Part 2 – Guilt

Trev lay in his bunk after several centars of playing with Lira in the Childcare Center. He should have been tired, but he wasn’t. Since the arrival of Count Iblis to the Galactica, which had in turn brought the arrival of Baltar, he had not slept well. The chances of him encountering this man who was now safely ensconced on the prison barge was small, especially in his little life here on the Orion. Still, the whole situation had him upset.

In the first few days after the Destruction, as he began to hear the rumors of his father’s betrayal, he was sure there had been a mistake. Surely, the Cylons had betrayed his father’s trust just as they had all of them. This was the belief he held out, no matter how many rumors and stories he heard to the contrary. It was only after the encounter at the planet Kobol that he now knew the truth: his father was the greatest traitor that humankind had ever known.

Somehow, Mazer had known that his father, whether a traitor or just the Cylons’ dupe, would bear the brunt of the survivors’ anger. Trev was grateful to the man for his warning. But now he lived with the fear of being found out.

He wanted friends, but was afraid. What if they found out the truth? Every time he felt like forming a friendship, he hesitated, even with Odan. He hated the thought of having people turn on him once they found out who his father was, so he kept to himself.

Alone in the bunk area, he shifted uncomfortably. He remembered seeing his father’s face on the trans-vid for the first time since the Destruction when he had come aboard. It had shaken him up a great deal, and he feared that someone would comment on the slight resemblance between him and that man. That was when the nightmares had started, big time. The tremors had become fiercer at that point also. It frightened Trev to no end that eventually his fears might incapacitate him.

‘You’re losing it,’ he said to himself. ‘Get a grip.’

He closed his eyes, desperately wanting to sleep, but also afraid of the nightmares that would come. There were the nightmares about the Destruction, which had become common for so many of the survivors, but he also had the nightmares about what it would be like to be known as Baltar’s son.

One nightmare was of an execution. That one, he would usually wake up from sweating profusely, but no real terror. The ones that terrorized him the most usually involved persecution, ostracization, or even imprisonment. One of the worst was one in which he was brought to the prison barge in shackles, his father greeting him with an evil grin on his face. “My son, you have come home to me,” he would say.

Trev rolled over again. ‘I should just go to the infirmary and ask for some sleep-inducing medicine,’ he thought to himself. Lots of people were using it to keep the nightmares away and to keep themselves functional. Trev was just afraid that once he started taking it, he would be unable to stop. This was another reason he had decided to stay away from ambrosa, at least for the time being.

‘A hot turbo-wash,’ he finally decided to himself. ‘That’s just what I need.’

He took one of his clean maintenance uniforms from his footlocker and grabbed a towel before going in. For a while, he stood under the spray and just let the hot water cascade over his body. Sometimes he could sleep good after this, almost as if the water cleansed him, removed the guilt from his soul.

Why hadn’t he seen this side of his father? In all of the yahrens he had spent with him, why had he never suspected his father could commit such a heinous crime? He thought back to the “business dealings” he had just before he became the Cylons’ emissary to the Colonials. There was nothing, no one out of the ordinary. He had even worked with him, gone on several business trips, and never had he noticed anything.

For the last few sectars, he had gone over his life, trying to recall anything that he could interpret as something he should have picked up on; something that should have sent off the signal to him that something was wrong. How had his father managed to keep all of this such a secret from everyone? From his business partners? From his fellow politicians? From his family? From his wife?

That was the worst part. Trev wondered in his mind often just why his father had insisted that they all be home together on the day that the peace agreement was due to be signed. Did he not want his family anymore and plan to have them done away with? That probably would have been accomplished regardless by simply leaving them on the planet while it was bombarded.

Once Baltar was on the prison barge, he began to hear rumors that Baltar had made a deal that his colony, Pisceria, would be left alone. Had he been planning on just coming by and scooping up his family, intact, after having destroyed all of the other colonies? Or did he plan on returning and living a lush life under the Cylons’ protection?

Trev desperately wanted answers, but to go to him would be acknowledging his ancestry, and he was sure that would be a death sentence. Instead, he lived with the nightmares, the guilt, and the anxiety.

When he was done with the turbo-wash, he felt much better. The clean jumpsuit felt good on his body. This time when he laid back down, he finally got some much-needed sleep.

The dreams came again, only this time when he was back on Pisceria, he was not alone. Zoyal was with him, carrying Lira in his arms. Not the Lira of the day of the Destruction, but the Lira he knew now. They came upon the blackened crater that was where his home had been.

“It’s gone… all gone,” Trev wept as he fell to his knees.

“Traitor!” Came a cry from behind him. Zoyal walked with him to Mazer, in the same injured state that Trev had found him that day. “You are a traitor! You’ve sold out your own people!” Mazer pointed at him, a ferocity in his eyes Trev had never seen in the old man.

“It wasn’t me, I swear!”

“Doesn’t matter. The same blood runs through your veins… the blood of a traitor!”

Zoyal began backing away from him.

“Zoy, you’ve got to believe me! I never knew!”

“If you had, what would you have done?” Zoyal asked of him.

This was the part that seemed to disturb the most. “I don’t know,” Trev replied finally, hanging his head in shame.

“Then you are a traitor, the same as the father. The legacy is carried through in the son!”

“No…” Trev wailed.

“You are Loraio, son of Baltar. That you shall be forever… the son of a traitor.”

“No. I’m not Loraio. I’m Trev now. Loraio doesn’t exist.”

“It is Trev who doesn’t exist. Your life is an illusion. The truth is over there.”

Mazer’s hand pointed to where Trev’s house had been, then Mazer disappeared. As he turned slowly towards where his home had been, he saw that Zoyal had backed away even further, Lira still in his arms. He kept turning, until it seemed that he had spun in a circle, but still he didn’t see the blackened crater.

Suddenly there was a brilliant flash. Fire burned around him.

Through the flames, from the direction of where his home had been, walked his father. The flames seemed not to touch him or the long, flowing cape he had worn as a part of his formal attire.

“Come with me, my son,” he beckoned.

“No. I want no part of you.” Trev’s words were strong and defiant. There was no wavering in his voice.

“Loraio…”

“I’m not Loraio anymore. I’m Trev!”

“You will always be Loraio. Loraio, son of Baltar. Son of a traitor.”

“No…” Trev tried to turn away, but found that his feet would not move.

“Your destiny is with me.”

“No. My destiny lies with…” He stopped as he could no longer see Zoyal and Lira through the flames. “Zoyal! Lira! Lira!”

“They are gone. Zoyal is dead, and Lira will not remain with you once the truth is known; once you are exposed.”

“No… I will not turn against these people as you did.”

“We share the same blood, the same yearnings, the same instincts. Did you not ignore the cries for help on Pisceria in favor of your own survival?”

“That was different… that was…” Trev was frightened now, and his words were losing the sureness he had just so recently possessed.

“We will see each other soon, my son. And you will realize that you will always be Loraio, son of Baltar. You will not turn against me.”

Baltar turned and walked back into the flames, still untouched. Trev stood amidst the flames, seeing the faces of his loved ones; of his mother, his sister, Zoyal, Lira…

“NO!” he screamed and sat up in his bunk. His body was coated with sweat and his hair was damp. He was no longer alone in the bunk room.

“You all right, man?” One of the other maintenance workers known as Flynn asked.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Trev replied, thankful that it was a dream. A very intense dream, but a dream nonetheless. A quick glance at the chrono on the wall showed he had been asleep for about six centars.

“Can I get you something? Some water? Some ambrosa?”

Trev smiled slightly at Flynn. “Water, thanks.”

Flynn walked away to get the water while Trev tried to pull himself together. His hands were trembling something awful, and he began kneading them together to try to get them to stop.

“Here you go,” Flynn said, holding out the cup. Then he noticed Trev’s hands.

“I don’t… I don’t think I can hold that cup right now.”

Flynn sat down on the bunk next to him. He put the cup to Trev’s lips and let him drink all that he wanted. “Don’t worry about it. All of us are having a bad time of it. Some of us are just having a harder time than others.”

Trev smiled wryly. “Thanks, Flynn.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I just can’t.”

“Keeping it all bottled up isn’t going to help.”

“For me, talking won’t help either. But thanks, I appreciate the offer.”

“If you ever change your mind, I’m right here.” He pointed to the bunk where he slept that was two over from Trev’s.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Baltar woke with a start on his berth in the Prison Barge. He had been doing what he normally did – nothing – and had dozed off. There had been a dream, though he was hard-pressed to recall anymore just what it had been about.

There was someone near… In the fleet… Someone close to him, but he could not put his finger on it. Someone who thought about him… and was thinking about him. That person had drawn him into his own dream. Who was it?

It was someone who he could use; an ally, he was sure. Someone who would help him get off of this Prison Barge. Would he regain his place in society? Would he go back to leading the Cylons? No, he shook his head. That he did not know.

He resolved to keep his eyes and ears opened from now on at all times.

Trev did not sleep again. Instead, he called Odan and asked for a work shift. Odan had already heard about the nightmare and had no problems letting him work to keep his mind off of whatever was plaguing him.

After checking in, he took a tool cart and began to go around the ship, inspecting various areas and cleaning up any messes that had occurred.

As he turned a corner near the residential section of the ship, he was sure he was being followed, which began making him nervous. He turned another corner and hid in an alcove. As the person who was following him approached, he jumped out.

“Oh!” cried a woman. She was a leggy blond, about the same age as Trev, dressed in civilian clothes.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he let go of her arm which he had grabbed when he jumped out at her. “I thought you were following me… Were you following me?”

The woman smiled flirtatiously. “Sort of… yeah.”

“Oh. Why were you following me?”

“Well, um… I’ve seen you around and… My name is Kharis, by the way. At first, I thought maybe you were with someone cause I saw you with a baby. I thought ‘he’s awful young to have a baby’ so I asked around and I found out that the baby wasn’t yours, and that you were okay and I kind of thought you were cute, so I, um… Would you like to go see a Triad game some time? I can get passes.”

Trev smiled, relieved. She was a very pretty girl, and he hadn’t had a date in a long time. “My name is Trev, in case you didn’t already know that. I’m flattered Kharis, really. And, though Lira isn’t mine, per se, I am responsible for her.”

“But I thought…”

“She was my best friend’s younger sister. He gave her to me just before he was killed.” This was more than he had told anyone except for the workers at the Childcare Center and Odan, his boss.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right, but I want you to understand why I feel a sense of responsibility to her. As much as I’d like to say ‘Yes’ – and I really would like to – I can’t. I just can’t right now. But if I were to go to a Triad game with someone, I’d really like to go with you.”

“Bad timing?” she asked.

“Something like that,” he responded.

“All right. Well, if you change your mind, I live on D Deck, section 31.”

“I’ll remember that Kharis, and thank you.”

Trev sighed, relieved, and watched the woman walk away. ‘By the Lords, she’s pretty,’ he thought to himself. ‘Why not begin seeing girls again,’ his mind taunted. ‘Because it would mean letting my guard down,’ he responded, again to himself. Still, the thought was very tempting.

With a sigh of resignation, he went back to his work, trying to forget about that last dream. It had been the most powerful one yet and had frightened him. Everything he had been questioning about his father was in that dream, and then some?

Was he really as guilty as his father? He could not answer the dream-Zoyal about whether or not he would have turned in his own father if he knew what was going on. What would he have done? Troubled, he stopped the cart and leaned against the wall for a few moments, staring at the ceiling.

‘You’re doing this to yourself… It’s just coming from the way you’ve been trying to figure out what actually happened in these last couple of yahren,’ he again said to himself. ‘Let it go.’

Those were the magic words, let it go. How many times had he said this to himself, but it was something he was unable to do. It frightened him to think of his father in such and evil way. It frightened him even more to think that the same evil might be present inside of him.

He had now begun cleaning the viewports on this particular deck. As he stared at the stars and the other ships in the fleet, his mind again drifted to his father. Baltar was the cause of all of this! There were close to a million people crammed aboard 220-odd ships floating through space and it was all his father’s fault!

Would he have turned him in? Trev had been agonizing over that question all morning. Knowing what he did now, of course he would have; but when they were back on Pisceria before the Destruction? He couldn’t be sure. If he knew for certain that his father would betray the entire human race to the Cylons, then he was positive he would have done something, told someone. Just how much evidence he would have needed to make him positive was what was troubling him.

And what about his mother? How much had she known of her husband’s dealings? If she had known, how could she stand by and just let this happen? His sister’s intended had worked closely with his father the last few yahrens… did he also know what was going on? Was Trev the only one left in the dark?

Blood money… the term came to his mind when he thought of his wealthy upbringing. They were one of, if not the wealthiest families on the planet. How long had his father been corrupt? How many of the clothes, toys and luxuries he had growing up had been bought with the payoff money from the Cylons? Was his whole education paid for with the blood of the human race?

Again, he stared out at the stars. The whole human race had been given a sentence by his father: to spend what could amount to lifetimes in these ships running from the Cylons. Why? What had motivated him?

Trev was sure he would never know these answers, but the questions would haunt him for the rest of his life. He supposed the guilt and anguish he felt was his own sentence of sorts, and one he would have to learn to deal with.

When he arrived back at the Maintenance Lounge later that day, all of the off-duty workers were gathered around the trans-vid watching the IFB broadcast.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he walked in and went to the Refreshment Center to get himself a cup of kaffe.

“Starbuck murdered someone!”

“What?” Trev asked, incredulous. Everyone in the fleet knew of the heroic tales of the warriors from Blue Squadron.

“Allegedly murdered someone,” Flynn corrected. “Someone named Ortega, Sergeant Ortega.”

‘Sergeant Ortega?’ Trev thought to himself. ‘I wonder if that was the same warrior who let me on board the shuttle on Pisceria?’ As he watched the IFB, he found that this was, indeed, the same man.

A chill ran down his spine. Why? This was just a man he had met for a few microns following the Destruction, but he felt as if there was something more here; something connected to him.

“It appears as if the career of Lieutenant Starbuck has come to a tragic end…” the reporter on the IFB concluded.

“Could you imagine that? What a fool! Murdering someone over a Triad game?” One of the maintenance workers commented.

“Maybe there’s more to it than that,” Trev said quietly. The other people in the room were surprised to hear his voice. He very rarely talked to any of them; just kept to himself.

“Wanna lay a wager he’ll get away with it?” someone else chimed in. “They always protect those warriors. How come they can go to any ships in the Fleet without needing a travel pass and all the rest of us have to get approval first?”

If anyone on the Orion wanted to go to the Rising Star, they had to be approved for a “Travel Pass”. Trev was aware of the growing anti-military sentiment in the Fleet. It was largely a result of the “have-nots” wanting what the “haves” had. The warriors were an easy target because they were given privileges that others were not, including travel between ships when they were on furlough. The explanation given was that they earned the privilege by putting their lives on the line for the fleet, plus the fact that having them on any ship at any time was considered an increase in security. Meanwhile, though, there was resentment building among the civilian population.

“Trev!”

“Oh frak!”

“That’s what happens when you’re too good at what you do,” Flynn said. “You get called on all the time.”

Trev grimaced and walked in the direction of the voice. It was Drager, another maintenance worker. “What is it?”

“Odan wants to see you in his office, on the double.”

Trev made no complaints about the order. He left the room and walked down the corridor to Odan’s office.

“Have a seat,” Odan invited him in.

Trev sat down in the small, cramped office. It was crowded with paperwork on his desk and on shelves on the walls, along with three different computer terminals sending him readouts of the various systems necessary to run the ship at all times.

“A little behind on your paperwork, sir?”

“Don’t be a smart-astrum,” Odan said with a grin. Because of his excellent record, Trev was the only subordinate who could get away with this attitude with him. It was as close to a friendship as Trev had come aboard this vessel.

“A request was put out from the Galactica for maintenance workers. Though it deeply pains me to do this, I’ve put your name in to be transferred there.”

Trev was stunned. “But… but… Lira…”

Odan waved a hand in the air. “Lira will go with you, of course. In fact, the Galactica’s childcare and educational facilities are much better than our own.”

Trev did not know what to say; he was stunned silent.

“Look, Trev,” Odan tried to explain. “I need you here more than anyone else. You are my best worker. But I’m thinking of you here, and Lira. Once you’re in the Galactica’s maintenance staff for two yahrens, you’ll be considered a non-comm. That’s going to mean a whole lot more in the way of benefits and privileges. You can go farther there; there’s more levels of authority and you can rise to a supervisor. Here, the only thing you could aspire to is my job… And I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.” He indicated the mess that surrounded him.

“I just… I just don’t know what to say, sir.” Trev’s mind was reeling. He had felt safe here; no one had yet recognized him. Now he was going to a whole new environment. What if someone on the Galactica knew who he was?

He quickly tried to recall if he had, at any point in his life, met any of the current Councilors or Commander Adama. Since his father had not been in the military when he became a Councilor, he had not met any of the current military leaders. Also, he had the benefit of having been in his mid to late teen yahrens, an age at which his “attitude” had prevented him from attending many functions of state.

“Trev, this is a good thing,” Odan tried to reassure him, surprised by the kid’s reaction. “I’m rewarding you for all of your hard work around here. Sagan knows what I’ll do without you, but it’s really a step up for you.”

‘And I’m hoping they’ll be able to help you more with counseling on the Galactica,’ he thought to himself. He was deeply concerned about the boy. There were people still in shock over the Destruction, who suffered from despair, and there were others who were simply grateful to be alive. Trev seemed to fit in neither category, hovering somewhere in between.

“I… I know, sir.”

Odan leaned back in his chair. “And think of Lira. That girl will get the finest education available in the fleet. She’ll be in childcare with the warriors’ families.”

“I know… it’s just that… after the Destruction, after everything had settled, I really wanted to be in one place.”

“Trev, if you turn this down you’re a fool. I’m speaking honestly to you now, as your friend.” Odan leaned across the paper-strewn desk. “You won’t get another chance… They won’t let me submit you a second time if you turn it down.”

Trev was stunned. “The Galactica approved the list already?”

Odan smiled knowingly. “No, not yet. But I gave you a glowing recommendation. Back when I was in charge of maintenance on the military base on Virgo, I developed a reputation. If I recommend someone, they will get the appointment.”

Trev knew he should feel grateful, but instead all he felt was misery. “What… What if something happened to me? Would Lira remain on the Galactica?”

Odan frowned, not understanding what he was thinking. “Why no. It’s the same rules as here. If anything happened to you here, she’d be considered an orphan and relegated to the Orphan’s ship.”

Trev was stunned. He had always assumed that she would just remain in the Childcare Center. “All right, I’ll take it,” he found himself saying. “When will my orders come through?”

Odan shook his head. “I’m not sure. Soon, pretty soon. Within the next secton, I’m sure. Better pack up your belongings and be ready.”

‘Belongings?’ he thought. ‘What belongings? I left Pisceria with the clothes on my back. I haven’t been off the Orion to purchase anything.’

“Thank you sir,” he said, glumly.

“Trev, this isn’t a sentence to the prison barge…”

‘It might as well be…’ he thought to himself.

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