The first anti-Cylon virus was close to done. At least he thought it was. Gaeta looked at the lines of code until they started to blur together into a weird floating smudge that resembled a Cylon raider slowly turning for a kill. He watched in amusement as the Cylon raider flipped and went after the trailing Vipers that suddenly appeared in the green lines of code.

" What the hell is this?" Gaeta jumped visibly in his chair as Colonel Tigh put a hand on his shoulders. Tigh pointed at the streaming lines. It was just the code, Gaeta realized, the colonel was curious about the work he was doing. Not the space battle he had just hallucinated on the computer screen.

" Mr. Gaeta?" Tigh's voice rolled with impatience.

" It's just… the special project… that I've been working on," he stammered. I did not just hallucinate, he told himself. Still, he felt a cold wave wash over his body, and he quickly pressed his hands down on the console to make sure that they didn't shake in front of the colonel. He took a deep breath.

" What special project?" Tigh growled.

" To create a virus that we can send to the Cylons when they attack to immobilize their forces…" He hoped he didn't sound as rattled as he felt. The last few days had been a blur of interrogations, hours upon hours spent in the CIC and even more hours of math and programming. That hadn't left much time for sleep or food but he hadn't noticed until the colonel had spoken.

Dualla was staring at him with concern. He didn't like that, not at all. Dualla had enough to worry about. Of course, it wasn't like he didn't have enough problems of his own. Trying to explain anything to Colonel Tigh was chancy when he was at the top of his game, and he wasn't even close to being at the top of his game.

He wasn't even sure what game was being played.

"Hmm," Tigh muttered, as if he knew what even one line of the code scrolling before him meant. " Will it work?"

And that was the question wasn't it? " I don't know, sir," he said softly. It wouldn't go over well at all with Tigh, who wanted black and white answers to all of his questions, but Gaeta wasn't at the point where he could lie. " It's a first attempt. It's not likely to work on the first try. I just…. I just don't know enough."

Tigh squeezed his shoulder in a comradely way. " Well, hopefully we'll get a chance to try it out soon, Lt. Gaeta." Gaeta wasn't sure what hurt more, the fact that Tigh actually trusted him, or the fact that he was pretty certain that the first attempt would fail entirely due to his own misgivings. He had no idea if his very first attempt at a virus to defeat the Cylons would work. It would be a miracle if it did, and it had been a long time since Felix Gaeta had believed in miracles.

The first attempt would fail, anyone who understood mathematical probabilities understood that. The problem was that Colonel Tigh was unlikely to understand arithmetic let alone complex mathematical probabilities. On the one hand he liked pleasing Colonel Tigh, but on the other hand he knew that Colonel Tigh had no idea why his ideas and programs worked. The first attempt would fail, and Tigh would get angry and he didn't know how to stop that from happening since Saul Tigh was a math moron. It was like his worst nightmare, trying to explain mathematical probabilities to a nitwit jock who would never really understand the situation.

"It's not likely to work the first time, sir," he tried to explain. " The reality is that the Cylons should be expecting us to try something like this, and they will be expecting something like this." He hoped that he would be able to monitor the response. That would tell him if he was close or if he was totally off the mark. If he was totally off the mark, then Sharon was feeding him a lot of bad info on how the Cylon mind worked. Which was important to know, but he didn't want anyone to die to make that fact apparent to him.

"Hmm where are the midwatch reports?" Tigh asked.

Gaeta blanched. " The midwatch reports?" He had forgotten those, hadn't he? Forgotten them or just not cared since he was busy. He glanced at the clock, and sure enough it was the middle of the watch and he had nothing to give the colonel.

"The midwatch reports are with Lt. Alghee." Dualla said helpfully. She pointed to Alghee, who was hard to miss since he was just inside the fleet's maximum height requirement. Alghee trotted over, the reports dwarfed by his hands.

" I was delegated to do the midwatch reports, sir."Alghee intoned deeply. " By Lt. Gaeta. Here you go!" Tigh took the reports, giving both Gaeta and Alghee a dark look, and stalked away. Alghee smiled and gave him a thumbs up gesture before going back to his usual station.

He waited until Tigh was well out of earshot to whisper to Dualla, " Did I really give those reports to Alghee to do?" He didn't remember doing anything of the sort. Then again, he couldn't quite remember how he'd gotten to the CIC for his shift. It was possible that he hadn't left. He suddenly realized that his whole body ached from having sat in the same position for what must've been hours. His feet were numb. He was thirsty beyond belief and his head was pounding.

" You did." Dualla said suddenly.

" I did what?" Gaeta dropped his hands to his lap, because pressing down hard on the console wasn't stopping the shaking.

Dualla looked at him oddly. " You did order Lt. Alghee to cover the midwatch reports. You told him you were busy. Actually, you told all of us to leave you alone, that you were working on something." She looked at the code that was still scrolling on the screen. " Is this it? The anti-Cylon virus program?"

" I… yes… it's done." He took another deep breath.

" You don't look good, sir," Dualla said softly, " Like you aren't sleeping. You aren't using stims, are you?"

" Stims? No…" Stims were forbidden to CIC officers unless expressly ordered by the commander. Besides, he didn't like stims. They made him feel nervous and oddly numb, and like he couldn't close his eyes without worrying that something was going to leap onto him.

Of course, that was exactly how he felt at the moment. But he hadn't been taking stims. He was pretty certain about that. There hadn't been any time in the last few days to sleep, let alone track down a source for pills. " I'm all right," he said finally, knowing that he had to say something. " I'm just tired. I'm just going to go right to bed after this shift."

" That's a good idea, sir." Dualla went back to her station, but he could tell that she was watching him. It made him nervous.

Even the screens made him nervous lately. He watched as the Dradis scan went back and forth. It was hypnotic… like a Cylon's red eye going back and forth. It was almost soothing. Except for the sudden blotches at the top of the screen. He blinked. " Dradis contact! Two Cylon Raiders!"

"Put the fleet on alert!" Tigh shouted. The CIC began to hum with earnest activity. Commander Adama appeared out of nowhere and began barking orders. Gaeta knew the drill. He sent the call for actions stations out, alerted the CAP, and had the ready fighters in the tubes even as Adama gave the orders. Two raiders was scary, but it wasn't likely to result in the death of everyone in the fleet. He hoped anyway.

" The ready fighters are away, sir," Dualla said. " They should make contact in two minutes." Gaeta watched the fighters move on the screen. It really looked like fighters this time, not a hazy coded vision. It was better.

"Mr. Gaeta!" He jumped at the sound of the Commander's voice. He turned to see Adama staring at him, not quite a glare, but not exactly a friendly look either.

" Sir?"

"We're engaging the enemy. It would be nice if you paid attention." Adama's eyes were like glittering dark coals. " Col. Tigh says that you have a prototype virus ready?"

It wasn't ready, he knew he hadn't said it was ready. Tigh was half frowning, half smirking at him, and Gaeta suddenly realized that it wasn't just Tigh and Adama who were staring, it was everyone there. They wanted it to work.

And he had no idea if it would. " It's a prototype… it may not work."

Adama waved off his concern. " Two raiders… if it doesn't work, the fleet isn't at a huge risk. Get it ready, Mr. Gaeta."

" It is ready. We just have to transmit it. On your mark, sir." Gaeta put his hand to the console, and tried to ignore the bile rising in his throat.

" Get the ready fighters on wireless," Adama said quickly. " Starbuck, have you got visual?"

" Got it sir, two raiders." Kara's voice skipped across the CIC.

" I want the Raptor making full scans, we're going to try something. Do not engage until we transmit." Adama looked over to Gaeta. " Transmit the virus."

Gaeta hit the transmit button and held his breath. The silence in the room seemed to deafen him. Please don't get anyone killed, he told himself.

" Galactica, raiders are behaving erratically." Kara's voice rose with excitement. " They're all over the place…. Wait…. No, they seem to be getting back under control. Whatever you did, it didn't work for long. They're still twitching a little but coming at us. Permission to engage?"

"Granted."

In a matter of seconds the raiders were destroyed and the next order of business, jumping to the escape coordinates was underway. Gaeta went through the motions but he couldn't shake the intensely cold chill that had centered on him when he had transmitted the code to the Cylon raiders. He jumped as he felt another hand touch his shoulder. It was the commander. " Sir?"

" Keep working on it. It looks like you're pretty close, but even a few moments of interruption might save us. Good work." Adama was clearly pleased.

"But it didn't work," Gaeta said nervously. " They were able to defeat it." He didn't know why the commander was so pleased. His virus had, as near as he could tell, been defeated by the Cylon defenses in under thirty seconds.

Adama eyed him carefully. " Are you on stims, Lieutenant?" That was said quietly, so that no one else could hear. There was no accusation in the commander's voice, just concern.

" No, I just… I haven't been able to sleep." Because I might be a Cylon spy, he almost blurted. He hoped he hadn't said it out loud, but judging by the commander's concerned look, he hadn't. That was good. Because he wasn't sure, not yet.

And maybe he just needed some sleep. It had been a while.

Adama looked him over. " You're relieved of duty for the next twenty four hours, Lt. Gaeta. I expect you to see Dr. Cottle immediately. He'll decide whether you need a longer medical leave." More quietly he said, " You're no good to anyone if you drop from exhaustion. Dismissed."

Gaeta nodded and quickly left. Orders were orders, but he doubted that the commander would mind that he stopped at the lavatory to throw up before reporting to Dr. Cottle.