Chapter 15: Litmus — Part 2
Orlov's intelligence chain delivered the breakthrough on Day Twenty-Five.
The Demetrius captain had been expanding his own contacts in parallel with our maintenance partnership — a development I'd encouraged, since a trading partner with good information was worth more than one without. His latest report came through Dunn's encrypted channel:
GALACTICA INVESTIGATION UPDATE. SPECIALIST HADRIAN OVERREACHING — TRIBUNAL HAS TARGETED MULTIPLE CREW MEMBERS WITHOUT EVIDENCE. COMMANDER ADAMA REPORTEDLY FURIOUS. CIC OFFICER GAETA PROVIDED TESTIMONY DEFENDING ACCUSED PERSONNEL. TRIBUNAL DISSOLUTION IMMINENT.
I read the name three times.
Gaeta.
Felix Gaeta, tactical officer in Galactica's Combat Information Center. The man who ran the numbers that kept the fleet alive — jump coordinates, DRADIS analysis, threat assessments. In the show, he'd been brilliant, frustrated, and ultimately broken by a system that rewarded obedience over competence. His trajectory led to mutiny, despair, and an execution that fans still argued about two decades later.
Not this time.
I pulled up the fleet personnel registry — the portions accessible through civilian coordination channels. Gaeta's entry was sparse: rank, assignment, service commendations. The system couldn't scan him from across the fleet, but it could extrapolate from available data:
[PERSONNEL ESTIMATE: GAETA, FELIX]
[RANK: LIEUTENANT — CIC TACTICAL OFFICER]
[ESTIMATED COGNITION: 85-92/100]
[ESTIMATED COMMAND: 48-55/100]
[NOTE: ESTIMATE BASED ON SERVICE RECORD AND PERFORMANCE DATA]
[DIRECT SCAN REQUIRED FOR CONFIRMATION]
[RECRUITMENT VIABILITY: HIGH — INSTITUTIONAL FRUSTRATION PATTERN DETECTED]
High cognition. Moderate command. The profile of a brilliant subordinate trapped in a system that valued rank over ability. And the fact that he'd testified against Hadrian's tribunal meant he had the conviction to challenge authority — within channels, through proper process, but challenge it nonetheless.
He's the bridge. Civilian to military. If I can recruit Gaeta, I have eyes and ears in Galactica's CIC.
"Dunn."
She materialized in the cargo office doorway. She'd been coordinating supply distributions with the Adriatic — expanding the trade network while the fleet's attention was focused on the tribunal.
"Gaeta. Lieutenant Felix Gaeta, CIC tactical officer. What do we know beyond the registry?"
Dunn sat down. Pulled up her notes.
"Montoya's chain says he's respected but overlooked. Runs the tactical board during every major crisis, provides analysis that shapes command decisions, but doesn't get credit because the credit goes to the colonel or the commander. Sound familiar?"
Yes. It sounded like Dunn before I recruited her. Competence without recognition. The most dangerous form of institutional frustration.
"Can we reach him?"
"Not directly. He's military — doesn't interact with civilian logistics. But..." Dunn scrolled through her data pad. "Galactica's supply requisitions come through a civilian coordination office. The officer who handles civilian-military logistics interface is a Petty Officer named Laird. He processes requisitions from ships like ours."
"And Gaeta?"
"Gaeta signs off on CIC supply requisitions. His name appears on fuel allocation requests, navigational equipment maintenance orders, and tactical display component orders."
"Which means his paperwork crosses Laird's desk."
"Which means if we can get our logistics program noticed by Laird, and Laird mentions it to CIC, Gaeta might take an interest in who's making civilian supply chains work better than his military ones."
The chain was long. Wade to Dunn to Vasquez's authorized logistics program to fleet coordination channels to Laird to CIC requisitions to Gaeta. Six degrees of separation, each one a potential failure point.
But it was a path. The first path that led from a cargo bay on the Cybele to the heart of Galactica's Combat Information Center.
"Start with Laird. Route our next efficiency report through fleet coordination — the one showing our water recycler improvements and the Demetrius maintenance program results. Make it look like standard fleet documentation. But make it good enough that someone reading it thinks, 'who's running this?'"
Dunn's eyebrow lifted a fraction.
"You want to be noticed."
"I want to be noticed by the right people. There's a difference."
"And if the wrong people notice?"
"Then we're a logistics officer and his cargo master doing excellent work under Captain Vasquez's inspired leadership. The surface story holds."
Dunn considered. Calculated. Made the decision I'd learned to trust her to make — the one that balanced risk against opportunity with the instincts of a woman who'd been navigating institutional politics since before the Colonies fell.
"I'll draft the report. It'll take three days to route through proper channels. By the time it reaches Galactica's coordination office, the Litmus tribunal will be old news and people will be looking for positive stories."
"Good."
She stood. Paused at the door.
"Gaeta. You've mentioned him before?"
"His name appears in fleet analysis I've been tracking."
"Mmm." The sound carried a weight of skepticism that Dunn wore like a coat. She didn't push. She'd learned — was learning — that some questions I answered honestly and some I answered with logistics jargon, and the difference between them was the gap where my secrets lived.
"Three days," she said, and left.
[Cybele, Deck 3 Mess Hall — Day 25, 1230]
The mess hall was crowded with the particular energy of people who'd survived another crisis and were celebrating with reconstituted protein paste and lukewarm coffee. The Litmus tribunal was dying — everyone could feel it — and the relief manifested as louder conversations, more laughter, the gradual unclenching of a population that had been holding its breath since the bombing.
I took my tray to the corner table and ate in the systematic, joyless fashion of a man who treated food as fuel. The protein paste tasted like salted cardboard. The coffee was Dunn's private reserve — she'd started leaving a thermos in the cargo office, a gesture of partnership that communicated more than any speech.
A commotion near the serving line pulled my attention.
A man — middle-aged, Gemenese accent, thin to the point of gaunt — was standing over a younger woman's tray, pointing at her and speaking in the rapid cadence of accusation.
"I've seen you. Coming and going at odd hours. Talking to nobody. Writing things down. You're one of them."
The woman — a refugee I recognized from Vasic's housing assignments, Section 7-H — shrank against the serving counter. Her face was white.
"I'm not — I work the night shift on water recycling. I walk alone because—"
"Because you're hiding something. That's what they do. They hide. They look like us and they hide until they're ready to blow something up."
The mess hall had gone quiet. Fifty pairs of eyes on the confrontation, calculating. Choosing sides. The Gemenese man's paranoia was a match, and the mess hall was dry tinder.
I set down my coffee, stood, and crossed the room.
"Sit down."
The words came out before the calculation was complete — before I'd weighed the cost of intervening against the benefit of staying invisible. They came from somewhere older than strategy, older than meta-knowledge. From the part of Wade Hargrove that had watched bullies operate in high school hallways and corporate boardrooms and never once had the authority to stop them.
The Gemenese man turned. His eyes were wild — not with malice, but with the particular terror of a man who'd lost everything and needed someone to blame.
"Who are you?"
"Lieutenant Cole, logistics. And that woman works the night shift because I assigned her there." The lie was smooth, immediate, and based on a truth — I'd reviewed every work assignment on the Cybele. "She maintains the water recycler that keeps your drinking water clean. The one my team built during the rationing."
The callback to the water crisis was deliberate. Everyone in this mess hall remembered the rationing. Everyone remembered that the Cybele's water hadn't run dry when other ships' had. Attribution was vague, but the memory was sharp.
The Gemenese man's certainty wavered.
"She could still be—"
"She could be anything. So could I. So could you." I kept my voice level. Not aggressive — firm. "But accusing people without evidence is how we destroy ourselves faster than the Cylons ever could. If you have real concerns, report them to ship security through proper channels. Don't terrorize a woman in the mess hall."
The silence held for three heartbeats. Then the Gemenese man sat down. The woman at the counter exhaled — a shaky, raw sound — and retreated to a table in the corner.
I went back to my protein paste. Ate. Drank. Left.
The intervention took ninety seconds and cost nothing except a fractional increase in my visibility on the Cybele. The woman would remember. The Gemenese man would remember. Fifty witnesses would file the moment under "Cole, the logistics officer who handles things."
My earpiece buzzed. Dunn.
"The mess hall?"
"Handled."
"You're making a habit of that."
"Of what?"
"Standing up for people when it's easier not to. It's going to get you noticed."
"I'm counting on it."
[Cybele Cargo Office — Day 26, 2200]
The fleet wireless confirmed it at 2200: Commander Adama had dissolved the Litmus tribunal. Specialist Hadrian was relieved of her investigative authority. The witch hunt was over.
Marsh retrieved the organizational materials from the crawlspace. Everything intact — comm relays, encryption keys, planning documents. He set them on the cargo office workstation with the careful precision of a man returning a patient to health.
"Section Twelve stays prepped," I told him. "Emergency storage. We keep it clean, accessible, and invisible."
"Already added it to my maintenance rounds. I'll check the panel integrity weekly."
"Good work."
Marsh adjusted his glasses. Nodded. Left.
The cargo office settled into the quiet hum of a crisis concluded and lessons absorbed. I pulled up my planning notes — the growing document that mapped the organization's needs against its capabilities, the gaps between what we had and what we needed.
Political intelligence: Montoya developing. Yari Demos on the Rising Star — potential asset, needs cultivation.
Military intelligence: Gap. Gaeta identified. Path: logistics report → fleet coordination → Laird → CIC → Gaeta. Timeline: weeks to months.
Internal security: Protocols established. Emergency storage. Compartmentalized cell structure. Needs formalization.
Personnel: Seven members. Adequate for current operations. Insufficient for growth. Need specialists — someone with military connections, someone with political access, someone with technical intelligence beyond Marsh's engineering.
The list was long. The resources were thin. But the trajectory was upward — from one man bleeding on a gurney to seven people across six ships, with intelligence networks, trade partnerships, and a political contact chain reaching toward the highest levels of civilian government.
I was reviewing the logistics report Dunn had drafted — the one designed to reach Galactica's coordination office and catch the eye of someone who appreciated competence — when the wireless crackled with an incoming communication.
Not the fleet channel. Our channel. The encrypted short-range system Marsh had built.
Dunn's voice, carrying the particular edge that meant new intelligence.
"Cole. Montoya just reported in. A Galactica officer has been making inquiries through fleet coordination channels. Asking about civilian logistics operations. Specifically, asking about efficiency improvements in the civilian supply chain."
My fingers stopped moving on the data pad.
"What officer?"
"Unknown name. But the queries are coming through CIC's requisition channel."
CIC. Combat Information Center. Where Gaeta works.
"How long have the queries been active?"
"Montoya estimates three to four days. Since before we drafted our report."
I sat back. The cargo office chair creaked — a sound I'd heard a thousand times, suddenly louder in the silence between Dunn's words and my response.
Someone on Galactica — someone in CIC — had noticed our work before we'd tried to be noticed. The logistics program, the trade network, the efficiency improvements that had kept the Cybele and its partner ships running smoother than anyone expected in an apocalypse — someone with the analytical ability to spot patterns in civilian data had looked at the numbers and thought, who's doing this?
Gaeta. It has to be Gaeta. He runs the tactical board — he sees fleet-wide data. And he's exactly the kind of mind that would notice an anomaly in civilian logistics efficiency.
"Don't send the report," I said.
"What?"
"Don't send the report. We don't need to be noticed. We already are."
A pause on the channel. Dunn processing.
"Then what?"
"We wait. If someone from CIC is already looking, they'll find us. And when they do, we let them come to us. An approach initiated by them is worth ten times an approach initiated by us."
"That's a gamble."
"It's patience."
"Same thing."
The channel went quiet. I stared at the data pad, at the logistics report that was now obsolete before it was sent, and allowed myself to feel something small and dangerous.
Someone's looking for me. Someone with the exact profile I need. And I didn't have to do anything except be good at my job.
I wrote Gaeta's name on the planning notes. Circled it twice. And waited.
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