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"Take that, you frakker!" Starbuck whooped as the Cylon ship exploded, a bright ball of fire against the swirled pastel backdrop of the planet below. She jigged and swerved as her Raptor met the expanding cloud of debris. She was almost through when there was an ominous thunk as a large piece hit and imparted a dizzying spin she had not intended. She swore and wrestled with the controls, so clunky compared to her Viper's, finally straightening her flight path out but with the planet unnervingly closer. She hauled back on the controls, but her nose stayed down. "Oh, crap."
"Scouts, report in." Apollo's voice crackled through the comms.
"Hang on. Hit a bit of trouble." Damn half the Raptor pilots being down with a stomach bug. She shouldn't even be here. She wished she wasn't here.
"You OK, Starbuck?"
"Uhh, for the moment."
"Where are you?"
"A little too close to that gas giant."
"Pull up."
"Can't. It's too late." Starbuck thought fast. One thing she could do. You weren't supposed to this deep in a gravity well, but hey. "I'm gonna jump."
"No! Starbuck--"
"No choice, Lee." She hit the button and the stars shifted. "Huh!" She let her breath out and leaned back in her seat, relieved. It worked. So much for all those stories about people just disappearing. OK, now to get back to the Galactica. She called up the return coordinates and jumped again.
It was gone. The whole fleet was gone. The planet they were orbiting was gone. What the-- Those coordinates were right, downloaded from Galactica before the scouts hit space. Dammit, the starfield matched. Starbuck thumped her fist against the canopy in frustration and did a long-range scan.
The planets were still there. Just moved in their orbits.
She'd jumped in time? This was what happened to all those daredevils who got held up as cautionary examples during basic training?
Oh, frak.
After several minutes of self-blame and trying to will the last few minutes not to have happened, Starbuck realised that if she didn't find somewhere other than the cockpit of the Raptor to live inside the next couple of days, she might as well have gone down in the soup. At least she'd flown this scout mission solo, so she didn't have any rivals for the remaining air.
She decided, without much hope, that she might as well check out the other planets in the system.
What was that? Weapons fire? Perhaps it had been only a few weeks and the fleet was still here. The hope hit Starbuck so hard, she found it difficult to breathe. Maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have to spend the rest of a short, not to mention boring, life in this cockpit after all.
No one answered her call sign on the fleet frequencies, but a space battle meant people.
She hoped.
She approached cautiously. It wasn't the fleet, but a huge, strange, and elegant white ship, turning and firing as several small, dark red arrowhead-shaped vessels attacked it. Disappointment and fascination warred within her. The large ship made her think of a stag at bay, but if she had to choose allies here, she would have to make damn sure she picked the right ones.
She angled in, matching vectors with one of the red ships, flying wing-to-wing. Looking across, she could see two crewmembers in the cockpit, turning in unison to face her. She grinned and waved. The women looked expressionlessly back, pale perfect faces under shining black plastic instead of hair. Frak, they were toasters! Starbuck peeled off and went in for the attack.
The battle was short, sharp, and victorious, with Starbuck twisting and turning and getting two of the attackers while the white ship blew the others into fireballs which left nothing behind but an afterimage on her retinas.
She did a fly-by, waggling her Raptor's stubby wings insouciantly.
"Whoever you are," a cool, cultured voice came through her comms, "thank you."
She almost whooped: she could understand them! "Captain Kara Thrace of the Colonial Fleet at your service. Permission to come aboard."
"I shall take your request into consid--"
"Oh, come on, Avon!" another voice cut in. "After what she did to help us?"
"Shut up, Vila. Where are you from, Captain Thrace?"
"Caprica."
"Caprica? Very well, I am sufficiently interested in that statement to agree. Opening the docking bay now."
The huge doors slid open and Starbuck manoeuvred the Raptor in. Eh, she didn't have any better choices.
She clambered out of her cockpit to be met by a man who looked as dark and cold and superior as the voice she had heard, and a young black woman. They were both armed with what looked like comic-book ray guns, but at least they weren't actually pointing them at her.
"I'm Avon," the man said, "and this is Dayna. Follow me."
Starbuck raised an eyebrow. Well hello, Mr Friendly. She shrugged and regarded the man's leather-clad butt, considerably more perky than his expression had been. The woman fell in behind her as they set off in what was only sensible military behaviour; all the same, Starbuck's spine itched but she didn't want to draw attention to her own gun tucked into her flight jacket. She looked around as they walked through glowing white corridors, all with a hexagonal cross-section. Was that just a fashion, or was this society modelled on a hive? That would make Avon the queen bee if he was in charge; she grinned widely at the thought.
The flight deck was all hexagons too, but at least it contained a couple of friendlier faces, and another cool, appraising one, a woman with watchful eyes.
"Hi there," Starbuck said. "I'm Captain Kara Thrace."
One of the men stood up and gave her a dazzling smile back. "And I'm Captain Del Tarrant."
Great, things were looking up: another attractive man, but this one was also young, friendly, and approachable. In fact, she might well approach him later. "Ah, so this is your ship?"
"No," Avon said curly. "It's mine." He sat down on the incongruously unmilitary-looking couch and swung one leg over the other. "He's just the pilot."
"I wouldn't say 'just'," Starbuck said.
Tarrant executed a charming little bow. "Why, thank you. And may I compliment you on your flying, Thrace? Or do I call you Kara?"
"Starbuck to fellow pilots. You did some nice flying too, considering the size of this beast. And who was the hotshot on weapons?"
"Me," said Dayna.
The man at the station looked indignant. "And me."
"Yes," Dayna said grudgingly. "And him. Vila's better than he looks. Not that that would be hard."
"Oh, thanks! I did all right on the blasters before you came along." Vila ducked his head and give Starbuck a half-shy, half-sly grin, suddenly looking younger and kinda cute. "Pleased to meet you."
She snorted, amused. "D'you all talk like that?"
Dayna frowned. "Like what?"
"Like a fancy-pants Caprica intellectual. You sound just like a guy I know and he's so far up himself, he's almost a Klein bottle."
Vila laughed, and even Avon smiled slightly in appreciation. "Tell me--" Avon hesitated, "--Starbuck, why do your people use such an archaic name?"
She wrinkled her nose. "What, Klein bottle? Starbuck?"
"Caprica."
"Archaic? Well, I guessed I'd gotten displaced in time, but... I have no idea where I am, but it must be the future." Starbuck's face suddenly lit up. "In that case, we beat the Cylons! Did we find the thirteenth colony?"
"If you mean Earth, then yes, you found us." Avon said sourly. "Your arrival and unreasoning fear of artificial intelligence put computing and technology back a thousand years. Not that I believe in time travel."
Starbuck snorted. "Yeah, neither did I."
"And how did you achieve such an improbable feat?"
"Jumped inside a gravity well. A big one. Gas giant."
"You mean a hyper jump?"
"FTL, yeah, I guess."
Avon raised an eyebrow. "Is that feasible, Orac?"
The lights inside the plastic box in front of him flickered, and it spoke, making Starbuck jump at less than light speed. "An interesting problem. Yes, the interference of the gravitational distortion and the local compression of space caused by such a jump, could well cause displacement in time. Very interesting."
"Who's that? Another one of your crew members?"
Avon smiled thinly. "I doubt it would agree."
It? Then it wasn't a communications device, it was-- "A Cylon!" Starbuck drew her gun.
As did Avon. "Don't be stupid. Unless you want to destroy your only chance of getting back."
Starbuck hesitated.
"It's not a Cylon," he said patiently. "It's merely an advanced computer which was given its inventor's voice and personality."
"An AI, then." Starbuck kept her gun pointed at Orac. "That's how the Cylons started."
"Granted. However, Orac has no legs or independent means of movement, and--" Avon reached forward with his other hand and removed a small piece from the top of the thing, causing it to whine like a turbine running down, "--it can be turned off at will."
Starbuck lowered her gun slowly.
"It's merely a sophisticated piece of programming. Quite harmless."
"I wouldn't say that," said Vila. "He almost got us blown up to prove a point."
Avon glared. "Ignore him," he said to Starbuck. "He's faster on the neutron blasters than the uptake." He reinserted the computer's key, making it whine again. "Can Captain Thrace get back to the past, and if so, how?"
"Finally, a question worthy of my intellect. I shall consider the problem. And the less you interrupt while I do so," Orac said with asperity, "the faster I shall have a solution."
Avon frowned and whipped the key out again. "Arrogant machine."
Starbuck pursed her lips and said nothing. Mere machines weren't arrogant, but she'd wait and see if this one could get her back.
Starbuck threw herself onto the flight deck couch. "So, what do you guys do for fun on this crate?"
Vila considered a flirtatious reply, but decided not to risk it; he didn't know Starbuck's sense of humour well enough yet. "Apart from being shot at? Well, let's see... Galactic Monopoly, chess, pyramids, cards--"
"Cards!" Starbuck rubbed her hands. "Good idea! Got anything to drink?"
"A woman after my own heart! I'll get the booze and nibbles, then."
"Great." Starbuck stretched lazily. "So who's in?"
"I'll play." Tarrant said with a charming smile and sat down beside her. He reached under the table and got out a box containing coloured chips and two packs of cards.
"Rectangles! How quaint!" Starbuck expertly shuffled a deck and spread the cards on the table. "Cute symbols too. Right, what shall we play?"
"Strip poker?" Vila said hopefully, returning with a tray of bottles, glasses, a bowl of indefinable snacks, and a wink that could be cited in defence if necessary.
"Don't listen to him." Cally smiled faintly.
"Yeah," Dayna chipped in. "He cheats."
"Does he now?" Starbuck grinned. "Excellent. I like a challenge."
"I do not cheat! I'm just good."
"With your nimble little fingers, yes." Dayna glared at Vila. "And just don't go anywhere with that if you know what's good for you."
"You in, Hotshot?" Starbuck asked her.
"Why not?" Dayna pulled a chair up to make a fourth side. "What about you, Cally?"
"No thank you, Dayna. I am on watch."
"Where's Avon?" Starbuck looked around.
"He usually prefers chess," said Vila. "But he's working. He doesn't like to be interrupted when he's working." He shrugged. "Takes all sorts." Avon, in fact, was pulling the Raptor's FTL jump engine apart to find out how it worked, but Starbuck really didn't need to know that.
"OK, what're we playing for?"
"Chips," said Vila, setting up coloured piles.
"All very well, Fingers," said Starbuck, "but what're they backed with?"
"Credits."
"Credit for what?"
"Nah, credits. It's a unit of currency."
"So, can someone advance me some?"
"Of course," said Vila, who always valued the acquiring of property over the retaining of it.
"You got some on you?" Starbuck held out her hand.
"Um... not on board." And none of this lot knew about the bank account he'd salted his Freedom City winnings away in, not even Avon.
"You don't use money?"
"I make it a point of honour not to," said Vila, "but I suppose it's useful in case I ever have to buy myself. Bounties," he explained to Starbuck's querying look. "Doesn't matter, anyway. We always start off with the same number of chips each and just keep account. Tarrant here owes me more than eight hundred thousand to date."
Starbuck rolled her eyes. "So it's all notional?"
Vila looked offended. "I can cover my chips, no problems."
"So can I," said Dayna, heir to Mellanby Arms.
"Flyboy can't though, can he?"
Tarrant pouted. "Well, neither can you."
Starbuck thought. "OK, how about my dogtags, or my watch. A star map from my ship? They'd all be worth megabucks as antiques."
Vila looked interested, then shook his head. "Nah, carbon dating wouldn't work on 'em, would it? They'd just test as new."
"Me, then."
"Eh?"
"You heard me. Let's make it interesting, shall we? I'll put myself in the pot just as long as Flyboy here does." Starbuck gave Tarrant a big and suggestive wink.
Tarrant smiled dazzlingly. "Oh, so we're playing for real value, are we? All right, you're on!"
"Hey, wait a minute!" Vila looked appalled. "What if I win him? I don't want one of those!"
Starbuck reached over and tousled his hair. "Then you'll have to play accordingly, won't you, Fingers? And besides, you never know your luck."
Vila stared at her, breathless with hope. Her layered sleeveless cotton knit outfit probably was probably designed to be utilitarian, but it revealed more of her than Vila had seen of the female form for a long time, including an impressive musculature.
He gulped and dealt.
Vila was good at games involving legerdemain, so he did well at cards. Of course, that didn't always mean winning big. He'd learned long ago that a modest gain left you in one piece to play again another time. Besides, he didn't want Tarrant. Starbuck, on the other hand, left him almost weak with desire--and fear. She looked as if she could do some serious damage to a delicate and sensitive Delta.
As the game went on, he doubted he could win her anyway. Tarrant had easy tells: he thought smiling on a bad hand was a clever bluff, but went all expressionless when he got a good one except for the corners of his mouth going in slightly. Dead easy. Dayna often did a little bounce in her seat when she had something decent, and if it was really promising, she would lower her eyelids slightly. Starbuck however, wriggled around, laughed, joked--and was as hard to read as anyone he'd played.
She was a hard drinker too. Vila watched as she downed her third glass of the whisky he'd lifted from Avon's cabin. "I bet she could drink me under the table," he muttered to Tarrant.
"Hell, Vila, I know I'm not much good at betting, but even I wouldn't take that one."
Starbuck laughed as she raked another pile of chips towards herself. Tarrant was so easy to read, and so was Dayna. Vila was much more difficult despite his expressive face, because he seemed to respond only to the other players rather than his own cards. However, she had detected a pattern: whenever Tarrant showed he had a good hand, Vila played only weak hands; otherwise he folded. All right, so he was taking himself out of the running. It spoiled the challenge a bit, but winning was going to be a lot fun anyway, considering the stakes. It wasn't often they came with blue eyes.
Once it was obvious that Vila wasn't seriously in the game--probably deliberately--Tarrant played with careless abandon and anticipation. He couldn't lose, even if he did. This had to be the most profitable game he'd played on this ship, and it was only right. It wasn't just that she was another pilot (and a very sexy one at that) but the first person he'd met since boarding the Liberator he actually had something in common with. He knew her. She was military. She understood the necessity of a command structure, unlike this unruly lot, she was tough, and like other battle-hardened veterans he had fought with, she knew how to take her pleasure when she could, without sentiment.
Oh, yes. This was going to be a meeting of minds as well as bodies.
Dayna glowered at her cards. Starbuck and Tarrant seemed to be just playing each other now. They could hardly take their eyes off each other. It wasn't fair, especially when she was doing better than usual. At best, all she had was a small piece of Tarrant, and going by the way he was looking at Starbuck, she had a fat chance of collecting.
She felt like throwing her cards down and stalking out, like she used to when Lauren won too often, but she had to grit her teeth and pretend it didn't matter. She wasn't going to let them see it did.
"Gotcha!" Starbuck said, leaning back and stretching. "You're cleaned out, Flyboy. You're all mine."
Tarrant gave her a wide smile. "And worth every chip."
"I'll have to find out, won't I?" She stood up and held her hand out to Tarrant. "Let's go."
Dayna slumped in her chair as they left.
Vila gave her a sympathetic look and opened his mouth to speak.
"And not one word from you, Vila."
Vila watched her leave. "I was just going to say I know how it feels," he muttered to himself, quietly so that Cally wouldn't hear. He sighed and started to clear away.
Tarrant's quarters were larger than an officer's cabin on the Galactica, but as sparsely furnished, if more comfortably. "So." Starbuck put her hands on Tarrant's shoulders. "I won you for a pile of coloured plastic. How many credits does that make you worth, Flyboy?"
"About two hundred and fifty."
Starbuck grinned and leaned in closer. "Is that a bargain?"
"Oh, I'd be a bargain at any price."
"Via mentioned having a bounty. Do you?"
"We all do."
"What's yours?"
"Five hundred thousand."
"And Vila's?"
Tarrant hesitated.
"It's more, isn't it?" Starbuck threw back her head and laughed raucously. "I won the wrong one!"
"No, you didn't."
"Prove it."
Tarrant smiled blindingly. "You ready for it after all you drank?"
"Of course! Fight hard, live hard, drink hard, that's me." Starbuck slid her hands down to the fastenings on Tarrant's tunic. "Let me unwrap my winnings. Mmm. I like smooth chests."
"So do I."
Starbuck whooped and pushed Tarrant so that he fell back on the bed, laughing. She whipped both her tops off in one smooth movement, unbelted her trousers, stepped out of them, and leaped onto the bed, straddling him. "And now for some close manoeuvres!"
Tarrant turned to look at her, still sleeping beside him. She looked younger, softer, more vulnerable. He gently moved a strand of blonde hair off her cheek.
She sighed, wrinkled her nose, and opened her eyes. "Hello, you."
"Good morning."
"Well, it was a damned fine night." Starbuck rolled on top of him and rested her chin on her forearms. "I haven't stepped on any toes, have I, Flyboy?"
Tarrant grinned. "I don't remember anything like that. Nibbled a few, yes."
She moved a hand to flick the tip of his nose. "I meant Hotshot. Talk about a little thundercloud."
"Dayna?" Tarrant blinked. "Hell, no! She's fun and young, but... d'you remember your first lover?"
"Of course."
"How did you feel when it was over?"
Starbuck pulled a face. "Crap. I was devastated, but then I was very young. Why?"
"Well, I don't fancy being Dayna's first. She's very young too, she's lost her family, she'd cling, and I don't think she'd see it as the bit of fun I would. Plus, she's armed to the teeth and I'd rather not find out what sort of devastation she'd have in mind for me."
Starbuck laughed.
"What about you? Anyone back where you come from?"
Her face went still. "Yeah."
Tarrant squeezed her bare shoulder. "Look, if anyone can get you back, Avon can. Just don't tell the arrogant sod I said so."
"He isn't just a thousand years away, though; he really is back where I came from. On Caprica."
"Ah. Still alive, I take it?"
"Obviously not now. But I hope he was." She sighed and bit her lip. "I promised him I'd get back." She shrugged and wriggled against Tarrant. "Look, forget all that. Let's see how good we can make this morning."
"Mmm." Tarrant ran his hands lightly down her back. "After all, it's hardly being unfaithful, is it? This far in the future."
"Unfaithful? Whaddaya mean? This is just sex, Flyboy." She licked his nose.
"Oh, I wouldn't say 'just'."
Avon looked from Tarrant, sprawled yawning in his chair, to Starbuck, who was smiling like the cat who'd got the cream. "I'd rather you didn't break my pilot," he said mildly. "He's occasionally useful."
Starbuck's smiled widened. "I had to see what he could do. Push the envelope a little."
"The what?" said Vila. "Never heard it called that before."
"I'll be in the weapons testing bay," said Dayna loudly, stalking out.
Avon lips twitched. "Captain Thrace, you are probably not the only one who will be relieved to hear that Orac and I have worked out how you can get back to your own time."
"Really? How?"
"By following an exact trajectory at an exact acceleration through that gas giant's gravity well, and jumping at the optimum point. Your on-board computers are quite capable of handling it. I have programmed the manoeuvre in."
Tarrant frowned. "You seem to be in a hurry to get rid of her."
"Think, Tarrant. She's from the past. Our past. Do you really want to change that?"
"Soooo," Starbuck narrowed her eyes, "that means I got to Earth?"
"I have no intention of telling you anything. I merely wish to preserve the present."
"Of course," said Vila, "her coming here could all be part of our past because it already happened."
Avon raised his eyebrows at Vila's unexpected grasp of time theory. "Nevertheless, I wouldn't care to test that. Would you?"
"Um, no, not really."
Avon turned back to Starbuck. "I also had the damage to your vessel repaired by Zen and his nanobots."
"Zen? Another AI?"
"Yes, that one there." Avon indicated the huge hexagonal panel with flickering lights.
Starbuck regarded it warily.
Avon smiled. "Ironic, isn't it, that you must depend on self-aware computers to get back? Perhaps you could inform your fellows of that fact."
"And change the past?" said Vila innocently.
"Hmm. Yes, perhaps not."
Starbuck frowned. "You let a computer repair my ship?"
"Of course," said Avon. "They are more accurate and efficient than most humans, particularly present company."
"In that case, why doesn't it pilot the ship?" Starbuck raised an eyebrow at Tarrant.
"Oh, Zen does except for battles or meteor storms, things like that. Computers don't have the speed or creativity or the," he hesitated, "I don't know, intuition of a good pilot."
"Thank you," Starbuck said quietly.
"What for?"
"Giving me some personal hope."
"So," said Vila, "did you find out how their jump thingy works?"
"I did."
"Going to use it?"
Avon shook his head. "Standard by twelve gets us there fast enough, and I prefer to see where I'm going, even if the view is a representation generated by Zen."
"Not tempted to go back in time either?"
Avon stared into the distance. "No. If I changed something, would it necessarily be for the better?" He stood up. "And the knowledge of how to do so is far too dangerous. I have ordered Orac to delete it."
Tarrant gave her a last embrace. "I hope you find him again."
"And you," said Starbuck, disengaging, "should give Hotshot a bit more credit." She punched him gently on the arm.
Tarrant watched as she climbed into the cockpit and, when she turned one last time to flash a grin at him, gave her a deliberately carefree wave.
He stayed just the other side of the airlock, watching through the thick glassteel as the docking bay doors opened and the Raptor swooped out. It hung just outside and waggled its vestigial wings. Tarrant drew in his breath and raised his hand uselessly and unseen in response, and it shot away.
He stood there for a while, still and silent. He hadn't felt lonely on the Liberator before.
He shrugged. It would pass. He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered away, whistling, even though there was no one who could see.
The end