Author's Note: This is to be read as if you were coming back from a commercial break while you were watching the show.

Author's Note Two: There is a passage in this text which has to do with religion. In no way - what so ever - is it a reflection of this author's beliefs nor is it intended to offend anyone who reads that portion of the text. It is just an insight into why the Cylons believe in one, all-powerful, God.

Author's Note Three: There will be one more chapter and, maybe, an epilogue... This story isn't done yet!

Another Way: Chapter 19, Part Two

Promises Kept

Another explosion rocked the BaseStar.

Deeper in resonance with aftershocks rippling all the way out to the perimeter of the ship, Zak looked expectantly at the light panels. Not because he needed to see where he was going – he knew where he was going. All he needed was just a few more minutes to get there and enough emergency power to propel the lift downward. That's all. Once he got out of the lift, it was a short walk to his Heavy Raider. It was already prepped and ready to go – all he had to do was get there. The reason why he kept his gaze fixed on the display panel was simple. God meant for him to get to where he was going.

Reaching the Evacuation Deck, the doors to the lift bounced against one another once, then twice, before stopping as they came together for a third time. Pushing and forcing the doors to spread just a little bit more was the only way out of the compartment. Two-stepping sideways through the doors, a dull thud had him craning his neck and looking over his shoulder – his other shoulder. Lee's head had glanced off of the metal door as his arms swung limply down Zak's back. Hipbones digging painfully into his collarbone, Zak shifted Lee to a more comfortable position. Adjusting his grip on the back of Lee's knees, his arm jutted out wildly to the left at the same time his vision scrambled. A sharp intake of breath and a violent shake to his arm had everything – muscle spasm and vision – set back to rights. But the bouts were coming more frequently and it was taking longer to get himself under control.

No matter.

He could see it.

His Heavy Raider was just out of sight, but he knew it was there nonetheless – he had the ship relocated from the main hanger bay when Starbuck was brought on board. For some reason, he liked the idea of her not knowing where it was. Once they were away, he and Lee would be free to live in God's Grace and to exist solely to fulfil His purpose. Resentment churned in his chest. Persephone – his Kara – was supposed to be with them. But no – she had to defy Him. She called upon her own false Gods and brought Havoc and Destruction down on Humanity's Children. Disappointment narrowed his eyes and thinned his lips. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Years of planning, plotting and manipulating the fate of a woman intrinsic to both Man and Cylon destiny had been reduced to a battle of wills. All his efforts and those of many others had been consumed in the fiery ball of an exploding Raider; the weapon of choice wielded by a damaged pilot who, by her own hand, had forsaken God's healing embrace and the commitment he had to their love.

Looking around him, the Evacuation Deck looked like the images he had seen, filed in the Cylon archives, of the Atlantia as his brothers and sisters destroyed the mighty Battlestar from the inside-out. Support girders of every size, companionways, access ladders and stations had fallen haphazardly within the area, gouging the walls and crushing anything and everything beneath them. Built to encompass the size of two full decks, escape pods were stacked one-on-top-of-another and an observation ledge, complete with its own lifts, ringed the second story. Primary lighting pulsed and flickered only to cut out all together. The strategically placed glow panels, emergency lights, only added to the number of dark places around him. The smell of spilled tylium tainted the air. Acrid scents of burning electrical connections and the reek of cooked Raider were nearly overpowering.

Weaving and climbing through the worst of the wreckage cost him time he knew he didn't have. His faith couldn't save him if he was still onboard when the craft blew up. Precursors to a major, ship-wide explosion were vibrating the very beams he was using to brace himself against as he pulled Lee's dead weight in and out of snug gaps in the debris. More than once, he heard the sound of metal striking metal as battle-fatigue took its toll on the decimated BaseStar. His depth perception was all but gone, but he could still use line-of-sight to plot a route to his Heavy Raider. Reshouldering his 'brother' with single-minded determination, he crossed the deck and kept his eyes on his ship.

Close enough to see the carbon scoring that set his Raider apart from the other escape crafts, a sudden cascade of sparks – raining from a mangled overhead socket – had him jumping backwards. Shielding his eyes, a bright flash coincided with a support beam crashing down, taking with it lengths of an auxiliary power cable and trapping the thick line underneath its weight. Falling in front of him, the free end jerked and sparked just to his left – right where he needed to go. Grabbing an item off of Lee's vest, he tossed it onto the downed support beam and watched as it started to smoke and burn. Setting Lee down on his side, away from the dangerously sparking cable, Zak put his hands on his hips. His knee buckled; an episode of 'pins and needles' nearly collapsed one of his legs. Forcing his eyes to focus, it was an absent motion that had him wiping his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. The fact that a thin line of blood marred his cuff barely registered as he turned his mind to getting around his newest obstacle.

Two sudden noises shattered two glow panels high and to the right of him.

Two more gunshots, each fired one after another, shattered the emergency glow panels that were mounted to the wall close to where he was standing. What had been low lighting now became dim. Around him, the remaining glow panels occasionally pulsed more brightly, trying to compensate for the lack of adequate light, but it was the over-loaded circuitry that made the ambient lights strobe. A corner of his mouth kicked up as he shook his head and lifted his head to the ceiling of the deck. A rueful chuckle spread his lips as he berated himself for not hearing the 'the mouse' scurrying about in the 'rafters'.

"A little dramatic – even for you – don't ya think?" Still facing his Raider, he lifted his voice to the far corners of the Evacuation Deck. "You sure you want to play it this way, Kara?"

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Once he gets him off-ship, you're never going to find him. He'll make sure of that.

Simon's dying words crowed in her ears as she stumble-ran to the lifts. If she needed to get off-ship with a hostage in-tow, the Evacuation Deck would be the one place she would go.

A sense of panic caused the hairs on her arms to rise when the power cut out and the lift stopped. Curling her free hand into a fist and slowly releasing her fingers, an icy calmness travelled underneath every inch of her skin. The Gods lift those who lift each other. They had gotten her this far so that she could keep her pact; there was no way They were going to let something like a power outage stop their Daughter from getting to where she needed to go.

Stepping through the silently parting doors, her eyes adjusted to the low light. Quartering the Deck and visually sweeping each section systematically was when she saw Zak carrying Lee. They were yards from a Heavy Raider.

That couldn't happen – no matter what.

Options being limited, she travelled left. Throwing a leg over a railing, wincing as the metal bar repeatedly snagged inches of her still-tacky skin, she crouched down and force-threaded her body between a pair of steps of an access ladder that had been wrenched from its mounting. Lying on her side, a good fifteen feet above the decking, she extended an arm. Deliberately overlooking how the dots of blood seeping through the fabric of her shirt were growing, she focused solely on her target. Closing one eye and sending a prayer to Artemis, she took aim and crooked her index finger towards her palm. Frak! Her shot was true, the idea was sound and the socket was mangled, but it wasn't enough.

Twisting to her back made her whole body shudder with an all encompassing wave of pain. A fresh layer of cold sweat coated her skin as her tortured back scraped along the step she had levered herself against. Ignoring the cold-wet trails snaking down the groove of her spine, she looked around to see what she could use for 'Plan B'. A long, decently-sized beam looked like it was just the right length and if Hercules were around, she would just ask him to pick it up and drop it down for her. But, seeing as she left the ancient hero 'in her other pants', she looked at it objectively.

"Thrace – I swear – sometimes you couldn't find your way out of a paper bag even if it had the bottom already cut out of it," she murmured. Making a mental note to tell Lee that his penchant for over-thinking was contagious, she hunkered down on her haunches and rolled her eyes at herself. She didn't have to lift the blasted thing – all she had to do was push it and let gravity do the rest.

Sidling up to the beam, she pressed her feet against it. Powered by her weight, the muscles in her thighs became rock hard as she pushed. The beam slid a little and teetered but it was being stubborn. Tucking her shirttail fully underneath her bottom and scooting closer, she braced her feet and extended her legs one more time. Need took priority over the fact that her body started to slide; the lash-marks that striped the backs of her legs were bleeding. Watching the beam tip past its recovery angle, a kiss launched off of the tip of her middle finger sailed in the same direction that the beam continued to fall.

A stupid idea, because it was going to hinder her as much as Zak, became 'Plan C'. But there was nothing for it; the cable she brought down wasn't going to stop him for long. Bullets she had, time she didn't. The area became darker as four more glow panels ceased to work.

Picking her way downward, Zak's question wafted into her ears.

"If you hadn't taken something that didn't belong to you, we wouldn't be playing this at all." Answering him loudly, Kara squeezed off another couple of rounds to distract him while she changed her position.

"We don't have to do this, Kara."

His voice carried over to where she was lowering herself down and onto a length of companionway that was jammed against a girder. Oh, Lords – don't let me fall now! Her balance faltered and her foot came down – hard – to keep herself from falling. Winging 'thanks' to Ares for her knee not giving out, she flattened the arch of her foot against the exposed walkway. The cold metal was the only cold compress she could use. She was going to need both her feet to work to get Lee away from Zak.

"Let him go and we won't." She told him, succinctly, how simple it could be.

"You know I can't do that, Kara." She watched him flit his eyes up, down and sideways, trying to find her hiding spot. "Not now, not after what you did." Zak sounded almost remorseful as he tried to shift the blame for what happened onto her.

"You know, Zak – I think I've told you this before – if you wanna to frak with my head and do the whole guilt-trip thing, you're gonna have to do better than that." Kara informed him, her voice breaking slightly with the exertion it took to brace her fingers on the nearest girder. The ugly drop between her and the floor of the deck still looked ugly. Rolling her lips together at the same time she cinched her pilfered tie more tightly around her waist, everything she had was as secure as it was ever going to get. Whether or not she landed with everything at hand was something she surrendered to the Gods. "Guilt only comes into play if there's something to regret. Can't regret something you don't feel sorry about, Zak."

Sliding forward, she made herself hang there for a precious few seconds. The pain in her shoulders and back was ruthlessly shoved aside in the wake of 'Plan D'. If she was going to land and have any chance of getting up again, she had to make sure she was as still as possible before she let go.

"Okay, Starbuck – time to suck it up." Unclenching her teeth, the words slipped out her lips as the floor rushed up to greet her.

Keeping her knees soft spared her Pyramid injury from re-occurring, but the impact knocked her breath from her lungs. The sound of broken rib bones scraping against one another folded her tongue; sweat beading down from her hairline and through her eyebrows spangling her lashes.

"That sounded like that hurt." Zak snarked. Recovering, he called out, "I bet you regret that, Kara."

Blinking her eyes dry and willing air back into her body, she pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Lords, she was tired of looking down at floors. It was a reflex, one that seven weeks of separation couldn't break, to want to wink at Lee and share the first snide comment that came to her mind. Except, when she glanced to her left, the smirk she looked forward to sharing with him became something else all together when his blue eyes weren't there to meet hers and his prone body was deathly pale and still.

Still concealed, Kara traded sarcasm for quietly spoken double entendre. "Not yet, Zak"

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In his mind, he was on his feet and already taking a swing at whatever snuck up behind him and clocked him on the back of his head when he was trying to tend to his men.

Reality was so much different. For all the time he put in at the gym, he couldn't move a finger much less lift his head. He barely registered that he was being dragged away when blackness overwhelmed him.

Coming to, he was on his side and in a completely different place. Smells were the first thing he recognized – not what they were but that he was aware of them in the first place. He still couldn't open his eyes, but a concerted effort had him rolling onto his stomach and pressing ten fingertips and two flattened palms against the decking. Deep vibrations travelled up the useless muscles of his arms. There was something important about that which he had to remember, but the way it hurt to think made that a secondary concern. Instead, he focused on the muffled sounds and words he couldn't understand that were being traded over his head. At one point, he thought he heard a gun go off.

It was a long couple of minutes before he could pool some strength into his wrists and arms. His hands picked up another set of vibrations as another comment echoed in his ears. Forcing his chest muscles to work in tandem with his arms, his shoulders lifted off the deck a couple of inches before everything gave out. As he grunted with frustration, his whole upper body fell back to the floor. Drawing deep breaths through a dry mouth, he tried again. This time, when his arms gave out, he was ready. When the weakness hit, he tucked his head and landed on his forearms. Not much of an improvement, but the way he was looking at things, every inch he rose brought him closer to understanding the dialogue around him.

"There is no 'God'. You've been lied too – you and every other Cylon in this universe."

"Blasphemy! You're the one who mistaken. With your false Gods and idols, can you ever say that you have felt their presence? I have felt His hand and know of His love."

"You can't convict me of blasphemy if the deity doesn't exist. Think about it. You are a race of machines, programmed to be human. The fear of death has been taken out of the equation of your life; even if you die, you live. You are built around logic and algorithms and have nothing with which to hold you accountable as each generation that comes off the assembly line are more sophisticated than the last. Something had to be done to hold you in check, something had to be created that you, as a race, would not only fear but accept and respect as a way keep your mechanical asses in line. So somebody, somewhere, way back in the very beginning, came up with the notion of making you all 'answer' to one omniscient, all-powerful being that had the capacity to do the one thing that you all only carried a dictionary definition for: love."

"I feel so sorry for you."

"Don't – no need too. I can see my Gods. I know what they look like and who they are and I can hold their representations in my hands and recite their sacraments from memory. They don't need to control human lives because that is not how They are. Tell me something. As wide and as varied as the Universe is, how can one Being hold everything in the palm of his hand?"

"I will not let you do this. My faith is unbreakable."

"What you have been calling 'faith' is nothing more than the warm fuzzies of self-delusion and clever programming."

"I grow weary of this; you are just looking to buy yourself some time. Playtime's over."

The chemical connections between his ears and his brain were hardly functioning. Lee could barely make out what was being said between the person somewhere in front of him and the person – thing – standing behind him.

"Says you – but I don't play by yours – or anyone else's – rules."

"You have and you will again." It was a man's voice that combined a threat and a promise into six words. "God gave you to me, didn't He?"

"Looks like you forgot to read the fine-print. It read: what God giveth, God can taketh away. He – it – whatever – has. You just haven't realized it yet."

"You're still here; He hasn't taken anything away from me." The flaw in her logic was laid open. "In fact, He's doubly blessed me. I have you and him." It was also clear that he, Lee, was being factored into the equation of 'yes, you will vs. no, I won't'.

He could all but see the hand that was being waved in his direction. "Look and see who decided to join us, Kah-"

"You see – that's where you frakked up. Big time," she laid open his fatal error of judgement. "You should've never've brought him into this. This is between you and me and no one else."

Pushing himself to his feet was the easy part. Staying on his feet was proving to be the real challenge. But if he was going to put himself into the game, he had to be a viable player and that meant being upright. The dim light was easy on his concussion sensitive eyes. Blurriness made shapes and colours fuzzy and his vision was still warped.

"Enough of this; come out now or I promise you that I'll kill him where he stands." Somewhere, Lee registered that the man was talking about him and that 'the man' was a Cylon. "I'll reach out, drive my fingers into his flesh, rip out one of his kidneys, and sit back while you, helplessly, watch him bleed to death."

A medium sized figure, not quite clear of the shadows, walking towards him had Lee discovering his holster was empty. Swallowing down the nausea that threatened to spill out of his mouth, Lee spun on his heel and swung blindly at the Cylon standing behind him. The spinning scrambled his sight, but he didn't have to see what he was hitting to land a blow to the skinjob's mid-section. Nor did he see the fist that connected easily with his jaw that sent him stumbling backwards several feet and facing away from his opponent.

Shaking his head to clear ringing in his ears, he centred his weight and shifted into a boxing stance. About to turn and start Round Two, he was stopped by the only thing in the universe could.

"You'll never get close enough." Her blond hair standing out starkly in the low light, her green eyes cold and predatory, with a lethally confident look on her face, the ghost of Kara Thrace took up a protective stance in front of him.

Time slowed.

His heart forgot to beat.

She's supposed to be…He watched her as she walked forward, tall and fierce and defiantly alive.

This is impossible… He had been told, by everyone… I know what I heard when Sharon said…

Still in slow-motion, her right hand and her voice were aimed at the Cylon behind him as she nullified his promise with a vow of her own. Keeping the Cylon in her sight, he watched as she looked at him. Everything he was feeling, she could see. For a precious few seconds, there was no way he could hold anything back from her, even the thought that she was something his mind had conjured.

"LEE!"

That one word, a command, re-set time.

"Lee! Look at me!" Her voice jump-started his heart and it raced to make up for the beats it skipped. Blood pounded his brain and it was all he could do not to try to find something to steady him as his mind tried to keep up the urgency that underscored her words. "I need you to keep your eyes on me, okay?"

"What's the matter, Kara? You're going to deny him his chance for revenge?"

Taunting her, baiting him, the skinjob standing behind him did both in two sentences.

"Lee – it's really me." Her expression shifted as he had seen it a hundred times in the past, except this time, he was getting Kara instead of Starbuck. "I need you to focus on me, okay? I need you to walk towards me and look straight ahead."

Shock and disbelief were washed away by a storm surge of carrying every emotion he possessed and made it impossible for him to do anything else. Blood, sweat and something else created a strange sheen that gave her skin a sickly glow in the low light. She looked liked she had been worked over hard; he had seen corpses in better shape. Her hair was matted. She was wearing an oversized shirt and no shoes. Her weapon was drawn and pointed at whatever was behind him.

"That's not going to happen. He's coming with me, Kara."

Her hand might be steady, but it was the tremble in her knee that made his heart thump deep and hard.

"Kara?"

"No. Frakking. Way." The click of the safety being turned off on her gun was easy to hear as she kept her aim and attention focused on who was standing behind him. "Not. Gonna. Happen." Scraping her lower lip with her teeth, she switched from fighting a battle of wills to willing him to do as she said. A hint of a smile played along the hardened line of her jaw, "Hey, Lee."

"You know you aren't being fair, Persephone."

"STARBUCK!" Lee could feel the intensity behind her correction.

Persephone – he – it – the skinjob – called her Persephone. The only one – ever – to have called her that was… Was… Castor!

"To keep him from knowing…"

"Is exactly what's going to happen." She finished Castor's sentence. Aware of her green eyes touching his own, she deepened her timbre and spoke only to him. "Remember our promises to each other, Lee? Remember what I vowed to do?" He nodded. For the second time today, the memory of those stolen moments on D-Deck surfaced. I, Kara Thrace, standing willingly before the Lords of Kobol, do swear and avow to protect Lee Adama with every skill I possess and every fibre of my being. "Now I need you to keep your promise, okay?"

Solemn words exchanged by two warriors played out in his eyes as he heard his own voice repeat: I, Lee Adama, swear to serve the Fleet, uphold my moral convictions and to never lose sight of what is in front of me.

Reading his face, knowing when he had relived that memory, was when she spoke again. "I'm what's in front of you, Lee. Don't look anywhere else."

He knew she was twisting his words around to suit the situation but he knew why she was doing it. The sick game that had begun when Castor first held the Fleet hostage was still being played. Kara was still what the Cylon wanted, and Castor wasn't above using him to get to her. Not liking the fact that he'd been reduced to a pawn, a consolation prize, the strategist in him humphed at his ego. Turning around would slake his curiosity but it would undermine Kara's position. The few cards she still held in her hand were precious to whatever plan she had cobbled together. Refusing to give into Castor's machination and backing up his wing mate, Lee drew in a stabilizing breath and put one foot in front of the other.

One hand anchored to the handle of her gun, the other she used to reach out and beckon him closer. "That's right, just walk towards me."

The sound of another gun being cocked had him stopping in tracks. He could feel the muzzle pointed at his back even though the one holding the gun stood well behind him. The cold tension radiating off of Kara plunged to a sub-zero temperature.

"The only way he walks out of here is if you come with me instead, Starbuck."

He saw it happen once – Kara giving herself up for what she deemed 'the greater good' – if it happened again, he didn't know if he could come back from it.

"Lee, stay out of this." One hand falling slack at her side, desperation widened her eyes and a look of horror spread across her face as she gave him a warning.

"You have a choice, Kara. Come with me and be what God meant for you to be or he can die by your hand because you were arrogant enough to think that you could save him." Castor cryptically laid out Kara's future. "All that has happened before will happen again, Starbuck. But this time, your heresy will cost you. Not only will you continue to be God's Instrument, but I will share you with Leoben as well. Between the three of us, Simon, Leoben and me, your sessions with Three will be a fond memory."

Castor's cruelty hit Kara square in the chest and knocked her left hand behind her back. Whatever images the bastard had conjured caused tremors to shake every inch of her body. For the first time, Lee saw her visibly flinch. Watching her swallow, her expression was plaintive and distant as she came to some sort of decision. Defeat – real, honest, defeat clouded her eyes and she broke their eye contact as her head tilted towards the deck underneath their feet and her right hand lowered to her side.

He could feel the fingers of triumph reaching out from Castor and clutching at his upper arms when the fight drained out of Kara. "Lee – I'm sorry."

A blur of movement had his attention focused on Kara's right hand. The gun that had been cradled loosely in her palm was pressed flush against her right temple and her right index finger was tightening incrementally on the trigger.

Tears of anger and frustration pooled along her lower eyelids and her chin trembled with rage. Experience had taught him that a Kara that was backed into a corner was a danger to herself and to others. "I have told you once and I have told you twice,-"

"Kara! Don't!" Interrupting her, Lee tried to mentally knock the gun from her hand.

"You move and you're dead, Lee." Castor's reminder that he could be shot at any second kept Lee from charging forward. Words meant for Kara streaked past his ears. "Stop! You can't do this!"

"The only way you'll get Lee Adama," her finger unfurled, flexed and pulled back again. "Is over my dead body, you frakker."

Throwing himself to the deck, thinking that she would need him out of the way and a clear shot at Castor, he instinctively covered his head when her gun went off. Unfolding his arms and looking up from his position on the floor, she was still standing – but barely. Horror and a sense of wrongness contorted his face. Her arm was falling limply away from her head instead of being stretched forward, parallel to the floor.

Sparing him a pained look of acceptance, her body pitched backwards and thumped when it hit the deck.

"Oh, Gods – Kara! – No!" Surging to he his feet, he ran forward. If Castor wanted to shoot him, let him.

Coming up on her left side and dropping to his knees, he didn't know what to do first. Shifting, trying to find a place to start, something hard dug into that soft spot where his lower leg merged with his knee. Slipping a hand underneath her shoulder, he reached his hand for whatever it was only to pull his arm back sharply. Looking at his palm, he could see the red mark of a burn show up against his skin. Two sweeping motions from his knee had him glancing down and his eyes widening. Whipping his head back to where he was cradling Kara, he pulled her closer to his body. Her skin was cold and clammy and up close, the damage – for lack of a better word – to her body was much worse then he thought. A blue tinge was starting to tinge her cheeks and what he could see at the opening of her shirt.

Hand trembling, he stroked her forehead and tucked some of her matted hair behind her ear. Roaming the back of her head and pulling an unsteady hand free, he had to force himself to look.

There wasn't any blood!

Looking back down at his side, near her left hip, was a second gun. That was what she fired! A long-ago medical log entry made on world that was destroyed by Cylons was richly ironic; it was her ambidextrous hand that brought down the most dangerous Cylon he had ever encountered.

Craning his neck, he looked behind him for the first time. Face obliterated, a man's body laid crumpled in a position only death could make comfortable. Reflexively tightening his fingers around her shoulder, he angled her to his chest and rested his cheek on the top of her head. She did it. For the second time, she did it – she sacrificed herself. But this time, it was for him.

An inkling of hope had him pressing two fingers against her throat. Forcing himself to calm, he could feel it – weak and erratic – but there nonetheless: Kara heart was still beating.

Separating the buckles of his vest, he shrugged out of it. One-handed, he slipped free the buttons of his jacket and rolled his shoulders until the fabric pooled around his elbows. Carefully, he manoeuvred Kara and propped her up. Shaking out his jacket, needing to keep her warm, he looked down to see how best to spread it over her when something caught his eye. Plucking out what was making a bulge in the pocket of Kara's shirt was slipped into his ears. After tucking the material of his jacket around her, he triggered the audio transmitter.

"Helo – SitRep!"

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The purr of the Raptor flying at low altitude vibrated in his ears as he put a steadying hand on Racetrack's shoulders. If he thought that the twenty minutes it took to get her moon-side from Galactica's hanger bay was the longest twenty minutes of his life, he hadn't counted on how the ten minutes it would take to go from the mining camp to the crashed BaseStar would make him feel.

Polished metal glinting in the sunshine was the beacon they were looking for. There it was – right where Apollo said it was going to be.

Clapping his hands against her flight suit to get her attention, he pointed to where a jettisoned escape pod carved out a jagged landing strip in the orange terrain.

The retro-thrusters on the Raptor fired and he looked back at Cally. She had a fully stocked med-kit in her lap and her eyes were wide and shining.

"You gonna be able to do this?" He needed to know. He trusted Cally, and he knew that she did too. That was why she was with him.

Her tousled head nodded.

Touching down, the hatch opened.

"Okay – we're on." Turning back to Racetrack, he was about to give her instructions when she help up a hand to stop him.

"There's no way this baby's powering down."

Striding out of the cargo area, backboard tucked underneath his arm and Cally following close behind, they both sprinted for the escape pod.

Still in motion, Helo handed the board off to Cally and reached out, wrenching the access door open with brute force. Stepping aside, he waved Cally ahead as she pressed the med-kit into his stomach – he was too big to fit inside the cabin – and let the board fall flat on the ground.

Scrubbing his face with his hands, he waited.

"Pass me the backboard." Cally's voice carried out to where he was standing.

Feeding it through the door way and watching it disappear, he was delegated to waiting again.

The sounds of lifting and the grunting of exertion got caught up in the breeze that swirled around him.

Stepping up and holding the door open as far as it would go, Cally's hunched backside was mincing its way out of the escape pod. Craning her neck so that she could see where she was going, she cleared the cabin and stepped down onto the ground. Seeing her arms straining, he switched places with her. A pair of dirty feet, anchored by a safety strap, met the morning sun. Letting Apollo set their pace, smell of abuse grew as more of Kara was carried out of the pod.

Pausing once Apollo was out in the open, he nodded to the other man. "Nice going, using the escape pod." Tipping up the ends of his mouth, he quipped, "Your landing could have been better, though."

"Yeah –well – you know how it is." The seriousness of whatever Apollo had just gone through was etched into every muscle in his body. Glancing down at Starbuck, he softened his eyes. "She's the one that can fly anything."

Carrying Kara between them, they saved their breaths for the return sprint back to the Raptor. Between the three of them, they loaded Kara up and secured the hatch. Looking back from the pilot's chair, Racetrack waited for them to get buckled in before she fired her thrusters and prepared to cut a path through the sky.

Freeing medical equipment from where it was mounted on the wall, Cally slipped an oxygen metre onto Kara's finger. Popping open the med-kit, Apollo reached for gauze pads and the sterile cleansing solution. Relocating Lee's jacket to her waist and covering her as much as possible, Karl undid the top few buttons on her shirt and held out his hand expectantly. On cue, Cally turned on the heart monitor, exposed the adhesive and put the sensors in the palm of his hand.

Focused on what he was doing, it was Cally's hand on his arm that stopped him putting the sensors in place.

"She's coming around."

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She was being jostled again. Someone was trying to wake her up. It wasn't the Gods – They knew she already did everything she was supposed to do. Zak was dead, and this time it was by her own hand. She shot him in the face and blew out his silica pathways. Lee was safe. He could find his own way off of that frakking BaseStar and the Old Man would be fine once Lee got back to Galactica.

A bright light – brighter than she was used too – tried to break through her eyelids. But she was so comfortable where she was, lying snug in her childhood bed. For the first time, her old room was dark and soothing and peaceful.

The nudging now had a voice to go with it. It was her father – he was trying to wake her up. Tilting her head towards the sound of his voice, he was sitting at the end of her bed and he was calling out to her softly. Concentrating on what he was saying, she had to agree – there was one more thing she had to do.

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"She's trying to say something." Cally clarified.

Looking down at her friend, she saw Kara's mouth open but heard nothing but strangled air come out. Insight had her snatching a gauze pad from Lee. Not wanting her to regurgitate, she soaked it with water from a nearby canteen and she traced Kara's lips. Squeezing the remaining water into her mouth, she watched the pilot swallow and waited to see if she could keep it down. Starbuck's eyes cracked open a little before rolling back into her head. Not sure if Starbuck even knew where she was, she gave the other woman a reassuring smile.

"Kara – can you hear me? Kara – talk to me!" Apollo was kneeling by her head and his hand was still holding the bottle of cleanser.

Her face tilted towards his voice and her eyes opened a little bit more. "Lee?"

"Yeah, Kara – it's me." The struggle to put a smile in his voice was apparent. "Welcome back."

"Undo me." She wriggled against the safety straps. "Get these things off of me."

Speaking so roughly, like her voice had been all used up, Cally felt tears spring to her eyes as that thought – that there was nothing left of Starbuck, Kara and Lieutenant Thrace, that they had been all used up – was the best way to describe the battered woman strapped to the backboard. Looking to Helo, wanting to tap into his strength to bolster her own emotional state, she saw that he didn't have it to spare. Dealing with the visual reminder that Starbuck had to save herself – again – was sending him into his own tailspin.

"She needs to be free, Apollo." All but sniffling, Helo squeezed the release clasp that secured her legs and hips. Doing the same with the one that spanned her chest, he and Apollo leaned in closer to hear what she was going to say next.

"Get me up." It sounded like the last thing she wanted to do, but the steel in her faint words couldn't be missed.

Each taking an arm, they slowly stood, bringing Kara to her unsteady feet. Darting her arm out, Cally snatched up Apollo's jacket and draped it across her lap when it tumbled to the deck.

Cally couldn't stop the tears that flowed down her face when she watched three different women become one full person and take on the ethereal aura of a Goddess. Nor could she stop herself from throwing up in her mouth when the bloody criss-cross markings, layered one on top of another, glued Lieutenant Thrace's shirt to her ravaged back and spread their way down the back of Starbuck's thighs. She knew Apollo and Helo could see it too because she could feel the rage that was emanating off of the two men as they saw the cruelty that had been heaped upon their best friend.

Step-staggering forward, she saw Racetrack jerk in surprise when Kara put her hand on the woman's shoulder and motioned her to move over. Slipping into Racetrack's seat, her fingers curled around the control stick and changed their course.

Getting up from where she was sitting, she held Helo and Apollo back with a discreet shake of her head. Call it Women's Intuition, answering the needs of a Goddess or something else all together, whatever Kara was going to do, it was something she had to do and none of them had a right to interfere, even when the blond woman reached for a headset, secured it to her head and said something she couldn't hear to Racetrack.

"Galactica, this is Raptor Two-One-Five. Can you get a fix on an ejection-seat transponder previously coded to Starbuck's Viper?" Racetrack spoke into the comm system.

"That's affirmative, Two-One-Five." Captain Kelly's voice came over the speakers.

Seeing Kara feed Racetrack another line from her position in the cargo area, she heard Racetrack state clearly, "Roger that Galactica; requesting orbital bombardment of enemy vessel."

"Understood; Raptor Two-One-Five, standby while we obtain clearance."

"Standing-by, Galactica."

It was a long moment before Galactica hailed them.

"Raptor Two-One-Five – Galactica Actual; do you have both of them?"

"Yes, Sir – we do."

"Galactica will fire on your mark. Let's erase these bastards." Adama's gruff voice was thick and deep.

Tripping a series of switches, Kara armed the missiles stored in the Raptor's launch tubes.

Verifying the readout, Racetrack gave Galactica the signal, "Mark."

A bombardment missile was beeping its way across the radar screen at the ECO's station. Cally never saw Kara's finger press the 'fire' button, but she did see the burn of two missiles streak from the underbelly of the Raptor, fly along the same trajectory and take up flanking positions on either side of the ordinance that had been fired from Galactica.

Three missiles – a significant number on as many levels as there were people around her, including herself – slammed simultaneously into the downed BaseStar and exploded upon impact. Shockwaves of near-nuclear proportions buffeted the small ship but didn't bring them down. Bending the stick in the direction she wanted them to go, Starbuck smoothly arched them away from the conflagration.

Still in the atmosphere of the moon, Cally watched her stand and give the control of the ship back to Racetrack. She let her unchecked tears become full-out crying as Kara murmured, "I kept my promises."

Moving faster than she thought he could, Lee caught her before she could hit the deck as tears of his own reddened his eyes.

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Her father was there, waiting for her, just like he said he would.

Only this time, when he gathered her up into his arms, he didn't have to pick her up. She was a woman who had done a warrior's job.

Letting him support her, she looked up into his face. The smile she was going to give him faltered. She knew what he was going to say – that she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do – but she answered him anyway.

"No – that's where you're wrong. I did have to do things I didn't want to do." Real tears, the ones that came from twenty years of having to do what she had to do to just to survive, slipped down her cheeks.

"Even now, I'm not going to be given a choice." Resting her wet cheeks in the crook of his shoulder, she shook her head ruefully. "The Gods are calling me home."