Chapter 2 Vectors

Leoben came hours later with a food tray heavily laden with an assortment of cheeses, breads and raw vegetables. Kara couldn't help the way her mouth involuntarily watered at the feast. It had been so long since she'd had anything fresh. Her original intention had been to refuse to eat with the skin-job. She had made other plans since, and was just as happy that lulling Leoben into complacence was part of them.

Now, as they each sat on one end of the righted cot frame with the tray between them, Kara stuffed another piece of cheddar into her mouth, savoring its sharp flavor as she observed Leoben from beneath her lashes. On entering the cell, the Cylon had frowned when he'd see the tattered mess she'd made of the pad, but hadn't commented on it, he'd just asked her to straighten the cot so they could sit.

Firmly reminding herself to appear cooperative—yeah, right—Kara had done as asked and kept her mouth closed. Not that she was needed to carry the conversation. Leoben had launched into full sermon mode almost immediately, going on and on about his rivers and her path, and the frakkin' destiny his god wanted her to embrace.

If her teeth snapped through the celery with more force than necessary, she figured the skin-job wouldn't notice. She just hoped he didn't notice the very slight bulge that wrapped about her waist under the band of her cargo pants.

That's right. Nod like a good little disciple, Kara. Let the Toaster see how willing you are to listen to his drivel.

She wiped her offside hand on her pants and surreptitiously hooked a thumb under her waistband and cautiously pulled the braided cord into a bunch beneath her palm, confident that he couldn't see what she was doing. Grabbing the last sliver of carrot, she 'accidentally' tipped the tray, causing it to fall to the concrete floor with clatter.

As Leoben instinctively bent to retrieve it, Kara struck, looping her coil around his neck and flinging herself onto his back, grimly clinging as he lurched to his feet. His choking sounds were mere whispers overlapped by the sound of the cot striking the wall as he stumbled into it, unbalanced by her weight on his back.

Starbuck's hands were strong. It might have been close to a year since she'd flown a Viper, but there'd been plenty of heavy lifting necessary as the tent city was raised and she now brought that strength to bear, twisting the material as she felt the body of her enemy weakening. Leoben dropped to his knees, increasing Kara's leverage and she grunted as she squeezed harder. Finally, all resistance ceased and Leoben slumped in her grip. Careful to keep the pressure, she let the body fall to the side, maintaining her hold for another full minute to be absolutely sure before releasing him and checking for a pulse.

Rising, she shook her hands out and glared down at the dead Cylon.

Frakker thought he could keep me locked up? He should've asked Simon why that's a 'bad freakin' idea'!

Shoving aside a grimace of distaste, Kara searched his pockets and triumphantly pulled forth the cell key. After uncoiling her homemade garrote from about the mottled neck—never know, might come in handy again—she hurried to the door, pressing a ear flat and listening. Couldn't hear anything. Nothing to do but stick her head out and see.

Unlocking it as quietly as she could, she peeked out through the partially open door. Still nothing. With a breath, she went ahead and took a quick look both ways. Coast clear, no guards in sight. Right, good so far. Now to see if that Starbuck luck could carry her a little further.

She moved in the direction they originally had come, treading cautiously along the long hallway. As she passed other doors, she took a moment to jiggle each knob and tried the key in the first few. All locked and each must have its own key, so nothing to do but go on, she decided. After some twenty feet, the corridor had a branching hall to the right. Pausing at the corner, Kara carefully checked down its length.

"Right or straight," she muttered. "Wish I had a cubit to flip."

She remembered the way out, of course, but there was no chance of just strolling out the front gate. Pressing fingers to her temple, Kara tried to massage some kind of out-of-the-box plan to the surface. If she could find some way to access the roof, then she could—maybe—drop onto the lower portion of the structure. From there, Kara figured she might be able to find a hole in the guards' coverage of the perimeter. It was worth a try. Better to get shot trying to escape than find out what Leoben had in store for her; listening to his rambling about how they were meant to be together had convinced her of that.

With a shrug, she turned down the right passage and sent a little prayer to the gods it truly be the right one.

Following the hall to where it turned left, Kara bit back a curse on seeing it come to a dead end another fifteen feet along. With lip held between her teeth, she hurriedly backtracked to the original corridor and moved forward again.

How long would it take for Leoben to download? Did they have Centurions patrolling inside? Wishing she had a gun in her hand instead of the braided coil, Kara pushed on. As she approached a T intersection of the hall, she heard the distinctive sound of clanking ahead. Desperately twisting the knob of the nearest door, "Son of a bitch," she cursed when it was locked like all the others.

Glancing over her shoulder, she was about to make a run for the last side corridor, but swung to face forward again as the chrome-job wheeled around the corner and sighted her. Its mechanical arms unfolded into guns, targeting in on her with frightening speed. With a sharp inhale, Kara defensively threw up her arms, instinctively cringing as she braced for the tearing impact of the slugs.

It took a long moment for her to realize that she was still alive, the Centurion hadn't fired. Kara looked up as the Cylon guard advanced on her. Forcing her riveted gaze from the black hole of the muzzle still pointed at her forehead, she locked on the red, slowly strobing 'eye', and a detached part of her wondered if it was receiving orders or just doing its version of thinking. She held herself still as it stomped to a halt in front of her.

Cold metal fingers grasped her arm in a painfully tight grip and forced her back the way she'd come. The cell door was still open and the Cylon forced her inside. It seemed to take a moment to evaluate the scene, undoubtedly noting the unmoving body of the Two.

Held in place by the Centurion, Kara caught her breath and assumed they were waiting for the skin-job to resurrect and return. Without a plan to distract her, her thoughts abruptly shifted to the battlestars that had been in orbit when the Cylons had jumped in. Since there hadn't been some mass attempt to evacuate the colonists, she had to assume that the Galactica and Pegasus had been outnumbered and forced to retreat.

As much as it bothered her to know that the fleet had left, she knew that it had to have practically killed the Old Man to have had to jump away and leave over three-quarters of the remaining human population to their fate.

Waiting for the reappearance of her jailer, Kara wasn't seriously concerned that the Admiral had abandoned her; she knew it had to be only temporary, just until he'd had time to devise a rescue op to retake the planet. No, what chilled her with dread was contemplating what form of retaliation Leoben might take in response to her escape attempt. His reactions to her long-ago interrogation of him hadn't been at all what she'd expected. No telling how he was going to respond to her killing him—even if it was only a temporary death.

Kara tried to turn her thoughts from the upcoming confrontation and passed some time studying the Centurion. This was the first she'd been close to one and not fighting for her life. She got bold—or bored—enough after awhile to try to jerk her arm from its hold. Needn't have bothered. The sucker didn't even budge. Nor did it respond to taunting comments or curses she discovered. Maybe the metal frakkers didn't pretend to have emotions like their humanoid cousins? No. That didn't jive with what Sharon had explained about Scar. And if a Raider could hate, a Centurion certainly had to have an emotional circuit or two.

Maybe the frakker's as bored as I am, she sourly thought with a derisive snort.

As time dragged on, her thoughts reluctantly turned to her husband as she'd last seen him.

After leaving the Chief already making plans for the newly birthed Resistance, Kara had rushed off to check on Sam and let him know that the Cylons had found them. Flinging aside the flap, she had unsuspectingly entered the dimly lit tent and had frozen at the sight of Leoben standing at the foot of her bed. Then, when two Centurions stepped through the entrance right behind her, Sam had tumbled to the floor, struggling to get free of the covers and attempting to rise to help her.

"Hello, Kara," Leoben had genially greeted her, then firmly added, "It's time to go," as he gave a nod to the guards and each had grasped one of her arms.

Instinctively, she'd fought, but her attempts were useless against the chrome-jobs and she could only watch as Sam, finally gaining his feet, took an unbalanced swing at Leoben and was struck down by one negligent blow to the head from the male Cylon. Shouting curses, she'd renewed her struggles as Leoben waved the guards to follow with her. Over her shoulder, she'd last seen Sam laying motionless where he'd fallen, but she'd been ironically reassured by the harsh rasps of his breaths as she'd been pulled away.

Footsteps in the hall beyond the cell yanked her mind back to the present and Kara gave the Two model that stepped into the doorway one of her most mocking smirks, though her teeth were gritted behind her thinned lips as she sought to convince herself that it was only anger that twisted her stomach at the sight of newest copy of Leoben as he stood regarding her.

"I have her. You may go," the skin-job said to his metal counterpart, then politely added, "Thank you," as the guard retracted its palm and shuttled past.

"Such manners. I'd complement your mama, but wait…that's right, Toasters don't have mothers," Starbuck taunted, crossing her arms, feeling the rough fabric still balled in her fist, hidden under her other forearm.

Though his eyes were narrowed speculatively on her, his voice was mellow as he said, "I just wanted to make sure you were ok." At her raised brows, "The Centurions follow instructions very well, but it was still reckless to try to escape," this time his tone held a definite warning.

"Fine. I promise not to try to escape again." This time it was his turn to show disbelief. "Let me go and I won't have to," she added, watching as he shook his head at her intransigence attitude.

"Speaking of which. Hand over the key." He extended his palm expectantly. Kara wet her lips, considering the advisability of refusing, then uncurled her left hand to reveal the missing key and then tossed it into the corner.

Before the key had settled, Leoben was on her, shoving her backwards until she slammed into the wall with a thud that rattled her teeth. His hand was at her throat and squeezing, reminiscent of their very first encounter. As she struggled to breathe, Kara felt his other hand easily pry her fingers open, forcing her to drop the cloth garrote. Her vision was dimming when he abruptly released her and she slumped down the wall, gasping, hand going to her throat as she fought not to pass out.

Blinking rapidly now, she saw the Cylon male bending down to retrieve the key.

"Sleep well, Kara. I'll be back with breakfast and we'll try this again."

"Not gonna happen, Toaster," she rasped out. "Not unless you mean me killing you again that is." She managed to nudge the prone dead body with her toe for emphasis.

As Leoben looked from her to his previous body, he gave her an enigmatic look and started to leave again.

"Hey! What about your friend here?" she called out, unwilling to let Leoben leave on an apparent win. "Don't you need to bury, burn or recycle it? You can't leave it here."

"But I can." He gave an unconcerned shrug. "You killed it, you keep it."

"Frak you say," she bit out, rolling to her knees, intending to go another round with him despite his just proving how helpless she was against him when he wasn't caught by surprise.

"Night, Kara." Leoben pulled the cell door shut and locked before she could reach it.

"Bastard! Let me out, godsdam…" she loudly cursed, then broke off in a coughing fit as her raw throat protested. She switched to pounding on the door with her hands until the palms felt bruised.

After a time she turned and, with her back pressed to the door, slid down until she sat with her hands in her hair, staring at the corpse and soberly facing the realities of the day. The Cylons had found them. The Adamas had taken the battlestars and fled. And one Kara Thrace was being held by a Toaster that saw himself as her guide on some mystical journey.

She began to laugh, a hoarse sound that was devoid of humor, but still preferable to the alternative. Covering her face with her hands, Kara continued to laugh and tried desperately not to think.