Pegasus

When Lee reentered the CIC, he saw Sharon and Helo discussing something by the DRADIS monitors. Their faces were grave, especially Helo's.

"We have get out of here before it blows up," Sharon was telling her husband. "That thing will destroy anything remotely close to it. We will be dust if we don't jump away."

Helo shook his head. "We can't leave without them! Is that what you're suggesting? Just leaving all those people behind."

"That's not what I meant," she stated. "I meant in case we don't find any way to get them out of the planet. See it as a contingence plan."

"Is there something I should know?" Lee inquired, approaching the two.

Agathon coughed. "Commander. I see you managed to put yourself back together," he said, harshly, like accusing him of abandoning them.

Lee nodded. "I had an epiphany and realized I couldn't just stay there and do nothing," he said. "Now, can you please tell me what is bothering you so much?"

"It's the star of this system," Sharon said. "It's about to turn into a supernova. We're running out of time."

Oh gods, he thought. Why the frak was all that stuff happening? It looked like everyone in that planet was sentenced to die.

---

Algae planet

A malicious smile played on D'Anna's lips as she looked at the scene in front of her. The two centurions with her had their guns pointed at the group, ready to start shooting if she said so.

"How wonderful to see you all here," she said. "Reminds me of New Caprica except," D'Anna looked down at Kara, who was kneeling by Cally's dead body, "you weren't exactly there, were you?"

"You'd remember if I was," Kara said through her teeth. "I'd have blown your face off."

D'Anna laughed and turned her face to temple's entrance. "She's such a charming person. I saw why you… admire her so much." She was either talking to herself or to someone outside. Kara didn't have to wait too long to find out, though…

Seconds later, Leoben Conoy stepped into the temple. "Hello, Kara," he said, smiling at her in a way that freaked her out.

Starbuck stopped breathing for a moment. First the Mandala, now Leoben. It was her frakking nightmare all over again. Jamie, she thought. No, the baby is safe in Pegasus. Lee is there to protect her. Nobody, not even Leoben, would touch a single hair of her little girl if Lee had a say in it.

Suddenly, the chief grabbed his gun and pointed it directly at D'Anna. Grief was all over his face – he wanted revenge. "You killed my wife!"

"Actually, one of them did," she stated, pointing at the centurions, whose weapons were now directly pointed at him, as well as Leoben's. D'Anna kept smiling, not seeming a little bit threatened by the fact that Tyrol was holding her at gunpoint. "Go ahead," she dared him. "Shoot me. But do you really think the centurions will let any of you out of here if you do?"

"Chief," Sam said, carefully approaching him. "Don't do it. She'll just resurrect if you kill her and you won't get out of here alive if you do. You have a son. Don't you think it is bad enough he has to live without a mother?"

"He's right," Tigh agreed, Ellen clutched against his side and Tory a few feet behind. "She's not worth it…"

"Please put your weapons down," Leoben said. "We can resurrect, you can't."

Tigh was the first to place his weapon on the floor, followed by Sam and, reluctantly, Tyrol. His teeth were clenched with fury. Kara however, wouldn't let go of the riffle Cally had been holding before she died.

"That includes you, Kara," Leoben informed her.

She gave him a look of pure disdain. "What the frak do you want from us?"

"Just the temple, really," D'Anna told her. "But I'm afraid that, as your friends up in the fleet didn't cooperate, we'll have to kill you too." She signaled one of the centurions to point its weapons at Sam and Tigh as a way to illustrate her point.

"Let's not rush into anything," Leoben suggested, raising his hand. "Kara, please let go of the riffle. And D'Anna nothing is settled yet."

"It is, if the doesn't drop the weapon," D'Anna told him, now pointing her gun at Kara. "Come on, Starbuck, put it down or one of your friends will dies in 3… 2… 1…"

"Fine!" she said, throwing the riffle to the floor. "Happy now?"

"Yes," Leoben said.

"What now?" Sam asked, arms crossed against his chest. "Are you gonna let us go are you gonna shoot us?"

D'Anna, still smiling in a messed up way, took a few steps ahead, always with a centurion by each of her sides, and climbed up a raised platform in the middle of the temple with a very large column and several smaller ones (mostly broken) around it. "Now, we wait," she said, showing him what seemed to be a cylon communications device that has been tied to her belt. "The others will contact us if your fleet agrees to leave. If that happens, maybe we'll let you go, depending on how you behave. If not, well, each one of you had a bullet destined." Leoben coughed, tying to remind her of something. "Oh, except for Captain Thrace. Leoben really wants a playmate…"

Kara felt sick, actually sick. She was tempted to say she would rather have the bullet that go with that frakker Leoben. Slowly, she was starting to understand that the chances of them actually returning to the fleet were thinning by the second – she would never see Lee again, she would never see Jamie again. Frak, why did I have to come down here?! She thought.

"So, tell me about our child," Leoben requested to Kara.

She looked up at him in horror. Their child? How frakked up was his mind. How did he know she had a child at all? "We don't have a child."

Leoben smiled and shook his head. "Kara, no matter who the biological father is, all your children are mine. We are meant to be together. You can't imagine how happy I was when I heard in New Caprica that you were pregnant. Now, tell me, how is our child? "

Kara bit her lower lip. At least he had just heard she was pregnant … There was no way she would tell him about Jamie, so that only left another way – she would lie and she had to do it well. "Dead," she told him. Gods, she hated herself for saying something like that about her baby girl. "When you bastards invaded the planet, I went into labor too soon and the baby didn't make it." She was able to his her satisfaction over seeing his face fall, knowing he had believed every word and was feeling guilty as hell.

D'Anna, however, didn't look so convinced. She turned to Tory. "Is she telling the truth?"

The woman gulped. "I heard about it. Captain Thrace and I aren't more than acquaintances, so I can't give you details."

"I can," Ellen said all of the sudden. "Bill was heartbroken when we returned to the fleet over losing his grandchild. From what he told me and Saul, the child was too premature. It's lungs were undeveloped. Soon, the heart started to fail and the kidneys too. The baby dies two days later. Kara didn't leave her quarters for months. Things were very complicated for a while. She just started flying again a couple of weeks ago."

Of all people she expected to back her up, Ellen had to be the last. She made a mental note to thank her later.

"I'm sorry," Leoben apologized, sounding genuinely regretful. "Was it a boy or a girl?"

"Boy," she lied again.

"Can we please stop the sentimental show?" D'Anna asked. "She can have more children…"

The cylon wasn't able to finish her sentence as a bright light entered from an opening in the temple's ceiling and illuminated the whole platform where she was standing. The centurions surrounding her, started to smoke and, seconds later, exploded, leaving D'Anna standing there with her eyes wide open in a trance.

---

Pegasus

Erin's heart raced as she entered her quarters with her son. She was thinking of a way of telling him Sam was his father and that he was stuck in the frakking planet at the moment. She couldn't just blurt it, Nate was just a child.

Her son sat on the sofa and looked at her expectantly as she sat by his side. It was worthless to write the script for that conversation in her head – she would have to improvise…

"Nate, honey, you know that all boys and girls have a mommy and a daddy," she started.

"That's why there was all that noise?" her son inquired in confusion.

She shook her head. "Mommy will get there. Just hear me for now, okay?" he nodded and she got ready to continue. "All boys and girls have two parents, even if they are not there and you are no exception, honey."

"I know," he said. "Daddy's fighting the bad men in the colonies."

She shook her head. "Not anymore. He came back."

"He did?" the little boy asked excitedly. "Can I meet him?"

"You already have, Nate," she told him. "He's Sam, baby."

First, her son's face turned to shock. "He is?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Are you happy?"

The little smiled and nodded excitedly. "I wanted Sam to be my daddy. Does that mean he'll live here? I want him to."

"We'll see honey," Erin told him, her voice lowering. She felt like she would break down sobbing at any minute. She hated to cry and apparently it was all she had done in the past months.

"Why are you sad Mommy?"

"It's nothing," she lied.

"Daddy's in trouble," he said suddenly in a low tone. "It's because of all that noise before, isn't it? The bad men are back."

She nodded in surprise. "How do you know?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I just do. Will he be okay?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

Seeing his mother's sadness, Nate cuddled against her, as way to give her some comfort. "I wished Sam was my daddy and it worked. Maybe if we wish he's okay, it will work too," he told her.

She smiled at her son's innocence and nodded. "Let's wish."

---

"Is it me, or the cylons are abandoning the planet?" Helo asked, looking at the DRADIS monitor.

Lee joined him and noticed his XO was right. Several red dots were moving away from where the planet was.

"Maybe they figured the star is about to explode," Sharon told them.

Lee looked back at her in confusion"But they can resurrect."

Sharon shook her head. "Not if the resurrection ship is blown up too."

Maybe this is our chance, he thought. If they were quick enough, maybe they would be able to get everyone out of the planet. "How long do you think it would take us to send a shuttle down to the planet and rescue the people? We can't trust their raptors will be in good conditions. If they jammed the communications, gods know what else they did to the raptors down there…"

"I think I can do it before the star turns into a supernova," Sharon offered. "I need at least two more pilots, maybe Kat and Racetrack. I doubt everyone is concentrated in the same place, so the more we are, the faster it will be."

"Wait," Helo said. "But what guarantees us they won't shoot us down before we get there?"

"I can calculate a jump directly into the planet's atmosphere like we did in Caprica," she stated.

"But someone ended up jumping into a mountain," he recalled.

"It's a risk we need to take," Lee told him.

---

Algae Planet

The group watched as D'Anna stood in the middle of the temple, illuminated by the light, her eyes as wide as it was possible.

"It's our chance," Tigh whispered to Sam. "We need to move now!"

He nodded, crossed eyes with Kara and nodded at the temple's entrance. She nodded back and looked at Leoben, whose attention was in D'Anna, who was now murmuring something in her trance.

Slowly, she reached for the nearest riffle, but the cylon's reflexes were faster.

"Don't even think of it, Kara," he warned, aiming at her. "Nobody move or I'll shoot her."

Starbuck snorted. "You won't shoot me," Kara told him. "You think I'm too valuable."

She was wrong – less then two seconds later, Leoben pulled the trigger.

A/N: Finally I was able to finish the chapter - I spent the whole week writing pqpers about the lusitans and roman armies (History stuff). I swear, teachers are trying to kill us this semester... Anyway, sorry for not answering the reviews, I just didn't have time, sorry. I will this time, though. I don't know if you saw the preview I posted in my livejournal. Remember: 10 reviews will get you a preview in livejournal (though last week I did it at nine...) By the way, don't know if you noticed, but this fic is coming to an end...