Lee couldn't have believed things could have gotten any worse. He was starting to wish the centurions had killed him. Anything would be better than this. They actually believed he was a Cylon? That was absurd! Frakking ridiculous! How could his Dad not know the truth? He'd thought nothing could be worse than the Commander's glares of anger and disappointment, but he'd never encountered a look of revulsion from his father. He really believed it. Lords of Kobol, his father believed it. He thinks I'm a toaster!
Lee was once again shoved into a cell in the brig. He didn't even bother asking that his shackles be removed this time. He wondered what they would do with him. Then he tried to think of anything else. Cylons were airlocked. Sent out into the freezing vacuum of space. He wondered how painful it was to die like that.
He had lost track of time when Colonel Tigh appeared. "Open the door!" He commanded the guard. Tigh entered the cell and the door was immediately barred behind him.
Tigh stared at him in disgust for a moment. "What did you do with Lee Adama?"
Without thinking, Lee retorted, "I AM Lee Adama!"
The next thing he knew, the colonel's fist was impacting his jaw and he was on the floor.
"Try again."
Lee was suddenly really frightened. Colonel Tigh wasn't going to believe a thing he said. The XO was obviously here to interrogate him but he had no information to give. He wasn't a Cylon. He was himself! But in the Colonel's eyes he was the enemy. The enemy who had decimated their homeworlds and had nearly driven the human race to extinction. An enemy who deserved no mercy. Lee swallowed hard and wondered how long it would take him to die.
Colonel Tigh couldn't help but take pleasure in inflicting what pain he could on the Cylon. Bad enough that they had taken on human form, but to assume the identity of an actual existing human was even worse. He hadn't expected to get much information from the thing but it was at least a convenient target for his frustrations. Much more satisfying that the punching bag in the gym.
"How many copies of Lee Adama are there?" he demanded, knowing it was a win/win question for him. He'd either get an answer or have an excuse to hit that thing again.
After some time had passed, Tigh got tired of using his fist as a weapon. His knuckles were scraped and his arm was sore. He ordered the marines to bring in a tub of water and had two of them hold the Cylon. When it didn't answer the colonel's questions they plunged its head into the water until Tigh told them to let it up.
Lee took a deep breath of air as he was being forced beneath the water but it didn't help. Tigh left him under there until he began to struggle. He tried not to, but the primal desire for oxygen was just too strong. He came up coughing and gasping for breath.
"How many Cylon agents are in the fleet?"
"I have...no idea," Lee answered honestly, and was rewarded with another trip into the water. This time he miscalculated the distance and gulped in water instead of air. He was nearly unconscious when they pulled him out.
"Oh no. Don't you dare pass out yet," Tigh demanded. One of the marines pounded him on the back to help clear the water. He finally stopped coughing and caught his breath. Then they plunged him back under again.
Bill Adama paced back and forth in CIC. He almost wished something would happen to take him mind off his thoughts of what was going on in the brig. He knew that thing wasn't his son, but he didn't want to dwell on what means Saul might use to get information from it. He hoped they would be able to find out how long it had been aboard the fleet. He wracked his brain, trying to think of when Lee could have been captured and replaced.
"Dradis contact!" Gaeta's voice startled him out of his thoughts. "Bearing one-nine-seven mark four."
"Identification?"
Gaeta studied the readout for a moment. "It's, it's Cylon. It's the same kind of ship that crashed into us loaded with Centurions."
"Is it alone?"
"Yes, sir. So far, there's nothing else out there."
"Set Condition One. Tell the fleet to begin jump prep. Do we have a firing solution?"
"It's still out of range, sir, but we're working on it."
"Launch the alert fighters!"
"Sir!" Dualla called. "It's hailing us!"
"What?"
She put the garbled communication on speaker. "...actica...buck...you read...this...Starbuck"
"Starbuck?" Adama whispered in disbelief. Lee was gone, and he had given Kara up for dead. Was this really her? Or was it a Cylon trick? He knew how to find out.
"Starbuck, this is Actual. What do you hear?"
Starbuck laughed in relief. "Nothin' but the rain, sir!"
Adama smiled. It was her! "Grab your gun and bring in the cat, lieutenant!"
"Aye, sir!" he could imagine the smile stretching across her face. However, he couldn't risk the safety of the ship. He ordered two teams of marines to meet the ship in the bay just in case it were a trap of some kind.
Lee blinked and tried to focus. What had Tigh just asked? Then he wondered why he was bothering to try to figure it out. He wouldn't be able to answer whatever it was, and Tigh would hit him again. He'd apparently gotten bored with the water a while back. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the inevitable. As he'd expected, after a few moments had passed he felt Tigh's fist slam into his gut. Despite his efforts, he doubled over in pain and then collapsed to the floor when Tigh brought his clasped hands down hard between Lee's shoulder blades. With his wrists shackled, he had no way to break his fall and he landed awkwardly on his left arm. He couldn't bite back a cry of pain as the bones in his forearm snapped.
"That's what you get for putting a gun to my head, you frakkin' toaster!" Tigh punctuated his insult with a savage kick to Lee's ribs.
Lee cried out again, not having seen that coming.
"Had enough yet?" Tigh taunted. "Ready to tell me what I want to know? How much intel did you give the Cylons? How did you contact them?"
"I didn't...I haven't..." Lee managed.
Tigh grabbed Lee's hair and pulled his head up to make eye contact. "You mean you haven't had an opportunity to contact them? You haven't told them anything yet?" Saul was almost afraid to hope that they'd discovered the threat in time. "When did you come aboard Galactica?" Tigh was quite pleased with himself. He'd finally gotten the thing to talk!
"I came…for the decommissioning ceremony," Lee struggled to remember. He was still trying to convince the Colonel that he was himself.
Tigh had a totally different perception. He nodded at this last bit of information and let go of the thing's hair. Its head hit the deck with a resounding thud. It made perfect sense. Lee had come alone in his Mark VII viper. The Cylons had obviously intercepted him and incapacitated his viper with that damned virus of theirs. It would have been an easy matter for them to kill him and replace him with this copy. They would have had to have gotten the DNA to make a clone much earlier, but with Cylon agents hidden all over the colonies that wouldn't have been too difficult. Hell, one of those female models could have slept with him for all they knew.
Commander Adama waited impatiently for the Cylon vessel to land. Laura Roslin was at his side. He didn't realize she was still aboard, nor did he know how she had heard of Lieutenant Thrace's return, but he presumed she was here to find out if Kara had brought back that frakking arrow. He didn't care whether she did or not, as long as she was back safely. She emerged from the ship looking quite bruised and worse for wear, but she was smiling. He approached her and enveloped her in his arms. She had walked hesitantly down the gangplank, not sure if she would be arrested for mutiny or what. She'd never expected this, though. Adama was clearly happy to see her. She pulled back and looked at him uncertainly.
"I'm happy to see you too, Commander."
Adama gently brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Welcome home, Kara," he said, low enough that only she heard.
She was moved almost to tears with the sentiment. She had spent many hours wondering if Adama could forgive her yet again. She took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand.
"Sir, I have company. Lieutenant Agathon and..." before she could explain about her other passenger, Helo and Sharon had moved into sight behind her.
Adama's eyes widened in horror as he realized the truth. Another copy of Boomer could only mean one thing. He turned on Kara, "My gods, that thing is a Cylon! You brought back a CYLON?"
Laura remained outwardly calm. "Guards! Put that thing out the airlock!" The marines moved in after Adama nodded, confirming the order.
Helo put himself between Sharon and the approaching marines. "Sir! You can't! She's pregnant!"
"What?" Adama and Roslin both gasped.
"Sir, I know she's a Cylon. I mean, I know now. I didn't know at first. We fell in love, sir. She's carrying my child."
"A machine can't love, lieutenant!" Adama barked.
"Sir! She helped us escape! She saved our lives! The Cylons want her baby, she's rebelled against them."
Part of Adama saw the irony in a Cylon rebelling against another Cylon. "Are you a copy of the real Sharon Valerii?"
Sharon looked confused. "There isn't a human version of me, if that's what you mean by 'real.' I am Cylon model number eight. All Cylons who looks like me are model number eight."
"You can't clone a human being and take on their identity?" Adama demanded.
Sharon was even more confused. "We do have the technology to clone, of course. But we have no way to access the memories in a human brain to download them into one of our bodies. Only Cylon neural pathways can access the network."
Adama turned to address the marine sergeant. "Send a squad of marines to arrest Lieutenant Valerii and secure her in the brig."
"How is it that Baltar's test showed she was human?" Laura pondered.
"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." Adama headed resolutely for Baltar's lab, leaving a confused Kara and a worried Helo and Sharon in his wake.
"Madame President." Kara pulled the quiver from her back and opened it. She reverently placed the Arrow of Apollo into the President's hands.
Laura looked at the relic in wonder, testing its weight. Could this show them the path to Earth?
"Do you know where the Temple of Athena is? I do!" Sharon cried out as she was led away. "You'll never find it on your own. I can help you!"
Laura Roslin considered the words of her mortal enemy. At last she called out to stop the guards.
"The commander's orders were to put it out the airlock!"
"Actually those were my orders. He just backed me up. He didn't know about the Tomb. Take her to the brig until we can sort this out."
Seeing the logic in this, the sergeant complied. After all, he could easily airlock it later if that's what the Old Man wanted, but once it was done there was no going back.
A determined Commander Adama barged into Gaius Baltar's lab without bothering to knock.
"Careful Gaius," Six warned, stroking Baltar's hair absently. "He knows the truth. What are you going to do now?"
"Explain to me how your Cylon detector found Lieutenant Valerii was human, when there's a second copy of her in my landing bay. A copy that freely admits it is a Cylon!" The Commander wasn't making a request.
"Really? Another copy? Of Lieutenant Valerii?" Baltar's mind raced. Boomer's secret was out. But how to save himself?
Baltar made pretence of shuffling papers and checking over the vials containing the blood samples from Lee Adama and Sharon Valerii.
"She said there is no human original of her model. In fact she said Cylons don't have the ability to replace one of us. They can't access our memories with their technology."
"Oh dear!" He exclaimed, feigning bewilderment as he held up two vials. "It seems that Captain Adama's and Lt. Valerii's samples somehow became switched." He turned to face Adama with the most shocked expression he could conjure up. "Commander, I have no idea, no idea how this could have happened. Perhaps it was Boomer! Yes, Boomer...must have sneaked into my lab and...altered the labels. Yes? Yes. Yes! That must be how, how it happened. It..it…it's the only possible explanation!" The Vice President's eyes shifted about as he stammered.
Adama wanted nothing more at that moment than to throw the man out the nearest airlock. Dear gods, the airlock! He had to save Lee!
Forgetting Baltar, he ran for the brig.