Through the Winter chapter 3 (Cain/Gina)
Title: Through the Winter (3/?)
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: G
Word count: 3,596
Summary: Another 'What if' fic. This time: What if Gina was a sleeper agent cylon?
Chapter Three
Every day I feel bad about Thomas’ death, because every day I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet Helena. If you’d asked me several months ago if I thought I was new to romance and love I would have answered that no, of course I wasn’t new. I dated several people on Gemenon and it was...nice.
Then again, that’s all it ever was. Nice. We had some good times, some great times even, and I was saddened when all of those relationships came to an end. I always bounced back very quickly, though. My aunt came home with a large tub of ice cream after I’d broken up with the boy and the girl I dated in high school, and then could never understand why I didn’t feel compelled to eat any. I didn’t understand why she was confused until college when my friends expected me to turn up on their doorstep with ice cream whenever they had a break up. They’d always sob that their lives were over, and I learnt quickly that I’d get a spoonful of ice cream thrown at me if I scoffed at these claims.
I think I finally understand how they could think that their lives were over now, because I couldn’t imagine my life without Helena. When I first met her all I saw was her hard exterior, but now I realise she has to be like that if she wants her ship to run with any kind of efficiency. You don’t rise to Admiral by being soft and gentle and coddling your crew.
Her crew knows this too, because even though everyone’s terrified of making a mistake you never hear a bad word said against her, and that’s not just because they think she’s lurking around the corner, ready to eat them. They would all follow her into hell and back without question, and I’ve seen more than a few fist fights break out when some poor person from another Battlestar mistakes their awe for dislike and says something out of line. They love their Admiral.
I love their Admiral.
So yes, I am new to romance and love. At least I understand what it is now, rather than at the beginning when everything was so new and unexpected and I couldn’t quite comprehend what it was I felt towards her.
I just had to please her. I had to do anything in my power to make her life easier, and anything I could to spend more time with her.
I think we both agree now that the plans for the retrofit really could have been finalised in the first couple of meetings with the details hammered out as we went along, but of course that would have meant my stay here would have ended much earlier. This nostalgia fondness of Helena’s is starting to grow on me, because it’s almost funny being able to look back on all our actions now. Who were we trying to fool, really?
Gina, like most of her co-workers, had a bad habit of forgetting that not everyone understands techno-babble. This usually meant that she’d run through everything very quickly, and then have to go back to the beginning and rephrase it in easier to understand terms. However, the first time she tried to rephrase something for the Admiral the woman merely nodded and motioned with her hand for Gina to continue. From what she knew about the military Gina doubted she actually had much to do with the computers on her Battlestar, so she was either very good at bluffing or she had done her research to prepare for this meeting.
She got her answer when the Admiral interrupted several times to confirm specifications with her, and Gina liked that the woman really seemed to be taking in her answers. When there was a moment of silence as Cain went over her notes Gina took the opportunity to return the once over she’d been given outside.
She was certainly very focused and serious about her work, but she didn’t come off to Gina as ‘scary’, exactly, the way she’d been anticipating. Gina still felt compelled to perform at her absolute best, but it was because she wanted to see some form of positive reaction rather than being afraid of a negative one. She bit back a smile as decided that she was definitely going to earn herself a gold star before the day was out.
The Admiral flexed the fingers of her left hand as she scanned down the page, and she nodded slightly to herself as she placed it back on the table.
“Well I have to admit I am certainly intrigued about what this system could do for my ship, Ms Inviere. I’d like you to run those simulations we discussed and get back to me with the numbers tomorrow morning.”
Gina bobbed her head with a smile. “Can do. I’ll also, if you like, run ones for the network you’re currently using so you can see the comparisons.”
The Admiral’s eyebrows moved slightly upwards. “Yes, do that.” She replied, and placed all of her papers back into their folder as Gina triumphantly thought ’gold star!’
She let Cain take the lead back to the door as she filed away her own papers, and followed her out. “Same time tomorrow, here.” The Admiral told her once the door was closed, and then did something that caused Gina to almost drop her briefcase.
She pulled back her lips. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call a smile, but it was still enough to completely change her face and Gina didn’t realise she’d been staring until the Admiral actually turned and walked away, at which point she called out “Ah, yes!”
When the Admiral was past the corner Gina’s own lips tightened into a badly suppressed grin. Forget the gold stars; her project now was to get Admiral Cain to smile.
---
Gina was the last person to arrive back at the office, and when she did the entire staff got together to say a few words about Thomas, followed by Steiner announcing that they were closing for the rest of the day and that he was going to shout a round of drinks in Thomas’ honour.
Simon caught Gina as everyone was packing up to leave, and rubbed her shoulder sympathetically. “Horrible way to get the job.” He told her, and Gina nodded in reply, her eyes slightly moist.
“Absolutely horrible, but at the same time I’m really glad I have this opportunity. Does that make me a bad person?” She winced, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes, but he surprised her with a chuckle.
“If anything I’d say it just makes you more of a person, good or bad. Now tell me, how was the infamous Admiral?”
They left the building with the others so that Andrea could lock up, but Gina stopped just outside the front door. “She’s...” it took a moment for Gina to find the right word, “fascinating. I can see why people would think she’s scary, but at the same time I see something else, beneath that. I don’t know, I’m just...really curious.”
Simon smirked in a knowing way. “Is that right?”
“I don’t know, it’s a little weird, but I don’t think I’ll hate working for her at least.”
One of their co-workers called up at them to hurry up if they were coming, and Gina motioned for Simon to go. “I think I’m going to skip this one, Simon. I promised to have some numbers run for tomorrow, and I’d like to make sure I’m not trying to do that later on while tipsy.”
“I’ll make sure to have one for you, then.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Gina left it to him to explain her absence to the rest of their co-workers and head off in the other direction back to her unit. She stopped off on the way to pick up some food for dinner along with some new hair ties, cursing her luck as old Mrs Tucker from the complex next to hers jumped in line behind her.
“Gina dear, I haven’t seen you in so long! Thank you again for fixing our computer, it’s been working beautifully ever since your magic touch.”
Gina had made the mistake of getting into a conversation with this woman a little over a month ago while they were both waiting in line and had mentioned her job. Since then she’d been roped into computer repairs no less than four times, and each time the problem was something as ridiculous as ‘the power was switched off’.
“I just got back from a short holiday to Caprica. Only a few days, but that’s how long Gary was over there for work you see. Anyway, I was hoping to run into you because I think you should travel over there yourself. You see, I saw the strangest thing while I was there!”
“Yes?” Gina asked, feigning interest while trying to subtly determine how fast the line was moving.
“I saw a woman there who could have been your sister she looked so much like you. Especially today when you’re wearing your hair out, and it looks nice dear you should leave it like that more often. I thought you might actually be related so I went to talk to her, but she didn’t know any Ginas, and she told me her name was-.”
“I don’t have any sisters,” Gina interrupted, “and my aunt didn’t have children either so I don’t have any cousins. I always wanted a brother or sister, too, which is a shame.”
“Oh, but are you sure, dear? She really did look very much like you.”
As the cashier signalled her forward Gina politely excused herself and went to pay for her purchases. She’d never had any desire to visit Caprica before, and a story of a this apparent sister wasn’t exactly going to change her mind any time soon. Besides, Mrs Tucker’s eyesight wasn’t what it was ten years ago. She had probably just seen another tall, blonde woman.
It was still early afternoon by the time Gina got back home, so she had more than enough time to do all the work she’d promised to the Admiral. She sat down with her lunch and made sure to take her time and not make any mistakes in the variables she was entering so that the entire simulation would be flawless. A couple of times when she was scrolling down through the code of the Baltar system she thought she saw something odd, but when she slowed down to read through everything properly she could never actually locate anything.
’I’m getting paranoid.’ She sighed, leaning back in her chair and letting her arms dangle by her side. ’But it’s so odd to not actually have anything glitch on me, even something small and insignificant to the overall performance of the program.
‘One more double check can’t hurt.’
The sun had almost set when Gina’s stomach finally started to complain and she was surprised that it had gotten so late so quickly. She must have double checked a couple more times than she thought.
She cooked a quick meal and sat down with the paper, stubbornly avoiding going back to the computer just in case her constant meddling started to create problems where there hadn’t been any before. After solving both crosswords she watched a Pyramid match, and then when she’d well and truly run out of things to distract her from computer simulations she decided to call it a night and head off to bed.
---
Her alarm woke her up the next morning with plenty of time to make sure that she was properly showered, dressed and fed before she packed up her paperwork and discs with her simulations. Checking the clock she admitted that she may have been a little overenthusiastic in setting her alarm as early as she did, but after having narrowly avoided making a bad impression on the Admiral by being late yesterday she didn’t want anything going wrong today.
On that note she locked up and left to hail a cab, and when an available one pulled over she gave the directions to the driver and sat back as she started to script out the information she’d have to give while running through the contents of her discs.
The driver announced that they’d arrived, and as she started to sort through her bag for the money to pay him he turned and flashed her a large smile. “You gave me enough for four trips yesterday ma’am, don’t worry about payment.”
That explained why she’d had to use her card to buy the groceries after work.
She introduced herself again at the front counter, as a woman was sitting behind the desk today, and a glance at the clock told her that she was twenty-eight minutes early. She decided to eat up a little time by taking the walk slower today, and trying to subtly have a look throughout the base. The doors in the first hallway all seemed to lead to briefing rooms, and she pulled back her head quickly when she peered into the third room and realised that there were already people in there. Thankfully no one seemed to notice her, and so she stood next to the door for a few minutes to listen to the lecture about what to do if your Raptor ever runs out of fuel while on recon.
At the end of the hallway she turned left as she had yesterday, but instead of taking the second door on the right she continued down to the third one, which she realised from all the noise before she even looked in was the gym.
There were about twenty people in there all up, on treadmills, bikes, weight lifts and using punching bags. In the centre of the room was a marked off area for boxing where a man and a woman were sparring, and although the woman had her back to the door Gina recognised the hair as Admiral Cain’s. She watched in fascination, and wasn’t surprised when the Admiral landed a hard uppercut and drove her sparring partner to his knees. She grabbed a towel and wiped off her face, and then as she was unstrapping her gloves she turned to face the door and Gina ducked away before she could get caught.
She assumed the Admiral would have a shower before coming to meet her, but as she wasn’t sure whether the showers were located inside that room or within another one she decided to play it safe and walked back to the door before it and stepped outside, following her route from yesterday.
A few of her co-workers started to arrive for their meetings several minutes later, so Gina chatted with them until she saw the Admiral turn the corner, looking completely fresh and well-groomed in her uniform.
“Ms Inviere, thank you for coming out again.” The Admiral said to her as she opened the door to the office and this time motioned for Gina to enter first.
“It’s my pleasure, Admiral.” Gina replied over her shoulder as she walked in, and after removing the first of her discs from her case she stopped at the computer terminal on the wall to her right and inserted it, opening up the files she wanted and transferring access across to the panel on the desk they’d been using the day beforehand. The Admiral stood in her same spot, her arms folded behind her back, and Gina motioned for her to direct her attention to the screen.
“As you can see, I’ve run simulations for the Pegasus’ operations based on the data you gave me yesterday of its current situation with the network you have installed at the moment. The first thing I noticed was the network’s response time to a hull breach, in the time it takes to alert the ship, seal off the room and account for the lost oxygen. You can see here that your current network runs a single level program for this, first alerting the ship, then sealing off the breach and finally returning the lost oxygen. The genius of Baltar’s system is that it allows multiple programs to run simultaneously, so that it can be alerting the ship as it’s sealing off the breach. It’s only a two or so second gap between the alarm and the sealing in the original program, but the graph on the right hand side shows how much water or supplies would be lost in that gap. It’s only an approximation of course, as it depends on the size of the breach, but given a wide enough gap you can imagine how many people could be lost in those few seconds.”
“What about the people within the room that gets sealed off?” The Admiral replied, as Gina had feared she would. She sighed, and raised her hands palm up in defeat.
“Well, you know what happens when someone with oxygen within them is suddenly exposed to a vacuum. There isn’t a program in the Twelve Colonies that could combat that.”
The Admiral nodded her agreement, though the look on her face clearly said that she didn’t like having to just accept that.
“At least this program will stop that from happening to more people that absolutely necessary.” Gina finished, and quickly decided to jump onto the next topic. “There’s also, as you can see, the matter of controlling weapons when under attack.”
She ran through graph after graph of predictions, completely forgetting the script she’d composed earlier in the cab and just speaking naturally as she kept her eyes on the screen in front of her. She only paused when she lowered her gaze and found the Admiral’s eyes on her. Gina stopped mid-sentence, her lips parted slightly as she felt herself completely exposed before the other woman’s strong eyes.
’Have I been talking too much? Have I used too many technical terms? Did I forget to brush my teeth?’
“You certainly know what you’re talking about, and these figures you’ve run are good. My only concerns lie here.”
The Admiral walked to Gina’s side of the table, standing next to her so that she could point to the graph on Gina’s small monitor rather than the large screen. “Could this run any more efficiently?”
“Of course, we only have to divert power from-“
“Without diverting power.”
“Well yes, you’d just have to have an operator to-“
“Without an operator.”
“...okay, in that case you’d have to run this program simultaneously-“
”Without having to start another program.”
Gina resisted the urge to smack herself in the face with her palm. “I assume you don’t want unlimited security access granted to everyone on the ship.”
”Of course not.”
“In that case I could install that program into another, ah, section of the network I suppose. Actually, that would work because if I installed it here...” Gina’s speech slowed down as she was thinking out loud, “it could take power from the machines in this grid, which would only affect the appliances like the coffee maker and the stove and the-“
“You’re obviously not a coffee drinker if you think this is acceptable, Ms Inviere.”
Gina stared at her in disbelief. “You want a functional coffee maker in the middle of a nuclear weapons threat?”
“I don’t want to ever encounter a situation where I can’t use something on my Battlestar, regardless of how insignificant it might seem.”
“You’re impossible, you know that?” Gina sighed in frustration before she could stop herself, her eyes widening in shock not a second afterwards as she realised exactly whom she’d just said that to.
The Admiral stopped, and she was clearly incredibly surprised by someone actually talking back to her. She held Gina’s gaze to the point where Gina found she couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to, and then the Admiral surprised Gina for the second time in as many days by pulling her strange tight-lipped ‘almost smile’ face again. One side of her mouth threatened to pull back and almost upwards, but then the Admiral cleared her throat and they returned to their natural stern frown.
Apparently Gina was feeling daring today, because although she’d managed to survive dangling an arm into the crocodile enclosure she felt like she might, just maybe, actually survive jumping in.
“You almost smiled.” She told the Admiral, smiling herself as she said so.
“Oh?” The Admiral replied, raising her eyebrows in a silent warning.
Gina felt her smile widen into the biggest grin her face was capable of as she dared to repeat herself. “Almost.”
The Admiral walked to the wall with the terminal and ejected Gina’s disc, and then turned back to return it to her.
“Imagine how much I’ll ‘almost smile’ when you actually get this right.”
Gina took the disc from her without a word and packed up her things, and didn’t wait for the Admiral’s word before heading for the door.
She looked over her shoulder as she took the doorknob in her hand and called out “I’m looking forward to it.”
As testament to her incredible willpower, Gina actually managed to keep in the triumphant laughter until she was well outside of the building.
As she’d turned around just before leaving the Admiral had raised her hand to her mouth, but she’d definitely seen the distinct, albeit wobbling, corners of Admiral Cain’s first smile.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author note: I know that in Battlestar Galactica, like just about every sci-fi show, the only problem when combining a person + vacuum is running out of air and the cold, but dangnabbit there should be exploding as the air inside their bodies tries to equalise with the lack of air outside. I think The Simpsons is the only thing I've seen that actually does that. XD
Chapter Four
Author: phoenixstorm
Pairing: Cain/Gina
Rating: G
Word count: 3,596
Summary: Another 'What if' fic. This time: What if Gina was a sleeper agent cylon?
Chapter Three
Every day I feel bad about Thomas’ death, because every day I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet Helena. If you’d asked me several months ago if I thought I was new to romance and love I would have answered that no, of course I wasn’t new. I dated several people on Gemenon and it was...nice.
Then again, that’s all it ever was. Nice. We had some good times, some great times even, and I was saddened when all of those relationships came to an end. I always bounced back very quickly, though. My aunt came home with a large tub of ice cream after I’d broken up with the boy and the girl I dated in high school, and then could never understand why I didn’t feel compelled to eat any. I didn’t understand why she was confused until college when my friends expected me to turn up on their doorstep with ice cream whenever they had a break up. They’d always sob that their lives were over, and I learnt quickly that I’d get a spoonful of ice cream thrown at me if I scoffed at these claims.
I think I finally understand how they could think that their lives were over now, because I couldn’t imagine my life without Helena. When I first met her all I saw was her hard exterior, but now I realise she has to be like that if she wants her ship to run with any kind of efficiency. You don’t rise to Admiral by being soft and gentle and coddling your crew.
Her crew knows this too, because even though everyone’s terrified of making a mistake you never hear a bad word said against her, and that’s not just because they think she’s lurking around the corner, ready to eat them. They would all follow her into hell and back without question, and I’ve seen more than a few fist fights break out when some poor person from another Battlestar mistakes their awe for dislike and says something out of line. They love their Admiral.
I love their Admiral.
So yes, I am new to romance and love. At least I understand what it is now, rather than at the beginning when everything was so new and unexpected and I couldn’t quite comprehend what it was I felt towards her.
I just had to please her. I had to do anything in my power to make her life easier, and anything I could to spend more time with her.
I think we both agree now that the plans for the retrofit really could have been finalised in the first couple of meetings with the details hammered out as we went along, but of course that would have meant my stay here would have ended much earlier. This nostalgia fondness of Helena’s is starting to grow on me, because it’s almost funny being able to look back on all our actions now. Who were we trying to fool, really?
Gina, like most of her co-workers, had a bad habit of forgetting that not everyone understands techno-babble. This usually meant that she’d run through everything very quickly, and then have to go back to the beginning and rephrase it in easier to understand terms. However, the first time she tried to rephrase something for the Admiral the woman merely nodded and motioned with her hand for Gina to continue. From what she knew about the military Gina doubted she actually had much to do with the computers on her Battlestar, so she was either very good at bluffing or she had done her research to prepare for this meeting.
She got her answer when the Admiral interrupted several times to confirm specifications with her, and Gina liked that the woman really seemed to be taking in her answers. When there was a moment of silence as Cain went over her notes Gina took the opportunity to return the once over she’d been given outside.
She was certainly very focused and serious about her work, but she didn’t come off to Gina as ‘scary’, exactly, the way she’d been anticipating. Gina still felt compelled to perform at her absolute best, but it was because she wanted to see some form of positive reaction rather than being afraid of a negative one. She bit back a smile as decided that she was definitely going to earn herself a gold star before the day was out.
The Admiral flexed the fingers of her left hand as she scanned down the page, and she nodded slightly to herself as she placed it back on the table.
“Well I have to admit I am certainly intrigued about what this system could do for my ship, Ms Inviere. I’d like you to run those simulations we discussed and get back to me with the numbers tomorrow morning.”
Gina bobbed her head with a smile. “Can do. I’ll also, if you like, run ones for the network you’re currently using so you can see the comparisons.”
The Admiral’s eyebrows moved slightly upwards. “Yes, do that.” She replied, and placed all of her papers back into their folder as Gina triumphantly thought ’gold star!’
She let Cain take the lead back to the door as she filed away her own papers, and followed her out. “Same time tomorrow, here.” The Admiral told her once the door was closed, and then did something that caused Gina to almost drop her briefcase.
She pulled back her lips. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call a smile, but it was still enough to completely change her face and Gina didn’t realise she’d been staring until the Admiral actually turned and walked away, at which point she called out “Ah, yes!”
When the Admiral was past the corner Gina’s own lips tightened into a badly suppressed grin. Forget the gold stars; her project now was to get Admiral Cain to smile.
---
Gina was the last person to arrive back at the office, and when she did the entire staff got together to say a few words about Thomas, followed by Steiner announcing that they were closing for the rest of the day and that he was going to shout a round of drinks in Thomas’ honour.
Simon caught Gina as everyone was packing up to leave, and rubbed her shoulder sympathetically. “Horrible way to get the job.” He told her, and Gina nodded in reply, her eyes slightly moist.
“Absolutely horrible, but at the same time I’m really glad I have this opportunity. Does that make me a bad person?” She winced, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes, but he surprised her with a chuckle.
“If anything I’d say it just makes you more of a person, good or bad. Now tell me, how was the infamous Admiral?”
They left the building with the others so that Andrea could lock up, but Gina stopped just outside the front door. “She’s...” it took a moment for Gina to find the right word, “fascinating. I can see why people would think she’s scary, but at the same time I see something else, beneath that. I don’t know, I’m just...really curious.”
Simon smirked in a knowing way. “Is that right?”
“I don’t know, it’s a little weird, but I don’t think I’ll hate working for her at least.”
One of their co-workers called up at them to hurry up if they were coming, and Gina motioned for Simon to go. “I think I’m going to skip this one, Simon. I promised to have some numbers run for tomorrow, and I’d like to make sure I’m not trying to do that later on while tipsy.”
“I’ll make sure to have one for you, then.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Gina left it to him to explain her absence to the rest of their co-workers and head off in the other direction back to her unit. She stopped off on the way to pick up some food for dinner along with some new hair ties, cursing her luck as old Mrs Tucker from the complex next to hers jumped in line behind her.
“Gina dear, I haven’t seen you in so long! Thank you again for fixing our computer, it’s been working beautifully ever since your magic touch.”
Gina had made the mistake of getting into a conversation with this woman a little over a month ago while they were both waiting in line and had mentioned her job. Since then she’d been roped into computer repairs no less than four times, and each time the problem was something as ridiculous as ‘the power was switched off’.
“I just got back from a short holiday to Caprica. Only a few days, but that’s how long Gary was over there for work you see. Anyway, I was hoping to run into you because I think you should travel over there yourself. You see, I saw the strangest thing while I was there!”
“Yes?” Gina asked, feigning interest while trying to subtly determine how fast the line was moving.
“I saw a woman there who could have been your sister she looked so much like you. Especially today when you’re wearing your hair out, and it looks nice dear you should leave it like that more often. I thought you might actually be related so I went to talk to her, but she didn’t know any Ginas, and she told me her name was-.”
“I don’t have any sisters,” Gina interrupted, “and my aunt didn’t have children either so I don’t have any cousins. I always wanted a brother or sister, too, which is a shame.”
“Oh, but are you sure, dear? She really did look very much like you.”
As the cashier signalled her forward Gina politely excused herself and went to pay for her purchases. She’d never had any desire to visit Caprica before, and a story of a this apparent sister wasn’t exactly going to change her mind any time soon. Besides, Mrs Tucker’s eyesight wasn’t what it was ten years ago. She had probably just seen another tall, blonde woman.
It was still early afternoon by the time Gina got back home, so she had more than enough time to do all the work she’d promised to the Admiral. She sat down with her lunch and made sure to take her time and not make any mistakes in the variables she was entering so that the entire simulation would be flawless. A couple of times when she was scrolling down through the code of the Baltar system she thought she saw something odd, but when she slowed down to read through everything properly she could never actually locate anything.
’I’m getting paranoid.’ She sighed, leaning back in her chair and letting her arms dangle by her side. ’But it’s so odd to not actually have anything glitch on me, even something small and insignificant to the overall performance of the program.
‘One more double check can’t hurt.’
The sun had almost set when Gina’s stomach finally started to complain and she was surprised that it had gotten so late so quickly. She must have double checked a couple more times than she thought.
She cooked a quick meal and sat down with the paper, stubbornly avoiding going back to the computer just in case her constant meddling started to create problems where there hadn’t been any before. After solving both crosswords she watched a Pyramid match, and then when she’d well and truly run out of things to distract her from computer simulations she decided to call it a night and head off to bed.
---
Her alarm woke her up the next morning with plenty of time to make sure that she was properly showered, dressed and fed before she packed up her paperwork and discs with her simulations. Checking the clock she admitted that she may have been a little overenthusiastic in setting her alarm as early as she did, but after having narrowly avoided making a bad impression on the Admiral by being late yesterday she didn’t want anything going wrong today.
On that note she locked up and left to hail a cab, and when an available one pulled over she gave the directions to the driver and sat back as she started to script out the information she’d have to give while running through the contents of her discs.
The driver announced that they’d arrived, and as she started to sort through her bag for the money to pay him he turned and flashed her a large smile. “You gave me enough for four trips yesterday ma’am, don’t worry about payment.”
That explained why she’d had to use her card to buy the groceries after work.
She introduced herself again at the front counter, as a woman was sitting behind the desk today, and a glance at the clock told her that she was twenty-eight minutes early. She decided to eat up a little time by taking the walk slower today, and trying to subtly have a look throughout the base. The doors in the first hallway all seemed to lead to briefing rooms, and she pulled back her head quickly when she peered into the third room and realised that there were already people in there. Thankfully no one seemed to notice her, and so she stood next to the door for a few minutes to listen to the lecture about what to do if your Raptor ever runs out of fuel while on recon.
At the end of the hallway she turned left as she had yesterday, but instead of taking the second door on the right she continued down to the third one, which she realised from all the noise before she even looked in was the gym.
There were about twenty people in there all up, on treadmills, bikes, weight lifts and using punching bags. In the centre of the room was a marked off area for boxing where a man and a woman were sparring, and although the woman had her back to the door Gina recognised the hair as Admiral Cain’s. She watched in fascination, and wasn’t surprised when the Admiral landed a hard uppercut and drove her sparring partner to his knees. She grabbed a towel and wiped off her face, and then as she was unstrapping her gloves she turned to face the door and Gina ducked away before she could get caught.
She assumed the Admiral would have a shower before coming to meet her, but as she wasn’t sure whether the showers were located inside that room or within another one she decided to play it safe and walked back to the door before it and stepped outside, following her route from yesterday.
A few of her co-workers started to arrive for their meetings several minutes later, so Gina chatted with them until she saw the Admiral turn the corner, looking completely fresh and well-groomed in her uniform.
“Ms Inviere, thank you for coming out again.” The Admiral said to her as she opened the door to the office and this time motioned for Gina to enter first.
“It’s my pleasure, Admiral.” Gina replied over her shoulder as she walked in, and after removing the first of her discs from her case she stopped at the computer terminal on the wall to her right and inserted it, opening up the files she wanted and transferring access across to the panel on the desk they’d been using the day beforehand. The Admiral stood in her same spot, her arms folded behind her back, and Gina motioned for her to direct her attention to the screen.
“As you can see, I’ve run simulations for the Pegasus’ operations based on the data you gave me yesterday of its current situation with the network you have installed at the moment. The first thing I noticed was the network’s response time to a hull breach, in the time it takes to alert the ship, seal off the room and account for the lost oxygen. You can see here that your current network runs a single level program for this, first alerting the ship, then sealing off the breach and finally returning the lost oxygen. The genius of Baltar’s system is that it allows multiple programs to run simultaneously, so that it can be alerting the ship as it’s sealing off the breach. It’s only a two or so second gap between the alarm and the sealing in the original program, but the graph on the right hand side shows how much water or supplies would be lost in that gap. It’s only an approximation of course, as it depends on the size of the breach, but given a wide enough gap you can imagine how many people could be lost in those few seconds.”
“What about the people within the room that gets sealed off?” The Admiral replied, as Gina had feared she would. She sighed, and raised her hands palm up in defeat.
“Well, you know what happens when someone with oxygen within them is suddenly exposed to a vacuum. There isn’t a program in the Twelve Colonies that could combat that.”
The Admiral nodded her agreement, though the look on her face clearly said that she didn’t like having to just accept that.
“At least this program will stop that from happening to more people that absolutely necessary.” Gina finished, and quickly decided to jump onto the next topic. “There’s also, as you can see, the matter of controlling weapons when under attack.”
She ran through graph after graph of predictions, completely forgetting the script she’d composed earlier in the cab and just speaking naturally as she kept her eyes on the screen in front of her. She only paused when she lowered her gaze and found the Admiral’s eyes on her. Gina stopped mid-sentence, her lips parted slightly as she felt herself completely exposed before the other woman’s strong eyes.
’Have I been talking too much? Have I used too many technical terms? Did I forget to brush my teeth?’
“You certainly know what you’re talking about, and these figures you’ve run are good. My only concerns lie here.”
The Admiral walked to Gina’s side of the table, standing next to her so that she could point to the graph on Gina’s small monitor rather than the large screen. “Could this run any more efficiently?”
“Of course, we only have to divert power from-“
“Without diverting power.”
“Well yes, you’d just have to have an operator to-“
“Without an operator.”
“...okay, in that case you’d have to run this program simultaneously-“
”Without having to start another program.”
Gina resisted the urge to smack herself in the face with her palm. “I assume you don’t want unlimited security access granted to everyone on the ship.”
”Of course not.”
“In that case I could install that program into another, ah, section of the network I suppose. Actually, that would work because if I installed it here...” Gina’s speech slowed down as she was thinking out loud, “it could take power from the machines in this grid, which would only affect the appliances like the coffee maker and the stove and the-“
“You’re obviously not a coffee drinker if you think this is acceptable, Ms Inviere.”
Gina stared at her in disbelief. “You want a functional coffee maker in the middle of a nuclear weapons threat?”
“I don’t want to ever encounter a situation where I can’t use something on my Battlestar, regardless of how insignificant it might seem.”
“You’re impossible, you know that?” Gina sighed in frustration before she could stop herself, her eyes widening in shock not a second afterwards as she realised exactly whom she’d just said that to.
The Admiral stopped, and she was clearly incredibly surprised by someone actually talking back to her. She held Gina’s gaze to the point where Gina found she couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to, and then the Admiral surprised Gina for the second time in as many days by pulling her strange tight-lipped ‘almost smile’ face again. One side of her mouth threatened to pull back and almost upwards, but then the Admiral cleared her throat and they returned to their natural stern frown.
Apparently Gina was feeling daring today, because although she’d managed to survive dangling an arm into the crocodile enclosure she felt like she might, just maybe, actually survive jumping in.
“You almost smiled.” She told the Admiral, smiling herself as she said so.
“Oh?” The Admiral replied, raising her eyebrows in a silent warning.
Gina felt her smile widen into the biggest grin her face was capable of as she dared to repeat herself. “Almost.”
The Admiral walked to the wall with the terminal and ejected Gina’s disc, and then turned back to return it to her.
“Imagine how much I’ll ‘almost smile’ when you actually get this right.”
Gina took the disc from her without a word and packed up her things, and didn’t wait for the Admiral’s word before heading for the door.
She looked over her shoulder as she took the doorknob in her hand and called out “I’m looking forward to it.”
As testament to her incredible willpower, Gina actually managed to keep in the triumphant laughter until she was well outside of the building.
As she’d turned around just before leaving the Admiral had raised her hand to her mouth, but she’d definitely seen the distinct, albeit wobbling, corners of Admiral Cain’s first smile.
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Author note: I know that in Battlestar Galactica, like just about every sci-fi show, the only problem when combining a person + vacuum is running out of air and the cold, but dangnabbit there should be exploding as the air inside their bodies tries to equalise with the lack of air outside. I think The Simpsons is the only thing I've seen that actually does that. XD
Chapter Four