigh was quite remarkably pleasant and only asked Apollo who he was and why he was there masquerading as the Galactica's Strike Leader, but there was no malice in it. It was almost friendly. Apollo wondered if his father had had a word with Tigh, but on the whole he thought not. Half of Tigh's snippiness came from lingering suspicion about the Commander's motives for getting Apollo on board. Adama being over-protective would not help, and Apollo knew his father was aware of it.

The main conference rooms were a five centon walk from the bridge. Apollo let their talk wash over him as they made their way to take the Squadron briefing, morosely brooding on the number of daily meetings he was supposed to get through and, somehow, find the time to fight a war. He did notice, dimly, that they were giving him a little more space than usual. Boomer's reasons for avoidance were understandable. He could only assume that Jillia and Kyle were just keeping a prudent distance from a captain whose little vacation, as Kyle had termed it, obviously hadn't gone to plan. He really must look like hell.

Apart from half of Green Squadron's lieutenants, who were already out on forward patrol, the rest of the Viper Flight's officers would all be waiting in the small conference room, ready for the morning briefing. There wasn't much business, thankfully, because his squadron leaders had been right in their assessment about how quiet the sector currently was. Apollo hoped to get the meeting over quickly and get out on a patrol, get back into the routine. It was disconcerting, though, that the routine would have to include Starbuck and he wasn't sure, yet, what he was going to say to him.

And if he hadn't made Starbuck his wingmate, if their paths hardly crossed during the duty period, then maybe he wouldn't have to be worried about that until the ache was nothing but a dull niggle, like mild toothache that vanished before you could even think about calling the dentist. Maybe.

When they got there, Apollo did a fast scan and headcount. His mouth tightened with irritation. He accepted a cup of tea from the duty steward and took his seat; the signal for everyone to take theirs, gulp down the last of their coffee and stop the chat. Kyle sat at Apollo's right hand. The chair to his left was empty, but as the last officer trailed into place, the conference room door slid open.

Starbuck wasn't running, exactly—it wasn't his style—but he'd hurried. He dropped into the empty seat beside Apollo. He didn't look surprised to see Apollo there. "Sorry," he said, but he was half-laughing and a little breathless.

Apollo took in the less-than-pristine uniform and bed-head hair. He looked away again.

"Let's get started. First, I shouldn't have to remind any of you that Squadron Briefing starts at nine-ten, not nine-twelve or any other centon of your choice. And I had better not have to remind any of you again." He glanced sideways. Starbuck looked, very briefly, as if he'd been slapped, and his mouth thinned down to a line that even redheads would find less attractive to kiss. Apollo turned his attention back to the rest of the officers, all of whom were covering up surprise with more or less success, mostly less. He wondered if it was at his unaccustomed sharpness or because it was Starbuck he'd sniped at. "First item of business. It's always nice when the pen-pushers back in HQ decide to catch up with the rest of us. Lieutenant Jolly."

Jolly still jumped a yard when he was addressed by his new rank. "S-sir?"

Apollo held up a small parchment scroll. Tradition, and the Lords knew that the military was riddled with it, demanded that an officer's commission was a physical, written-down-and-signed sort of thing, something to mark its significance and to mark the fact that once someone was in the military's clutches, it was a damn sight harder to get out of than a High Kobolian marriage.

"The paperwork came through, Jolly. If you're really lucky, they may even get your pay right, too." At Jolly's continuing gape of incomprehension, Apollo smiled and stood up. "It's official, Lieutenant. Come and get it."

"Lords," said Jolly and lurched to his feet. He accepted the scroll with bemusement, returning Apollo's formal welcome-to-the-club salute with a snappy precision that was uncharacteristic, but which Apollo found rather touching.

Apollo allowed the applause and cheers for a centon or two. "You earned it, Jolly," he said and shook hands solemnly. "We'll celebrate again tonight."

Jolly's fingers tightened visibly on the scroll. "Does this meant they can't take it back?"

"Well, not without a court martial and since I'm the one who'd have to do the paperwork, don't worry about it. I'm easily bribed to shred the charge-sheet." Apollo rested his hand on the big man's shoulder for a micron. "Don't lose it though."

Jolly laughed and returned to his seat. Apollo also thought it was touching that the scroll was carefully stowed away into Jolly's breast pocket.

"Right," said Apollo. "Item two—""




"See you out there, then," said Jillia.

"Within the centar," promised Apollo.

Jillia and the rest of Green Squadron's officers had stayed with Apollo on his way to the troop-deck; he and Starbuck bound for the Duty Office, Jillia and her team off to take their place on picket or standby. He didn't think that they realised that they were running interference for him, but Apollo was grateful all the same. He'd had a couple of irate glances from his wingman on the way down from the briefing, but Starbuck had to wait until they reached the Duty Office before starting the inevitable argument. Apollo was quite sorry to see Jillia go. He went into to the Duty Office with shoulders metaphorically hunched against the storm.

"What was that about?" demanded Starbuck, as soon as the door had closed.

Apollo dropped into his chair behind the desk and switched on his computer console. "What was what about?"

"That go at me in there!"

"You were late."

"I know I was late. It was just a couple of centons."

"The point is that the briefing starts at nine-ten. You weren't there."

"I was a centon late! That's no reason to pick me up on it in public."

"You were late in public." Apollo's chest constricted again. He took a deep breath to clear it, remembering Salik's tetchy instructions. "I'd have said the same, whoever it was. I'm not even going to ask where you've been since eight when the duty period started, but you sure as hell weren't here in the Duty Office when I got here—"

"I was doing the rounds of the troop deck, like I'm supposed to do!"

"Fine," acknowledged Apollo, who didn't think Starbuck would lie to him outright but couldn't help but wonder if that involved a detour via Engineering. "So arrive on time for briefing next time, like you're supposed to do, and we won't have a problem."

"We don't have a problem. You have a problem!"

Apollo opened up his emails. "I have a problem with you turning up late for a briefing, Starbuck, yes. I'd have the same problem if it was Kyle or Boomer or anyone else."

"And you'd jump on them in the same way, I suppose!"

"Yes." Apollo turned to look at him. "Yes, I would. I told you when I got here . We agreed about this, remember? No privileges, you said and if you remember, that's what you offered. I didn't raise it. You did. So get over it, Lieutenant. You were late; I made it crystal clear that it had better not happen again. It's hardly being put on report or me threatening you with a court martial, now is it?"

Starbuck threw himself into his chair, evidently steaming. "Boomer told me you'd been in the OC last night. I didn't see you."

Apollo turned back to the screen. "You were otherwise engaged."

"And you're telling me that this hasn't got something to do with last night? Oh yeah, like I believe that."

Apollo's fingers were trembling on the keyboard, but he kept his voice even. "Last secton, before I went to... before I went away, I chewed out Lieutenant Taylor for being late for patrol. Did that have anything to do with what he'd been up to the night before?"

"No, but—"

"No. I don't care what you were doing last night, Starbuck. I do care about running this squadron efficiently. End. Of. Story."

Starbuck finally shut the frack up. For several centons he sat and fulminated on the other side of the desk while Apollo read his emails, and reread those that he found he hadn't fully comprehended the first time round, which turned out to be most of them. Lack of sleep was seriously affecting him, he thought, blinking to focus properly.

"We said, when you got here, that there wasn't a problem with us not being serious with girls," said Starbuck at last, sounding less antagonistic.

Apollo swallowed down a silent sigh and went back to the beginning of the email about the Viper repair stores that he'd already had to read twice. It still wasn't making much sense, he thought, suddenly resentful at being sent such crap in the first place. He was here to fight a war. It was the Quartermaster's job to worry how many widgets were on this bloody great ship, not his. For one bent cubit he would tell the Quartermaster so, and not politely, either.

"I know." He gave up on the supplies lists for a centon.

"But there is a problem now."

"No. Why should there be a problem?"

"Right," scoffed Starbuck. "Right." He sat tapping his fingers on the desktop for a few centons, until Apollo could have cheerfully throttled him for being irritating and not frackin' staying shut up. "I've not seen anyone since you got here, until last secton when you went off."

"I know that too."

"I won't stop seeing people," warned Starbuck. "I've decided. There's no reason why I should."

"Fine," said Apollo, deciding that if Starbuck told him that he had needs, he'd murder him and be damned to the paperwork afterwards. "That's your right."

Starbuck, thankfully, didn't say anything of the sort. He gave Apollo a look that Apollo found hard to decipher. The insouciant smile said one thing, the tense, held-in body language said something else entirely, and not even Apollo could miss it. "Fine," he said. He added, with the air of a man making massive concessions: "I won't be late again."

"Don't bet on it," said Apollo, and the tension eased a little.

Starbuck shrugged, but he'd allowed the mood to lighten and he didn't push back. After a centon he asked, as if nothing had happened: "Want me to do anything?"

Apollo restrained himself. "You could go down and tell Jordan to get our Vipers ready," he suggested, despite that usually being done through a quick comms call as they were leaving the office. "I'll be about thirty centons."

"Sure. Don't be late."

"Very funny," said Apollo, and watched him go.

He snapped off a short and very pithy response to the stores problem and hit the send button with more venom than the message strictly warranted. And then he leaned down and rested his forehead against the computer screen and closed his eyes. It was just a headache, he told himself; just tiredness that was making the text blur as he tried to read.

After a micron or two, he straightened up. The Quartermaster had been dealt with. There were still half a hundred emails to go, and he'd better get through them and get down to the flight deck.

He really didn't want to be late.




Everything was back to normal.

Starbuck had been his normal self by the time Apollo had reached the flight deck. He'd chattered through the short patrol, as normal. For the rest of the day, he had been a good exec for a busy Strike Leader, as normal.

And now here in the OC, he sat with Apollo and Boomer, as normal.

"So." He took the pack of cards from his breast pocket. "Feeling up to losing your pay?"

Boomer laughed, the tight, anxious expression in his eyes lifting. "What I don't understand is why familiarity with your Pyramid skills hasn't taught me to run screaming every time you wave those cards about. Low stakes, Starbuck. You cleaned me out the other day and I'm on short rations for the rest of the sectar."

"You'll lose those, too."

"And your loan-shark rates are so appealing."

Apollo glanced around the OC. The engineering staff were all together in their corner of the OC, way across the room. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Starbuck. "Deal me in," he said. "You playing, Jolly?"

"Just so's Starbuck can take advantage of my increase in pay." Jolly pulled up a chair.

Starbuck stuck the fumerello in his mouth, and grinned, looking happy and carefree and too damned predatory.

Back to normal, then.






Day 94: 14 Octavus 6490, evening
Battlestar Galactica, Officers Club,

The tight, fraught look was back in Boomer's eyes, but now the anxiety was directed at Apollo. Apollo didn't know whether the anxiety was for him or for Starbuck. He rather thought it was for him.

Boomer, he thought, was too nice for his own good.

"Looks like it's just you and me," said Boomer.

Apollo glanced across the OC. He could see the back of Starbuck's head clearly, the way it was bent forward as Starbuck listened to whatever the girl was saying. Starbuck's hand described a lazy arc in the air as he talked, the fumerello trailing a wisp of pale smoke.

"Yeah. Looks like."

Normal.

 

16 Octavus 6490
Battlestar Galactica

From Supreme Military Headquarters to the Battlestar Galactica, secure transmission, Gold-line beta-griffin-seven clearance

 

 

From the Battlestar Galactica to Supreme Military Headquarters,  Secure transmission, Gold-line beta-griffin-seven clearance

 

 

The Duty Office, later that same day

"You've only been back for about three centons!" complained Starbuck. "Where are you going this time?"

"Caprica." Apollo pushed the datapads into his kitbag. He'd already packed his dress uniform and, after some deliberation, his Shield dress uniform although he knew it would likely annoy his father no end.

"Not that he actually told us where he went last time." Kyle had been summoned to the office to have a proper hand-over, a development he'd already remarked upon with approval.

"It wasn't Caprica," said Apollo.

"You going back with the Commander?" asked Starbuck. "He's heading back for a Council meeting, isn't he?"

Apollo nodded. "He said that I can make myself useful and do the driving."

"I do hope you're feeling honoured."

"I'm trying." Apollo dug in his desk drawer for his favourite stylus.

Kyle brushed past him and dropped into the chair behind the desk, despite the annoyed frown Apollo sent his way. "Is this something to do with you going to SSI? That's Starbuck's theory, anyway, that you do some work with the Strategy people because you're SSI."

Apollo turned the frown onto Starbuck.

Starbuck seemed more susceptible to them than Kyle. "That was just a bit of idle speculation." He gave Apollo a weak grin that Apollo hoped was an apology for talking out of turn, and glared at Kyle.

Apollo turned back to Kyle, who seemed as immune to glares as he was to frowns. But then, very little punctured Kyle's armour. "Don't get too comfortable in my chair. I've got a meeting the day after tomorrow, and I should be back by the nineteenth or twentieth."

"We'll barely have time to miss you," said Starbuck.

"You do remember what I said about the tinnitus, don't you?" asked Kyle.

"I can't take Starbuck with me. I'll just have to order him not to whine."

"Starbuck's not very good at doing orders like that," observed Kyle, over Starbuck's outrage. "And he'll whine even louder when he realises that this means our Triad match will have to be postponed."

Apollo closed up the kitbag. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Any excuse to avoid defeat at the these hands," scoffed Starbuck. "You're just delaying the inevitable."

"I don't mind delaying the ignominy for another secton or so," said Kyle. "Sergeant Evans is the formal referee for the championship, Apollo. I'll speak to him about postponing the match."

"Or you could just admit defeat and give me and Boomer a bye," said Starbuck. "We'll walk all over you, anyway."

"We'll play it when I get back. Thanks, Kyle."

"Don't say I didn't offer you a way out of public humiliation," warned Starbuck. "I'll walk you down to the bay."

Apollo despised himself for being so pathetically grateful, because just for a micron there, it sounded like the old Starbuck, the Starbuck he hadn't seen for the last four days. He let Starbuck take the kitbag—"Oh thank you, Captain! Lifetime's ambition achieved, to be your beast of burden."—formally handed over to Kyle and headed for the Beta bay where his father's shuttle (and quite possibly, by now, his father) was parked and waiting.

[state destination]

"Beta Bay."

[confirmed]

Apollo leaned his back up against the turbo-lift wall and stared at Starbuck. He felt off kilter, somehow, living in a world with a sharp, slight, stinging difference, as if someone had tilted the universe a molecule or two askew. And a molecular tilt at the universal level translated itself down, at the personal, into a seismic shift in their relationship.

Or lack thereof, thought Apollo.

"I suppose this is what your father meant by responsibilities outside of commanding us, that weigh heavily on you," said Starbuck, breaking into that train of thought.

Apollo suppressed a start. "What?" He straightened up. "He said what?"

"Nothing—"

"When did he spout that rubbish?"

"I dunno." Starbuck looked remarkably shifty, the way he did when one of his Pyramid ploys went belly-up. "Sometime when I happened to overhear him, I guess."

"Computer! Security override. Hold here."

[confirmed]

The lift came to a sudden and bone-jarring stop that had them clutching at each other for support. Apollo tore himself away hurriedly.

"You could have given me some warning," bitched Starbuck. "I should never have told you how to do that!"

"When did he say that?"

"I don't remember." And now Starbuck had the innocent look he wore when the bellying-up Pyramid ploy lost somebody's (usually Boomer's) money and somebody (i.e. Boomer) was whining about it. Starbuck wore that innocence to let everything bounce off him, like he was impervious, untouchable, not-really-there-so-it-couldn't-possibly-be-his-fault-now-could-it? "It's not important. What is important, Apollo, is that you look like crap. You've looked like crap ever since you got back from your last little trip. It is something to do with Strategy people, isn't it?"

Apollo shrugged. He wasn't unaware that Starbuck was pulling out all the diversionary stops, but he allowed it. For the moment. "You know I can't tell you."

"I don't want to know. Not about something that makes you look like crap."

"You don't want to know, believe me."

"That's what I said. Deaf, or something?" Starbuck shook his head. "Thing is, I'm making things worse."

"What things?" Apollo frowned.

"The things you can't talk about." Starbuck took an audibly deep breath. "The point is, that I'm not helping. I won't see Hebe any more."

"Who?"

"Hebe. The engineer."

"Oh." Apollo was suddenly deadly tired. "You idiot," he said. "That's the most stupid—"

"I thought I was being supportive."

"Stupid," repeated Apollo. After a micron he said, choosing his words very carefully, "Listen. When I got here, we agreed that there wasn't anything, right? There's the Regs and we can't get past those, no matter what. And it has been more than two yahrens, and like you said, two yahrens is a long time. We are where we are, Starbuck. I don't... I can't ask... oh crap." He leaned back against the wall of the lift, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. Starbuck said nothing, but Apollo could hear his quickened breathing. Keeping his eyes closed, not wanting to see Starbuck's face, he went on, "That was the theory, wasn't it, that we could be not-serious with other people."

"I guess. With girls." Starbuck sounded sad, but Apollo thought it would be safer to keep his eyes closed and not look. "That was the theory."

"And now it's not theory. Now it's right in front of me and if I'm having a hard time adjusting, that's my problem. Not yours, Starbuck. Mine. I'm only here for a yahren, but that's ten long sectars for you to put everything on hold."

"You really don't want to stay, do you?"

Apollo considered the thought of ten long sectars watching Starbuck and not being able to touch, and even with the two already behind him, the remainder seemed interminable. He was functioning, of course he was functioning. He was trained to function, to get the job done, to complete whatever god-awful mission they'd sent him on, no matter what he felt about it. And no matter how much it hurt.

But he wasn't functioning well .

"No," he said. He added, simply, "I want to go home, Starbuck. I don't really belong here."

Or anywhere, maybe, he thought, remembering how Van couldn't get him off the Dhow fast enough. Or anywhere. For an instant he felt lost, as if the decking had opened up beneath his feet and he was hurtling down the lift shaft, dizzy with the speed.

He heard Starbuck's breathing hitch again. "I don't want you to go."

He swallowed, getting control back. "I can't stay."

"And maybe it'd be worse if you did. Seeing and not—" Starbuck broke off abruptly.

"There isn't anything we can do." Apollo scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of both hands. "We are where we are," he said again. "We can't change that. We can only live with it."

He kept his eyes closed and tilted his head back, leaning up against the back wall of the turbolift. He listened to the silence. He could almost hear Starbuck thinking about it.

"All right," said Starbuck, and he sounded as tired as Apollo felt. "It doesn't mean anything, anyway. It's just fun, and she knows it."

"All right." Apollo nodded. "It's as if I was Simonitz, Starbuck. No different. Not when it comes to the Hebes of life."

Starbuck snorted. "Right."

"Simonitz without the drink," amended Apollo.

"Mmn." Starbuck fidgeted for a micron or two, rising and falling on his toes. Apollo couldn't see him, but he could sense it. "Are we all right?"

Apollo let his mouth twist. "We'll adjust." He opened his eyes and turned to look at Starbuck, and grinned. "We're fine."

"You're telling me that it gets easier?" asked the cynic.

"No. I'm not telling you that it gets easier, just that you usually get something else to worry about, to take your mind off it."

"Ah." Starbuck nodded, wisely. "Displacement."

"I'm good at that," said Apollo. "Computer, resume transit."

[confirmed]

The turbo moved off with barely a lurch. Starbuck, mercifully, seemed to be thinking and they reached the bay in silence.

The doors of the lift whooshed open. The shuttle was parked about thirty yards across the deck. The Commander stood beside it, turning to look when the doors opened. Apollo looked back at him, at what may be the next target for displacement. He nodded at the parental acknowledgement of his arrival, and pushed hard at the turbolift wall to get enough momentum to move. It was a bit of an effort.

"So," said Starbuck, close on Apollo's heels. "What do I get to worry about instead?"

Apollo looked over his shoulder at him. "What you're going to tell me when I get back, about the mysterious circumstances in which you overheard the Commander."

"Bastard," muttered Starbuck.

"Captain," said the Commander, giving Starbuck a wary, measuring look. "Lieutenant."

"Sir!" Starbuck saluted crisply. He pushed the kitbag into Apollo's arms. "Have a good journey, Apollo. See you in a few days."

"Don't whine at Kyle," said Apollo. "He'll just whine at me when I get back. I don't like earache any more than he does."

Starbuck grinned and threw him a salute that was distinctly sloppier than the one the Commander had rated. When the lift doors closed on him, Adama turned to Apollo, eyebrow raised.

"Whine?"

"He doesn't like being left behind. He takes his duties as my wingman very seriously."

"So I see. Was this too heavy for you to manage alone?" Adama jabbed at the kitbag.

Apollo smiled as sweetly as he could manage. "No. It's just nice to be relieved of one of my many weighty responsibilities. I'm sure you'll approve of that."

As a displacement activity, it worked a treat.






18 Octavus 6490
The Praesidium Building, Caprica City

"Shield Captain Apollo!" said Councillor Jethric of Piscea, with a smile. "Back again, I see. And what a wonderful farrago of groundless speculation you have for us today, dressed up as improbable theory and puerile analysis!"

Well , at least they've read the damn report.

From the amused eyebrow sported by the Supreme Commander, Apollo assumed that his face was showing exactly what he thought about Councillor Jethric's attempt at wit. At Jak's right hand, the Leonid Councillor, the one allied to Adama, caught his gaze, his eyes narrowing in what Apollo thought was warning. Beside the Leonid, Lady Beatrice looked haunted, like she hadn't slept. He sighed. Things could only go downhill from there.

So they did.




"That man really doesn't like us," remarked Felix when the Intelligence Committee had finished ripping them apart, examining every argument like a seer rootling though entrails, gobbling up every speck of knowledge and theory and spitting the two of them out disdainfully afterwards.

Councillor Jethric had been the worst, of course. Without Adama's presence to pull those serpent teeth, the venom had been unrestrained. If Apollo hadn't known he was above average intelligence—he was no genius, he knew, but he wasn't stupid—he'd be convinced by Jethric's sneers that his brain was so sub-standard that his best chance to contribute to the furtherance of human endeavour would be to have it pickled for scientific investigation into congenital idiocy.

In fact, Jethric told him so in almost those precise terms, just before they'd been dismissed and sent out to the waiting room to contemplate their own folly while the Committee deliberated. Felix remarked, almost loud enough to be heard by their august masters, that it appeared to be the Committee's equivalent of finding a village to exile them to.

"Two idiots to a village? A bit wasteful."

"They evidently think our idiocy is better together. Or maybe they don't have enough villages who deserve to have us inflicted on 'em."

Apollo looked at him and, despite the rancour, he grinned. "Yeah." He settled into the chair to wait.

"You know, I don't mind most of the committee testing our arguments and challenging us a bit. That's what they're there for, after all. Jethric seems to have made it his personal crusade, though."

"I thought, last time, he was needling me to get at Dad."

"I think he's needling you to get at you."

Apollo nodded. "I don't know why. I never came across the man outside the IC meetings and I can't say I've seen him more than half a dozen times."

"Must be your personal charm."

Apollo made some non-committal noise and looked away, unwilling to play their usual game. The comfortable sense of companionship was gone, drowned in too-clear memories of Cassim, and Sabah, and dozens of others.

"I don't think they liked our theories," said Felix, after a centon or two.

Apollo glanced at him. "I didn't think that you did, either."

Felix gave him a wry grin. "I don't have to like the truth, just acknowledge it," he quoted. "Who said that?"

"Don't know. Sounds like something you'd read on the back of a cereal carton, or something."

"Funny." Felix's mouth twisted. "They definitely didn't like the idea that some humans may have been helping."

"I don't like the idea myself."

"No. Stuff of nightmares." Felix added, thoughtfully, "The civilians were the most shocked, did you notice? I mean, nothing much ever shocks the Supreme Commander and that general of yours is hewn out of stone, she's so still; but the others? Most of them were shocked."

"Except Jethric. He just got completely apoplectic."

Felix sniggered. "I thought he'd pop an artery on the spot."

"He wouldn't be much loss," muttered Apollo. A popping artery would have been most satisfying to witness.

"It would have livened the meeting up a bit," agreed Felix.

"It was quite lively enough, I think. The man can't talk; he can only shout."

"You've obviously insulted him somehow. He's out to get you."

"I noticed. He's doing everything he can to destroy our credibility with the Committee."

"Hell, yes. He does want the Committee to see us as a pair of village idiots. And the Council tomorrow, too, probably."

"At least we won't have to attend the Council to be shouted at."

"We'll have to rely on your Dad to protect us. Do you think he'll report back honestly or spare your feelings?"

Apollo shrugged and for a centon or two they were quiet. Apollo stared down at his highly polished combat boots.

Felix cleared his throat, noisily. "We have to talk about this, you know."

"Not necessarily." Apollo had quelled every other attempt that Felix had made since he'd arrived back on Caprica and he could quell this one too.

Felix's mouth twisted a little harder. "All right. Then I'm asking you if we can talk about it, please. I think I have that right, don't you?"

Apollo felt his own mouth harden. After a micron he nodded, jerkily.

"Fine. I don't expect you to agree with me, but I do expect that you'll have some respect for my decisions. I figure I've earned that over the last few yahrens – or doesn't that count for anything?"

It had been a long journey from the Galactica, and his father had worked on the Council papers for most of it, leaving Apollo all too free to read the Boeotian report over and over. He'd spent a long time weighing Cassim and the others against Felix, trying to decide. "If it didn't count, I wouldn't be talking to you at all."

"Fine," said Felix again, and it wasn't fine. It wasn't anything close to fine. "Look, we serve in different ways, you and me. I'm not a fighter. I've never had any illusions about that. I'd be crap going into Cylon bases and coming back with the stuff that you bring back. I couldn't do that. I'm a scientist, Apollo. I do science. You protect the Colonies by going out there and getting shot at, and I protect them by trying to work out what the fuck those tin bastards were doing on Molecay and whether what we have on our hands is a fight against something that you can't just take a laser to, something so horrible and almost inconceivable that I don't sleep well any more. We're both doing the same thing. We just do it in different ways."

"Yeah—"

"I'm not saying that I'm ecstatic about what I've been asked to do on Boeotia, but I think we have to do it. We have to know what we're up against." He looked earnestly at Apollo. "All I'm trying to do is work out what was done to those people and reproduce some of that in the lab using the existing specimens. I need to try and figure out what the Cylons are going to be sending against us."

"So that I know what I'm taking a laser to," said Apollo, reluctantly.

"Yes, especially that." Felix leaned forward. "Apollo, we both know—we've always known—that this is the worst possible crap we could have found. The ramifications—"

"I know."

"So. There we are. We can't leave the crap just lying there. I spoke to the Old Man, by the way.”

“Oh?”

“I told him that you'd be concentrating on the data you picked up on T18 and downloaded from Molecay. I said you wouldn't be needed for Boeotia, since science wasn't your thing. I don't think he'll kick up a fuss about it, Apollo.”

"Great." said Apollo, wondering if he was expected to feel grateful.

"You know," said Felix, "I don't expect you to get over this in a hurry, but I do hope you will some day." The usual teasing note wasn't there. Felix looked more serious than Apollo had ever seen him, mouth drawn down at the corners, face pinched. "We've been friends too long for me to give up easily."

“I know that, too.”

“Good. I mean that." Felix sat back. “It'll be all right," he said, confidently. He glanced at his chronometer. “Siren Jethric's had plenty of time to think up a few more insults. How long do you think they'll make us kick our heels in here?”

“Dunno." Apollo closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. He didn't know how much time passed, but Felix respected his silence, sitting quietly beside him, looking through the inevitable datapads that neither of them seemed able to live without. “You know what bothers me?" asked Apollo, at last.

“I've a rough idea about a few things, but - all right, what bothers you?”

“Define ‘specimens'.”

Felix stared. Slowly, his face grew red.

“Right," said Apollo, and turned away.