Chapter Nine
Sam shivered beneath the pile of blankets, his aching body unable to find even a moments comfort. Each breath causing stabbing pains to shoot through his chest and back, a low rumbling coming from deep inside his lungs. His eyes, hot and watery, still could not focus properly, but he could make out the female form sitting next to him on the cot.
She was damping down his head with a cool cloth, and he could see a soft smirk formed on her steely face. He recognized her immediately as one of the cylons. He racked his fevered brain trying to place her, a fuzzy memory forming as he focussed on her voice, which sent chills straight through him, it was so cold.
"Ah, I see you are with us once again Mr…Anders? Am I right?" Her expression made it clear that she knew exactly who he was. That voice…
The memory was slow in forming, but finally it did come into focus…the explosion, on Caprica. He'd been caught, thought it was the end of the line for him, but the other two cylons had turned on this one, saving him in the process.
She leaned in very close, and he turned his face away from her.
"How're you feeling? To tell you the truth, you aren't looking well at all. I really wish there was something I could give you, you know, to make it all better." Her eyes told him otherwise. She was enjoying his pain.
"Where am I?" he croaked, looking around. He realized he was not in a tent, which narrowed down the options considerably. He had to be on one of the ships, but nothing looked familiar to him. It looked almost like a cargo hold, but none that he had encountered in the fleet before.
"Doesn't matter, you won't be here very long." She stood up and walked over to a communication console on the wall nearest the cot. "I'm D'anna, by the way. If you need anything just holler…I'm at your beck and call." She laughed a short, harsh little laugh, and started punching numbers on the console.
Sam was finding it harder and harder to breath, and his heart was racing. He tried to remember how he'd gotten here, but was drawing a blank. He did remember being back in his own tent, seeing the cylon leaning over him, asking for Kara. He'd known immediately that the man was a cylon, having seen copies of him repeatedly on Caprica. But that was the last thing he could remember before waking up in this place. Now he tried to make sense of what this meant. The two of them had to be plants within the fleet, but why were they making a move now? And why him? His head was spinning.
He didn't need to wait long for an answer. D'anna was speaking to someone through the communications console. "Yeah, he's conscious for the moment…but he doesn't look good. I don't know how long we can keep him that way." Her voice was shaky, he realized. Gone was the menacing tone she had directed at him.
A male voice came through the intercom, in response. "It doesn't matter, we've made contact with Starbuck, she knows we have him, so it won't be long. Just try to keep him alive for a few more hours, that should be long enough."
"You're putting a lot of faith into that human." She spat the last word out, as though it left a foul taste in her mouth, banging her fist against the metal of the wall.
"Just keep him there until we come for him. And try not to do too much more damage."
Sam's fevered mind was racing, nothing was making sense. Were they after Kara? Did they think that he would help them get to her? Suddenly it was coming clear for Sam.
"I'm bait. That's it, isn't it. You are trying to get to Kara and you think you can do that through me."
D'anna walked back to his bedside. "Pretty and brains, too."
"I don't know what you're after, but Kara isn't going to help you. She'd rather see me dead than help you do anything to hurt the fleet." At least he hoped she would.
"Not exactly up to her this time, sport. Starbuck doesn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter. You see, your fleet is gone and New Caprica belongs to us, for now at least. Starbuck is going to be given an opportunity that she, of all people, isn't going to be able to pass up." She sat slowly back down beside him, picking up the damp cloth and wiping the sweat off of his forehead. "You've been out for almost 24 hours, you've missed a lot. We've all had quite a day."
Sam listened in horror as D'anna explained the cylon invasion of New Caprica. She paced the room as she spoke, and Sam watched her movements as much as listened to her words. Perhaps it was the fever, or maybe he was overwhelmed with what was happening, but he had a strange sensation come over him as he watched her move. It was like watching a caged animal in a zoo. It dawned on him that she looked more like a prisoner than he was.
"So if what you are telling me is true, what do you need Kara and I for? Sounds to me like you've already won."
She spun around, plastering a smile across her icy face. "Oh, we've won, no question. That was only a matter of time."
"Fine, then why am I here?" It just didn't make sense to him. Unless it was personal, unless they wanted to torture him and Kara for fighting them on Caprica…but then there were so many others who had fought as well…why single them out? Something was out of place. He tried to lift himself up off the bed, to face her from a stronger position, and immediately regretted it as the room started to spin before him. He fell back again.
"Let's just say while there's no doubt we are going to win, there is still some room for debate over the proper time and place. You and your lovely wife are still of some use to us. A fact for which you should be grateful, because it is the one and only reason you, my friend, are still breathing."
Sam tried to think of a smart ass comment to show her just how grateful he was, but found that the room would just not stop spinning. In the moments before he lost consciousness again, he focussed his thoughts on Kara, willing her to stay safe, and see through whatever trap was being set for her.
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Sharon had been waiting by the tent for almost half an hour. Although it was only just 18:30, and technically Apollo wasn't late yet, she was starting to get pissed off. She'd done what was asked of her, had scouted the city and the cylons making mental note of numbers and positioning. She'd even gone a step farther than that. She'd gone back to the raider and linked into their communications channel, uploading as much information as she could about the New Caprica Occupation.
It was all easy…too easy. Even now, standing by the tents, Sharon had the unnerving feeling that she was being watched. She had not felt anything probing at her consciousness, did not suspect that she had been detected. She had not been challenged, not once in the hours that she had patrolled the city. And that was as strange to her as anything else. There was something different about the cylons, something off. They were playing a game for which she had not been given the rules, and she didn't like the feeling.
She felt like they were letting her walk around freely, gather the information. Almost like they were putting their tactical data out there for her to find, all that was missing was the gift wrap and the bow. That was it, it was too easy, and that made it hard for her to trust.
Her eyes darted around, scanning the perimeter of the city, taking in the cylon patrol of the city's border, and the crowd of people gathered at the head of the promenade. This whole place made her skin crawl. She was almost glad that she'd been kept on Galactica, never allowed to come to the surface. Something about this planet was off, almost sinister. Everything inside of Sharon was screaming to get off, to jump in the raider and fly away before it was too late. Where was Apollo?
"Sharon?"
She jumped slightly at the voice coming from inside the tent. She placed it immediately, it was one of the Doral models.
"Don't turn around, just listen to me very carefully. We've been monitoring you since you flew the raider in this morning. You haven't been challenged, and you won't be challenged. We just want to talk to you, that's all."
It had all been too easy. She took a deep breath, wondering if she even cared at this point that their mission had been discovered, that once again she had been played, by both sides of this frakkin war. She was just so tired of it all. There had been a time when she's cared, truly cared, but she was beyond that now. She was just numb.
"Why bother letting us think we were undetected? What was the point?" Sharon's voice was flat.
"We don't want Apollo or the others to know we are watching, not yet. We want them to act as they would normally, we need them to play this out a little bit longer." Doral remained inside the tent, but his voice sounded like his mouth was at her ear, so close.
"What are you going to do with them, with me? How long do you plan on letting this ridiculous game play on?" What were they going to do with her? It didn't even matter. She had longed for death for months, but that was the cruellest joke of all…she couldn't die. She would just download into another body. That sweet release that humans all feared, she craved - and she was denied. The best she could hope for was to be boxed, and even that held no promise of peace, only an interruption of this existence that would seem like the blink of an eye if and when she was ever reactivated. Nothing was ever going to change.
"The raider will be allowed to leave, with as many people as it can carry. The numbers are not significant enough to warrant opposition at this time. We need the raider to get back to Galactica and the rest of the fleet, we need to show them that it is safe for them to return. We aren't looking for a fight, and we hope that you will convince Admiral Adama of that fact."
"Ha!" she barked out the laugh. "You obviously haven't been plugging into my consciousness very often. I haven't been able to convince Adama of anything lately. .." she paused again, closing her eyes. "They killed my baby. Did you know that?"
Doral was silent for a moment behind the flap of the tent. "We knew the baby had died. Gina told us when she downloaded. They have done so much damage, and they continue to cause so much pain even now that they have seen their worlds destroyed…don't you see, Sharon, that's why they need us…"
"Oh I see the need, I just don't think it will do any good anymore. I used to believe….Shhh…Apollo's coming." She kicked at the dirt, trying to look bored.
"We'll find you again, before you leave." She could hear a rustling inside the tent, and then it was silent, and she knew he was gone.
She turned to greet Apollo, plastering what passed for a smile across her face, and cringing inwardly at the thought of having to be near any of them.
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