Part IX The Plan

They'd been looking for Starbuck for over two days now. The Caprican Resistance had combed the area between their base and where they were ambushed by the Cylons repeatedly, searching for any sign of the pilot and Sue-Shaun, who was also missing. The Chief was on point, in front of a line of guerrillas spread behind him to the left and right.

Rally was by his side, taking point with the SPARTAN. Although the Pyramid player's left arm was now in a sling, the man had refused to stay behind. "Sue-Shaun", as the man related it, "is my protégé on the team and I ain't about to lose her too. I may not be able to fire a rifle, but I can still hold a pistol, and you'll be wantin' an extra set of eyes."

Anders, seeing the alternative as locking Rally in a room back at the high school, had relented. The Resistance Leader was behind the Chief, moving alongside Helo as they all frantically searched for their missing friends. In Anders case, there was an added level of desperation to find Starbuck. The Chief suspected that the pilot and the guerrilla leader had developed a quick relationship, the kind of whirlwind romance seen often in war.

The party returned to the ambush site once again. They'd been to the area several times before; the vehicles were still parked where they had been abandoned, the Cylons apparently having no interest in them.

"Anders, we must have been over this line 10 times already," the Chief heard Helo say.

"She must have taken a bullet, she was right here by the vehicles," Anders emphatically replied, pointing at Starbuck's truck. The anxiety was evident in his voice.

"She would have got up and crawled out of here." Agathon replied. "Hey!" he shouted to the others, "we have to search the entire area again."

The other Resistance fighters spread out along the clearing, checking for any enemy activity, but the Chief wasn't picking anything up. He stopped at the front of Thrace's truck and turned around. "I'm not picking up anything," he said to Anders, who was checking the cabin of the vehicle.

The Pyramid player grunted and shook his head. "I knew we shouldn't have pulled back so fast, I thought she was right with us!" He said, pacing past Helo in impotent fury.

"Anders, we got ambushed," the pilot replied, "okay we all got separated, there was nothing we got have done about it. Kara of all people would understand. Let's just find her!" Agathon walked past the truck and looked at a cluster of trees.

A blip appeared on the Chief's sensors, behind a large tree opposite the clearing. "Movement!" the SPARTAN yelled, dropping to a crouch and aiming his shotgun at the tree. A crunch coming from behind it told him something was indeed there.

The other members of the group took cover as well and aimed at the source of sound. "I know where Starbuck is," a woman's voice behind the tree said. Moments later, an Asian Cylon, the Sharon model, appeared from behind the tree, her hands held high in surrender.

"Sharon?" Helo asked, half in fear and half in disbelief. Anders glanced at Agathon quizzically. "Where have you been?" the pilot continued.

"Tracking you," the Cylon replied, her tone pleading.

"Who is she?" Anders demanded.

Helo lowered his weapon. "She's with us," he said to Sam, placing his hand atop the guerrilla's gun and lowering it as well.

"She that Cylon ya' told me about from the museum?" Rally whispered to the Chief. Anders turned and walked past John as Rally spoke.

"Yeah," was the terse reply. The Chief still hadn't lowered his shotgun.

"You're the father of my child, Helo," Sharon said to the pilot, "I'm not going to lose you." The words were sincere.

"For a machine, Sharon appears to mimic emotions very well." Cortana analyzed, speaking in John's ear. "Were she human, I would estimate a 94 percent probability she loves Helo as well."

"Even if it's software, those emotions are still real. How else would you describe your response when you laugh or make a joke?" The Chief replied in a whisper.

"Point taken, but remember my programming and emotions are cloned from Dr. Halsey. I'll bet your suit of MJOLNIR armor that they are a more accurate reference point than whatever the Cylons have used for Sharon's 'feelings.'"

The Chief knew better than to take the bet.

Helo and Sharon were staring at one another, both looking like they wanted to run into each other's arms, yet both were holding back. Finally, Sharon glanced to her lover's left and noticed the Chief, still crouched, still aiming his shotgun. She started.

"What…who… is that?" she asked.

Helo turned, saw John still aiming at his erstwhile companion, and spoke. "It's okay, Chief."

The Chief lowered his weapon. "How long have you been hiding here?" he asked the Cylon.

"A few hours. I've been waiting for you." She looked at Helo as she finished.

"I thought as much," the Chief grunted. "I don't like surprises. Your info better be good, because I don't think Anders and the others will let you leave here alive otherwise."

Sharon said nothing, still trying to figure out what exactly the green armored giant before her was.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

"Anybody got a map of the area around the Asylum?" Anders asked.

"I got one." Rally said. He walked over to the cargo truck, withdrew a case from the back, and pulled out a large map, spreading it on the hood of Starbuck's truck in front of the group.

"Alright, the place is here," said Sharon as she leaned over pen in hand and marked Starbuck's location with a red X. Anders, Rally, and another Resistance member, a young man named Morris, drew back in fear as the Cylon spoke. If Sharon noticed, she said nothing. "Here's where we are, the refueling station you wanted to hit was over here." she continued, circling the locations. "There's a large Centurion force, over 100, that patrols the woods north and west continuously, and there are vibration sensors set up in the forest to the south. It's how they knew you were coming yesterday; the vibrations of the vehicles were detected."

"And east is open plains. We'd be spotted at least a full 3 clicks before we reached the Asylum." Anders finished. "Place is a fracking fortress. What the hell is going on there? Cylon's don't even have this much stuff at the spaceport, if what the Chief told us was accurate."

"It's a farm." Sharon said. She looked hesitant to continue.

The others said nothing, not understanding. "I doubt you're raising crops there." The Chief said.

"We're…they…are conducting experiments on Cylon-human cross breeding. Using…captured humans."

There was stunned silence around the truck. "You fracking bastards." Morris growled.

Anders gathered himself for a moment and took a deep breath. "That means a lot of toasters inside as well. Skin jobs and Centurions right?" He looked at Sharon for confirmation.

The Cylon bit her lip and nodded.

The Chief bent over the map. "We'll have to hit the place from the south, all your people here in one attack. You don't have enough men to hit it from separate sides, and anybody approaching from another direction will be detected, or worse. You'll have to move in on foot to avoid setting off the vibration sensors, which is a problem."

"Starbuck and Sue-Shaun may not be in any condition to walk," Helo said, shaking his head, "and it's going to take a long time to cross this field here." He pointed at a clearing south of the asylum.

"Exactly." The Chief replied, nodding his head.

"There's more," Sharon said, "the moment you attack an alert will be sent out through the Network. Centurions will be dropped in the woods southward and the patrolling force will close in from two sides..."

"And we're trapped." Morris finished for her. Everyone was silent for a moment again.

"Well, I guess we'll have to have our ride waitin' for us when we leave." Rally said.

"How? Those damn vibration sensors will pick us up if we use the trucks!" Morris replied, raising his voice.

"Then we'll have to use a spacecraft," the Chief replied. "Would a Raptor work?"

Sharon's eyebrow quirked upward at the suggestion. "No Chief," Helo spoke, "a Raptor holds 10, 12 people at most. We'd need 3 or 4, and we don't have the pilots."

"So we steal something bigger." Rally said.

"Like what?" Anders asked.

"A heavy raider," Sharon stated.

"There's one touching down at the refueling station." Morris uttered.

"It's been have moved to another location after the ambush." Sharon replied.

"What's a heavy raider?" John queried.

Again Sharon's eyebrows rose. "It's a large transport or assault craft, used to attack large ships. It has a large bay designed to offload Centurions as boarding parties onto enemy vessels. There's enough room in one for all of us. I can pilot one."

The Colonials were silent, the displeasure at being forced to trust a Cylon evident on all their faces, excluding Helo.

"What's it look like?" The Chief asked.

"8 engines in back, has 6 chain-guns below the cockpit capable of very rapid fire. You'd know it if you saw it, it's big and brown."

"Chief, that matches the description of the large craft we saw in the hanger at the Delphi spaceport!" Cortana exclaimed excitedly.

"I think there's one at the Delphi spaceport." John told the others.

"Whoa waitasec Chief. You said it yourself, there's over 70 Centurions and 20 humanoid models guarding the place. And a squadron of Raiders." Helo said.

"Actually it's 80 Centurions and 24…humanoids." Sharon corrected. "How did you know?" She asked turning to the Chief.

"Scouted the place. Long story," he answered, then turned back to the others. "It's the only heavy raider we can get our hands on in the next 24 hours. Unless someone knows another landing field nearby, it's our only option."

"Look Chief, I know you're tough, but you're not that good." Helo responded.

"Actually, I am." Silence greeted his remark.

"Fine," Anders spoke, "you and Sharon will have to steal this Raider. We'll head north through the woods and hit the Asylum, springing Starbuck, Sue-Shaun, and anybody else we find alive. We'll bring them back to the field south of the hospital, then you two pick us up and we head back to base. How long will it take you to reach the spaceport?"

Sharon rolled her eyes. "He won't be able to match my pace, not with the gear on him," she pointed to the sniper rifle on his back as she continued. "I'll have to run the 30 kilometers to the landing strip, over wooded hills the whole way, if we have any hope of rescuing your people in the next 24 hours. I'll have to go alone."

"Trust me, I'll keep up." The Chief replied. Again all eyes turned to him.

Sharon pursed her lips and frowned. "Assuming 6 clicks an hour, 2 hours to sneak in, grab the ship, and fly back…I…I mean we, can be back in 7 hours. Provided he," she hiked her thumb at John, "can run the entire way."

"Her calculations are accurate Chief. The pace shouldn't be any problem." Cortana chimed in his ear.

"It'll take us 3 hours to reach the asylum on foot from here," Morris stated. "We should be leaving right before you arrive at the spaceport. Don't be late."

"Alright, get some rest people. We're going to need it." Anders said, dismissing the group.

Sharon beckoned to Helo. The two wandered off, probably to talk about Sharon's betrayal of Helo when she stole Thrace's raider. Rally grabbed the Chief's arm.

"I don't trust that frackin' toaster," he told the Chief.

"Neither do I. It's one of the reasons I'm going with her," John replied.

"What's the other?"

"If she runs into any kind of trouble, she'll need help."

Rally paused. "You really that good?"

"Yes, Rally. I am. SPARTANs are trained to fight against these kinds of odds, and win. I've faced worse."

Rally didn't like it. The displeasure was evident on his face. "Take me with you."

"Can't, and you know why. Sharon's setting an inhuman pace and you won't keep up."

"Hey I'm in damn good shape…"

"AND you've got a bad arm! Rally, I'm no good at being subtle, so I'll be blunt. You're a liability," the Chief continued, noticing Anders walking up behind them. "You can't fire any kind of weapon that's good against a Centurion. Which means someone's going to have to watch your ass, instead of their own, and that could me or Sharon killed."

Rally looked like he was ready to explode, but the Chief went on. "You shouldn't even help Anders with this attack. You'd just be an extra body for the Cylons to shoot at when his force hits the asylum. And either he, Morris, or somebody else will also have to keep an eye on you when they need to focus on smashing toasters."

A tear welled in the guerrilla's eye. The Chief forced himself to finish. "I know Sue-Shaun means a lot to you. She means a lot to everyone in your group. But you won't do her any favors if you get yourself, or somebody else, killed."

Anders interrupted at that point. "Actually, Rally, I think there is something you can do. Someone has to get back to the high school, let them know what we're doing, that we'll be coming back in a heavy raider."

"So now I'm jest an errand boy?" the Pyramid player replied bitterly.

"No, it's not just that." Anders lowered his voice. "Chances are, this plan isn't going to work. It's a long shot, you know that. And if that's the case, none of us, me, Helo, the Chief, Morris, none of us are coming back. Which means you'll have to be in charge. You'll be the last of our group with any kind of military experience, Rally. And our people are going to need you."

Rally took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Okay, Sam. You're the boss." He wandered into the forest, sitting down heavily in front of a tree.

The Chief watched him go. "Fuck," he muttered.

"Huh?" Anders asked, confused.

"Frack," the Chief answered, then paused before continuing. "I hated doing that. He's a good man. Loyal to his friends."

"One of the best. That's why we kept him on the team last year. Don't feel bad, Chief. I was going to tell him exactly what you just said anyway. Then I'd be feeling like a son of a bitch, not you. When you going to start?"

"When Sharon wants to leave."

A few minutes later, Sharon and Helo emerged from the woods where they had been talking. Sharon gave Helo a quick hug, which the big pilot returned somewhat awkwardly. The guerrillas almost universally grimaced at the sight.

"You ready?" She asked, walking up to the Chief.

"I'm always ready," he replied.

They headed off into the woods at a run, heading east. Sprinting towards the enemy.

Sprinting towards their salvation.