The regular afternoon shuttle from the ground base on Caprica was too large to fit into the battlecruiser Victory’s hangar bay, necessitating a stopover aboard the Columbia for anyone bound there. While she waited for the battlecruiser’s shuttle to come and fetch her, Noday paid a visit to Columbia’s senior navigator, Colonel Protogora, who was the last navigator Noday had personally trained and likely was the best of Noday considered, in retrospect, to have been a fairly good lot. Over tea they discussed the upcoming mission to Kobol, the latest Fleet gossip, and things Noday had noticed during her visit to Caprica.
“How’s Starbuck?” Protogora asked.
Noday shrugged. “Same old Starbuck,” she opined. “As impossible as ever.”
“It’s horrible, but that seems reassuring.”
“I know what you mean. I seem to get increasingly....senile, and he goes on and on. He has an awfully nice son, though.”
“Really?”
“Takes after Aurora.”
“Lucky boy.”
“They’ve assigned him to fly with Rhiannon.”
Protogora set her cup down rather abruptly. “Ohmigod.”
“Now what is....so bad about Rhiannon?” Noday asked mildly.
Waving a finger at her, Protogora said, “Noday, I know that you’re prejudiced, but she is impossible.”
Noday smiled. “Possibly you’re just jealous.”
“Not hardly,” Protogora replied. “More tea?”
“No, thank you,” Noday said, forestalling her friend’s lunge for the little pot resting on a decorative tile set for that purpose into the side table. “Can I get you some?”
“A bit, perhaps....”
As Noday refilled the other woman’s cup, one carved from a pink stone common on Protogora’s home world of Taura, she commented, “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” Protogora admitted. “I’ve had a lot of things to do, getting ready for this mission. Besides which....” She hesitated, then said, “I don’t think it’s going to be all that much longer, Noday,” a gesture indicating her brain implant.
“Well, it’s usually....not so bad. Have you told Akamas?”
“He knows, and we’ve taken on an extra navigator just in case. A good one, too. Her first assignment was to the Cerberus and they were really impressed. She’s a natural navigator. It’s just such a damned shame....”
“What?” Noday prompted.
“Well, I know that people who can take an implant are thin underfoot, but suitable as she must have been she would have been a lot better off in some other specialty. Her marks at the Command Academy were incredible—top five—and her thesis is amazing. I don’t pretend to understand all of it, because it’s not my line, but it’s a study of the evolution of battlecruiser tactics.”
Noday sat back. “I think I know which one you’re talking about. This would have been how long ago?”
“Three, almost four yahrens now.”
“Yes, I do know....the one. It was very good indeed, and I know that Miriam and Dirce were both quite impressed.”
Protogora nodded. “On top of that, she was a poet. A good one, I’m told, though I’m no judge of such things. When they implanted her...well, it hits different people different ways. I never thought it changed me much, though my mother says my temper got worse. But with her...well, she’s rather vague. Can’t focus on things. Can’t write poetry any more, certainly can’t write brilliant tactical analyses, couldn’t find her way out of an open bag. People take advantage of her and laugh at her behind her back. She’s a sweet, dear little thing...not your average navigator, for certain. It really irritates me, but what can you do?”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“I’ll send for her.” Protogora rose, went to her desk, and did so. In a few centons the arrival notice chimed and Protogora called, “Enter.”
The door snapped aside and a young woman of average height, dressed impeccably in blues, entered. She had golden-blonde hair and gentle brown eyes. “Colonel?” she inquired.
“Lieutenant, this is Colonel Noday, commander’s aide aboard Victory. She’s the navigator who trained me; she wanted to meet you. Noday, this is Lieutenant Leah.”
Noday rose and shook her hand and said, “I thought you’d like to know that both Commander Miriam and Fleet Commander Dirce were highly impressed by your senior thesis.”
“Thank you, sir, I’m pleased to hear that.”
“How do you like being aboard the Columbia?”
“It’s...different,” Leah ventured.
Noday laughed. “That’s what everyone says. Non—....Sagitarans, anyway. You’re Caprican, aren’t you?” Leah nodded. “The Colonel says you’re a fine navigator.”
“I try my best, Colonel.” She did not appear entirely convinced of it.
After Leah had gone, Noday remarked, “Does she remind you of Klymene at all?”
“Not much. Klymene was a lot tougher than that; she had to be, to put up with Dirce, gods know. A good stiff rain would blow poor little Leah away. Why do you ask?” she asked curiously.
“I just wondered.”
“Mm. I’m thinking of putting her on warp scouting,” Protogora went on. “She’d be good at it, and maybe she’d make some friends.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
The commconsole on Protogora’s desk beeped discreetly for attention and she answered. Looking up, she said, “It’s for you. It’s the Fleet Hospital in Caprica City. What could they want?”

Frowning at the printout in her hands, Miriam tried holding it further away. Finally, the print sprang into focus. She was becoming increasingly farsighted, and knew she’d have to submit to the life officer’s recommendation of corrective action soon, before her focal length grew longer than her arms.
So, Adama had decided to override all objections and come along on their mission to find Kobol! She was unsurprised, glad of it, and knew that Tigh would make a more than sufficient substitute Commander of the Fleet in his absence.
The door opened; without looking up, Miriam asked, “Back, Noday?” Anyone else would have beeped for admittance.
“Yes, I am. I have a....message from your daughter,” Noday replied.
Her tone of voice was slightly unnatural and when Miriam turned to look at her her expression was odd too. Putting aside the paper she’d been reading, she asked apprehensively, “What happened?”
Wordlessly, Noday passed her a note. It was a perfect reproduction transmitted to the Columbia of Rhiannon’s occasionally readable scrawl, and it read Noday, tell Mother I’m fine, but you should see the striker! followed by her initial. Miriam digested it for a centon, then looked up and again asked, “What happened?”
“They thought it was a bird strike but evidently it was debris. She was....hurt, Miri, but not too badly. They ejected low and she broke both of her legs and her left arm and four....or five other bits, all of which went right back together. This happened this morning over the firing range on Caprica.”
“You’re sure she’s all right?”
“I have it direct from the life....officer who worked on her. I can get you the medical report if you want to see it, but it’s pretty nasty. Anyway, she’s....going to be all right, and she’ll be transferred to the Columbia with the rest of her squadron as scheduled.”
“How exactly did this happen?”
“I....gather they went out to shoot drones and then they decided to hassle and apparently an access cover fell off the squadron commander’s aircraft and went down one of their intakes.”
Miriam admitted softly, “She worries me.”
“I knew a pilot once, and I know how you feel,” Noday replied. They studied one another for a centon. Before the holocaust they had been lovers for a few yahrens, until Noday had asked for a transfer to the Galactica. Partly she had been motivated by Miriam’s inability to get out of her sealing, but her primary reason had been that, after living through Miriam’s two horrible striker crashes and the ensuing long periods of forced regrowth and therapy, she could not tolerate the thought of Miriam going on doing the same thing. Living with the stress of waiting for the inevitable fatal accident had simply become too much for her. Noday knew that Miriam did not blame her in the least, but it made her rather ashamed to recall how Miriam had reappeared in her own life after her breakdown, the removal of her implant and the suicidal depression that had ensued. It would have been easy to die if it hadn’t been for Miriam’s selfless devotion.
Setting the note aside, Miriam said, “Well, she’s all right.” The unspoken this time seemed to hang in the air between them.
Noday hesitated, then asked, “Miri, do....you have a centon?”
“Of course I do. I haven’t even greeted you properly,” Miriam added, feeling a flash of guilt. It did not pay to take Noday for granted. “What is it?”
“Actually, there are a couple....of things,” Noday said, sitting down on a corner of the desk facing Miriam. “The first is what we’ve been talking about. I don’t know if I should do this, but...I don’t have any children, but I’ve always felt as if Rhiannon is mine too. In fact, if I had a....daughter, I hope I’d feel for her the way I do about yours. Both of them.”
“Go ahead, Noday, you won’t offend me.”
“All right. I’m....worried about her, Miri. She hasn’t gotten over that business on Borallus yet, but that only exacerbates her other problems. She’s in hack almost continuously. If....she wasn’t who she is, she’d have lost her rank more than once by now.”
With a sigh, Miriam said, “When she looks at herself, she sees commander’s stripes. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that there have to be several grades of lieutenant, captain, and colonel before that happens.”
“She has very little tolerance for her senior officers. If she....thinks something is right, she just goes right ahead and does it. The problem is, occasionally she’s wrong.”
“I’ve mentioned it to her, Noday, but she just doesn’t listen,” Miriam said, exasperation evident in her voice. “She thinks she’s trying to live up...or down...to Dirce and me.”
“More to Dirce than you, I think, though I’m not sure Dirce was ever in so much trouble. Of course I didn’t know her when she....was younger.”
“I am told that she had her centons,” Miriam replied. “When I joined the military I had to keep reminding people she was only my half-sister so they wouldn’t expect me to be a pale imitation of her.”
“There’s another thing, one you....may not have heard much about. She’s rather...well, much as I dislike the word, promiscuous.”
Miriam looked up. “Oh?”
“She’s young, but one after another after another....”
“How many ‘one after another after another?’”
“Lots, Miri. All women, of course—she definitely takes after Dirce there. Like I said, she’s....young and I don’t really want to judge her because I was never perfect, but it’s a symptom. She doesn’t form....emotional attachments with anyone.”
Miriam sighed again. “When she was young, I had to make a choice between raising her properly or fighting the Cylons. She got shuttled between me and her father and her grandparents, and I suppose that had an effect. I feel guilty as hades about it still, but it was the only possible choice. And it never seemed to bother Amala.”
“Amala’s different. She takes after Apollo, she’s....more self-contained. She has her books and things. Rhiannon’s not that cerebral. She seems to want to live life in an awful hurry. Maybe if she had some kind....of permanence in her life it would make all the difference. She’s a remarkable young woman. Brilliantly talented in her own way.”
Miriam commented, “Something tells me you have something in mind.”
Noday hesitated, then confessed, “Maybe.”
“Hmm. Noday the matchmaker. It doesn’t seem like you.”
“It’s not. It will....likely be a horrid failure, but I’m inspired to try. I have a friend Rhiannon reminds....me of, and I don’t want her to turn out to be another emotional cripple like Starbuck.”
Miriam nodded. “Try away, then. Didn’t you have something else?”
Aware she could put it off no longer, Noday composed herself and began, “While I was on Caprica, I saw Dr. Khafre.”
“And what did he tell you?” Miriam asked, hoping she didn’t sound as apprehensive as she felt. Dr. Khafre was the neurospecialist who had handled Noday’s case since the removal of her brain implant.
“He said....” There was another of the familiar pauses, during which Noday’s frustration showed. Usually she controlled her irritation, but there were times in private when she didn’t bother. When she was able to, she continued, “...that there might be something he can do for me.”
“He’s said that before,” Miriam felt obliged to point out.
“I know that, but this time he thinks he really can. He wants to operate.”
“And what are the odds?”
“He says there’s a....thirty percent chance it will work.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Noday was silent, then she confessed, “If it doesn’t work, it could be...very bad.”
“How bad?” Miriam pressed.
“I could die.”
The combination of stressful factors, her daughter’s crash and other problems, the upcoming mission and now Noday’s revelation were enough to tip Miriam right over the edge of her not particularly high tolerance level. “There’s a seventy percent chance you could die and you want to go through with this?” she exploded before she could control herself.
“I’m tired of being....” Noday gestured futilely, then concluded, “like this! Don’t you know how I feel?”
“I do know how you feel. Don’t you think I want the same thing? But it isn’t worth the risk.”
Miriam’s tone was reasonable enough but Noday was still upset enough to reply, “That’s easy for you to say!”
“That’s not fair....”
Turning her back so Miriam could not see her tears, Noday angrily wiped them away before facing her again. “If it hadn’t been for this I’d have made commander! Everything I worked for....”
Rising from her chair, Miriam protested, “I don’t want you to die! Don’t you realize I know exactly how you used to feel when I was a pilot?”
“Sometimes I don’t know if I want to go on living like this!”
The door opened and the two women looked around to see Victory’s exec standing there apologetically. “I did knock,” Athena offered.
“It’s all right, we were just...discussing something,” Miriam said. “What is it, Athena?”
“Signal from the flagship. Commanders and execs report on board in two centares for a briefing.”
“Very good, acknowledge it and have the shuttle prepared.”
“Aye, Commander.” Athena looked from Miriam to Noday worriedly, then left.
Miriam felt deflated, anger and adrenaline draining from her system, leaving behind the inevitable residue of shame that plagued her whenever she gave in to her temper. Noday had turned away again and was looking out the viewport; Miriam rose and put her arms around her from behind, felt her relax slightly. Resting her head on the taller woman’s shoulder, Miriam said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. It likely is a....stupid idea. Wishful thinking. It’s just so tempting. To be normal again, not to have....people look at me like I’m strange or worse yet feel sorry for me. You can’t imagine how difficult it is, how much I hate going anyplace where I’ll be around people who don’t know. I just want to crawl into a....corner and hide. I have to force myself...it’s so hard,” she concluded.
“I’m being selfish. If you want to do it, do it. You have to live with it, Noday, I don’t.”
“I don’t know. I have to think about it.”
“Like I said, I know now how you felt, waiting for something to happen. It’s horrible. I don’t know how you put up with it as long as you did.”
“I had no....right to criticize what you did. You were a pilot, and gods know you were a good one. I might as well have....suggested you stop breathing.”
“Whatever...it’s just that I love you and I don’t want to lose you, ever again. Once was too often.”
“I know that. You make things better than they might otherwise have been.”

The briefing aboard the Columbia was largely taken up by routine operational matters—supplies, formations, patrol arrangements, standard signals. Both Victory and Starbuck’s battlecruiser, Triumph, had previously been assigned to other fleets, being attached to the Third Fleet for this mission to replace Glory and Cerberus, both of which had been sorely overdue for refits.
On her way out afterwards, Miriam felt someone take her arm and she turned to face Aeneas, the Fleet Commander. He looked much as he had thirty yahrens earlier when he had been Columbia’s CO and she one of his squadron commanders, except for more traces of gray in his hair and deeper lines in his face that were likely more attributable to strain than actual aging just yet. He was, after all, only seventy. “Yes, cousin?” she asked informally.
“I wanted you to know that your daughter will be coming aboard next secton...not quite ambulatory, evidently. Akamas is reassigning her temporarily. We need a crew for our warp scout, and she’s very well qualified.”
Miriam wondered briefly what had brought that on. Rhiannon was about the last person she would have personally selected for warp scouting, but perhaps it would be good for her. “Thank you, I appreciate that.” And, while not risk-free, it was a lot less dangerous than flying strikers.
Out in the corridor she found Athena talking to Starbuck as she waited. Starbuck smiled at Miriam and said, “If you’re not in a hurry to get back to your ship, I’d like to talk to you for a few centons, Commander.”
“Certainly, Commander.”
“I’ll be near the shuttle,” Athena said.
The two commanders went to the Columbia’s senior officer’s mess which proved to be, as they’d expected, nearly deserted at that centare in the interval between mid- and evenmeals. Miriam ordered a cup of tea and, much to her surprise—it seemed out of what she’d heard about his character—Starbuck did likewise.
After they’d sat down at a table under one of the room’s large ports, Starbuck said, “I thought we should talk things over before we went out. There may not be time later, and we’ve never worked together before.”
Raising an eyebrow, Miriam inquired mildly, “Are you expecting trouble, Commander?”
“We don’t know what’s out there.”
“Kobol...and beyond it, the Delphian Empire.”
“We’ve had no contact with them since well before the holocaust. I’d like to know why,” Starbuck said.
“The general assumption is that they were destroyed by the Cylons. I’m not sure if they had ambitions in that direction, but Gamoray would be worth having.”
“Were you ever there?”
“No,” she replied, “but my father was when he was commander of the Second Fleet, before I was born. He took a diplomatic delegation there. The Delphians were not interested in making formal treaty commitments and contacts with them were few and far between after that. I remember him saying that the Delphians were a peaceful, generally unambitious race, but fairly advanced, technologically. They had settled four or five systems centered on the warp nexus at Gamoray. He suspected they were in contact with other alien civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy and wanted to avoid us and the Cylon War. One can hardly blame them.”
“What ship did your father take?”
“The old Columbia,” she said, naming the long-scrapped predecessor of the current battlestar of that name. “Cain was her commander at the time,” she added as an afterthought.
Starbuck sat back, sipped at his tea, and looked thoughtful. Miriam wondered what was going on inside his head. Was he just curious for information, or did he have some specific suspicion? I have never been able to read him, her sister, Dirce, had told her in her most recent letter. Better luck to you, sister. Perhaps he was just, in his own way, sizing her up, likely comparing her to Dirce. If that was true, he was probably unimpressed, but unlike her flamboyant older sister Miriam preferred to be somewhat understated. All in all, Starbuck was not what she’d expected. She’d thought to find someone far more superficial, probably trying to put the moves on her, but perhaps Starbuck was a kind of human chameleon, adaptable to different situations, different expectations. He was strikingly good-looking on top of it all. Finally she came out and asked him, “Do you think there’s something going on?”
Roused from his thoughts, he said, “No, I don’t think so. I just prefer to be prepared.”
“Including, I take it, for possible hostile contact with the Delphian Empire?”
“Including possible hostile contact with anyone, Commander, including who or whatever might be responsible for our losing contact with the Delphian Empire.”
“Indeed,” said Miriam.
Starbuck leaned back and smiled, inquired, “Is it true that you captured Baltar after the Destruction?”
“Some of Columbia’s marines under my command captured Baltar,” Miriam replied.
“Mm. And is it true that you organized a firing squad?”
“Who told you that?” Miriam inquired.
“Apollo did.”
“And you trust Commander Apollo?”
“With my life.”
“Me too,” Miriam agreed. “And yes. I did have Baltar shot. Although my preference was to use a very dull knife.”
Starbuck grinned. “I think we understand one another, Commander.”
“Perhaps we do,” Miriam allowed.

On the way back to the Victory, Athena asked, “Well, what did you think of Starbuck?”
“He’s...interesting,” she said, for lack of a better word.
“Hmmm,” Athena said, tapping her fingernails lightly on her portable computron. “Don’t get too fascinated.”
“There is no danger of that.”
“He has that effect on people. Women, I mean. He still has that effect on me,” she admitted, clearly unpleased by the realization.
“He is massively charming, I will admit, but he is not my type, assuming that I have one.”
Athena smiled affectionately. ”You have one. I’m kind of jealous,” she confessed. “I’ve never loved anyone that much. I seem to spend my life in pursuit of love and finding imitations. Gets tedious. Can I ask what you and your lady were...discussing?”
“That blasted doctor is trying to talk her into another operation,” Miriam said shortly.
Shaking her head sadly, Athena said, “You know, Commander, I’ve made two correct decisions in my life. One was to tell Starbuck to get lost. The other was to say no when they asked me to be a navigator.”