On the Air
Dani Kypros was a little uncomfortable coming on board Shangri-La again.
It wasn't that she didn't like the civilian ship, it was very nice change from Avalon but she was feeling particularly self conscious these days, especially around strangers. The last time she'd been aboard to promote the fleet aviation program three months earlier her pregnancy hadn't been noticeable to anyone who didn't know. Now that most definitely wasn't the case as she walked to the talk wireless station for her appearance on Mr. Princeton's show and the young woman was attracting stares from passerby. Not that it surprised her. There had only been sixty pregnancies in the Strike Group since the fall of the Colonies so a pregnant woman in a fleet uniform would be a curiosity. It made her uncomfortable nonetheless.
Still, it was a nice change from the corridors of the Avalon. She was looking forward to speaking with Mr. Princeton again, the man was a hero among the Virgonese community for his actions in the early days of the evacuation that had saved thousands of lives. The wireless program was a perfect vehicle for her to make the pitch to recruit for the military in general and the pilot training program in particular.
Derrick Princeton rolled his wheelchair into the what was a small lobby of the wireless communication offices of the ship. "Hey, Sharon you're looking good today" he greeted the receptionist. "Did our guest come in yet?"
"No Derrick, not yet," she replied as she inserted a folded letter into an envelope.
"Alrighty then," he turned his chair. "Send her right in when she arrives, I'm going to get things started."
"Ok Derrick, I'll do that."
Dani finally made it to the wireless communication office with five minutes to spare. The young woman was somewhat winded from the trip up from the shuttle bay, walking (to use the term generously) had taken a lot out of her and it was making her reconsider her thoughts about how much longer to stay on duty. Maybe it was time to consider going on medical leave, it had been growing more and more difficult the past few weeks and she had to think about her health.
She pushed open the door to the office and made her way toward the receptionist's desk. The woman at the desk grinned when she took in Dani's appearance but all she said was: "Derrick's expecting you Lieutenant, head on in."
Dani lumbered off in the direction indicated and through another set of doors into the small broadcast studio.
Derrick noticed the lieutenant right away. "Dani, come on in." In one hand he had a piece of papers with cut corners, that had a list of questions that he had prepared. "I didn't realize that you were so far along," he referred to her size. He had known she was pregnant, but she looked as if she could give birth sometime soon.
"Thank you sir," Dani greeted the Parliament member with a respectful smile as she came further into the compartment.
"I'm not as far along as I look I'm afraid to say, sir." She gave her stomach a mournful rub, knowing all well how large she looked. She felt every bit of it. "I'm expecting twins in about four months or so. Their father is a large man and I think they're taking after him."
"You're looking good sir, how have you been?" Dani asked, genuinely curious as she sat down in the seat reserved for the guest.
"Dani, I work for a living, you don't need to be formal with me. And don't let me being a member of Parliament throw you, I'm really not that important, its a part-time gig you know." He smiled. "I'm doing ok for myself these days." His wireless program had been given an extra hour and was rated quite high with the populace.
"Do you remember the last time you were on?" Derrick had a very good memory. "Nothing changed, you put on the earphones, and you speak into the mic, that easy."
"Yes sir, Derrick," Dani smiled at his expression and nodded. "I think I remember," the young woman slipped the headphones on and adjusted her seat forward to better position herself by the microphone. "How's this?" She asked, speaking into the mic.
"How is that?" he turned to ask the producer behind the glass in the next room.
"Hey Lieutenant, my name is Bob. If you would, please say a sentence or two, so we can fine tune the mic for your voice?" asked the producer.
"Sure Bob," Dani replied easily. "May Lady Aphrodite along with all the gods bless us and help keep us safe," she prayed, "and lead us to a new home flowing with milk and honey and every type of good thing. So say we all."
She smiled over at the two men, not at all shy at speaking her beliefs out loud. Some people had turned away from the gods after the attacks, but for most Virgonese including Dani it had only strengthened their faith. They'd been saved, after all.
"So say we all," repeated Derrick. He was not sure if he believed in the many Gods and Goddess, but he did believe that there must be some kind of higher power. If the Gods held that power, he had not seen it with his own eyes. They had not restored full use of his legs to him, no matter how hard he had prayed in the past. Who knows?
"Ok, we are set," said Bob after a quick tuning on the control panel on his side of the window. "We are going live in 90 seconds."
"Got it, Bob," Derrick then looked at the beautiful officer that sat across from him. "Take a few deep breaths, it always works for me."
"Right," Dani did as she was told and tried to control the butterflies in her stomach. It was no different from her time as a priestess, she tried to tell herself. Just that she wasn't in a temple and couldn't actually see anyone other than Bob and Derrick.
She had done this before, a few times, it would be ok.
"I'm ready."
"Thirty seconds," said Bob.
Derrick got ready in his chair and positioned his mic into the ready position. As the producer counted down the last ten seconds, Derrick gave Dani a wink of reassurance. The 'On Air' light turned a red color, and the theme song started to play with the introduction of the show. "...the man without direction, but with a vision, Derrick Princeton."
"Yup, its me again. Derrick live from Shangri-la channel six."
"Hey we have a special guest this evening, well they are all special actually. The lovely and attractive Lieutenant Daniella Kypros of the Battlestar Avalon. Welcome Lieutenant, thanks for dropping by, but before we begin. None of you can see this on the wireless, but the Lieutenant is an expecting mom." He pressed a button on his console, and a moment of applause sounded. "I have to ask, do you, do you know when you will deliver the new life into this world?"
Dani leaned in toward the mic, expecting such a question. "I'm twenty two weeks along with twins, so roughly four months from now. I have an expected due date but I don't know if I'll make it that long, twins tend to deliver a few weeks early. Thank you for asking Derrick."
"Whoa, twins." He sounded excited for the sake of the audience. "Two more kids. Wow that's great. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately, pregnancies you know. It must be difficult to be expecting, and working aboard a battlestar. Do you have any plans? How would that work on a battlestar?"
"I guess it is difficult, but as this is my first pregnancy I really don't know any better." Dani admitted, wondering where he was going with this. She was here to talk up the fleet and try to get people to apply for pilot training, not talk about herself. Still, she went with the flow. "I can't be an active pilot while I'm pregnant, for instance, which is my normal job in the fleet. But there are many jobs on a battlestar that need doing and the command realized this might be an issue in the future after we left the Colonies, so we've made adjustments in housing and child care." She hoped that answered his question.
Derrick knew she had been sent to do his wireless show to try an promote recruitment efforts, but they have heard it all before, there was plenty of recruitment posters around and wireless spots during the break. No, Derrick had an audience to entertain. "Housing and child care? Never had thought about that. What do they do house all the women and children in the same barracks style rooms we see in the films for the crew. You know, bunk beds and all."
"Well, there aren't that many of us at the moment. Pregnancies haven't been exactly common in the military compared to the civilian fleet." Dani looked at her host in confusion, what was he trying to do? Get her chewed out when she got back to Avalon?
"A number of family quarters have been built out of some areas that weren't being used anymore, and there's child care facility is on the ship to care for the kids when both parents are on duty at the same time." She kept it general, not wanting to give away too much information. It was important for her to keep in mind she was still a serving officer and had a duty to not share anything that might be useful to possible cylon agents listening in.
Derrick imagined what those listening to the show must be saying to their receivers. He was their voice in a way, both as a public wireless personality and a member of the parliament. "So if I was to join and I had a few kids and a wife, I can bring them with me to live on the super fortress that is a battlestar. If that's true, recruitment should double or even triple." He had not intended to ambush the officer, but it was too good an opportunity to drive up his ratings.
He received a very dirty look. Dani knew that she'd been lured into an ambush and kicked herself for not seeing it earlier. She'd not been suspicious of the politician because of the prior interviews and the fact that she viewed him as a hero for his sacrifice during the evacuation. It wasn't a mistake she would make again.
"I'm afraid not," she had to try and fix this somehow. "A Battlestar is a very dangerous place, and children won't be allowed outside of crew quarters and a few other areas of the ship. If I'd gotten pregnant before the war I would have been transferred off the ship immediately."
She had to try and reach the wireless audience before she ended the interview. "A warship is armored because it has to be...a civilian ship jumps away at the first sign of trouble while the military buys time for everyone to get away."
"Ah I see, so its really not a good place to raise a family," he paused for a beat, "either." He made his point, humanity was not meant to live in ships forever. "I can image that it can not be fun for a child to be surrounded by death all the time. The ships of the strike group lost a few of their crew members in the last face off with the Cylons, so it's probably best to get away unharmed than be in a ship that basically for all intentions is a shield for the rest of us." Derrick was a man of reason, he was not any ally with the anti-military types. He considered himself a common man.
This had not gone well at all. Dani was sure Jill would give her an earful when she got back to the ship. "No it isn't, but I have a duty to the fleet. My skills as a pilot are needed to help defend everyone, and I'll be going back to it as soon as I'm able to. We need people who are willing to sacrifice for the greater good and join the fleet, also to apply for flight training. Several pilots gave up their lives defending the fleet in our last engagement with the toasters, and we'll need to build our forces back to full strength."
"You're right, Lieutenant Kypros, our men and women of the armed forces have sacrificed greatly to protect us. We should be very grateful. The luxury of extra space for those like the Lieutenant who are giving birth to the next generation of defenders, should be afforded to them. I say yes, give them what they need." He spoke mostly to the mic and his audience than directly to Dani. "We only ask that they protect us, so we can find a new home out there and start again, a new civilization for the ages. Brave women like Kypros should have the care they need to reproduce and continue humanity into the next era of man kind."
He took a breath and then laughed, "Oh, I am spending way too much time with the other M.P.s. I am beginning to sound like them. I apologize." He returned his attention to Dani. "Lieutenant, when do you think we can speak with one of the Cylon agents? Because people wonder what the hell makes them tick."
"Thanks...I think," Dani wasn't quite sure what to make of his little speech. Was he basically advocating she and other women be treated as breeding stock or was she reading too much into it? Probably the latter, she decided.
"Cylon agents? I don't know what you're talking about Derrick," Dani wasn't about to walk into another ambush. She wasn't sure if the scuttlebutt on the ship was true or not about there being a Cylon prisoner, but one thing was certain: she wasn't going to be the one to spill the beans if it was true.
"Well there are rumors. I had to try," he smirked and then referred to his notes.
"Ok, so how can we be of service to the Colonial Fleet? We want to know how someone could volunteer." he paraphrased the script he had been given for the part of the interview that had been the terms for it in the first place.
"We have a pair of recruiters that visit each ship on a regular basis looking for people willing to step up and join the military. Also you can inform your ship's captain that you're interested in joining and one of the recruiters will contact you directly. My current position is the Air Liaison, which means my office is the one to administer the tests for those that want to try and become pilots. Contact us through your ship's captain and we'll arrange a time for you to take the exam."
Dani was relieved to actually be on the topic she was supposed to cover in the first place. "If you think you've got what it takes, give us a call."
"You heard the lady, answer the call to duty." He paused "Thank you, Lieutenant Kypros for taking the time to visit with us this evening."
"Thank you for having me Derrick, I enjoyed it very much." Dani sounded as convincing as she could but she was annoyed at being ambushed the way she had. It wasn't right.
"Ok with that we will be back after this break with the Top Twelve List." Said Derrick into the mic, followed by the producing rolling out with the messages for the break.
"Thanks, Dani, you did a terrific job," he complimented, removing the ear phones from his ears to around his neck.
"What was that all about Derrick?" Dani demanded as she removed the ear phones from her own head and put it on the table. "You made it sound like we were living in luxury over there."
"I'm sorry, but that's what people think. That's what I do, I ask questions that the common person would ask if they had the opportunity." He took in a breath, "I'm not against it. I support it, and I think most would too if they know why."
"I'll talk to Major Simmons about having a camera crew come on board to see those areas...it isn't like they're that big or luxurious for frak's sake!" Dani protested, still annoyed. "My new quarters with my fiancee aren't much bigger than this booth and we'll have to squeeze two adults and two infants into them."
"I believe you," he said. "I'm on your side, and that would be great if we could get a camera crew. I don't know how that would work for a wireless program, but I am sure the public would find it interesting none the less."
"There are video broadcasts too, and they could have print journalists take pictures for the fleet gazette." she referred to the weekly newspaper that the few reporters who'd survived the attacks had joined together to start producing. It wasn't large but it was a critical way for the population to find out what was going on in the fleet besides listening to talk wireless.
The more she thought about it the more she liked the idea. "I will talk to Major Simmons about it Derrick, if you talk to the people at the Gazette. If nothing else it will be a good PR story, see how the fleet has changed after three years in space."
"Alrighty then, we'll see what happens, Dani." He noticed Sharon the receptionist open the door to see Dani out. It was something he would have done himself but he was restricted to his wheelchair and the office was cramped. "I hope to see you around soon."