Thank you to everyone who is reading. I'm posting two chapters this weekend.

I do not have any beta, so all grammar mistakes are mine. English is my second language and I get upset when I realize I let one mistake through. I make the best effort to correct them and resubmit immediately when I notice.

Happy Reading!

Chapter 25

Upon waking up, Helena continued to work on the translation. "A little bit each day", she said. With so many persons from the outside in her group, she was not at liberty to share publicly her findings. She showed it to Dr. Inoue, commenting how her guide was named Sharon. New information about the process of cylon resurrection was also interesting. A download into a new genetically engineered body, presuming they had somewhere a resource to manufacture new bodies, called a resurrection ship. It looked like cylons had number models, which were clones from each other. The writings had talked about a number six woman, a number eight woman named Sharon and eight models, which had been mentioned earlier in the diary. Helena wanted to talk with their Sharon and she approached her with two cups of coffee.

"Would you like one?" she said.

Sharon nodded, took her cup and sat next to Helena on a rock.

"I am really interested in the history of your people. Part of the goal of this expedition is also to find out more about your culture and preserve it" Helena said. "It is very interesting and I believe unique."

Sharon nodded, attentive, sipping her hot coffee.

"You did not tell us your last name, Sharon?" Helena smiled.

"Well, we do not really have last names, we take the name of the village we come from." Sharon replied.

Helena looked at her, puzzled. It was not unheard of; often before westernization, individuals would just go by one given name and take an additional name based on their location of birth, their profession, the village they came from, the name of their parent or got attributed a name as they were growing up. She really wanted to hear the names of these thirteen villages.

"Which village?"

"Well, the villages are named based on the zodiac constellations, as our ancestors had an entire mythology based on sky observations"

Helena looked at her in awe. Sharon added:

"I come from a village named Caprica" and so I am "Sharon of Caprica".

Helena nearly dropped her cup. It took a lot of self-control to prevent Helena from screaming in excitement. She continued, softly, her voice wavering: "And what are the other villages' names? You said there were thirteen?"

"That is right" Sharon replied. "Caprica is in the center of the valley. It is where the main council..."

"The Quorum" Helena interrupted

"Yes, the Quorum, meets. Along the edges of the valley, which is protected by ridges all around, you have Aquaria, Picon, Aerilon, Tauron, Sagitarron, Gemenon, Leonis, Virgon, Scorpia, Canceron, and Libran. Those were villages that were founded a very long time ago."

"I bet", replied Helena, hiding her emotion with difficulty. She added: "But that is only twelve names. What is the name of the thirteenth village?"

She saw Sharon hesitate. "The thirteen village is way up the ridge, further away from all the others and isolated. It is abandoned now and in ruins. We do not know what happened there."

"Does it have a name?" Helena insisted.

"We really do not like to mention it. It is called Terra." Helena looked down at the implications of Sharon's words.

Sharon stood suddenly and said: "We have to go". The men packed up the tarps, which was easy enough and their long hike in the mountains continued. Helena walked next to Takashi to share with him the amazing information her conversation with Sharon gave them.

"I was cleaning and sorting through boxes of papers on Colonial One with Tory when I found the file of Bill Adama and I realized that he was coming up to his 40th year anniversary of service in the fleet. Bill was going through a rough time. I could see the signs clearly, guilt of leaving us on New Caprica, not rescuing us fast enough, over the loss of lives resulting from his inability to come quicker. He was going through a crisis of his own. We all did. I was as well, except, I think, that retrieving the lost memories of my detention helped a lot and, assuming the responsibilities of the presidency focused me outside of my own problems. It gave me a goal to achieve and a heavy workload to take my mind out of my personal ordeal. I decided to throw him a party. We had not had a good reason to celebrate anything recently and the soldiers needed an outlet, a way to rejoice and put their faith again in their military leader."

"In the mist of my planning, we found a cylon raider, with a human on board. Even more surprisingly, the soldier, Daniel Novacek, was a pilot of Adama, who had been lost in a fight by the cylon armistice line at least one year before the attacks, when Adama was commanding the Valkyrie Battlestar. He clearly had been in detention and seemed to have escaped it taking advantage of the cylon's illness affecting the crew of the basestar. I was very suspicious of this breakout. I did not believe it was a coincidence. I could see it as a cylon trick, but to what end? I settled to be present at the debriefing of Novacek, which took place in Bill's quarters. I gently interrogated the man, who seemed to be fairly shaken by his ordeal. But, to my astonishment, it seemed that Bill was covering the whereabouts of the original mission where Novacek had been originally captured. A reconnaissance mission by the armistice line, so close, and his description that they ran into some Tauron resistance and that his raptor was shot did not make any sense. If they did not cross the line, then why was he captured by the cylons. Clearly Bill was hiding something from me. I could see right through him. I made Tory take Daniel out of the room and I remained with Bill; he refused to disclose the truth to me and I was hurt by his lack of confidence in me. We were friends. What was it, that was so big, he could not disclose? I guess we all had our dirty secrets. What ever it was, Daniel Novacek must have found out, because a couple of days later he beat up Bill so much that Bill had to have stitches to his eyebrow. He probably would have killed him, if it were not for Colonel Tigh arriving just on time. It really would not take a genius to realize that Bill had been somehow responsible for Novacek's capture by the cylons."

"Bill came two days later handing me a letter of resignation, explaining that he had been part of a secret mission to spy on the cylons and that Novacek had been captured by the cylons as he had passed on the other side of the armistice line. Their cover had been blown, and Adama shot down Novacek's reconnaissance raptor to avoid the cylons to believe that this was an intentional move. The cylons did not shot down Novacek, Bill did. So here it was! Bill believed that the intrusion beyond the armistice line, which was drawn after the first cylon war, was the ultimate cause of the second war and started the attacks, which caused our destruction. He believed he was the ultimate cause of our holocaust. I could have laughed at his naivety. The government and especially the military on Caprica had been so corrupt that they might as well have sent him on this mission in order to provoke the cylons. For years, they had done all kinds of outrageous moves, which would have started a conflict. I was part of the government then. What Bill does not know, is that I was having an affair with president Adar and I saw how conflicts were created to benefit armament corporations, to sell more weapons and to regroup the troops and the people in times of social conflict. I knew what was going on and part of me became quite disillusioned about our government, which is ultimately the reason why my relationship did eventually break up with Adar. The Caprican society had been corrupt to the core. We deserved what we got. Bill Adama was just a pawn in a much larger system, where special interests and money were really governing. The just and straight Bill Adama, a loyal commander, loyal to his country and his superior officers had been played and used up. He did not create the conflict, they did. But now, Bill was weighted by his guilt. He was feeling responsible for the holocaust of universal dimensions, which wiped out our civilizations and billions of human lives. His guilt was weighing him down and I could see it in the way he was holding his body, in the way he was moving and talking. I looked at him with tenderness, but refused his resignation. Funny, how he started his letter by my first name, instead of addressing it to the president. As if his resignation was also a way to make amends to me for what happened on New Caprica, as if he was also resigning because he felt inadequate in saving us from the cylons then. Bill would go and celebrate his 40th year of service and I ordered him to do so. I issued a presidential order, that he was not allowed to resign and had to attend his party. I called him naive for believing that the admiralty had been playing straight with him and believe he actually had been responsible for the war. I believed that.

I am not sure he would forgive me for doing this, but he needed to see that his officers still respected him and valued his service. I also wanted him to know that I knew exactly what he was feeling. No matter what, he would have my support. I trusted him with my life. I am not sure he would actually understand or know this, but I wanted him to. He started to address me as Madame President and I gladly played his little game, addressing him as Admiral, even when were meeting privately."

"The ceremony took place in the hangar bay and I introduced him, pinned the medal on his uniform. He accepted it from me as the president. I looked in the crowd for private Buzzard, who had witnessed my ordeal in cylon detention. I could not find him. After the ceremony, Bill walked me to my shuttle, quiet, probably reflecting on what just happened with Novacek, his hand touching lightly my lower back. By the shuttle, he whispered: 'Thank you, Madame President, it has been a honor."

I smiled at him, and then I suddenly remembered.

'Admiral, that private, you know the one you interrogated about me? I did not see him at the ceremony.'

He lowered his head, swallowing hard. 'He died, Madame President'.

'How come?'

'He hung himself yesterday.'

It was my turn to lower my head, shaking it slowly, not knowing what to say. I looked at him, praying he would not see tears pooling in my eyes.

'Do we know why?' I whispered.

'We just found one piece of paper by him with -I am sorry- written on it.'

He looked at me in silence. Then said; 'Madam President...'

'Admiral. It is war. We all are victims.' Then I added: 'I want to see him.'

'I would advise against it, Madam President.'

'I insist.' And so we turned around away from the shuttle bay to go back to sickbay and the morgue nearby. I had not been there since the death of Billy. It felt like ages ago. When he opened the door to lead me in, I got hit in the face by the cold air, smelling of disinfectant. I paused closing my eyes for an instant, willing the bout of nausea away.

'You're okay?' Bill asked. I nodded silently, before slowly walking in. He checked the file and pulled a drawer with the body and unzipped the body bag. Then he stepped back to let me approach. I looked at his grossly discolored face, thinking how young he was, thinking back of Billy. Did he kill himself because of me? Because of the shame he felt? Did my questioning him with Cottle trigger this? I will never know. The other guard had been killed too, because he was a collaborator. Would there be any redemption for the sins we committed?

'I'm so sorry' I whispered to him. Too late. I let my tears fall. I cried at my ordeal and at his ordeal. I wondered which was worse, to have been badly beaten or to have lost your soul and be the torturer? Bill had not moved, facing away from me.

'Thank you, Admiral. You can take me back to my shuttle now', I managed to say. We walked quietly along the corridors in silence. Back in shuttle bay, he gave me a hug and I stepped in the shuttle for my trip back on Colonial One."

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