Part 4 – The Hardest Part

In the cycles following his short jaunt to the Galactica, Baltar pondered the latest twist the fates had bestowed upon him. Whether he was alone in his cell, or working mess duty on the Prison Barge, his thoughts constantly would drift back to that moment in the Landing Bay when he made the connection. He knew the answer to who he had connected to in his dream that night now. His son was aboard the Galactica. His son!

“Why couldn’t it have been Aurelia?” he murmured to himself, thinking of his oldest child. For the first time he felt a sense of loss due to the Destruction. At first, he had believed his colony spared, as had been the bargain with the Cylon Imperious Leader. When he had realized that the Cylons had never had any intention of living up to their end of the bargain, he had grown concerned with saving his own hide.

It was a reflex action, he supposed, trying not to think of what he had lost in the Cylon attack. How many other colonists thought of the same thing every day? No, he would not let the least bit of guilt enter his mind. Somehow, he had managed to convince himself that he had the best interests of the Colonies in mind when he had led them to the Destruction. Under his rule, they would have been able to live peacefully, never again having to worry about a war. The Cylons would have protected them. The military must be taken out, for they were the ones most likely to commit insurrection against the Cylon peacekeepers.

But the Cylons had not lived up to their end of the bargain. Was that his fault? He supposed that was no great surprise to military leaders like Adama. That was how the Galactica had survived, after all. Now Baltar felt that he was the same as the other Colonists with no family left because of the Cylons.

But there was one family member left. Loraio. Again, Baltar longed for it to be his oldest child, his daughter who was so much like himself!

Beautiful Aurelia, with a sharp, ruthless mind. Baltar had seen that when she was younger. With other children, she thought nothing of turning them all against whatever child would not do her bidding. Baltar had begun taking her on business trips with him, and she learned fast. After finishing her required schooling, she elected not to continue her education and went to work with her father. Her beauty served her well. She managed to trick many a fellow businessman into taking poor deals. Many of his contemporaries actually preferred doing business with him to having to deal with his daughter.

She was his pride and joy, destined to follow in his footsteps… His daughter was a tremendous loss. Baltar would miss her icy brown eyes narrowing at him as she doubted the veracity of his assertions about one thing or another. Oh yes, they had conflicts, but Baltar actually enjoyed them. She was the one in the family who had the potential so lacking in Loraio. He had even matched her with another merchant of his own caliber. Together they would have created a great empire with himself as supreme ruler under the Cylons.

But that was all gone, apparently. Any hope that she and Damon, the man she would have married, had survived those Cylons raids had vanished when he saw Loraio.

‘Why couldn’t she have survived instead of him?’ he again found himself wondering. Well, what was done was done. Now, he had to think of how he could use the boy to his own advantage. ‘Surely there is some loyalty in the boy to his own father.’

He thought of his wife only in passing. Their relationship had been perfunctory for many yahrens… no great loss there. They had an understanding. She played every bit the loyal wife and he provided her with the best that money could buy. Their house was beautiful, and she entertained as necessary.

All gone, he supposed. When the time arrived, he would ask Loraio all about what had happened on Pisceria; how he had survived, and if he was certain the rest of the family had perished. Baltar was left with the son he had never known; a son who fought terribly against him and his authority in his own home; a son he had casually dismissed several yahrens ago when he had seen that there was no hope for him to join the family business. Who was the child, though? Baltar did not know.

The boy had never been close to him. For that, he himself may have been partially to blame. He had sent him to the finest schools on Pisceria, but never paid much attention to him once he had seen the potential in Aurelia. Somehow, he had simply expected him to turn into the kind of ruthless merchant that his father was, like Aurelia did, but that hadn’t happened. Loraio had developed a conscience, a moral conscience.

‘I should have had him home-schooled; taken him with me more. The boy would have turned out right then,’ Baltar would think to himself. The few times he had brought the boy with him on business trips had been a disaster. Loraio simply did not understand what it meant to be a merchant. Sometimes it was necessary to do things that were not necessarily right to survive in the daggit-eat-daggit world. Finally, he had all but given up on the boy and let him go his own way. Instead, he focused on his daughter.

“Time for mess duty.”

A guard approached the clear doors to Baltar’s cell. Baltar grimaced but got up from the bunk. ‘Soon this will all be behind me,” he thought to himself. ‘The boy must serve some purpose… Surely he is not a complete waste of genetic material.’

There had to be a way to turn him, change his way of thinking. After all, they were the only family they each had left.

Trev followed the fleet security officers down the silent corridor, not saying a word. Each step seemed to bring him closer and closer to what he was certain was the end of his life on the Galactica and in the Fleet. The echoes sounded like the tolling of a bell signaling an impending doom from the old motion pictures he had watched on the trans-vid as a child. He could feel the shaking of his hands where they were stuffed into the pockets of his jumpsuit. The security officers stopped at a door unfamiliar to Trev. It was a section of the battlestar he had not yet been in. One of the guards signaled their arrival and the door slid open.

Half expecting to see Baltar, or even Karibdis waiting for him there, Trev was honestly surprised to be greeted only by a Colonel of the fleet, sitting at a desk.

“This is Trev, sir,” one of the guards said to the Colonel.

“Thank you. Carry on please,” he dismissed the two officers as he rose from his chair. “Have a seat, Trev. I’m Colonel Tigh.”

“Thank you Colonel.”

The Colonel looked back down at his desk, apparently reading something from his viewscreen. The microns of silence unnerved Trev, who found himself growing more nervous. He pulled his trembling hands out of his pockets and folded them across his chest, burying his hands against his body. The trembling was not noticeable this way.

“Do you know why you’re here, Trev?” the Colonel finally asked.

“No sir, I’m afraid I don’t.” His voice was smooth and even, without a hint of nervousness. He had decided to attempt to bluff his way around his situation. Still, a simple genetic test would prove…

“Unfortunately, the revelations about one of our warriors, Sgt. Ortega, that were revealed during Lt. Starbuck’s trial have caused quite a stir. The Council has asked that anyone in the Fleet even remotely connected to Sgt. Ortega be investigated, and I am handling this matter with the personnel on the Galactica. According to our records, you came aboard the Orion from a shuttle that he was in charge of.”

“Yes sir.” Trev’s mind was reeling at the line of questioning. Not one mention of his father, nor anything having to do with him. He did not know what to expect. In his head, he had been prepared for one situation, and now he was facing an entirely different one.

“Did you bribe your way onto that ship?”

“No sir! I had no cubits on me, it was just myself and the girl… child. She’s my best friend’s baby sister.”

Colonel Tigh nodded. “There’s no problem, son,” he said soothingly. The maintenance worker was obviously afraid of having done something wrong. “We just have to be sure that anyone who came aboard illicitly is dealt with.”

“You should be able to see from your records… I have no money. I didn’t have it then, either. I just happened to walk up to the shuttle before anyone else did.”

“Your work record defines you as an exemplary worker. Both Odan and Captain Dugan write glowing recommendations of you. I would think someone who would bribe their way onto a ship would not have the industriousness you seem to possess. More than likely, we’d find their kind on the Rising Star, not working a maintenance shift on the Galactica.”

“Yes sir,” Trev agreed, not wanting to become too confident that he would walk from the Colonel’s office a free man. He could not believe his own luck.

“Thank you, young man. That is all. You’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Colonel Tigh did not extend his hand, and Trev did not offer his. If it was perceived as being rude, he did not care at this point. He simply wanted to get out of the office while he was still in the clear. He walked two corridors away from the Colonel’s office before he stopped and sagged against the wall.

Relief flowed out of him in such a rush that he let loose some laughter before composing himself once again. “By the Lords, Trev, you managed to keep you cool this time,” he whispered to himself, as he leaned his head into his hands. After only a micron or two, he began composing himself, fearful that his solitude would not last long.

Taking a deep breath, he found his way back to the Mess Hall. Langley was no longer there. Trev assumed he had gone back to working on the power relays and walked towards where they had been working.

“You’re back awfully quick,” Langley commented after Trev called to him. Only half of his body was visible. The top half was buried deep within the walls of the Galactica.

“It was no big deal,” Trev replied. “The shuttle that took me aboard the Orion was the one that Sgt. Ortega was on. They had to make sure I didn’t bribe my way off the planet.”

Langley pushed his way out of the power conduit and sat up. “You? Bribe your way?” Langley was genuinely astonished. “For Sagan’s sake, Trev, you have hardly any cubits to your name.”

‘If you only knew,’ he thought to himself. Outwardly, he simply shrugged. “That’s pretty much the way Colonel Tigh saw it, too.”

“Colonel Tigh?”

Trev nodded. “He’s heading up the investigation of any personnel on the Galactica who may have had any dealings with Sgt. Ortega. I think he thought the same way you did.”

“Well you’re a good man, Trev; an honest man. I’d hate to see someone like you get in trouble for something you had nothing to do with.” He clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get back to work.”

Instead of reassuring him, Langley’s words made him feel miserable.

Trev walked down a series of corridors within the Galactica. He was carrying Lira. For some reason it was urgent for him to get to the Celestial Dome. He thought he was headed in the right direction, but every turn only ended in another long corridor.

It seemed he had walked for metrons, though the Galactica wasn’t that big.

They were in a different part of the Galactica now. It was a seedy part. Cobwebs appeared in the corners, as if there had been no attention paid to the area for yahrens. Still, he saw no people.

The roar from the thrusters was growing louder. ‘I must be headed in the right direction,’ he though to himself. Lira had begun to cry.

“I’ll take her from you,” called out a voice.

“Daria!” Trev recognized the woman he had met when he boarded the Orion. She came out of a doorway, seemingly in a cloud of fog, took the girl from him, then disappeared back into the haze. “No wait!”

Trev put his hands out and encountered only a steel door. Fervently, he banged on it.

“Lira! Daria!” He called out. He began to kick it.

Laughter sounded around him. Frightened, he spun around. The corridor was still empty. The laughter grew louder, and he recognized it. “Father.”

Suddenly, the corridor he was in turned into the brig. He recognized the cells from the one time he had to get Broder from the jail cells on Pisceria after he was apprehended for getting into a fight. “Father?” He queried as he looked into the first cell. The man who was in it turned to him.

It was Colonel Tigh, only he was not the Colonel any longer. He was gaunt and dressed in rags. It seemed as if he had been in here a long time. “You did this!” he hissed at Trev and charged the doors. Trev stepped back, but the doors held, and the man fell down on the floor of his cell, moaning.

“No,” Trev moaned as he backed away. Suddenly, he felt hands grab him from behind. He jumped away, realizing he had backed against another cell. Captain Apollo was in this one, in the same disheveled state.

“Liar!”

“I didn’t mean…”

The laughter started in again. Trev looked up, searching for the source of the laughter which seemed to come from everywhere. When he looked back down the corridor, he saw people standing at all of the cell doors. Langley, Daria, Odan, Flynn; everyone he had any contact with since leaving Pisceria was there.

“Loraio, you will join me.”

“No,” he moaned again.

“I am your father and you will listen to me.”

“No, no!”

“You must help me Loraio. You must help me leave this place, or we will be in here together…”

“No. Never!”

Trev backed up until he hit a wall. When he turned, he saw that he was encased in the same clear material that made up the doors of the prison cells. The cell was round, and clear both above him and below him.

“What the…”

Above him, below him, next to him was a gallery, overflowing with people of the fleet. They were jeering at him, and though he could not make out what they were saying, there was no mistaking the ominous tone.

“This is what will happen to you,” came his father’s voice, clear over the din. “When they find out, you will be no more than a beast put up for exhibition in a zoo.”

“Stop it!” Trev bent down against the wall, covering his ears, not wanting to hear anymore.

“This is your fate, Loraio… Unless you come to me and we can leave together…”

“NO!”

Trev awoke with a rush. He was covered in sweat. From the looks of the men in the bunks around him, he had obviously woken a few of them up.

“I… I’m sorry,” he said as he buried his face in his hands. ‘It’s a dream,’ he thought to himself. ‘Just a dream. Get a hold of
yourself.’

“We all have dreams, Trev,” commented Norall, who occupied the bunk next to his. “You just seem to have them real bad. It must have been really bad on Pisceria,”

“You have no idea,” he murmured. His whole body was shaking visibly to anyone who was watching him.

“Here,” Norall offered a flask to Trev. “It’ll help you sleep.”

“No thanks, man. All I want is a turbowash; a nice, hot turbowash.”

Norall shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

As he sagged against the wall of the turbowash, letting the warm spray cascade over his body, Trev thought about the dream. This was, by far, the worst one yet. Though the nightmares had returned with a vengeance, he was not the only one who had them. Many of the other workers had them, as well as some of the warriors from what he had heard. No one viewed the screams when he woke up in the middle of his sleep period as anything that unusual anymore.

Trev had once again built his reputation as a reliable worker who could be called on at any time. The Galactica had sustained heavy damage almost two sectars before in a series of suicide runs on the battlestar by the Cylons. All of the workers were pulling double shifts to get everything running as it had been before. Langley worked with him from time to time, but more and more often Trev found himself on his own, and he preferred it that way. The more time he was around other people, the guiltier he felt, both for his lies and for what had happened. If there were any questions about why he kept to himself so much and did not socialize, it would simply be attributed to the workload he carried.

More and more he had been wondering about his father. He was sure that was what had brought on this latest nightmare. Why hadn’t Baltar asked for him yet? He had seen the smile of recognition on his father’s face. There had been many centars while he was working and when he was alone in the solitude of the Celestial Dome agonizing over his life. What had happened? Did he really not know his father at all? Or had he managed to fool everyone, including his family? Trev wanted answers to his questions, but there was no way to get them without raising even more questions.

He hated who he was; who he had been. Sometimes he thought he should just come clean and let it all end. It seemed as if he was just waiting for the inevitable to happen. Other times, he was frightened beyond belief of being found out.

Captain Apollo hadn’t been around for more than a secton. Though Trev liked the solitude of being alone in the Celestial Dome, the times he ran into Captain Apollo reassured him that there were other people suffering with their own demons, like himself. For a while he had wondered what could trouble the Commander’s son so much. He was looked upon as a hero of the fleet, and held in the highest regard. Still, he sought out the solitude of this place. He supposed everyone was suffering to a degree…

But did anyone else have a secret hanging over them of the magnitude he did?

The news of the arrival had spread through the Fleet like a fire. Likewise, the news of the disappearance of Captain Apollo, Lieutenant Starbuck, and a med-tech had also spread. Now rumors circulated, fed by Councillors and the IFB; rumors of desertion, duplicity and treason.

The ship had contained six humans, including four children. It was small, by Colonial standards. The one human who had come out of the ship had been unable to breath in the atmosphere on the Galactica. A short time later, the ship, along with her people all aboard, and the afore mentioned Colonials, all escaped.

Commander Adama was doing his best to deal with the fallout from the warriors’ disappearance, but it grew harder and harder every day. More and more questions arose, along with more and more outrageous accusations.

Trev was aware of what was going on around him but chose to keep quiet and wait. The Captain Apollo he knew would never desert. As the days wore on, though, it grew harder and harder to deny that something had happened, probably to all three of them. Then, just as suddenly as they had disappeared, the three of them reappeared again. This time, they were aboard a second, even stranger ship. The people who were aboard this ship were immediately remanded to the prison barge, and their ship kept in the newly repaired Landing Bay of the Galactica.

Since the need for workers was so great, Trev had been granted clearance to work in the landing bays. He stared at the unusual ship, somewhat in awe of seeing up close what a civilization totally alien to their own had created.

“Primitive fuel system,” Langley commented as he put a hand on Trev’s shoulder.

“Does it do light speed?”

Langley shrugged. “Don’t know about that. The techs have been over it, but they’re keeping a lot classified.”

“Afraid of upsetting the masses?” Trev asked with a grin.

“Something like that.” Langley smiled back.

“What about the people who were on this ship?”

Langley shrugged. “They’re on the Prison Barge… for now. Rumor has it, the Council wants to let them go.”

“Let them go?” Trev’s eyes widened.

“Depending on who you believe, they are either monsters who were intent on murdering a group of civilians, including children, or emissaries from a new potential ally.”

“I always hated politics,” Trev murmured.

Langley shook his head. “The Cylons destroyed us, but the daggit-shit keeps flowing. I guess people will never change.”

“You’re not an optimistic person, are you Langley?”

“Optimistic? How can anyone be optimistic when you’ve got Baltar on the Prison Barge? Sells out the whole human race, and he’s still alive! The traitor should have been hauled out for public execution!” He spat on the floor of the landing bay after saying his name.

Trev watched the man walk off, then looked up at the ship. It was obvious that the people of the Fleet still harbored bitter feeling for Baltar. He supposed it would be the same towards him, were he ever to be found out. Maybe what his dreams were telling him was what he should do. Maybe he should just go somewhere else, where nobody knew him or who he was, and there was no chance of them finding out, and start over. Maybe this planet these people came from, this Terra would be a sanctuary.

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