no_takebacks | The Director's Chair Challenge!

Now that we’ve had some time to start thinking of our favourite fics, let’s move on to a new role – that of the Director. For some time now, there have been rumours of a new series that would go roughly between Caprica and the Miniseries. (Which in my ~~deluded and fanfic-addled~~ mind means happy, unencumbered pilots at the Academy. Woot!)

Now if this series was actually made, Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber would clearly be too mature to play the roles of the late teens / early twenties cadets. (As much as I would ADORE seeing them in that role.)

Talk and discuss and POST SOME PRETTY to support your choices. (And BTW, if anyone needs advice on shooting any towel scenes, I have it on good authority, that nazkey has some *cough* experience in this regard and can give pointers on how it’s done. *winks*)

If you need some fic to put you in the mood, I’m going to suggest these lovelies... Thank you to both nazkey and sci_fi_shipper for locating ALL of these for me. Wow!

daphnea - A Brief History of Starbuck & Apollohttp://daphnaea.livejournal.com/516.html

elzed - Decline & Fall http://elzed.livejournal.com/94052.html

brynnmck - Laws of Gravity http://brynnmck.livejournal.com/17681.html

taragel - Academy Pilots http://taragel.livejournal.com/69923.html

workerbee73 - Borrowed Time http://workerbee73.livejournal.com/8197.html

kag523 - The Officers’ Club http://kag523.livejournal.com/10821.html

JaneAus10 - Every Time My Heart Beats http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4049523/1/Every_Time_My_Heart_Beats

Maevenly - Academy Days: The Burn http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3197650/1/Academy_Days_The_Burn

And what would a day on the DPP be without more manips... Here's a BRAND SPANKING NEW ONE just for today's theme!

AND.... Just because I can.
Here’s my vision of how the new series would look:

One last thing...

~~VOTING CLOSED~~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kag523.livejournal.com

-------section break----------

It’s three more weeks, and the end of the semester before Lee talks to Kara Thrace again.

They’ve found new roles for one another as Fall turns to the blustery chill of winter: that of bitter rivals, the two of them fighting it out against one another in the sims at every turn. Professor Arnold is pleased to see two of his AP cadets excelling at the competition, and assigns them against one another time and again. Lee, with his cool-headed efficiency and by-the-book knowledge beats Kara in each and every sim level from one through three, but that’s when the balance shifts. Level four and beyond are no longer manoeuvres, but combat, and Kara knows how to fight.

She comes by it naturally it seems.

She is always two steps ahead of him, Lee thinks in irritation, as she spins and whirls her bird with end over end turns, flipping back around to chase him out of his hiding places in the simulation. He watches her viper appear on the electronic mesh of the digital cockpit screen, frustration rising. Kara doesn’t seem to think during the sims; just reacts, and he finds himself unnerved each time he hears the happy cackle of her laughter over the headset. Lee can’t see where she is coming from, but he knows the instant he hears it that the game will be over in seconds for him. The tell-tale vibration and buzz form the sim ending marking yet another loss to Kara Thrace.

A week ago, Arnold gave Kara her callsign, Starbuck, after her steadily growing sim scores. Lee and Kara are within points of setting a high-score record in their Freshman Flight category. In the final days of the Aerodynamics class, the tensions between the two of them rise; both of them determined to take that honour. Lee finds himself gritting his teeth as Kara shoves past him into the classroom, knocking his shoulder roughly.

“Better watch out, Apollo,” she mutters, and Lee feels a renewed flush of annoyance... and something else too. Kara Thrace close feels dangerous. Her nearness distracts him, and that bothers him as much as her arrogance.

He frakking hates his callsign. Unlike Kara, who earned hers through hard work, his has started as a joke. ‘The son of Zeus...’ He’s heard it a hundred times through his life, but when the drill sergeant – Captain Tolemus - picks it up, Lee knows it’s going to stick. Kara starts a rumour that it’s based on Lee’s body... and that makes the shame of it even worse as coeds begin sneaking looks at him in the shower room.

Professor Arnold looks up as the AP students wander into class and slide into their seats in the observation room; the amphitheatre connected to the sim projections. As usual, Kara is at the back of the rows of seats, her boot kicking the chair in front of her repetitively.

“Cadet Adama and Cadet Thrace,” the professor says, grinning. “I’d like the two of you to take on sim five today.”

‘Frak!’ Lee thinks, listening as Kara’s insolent laughter taunts him from the dimness of the seats behind him.

“But today’s a little different,” Arnold adds. “Today, I’m going to ask you to fly as a team. The simulated cylon forces will be flying against you.”

Around the room there is a flutter of excitement. The real part of flight training has begun.

From:

scifishipper.livejournal.com

Heeee! Showdown!! Woohoo! I love it when they compete! I wish I wasn't working, bb. I sooooo want to respond. Gah!

C'mon shippers, who is up??? *cackles gleefully*

From:

kag523.livejournal.com

Kara stalks down from the back of the room to take her place in the sim, catching Lee’s eye as she passes. She grins, though as usual, he doesn’t respond, just turns away after giving her a look that Kara has, in the last weeks, come to think of as Lee’s ‘stick up his ass’ glare. She smirks, and puts her helmet on, sliding herself into the dark confines of the sim and blinking as her eyes adjust to the computer-generated darkness of deep space. In her helmet, she can hear Lee muttering his pre-flight checklist to himself. A strange calmness settles around Kara as the simulated g-forces suck her back against the seat and she launches from the tube. This is where she truly feels alive; even Lee can’t annoy her when she’s flying.

Crackling with static, she hears Apollo’s voice in her ear.
“Starbuck, Apollo here, check visuals for enemy force.”
“Copy that, Apollo,” she answers as the two of them spread off in ever expanding circles toward the apparent emptiness of the environment.

Kara randomly notes the location of four constellations, marking them mentally is ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘east’ and ‘west’. That is the true danger, in space, of becoming disoriented and lost in the infinite blackness, and her mind creates a three-dimensional map of the space as she flies. The virtual battlestar slowly recedes into nothingness and they’ve been flying in silence for more than five minutes when Kara sees the first flicker on her screen.

“Apollo, Starbuck. Dradis contact, three bearing seven carom one. Enemy birds.”

“Copy that, Starbuck,” Lee answers, his voice rising in excitement. “I’ve got them on visual. Form up and let’s take them out.”

And then Kara stops thinking about anything, her body buzzing as they swoop toward the cylon raiders, shooting and ducking, the two of them working together as a team. For the first time ever in the sim, Kara is surprised to notice the grace with which Apollo flies. He doesn’t have any of her sloppiness to his turns, though she knows for a fact that his reflexes are absolutely no match for her own. She doesn’t think – just feels – and though his movements are textbook perfect, hers are impossibly deft.

From:

kag523.livejournal.com

A second attack force abruptly engages the ongoing fight – appearing from the dark side of a nearby moon – and Kara is focused again on the fray. Lee is beside her once more, matching her moves and covering her so that her shots make their marks more often than she expects. She can hear him calling out in the headset on occasion, and her body reacts to him; their two vipers dancing around one another as the enemy raiders falls like grass under a scythe. Kara’s arms are aching from the pull of the controls, muscles of her back, legs and torso starting to fatigue as she finds herself losing sense of time, just the continuous, omnipresent need to fight to the bitter end.

It’s comforting somehow.

“...copy that, Starbuck?”

Lee’s been talking for a couple seconds, but she has only just resurfaced from the rush of battle and she spins her viper around, putting herself on his six again, doing a visual of the scene. Unbelievably, the two vipers now sit in the midst of a debris field; the last remains of the cylon force. They’ve done it.

“Apollo, here. Orders to return to base, Starbuck. Copy that?” There is a slight edge to Lee’s voice, and Kara grins, feeling her fingers shaking as she hits the thrusters.
“Copy that, Apollo. Heading back,” she answers.

Within seconds the sim has ended and the cockpits pull back, leaving the two of them blinking in the amphitheatre. Kara is breathing hard, her chest heaving in ragged gasps; adrenaline still coursing through her veins.

“Great job!” Professor Arnold shouts, motioning to them to pass their helmets to the next cadets who are waiting. “Take a break you two, while the next team begins.”

Lee turns away and Kara stumbles out of the room to the hallway, body buzzing with the excitement of the flight. She hasn’t ever felt like that when flying with someone... The two of them were a perfect match. Instead of annoying her, Kara is pleasantly surprised to find herself happy with Lee Adama – and his stupid by-the-book manoeuvres. He’s a good balance to her out-of-the-box, and she’s amazed to realise she’s looking forward to the next time they are paired up.

Lee brushes past her in the empty hallway, heading toward the outside door, his shoulder hitting hers roughly (as she did this morning) and Kara glances up.

“You okay, Apollo?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer, just puts his hand on the door, and Kara steps closer, wondering why in the twelve worlds he’s acting so distant when that was the most frakking AMAZING flying she’s sure the two of them have ever done! She and is about to repeat her question when Lee suddenly spins and shoves her roughly against the wall, his mouth coming down onto her own in a demanding kiss.