== Part 26 - Camaraderie ==

"So, the President has decided to give all the Cylon spies in the Colonies amnesty," Admiral Lee Adama said after the President's message finished playing. There were additional files, but the video message pretty much summarized what was going on. He was still processing the revelation that his trusted Flag Commander was a Cylon spy. "So why not just tell me directly? Why go the circuitous route and put the decision to tell me in your hands?"

"From what Gina told me," Sharon began, and that was another surprise. She was on a first name basis with the First Lady, who was also a Cylon spy. "...the President received our reports and knows the Expedition is in dangerous territory. So she didn't want unnecessary drama of everyone finding out that I'm a Cylon disrupting our cohesion and trust in each other. But she also knows that there's a good chance that human Cylons – including ones that look like me – are openly running around the Thirteenth Colony's space. So since the President isn't here and doesn't have a feel of what our working relationships are like, she decided to leave it up to me to decide the time is right to inform you."

"And you decided to come tell me right away," Lee said thoughtfully. The lack of trust from the President stung, but at the same time, he completely understood the logic behind it. "Why?"

"Because I trust you, sir," Sharon told him honestly. Cylon spy or not, Lee thought he had a pretty good feel for her character after months of working beside her and watching her handle the Galactica's crew. "I trust you completely. And not just to not needlessly persecute me for being a Cylon. I trust you to do the right thing by everyone in the Fleet. So if you feel you can't trust me now, strip me of command, and send me home on the next courier, I'm perfectly okay with that." She paused and added sheepishly, looking painfully young in Lee's eyes, "But I wouldn't recommend killing me. Given all the Cylons we've been seeing around here, we're probably inside their resurrection net and I have no idea how they'll react to me popping up out of one of their resurrection tanks."

"Duly noted," Lee said with a suppressed snort of humor. He wasn't sure if he still trusted her yet, but the advice was sound and she was still acting like the Sharon Tyrol he knew. "How about you tell me about the real Sharon Tyrol, not the facade that you've been putting up for everyone for... I don't know how long?"

"Well, sir, I was a sleeper agent," Sharon began.

What followed was an hour long back and forth where Sharon explained her true history as she knew it to Lee. She explained how she didn't know where here real memories ended, and the fake ones began. She explained how on her first duty station, the old Galactica commanded by Lee's father, she had met and fallen in love with the man that would become her husband. She explained how on one weekend leave to Picon shortly before the Old Girl had been decommissioned, she had blacked out and woken up in a room full of Cylons – many of whom had looked like her – where two Cylons explained to them that the entire Cylon race was pulling out of Twelve Colonies' region of the galaxy for parts unknown, and that the spies inserted into the Colonies could choose to either stay or go with them. She told him about how after learning she was a Cylon, she had done some investigating and concluded that the Cylons had killed thousands on Troy just to give her cover, and how freakishly familiar its ruins had been to her. And she had explained the years that she had spent looking over her shoulder, fearing that someone might discover that she was a Cylon, and how it pained her that she couldn't share her deepest secret with the love of her life and their children, and how she desperately missed them after being nearly seven months apart.

Lee turned everything Sharon had told him in his head and finally came to a decision.

"You know, Sharon, you're wrong about one thing," Lee said thoughtfully, slowly.

"Sir?"

"You said all your pre-Sleeper memories are fuzzy, indistinct, right?" Lee asked her.

"Yes, sir," Sharon said apologetically. "I'm sorry I'm useless for intel on that."

"Not the point," Lee told her. "The point is that you don't think of yourself as that model Eight Cylon spy. You think of yourself as Sharon Valerii because that's all you really remember being. Didn't you say that you were supposed to get back all your pre-Sleeper memories when the Cylons 'woke you up'?"

"Yes..." Sharon said slowly, clearly not seeing where Lee was heading.

"Well then it's obvious to me that the Cylons botched the job of making you a Sleeper," Lee explained. "Sharon Valerii isn't dead, and you aren't pretending to be her. You are Sharon Valerii wearing the body of a model Eight Cylon, and the model Eight Cylon that was in there before is dead and gone."

"Uh, wow, sir," Sharon stammered, clearly taken aback by Lee's declaration. "I'm not sure I believe you, but it means a lot to me that you believe it. Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome," Lee replied. He sighed. "Tomorrow, we're going to have to inform the the rest of the Fleet. Can't have them discovering your secret by stumbling across other Number Eights."

"It's just 'Eight', sir," Sharon corrected. "But you're right. We should tell everyone tomorrow. And sir?"

"Hmm?"

"As you said, the Cylons did a botched job on me," Sharon began. "So I can't be sure that I don't have hidden commands and triggers buried in my psyche somewhere that they 'forgot' to remove. So I'm going to apologize and plead in advance that I had no control over my actions if I suddenly shoot you out of nowhere and with no warning."


"So, Tyrol, if you're really a Cylon," Commander Felix Gaeta said slowly, "do you have any brothers or sisters back home who are available and looking to hook up?'

"Really, Gaeta? That's what you're concerned about?" Sharon asked, not quite believing what she was hearing. "Not, 'Commander Tyrol, what do you know about the Cylons?' Or how about 'Commander Tyrol, why should we trust you?'"

"Well we already covered the former in this meeting," Gaeta told her blithely, "And as for the latter, half the old crew is already convinced you were a Cylon anyway because of the show and how well you've aged... or haven't aged I should say."

"And to be fair, ma'am, half the Galactica's crew was already convinced of the same thing, for much the same reasons," Colonel Slate added. "That alternate history show has some of the highest view counts in the Galactica's video library, especially the episodes featuring your character."

"Oh my gods, I hate that show," Sharon moaned, dropping her face into her hands. That got a round of chuckles from the other senior officers.

Lee watched the derailment of his senior officers meeting with some amusement. Normally, he'd rein things in before they got this far, but he thought it was important to let the regular social interaction take its course so that they'd know – on a gut level and not just intellectually – that Sharon Tyrol was still the same Battlestar Commander that they've been working with and training with since they'd all been assigned to the Expedition despite her being a Cylon. But now it was time to spare Sharon the ribbing and bring the meeting back to order.

"Be that as it may, people," Lee said loudly, causing everyone to settle down. "What we have right now is a golden opportunity. We have a Cylon on our side, one that might be able to get us access to intelligence on what the Cylons are doing now."

"Sir, I'm going to have to stop you right there," Sharon interrupted. "If you're expecting me to just fly up to a Basestar in a Raptor and ask for whatever they have that passes for a newspaper, it's not going to work. We may all look alike to you, by every individual Cylon personality has a unique ID, sort of like a MAC address or a serial number. As soon as I say anything to them, they're going to know who I am and that I was one of Cylons that chose to stay in the Colonies. If their Armistice Station party won't even talk to the others back in the Colonies, I doubt they're going to trust me if I show up on their doorstep and demand answers."

"But they already know you're here," said Commander Seline Applebee of the Vesta. "You told us yourself. You actually spoke to this Iota that grafittied your ship."

"All they know is that I was on the largest Battlestar in the Expedition," Sharon replied. "And that when they saw me last, I was a Colonial Fleet junior officer. That's all the more reason for them not to trust me."

"Tyrol, you said you could just eavesdrop on the Cylons without giving your presence away, right?" Gaeta asked.

"Yeah, I tried to do that with Iota," Sharon confirmed. "But I wound up giving myself away anyway. I really haven't practiced this mental communication thing in the last twenty years even with other Cylons back home."

"Well, maybe you could practice it more," Gaeta suggested. "I mean, it's FTL signals, right? Maybe you could eavesdrop on the Cylons right now."

"The Admiral already had me try that before this meeting," Sharon told him. "I didn't hear anything except maybe some empty carrier signals."

"Ah, but what if you were in the same system as a basestar?" Gaeta asked.

"It wouldn't... um, hmm..." Sharon trailed off and scratched her head as she considered Gaeta's idea. "It might work," she admitted slowly.

"That's it then." Gaeta turned to Lee. "Sir, here's what I propose. We send Commander Tyrol in a Raptor or a Viper refitted for recon to a system we know the Cylons have a significant presence in. Once she gets there, she can open up on passive and try to listen in on what the Cylons are talking about."

"Won't the Cylons see her, Commander?" Lee asked. "Or at least, spot her Raptor?"

"Not if she's far enough away ,sir," Gaeta replied. "Commander Tyrol's telepathy..."

"It's not telepathy!" Sharon interrupted. "It's waves through hyperspace, or so I'm told."

"Right," Gaeta acknowledged, "Her telepathy," Sharon gave an annoyed huff but didn't further interrupt, "works at FTL speeds over short astronomical ranges. If her ship jumps in at say, a light hour or two from the basestar, the basestar won't even know she's there until the light of her arrival reaches them, at which point she can jump out before they realize she's there."

"And if Tyrol still can't hear anything," Applebee began, catching on to what Gaeta was suggesting, "she can jump around the system to try and get better reception. Maybe she can even jump closer if it's just a signal strength problem, although that'll decrease listening time until discovery."

"Sounds like a plan," Lee said. "Commander Tyrol? Are you up to it? If you're not confident you can pull this off, I'm not going to make you try."

"I'll do it, sir," Sharon replied. "I want to know what the hell they're doing as much as anyone." She turned to Gaeta. "Since this is your idea, which system should we pick?"

"I think we should go with the one with the heaviest Cylon activity that we've seen so far," Gaeta suggested. "That'll give you the best chance to overhear something. Of course, that's also going to maximize your chances of being discovered. So one extra thing you can do minimize discovery is enter the system well off the ecliptic plane. Jump in above one of the system primary's poles. Given the way orbital mechanics work, there should be absolutely nothing there and thus no reason for anyone including the Cylons to go there."


"Galactica, this is Hack," the Raptor pilot said, "We are ready to depart."

"Roger that, Hack," Galactica's traffic control answered back. "You are cleared for take off. Gods be with you."

It had been a long time since Sharon had ridden in a Raptor as an actual crew member. Time and promotions had taken her out of the pilot's seat, and sometimes she missed being a simple Raptor pilot. The new pressure suits were much more tight fitting than the ones Sharon had begun her military career with, and she had self consciously felt the gaze of every male – and quite few female – crew member in Galactica's port hangar deck on her when she strolled out to board Hack's Raptor. But aside from that, the suit was actually comfortable despite being snug and it actually felt good to be in a Raptor again.

Sharon had considered using a Viper modified for recon duty. After what happened to the Vesta's Viper squadrons, it was pretty clear the fighters were going to be useless as any kind of combat platform unless the Colonials were willing to take ridiculously lopsided casualties, which they weren't. So Sharon had ordered her own Vipers to all be refitted for recon duty, which included the installation of their own FTL drives and the ability to stretch the fuselage to include a second seat for an ECO, features of the Mark X that Sharon and many other senior officers that she knew had derided as "useless". There weren't enough spare FTL drives in stock to refit every Viper the Galactica carried, but the machine shop was spitting out as many drives as it could make as fast as it could make them, and a couple Vipers had already been fully refitted for recon duty.

In the end though Sharon had decided to go with the venerable Raptor. If anyone had asked her, it's because the recon Viper was a two seater and Sharon didn't want to be distracted from eavesdropping by having to pull pilot or ECO duties as well. But the real reason was because Sharon was simply more comfortable with Raptors than with Vipers. Sharon sat in the copilot's seat next to Hack. Coldcut, Hack's ECO, sat at the station behind them of course.

"FTL drive spinning up now," Coldcut announced as Hack's Raptor soared out of the Galactica's flight deck..

"Coldcut, after we jump, spin the FTL drive back up as fast as you can and keep it hot," Sharon ordered. "I know we're not supposed to run into Cylons on this mission, but I want to be able to bug out ASAP in case we underestimated them again."

"Roger that, ma'am," Coldcut acknowledged. "Keep FTL drive hot."

"Ma'am?" Hack said. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course," Sharon replied.

"Are you really a Cylon, Ma'am?" Hack asked.

"Yes, Hack," Sharon replied, resigned to a future where she'd be peppered by questions like this for all eternity. "I'm a Cylon, a human model Cylon just like in that TV show."

"What TV show is that, Ma'am?" Hack asked curiously.

"The TV show about an alternate universe where the Cylons... attacked..." Sharon trailed off when she realized what she had asked. "You... haven't seen it? I thought everyone had seen it. It's in the Galactica's video library!"

"No, I don't watch sci fi," Hack replied. "But since you recommended it, I guess I'll check it out after we get back."

Outwardly, Sharon nodded, the very picture of cool and collected senior officer. Internally, she was screaming in annoyed frustration. It was a good thing she hadn't opened up her mental communications yet, or the Cylons back home in the Colonies would have heard her.

"FTL spun up," Coldcut announced. "Ready to jump."

"Punch it!" Sharon ordered.

It might have been years since she had flown a Raptor, but Sharon's training automatically came back to her and she glanced down at the Dradis display just as the FTL jump occurred. That familiar momentary feeling of being everywhere and nowhere passed over Sharon, and her eyes widened as blips suddenly blossomed on the Dradis.

"Oh, FRAK!"