When Jammer returned to his tent after a rather fruitless trip to the marketplace he was taken by surprise to see Chief Tyrol waiting outside the front flap. His first thought was that maybe something had happened to Cally, but he quickly dismissed that idea. The Chief was way too calm for that to be the case, so it had to be something else. Maybe he was ready to return to the movement.
"Chief! It's good to see you," the younger man called out, hurrying forward. "How's Cally? I heard she was doing better, but are you sure you should be leaving her alone now?" It was as good a question as any to get the answers he wanted, sounding concerned for Cally's well-being, rather than an outright request if the Chief was back. You never knew if the toasters were listening, and with those turncoats joining up with the so-called New Caprica police force you never knew who you could trust.
"It's good to be seen," Tyrol answered, no emotion showing on his face. "Cally's almost back to 100," he added. It wasn't quite the truth, but telling himself that little white lie helped him get through the terror of almost losing her. He'd lost one woman that he'd loved before; he wasn't going to lose another. "But she's not alone, Duck and Nora volunteered to sit with her for awhile, give me a chance to hit the marketplace and look for some fresh food.
"Not much of that to be found I'm afraid."
"So I've noticed."
"Why don't you come on in," Jammer suggested, gesturing towards the tent. Tyrol nodded, preceding the younger man inside.
"I came to see how the fight goes," Tyrol admitted quietly once they were settled inside the tent sitting across from each other at a small table.
Jammer leaned forward, his hands coming to rest on the table top, fingers laced together loosely. "Have you heard anything?" he asked cautiously.
"Just what we've all heard, that the toasters are starting to pick up people they've declared to be troublemakers."
"That's right."
"They're claiming they're looking for information about illegal weapons and things that go boom in the night," the Chief continued hoping to prod more of an answer from the younger man.
"The Colonel says it's our duty to fight back and cause the toasters as much trouble as we can until the Galactica comes back," Jammer told him bluntly.
That sentiment had become the driving force behind the entire resistance movement, do whatever it took to resist and survive until the Admiral came back to rescue them all. The only flaw to that plan was the fact that more than two-thirds of the people who'd originally populated the fleet were now sitting here behind enemy lines. What kind of a rescue attempt could the old man make with less than 5000 people left in his fleet?
The Chief cleared his throat before asking, "Is it true they picked up Starbuck last week?" He'd heard the rumors, gone in search of Anders, but had come up with nothing.
"Yeah. Anders' people have become regular demons since he found out. They've stepped up their attacks…."
"Frack…"
"You can say that again, Chief."
"Any way of getting messages to them? The ones inside I mean?"
Jammer shook his head. "They're not allowing us access to the inside of the detention center for any reason, not even to visit family members. Once somebody goes in, you don't see them again until they're released….if they're released."
"Has anyone even tried getting a message inside?"
"The information we've received suggests that the toasters have got different levels of security in there. The non-threatening types that are pulled in for questioning are kept in interrogation rooms until they're done with them. The ones that are under heavy suspicion of being part of the resistance, they're locking them away in cells until they've broken them."
"It's nice to know we still have our contact in the ministry, Jammer, but all that doesn't answer my question," Tyrol said impatiently.
"The low-level prisoners aren't in there long enough to make the effort, the others…..I don't know. They're guarded by those centurions and the humanoids both, if there's a way to contact them I haven't thought of it."
"And where does Starbuck fall in?"
"She wasn't taken in by those fracking traitors in the New Caprica police," Jammer said bitterly. "The toasters dragged her off special."
The Chief was silent, digesting the information Jammer had given him. Mentally he kicked himself for being out of the loop the last few weeks, living and breathing nothing but the restoration of Cally's health. As usual the conflicting emotions those thoughts wrought tore him up inside.
"You should probably know, the Colonel wants to use Starbuck's imprisonment to bring Anders' group back into the fold," Jammer added.
"Why are you telling me that? I happen to agree, we should be working together not against each other."
Suddenly, much closer for comfort than either them liked, gunfire sounded.
"What the frack?" the Chief cried out as the two men bolted for the tent's entry. Outside was chaos, people running for cover and screaming in terror.
"Where's it coming from?" Jammer called out, falling in beside Tyrol as they fought their way through the crowd.
"Sounds like the south-west quadrant of the camp."
"Frack! That's where the temple's at!"
Tyrol knew exactly where the temple was located. It was a holy place, something that the toasters acknowledged and had left alone until now. Why now? He wondered as the clouds overhead parted and rays of sun shined down onto the camp for the first time in days, glittering off the metal of the centurions as they marched away from the wreckage they'd wrought in the temple.
The sound of silence was nearly deafening to Kara's ears. Until now she'd never realized how accustomed she'd come to all the noise in her life. She'd grown up listening to her mother's drunken rants, went off the academy to be yelled at by instructors and survive simulated battle training, and eventually found herself on board the Galactica. Nothing was ever silent on a battlestar, the close quarters of your fellow crew, the steady hum of her engines and life support systems. You learned how to drown that out and forget any of it existed until you were locked away in a prison like this, she thought.
She'd lost track of how long she'd been imprisoned here, days, weeks….. she just couldn't keep track of it anymore. Not that it was like any cell she'd ever done time in; it was hell and gone from the brig on the Galactica of which she was intimately familiar. This prison looked more like your run of the mill middle-class apartment from back on Caprica City, but there was no doubting what it was. From the single door in that was always locked to her nearly constant solitary status it was most definitely a cell.
"Kara, honey, I'm home!" a voice called from the top of the stairs that lead to the lone entry point. Leobon was back and the sound of his voice sent a shiver of trepidation down her back.
"Look what I managed to get from the marketplace," he said smiling, holding out a small basket of what appeared to be fresh vegetables as though they were a peace offering.
Kara didn't reply, didn't even spare him a glance, choosing to instead remain focused on the wall across from where she sat. The silence, however, failed to have their desired effect as, undaunted; Leobon continued to bestow her with seemingly endless prattle about vegetables and the marketplace.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, finally changing the subject when he noticed he wasn't get anywhere with the other topic. "You must be, you haven't had anything to eat all day…."
That finally drew Kara's attention to him, but not in a way he liked. Before he saw what was coming Kara pounced, the kitchen knife she'd hidden up her sleeve sliding into her hand a second before she rammed it with all her might through his neck, severing what would be the jugular vein on a real human. He gasped his eyes going wide as she pulled the blade out and jammed it into his neck over and over again as blood gurgled from his mouth. She finally stopped as he collapsed to the ground, blood streaming out of the wounds.
Watching him bleed out as though he was an animal in a lab, she reached down and grabbed one of the carrots that had fallen free when he'd dropped the basket. Wiping it off she took a bite and waited. With his last bit of strength Leobon whispered, "I'll see you in the morning."
Even after she was sure he was dead, Kara couldn't stop himself from kneeling beside his body and checking for any signs of life. 'See you in the morning,' he'd said. How many times would she have to kill him before he stopped coming back? The thought brought such an unexpected feeling of helplessness that she suddenly found herself sitting there with tears rolling down her face. With a sob, she bolted to her feet, dashing wildly up the steps until she slammed her shoulder full force into the locked door at the top. A jarring pain shot through her body.
"Somebody! Help me please!" she cried out, turning her back to the door until she leaned against it. She couldn't hear a sound outside of her own ragged breathing.
"Help me," she said her voice barely a whisper now. She felt her knees begin to buckle and wearily she slid down the door until she was seated on the top step. Nobody was coming, she was all alone.
Memories of her childhood came crashing back to her, thoughts of those long lonely nights spent wondering when her mother would come home, if she'd come home. Those were followed by memories of loss, Zack's death, so many of the Galactica's crew, everyone she'd ever cared about she seemed to lose. Sam. What was he going through now? Did he think she was dead? And Lee, where was he now? She hugged her arms around herself and gave herself up to the tears she'd been holding back for so long.
After awhile, spent from the emotional upheaval, Kara dozed off, her back pressed against the door. She wasn't sure how long she slept, but as she came awake she realized there were footsteps coming closer to the other side of the door. Quickly she scrubbed her hands over her face, wishing there was some way to remove the telltale signs of her recent crying jag. She rose to her feet, pivoting towards the door just as it opened.
"Did you miss me?" he asked, a smile lighting Leobon's features as he looked at her. She could tell by his face he was curious about the crying, wondering if perhaps she'd felt remorse over killing him.
"Obviously not, since you had to go get yourself another knew body," she responded reflexively, not realizing he wasn't alone.
"You're way too lenient on her. I'd have cut out her tongue for her insolence," one of the Dorel models commented as he moved into view behind Leobon.
"She'll come around, won't you Kara?" Leobon asked as they herded her back down the steps. This time she wisely chose to remain silent.
Inside the apartment, Dorel inspected Leobon's corpse still lying in a pool of blood on the living room floor, while Leobon and Kara looked on. Moments later two of the silver centurions loudly descended the steps and marched towards them.
"Remove that," Dorel instructed them, pointing towards the body. While they moved to do his bidding, the little man moved towards the kitchen area. Kara ignored him, watching as the metal monsters hoisted the corpse and hauled it up the steps.
Inside the kitchen, Dorel began searching for knives, pulling them out of every drawer and dropping them loudly onto the counter. He moved quickly and was soon gathering up his find. "I trust there won't be any more stabbings now," he said as he walked towards the steps. He stopped when he reached them, turning towards Leobon.
"Just out of curiosity, exactly how many more times are you planning on letting her kill you?"
"As many as it takes."
Sharon couldn't help mulling over the dinner conversation she'd found herself having over dinner the night before as she waited for the Raptor to depart for the Galactica and yet another meeting with the Admiral. She'd been dining in the Commander's quarters on the Pegasus with Helo, Lee, and Dee. She'd done it every night since she'd been freed from her cell. Aside from the dark looks from Dee, it'd all seemed friendly enough, although Sharon suspected that those meals together was Lee's way of keeping her away from the general population of the ship. It hadn't taken long for word to get out among the crew that she'd been freed and was living among them. After that, it quickly became evident that the attitude of the crew towards her ranged from curiosity to outright hostility. But it was nothing less than what she'd been expecting.
The dinner conversation had centered on the one thing that occupied everyone's mind, the upcoming rescue mission to New Caprica.
"There's no way that we're ready to return to New Caprica, not now," she said. "It'd be suicide to try."
"What do you mean by that?" Dee demanded.
Sharon couldn't understand Dee's chilly attitude towards her. From what Helo had told her Dee had been his staunchest supporter in regards to is relationship with a Cylon. This sudden change in her attitude had her baffled.
For Dee's part, she was a little surprised at herself for the same reasons. She tried to justify it by telling herself that she was just worried that they may be putting the lives of what was left of the human race on the line by blindly following a Cylon.
"The ships are both in serious need of repairs to bring them even halfway up to fighting strength," Sharon responded. She'd been spending time during the last week touring both ships, accompanied by Helo or the Admiral respectively. During her tour she'd noticed the damages left unfixed and it'd hit home how much below fighting level strength the two mighty warships had fallen.
"Look, we can't just spend all of our time focusing on training pilots, if we don't have two fully functioning battlestars to back them up, we've got nothing."
"There'll be time enough to get the most pressing repairs made," Lee told her. "The Admiral won't be making a move until one of our Raptor's reports back a positive contact with our people on the planet."
"What are you talking about? What Raptors? What contact?" Sharon asked, taken by surprise.
Across from her Lee grimaced over a well-placed kick from Dee beneath the table. While Lee flashed an accusing look at the other woman, who glared at him in return, Helo took charge of answering Sharon's questions.
"It was something that the Admiral had worked out with Colonel Tigh before he moved down to the planet. They worked it out that should the worst happen and the Cylons invade, the fleet would jump."
"Now there's some big news," Sharon said sarcastically.
Helo smiled. "Okay, then try this. They agreed about the jump, but they also agreed that every day a Raptor would jump back and wait for our people on the planet to make contact."
"And this has been going on…."
"Every day since we jumped," Helo finished.
The three of them sat in silence, watching Sharon's face as she worked this new bit of information through her mind.
"Have you made contact?" she asked.
"Not yet," Lee told her. "But we're hoping they're just having trouble getting a coded signal past the Cylons.
"That could be hard; they're most likely monitoring channels and blocking anything unauthorized. And if they caught an unauthorized signal they'd find its source."
"What then?"
"They'll terminate the source, and whoever they find with it."
The surety that had filled her voice had gone a long way in ruining all of their appetites, and they'd finished the meal in silence before going their separate ways. Helo, as usual, had accompanied her back to the room they shared with the rest of Pegasus' pilots. It was then that she'd broached the topic of another meeting with Adama. She had a plan and she'd need his agreement to pull it off.