Sagittarius Is Bleeding: Battlestar Galactica 3

by Peter David

  “How about this, then.” Dualla was on her feet, putting up a hand to silence him. “How about you don’t say it. How about we just . . . we just let this one lie here for a while.”

  “Dee, I still want to—”

  “Want to what, Billy?” she said, trying and failing to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “Want to talk some more about how hopeless everything is, and how we should just give up?”

  “I didn’t say any of that!”

  “Well . . . I did. Because you know what, Billy? If I can’t even ask a casual question about how the president of the Colonies is without getting a whole lecture on divided loyalties, then I don’t really see the point of any of this.”

  “Oh, come on, Dee . . .”

  “I gotta go.”

  “What?” He was dumbfounded by her reaction. “Dee, we can still—”

  “I have to go to a meeting.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of . . . the People Under Suspicion by Tigh support group. You can let yourself out, okay?” She moved quickly toward the door and was out before Billy could say anything more.

  She headed off down the hall, her mind swirling with frustration and anger that was directed both at Billy and herself. She felt that she had handled the whole thing very badly. The truth was that he hadn’t said anything that hadn’t already occurred to her as well. She had just wanted to believe that she was wrong, and despised the notion that matters might be as hopeless as he was indicating. What angered her in particular was that he’d been so matter-of-fact about it. At the very least, he should sound as if the entire prospect was tearing him up inside. Instead he was giving a simple, clinical analysis of their situation in the same manner that he might have presented a report on the economy to the president.

  Was she being unreasonable? Maybe. But at that moment she didn’t particularly care.

  And what was worse, she wasn’t entirely sure she cared about Billy all that much.

  She hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, but although Billy had been a pleasant enough dalliance . . . and although she’d always think he was one of the sweetest guys in the world . . . lately her thoughts and attentions had been shifting elsewhere. There had been something—she wasn’t sure what, but something—connecting lately between her and Lee Adama. She had no idea where it might lead. But it was sufficient to make her think there was something there worth exploring. She just couldn’t do it, of course, while she was involved with Billy.

  Or could she?

  After all, Billy didn’t know. They hadn’t promised fealty to each other. There might have been a vague sort of “understanding,” but nothing had been stated implicitly. Perhaps what she really needed to do was compare and contrast. See for herself how it felt being with each of them, and which brought her more . . . satisfaction.

  It might not have been fair to either of them, but it was all she could think of. Because she didn’t want to break Billy’s heart for no reason, but she didn’t want to slam the door on exploring her feelings about Lee.

  Billy, meanwhile, was dwelling on the fact that he might well have had dates in the past that ended abruptly, but it was hard to recall any of them going down in flames quite this badly. He tried to imagine just how it might have gone better, what he could possibly have said to her that would have prevented their evening from dissolving into a pained discussion of loyalties and politics.

  “Well, Dee,” he said with a faux jovial attitude, “it’s funny you should ask about President Roslin. See, she’s been having such horrific dreams for a while now that she can’t sleep through the night anymore. She’s starting to hallucinate; she’s acting erratically. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known, and she’s beginning to come unravelled. And . . . here’s the most interesting part . . . she thinks that the reason that she’s having all these dreams is because Sharon Valerii’s unborn child is influencing her somehow. Maybe trying to torment her. Maybe trying to warn her. Hard to say. So . . . how’s your day been?” He sat back, closed his eyes and moaned softly. “Yeah. Yeah, that would go over really well. Good way to go with that, Billy. That would have enamored her of you and kept confidence boosted in Roslin while we’re at it.” He was beginning to think he was going to have to resign himself to the idea that not only was his relationship with Dualla going nowhere, but he might well never have a relationship with a woman ever again.

  And as he pondered the bleak landscape that represented his dating life, he was completely unaware that he had just managed to accomplish the one thing that he never would have done consciously. He had just betrayed Laura Roslin.

  CHAPTER

  13

  In his quarters at the end of a very long day, William Adama was coming to the realization that his day was about to get even longer.

  He listened for the second time to the recording that Tigh had brought him and was still having trouble believing what he was hearing. He’d been listening via an ear piece, for Tigh—ever cautious—felt that it was best not to play back the recordings in the very, very off chance that someone might wander past and hear their own conversation coming from Adama’s quarters. Now Adama removed the ear piece from his ear and looked up at Tigh in clear astonishment . . . which for Adama, who had a reputation for a stoic expression that bordered on the inscrutable, amounted to a flicker of surprise in his gaze. “Are you sure he didn’t know we were listening in?”

  “Obviously, I have no way of knowing for certain,” Tigh replied. “But it certainly sounds like Keikeya is talking to himself, and that he has his guard down. That’s he’s not saying it for our ears alone.”

  Adama leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Why wouldn’t Roslin say anything to me about it, if she’s having these sorts of concerns?”

  “Who can ever understand women?” Tigh shrugged. “They have their own way of thinking. Maybe she was concerned how you’d react to it. Maybe she—”

  “Was concerned I’d try to stage a coup?” Adama asked hu-morlessly.

  Tigh’s mouth twitched as he replied, “Well . . . it’s not like it would be unprecedented.”

  “I know, Saul. I was there . . . for some of it, at least.” He shook his head. “My chickens finally coming home to roost. She’s afraid to come across as unstable because she’s concerned I’ll take steps to ensure continued, strong leadership. She doesn’t trust me.”

  “Should she?”

  Adama looked up at Tigh, and although the question irritated him, he knew that it was also a perfectly valid one. Worse, he had no answer. He wanted to feel as if she could . . . that she should . . . trust him. But based upon what had happened before, there really wasn’t a reason for her to trust him.

  He knew there was no real reason he should feel hurt about this. Yes, granted, he and Roslin had been through a lot since those early days of mistrust and accusations. He would never say it aloud, but in some perverse way, Sharon Valerii’s murderous assault on him had been one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Before the incident, he had tried to transform himself into what he thought the last remnants of humanity required: a hard-edged, hard-bitten, brutal-as-necessary commander who was perfectly willing to steamroll over anyone or anything that got in the way of his very simple goal: survival. He had even bald-facedly lied to his own people, telling them that he had known the “secret location” of Earth. It was a preposterous lie, one that never would have survived even the most minimal scrutiny. But that scrutiny was never applied to him, for two reasons. First, because they all trusted him implicitly. And second, they wanted—needed—to believe in something. They had to believe that the bleak existence they had had thrust upon them was not all that was left to them. There had to be something more, and Adama had provided it for them. He’d given them hope when he himself felt none . . . and that knowledge had created a great divide between Adama and his people. He would watch them soldiering on as if from a great height looking down. It made him feel more detached than ever b
efore.

  No wonder the gods had left them to their fates. No wonder they simply stood by and let humanity be nearly annihilated by the Cylons. Legend had it that the gods sat in residence upon a mountain and looked down upon humanity. If that was the case, then they had spent ages beyond imagining becoming more and more distant, to the point where they probably didn’t give a damn what happened to human beings anymore. Adama would never have been able to undersand that attitude . . . until he had created a barrier between himself and the rest of humanity that they didn’t even know was there.

  All that had changed after the humanizing experience of being gunned down. It had rattled his confidence about making correct decisions down to its very core. After all, he’d been in the midst of congratulating Boomer on a job well done. When she had pointed her gun at him, he had been staring straight at it but his mind was unable to process what was happening. His instinct was that there was some sort of threat directly behind him and she was acting to protect him. When the first of the bullets had thudded into his chest, he had been astonished. Before he’d lapsed into unconsciousness, it never occurred to him that she was a Cylon. All he could think was, She missed whoever she was shooting at behind me. She’s going to be so embarrassed.

  He had learned the truth of it later, of course. And the experience of being at death’s door had humbled him, even humiliated him. There’s nothing that makes one stop and take stock of oneself more than being face to face with one’s own mortality. His decisions, and the fallout from them, had shattered the fleet. He had put it back together . . . and discovered in the process, thanks to the mule-headed determination of Laura Roslin, that the great lie wasn’t that at all. There really was an Earth, and there really was a way to get there. President Roslin had removed a huge burden from him, erasing the divide in one stroke because the lie was the truth.

  He owed her a debt so gargantuan that he didn’t think he could ever adequately explain it to her. So he hadn’t even tried. He had, however, done everything he could to support her. To be a friend and confidant to her.

  And this was the result. She still didn’t trust him, even though he’d been as supportive of her as he possibly could be, particularly since he’d learned of her cancer . . .

  “Maybe she thought I was pitying her,” Adama said softly.

  Tigh looked at him in confusion, not quite understanding what it was that Adama was talking about. “Pitying her?”

  “Perhaps she thought that I was simply ‘pretending’ to be her friend. After all, I knew she wasn’t going to be around much longer. So why spend a lot of time arguing with her when time would solve my problem.”

  “But that’s not what you were thinking,” said Tigh. “Not at all. I know that.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t.”

  “Well, you can tell her . . .”

  “Tell her what?” Adama said bleakly. “Tell her that I know of her situation because we eavesdropped on her aide? How’s that going to inspire trust, exactly?”

  “Because we didn’t do it,” Tigh said.

  Adama didn’t follow what Tigh was saying at first, but then he saw the look in Tigh’s eyes and suddenly it was clear to him. “No,” he said firmly.

  “I did it, unilaterally,” Tigh said as if Adama hadn’t spoken. “Then, when I heard the results of this, I came to you and told you. You chewed my ass—”

  “Saul—”

  “—and then decided that, as President Roslin’s friend, you couldn’t simply ignore this evidence that had been brought to your attention. So you’re coming to her now, out of conscience.”

  “Saul, you asked my permission and I gave it.”

  “And no one needs to know about that except you and me,” Tigh said. “What’s the worst that could happen? She’ll despise me? She already despises me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because she’s met me. I’m a prick. Ask her. Ask Dualla. Ask anyone.”

  Adama snorted in amusement at that. Saul Tigh might have had weaknesses—but self-delusion certainly wasn’t one of them.

  And Tigh, all seriousness, said, “Bill . . . you’re the one who needs to have a solid working relationship with the president. Not me. Tell her that I acted on my own initiative. She’ll believe it.”

  “You really feel the way for me to gain her trust,” Adama said in a slow, measured tone, “is to lie to her?”

  “Of course,” said Tigh matter-of-factly. “Have you got a better suggestion?”

  He sat and waited, his hands folded on his lap, for Adama to reply.

  “What else have you got?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What else,” said Adama, “have you picked up so far in the eavesdropping?”

  “Oh. Well . . . Doctor Baltar was making some sort of noise about having to recheck that boy’s bloodwork.”

  “You mean Boxey? There’s some doubt now that his original results were correct?”

  Tigh shrugged. “That’s the impression I was getting.”

  “Wonderful. Well, I suppose we’ll hear about that one sooner rather than later. Find out where Boxey is, just so we have a clear idea. That way if we need to take him, we can do so with minimal effort.”

  “We never should have let him leave,” Tigh said in annoyance. “Counting on the discretion of a teenager . . .”

  “The alternative was to make him a permanent ‘guest’ in one of our luxurious cells,” Adama pointed out. “At which point, child services was going to come sniffing around, and presto, the media announces we’re arresting children for no apparent reason. Let’s face it, Saul . . . sooner or later, word is going to get out about Sharon. We can delay it, but not indefinitely. And throwing anyone in the brig who knows about her and isn’t military issue is just going to expedite it.”

  “How can you keep calling it ‘Sharon’?” Tigh asked. “There is no ‘Sharon.’ There never was. There was just a thing pretending to be human.”

  Adama said nothing at first, and then finally: “Anything else?”

  Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Tigh said, “Well . . . there’s one thing that I find rather disturbing personally.”

  “And that would be—?”

  “Frankly,” he said in a severe tone, “several of our junior officers spend entirely too much downtime engaged in self-frakking. Certainly there has to be something more constructive they can be doing.”

  Adama’s face could have been carved from slate. “Get. Out.”

  “Yes sir,” Tigh said quickly and exited Adama’s quarters.

  Laura slowly rose from behind her desk, her eyes widening in astonishment, and Adama could have sworn that her face paled slightly. “Listening devices?”

  He nodded. “I was shocked,” he deadpanned. “Not surprised. But shocked.”

  Her gaze never shifted from Adama’s. “And Tigh just . . . just did this of his own accord? Without consulting you at all?”

  Adama took a deep breath and let it out slowly, ready to hang Tigh out on the far end of the branch and then watch as Laura took a saw to it. He found, to his fascination and disappointment, that he was unable to do so. Interesting, considering how effortlessly he’d lied to far more people than one woman and done so with facility. But, as he knew all too well, that was the pre-shooting Adama. He didn’t have the stomach for it anymore.

  “No,” sighed Adama, and he lowered his gaze. “I gave you the impression that Tigh was acting alone, but he did not. He came to me and I approved it.”

  She looked stunned at the admission. “Admiral,” she gasped. “How . . . how could you—?”

  “Because we still don’t know how the Cylons acquired our Jump coordinates, and our security is at stake,” said Adama, sounding far more reasonable than he thought he was under the circumstances. “We have to take a different approach to resolving that problem, and if it means that some people’s rights are lost in the process, then I for one have no trouble living with that.”

  “And how about if th
ey have trouble with it?” Laura demanded.

  “Then I’ll live with that. Because the bottom line is that they want me to make the hard decisions involved in protecting them. Whether they admit it to themselves or not, they want me for that. They may grumble and grouse and cry foul, but at the end of the day, they’re relieved that people like Saul Tigh and myself are taking point in doing what needs to be done.”

  “Just tell me if it was Tigh’s idea or yours.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “To me? It makes a great deal of difference.”

  He briefly considered stonewalling her on the matter, but rejected it. Once upon a time, he could have done that without hesitation. Now, it wasn’t really an option. “He suggested it; I ordered him to implement it. So if you’re going to blame someone—”

  “I’m not interested in issuing blame, I . . .” She hesitated, and then in a rare display of anger, she slapped her palms on the desk in frustration. “Dammit, Bill! Do you have any idea what a violation this . . . this program is? I feel violated, and I wasn’t even among the ones bugged!” She paused in mid-outburst and said slowly, “I’m not, am I?”

  “No. Just the residents of Galactica. It’s a military vessel, and frankly, Madame President, it’s understood that when you sign up for the service, there are certain aspects of your life that you’re giving up. The option to refuse to do what you’re told, for one. Privacy for another.”

  “Not that much privacy. It’s wrong, Admiral, and you know it.”

  “Yes. I do,” Adama said evenly. “I also know it’s wrong not to do everything within my power to ensure the safety of the fleet. Whenever those two imperatives come into conflict, I will always—always—err on the side of the safety of the fleet. Frankly, I would think that’s a mindset you could readily understand.”

  “Don’t act like you’re taking the moral high road.”

  “I’m not. I’m taking the only road available to me. I don’t care whether it’s lofty or muddy. It’s what’s there. We don’t live in a world of what’s right and what’s wrong. We live in a world of what’s necessary.”