Épisode Confession S01E04 - Battlestar Galactica Saison 1

(Starbuck is in a Viper and is in the process of crashing and burning.)

(Galactica)

Apollo: Helmet. (He puts a helmet down on a table and taps it.)

Starbuck: You are so unprepared.

Apollo: Shut up. (She laughs.)

Starbuck: You're the worst CAG in the history of CAGs, actually.

(Hangar)

(One of the Raptors has just landed.)

Intercom: Raptor Pilot Lieutenant Dwight "Flat Top" Sanders entering hangar deck 12B. Deck hands please report. Repeat, deck hands please report to 12B.

(A young man gets out of the Raptor; a group of pilots comes over to him.)

Group: Hey, hey. Flat Top hit 1000! (cheering)

(They pick him up on their shoulders and carry him around the deck.)

Group: (singing) Raptor pilots flying high...

(Other room)

Apollo: Paint incoming.

Starbuck: Brush.

Apollo: Brush.

Starbuck: Oh, you're the worst, the absolute worst.

(Hangar)

Chief: (looking up) What the hell's this? Flat Top's thousandth landing, nobody tells me. Now we look like idiots. Find a wagon!

Woman: Yes, sir.

Chief: Somebody get me a wagon!

(Starbuck and Apollo are painting the top of the helmet.)

Apollo: One, zero, zero...

Adama: (entering the room) You're not ready yet?

(The can of red paint falls over and splashes onto Lee. Starbuck laughs.)

Adama: Someone's gonna have to pick that up. (Starbuck and Apollo point at each other and laugh some more.) That's enough, come on.

Chief: (Unloading a wagon.) Here, take this. Gimme a hand. Unload this, it'll work. You two, come here. Take this wagon to the pilots.

(The pilots put Flat Top in the wagon and wheel him around.)

Starbuck: So, the commander ever tell you what happened on his thousandth landing?

Adama: I don't remember telling you about what I did.

Starbuck: Yeah, uh huh, whatever. He's landing on the Atlantea, and he's been having this ongoing fight with the LSO, and so he decides he's really gonna stick it to him good, right?

Adama: This has all been overexaggerated.

Starbuck: So -

(Hangar)

Pilots: (still singing) Three little Cylons in the air, watch their metal burn and flair...

(Corridor)

Starbuck: ...so he skids to a stop on the fly deck, and the LSO hears over the wireless this big, loud, long, obnoxious (she blows a raspberry)

Adama: I was young.

Starbuck: No, it was great, it was really funny.

(Hangar)

(The pilots are still singing. The deck crew is loading a bunch of drones.)

(Corridor)

Starbuck: The LSO's freaking out, your dad doesn't care because he hates the guy, and he figures he can get away with it anyway because it's his thousandth landing. "I can get away with anything today!"

(Hangar)

(They're still wheeling Flat Top around, but in the background, one of the straps on one of the drones snaps, and it starts to slip. The camera swings around wildly, and then the drone falls, takes off, and heads right for the group of pilots.)

(Corridor)

Starbuck: Personally- (They hear a bang and the lights flicker.)

Intercom: Attention, fire in the port hangar deck. Away the fire and rescue teams.

Adama: Let's go. (They all take off towards the hangar.)

(Credits)

(Back to Starbuck in the Viper, struggling to keep it together.)

(Flash back to the hangar.)

Master-at-arms: (to the Chief) Metal fatigue. Old equipment... worn strap fails, drops a million-cubit drone to the deck. Kills thirteen pilots, lands seven more in sick bay. It's hard to hear this, I know, but we got lucky. If that had been a missile instead of a com drone? It would have taken out the side of the ship.

Chief: Never had a death in my hangar deck. Accidents - never a death.

(Ready room)

Apollo: Services for the dead. Services will commence at eleven hundred hours on the forward hangar deck. Mid-ship's hangar deck remains closed for investigation and clean-up until further notice. (The camera pans over the pilots; there are a lot of empty seats.) Uniforms for the services will be dress grays. I wish I knew what to say. Words to make this better. Can anything make this better, I don't know.

Crashdown: (spotting Commander Adama) Attention on deck! (They all stand.)

Adama: As you were. (to Apollo) May I?

Apollo: Yes, sir.

(Starbuck's memory: Adama walks up to her and asks, "Are you Lieutenant Thrace?")

Adama: Give me your eyes. I know this has been a hard day. There's been plenty of them lately. I can guarantee you there'll be more to come. Remember your self-esteem, your self-respect, and your self-worth. Hold strong to them, because people are watching. You're the guardians of the fleet. They need to know that they can count on you, even at a time like this.

(Starbuck's memory - Adama walks up to her and they salute.)

Adama: Are you Lieutenant Thrace? I'm Commander Adama. I'm Zak's father.

Starbuck: I know, sir. I'm sorry, sir, I was planning on coming to see you tomorrow before the funeral.

Adama: Don't need to explain anything.

(Present day, funeral services)

Elosha: Once again, we are charged with a solemn duty to return the bodies of our own to the universe. (Her voice starts to overlap with a man's) From which the Lords of Kobol brought them to us.

(Starbuck's memory)

Priest: The burdens of this life are with us but a short time. For Lieutenant Zak Adama, son of William and Caroline Adama, brother of Lee, the time was too short, but we take comfort in knowing his life was willingly given in service to all of us. We honor him for that, and thus it falls upon us to repent our sins. And, with the help of the Lords of Kobol, make our own lives worthy of that gift. (Lee puts a pin - wings? - on top of the casket.) And now we commit his body to the ground, from which we were all made.

(Present day)

Elosha: ...secure in the knowledge that we will be reunited with them in a better world to come.

(Starbuck's memory: Commander Adama takes her hand. She remembers Zak, being in bed together.)

(Present day)

(Adama puts a folded flag on one of the draped bodies.)

Elosha: So say we all.

(Flashback)

Adama: So say we all. (Lee has his arm around his mother, and they're standing on the opposite side of the casket from Adama and Starbuck.)

(We flash back and forth - people salute in the past and the present, and an honor guard fires their weapons.)

(Adama's quarters - he hands Starbuck a glass of what looks like water.)

Adama: Pilots we've known. (She nods and drinks.) We have to start training new pilots.

Starbuck: (laughing) There it is. I, umm, kinda thought this was about that. Umm. I don't know if I'm the right person for this.

Adama: You know someone better?

Starbuck: No, no. But, um - there's almost fifty thousand people out there. You trying to tell me there's not one flight instructor?

Adama: There's two. Civilians both. I need someone to teach combat tactics.

Starbuck: You know, I don't know if I'd be any use to you. I wasn't the most patient -

Adama: Let's get down to it. This is about Zak. It was not your fault. You had nothing to do with what happened. It was an accident.

(Flashback to the miniseries)

Starbuck: Lee? Zak failed basic flight.

Lee: What?

Starbuck: Or at least he should have, but he didn't. Because I passed him. His technique was sloppy and he had no feel for flying, but I passed him, because he and I... Because I felt something, and I let it get in the way of doing my job, and I couldn't fail him.

(Present day)

(Starbuck takes a drink, closes her eyes.)

Adama: Zak passed basic flight. He was trained and ready to sit in that cockpit. What happened to him could have happened to any qualified pilot. You know that's true.

Starbuck: Right.

Adama: You did your job to the best of your ability. That's all I can ask. I need new pilots and I want you to train them.

Starbuck: I can do that. (She gets up; he grips her shoulders.)

Adama: Just give them the attention and the professionalism that you gave my son. They'll be one hell of a squadron. (They hug.)

(Yet another vision of Starbuck going down in flames.)

(Present day)

Crashdown: Ten cubits says she takes him this time.

(Starbuck and Baltar are staring each other down.)

Boomer: You're on.

(Flashback - Kara and Zak in bed together. In the present, she touches her ear the way he did back then.)

Baltar: Thanks for the vote of confidence. Ten to stay.

(She traces her lips, remembering.)

Crashdown: So, Gaeta, how are you and the doc here doing on your Cylon detector?

Gaeta: What Cylon detector?

Crashdown: Rumor has it that Cylons look like people, and you guys are working on a way to weed 'em out.

(Flashback)

Zak: I want you to tell me the truth about something.

Starbuck: You passed. By the skin of your teeth, but you passed.

Zak: I don't want any special treatment. Not from my father, and certainly not from you.

(Present day)

Gaeta: If there were such a program, it would be classified, and I wouldn't be able to talk about it.

Baltar: Something smells horrible in here. Is that you, Crashdown?

Crashdown: (sniffs) Umm, yeah, that's me.

Baltar: Your card. (Starbuck's not paying attention.) Your card. (She looks up.)

(Flashback)

Starbuck: Zak, I am a flight instructor. I'm not going to send you to Vipers if I don't think you've got the chops. Okay?

(Present day)

Baltar: You all right?

(Flashbacks: sex, funeral, funeral, sex.)

Baltar: Maybe you'd like to take a break?

Starbuck: (folds) I'm out of here.

Crashdown: Whoa, whoa, Starbuck - Okay, she can't do that.

Boomer: She can, and she did. (Boomer picks up his money and kisses it.)

(Cylon-occupied Caprica)

(Caption: Karl C. Agathon, Call Sign: Helo, 14th day on Caprica.)

(It's raining again, and dark.)

Boomer: This is it.

Helo: A restaurant?

(They go in; it's abandoned.)

Boomer: It's almost on top of the signal.

Helo: I don't get it. How does a military-coded signal end up coming from in here?

Boomer: Let's find out.

(They search the room.)

Helo: Nothing. Is that thing working?

Boomer: I checked it three times. This thing says we're right on top of it.

Helo: Of what?

(Boomer knocks some books off a bookcase, reveals a hidden door.)

Helo: All right.

(They walk down a flight of stairs and see a door with a fallout shelter sign on it.)

Boomer: Helo.

Helo: You're frakking kidding me. (They go in; it's empty of people but full of supplies. Helo laughs.) Food, medical supplies! (He shouts.) Hey, hey, hey, w-wait a minute. The signal.

Boomer: Oh. (They find a transmitter.) Disaster beacon. Must have been set to go off if there was an attack.

Helo: Some poor slob goes to all the trouble of building a fallout shelter, stocks it, has a beacon... the whole plan. Then what? What happens to him?

Boomer: Let's just call ourselves lucky and leave it at that.

(They open some packaged food and start eating. Boomer growls with joy. Upstairs, Number Six walks by outside, trailing her hand along the glass.)

(Galactica)

(President Roslin is in the doctor's office, dressed in a medical gown.)

Doctor: Madame President. (He walks in with some x-rays.)

Roslin: Could you close that curtain, please?

Doctor: You are obviously an intelligent well-educated young woman. Would you mind explaining to me why you waited five years in between breast exams?

Roslin: Yes, I would mind. It's none of your business. I was busy.

Doctor: (lighting a cigarette) And now here we are.

Roslin: Yes, here we are. Would you mind?

Doctor: I do, actually. But your doctor back on Caprica was right. It's too damn late to operate, the cancer's too far advanced. All we can do now is try to shrink the tumor with gamma treatments, and follow that up with IV CIS Diloxin. Did he explain to you the side effects of Diloxin?

Roslin: Hair loss, nausea, muscle degeneration. I watched my mother endure two years of Diloxin before she died. I would like to explore alternate treatment.

Doctor: Prayer?

Roslin: Witty. Have you ever heard of Kamala extract?

Doctor: Oh gods. You're one of those.

Roslin: What if it works?

Doctor: All the evidence on Kamala is anecdotal. It's nothing but a bunch of loose talk and false hope.

Roslin: I take that as a yes.

Doctor: All right. I'll, um, I'll put out a med request to the civilian fleet. Maybe there's some other wide-eyed dreamer out there with a secret horde of Kamala extract in their luggage. You can put your clothes back on now.

Roslin: Thank you.

Doctor: And for what it's worth, I would... seriously... consider prayer.

(Cut to Starbuck reading a file.)

Starbuck: Boonie jumpers, shuttle jockeys and a Fleet Academy washout. This is the best that you could come up with?

Apollo: Diamonds in the rough.

Starbuck: Yeah, right.

Apollo: They're the most qualified pilots in the fleet.

Starbuck: Great.

(She walks into the ready room; about seven people are sitting there talking and laughing.)

Starbuck: Attention on deck. (Nobody pays attention.) That means get on your feet, Nuggets! (They get up.) You are joining the Colonial Fleet, boys and girls, not some afterschool club. Seats. (They sit.) Pilots call me Starbuck; you may refer to me as God. You have all flown before, but you're about to enter a whole new world, so pay attention. We don't have any flight simulators on board, so we're putting you in the cockpit. Today. This is the Viper Mark II. It's as maneuverable as a jackrabbit and can flip end for end in .35 seconds. You have never flown anything remotely like it, so don't think that you have. Today we will be doing basic launch, approach and landing maneuvers. Anyone not paying attention is liable to end up as a puddle of something to be hosed out of cockpit by the chief of the deck.

Guy: (to one of the other trainees) She's laying it on a little thick.

Starbuck: Costanza, right?

Guy: Uh, yes... God... sir.

Starbuck: Not anymore. From now on, your name is Hot Dog, and when God speaks, Hot Dog, you listen. Maybe if you'd learned that at the academy, you wouldn't have washed out. (to another trainee) Sit up.

(Space)

Intercom: Viper seven-niner-one, Galactica. You are cleared for approach. Speed 1-7-5, port bay, hands-on approach, checker's green, call the ball.

Female trainee: I have the ball.

Starbuck: Easy on the throttle, Kat. Are you listening to me? Don't chase the lights, okay?

Kat: Roger, Starbuck.

Starbuck: Kat, don't chase the lights. Set it by the numbers and correct with thrusters.

(Kat lands awkwardly, banging down on the floor.)

Intercom: Wave off, wave off.

Starbuck: Punch it, Kat.

(Ready room)

Starbuck: Worse than awful. Wretched beyond belief, actually. Huh. You call yourselves pilots. It's gonna take the knuckle-draggers a week to pound your divots out of the flight deck.

Kat: With due respect, sir, that's unfair.

Trainee: Yes, sir, this was only our first day.

Starbuck: No, it's your last. It'd be criminal to let any of you near a Viper again. So pack your gear, get the hell off my ship. You're done.

(Starbuck is getting a drink, possibly coffee)

Apollo: What are you doing here, Kara? You can't wash them out on their first day.

Starbuck: I just did.

Apollo: Look, I've got forty Vipers and twenty-one pilots. That's it. We are sitting ducks until we finish water ops. We can't even maintain a CAP. Gods forbid the Cylons show up...

Starbuck: Gods forbid. Let's bring in the next group of candidates.

Apollo: The next group has never even been in a cockpit. They're starting basic flight.

Starbuck: Well then they start basic flight, because that group is done. Says so right there, maybe you should read it again.

Apollo: Lt. Thrace, this is not a request.

Starbuck: Well, Captain Adama, I am the flight instructor, sir. My word is scripture, sir. I will not, repeat, not pass another student who isn't ready.

Apollo: So that's what this is about? It's not them. It's Zak.

Starbuck: Careful.

Apollo: Step back.

(She leaves.)

(Aaaand, we're back with Starbuck in the Viper o' Doom. She manages to grab a lever and eject.)

(Adama's quarters - we push out from the picture of him with his sons.)

Adama: Starbuck says they can't cut it, they can't cut it.

Apollo: She's not giving them a chance. It's day one.

Adama: She's one of the finest pilots I've ever seen in my life. If one day in the cockpit is all she needs to know if they can't hack it or not, she got that.

Apollo: I'm not arguing that, sir. I'm just saying, I think she's letting her personal feelings cloud her judgement.

Adama: Please sit down, Captain. (He sits.) What are those feelings?

Apollo: About Zak.

Adama: We've talked about Zak.

Apollo: Y-you did?

Adama: We talked about a lot of things. We've been aboard this ship for over two years, we know each other very well. When I asked her to be the instructor, I knew it was going to release a lot of loose baggage. She acknowledged it. She's a professional, she'll do her job.

Apollo: Okay. I'm just saying... you should talk to her. She's walking around with a lot of emotion. She almost decked me in the rec room. Right, you wouldn't smile if you were there.

Adama: I'll talk to her.

Apollo: Thank you. (pause) Personally, I think she's trying to work out her guilt over what she did for Zak. I think she's trying to make up for it by beating up on these guys.

Adama: Guilt? Over what? What did she do for Zak?

Apollo: I - I thought you just said -

Adama: What did she do?

Apollo: It's not my place to say, and I've already said more than I should've. You'll have to ask her, I'm sorry.

Adama: Captain -

Apollo: Dad, you'll have to ask her.

(Flashback)

Zak: I don't want any special treatment. Not from my father, and certainly not from you.

Starbuck: You passed. By the skin of your teeth, but you passed. Zak. (We see the picture of her with Zak and Lee in the past and then on her locker mirror.)

Intercom: Attention, pass the word to Lt. Thrace. Lt. Thrace, please report to the CO's quarters.

(Adama's quarters - Starbuck knocks.)

Adama: Yes, come in. Lee was just here before.

Starbuck: I knew it.

Adama: He thinks you washed out the nuggets without giving them a chance.

Starbuck: They didn't cut it. That's it.

Adama: He thought you were... letting personal feelings cloud your judgement.

Starbuck: Really.

Adama: Your feelings about Zak.

Starbuck: That's not the case.

Adama: Okay. He said something else. He said something that I would like to ask you directly. He said that you might have been feeling about something that you did for Zak. What did you do for him?

Starbuck: I don't know, you'd have to ask Lee.

Adama: No, I'm asking you.

Starbuck: Well, I don't, umm, I don't really know what he was talking about, so...

Adama: Don't fence with me, Kara. I love you like a daughter; I don't deserve that.

Starbuck: (haltingly) Umm. Zak failed basic flight. He wasn't a bad pilot, he just had no feel for flying. And, umm. When it came to his final check ride, he busted three of the test maneuvers. And I should have flunked him, but I didn't. The bottom line is that your son didn't have the chops to fly a Viper. And it killed him.

(Flashback)

Adama: He told me that you were an amazing instructor. And that he was involved with you, and that it was serious. He'd asked me to come to his graduation at flight school, watch him get his wings.

Starbuck: I know, I read the letter.

Adama: I see. Well then, maybe you can tell me what he was hinting at. A surprise, about you.

Starbuck: We were going to, uh... you know what, it's not important. I don't want that to, uh...

Adama: You were engaged, right? (She nods.)

(Present day)

Adama: You did it because you were engaged.

Starbuck: (crying) Because I made a mistake. Because I was just... I was so in love with him, and I let that get in the way of doing my job. And, umm, he, umm... He just wanted it so much, and I just didn't want to be the one who crushed him.

Adama: Reinstate the trainees to flight status.

Starbuck: I will. I, umm - but I just, I want you to understand that I -

Adama: Do your job.

Starbuck: Yes, sir.

Adama: And walk out of this cabin while you still can.

(Starbuck leaves, in tears.)

(Flash forward: the Viper o' Doom and Starbuck keep falling.)

(Present day: the trainees are packing up their stuff.)

Starbuck: (walking in and clearing her throat) Unpack your gear. You are all returned to flight status. We're gonna try this again. Those of you who can be trained to safely fly the Viper Mark II will pass, those of you who cannot will be cut. It is my job to figure out which is which, without personal feeling either way. And I'm gonna do my job. Kat, Chuckles, Hot Dog, you're up first. Pre-flight briefing in twenty minutes.

(She leaves the room; they cheer and yell.)

(Out in the Vipers)

Chuckles: Where the hell are you going, Hot Dog? Stay on me.

Hot Dog: Target acquired and destroyed.

Starbuck: Not bad, Hot Dog. But you left your leader behind.

Kat: Looks like you're having a bad day, Hot Dog.

Starbuck: And the moral of the story is...?

Hot Dog: Never leave your leader.

Starbuck: Thank you, that is correct. You never want to be out here alone. (back at the CIC, we hear her on the intercom) Okay, Chuckles, take Kat's wing. Hot Dog, you're on me. We're gonna try a little maneuver called "The Thorch Weave".

Tigh: I'll be damned. What's got into Starbuck? She actually sounds like a real instructor for a change. (Adama gives him a look.) She may actually make Viper pilots out of some of those nuggets after all.

Starbuck: Holy frak, we've got incoming.

Tigh: Where the hell did they come from?

Gaeta: DRADIS. Multiple contacts. It's the Cylons.

Tigh: Why didn't we see them coming?

Apollo: Launch the alert fighters.

Tigh: (on intercom) Attention, set Condition One throughout the fleet.

Starbuck: Galactica, we're gonna need you to send the cavalry. Nuggets, punch it for home.

(They head home.)

Adama: Where's the base ship?

Gaeta: Uh, no base ships detected, sir. Eight raiders, bearing 0-4-7, carom 1-1-8, range 22,000.

Tigh: They found us. It was only a matter of time.

Starbuck: Galactica, Starbuck. Where the hell are the alert fighters?

(Alert fighters launch)

Pilot: Starbuck, Alert One. We'll be there in two minutes.

Gaeta: Cylons are gaining.

Starbuck: All right, listen up, Nuggets. Stay together and keep your throttles firewalled until you reach that deck. Now go.

(She flips her ship around, heads back.)

Adama: What's she doing?

Tigh: Starbuck's gonna take on all eight. Get herself killed.

(Hot Dog doubles back)

Kat: Hey, Hot Dog, where're you going?

(Both Vipers fire on the Cylons)

Kat: Hot Dog, what are you doing?

Hot Dog: Whoa, got one!

Starbuck: Hot Dog, get out of here. Hot Dog, I thought I told you to get your ass home.

Hot Dog: You said never to leave your leader.

Starbuck: And I also said never disobey an order.

Hot Dog: I'm hit!

Starbuck: I gotcha, Hot Dog, we're gonna make it through this. Break right, now, now, now. (She keeps firing.)

Adama: She'll make it.

(She gets another Cylon.)

Hot Dog: I've just lost all three mains.

Starbuck: It's all right, Hot Dog, you did good. You're gonna be okay, I promise you. (off the intercom - I hope) At least one of us will. (on the intercom) That about does it, I think there's only one left.

(The last Cylon pulls behind her and her ship takes a hit.)

Starbuck: Frak. He's right on my tail, but I got it covered.

(Her ship disappears off the radar. Apollo turns away.)

Dualla: Starbuck's wireless and transponder just cut out.

Man: Alert One. We spotted Hot Dog. No ID or visual on Starbuck.

(Outside, she's still flying and engaging with the raider. Suddenly, her power goes out.)

Starbuck: Oh, frak me.

(Both ships fall into the planet's orbit. And we see that this is where the earlier scenes were from as Starbuck eventually ejects and falls.)