Siren's Kiss

by JaneAus10

This AU story begins when a young Kara Thrace is rescued from a nuked and dying Picon along with her best friend Karl Agathon. It follows them to Caprica and her eventual meeting with Lee Adama and relates the ways in which their lives are changed forever when her destiny crosses his. Image Credit: Detail of The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. COMPLETE.

78. Looking for Smoke

Chapter 78

Looking for Smoke

After an amateur photographer took a picture of a Cylon Raider over the ocean weeks after the Cylons were defeated, the military admitted that a captured ship was being used to test advanced technology. Although there was eventually a rumor that the system being tested was the FTL drive, the destination of the flights was a well-guarded secret for almost a year.

- Bartell, History of the Second Cylon War

.

Lee sat alone on the pew in the little temple. The rest of the mourners had gone, many of them to the small wake that Laura had planned at the nice restaurant across the street. He thought several times about going to the closed door beside the altar and knocking, but he didn't want to intrude on the time Kara was sharing with Dreilide Thrace.

Elosha came over and sat beside him. "It was a fine service, a fitting farewell for a good man."

Lee nodded.

"I know he was your friend."

Again Lee nodded.

"Something troubles you?"

"I'm worried about Kara. She hasn't accepted John's death."

"I think you'll see a change in her. Often we need the solace of fellow mourners to say our farewells. The man who is with her is also a friend?"

"He was married to her mother. For a long time Kara thought he was her father."

"Ah, Laura has mentioned him…a musician."

"And a composer. A good one."

They both looked up as the door opened and Kara walked out followed by Dreilide.

"I'll leave you now. Please call on me or have her call on me if you feel the need."

"Thank you," Lee said.

Kara and Dreilide waited while Lee stood and maneuvered out of the pew. He knew she had been crying. Her eyes were red, but she seemed to be at peace. He felt a total calmness from her that he hadn't felt before.

Lee looked at her, his eyes asking the question. Are you all right?

"It's time to move on," she said simply. "It's what my dad would want me to do."

Lee breathed a sigh that was mostly relief. He had no idea what Dreilide had said to her, but it must have had a profound effect on her.

Together the three of them walked slowly out of the temple and into the late afternoon sunshine.

"Do you want to go across the street to the wake?" Lee asked her.

"I need to," Kara answered. She turned to Dreilide. "Come with us."

He held up his hand for a transport. "I'm going home to work on some music. I've got a melody in my head. I want to get it down while I still remember it."

Kara hugged him and whispered, "Thank you."

She and Lee walked across the street. He had mastered the crutches now and could walk almost as fast as she could.

When they got into the restaurant and entered the private room that Laura had reserved, Kara said, "I've got something I've got to do."

Laura was talking to Fiona Nagala. Kara walked up to them.

"I'm so sorry," Fiona said to her.

Kara nodded.

Fiona touched Laura's arm before she walked away. "I'll call you later."

Kara hugged Laura. Until that afternoon Kara had thought mostly about her own pain. Laura had suffered, too. She felt tears well in her eyes.

"Thank you for doing this for my dad. It was the right thing to do."

"Oh, Kara," Laura said and began to cry again. She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. "I don't want our relationship to be troubled. I know this has been hard for you. We both love him."

"Next week I'll move a few of my things from the apartment to Marble House. I'll start staying there a few nights a week. Lee's getting along a lot better now."

"Thank you," Laura said.

Kara walked back to Lee and he handed her a drink.

Kara blotted her eyes with her sleeve. "Laura means well. It's not her fault we don't always get along. I'm in her life because me and my dad were a package deal. We'll work it out. That's what my dad would have wanted. She was right to have the memorial service. We all need closure."

Lee eyed her. "Are you sure you're okay? Elosha offered to…"

"Lee, I'm fine. I know I need to move on. Isn't that what you've been telling me for three weeks? Even the scriptures say it. A time to mourn and a time to stop mourning. When I was sitting back there with Dreilide, I realized that's what Dad would have wanted."

"You know I'm here for you."

She finally smiled. "You've always been here for me. I know I can count on you."

"These last couple of weeks have been…having you with me has been…"

"Fun?" She joked.

"I know I've been a real grouch some of the time."

She grinned. "How about a lot of the time? But so have I. I told Laura I would move a few things into Marble House, and that I would stay there a few nights a week. It's the right thing to do. It's what my dad would want. I don't want him…wherever he is now…I don't want to disappoint him. I want him to know I…made an effort. He wouldn't want me to turn my back on Laura now. Or my brother…especially not my brother."

"You're not doing this because my dad said something, are you?"

"I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. I don't know any other way to say it. I'll still spend the night at your place on the weekends and maybe a few other nights. I need to spend time with Braedon while I can. Who knows what the future will bring. Who knows what we'll find on Nereid or what will happen when we go there."

Lee took her hand. "We could always get married. In his letter, John said…"

Kara shook her head. "It's the wrong time and the wrong reason. We'll know when it's right."

Lee managed a smile. "So you're not turning me down?"

"I'm still wearing the ring you gave me. Besides we don't need a ceremony."

"Is that your mother talking? John told me she had an aversion to marriage. I've always hoped you took after him."

"She couldn't marry my father because she never divorced Dreilide so I guess she took her vow seriously…the one that says until death do you part."

How could she tell Lee that her father would be there when they finally said their vows before a priest? Her father would walk her down the aisle, proud and smiling, and not just in spirit either.

She went on, "When Nereid is behind us…when we've freed those prisoners and destroyed the Cylons like my dad wanted us to, then we'll talk about it again."

"Is that a promise?"

She slipped her hand into his. "That's a promise, Lee."

...

Laura walked into her suite's living room at Marble House.

"Your son is asleep?" Bill asked. He had just poured a drink, or another one, and was standing by the sideboard.

"Yes, Maya had just put him to bed. I got to kiss him goodnight, but he was already asleep. I didn't think we would be this late getting back from dinner. Brae exhausted himself running around all afternoon at the wake."

"He reminds me of Zak when he was that age. Lee was more reserved."

"Brae has his quieter moments. Sometimes he looks at me with those green eyes and I swear he looks like a wise little munchkin who is reading my thoughts."

"I helped myself to a drink. Would you like one?"

"Yes," Laura said as she wearily sat on the couch.

Bill poured her a drink and sat down beside her. "I thought the service was very appropriate."

"Thank you for the nice things you said about John."

"Captain Jessups' eulogy is the one everyone will remember."

"The minor difference that he and John had twenty-five years ago was a woman, naturally. John met him for a drink in September after Kara was aboard the Galactica. Both of them were concerned that she would have to once again deal with accusations of favoritism if they did it while she was still in Flight School. John told me that the captain has been married to the woman in question for the last twenty-two years. They have a daughter and two sons."

"Life has a way of working out."

"For some, yes it does. Kara told me that she would soon move some of her things here to Marble House. She seemed…different after the service today, less angry at me, more at peace. Talking to her stepfather seems to have helped her a great deal."

"I don't see why she would be angry at you at all. If she's angry at anyone, it should be me."

"I think her anger was at losing her father and it just spilled over into other areas of her life. I've never known how to be a mother to her. She doesn't want a mother. She's very independent. She and John struggled at first with being father and daughter. Finally over that summer before she went to the Academy, I saw the bond between them start to form. Then it deepened as he taught her the simulator. She guards her feelings very carefully. She has a hard time letting anyone love her and an even harder time returning that love, but once she lets someone in…like she did Lee and her father…she's fiercely loyal. She's never let me in. She may never be able to. Kara's mother was not…not the most loving and caring of mothers. I feel sure their relationship has colored her other relationships with women, especially those who are authority figures."

"Lee's never talked about their relationship to me, but I know they've had some problems. They seemed to have worked through them, though. Don't give up on her."

"John was the glue that held Kara and me together. Now that he's gone, I hope…I just hope she doesn't give up on me. I've had so little time for even my own son…Kara once took me to task for that as well."

Laura felt tears forming again. She hastily wiped at them and took a sip of her drink. Straight whiskey. Bill knew what she needed. She took another sip.

He closed his hand over hers and squeezed. "I should probably go and let you get some rest."

"No, please, not yet. I don't want to be alone right now. Stay and talk to me."

"You know I've asked Kara to fly the next mission to Nereid."

"She didn't mention that to me, but I'm not surprised. I'm sure she accepted."

"I talked to Dr. Rafferty on Friday. She's doing very well...better than Lee did at first. They're going to get her into Sadie tomorrow. Rick's assistant Abinell said she had already done everything with the sims he could offer. I think she's getting bored. She's young, but she's one of the best pilots we've got. Before I offered her the mission to Nereid, I watched the film taken from her gun cameras during the fighting. Jessups said it about John. I can say it about Kara…talent and skill and guts."

"Could that not be said of your son, too?"

"Yes, but Lee is more…careful. It's his nature. Even as a child he was cautious."

"So you think Kara's piloting is reckless?"

He smiled. "Not reckless. Just less cautious."

"When do you want Kara to fly the first mission to Nereid?"

"In a few weeks. There may be other missions depending on what she finds. At some point I'll make my final decision about what we'll do to the planet."

"You're still leaning toward destroying it, aren't you?"

"I think the risk to Caprica…to all of us...will be less if we do. We lost over four hundred Marines taking out those nests of centurions here in the city. We'd lose many more than that fighting on the ground on Nereid trying to rescue prisoners. I know John was opposed to destroying the planet, but…you and I have already talked about it. You haven't changed your mind, have you?"

"If your intention is to destroy the planet, why do you need a mission beforehand? Why risk Kara's life?"

"Because I want to know what we'll be facing. I don't want to go into battle blind. Her mission will be dangerous, but it won't be as bad as when Lee did it. She won't have to jump Sadie in the middle of a storm. She can do it from the base here on Caprica, too."

"But the mission itself will be dangerous, will it not?"

"That depends on what's waiting for her on the other end."

"You have reason to believe it will be more than Lee found?"

"Not necessarily. But it's been over two months since Lee was there. We thought we might get something from the skinjobs during the questioning, but so far they've denied the existence of a homeworld...all of them except Sharon. We know the others are lying, but…." He shrugged.

"President Adar and I have agreed there's to be no torture involved in their interrogation. Do you think that's a mistake?"

"I've never believed torture got the truth from anyone."

"Have Darren and Parker's agents found out anything useful, yet?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Parker wants to let Lee question Sharon. He's told me several times that Lee relates well to younger subjects. Normally the fact that he knows her would keep him out of the loop, but these aren't normal circumstances and Parker has a lot of faith in him."

"He should. Lee's your son," Laura said.

"He should have been ours."

At first Laura was shocked at his remark and then she smiled. "Have you had too much to drink, Bill?"

He stared at his empty glass. "I've had more than I should have. I'm leaving before I say anything else I shouldn't."

At the door she looked into the dark blue eyes. She saw the sadness so very clearly tonight. They had both suffered from his proud and hasty decision made over twenty years earlier. This was the closest he had ever come to admitting his mistake. The closest he had ever come to apologizing to her for it.

"We can't change the past," she said softly.

"I'll be in touch."

After she closed the door, Laura walked over to the sideboard and poured another drink. Maybe this would be the one that let her sleep for a few hours. Maybe this one would help her blot out the pain…past and present…and fall into the oblivion she craved.

...

Kara took the letter from under the trophy. Using her finger she tore open the flap, leaving a ragged edge.

"I'll be back in a minute," she said to Lee before she carried the letter to the bedroom. She settled cross-legged on the bed and opened the two folds.

My beautiful little girl,

This is the third letter I've written and it's going to be the hardest. I had all these plans that won't happen now, but I don't want you to spend too much time mourning me or thinking about what could have been. Okay, mourn a little, but not too much because hopefully I'm kicked back somewhere with a drink in my hand keeping an eye on you and Brae. How's that for the ultimate chaperone?

I've told Lee to take care of you, but I didn't mean that in a physical sense because I know how strong you are. I meant for him to take care of your spirit and your heart because you're like me in that way, tough on the outside, but we're marshmallows inside when it comes to the ones we love. Be patient with Lee. He might crowd you. He might not always understand you, but just remember how much he loves you. That's not the kind of love you find every day. Cherish it and him.

I also told Lee I'd like for the two of you to raise Brae if something happens to Laura. My son should stay with family. If there's some reason you and Lee can't keep him all the time, then please let Maya share his care with you. She loves him as much as if he were hers and he loves her.

I told you five years ago that you own the biggest piece of my heart, and even though Laura and our son are in there, too, you'll always have that special place. All I have to do is close my eyes and I can see you the day your mother brought you over to my apartment for the first time. I can still see that big toothless smile and your beautiful green eyes and those chubby little arms reaching for me. What better picture could a father have for a first memory of his daughter?

I love you, Kara, and that will never end. Lee doesn't believe in an afterlife, but I know you do. We'll see each other again one day. I just hope you live a long and happy life before that happens and that you get a chance to love your own children the way I love you. Dad

Slowly she folded the letter. They would see each other again…and not in the afterlife. She took the letter back into the living room and put it under her trophy before she sat down beside Lee. He muted the television.

"So how do you feel about being a father?" She asked.

He gave her a look. "Is that a theoretical question…like in the future…or…are you…? Because if you are, I will drag you to a temple whether you want to go or not."

Kara smiled. "Braedon. If something happens to Laura."

He put his arm around her. "You know I would. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I know what happened to my dad and I've accepted it. He and I will see each other again one day. I know we will." She snuggled into Lee and lifted her face for his kiss.

He leaned down. "I can't wait to get this stupid cast off."

She wrapped her arms around him. "Me either. I'm getting tired of doing all the work."

"Really?"

She grinned before she kissed him again. "Not really. I like you a little bit helpless."

...

Kara emerged from the maze into the whitewashed part of the hangar. She had arrived early on purpose. She looked around. Kevin was not at his worktable. She skirted the new Raider that now hung beside Sadie and walked to the doorway of Rick Rafferty's small office. He was staring intently at his computer monitor.

Kara knocked lightly on the doorframe. "Have you got a minute, Dr. Rafferty?"

He looked up. "Sure. Come in, Kara. Have a seat. There's a chair under those books."

Kara put the books on the floor and perched on the edge of the seat. "I have a question about jump technology."

"Shoot," he said.

"How does it work?"

Rafferty chuckled. "Did you take physics at the Academy?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Maybe you can explain it in layman's terms."

"You're at point A, you want to go to point B. There's two ways to get there."

"Fly from one point to the other or jump," Kara said. "I understand flying. It's the jumping part I need some help with."

"In layman's terms, the FTL drive bends or warps space. Instead of a straight line, you have a curved line." He took his hand and bent it into the shape of a C. "Point A is now closer to point B. That's a real oversimplification, but it's the best I can do without getting into advanced physics."

"Okay," Kara said. "So what makes the Cylon FTL drives so much better than ours?"

"It's not the drive itself although they have found a way to miniaturize some of the parts. It's the computer that's built into it. In order to execute a successful jump, you're got to know not only where you are and where you want to go, but what's in between you and your destination…things like planets and stars and black holes. When the drive bends space, everything in between you and your destination doesn't vanish. It's still there. The Cylon computers that control the jump are far superior to ours. Now that we've got more of their FTL drives coming our way, we'll find a way to reverse engineer them and get at those computers."

"So you're saying that under the right circumstances, one of our Raptor FTL drives could jump farther than…say the ice planet?"

"In theory, yes. A little farther, but not much."

Kara felt a rush of excitement. "What would those circumstances be? You mean like knowing the right coordinates?"

"It's much more involved than that, especially in a Raptor. The main problem is that a Raptor's FTL drive was designed specifically for what we call short hops. That means inside our own solar system or the equivalent distance outside of it."

"What's the outside limit of a Raptor drive…under normal circumstances?"

"A light year…and that's pushing it."

Kara pondered his explanation. There had to be something she had missed. Nereid was thirty light years away. She tried a different approach.

"What happens around a ship when it jumps?"

"There's a temporary displacement of space. It pulls inward and then there's a rebound effect when the jump is complete. The…wormhole that was created by the jump fills in very quickly."

"Like a shock wave?"

"Something like that, yes."

"What would happen if someone jumped a Raptor in a confined space, say, inside another ship? Would it damage the other ship?"

"Most certainly. The smaller or more confined the space, the worse the damage."

"What if there were explosives nearby?"

Rafferty studied her. She realized that he now knew why she was asking the questions. She waited, unaware at first that she was holding her breath, aware only that her pulse had quickened. If Rafferty went to Admiral Adama with her thoughts, she might lose the opportunity to fly the mission to Nereid.

Finally he said, "If the Raptor was within twenty or thirty meters of certain types of explosives when it jumped, the concussive wave would almost certainly set them off."

"What would happen to the Raptor? Would it complete the jump?"

"It might. But it would probably sustain damage. It might even be destroyed. You're asking me about something that's never been studied, even theoretically that I'm aware of. No pilot in his…or her…right mind would ever initiate a Raptor jump inside a battlestar much less on top of explosives."

Undeterred Kara continued. "But if someone did jump a Raptor inside a larger ship and they were near a lot of explosives…say a whole Raider full…could the resulting explosion affect the…end point of the jump…theoretically speaking, of course?"

Rafferty picked up a pen from his desk and turned it in his hand, rolling it over his knuckles. "You've given this theory a great deal of thought, haven't you?"

Kara nodded. "I've just got to know if there's any way he could have jumped somewhere…farther than a Raptor would normally be able to jump...farther than the coordinates programmed into that ship."

"Could I ask what made you think of your scenario in the first place?"

Kara considered her answer and then said, "My dad flew back into that basestar with one purpose…to set off the explosives in that Raider. I'm trying to think like he would so here's the way I see it. He'd have two choices. Crash his Raptor into the Raider. The problem with that is that he wouldn't have had time to get up any speed so it would have been a slow speed crash. Maybe it would have worked and maybe not. The other way would be to jump the Raptor and let the shock wave do it. I think that's what he did."

Rafferty rubbed his jaw. "Let me work on a few equations. Run a few simulations through some software I wrote. Come back to see me before you leave today."

"I'd appreciate if it you wouldn't say anything to anybody about this."

He smiled. "We're only talking theory, aren't we?"

"Just theory," Kara confirmed. "Who would be insane enough to think it was more than theory?"

"I don't believe I'm under any obligation to report theoretical discussions to the admiral. If we should find proof that something like you've asked about had happened, then that would be a different situation."

Smiling, Kara exited Rafferty's office. If there had been any proof, someone would have found it by now. Of course she wasn't aware that anyone had even looked. They'd all been too busy telling her that her father's Raptor had disintegrated inside the basestar during the explosion. Even Lee would tell her she was crazy now if she said something, and he understood jump technologly a lot better than she did. He would be kind. He would be gentle, but she'd get another Dr. Lee lecture about being in denial. And she knew that if she somehow managed to convince him, he would go straight to his father and the admiral would pull her from the mission.

Kevin Abinell was waiting for her. He pointed to Sadie. "Ready to leave the simulation behind?"

"You bet," Kara said.

She walked over to the Raider and gently ran her hand over the wing. Once again she felt a bond with the ship. Hello, Sadie, she thought, I knew we'd get together one day. She went to the hatch and climbed inside. It didn't smell nearly as bad as she remembered. In fact it now smelled mostly of electronic gear. It looked very different than it had the day she had crawled up inside it nearly a year previously. There was less room than there had been then. Computers were stacked and secured against the walls.

Kara stretched out and flexed her fingers. The monitor screen was smaller than the one at the simulator PC. It was hard for her to get used to looking at the screen to guide the ship. She wanted to look out the eye slot of the Raider.

Kevin stuck his head through the hatch. "We learned a lot from Lee's mission. We've made some improvements."

Kara wiggled slightly trying to get comfortable. She could feel the hard floor underneath her hipbones.

"Where's the padded seat?" She joked. "My Viper is more comfortable than this."

He grinned. "We don't want you to get too comfortable. You might go to sleep." He leaned over and pointed. "The computer that controls the camera and monitor."

Kara looked. "Where's the pinup? The naked babe with the centurion's head?"

Kevin blushed a bright pink. "I didn't think you'd appreciate it."

Kara grinned. "I need something to test the cameras besides the floor. Use your imagination."

"I've got an autographed picture of the C-Bucks."

"That'll do."

She turned back to the joystick and positioned her feet on the rudder pedals. She was ready to see how it felt to run the simulations in the Raider.

Nearly two hours later, Kara dropped through the hatch, crouched and walked out from under the wing. She stretched, leaning forward and sideways. She tried to imagine how Lee had felt after over twelve hours in the ship. When she straightened up, she saw Rick Rafferty standing in the doorway to his office. He turned around and went back inside.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Kara called to Kevin before she walked to Rafferty's office. When she got inside, he asked her to shut the door and have a seat.

"You've proposed an interesting theory," he said.

"And?"

"I'll need to study this a lot more, but theoretically jumping a Raptor in a confined space that coincided with or caused an explosion could substantially affect the jump. The end coordinates would probably be exaggerated, maybe profoundly. There are too many unknowns to say with any certainty how much that effect would be."

"I know you had a set of coordinates already programmed into the Raptor. If it jumped past those, where would it have gone?"

Rafferty nodded. "I knew you would get to that eventually…theoretically speaking, of course."

He motioned to her. She walked behind his desk and looked at the screen. There was a star chart of their solar system. He pointed.

"The position of the basestar was here. The programmed coordinates of the jump should have taken the Raptor here, just past Thyone, but projecting what could have happened… again, theoretically…"

He moved the pointer until it went past the ice planet and out of their solar system. It went exactly where Kara had known it would go.

"How far into the Prolmar Sector could the Raptor have gone?"

Rafferty shook his head. "I don't have enough data to extrapolate an end point. The Raptor might not have gone anywhere. It could have disintegrated in the explosion. Timing would have been everything. I don't want you to think this is what happened. Of all the possibilities, it's the least likely."

"I know. It's theory," Kara said. "That's how I want to keep it. But it's possible that Raptor could have made it all the way to Nereid?"

"It's possible. You realize how slim the chances are of the Raptor making it in one piece, though, don't you? I can't say that enough times."

Kara nodded. "I know. Thank you for listening to my theory."

"You've given me a lot to think about."

She smiled. "You've given me more…a lot more."

He'd given her hope…hope to go along with her belief in what the Oracle had said. Added to what she had found when she'd started looking at the star charts on her father's laptop, it was all she needed to continue nurturing her dream of finding her father alive.

On the first five star charts Braedon had placed a sticky little fingerprint directly over the planet of Nereid. Kara had started to show it to Lee and had changed her mind. She hadn't been in the mood to have him laugh at her.

...

Lee sat in an interrogation room one level above the prison in the bunker. He had spent the last four days reading transcripts of the Cylon prisoner interrogations. He knew little more than he had known before he had started reading. The one thing new he had learned was why during the first two years of Cylon occupation that Cavil had sent all the multiple copies of himself and most of the other skinjobs back to the basestar. Cavil had grown tired of sharing power. Many times he had made vague and unexplained references to his ultimate plan yet he'd never explained what it was.

Major Parker had read each of the interrogations many times and by putting bits and pieces together, he had come up with something that sounded plausibly Cylon in nature. Cavil knew that given their physiology, the skinjobs would live a long, long time and that downloading allowed them to extend their lives almost indefinitely. He believed that by infecting an entire generation of women with the sterility virus, many of whom he believed were drains on society because of poverty and addictions, that the Cylons would ultimately be able to control reproduction on the planet, picking only the most desirable females as hosts for their hybrids and purebreds. Over many generations, the Cylons would eventually populate the planet with their offspring and replace the genetically pure humans whom they considered flawed creatures abandoned by God. According to Lee's father, Gaius Baltar had apparently come to the same conclusion.

Parker's theory made more sense to Lee than any of the others he had heard.

The door opened. A handcuffed Sharon was led in. The Marine started to fasten the handcuffs to a ring on the table.

"Take those off her," Lee said, furious to see her shackled.

"I have my orders, sir."

"Then give me the damned key."

The Marine hesitated and then took a key from his combat vest pocket and unlocked the cuffs before he went out and shut the door.

Sharon rubbed her wrists.

"How are you being treated?" Lee asked her.

"Is Karl all right? He hasn't been arrested, has he?"

"Karl's fine. Kara has stayed in touch with him."

"I miss him. Is there any way I could see him?"

"I don't think so. Not right now. I couldn't even get permission for Kara to visit you."

"They're going to kill us, aren't they?"

"Not that I've heard."

Sharon studied him. "I've already told Kara everything I know."

"I think you told Kara what she wanted to hear. I think you did the same thing to me that night ouside the Shark Rider."

"Everything I told Kara and you was the truth."

"But you didn't tell us everything. What about Karl? Did you tell him everything?"

"Karl and I don't talk about what I am. It's easier that way. I did everything your father asked me to do. If Cavil could get to me now, he'd kill me. So would the others. They call me traitor, me and Leoben. I know what he did, and I know Laura Roslin let him go."

"It must be hard, being caught between two worlds…physically one of them, spiritually one of us, distrusted and despised by both."

"What would a golden boy like you know about that?" Sharon asked derisively.

Lee pondered her question. "You're right. What would I know about that? So who's it going to be, Sharon? Us or them? It can't be both. You either answer the questions and show me you're with us or you go back to the others."

"It doesn't matter what I say. You'll leave me in that stinking little cell forever."

"Maybe not. Maybe I can work something out for you. What do you want?"

"I just want to be with Karl. I need to be with Karl."

"Then tell me what you know about Cylon history. How do you learn about the past?"

"We're created with the knowledge. Unlike humans, we know history. I probably know more about human history than you do. The first copy of each model is downloaded with everything ever written about history. Those memories are passed to all subsequent copies."

"Tell me about the Cylon homeworld. Tell me more about where you came from five years ago."

"Cavil severed all ties with them? We're forbidden to speak about them."

"When did you sever ties?"

"The group on our homeworld disagreed with us about what should be done with humanity. Our Cavil thought we should destroy humanity and replace it with a civilization of pure Cylons. Those on the homeworld believed it should be done through integration."

"Integration…meaning?"

"The blending of our races through the creating of hybrid children with a group of pure Cylon masters."

"Isn't that what you were trying to do here?"

"After eleven of the Colonies were destroyed, Cavil changed his mind about destroying all of humanity. He told us that those on our homeworld had been correct. We should exterminate humanity in a different way. We could create a race of hybrids, part human, part Cylon. They would become our slaves…like the centurions."

"After the split with the other Cylons, what happened?"

"They stayed on our homeworld. They had already begun a search of the galaxy for other worlds that were home to humans. They thought they could find Kobol and Kobol would lead them to Earth."

"Earth is a myth."

"Earth is the homeworld of humanity. If they find Earth, they'll know where to find the rest of the humans. That was the deal. They went their way and we went ours."

"And Cavil believes this…integration is the way to go?"

"Yes."

"Where is the Cylon homeworld?"

"You're going to destroy it, aren't you?"

"That won't be my decision."

"There are humans there…a lot of humans. Cavil told us that they were taken five years ago from ships and some of the planets."

"Why would the Cylons on your homeworld want humans?"

"The creators wanted them."

"Why?"

"I don't know. The first of each model were the only ones allowed to communicate directly with the creators."

"You won't tell me where your homeworld is?"

Sharon looked at him sadly. "I don't need to. You already know where it is. Humans have been there before."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"That's all I know, Lee."

Lee studied her for a long time before he stood. He believed that she had now told him everything she knew. Sharon also stood. The door opened and a Marine trained his assault rifle on her.

Lee held up his hand. "Put that down."

The Marine kept the rifle pointed at Sharon. Lee defiantly stepped between them.

"I have something I want you to tell Karl," Sharon said. She beckoned for him to come closer.

"Sir, step back!" the Marine said.

Lee leaned forward.

"I'm pregnant," she whispered.

...

Laura sat in a small conference room with Bill Adama, President Adar, Agent Darren and Major Parker.

"Dear Gods," she said. "Is Sharon telling the truth?"

Bill nodded. "A doctor has confirmed it. We've removed her from the cell near the other Cylons and moved her to one of the small suites several floors up. She's still under heavy guard but her living conditions are better."

"She cooperated," Major Parker said. "Lee was able to get a lot of information from her. We believe she told the truth."

Bill said, "She confirmed the Major's theory that Cavil's eventual goal was the destruction of humanity by using us to create a race of hybrids."

"They were going to destroy humanity," Adar said, "They were just going to do it more slowly."

"Lee thinks we should set her free," Bill said. "He said she loves Karl and needs to be with him. We'd like your thoughts, Laura. Yours, too, Mr. President."

Adar said, "I'll defer this one to our next President. I favor terminating the pregnancy, but that's probably because I've dealt with Cavil on a daily basis for nearly five years. The thought of bringing even half a Cylon into this world makes me sick."

Laura was aware that all eyes in the room were on her. The elected official in her was at war with the mother. The woman who despised Cavil as deeply as Adar did weighed her option carefully. She was surprised at how long it took her to come to a decision and what finally pushed her to make it. She took a deep breath.

"Before she died several weeks ago, Yolanda Brenn made a statement to my daughter. She said, 'The child must live.' At first Kara thought she meant my son, but Brenn later said 'the other child.' I now believe that she was talking about Sharon Valerii's unborn baby."

There was silence in the room. The men looked at her.

"You're basing your decision on the words of a dead so-called prophet?" Bill asked in amazement.

"And as a mother. There are many who would look at this child as a miracle instead of a monster, something neither the Cylons nor Dr. Baltar and Simon were ever able to achieve outside of a lab. Who are we to make a decision to end its life?"

"And after the child is born, what do you intend to do with it…let the Cylon woman raise it?" Adar asked.

"We have over seven months to make that decision. She may not be able to carry the child to term. Baltar's and Simon's first experiments were dismal failures. All of the women miscarried. In a month or two it may be a non-issue. But ending its life should not be our decision. We can't forget that child is half-human."

The men all stared at her. Laura felt their disapproval so she continued.

"We assumed the role of the gods once and created artificial life that eventually turned on us. We had the hubris to defy our own scriptures because it was convenient and profitable. We made millions of war machines and gave them a level of intelligence and were surprised when those machines ultimately turned on us. Do you really think we should play god again and force this woman to kill her unborn child? Doesn't that make us the worst kind of hypocrites?"

"What do we do with the father?" Parker finally asked.

"Release Sharon and let them be together," Laura said. "Put them back on the Galactica if you want to watch them. Let them marry if they want. At this point what difference does it make?"

"Sharon might not be safe on the Galactica. Everyone knows what she is now," Bill said.

"Then leave them here on Caprica. They're both in the military. You decide what to do with them, but I will not force her to undergo an abortion. The gods will deal with this child as they have planned. Now do we have any other business to discuss?"

Adar stood. "I think that's it for today."

When the others had left the room, Laura looked at Bill. "You don't agree with my decision."

"No, but you're the boss."

She smiled. "Not yet."

"Close enough. Do you have your Solstice speech ready?"

"I'm letting Adar handle it this year. My first public appearance will be the inauguration in a month. Kara has agreed to stand on the platform with me and hold Braedon while I take the oath of office. I still need an escort for the inaugural dinner and dance that night."

"Was that a statement or are you asking me?"

"It's a free meal and free drinks. But if you've already made plans, I think Chuck Winters is still single."

"Is that an attempt at bribery, Madame President?"

"It was actually an attempt at a joke, a very lame one it seems."

Bill finally smiled. "I don't need to be bribed."

"Not like twenty years ago?"

"I'm not as dumb as I was then."

Laura smiled, too. "I hope I'm not either."

...

Kara looked down at the silver ring on her left thumb, the Viper pilot's ring, the ring that had once represented her father to her. Two weeks earlier as she had packed some clothes at the apartment, she had found the ring along with her mother's dog tags in the corner of a dresser drawer. She couldn't wear the dog tags because she had her own now, but she had stuck the ring on her thumb. It fit perfectly.

Now she and Lee stood on the tarmac outside the hangar at the boneyard on a cold Wednesday morning two days before the Solstice. Sadie had just been towed out and was awaiting her with the hatch open. Kevin Abinell paced nearby. Rick Rafferty stood in the doorway of the hangar.

Lee recognized Lou, the mechanic who had been with him on Heliops Island. He sat on the seat of the tow, ready to pull the Raider out onto the runway once Kara was inside. Lee waved at him and Lou waved back.

"Watch your oxygen," Lee said to Kara.

Despite her familiarity with Sadie, Kara was nervous about flying the mission. Her jitters added an extra bite to her voice when she said, "You need to tell me that one more time this morning, Lee, make it an even dozen."

Lee sighed and leaned on the cane he now used with the walking cast on his leg.

They looked at each other and her face softened. "I'll be fine. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"Two," Lee said emphatically. "Two hours."

She grinned. "I have a second oxygen tank. My safe zone is now three hours. Are you going to stand out here the whole time?"

"Probably."

"And you call me crazy?"

"That's what worries me," Lee answered her. He took a step toward her.

"I guess you expect me to kiss you in front of everybody."

"Everybody being Kevin and Lou and Rick."

She put her arms around him. "Watch the tongue."

"Why?"

"Your buddy Kevin won't be able to stand it."

"He can get his own girlfriend."

Lee kissed her hard.

"Now that I'm completely distracted, I guess I can try to get Sadie into the air," Kara said.

"Be careful. Gods, please be careful."

"Careful is my middle name."

"I wish."

She squeezed his hand before she crouched and duck-walked under the Raider. Boosting herself up, she climbed inside and got into position. She ran down a quick check of the computers. She heard Kevin say, Good luck, before he closed the hatch. She turned the wheel, sealed it and switched on the oxygen. The Raider jerked slightly as Lou began to tow it. She watched the monitor. When it showed the runway straight ahead, the tow disengaged.

Kara waited a few minutes and then lifted off. She made a wide circle over the hangar, rolled the Raider once because she knew it would thrill Kevin and make Lee crazier than he already was, and then she began her climb to twenty thousand feet. When she was high over the ocean, she keyed the jump.

One second she saw blue sky on the monitor and the next she felt like she was being pulled forward. Despite the fact that Lee had told her to breathe through the jump, she held her breath. A second later the jump was over. She was in the Prolmar Sector, closer to the planet than Lee had been during his first jump, but still a long distance from Nereid.

She studied the long-range sensors. Three basestars were over the planet. There had been only two when Lee had flown his mission. Either the Cylons had manufactured another basestar or one had come in from somewhere outside the sector during the last two months. Lee hadn't photographed any shipyards, so the third basestar must have been out of the solar system when Lee was there. Kara wondered if it had been over Kobol.

She studied her sensors carefully. She wasn't picking up any Raider signals. Sadie might attract attention by flying alone over the planet, but she had no choice unless she wanted to scrub the mission.

The computer records from Lee's mission had allowed Kevin to compute a number of coordinates over the surface. She picked one over the snowfield, but much closer to the mountains so she wouldn't have to traverse miles of nothing but frozen white. She switched on the homing beacon and the cameras and jumped. She was less than a mile above the planet.

She thought briefly of the dream she had about the Hyperion. One day when the Cylons were destroyed, Kara hoped they would get to explore the planet. She was sure they would be able to find the remains of the ship. She thought about her father. Where had his Raptor come down and where was he now? With luck he was with the group of humans who had escaped from the Cylons. She didn't want to think of the alternative.

Kara maintained just enough altitude to make it over the mountains. She had no idea if she was on the Cylons' dradis or not. She flew a zigzag pattern over the ruined city and then headed for the plateau where Lee had found the new construction. There were a lot of silvery specs on the ground. She flew the pattern in reverse. The close-up cameras would show it, but she was almost certain the specs were centurions, hundreds of them, maybe a thousand.

She flew back over them, the cameras recording everything. She wondered if the centurions on the ground even noticed her.

Twenty minutes later she had flown another grid pattern over the city, picking up new construction there as well as demolition. She headed toward the northeast. She was just about to give up and turn around when she saw a huge facility. Getting closer she could again see the silvery specs on the ground. Lee hadn't made it this far on his trip. With a sinking feeling she circled the area. It was a shipyard. There was a nearly complete basestar under construction. So Nereid was more than the Cylon homeworld, it was a basestar incubator as well. She wondered how many it had birthed in the last five years. How many did the Colonials now have to deal with? Four or a dozen or even more?

She flew to the mountains and back again but saw no more signs of construction. She looked at her clock. She had been gone an hour and forty minutes. She turned northwest toward the forest. It wasn't on her agenda, but she had to see it for herself. Maybe she would get lucky and find a campfire. Maybe she would be the one to get positive proof of humans living free on Nereid. Maybe her father was with them.

She said a silent prayer and dropped lower. She had forgotten to ask Kevin if he knew anything about the seasons on Nereid or if Nereid even had seasons. Leafless trees would have made ground reconnaissance easier.

Kara wasn't too far over the forest when she saw that the season wouldn't have mattered much. Many of the trees looked like evergreens. Seeing the ground in a lot of places wouldn't have been possible any time of the year. She flew as low over the treetops as she dared and then decided that her range was too narrow at such a low altitude. She turned at the mountains and climbed higher before she repeated the pass. Nothing. No smoke. Nothing. She turned north, flew to the mountains and then turned south again.

She looked at her clock. Two hours twenty minutes. An alarm sounded in Sadie, a soft, insistent and high-pitched whine. There was nothing on her dradis. Her oxygen was okay. Still the alarm persisted. She couldn't see anything wrong. It sounded like the alarm in her Viper when the Cylon Raider had gotten a missile lock on her. It spooked her.

She checked her dradis again. She thumped the screen even though she knew that was a silly thing to do. Nothing. Absolutely nothing and yet…yet. Frak. She knew what it might be. She had forgotten that to any humans in the forest, she looked like the enemy. Something on the ground was tracking her. Something on the ground was locked on her. Something hidden by the trees. The coordinates for Caprica were already keyed into the computer. There was a bright flash on the camera monitor at the same time she jumped.

...

Lee paced just outside the boneyard's hangar as well as he could with the cane and cast. Kevin was trying to act cool, but Lee knew he was worried as well.

"Two and a half hours," Lee said. "Two and a half frakking hours."

Kevin said, "She's got four hours of oxygen."

"The mission was two hours."

"She'll be fine. Kara is way cool. Did you see the way she rolled Sadie?"

"I saw it," Lee said trying to control the annoyance in his voice. "Rolling a ship is not that hard."

"They why didn't you do it?" Kevin asked with a grin.

"Because I don't have anything to prove," Lee said.

"And she does?"

"No. She did it to impress you and because she likes to screw with my head."

Rick Rafferty walked to the hangar door. "She's back."

Lee whirled. "How do you know?"

"I have a friend who works at the base. She jumped back into the atmosphere a hundred miles out at sea. They picked her up on dradis. She'll be here shortly."

Lee took a deep breath.

"What did I tell you?" Kevin asked. "I knew she would make it back all right."

They watched the sky.

"I bet you twenty cubits she buzzes us and rolls Sadie again before she lands," Kevin said.

Lee grinned. "Why don't I just hand you twenty cubits right now because that's what would happen if I took that bet?"

"I wonder if Kara found anything new on the planet," Kevin said as they finally saw the Raider approaching in the distance.

Lee thought of John's idea about the human encampment in the forest. "I don't know, but I bet I know why she was gone so long. I bet we'll be looking at footage of trees and more trees."

"You think she was looking for smoke?"

"Yeah, Kev, I think she was looking for smoke."