"If that woman is a Cylon we're screwed."

"We're all tied up."

Audrey Bakerson and Jake Hudson

Chapter 13: Tigh me up, Tigh me down

The CIC of Galactica was mostly quiet as President Roslin came to one of the corners where she had been led by Commander Adama.

"Madam President, we are the proud owners of the universe's first bona fide Cylon detector." He said.

"Well, that is great news. So... when do we begin?" She replied.

"Doctor Baltar would like to start widespread testing as soon as possible, but there are some serious limitations because he can only do one person at a time and verification takes hours."

"So, who's going to go first?"

"I think people in sensitive positions should go first." He said and Roslin nodded.

"I completely agree. How about you?" She said,

"Excuse me?"

"If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know."

"If I'm a Cylon, you're screwed." He replied.

Adama and Roslin both started laughing.

"Seriously, I do think you should go first. Show everyone in the fleet that they can trust the people at the top." She said,

"Well then, maybe YOU should go first. All right... I'll go first." He said. "As long as you go second."

"You have yourself a deal, commander."

Colonel Tigh sighed as he continued his watch in the CIC. Nothing notable had happened since he had taken his shift, and if there was anything that was going on it wasn't important enough to justify telling him.

In this boredom that he was experiencing he thought back to his life before the colonies were destroyed. His marriage hadn't been the best all the time but it had worked and had at least been functional. Despite all its flaws he was looking back at it with longing and wished Ellen Tigh was still alive.

He knew that he wasn't alone. Everyone had lost at least someone, if not multiple people that they knew. Some people had lost everyone and everything, and Tigh was relatively lucky, he had relatively spacious quarters on the most well-protected ships in the fleet. So he didn't complain because he had a lot of advantages that others didn't.

But that didn't mean he wasn't hurting, or that everyone was ok. No one was okay, but they were still alive. And as an officer of the colonial fleet, he had a duty to the people of the fleet to defend them.

And that he would do.

"Sir, we have a DRADIS contact," Gaeta said. "Unidentified, but matching the signature of a raider."

"Launch the alert Vipers," Tigh replied.

Captain Adama was the first to reach the raiders, hitting it with a stream of autocannon fire. It was heavily damaged and while it jumped away its FTL drive must have been damaged, as it only was able to jump a few kilometers.

"Colonel, this raider is dead in the water. Do you want me to destroy it?"

Tigh thought for a moment. "Stay near it and if it moves kill it, but I'm sending a raptor to go and retrieve it. It may have more intelligence we can use and if not we can scrap it." Tigh replied.

Adama's raptor whom he had used to go to one of the other ships in the fleet was returning and Tigh would go down to meet him. As normal Adama was emerging from the raptor and Tigh saluted.

But what emerged next out of the raptor was a shock.

It was his wife, Ellen Tigh. The two rushed towards each other and embraced, Tigh thinking that she had been killed before back in the colonies.

"How are you alive?" He asked in disbelief. She explained that she was injured when the Cylons attacked a spaceport on Picon, and she was taken out of the ruins by someone and put aboard the Rising Star as it escaped the planet.

Adama heard about what Tigh was doing and signed off on the raider being captured and brought in.

"So Adama canceled his test," Roslin asked Baltar. He had the Cylon detector up and running finally and at the request of Roslin was testing him, her, and the senior military personnel throughout the fleet to determine if they were Cylons or not. It wasn't exactly a popular prospect but an ultimatum necessary for the survival of the fleet.

"Indeed he did, it was just not too long ago." He replied. "He's been replaced with a woman whose only identifiable feature is her first name, Ellen."

"Continue Adama's test at once." She replied. "He is vital to the security of the fleet and we must know if he is a Cylon or not."

After that, she then moved to the next cabin where she found Billy.

"Get me commanders Bakerson and Hudson, along with Colonel Tigh, and summon them to Colonial One with the soonest possible convenience." She said.

Once the three arrived Roslin explained her suspicions of Commander Adama.

"I think I have an explanation," Tigh explains it was to pick up his wife, Ellen, who President Roslin quickly understood was the woman mentioned by Dr. Baltar.

"That makes more sense," Hudson said. "Adama wouldn't do anything like that without a good reason, and unfortunately due to the nature of this appearance I think we need to take precautions, Colonel,"

"I agree." He replied. "The last thing I want to believe is that she is a Cylon. I don't know how advanced their personalities are but I hopefully can tell whether they are faking being my wife."

Tigh and Ellen invited some of the senior officers over for dinner along with the President, and the officers figured out that this would be one of the best ways to figure out if she was a Cylon or not.

She was already beginning to cause some annoyance. From what Adama had heard about her she seemed to cause something of a bad influence on Tigh, who already had more than a bit to drink while the night was still young. Adama shot a look at Hudson, who was familiar with this type of behavior.

Meanwhile, Lee had made the poor choice of sitting next to her, and before they had gotten in had justified it due to his willingness to in his words "take one for the team." However, she began to try to play footsie with Lee Adama under the table and tried to flirt with him over the table. This annoyed Lee, and he tried to shake off her advances. She was a married woman after all and to be quite honest he wasn't interested in the slightest. When he respectfully showed this she kicked him under the table, which he winced at. Tigh would probably defend his wife so he didn't bring it up, though being hit in the crotch by a four-inch stiletto wasn't a great feeling.

The discussion continued with Ellen congratulating the President with the regards of people of the transport that she had been on, the Rising Star, though she somewhat darkened the mood by bringing up the minority who thought that she was merely a "kindergarten teacher" and was unfit to be President. She also brought up Zak Adama, unaware of his death two years prior, which was quite tone-deaf.

She also had an unusual interest in Earth, pestering about where it was.

"Bill, now the question on everyone's mind - and, I do mean everyone - is Where's Earth? and When are we going to get there?"

"Yeah... that's classified information."

"Oh, there's that word again!"

"Ellen, leave the man alone," Tigh responded.

"Come on! If there aren't privileges to being an XO's wife, then what's the point? I mean, Bill, we're all family here, so come on!"

"The need for secrecy is paramount, Ellen," Roslin said. "Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't know that the Cylons look like us now."

"Oh... that. Yes, I didn't know that, and that makes a lot more sense."

"It's recent news. Most people just found out a few days ago."

"Any one of us could be a Cylon," Adama said.

"Boo!" Yelled Ellen, which made everyone jump except for Tigh, who laughed along with his wife.

Audrey glanced at Hudson, who rolled his eyes. Neither of them was partially excited about what was going on due to the nature of Ellen and to a lesser extent Saul.

As the event died down and the two Thighs got more and more inebriated, everyone else was ready to leave. No one wanted to experience more of that.

Both of the Adamas, Roslin, Hudson, and Bakerson walked for a few moments in silence after the party ended as they got out of earshot of the Tighes.

"If that woman is a Cylon we're screwed." Bakerson said to several chuckles."

"We're all tied up," Hudson replied. To more chuckles.

"The test should be done soon," Adama said. "If she's one I'll send a squad of marines to take care of her."

"If she were a Cylon wouldn't she have gotten sick in Ragnar?" Roslin asked.

"Getting sick there requires prolonged exposure to the area so, therefore, we'd need to have kept them in there longer, or rotated them out of the ship into some area less shielded from radiation. Even then it's not partially accurate, so I'm not sure if we'd be able to distinguish them." Adama said.

"What are we going to do if one of us is a Cylon?" Bakerson asked.

"Get relieved of command and interrogated," Hudson replied. "I don't think any of us are, as wouldn't we have already led the fleet into a trap?"

"Sounds like someone who's a Cylon would say," Bakerson replied with a smile. Soon everyone was headed back to their ships of individual duties aboard Galactica.

In one of the Battlestar's many hangar bays Starbuck looked at the second raider that had been towed in. The raptor had a large tow cable that was usually used for towing vipers or raptors.

"This looks a bit screwed up." Apollo looked at it as it was towed in.

"You screwed it up big time," Starbuck replied.

"So we have two of them now," Starbuck said and looked at it. It had been pretty badly damaged.

Tyrol walked over to them already having looked into the raiders.

"So this baby has me the reason that we don't scrap her, most of her brain and whatever that FTL drive is are intact and ready to be examined more closely.

"So you're going to rip its brain out?" Starbuck said. "I'd like to see it."

"You can help if you want," Tyrol said.

"I'd rather do paperwork," Lee said and walked away. Starbuck chuckled.

"He's a bit scared of blood and guts, even the Cylon one." She said,

"I couldn't tell," Tyrol replied.