Selling Souls – Part I
Selling Souls is in three short parts. That way I can post a little bit faster. Lots of problems/confusion/etc to follow.
Just because the Resurrection Ship is gone doesn't mean that Nya or Leoben's lives have gotten any easier.
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"Leoben Conoy, you stand accused of grievous crimes against your own people."
Leoben looked up slowly. The room reminded him of the birthing chamber, filled with so much darkness. His arms are numb below the manacles the Centurions slapped on him at D'anna's request. He would have gone willingly. He needed them more than they needed him.
"We're becoming so much like them." He answered quietly to make sure that they were listening. "One word against another. Bickering. Fighting. Distrusting."
The judge looked down at him with veiled curiousity. "You are suspect because of the conditions of your return to us."
"Any contact with humanity is unpredictable. That is why we've waged war against them. They refuse to follow God's plan."
"I see." The judge replied even though Leoben would swear that he didn't. "And the justification for your actions?"
"Yes, the justification." Echoed the two copies seated at his sides. All three peered down at Leoben. "Why would you box a copy of yourself? You know there is no resurrection from that fate."
Leoben wished that he could have carried something more substantial than his faith, but that strengthened him. His words here would send him to a box, or return him to Nya. And the latter was his heart's desire. It was what the Gods had promised him.
"I cannot explain it to you. We lack sufficient common ground."
"What?" The second judge looked flustered at the statement. "Then who does share common ground with you?"
Leoben waited, he couldn't rush it, couldn't betray how important this next step was to him. "I cannot answer to any Cylon who has not seen what we are facing. I submit myself for judgment, but I want to be judged by Sharon Valerii and Caprica Six."
"Highly irregular!"
"Unthinkable!"
"Out of the question!"
All three yelled at him as Leoben stood solidly under the interrogation. When they had finished and consulted among themselves, the head judge looked down at him in distaste. In this Leoben had effectively gone above their heads, and the new found celebrity of the two models was an ace-in-the-hole that he'd exploited for his own gains.
He had no idea about whether they would be sympathetic to him, but he had to try.
"Very well," the judge sighed. "You will be remanded to Centurion custody until Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii have time to hear your case. Get him out of here."
Leoben fought the urge to grin as the two hulking automatons that were Centurions grabbed him fiercely and bore him from the room.
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Nya hummed as she walked the decks of the Astral Queen. There was something about her that had changed, lightened in the absence of the guilt she felt over Leoben's death. She no longer wore the medallion of Leucothea around her neck, as though she had finally found a safe port among the stars.
"Ma'am," said Daniel Black as he stepps out of their galley.
"Ma'am?" She snorts with laughter. "Am I in uniform, Danny?"
"No, ma'am. But you're with Zarek. And while he's the master of the Queen that makes you…"
"Just another hand on board her." Nya grinned and gestured behind him. "Unless you drank the last of the coffee. Then, it's war."
"Threats?" Zarek asked as he came up behind them. "And she accuses me of being profiteering. G'morning."
"Mr. Zarek." The formality seems odd coming out of the hardened criminal that is Danny Black but it doesn't faze Nya or Zarek as they enter the galley.
She pours them both a steaming mug and they sit at the small table. She leans against him as they drink in silence for a moment. The months since the attack on the Resurrection Ship have changed both of them. Nya has gone back to flying RAPTORs. The death of Admiral Caine returned sanity to the Fleet and Adama, under Lee's advisement, had transferred her off of Pegasus and back to Galactica.
In a sense it was unnecessary as her reeducation had truly been complete with the destruction of her copy of Leoben. Nothing else had bound her to sympathize with the Cylons except for that.
This time-off aboard the Astral Queen has become common for her and the crew under Zarek. They coordinate their time around her flight schedule and Zarek's Quorum duties. And in it, they have both found something of a new beginning.
"Zarek?" The comm. crackled and Zarek picked up the handset to listen.
"Who is coming?" His voice sounds odd and she picks up on it. "I'll be right there."
"Tom?" Nya touches his arm with her hand, still overheated from the mug, feels like fire on his skin.
"What?" He jerks away from her. "Oh. It's Fisk."
"Fisk." The hatred drips off the single word. "Why?"
He goes for the honest route. The Queen isn't big enough to hide news on. And his crew often feed tidbits of information to Nya as though good favor will trickle down to them because of it.
"The black market."
Nya stiffens slightly at the mention of it. She knows about the black market, sees other pilots smuggling in things on board her flights as though she doesn't have eyes or ears to understand what they're doing. But she hasn't moved into a den of convicts to play the angel, there are some realities in life more pressing than making money.
"If you get involved, Adama will use it as an excuse."
"He doesn't dare." Tom tried to answer flippantly.
"You don't believe me?"
But as she searches his eyes, Nya can tell that he does. "Adama will use it to hang you by. If you want our baby to have a future, you stay away from Fisk and anything to do with the black market."
To be continued...