World Turned Upside Down
Author: SabaceanBabe
Rating: PG
Word count: 3,181
Spoilers: through s2, Resistance
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to lots of people, but none of them are me. Not making a profit – please don't sue.
Author's note: Written for the Lee is a Cylon challenge at and to make Noneofyourbusiness stop poking me. ;) No betas were harmed in the writing of this fic. And yes, unfortunately, there is a "to be continued" at the end, 'cause dammit, the muses won't shut up and now I think this is going to turn into a serialized monster, like my Farscape fic, Left Behind (started out as a 300-word one-shot and ended at 57,000 words and 21 chapters).
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Kara killed the engine and reached across Helo to the glove box, rummaged around for a bit before she pulled out a map.
"Why're we stopping?" Helo asked. They had been on the road for several hours, making their way out of Delphi, but this was barely a wide spot in the road. To one side was a tall chain-link fence and above-ground plumbing, metal barrels and stacks of wood pallets; he thought it might have been a water treatment facility, maybe some kind of back woods repair shop, something, back before the end of the worlds.
Kara rammed her shoulder into the door to open it and then circled around to the front of the truck, unfolding her map as she went. Helo's door opened more easily and he joined her. "We've gotta figure out where the hell we are," she said as she laid the semi-stiff paper flat across the hood.
"Why? You don't know?" It had been so long since he'd been able to give her grief that he seized the opportunity. "Are you telling me we're lost?"
"You're the navigator…" she shot back.
"You were driving."
Tracing their path with one finger, Kara turned to Helo as he leaned in beside her. "All right. We can head toward Gupps' Point. There's an emergency airstrip there."
Gupps' Point, where he and Sharon had gone to steal a ship to get off Caprica. An emergency airstrip controlled by the Cylons. Helo shook his head to rid himself of the image of Sharon – a copy of Sharon – lying dead on the ground at that airstrip, shot in the heart by his Sharon. "No, I've been." He wondered if she had ever really intended to help him off this rock. His arm brushed Kara's as he reached to trace an alternate path. "I was thinking we could head southwest…"
A twig snapped nearby and Kara's eyes met Helo's. "Did you hear that?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
His nod was just as faint as they moved as naturally as possible to the driver's side of the transport, opposite the sound that shouldn't have been, leaving the map spread out on the hood. Kara's door still hung open and she leaned inside, handed Helo weapons and ammunition while he surveyed the surrounding trees for any stray movement.
"Drive through a lot of bad neighborhoods?" The quality and quantity of the guns – assault weapons, all – surprised him.
She gave him a wolfish grin as she pulled out, a gun in each hand. "Better safe than sorry."
He returned the grin, looking forward to the fight. "I hear that." He slung the ammo belt she had handed him over his left shoulder, left his military-issue sidearm holstered in favor of Kara's superior weaponry.
They didn't have long to wait for confirmation that the intruder walked on two legs. A rifle shot hit the windshield and shattered it, quickly followed by a hail of gunfire from multiple points. Kara and Helo dropped down and tucked in close to the truck, their only immediate source of cover. Several shots struck the vehicle with metallic pings.
"We're sitting ducks out here!" Kara shouted, flinching involuntarily as sparks and minuscule bits of metal torn from the body of her truck struck her face and hands.
Behind her, one hand on her shoulder, Helo agreed with her assessment. "You go, I'll cover."
"Why me?" She sounded outraged.
"Don't start." Another shot zinged over their heads, a little too close for comfort.
"Fine."
"Ready?"
"Yeah."
A quick look around and a deep breath, then he slapped her on the shoulder, ordered, "Go!" He stood, still using the body of the truck for cover, and began to fire in a spray pattern toward where the majority of the gunshots seemed to originate. Kara scrambled toward the fence and the plumbing that flanked it and took cover behind the pipes. Helo ducked back behind the truck. "Five of 'em, spread out between nine and one. Fifty meters."
"Ready?" Helo nodded; he was as ready as he'd ever be. Kara seated her weapons more firmly in each hand and stood. "Go!" Like a modern-day Artemis, she alternated fire in controlled bursts as Helo dove to join her behind the meager cover of the fence and pipes.
Hostile fire continued as she dropped in beside him. Both had their backs to the fence as they reloaded in tandem. "Didn't see any shiny silver out there," Kara observed. "I think we're dealing with the human variety."
"Hope so." Helo slammed a clip home. "They're not as tough as mechanicals."
"Yeah. They do bleed good though, you gotta like that." Fully reloaded, she turned and began to fire again, Helo right beside her, using one of the stacks of pallets for protection.
Bullets flew and brass hit the dirt until his gun locked open, emptied. As he reloaded yet again, Helo took a second to survey their surrounding as Kara kept up her covering fire. There was a break in the fence and a dirt path through the break about ten meters from their position. "Let's get outta here! Come on!" He led the way through the gap, Kara firing a burst behind them every few steps. The narrow path led through the trees to a small multi-level building, already showing signs of neglect. As isolated as this place must have been even before the war, though, that could simply be its natural state.
They ran up the short set of stairs in front and Helo stopped, back to the wall, and looked back toward their pursuers. Kara continued past him, said, "I'll flank."
He nodded, aimed. "I'll draw fire." Whoever these guys were – and Helo and Sharon hadn't come across any other living human beings during their trip from Caprica City to Delphi, so he thought they were probably Cylons – they were still a fair distance behind. If they had any brains at all, they'd split up to attack from both sides. Helo fired down the path and then took a couple of quick strides into the building, fired through a large window high up on the wall on the other side of the room. There was no glass remaining to impede his shots; even so, he had no real hope of hitting anything, since there was no way to aim. All he really had to do was make things more difficult for their pursuers.
He leaned back against a wall and reloaded, listening as best he could through all the noise for anything that might indicate movement on the front stairs. He heard nothing but the steady sound of gunfire and dove through the back door, firing as he went. Staccato bursts told of Kara firing from outside and below. He ducked out back, spotted another building that had been hidden by the first, and made for it, ran up another set of stairs to a platform.
Kara's automatics still sounded and Helo looked down to see if he could spot her, continuously firing until he again ran out of ammo; cast-off brass made an almost festive sound as it hit the metal of the platform on which he stood. He pulled back and reached for the ammo belt, grabbed another clip and slammed it home, then stopped cold when he turned to discover a woman standing above him on a second, higher platform, two assault weapons trained on his chest.
They glared at each other for long seconds, breathing hard, neither firing, but neither willing to drop their weapons, either. And then Kara was there, behind the dark-skinned woman who had Helo in her sights. She smiled a not-so-nice smile and said, "Hi." Helo almost laughed at the startled look on the black woman's face as she rounded, careful to keep a gun trained on both Kara and himself. There was something familiar about her…
Footsteps crunched from the direction of the path and from the cover of the trees and Helo pulled his sidearm from its holster, aiming his borrowed assault weapon at the woman who held one on him and aiming his pistol toward the sound of the footsteps. He and Kara were surrounded, but neither of them had any intention of surrendering.
xxx
No one said a word, but the tension in the air was thick enough to cut. The light breeze ruffled through Kara's hair as she stared down the bitch who trained a pair of assault rifles – very similar to Kara's own – on both her and Karl. Her own guns were steady on the other and she was glad to see that Helo's guns were also solidly aimed at two opponents.
"We're not Cylons," she snapped out at the woman who appeared to be the leader. She wore black and gray shirt and shorts and a pair of regulation Pyramid shoes that Kara couldn't help but notice were in good condition in spite of beating around a muddy forest and rough terrain.
"Right. You're human," the woman responded, holstering one of her weapons so that she could aim the other more steadily at Kara's heart. "You have a soul, you swim in the stream. We heard it all before." When she shifted, Karl shifted also, trusting Kara to handle the leader while he aimed at two of the other four, three men and one woman all dressed similarly to the one Kara dealt with now.
"Hey!" Helo said from below. "Colonial Fleet. Notice the uniforms?" He sounded more than a little pissed and Kara allowed herself a dangerous smile. It took a lot to make Karl angry, but when he was there…
"Yeah, right, little boy, we've seen Cylons in uniform before." Dark eyes flashed toward Helo before returning to Kara. "We're human."
"Yeah, right," she snarled back. "Everyone on Caprica's dead."
"You're not." The woman flexed her fingers, tightening her grip on her rifle.
"I just got here," Kara smirked. "I want to hear some names."
Without relaxing one bit, she bit out. "Sue-Shaun."
Karl was clearly startled when he said, "Sue-Shaun? Of the Caprica Buccaneers?" Involuntarily, Kara's eyes were drawn to the symbol on the chest of the sleeveless jacket the woman in front of her wore: gold clipper ship on a gold wave, surrounded by a gold triangle, all on a black background.
"Yeah, that's right…" Again her eyes darted for just a second from Kara to Karl.
"Sue-Shaun, Rally, Ten-Point, Jo-Man." Karl punctuated each name with a terse nod toward the man or woman holding him in their sights. "Kara, these are the Caprica Buccaneers." He shook his head with a brief, ironic laugh. She could see him relax just a bit and she was struck by the thought that there was no way the C-Bucs were a bunch of Cylons, not with their record. Still…
"I don't think so."
Kara's words caused the one who called herself Sue-Shaun to develop a nasty smile. "Gimme a ball, little girl, I'll shove it up your ass."
"Please. Try." She really hoped the bitch would; shooting at things was fine, but there was no substitute for pounding your fists into someone's face.
Unfortunately, and as usual, Karl chose to break the tension. "Okay. Since we're all getting along so well now, could you people stop pointing guns at us?"
Not ready to give it up yet, Kara charged ahead, challenged Sue-Shaun. "How does a professional Pyramid team survive a nuclear holocaust?" Neither woman had lowered her gun by so much as a millimeter.
"High-altitude training in the mountains when the Cylons attacked. Didn't even know what the frak had happened for days. Been on the run ever since."
"Doing what?"
"Scoring ammo, anti-radiation meds, whatever else we could lay our hands on. Scrappin' toasters whenever we get the chance."
"Same as us," Karl offered.
"Okay. How many foul breaks did you have in the playoff against Aerilon?" She still half wanted to put a bullet into the woman's smug face.
"Give it up, Kara."
"Shut up, Karl. I want to hear her answer."
Shaking her head, a look on her face that said she was dealing with a child – not something that endeared her to Kara – Sue-Shaun replied. "Three."
Wrong answer. Kara knew damn well it had been four, not to mention one of the worst games – and worst calls by an official – that she had ever seen. She didn't know if these guys were toasters or not, but there was still something inherently wrong about them. "Nope. Four."
"Three," Sue-Shaun calmly insisted. "That last one was a bum call. Overturned on instant replay."
"She's right, Starbuck. I lost twenty cubits on that game."
Kara was almost disappointed. "Fine. For now." With a look at the others and a nod to Helo, she said, "On three. One."
"Two." Sue-Shaun's eyes never left Kara.
Then, in unison, "Three." All parties dropped their weapons to their sides or raised them so that they pointed into the atmosphere. There wasn't much lessening of tension, but there was no longer a high risk of getting shot if someone sneezed at the wrong moment.
Kara looked around at all of the not-so-smiling faces. "You know you guys suck, right?"
xxx
Following their unspoken declaration of an uneasy truce, the group headed toward their transportation, Sue-Shaun in the lead, the other four members of the C-Bucs following behind Kara and Helo, weapons not at the ready, but not holstered, either. Kara was convinced, finally, that the group was indeed made up of humans, but they, apparently, were unconvinced that she and Karl weren't Cylons. She shook her head. The frakkin' C-Bucs…
"Everything okay, Starbuck?"
She glanced up at Karl, at the concern on his face and the underlying wariness, and she knew that he felt it, too. "I don't trust these guys," she whispered, loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough for her words to carry to Sue-Shaun, up ahead, or Rally and the others behind.
Kara could see the somewhat obscured lines of a military transport hidden beneath a haphazard collection of brush and twigs – their destination. Next to her, Karl sighed, then said, "No, I don't trust 'em either." He shook his head, ran his tongue over his teeth, as he always did when tensions were high. It was something she'd missed over these past few weeks and she was reassured to see it now. "Got anything in mind?"
They still had their guns and what ammo remained from the firefight. If they were able to break away from the little group, they might be able to make their way back to her truck, but it would be slow going through these woods, and just plain pointless to go by way of the road, where the C-Bucs could easily follow.
Kara laughed. "Nothing useful." He chewed at his lower lip, another habit that she'd missed, although for entirely different reasons, and she laughed again, smacked him in the chest before turning to catch up with Sue-Shaun. "Just stay sharp. If an opportunity presents itself…"
xxx
The opportunity never did present and Kara hoped, as they pulled into the C-Bucs' compound, that she and Karl didn't come to regret it.
The sports-team-turned-resistance-fighters didn't have much of a defensive perimeter, but at least they had one; Kara was relatively impressed. The C-Bucs as a professional Pyramid team had never been one of her favorites. They were sloppy both on and off the court, but this… It was a smallish group, but surprisingly well organized.
Sue-Shaun shut off the engine and climbed out, jumping to the ground, shouting orders to those with her and several more who ran up to help unload the truck. When there was a lull, Helo asked, "How many people have you got here?"
"Fifty-three," came the reply, but it wasn't from Sue-Shaun.
Eyes wide, Kara whirled around as if she had been shot in the gut. She knew that voice, heard it sometimes in her dreams. Walking toward her, dressed in Colonial Fleet greens, was Lee Adama. Or, at least, someone who looked and sounded exactly like him – the Lee Adama she knew had been in a Viper, acting as her wingman when she'd bailed, headed for Caprica in a stolen Cylon raider. And Vipers had no jump capabilities.
"Lee."
He frowned, eyed her narrowly as he approached.
Beside her, Karl had come to a stop, put a hand on her elbow. "Kara?" She could feel his gaze as she stared at Lee. Or rather at the Cylon that wore Lee's face, for that was the only explanation for him being both here and whole and healthy on Caprica as well as bruised and battered back in the Fleet.
She waved Karl back as she took a step toward the thing that looked like Lee. Slowly, she let her hand slide down to her side to rest against the grip of her sidearm, surreptitiously flicking the catch off the holster. It was when her fingers closed around the grip that half a dozen rifles suddenly pointed at her and Karl – a quick glance told her that he had followed her lead.
The Cylon smiled, but it never reached his wintry blue eyes. "Well, well, if it isn't the Mighty Starbuck." The smile widened to include Karl. "And you must be Helo. Where's Boomer?"
"What the frak? Kara?"
"He's a Cylon, Karl."
With a nod of not-Lee's head, Rally and Ten-Point confiscated their weapons. "That's funny, coming from you."
Sue-Shaun had turned back from wherever she had been going at the sound of rounds being jacked into chambers. "Do you know these people, Captain?"
"I know of them." He turned to Ten-Point. "Cuff them." The man opened his mouth to protest and the Cylon cut him off. "Cuff them, tie them up, whatever you have to do. They're Cylon collaborators." He shifted his attention back to Sue-Shaun. "Send a patrol out to scour the perimeter. These two are traveling with a female Cylon. She'll most likely be dressed in a flight suit like his." He gestured toward Helo.
"Kara…?" Helo's eyes darted back and forth between her and this… copy as a man came forward and wrenched his arms behind his back, tying his wrists together with a length of rope. "Isn't that the Old Man's son?"
Simultaneously, Ten-Point – she couldn't recall his real name, if she ever knew it – more gently pulled her arms around to tie her wrists together as well. "I don't know what that is."
When they were both bound, Ten-Point turned back to the Cylon. "Where should we put 'em?"
Blue eyes narrowed. "Take them to the administrative office and make sure they don't have access to any windows." He returned his attention to Sue-Shaun, then, who at least had the grace to look troubled by this turn of events.
Ten-Point and his companion led them into the building. A sign over the main doors welcomed them to the Delphi Union High School and Kara had to laugh. "Thought my days of being sent to the principal's office were over…"
TO BE CONTINUED…