Thirteen

Chapter Ninety

The Wall Comes Tumbling Down

Starbuck was still rattled by what she had seen in the medical center. Sure, she had been expecting to see the humans hooked up to the breeding machines, so that wasn't a shock. It still broke her heart, yes, but it didn't blow her away. It was what she and the rest of her team, which included Boomer and Helo, had found when they got to the basement of the facility.

"It's you, alright, or a clone of you!" Boomer said, shocked herself at seeing the Starbuck clones.

Not all of them were the same. Some were taller, while some were shorter. Roughly half had blond hair of some kind on them, while others had varying shades of brunette and red hair. The facial features, however, were classic Starbuck.

"What do we do with them?" Helo asked.

Starbuck was too stunned to decide, unable to avert her eyes as to what her eggs had become. They had secured the area around the facility, as well as a path from there back to base camp. If they chose to move them, they had the ability to do so. The question was if she wanted to do that.

Part of Starbuck wanted to destroy them, because they had been made without her permission. The greater part of her, what some would call her 'motherly' side, wanted her to remove them from this place and take them somewhere safe. Regardless of who created them, they were a chip off of her block, and she didn't know if she could look at herself in the mirror if she got rid of them.

She could tell from the look in Boomer's eyes what she wanted her to do. That look helped make up her mind, in a way. Once, she had hated the Boomer model that she and Helo had encountered on Caprica eight years before. Now, though, they had become even closer friends than the old Boomer had been with Starbuck before she found out who she really was.

"Call base camp and have them move up some transports. Get these clones out of here and move them up to the Neroon. Have a transport meet them ASAP and have them sent to Minbar for further study." Starbuck told Helo. Helo nodded and went to make the arrangements, but Boomer stayed behind with Starbuck.

"Thank you." Boomer said uneasily to Starbuck.

"I couldn't bring myself to kill them. Years ago, maybe I would have. Then again, they look a lot like me."

Boomer put her hand on Starbuck's shoulder. "We thought we knew what we were doing. We thought that we were just following the will of God. All the time, we were just following the will of a bunch of machines."

"It's not your fault, Boomer. You were their creation, just as they were ours. It's out own damned faults. What was it that Adama said in that speech he gave at the decommissioning ceremony before all hell broke loose?"

Boomer remembered the speech exactly. " 'You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done.

'Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore.'

"I remember those words very well. If your asking how I remember them, it's because part of the memory got transferred into me somewhere along the way. For the last eight years, that's stuck in my mind. It resonated inside of me and made me realize that, despite all that had been done, none of it was worthy of being exterminated."

Starbuck looked at her and mused, "When we do beat the Cylons, what do we do then? What happens to your kind? Will my people come back here and repopulate these worlds?"

Boomer replied, "I don't have the answers, Kara. I wish I did, but I don't. That's up to the Quorum when the time comes."

"I don't want to come back here." Starbuck said. "If I had my way, I would give these worlds to you and let your kind create something new here. Besides, how can fifty thousand people repopulate twelve worlds?"

"Even after all that we've helped the Cylons do to you? You'd be willing to abandon these worlds to us?"

Starbuck nodded, then said, "Don't expect the folks back on Kobol to all feel the same way, though." She walked over to one of the clones inside the liquid-filled tube and stared at it for a long while. "Then again, with the radiation levels the way they are now, it would be a long time before we could come back here anyway."

Helo walked back into the room and said, "They'll be here to pick them up in a few hours, Starbuck. While I was out, I for a report that we've pretty much driven the Centurions out of Delphi City. There are a few holdouts, but they're cornered in a middle school on the edge of the city."

"Where are those others headed to? Caprica City?" Boomer asked.

"That's the direction they told me they were headed in. The other forces we sent out to subdue the smaller cities report the same thing. Heavy raiders have evacuated them and took off for the spaceport there." Helo answered.

Starbuck walked over to where her pack was and picked it up along with her rifle, saying, "C'mon, let's go. We've still got work to do!" She walked out without looking behind her to see if the other two followed her out.

Helo looked over at the tubes with the clones in them, then looked at Boomer, saying, "I'm glad she's not destroying them."

"Me too." Boomer said with a smile, then picked up her stuff and left the room. Helo did likewise and followed her out.

Before the sun set that day, the last Centurion holdout inside of Delphi City fell. They soon found out why they held onto it as hard as they did, because they found out even more clones inside. "Search the school campuses around this area, as well as the other hospitals in the city. We might find more clones and possibly more humans hooked up to the breeding machines. Take necessary precautions, because the enemy might have booby traps waiting for us." Starbuck said to the commanders of the reserve units coming in to hold the city while her forces prepared to move out to Caprica City.

Once she was done with briefing, she headed back to her billet in a posh Delphi luxury hotel on the edge of the city. While the windows were smashed and the sheets were rather musty, at least there was power and the water was running, thanks to the utilities they had brought with them. So, for the first time in a long while, Starbuck enjoyed a hot, luxurious bath in her room that night. It would have been nice if her lover Samuel Anders were here, but he was with the troops marching up to Caprica City from another direction and could not get away.

She cleared off the bed sheets, flipped the mattress over, and climbed onto the bed to get some sleep. For a brief moment, she had thought of sleeping in the nude, which would have helped keep her cooler in the muggy summer night. She thought better of it, though, as she might be needed at a moment's notice and it would waste critical moments putting on her uniform.

Despite having put on the same sweaty clothes that she'd been wearing for almost two weeks now, she felt better the next morning, and felt all the more refreshed with a quick shower after waking up. They had a little time before moving out to rest and recover from the long battle to take Delphi City, and she made the most of it.

The main reason she chose this hotel wasn't for the luxurious accommodations, but for the conference rooms, which became briefing rooms for the planned assault on Caprica City. The Colonial Ballrooms were the main billet areas for the troops who couldn't fit into the regular rooms, while the meeting rooms on the mezzanine were devoted to briefing rooms and the main planning room, which was located in the Cimtar Room.

Whitestars flew into the smaller spaceport in Delphi City, as the main headquarters for the assault was moved to the city. The clones of Starbuck were on their way to Minbar, which relieved Starbuck to no end. She didn't need the distraction of having to deal with them while planning the final assault on the capital. With them on their way to someplace safe, she could concentrate on the business at hand.

Reports coming from the other main stronghold were encouraging, as Apollo and his forces had landed on Aerelon City. Despite meeting very heavy resistance, they had managed to secure a landing site to start bringing together the resources for the invasion of the world. He had said in his last message that his forces would be ready to move out within a week. Starbuck wasn't optimistic by nature, but she began to feel like that victory was now inevitability and no longer a pipe dream.