Chapter 10
Wildcats and Catfights
Mankind has long since left the Garden and journeyed to the far reaches of Kobol.
Pandora's Gift of Curiosity has prevailed over Zeus's dire warning, and
She has opened the jar, spreading the plagues therein to her brothers and sisters.
Only Hope has remained inside. She builds a small altar and places upon it
The jar containing the last gift of the gods and there she remains as
Her days dwindle and fewer and fewer humans come to touch the jar
And offer their forgiveness for the plagues she had unleashed upon them.
You see, Brother, Posiden says to Zeus. Hope is not enough. Mankind suffers
From your plagues. They have turned away from us. Zeus grumbles,
I cannot take back what is done. Athena looks at the children of the gods
And wisely says, Then give them another reason to return and worship us.
Give the righteous immortality. Zeus ponders her words. You have a point,
But that would make them too much like us. Hades finds the answer.
Create a realm for them after death where the good are justly rewarded
And the evil are punished. Zeus is pleased and gives his brother dominion
Over the Underworld and then he bestows upon his children the gift that
Sets them apart from the animals and the fish and the birds of Kobol.
Zeus gives to Mankind the Gift of Immortal Souls.
- Kataris, from A Poet's Dream, The Torches of Other Worlds
.
Months earlier Lee had found Kara's journal on John's laptop and had tried to open it only to find that she had password-protected it. He hadn't understood then what Kara had to be so secretive about. Late Monday night he had realized why she had locked him out of her journal. It had only added to the sting of her betrayal. Trust. One little word. Five little letters. Huge implications. Kara hadn't trusted him enough to tell him that she still thought her father was alive much less that she was planning to steal a Raider and go to the Cylon homeworld to find him.
But that wasn't being completely fair to her. She had tried to tell him…in the beginning at least. He'd just been too damned sure she was wrong to listen to her. Lee remembered how he had tried to reason with her during those first days after the fighting when she had insisted that John's Raptor was out there somewhere and that the Search and Rescue teams Bill Adama had sent out would find him.
Maybe it was because Lee was angry that she was being unreasonable or maybe it was because he was hurting from the loss of his friend, but at the end of a week he had finally told her that John was dead, end of story, and that to keep insisting he would be found alive was a total denial of reality. He had told her that she needed to accept her father's death and start dealing with it. He realized now how rough he had been on her, even if his intentions had been good. The truth was that he didn't really know how to deal with her during those first crazy weeks after they had won their freedom. He had his own issues to deal with, a broken leg being only one of them. He recognized now how much both of them had been struggling emotionally.
Lee had known a father all his life although their relationship had been marked more by Adama's absence than by his presence. Even when Bill was around, their relationship had often been adversarial. Kara's relationship with John had been anything but normal. She had found him and lost him and then found him again in about as dramatic a way as possible. She had only been with John for the last two years, but the bond of love that had developed between Kara and her father had astonished Lee. Maybe part of the problem had been Lee's jealousy of that bond. How many times had he wished he had that same kind of bond with his own father? How many times had he realized that he never would?
When the admiral had recalled all the SAR Raptors after a week and the search for John had officially ended, Kara had stopped claiming John would be found alive. In the two weeks leading up to John's memorial service, she'd been quiet and withdrawn, but part of that Lee had attributed to Yolanda Brenn's death and the estrangement Kara had with her stepmother over the fact that Kara had refused to move into Marble House. After Lee's rescue from the ocean, Kara had moved into his apartment. She had never moved out.
Lee knew if John had been there, Kara would never have moved in with him, but John was gone and so Kara had stayed at Marble House only occasionally until the night they'd had the fight over the password-protected journal.
Lee had used the word obsessed one too many times and Kara had angrily stuffed the laptop into its case and had gone to stay at Marble House for a few nights. But like every argument they'd ever had, that one had blown over, too. Four nights later he had heard her key in the lock and she had walked into the apartment. She hadn't explained her absence or apologized for it. She had just walked in and dropped her duffel bag on the floor and plopped down on the sofa beside him. He was the one who had apologized and kissed her and she'd kissed him back and that hot spark that had always existed between them had ignited. Everything had seemed to be normal once again as if anything in their relationship had ever really been normal.
After John's memorial service, Kara's mood had changed once more. She had seemed to find peace. She had concentrated on learning how to fly the Raider. She had talked excitedly about her first recon mission. Lee thought she had finally accepted losing her father. Now he knew how far from the truth that had been. All along she had believed that John was on Nereid. All along she had been looking for a way to rescue him. Bit by bit she had built her plan and four nights ago she had implemented the first phase of it.
What would he have done, though, if she'd told him what she was going to do? He would have stopped her. There's no way he would have let her steal a million-cubit ship and jump it away on an unauthorized mission to a hostile planet. And that was why she hadn't told him. To save her and her career, he would have betrayed her and she knew it.
Now sitting in a booth on the Penelope, Lee watched as the box popped up on the laptop's screen asking for the password to the journal just as it had the last time he'd tried to access it. Kara had finally revealed it to him in the letter she had left for him on Monday night. He entered it. karaluvslee. She hadn't trusted him with her secret, but Lee believed with all his heart that she loved him. Maybe she had kept her secrets to save him from having to choose between her and his father. For the first time Lee realized that if Kara had told him her plans and he had betrayed her to stop her, there was very little chance she would have stayed with him. Now he just wanted her back. They had the rest of their lives to work on their issues if she just came back to him.
Lee looked at the first journal entry as it filled the screen. It was dated the night of John's memorial service and was only one line, eight words, but Lee could almost feel the hope in Kara's heart as the words leapt from the screen at him.
Yolanda Brenn saw it. My father is alive!
…
After Bill left, Laura sat on the couch in her sitting room and tried to process her thoughts. Of all the things she and Bill had talked about that night, only one would not leave her mind. There was the smallest chance that John might be alive.
A wave of emotion swept her. It had been almost five months since the night they had defeated the Cylons and John had disappeared. All that time she had thought of him as dead. If John had made it all the way to Nereid, if he had managed to land safely on the planet, could he have survived for almost five months? Was he a prisoner of the Cylons? Or had he died in the explosion of that basestar like Bill obviously though?
And Kara, headstrong Kara, who believed without question something that Yolanda Brenn had told her about her father, believed it so completely that she had committed a crime to get to the Cylon homeworld and search for him. She had staked her life on an Oracle's words and a physicist's guess of five percent.
Laura's head was swimming and not just from the whiskey.
She got up and walked down the hall and into the sitting room outside of Braedon's and Maya's bedrooms. It was nearly midnight and she expected the lamps to be off and Maya to be in bed, but she was sitting on the couch with a book open on her lap.
Maya looked up. "Are you all right? You look upset."
Laura tried to keep her tone one of normal motherly concern. "Did you have any trouble getting Braedon to bed?"
"Not really. He went right to sleep. I've been checking on him. He's a little stuffy but that's all."
"I want to see my son," Laura said, and unable to control herself any longer, she put her hand over her mouth and choked back a sob.
Maya put the book aside, stood and walked over to her. She gently touched Laura's arm. "What's wrong?"
"Bill…Bill…" Laura choked and couldn't continue. A sob shook her.
"The admiral…did something?"
Laura shook her head.
"He said something?"
Laura nodded and walked over to the end table where she plucked several tissues out of a box. She mopped her eyes, noticing the smudges of mascara.
"I'll be back in a minute."
She pushed open the door of Braedon's bedroom and quietly entered. The base of his nursery lamp was shaped like a turtle and functioned as a night light, its warm yellow glow faintly illuminating the room. She walked over to his crib and brushed her hand lightly over his thick, silky brown hair…John's hair. Braedon stirred in his sleep and then settled. Laura pulled the blanket up to his shoulders and watched his rhythmic breathing, a little stuffy just like Maya had said.
There were times even now that she could hardly believe she had a child, much less one as beautiful and smart and good-natured as Braedon. She knew that his looks and brains were genetic and possibly much of his temperate nature as well, but the rest of this happy child's disposition was due to John's love and care for him.
John loved their child more than his own life. He loved all of them that way. He had proven it by going back to that basestar to destroy it, knowing that he would probably pay the ultimate price. If there was any justice, he was alive and safe on Nereid. If there was any justice, the gods would return a good man and loving father to his son and his daughter…and to her. Laura leaned over and gently kissed Braedon's forehead before leaving the room, pulling the door almost closed behind her.
Maya was standing where she had left her. "What's wrong?" She asked softly. "What did the admiral say that upset you so much?"
"We talked about Kara, about what she had done and why."
Maya hesitated and then said, "I don't know where she's gone, but she told Brae that she was going to get his father and bring him home."
"What?" Laura asked in shock.
"Braedon told me that Kara had gone to the stars to bring his dada home. It's true, isn't it?"
Laura walked over to the table and grabbed another handful of tissues. She wiped her eyes again. "That's what Bill told me tonight. Kara believes John is still alive on a planet outside our solar system."
"Is there any chance?" Maya asked breathlessly.
"Bill says five percent. I don't understand the physics of it, but apparently it's possible. Bill didn't want to give me false hope. He still believes that John died in the explosion of the basestar."
Maya sat down on the couch as if her legs refused to hold her up any longer. "Every night this week I've prayed to Hermes for Kara and last night I added Lee to my prayer. I prayed to the god of travel for their safe journeys. Now I'll pray for John as well."
"Did Kara ever mention anything that Yolanda Brenn told her just before she died?"
"No. I knew she was at the hospital that night, but we never talked about it. Kara had a hard time during those weeks after the fighting. She would come by and play with Brae for an hour or more without saying much to me. I thought she was just working through her grief. Later when she started talking again, she never mentioned it and I didn't ask."
"I worried about her because I thought she was in complete denial, and then after John's memorial service, she seemed to accept what had happened. She seemed much better emotionally to me. I actually saw her smile again. I thought she was finally coming to terms with it."
"I agree. I thought the same thing. We all did."
"Now it appears that she never accepted her father's death because…maybe she had good reason not to..." Laura's voice trailed off.
"You still love him, don't you?" Maya asked quietly.
"Yes."
Tears came to Maya's eyes. "Wednesday night Lee told me that grief is a personal thing, that we don't all follow the same timetable. He's right. I'm sorry for what I said to you at breakfast on Wednesday morning. It was none of my business and…I was wrong to mention it to you."
"It's all right, Maya. I think I understand why you said what you did. You lost so much when the Cylons attacked five years ago. If anyone understands grief, it's you. And all Bill did on Tuesday night was kiss me. He apologized tonight…in his own way. Bill is a good man, an honorable man. You shouldn't think ill of him. We're free from the Cylons because of him and his plan."
"We're free because of what John did, too."
Laura looked at Maya and for a moment their eyes locked before Maya's gaze fell. Laura patted Maya's shoulder. "Don't stay up too late reading. I'll see you at breakfast."
Laura went back to her sitting room, opened the drawer of the small desk that sat on one side of the room, and got out a piece of official Presidential stationery. She quickly penned a note and sealed it inside an envelope. On the outside she wrote the name Elosha and underneath the name and street of Elosha's little temple. She picked up the phone and dialed the internal number of her head of security. When the night supervisor answered, she asked him to send someone to pick up the letter. She wanted it hand delivered first thing in the morning. She told the supervisor to make sure whoever delivered the letter waited for a reply.
Fifteen minutes later Laura had washed her face and was dressed in her nightgown. She went into her closet and got John's brown leather bomber jacket, the one piece of his clothing that she had brought with her from the apartment. He'd had the jacket since he was a young Viper pilot on the Solaria. The leather was soft now and the color on the shoulder patches had faded. He had been wearing that jacket on the night he had first kissed her, that magical snowy evening that she had realized she was falling in love with him. She carried it to bed with her, wrapped her arms around it and buried her face against the inside of the collar. It still smelled of him. Tears came to her eyes again.
She didn't address her prayer to any one of the gods in particular because she wanted all of them to hear her.
Please keep him safe and bring him home to me.
…
John realized immediately that D'Anna Biers knew what was happening between him and Sonja before she entered the apartment. He also knew that there was going to be trouble as soon as he saw the look of hot fury on D'Anna's face.
D'Anna had the small picture of Laura and Braedon in her hand. She flung it at him with such force that the glass shattered and the frame splintered as it struck the wall behind them inches from his head.
"Get up, Sonja," John said quickly, but Sonja wasn't fast enough. Her back was turned to D'Anna and she couldn't make the transition from almost consummating her passion to being able to defend herself. Or maybe she didn't think she would have to. Maybe she was expecting D'Anna and the opening door was no surprise to her, but for whatever reason, she didn't move. That was a big mistake.
With an animalistic snarl, D'Anna came barreling across the small room and bodily slammed Sonja off John's lap with such force that the two women ended up on the floor in front of the couch. D'Anna scrambled astride Sonja's waist and began pummeling Sonja with her fists. Sonja couldn't move her arms away from her face long enough to even fight back. All she was able to do was protect herself from the merciless blows that D'Anna was raining down on her.
John managed to get out of the chair and get his belt buckled. He knew he should try to stop D'Anna, but for a moment he hesitated. He already knew that Cylon women were stronger than a lot of men. D'Anna managed to pry one of Sonja's arms from her face and grabbed a handful of hair. Sonja let out a shriek as D'Anna jerked hard and was rewarded with a fistful of the platinum strands.
John grasped D'Anna's shoulders. "All right. That's enough. Get off her."
D'Anna didn't act like she even heard him. Sonja cried faintly. "Please make her stop."
"Apologize to her," John said to Sonja. "Tell her you're sorry."
"I'm sorry," Sonja whimpered still trying to fend off D'Anna's blows.
The apology didn't seem to make any difference either. John bent down, braced his legs, wrapped both arms around D'Anna's waist and managed to haul her off Sonja. D'Anna was still swinging and now added kicks to her attack. Fortunately Sonja was fast enough to roll over and crawl out of D'Anna's way.
"Get your sweater and get out of here," John said. "I'll handle this."
Sonja was a mess. Her bra straps were partially off her shoulders and her hair was frizzed out and in her face. The suede skirt was twisted halfway around. There were red marks from D'Anna's blows on her upper and lower arms and on her shoulders. She no longer looked like the seductive woman who had jauntily walked into his apartment less than an hour ago.
"Go!" John said harshly.
D'Anna was struggling mightily to get to Sonja. He knew he couldn't hold her much longer and he wanted Sonja out of the apartment if D'Anna got away from him.
Sonja grabbed her sweater and struggled to her feet. She didn't even bother to put it on before she hurried to the door, opened it and was gone.
John dragged D'Anna to the couch and shoved her down on it. Her eyes were still blazing with fury and she was breathing hard. She started to get up.
John put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back into a sitting position. He was almost as angry as she was although he knew that it was partially sexual frustration that drove his wrath.
"No, D'Anna. You sit there and don't you frakking move! What the hell has gotten into you anyway?"
To his surprise she sat still. He buttoned his shirt and rubbed his face with both hands as he paced back and forth in the small room. What a frakking mess.
Sunlight came through the sliding glass doors. Shattered glass from the picture frame sparkled on the floor. John walked over and carefully retrieved the photograph from the wreckage. A piece of broken glass had scratched the bottom of it, but otherwise the picture was undamaged. He glanced at his wife and son before he slipped it into the pocket of his shirt. What he wouldn't give to be back on Caprica with them right now.
He turned around and looked at D'Anna. She still had the surly, angry look in her eyes, but she hadn't moved from the couch.
Finally John said, "Did you get here too early or too late? I'm guessing it was almost too late."
Her tone was sullen. "I don't know what you mean."
"You and Sonja had a chat this morning. You knew she was coming to see me, didn't you?"
D'Anna wouldn't look at him or answer him. She looked down and gnawed at her thumbnail.
"Answer me!" John said angrily.
Her eyes were still downcast. "Yes."
"So where exactly in this little tag-team act were you supposed to come in?"
"I don't understand."
"She was expecting you, but she wasn't expecting you to come in swinging. Right?"
A surly shrug was the only answer he got.
"Sonja was supposed to get me good and ready for you, wasn't she?"
The sullen tone again. "Maybe."
"No frakking maybe about it. Sonja was supposed to start the seduction and you were going to take advantage of her warmup." When she wouldn't reply, John continued, the anger still in his voice. "Where's the surveillance equipment?"
"In the basement."
"Video, audio or both?"
"Both. But not in the bedroom. Just this room."
"So when you realized that Sonja wasn't going to stop like you'd agreed, you had to high tail it up here to stop her. Right?"
D'Anna nodded and then looked up. Tears had filled her eyes, but anger was still apparent in her voice. "You don't understand. I'm not beautiful like Sonja. I don't know how to do those things she does with men. They always want her. She said she would help me. Instead she decided to take you for herself. She deserved what I did to her. Maybe she'll think before she does it again."
Pity welled in him, the same emotion he'd felt on two other occasions. She hadn't been physically tortured, but her creators had messed with her mind and her emotions. In the process of trying to repress her religious fanaticism, they had managed to destroy her confidence in herself. On some level she must have felt what they did to her.
John sat down beside her and took her hand. She snatched it away.
"I'm sorry, D'Anna. I'm sorry things got out of hand with me and Sonja. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. It wasn't all her fault."
"I could send you back to the prison."
John took a deep breath as her words registered. "That's hardly fair when the two of you set me up."
"No," she finally conceded. "Sonja's done it before," she said more calmly. "Not to me but to another Three. She likes to make men want her."
"Then why did you trust her?"
"She said she would help me. She told me to watch what she did on the video and do the same thing."
John twisted sideways on the sofa and turned D'Anna's face to him. He smoothed back her messy hair. "You don't need to do what she does or act like her. It wouldn't be right for you."
"Why?"
"Because that's not who you are."
"I don't understand."
"Do you know why I forgot the picture last night?"
She shook her head.
"Because you didn't have on anything under your robe and I was very distracted when I left."
She looked at him for a few moments before her eyes registered comprehension of what he had just said. "Tell me what you want me to do," she said softly.
"Have you never been with a man before?"
She shook her head and looked down.
"Your creators didn't even give you some memories of being with a man?"
With her eyes still downcast she said, "One time I thought I remembered something but not anymore."
John took her chin and gently lifted her face. "That's nothing to be ashamed of. Do you still want us to do this?"
She nodded.
"Right now?"
She nodded again.
He stood and held out his hand to her. "Okay. We'll take it slow. I promise not to hurt you. Will you trust me?"
She looked up at him. John recognized the look in her blue eyes. He'd seen it many years ago in the eyes of his first real girlfriend, Amelie, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the couple who had agreed to foster him after his parents had died. Even though everything had ended badly for him and that innocent girl of so many years ago, he'd never forgotten her sweet shyness or the trusting way she had given herself to him. He hadn't known enough then to make the experience good for her. Maybe the gods were giving him a second chance with this Cylon woman.
D'Anna stood and took his hand. He leaned down and gently kissed her, trying to avoid hurting the cut place on her lip. He thought about the monitoring equipment.
"Let's go to the bedroom," he said softly.
He thought for a moment that her smile was agreement. Her trusting eyes were on his, but for the longest time she didn't move and then her body slowly collapsed against him. He caught her before she fell to the floor and lifted her onto the couch. Her eyes were closed. He felt for a pulse at her neck. Her heart was beating in a strong, normal rhythm. She was breathing fine. He slid an eyelid up. Her pupil was responsive to light. Her color was good, but she appeared to be unconscious. He took one of her hands and slapped it gently. He called her name. No response.
John stood, went into the kitchen and wet a towel. He squeezed it out, took it and blotted D'Anna's face. She didn't appear to be in any kind of distress. She wasn't pale or sweating. She appeared to be asleep. Only he couldn't wake her.
John took a deep breath. He wasn't sure if it was the right thing, but he had to do something. He went to the door. He was going to bang on it and hope a centurion would open it without shooting him. Instead as he put his hand on the knob and turned, it opened. He stopped in surprise. He hadn't gotten anywhere near the retinal scanner.
One of the centurions turned. When it saw him, its metal hands raised but no weapons extended. He would probably have to cross the threshold for that to happen. "D'Anna is sick," John told it. "Go get a doctor." When the centurion didn't move, John said, "Get Simon. Go get a Four." It seemed to understand that because it lumbered toward the elevator.
He sat on the floor by the couch and held D'Anna's hand and watched her breathe. He didn't have any idea what was wrong with her. He didn't think he had done anything. He didn't believe the kiss had done it. Kisses were supposed to wake up the princess, not put her to sleep.
The door opened and Doolittle came in with his lunch. John followed him into the kitchen.
"Something's wrong with D'Anna. I've sent one of the centurions to get Simon."
"I wondered why there was only one outside the door. What seems to be the problem, sir?"
"She's unconscious. We were talking and the next minute she was out cold."
"I never seen one of them when it had something wrong with it."
"How frakking long could it take to get a Four? That centurion has been gone almost thirty minutes."
"It might have had to hunt one down."
"You mean they aren't in communication with each other?"
"I don't really know how them centurions communicate with the skinjobs, sir. Would you want me to wait with you?"
"No. That's okay. I know you've got other deliveries to make."
Doolittle had been gone about five minutes when the door opened and one of the Fours walked in. John fought down the visceral reaction he had to the Cylon model who had drugged him so many times in the prison and who might have been the one who had given D'Anna the drug-filled syringe she had used on him two nights earlier.
John didn't greet Simon, just pointed to the couch. "We were talking and she passed out. That was nearly forty minutes ago. She hasn't moved since."
Simon walked over to the couch and looked down. "Did you see her ingest anything?"
"No."
Simon knelt beside the couch and did the same things John had done. He took D'Anna's pulse and looked at her eyes. He looked up at John.
"Is this the experimental copy?"
"She said the creators had fixed some kind of religious flaw in her."
"Ummm. That's her. She's been worked on a couple of times. I think this is probably something neurological."
"You think…but you don't know?"
"The creators don't notify me when they start fine tuning one of us. How did the injuries to her face happen? They look old."
"Someone Sonja called the Overseer. She did it two nights ago."
"Why?"
"It's a long, disgusting story. So what are you going to do for D'Anna?"
"There's nothing I can do. I'd say let's see if she sleeps it off. You said you were talking to her. Did something happen before that? Something of an emotional nature?"
"She and Sonja got into a fight. The slugging, hair-pulling kind. Sonja got the worst end of it, though."
"Ummm. That's interesting. Intense?"
"Very. D'Anna was furious."
Simon chuckled. "Maybe D'Anna was just getting a little back today by beating up on Sonja."
"I don't think that was her primary motive."
"This copy had most of her emotional responses repressed in an effort to find where the religious fanaticism was coming from. I thought the plan was to bring them back online one at a time to see when the flaw appeared, but maybe they just gave up on her. I wouldn't have thought she could have felt enough emotion right now to get into a fight. What was it about?"
John rubbed his face in embarrassment. " D'Anna walked in and found Sonja sitting on my lap."
"Ah, so you belong to D'Anna and she caught you with Sonja."
"I don't frakking belong to anybody," John said angrily. "But D'Anna did bring me here."
"Ummm," Simon was amused. "And D'Anna won the fight?"
"D'Anna was doing the hitting. I finally got her off of Sonja long enough that Sonja could get out of here."
"If D'Anna is still like this in the morning, then send for me again. There's nobody in the city who can treat her. We'll have to take her to the lab."
"The lab at the prison?"
"I see you're familiar with the place. So she brought you from there and not from one of the settlements?"
"That's right."
There was a hint of amusement in Simon's voice. "Were you a dangerous criminal where you came from?"
"I was a teacher."
"Interesting. Let D'Anna sleep. Send for me if something changes. Physically she's fine, but there's definitely something going on in her brain. She appears to be in deep REM sleep. The creators must have done that for a reason."
"Do you think this is what Sonja meant when she said D'Anna's old and new programming would integrate if she felt some strong emotions? You think D'Anna is rebooting and she'll be fine in the morning?" John asked.
Simon chuckled. "Rebooting. That's good. I'll have to remember that."
"In the meantime we do nothing?"
"There's nothing we can do. She'll wake up or she won't. I'll talk to Sonja and then I'll report this. If we need to do anything else, I'll come back."
Simon left without a goodbye just like he'd arrived without a greeting. He seemed a lot less concerned about D'Anna's condition than John thought he would have been. But maybe that was because death had no real meaning for them as long as they were near a res facility. If this D'Anna's died, she would just download into another body.
John went into the kitchen and brought his tray back into the living room. He ate the meal and drank the tea. Then he took the empty tray into the kitchen, came back and pulled an armchair close to the couch so he could watch D'Anna. Simon was right. It looked several times like she was dreaming. Her eyelids fluttered and twitched rapidly. Just how long did it take to reboot a Cylon brain anyway?
He closed his eyes. There was nothing to do now but wait.
…
Kara and Hunter started down the wooden steps. She looked around.
"Don't you have any guards? The Cylons could just walk right into this place."
"The first pair of eyes picked us up a mile outside camp. We've been under constant surveillance since then."
"I didn't see anybody."
"You're not supposed to. If you hadn't been with me you would have been stopped."
"Stopped?"
"They wouldn't have shot you, but you would have undergone some serious questioning. You would have been detained somewhere outside base camp until we made a decision about you."
"My faith in your security is restored."
"Here's how it is. Basically we fight the Cylons and they fight us, but there are some places that are off limits. We don't kill them in the city or the settlements. They don't kill us in base camp. They don't use their Raiders on us. The Cylon leaders agreed to that a long time ago because they saw the benefit of using us for their training. Outside the safe areas, anything goes. The only difference is that they can replace their dead overnight."
"So why do you need security at all?"
Hunter grinned. "We don't trust them that much. They've got centurions posted all around the city now. They don't trust us either."
They reached the bottom of the steps and began walking down a stone path between some of the dwellings. Up ahead a young woman peeked out of the door of one of them.
"Hunter," she shouted and came running toward them. He handed his assault rifle to Kara. The woman jumped into his arms and he swung her around. Kara smiled. So Hunter wasn't all toughness and lack of emotion.
His sister was shorter than him by four or five inches with dark hair that was braided down her back in one long braid that nearly reached her waist. Her blouse and baggy trousers were made of a natural-colored fabric. Her eyes were blue like Hunter's and Kara realized as Dessa stood smiling shyly at her, that she was a very pretty young woman.
"Are you Hunter's girlfriend?" Dessa asked.
"I'm Hunter's friend," Kara answered her. "You must be Dessa."
She nodded. "What's your name?"
"Kara, but your brother calls me Wildcat."
Dessa started laughing. "You're funny."
Kara glanced at Hunter. "That's what your brother tells me."
Dessa reached out and stroked the arm of Kara's flight suit. "That feels good."
"It doesn't feel so good to me right now." Kara wrinkled her nose. "I need a bath. I smell so bad I can hear myself."
Dessa giggled again.
By now several other inhabitants of base camp, all women, had strolled out of their dwellings and were looking at them. A woman wearing a blouse and long skirt in the same color as Dessa's outfit came out of the same dwelling Dessa had come from. She also had a long braid down her back, but her hair was mostly silver. She was drying her hands on an off-white apron. She walked up the stone path to them.
"This is my Aunt Emmalyn," Hunter said. "Emmalyn, Kara."
"Hi," Kara said.
Emmalyn's tone was neither warm nor friendly. "Well, hello to you. Where did Hunter find you? Wandering around out there in the forest? I guess the Cylons planted you for our men to find. A pretty blond? How original."
"She's not a skinjob," Hunter said. "She's from Caprica."
"Oh, is she now?" Emmalyn asked. "And how did she get here? Have I missed the travel poster announcing the startup of flights from the Colonies?"
Hunter gave Kara a look. "My aunt is almost as funny as you."
Kara smiled. "I don't blame her for being suspicious. Just yesterday I seem to remember three guys laughing at me when I said me and Narch were from Caprica."
Hunter grinned. "Okay."
Kara looked back at Emmalyn. "I, uh, borrowed a ship on Caprica. I'm here to find my father and take him home. He's a prisoner of the Cylons."
"And you thought their prison was in the middle of our forest?"
"I didn't know he was a prisoner until I got here," Kara snapped back and then tried to control her anger. "I hoped he was with you. I was trying to find the free humans. Hunter found us instead."
"That's what worries me," Emmalyn said.
"That's enough," Hunter said to his aunt. "I would never have brought Kara back here if I thought she posed any danger to us. She has a friend with her. Targa and Beck should be back with him later this afternoon. They'll tell us the truth about what's happened in the Colonies for the last five years. They're not the enemy. Don't treat them like it."
Dessa's lips had begun to tremble. Tears filled her eyes and she wrapped her arms around Emmalyn's waist. "Don't talk mean to Aunt Emmie," she said to Hunter.
A man had come up the path from another dwelling and now joined the group. He had a mop of light brown curly hair and golden brown eyes. Kara couldn't tell his age with any certainty. He looked a little older than Hunter. There was a thin white scar on the left side of his forehead that extended from his eyebrow upward until it disappeared into his hair. His voice was gentle when he spoke.
"Is there a problem?" He looked at Kara and held out his hand. "I'm Daniel."
She shook it. "Kara."
"A Colonial flight suit. That's interesting. I thought the Colonies were destroyed five years ago."
"Caprica wasn't."
He looked puzzled. "I thought the Cylons had…I thought…" his voice trailed off and his face looked like he was suddenly in pain.
"It's all right, Daniel," Emmalyn said. "Just relax."
Daniel shook his head slightly and then massaged his left temple. "Sometimes it hurts when I try to remember things."
Kara felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle. Leoben had said those exact words to her in his bookstore one day when she was trying to get him to remember something about the Cylons' creators. He had massaged his temples and said something about how painful it was to try to remember certain things. Kara struggled to put the thought from her mind. She knew what all of the skinjobs looked like and he definitely wasn't one. It was just an odd coincidence. Still…
"Something wrong?" Hunter asked her.
Kara managed a slight smile. "Just tired and hungry…and dirty and sweaty."
"I promised you a bath, didn't I? Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn't mean…"
"Well, if the girl wants a bath and a meal, I can see she gets both," Emmalyn said. "Since you've already promised her the bath, I can tell what's on your mind."
Hunter took his assault rifle from Kara without looking at her. "I'm going down to Targa and Beck's place and get cleaned up." He looked at his aunt. "She's our guest. Treat her like it," he said gruffly.
"Oh, be off with you," she grumbled, but Kara could hear the affection in her voice for her nephew. "Come on," she said to Kara. "The bath and meal are this way, in the house, not out here in the road."
Before Kara picked up her pack and followed Emmalyn, she noticed Dessa smile shyly at Daniel and him smile back at her.
"Come along, Dessa," Emmalyn called. "Kara will be sleeping in our spare bunk. You need to put fresh linens on it."
Dessa hurried after them and came up beside Kara. She rubbed the arm of the flight suit again and then pointed to the Viper patch on the shoulder.
"What's that?"
"That's the kind of ship I fly. It's called a Viper."
"A viper is a bad snake."
"True. A viper is a bad snake, but a good, fast, Cylon-killing ride."
Dessa smiled. "Okay."
Kara followed Emmalyn into the dwelling. She was surprised at the inside. She had expected a dirt floor and walls. It was all wood, fine-grained, light-colored wood although the ceiling looked like it was barely seven feet from the floor. There were no windows. The only light came from the open doorway. The room was obviously where they spent most of their time when they were indoors.
There was a stone fireplace in one wall where pale gray rocks burned with a low blue flame. Wood-framed arm chairs with thick seat and back cushions were arranged around the fireplace. On the far wall was a bookcase filled with books. In the middle of the room was a metal table that had probably come from the Hyperion as had the chairs. It seated at least a dozen people.
On the other side of the room was something that resembled the woodstove in the little stone house where she and Karl had lived for almost eight months before the soldiers had taken them to the refugee camp. The stove rested on a stone slab and had stone behind it. A flue went into the wall. Kara smelled the fresh yeasty aroma of baking bread. Her stomach growled and her mouth watered. Beside the stove was a long wooden counter with a big metal sink in the middle, also obviously from the Hyperion. It looked like Emmalyn had been in the middle of doing laundry in the sink.
Emmalyn took a slim taper, lit it in the fireplace and then lit an oil lamp. "This way," she said. Kara followed her through an open doorway into the back part of the dwelling. On either side of a small room were two bunks, side by side. Emmalyn continued into a smaller room, the only one that had a door. She placed the oil lamp on a shelf. There was a stone basin about the size of a small bathtub but deeper. Two pipes with faucets ran down the wall.
"Hot's on the left. Towels are over there. Not what you're used to, I'm sure, but it's the best I can do." Emmalyn said to Kara.
Kara smiled. "It looks great…a lot better than the cave."
"Hunter took you through the cave?"
"We had to hide my ship. I'll let him tell you."
Emmalyn crossed her arms. "He seems quite taken with you, but then you're a new face and a pretty one at that. A word of warning. Don't get your hopes up. Hunter's not going to get serious about anyone. It doesn't fit with what he sees as his mission in life."
"It's not like that with me and him. One of the skinjobs and some centurions caught me and my copilot. Hunter and his uncles saved our lives. I owe him. And he knows I wear somebody's ring."
"Ah, the boy you left behind. How does he feel about his sweetheart roaming around the galaxy without him?"
"I don't know. I left him a note," Kara said sarcastically. "I have a mission, too. I'm here to find my father and take him home. That's the only thing I want to do."
Emmalyn chuckled softly. "Maybe my nephew has met his match. Maybe it's him I should worry about instead of you. Are you hungry?"
"Beyond hungry."
"Take your bath. There'll be food waiting when you're through. Do you need clean clothes?"
Kara indicated her backpack. "I've got some. Thank you."
"The water has a strong mineral smell. It comes from a hot spring, a very hot spring. Be careful and don't burn yourself."
She turned and left, closing the door behind her.
"Thank you," Kara called after her.
She sat down on the edge of the basin and took off her boots. Then she stood and unzipped her flight suit. She found the stopper for the tub and turned on the faucets. The hot was very hot. She had to run a lot of cold. She got her washcloth from her pack. Five minutes later she slid down into the tub. It felt so good that she moaned out loud. She found the soap in a clay bowl and began scrubbing herself. She would have sat in the hot water much longer if she hadn't been so hungry.
She took her last clean set of underwear from her backpack and put on the pair of jeans and the dark blue Academy hoodie she had brought with her. She got clean socks and her sneakers. She dried her hair as best she could with the towel and brushed it back into a ponytail. Before she took the stopper out of the basin, she knelt and washed her dirty underwear and tank tops including the black lace bikini panties that Hunter had seen in the cave. She squeezed everything out. Maybe Emmalyn could tell her where to put them to dry. She took her pack into the sleeping area, propped it against a wall and draped the damp underwear over it.
By the time she walked into the main room, Hunter was sitting at the table. His black hair was still damp and he had shaved. He was wearing a shirt in the same natural color as Dessa's and Emmalyn's outfits. He had cleaned up as nicely as she had thought he would.
Kara put the oil lamp on the table. Emmalyn put two bowls of a thick vegetable soup and a loaf of hot bread in front of them. Kara inhaled the aroma of the bread. She didn't think she'd ever smelled anything that good in her life. They ate the soup and half the loaf of bread before they spoke.
"You clean up good," Kara finally said.
He nodded and smiled. "Likewise. Interesting shirt."
"It's from the Academy where I went to school before I went to Flight School and learned to fly a Viper. My dad taught at the Academy, the simulator."
"You're going to need to explain what you just said."
Behind him Kara saw Emmalyn turn around and look at her with one eyebrow raised. They were saved from a comment when an older woman and a white-haired man appeared in the doorway.
"I hear my grandson is back," the man said.
Hunter got up from the table and hugged the old man. "Grandpa." He looked at the woman. "Celia."
Emmalyn said, "Come in and have a seat."
Hunter helped his grandfather to the table and Celia followed. They sat. The cataracts had given the old man's eyes a milky look.
"I also hear Hunter found someone wandering in the forest and brought her back, a very pretty girl," his grandfather said in a teasing voice.
"Aye, she's pretty," Emmalyn said. "She's sitting right across from you."
The old man held out his hand. Kara leaned across the table and shook it. "I'm Kara Thrace."
"Perry Jaffee. This is my wife Celia."
Hunter had a smile on his face. "Kara has something with her you'll be interested in. Both of you. Tell him."
"I have a handheld computer with Irina Hoshi's journals from the first Hyperion mission. I talked to her twice on Caprica. She was a communication technician on the ship. Her husband was a scientist, Joshua Hoshi."
A smile lit Jaffee's face. "I met the Hoshis just before our expedition left Libran. She was a pretty dark-haired young woman, very pregnant at the time. How are the Hoshis?"
"Joshua died a few years ago. She's frail but her mind is still sharp. They had three kids. Her grandson Louis is in the military. He's a communication officer on a battlestar. Hunter thought you might like for me to read you some of her journal."
"Hunter thought right. And I'd like to talk to you about Caprica and what's going on back home."
"We'd all like to hear about that," Celia said.
Dessa appeared suddenly in the doorway. "Uncle Beck and Uncle Targa are back. They've got another one like her with them."
Kara jumped to her feet and rushed outside. The three men were at the bottom of the steps. Noel Allison saw her. It had barely been twenty-four hours since she'd last seen him but it seemed like weeks. She ran to meet him. Their hug was spontaneous and mutual.
"Are you okay?" Kara asked.
"Fine. You?"
"Me, too. So they weren't too rough on you?"
"They walked my butt off, but they shared their food with me."
"They wouldn't have shot you. Hunter said they wouldn't."
Hunter walked up to them. "Emmalyn has soup and hot bread."
"The bread," Kara told Narcho. "It's to die for."
Narcho smiled for the first time. "That's good because I'm almost dead of hunger right now."
Beck grabbed Narcho's arm good naturedly. "Then let's get cleaned up. Emmalyn don't allow no one at her table who's dirty as we are."
"I don't have any clean clothes," Noel protested.
"We'll find something for you. Get you out of that monkey suit. Have you looking like you belong at base camp in no time."
The three of them walked toward Targa and Beck's dwelling.
Kara looked at Hunter. "I guess we should get back to your grandfather."
"Don't let Emmalyn get to you. She's protective of all of us. She's got her reasons. Someday I'll tell you about her. Her life's been tough."
"If I can handle my stepmother, I can handle your aunt."
"You don't get along with your stepmother?"
Kara shrugged. "She's got a strong personality. I respect her, but we haven't always gotten along. For a long time I thought she married my father just because he knocked her up."
"Knocked her up?"
"Got her pregnant. I keep forgetting you didn't grow up in the Colonies."
"Is your dad a nice-looking man?"
"Very. I've got a picture of him and my little brother in my pack. I'll show you later."
"I heard what Leoben said to you about a Three having something special planned for him. Some of the skinjobs take humans to a building in the city so they can….maybe I shouldn't say anything since we don't know yet."
"Maybe you should say it. So they can what?"
"Use them." Hunter looked away from her.
"Use them how? Experiment on them?"
"Use them as breeders. The Cylons are trying to have babies."
"Oh, frak no! My dad…no! He wouldn't do that. Not with a Cylon."
"He wouldn't have any say in the matter. It's a hell of a lot better than being at their prison. According to a source they treat their breeders nice."
"How do we find out?"
"We have a contact in the city. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Tonight we eat and talk to my grandfather and you get a good night's sleep in a bed. We'll talk about it again tomorrow."
"Would your contact be able to get a message to my dad?"
"Maybe. I just don't want to promise you something we might not be able to do."
"I don't guess it's as easy as picking up a phone."
"Nothing we do is easy…or quick."
As they walked back to Emmalyn's, Kara tried to imagine her father with D'Anna Biers. She knew how much he loved Laura. There was just no frakking way.
…
Lee had gotten no farther than the first page of Kara's journal when he glanced up and saw a ship's technician come into the dining hall and look around. He spotted Lee and made his way to the booth.
"Lieutenant Lee Adama?"
"That's right."
He handed Lee a folded piece of paper. "Communication for you, sir."
Lee took the paper. His name was scribbled on the outside. "Thank you."
As the young technician walked away, Lee unfolded the document and glanced at the bottom. It was from Major Parker who had written:
Need a second opinion. Study photos from first mission starting at hour 0 minute 53 to minute 56. Second mission, hour 0, minute 18 to minute 19. Third mission, hour 0, minute 5 to minute 8. View long range first then close-up. Let me know what you think. B. Parker.
Lee felt a spark of excitement ignite in him. Parker had obviously found something, but he didn't want to prejudice Lee by telling him what. Lee exited Kara's journal and brought up the digital footage from his mission. The special cameras that had been mounted in the Raider's missile wells took a frame per second and time-stamped every frame with the hour, minute and second starting as soon as the cameras were turned on.
The first mission was the one he had flown over Nereid back in the early autumn while Kara had been on the Galactica. All they had known about the planet at the time was what John had been able to glean from Irina Hoshi's journal.
He fast-forwarded through the images of the vast snowfield and the southern mountains. At minute 52 he stopped and began viewing the long-range footage frame by frame, clicking through image after image of what looked like a barren, rocky plain. Then the trees started. At minute 57 he still hadn't seen anything unusual. He went back to minute 53 and started over. The plain and then image after image of treetops, nothing but treetops, and then at minute 54, second 48, something slightly different. Lee stopped and studied it. On the image, a tiny line wound into the trees from a small clearing. On the far side of the clearing was the edge of more trees that looked different from all the ones he had viewed before. The treetops were smaller and lighter in color, but that wasn't what made the image so unusual. There were only a few trees showing in each row, but those rows were far too straight to have occurred naturally. Lee felt the spark of excitement grow. He was looking at the edge of some kind of orchard. The thin dark line leading across the clearing and into the forest could be a road.
He brought up the corresponding image from the close-up camera. It encompassed a much narrower range. The dark line was barely visible on the edge of the image, but Lee was now certain that it was a road, a rutted, dirt road. Ruts meant some type of wheeled vehicle. The dark dots in the trees were now much clearer. He jotted a note for Major Parker. Apple orchard?
He moved on to the second set of images that Kara had taken on her first mission. At 17 minutes he started viewing each individual image. At 18 minutes 33 seconds he found another anomaly. He saw a large clearing in the forest dotted with tree stumps. He went to the close-ups. The tops of the stumps looked flat, like they had been cut with some type of saw. Also there were no tree trunks in evidence anywhere. They had been hauled away. He jotted more notes for Parker. Can we get an estimate of how large the clearing is? Who wanted these trees and why? Lumber? Fuel? Housing material? The prison is concrete or something like it. What would the Cylons build with wood? Houses for humans because wood is so readily available?
The excitement was growing steadily in Lee's gut. Maybe they didn't have images of humans, but they might have evidence of humans on the planet and better yet, rough locations for them. He moved on to the last set of images photographed on Kara's second mission. She had jumped into the atmosphere northwest of the city and much closer to the basestar shipyard. She had spent four minutes over the shipyard and had then turned north. At 5 minutes 49 seconds she had passed over some rolling hills that had several clusters of dark dots. Then there was a patchwork of green and ochre before she had to climb steeply as mountains rose in front of her. Again Lee went to the close-ups. The dark dots were a herd of some kind of animal. Deer? Elk? Cattle? Wild or domestic? There had to be a zoologist on the Penelope.
The next images showed patchwork green and ochre areas that could be more pasture. And then at the corner of one of the green areas was another rutted road with something on it. Lee tried enlarging the image, but the pixel count wasn't high enough to get any better resolution. He put it back to its original size and tried squinting his eyes at it. It was roughly T-shaped with the end of the T pointing up the rutted road. The top of the T was identical in width to the ruts.
Lee almost laughed at himself. He had been thinking like the city guy that he was. This was no city vehicle. He was looking at a farm tractor. He jotted the final note to send to Major Parker. Farm tractor? Sharon mentioned that more had been taken from the nuked colonies than humans. Farm equipment had been high on the Cylon shopping list.
Lee was so enthusiastic by now that he started over with the entire three missions frame by frame just like Parker must have done. He was so engrossed in the images that he wasn't aware Kendra had walked up until she spoke.
"I guess you were going to let me sleep through lunch."
Lee looked at his watch. Over three hours had passed. "Sorry. I got involved in something."
She looked over his shoulder. "Whatever. Let's eat. Then it should be about time to head up to the bridge."
Reluctantly Lee shut down the laptop. He stuffed the notepad and computer in the case and followed Kendra to the buffet table. Back at the booth he told her about meeting Dr. Briggs.
Kendra smiled. "There's hope for you yet."
"Do you by any chance have a list of the scientists on this mission and their specialties? I'm looking for a botanist and a zoologist."
"Does this have something to do with pictures on your laptop?"
"Yes."
"I have the roster. I'm just not sure I'm supposed to have it. I didn't get it through official channels."
"I don't care how you got it. I don't even want to know. I just want the list."
"After we see what Picon looks like, I'll get it for you."
Lee smiled and nodded. They finished their lunch and walked to the bridge. Lee asked permission to enter and it was granted. Pontos was consulting with one of his deck officers. Lee and Kendra waited quietly until he finished and then he motioned them over. A large computer screen showed the distant planet.
Pontos said, "We're going to enter a very high orbit per Commander Cain's order even though preliminary scans indicate no debris over the planet."
"None?" Lee asked shocked.
"Commander Cain said her recon Raptor didn't find any, which means it was cleaned up by the Cylons or it was in a low orbit which degraded until it entered the atmosphere. It either burned up on re-entry or it's somewhere on the planet's surface or on the bottom of an ocean."
"What do we do next?" Kendra asked.
Pontos answered. "The Galactica beat us here by nearly half an hour. Commander Cain has already dispatched some unmanned drones to photograph the surface and several more to test the radiation levels. She wants both of you on the ship with her when she makes her decision about whether these scientists will be allowed to visit the surface of the planet. You'll bring her decision back to Dr. Nylund."
"How do we get to the G?" Lee asked.
"The commander is sending a Raptor to pick you up. You'll get to bring it back with you. The Raptor is already on approach. By the time you get to the aft landing bay, it should be here."
Lee and Kendra went to their quarters. Lee stowed the laptop and picked up the leather zipped binder that held an array of pens and several notepads. He wanted to make sure he wrote down everything Cain told him so he could report it accurately to Dr. Nylund. When he met Kendra in the hall, he saw that she had the same idea. A zipped binder was also tucked under her arm.
"Lead on," Kendra said, "since you're the one who has already deciphered the layout of this maze that passes for a ship. It took me twenty minutes to find the cafeteria again."
"We usually call them mess halls or dining halls on a ship."
He got another eye roll.
"Look, Kendra, I know you're nervous about what Cain is going to decide. I am, too. If she says we don't visit the surface, we're the ones who have to face Nylund with her decision. We'd better have every single reason in order if she says no go to a surface mission."
"I agree."
They threaded their way through the ship, descending a final set of steps and arriving on the small hangar deck just as the Raptor was being raised on the elevator.
The crew chief looked over at them. "You the ones this bird has come for?"
"That would be us," Lee answered.
The Raptor's door began its slow ascent. The pilot got off to sign the prerequisite paperwork. Lee stopped short when he saw her.
Maggie Edmondson began pulling off her gloves as she descended the ramp. Her smile was cool. "Small galaxy, isn't it, Lee?"
TBC…