Sorry for the delay. Trying to do everything just gave me a horrible cold. Blah. Part I today, Part II soon after.
Thanks again to everybody reading.

The Price of Freedom – Part I

She is so still that Leoben imagines he can hear her pulse.

Nya reaches down with the other archers on the line to draw an arrow from the table in front of her. Her shoulders and arms flexing as she sets the tip of the arrow against the sharp recurve. And even though he cannot see her face he knows the words that she is whispering to herself. He never thought of her as religious because the beliefs were so much a part of her nature that she did them unknowingly.

"Artemis, guide my shot. See that it hits true. As you will it, so it will be."

Every archer down the line draws.

Inhale…. Exhale…...

Release.

Picture perfect the bows snap in unison and twenty-five arrows shoot down-range at the targets. Feathers guiding and leading twenty-five arrowheads into straw bales.

He does hear several curses as the arrows hit and stick – not always in the bulls-eye. He can see Nya's arrow standing triumphantly in the black dot. A direct hit. He expects to see triumph on her face but there is none. Nya is looking down the line at two other strikes. Perfect shots from two of the other archers, while hers is off center.

She sets down the bow and strips off the right-handed glove as she exits the competition space.

"Nya?" He asks tentatively.

"Come on." She links her arm through his with a smile. "Independence day isn't about winning."

"It was a beautiful shot."

"And I'm out of practice." Nya grins as the crowd roars its approval of a wrestling match. "We don't have much time, let's see what else there is."

"Wait…" A large screen that has been set up in front of a crowd catches his eye. He pulls her toward it through the masses of people listening.

The picture on the screen is almost twenty years old. Several young Sagittaron's are protesting in front of the other eleven Colonial embassies. One, is a young Thomas Zarek. Always the eloquent speaker, he was the forefront of Sagittaron's freedom movement.

"I didn't know you were a supporter." She whispers to him as he shushes to quiet her.

"…they have no right subjugating us! We are a Colony. One of the Twelve! And no man has the right to use another to serve his will."

"FREEDOM!" The crowd in the video shouts behind Zarek as bonfires are lit.

"We will have out message heard. We will not remain quiet! Whatever it takes, we will pay!"

The crowd now cheers again at those words. Independence Day is their unofficial celebration of what these men and women accomplished twenty years earlier. Recognized by no one but themselves, it is a time to remember those who paid the price for freedom.

"Listen to him." Leoben tells her softly. "Such belief. Do you think he still feels the same way? Do you think he still believes in the cause of freedom?"

"Of course." Nya nods. "A man like that doesn't regret anything. He saved all of us. We'd still be working for the other colonies if he hadn't taken the fight to them. Time doesn't change that kind of conviction."

"I wonder." Leoben muses. "I wonder if I could have that kind of devotion."

She smiles and kisses his stubbled cheek with her lips. "I believe in you."

Her affection draws him away from the brooding that he was falling in to, and he gathers her in his arms as they turn away from the screen. On the video a defiant Zarek raises the hand that has the bomb detonater in it and shouts. "The price of freedom is sacrifice." And the government building behind him explodes.

------

The hollow thump echoes throughout Journey as a shuttle makes a hard vacuum seal with the hull.

------

Gaius is muttering and fighting with Six when Zarek enters. His head snaps up and immediately his attention catches on the bloody bandage that rings the bigger man's arm.

"That! That wasn't my fault!"

Zarek paces toward him, causing him to back away. "Are you going to blame your mystery woman? Cause I'm curious how the Cylon was speaking directly to you."

The tall blond Cylon flickers back into Gaius' eyesight, although he fights to keep from looking at her. She has exchanged her suit for a scandalous green dress that runs iridescently down her curves. Each sinuous movement of her hips is targeted directly at him. "You have balls, Gaius. Remember to use them."

The vice president straightens at the admonition. Much like a child, he waits for every word of praise or punishment from this vision of a woman he once knew. "I don't know anything about a woman. I don't see a woman in here. Do you?" He spins to make the point. "Why would you believe a Cylon? They lie. We know they lie. It's their nature."

"And you?" Zarek asks.

Sputtering in response. "Oh, well you're a fine one to accuse me of lying. I'm sure your motives have always been pure."

"We're not here to talk about me." But the barb has struck slightly and stuck to Zarek. What are his motives measured against the two people on the bridge? Is power the ultimate satisfaction that he's always dreamed it would be?

"Oh yes." Gaius can tell he's had some success and his tone becomes condescending. "An imaginary, invisible woman. Maybe its Virgon come to steal me away to her bower."

Angry flashes quickly over Tom's face. He didn't come here to be played for a fool. "Who is she?"

"Maybe this Cylon is hearing the voice of God!" Baltar shouts at him. "I don't know! I'm not a Cylon mindreader!"

Her words slip between them. "Now, Gaius. Words said in anger cannot be taken back. Be careful how you speak about God, even to unbelievers."

"So you don't have any idea what he's talking about?"

"I already told you no!" He snaps back.

"And your propensity to talk to yourself?"

Gaius sniffs. "When I was twelve they determined that my mind works twice as fast as the average man. So I have you beat by a factor of three."

If Meier had been alive the vice president would have been laid out on the floor. But Tom has the politician's wariness of engaging in physical violence, that, and he is no longer a young man. "Vice president or not. You will still have to account for what you've done. Nya Reece may still die."

But Gaius is finished with being questioned and his cockiness rips free. "Yes, about that. You and the pilot interfered with the execution of a Cylon. I'm sure that the Fleet will back your cause against mine. I demand to be released from this cell and given direct access to President Roslyn."

Zarek lets himself out before Gaius can make a dash for the door or some other ill-conceived action. Outside the cell he relocks the door and takes a breather. If the vice president wasn't a Cylon, then Tom is fairly certain that the man is one of the poorest excuses for a human being that he's ever seen. For humanity – even the Cylon has him beat.

------

Boots run across metal-plate decking heavy with the weight of automatic rifles.

------

Leoben brushes his lips across the tender pulse at Nya's neck. They are almost out of time. Then ever so slowly, her eyes open. They wrinkle slightly with joy and a rush surges through his heart.

"I'm not going to die." Her voice is rough and shaky but there is a tiny thread of strength underneath it.

"I know." He kisses her forehead carefully to hide the worry. "But I am."

She doesn't argue with him. The events have shown her what he will face in the Fleet and justifiably. No one will believe that he managed to overcome his programming, especially not after the brutal way he killed the Captain and the Marines.

"This hurts." She tells him instead.

"The doctor is coming."

Nya nods and remains motionless in his arms. "Why did the Cylons start this war? What will they accomplish at the end?"

"It's God's will." But the rote answer falls flat. "That the chosen would rise up to cleanse the universe. But now… I can see the doubts that were never there before. The contradictions. The lies."

Lee is listening to them. "Baltar. You said there was someone with him who sounded like God? What was it?"

Leoben shrugs gently, not even turning to face the Viper pilot. His attention is focused where it should be. "I don't know. Not entirely."

"Has God spoken to you before?" Lee pushes.

"Not me directly – but to others who came before me. It's their memories."

Nya's broken whisper hangs on the air. "But you don't trust those memories anymore?"

He doesn't. She can see it on his face and in the way that lovers know each other. Just as he knows that she has forgiven him the truth of his being. There are some things that surpass the explainable.

"Only you have any permanence." He smoothes her hair from her face with a blood-streaked hand. "Only you." With a slight breath he lowers his head next to hers. "You're so warm, so alive. That's what the others missed. Why they were so cynical."

"Who?" Nya fades slightly and then refocuses on him. "Who, Leo?"

"The other copies of me." He brightens. "God can tell us what to do, but he cannot live it. He does not know what this is like."

"What will happen to you?"

Leoben looks up at Lee Adama and shrugs. "I don't know. I've betrayed God. Either I will be discovered or I won't."

"But your memory lives on."

"I will live on." He hugs Nya close in to him and luxuriates in the strong throb of her heart. "It's her that I worry about."

"I'm…"

------

Sudden stillness outside of the bridge – and then the Marines burst through.

"GET DOWN! GET DOWN!"

"SHOOT THE CYLON!"

"CAPTAIN ADAMA, ON THE FLOOR!"

"SHOOT IT!"

To be continued...