HunTrib Chpt 12

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=Hunted Tribes=
==Chapter 12==
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“You want my view of the future purpose of the SLDF?Okay, it'll be to keep the Successor States in, the Cylons out and the Clanners down.”Admiral Franks, SLDF Chief of Staff – 3047CE
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===Taking in the Refugee===
Battlestar Galactica – Deep Space – 3045CE
Wing Commander Sarah-Louise Defoe ignored the stares directed her way by some of the civilian refugees as she headed down towards the briefing room, they were between jumps with a decent-sized CAP out defending the fleet, ten Vipers and six Kirghiz. As she went her uniform itself would have made it obvious she was one of the “Thirteenth” but she was also one point nine meters in height in her bare feet, somewhat more so in her boots. This was about average for a woman in the regular military, at least for one not in the infantry for whom you could add another ten centimeters, but with her build it certainly made her imposing. She now wore her hair tied-up in a long ponytail that ran down her back, having let it grow out almost half-way to her waist now, shorter might have been more practical but it didn't get in the way of her neurohelmet and although washing and combing it was starting to become a pain she thought her husband would like it.
Her spouse was a civil engineer and he was probably helping build things for the Colonials back on New Circe right now she reasoned, looking down at her wedding ring for a moment. It had been so many weeks since she had seen him and she missed him badly. Before this mission came up they had been considering having children, something she had been putting off for a while since even with the Iron Wombs it would likely stymie the progression of her military career, but now she was sure it was time for them to do their part for the Clan. She might even consider normal pregnancy for maybe her second or third although it did look pretty uncomfortable from what she could tell.
Tragically there were very few children amongst the survivors they had rescued from the Twelve Colonies but a little girl of perhaps seven or eight watched her intently as she walked past and began following her. Defoe pretended to ignore her for a while but then picked up the pace seeing if the kid would try and keep up which she did, the sound of her feet hitting the deck at double time as she attempted to match the Wing Commanders speed with much shorter legs causing Defoe to smile to herself as she rounded the next corner just ahead of the child. She stopped, span around and dropped to one knee so as the girl turned the corner a couple of steps behind they were now face-to-face at eye-level. "Fighter pilots don't like people tailing their six." she told the surprised little girl in English, not that the child understood a word causing Defoe to resort to her limited Caprican instead. "Recon mission failed, break off pursuit, return to base" she said in the girls own language.
The girl stared at her wide-eyed and babbled something really fast which Defoe at best picked up one word in ten from and none of the meaning. "Can anyone translate?" she asked loudly in English.
"She wants to know why we're all so tall" someone replied. Looking over Defoe recognized one of the academics from the university, they were often to be found wandering the ship talking to people, taking notes and answering questions from those curious about where they were going and what New Circe was like.
"Tell her it's because the Thirteenth Tribe stretch their children on racks" Defoe requested.
The academic laughed. "Okay" he agreed and translated. The girl looked doubtfully at the academic then back to Defoe saying something else. "She doesn't believe it" he told Defoe.
"Fine, then tell her it's because we eat all our vegetables." Defoe replied.
The little girl listened to the translation into Caprican then stuck her tongue out in distaste, replying via the man from the Thirteenth in strange civilian clothes that spoke both languages. "She says it's not worth it, and she says you probably bang your head on a lot of doorways" he told Defoe.
Defoe laughed, it was true as well. If it wasn't for them wearing their helmets almost all the time now the Infantry from the 331st based on Galactica in particular would have probably all knocked themselves senseless by now. "If that's all she wanted to know is she going to stop following me now?" she asked.
The girl listened to the translation then replied. "She wants to know if the Thirteenth are going to kill all the Cylons." the academic said.
The Wing Commander frowned, a perhaps understandable belief had quickly spread through the civilians that the Thirteenth, a race of honest-to-gods genetically-engineered super-soldiers with an arsenal of incredible weapons, would wipe out the entire Cylon race in revenge for the deaths of so many of their human brothers and sisters. "Tell her we'll kill all the Cylons that come to hurt her" she replied carefully. The Lord Protector and Parliament would never countenance genocide even if the means presented itself unless it proved absolutely necessary.
After that was turned into Caprican, the girl nodded then gave Defoe a hug which the surprised officer awkwardly returned before the child turned and ran off.
"Aww that's so cute, boss, can I get a hug too?" someone asked loudly.
"What's the matter, Gibson, didn't get enough attention as a child?" Defoe retorted, standing up.
The Flight-Lieutenant now stood nearby laughed. "No, Ma"am" he replied.
"Well I don't love you either" Defoe told him flatly. "Shouldn't you be trying to seduce some poor ignorant Colonial girl somewhere?" she asked sardonically.
"I'll be trying later but I'm not having any luck there yet" Gibson admitted. "It's either my looks or my personality I guess" the fighter pilot continued. "Could be both of course" he added.
"Well despite all your other faults I guess I can't add vanity to them" Defoe told him. He was a good pilot, well slightly above average at least, but Gibson's personality sometimes rubbed people up the wrong way. "Since you're here I had a note from the ships LSO counter-signed by the CAG, would you please stop trying to set the record for the fastest landing approach before you get yourself killed or put a gigantic dent in the flight deck" she requested in a manner than made sure he knew it was actually an order.
"Killjoys" Gibson remarked bitterly, he had a hundred Colonial Cubits resting on a bet for that one. Given that the person with the current record was that very same CAG, Kara Thrace, he also suspected foul play. "Okay boss since you asked nicely, and would have me on KP for the rest of the trip home if I didn't, I'll be good from now on' he said reluctantly. "Oh, I saw the photograph of Emily you took from her personnel file and put on the wall Wing Commander" he added. "Thanks for that" he told her with sincerity.
Defoe sighed. "I'm afraid it was the only picture of Lieutenant Lewenhaupt I could find" she said regretfully. It was far from flattering and did her no justice whatsoever.
"The only one we had in the squadron was all of us together and it didn't seem fitting" Gibson replied. "Of course it didn't make her look like a desperate criminal though" he added, with a smile, fortunately he knew Emily had enough of a sense of humor to not mind him saying so.
"Everyone's photograph from their personnel file makes them look like an unsavory character" Defoe noted. "I think they use a special lens" she theorized.
"Damn long way to be from home when you die" Gibson observed sadly, Emily Lewenhaupt had been the only Kirghiz pilot lost over Aquaria, her cockpit canopy shattered by several bursts of Raider KEW's. They had recovered the airframe and given her a military funeral along with the dead Colonials, the Star-League flag draped over her coffin making it stand out amongst the others.
"I doubt when I tell her family she died they"d have felt any better if had happened a few hundred light-years closer to home" Defoe replied. "I know you were closer to Lewenhaupt than the others were" she commiserated.
"We were in the same Sibling Company as kids" Gibson replied. "Later went to flight-school together, she even dated my older brother for a while before she realized that none of the men in my family are worthwhile" he joked. "She always wanted to make ace and at least she managed that a few times over, if you reckon that skeet really count as proper kills anyway" he said.
"If they can kill you too then they're proper kills in my book Flight-Lieutenant" Defoe replied evenly, "and I'll make damn sure that everyone back home accepts that too" she stated with conviction. The Kirghiz Aerospace Fighters had destroyed hundreds of Cylon Raider's between them, Emily Lewenhaupt would qualify for a posthumous medal for her share and if her genetic material was used to make another future member of the Clan then their Codex, a personal record of their lineage, would show that they were descended from a decorated hero of the Wolverines. It was a measure of immortality at least, generations from now her name would still be read by her genetic descendants when they learned where they came from.
"Thank you, Ma'am" Gibson responded sincerely, in his own book Defoe was a good officer who continued to prove she was worthy of respect. "Got to go, I'm supposed to be meeting a Raptor pilot for lunch" he said, checking his watch.
"She blind or insane?" Defoe queried.
"Well they're all half-blind and at least a little strange" Gibson replied. "I guess at least one of those things is working for me" he reasoned.
"Just remember my new standing order Flight-Lieutenant, only Army Officers are stupid enough to knock up Colonials so they have to marry them" Defoe ordered. "I've been ripping on Colonel McEvedy something fierce for days and woe betide the man under my command who gives him any grounds for comeback" she said seriously, spearing Gibson with a look. As the ranking Naval Officer Commander Thorpe had been joining in on that sport too, it was always good clean fun yanking the chain of the other services and McEvedy's lineage earned him no exemptions.
"Frankly, Ma"am, so far with me you're perfectly safe on that score" Gibson admitted. "I just haven't had the opportunity to even attempt to disobey that order" he said sadly. "But I live in hope that might change soon' he added optimistically.
"Glad to hear it, but a sexually frustrated fighter-pilot is an aggressive fighter-pilot" Defoe declared. For herself she certainly had plans to jump her husband the moment she got home, not that she was going to tell the Flight-Lieutenant that. "Is that the reason you've been trying to get yourself killed crashing into the deck at high speed then?" she wondered.
"No, I just need the money" Gibson told her. "Prices at the bar shot up ever since we rescued all those civilians" he complained. "They kept giving them free beer until the stocks ran down and then market-forces kicked in' he moaned then checked his watch again. "Gotta run Boss" he said urgently.
"Don't just leave the girl sitting there, move your ass." Defoe told him.
"Thanks, Ma'am" the Flight-Lieutenant replied, running off at high speed. Defoe watched him reach the first open hatch and being too tall and moving too fast to stop he smacked his head on the top of the frame with a sickening crack that caused the Wing Commander to grimace and flinch from just watching it happen. He swore vociferously in two languages then clutching his head kept going.
"Much longer on this tub and we'll all be too brain-damaged from the alcohol and the blows to the skull to fly missions any more." Defoe muttered to herself, "The damned neurohelmets won't interface properly." she decided.
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===On trial for hideous Crimes===
Colonial City-State – New Circe – 3045CE
Kaarlo Hennessy had been observing the lawyer cross-examine the witnesses for a few days now, telling little stories as he went, leading the jury along and steering them in the direction he wanted and although Hennessy knew hardly anything of Colonial Law, or very much relevant Star League law either for that matter, he was starting to reach the conclusion that Romo Lampkin could have got Stefan Amaris off with a warning.
Calling Gaius Baltar, the scientist and former Vice-President to testify had clearly surprised a lot of people but although he had given his testimony in an initially detached and unemotional manner it was obvious that once he got going the man had been appalled by the treatment handed out to the Cylon prisoner, describing her as being left traumatised almost to the point of catatonia. He then went on to explain how the Cylons were both fully sentient and sapient enough to suffer from the same psychological complaints as a human would in the same circumstances, citing several relevant texts by respected authors on the subject of AI's, and even admitted he had felt sorry for her.
Lampkin had subpoenaed the video records of the interrogation of the defendant, the Number Six Cylon known as Gina Inviere, and despite the objection of the prosecutor Didi Cassidy the court had given leave for these to be shown to the jury. Although he had half-expected the records to be “lost” the lawyer was surprised that Commander Lee Adama had delivered them to the court personally, perhaps not fully trusting his own crew, and stood by as they were shown.
The beatings had happened first, then more creative means of physical and psychological torture and when the repeated gang-rapes intended to break her were shown the defendant had started to shake and pulled herself into a ball on her chair. At this point Lampkin looked around at the expressions on the faces of both the jury and the majority of the people in the gallery and stopped the tapes. "Evidence gained by torture is inadmissible in court according to both the Articles of Colonization and the laws of each and every one of the Twelve Colonies" he said. "We do this for a good reason and it's not just because of a moral imperative that says it's wrong" the lawyer continued, "if you were subjected to treatment like that you"d eventually say anything to get them to stop" he told the jury. "The defendant was beaten, brutalized, sexually assaulted, starved and kept awake for days on end" he said. "Now perhaps some people think she deserved it, her kind killed billions of ours in a nuclear holocaust after all, but whether you think that personally or not can you really tell yourself honestly that we can put any credence on anything she might have told the men who were doing that to her?" he asked the jury rhetorically before turning to Didi Cassidy. "Going to try and argue that sickening display wasn't a violation of the Articles?" he asked the prosecutor knowingly with just the hint of a smirk on his face.
Lampkin had his own suspicions and theories regarding Baltar and Gina. At first he had wondered if the man might actually be a cylon himself but since he was working on a top-secret military project he had been almost the first Colonial to be screened by the new Cylon Detector technology, and had been positively identified as human, so that theory had been replaced by another. Lampkin considered himself a skilled observer of human nature and Baltar clearly liked the ladies, he also seemed like he had been genuinely appalled by what had been done to the Cylon and acted decidedly shifty when asked off the record by Lampkin about the circumstances of her escape from custody on Pegasus. Although he had no proof the lawyer was convinced that Baltar had aided her escape, out of either pity or misplaced chivalry, and probably hadn't counted on her killing Admiral Cain immediately afterwards.
The murder of Helena Cain was one charge that Lampkin was fairly confident he could beat. Temporary insanity certainly shouldn't be hard to prove, the cylon still had evident PTSD for one thing, and when he revealed in court that Cain and the Toaster had actually been lovers it wouldn't just cause a media sensation it would also enable him to argue a crime of passion too. He could also press the idea that Cain had ordered her former lover to be abused not just for information but as revenge for perceived betrayal and that was all great potential ammunition for the defence. Gina could have easily murdered Cain on many previous occasions so it would be hard for the prosecution to make a convincing case that the Cylon was an assassin with the Admiral as her target, it all seemed more likely it was just a personal thing. The cylon had been quite justifiably driven to a homicidal rage by her treatment and had shot Cain dead as an act of vengeance not an act of war, women who had been repeatedly beaten by their husbands killing them later on when they were not actually under violent attack was hardly unheard of and there was plenty of precedent Lampkin could twist into aiding his defence.
When and if Admiral Adama returned then Lampkin would be able to throw his best hand into the game of legal Triad going on. If he admitted his involvement with the incursion of the Colonial Fleet over the armistice line into Cylon territory then that would really put Lance among the pigeons, Lampkin thought to himself. As an individual Gina had only personally acted against military targets and if it could be shown that it wasn't the Cylons that first broke the armistice conditions laid down by the Cimtar Peace Accord then he might frak up the entire proceedings enough to get her off, or at least get her detained as a Prisoner of War rather than as a “Dead Toaster Walking” on Death Row. He wasn't entirely sure how he would either act or feel if he managed the impossible and got a cylon acquitted in a Colonial Court but he was pleased it might at least be possible since it meant that the system wasn't yet just a rubber stamp for the government and the military.
The trial was expected to last weeks, the examination and cross-examination of the defendant herself several days in itself, but so far it was still the media sensation for both the Colonial Press and journalists from the other side of the border. As Hennessy walked back out of court when it was dismissed for the day he was collared by a woman he recognized as a reporter, part of the so-called “Colonial Gang” of well-respected local journalists that had a current-events show on the wireless. "Kaarlo Hennessy?" she queried.
"Yes" he confirmed, less than pleased at having the reporter put a microphone under his nose and another munchkin aim a video camera at him.
"Playa Palacios, City-State Wireless News Service" the reporter introduced herself and advertised her station. "I believe you're the man that smuggled the Cylon defendant off the Fleet?" she asked.
"She claimed asylum, which was later rejected by my government who then placed her in detention until the Colonial Government requested her extradition' Hennessy replied. "I'm just a bureaucrat with the New Circe Ministry of Justice" he told her and everyone watching.
"I'm sure our viewers might be interested to hear that you also visited the Cylon whilst in Star League military detention and that you supplied the dress she was wearing in court" the reporter said.
"Would they? Perhaps they need lives" Hennessy suggested.
Palacios decided to persist despite the sarcasm. "Why did you do that?" she asked.
"I visited her because no one else was going to and I felt sorry for her" Hennessy replied, "it's called “empathy” and it's in the new Caprican to English dictionary everyone has a copy of if they need to look it up" he continued sardonically. "As for the dress, if the Colonial Government hadn't seen fit to put her in an orange jumpsuit, rather than an outfit that didn't scream “convict me”, my wife wouldn't have offered me one of hers to give to the defendant" he said.
Definitely not a diplomat Palacios thought to herself. "Can I ask your opinion on the videos shown of the interrogation of the prisoner?" she asked him.
"Utter barbarism, as might be expected from a disgraced ship and crew" Hennessy replied evenly. "Under SLDF regulations in time of war the men on that video would be put up against a wall and shot" he stated coldly.
"Do you think that opinion is widely held over the border?" the reporter queried.
"I hope so" Hennessy replied. "You don't fight monsters by becoming them" he said.
"So you do think the Cylons are monsters?" Palacios asked.
"As a group the attempted genocide of the Colonials that led to the deaths of billions of civilians fits my definition of a monstrous and inexcusable act pretty much" Hennessy replied. "If the commanding officer of the Pegasus had simply declared the cylon an enemy spy and probable saboteur, then threw her out of an airlock, that would have been perfectly okay by me in the circumstances" he said honestly.
"Frakking cylon bitch got everything she deserved and they should do it again if you ask me" a Colonial who had been in the gallery said loudly from behind Hennessy, interrupting the interview. "If they want volunteers I'll do it myself" he added with a laugh.
Kaarlo Hennessy sighed. "You'll have to excuse me for a second" he told Palacios apologetically before turning around. "Did you say that?" he asked the man behind him placidly.
"Yeah" the man confirmed, he was reasonably tall for a Colonial, not much shorter than Hennessy, and well-built. Probably a manual laborer or an off-duty marine in civilian clothing perhaps?
Hennessy threw a neat right-cross which hit the man on the jaw, breaking it and sending him to the ground unconscious. With everyone now deathly quiet and staring at him the bureaucrat turned back to the camera whilst casually inspecting his knuckles. "Why bother with due process, civil rights are overrated aren't they?" he asked rhetorically, looking into the camera. "Forget about civilised behavior and all that crap, just ignore the rules and take the law into your own hands" he continued, holding up his fist. "Vigilante justice is just frakking great isn't it?" he added wryly.
Thus it was that Kaarlo Hennessy became the first New Circe citizen to be thrown into a cell in the Colonial City State, facing an assault charge. The lawyer he asked for, Romo Lampkin, got him off with a warning though.
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===Long journey back to New Circe===
Battlestar Galactica – Deep Space – 3045CE
"I swear, I walked into the canteen yesterday and just for a second I thought it was a guy with a pregnant ventriloquist's dummy on his knee but then I realised it was only Cale and his girlfriend" the other mechwarrior joked, provoking laughter from everyone around the table but the aforementioned Geoff Cale.
"Frak you, Dave" Cale told the other Wolverine with a scowl, earning a grin in response.
"Damn, Cale, you're even starting to sound like them" a First Lieutenant with the SLDF Infantry observed, reaching for his beer. "She'll have you worshipping Zeus and keeping a little statue of Ares in your mech before the year's out. Right guys, query affirmative?"
"Affirmative" the rest of the SLDF officers chorused. As well as the Army personnel a few pilots had tagged along to make up the numbers, it was a stag night after all.
"Frak the lot of you" Cale told them, taking a swig from his own bottle. "You're only jealous" he declared after gulping it down.
"Got to admit it was a smooth move knocking her up so she couldn't get away before she got a chance to know the real you mech-boy" a Kirghiz pilot interjected, before looking around at the others. "She's too cute for the likes of him" he opined.
"Kiss my ass fly-boy" Cale responded. "Who invited him anyway?" he wanted to know.
"Gibson there scored us two bottles of Ambrosia" a Tank Commander explained.
"Oh, okay" Cale conceded. "Where is it?" he asked, looking under the table expectantly. That stuff was well named even if it did give you a hangover and a half the next day.
"Later Geoff, you need to be sober enough to enjoy the entertainment" the infantry officer who had made the comment about Zeus before replied with a wink.
"This had better not be some ground-pounder, with more muscle on her than I've got, stripping" another of the pilots said disparagingly.
"I couldn't get any volunteers and the Colonel wasn't about to let me order one to do it" the infantry officer said regretfully. "So she's alright with the wedding arrangements now?" he asked the groom.
Cale nodded. "Naval ceremony, ship's CO presiding" he replied. "No Priest at the wedding itself but we get the union blessed by one afterwards" he said. "When we get home Cally has agreed to a Lutheran Blessing too which should stop my parents going too nuts" he said.
"Could have been worse you know" Flight-Lieutenant Gibson commented. "If we"d met leftover Aztecs there could have been a human sacrifice involved" he theorized. "We might have had to capture a Cylon skinjob and cut its beating heart out of its chest or some shit like that" he said.
"What's an Aztec?" another pilot queried.
"You're an ignorant bastard Mooreland" Gibson told his fellow flyer disparagingly. "Find one of those historians and ask them" he advised. "We need more beer over here" he said loudly. They had a couple of crate's worth stowed behind the bar waiting to be brought over.
"That might have gotten the attention of the barman if you"d said it in Caprican' Cale told him with a smirk.
Gibson smirked back and repeated it in Caprican which had Cale and the others looking at him in surprise. "When the hell did you learn to speak that?" Mooreland asked.
"Don't look too impressed, I can order a drink, understand a few phrases related to flying and I've rehearsed a few chat-up lines but I'm sure as hell not fluent." Gibson admitted.
"What chat-up lines?" the infantry officer asked.
Gibson said something else in Caprican which caused Cale to burst out laughing. Eventually he stopped long enough to translate. "He said “Elysium must be missing an angel, because you're standing next to me”, that's their heaven if you didn't know" he explained with a grin.
The others all groaned. "That doesn't actually work does it?" Mooreland asked.
"No" Gibson replied sadly. "I tried it on a hot girl from Picon and she looked at me and replied that a village must be missing its idiot" he said glumly, provoking howls of laughter as the barman brought over more beers to their table.
Although the Colonials had very similar traditions to the majority of the Thirteenth in that it was very much the done thing for both the future bride and groom to go out the night before the wedding, drink themselves into stupefaction, do things in public that would embarrass a crazed egotist with no sense of shame and then spend the time before they crashed wondering what the hell they had been thinking when they got engaged, Cally was unable to properly enjoy a couple of these. Although he was uncommitted on the effects of second-hand smoke on the foetus Doctor Cottle very much agreed that drinking during pregnancy was bad news so Cally was drinking fruit juice while her friends and numerous female hangers-on downed shots at her Hen Night being held in Galactica's other improvised bar.
"So you'll be getting a C-Section right?" Seelix asked her, pointing at her bump which was now seeming to get bigger every day.
"Have you seen the size of that guy" Marcie asked rhetorically, already slurring her words slightly "if everything is to scale I'm surprised he got in, there's no way what he left in there is going to get out the same way" she declared, breaking out into laughter so hard tears were rolling down her cheeks whilst Cally's own blushed bright red.
"I'm hoping for a normal delivery" Cally managed to reply when the others had stopped laughing along with Marcie.
"Ouch" Seelix responded, Cally still had a good few weeks to go.
Cally smiled. "I'm counting on the drugs" she said.
"If you're going through all this just to get high you should have come to me first Specialist" someone else interrupted.
"Hey, Sir" Cally greeted Starbuck.
"None of that “Sir” shit tonight, Cally." Starbuck replied, "I managed to find a guy and talk him into it" she told Seelix , obviously highly pleased with herself.
"We were hoping for Sam Anders" Seelix replied with a grin as she watched a Corporal in SLDF uniform sheepishly follow Starbuck towards them.
"The only girl that ever gets that show is me" Starbuck replied smugly. "Okay someone put on some music" she yelled out. "Get to it muscles" she told the Corporal then added some sign language to let him know he was on.
"How the hell did you talk him into it if he doesn't understand anything you say?" Seelix wanted to know.
"I borrowed a certain Naval Commander and embarrassed the crap out of him when I told him what I needed translating to a platoon of bored looking Wolvie Infantry that needed money for beer" Starbuck explained as the corporal started to move in time to the music and tried not to think what he was doing in front of what was soon a dozen howling women. Facing hundreds of Cylon Centurions on Aquaria wasn't anywhere near this intimidating he thought to himself as he began to strip rhythmically to the music, hoping the promised beer money would be forthcoming and maybe one of these screeching colonial harpies would want to take him back to their place. If he got the beer and got laid out of this it would limit the extent of the mockery he would later face from the rest of his unit.
Admiral Adama didn't exactly get to officiate too many marriages. It was still within the Colonial Fleet regulations that he could, a tradition passed down from the days when ship's captains sailed wooden vessels across the oceans of Caprica, like the one he had a model of in his quarters, but it certainly wasn't something he was all that familiar with. In fact by the next day he had spent inordinately more time practicing what he had to say that he had ever done for any speech he had ever made to the crew, or indeed his speech at Saul Tigh's Wedding Reception, and he suspected that he was barely less nervous that either the bride or groom as they faced him on the port hanger deck which had been cleared as much as possible with Vipers, Raptors and Kirghiz fighters crammed into the starboard hanger deck and packed practically nose-to-nose on the landing bays.
Cale tried to control his breathing and calm down, the woman stood next to him looked beautiful whereas he suspected that despite a long shower, a half-liter of strong coffee and some pep-pills from a medic he still looked like hell. Waking up in engineering next to the FTL hadn't helped his condition, the drone from the jump-drive, which was being kept spun-up in case of cylon attack, had left him with a splitting headache and a continuous hum in his ear that was yet to go away, and he was going to kill those Kirghiz pilots he thought were responsible for leaving him there in nothing but his light mechwarrior shorts and his boots. Oh well at least the Admiral looked like he knew what he was doing, Cale thought to himself, Adama looked as professional and collected as ever.
Most of the words were different than a marriage would be on New Circe, and not just because they were being said in Caprican, as the two societies had rather different conceptions of what marriage was, at least in the abstract anyway if not so much the reality. The Colonial view on marriage was perhaps a little less weighed on the man being the dominant partner than it still was to a degree for most groups that originally came from Earth. Even the non-religious carry the cultural baggage of their civilisation and despite over a millennium of pressure towards equal rights for women the Thirteenth with their more patriarchal monotheistic beliefs still didn't have quite the same attitudes and conceptions as the polytheistic Colonials. To quote the academic Nils Sundquist, when there are goddesses to fear and worship too, not just a single deity that is typically perceived as male, you just don't see the universe in quite the same way. Even atheists on New Circe were basically “Cultural Christians” while conversely atheistic Colonials were “Cultural Hellenic Polytheists” even if they thought the Lords of Kobol were a myth.
Geoff Cale couldn't honestly say he remembered much of the ceremony, he was too nervous for that even discounting the temporary mild hearing loss and the fading hangover, but he remembered the usual procedure of having Cally reach up and pull him down to her level to kiss at the end, he remembered walking out under an honor guard of swords and he remembered glaring at his Best Man, or rather the officer acting in the equivalent role for the ceremony, when the son-of-a-bitch pretended to have misplaced the rings.
Admiral Adama broke into one of the crates of vintage Ambrosia intended for the President when he toasted them at the Reception later on, he figured that Roslin wouldn't be too mad at him given the circumstances. Cale turned nearly the same shade of green as the drink when he caught a whiff of it but forced himself to swallow it because he was worried it would jinx the whole thing otherwise.
It's been said that the worse thing about being tee-total is waking up feeling the best you're going to feel all day. For Wolverine mechwarrior Geoff Cale his day just got better and better as first his head cleared then his hangover disappeared, he married the girl he loved, his hearing came back and before his wedding night crowned it all he found Flight-Lieutenant Alan Gibson unconscious next to half a bottle of whiskey and managed to get Chief Tyrol and a few other beered-up volunteers to drag him away and deposit him in one of the more pungent areas of the ship's sewage-recycling system as their wedding gift.
Geoffrey and Calandra Cale were less than a week into their married lives when the Cylon Fleet caught up to them, Galactica now having roughly a hundred and fifty Light-Years left to go of its return journey to New Circe. Well at least they got a few days of uninterrupted honeymoon anyway.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Chapter Note from the Author :That Gina Inviere and Helena Cain were lovers comes from Razor. Along with the armistice line violation of the Cimtar Peace Accords and all the legal issues thrown up by the way the cylon prisoner was treated on Pegasus it should all give a good lawyer plenty to work with at least. After checking Baltar and the other Colonials working on defense projects they're now screening the military personnel incidentally. With thousands to check it would take a while especially given the number of possible false readings they might encounter. Playa Palacios was a journalist that featured in the show a few times. She was also one of the truly vast number of women Baltar got to have sex with at one time or another... why do good things happen to bad people? I've had that line about Romo Lampkin getting Stefan Amaris off with a warning in my head for ages.
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