Chapter 1

Nineteen Days Before Gaius Baltar's Trial

Galactica

Helo sat in his little cubicle on the edge of Dogsville, digging through the stack of written complaints handed to him that morning by the various residents. He pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten, slowly. He was known for being one of the more patient officers with the rank to be given this assignment (which, coupled with the grey-area legality of some of his recent actions, was probably why it was his now), but some of these complaints were so frakking stupid...

Two gunshots interrupted him, echoing from somewhere just around the bend. He launched to his feet, pulled out his own sidearm, and fought his way through the confused mass of people, trying to get around that corner.

"Oh, my gods!" someone shrieked, apparently having beaten him there.

"Move aside!" he yelled. "Let me through!"

Finally, after an endless thirty seconds or so, he managed to work his way to the front of the crowd.

There was a girl lying in a spreading puddle of blood, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. No sign of the gun or the shooter. He ran over and knelt next to her, checking for a pulse.

He found one, faint and thready, but still going. He reached up and grabbed a marine's arm, one of seven who had responded to the shots the same way he had. "She's still alive. Go get Cottle, now."

"Yes, sir," the marine replied, and ran off.

"And you two, find the shooter. The rest of you, keep the crowd back." In the meantime, Helo tried to find the worst of the bleeding and get it slowed, even if he couldn't stop it. Once the girl was safely on her way to sickbay, he'd have to talk to everyone in the settlement, find out if anyone had seen anything, or knew who she was-she didn't live here; he was fairly certain he'd never seen her before.

From there, well...

First, do what he could to make sure the kid would survive.

The first marine was back, with Cottle, who took over from Helo in seeing to the girl. Helo nodded briefly to the doctor, then dragged over a crate and stood up on it. He made a bullhorn with his hands. "Everyone, listen to me!" The people here were, by now, at least moderately accustomed to him as an authority figure, so by the time Cottle and his helpers had gotten the girl onto a gurney and out of the hallway, they were more or less silent. "I'm going to need to talk to everyone who saw or heard anything, or thinks they saw or heard anything, and everyone who has any kind of idea who the girl is."

He winced, as the predictable chaos following his announcement bubbled up again, everyone scrambling over each other to talk. "Wait a minute." After a while longer, quiet finally fell again. "If you have something to tell me, go talk to one of the marines. I can only hear one person at a time. They'll keep this organized, so everyone can tell me what they know." And I can sort through the people who are misremembering, or over-emphasizing, or flat-out making things up, that much faster.

A dull rumble of noise started up again, as people started heading back to their assigned spaces or talking to one of the marines. iSooner or later, I'll have to talk to everyone, just to be sure./i But this was a start, at least.

A Few Hours Later

There were nineteen certified lawyers in the fleet. Seven of them were on the Quorum, and, of those left, Alan Hughes had been the fifth President Roslin had approached to defend Dr. Baltar. He'd made a brief show of thinking it over, but agreed without too much fuss-he'd always had a grim fascination for brutal, seemingly hopeless cases. He'd been a little surprised to hear that it had even taken the President three tries to find a prosecutor. Apparently, no one wanted to touch this case on either side.

Hughes handed Baltar a half-dozen sheets of paper. "Sorry there's not as much this time. There was an incident down in Dogsville earlier. Since I have to smuggle most of my paper through there..."

"What sort of incident?" the other man asked absently, after snatching the papers and starting in on them. He didn't even look up.

"Someone got shot."

Baltar paused for a half-second, though he still didn't look up, before resuming writing. Sounding more curious than anything else, he asked, "Did you hear a name?"

"Reyes, I think," he replied, after considering a moment.

The other man's face drained of color, and he stopped completely. "Is-will she be all right?"

Well, now, that was interesting. While Baltar occasionally deigned to speak with him during these meetings, he never actually stopped writing to do so. "Last I heard, she was still alive. Why, do you know her?"

"Just...curious, that's all."

Hughes stared at him, then sighed. "We talked about this."

"What?"

"I can't help you if you lie to me."

Baltar at last looked up and stared at him for a long moment. "This has nothing to do with-" He cut himself off, staring a little bit beyond Hughes in that creepy way he did sometimes. "Stop it."

Hughes sighed and rubbed at his temples. "It might have something to do with it. I told you, every little bit helps."

Baltar was still staring at nothing-Hughes didn't even have to look to know that's what it was. He had, the first few times the other man had done it, but there was never anything there. Unfortunately, he didn't meet the legal definition of insanity, which would have made Hughes' job a hell of a lot easier. He sighed again, and waited for the other man to check back in to the discussion at hand.

He didn't have to wait long. Baltar made an irritated noise and turned away from the beyond-him place. "Any relationship I may or may not have with Atia Reyes has nothing to do with you, or the trial."

So you do know her. Or at least you know her full name. But you're not going to tell me anything else about her, are you. "Fine," Hughes said. He'd find out what he needed to know by asking other people, the way he always did when his client was unwilling to share specifics. It was faster, less confusing, and far less infuriating for both of them. He leaned back and closed his eyes, listening to Baltar's pen slowly start moving again, waiting for him to finish so he could take the papers and set about asking his questions.