Ch 28

Kara and Lee were both listening to her as she recounted the last six months for them. Lauren had explained how she had gotten to the Pegasus in the first place and what had happened during the attack. She skipped forward quite a bit because she'd wanted to explain more about why she'd been acting so strangely so she just filled in a few minor details.

"So Cain isn't all right in the head huh?" Kara had finally sat back down and now she was stretching her body over the box she was on.

"Not by a long shot. You've heard the story about her first XO over here right?"

"Yeah but we've heard a lot of really wild ones over here so we couldn't be sure."

"Well it was for damn sure she shot him. I saw the body bag. She's so used to being followed to the letter when he said no to her she just lost it. She never stopped to think about what kind of situation we were in at the time. She just does what the manual tells her to do and there is no room for argument."

"And what about the civvies ships? Where'd they go to?" Lee's concern was growing and he was steadily moving closer to her again.

"She stripped them. Parts, personnel, anything she could use 'for the good of the military'. There was nothing we could do about it." Lauren watched as the horror paled both of their faces. "See why I am being the best little soldier I can be? The woman is military down to her guts and she expects everyone around her to be the same. So I saw a way to survive and I grabbed it. When I started acting more like her to keep my head above water she took notice of it and promoted me and made me Taylor's second. I couldn't act any different after the fact. Cain will discard you in a heart beat if you're not what will help her succeed. She'd done it several times and I didn't want to be the next one so I conformed and adapted. That's why you saw me acting the way I was."

Lee and Kara both had so many questions for her but they wanted to let her tell it on her own. Lee got up and paced around the room for a while, listening to her and trying to work his anger back down to a manageable level.

"Did you all hear over here about the Cylon we found on board? They took her to the brig and no one heard a thing for a few days then Cain sent in Thorne to interrogate her."

"Who's Thorne?" Kara could see where this was going and she didn't like it one bit.

"Lt. Thorne is a specialist that was playing out the last of his tour on Pegasus. Seems he was an interrogator for the police for a while. Remember the big deal back on Leonis about ten years back that got everyone all up in arms?"

Kara's eyes went wide, "Yeah, the one with all of the local people that were held in the prison camps and tortured?"

"Yup that's the one. Guess who was the leader of the police force that was responsible?" she waited for that to register. "Yeah so he went to 'question' the Cylon. We heard the screaming all over the ship. Then the next thing you know the word gets around that the crew are free to 'take liberty' with the prisoner."

"What the frak? You are joking right?" Lee's anger had finally reached it's peak and he couldn't hold it in when she said that. "How the hell can that woman allow that kind of thing to happen on a military vessel?"

"It wasn't just that Lee…"

Kara violently shook her head at Lauren. She'd had an inkling of the situation a while ago and now she knew.

"What? What do you mean Lauren?" He rushed across the room and grabbed her by the shoulders, not quite shaking her but scaring her none the less. "Tell me you don't mean what I think you mean."

Now it was Lauren's turn to get up and pace. She thought her words out carefully, knowing how upset Lee would be if she said the wrong thing. She knew he'd go running for his Viper at the first sign of her having suffered. "It wasn't bad at first, the guys started pairing up with the more inviting women. Then when the willing ones had been picked up it started getting a bit more forceful. I guess when it hit them that the women on the ship may be the only women left they kind of slipped into a more primal mindset and the rapes started. I suppose because they'd been able to have their way with the Cylon they thought it was 'anything goes'. Lee relax. I'm fine, nothing happened, well almost nothing, I had to say 'no' once or twice."

She looked at Kara and the eye roll spoke volumes. Kara deciphered the look and broke into a hearty laugh, "How bad?"

"Oh five days in sick bay, both eyes black, split lip, broken nose, sprained wrist and two cracked ribs. The other one got off pretty light in comparison."

The look on Kara's face was serious but it melted into a burst of laughter that carried through the room, infecting Lauren and then Lee. Soon all three of them were crumpled on boxes, giggling madly. Lee couldn't help but picture a big burly man being pummeled into the deck boards by his lover.