Serving aboard Galactica
Jul. 12th, 2017 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chiron_survivor((tl;dr -- Adia assists with a disease outbreak aboard Galactica and meets Captain Agathon and his daughter, Hera, the only Cylon-human hybrid. This story is heavily based on the Season 3 episode The Woman King, and the characters and medical terms contained within are canon.))
As a medical volunteer, Adia had the opportunity to visit several ships in the Fleet, but this was her first time aboard Galactica. Already she felt overwhelmed. Clinging to the lanyard of her visitor badge, she followed her military escort down seemingly endless corridors until they reached their destination, a hangar bay currently housing over three hundred refugees.
An older white-haired man in a doctor’s coat met her at the entrance. “You must be the biologist from the Chiron.” He smiled at her tiredly. “I’m Doctor Robert. I can’t thank you enough for sending us your remaining supply of bittamucin.”
Relaxing in the presence of a medical authority, she returned his smile. “It was no trouble, Doctor. I only wish we had more. I can’t remember the last time there was an outbreak of mellorak in the colonies.”
Doctor Robert rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Ah, well, all sorts of obscure diseases manifest themselves when you’re dealing with Sagittarons.” He gestured for her to follow him into the hangar itself, which reminded her a lot of New Caprica, minus the mud. The makeshift dormitory was crowded with families and their personal effects, cots and blankets laid out in open rows. “I set up a medical station over there for the usual problems. You can send anything critical to me or Doctor Cottle.”
“Oh… um, I thought I’d be helping with the quarantined patients, too. I can administer the bittamucin while you manage their symptoms.”
Doctor Robert shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. The disease won’t spread beyond the quarantine, and I can handle the workload.”
“Are you sure?” One doctor overseeing even a small quarantine seemed insufficient. “I know I’m only a volunteer, but I’ve had several months experience —“
“I said, that won’t be necessary.” Robert lost his smile. “It is admirable of you to want to help, but I am not going to risk the health of a bright young mind because a bunch of backwater fools refused to vaccinate their children.” Expression softening, he gave her a patronizing pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be much more effective out here, with patients who’ll actually listen to you.”
Turning away without another word, he disappeared behind a cordon of hospital curtains. Adia sighed and crossed her arms over her chest in frustration. So much for questioning authority.
~*~
Her medical station was little more than a desk and an exam table, but it was sufficient for the minor illnesses and injuries she treated throughout the day. Every so often, she’d glance over at the curtained-off quarantine and frown. Already a young boy had died from mellorak. She was positive that she’d be making more of a difference back there, if only Doctor Robert would agree to it.
“Yeah, I don’t like him much, either.”
Startled out of her thoughts, she looked up at the man who spoke, a military officer in his mid-thirties. He smiled at her sympathetically. “You’re Doctor Costas, right? I’m Captain Agathon, I’m trying to keep the peace around here until the quarantine ends.”
She had heard of Captain Karl Agathon — everyone had. He was married to an Eight, the only Cylon ever to ally with humans. Their child was the only human-Cylon hybrid in existence.
“Just Adia is fine.” She smiled shyly. “I’m not that kind of doctor…”
Agathon chuckled softly. “All right, Adia it is.” He looked around at her setup. “You doing all right here? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. To be honest, there isn’t a lot to do here.” Her gaze drifted towards the row of curtains. “Doctor Robert was pretty adamant about not wanting any help, though…”
The Captain grimaced and ran a hand through his short, black hair. “Sorry about that. I tried to get him to change his mind, but he was insistent on keeping down the threat of exposure.” He gave the curtains a narrow-eyed stare for a moment before redirecting his attention to her. “What can you tell me about mellorak? How contagious is it?”
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” she explained. “You can only get it through physical contact. You aren’t contagious until you’re showing symptoms — a fever, abdominal pain, sometimes blood in the urine. It attacks the kidneys first, then the other organs. It has to be treated with bittamucin within the first 48 hours of symptoms, otherwise the prognosis is terrible.”
“Mmm.” His gaze was back on the curtains. “The disease doesn’t act any faster than that? Say, around twelve hours?”
Adia shook her head. “The patient would have to be immunocompromised to fall ill so quickly.”
Agathon frowned. “What’s the success rate for administering bittamucin within twelve hours, then?”
“Something like 99.9 percent. It’s an incredibly effective cure.” She matched his frown. His line of questioning was oddly specific. “Is that what happened to that little boy? I was told that his mother waited too late to treat him.”
“I’m looking into that,” the Captain murmured before clearing his expression. “Thanks for the information. Come find me if you need a hand. I’ll be around.”
~*~
One of the perks of being a volunteer was not having to sleep in the same space as your patients. The former storage room was tiny, but the cot was comfortable enough and Adia was exhausted after a long day on her feet, so she slept well.
At least until someone started banging on her door.
It took her a moment or two to remember where she was and untangle herself from the blankets. She hit the light switch right before opening the door. Standing on the other side was Captain Agathon, a little girl no more than three years old in his arms.
“My daughter’s sick,” he said, his voice crackling with fear. “Can you examine her, please?”
“I— yes, of course.” Adia stepped back and ushered them in.
He put the girl on the bed, the only available place to sit. She cried a little when he let go of her and rolled around in protest. “Shhh, shhh. Hera, it’s okay. This nice woman is going to make sure you’re okay.”
Grabbing her medical kit, Adia pulled out an electronic thermometer. “I need to swipe this across your forehead,” she told the girl, who had settled down a little. “Real fast, okay? Whoosh! All done.” The thermometer beeped and she looked at the readout. “It’s 38.1. That’s a fever, but barely. What are her other symptoms?”
“She’s wheezing a little and producing a lot of mucus,” he answered while Adia retrieved her stethoscope and listened to the girl’s chest. “Her fever was higher earlier, and she hasn’t been eating much…”
Adia looked in the girl’s nose and ears. Gently felt the lymph nodes in her neck. Examination complete, she didn’t waste any time giving him a diagnosis. “Your daughter has a cold.”
Agathon’s posture remained tense. “A cold? You’re sure?”
“Fairly sure. A pretty bad one, but fevers in kids her age are totally normal. She’s probably not eating much because she can’t taste anything. Give her a day or two and her appetite will come back.”
“Oh, thank Zeus…” The Captain sagged onto the bed next to his daughter, who immediately crawled into his lap. “I was worried that I had passed something onto her…”
She put away her stethoscope, stealing glances at the tender way he held his child. Hera meant the universe to him, it was as obvious as the stars in the sky. “So why did you bring her to me?” she asked softly.
“Because I trust you,” he replied easily. “I watched the way you handled your patients today. You treated each one with respect and dignity, even when they didn’t reciprocate. I knew I could count on you to give Hera the care she deserved.”
The compliment made Adia smile. “Thanks, but… um, I meant, why not go see Doctor Cottle? Or Doctor Robert?”
“Doctor Cottle is swamped. And Doctor Robert…” He glanced briefly at the shut door before continuing in a hushed, hurried tone. “I don’t trust him at all. He’s expressed nothing but contempt for the Sagittarons, and I worried that his bias extended to Cylons. My wife was going to take Hera to Doctor Cottle but Robert intercepted her and gave Hera a shot for her fever.”
“You thought that he had misdiagnosed her?” Adia frowned worriedly. “Is this because of the boy who died?”
He nodded and nestled his daughter’s head against his shoulder, holding onto her a little tighter. “I convinced his mother to let Robert give him bittamucin, but he still died, and he had only been sick for twelve hours. The Sagittarons are terrified of Robert, they say he killed some of them on New Caprica. I thought it was simply hysteria on their part, but when I looked into the data, Sagittarons were more likely to die under his care than anyone else’s.”
That was a rather damning statistic. Adia wrapped her arms around herself, chilled by the possibility. “If he’s acting on his prejudice, all those people in quarantine are in danger.”
“I know.” He tightened his jaw. “I need to do more digging if I’m going to build a case against him.” His expression settling into determination, he stood up. “Adia, can you do me a favor? Can you watch Hera until I’m back? Her mother is on patrol and I don’t want to leave her with anyone else while I’m running around. They might take her to Robert again and I can’t have that.”
“Uh…” Examining a sick child was one thing, but Adia didn’t have much in the way of babysitting experience. Just how much did the Captain trust her? “I… okay. Sure.”
“Great, thank you.” He gave Hera a kiss before putting her back on the bed. “Auntie Adia is going to look after you while Daddy’s at work. Be a good girl for her. I love you.”
Auntie, Adia mouthed to herself. Hera seemed equally incredulous. As soon as Agathon left, she curled up in the blankets and started wailing for her father.
“Hey… hey, it’s okay. Your daddy won’t be gone long.” She sat down next to the little girl and gently rubbed her back. “Do you want to try to go back to sleep?”
Hera let out an ear-splitting shriek. No, she did not want to go back to sleep.
Adia winced and looked around the tiny room. How was she going to distract this kid from her misery? She didn’t have any toys, or games. She couldn’t even bribe her with candy. What options did she have left?
Hera’s cries turned into pitiful sobs interspersed with hiccups. Adia looked down at her round, tear-stained cheeks, and felt very sorry for her indeed. “It’s scary, huh? Being here without your mommy or daddy.” Hera nodded and rubbed at her eyes. “What can I do to help you feel better?”
The little girl looked up at her with dark, solemn eyes. “Read book?”
“Oh…” Darn, that was another option she didn’t have. “How about I tell you a story instead?”
Hera pouted and puffed out her cheeks. “Book.”
“I don’t have a book, but I can tell you a story like it came from a book. It, um… do you like princesses? It can be about a princess.”
Hera eyed her skeptically, not entirely convinced that this “story” was going to be better than any of her books. “Princess Hera?”
“Princess Hera,” Adia readily agreed. “So. One day, Princess Hera was walking through her castle, when —“
“Once upon a time,” Hera interrupted. “That’s how a story start.”
“Okay. Sorry. Once upon a time, Princess Hera was walking through her castle.” Adia paused to take a breath, and to think about where she was going to go with this story. “There was a… a mirror in one of the rooms, and Hera stopped to look into it. But instead of seeing herself, she saw a strange world full of magic. So, being a very brave princess, she decided to go through the mirror and see what the world was like. And the first person she met… um, it wasn’t a person at all. It was a polar bear. A talking polar bear.”
Hera watched her closely, her tears gone. “A nice bear?”
“Yes,” Adia said reassuringly. “A very nice bear. He worked at a restaurant and the first thing he did was offer Princess Hera some noodle soup…”
~*~
At some point between Princess Hera befriending a dog that could breathe fire and a tiny round robot named Ghost, the real Hera had fallen asleep in her lap. And though Adia intended to stay awake and keep an eye on her charge, she must have also dozed off because the next thing she knew there was another knock on the door.
It was Agathon. “Thank you,” he said gratefully as he took his sleeping daughter into his arms. He looked exhausted. “Sorry that took so long, but it’s over now. Robert had given the boy poison instead of bittamucin. He was planning to do the same to any other sick Sagittarons. He claimed it would be a waste of medication otherwise.”
“Oh, gods. That’s horrible.” Worse than she had imagined. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“He already admitted his guilt, and the quorum has a low tolerance for people who murder civilians…” He trailed off, but Adia knew what he was implying. Despite her aversion to the death penalty, she couldn’t find much empathy for Robert. “I’m going to look into the Sagittarons who died under his care and see if I can get some closure for their families.” He sighed heavily. “I just wish I had known about this sooner… maybe I could have saved them, too.”
Adia shook her head. “You stopped him before he could hurt anyone else, and that’s what matters. Everyone in that hangar is safer because of it, Captain.”
A faint smile appeared on his face. “Thanks. And just Karl is fine.” He turned to leave, then added casually, “If you’re staying here another day, go look for Doctor Cottle. He’ll need help with the quarantine, and I know he won’t say no to you.”
~*~
She was aboard Galactica a few weeks later when Captain Agathon stopped by her medical station. “Hey, Adia. Glad to have you back.” He looked a lot happier than the last time she saw him. Being that much closer to finding Earth had put everyone in a good mood. “I heard that everyone survived quarantine and there haven’t been any more cases of mellorak. Good work.”
“Thanks.” She smiled modestly at the praise. “How’s Hera doing? Is she over her cold?”
“Yeah, although she’s caught at least two more since then.” He laughed. “Her daycare’s like a petri dish. Oh, that reminds me.” He handed her a folded-up piece of paper. “She drew a picture for you. Said it was a secret for Auntie Adia.”
She took the paper into her hands. “Aww, that’s so sweet of her. I’m surprised she remembered me.”
“She sure does. That story of yours made a big impression on her. She’s still talking about magic animals and winter spirits. It’s adorable.”
“Hah, well. I’m glad she liked it.” She tucked the paper into her jacket pocket so she wouldn’t fidget with it. “I was honored, really, that you’d trust me with her. You’d only seen me with patients for less than a day.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, uh… I was the one that approved your volunteer position, so I knew about your history with the Six on New Caprica.”
She blinked in astonishment. “You read Will’s report?”
“Of course. I read all the reports.” He shrugged nonchalantly before continuing. “He didn’t explain much about what you did to make a Six save your life, but I could read between the lines.” He smiled at her. “You’re a kind soul, Adia. You’ve managed to keep prejudice and hate out of your heart this entire time. If more people were like you… well, we wouldn’t be fighting a war in the first place. But I’m glad you’re out there helping others. It makes what I do more meaningful.”
It was too big a compliment for her to accept without blushing. “I’m glad you’re out there, too. Looking out for people like me.”
He smiled easily. “It’s a damn shame you don’t live on Galactica. My wife and I could have you over for dinner. Or rations, anyway. Until then, listen. You need anything, you let me know, okay? I’ll try to make it happen.”
~*~
It wasn’t until she was on the Chiron again that she had a chance to look at Hera’s drawing. In the comfort of her quarters, she carefully unfolded the paper, eager to see what “secret” had been drawn for her.
It only took her a moment to understand what she was seeing, and another moment for shock to settle in.
On the page were two stick figures, a man and a woman, standing on green grass beneath a scribbled yellow sun. The woman wore a scarf, the man wore a purple suit. Smiling, they held tiny stick hands, a bright red heart between them.
And written in the empty space around them, over and over, was the number five.
As a medical volunteer, Adia had the opportunity to visit several ships in the Fleet, but this was her first time aboard Galactica. Already she felt overwhelmed. Clinging to the lanyard of her visitor badge, she followed her military escort down seemingly endless corridors until they reached their destination, a hangar bay currently housing over three hundred refugees.
An older white-haired man in a doctor’s coat met her at the entrance. “You must be the biologist from the Chiron.” He smiled at her tiredly. “I’m Doctor Robert. I can’t thank you enough for sending us your remaining supply of bittamucin.”
Relaxing in the presence of a medical authority, she returned his smile. “It was no trouble, Doctor. I only wish we had more. I can’t remember the last time there was an outbreak of mellorak in the colonies.”
Doctor Robert rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Ah, well, all sorts of obscure diseases manifest themselves when you’re dealing with Sagittarons.” He gestured for her to follow him into the hangar itself, which reminded her a lot of New Caprica, minus the mud. The makeshift dormitory was crowded with families and their personal effects, cots and blankets laid out in open rows. “I set up a medical station over there for the usual problems. You can send anything critical to me or Doctor Cottle.”
“Oh… um, I thought I’d be helping with the quarantined patients, too. I can administer the bittamucin while you manage their symptoms.”
Doctor Robert shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. The disease won’t spread beyond the quarantine, and I can handle the workload.”
“Are you sure?” One doctor overseeing even a small quarantine seemed insufficient. “I know I’m only a volunteer, but I’ve had several months experience —“
“I said, that won’t be necessary.” Robert lost his smile. “It is admirable of you to want to help, but I am not going to risk the health of a bright young mind because a bunch of backwater fools refused to vaccinate their children.” Expression softening, he gave her a patronizing pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be much more effective out here, with patients who’ll actually listen to you.”
Turning away without another word, he disappeared behind a cordon of hospital curtains. Adia sighed and crossed her arms over her chest in frustration. So much for questioning authority.
~*~
Her medical station was little more than a desk and an exam table, but it was sufficient for the minor illnesses and injuries she treated throughout the day. Every so often, she’d glance over at the curtained-off quarantine and frown. Already a young boy had died from mellorak. She was positive that she’d be making more of a difference back there, if only Doctor Robert would agree to it.
“Yeah, I don’t like him much, either.”
Startled out of her thoughts, she looked up at the man who spoke, a military officer in his mid-thirties. He smiled at her sympathetically. “You’re Doctor Costas, right? I’m Captain Agathon, I’m trying to keep the peace around here until the quarantine ends.”
She had heard of Captain Karl Agathon — everyone had. He was married to an Eight, the only Cylon ever to ally with humans. Their child was the only human-Cylon hybrid in existence.
“Just Adia is fine.” She smiled shyly. “I’m not that kind of doctor…”
Agathon chuckled softly. “All right, Adia it is.” He looked around at her setup. “You doing all right here? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. To be honest, there isn’t a lot to do here.” Her gaze drifted towards the row of curtains. “Doctor Robert was pretty adamant about not wanting any help, though…”
The Captain grimaced and ran a hand through his short, black hair. “Sorry about that. I tried to get him to change his mind, but he was insistent on keeping down the threat of exposure.” He gave the curtains a narrow-eyed stare for a moment before redirecting his attention to her. “What can you tell me about mellorak? How contagious is it?”
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” she explained. “You can only get it through physical contact. You aren’t contagious until you’re showing symptoms — a fever, abdominal pain, sometimes blood in the urine. It attacks the kidneys first, then the other organs. It has to be treated with bittamucin within the first 48 hours of symptoms, otherwise the prognosis is terrible.”
“Mmm.” His gaze was back on the curtains. “The disease doesn’t act any faster than that? Say, around twelve hours?”
Adia shook her head. “The patient would have to be immunocompromised to fall ill so quickly.”
Agathon frowned. “What’s the success rate for administering bittamucin within twelve hours, then?”
“Something like 99.9 percent. It’s an incredibly effective cure.” She matched his frown. His line of questioning was oddly specific. “Is that what happened to that little boy? I was told that his mother waited too late to treat him.”
“I’m looking into that,” the Captain murmured before clearing his expression. “Thanks for the information. Come find me if you need a hand. I’ll be around.”
~*~
One of the perks of being a volunteer was not having to sleep in the same space as your patients. The former storage room was tiny, but the cot was comfortable enough and Adia was exhausted after a long day on her feet, so she slept well.
At least until someone started banging on her door.
It took her a moment or two to remember where she was and untangle herself from the blankets. She hit the light switch right before opening the door. Standing on the other side was Captain Agathon, a little girl no more than three years old in his arms.
“My daughter’s sick,” he said, his voice crackling with fear. “Can you examine her, please?”
“I— yes, of course.” Adia stepped back and ushered them in.
He put the girl on the bed, the only available place to sit. She cried a little when he let go of her and rolled around in protest. “Shhh, shhh. Hera, it’s okay. This nice woman is going to make sure you’re okay.”
Grabbing her medical kit, Adia pulled out an electronic thermometer. “I need to swipe this across your forehead,” she told the girl, who had settled down a little. “Real fast, okay? Whoosh! All done.” The thermometer beeped and she looked at the readout. “It’s 38.1. That’s a fever, but barely. What are her other symptoms?”
“She’s wheezing a little and producing a lot of mucus,” he answered while Adia retrieved her stethoscope and listened to the girl’s chest. “Her fever was higher earlier, and she hasn’t been eating much…”
Adia looked in the girl’s nose and ears. Gently felt the lymph nodes in her neck. Examination complete, she didn’t waste any time giving him a diagnosis. “Your daughter has a cold.”
Agathon’s posture remained tense. “A cold? You’re sure?”
“Fairly sure. A pretty bad one, but fevers in kids her age are totally normal. She’s probably not eating much because she can’t taste anything. Give her a day or two and her appetite will come back.”
“Oh, thank Zeus…” The Captain sagged onto the bed next to his daughter, who immediately crawled into his lap. “I was worried that I had passed something onto her…”
She put away her stethoscope, stealing glances at the tender way he held his child. Hera meant the universe to him, it was as obvious as the stars in the sky. “So why did you bring her to me?” she asked softly.
“Because I trust you,” he replied easily. “I watched the way you handled your patients today. You treated each one with respect and dignity, even when they didn’t reciprocate. I knew I could count on you to give Hera the care she deserved.”
The compliment made Adia smile. “Thanks, but… um, I meant, why not go see Doctor Cottle? Or Doctor Robert?”
“Doctor Cottle is swamped. And Doctor Robert…” He glanced briefly at the shut door before continuing in a hushed, hurried tone. “I don’t trust him at all. He’s expressed nothing but contempt for the Sagittarons, and I worried that his bias extended to Cylons. My wife was going to take Hera to Doctor Cottle but Robert intercepted her and gave Hera a shot for her fever.”
“You thought that he had misdiagnosed her?” Adia frowned worriedly. “Is this because of the boy who died?”
He nodded and nestled his daughter’s head against his shoulder, holding onto her a little tighter. “I convinced his mother to let Robert give him bittamucin, but he still died, and he had only been sick for twelve hours. The Sagittarons are terrified of Robert, they say he killed some of them on New Caprica. I thought it was simply hysteria on their part, but when I looked into the data, Sagittarons were more likely to die under his care than anyone else’s.”
That was a rather damning statistic. Adia wrapped her arms around herself, chilled by the possibility. “If he’s acting on his prejudice, all those people in quarantine are in danger.”
“I know.” He tightened his jaw. “I need to do more digging if I’m going to build a case against him.” His expression settling into determination, he stood up. “Adia, can you do me a favor? Can you watch Hera until I’m back? Her mother is on patrol and I don’t want to leave her with anyone else while I’m running around. They might take her to Robert again and I can’t have that.”
“Uh…” Examining a sick child was one thing, but Adia didn’t have much in the way of babysitting experience. Just how much did the Captain trust her? “I… okay. Sure.”
“Great, thank you.” He gave Hera a kiss before putting her back on the bed. “Auntie Adia is going to look after you while Daddy’s at work. Be a good girl for her. I love you.”
Auntie, Adia mouthed to herself. Hera seemed equally incredulous. As soon as Agathon left, she curled up in the blankets and started wailing for her father.
“Hey… hey, it’s okay. Your daddy won’t be gone long.” She sat down next to the little girl and gently rubbed her back. “Do you want to try to go back to sleep?”
Hera let out an ear-splitting shriek. No, she did not want to go back to sleep.
Adia winced and looked around the tiny room. How was she going to distract this kid from her misery? She didn’t have any toys, or games. She couldn’t even bribe her with candy. What options did she have left?
Hera’s cries turned into pitiful sobs interspersed with hiccups. Adia looked down at her round, tear-stained cheeks, and felt very sorry for her indeed. “It’s scary, huh? Being here without your mommy or daddy.” Hera nodded and rubbed at her eyes. “What can I do to help you feel better?”
The little girl looked up at her with dark, solemn eyes. “Read book?”
“Oh…” Darn, that was another option she didn’t have. “How about I tell you a story instead?”
Hera pouted and puffed out her cheeks. “Book.”
“I don’t have a book, but I can tell you a story like it came from a book. It, um… do you like princesses? It can be about a princess.”
Hera eyed her skeptically, not entirely convinced that this “story” was going to be better than any of her books. “Princess Hera?”
“Princess Hera,” Adia readily agreed. “So. One day, Princess Hera was walking through her castle, when —“
“Once upon a time,” Hera interrupted. “That’s how a story start.”
“Okay. Sorry. Once upon a time, Princess Hera was walking through her castle.” Adia paused to take a breath, and to think about where she was going to go with this story. “There was a… a mirror in one of the rooms, and Hera stopped to look into it. But instead of seeing herself, she saw a strange world full of magic. So, being a very brave princess, she decided to go through the mirror and see what the world was like. And the first person she met… um, it wasn’t a person at all. It was a polar bear. A talking polar bear.”
Hera watched her closely, her tears gone. “A nice bear?”
“Yes,” Adia said reassuringly. “A very nice bear. He worked at a restaurant and the first thing he did was offer Princess Hera some noodle soup…”
~*~
At some point between Princess Hera befriending a dog that could breathe fire and a tiny round robot named Ghost, the real Hera had fallen asleep in her lap. And though Adia intended to stay awake and keep an eye on her charge, she must have also dozed off because the next thing she knew there was another knock on the door.
It was Agathon. “Thank you,” he said gratefully as he took his sleeping daughter into his arms. He looked exhausted. “Sorry that took so long, but it’s over now. Robert had given the boy poison instead of bittamucin. He was planning to do the same to any other sick Sagittarons. He claimed it would be a waste of medication otherwise.”
“Oh, gods. That’s horrible.” Worse than she had imagined. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“He already admitted his guilt, and the quorum has a low tolerance for people who murder civilians…” He trailed off, but Adia knew what he was implying. Despite her aversion to the death penalty, she couldn’t find much empathy for Robert. “I’m going to look into the Sagittarons who died under his care and see if I can get some closure for their families.” He sighed heavily. “I just wish I had known about this sooner… maybe I could have saved them, too.”
Adia shook her head. “You stopped him before he could hurt anyone else, and that’s what matters. Everyone in that hangar is safer because of it, Captain.”
A faint smile appeared on his face. “Thanks. And just Karl is fine.” He turned to leave, then added casually, “If you’re staying here another day, go look for Doctor Cottle. He’ll need help with the quarantine, and I know he won’t say no to you.”
~*~
She was aboard Galactica a few weeks later when Captain Agathon stopped by her medical station. “Hey, Adia. Glad to have you back.” He looked a lot happier than the last time she saw him. Being that much closer to finding Earth had put everyone in a good mood. “I heard that everyone survived quarantine and there haven’t been any more cases of mellorak. Good work.”
“Thanks.” She smiled modestly at the praise. “How’s Hera doing? Is she over her cold?”
“Yeah, although she’s caught at least two more since then.” He laughed. “Her daycare’s like a petri dish. Oh, that reminds me.” He handed her a folded-up piece of paper. “She drew a picture for you. Said it was a secret for Auntie Adia.”
She took the paper into her hands. “Aww, that’s so sweet of her. I’m surprised she remembered me.”
“She sure does. That story of yours made a big impression on her. She’s still talking about magic animals and winter spirits. It’s adorable.”
“Hah, well. I’m glad she liked it.” She tucked the paper into her jacket pocket so she wouldn’t fidget with it. “I was honored, really, that you’d trust me with her. You’d only seen me with patients for less than a day.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, uh… I was the one that approved your volunteer position, so I knew about your history with the Six on New Caprica.”
She blinked in astonishment. “You read Will’s report?”
“Of course. I read all the reports.” He shrugged nonchalantly before continuing. “He didn’t explain much about what you did to make a Six save your life, but I could read between the lines.” He smiled at her. “You’re a kind soul, Adia. You’ve managed to keep prejudice and hate out of your heart this entire time. If more people were like you… well, we wouldn’t be fighting a war in the first place. But I’m glad you’re out there helping others. It makes what I do more meaningful.”
It was too big a compliment for her to accept without blushing. “I’m glad you’re out there, too. Looking out for people like me.”
He smiled easily. “It’s a damn shame you don’t live on Galactica. My wife and I could have you over for dinner. Or rations, anyway. Until then, listen. You need anything, you let me know, okay? I’ll try to make it happen.”
~*~
It wasn’t until she was on the Chiron again that she had a chance to look at Hera’s drawing. In the comfort of her quarters, she carefully unfolded the paper, eager to see what “secret” had been drawn for her.
It only took her a moment to understand what she was seeing, and another moment for shock to settle in.
On the page were two stick figures, a man and a woman, standing on green grass beneath a scribbled yellow sun. The woman wore a scarf, the man wore a purple suit. Smiling, they held tiny stick hands, a bright red heart between them.
And written in the empty space around them, over and over, was the number five.
