Fic: The Black Ships, Part XVII
Previous Chapter: Part XVI
As she stood by the door of the Oval Office, Jordan absently wondered what higher power she might have offended to be stuck in this particular situation. Certainly it had to be a much a higher power than Jed Bartlet, who was pacing behind the ornate Resolute Desk like a caged animal. He had listened carefully to her impressions of the meeting with the Colonial President, but she was mildly disturbed at how few questions he had asked as she spoke.
And then the pacing started.
This wasn’t the side of Bartlet she thought she would ever see, though she had heard rumors of its existence. His jacket was off, his sleeves were rolled up, and his hands were buried deep in his pockets as if he thought he might find a solution left in his pants from some other crisis. In a way, he looked like a frustrated boy.
“She really had the nerve to say desperate people do desperate things? Did she pick up a book of clichés?” CJ asked from the side, but Jordan didn’t exactly answer.
In most things, the White House Chief of Staff was a powerful and important figure. In most diplomatic situations, this conversation should be happening with CJ, not the President. But this was not most situations, this was the world on the brink of disaster, and the only person who Jordan cared to make understand right now was a worried father.
“It was cliché but it communicated what she needed it to, a threat veiled in the message that they are desperate.”
“She is desperate. I’m not convinced they are desperate,” the President announced, speaking for the first time. “She is a barbarian.”
Dehumanizing the opponent, that’s never a good sign, Jordan thought. “Sir, I don’t think that’s a helpful way to think about this.” She took a few steps farther into the lions den. “The Colonials are a civilization held together by a thread of hope. We have riots on Earth full of desperate, hopeless people. I’m not sure if we are in a position to judge what the conditions on those ships are like.”
“We would be if they would let us talk to our people,” Bartlet said with exasperation.
“She said the technical problems should be cleared up today, sir.”
“This is not the behavior of civilized people. Civilized people do not hold medical missions hostage. Civilized people do not threaten unarmed people. Civilized people do not rattle sabers when they need help.”
The President’s tone rose with each sentence so much so Jordan wanted to step back against the emotion onslaught, but she steeled her nerves and did the opposite. Stepping toward the President, she shook her head. “Of course they do, sir.”
CJ seemed about to interrupt her but stopped herself before she opened her mouth. It was Jordan’s job to stand between the President and his immediate reaction.
“Excuse me?”
“Today, refugees all over the world threaten unarmed people and rattle sabers to get the attention of big countries. Make no mistake, Mr. President. Those are refugees in orbit and there is no reason to think they are any different from those found on Earth. There are millions of refugees around the world today who would, and do, light themselves on fire to get your attention. Not my attention, sir…your attention, because you are the leader of the richest and most powerful country on Earth. Refugees don’t have powerful advocates or militaries to make their points, so the best they can do is starve, riot, and hope that the conscious of the rest of the world will awaken. When that doesn’t work, they strap bombs to their chests and walk into crowded market places to get your attention.”
Jordan’s voice was even and steady, but with tinges of righteous fury. When she had been the General Counsel for the United Nations, she had faced American politicians who either wanted the UN to solve all their problems or thought the UN was the route of all their problems. Neither position was based in reality. Neither position had to walk through a refugee camp in Chad or the Congo and watch mothers hold out their dead or dying children in testament to their short and brutal lives.
Bartlet had stopped pacing and was watching her, so she took the chance to continue. “For more than half a century we’ve been happy to say that genocide is bad. To condemn those who commit it but we fall short of punishing them or doing anything to help the victims. We say we welcome those who need help, yet generations of people rot in displaced persons camps… not for years… but for decades. Those people up there are refugees, just like those in Gaza or Kundu. They are tired and scared and maybe they were expecting too much of us, but it doesn’t serve us or them well to decide they are different from us, when they aren’t. If one of the 90,000 people living in the Rafah Refugee Camp in Gaza could get your attention by breaking a few windows in some of our largest cities I think they would. The Colonials aren’t doing anything different.”
The silence in the Oval Office was heavy when Jordan finished, and for a moment, she wondered if she had gone too far. It was only interrupted by the buzz of the interoffice telephone and the voice of Debbie Fiderer. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a telephone call from Ellie transferred from NASA.”
Jordan thought she could see a wave of relief cross the President’s face as he picked up the phone. CJ quietly ushered her out of the room and into the adjoining Chief of Staff’s office. With the door gentling closed, she raised an eyebrow at the Washington lawyer, “Ate your Wheaties this morning, didn’t you, Dr. Kendall?”
**~**~**
Lieutenant Louanne "Kat" Katraine lowered the stick of her Viper coming in fast over Vancouver, listening to the high-speed whirling of the cameras and the screaming her bird made as it punched through the atmosphere just over the speed of sound. This was her third recon flight, and probably her favorite part of this planet so far. The dense woods and mountains reminded her of home. She was zooming over Seattle when the missile warning alarm went off and she snapped out of her thoughts about the planet and started looking for the threat.
Kat saw the plume of smoke before she saw the missile. She pushed her Viper into a hard high-G turn trying to escape the thing, or at least get a firing solution on it. She could easily shoot it down where she was now, but she was over a populated area. The shrapnel from the missile and any over-fires from her guns would likely cause havoc on the ground.
Turning over the ocean, she looked over her shoulder to track the still pursuing missile before reversing thrusters and firing. The exploding Patriot missile sent fragments of metal into her wing and a fuel warning alarm started to blare at her among the other noises in the cockpit.
“Frak this…” She pulled up hard and cleared the atmosphere limping for home.
**~**~**
The pent up energy currently constrained within the Roosevelt Room of the White House vibrated throughout the West Wing. Margaret had remarked the two people in the glass room reminded her of animals in circus cages. Only this cage held both a lion and a tiger in it who hadn’t quite decided whether or not to fight each other just because they were different or to align themselves against the force caging them.
Bill Adama paced the length of the largely glass-enclosed room. Its two main walls were red, which only served to fuel his ire. After Helo had come to him with Ellie Bartlett’s concerns of delegation’s true status on Galactica, Adama knew this game of cat and mouse had to end. The road the President was traveling on was too eerily familiar on a number of levels.
Immediately, he had Helo bring one of their guests to his quarters. Having expected the Lieutenant to return with either Commander Harper or the delegation’s leader, Dr. Griffith, Bill Adama was surprised to find himself confronted with the delegation member he knew the least about-Leo McGarry.
Bill Adama was a soldier. He was an old solider, a survivor of two wars and he was by nature a superb strategist. Military strategy was his preference over political but the Admiral understood the political as well. In talking to Leo, Adama quickly recognized the complex geo-political situation they found themselves in with the people of Earth was rapidly spiraling down into a deeply emotional and highly personal conflict. Conflicts like this one, rooted in perceived mistrust and betrayals, rarely led to satisfactory outcomes for either party. Mostly they brought forth long-term strife and war. It was time for him to put an end to this.
And then word came in that one of his Vipers was coming in wounded.
His quick and highly terse conversation with Tigh confirmed what Bill had heard from both Helo and Leo. The President of the Colonies was thinking only of the destination-the outcome, and not the road on which she was traveling. It seemed to be her major blind spot. After issuing very precise orders concerning the discontinuation of any more ‘reconnaissance’ missions, the Admiral, along with Leo McGarry, departed Galactica in a raptor bound for Andrews Air Force base.
Bill knew by going to Earth he was tipping the President’s hand in her high stakes game of Triad. He also was fully aware he was offering himself up as a de facto hostage. His value as such was incredibly high and Laura was going to be beyond pissed at him, but he had to make her see the trees for the forest.
Adama silently watched the man who had accompanied him here. Bill had learned a lot about Leo McGarry over the last several hours through both observation and conversation. He had been surprised to discover a kindred spirit with a strikingly similar sense of loyalty, duty, and honor. He could tell by the slump in Leo’s shoulders and his restricted movements as he paced on the opposite side of the room that Leo was just as uncertain about the outcome of the next few hours as Bill was.
The door to the Roosevelt Room opened for a young blonde woman who was followed by Laura Roslin with Tom Zarek in tow. Bill Adama did his best to hide his scowl at seeing the former terrorist.
“Ma’am, the Admiral is here to see you.”
“Thank you, Donna.”
“Leo, the President and CJ are wanting for you in the Oval.”
Leo McGarry and Bill Adama exchanged looks. It was a glance between two pilots silently wishing each other success on a risky and possibly foolhardy, mission. They nodded to each other hoping they would see each other on the other side when this mess was all over.
“Thanks, Donna.” Leo nodded to her. “Madame President, Mr. Zarek, it nice to see you again, if you will excuse me.”
As Donna asked if she could bring the three Colonials anything, the Admiral spoke for the first time since his arrival in the White House.
“If you would be so kind as to show Mr. Zarek back to the negotiations, I need to speak with the President on a matter of fleet security.” The blonde woman started to move and Zarek hesitated. Bill would swear he could feel the other man’s hand on Laura’s back. Laura turned slightly towards Zarek and a placed a hand on his arm.
“It's all right, Tom. I will be back with you in just a few moments.” The familiarity at which Laura addressed the man made Bill’s blood boil and his jaw clench.
After the former terrorist left, Adama turned to her. “I should have known better then to leave you down here alone with Zarek this long.” If Bill Adama hadn’t known better he would have sworn he could see ice forming on the glass of the room based on the President’s posture alone. Laura Roslin merely crossed her arms over her chest, arched an eyebrow, and pinned him with a stare.
“What are you doing here, Bill? Your presence has jeopardized these negotiations.”
Back ramrod straight, the Admiral pinned the President with a stare of his own and ignored her question. “Obviously, he,” the venom and contempt in his voice was palatable, “has convinced you that veiled threats of global terrorism are acceptable. At least he only blew up buildings on one continent of one colony.” He moved toward her to prevent the retort he could see forming on her lips. “Did you know one of doctors in the delegation is Bartlet’s daughter? And another member is his friend of thirty years? How do you expect to bargain in good faith with a man when you hold his family hostage?”
Laura now advanced on him. “I will negotiate in whatever faith I choose, Admiral, which will serve our people best. No one is a hostage. No one was ever a hostage, but it is important that these people think I might go that far.” The room wasn’t large but it was bigger then her office on Colonial One or his on Galactica and they resembled two predators advancing across the plain to do battle. “I can’t think about a dozen people when there are 40 plus thousand of them up there requiring… needing… demanding I think of them. This is a political matter.”
This is a political matter. This is a military matter. He had used it as a way to cut her out of a decision he’d already made and she was doing the same to him now.
“With your actions you have threatened their entire planet, Laura. Don’t you think as the leader of the most powerful nation on this planet, President Bartlet isn’t thinking of the billions of people on this planet was well? You are here to build trust, not break windows with Viper flybys.”
“What would you have me do, Bill? At the rate we are going, the fleet could still be in orbit for years. You know as well as I do the civilians won’t stand for that.” The weight of their world was pressing on her shoulders and he could see it settling in fine lines around her eyes. She was tired, they all were.
“This is our destination, Laura. This is Earth. You did it. You brought us here and you can bring us just this much farther. This is our chance to start again and you…” he paused, needing to regroup, to tread lightly. They hadn’t had a conversation with this much potential for a catastrophic outcome since the Arrow.
“You can’t do this at the price of your soul. I believe the prophecy is true, a dying leader has led us to Earth, but it is not a physical dying. It’s a dying of the light behind your eyes. I understand your concern for the fleet. But you have decided to use the threat of force to get your way. They won’t like it, Laura. Won’t accept it.” He had to drive this point home. “And in the end you won’t like it either.” The fire in her eyes changed and he knew she was remembering the first days of their escape.
“Madame President, this has to stop now. There has to be another way. Don’t do this Laura, just don’t. If you bully the people of this planet into taking us in, it will be two hundred years before we are tolerated and another hundred before we are accepted. You don’t have the right to sentence our entire culture to ten generations of hatred and persecution.” Her jaw flexed and her eyes glimmered. He had gotten through, reached the woman under the politician. “It is our responsibility to the fleet, to our people, to build the relationship with the people of Earth on trust not threats. This is not politics, this is our survival.”
“And you have to be worthy of survival,” she whispered with a smile.
“Yes, Laura, you do…we all do.”
Next Chapter: Part XVIII