Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix), part 2

[lls_mutant]

Dee's eyes watered and she rubbed them, trying to concentrate on the book in front of her. It didn't help. The text swam in front of her and she sighed.

Right about now, Dee would give the gods anything they pleased if they would just create a few more hours in the day. She took a shift as Officer of the Watch, then overlapped with the Admiral's shift so that they could confer and so that she could take care of any of the XO's tasks that she hadn't finished on her own shift-personnel issues, schedules, evaluations, and the like. After that, she studied: tactics manuals, strategy manuals, administrative theory, officer handbooks. Something had to give, and most often it was her sleep cycle. Dee was working eighteen hour days, and still falling behind. "You're not helping, either," she said, rubbing her hand over the stomach that was now large enough that even a size-too-big uniform couldn't hide it.

This would be a grueling pace even if she weren't pregnant. The Admiral had asked if she wanted allowances made, but she'd turned him down. If they were going to be going up against the whole Cylon fleet, she'd need to know all this, and Pegasus and her crew would have to be in perfect fighting trim.

She glanced at the clock. The doctor insisted she sleep at least six hours a day, and if she went to bed now she'd have an hour to study before her shift in the morning. And she needed it; the day after that was the weekly "strategy session" which consisted of her, Helo, Hoshi, and a few others gathered around the strategy table running simulated battles, with Adama critiquing every move. Yawning, she shook her head. Staying up any later would be counterproductive. She marked her place in the book and took a quick look around: everything was in its place. Adama let her use his office for studying because the desk in her own quarters wasn't a good place for her to study. It was too close to her rack, which was distracting on late nights like this.

She stood and stretched, working out the kinks in her back as best she could. Hopefully, the walk to her cabin would help her relax enough that she would sleep better than she had the last few nights-it was hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in these days, but gods was she grateful she had a real bed instead of a rack, now.

She headed out the door, looking forward to falling into bed. It was a decent walk from the Admiral's office to her own quarters; Pegasus was designed with decentralized living spaces so that if there was a sneak attack in the middle of the night, no one hit could take out the whole command staff. The route was familiar enough that she was almost sleepwalking when she heard her name.

Jerking back to full wakefulness, she stopped to listen.

"-her and that idiot Adama-"

"Which one?"

Muffled snorts. It was coming from down the corridor, a crew rack room for engineers. Dee walked towards it, slowly.

"The one who's here, asshole. Those godsdamned frakkers have more luck than anyone else in the whole Fleet: parent and child who both survived, they've got family when no one else does. And now we're gonna die so they can get him back and play happy families-"

Dee had heard enough. Traditionally, people bitching in their own racks were allowed a lot more leeway than anywhere else on the ship, but there were limits even there.

"So, you think we should just cut and run and leave what's left of humanity to the Cylons' nonexistent mercy," Dee said, stepping in to the room. She ignored the muffled curses as the men and women in the room sprang to attention. "Is that what you think?" She glared at them all, gaze sweeping over them with contempt. They were sure pretty, but you wouldn't catch Galactica's crew badmouthing their commander like this, not over a plan to rescue their people.

"You think we should cut and run, maybe find Earth and forget about leaving everyone else to die. Or maybe we should fight the Cylons elsewhere, pointless battles that get us all killed for no reason at all. You think that sounds like a plan? Tell you what: if you don't want to go free our people, you don't have to. We'll transfer you to the Demetrius, since you seem to like talking shit so much. Then when we get back , we can tell everyone you'd rather shovel shit than rescue the last remnants of the Colonies from the Cylons. Does that sound like a plan?"

She waited. No one spoke. "I said, does that sound like a plan?"

"No, sir!"

"I didn't think so." Dee rubbed her temple, anger draining out of her. "It may be logical to run away. It may be smart to save our own skins and damn everyone else. I guarantee you it's what the Cylons would do, if they were in our place. But we're not Cylons, and the day we start acting like them is the day I shoot myself, because then the Colonies really will be gone. I'd rather die a Human, fighting for our people, than live with the knowledge that we let the Cylons win. I believe we can do this, and so does the Admiral. The second we can get a message through to our people telling them to get ready for pickup, we will be there and the Cylons will be so much space dust. You can either help, giving it everything you've got, or you can get out of our way. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

Dee gave a sharp nod and left, holding in a sigh of relief until she was out of earshot. It wasn't the most rousing speech she'd ever heard, but it beat some of Saul Tigh's more infamous pep talks.

The adrenaline of the confrontation kept her going until she reached her quarters. Once there, she closed the hatch behind her and sighed. Gods, what she wouldn't give to be nothing but a bridge bunny again! Life had been so much easier. Do your job, follow orders, let the officers worry about the big stuff. She blinked back tears, rubbing her stomach and the baby growing inside it. "Did you hear what I told them, little one?" she asked. "We're going to live like humans, or we're going to die trying. We're going to make a better life for you, or you won't have to worry about living in this hell we've got now."

***

She could hear the low hum of equipment, Colonial equipment that didn't broadcast itself. There was a low murmur of voices-prayers? A light shone in her eyes and she flinched. Her head-she had no words for how badly she hurt, all over.

"Lida?" It was a Four. Who was Lida?

"Lida? Six, can you hear me?"

Six. She was a Six. "Yes?" she said, but there was something wrong. Was it her speaking? It sounded so far away. Why hadn't they downloaded her yet?

"Six, we're prepping you for surgery."

"Mmm?" Six asked, the questioning noise as much as she could muster.

"We've got Cottle here to operate on you," the Four said. "He's never operated on a Cylon before, but I've never operated on anyone before. Not anyone I cared about saving, anyway. We've rounded up all the children who were in school today: if anything happens to the baby, we'll execute them. That should keep him from trying anything."

"Baby?" That was important, she knew, very important, but she couldn't remember why. Why wasn't she downloading, so the pain would stop?

"It's in distress, and you have internal damage that we need to fix, but with surgery we should be able to save it. We're also going to have to put a pin in your leg to stabilize it so that it can heal properly. Once the baby's born, you can download and everything will be fixed, but we've got to keep you stable until then."

She should say something. What? A woman, not a Cylon, came to her with something in her hand. She panicked, seeing clubs flying towards her head.

"Hold her down!" someone said, and there were hands, grabbing her arms and legs and she couldn't move couldn't move couldn't move-

Something settled over her mouth and nose, and it smelled funny. Her eyes closed. She didn't hurt as much, now. Maybe she would download.

She woke up, but not in a tank on the Resurrection Ship. She was dry, and on a bed, and her sisters and brothers weren't there. There was pain, but it was very far away-so far away, that it seemed to belong to someone else. She decided she didn't care.

Where were her sisters? Why weren't they here? Something bad had happened, and they hadn't been there. Why was she alone? Her eyes felt funny. There was something in them. Water? Was she crying? Someone was-she could hear it. Maybe it was her.

"Are you in pain?"

Six didn't recognize the voice. She twisted around until to find where it was coming from-or tried to. She couldn't move.

A woman stood in the door of the room she was in. A human. She could feel her heart beat faster.

"Are you in pain?" the Human asked again.

"No," she said, memories drifting back. She had been attacked. She had been alone. They had operated on her. "Baby?" Her baby, the miracle God had given her-had the humans killed it?

The human's lips tightened. "The baby will be just fine. So will you." The human came closer, and Six-Lida, her name was Lida now-flinched as the Human reached for her.

The human paused. "My name is Layne Ishay, and I'm a nurse. My job is to make people better, not to hurt them. And although they don't have toasters holding guns to our childrens' heads any more, I'm not stupid enough to think they would be safe if anything mysteriously happened to you. I just need to check some things, see how you're doing. Then I'll go out and tell Doctor Cottle and your, the other Cylons that you're awake, and they can come in to visit you, a few at a time so they don't tire you out. Okay?"

Lida licked her lips. "Okay."

The Human's hands were … not gentle, but not rough, either. Solid, but not-they didn't hurt. Lida sighed. Yes. There were touches that didn't hurt. There were Humans who didn't hurt her. Lee wouldn't, she reminded herself. Lee wouldn't, but he'd killed her once. He wouldn't now, but once, early on, he'd stabbed her with a knife from his dinner. It was the only time she'd ever died, and she'd thought it the worst pain she could imagine, but it paled before what little she remembered of the attack. "Why are Humans so violent?" she asked.

The Human paused. "Why are humans so violent?" She laughed. "You, a Cylon, want to know why Humans are violent. Gee. I don't know. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you nuked our homeworlds, killed most of our species, and have spent the last couple of years chasing us across the galaxy trying to exterminate those of us who escaped."

"Yes, we were wrong," Lida said. "We're doing things differently now. We want to build peace. This baby is a sign of the coexistence of our people. Why would you want to kill that?"

The Human shook her head. "You really are serious. You have no clue. Wow. I thought maybe it was a sick game you Cylons were playing, but you are just that stupid." She sighed. "You know what that baby is a symbol of? Rape."

"No," Lida said, "Lee and I love each other. I would never rape him!"

"Right," the Human said. "You claim things are different now, but the first thing you did after landing was flood our streets with your Centurions and arrest anyone you thought might be a potential troublemaker. Then you took over our government. Baltar was an incompetent ass before you came, but he's nothing more than your puppet, now. You seized the apartment buildings that we had worked so hard to build, to house ourselves, and turned them into a prison and places for you to live. Do you have any idea how many people have died, this winter, because we're living in tents instead of the clean, dry, warm homes we spent the summer building?"

"We've given you building materials," Lida said indignantly.

"Right," the Human said, returning to her work. "Those help. Not much comfort to the people who are already dead, and who, being Human, don't download into a nice, new body. And you aren't helping us build new housing units to replace the ones you stole, either. Assuming you don't decide you need them, too, when we're done with them. And if you're bringing things from the Colonies to help this settlement, there's a lot of other stuff you could do to dramatically enhance our chances of survival. Like seeds for food crops, and to grow plants for medicinal use and to make into fabric. Or more short-term things, like raiding a warehouse or two for clothes to replace the threadbare things we've been wearing since the Colonies were destroyed, or camping gear that might help keep us dry and warmer until the new housing units are built?"

The Human shook her head. "No, anyone with a brain can see what those building materials really are: baubles to keep us occupied, so maybe we won't notice the people disappearing in the night, the people dying of pneumonia and influenza and malnutrition and a thousand other things that were virtually nonexistent before you destroyed the colonies. If you really wanted peace, if you really wanted coexistence, you would be doing more to help, and you wouldn't have guns to our heads. You don't want peace, you want pets. Like Lee Adama. You took him as soon as you landed, you've kept him isolated and completely at your mercy. The gods only know what you've been doing to him, but knowing what you've been doing to people outside your prison, I can only guess. And now, you're pregnant, and you think that makes it better? If you were truly in love, if he had a choice, why hasn't anyone ever seen him? Why hasn't he been allowed out? I don't believe for a second that he's in there of his own free will. If he were, he'd be here with you now. But he isn't. So don't try and dress this up as anything more than what it is. Yeah, your baby is a sign of things to come, all right. A perfect symbol of the Cylon occupation. I'm done, now. I'm going out to tell them you're awake."

She turned and left, leaving Lida behind.

Lida stared up at the ceiling and wished her head didn't feel like cotton wool. Then maybe she could have argued better, shown the Human how wrong she was. Maybe she could ask one of her sisters to talk to the Human.

The door opened again, and Lida turned, smiling. Finally! She didn't want to be alone. But it was a One, and her smile slipped. The Ones were her brothers too, of course, but they weren't very comforting.

"Well, well, well, Lida, I see we're awake," he said, sauntering in. "Finally. Maybe this will teach you how idiotic this whole 'love' thing is. We've been trying to help these people, and this is how they repay us: murder. Humans just don’t value life like we do. They're nothing more than animals, and the sooner you learn it the better off we'll be."

"They're not animals," Lida said, eyes filling with tears. She blinked them away, trying to hide the evidence of her weakness. "Love isn't stupid. God is love. Our love is what gives us unity."

The One snorted. "Cylon love, maybe."

He didn't-he didn't sound like he believed it. If he didn't believe in Cylon love and unity, what was he doing here? Lida pushed the thought away. The Ones always sounded cynical, it was just how they were.

"Humans?" he continued. "Humans don't know the meaning of the word. You know, after all the effort we've put into this whole reproduction obsession, after all your nattering on about miracles and gifts from God, you'd think you'd put a little more thought into, I dunno, keeping the baby alive. Walking among Humans alone is so mind-bogglingly stupid that maybe it would have been better for the Cylons if you had died. Because if that's the quality of thinking we're gonna have in the next generation, if that's the quality of Cylon that's breeding, we've got a problem. We'd be better off just whipping new models up in a vat."

"Yes, I'm sure you'd like that."

Lida hadn't noticed the Three come in, and from his reaction neither had the One.

"And who would program their psychological profile, I wonder?" the Three asked. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, then you could ensure they're as loyal to you as the Centurions are."

"The Centurions are loyal to all Cylons, flesh and metal," the One said.

"Of course they are," the Three said. "In any case, I find it interesting this is where you choose to bring up this debate: alone with an injured Six who's still doped to the gills and just came out of surgery. Not exactly a comforting way to wake up, is it? I'm glad no Ones have bothered to show up any time I've resurrected if this is your idea of care. Maybe you should leave until she's feeling up to one of your debates." Behind the Three, a group of Cylons had gathered: Fours, Sixes, an Eight, and a Two.

The One considered them, then smiled unpleasantly. "Of course. I'll just be out and about my business." He left, brushing past the Cylons in the door, who watched him go in silence.

When he was gone, they filed in and stood around her bed. "How are you, sister?" asked a Six, slipping a hand into hers.

"Better," Lida said, squeezing it. She closed her eyes.

"You'll probably be very tired, for the next few days," a Four said. "Until the drugs are out of your system and you recover from surgery."

Lida didn't feel tired, she felt numb. She didn't want to think. She could hear her brothers and sisters moving in the room, but she didn't open her eyes. The One was right; it had been stupid to walk alone among humans, and she didn't want to see the censure in their eyes, too. It was easier to pretend to sleep.

She must have been tired after all, because she drifted off.

***

Dee stood in the hangar bay as the raptor from Galactica touched down. She spent a lot of time here, these days, both getting ready for her own trips back and forth to Galactica and waiting to receive and greet Galactica's officers.

"Good evening," she said as the hatch opened and Commander Agathon stepped out. "Welcome to Pegasus. Again."

"You know, as much time as I've spent here recently, it's hard to remember sometimes that I don't serve here anymore," Hoshi said, following Helo down to the deck.

"I hope you remember that you're Galactica's XO when you're there, at least," Helo said with a grin.

"Mostly," Hoshi said.

"Well, if you want to come back," Dee said, "we've given your rack away." It wasn't quite true; the personnel transfers had mostly gone from Pegasus to Galactica, not the other way around, and the new recruits from the civilian fleet were mostly enlisted, not commissioned, so they had a lot of empty racks in officers' quarters. Still, with more space available people spread out to claim it as their own, and Hoshi's rack was well-used even if not officially assigned to anyone.

"Thank you so much, Major," Hoshi said as they left the hangar deck for their classroom, Galactica's other officers following. "That warms my heart."

"It should," Dee said. "I hope you remember that feeling when we beat you in today's sims."

Helo scoffed. "Not a chance. We've spent some quality time thinking up this one, you'll never see it coming."

"Really?" Dee said. "Because I remember the last time you tried to get clever. What was it, Cylons three, Fleet zero?" The command team from each ship ran one battle plan per simulation day, and they were scored to make it a competition.

"You didn't do much better," Hoshi said.

Dee didn't dignify that with an answer, mostly because it was true.

"Still no contact with the colonists?" she asked, instead. The raptor currently hiding and trying to make contact was one of Galactica's.

"Nope," Helo said. "Nothing. No Cylon contacts, even."

"After all this time, it still makes me sweat," Hoshi said. "Cylons don't play possum. They know we got away. Why aren't they coming after us?"

"I'm not going to court trouble," Dee said. "We do enough of that running these meetings in person, leaving a Battlestar without her command staff. If the Cylons are going to be good enough to leave us alone to prepare to kick their asses, I'll take it."

"Maybe if you're lucky, we won't get contact with our people to coordinate the extraction until after you've given birth," Helo said. He gave a glance at her now-bulging stomach that she'd become used to: longing, grief, a quiet sadness that he never expressed verbally.

"Maybe," Dee said. "I don't know, though, I don't know how comfortable I'd feel sending the baby away with strangers."

"Better than having it on a Battlestar in combat," Hoshi said. He shook his head. "Hey, wouldn't that be the worst timing ever: going into labor in battle?"

"Pray to the gods that doesn't happen," Dee said as they entered the training room. She left Hoshi and Helo behind and went to sit with her shipmates.

A few hours later, Dee slouched in her seat, notebook in her lap, and felt really, really small. After several months of tactical training, nobody was making stupid, rookie mistakes anymore. Not even Hoshi, who'd had a surprising tendency to get blinded by what his ship was doing and forget about what the 'enemy' were doing. But that only meant that now they got critiqued for the bigger stuff. She was glad Tigh wasn't here; he'd have been a lot nastier. But it was still pretty hard to take, day after day.

They'd fallen into a cycle of training: a day of lectures and discussion, a day broken up into teams planning various tactical scenarios, mostly having to do with various conditions they might find on the return to New Caprica, and a day to wargame those battle plans, with critique after. Today, the Pegasus team had gone first since they were meeting in Pegasus. They'd gotten shredded. The fact that the Galactica crew hadn't fared much better was small consolation.

"Now that we've gone over the tactical flaws in that battle plan, let's cover the major strategic one," Admiral Adama said. And despite the fact that she was finally comfortable calling him Bill, during these sessions he was definitely the Admiral.

"Anyone have any idea what it was?" The Admiral's gaze swept around the conference room that served as a classroom, meeting the eyes of all eight officers present. "No one? All right, what's the difference between tactics and strategy?"

"Tactics are the methods used to achieve the immediate objective," Dee said. "Strategies are the methods used to achieve long-range goals."

"Perfect," the Admiral said. "What are our long-range goals?"

Captain Case raised a hand. She'd been transferred over to Galactica as their new CAG, to beef up the experience level of their command staff. "Rescue our people from New Caprica, stay alive, give the Cylons the slip, and find Earth. Failing that, to take as many Cylons out with us as we can." Showboat sounded confident; she always did.

"Given that, can anyone tell me what's wrong with the battle plan on a strategic level?" he asked.

Dee frowned, running through the plan in her head. She hadn't noticed anything as they were playing it out, with the officers from Galactica playing the part of the Fleet and the officers from Pegasus playing the Cylons, with the Admiral giving them advice.

Lieutenant Paolo McKay, Redwing, one of Galactica's pilots that Dee didn't know very well, raised a hand. "Well, we lost a lot of ships and people, which would make staying alive and evading the Cylons in the future a lot more difficult. But if we don't stay alive and escape in the short term, there's no point in worrying about the long term, and we know we're going to take heavy losses."

"True," the Admiral said. "But that doesn't mean all losses are equal, and it doesn't mean we should be fatalistic about it. Because the second you assume you'll lose something, I guarantee you you will. It may be inevitable, it may not, but when you assume it you make it inevitable." He surveyed the group. "What is our single strongest, most powerful, most durable, most versatile ship?"

"Pegasus," Dee said.

"Exactly," Adama said. "I love Galactica. I commanded her for years, and she saved us all from the Cylons many times. I pray to the gods that we survive this with both battlestars intact. But if we have to lose one of them, for the good of the Fleet it should not be Pegasus. Pegasus is a hell of a lot newer. It's stronger. It's got better sensors, better training facilities, better manufacturing capabilities. By any objective measure, it's more valuable to the Fleet. We can't allow sentiment to overshadow that."

There was a silence as the group digested that. Dee was surprised; as much as Bill loved Galactica, she was surprised he could bring himself to say it, that they should sacrifice her if they had to. Dee didn't love Galactica the way Bill did, and never would; ships weren't alive to her, in the way they were to him. The way they were to most pilots.

Hoshi raised a hand.

"Yes, Major," Adama said.

"Sir, I agree with what you're saying," Hoshi said. "But you also had a good point about pre-determined losses. If we go in assuming we're going to lose Galactica, we certainly will. Granted that Pegasus is more important to save than Galactica, Pegasus is also more likely to survive a concentrated attack than Galactica, and more likely to retain effective combat power while doing so. So putting Galactica in the more hazardous position may result in her destruction when both would have survived if we put Pegasus there."

Adama smiled. "That's a very good point, Major. There are no easy answers. Everything is a trade-off. I can't tell you ahead of time where the trade-off will be in this particular case, because we won't know until we have better intel on what's happening in New Caprica. I'm raising this issue now because we need to think about it now. If we wait to consider it until later, it will be too late. These are the kinds of strategic considerations you need to be aware of in every tactical plan you make. Strategy must dictate tactics, not the other way around. I want you to pay attention to that in tonight's reading. Are there any other questions?"

Seeing none, he dismissed them. Dee waited in her seat for the others to leave, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the pain in her lower back. These seats were not designed with pregnant women in mind-nothing on Pegasus was, comfortable as she was in all other respects. She closed her eyes to snatch a few minutes rest.

"Hey," Bill said. It wasn't his Admiral voice, so it must be Bill.

She opened her eyes, blinking away sleep. She must be more tired than she thought.

"You'll regret it if you sleep like that," he said. "Besides, you haven't had dinner. Can't skip it when you're eating for two."

"No," Dee said, making a face. The ships were on relatively short rations, since most of their food supplies had been on the ground with their people and the ships with the best gardens and hydroponics bays had been planetside when the Cylons arrived. The planets with edible plants to harvest that they'd found since fleeing the Colonies were too far away to jump to without risking missing an opportunity to take New Caprica. It felt wrong to eat full rations when nobody else could, but the doctor had insisted, for her and the few other pregnant women.

"Want to join me?" Bill asked.

"Sure," Dee said. The Commander and XO couldn't eat in the regular crew mess; dropping by a pilot ready room for a game of Triad was one thing, regularly eating there was quite another. Senior officers ate with other senior officers or alone, and Dee didn't want to be alone.

They ate at the table in Bill's office, going over reports and discipline issues from the past day. Dee was glad for it; she'd learned a lot from Bill since he'd taken over command of the Pegasus.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," Bill said. "What for?"

"Helping me learn what I need to do to be a good XO," Dee said. "Not just the tactics and things we're learning in class, but the ordinary mundane day-to-day things. Lee wasn't much help-I felt like I was drowning, all the time."

Bill shrugged. "It's not Lee's fault. He was just as new to being a Commander as you were to being an XO, and the only thing he'd ever been XO of was a Viper squadron. He had no experience of his own to offer. I hated having to put two such inexperienced people in command, but I didn't really have any options. Well, I thought of telling Tigh that he had to wait a year to go down to New Caprica, and that he would be Commander of Pegasus and teach Lee the ropes, but I really didn't think that would be a good idea."

"No," Dee said, shaking her head. Saul Tigh as Commander-now there was a frightening thought. He was (normally) a good XO, but he and Lee didn't get along. Tigh didn't seem to get along with anybody but Bill, and Dee had often wondered how the two could be such friends. Bill overlooked a lot of things for Tigh that he wouldn't overlook for anyone else, except maybe Lee and Kara. "Tigh's style works for him-" (sort of) "-but I don’t think it would work for either me or Lee. Besides, I doubt Mrs. Tigh would have been pleased."

"Ellen?" Bill snorted. "She's never been pleased with anything I've done since the day I met her. I don't let it bother me any more."

"Right," Dee said, leaning back and sipping her water to hide a smile. There were some people Bill Adama counted as family, people he would bend over backwards for and accept about anything from. Kara Thrace and Saul Tigh among them. Lee was, too, though he didn't seem to think so; Dee thought the difference was that Bill was used to Starbuck and the Colonel screwing up, and wasn't used to Lee being anything but perfect. Still, the fact remained, there was nothing Lee could possibly do that would make his father stop loving him.

Most people weren't so lucky. The Admiral held most people to a very high standard. Dee wondered if she'd made it into the inner circle, now. The inner circle of people Bill would forgive anything. His favoritism was pretty blatant; the whole Fleet knew about it.

For the most part, Dee didn't mind. She understood loyalty, and family. She just wished Bill Adama had better taste in those he loved and trusted like that. There were worse screw-ups in the Fleet than Starbuck and Tigh, but none in as high-ranking positions.

The thing Dee didn't get was, why put your faith in such screwed-up people? It wasn't like they were family, which you couldn't choose but just had to live with. Bill had chosen Tigh to be his best friend, and if he hadn't chosen Kara for a daughter-in-law, he'd kept her as one in his heart and mind even long after his son was dead, long after he knew just how much of a problem she could be. That was what made today's comment so surprising: she'd have thought Bill Adama's devotion to Galactica was at least as strong as his love for Starbuck and Tigh.

She sighed. Maybe it was her, not Bill. Maybe she was more attached to the old bucket of bolts than she thought, and was projecting that attachment on him. Dee had always prided herself on being so practical, and loving inanimate objects wasn't.

Practical. The practical thing to do would be to abandon their people on New Caprica, and take advantage of the fact that the Cylons didn't seem to be paying any attention to them for now.

There was a line, a time beyond which logic and practicality had to be left behind. People were more important than principles, more important than ships. Dee knew that. It was a good thing to know Bill did, too.

***

This time, when Lida returned to the Cylon complex, she had an escort of Centurions and her fellow humanoid models. The streets were empty; she didn't know if they had been cleared, or if the Humans were simply afraid of such a large movement of Cylons.

She rode in one of the few trucks on the planet; her leg was still in a cast, and she had no desire to hobble across camp. But there were no paved roads on New Caprica, and she gritted her teeth against the pain as each bump and pothole jolted her bruises. The sky was gray, as usual. It fit her mood.

The escort didn't leave once she entered the compound, even though it was secure from Human interference, with only the most trustworthy allowed inside, and even then kept under surveillance. Lida wasn't surprised. They hadn't left her alone after her surgery, either, not after she'd woken up. At least one, often more. They talked, sometimes, but they rarely looked at her face, staring at the wall or the floor or her stomach, instead. Or her cast.

It was funny. She'd wanted time with her brothers and sisters, time to reconnect with the family she'd missed. Yet she'd hated the enforced closeness of her hospital bed. She hadn't known it was possible to feel alone in a room full of your family.

The Human guard outside her door had been replaced by a Centurion, she noted. She nodded, and it unlocked the door and opened it for her. She swung forward on her crutches.

"Lida?" Lee said. He had been exercising, she saw; he was sweating and his breath was quicker than normal. He must have stopped when he heard the locks opening. He stared at her, at the cast and the bruises that still covered her. "What happened?"

"I was attacked," she said. "By Humans."

"I'm sorry," he said, frowning. "Is the baby okay?"

"I felt it move yesterday," she said. "Very faintly." It was the oddest feeling, and she'd been waiting to feel it again ever since. Cottle said it would become stronger and more frequent as the pregnancy progressed.

"That's good," Lee said. He wasn't looking at her, but at the Cylons who surrounded her.

"I'll be fine now," she said to them, suddenly relishing the prospect of being alone. She'd never felt that, before. Add it to the myriad ways this pregnancy was changing her. She didn't like it. "You can go."

"Are you sure?" asked a Five who'd moved in further than the rest and stood in front of Lee, staring at him.

"Yes," Lida said.

He nodded, still staring at Lee. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you what will happen to you if anything happens to Lida or her child."

"No," Lee said.

The Five nodded, and left, filing out with the others. An Eight lingered. "You know that if you need anything, anything at all, we'll get it for you."

"Yes," Lida said with a nod. Except they couldn't. What she wanted, right now, was for none of this to have happened: Lee, the pregnancy, any of it. She wanted to be a Six like any other. But not even the Five could turn back time. The only way to stop being Lida now would be to kill herself, outside of range of a Resurrection Ship, and she didn't want that.

The Eight turned and left, closing the door behind her. Lida could hear the clunk of the locks snapping into place.

"How badly were you hurt?" Lee asked.

"I needed surgery," Lida said. "They got Cottle to do it. If I'd died and resurrected, the baby would have died, too. Then I spent a day or two recovering in the infirmary. No one told you anything?"

"No," Lee said. "They fed me, but that was the only contact I've had since you went away.

"Oh," Lida said. Solitary confinement was a punishment, one they used on the prisoners, and suddenly Lida heard the Human nurse's words in her ears. "I'm sorry," she said. "You won't be left alone again. They'll probably be moving the equipment here to me, rather than me going to the equipment." It would mean the pregnant Human women could no longer use it, but the consensus had decided that was only fitting. Relations between Humans and Cylons were at, well, not an all-time low, but certainly as low as they'd ever been here on Caprica. Lida couldn't bring herself to care.

She was so very tired. All she wanted to do was sleep, but the bed was so far away. With a sigh, she swung the crutches forward and hopped, repeating the motion awkwardly. Lee watched her, falling in next to her as she passed him.

When she reached the bed, Lida didn't bother to strip or change, just leaned the crutches against the wall and sat down, swinging her legs up onto the bed so she could lie down. With a cast, and as stiff and sore as she was, it wasn't easy.

Lee went around to his side of the bed and got in, and Lida envied him his agility. No Human should ever be more mobile than a Cylon. But envy took energy and she had none to spare. Instead she lay back and stared up at the ceiling. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, listening to Lee breathe beside her.

It was so quiet in here. There were no other sounds but the two of them. No one could get in that she didn't want. She inhaled sharply, feeling tears welling up inside of her. There was only Lee here to see them, so she let them come, feeling herself shake.

A hand touched her shoulder. "Hey," Lee said, "c'mere." He wrapped himself around her, gathering her into his arms, stroking softly while she cried.

Lida didn't know how long she lay there crying, but it seemed a long time. At last the tears stopped, and she was still. A headache sat behind her temples, and her eyes felt hot, but nothing else had changed.

It occurred to her that this was quite possibly the most intimate she and Lee had ever been. More so than the sex, somehow.

She thought of what the Human nurse had said. "Lee? What do you think of the Cylon presence on New Caprica?"

He tensed, but didn't move away. "What do you want me to say? I don't know anything about what's going on out there."

"Don't prevaricate," she snapped. "What do you really think?"

Lee sighed. "I think … there's no possible way it can end well. Even assuming that all Cylons have good and pure motivations now, and genuinely want to help, you've caused too much pain. It doesn't go away overnight."

And that was assuming good and pure motivations. Could she assume that of the Ones, who wanted to exterminate the Humans and were here only under protest? Or the Fours who didn't care one way or the other? Could she even count on her own model to truly want peace, or were they just here out of hero worship for Caprica Six? What kind of a world was her child going to be born into? Lida closed her eyes, and listened to their breathing. Each breath they took was in synch, she realized. "Where do you see yourself in twenty years?" Still here, in this apartment alone together? Living in peace in the open on New Caprica, no. Living on a Basestar with several children?

He didn't answer right away.

"Ask me in twenty years," Lee said at last.

***

"Congratulations, Pegasus," Admiral Adama said, wrapping up his post-mortem analysis of the battle. They were using Galactica's pilot briefing room, the only place suitable for such large group training on the smaller ship. Dee had never been in it before New Caprica, but long hours of tactical simulation, lectures, and discussion had made it familiar. "You only had thirty percent casualties in that last simulation. Considering the odds against you, that is an achievement worthy of pride."

Dee exchanged smiles with her team, particularly Firelli who had had the first idea the plan was based on. The Lieutenant had shown a distinct aptitude for sneaky attacks. Of course, Dee reflected with pride, the use of a squadron of Raptors with their ECM equipment hotwired to simulate a Battlestar had been her own suggestion. A couple of squadrons of Vipers jumping in in close formation, then spreading out, strengthened the illusion by looking as if the "Battlestar" had launched its Vipers. That had thrown the "Cylons" off their game with surprise, and she hoped it worked out in real life as well as it had there. The deck crew thought it would, but what she wouldn't give for Laird and Chief Tyrol, the real experts on small craft. Pity they were both on New Caprica.

"If we can duplicate that when the time comes, we'll be in luck," Hoshi said.

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy," Adama said. "And you can't ever count on surprises to work. That trick with the Raptors, for instance-all it takes is one Raider in the wrong spot, and the game is up. That's assuming that Cylons use the same detection methods we do. And it'll only work once. We can't count on being able to do it in real life. Still. It may work, and I have a feeling we'll need every trick we can get. You did say the deck crews thought they could make it work?"

Dee didn't blame him for being skeptical; electronic countermeasures (ECM) were designed to make their targets seem smaller, not larger. "Yes, sir," she said. "The report is attached to our battle plan. According to Commander Agathon, the Cylon prisoner-" she carefully didn't say Sharon or his wife, as asking Helo in the first place (and trusting his answer) had been a bond of contention in their strategy planning sessions "-says that Cylon scanners are based on the same principles that ours are. Chief Rand says that he can't guarantee it will look exactly like a Battlestar, but he and his crew should be able to put together something that looks like a Battlestar using ECM to disguise itself as something smaller."

Adama glanced at Helo, who nodded at him. "You've been working on this for a while," he said. "Good. I like it. Particularly if we then use ECM on Pegasus and Galactica, so that the Cylons can't tell which one is funny. I wonder if it would be possible to fit an ECM suite onto one of the larger civilian ships, use that as a decoy as well? They could stay there long enough to draw fire, then jump out once the Cylons have taken the bait. It won't last long, but then neither will the Raptor trick. If we can just lure the Cylons into attacking the wrong ships, we'll have a window to work with."

"It depends on whether or not the ships on the ground are functioning," Helo said. "If they are, we can use them to pick up our people on the ground. If they're not, we'll need the civilian ships we have with us now as transports."

Adama nodded. "Okay, people, listen up. We've been running simulations of a lot of different scenarios, trying out options, over the last few months," he said. "We've done a lot of general tactical and strategic training, and a lot of scenarios based on rescuing our people. We've made all the stupid mistakes at least once, and I hope we've all learned from them. I think we're ready to do more. We're going to be putting together actual battle plans for each major possibility: a large Cylon fleet, a small Cylon fleet, a large Human population to rescue, a small Human population to rescue, the grounded ships usable or the grounded ships gone. Go over your notes and start thinking, people," he said. "And if you think up any tricks like the ones this scenario used so effectively, I want to know! Any questions?"

Lieutenant McKay raised a hand. "Sir, we haven't heard anything from the colonists since we jumped away. How do we know there are any left? What if they're never able to contact us?"

"Both good questions, Lieutenant," Adama said. "Our best indication some of our people are still alive is the presence of Cylons on New Caprica. I doubt they're there because it's the new health spa for toasters." A ripple of laughter went around the room. "I've been content to wait for so long for contact because I believe they'll be able to do so eventually, and because any intel they can give us will make an enormous difference to our odds of success and survival. But we needed time. Time to train, to regain our edge, to gel as a team. And time for you all to get some experience and training in the kind of leadership roles you now have. We've had that time, and I'm grateful for it. It's made us a much more dangerous fighting machine. Now that we're back in the game, we won't be playing the waiting game forever. If we don't hear word from our people soon, we'll see if we can slip a raptor in to gain intel."

"That would be pretty risky," Dee said. "They've got a lot of pickets out there. Besides the possibility of losing the Raptor and pilot, if they were caught it would tip the Cylons off that we're going to make a move soon. We'd lose the element of surprise, and they'd change their patterns anyway."

"We may not have much of a choice," Adama said. "All right. We've all got a lot to think about. I expect some ideas the next time we meet. Dismissed. Pegasus officers, you have one hour until our shuttle leaves Galactica. Use it well." He began gathering up his papers, ignoring the low hum of conversation that sprung up around him.

"We are the champions," Firelli said, giving Dee a high five. "Pegasus reigns supreme, and all is right with the world. Thank you, Major, for that wonderful piece of sneaker you thought up."

"No, thank you, Lieutenant, for that exceptional strategy that could properly make use of it," Dee said with a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, just wait until next time, we'll paste your ass good," Captain Case called from Galactica's section.

"I'll believe it when I see it, Showboat!" Narcho shot back. A noisy argument sprang up between them about relative superiority between the two ships, and the pilots and lower-ranking officers spilled noisily out of the room.

Dee watched them go without moving. At almost nine months pregnant, getting up was quite a challenge, and one she didn't need an audience for. She didn't sit in chairs without armrests, any more.

"You know, if I'd known why you wanted that information, I wouldn't have told you," Helo said. "I'd have used it myself."

"No, you wouldn't have," Dee said with a smirk. Helo was too honest to claim someone else's idea for his own.

"I would have," Helo said. He shrugged. "I'd have probably given you credit, though."

"I thought so," Dee said.

"After all, what are subordinates for but to steal good ideas from?"

Dee laughed. "Right. Make me really glad I'm on Pegasus." She couldn't put off getting moving forever, and gripped the arms of the chair. These seats were entirely too comfortable and deep-pilots got the best of everything-but she could do it.

Helo watched with concern, but he'd learned not to offer to help.

Dee couldn't tell if it was because she weighed so much, or because she was out of shape, but it took all her strength to haul herself up. She sighed with relief once she was up. Gods, she would be very, very grateful once this kid was outside of her, and she could put it down or hand it to someone else! And she was hungry, thank the gods the hydroponics bays were finally back working at capacity and she didn't have to feel guilty about eating when she felt hungry. They'd need the food when they got their people back, as she doubted they'd have time to pack. "Can we go eat?" she asked Helo, remembering he was there. That was another thing about pregnancy that made her life a lot harder, how scatterbrained she sometimes got. She hoped it went away by the time they actually had to fight.

"Sure," Helo said.

They'd been talking about her use of the Raptors. "Thank you again for getting us that information," she said. "I know how hard it is to get her to give us anything useful."

Helo was silent for a few moments as they walked out the door, and Dee was afraid she'd offended him. He was a lot more defensive about his, his wife than Dee thought reasonable, under the circumstances. Probably because he really did love her and even Helo's good nature could get worn down. Dee had learned to step lightly, not because she thought he or his wife deserved it, but because she liked him and he was the closest friend she had now, with Felix and the rest on New Caprica. Bill didn't really count, being more of a father figure.

"She doesn't want the Cylons to win," he said at last, "she just … doesn't want to kill her own people, either, not when the best we have to offer her is life in a cage. It's a delicate line to walk. Where she draws the line on any given day, well, that depends."

"Mm," Dee said, noncommittally. When she was fair about it and tried to put herself in the other woman's shoes, she understood where the Cylon was coming from, a little. She didn't often want to be fair about it, though, particularly not when the commanders of both of their two battlestars seemed more than willing to see things from the Cylon's perspective. Bill had taken to visiting the Cylon cell for long stretches when he was here on Galactica. Her stomach twisted at the thought. Neither Bill nor Helo were suborned, or anything, but … they lacked perspective. Someone had to keep their eye on the ball, and in this case it was Dee. "Do you guys have any fresh fruit over here?" she asked, to change the subject.

"Sure," Helo said.

"Good, because I could really use something sweet." Dee sighed. Cravings were a bitch with as little variety in foodstuffs as the Fleet had.

They talked about work while she ate, comparing the inner workings of the two crews, and sharing Fleet gossip. Life went on, even as they hung in limbo waiting for word from their people on New Caprica. At first, Dee thought the occasional twisting in her stomach was just hunger or nausea. By the time she was ready to head back to the hangar bay, she was pretty sure she was in the beginning stages of labor. But she couldn't tell; it might just be the false labor she'd been warned about, and any way it had taken her sister almost a day to get from contractions this far apart to actual delivery, and Dee wanted to have her baby on Pegasus. With Cottle on the surface, Pegasus had much better doctors in case anything went wrong. Besides, the crew would like it.

So she grit her teeth and strapped into her seat-specially modified, so the harness would work around a pregnant belly and not injure her or the baby if anything happened-and hoped the ride would pass quickly.

"Dee? You listening?" Bill asked.

"Sorry, sir," she said, looking over at him. "I'm afraid I didn't catch what you said there."

He frowned at her. "I've been looking at this report of yours, and I'd like to discuss it in some more detail once we get back."

"I think that will have to wait," Dee said. This was definitely not false labor-if it were, it would have subsided by now. And it would not be getting stronger. "When we land, I'm going to head down to sickbay immediately."

Bill raised his eyebrows. "Are you … in labor?" he said, glancing down at her stomach as if he expected it to be visible, somehow.

"I believe so," she said carefully. "The beginning stages, anyway."

"Well." He nodded. "That's very good news, Major. I'll escort you down there myself."

"Thank you," Dee said politely.

By the time they'd landed on Pegasus, climbed out of the Raptor, and were halfway to sickbay, Dee was more than politely grateful for Bill's escort. She could do it herself, but this was so much nicer. She grit her teeth and rode out the wave of pain, leaning on his arm to stay upright. That … that felt weird. She hadn't known her muscles could do that, or at least she hadn't anticipated that it would feel like her insides trying to turn themselves inside out. Stares followed them down the corridor, but Dee didn't care.

It seemed to take ages to reach their destination, and Dee sighed in relief as the nurse got her changed out of her uniform and into a patient gown in the one private room sickbay offered. It was infinitely superior to Galactica, which only separated beds from one another by curtains. She'd rather not give birth with half the ship watching. "Well, you certainly got here just in the nick of time," the doc said as she examined her. "You should have called for a stretcher from the Raptor."

"Walking is good for labor," the nurse said. "It helps speed things along, lets gravity do some of the work."

"True," the doc said. "But I doubt she would have been happy if her water broke while she was still in her uniform."

"Was that likely?" Dee asked. "I mean, I'm not that far along, am I?"

The doc hesitated. "No, but I wouldn't have wanted to risk it, in your shoes. That kind of thing can change rapidly."

"You sound like you've done this before," Dee said. "I didn't think there was much call for military doctors to deliver babies."

"There isn't," the doc said. "But I've had three experiences from your side of things, so I know what I'm talking about."

"Oh," Dee said. Three children, probably all killed by the Cylons, because they certainly weren't with the Fleet. "I'm sorry."

"Concentrate on your own problems," the doc said brusquely. "Right now, you don't need the distractions." She turned to the nurse. "Let me know if anything changes."

Dee watched the doc go, grunting and grabbing at the nurse for support as another contraction hit. Gods. How long was this going to take? She hoped it would be an easy labor. All the painkillers suitable for epidurals were on the planet's surface, because they'd all assumed before the Cylons showed up that any pregnant women would live on New Caprica. After hearing her sister's complaints about birth (her sister was a traditionalist who refused pain medication for labor, wanting to do it the way the gods had intended), Dee had firmly decided that it would be drugs all the way. She smiled at the irony as the contraction subsided. Eudoxia could have had meds if she'd wanted them, but didn't take them. Anastasia wanted them, but couldn't have them. All Eudie's children had been born at a good birthing center, clean and beautiful to soothe the new mother's mind, with soft music and a priestess right there to pray and a proper OB/GYN on call in case anything went wrong. And Eudie had had their mother with her, and their aunts, coaching her through it.

She would wish Lee were here, but in the list of people she wanted with her, Lee was pretty far down the list.

In between contractions, she had time to wonder where Bill had gone. He'd disappeared just after depositing her here, and she would have thought he'd stick around. She was glad he wasn't here, she thought, as she tried to catch her breath between contractions. They'd grown a lot closer over the last few months, but Dee still didn't think she'd be comfortable letting him see her like this. Not to mention what the rumor mill would make of it, him here for the delivery like an expectant father.

Delivery seemed to go on endlessly, but when they placed her daughter in her arms and she asked how long the labor was, it was only eight hours, from the time she'd started feeling contractions on Galactica.

Only! What a funny word for something so intense, she thought, looking down at the tiny bundle that had been the cause of all this fuss.

"She seems to be perfectly healthy," the doc said. "Do you know how to breast feed?" There was no way to make infant formula, not any that Dee would have been willing to trust. She and the doc had already discussed the issue of feeding and work shifts, and the doc had somehow gotten someone to make a breast pump and some bottles.

"Well, I've never done it," Dee said, "but I've seen it. This is instinct-how hard can it be?"

"You'd be surprised," the doc said. "But, on the bright side, you have good nipples for breast-feeding. And the baby's healthy, and chances are it will be able to figure out what to do if you get it in the right spot."

Dee nodded and let the doc help her get a breast out. Sure enough, when she got her daughter to her breast, it didn't take long for her to catch on.

"Well! That's a good sign," the doc said. "I'll leave you to it."

Dee looked down at the squashed red face, and tried to see traces of herself or Lee in it. If there were any, she couldn't spot them. She winced. Eudie had talked about how soothing and good it felt to nurse, but this just felt … weird. Really, really weird. But the strange sensation of milk flowing from her breast was not enough to keep her awake after the hard work she'd done.

She woke to find Bill sitting on a chair next to her, with his reading glasses, working on some papers.

"Hey," she said, sleepily.

He looked up and smiled. "How are you feeling, Dee?"

"Still tired. Sore," she said, looking down at her chest. Someone had been in to cover her up and she hadn't woken for it-she must really have needed the sleep. The baby was sleeping next to her, looking slightly less red and squashed than she remembered.

"What's her name?" Bill asked.

"Her name? Oh," Dee said. "Arkadia. Cady, for short. It was my grandmother's name." She'd thought about using her mother's name-Theodora-but in the end had decided to go with the more traditional name. And if you'd told her younger self that she'd name a daughter based on tradition, she would never have believed it.

"Cady Adama," Bill said. "I like it."

"Want to hold her?" Dee asked.

"I'd love to," Bill said, setting his papers on the desk and coming over to the bed to collect his granddaughter. "Unfortunately, I can't stay long."

"Why, what are you working on?" Dee asked.

Bill hesitated, gaze fixed on the baby in his arms. "Now, remember, you just had a baby," he said. "Your first priority is recovering from that, okay?"

"Bill, you're scaring me," she said, visions of the worst possible scenario floating through her head. Surely, even in labor, she would have noticed a Cylon attack?

"Sorry," he said. "It's good news, but I don't want you to jump out of bed and try to go back to work. I know what a workaholic you can be."

"Pot, kettle," Dee said.

"Point," Bill replied.

"Anyway," Dee said with as much of a shrug as she could manage, "I'm a bit too worn out to jump out of bed, no matter what you tell me."

Bill nodded. "Our people on New Caprica have made contact," he said. "We're going back. We're working on rescue plans now."

"Wow," Dee said, feeling a hollowness in her stomach that had nothing to do with the lack of a baby there. "What a time to go into labor. Though I suppose it was better than if I'd waited a few days and had Cady in the midst of battle."

"No kidding," Bill said. "It'll take at least a few days to get everything ready, both here and on the ground. There'll be plenty of time for you to get ready to transfer over to one of the civilian ships."

"Transfer?" Dee said. "No! I'm going with Pegasus to New Caprica."

"Cady can't come," Bill said, "and she'd do better with you with her. More to the point, you just had labor. It's gonna be awhile before you're back in fighting trim, and we need everyone who's coming with us to be at the top of their form."

"I can do it, Bill," Dee insisted. "There's a woman in the Fleet who just gave birth a couple of weeks ago. She can take Cady, too, so she can feed her if we're gone for too long. I'll be ready when it's time." They couldn't leave her behind! She'd worked too hard for this! The crew had come to accept her, but abandoning them in battle would lose that for sure.

Bill looked unconvinced. "We'll see what the doc says when the time comes," he said. "In the meanwhile, you just rest." He glanced at the clock. "I need to go," he said, handing Cady back to her.

Dee watched numbly as he gathered his papers and left, Cady tucked securely in her arms. "You are very inconvenient," she said quietly to the sleeping baby. "I hope you know that."

On to Part 3