== Part 48 – Who We Are ==
The first conference session had been spent doing little more than catching up Admiral Adama and Sharon on filling in the holes in the information on the Inner Sphere that Osterheim had given them and catching them up on what the Cylons had been doing since they had left the Colonies. Of course, the information the Colonials were given stayed mostly to generalities, certainly didn't include anything the other parties would consider classified, and neither Colonial officer was so naive as to believe the information they were being given wasn't biased.
The story of the battle of Langhorne and how a handful of fighters and assault dropships had nearly killed a single, unupgraded basestar was a hair raising moment to the Colonials. They'd seen enough by now to know that such a thing could have happened to one of their battlestars. In fact, it nearly had to the Vesta.
There was some discussion about the Colonies, and Eve Steiner had proven scarily capable of divining meaning from what little information the Cylons had dropped over the years and even the smallest clues the Admiral gave when answering questions. Where the Duchess was off base, it usually wasn't by much.
Two hours in, the conference broke up for a half hour restroom and refreshment break. That basically turned into a hobnobbing session. It seemed the Precentor and Duchess were the only Thirteenth Tribe humans who spoke Caprican, so they monopolized the Admiral's time leaving the English speaking Sharon to field conversational gambits from their respective staffs. The resulting conversations reminded Sharon of all too many ones that she'd had with political operators back in the Colonies. It seemed some things were just universal to humanity.
To the Colonials' surprise, men and women using the same public rest rooms wasn't one of them.
Sharon sensed it before she saw it. Sharon couldn't not sense it given that she had still been passively listening to Cylon net chatter and had so far hadn't unintentionally blurted out something onto it like her previous attempts to just passively listen. Sharon turned around to find Zero standing right behind her, staring down to her. To a human, that might have been startling and intimidating, but a human wouldn't have been able to sense the Centurion radiating concern and uncertainty.
The other Cylons were scattered elsewhere in the room talking to other people. But their occasional glances over in Zero's and Sharon's direction betrayed that they were paying attention.
"Can I help you?" Sharon asked politely, hoping she didn't sound nearly as hostile as she felt. For that matter, she hoped she wasn't radiating what she felt either.
"You have not responded to any requests for dialogue from your brothers and sisters," Zero said in Caprican. Ah, Sharon thought, it wanted to keep this conversation private as possible in a room full of humans. "Is something wrong?"
"Wrong? Nooo, nothing's wrong," Sharon replied in a tone as convincing as a Centurion attempting to convince everyone it was normal human being while wearing nothing more than a paper face mask. "I just have nothing to say to them. Or you."
The conversation between Admiral Adama, Duchess Eve, and Precentor Hwing stopped as they all turned to look at Sharon.
"We have become concerned about you," Zero continued, seemingly unable to take a hint. "Have the Colonials done something to you?"
The other Cylons around the room all suddenly acted various combinations of startled and embarrassed. A quick flurry of silent conversation between them resulted in Circle starting to make her way through the crowd towards them.
"Nah, the Colonials have been great!" Sharon told Zero brightly. "I fell in love with a great guy and had a couple of great kids with him. Everyone totally didn't mind when they found out I was a Cylon. They certainly didn't threaten to kill everyone I know and love with a cryptic message that didn't actually tell us what was and wasn't acceptable behavior!"
"I..." Zero began, seeming to fidget and look around awkwardly as it became aware of the emotional landmine it had stepped on as Sharon glared in full ire at it. But Sharon didn't let the Centurion even start.
"Oh, and they certainly didn't fill my head with fond memories of people I never knew," Sharon continued heatedly, "people that I grieved over when I heard that they and a few thousand of their neighbors had died. And they didn't kill all those innocent people just to make sure no one would know that I wasn't the real Sharon Valerii!"
"Commander, enough," Admiral Adama told Sharon from behind. Sharon shut up, but continued to glare at Zero.
"But," Zero said, radiating confusion, "you planned your own insertion."
A memory bubbled up, coming not from the Cylon network, but from somewhere deep inside Sharon herself.
"Her name is Sharon Valerii. She's a resident of a remote settlement named Troy."
"We go in, switch her out with one of us, and then blow Troy to eliminate anyone who can identify the real Sharon."
"I'll be the sleeper. That way, if anything goes wrong, there's going to be no one to blame but myself."
Sharon suddenly felt her whole world crumble around her.
Every Cylon watching through the eyes and ears of their representatives at that moment... reacted.
"I don't understand. Did we harm her?" a Point asked.
"I'd totally have the same reaction if that happened to my family," a Triangle emphasized.
"Aw, she looks so sad," an Iota said, not really understanding the source of that sadness. "I feel bad for her now."
"Meh, she chose her side," a One said dismissively.
"Can someone explain to me why she just blew up at Zero?" an Ampersand asked.
"I feel like we owe her something," a Red thought aloud. "But I'm not sure what it is."
"How is this our problem again?" a Square asked.
"The fair maiden is in distress!" a Gamma cried. "We must aid her... somehow."
"Her mission log says they didn't have time to verify that her Cylon memories had been properly preserved and separated from the human ones," a Four noted. "It's too late to fix it now. They'll be hopelessly intermixed."
The reactions ranged from confusion to sympathy to indifference and points in between. Sharon Tyrol would be a popular topic of discussion for the Cylon race over the next few weeks.
"Command Tyrol... Sharon, are you all right?" Lee Adama asked. After Sharon's blow up, Lee managed to secure one of the smaller conference rooms from Precentor Hwing for a private chat with his flag Commander.
"No, sir, I'm not all right," Sharon said miserably. "I'm a total liability to the mission. Brig me, strip me of my command, court martial me, and execute me. Wait, not that last one. Get me out of range of their resurrection net and then execute me."
"Sharon, stop it," Lee told her. "You're over reacting."
"Sir, I'm not over reacting," Sharon told him, near to tears. "I'm a mass murderer! Remember what I told you about Troy? That was me! That was all on me! I killed my entire family and all my childhood friends except they weren't my family and friends."
"Sharon, we've been over this," Lee said. "You're not that person any more. You're Sharon Tyrol. The Cylon you were is gone."
"But she's not gone," Sharon disagreed. She pointed at her own head. "I can feel them now, the Cylon memories. They're coming back to me, and I hate it! God, I hate myself!"
Lee blinked in surprise. In all the time he had known Sharon, she had been a polytheist like most Colonials. Even after she had told him that she was a Cylon, she had continued to be a polytheist if only by swearing to the gods. But now she had just unthinkingly sworn to a singular deity.
"Sharon, listen to me very carefully," Lee said slowly. He gripped her shoulders and stared her right in the eyes. "You have a husband and two children. Do you still love them?"
"Yes," Sharon sniffed. "With all my heart."
"Will you do anything to keep your family safe?" Lee asked.
"Yes, sir," Sharon answered, her voice firmer.
"Good. Then pull yourself together," Lee ordered, releasing her shoulders. "For their sake if not your own. They need you at your best and so do I. Now come on. We have to go save the Colonies."
Sharon drew herself to attention.
"You can count on me, sir," Sharon told him. "And... thank you."