Word Count: 1,611
Date: 4/05/05
Series: Mini
Rating: K+
Category: Character
Pairing/Focus: O
Warnings:
Summary: A look at the events on Battlestar Galactica from different eyes.
Spoilers/Disclaimers:This seems to be turning out darker than I expected. Possible spoilers and not certain at this time but maybe character death. Spoilers Season 1 ( so far Mini and through Water ), potential spoilers for Season 2 Disclaimers Don't own them, wish I did, only thing that belongs to me is Kat.
Archiving: Just let me know
“Private NERO, pull your head out of your ass and get over here.” Katherine cringed, Chief Tyrol was on a rampage again. “We need to get this deck cleared, we have ships landing for this damn ceremony.”
“Yes Chief.” she said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the public relations tour and ducked down behind the Viper she was working on. GODS she hoped Doral didn't see her. He kept trying to corner her for a “performance.” Some people just can't let someone retire. Fifteen years on stage had been enough. Suddenly she heard a familiar laugh. She peeked over the nose of the Viper and saw them, they were presenting the Viper to the Commander. She remembered the first time she had actually met him.
She stood on the stage with the glare of the spotlights in her eyes, singing and remembering. She had started her career right here on this stage in this little club on Caprica and now that she was nearing the end of it, she had insisted on giving her final concert here. No one knew why she was retiring, the speculations were running rampant in the tabloids. She just smiled when she read them. From KAT, toast of the 12 colonies, one of the most popular singers in colonial history to plain old Private Katherine Nero, boot camp was only a few days away, and none of her fans would believe it. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.
The set over she stepped off the stage and into the wings. Her manager stood there, a glass of water in his hands.
“I can't believe you are giving all this up.” He said.
“I told you why, I made a promise.” Kat laughed at the look on his face, he had been giving her fits for weeks about changing her mind. He didn't understand why she wanted to do this.
“There is a gentleman who would like to speak to you, a Bill Adama?”
“Great, send him to my dressing room.” She walked back toward the back of the stage.
She walked into the room, and looked around. Everything was packed except her costume for the final set, she would have to remember to give Megan her bonus. Kat would miss her personal assistant. She sat at the makeup table and started putting on her makeup for the final set. A soft knock on the door made her look up.
“Come in.”
“Mr. Adama” her manager said as he opened the door. A tall man in a military uniform walked into the room.
“Commander” Kat said. “Nice of you to come tonight. My father always admired you.”
“It was an honor to serve with Chief Nero, and it has been my pleasure to listen to your music all these years.” A slight smile creased his scarred face.
She turned around. He looked so uncomfortable standing there.
“I wanted to thank you again Commander for all that you have done to help me with this. I promised my father when he died that I would join the military for at least one enlistment, and you have helped so much with the age waivers and reccomendations. I just hope I can live up to both of your expectations.”
“When do you report for your enlistment? I would be honored if you would allow me to swear you in.”
“Tomorrow morning, at the main Caprica Spaceport. Military portal. I will be going to Picon for training, then into the fleet, and I would be honored if you came.”
Her manager knocked on the door, “5 minutes”
“One more set, and then I am retired.” She laughed.
“Your songs will be missed”
“Private Nero, how are you doing?” His voice snapped her out of her reverie.
“Good sir, and my I say it has been an honor to serve with you.” She snapped a salute.
“And now it is my great pleasure to introduce the last commander of the battlestar Galactica... Commander Adama.” Doral looked smug standing there at the podium.
Commander Adama stands and walks slowly to the podium.
“The Cylon War is long over. Yet we must not forget the reasons why so many were asked to sacrifice so much in the cause of freedom. The values we fought for are still worth preserving today. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but... “ He pauses a second and take off his glasses. Katherine recognizes that look, it was the same one she had when she was thinking about her dad. “Sometimes it's too high. You know... we fought the Cylons to save ourselves from extinction, but we never answered the question... why? Why are we as a people worth saving? Look at us. We tell ourselves we're noble, intelligent creatures. Children of the Lords of Kobol. But we'll still let people go to bed hungry because it costs too much to feed the poor... we still commit murder for greed or spite or jealousy...and we visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to take responsibility for what we've done.
“Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play god. Create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it wasn't really our fault, not really. It was the Cylons that were flawed. But the truth is... we're the flawed creation. We're the ones that tried to manufacture life and make it serve us. But you don't play God and then wipe your hands of what you've created. Sooner or later... the day comes when you can't hide from what you've done anymore. A day of reckoning. “ He looked tired to her, tired and resigned. Her retirement had been something of her choosing, his was forced upon him before he was ready. The rest of the speakers droned on interminally while she thought about what he had said.
Somehow she didn't think of him as old. He was her father's age, but he didn't look it. He stayed in shape. It was rumored on the ship that he could still take anyone in a boxing ring. His eyes while giving that speech were the only part of him that seemed old... old and sad and somehow she wanted to take that saddness away.
Later that evening, she was working late on the flight deck. She heard footsteps behind her. It was The Old Man walking his nightly rounds before sleep. She softly began to sing one of her old songs. He paused and listened. It was a song about unrequited love, the kind that can never be, the kind that hurts but with a sweet ache that you don't ever want to stop. When the song was over, he walked on and she went back to working on the Viper.
Later that night klaxons rang, and his voice came over the air. “We are at War.” She believed him. There was no doubt in her mind. If The Old Man said it, it was fact. His day of reckoning was here.
It was the longest day of her life, getting those old Mark II's out of mothballs, and ready to fly, the Jump to Ragnar station. The commander going missing with that arms dealer, loading munitions until Tyrol sent her to her rack exausted. She lay there, her small idols to the gods in her hands. “Lady Athena and Lady Aphroditie keep him safe, return him to us. We need him, his strength, his wisdom, his leadership.” She slept with her idols in her hands that night.
The next two days were as exausting as the first, loading munitions, the arrival of the refugee ships and Captain Apollo. She was assigned to his Viper as the tech. He had made a mess of it, The Old Man's Viper. It took her two days between munitions loads to get it back in flying shape. Two days of lovingly getting every thing exactly right, and then Starbuck goes and slams it into the back of the landing bay getting on board before the first jump.
And then they just kept coming every 33 minutes, no sleep, she forgot what sleep was. Forgot how it felt to not have sandpaper coating her eyelids, forgot what it felt like to not be rushed. Forgot how to sing. So many things lost in those 234 jumps.
Now she lays in her rack, a few hours of blissful oblivion waiting for her, but she doesn't forget. There are the idols, on the ledge by her mattress. “Thank you Lady Athena and Lady Aphroditie for returning him to us, and for giving him back his son. That was more than we could have hoped for. I know there is a price to pay for answered prayers and whatever that price, I will pay it.” She drifted off to sleep, and the gods answered her prayer. They took their price. She had sung her last song in the quiet night, the stress of the first days of the war took its toll, she lost her singing voice, a silent unmarked casualty to the war.