Sam Anders found himself in the forest outside Delphi; cold, tired, hungry and pretty sure he'd seen his last sunrise that morning. In fact, he'd been watching the sunrise while he waited for Jean to crawl her lazy ass out of their bed so they could start the day when the incoming fire started.
When they sought refuge in the old High School, they knew it was only a matter of time before they were found out and had to head for the hills. That they'd managed to maintain the base for nearly a year was more than they could have ever asked for but the losses they'd suffered when the Toasters finally knocked down their door were staggering. He and Jean had got out along with Hillard but none of the rest of team made and they'd lost nearly half their numbers as well. There was only about forty of them left now.
But, they managed to get a lot of supplies as they'd prepared from the start to make a fast escape and Sam tried to hold out hope that they'd survive long enough to find a base and start over again. His thoughts turned bleak as he realized that was all that he could hope for out of this life; Run, hide, fight, die. He was a dead man walking, there was forty of them left, they'd been unable to contact any other resistance group and Apollo, despite his promise to return, wasn't coming back it didn't matter if the viper pilot and his friends were dead or not, to return to the Colonies would be suicide for the Fleet.
His eyes fell on Jean as they moved through the foggy morning and realized with a start that that would be enough for him. He would fight to his last breath if it meant having Jean by his side, he'd to his last breath to keep her out of the Farms and if that's what it took he'd die happily.
He felt rejuvenated by the thought and when Jean gave him a questioning look he shrugged and said "Nothing, just thinking that you look good this morning."
She chuckled, "You have lousy timing Sam, but thanks."
He grinned and they continued on, the sun had been up for a little over two hours and considering the cloudless sky that morning it was about as bright as it was going to get, so when the sky suddenly flare brightly, it came as a surprise. Sam and Jean looked up and saw debris streaking across the sky from orbit. Sam was stunned as he began to realize what was happening, "My Gods…"
He was transfixed by the sight but he could see Jean's awed face as she watched the shooting stars suddenly filling the morning sky. "Do you think… Do we dare hope that…"
FTL flashes appeared overhead, well within the atmosphere and five raptors streaked over. Same felt a giddy smile cross his face as he watched the raptors correct themselves then make towards the clearing a couple of klicks away, "Apollo, you magnificent bastard!"
They continued on in the direction the raptors were moving.
&&&&&&&&&
Kara's raptors landed quickly and quietly a kilometer away from the breeding facility that Sharon had referred to. When Sharon had mentioned them in her briefings Kara was horrified, rape facilities for the expressed purposes of cross-breeding humans and toasters. The mere thought of them kept her up at night with nightmares of that Cylon she'd interrogated on the Gemenon Traveler and the way he looked at her like he'd like nothing better then to defile her in that manner.
When it came time to decide which strike teams they would lead, she volunteered for this one. She remembered Lee looking at her with trepidation but after a moment where they locked eyes, he nodded. He knew what her experience with that Cylon did to her even today and he wouldn't deny her the chance to do something about it.
Strike Team Two was the most heavily armed of the groups, each of their three raptors had been full of troops and heavy armaments, they were the only strike team that didn't expect to extract many survivors, Sharon had explained that the machinery involved in the breeding procedure was primarily life support, most of these women wouldn't live very long once they were disengaged from the machines.
The place looked rather inconspicuous from the outside, like a small town hospital really. It didn't even appear that fortified, but they would take no chances. Kara used hand signals to split up the fire teams so they could secure the outside before they entered.
When it was just her team remaining, she pointed to the chain link fence. Two of the marines pulled out bolt cutters a cut a hole in the fence. They each moved through the hole then traveled two-by-two towards the nearest entrance.
&&&&&&&&&
Sharon and Karl moved silently through the Cylon facility, the other fire teams had been ordered to secure the facility and begin extracting prisoners. Their target facility was where Sharon suspected the Cylons were keeping VIP prisoners, any remaining high ranking officers in the military, resistance leaders, politicians would be kept here.
She and Lee had also hypothesized that if his mother was being kept anywhere, it would be here. At least, Lee hoped so. One of the major data hubs were kept here as well, so that any interrogation data could be quickly transmitted to the rest of the occupation force.
Sharon had worked for several weeks with Gaeta and Hoshi on the other part of her mission, they had gone over the CNP line-by-line and re-written the Cylon virus within so that it would disable every centurion and raider in the system as well as temporarily cripple the local Base Ships, plunging them into confusion long enough to complete their mission and get out of there.
They moved down the corridor quickly, weapons aimed and their eyes scanning for threats. Karl had wanted to bring another fire team with them but Sharon felt that should they run into trouble she'd be able to explain one "prisoner" far better than three.
They rounded the corner and finally found what she was looking for, computer access through the datastream. Karl's eyes took in the streaming water everywhere and gave her a perplexed look, "This is the computer room?"
She gave him a rueful smile as she shouldered her weapon and began pulling her tac-gloves, "What were you expecting, big alcoves and spooky lighting?"
He grinned, "To be honest? Yeah, something like that."
She stepped up to the data point and said, "Sorry to disappoint."
When she placed her hand in the liquid, she was swept into the current of the Cylon data network. Leoben liked to refer to the stream as something metaphorical, how they both existed within and outside of it. Sharon had always believed that this is where that metaphor was born as you often felt like you were losing yourself and finding yourself within the ebb and flow of data. Personally, she hated it.
She began to move through prisoner data, gathering all the intelligence she could before she uploaded the virus as she wasn't entirely sure how or even if it would work. Her mind moved through profile after profile, finding out who was kept here. As she had theorized, this was in fact a VIP prison for lack of a better term. The surviving members of the cabinet and well as what remained of the admiralty had been housed here. President Adar had even been brought here but had died from complications due to radiation poisoning before the Cylons could reverse the effects.
She was quickly disheartened when she did not find either Caroline Adama or Caroline Gordon among the inmates of this facility but she quickly moved to other facilities near Caprica City and still found nothing. It wasn't until she moved onto the lists of confirmed dead that she found what she hoped she wouldn't, "Oh God, no."
Karl was nearby but as her senses were distorted while she was in the datastream, his voice came as though from a great distance, "You found her amongst the dead, didn't you?"
She whispered, "Yes… I'm so sorry, Lee."
" Sharon, you have to upload the-"
"What are you- it's you!" She pulled her hand out of the stream and aimed her sidearm towards the new voice and found Three training a gun on Karl, scowl firmly in place. "What the hell are you doing here, traitor?"
Sharon smirked, "Just what do you think I'm doing."
"Volunteering for a box and a long thorough dissection?" The blonde Cylon turned towards Karl, "And you, well you can expect a lot of painful experiments as well, we have to find out how you impregnated her after all."
She shook with anger at the threat to Karl, "If you so much as muss the hair on his head, I'll rip you limb from limb."
The Three smirked at them both, "It's so nice to see loyalty towards your favorite pet. Where's your other pet, Eight? Adama's son, him we'll keep alive for months just for the anguish it'll cause his father."
Karl's eyes never left the Three nor did his aim waver but he was definitely taking his cues from her, "Sharon?"
"We can't kill her, she'll only download and let everyone know we're here and any hopes of sabotage will be lost." Two shots rang out and a scream followed. The scream was issued by the Three as she collapsed to the floor, blood slowly pooling beneath her. Sharon had knee-capped her. She walked over to the Three casually then stepped on her gun, and by extension Three's hand, ushering another pain-filled cry as slid the gun across the room.
Sharon then smirked at her, "This will have to do." She then returned to the data point to finish her job.
&&&&&&&&&
Erin Mathias was leading her marines in a sweeping partner through the forest on the search for both hostiles and their targets. Kat had informed them that the Delphi High School they'd been using as a base was on fire when she passed over to confirm jump coordinates so they were on the lookout for the people that got out. As the approached a clearing, she caught sight of movement. She brought her right hand up in a fist stopping their movement then signaled her people to take cover.
She took refuge behind a tree stump with a Corporal, the young woman then whispered, "Friendlies?"
Erin sighed, "One way to find out." She raised her voice and called out, "We're looking for Samuel Anders."
A woman's voice called out, "Who wants to know?"
"Tell him, 'Apollo sends his regards!'"
This time a man's voice responded, "Well, it's about frakkin' time!"
Erin smiled at the younger marine and nodded, she then called out to her people, "All clear."
The two groups met up and several of the Resistance members either shook hands or outright hugged her people. She approached Mr. Anders, "Mr. Anders, I'm Sergeant Erin Mathias, Battlestar Pegasus. We're here to get you out of here."
The Pyramid Player gave her a perplexed look while the redhead next to him asked, "Wait, Pegasus? We thought Apollo's ship was the Galactica."
She turned to the woman, "It's a long story ma'am and we're currently pressed for time. Where are the rest of your people?"
Sam scowled, "The forty of us are pretty much it. We got hit this morning."
Mathias frowned, "Very well. Red Devil/Strike Two, targets acquired returning to dust-off."
Just then, artillery whistled overhead and exploded nearby and one of her men called out. "Incoming!"
Erin called out for them to take cover as the forest began to explode around them. Erin watched the fire pattern and could only conclude one thing, "Red Devil/Strike Two, we're pinned down and cut-off from you request instructions!"
&&&&&&&&&
"Repeat, pinned down by enemy fire and cut-off from dust off point, request instructions!"
The Three was laughing, "So much for your rescue mission! What do you plan on doing now, Eight?"
Karl turned to her with a scowl, " Sharon?"
Sharon was still in the midst of uploading the virus when the other fire teams started taking fire, cutting them off from their raptors with nearly one hundred prisoners. She couldn't do anything until she completed the upload however and the gloating of the Three wasn't helping.
"I can't work any faster, Karl. But it might help if you shut her up."
The ECO smirk and said, "Gladly." Then brought the butt of his rifle down on the Three's temple, knocking her out. He turned back to her, "Once you upload the virus, what else can we do?"
Sharon scowled as she attempted to break through another firewall, "We'll get to that when we come to it."
&&&&&&&&&
Sergeant Wilkins ducked the centurion's fire behind the doorway; they'd been holding the prison exit while waiting for Lieutenant Agathon's next order when they came under fire from the courtyard. They returned fire as they could, but they outgunned severely by the bulletheads. Just as he was about to give the order to fall back to a more favorable position the facility's automated defenses roared to life. Automated weapons towered sprang from the ground and swung around to acquire targets.
He said a prayer to the Lords for his soul silently but another leather neck summed up their situation perfectly, "We're frakked." Just then the towers opened fire.