As usual, I do not own the Battlestar Galactica (2003) story or its characters. This story is not written for profit. The characters in the modern story are mine.
With the end of the academic year, the graduations of my two daughters (four years apart) and the graduation of my students, I did not have a lot of free time to write. I take this seriously, so I'd rather take my time and deliver a long and interesting chapter to you, rather than something shorter. It may not seem like it, but this takes some effort and research.
I really appreciate the comments and want to thank the persons who commented. This motivates me even more.
Chapter 41
The team spent another two weeks doing scientific evaluations on the new discoveries in the caves and village. The cylon head dated the same as the remains on top of the Lady's Ridge, around 150,000 ago. Considering its age, it was simply incredible that John was able to power it up. Interestingly the metallic alloys used for the shell of the head, titanium alloys and circuits, were close in composition to the crate containing the books, and thus were able to prevent the damages of time and the resulting oxidation. He was able to detect semi-conductors as well, which were chemically stable. Of course there was no telling if there was any location device inside and John simply did not have the engineering skills and equipment to reverse engineer the cylon and figure out its electronic components, or even detect any broadcasting from the electronic circuits. Clearly this was out of his abilities. While everyone would have liked an answer, they all agreed that it was premature to release this information and bring out another scientist or engineer on the team.
Evelyne had collected DNA from all the villagers and had started to process the samples. She also collected organic material from the cylon head and from Sharon's tags.
Early results showed a high similarity between the organic remains in the cylon head and Sharon's tags. Yet the DNA found in the head was incomplete, somehow truncated and missing key genes. The first suspicion of this came, as Evelyne could not get any results with standards primers on this sample. She did not have the equipment to sequence the full DNA sample, yet she could already tell that this DNA had been altered and this suggested genetic engineering very strongly. That made the similarity between the cylon head and the sample on the tag more striking. And there was only one answer to this, that they both had cylon origin. The DNA samples of the village population showed incredible genetic diversity, with clearly different ethnic groups from varied origins and in some of them the cylon DNA sequences were showing up, although very altered and incomplete, making it difficult to know if the humans were at the origin of the cylon DNA or if cylons had bred with the original population. A full DNA sequence would probably help, but would not be processed until they were back at the lady's ridge camp. Evelyne had spent quite some time showing BLAST alignment data to her colleagues from partial sequences of certain genes and scrutinizing electrophoresis gels. It was clear however that these humans were related to each other and further away from the rest of the human population. Comparison with Laura's DNA put her in that population, which they started to call the 'Caprica population', although it became clear that none of the survivors were directly related to her. The amount of data to analyze would keep them busy for weeks.
Helena was making progress on the diaries translation and she also got hold of Hera's book. The short book described the life of the early colonists. It was a hard life. They had tremendous loses in the early years, due to various natural disasters, difficult adaptations to the terrain, wild life and conflicts with the native human species. After some brutal and difficult years, they decided to regroup in the mountains, which offered protection and shelter. Hera recounted how right at the onset the original settlers had pledged to abandon technology and return to a more natural life. She explained how that decision was motivated by fear of recreating cylons and mostly by years spent in space away from the natural world. Helena was delighted to read familiar names in Hera's writings, Lee Adama, Colonel Tigh and Helen, Sharon and Karl Agathon, Romo Lampkin, Baltar and Caprica Six; she was very interested to find out what happened to them. Helena was surprised to hear that discord had created frictions within the group after some particularly tough years, where many colonists died. Unfortunately, Hera stated how the decision to abandon technology based on an idealist idea turned out deadly for a lot of the population, without tools to work the ground, protect themselves and build structures to live. As they finally returned to the mountains, having lost many lives and in need of shelter, they regrouped their belongings and established the villages. They also went back to retrieve and shared their technology amongst the various groups, including raptors to fly and survey the terrain.
"Technology? Raptors?" exclaimed Takashi as he was listening to Helena read the book of Hera aloud. Helena looked up to him. The team was sitting around the campfire late in the evening sharing the day's discoveries, as they had started to do systematically every night after Elosha and her daughter Sharon departed. It was akin to story telling, with Helena reading aloud from the translations. The characters in the book had become their family and they were anxious to find out what happened to all of them.
"This could explain how the villages were created; clearly some of the houses were not carved by hand and the caves have been adapted and enlarged." Dr. Liang Hsu agreed.
"The question is, how much technology did they have and where did it go?" Helena whispered.
"Clearly they had a lot, according to this. And most certainly it got destroyed with time. That was a really long time ago." John Evans interjected.
"But it's not all destroyed! We found a titanium crate and a cylon head!" Helena replied, "if the rest of the equipment was manufactured in the same alloys, then some of it still could be somewhere around here."
"We need to find out if they have anything left at all." Takashi concluded, getting up.
The group dispersed. Helena and Takashi remained behind. They walked in silence towards the pond and sat next to each other by the water. Takashi wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.
"You know, they are going to come back soon." He whispered.
"Yeah, I know." She agreed. She did not ask who 'they' meant, they both knew that the helicopter of the UN would soon come back, bringing supplies and they would have to hand in reports of their discoveries. Then, they did not know what their future would be.
"Do we know when?" She asked.
"Probably next week." He replied, somber.
"Elosha will have the quorum meeting before then; I'm sure we will get tons of information when that happens. I think meeting the other village representatives will be very important and give us a lot of information," she added, "what is going to happen, Takashi?"
He nodded. "The village chiefs signed an agreement, where they would receive protection and medical supplies in exchange for that research."
"Do you really think that this agreement will be honored once there is a military and strategic interest?" She replied, bitter, nudging her head in the crook of his neck.
Their world had become quieter in this community. They had been meeting with the villagers, sharing their meals, chatting, laughing. They had an open exchange of ideas and they had been welcomed by each one of the members of the Caprica village. They had worked hard and felt free to share their knowledge with each person. Evelyne had explained to them how the DNA testing worked and Helena, under the supervision of Elosha, had started to share part of Laura's diary. Until the quorum meeting took place, they made the decision not to share the very likely possibility, if not certitude, that some of the colonists had been biological cylons. Their culture was rich in traditions. They had flags, which Helena recognized from the picture of Laura and Bill they had retrieved inside the book. They had rituals; ball games she never heard of, and even a hexagonal deck of cards, which some of the elders played with in the evening, screaming and laughing at who won or lost. This bubble of peace would disappear quickly when inspectors, engineers and politicians would start pouring in this place. The discovery of a cylon and possibly other advanced technological equipment would trigger a bidding war on who would benefit from this knowledge. Was humanity ready to handle peacefully such a discovery?
Helena looked at the starry sky in between the high branches.
"I don't want to ever leave…" she whispered in a sigh, barely audible. His thumb wiped off the lonely tear that made it to her temple.
"I don't want to leave either." He replied.
"This life they are having… you know, it is simple, open, honest. They're peaceful and have shared years of wisdom and reflection. We're going to go out there and this thing… here… will be all over the news, with journalists coming here. If we are unlucky, there will be a confidential stamp put on it and we will have a legal gag order preventing us to share anything. In the worse case scenario, we'll get eliminated so we don't talk, or they will destroy this place to protect its secret."
"You're watching to many movies, Helena…"
Am I, Takashi?" She looked at him, "you're the one who is hiding our back-up hard drives in a different place every night." He avoided her gaze.
"Takashi, this is special. This place is special. You know it. We need to protect it. This is the most important project of my life. This… is my life. I have been entrusted with Laura's voice. She cannot be lost now. It's too important." Her voice was breaking from the emotion.
"Yes, it is" He replied.
"My life had no meaning before. Now, I want to live… for this." She was quiet for several minutes resting her head on his shoulder. He kept on gently caressing her arm. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by fatigue.
"We need to sleep." He whispered, as he helped her stand up and they walked back slowly to the tents. In the darkness, by the tents, they stopped and looked at each other.
"Do you promise?" she said.
"What?"
"…to protect this civilization? This village? Their knowledge?"
"Yes." He replied.
"To protect us? You and me?"
"Yes."
They were standing facing each other in the darkness and, gently, he lifted her chin and kissed her on the lips. She smiled and leaned into the kiss. Then she turned around and went inside her tent.
"I washed my face in the restroom, and soon I was back in the courtroom to hear the sentence. I was tense and I had a bad premonition. Judge Franks delivered a speech about justice not being perfect. Then she pronounced Baltar not guilty, three votes to two. The room exploded in protest and screams. I was not sure my legs would support me. I looked at Lee. In that moment, I hated him. I would have spit on the floor, if I hadn't been the president. He betrayed me. He betrayed his father. I left because I couldn't stomach to be in the same room as him and Baltar. I wanted to throw up. My blood was boiling. Anger, rage even. They let Baltar walk after everything we endured on New Caprica. After tortures! After rapes! After everything that happened and hurt our people! They let Baltar walk after the fact he probably betrayed us to the cylons at the first place by letting then into the defense mainframe. They let Baltar walk! I hated this! I hated myself for letting Baltar be vice-president at the first place. All those people who died… and for what? So that this piece of trash walks free? I wanted to hit something, bang my fists into the metallic hull of the ship until my knuckles bled. I wanted to scream. But I didn't. I was still the president and I had to remain presidential. I was breathing fast and shallow. I was starting to feel dizzy. It was an unbearable feeling, as if I could feel the humiliation of my assault again. I was as if I could feel the pain of the scars in my flesh again. How could they do this?
I walked briskly to CIC followed by Tory. I wanted to see Bill. I needed to talk with him after days of not being able to talk about the trial. He would understand.
Bill looked tired. I am sure this entire ordeal had been tough on him. I finally got a moment with him to discuss this.
'Gaius Baltar is innocent! Just the sound of that makes my skin crawl' I whispered out of breath, anger caught in my throat, barely able to speak.
'Not guilty is not the same as innocent' Bill replied to me, grave, looking into my eyes. His body so close to mine, I could feel his heat without touching him. Then I saw it, as if I could read his mind like an open book. I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in the way he spoke to me. I saw it and it tore my heart open.
'It must have been particularly difficult for you' Bile rose in my throat. Tears stung my eyes. 'What… you…' I barely could breathe 'You couldn't get other guys to budge?'
He avoided my gaze, swallowed hard, and then he looked at me again. His eyes answered me before he even spoke. I nodded, as he confirmed by his silence my worse suspicions.
'You voted for his acquittal, didn't you?'
'I hate to say it, the defense made their case. The prosecution didn't' He answered, looking at me. I felt his words rather than heard them. I felt his words whipping my flesh, tearing my heart. It was physical. They hurt. I leaned towards him, held his shoulder in a tight painful grip and looked at him in his eyes. Look at me Bill, I thought. Look at what you did to me.
'Gaius Baltar is a traitor, we both know that…' I wanted to hurt him as much as he hurt me. 'Regardless of the outcome of this trial' I almost spit the word 'trial' at him. This was not a trial; this was a travesty! This was a mockery of justice! I let go of him and pushed him back, turning around so he would not see the bitter tears pooling in my eyes.
He spoke softly, almost tenderly as if he could understand my pain. 'No one is asking anyone to forget…or to forgive.' I turned around at the tone of his voice, letting him see the tears in my eyes and my distress. I was in shock, my heart pounding. His betrayal was painful.
'But we have to look to the future' He looked at me gently. 'Mr. Gaeta, commence jump prep. We're going to the Ionian nebula.' We looked at each other while a torrent of feelings threatened to overcome me. Lee betrayed me. Bill voted for Baltar's acquittal. I was upset. It was not the first time Bill and I disagreed on something. We both had very strong ideas and always respected each other, but this was different. I had suffered from the events on New Caprica in the flesh. It was personal to me. I was numb with the shock. He took away from me the closure I needed since New Caprica. Now, I knew what he was doing, effectively breaking my anger with an outlook towards our quest to Earth, putting the trial behind us. He did not try to convince me or make me change my mind. He knew I was hurt by his decision. As the crew initiated jump prep, he whispered 'Come with me' and we both walked down the stairs to the center of CIC.
These FTL jumps always made me a little dizzy. I have gotten used to it by now. But this one was different. Within seconds after the jump, I felt faint. I was overcome with the worse kind of migraine, a loud buzzing in my ears and flashing lights behind my eyes. I took my glasses off, holding my head, and leaned forward, moaning in pain. Flashes of the opera house invaded my consciousness. This wasn't a side effect of Doloxan. It was linked to the jump and the feeling of dread that invaded me made me forget my anger at Bill. He was there immediately reaching out to me, concerned. I leaned on the CIC table, trying to get my bearings feeling as if my head was going to explode. Then, we experienced major power fluctuations, all of us, each and every vessel of the fleet. Lights flickering, the oxygen airflow stopping and restarting. All the crew was in high alert, checking statuses and trying frantically to reestablish the power and isolate the source of the disruption. Then we completely lost power and life support systems went on batteries only, the auxiliary power not even working. I felt very weak, leaning on the table to bear my weight and avoiding falling down. I was seeing flashes of lights coming from the stage in the opera house, as it was closing on Caprica Six and Baltar, who was carrying Hera. The buzzing in my ears never stopped. Bill was screaming orders to his crew. The power came back. My headache lifted as the power returned and the buzzing in my ears subsided. I immediately felt better.
'Admiral, what's going on?' I asked.
'Some kind of power surge' he replied. Dualla confirmed that the power was restored to all ship simultaneously. I saw them before they did: cylons ships appearing on our dradis. Hardly a coincidence, I would say. Of course with the power loss, we were unable to jump again until the FTL drives were restarted, which would take a while. We were completely exposed, facing a huge numbers of cylons and no ability to evade the fight. I looked at Bill. We knew that was it. Tigh, who had been on leave since his testimony, joined us in CIC. Tory came back and said: 'I'm here if you need me Madame President.' I was grateful for her presence. Lee put back his fighter uniform and joined the fight as the attack vipers were deployed.
Then we heard her, on the wireless. We heard her, Kara! Telling Lee she had been to Earth… She was dead. This could not be happening. People recognized her voice. This could not be real. It was a hallucination or it was a cylon trick. Gods know they have been using everything they could to destroy us. No. This could not be real. There was footage of her ship exploding. We all saw it after the incident. The power fluctuation and then this… We were under attack and Kara showed up. No. One way to distract us… to drag us into a trap. I looked at Bill 'Admiral, this is a cylon trick'. I knew of his love for Kara and his pain when he lost her. He looked at me nodding, sending each and every viper out. The attack was brutal. There were hundreds of cylon raiders against our vipers. We were going to suffer major losses. We were doomed. The Pixis was hit, a ship with 600 passengers, which exploded. I couldn't believe they found us. We made the decision to protect the ships of the fleet first. The Galactica could handle direct hits for a while, not all vessels could. We were bombarded and the ship was shaking, making us fall, threatening to create a breach at any moment. I don't remember being scared. Looking back, as I write these lines, I realized I should have been. I wasn't. We were going to die and I was not scared. Ironic, how I worried I had been about the cancer, but facing this surprise attack I was fine. And then it happened. We still do not know why. All of a sudden, as the cylons could destroy us –they had the upper hand in the battle-, they retreated. They just left and their baseships jumped away. They could have annihilated us, but they didn't. They left. Why?
'Maybe something's changed' Tory said.
'Like what?' I replied.
Bill decided to take advantage of the cylons' retreat to gather everyone and jump away.
A security detail welcomed Kara in hanger bay. Bill, Tigh, Lee and Anders, her husband, went as well as some of the pilots. In case, there was a trap, Bill did not want me there."
"I waited in his quarters with Tory. It allowed me to lie down and close my eyes, recovering from my migraine and the terribly emotional events of the day. I felt exhausted. My mind was blank. I felt waves of shivers and heat, as my stomach started to act up. We were only early in the afternoon and the effects of the chemotherapy session from early in the morning were starting to manifest themselves. Tory brought me a bit of food, which I took but my nausea persisted. Reclining on Bill's rack, I just gathered my strength for what I knew would be a tough rest of the day. Kara would be brought to us, but the plan was to have her examined first by Dr. Cottle to verify she was human. Well, of course, the cylons models were looking exactly human and so that would not give us many clues of her identity. It was devious. Of course, Sharon, Boomer, did not know she was a cylon until she was ordered to shoot Adama. It is very possible that Kara did not even know she was a cylon and she had been programmed to think, behave and have the memories of Kara. A DNA test would not show us anything if they intercepted Kara's body and rebuilt her. It would be the same DNA. There was no way that we could know what was going on, other than the fact that Lee saw her ship explode, and that this was recorded by his ship video camera. She would not have survived such an impact. This was impossible. She was dead. I closed my eyes, sighing deeply, turning my head into the pillow infused by the unique scent of Bill and I realized how painful this was going to be for him. No matter how rational he would be, he was attached to Kara and, if she were indeed a cylon (how could she not be?), it would be a tear in his soul."
"This short hour rest was somewhat helpful. I was feeling better, when Bill and Tigh brought Kara back to his quarters with Cottle's report, and I got to interrogate her. I looked at her: it was Kara, the same exact woman I had come to know. She was perfect. She was Kara. Except that was impossible. Or maybe not, if she had been a cylon right from the start! Kara, who was fierce and unruly! Kara, who could have been my friend, if we had not been separated by age and by our respective roles and functions! Kara who put her life on the line for me, to go retrieve the arrow of Apollo! Kara, which I let down too! The medical report indicated that her DNA matched Kara's, which was not really a surprise. And no matter how long I interrogated her she kept on repeating the same story: that she went to Earth after passing out; that she did not remember how she got back. She described the star system, where Earth is, perfectly. And showed us pictures she took with her viper's camera. The pictures checked out. She couldn't remember how she found us back. For her, the entire trip took six hours, when she had been missing for over two months. She did not take very well being interrogated. She did not understand why we did not trust her. She became defiant when we continued the interrogation. Our suspicion made her enraged. I was frustrated. I wanted more and she seemed unable to give any other information. Kara was a fine officer, one of the best. Could she lie? Probably. And she also could be convinced of what happened. After all Boomer did not know she was a cylon until she was programmed to kill. If Kara was indeed a cylon, it's very possible that she didn't know it. She would be just the same, with the same memories and behaving… well exactly like herself… This Kara was defiant, and disrespectful. She did not understand our worries. And she clearly had a gap in time. She seemed desperate to grab our attention and to convince us. And the more she tried, the more we worried."
"This crisis needed immediate attention. It did not matter how tired we all were, and how sick I was. Even the trial seemed to be way back in the past, when it only happened in the morning. It was quite late in the afternoon when we all went in hangar bay to examine Kara's ship. Kara remained under guard in Bill's quarters. Chief Tyrol had completed a full check-up of her ship only to find out it was completely new, as of 'right out of the factory' new. Unlike Kara's original ship, which had been into many battles, this one –while identical- did not have a scratch. Her on-board computer had no data in memory. Absolutely empty. No navigation records, nothing. This didn't make sense. We were not experiencing a collective vision. The ship was real and completely new. It was not Kara's original ship, despite the same serial number. Kara was not really Kara. Something was wrong. Only cylons had the technology to replicate a body. This was unheard of. Cylons had come back, but they never came back with brand new ships.
'Put her in the brig' I said.
Lee got upset. He believed her. Of course, he had loved her. I had no patience to indulge in the tantrums of Lee at this moment. I quite had it with him. He behaved like a baby. I glanced at him and ignored his protests. He talked about Cottle's test, but we knew that cylons could create a perfect biological programmed replica. The reality was that if the cylons replicated her, maybe she was a cylon all along. We just never knew about it, just like we never knew that Boomer was a cylon, back before she attacked Bill. The fact is we knew that there were five models of unidentified cylons and they could be right among us. Bill loved her like a daughter. I could sense his hesitation, his struggle. He would never destroy her. He would never accept she was a cylon.
'I know how you feel about her, Bill, but that is exactly what the cylons could be counting on here.' I said softly to him.
We both knew that we had no way to detect cylons, if there were any among us, we would not know it. We had been in a battle about to lose earlier today. We were defeated in that moment in every sense of the world, where we could not jump away and they were in high numbers, and they ran off! They had a certain victory and could have simply destroyed us, and they let us go. And all of a sudden, Kara reappeared with our promise of Earth. That seemed too good to be true. Such coincidences did not happen by miracle. It seemed perfectly orchestrated with Kara claiming a way to earth that would lead us off course, the course that took us to the Ionian Nebula and further in the direction of earth, as we followed the holographic map of the Tomb of Athena and then the direction pointed to by the Eye of Jupiter. Lee, who did not miss an opportunity to disagree publicly with me, intervened saying the nebula was supposed to give us another clue, but indeed it was just a signpost. I could not even look at him. I asserted my authority on him, refuting his argument, as if he was a beetle on the floor, which he was to me. I had lost my respect for him during the trial and he knew it.
'What if Kara is the clue we were supposed to find?' he managed to tell me.
'And what if she is playing you?' I said looking at him with disdain and turned to Bill, 'What if she is playing you?' and looked at all around me, Tigh, Tyrol, Tory, 'and all of us?'
Bill issued the order to have Kara escorted by armed soldiers wherever she went. I did not want to talk with him. Everything I wanted to say I had already! I needed to focus on the tasks ahead. I had no time to start a discussion with Bill or anyone about the validity of Kara's claims or of her status. They did not have any more answers than I did. I turned to the only one, who could give me answers, Caprica Six. I needed to know. I needed to know what she knew. I could not live with it. I went down immediately to the brig to talk to her. We experienced visions together. When the power was disrupted, it was likely she was with me in that vision. I just saw lights, but she went inside. I saw her going inside the stage. For a few seconds, I was with Caprica Six, and I knew she might have experienced the same thing I did. She must have seen more that I. I needed to know. I asked her directly. We shared those visions and they brought us closer to each other. Whether I liked it or not, there was a bond between us, brought by our common experience. Bill and Lee wanted Kara to be real. In a sense, I wanted this too. But my logic and everything I knew about the cylons told me otherwise. I was hoping that Caprica Six would help me. I wanted to know about the five remaining cylons. I wanted to know if Kara was one of them. Caprica Six was not surprised to see me. Maybe she even was expecting me. Interesting that after all of this, fighting the cylons -she was the enemy- I would find an ally in her. I convinced her to talk to me. She told me: 'The Five are close… I can feel them'. I was shocked. I certainly did not expect that answer. I knew she was not lying to me. Considering what she said, it just told me that probably Kara was a cylon. But she did not know who they were. And it told me there were others present close to us. This was truly a terrifying thought. I thanked Caprica Six and we promised to share any new information with each other. "
"I went back to Bill's quarters. He was not there; I suppose he was still down in CIC on duty. I was tired. It was getting really late. What a day! I sat down on a chair. I was numb with disbelief; it was as if we were back at stage one, not knowing who the cylons were and with unidentified enemies among us. Thoughts kept coming and going in my mind; I wanted some clarity. My body felt weak. I had not eaten anything and the mere thought of food was making me sick. I tried slow breaths to push the nausea away and clear my head. A sharp headache was rising behind my eyes. Suddenly my stomach contracted, and I stumbled to the head, my hand in front of my mouth trying to hold it in. I barely made it to the toilet, where I vomited. Gods, it hurt so much. I was not even done that it happened again, and again. I had not eaten anything, what was left to puke? Liquid kept on coming up. Kneeling by the toilet, I braced myself on the wall, as I was violently sick. After a few minutes the spasms subsided and I just sat on the floor by the toilet, not daring to move. I guess Cottle would have to give me something for nausea. My head was hurting; my muscles felt sore from the cramping; my throat was raw. I closed my eyes and rested, my head cradled in the corner formed by the walls. It took another frame of time before I felt comfortable enough to move and I went to the sink to drink and remove the bitter taste from my mouth. I brushed my teeth and washed my face.
So, this is it; I would be sick from the treatments. I took a washcloth and wet it. The lights were pure pain to my head. I turned off most of the lights, walked and lay down on Bill's bed, my eyes covered by the wet washcloth, hoping this migraine would pass. I must have fallen asleep.
I woke up to the loud thud of the hatch opening. I thought Bill was coming back, but it felt wrong. I slowly rose, still half asleep and took of the washcloth from my eyes. The searing headache immediately returned and I saw Kara facing me pointing a gun at me. I did not have my glasses and my vision was blurry. The headache was pulsing behind my eyes.
'Move' she screamed at me. 'Come on, move… come on… over by the coach.' I was waiting for the bullets to hit me. I was just paralyzed. Her voice and the absence of the death I was fully expecting, pulled me into motion and I slowly walked in the darkened room, trying not to make any sudden movement that would trigger her to shoot. Kara closed the hatch while keeping me at gunpoint.
'I want to hate you so much… so much' She said and I looked at her, my initial panic receding. We never could hate each other, despite our disagreements over the years. And now pointing a gun to my head, angry and disturbed, she still could not hate me. Was she a cylon? We didn't know what she was and I am sure she didn't know either. Struggling with her own identity, she was trying to make me change my mind at gunpoint. I knew she probably would not hesitate to kill me, because she was completely irrational, and thus represented a threat to all of us, aside from the high probability she had been programmed to destroy us. I was breathing low, trying to remain calm, avoiding provoking her.
'You had a vision, remember? The arrow, the temple…' She said coming closer to me. I nodded.
'I went down to that planet with you and it was a frakking toaster party…a lot of good people died, remember?'
'Yes, I do' I replied, while looking at her in her eyes. Kara had put her life in danger to retrieve the arrow. I sent her there. She betrayed her Admiral on my order and went back. On the planet, she had to fight; she was taken and witnessed horrible tortures by cylons attempting to reproduce biologically. They harvested her ovaries. She was detained in a hospital where horrible experiments were performed. When she escaped, and eventually returned, she told me that there were some humans left, a resistance, mostly a team of pyramid players with Sam Anders, who would become her husband later, at their head. I didn't send a rescue mission to get them out right away. She promised to return and I prevented her. I truly could have been more understanding of her. So many people gave everything they had for me. What did I do with all of this? Maybe, I deserved that gun pointed at me. Only a few hours ago, I was thinking about Wally and now, I was reminded of the injustice I had done to Kara.
'I trusted you, on a vision.' She added, 'that's it… a vision. I saw earth. I saw it with my own eyes and it's calling me back.' She claimed strongly then, 'We're going the wrong way!'
She was trying to explain some irrational experience. She was trying to convince me.
'Why don't you trust me?' She took her gun, turned it around to me.
'Shoot me' she said. 'If you think I'm a cylon, then I'm your enemy. Shoot your enemy!' And as I refused to the take the gun, she put it on the low table by the coach, screaming 'take it'.
I was paralyzed. She seemed to have deducted that I did not believe she was a cylon from my silence and my inaction. It could not be further from the truth.
'I'm no more a cylon than you are.' She said and turned around, 'and you know it.'
Oh, Kara, I wished so much that you were not a cylon. I wished so much that I would know for sure. Clearly, she did not even know herself. She was lost. She was irrational, her mind tricked into believing what was unbelievable. When she heard me speak she turned around facing me again.
'I put my life on the line for this frakking ship. I have ate, slept and fought next to the people that I've loved. I have pissed off my friends. I have broken more rules that I've followed. I frakked up... okay! I messed up!' she was shouting now. I never doubted she was sincere. I never doubted she believe what she was saying. She just did not know what she was and could not even imagine she was anything but Kara Thrace. I felt sorry for her. I had this moment of clarity, which I was craving earlier. I felt so deeply sad and sorry for this woman, which I deeply liked. I felt sorry for who she had been, fierce and uncompromising and for her spirit. I knew she was unable to process the reality of her stolen identity.
'But it's all that I have.' She quieted down. 'Those people are my family.'
She looked at me and started shouting again:
'Shoot me. If I'm a cylon, shoot me.' I knew she was not really Kara. She was but she wasn't. I wished there was another way. I wished she wasn't anything but the original Kara.
'They made you perfect, didn't they?' I managed to say as I grabbed the gun from the low table and shot at her. With my headache still pounding and my absence of glasses, I missed and the bullet lodged into the far wall, in the frame containing a picture of Admiral Adama and me. I never really was good with guns. My hand was shaking. At the same time the hatch was forced and soldiers entered with Colonel Tigh. They pushed and restrained Kara on the floor. She was screaming. Tigh took the gun out of my shaking hand. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, repeating 'we're going the wrong way'. She sounded insane, but I think that her feelings were genuine, her mind disconnected, caught in a conflict between who she knew she was, but indeed wasn't. Admiral Adama was by me in a second, putting a comforting hand on my back. Kara tried one more time to convince us. She was exasperated, near tears. Her distress was genuine.
'Listen to me, please. I'm losing it… the ringing…the way to earth…it's getting weaker. Don't you understand? Don't any of you understand? It was so… it was so clear, like it was coming from the next room. Stop looking at me like that! I can feel it slipping away, even without jumping, as we move. It's half what it was when I got here, half. If we keep jumping, it'll be gone and we'll never find it again. I thought that's what we wanted… a way to earth! Do you hear me?' Tigh gave orders to take her out. Kara could have killed me and she didn't. Yet, she sounded insane, trying to make a case, trying to lead us to follow her. She was desperate. I would have pitied her, if only I was sure she was human. But she was dangerous and determined. She could assault any of us.
She looked at me again. 'You better work at your aim, because I'm not gonna stop! You're gonna have to kill me! One more jump and it'll be gone! Admiral!' She called Bill as they were dragging her out. They put her in the brig. Bill closed the door after everyone had left."
"I had not moved. I did not want to talk with him, but I knew I eventually would have to get debriefed about my conversation with Kara and how I ended up shooting at her. He came back to me and looked at me gravely.
'How are you Laura?'
'I'm alright' I whispered. This was not quite true. I was sick, weak and quite tired. It had been a hell of a long day. He looked at me for a long moment silent, evaluating my lie. Then he walked closer to me and pulled me in his arms. As I let my head rest on his chest, I felt his hands run gently in my hair. I was threatened by overwhelming emotions. I pulled gently away and walked to the chair where I sat down, exhausted. Bill poured himself a glass of alcohol and handed me water. Without being prompted to do so, I started to tell him the events of the evening with Kara, what she said and how she asked to shoot her. I did not comment on my thoughts, I kept strictly to the evidence. He was the Admiral; he had a report to fill.
'Thank you, Laura' he said after I stopped talking. We were sitting in front of each other. I was supposed to stay the night, as I was continuing my treatments in the morning. Tory had brought my bag over. The events of the day were weighing heavily on us. Part of me was still angry with him for voting for Baltar's acquittal and I was filled with dread at the idea that Kara had gotten to him. I could see it in his eyes, how much he loved her and how he could not let go. I was scared. I was not scared of Kara, no. I was scared at how her presence would undo us, how the doubt was going to eat slowly our confidence, like a cancer, insidious, destroying us from the inside. We were silent. Our silence was heavy from the emotions of the day. We did not need to talk to know each other's thoughts. Bill was relaxing with his glass of Ambrosia. I got up and said 'I'm going to go take a shower'. He sighed heavily and nodded, continuing to look inside his glass as if the golden yellow liquid was holding the answer to our predicament. I sighted and made my way to the head, the bathroom, grabbing my duffel bag on the way. Water always had a way to calm me down and exorcize my feelings. I removed my clothes and stepped under the hot spray welcoming the relief of the water. I could not even cry; I was numb. I washed my hair carefully, rinsed, and stepped out a bit later, to find a towel and wrapped myself in it. A wave of nausea took me by surprise. This could not happen at a worse time. 'No' I whispered to my body. I reached the toilet and vomited again, like in the afternoon, water only coming up. And again.
'Laura, are you okay?'
I could only respond weakly, 'yes, please don't come' and a silence, broken soon by the inescapable noise of my retching and the fiddling of the lock being picked. I knew he opened the door by the wave of cold air reaching my damp skin. I was sitting on the floor by the toilet, wrapped in a towel and shivering.
'Oh Laura…' He said gently and grabbed more dry towels to wrap my wet hair and drape over my shivering shoulders and arms. He handed me a warm wet washcloth and I wiped my face.
'Is it over?' he whispered. I nodded. 'Come on, let's get you in bed.' He helped me up and I had to hold him not to fall. He stayed by me, while I brushed my teeth, his arm around my waist. I did not want to look at him in the mirror. I did not want to look at myself, my hair wet, my face pale, sick. I kept my head lowered, my hands clasped on the edge of the sink, as my tears dripped down on my cheeks and down the sink.
'Shh… it's going to be ok' He said as he turned me and pulled me against his chest, wrapping me in his arms. -No it's not going to be ok. I'm dying and we both know it- but I said nothing and I continued crying against him. He led me to his rack and I changed into my pajamas.
After taking medication with water, I finally lay in bed. I saw him going to the head to wash and change. Then he made his way to the sofa.
'Bill, you can sleep with me. It's alright.'
'I didn't think you would be comfortable' He replied and I did not know if he was referring about the trial or my illness.
'You can come.' I said with a sigh. He climbed in the rack and lay down on the far side of the rack. He dropped a light kiss on my cheek and turned off the light. He was soon asleep."
Thank you for reading. Hopefully the next chapter will be in two weeks or so.
Please comment, comment, comment... as it keeps my muse going :)