thanks for the reviews I've gotten so far. I'll try to keep posting the rest of the chapters every day or two.

Once bound in handcuffs (which everyone knew wouldn't actually hold the girls if they wanted to escape), everyone loaded back into the Raptor and headed for Galactica. The marines got the job of tossing them into a holding cell in the brig while Kara and Lee headed for Adama's office.

"Do we know what their capabilities are?" the Commander asked the pair.

"No one's gotten a demonstration, yet," Lee replied. "They've been cooperative."

"If they really are human/Cylon half-breeds, I want to know exactly how different and how similar they are to us. We need to be able to detect them, as well, amid the fleet."

"I doubt it's possible there are any others in the fleet," Kara replied. "They would have had to have made it off the colonies somehow and joined us after the attack."

"Never say never," was all Adama replied.

The buzz was all over the ship pretty fast. "I heard the Cylon detector doesn't even work on them," a Viper pilot called Stinger commented the next evening as he, Racetrack, Kat, and Hotdog played cards in the mess hall.

"There's gotta be some way to tell them apart," Hotdog replied. "I mean, one of them went from a toddler to a kid in a day. That's not natural."

"Call," Racetrack piped up.

"I guess that'll be the end of missions to the colonies," Kat added. "Every time someone lands there, more toasters come back with them."

"At least this time, they're only some random kids," Stinger replied. "Not one of our own frakking officers."

"You ever wonder whose kids they are?" Hotdog asked. "I mean, the fact that they're half-breeds means some human took part in making them."

"Someone told me they said they had human mothers," Racetrack supplied. "Instead of a Cylon bitch, they take one of us, surgically knock her up, and the process of creating the next generation of toasters kills her."

"You're lying," Stinger accused. She shook her head.

"Ask Starbuck. She was in one of their special little hellholes. Farms, I think she called them."

"They tried knocking her up with a Cylon?" Kat asked. Racetrack shrugged.

"That's information that no one seems to be able to get."

Kara wasn't sure what drove her to finally make a visit to the brig. Erin and Lachel both looked up when she came in the door, and while the former got up and approached the bars, the latter didn't make a move from her seat on the floor in a corner.

"I told you she would come," Erin mockingly told her 'sister.' "She made a promise."

"Don't expect me to make a habit of this," Kara shot back. "I just…What was your purpose?"

"We are the first, but we won't be the last." Kara looked over to Lachel. While Erin was standing her ground, confident, the 'younger' of the two was intently focused on the floor.

"You talk?" Kara asked her. Lachel looked up.

"Yes," her little voice replied, but a sharp look from Erin made her bow her head once more.

"I see," Kara commented. "You've got all the answers, she just looks cute." She didn't like the smile she received. "Then again, I guess I can't blame you for being mad at her; she did kinda blow your cover, huh?"

"You returned to Caprica earlier than expected. The…determination of the resistance force almost ruined our plan." Kara frowned.

"They knew? They knew you were the reason behind the attack?"

"It was that fortunate none of them lived long enough to warn you."

"They were all killed so that you could be planted?"

"They had to be," she easily replied. "We knew you would return for us, Kara."

"I did not come back for you. We came to help the resistance and take back survivors of your genocide." Erin just smiled, a little hand snaking between the bars outreached toward the pilot. Kara stepped back, but the child didn't even flinch.

"Even if you can't admit it, we were your reason for coming back. You returned because of what was taken from you." A finger extended, pointing towards her stomach. Kara swore she felt a tiny spark of pain from her scar, the one whose origins she refused to admit to herself. "You returned for what was taken from you." They held each other's gaze for a long moment. Dread washed over.

Kara finally turned and quickly walked out the door. She barely noticed the guard in the hallway or the other people that she passed as she made her way at a near-run to the closest bathroom. Inside, she emptied the contents of her stomach and sank to the floor, shaking.

"I'm not exactly sure I understand what you're asking…"

The last place in the universe that Kara wanted to be was Gaius Baltar's office, and the very last thing she wanted to be doing was making the request that she was currently making.

"I want you to compare my DNA to that of Erin and Lachel's," she repeated.

"Uh-huh…May I ask why?" She shot him a look. "Right. I should probably inform Commander Adama – "

"No," Kara cut him off. "No, no one knows about this. That clear?"

Baltar smiled. "Crystal." Kara turned and left. "I suppose that would most especially go for Captain Adama," he muttered to himself.

"Why do you even bother, Gaius?" Six asked him. He pretended not to have heard.

"I suppose you know what this is all about?" he stated. She smiled.

"I'm on the edge of my seat."

"Mmm, I'm sure. This test will come out positive, won't it? She…" And then it hit him. "They're genetically her children." Six's grin grew.

"Give the doctor a prize."

TBC...