Note: Hey you guys, thanks so much for reading, it means a lot to me that someone clicks on this and reads it. As always if you have anything to say I would love to hear from you, I'm not too happy with this chapter for some reason so anything you think about it would be great. Also, I know not much has been going on, but I have a certain idea on how this is going to go down and it is taking time to get there. So please bear with me.

Chapter Three- Shortly After the Raiders flew in

Kara-

For a few brief moments she did not move, standing shock still at the controls of the raptor their blinking lights seeming to mock her. What could she do with a Raptor really? They were meant for scouting and/or good transportation missions and even so this Raptor had no real weaponry in fear of people would get hurt. At was around this time her military instincts kicked in, days of attending the academy, than war college, teaching at the same damn academy, and more than one year of fighting these toasters they were automatic, she went with what was right, what her gut said, people argued against it, but she came back from battle. They didn't.

Right away she knew they were going to lose. They lacked fire-power, most of the military was in the ships that had just jumped away, and she was probably holding in her hands the best firepower they had. In ways of guns, maybe Chief had some explosives or something or Tigh had some in the underground area they had constructed in the tunnels with the need to have a weapon's storage in caser this happened. Either way she was by far out-numbered, and definitely out gunned.

The odds had never stopped her before, why should they stop her now? Running to Tigh's tent she pulled back the rug and opened up the hiding place. She threw in the gun and everything else she had carried from the raptor smaller hand guns, comm links, the computers, ammo everything she could carry. She went back up as fast as possible, having heard the unmistakable sounds of those centurions walking. Metal clanking against metal, a soft hum as they scanned the area. They were sounds you never forgot.

She even saw a couple skin jobs, or the human looking cylons. Brother Cavil, that freak Leoben who said he had a nuke and she spent hours torturing only to find out there was no such thing. Out of all of them, he bothered her the most, he knew things about her he shouldn't. Kept saying she had a destiny, and he knew about her mom. Only a few people knew about hr mom, and she could count them on one hand. Helo, Sam and Zak before he'd died. Her attention returned to the cylons as she noted that reporter lady that had been on Galatica to interview a whole bunch of people turned out to be cylon being there were two of her walking side by side. Kara did not find herself surprised, she even felt somehow deep inside, she had expected it. Simon and Doral, both of which creeped her out for varying reasons. The blonde cylon didn't have a name as far as she knew, but she hated her, she had nearly been killed by that model multiple times, and Boomer.

There had been the Boomer copy on Galatica who her friend Helo fell in love with, she thought he was nuts, but hey if she made him happy, which was the only cylon Kara would accept as not evil. That Sharon had saved her life, the Sharon infront of her was not to be confused with good Sharon even though they were biologically identical. This Sharon had tried to kill Admiral Adama, she had betrayed Kara.

She found Chief, as a large amount of Centurions walked between the people. Cally was beside him and Chief was holding his wife, trying to calm her down, freaking out wasn't good for the baby. She knew Cally had a bad experience with the Centurions and it was taking every ounce of will to stand here and not go out there and do something so very Starbuck.

She wished she hadn't hid the gun. Starbuck wished she had it with her, and would take out as many of these things before they hurt anyone here. Before they took out her. But she was no use to anyone if she got herself shot and killed. She was a survivor, she had survived her mother, the academy, Zak's death and the guilt aftermath, the nuclear holocaust, when her Viper went down on the moon, Caprica and the Farm, Admiral Cain, Lee replacing her, going back to Caprica. She could survive this. These people needed her, needed a hope that things were not as bleak as they seemed. The Admiral would come back, and he would save them, she had to believe that her Father figure would come back for her. That he wouldn't leave her behind with horrors like her own father had so many years ago.

"What do we do?" asked Cally, looking at her husband and the Viper pilot, who along with Colonel Tigh were the highest ranking military on the planet's surface.

"Fight 'em till we can't." she said, even though fighting would be hard. They could do it though, there had been a Caprica insurgency, and there could be one here. Blow the Toasters up till they got sick of downloading; buy time so the Admiral would come back for them. She knew he wouldn't leave them here. He couldn't just leave them here. He wouldn't leave her, he had said she was like family to him. You always come back for family, the kind you care about anyway.

The people shifted, as the human looking cylons walked out of Colonial one, which served as the President's headquarters.

She knew inside before he even said a word to the people, President Gais Baltar had surrendered. When the going got tough he freaked out, he was a selfish self-centered man. He wasn't even a good frak. He wouldn't have lasted five minutes in any kind of military school, not even theory. Baltar was a nut job, and though she normally never voted, she voted for Roslin last election, even though the woman had lost. The former President herself was looking at him in distaste, surrounded by schoolchildren who were frightened.

She shifted, hating the man; he was giving them up, just like that? All these people here, under the mercy of the cylons that had destroyed their homes, fled from, killed their friends and families. It was so obvious who had control here, and it was not her, who had the control wasn't even human, it was machines.

The Basestar was landing down and her inner pilot that couldn't resist critiquing said it was a horrible landing and if she had been testing them she would have failed them on the spot. She wondered if it was safe to explode this close to the human tent city. Probably not, maybe on the other side, she toyed with the idea, and decided she was going to do it. It would take some fine-tuned planning and some out of the box thinking but hey, she wasn't normal. Out of the box was where she lived. .

From her point in the city she could see Centurions furiously working hard. They attacked the ground with a vigor as though it had been a problem or insulted their mothers. If cylons even had mothers, they had tried to make a cylon have a mother, her mind nastily reminded her, but they had failed, or at least she hoped so. At the very least she had made sure it wasn't her.

She stood there for Gods knew how long. Quickly a building was beginning to show, and with the materials she saw on the ground, it seemed to be a prison and or a penthouse. Oh great, knowing her and her anger management she'd end up in one of those things as much as she had gone to Galatica's brig. Which was at least once a month to cool down, it had used to be once a week.

There were also other things that fascinated the woman and se stood on the outskirts, watching. There were multiple couches, chairs and mattresses. Not the military issued mattresses that sucked and made you wish you were able to go planet side, but like, those really good mattresses. Why do machines want to sleep anyways? It disgusted her really, how much the cylons tried to be human, they looked human, they sweat, they punched, their eyes twinkled and they could play a good hand of cards sometimes. But in the end of the day, they were machines right?

She turned at some footsteps running this way, and turned to see Saul Tigh's wife running her way. Kara had never gotten along with her, must have had something with her habit of pushing her husband's buttons and his response of putting her in the brig.

"You have to help me." The woman panted out of breath, conveniently forgetting she had been the one who started the rumor Kara had gotten her promotion to Captain because, and only because, she had been sleeping with Lee. Which was complete BS as Admiral Cain had promoted her before her death, but the rumor stuck, added with the fact at that point in time Lee was said to have worshipped the ground she walked on many believed it.

But hey, the world had ended, and now they were on this rock, with almost nothing in the way of guns or people to shoot them, and with the stupid downloading thing, against an army that could bring itself back from the dead.

"They took Saul." And at this the older blonde began to cry, "We were eating lunch and they just burst in and took him." and she turned to sobs and her shoulders were shaking.

Kara looked at the woman in a loss, she had been told from day one crying was weak. Plan for the worst, pray for the best, crying had only gotten her in more trouble and she had restrained the tears in fear of more pain. She was never good at these kinds of feelings, locking them up and keeping the walls up. Not many people met Kara, they met Starbuck instead. Starbuck was her soldier, what come out at parties, battles, fights anything, Kara was who she was. Kara was weaker than Starbuck and Kara never wanted to show that to anyone. Starbuck was fearless; Kara was the little girl who got the door shut on her hands.

"I don't know how to help." She confessed, not wanting this. She was one of the highest ranking people left on this planet, military wise and she couldn't make these calls. She had had lives depending on her, but this was different. She always had someone to answer to, now there was no one with the Ex-O gone.

Both of them stood there a few moments, before Kara decided to go check on Sam. "I gotta go." she mumbled and a friend of Ellen's or something came to comfort her. Kara began to run, the wind feeling sharp and cold against her lungs back to her tent on the other side of camp.

Leoben-

In the chaos of the landing and everyone running everywhere from the Centurions, who were very intimidating. Leoben had moved among them, heading to the President's quarters with the others. When he arrived he found the other cylons negotiating the human's unconditional surrender. He did not take a part in it; he had no interest in Government affairs.

His hands flicked through the messed up, disorganized files of the desks many with stains of some kind or another one them. Not a small wonder the Baltar administration never did anything, they were headed by an idiot who drank too much, and took drugs all day. Finally after a few minutes of fruitless searching he came across what he was looking for, a map of the city by numbers and the legend to who was where.

Caprica went over to join him, her Doctor having gone out to explain to the people that the cylons were their new best friends. His lips twitched, he saw a lot of pain for Baltar in the future, most of it spewed from this moment.

He flicked passed the Ss, wondering how in such a small fraction left of humanity, there were so many surnames that started with S. Arriving at the Ts, he looked, Thrace, Thrace Thrace. While looking he silently prayed it to be there, surely he had not been led this far and the vision given to him only to be taunted?

It wasn't there. Bitter disappointment surged through him, had his vision been wrong, was this some kind of joke, had someone inserted the memory for the fun of seeing him act like an idiot?

Caprica had picked up the names and started looking through them, flicking through the As. She bit her lip when she came to a certain spot. He looked up from the papers, vowing to go through his memories again to find out what had happened, when Caprica pointed to something at the page. She was watching him carefully, gauging his reaction. She than instead looked out one of the windows of Colonial one.

Wordlessly he looked down, and what he saw only upset him even more in a completely different way. It wasn't Kara Thrace according to this log, it was Kara Thrace Anders. Which meant she'd married that, that, that man, and she would be even harder to deal with and he would have her Sam to deal with.

At least she's here, he assured himself, Thanking God, and a month may make no difference in the long run. He took the map from the table, there were more maps and set out the door.

With humanity still upset about the cylons he slipped through the crowd easily over toward where she lived. The humans paid him no notice, after all he looked enough like one of them and he was moving quickly enough anyone who might have paused had no time for second glances. Everything was disorganized and a mess, people crying, people swearing, praying to their Gods.

Arriving at the tent that was theirs he poked his head in, it was wonderfully messy, not at all neat like the female cylons dictated everything be on the Basestar. He heard coughing, and it was like music. Sam was sick, and so no one would be surprised if he got sicker, and just died. A devious plan went through his mind, and was stopped by another vision, showing the man taking part in a resistance action against the cylons. Which was equal to telling Leoben this man would live to die another day.

"Where is Kara Thrace?" he asked the sleeping human, who woke up, staring at him in concentration trying to remember where he had seen him before. Leoben watched him carefully trying to watch his movements. He noticed a small handgun on the table and while the man was still deciding he picked it up and took it with him.

The man still hadn't answered for a few moments until he answered he didn't know. She had apparently gone off while the chaos was going on, and it made him nervous. He needed to account for her to make sure she was safe, so that no one hurt her, human or cylon.

Leoben grew frustrated again; nothing was ever easy involving Kara Thrace. Before the human could ask why the cylon stalked out of the tent and into the crowd once more. Kara would not stay quiet for long. Once she made a move to attack the cylons he would know where she was. She had no reason to run from him, she had no idea of his adoration.

The Plan

Kara-

She was sitting in the underground facility that had been found incase of this underneath Tigh's house. They had been worried about it being found when the cylons made their own building but that was on the other side of camp. This was probably the safest place on the planet, excluding the other side of course.

Chief sat with a computer, trying to get to the colonial frequency in an emergency Raptor that had been put out just incase. All that showed was the signal was jammed, and you had to give the damned things credit. Machines were good at fighting cyber battles.

Her fingers twisted her long hair, a habit she hadn't had previously because her hair was too short to twirl. Sam had convinced her to keep it long, saying it looked good on her. Good old Sam, who because he was sick was sitting out on the first of the fun. Because there was nothing quite like blowing up Toasters. She had promised when he was better he would be allowed to fight but privately she wanted him to have nothing to do with any of this. What he had on Caprica was different from now, he had the resources of a nuked, but still resources from a entire human civilization. This was nothing, this was worse case scenario drilled in every cadet as preparation, it was marked possible, yet unlikely.

But it had happened, and she didn't want to send out anyone, who wasn't trained, anyone who wasn't fit. There would be no more Zaks, she had promised herself that.

Chief was swearing under his breath, a few of the pilots and some of the people from the Caprican resistance were there, waiting patiently, looking at her. She tried to hide in the barely lit room, the only light from the small fire torches burning the wood they had been able to collect. Curse her light blonde hair that stood out against the dark. She had gotten that from her father or so her mother claimed. Kara couldn't even remember much of him anymore, him having left her with her mother when she was eight.

For a brief moment the cylon she had been in charge of interrogating, Leoben's words rang in her ears. "You were born to a woman who believed suffering was good for the soul. So you suffered." As horrible as her mother had been, Kara privately wished she was here to be in charge instead of her, though the woman would do as much damage to her as a cylon would. Someone anyone, but not her.

"Anything Chief?" she asked, in hopes of delaying them from asking her the inevitable, what to do we do question, and automatically electing her leader. She could control an Airgroup, but a total resistance, no way. She didn't want a power position; she was fine being underneath her superior assholes.

The question Kara had been dreading came from Jamie, who was a part of what was left of Sam's resistance/Pyramid team. "What do we do Starbuck?" Everyone was watching her and her green eyes looked in everyone's faces for a moment. They were counting on her, they didn't need Kara, what they needed was strong Starbuck. The pilot who got in the cockpit and beat the living frak out of their enemies not Kara Thrace.

"Okay, I say we go for their basestar first. Blow a gaping hole in the side of it, nighttime, not the day, when we set it up and the thing explodes we run for the forest and hide in the trees at the base of Stalin hill. If you are followed ditch them and go to the hill. Don't bring cylon friends with you. You compromise that spot we're all down and I will personally kick your ass. Than we sneak along the tree lines and go up through the river. Any questions?" No one spoke except to offer one other targets, lookout who would go where. It was a rough plan, gutsy, nothing in the textbook like Lee would have insisted on doing. But Commander Adama wasn't here and this was her show for now. She would give these freaks hell, it came with being Starbuck.

Chief agreed to make the bomb, and trigger device for it, she got a couple brave souls to do smaller, yet just as important work on the cylon resurrection station. The plan was if they were running at the explosion at the plant they wouldn't notice the basestar till it was too late to react in time to stop them. Snipers would be set to knock off centurions and mines would be set up just incase some of the friends chose to follow along.

The plans were set for a few days and they would be worked out more as they got more intel on the habits and routines of the machines. Satisfied everyone snuck out from the tunnels and out from Tigh's tent back to their own. The first thing cylons had done was imposed curfew like overbearing parents on teenagers. Unlike parents anyone who got caught breaking it would be thrown in dentition and probably wouldn't come out.

Waving goodbye to Ellen, who she still didn't know how to help, she walked back to her tent. Being thrown in brig happened to her a lot, and yet, the cylon version didn't sound like fun. If it was anything like what they were doing on Caprica, she wanted to be as far away as possible.

Slipping under the flap Sam was sleeping softly, a cough sometimes hacked his frame and she gently took some water over to the bed and thought about shaking him awake or letting him sleep some more. Putting the water next to the bed incase he needed it she carefully crawled in next to him as to not wake him up. She was worried, though she'd never let it show, not even to Sam. Afraid he was going to die, afraid she was going to die, afraid the plan was going to fail.

Kara didn't know at the time that there was someone outside the tent, doing the same thing she would have done if her main enemy was fast asleep in an easy to find location. The silhouette shown against the cylon searchlights and she carefully got up to see who it was, calling out a hello.

When she opened the flap it was gone, a pair of boot-prints the only show it had been real. After she laid down back in bed after she was sure the person was gone, she did not sleep for a very long time.

She didn't know Leoben was crouched behind another tent, smiling at her presence.