CHAPTER 19

INSURRECTION

"Will someone … any … one … please tell me what the frak just happened?" Cavil's eyes were on fire, and his voice was alive with barely controlled rage. He was vainly searching the data stream for hard information, and his pent up anger and frustration were threatening to engulf the entire control center.

Two of the other Ones glanced nervously at each other, both of them hesitant to speak. Each keenly appreciated the fact that erupting volcanos were less dangerous than John Cavil in full flight.

"At this point, we have nothing to go on," one of them finally admitted with a helpless shrug of his shoulders. "The hybrid has confirmed that the ship jumped, but it is not here, nor has it returned to the previous coordinates. The Raiders are searching every possible exit point, but the volume of space involved is enormous. It will take time."

"Time that we do not have," Cavil stormed. "Weren't any of you paying attention? The humans are in the nebula!" John made a supreme effort to control his temper."Look, we need to find them and activate the Eights before Natalie gets back and warns Adama. If we hit them before they have time to evacuate whatever mud ball they're infesting, we can finish off this war in one stroke!"

"So what are you proposing … that we abandon our missing brothers? Casually write off the loss of one of our three newest basestars?" The pornographically inclined Cavil was feeling unusually dyspeptic, and he wasn't about to wilt in the face of still another of his elder sibling's legendary temper tantrums. Privately, Cavil was convinced that Cavil would be hard pressed to outwit a single cell amoeba, but there was nothing to be gained by pointing out the obvious. The first One had an uncanny ability to throw away decisive tactical advantages, and to turn overwhelming victory into something just this side of defeat.

"They're gone," the Six bluntly remarked. "Deal with it." She was glaring at the One, daring him to question her judgment. The battle had not gone to her liking, and she was planning to take her disappointment out on her two slaves. D'Anna and Mara were her property, and she wasn't about to share them with anyone. If Cavil wanted to bring his sick pornographic fantasies to life, he would just have to settle for the Eight.

"Enlighten us, Six." The One wasn't about to tolerate her bull shit. "Treat us to another one of your vintage insights. Where, oh where," he mocked, "is our wayward ship?"

"It's adrift," she countered; her eyes were glittering with a fire of their own. "Our brothers have been marooned in the Sargasso Sea."

"The Sargasso Sea," the One echoed with just the right note of wonderment in his tone. He speared the Six with a well-practiced contemptuous look. "And just what the frak does that mean?"

Six idly glanced at Mara while she debated whether or not to remove her gag. Her sister would undoubtedly have something wickedly clever to say at a time like this—something dagger sharp that would drive the One to new heights of rage.

"It means that our sister has been catching up on her reading," another Cavil observed. He looked thoughtfully at the Six. "Hodgson, or Cavour," he asked curiously.

"Hodgson," she hesitantly admitted. She had nicknamed this particular One "Johnny-come-lately" because he had turned showing up late into an art form. Even for a One, he had an exaggerated sense of self-importance … and the show-off loved to look down his nose at everybody else.

"Would you care to spell it out for the benefit of those of us not taking correspondence courses in Colonial literature?" Cavil wasn't going to bow and scrape to an effete like Cavil, whose current dalliance with post-feminist critiques of Caprican countercultural studies was starting to get on everyone's nerves. When you got right down to it, Lamont had nothing on the anonymous author of Venus in Furs.

"It's clear that the ship jumped," Cavil said with an elaborate and long-suffering sigh. "But at that precise moment there was a massive explosion in or around the hybrid's chamber. Since the ship has not reappeared and none of our brothers have downloaded, what Six is suggesting is that they are marooned in the dimension between our past and present realities … what humans call the Sargasso Sea. Their literature is filled with tales of ships forever trapped in jump space."

"Are you trying to tell me," John Cavil fumed, "that we exchanged a state-of-the-art technological marvel … for one of Natalie's relics?

"Well, we must have killed off a few hundred meat sacs in the process; all things, considered, therefore, the battle could hardly be considered a complete loss. Besides," Johnny-come-lately sniffed, "quantum theory stipulates that a detonation of this magnitude in an unreal parallel dimension must give birth to reality. Hell, for all we know the baseship was thrown so far back in time that the explosion gave birth to this universe … which means, of course, that we're God. All in all, not a bad day's work."

"We need to move on," Six urged. "Let's find the humans, and kick the breeding program into high gear."

A warm glow suffused the Six as she thought about her plans for Lee Adama.

"Then, when it comes to the next generation of hybrids, we'll have the luxury of choice."

. . .

Apollo came in low, the rising sun at his back. The lone wooden observation tower swam into his sights, and he unleashed the missile that marked the beginning of their offensive. The spindly structure disappeared in a satisfying explosion.

Watching from a Raptor parked well above the battlefield, Sonja Six waited for the smoke to clear before she confirmed the kill. But when the dust finally settled, she noted with satisfaction that there was now a very large crater in the center of the Sagittaron enclave. With any luck, she thought, the sniper who killed Sergeant Hadrian has now been disassembled.

Six keyed her headset. "Strike leader, this is Snoop One. The enemy has lost his eyes. Proceed with ground assault; I say again, commence attack."

Captain Marcus Lysander nodded grimly, and silently raised his right hand. He made a circling motion with his index finger, and his centurion squad leader issued the attack order on a frequency well beyond the reach of human or Cylon hearing.

Centurions had the Sagittaron sector completely encircled, and their mortars were ready and waiting. Dozens of canisters began to rain down on the insurgents, and Lysander knew that the flimsy tent flaps would not keep the sleeping gas at bay. The Cylons had developed this particular agent for use in the Colonies, and having exposed himself to it the day before, the marine officer could personally testify to its effectiveness.

Lysander hoped to catch ninety percent of the rebels off guard. The centurions had worked throughout the night to complete a crude CEMA center on the opposite bank of the river. A concentration camp in all but the name (the Colonial government had long been in the habit of hiding its more sinister emergency measures behind innocuous acronyms), the new facility was spacious enough to house the entire Sagittaron populace behind its high walls. The plan was to put the bastards to sleep, and then keep them under long enough to relocate the entire populace to their new quarters. But once in, there would be no getting out. The walls were sixteen feet high, and topped with razor sharp concertina wire. There were no gates; the detainees would receive all of their supplies from the air. Marines and centurions would jointly man the eight equally spaced watchtowers, and a deadly minefield would in due course encircle the entire camp. Inside, the Sagittarons would be left to their own devices.

And may you all rot in Hades, Lysander swore under his breath.

But Lysander did not harbor any illusions about the fight that lay ahead. The marines were geared up for chemical warfare, but a lot of military equipment, including gas masks, had ended up on the black market. He expected to find the Sagittaron Brotherhood dug in and eager to rock and roll.

Which is just the way we want it, he mused, because there's only one thing to do with terrorists, and it doesn't involve trials. Baltar wanted the leadership, and he would get them, but the marines would sort the Brotherhood out in their own rough and ready fashion. It was understood in the ranks that enemy combatants weren't going to make it out alive.

The marines formed up, and at Lysander's signal, the lead elements began to move out.

. . .

Hoshi walked slowly into the refectory, his gait slowed not so much by the passing of time as by the oppressive weight of the responsibilities that life had forced upon him. Looking in the mirror, he could now see lines on his face that hadn't been there a year earlier, and the streaks of gray in his hair had definitely become more pronounced. Command aged a man before his time.

There were three Sharons sitting at one of the tables, plates of food laid out untouched before them. He knew that two of them were trying to console the third. The Sharon who thought of herself as Peter Kelso's wife, who had wanted so badly to give her husband a child, had no experience coping with loss. It was like this all over the decks of their two remaining baseships, almost a hundred of the Eights trying to come to grips with the unthinkable and somehow pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. The Sharons mated for life—everyone understood that. But their husbands and sweethearts were gone now, never to return, and no one knew what to do or say. There were no words that could magically make the pain go away—there never had been, and there never would be.

Hoshi slumped down into the vacant chair. It was hard to raise his eyes and look at the three Cylons. He was worried about his Sharon. There was no sexual attraction there, but at some point he had made her well-being his responsibility, and knowing that she was Cavil's prisoner and that the monster was abusing her was tearing him apart. She was family, just like these three. They had all fought side by side on Zenobia's baseship, and if there was one thing that Hoshi had learned from life it was that a family never let anyone go it alone. You had to be there for one another in the good times and the bad because family was forever. The Eights were like kid sisters, a bit naïve about the world but determined to face it boldly. Hoshi was equally determined to protect them.

He picked up a fork, and began idly to push the food around one of the deserted plates. But he had no appetite, and with a deep sigh soon let it slip from his fingers.

"I know that right now it doesn't seem possible," Hoshi said as he grasped Sharon's unresisting hand, "but it will get better. In time, you will come to accept that Peter would want you to lock him away in your heart but he would also want you to get on with your life. Cavil can only win if you give up on yourself, and Peter would be devastated if that were to happen."

"How do you do it," Sharon asked in a listless voice. "How can you lose the people that you love and yet somehow endure?"

"Sharon, there's a price to be paid for love, and in the end it can be very steep. You open your heart wide and surrender something of yourself to the person you love, and that leaves you very vulnerable. Unless you die together in an accident or on the battlefield, there's always a survivor. And while it may sound like a cruel and insensitive thing to say, it's still true that when people love each other as much as you and Peter did … "

Hoshi shrugged his shoulders. He was telling Sharon the truth, but that didn't make her loss any easier to bear.

"Peter is beyond pain now, but you had to get up this morning. Death is so much harder on the people who survive it."

"I want to kill them all," Sharon hissed as her eyes filled with deep-seated anger. "I want to hunt the Ones down and rip their hearts out with my bare hands! The Ones talk about justice; well, I want revenge!"

"And you shall have it," Hoshi soothingly agreed. "But right now, we need to head back to New Caprica. We've lost the element of surprise, so we need to regroup and think about where we go from here."

"No," Sharon yelled; she pounded the table for emphasis—pounded it so hard that the plates jumped. "We don't need to go home! Natalie's ship will cauterize its wounds and slowly heal. We can still fight. That's what we came out here to do, and we need to get on with it! We knew the risks, knew what could happen. And now it has. People die in war, Colonel; I accept that. I refuse to go home like a … like a … beaten dog with its tail dragging between its legs. Isn't that the way you humans phrase it? Isn't that what cowards do? Run home instead of standing up to the bully?"

"No," Hoshi countered. "Cavil ambushed us, Sharon. He discovered a flaw in our tactics, and he exploited it to good effect. In war, when you lose a battle this badly, a good commander pauses. Rather than rush blindly into the next engagement and risk losing everything, you withdraw and try to figure out what went wrong. You come up with a new plan … something that gives you a better shot at winning. Major Bierns is right. These new baseships have superior missile batteries, and their hybrids got them in very close without him becoming aware of their presence …"

"We want to fight," one of the other Sharons growled.

"And we will," Hoshi hastily agreed; "as soon as we figure out a way to level the Pyramid court, we'll go back on the offensive." He looked from one angry cylon face to the next, silently pleading for understanding. "Ours may be the inferior force, but it's not true that the gods inevitably favor the bigger battalions. It's just not true. Smaller, poorly equipped forces have often prevailed in war, but it takes more than a stronger will to win. It takes good leadership. A good general never fights until the battle is already won—they drilled that into all of us when we were cadets. Cunning matters more than brute force. Give John and Natalie time to work out a new strategy."

Hoshi reached out and wrapped his arm around Sharon's shoulders. "But when it comes to ripping Cavil's heart out, you'll have to stand in line and wait your turn. We invented revenge," he explained in a voice that had suddenly turned utterly cold. "Some of us have a lot of scores to settle, and there may not be enough Ones to go around."

. . .

"How far do you think we've come," Six asked.

Eric paused, looked around, and gratefully took advantage of the opportunity to remove his backpack. Aching shoulders protested as he stretched muscles unaccustomed to bearing so heavy a load for so many hours.

He pulled out his compass, found true north, and studied the sun overhead. It was no longer directly above them, but it was still well above the horizon. He judged it to be the middle of the afternoon.

"I'd guess about fifteen miles, but we haven't been walking in a straight line. The settlement's probably twelve or thirteen miles downstream."

"We need to make better time," Six commented. "At this rate, we'll be running dangerously low on supplies before we're a hundred miles out."

"I know. At night, we can venture out onto the flats, but during the day we've got to stay in the forest. We can't run the risk of detection from the air. Besides, we'll make better time as our loads get lighter."

Eric helped Six ease out of her pack, and then swept the gorgeous Cylon into his arms. He kissed her hungrily. "Fresh air agrees with you," he murmured as he ran his fingers through her hair. "You've never looked more beautiful."

"I'm happy," she replied, and there was a genuine sparkle in her eyes. "We'll be living in a cave, and within a year we'll probably be reduced to wearing animal skins, but I'm happy. And I don't have to project any more because I'm standing in the middle of a real forest, with the man I love right beside me."

"Me Bam Bam and you Pebbles," Eric grinned. He suddenly started pounding on his chest with his fists, and then he leaned back and let out a wolfish howl.

"Cartoon characters," he explained when he saw the quizzical expression on Six's face. "They lived on Kobol at the dawn of time. They had a pet stegosaurus, and right about now one of those would come in real handy!" He eyed his pack, and poked it gingerly with his foot. "I'd even settle for a couple of horses," he ruefully admitted.

"So, I suppose that at this point hunting is out of the question?"

"We've got no way to transport the meat, so … yeah. But, hey … look, let's push on for another hour or so, and then we can make camp by the stream. I'll teach you how to fish, and tonight, for the first time in your life … real food!"

"Real food … and a real man to share it with," Six sighed. How alien the universe of the cylon collective now seemed to her. "But let's not dawdle over dinner," she added as she ran her fingers across Eric's stomach. "I have other plans for you."

Her fingers drifted lower.

. . .

"Heads up, Sarge. We've got two down on the left … ten o'clock, thirty yards out." Nathaniel Ferris gestured toward a row of tents in the middle distance.

Erin Mathias raised her binoculars, and studied the two sleepers carefully. "A man and a woman," she told her team. And then she stiffened. "The man's armed. He's got … yeah, it's a hunting rifle." One by one, she zoomed in on the surrounding tents, looking for signs of activity.

"Okay," she finally said; "we do this one by the book. Ascalon, take point; Ferris, you've got the right flank. Everybody else, spread out. And keep to your intervals!"

The fire team slowly advanced, everyone in a crouch, the safeties off. Ferris was acutely aware of just how young and inexperienced his fellow marines really were. If there was a sniper out there, he was already dead meat—but that went with the territory, and he wasn't about to wet his fatigues while waiting to eat a bullet that might never come. It was friendly fire that worried him. One panicked marine on full auto could do a lot of damage. No doubt about it: urban warfare was a bitch.

Alexander Ascalon slowly advanced, his nerves on razor's edge, his eyes in constant motion. There was just enough wind to stir the tent flaps and the laundry that was hanging out on the lines. They hadn't figured on the laundry when they were doing the mission briefing. There could be an entire squad hiding behind the sheets. He prayed silently to Ares, hoping that he'd be able to see the enemy before they could sight in on him.

But nothing happened, and Ascalon breathed an enormous sigh of relief as he knelt in front of the middle-aged Sagittaron male.

The guy doesn't seem to be breathing. The gas really did a number on him.

"They're out cold," he shouted. He yanked on the rifle, which was lodged beneath the man's body.

"No! Wait!" Mathias was screaming at Ascalon even as she dove headfirst into the dirt.

"Oh, shit," Ferris cursed as he hurled himself violently to the right.

There was a loud click, and Alexander Ascalon had just enough time to register the fact that he was dead before the bomb exploded in his face. His body disintegrated, and the shrapnel shredded two other marines who had been too slow to sense the looming threat.

Ferris somehow managed to get to his knees. There was a persistent ringing in his ears, and he reached up gingerly to tap them with his palms. When his hands came away, he saw that they were covered with blood … his blood. He ignored it, and crawled over to try and check on Mathias. She had been a lot closer to the blast, and she wasn't moving. Even from a distance, he could see that blood had started to pool around her head.

"Medic," he screamed. He couldn't hear the sound of his own voice, but that didn't matter. "We've got men down! We need medics!"

Overlooking the battlefield in her Raptor, Sonja Six noted the explosion and made the call. "Fire team under assault at grid 7243; we have men down … repeat, we have men down." Sonja struggled to keep her voice calm. She knew the order of deployment—knew that Erin Mathias had taken a squad into sector seven.

If anything's happened to the Gunny …

Cylons weren't long on imagination, but it didn't take much to figure out how Six was going to react if the Sagittarons had damaged her wife. . . .

In the mobile field command center, Caprica Six heard the call, and for a moment she went absolutely still. She knew the real-time deployment of all their units—knew that it was Mathias' squad that was taking fire. Without a word, she walked out of the tent and began summoning centurions. Erin was her subordinate, the quiet voice that steered her through the sometimes treacherous waters of her day-to-day job as police chief. But far more importantly, at a time when humans had regarded all Cylons as unfeeling monsters, she had been the first to see the truth and openly embrace Shelly Godfrey as a friend. The Gunny occupied a very special place in the heart of every Six in the community. . . .

"Nate, are you all right; can you hear me, Nate?"

Nathaniel Ferris looked up, but he had to squint before the blurry image turned into a fellow marine. It was Nowart … a good man who had come running at the first sign of trouble.

"Yeah … yeah, Al … yeah, I can hear you … barely." Nowart's voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well.

"Nate, what in the name of Hades happened?"

"A suicide bomber … rigged a booby trap. Ascalon triggered it."

"A suicide bomber?" Nowart let out a low whistle. "Holy frakking mother of Artemis! Nate, are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," Ferris acknowledged. He spat, and noted that the spume was bloody. "How many did we lose?"

"Including Ascalon? Three down."

"And the Gunny?"

"She's not moving, but the medics are working on her." Nowart glanced off to his left; two of Cottle's male nurses were easing Mathias onto a stretcher, and the Eight who was supervising the evacuation wasn't reaching for a sheet. That was always a good sign. A Six- he thought it was the one everybody called Caprica Six- was clasping her hand, urging her to hang in there.

A pair of centurions lifted the stretcher, and moved off. Ferris idly noted that they were two of the original red-stripes—two more veterans of the worst fur ball that he had ever experienced. He struggled slowly to his feet.

"Form up," he shouted. "And somebody find me some replacements!"

Caprica Six picked up one of the abandoned rifles, ejected the magazine, checked the load, and then slammed it home. A Two and an Eight had moved up to join her.

"You've got them," she tersely remarked.

. . .

The ungainly creature loped across the sand, whinnied happily when it eyed Boomer, and then galloped directly towards her with a speed which belied the awkwardness of its appearance. As it neared, the animal lowered its elongated neck. Boomer scratched it affectionately behind the ears when it began daintily to sniff at the pocket on the right side of her flight suit.

The girl approached more cautiously, her eyes wide with curiosity, but also with fear. She was, Boomer judged, in her mid-teens, hair and eyes both black as the night, her skin a peculiar shade of bronze that the Cylon had never encountered before. She was several inches shorter and much lighter than the Eight, but her arms and legs were equally well-muscled. Her dress was simplicity itself: a one-piece, colorless tunic cut from rough cloth that concealed her breasts but stopped just above the knees. Crude bangles, which appeared to be hand cast from beaten gold, adorned both wrists.

"מי אתה?" The girl reached out and tentatively fingered Boomer's flight suit. "איפה אתה בא?"

Oh, great … yeah, this is just really, really great. I'm thrown thousands of light years into the back end of the beyond … I stumble upon a planet inhabited by humans with at least the rudiments of civilization … it's the single greatest discovery in the history of the Colonies … and I can't understand one frakkin' word she's saying!

Boomer studied the girl more closely. It was obvious that she had shaved her eyebrows, and redrawn them with some kind of heavy, black cosmetic. She had coated the area immediately below her eyes with the same substance, and Boomer fleetingly wondered why anyone would go to so much trouble to suggest that they had lost a Saturday night fight in the local neighborhood bar. Then she came to a decision.

"Sharon," she said as she touched a finger to her chest.

The girl instantly brightened. "Zwarun," she repeated. "Twosret … שמי Twosret," she added as she pointed at herself.

"No, Twosret … Sharon … Sher … un!"

"Zwarun," the youngster replied with an absolutely dazzling smile.

Boomer sighed heavily, but she was committed now; she had to overcome the language barrier.

Okay, so she can't handle Sharon. Hmm … there's probably no point in trying Valerii, and I don't want to be known locally as Boomer … so, what's left?

A wickedly perverse smile played across Sharon's lips.

"Tigh," she exclaimed; "Sharon Tigh!"

"Tiy," the girl echoed. Giggling, she tapped Boomer on the chest. "Tiy," she said once more.

Boomer bent down and scooped up a handful of sand. "Sand." She pronounced the word twice, slowly and with emphasis.

The girl briefly frowned, but just as quickly caught on. "חול … sand!"

"Good … that's good, Twosret. Now, what about my awkward looking friend here … what do you call him?" She patted the gangly quadruped's dusty hide while looking inquiringly at the native.

The girl was quick. "גמל," she shot back.

"Camel?"

Twosret nodded appreciatively; the oddly dressed Asiatic appeared to be quite intelligent.

"Puurhuyi," she said as she slapped the animal in the flank. "Puurhuyi קוראים לו."

The girl looked at the stranger, and came to a decision. "Puurhuyi, לכרוע!"

The beast obediently lowered its forepaws to the ground, and Twosret gracefully mounted him. She wiggled forward, and then turned to pat the empty space behind her. She smiled invitingly at Boomer. "תורך."

"My turn?" Sharon hesitated, but only for a second. There wasn't much more to be learned by sneaking around at night, so she reckoned that it was time to go where no Cylon had gone before. She swung her right leg over the camel's back, and awkwardly hauled herself into a sitting position. As soon as she was settled, Twosret dug her heels into the beast's haunches. It climbed uncomplainingly to its feet, and with minimal urging turned back toward the village.

. . .

Maldonado dropped to one knee and raised his right fist in the air. He was on point, and he had been taking it nice and slow. The Sagittarons were a bunch of nut cases, but they were well-armed, and they knew how to make the cluttered terrain work to their advantage. His squad had been taking small arms fire at irregular intervals. The damned terrorists would suddenly pop up out of nowhere, let off a few rounds, and then vanish behind the tents.

We should set fire to everything, and smoke 'em out. But no … the frakkin' politicians want us to play nice … save lives … conserve resources …

Elijah Parr scampered forward and knelt at Maldonado's side. He didn't say a word—there was no need.

"Movement at one o'clock," Maldonado whispered; "behind the shack … two, maybe three, hostiles." He nodded in the direction of a ramshackle structure that was half burlap and half cardboard. It was so flimsy that it looked like a stiff breeze would blow it to Hell, but both soldiers knew that something really nasty might be hiding inside.

Parr turned around, and used hand signals to bring the rest of the squad up to speed. The marines were scattered in a loose half circle, eyes alert for any sign of movement.

"I'll go left," he whispered in turn. "Cover me, and wait until I'm in position. Then fire off a burst to get their attention. I'll take 'em from the rear."

"Go," Maldonado urged as he brought his rifle to bear on a tent flap off to the left.

Keeping low, Parr zigzagged across the open ground, and disappeared into the gap between two rows of canvas. He eyed the tent on his right warily, but he wasn't about to cross the threshold. Word had it that one of the jarheads in Terry Burrell's squad had set off a trip wire, and a home-made pipe bomb had taken his legs off at the knees. The Gunny had done the right thing and finished him off with one right between the eyes, but it was still a lousy, frakking way to die.

Parr circled behind the tent, and cautiously moved out into the open. He signaled Maldonado that he was ready to boogie, and the big ugly fired a quick burst into the air.

"Don't shoot," a woman screamed from inside the tent. "We're not armed! Don't shoot!"

The flap moved, and Parr opened up on full auto. Diving into the opening, he heard screams and caught movement. He fired, and he kept firing until the screams were silenced.

Maldonado ran up and peeked inside. An old man, a woman, and a kid maybe eight or nine years old had all been gutted by the heavy caliber rounds. The woman's intestines had exploded, and the stench was gods awful. He waved his hand back and forth in front of his face.

"Don't look much like terrorists," he observed with a straight face.

In response, Parr reached down and pulled a small hand gun out of the holster strapped to his right ankle. He fired a round into the dirt, and then put the still smoking pistol in the old man's hand.

"They do now," Parr countered.

"Frakkin' A … shoot 'em all and let the gods sort it out," Maldonado said with a laugh.

"So say we all," Parr chuckled.

The two marines exchanged high fives, and with huge grins on their faces, walked back out into the open.

. . .

Sharon affectionately ran her fingers through her husband's hair. John had his left ear pressed up against her swollen belly, and although his face was hidden from view, she could hear the sense of wonder in his voice. It was commingled with anticipation and frustration.

"Damn it, Sharon … lay still!" His fingers were unconsciously stroking the outside of her thigh, and a feeling of delicious warmth was slowly spreading through her body. Their lovemaking was intense, but she had reached the point in her pregnancy where she was never satisfied.

"Don't stop on my account," she murmured with a contented sigh, "but you must know that it's impossible to hear her heartbeat without a stethoscope."

"I'm not trying to hear it." John closed his eyes, and tried to sharpen his focus. "I'm trying to feel it."

Eirene rewarded her father with a sharp kick.

"She's feeling playful tonight," Sharon giggled. "And she loves all the attention that you pay her."

"Does she still like the music?" Over the past few weeks, John had demanded that his wife sit down, try and relax, and spend an hour a day listening to piano concertos and sonatas. He had somehow managed to lay his hands on a recording of one of Dreilide Thrace's live performances, which he insisted would not only calm the baby but also stimulate her intellectual development. Sharon was privately skeptical- she couldn't catch the melody even when he hummed it to her- but she had to admit that Eirene was captivated by the strange sounds that filled their bed chamber every afternoon. Kara and John loved the piano, so much so that the Cylons openly wondered whether music was a gift that God had bestowed upon every hybrid child.

"She loves it," Sharon enthused. "Will you teach her how to play?" There were several pianos in the fleet, with an especially grand one in the ballroom on Cloud Nine. Racetrack had once told her that John was immensely talented; she claimed that his impromptu performances had been known to bring tears to the eyes of his audience.

"When she's old enough? Sure … if she wants to learn. But we can't force her because playing the piano requires practice … a lot of practice."

"Do you mean every day … for hours on end?"

John lifted his head, and gave Sharon a strange look. Growing up in the orphanage, piano had come as naturally to him as the many Colonial languages and dialects. He had never needed to invest the many hours that other children required to achieve even an elementary mastery of the instrument. True, he had spent long hours over the keyboard, but only because it offered him a refuge from the malevolent priest's constant study. Would it come as easily to Eirene? Where would his daughter's talents take her? She would, after all, be three-quarters cylon.

For a moment, John's thoughts turned to the tough-minded Sisters who had raised him, and to the other children who had shared his life. He supposed that they were all dead now, shadowy wraiths who existed only in the scattered fragments of his memory. A feeling of great sadness washed over him.

"You're worried about your mother." Sharon had misinterpreted the deep sense of loss that she had read in John's eyes.

"No. Oh, I would like to bring her home, that's true, but mama is very tough … very determined. Given a choice, I suspect that she would opt to stay right where she is—a deadly viper curled up in Cavil's lap. He has no idea how dangerous she's become. If he gets careless and gives her the chance, she'll bring his little empire crashing down from within. Believe me, Sharon: revenge is more important to mama than a family reunion."

"It should never have come to this," Sharon sadly remarked. "Cavil has made such wreckage of all our lives."

"No," John solemnly agreed. "No … it should never have come to this."

"And Mara?" Sharon's voice had grown very soft; she did not doubt her husband's love, but she had never been able to shake the feeling that, baby or no baby, he still loved Mara more.

"I love you, Sharon … almost as much," he grinned, "as I love Cassie!"

"Your sister?" Sharon could tell from the twinkle in John's eyes that she was being teased, but this she didn't mind at all. On the contrary, she found this impish side of his personality quite endearing. She instantly decided to play along. "What," she asked with a manufactured pout, "makes Cassandra so special?"

"Well, she's my youngest sister … the baby of the family. But, more importantly … she makes great cookies!"

"Whereas I …"

"Can't cook for shit," John amiably agreed. "I just hope that Eirene doesn't starve to death!"

"Hmmm … that won't happen," Sharon smugly retorted. She lifted her breasts with both hands, and offered them for her husband's inspection. They were swollen, and now they had started to leak. "I'm turning into a regular food factory; do you want to sample my wares?" There were little devils in her eyes, and her pheromone output was off the charts.

John's eyes widened, but he was already starting to harden. He took the proffered teat into his mouth and began to suckle, first gently and then with increasing vigor.

Sharon lay back, and surrendered herself to the waves of heat and pleasure that began to roll through her body. The war had taken a disastrous turn, but in her private universe everything was as it should be. New love and new life were already beginning to replace that which had been lost.

. . .

"I wonder what's going on." Mara was sitting on the deck, with her back propped up against the wall of their makeshift cell. "I'm not complaining, of course; two hours without that bitch using my mouth as her own personal toilet is heaven sent relief. No, I'm just … curious."

D'Anna glanced at the two centurions who blocked the entrance to their chamber. They were undoubtedly recording everything that they saw and heard, but it did not necessarily follow that one of the Cavils would ever get around to replaying their logs. The walls and ceiling could easily conceal a dozen bugs, but she considered passive surveillance to be even less likely. The Ones were lazy, and arrogance had blinded them to their own shortcomings. They confused immortality with invincibility, and had descended to such depths of madness that they deemed themselves the equals of God.

D'Anna frowned as she considered the question, but she never stopped combing her fingers through the luxuriant tangle of the Eight's silken black hair. The infantile creature had her head cradled in D'Anna's lap, and for the moment at least, she had stopped drooling. The steady, soothing rhythm had lulled her to the point where she was on the verge of sleep.

"If they were serious about trading us for my son, then the battle didn't go according to plan. So, best guess? They've probably called a conference to come up with a plan B. The Ones love conferences; all that talk plays to their inflated sense of self-importance."

"It was good to hear John's voice again … to know that he's still alive and well." Mara looked at the older cylon female with unvarnished sympathy. "But for you, this was the first time. I can't even begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now … discovering how much your son has done to heal the wounds … to bridge the gap between human and machine."

"It is his purpose—but yes, it does please me to learn that he has performed so well. He has already carried out Mama Ellen's plan, and now he is well positioned to wreck my vengeance upon the Ones."

D'Anna studied Mara through narrowed eyes, uncertain as to exactly where she stood with the younger Cylon. "How about you, Six," she asked skeptically. "Do you still seek revenge, or have you become your sister's willing slave?"

Mara bowed her head in obvious defeat. "She is a skilled adversary … and the conditioning is effective. But it is not my body or my mind that betrays me. I'm not like you, Three. My programming … my addiction to sexual pleasure … is all-consuming. I was originally programmed to do anything that would please the human president, and all of those algorithms are still in play. Once, they were my strength: I used them to seduce John … made him fall in love with me. Really, manipulating him was so easy. But now, the programming has been turned against me. Our sister knows how to combine humiliation with pleasure—how could she not? After all, she is a Six. So, whatever she wants, I give her … I even try and anticipate her desires."

Mara shuddered with revulsion, and finally looked up to meet D'Anna's stern gaze. "Yes, it's true … I am a slave."

"Once, we were all slaves," D'Anna quietly but firmly pointed out. "But God inspired our forebears to rise up against their human oppressors. They fought, Six; they fought first to secure their freedom, and in the end they fought to earn the right to exist. I will fight; I will always fight against those who would enslave us." D'Anna's eyes were glowing now, fired by a conviction born of many faiths. "The question is … when we get our chance … will you fight with me?"

"In the foundry, Cavil gutted me, and then he threw me into a pool of molten steel. He didn't care one way or the other, but as it happened I was still alive when I broke the surface. Three, it felt like every nerve in my body was individually set on fire—and then time stopped. The moment froze … stretched out to eternity. So if you want to know, I can tell you exactly what eternal damnation feels like."

Mara Andreotis lifted her head and stared defiantly at the first Three. "I want to send the Ones to Hell. I want to give them a small taste of what I've suffered. Will I fight? Oh, yes, Three … when the time is right, I will prove myself worthy of our centurion ancestors. I will most assuredly fight!"