Blue Moon By: Ayelet H.Lushkov September 30, 1998 Thud. Bounce. Thud. Bounce. Thud.... The ball drops to the floor and the room fills with silence. Didn't throw it quite hard enough. A little more energy in the throw, and it would have bounced back. And the slow, monotone, seemingly endless rhythm would have continued. Middle of the night, and the Captain can't sleep. Nothing new, nothing old. Just the same continuing, undisturbed flow of life. When did I start missing nights? I've changed so much during this last yahren, yet, really, changed so little. Humans can only go so much without sleep, he said, and sent me to my quarters. Figures. Starbuck's always been like that. Too much energy, not enough room to let it out. My father just looks at the dark bags around my eyes, shakes his old head ruefully, and says nothing. He's going through the same ordeals. Tigh is supplying him the same service Starbuck does to me. The only time we bend to the command of an underling. Command is wearing. It's exhausting. It drains you of your energy. Command and melancholy, they go hand in hand. You can only send so many of your friend to their deaths without losing your precarious sanity. Maybe we're all insane, anyway. What sane man would journey all the way across the stars to follow a myth, a legend? Yet we fight on. We fight for every piece of space we trudge through, and we pay in blood. Just how expensive existence is? Freedom does not come cheaply. But we are prisoners of our own desires. That one human desire. To live. To live forever. But immortality is just beyond our reach. Just as well. How many lives? How many good men? How many widows? How many orphans? How many shattered hopes and dreams? How many disillusioned faces? How many lives? Tell me, Lords of Kobol, you who know all, who teach all. How many men and women must I send to their deaths before you deem us worthy? How heavy is the price we need to pay to reach our destination? Set the price, Lords. Set it, and let us decide it worthy or not. We pay in blood, and lives, and hopes. We pay in misery. We pay in our tears and pains. But we can only pay so much. Despair is our biggest enemy, and it is closing in. I look outside the window, and all I see is an eternal night. Back home, when the colonies were still our homes, the skies were the ultimate goal. Starbuck and I, we used to lie on our backs in the wet grass, looking up and seeing ourselves walking among the stars. Morning would rise, and the stars were no longer visible. But they were still there, calling, beseeching us to come to them. And come we did. But is it our destiny, to forever remain among them? Never to settle down again, never to feel the wind, the rain, the sun on our faces? I do not doubt my father. He believes in Earth, and I believe in him. He will lead our people to their destination. And if the journey will outlive him, I will take on the task; me, Athena, Starbuck, Boomer, Sheba_everyone who knows and loves him. And if we shall perish before the end is near, our children, and our children's children will lead the way. The survivor of the colonies will find a home again. Yet the price is heavy. The price is heavy, and my pilots are cubits in which it is paid. And it's wearing me down. I love the thrill of battle. I love the sensation that burns through me when the Viper is shot down the launch turn. I love the feel of the adrenaline starting to pump when the battle ensues. I love the excitement of a recon patrol. But the awful sink in my heart, the awful burden on my shoulders when the battle is over and we count our loses. Those dreaded moments when you see a Viper go out in a blaze, and you hope fervently that it's not your best friend, your sister, your son, or your father. That it's not someone you know and love. And I hate myself all over again for it, each and every time. They're my pilots, I'm responsible for them. Blue Squadron is the commander's personal strike wing, but *I* am their captain. They, we, would follow Adama to the gates of hell and beyond, if he so commands. But it's *me* who they throw their Viper before at battle. It's *me* who they give their life defending. We all serve the fleet, the human race. But when a mission is on, and my pilots are send to suicide runs, and do it without batting an eye, because *I'm* the captain, I just.... "I'm expandable, you're not," they say. I've said it to my father many times over. But it's not true! None of us is expandable! If we perish, the thing we fight for dies with us! We *are* the job, we *are* the idea. Not one human life, warrior or civilian, is expandable. Life is sacred. Yes life is cheap. Too cheap. It's too easy to die. Too easy to stop fighting. And why do we fight? Some fight out of passion. Some are out for Cylon blood, if you will. Some are after revenge. Some fight for fight's sake. Some, for the thrill of it. Some just fight to spite the Cylons. To wave in their faces that we are still alive and kicking, and have no intention of stopping. Boomer fights to avenge his family. Sheba, to continue her father's legacy. Me, I just fight to last another day. Because every day I last, every day I spend with my son, with Sheba, with my friends, with my family, every such day is a small victory. And lasting is not enough. If we just sit in our chunks of metal, wondering through space, if we loose human semblance, than the Cylons have won. We might as well be dead. But every day we live- not just exist, live!- every day is a victory. Every couple in love, every child smiling- that is our greatest triumph. That is our legacy. That is what we seek to preserve. That is what the Cylons can never destroy. This is the strength of the human race. We, who have know lose and suffering. We, who have watched family and friend die. We, who have lost everything, and refused to be defeated. We will fight on. Because all it takes for my Squadron to assemble at their vipers and launch to fight at unbeatable odds_all it takes is one hope. One dream. One child. So maybe I can fight on. Maybe I can bear the heavy price with my head high and proud. The cost is high, but the goal is worthy. And they, all those who have died, on the colonies, in Cimtar, in the yahren since we left our homes. All the innocents. They will be remembered. And we, the Colonial Warriors, we will remember our fellow warriors who fought next to us, with us. Trained with us, lived with us, laughed with us. But their lived were plucked all too soon. All the pilots who flew under me, and for me, and with me. All of them will be remembered, and loved, and honored. For in their deaths, they commanded life to us. And then the thoughts subside, and I sink in again to the lull of night. The eternal darkness out the window surrounding me. All about the ship silence rules. Dawn is about to color the worlds pink back home. But here, in the midst of space, night is permanent, ever lasting. And only somewhere in the distance, on the edge of some star system, a blue moon is rising. Middle of the night, and only the captain cannot sleep. Nothing old, nothing new..... --The End.