I

Saul Tigh called a meeting for mid-morning the following day. Another transmission had come in overnight from Galactica, and they needed to start coordinating plans with their people out in the stars. Upon seeing the plan that the Admiral had laid out, he gave a low whistle. It was aggressive, and it was complicated. He had allowed everyone to sleep the night before. The Old Man couldn't move without knowing the plans on the ground. Everyone would need what rest they could get.

He laid out the general plan to the major players in the Insurgency.

"Only Galactica? No Pegasus?" Tom Zarek didn't understand cutting the use of Battlestars in half.

"That's what the Op Plan calls for", Galen said, harboring his own doubts. "I don't quite understand it, either, but that's what we have to deal with."

Laura slipped into her Presidential mode. "I understand it perfectly."

Everyone turned to the former President.

"I had a conversation with the Admiral shortly before The Cylons arrived. I told him explicitly that, if it ever came to the point that the Battlestars had to vacate this area, that anyone who escaped had to be the priority of his Command. If both ships come here, and we are beaten, then that will be the end of Humanity. The Admiral is hedging his bets."

"It still cuts down the firepower we can use on their Baseships", Saul pointed out. "But, that's the hand we're being dealt, so we can't cry over spilled milk, can we?'

As they were talking, Galen heard the wireless chirp that a message had arrived. He excused himself and retrieved it.

"One big problem", Diana Seelix pointed out. "The Cylons have the launch keys for all the ships. We don't know where they are, or how to retrieve them."

Galen was heading back to sit down, and had heard Hardball's comments. "We just received information on that very thing, Seelix. They're going to send an advanced party down here, that we will meet, and they will retrieve the keys."

They can't just waltz into Cylon facilities, and grab them", Zarek objected. "Who are they sending?"

Galen looked doubtfully at everyone.

"They're sending Sharon."

Tigh was chewing on a cigar, and he almost swallowed it. "I hope that's a fraking joke!"

The Chief shook his head. "No joke, Saul. The Old Man has given her a full Lieutenant's commission. Right now", he said with a wry smile that he couldn't suppress, "she out-ranks you and me, or any of us."

There was general grumbling among the leadership.

"I would remind all of you", Laura spoke up amid their consternation, "that we have to trust the Admiral and his forces, just as they need to trust us." She looked around at everyone like the school teacher she was, imparting an important lesson. "If Admiral Adama trusts Sharon, then we must, too."

"By the way", Galen interjected", she has a Call Sign: Athena."

"Whose to say 'Athena', won't betray us the moment she's down here?" Charlie Connor's son had been lost in a round-up by the Cylon-led, and Human-staffed New Caprica Police Force, just under a year ago. They insurgency had blown up the first graduating class, killing most of the recruits. A few had survived. But The skin jobs had recruited more people. "You can't trust a Cylon."

Seelix put a hand on his arm to steady him.

Roslin studied him for a moment. "I understand your concerns, Mr. Connor", she said in a precise Presidential manner, "but you have to trust the Commander on the spot. All of you", she said, looking hard at them all, "are instructed to assist Athena in any way when she arrives here, is that clear?"

There mumbles and nods. That wasn't good enough for Roslin.

"Is that clear?"

This time, everyone spoke up.

"Yes ma'am."

"Understood."

"It's perfectly clear."

The Laura broached the subject paramount on her mind. "What are our plans for freeing our people from the detention facility."

Her young wife, Kara, wasn't the only one there. Over a hundred others were still missing, and many of them had to be in the large prison facility.

"I have people working on that. Saul and I are trying to coordinate the attack on the facility with the general uprising." Tom Zarek had a good half-dozen men that he trusted implicitly. The others might now, but a war made strange bedfellows, and Zarek would need more than six people to storm the prison.

"Zarek and I have been working on this thing for months", he said to the general audience. "I think we have it pretty much ironed out."

"We will get everyone out of there, Laura", Tom added. "Especially Kara."

She nodded her head.

Tory Foster gave her report. "I've recruited about fifty-five 'block leaders', who will be in charge of different areas of the settlement, and will be directing people to ships when the uprising begins. I'm still trying to recruit more."

"Have you had a chance for a dress-rehearsal", Galen inquired. "There's gonna be a lot of panic out there, and people are gonna be scared.

"I think they'll do fine", Laura offered. "We have to trust our people, that, when the time comes, they'll do what they need to do."

"Did Adama say how they plan to make the attack inside the atmosphere?" As a burgeoning pilot, Diana Seelix would want to know about that.

"All he said", Saul Tigh offered, "is that we'll know."

That answer pleased no one, but it would have to suffice for now.

"OK, everyone", Saul said, wrapping it up. "We need to step up or coordination. We let Galactica know that we'd like the jump-off to be within the next week. I want you, and everyone working for you, to report back in two days, so we can choreograph this thing, got it?"

Everyone responded to the affirmative.

"Get outta here, and get to work."

It had been a month since Kara had been put in the Cylon prison, in exchange for medicine needed to fight an Epidemic similar to on that had taken her husband, Sam Anders, among others, over a year ago. She couldn't know it, but the Epidemic was starting to peter out, which would have brought her a little solace.

But for Starbuck, her life had been a living hell.

She was emaciated, not having any decent food to eat. And that was the least of her problems.

Kara had been beaten, raped, and tortured for no reason. D'Anna had said they didn't want to kill her, just break her spirit. Despite her determination to not give them that satisfaction, she was starting to lose hope.

The daily visit from a Sharon, or the one Leoben, who took out their sexual frustrations on her had humiliated the once-proud pilot. The most precious thing that she wanted only to give to Laura, was being abused by these two skin jobs. It was taking her very spirit away. Every time it happened, she tried to turn her mind to Laura, and the thought of making love to her wife. But she wondered if she survived this, if Laura would ever be able to touch her again, without her recoiling in fear.

Her other fear was that Leoben would impregnate her. She was almost certain that, if Kacey were indeed her biological daughter, that the male sperm donor was a Leoben, which made her shudder, fearing he would come after her one day, and take her away. Laura was her insurance policy-she hoped-if that ever occurred.

As she daydreamed through another session of Leoben grunting above her until he satisfied himself, she kept praying that she would be delivered from this place. She didn't care how, just that she would be rescued soon than later.

Aboard Galactica

Helo had just received the latest communication from the surface. This one was a synopsis about what had been going on since they left the planet, more than eighteen months earlier. Most of the news was not good.

They knew on the shop that an Epidemic had hit right when The Cylons had shown up, but had left before the damage was done. They had lost a great fighter in Sam Anders, and scores and scores of others to the sickness. It detailed the suicide bombing by Duck, and the establishment of the New Caprica Police Force. It also detailed the milder Epidemic that had besieged the settlement over the past month, but which seemed to be under control. Once they got the survivors back, that situation would have to be monitored.

The only good news from the surface, had nearly knocked Helo over.

"Admiral", he said, entering Adama's office. He had informed the Admiral of the transmission, and brought it immediately to him after reading the contents. "I've got the communication from the surface, sir."

"Anything we need to move on with this one?"

Helo shook his head. "No, sir. This is basically a synopsis of everything that has happened since we left. A lot of it is pretty hard to read, sir. They've been through a lot.

As Adama read through it, he had to agree. It sickened him to hear about Anders, and wondered how Kara was faring. He read the part of Kara's escape, Duck's suicide bombing, and the other nightmares of what their people had gone through.

Helo knew when the Admiral reached the last tidbit, as his face paled, clearly re-reading the paragraph. Helo couldn't help but smile.

"Is this last item some kind of joke?"

Helo grinned again. "I sent back a transmission, asking them the same thing. No, sir, it's no joke."

"Kara has a daughter. She's back in prison, traded for medicine to fight the Epidemic. And..." He looked at Helo like a deer looking into headlights, "she and Roslin are married?"

"That's about it, sir", he said, not being able to wipe the grin off his face.

Adama shook his head to clear it. "We're gone for eighteen months, and the whole place is fraked up."

Helo gave a rueful chuckle. "In a situation like they're in, sir, you find happiness where you can. If they are married, and have been happy together, I can't knock it."

Bill admitted that he had found Laura very attractive. Yet they had always rubbed each other the wrong way oftentimes. He had never heard of Kara being with a woman-all the reports on her sexual misconduct on the ship had been with me. But whatever the case, Helo was right, if they were happy, that's all that mattered.

"Send this over to Lee", Bill Adama instructed. "I'm sure he'll find this interesting as well."

"Yes, sir", Helo said, rose, saluted and left the room.

Onboard Pegasus

"Commander", Anastasia Dualla announced, "I have an incoming from Galactica."

"Is it marked urgent or classified, Dee?"

She shook her head. "No, sir, it's not, although Helo suggest you read it sitting down and in your quarters."

Lee got a strange look on his face. "Why the frak would he say that?"

Dee laughed. "No idea, sir."

He thought for a moment, then began to move. "Lieutenant, join me in my quarters to read over it?"

"Aye sir."

A few minutes later, Lee was reading the report. He gave the highlights to Dee.

"That Epidemic took a lot of people." He looked at his wife. "Sam Anders was one of them."

"Oh, gods, no." Her face almost crumpled. She may not like Kara Thrace, but she would never wish that on any Human being. "Losing Sam...that's huge."

"It is." He went over the other parts with Dee, the litany breaking both their hearts as the litany of losses that had occurred piled up in the report.

Lee got to the last paragraph, and the same look that had creased his father's face in reading it, crossed his. He couldn't read it out loud. He looked up at Dee, confusion sluicing over his features.

"Lee? What is it?"

He simply handed her the communication. Dee read the last paragraph, her eyes going wide with her own shock. "Is this legitimate, Lee?" She couldn't believe it.

"Helo said he asked that, and they confirmed it." Lee shook his own head. "I certainly never saw any of that coming."

Dee almost laughed. "That makes two of us." She put down the paper. "Starbuck is a mom, and...she's married to President Roslin?"

Lee was dazed. The big obstacle between he and Dee over the years had been his penchant for wanting Kara, even when married to Dee. Lee and Kara truly cared for and loved each other, but they were oil and water when together for any period of time. But this? This was beyond the realm of what anyone could have imagined.

"If we don't get them off that planet soon", Lee said, with a serious look, but an ironic sound in his voice, "Saul and Galen will end up being a couple and get married. Gods..."

Dee broke out in hysterical laughter, just the thought of that too much for her to handle. Despite all the bad news in the report, Lee had no choice but to laugh with her.