Author: Dax
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all related characters are registered trademarks of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. Battlestar Galactica - The 2003 Mini-Series, written by Ronald D. Moore and Christopher Eric James. Based upon a teleplay written by Glen A. Larson. Copyright 2003 USA Cable Entertainment Inc.
Authors Note: Written above the chapter titles, are excerpts from the Battlestar Galactica Miniseries.
Feedback: Please leave feedback on the A Love Beyond the Stars thread on the Kitten Board.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. Welcome aboard.
We are en route to Galactica and our estimated flight time is approximately five and a half hours. Please sit back and enjoy your flight."
'Captain - Colonial Heavy 798.'

Dr. Tara Maclay made sure that her 'special' onboard luggage was safely stored away under her seat, before she made herself comfortable for the more then five hour long trip to the Battlestar Galactica.

Tara still wondered why off all people, President Adar had send Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, to represent the colonial government of the Twelve Colonies at the decommissioning ceremonies for the Battlestar. After all this was a military vessel. So why not send the secretary of defence to deliver the speech? Maybe he was otherwise occupied, Tara considered or maybe they send Laura because following the decommission, the Galactica would be "parked" in a geo synchronic orbit right above Caprica City and become a museum. That museum would also host facilities to educate school classes and thus would become the responsibility of the ministry of education. Teaching children aboard a Battlestar, was a concept Tara still found hart to get use to. On one hand, the historian within her understood the significance of teaching children and students about the most darkest chapter in Colonial history - the Cylon Wars, aboard such a historic ground. But on the other hand, the sheer destructive power of this 'war machine' made her feel very uneasy, especially when she thought about children onboard this Battlestar.

There also was still the yet undecided proposal of letting part of the launch and landing facilities be used by the fleets flight school, what would make these parts of the Galactica the responsibility of the ministry of defence again, this would guarantee for all kind of conflicts in matter of jurisdiction between the two ministry's. "Politics!" Tara sighed to herself, wondering for the about thousands time, what had broad her into these treacherous waters called politics. Trying to get some sleep, Tara closed her eyes, but kept thinking of what led to her, not completely involuntary stint into politics.

In the end it all began when then sixteen year old Tara realized that she was paying far more attention to girls, then to boys. To come out gay on Planet Gemenon wasn't the easiest thing to do, since from all the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, Gemenon was the most conservative planet of them all. So while on one side of the political spectrum, planet Caprica planned to legalize the same sex marriage within the next month, on the other side Gemenon was still years, if not decades away from doing so. Unfortunately these things still where within the jurisdiction of the individual planetary government. Herself, Tara had been ok with her homosexuality from the start. She loved girls, so what? This was what she was and always would be.

Looking back today, Tara only regretted that she'd never told her mother. Unlike her father, she knew, her mother would not have rejected her daughter for being gay, but would have continued to love and support her as she had always done. But sadly she died only shortly after Tara found out herself.

Tara came out to her father right after her high school graduation. It was during one of these big ugly fights, they'd had ever since her mother, the mediator of the family, had died. To say that he didn't take it well, would have been an galactic understatement. He accused her of practically all that was in the book. That she would only say such a thing to hurt him, that she was a pervert and a abomination, a sinner and most of all: "You are no longer my daughter!" That said, he turn his back and never spoke to his daughter again. A terrible loss, no doubt. But if he could not except that his daughter as the person she was, regardless of whom she loved, the loss was on his side and his side alone. Still there wasn't a day that Tara did not wish that her father would turn around again and except his lesbian daughter into his life again. Not because she was gay or despite her being gay, but simply because she was his daughter.

Life had to go on for Tara, and with a full sponsorship, a job to pay for her living Tara entered college without her family. At least she had but a view friends to keep her company. Tara didn't make friend easy, never did. When it came to her private life she always had been kinda shy and insecure, unlike with her studies or work. On college where she earned her masters degrees in Colonial History, English Literature and Math, when it came to reading a paper in front of the class or holding her ground during an discussion, nothing could discourage her, but back then she always failed to use this stamina when it came to her virtually non existent love life.

She stayed single and closeted during her entire college time and the year she taught history and English Literature on a small high school in Gemenon City. It was only until she enrolled at Gemenon University to earn herself a doctor title in Colonial History and English Literature, that she finally went out into Gemenon ' s small, but fashionable lesbian scene.

Here she found new friends, friends that played the same league then herself and here she met Rene and fell in love with her. Rene was three years her senior and as much out as Tara wanted to be. They soon entered into a relationship that lasted during Tara's entire time at Gemenon University. But Tara started to realize that this wasn't turning out to be the kind of relationship she'd been dreaming of as a young closeted lesbian. Back then she had been dominated by her father and now it had been Rene who controlled much of her life. Rene turned out to be unfaithful as well and always after she'd had one of her little affairs she kept on promising that it would not happen again, until the next one, that was. So one day Tara finally drew the line and broke it of with Rene, she moved out and once again started her life all over again. Unfortunately Rene wasn't the one to go quietly and so it came that halve a year after Tara, now officially Dr. Maclay, had taken over as faculty head of Colonial History at St. Cedd's College, Oxbridge University Geminon, that Rene stormed onto the campus and made a huge scene and in due course outed Tara as being gay. It didn't take the ultra conservative directorate long to fire Tara, stating all kinds of reasons, except the only true one, which was that they didn't want a queer teacher at their university.

But for the first time in her life, Tara didn't simply gave up and did what other people expected of her. She told Rene in no nonsense words to get out of her life and she had not heard from her ever since. Then she took on the real enemy the board of governors of the university, or more to the point the system that even though the law on all the twelve colonial planets outlawed any kind of discrimination, fired her because she was gay, even though they claimed she wasn't doing a proper job, when there wasn't a single peace of evidence to support their claim.

And so Tara took the fight back to them, she wanted more then to just to be reemployed, she wanted them to admit the truce, that they fired her because of her sexual orientation and not because of the way she did her job. Tara took her case to the court and to the public as well. She sued the university for discrimination, and won in the first instance. But of course the university appealed the judgment and so they went into the next round and the next after that.

At the same time Tara made her case public, by going to talk shows and giving her very first press conference. She even made it into the most prestige's show in all of the Twelve Colonies: "The Spotlight " an interview program devoted to people making news on Caprica (!), just shortly before her case was to come in front of the Gemenon supreme court. But the chances to win her case there were slim to none, Tara knew. It was at that point that Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, got involved in the matter. She couldn't order the university, but she tried to mediate. With partial success, the university agreed to reemploy Tara, but would not admit that they had fired her because she was gay and they wanted Tara to stop talking about her case in public. But Tara didn't want to shut up and so she could ether accept this offer and go back to work, knowing that they still wouldn't accept her as the person she was and might still be looking for another way to get rid of her after all.

Understanding Tara's position, Laura Roslin made her an offer she couldn't refuse, to leave Gemenon for Caprica and become a staff member of her ministry. Thus trying to effect change from within the system, not only on Gemenon but on all the twelve colonial planets. When Tara had accepted the job, it seamed like a good opportunity and in a way it really was. She wrote several of the laws Laura had successfully broad through the colonial senate and thus had implemented improvements in many levels of the colonial educational system, from elementary school, over high school to universities. She had also helped to further increase the general authority of the colonial ministry of education over the individual planetary ministries.

But at the same time she hadn't made much progress when it came to keep ultra conservative schools or universities to unfairly treat gay and lesbian members within the body of teachers. And that was mostly because working politics always meant, that in order to get one bill passed, you had to make compromises on others. That had always been the one thing Tara had despised more then anything else. She had not joined the ministry of education to "scratch backs" and get frustrated by all this political compromises, but to really work for the people and change things for the better.

At least she wouldn't have to deal with those frustrating aspects of politics for very much longer. Not longer then eight more month to be exact. Then President Adar's second and last term as President of the Twelve Colonies, and together with him, Laura Roslin and most of his cabinet, Tara would leave politics for good. She didn't know what Laura had in mind for her future, herself Tara would get back into teaching. Only yesterday she'd been offered the chair of Colonial History on one of Caprica's most prestigious universities - starting next fall. And they didn't care one bit, that she was gay!

Of course she would always continue to rally support to get gays and lesbians equal rights on all of the Twelve Colonies. No longer anyone should be discriminated or fired only because of his or hers sexual orientation. And also that the same sex marriage would be aloud on others planets besides Caprica and Picon. Yes Tara certainly had her work cut out for her, if only she could get some new drive into her love life as well. She hadn't been in a long-term relationship ever since she had dumped Rene. She'd been out dating, meeting other woman. She even had been going steady for almost two years with a young aspiring journalist named Faith. Until they both realized that they could ether have a bad relationship or split and become best of friends. They decided on the later one and had been close friends ever since. And so Tara kept going out, looking for her true love, the one person she had been dreaming of all her life.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. If you lock out the starboard window, you will have a grant view of Battlestar Galactica, as we flight by, before making our final approach. We will be touching down onboard Galactica within the next fifteen minutes, thank you." On hearing the captain, Tara slowly opened her eyes, to realize that she'd actually slept during the entire five hour flight. "Didn't know I was that tired", she mumbled to herself, before she looked out the window to see the biggest spaceship she'd ever seen before in her life. Looking at the enormous Galactica, Tara found it hart to believe that there where Battlestar's actually larger then this one.

Tara left the ship together with Laura Roslin and her personal assistant Billy Keikeya. They were welcomed, by Alan Doral from public relations, who took them on their first meeting with Commander Adama, the commanding officer of the Galactica. As they kept walking through the sheer endless hallways, Tara was soon convinced that any civilian could easily get lost around here and so she made sure she never let Laura Roslin and Alan Doral out of her side. Doral then introduced them to Commander Adama, who soon entered into a discussion with Laura about not having any kind of intergraded computer networks aboard his ship. Tara didn't pay much attention to it. She felt a little groggy from sleeping in the seat and she knew other people who still felt very like the commander who'd actually fought during the Cylon War forty years ago.

"Let me make one thing clear," Adama said to Laura. "Many good men and woman lost their lives aboard this ship, because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easer. I'm sorry that I'm inconveniencing you or the teachers, but I will not allow a network computerized system to be place on this ship while I'm in command. Is that clear? "

"Yes Sir," Laura assured him and Tara too nodded in agreement.

"Thank you. Excuse me," the commander said and walked away. It was in that moment that Tara realized that somewhere along the way they'd lost Billy. 'He'd properly been distracted when this female petty officer had walked by,' a small voice within Tara's mind suggested. Of course she'd noticed this rather sexy woman herself too.

Tara was just about to tell Laura and Mr. Doral, when she spotted Billy and the very same woman walking towards them. Looking past the two, Tara spotted another woman standing at the corner, judging by the uniform a viper pilot. Right away Tara's eyes where fixated upon this lovely creature with short red hair, a face full of the most likable freckles and dark green eyes, that where looking right back to her.

As their eyes met, Tara knew she was in trouble, for from that moment, she felt so very much drawn towards this beautiful stranger.