Chapter Two – Luck of the Draw

Human District
Aerilon

Marcie Brasko. That was the name drawn out for the girls. The centurions had come forward and pushed her to the front of the stage, where she stood trembling and close to tears. She couldn't have been more than thirteen.

The Number Six model offered her congratulations in what seemed like a sadistic manner to the humans present, and then gestured for the other name bearing centurion to come forward. Now it was the boys' turn.

The silent tension swept over the crowd again. Among the boys on the right hand side of the square most were standing solemnly silent, cemented to the ground like statues as they waited to see whose death sentence would be announced. One boy was more agitated. In the few seconds for the name to be drawn he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet nervously, hands pressed together in front of him and fingers twitching as he kneaded his sweaty palms. Dark hair fell into his eyes as he stared at the floor, unable to bring himself to look at what was happening on stage. "Five times," he kept muttering to himself, "My names only in five times. There's less than a one-in-a-thousand chance it'll be me. I'll be alright."

He wasn't watching as the slip of paper was drawn and unfolded. When the name was finally announced it took him completely by surprise.

"Gaius Baltar."

Suddenly, his head snapped up, eyes wide. "What?"

He couldn't have heard that right; didn't want to believe it, but people were already moving away and forming a gap around him as the centurions began to approach. "Wait," he protested as the chrome figures reached him, and they began to forcibly push him forward as he refused to move. Futilely, he tried to shake off the solid grip they had on his arms. "There must be some mistake here. My names only in five times, some of these people here must have their names in twenty times or more! I've never done anything wrong! You shouldn't have picked me."

He was still crying out in protest as they roughly pushed him up onto the stage, but as he suddenly found himself standing on the elevated platform in the middle of the square he fell silent, feeling everybody's eyes upon him. The sense of pity for the two tributes was evident on every face in the stadium, but at the same time they were grateful it wasn't them. Gaius would have felt the same way if the roles had been reversed, but he hadn't resigned himself to his fate just yet.

Turning to look at Number Six, who seemed disapproving of his reaction, he tried to plead with her. "Please. Draw a different name. I don't deserve this. My name must have been in less times than every other person my age here."

Coldly, Six looked down at him, unimpressed by his cowardice. "The rules are the rules. Your name was drawn, and now you must compete."

"No, please…"

She cut him off in a harsh tone of condescension. "Few people would choose to compete in these games, Gaius, but think positively. If you win, this will be your chance to go and live on Earth."

As if he wasn't already angry enough with the lot that fate had handed him, that sentence provoked a fresh outburst of frustration. "Oh yeah, Earth," he snapped, "That's what you tell us; that the winners of these games get to go and live on Earth, but how do we even know that's true? They win and do their victory tour, then suddenly vanish never to be seen again. How do we know you aren't killing them just because you can? If you're going to arbitrarily pick twenty four people to die I don't want to be one of them."

Six paused a moment after his outburst before responding. "If you have no faith, Gaius, you have no chance of winning." After that she turned abruptly away from him, not giving him chance to initiate some other desperate plea, and instructed both tributes to shake hands.

Realising that all his protests were futile, Gaius complied. He saw that Marcie still had tears in her eyes as they looked at each other. "Five times, huh?" she muttered to him bitterly, "Well, mine was only in four. Guess we're both just unlucky."

That revelation shamed him just slightly, but he wasn't going to feel bad about arguing for his life when Marcie didn't have the guts to.

A round of applause went up from the crowd at the Cylon's instruction, and then the pair of them found themselves being led away, chrome soldiers at their backs as they were taken towards the last part of this planet they would ever see before being bundled onto a ship bound for Caprica City.

-oOo-

Human District
Caprica

Lee was in the holding area, waiting alone in the small room guarded by two centurions before he and Kara would be taken to board the train. He'd never been to Caprica City before. From when he was younger, he remembered his father telling him what it had been like before the Cylon occupation – the grandest city in the Twelve Colonies, displaying the finest in modern architecture and technology, a bustling metropolis where people went to chase their hopes and dreams. Now it was the Cylons' paradise; the homes and shops and parks that once belonged to humanity now overrun by machines. Cylons sat in the buildings of the Quorum, their Raiders and Basestars now used the city's military bases. The once pinnacle of human civilisation now belonged to them.

Lee was just thinking he wished he could have seen Caprica City how it used to be when the door opened. He looked up suddenly, wondering if it was time to go yet, but then he saw the faces of his father and brother at the entrance with a centurion standing behind them. "You have five minutes," the Cylon said in its mechanical voice, then shut the door on them abruptly.

"Dad, Zak!" Lee said, hurriedly crossing over to them.

Zak looked at him with a pained expression, speaking quickly before Lee had chance to say anything else. "Why did you do that Lee? It should be me in here, not you. I never wanted you to throw your life away for me."

"I had to do it Zak. You're my kid brother; I'm supposed to look out for you."

"But not like this! I know I'm younger, but I'm still old enough to compete. And now it's my fault that you're in here. How am I supposed to feel about that?" Zak's anger at Lee for forcing this sense of guilt on him was showing through, but he knew that Lee had a better chance of surviving this than he did. Especially when he'd be forced to face Kara in the arena. Zak didn't know how he could have handled that.

"Grateful, maybe?" Lee snapped, not wanting to spend his last few moments with his family arguing, but fear and adrenaline causing him to lash out anyway.

"Boys, enough!" their father suddenly intervened, "I wish neither of you had to be here. I wish Zak's name had never been drawn – or Kara's for that matter – but it's too late to change that now. Lee, what you did was brave. Immensely brave. Maybe even stupid. But I do know that if anyone has a chance of winning this, it's you. The odds may be against you, but maybe they're less against you than they are everybody else. So please try to win. Even if it means losing Kara, I couldn't stand to lose you."

For a few moments father and son just looked at each other, Lee feeling a lump rise in his throat, but then he swallowed and nodded. "I will try to win, I promise. Whatever it takes, I'll try to win." Even if whatever it takes meant killing Kara, Lee was going to do it. He didn't know how Zak would feel about that – frak, he didn't know how he'd feel about that – but if it was necessary then he was going to do it. He didn't want to abandon his family and would do everything he could not to.

"I'm just glad your mother never lived to see this happen," William Adama said sadly before reaching out to embrace his son. "I love you, Lee. Remember that."

Lee hugged back and muttered quietly, "I love you too, dad," before pulling away.

As Lee turned to Zak, the younger brother shook his head. "You're an idiot for doing this, Lee," he said half-heartedly as the pair of them embraced.

"Not as much of an idiot as you for getting my name in twenty-three frakking times," Lee said back, for a moment returning to the casual banter between two brothers before circumstances separated them again, possibly forever.

A few moments later the door re-opened as the centurion returned. "Time's up," it said in an eerily emotionless robotic voice.

Lee glanced one final time at his family as the Cylon began to lead them away. "Wait, there's no frakking way that was five minutes," he protested as he took a step forward, "Just give us a bit longer," but his plea fell on deaf ears. The Cylon turned to look down at him, the menacing red light in its eyes giving the impression of a glare, and Lee backed away under its gaze.

"Time's up," it said again, and then much too quickly Bill and Zak had both been pushed from the room and the door slammed behind them, leaving Lee on his own once more.

-oOo-

Human District
Aerilon

When the door to the holding area opened Gaius couldn't get up quickly enough to cross to the figure who walked through. "Dad!" he said desperately, not even giving his father chance to say anything before he'd launched into his own monologue. "Dad, you have to get me out of here. I can't compete in these games; you know I can't. I'm as good as dead already if you let them go through with this. Please try talking to them because they won't listen to me…"

"Gaius!" Julius Baltar suddenly cut him off, not prepared to listen to another pathetic pleading rant from his son. "Please stop this. There's nothing you or I or anyone can do to help you. If people were allowed to back out of these games just because they begged loudly enough then nobody would ever compete."

Gaius stared at him, as if unable to process what his father was saying. "What? So you think I should just give up, is that it? Just accept my fate."

Julius shook his head. "No," he said firmly, "I think you should fight. Fight in the arena and try to survive."

"And what chance is there of that actually happening? Me surviving?" Gaius snapped back, "I'll tell you what chance, Dad. Less than five per cent, assuming all tributes are evenly matched, but in practice it's probably even less. So why don't you just try and fight for me, for once? At least seem like you care I'm about to go and die."

"Don't you dare talk to me like that," Julius said angrily. "Of course I care. You're my son, and I don't want to lose you to the Cylons, but the truth is it sometimes feels like I already have."

Confused, Gaius looked up at him wide-eyed. "What?"

"Don't act like you don't know what I mean. You've never really been one of us, Gaius, never tried to be," Julius continued. "It's obvious you'd rather ally yourself with the Cylons than accept oppression along with the rest of humanity. You never pull your weight with the work we have to do on the farms, and then there's that stupid accent you put on every time you have to talk to a Cylon. It's like you're not even trying to fit in with here; you just want to get off this planet and go and live in Caprica City and pretend to be one of them."

Furious and desperate, Gaius glared at him. "And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with wanting to improve my lot in life? Did you expect me to stay here farming until the day I died? I could do programming work instead; I've already done some of that on the ploughing drones. If I get in the good books with the Cylons then maybe they will let me move to Caprica City when I'm old enough, and then I could take you with me. Life there would be a lot frakking better than here dad, even if it means working with the Cylons."

"You're a disgrace," Julius spat back at him, "Wishing you were a Cylon, but you're not. Stop being so pathetic and be a man for a change. Just because you've spent your entire life sucking up to them doesn't mean they'll make an exception for you. You're human and they're going to make you compete whether you like it or not."

"Only if you let them," Gaius insisted, feeling his father's words sting but deciding it was worth it if he could just get someone to fight for his life. "The world isn't like it used to be, dad. If humans want a good life they have to work with the Cylons. Why don't you tell them all that? Tell them I could help them. The Number Three – she already knows about the work I did on the drones. They might listen to you. We might both get to Caprica City one day if I survive this, but what if I die now? Who would look after you then, dad? At least try saying something to them for your own sake if not for mine."

Julius Baltar just sighed and shook his head sadly, clearly immensely disappointed by his son's words. "Gaius, I love you, but I can't help you with this. You'll have to help yourself."

A look of hurt and abandonment showed in Gaius' eyes, but before he had chance to plead even further the door had opened again and the centurion guard had announced that their time was up. Julius turned and began to leave without needing to be led away by, but Gaius wasn't finished. "Dad, please…" he said desperately, darting forward to grab hold of his father's arm.

Julius paused then, and turned back briefly to meet his son's gaze. There was a pained look in his eyes for a moment, and then he reached out to rest a hand on Gaius' shoulder. "I'm sorry, son," he said sadly, and then once again turned to leave.

A sense of desperation settled on him as Gaius realised that was all he was going to get, and he tried calling out to his father again. "No, wait…" he pleaded, but just as he stepped forward the door swung shut behind Julius, leaving him once again alone. "No, don't leave! I'm not finished!" Gaius cried out desperately, banging his fist against the door, but the locking mechanism was controlled by a Cylon interface and he knew he had no chance of opening it.

"Frak!" he shouted out in frustration as he turned back to the room, putting a hand to his face and clenching his jaw as he tried not to cry. He was desperately wishing that this had never happened, that there was something he could do to just not be here, but it seemed like everyone had abandoned him…

A few moments passed before there came the sound of the door opening behind him again, and Gaius felt his heart leap as he turned back round to see who it was. No matter how unlikely it was, a small part of him was hoping that maybe his father had changed his mind and talked to the Cylons, and now was coming to tell him that everything was alright and they'd agreed to let him go. Instead, however, he found himself looking at the slender form of a platinum-blonde Cylon in a black dress, the same one who'd read out his name at the Reaping earlier.

"Time to go, is it?" he muttered defeatedly.

"Not quite," she replied, slipping inside the room and shutting the door behind her. She took a few steps towards him and Gaius couldn't help but feel like there was something very strange in the way she was looking at him. They were very close together when she finally came to a stop, and a secretive smile was playing on her lips. "Actually, I thought there was something you and I should talk about first…"

A/N: I didn't make Marcie Brasko up; she's a minor character I found by looking on the BSG Wiki. After counting up the main BSG characters I want to use as tributes I've realised I need to add some of the minor ones to make up the numbers. Marcie's a deckhand on Galactica and was the one who told Tyrol that Hera has been abducted. Also, I've decided to make Baltar fifteen because I think that at the start of BSG he seemed to have the emotional maturity of a fifteen year old anyway. I guess one question could be would he ever bother trying to change his accent in a world such as this where he has pretty much no chance of ever getting off of Aerilon, and I've decided yes. Aerilon is, like in canon, a farming planet and I've decided that Caprica City (but not the rest of Caprica) is going to be the equivalent of the Capitol, where life is better for any humans who help the Cylons enforce their laws on other planets. Baltar would probably be desperate enough to try and convince the Cylons to let him move to Caprica City if he ever got chance.