Fiction: Violation
Title: Burning Within the Flames- Violation
Author: HoniBrownHateza
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Predominately Sharon, with an appearance by Helo and Chief Tyrol.
Date: November 19, 2005
Spoilers: Through Pegasus
READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT WHICH MIGHT UPSET SOME READERS.
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. All Rights Reserved.
Summary:Sharon Valerii contemplates her faith in God and in love. A shocking event will test her faith in both.
~~
Many of the crimes she’d committed were punishable by death. Among them was treason, abandoning God’s plan for humanity and betraying God’s love. Lesser crimes like disavowing her family and denying her true nature deserved at least a lifetime of incarceration, {boxing. Everything she’d done was for the sake of love, for the sake of one man. For him, she’d taken the ultimate leap of faith. Thus, she had to trust that love would save her from what was to come. Anyone in her position had to know that payment for such self-crushing love would have to be settled in blood. That was the price all selfish people had to pay.
~~
Sharon Valerii lay listless on the bunk, only bothering to move with it was absolutely necessary to adjust the covers. There was no place to go and nothing to do. On top of that, enduring a persistent headache, nausea, fever and dizziness was just as easy lying down as it was standing up or sitting in a chair. Hibernating between the sheets also prevented the Marines from bearing witness to her tears, her silent suffering.
The last ten days had passed as one. Every artificial sunrise and sunset was the same as far as she was concerned. So tired in mind and body, she slept on and on like corpse and when she woke up her right arm was always throbbing. Initially, she’d contributed her condition to blood loss because it had been ten days since the last Cylon assault, ten days since she’d sliced open her hand and shoved the fiber optic cable up her arm.
The imminent attack of the massive Cylon fleet, more than 200 raiders strong, left her no option but to interface directly with the Battlestar Galactica. The strain of intercepting, modifying and retransmitting the Cylon virus that threatened to take over the ship’s systems, took a toll on her body. Severely weakened, she’d worried herself sick about the life of the baby that nestled in her womb.
The only reward for that sacrifice was two days spent in sick bay listening to Dr. Cottle bitch about what he considered to be a stunt on her part. Under different circumstances, she might have been offended, but in truth she didn’t mind his fussing because at least he treated her like a person, a Cylon person. He despised her race as much as the next human, but he considered human model Cylons to be bad people, not merely programmable machines. Dr. Cottle also didn’t allow his personal pain to suffocate his humanity or to interfere with his professionalism. For that, she was grateful.
Blood loss though was not the problem. Bit by bit, she came to realize that death, which was once mute to her, now spoke with a power greater than a million words. Theoretically, every human model Cylon knew that death was possible but that knowledge did not always keep pace with reason. Upon the death of a body, that model’s consciousness could be downloaded into a new body, providing a ship was nearby to handle the transference. In essence, he or she would be resurrected. Death to them was like a man, who on a rainy day, thought of sunlight on a mountain far away.
The acute realization of death did not come to the forefront of her mind until she nearly suffered a miscarriage. From that moment forth, death stared her in the face, forcing her to think nonstop about her life, her destiny and her place in the universe. Contemplation had almost struck a crushing blow when she finally recognized that the basic tenants of Cylon indoctrination and technology denied her the full range of what it meant to be alive.
It was then she truly comprehended that she could not lay claim to being alive because she had no true awareness of death. Without understanding how to die, she’d been oblivious to what it meant to be alive. Almost every facet of her so-call life was a lie, with the exception of the past few months, a mere sample of her existence. It was a lie, a failure and a complete waste. The Cylons, in trying to remake themselves in God’s image, had attempted to replicate human beings without human tradition, history, legacy or sensibility. Cylons didn’t even have heroes.
As such, they also didn’t fully comprehend hope, desire, ambition and love. Theirs was an existence that denied life. They existed without even the faintest shadow of life. Cylons were ships lost at sea with no means to navigate. She learned that there was more to being alive than having a heartbeat and the ability to draw breath.
To live, one needed spirit. Cylons had souls but they lacked the spiritual powers to create questions about themselves and the God they worshipped. Having a spirit meant constantly formulating questions and storing up inquiries even if the questions couldn’t be answered. Cylons merely accepted that what had gone on before would happen again. There was a plan and they followed it. That wasn’t living. That was a task.
Further introspection also forced her to acknowledge that downloaded memories did not make up the core of her. A life led by learning and loving made her who and what she was. A downloadable consciousness was merely a shell of someone else’s existence.
The ability to give and receive love was an essential part of being alive. She was fortunate to know true love. Love at its zenith. A love that transcended the lies, deceit and treachery that once shrouded her existence. It was a love bestowed by a man who lived according to love and being loved; a man whose heart and soul were pure and untainted.
Love was a complex emotion and she couldn’t fully process it, but it was there just the same, growing in strength every time she saw him. Somewhere along the way, the seed of love had been planted inside her and the fruit of that love had sprung forth a hundredfold. The intensity of that feeling left her breathless and mere thoughts of him quickened her blood. The sound of his voice sent vibrations of feelings throughout her heart and soul. He’d given her life twice, literally and figuratively. He was life-giving rain.
He was also the catalyst for her greatest sins, her greatest crimes. To ensure his survival, she’d obliterated every Cylon in his path. For him, she’d stolen the precious gift God had bestowed upon her people, the child she carried. For him, she’d placed her life in the hands of a man who wanted to kill her on sight. The path she chose was a dangerous one, but one she willingly walked.
In the end, she loved Karl C. Agathon, Helo, more than she loved God.
~~
As a Cylon, belief in God had always penetrated her soul like water flowing over dry earth. God was justice, love and goodness. But God was not Helo. Betraying God was an unpardonable sin and He would not allow that betrayal to go unpunished. God would exact his revenge at the time of his choosing. How, she did not know, but she knew He would.
On Caprica, it was her firm belief that God had guided her hand when she’d decided to flee with Helo and their baby. Since that time, God was silent. It was clear He no longer wanted anything to do with her.
Still, she prayed. She prayed for mercy, for forgiveness and for understanding. She also prayed that Helo’s love would make it possible for her to endure a burden she’d never known before, never sought. He gave her courage and ensured that the tiny flame of faith did not die out. Even so, a life led without God was lonely and her suffering was almost unbearable. That was why she cried.
The night she’d lain helpless as the child’s life gushed between her thighs and soaked the bunk might have been a part of God’s punishment. God might have deemed her unworthy to bring forth new life. God might have intended to rip the child from her uterus. Miraculously, Helo appeared in the nick of time. To this day, he still struggled to comprehend the forces that pulled him away from a training exercise and sent him racing towards the brig to save his daughter’s life.
Sharon understood. Helo was her guardian angel. He had to be because God chose him to father the new Cylon race. It was his duty as a father to protect his child. On Kobol, he admitted that he’d meant to kill her on Caprica when she’d stood before him unarmed, leaving her fate to his mercy and love. Her betrayal had all but destroyed him but in the end he couldn’t do it. Somehow, someway, he found the strength to believe in the sincerity of her love.
If experiencing love at its fullest was the only way I could conceive, why is God silent to me? Why has God turned his back on me? Why is my baby destined to be born in this glass cell? Will God allow her to be a laboratory experiment, one to be poked and prodded by Gaius Baltar?
As a prisoner, Sharon tried to make herself very small. She’d boarded the ship with nothing but her heart and she’d demanded nothing more. For the sake of Helo and the child, she did nothing to irritate the deep wound the Cylons had already inflicted upon humanity. For her family, she endured. For them, she was courageous, but she understood that courage could also cause trouble for those she loved.
The recent Cylon attack left her in a vulnerable position. God, she believed, had presented her with two heartbreaking choices: to save humanity and her small family or to massacre her people. He should have known better. He should have known that in all things, Helo came first.
He, not God, was first in her heart and nothing would ever change that.
~~
Cylons had remarkable foresight and tenacity of purpose. Without a doubt, they considered her betrayal to be a schizophrenic change. Because Model Number Six hated her, it was likely that she championed the massive attack on the human fleet. As a mother, it was unconscionable that Six would hurt the baby. As a Cylon, Sharon’s mind accepted that as long as she was a germ of a great disaster, she had to be crushed, baby and all.
Having that mindset, she understood that the real choice wasn’t Cylon vs. Human. It was something far more primitive. Her true options were to sit back and wait to be rescued or to prove to Six and the others that she was a weak, pathetic waste of genetic material. Since Cylons foresaw every contingency, they had to know that even if they did take control of the Battlestar Galactica, Commander Adama would have found a way to take her life. To Six the loss of the raiders was a small price to pay in testing her loyalty. When the humans were finally defeated, they’d make sure Sharon died with them.
Saving humanity had also come at a great personal cost. In doing so, she’d had to assist in her own humiliation. She’d been marched to the CIC wearing a collar around her neck and chains on her hands and feet. She’d had to endure the pelting of dirty thoughts - the only real weapon humans had against her, and she’d had to bravely shove the cable up her arm, disable her own ships and standby helplessly as they were slaughtered. The humans called their actions payback.
Her status on the ship remained the same though. She was fed, clothed, housed and even allowed to take a seven-minute shower everyday, just like everyone else. Unfortunately, the human opinion that she was nothing more than a dirty loathsome thing had been validated.
Thinking along these lines brought an old story to mind. It was a fable about a clever animal who knew everything there was to be known. By remembering everything there was to learn, it amassed enough knowledge to qualify it as man’s teacher. Being an animal though, it lacked one thing: the capacity for faith. Man knew far less than it did, but by faith - and faith alone, even the most undeserving humans received God’s love and favor.
The Cylons were not animals. They were knowledgeable, God-fearing sentient beings. Despite that, humans and possibly God himself considered them to be things, inferiors. In her heart and soul, she was Sharon Valerii from Troy, and nothing could soften the total rejection by her human friends. That they considered her baby to be an abomination threatened to crush her spirit. But neither her faith in God nor her love for Helo would allow her to be an emotional coward. She would persevere and she would continue to suffer in silence because her baby’s life depended on it.
~~
Determined to get her ass up and moving, Sharon gritted her teeth and rolled to the edge of the bunk. Shivering, she tried to rise but a sudden stupor seemed to sweep over her, as if every organ in her body was momentarily paralyzed. She allowed the moment to pass without complaint. All things considered, it was a luxury to spend her time in contemplation.
Why then did it bother her so much that they allowed Helo to visit her every night before he retired to his rack, regardless of the time? Why then did every tale of crew members warming up to him send chills racing up and down her spine? Was it because every time she saw those same human faces they were stamped with hostility or hatred?
“That’s not it,” she whispered, her own voice broke the solemn silence of the night. In loving Helo, she’d never felt so deeply the sheer joy of being alive. She’d also never felt so much fear. People scared her and fear of them kept this particular problem flitting across her mind.
“Are they trying to wean him away from me?”
Thinking of Helo being forgiven and understood by his fellow man should have brought her peace of mind, but it didn’t. She should be experiencing joy at tasting the tepid waters of peace and security, but that never came to pass. Instead, the day-to-day suspense was killing her.
“Am I jealous?”
Admittedly, she was lonelier than before. When Helo visited, he was no longer so desperate. He was optimistic in a way that frightened her. In addition, the glass cell was colder than it had ever been despite the thermostat being exactly the same. Perhaps it was because God was now an object of fear and perplexity, where he once represented harmony and joy.
No, that couldn’t be it.
Life was too pleasant and that terrified her. Her fear had a human face, too. Commander William Adama had it in him to be a Cylon. He was like a spider watching his prey caught in a web. He was waiting for her spirit to weaken and by destroying the Cylon fleet, she’d given him the upper hand. There was no reason for him to treat her with open contempt because killing her with generic kindness would do the trick.
A person with a relaxed physique was weaker in resistance to pain. The better they were treated, the weaker they became in body and in spirit. Once she was effectively soft, Adama could deliver the killing blow. He had no reason not to do so. The very sight of her was like a finger in an open wound. Whatever love and affection he might have once felt for the other Sharon did not extend to her.
Now that she understood, she rolled off the bunk and dragged her feet across the floor until she reached the toilet. In a gesture of pure contempt, at least two of the guards were standing in a position that gave them an optimum view of her doing her business. This time she didn’t care.
After completing her toiletries, Sharon returned to the bunk and began doing push-ups. She followed that with sit-ups. At the moment the exercises were not a threat to her pregnancy.
~~
Without warning, the door opened with a loud clank. The footsteps announced the approach of three men. Sharon tensed. Two armed Marines, one blond, the other dark-haired, entered the room followed by a balding overweight Lieutenant. She got to her feet by using the bed railing and hung back, fearful of making any sudden moves.
“Who the hell are you?” The aging man jutted his chin as though to mock her. Instinctively, her heart beat faster.
“What is the function of this ship?” He moved purposely across the room and thrust a surveillance photo on the bunk. The small smile on his lips was something akin to a challenge.
“I don’t know.”
“Here, take a closer look,” he said, suddenly grabbing her by the throat with one hand. “What makes it so important? Why would two Basestars be tasked to protect it?”
He leaned in close to hear her answer. “I…don’t…know,” Sharon coughed and sputtered. Every instinct demanded that she fight but she had a baby to protect. She couldn’t risk getting shot.
The Lieutenant flung her onto the bunk. Still coughing, she massaged her neck. “I don’t know,” she repeated when she found her voice.
She tried to face him again and was rewarded with a right cross that sent her sprawling across the bunk again. “What the frack?!” she cried.
Her senses were on edge; she was in real danger. The very air vibrated with malice because the men meant to commit bodily harm upon her person, not to gather intelligence. They knew they couldn’t kill her, but they could show her a full range of pain, suffering and humiliation.
This is wrong! This isn’t like Commander Adama! If he wanted to kill my baby, he’d be more humane! This can’t be happening!
“Mr. Harper,” the Lieutenant said, grabbing her by the back of the neck and forcing her face-down onto the mattress. Fear shook her like a gust of wind as the Marine seized her wrists and pulled her forward until her feet were dangling off the floor. For the first time in her life, Sharon’s body was outside her will and control.
“No!” Her heart beat furiously; she became disoriented. She knew what was to come but she couldn’t escape it. With her arms restrained and no traction, she was helpless. “Noooooo! My baby! Please don’t hurt my baby!”
Her words turned into screams as the second Marine planted his forearm in the small of her back, preventing her from moving. Perspiration flowed down her forehead and into her eyes, partially distorting her vision as the Lieutenant began pulling down her pants. She struggled and struggled but to no avail. In no time at all, he exposed her to mid-thigh. Now she was completely trapped; she couldn’t even kick him. Her anguished cries didn’t even block out their dialog.
“Nothing like a hot piece of Cylon ass to cap off nice day, eh, Sir?” It was the fair-haired man who spoke.
“Let’s see how well Lt.- ”
“Agathon, Sir,” the same Marine said. “Big guy, Raptor pilot, obviously not too smart.”
“- trained his Cylon whore,” the officer said without missing a beat.
Sharon continued howling, frightened by the horrific sound that was emerging from her depths. Impelled by terror and despair, her intestines grew cold. A spasm wanted to run down her spine but couldn’t. As she struggled to control her emotions, the Lieutenant jammed two cold fingers inside her womanhood, forcing her to stretch but her body refused to adjust to the invasion. Hot tears wrung from the core of her crept down her cheeks. Sweat wrung from straining muscles forced the dark-haired Marine holding her arms to release her left wrist, but the flaxen-haired one held Sharon in place by the waist.
“She’s barely initiated, gentleman.” The Lieutenant’s voice took on a kind, almost gentle tone. “Very nice. Almost pure.”
“It’s a Procreation Model, Sir,” the blond Marine said. “More than likely, she was only after his seed.”
Sharon shook violently as the older man continued to maul her insides by pinching her walls, digging into her softness and bruising that part of her which was designed for pleasure. Her brain began shutting down, desperately trying to blot out the pain, torture and humiliation. Abruptly the man snatched his fingers away and began undoing his pants. Desperate for air, she’d barely taken a breath when she felt his manhood against her left thigh. Small and helpless, the only thing she could do was scream and pray that someone would come.
Helo!
Prying her slender thighs wide open, the man shoved himself inside, damaging her even further. He ripped her to shreds from throat to stomach to legs. He was the physical embodiment of pain.
Please God protect my baby! I beg you!
“She’s tight, gentlemen, very tight,” he growled deep in his throat. The words pierced her ears syllable by syllable. “Gods!”
“Get off of her!” A new voice rose above the guttural sounds she made.
Her savior literally plucked the Lieutenant out of her. The momentum caused by the forced separation pulled Sharon off the bunk and sent her flying across the room. Clumsily, she tried to pull up her pants, but she couldn’t find her balance and ended up on the floor.
The room was in pure chaos. Shouts. Curses. Flying bodies. Everything happened so fast her mind couldn’t process it all. She couldn’t focus because the roiling inside her stomach and intestines was like a series of deafening sonic booms.
“Freeze! Freeze! Don't either of you frakking move! Don't move! Don't either of you frakking move!”
The voice barely punctured Sharon’s fog as she drew along side the bunk and buried her face in the covers, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Get down. Get down! On your knees. Hands behind your head. Now! Hands behind your head. Do it now. Do it!”
The shadow of two men appeared in her blurried line of vision.
Chief?
Stunned, Sharon was grappling with the knowledge that the Chief Petty Office had come to her rescue when the other man kneeled close by.
Helo! Oh God, Helo!
It wasn’t a trick of the light. He’d come just as she prayed he would.
Sharon planted her free leg beneath her body and sat back on her heels. The Raptor pilot she loved offered the nearest Marine a cursory glance, but his complete attention was on her. Knowing Helo as well as she did, Sharon knew he was struggling to conceal his feelings. Yet, his desire to dart forward to and comfort her was so strong it felt like a physical sensation. It was as if she could feel his strong arms around her thin body, generating heat.
He said nothing because no words could serve them.
But the agony she read in his eyes made Sharon want to crawl out of an airlock and die.
Oh God! Did he see what happened? He’ll never want me again. He’ll stop loving me! I’m dirty. I’m nasty. I’m filthy. I let another man have me. I let him taint our daughter. Why didn’t I fight harder? Oh God! Why didn’t they kill me?
“He’s dead.” The blond Marine was standing over the body of the fallen Lieutenant. The shocking words ricocheted around the glass cell like a fireworks display. The Chief collapsed, deflated. Helo briefly lost his composure but quickly regained it.
If Sharon hadn’t seen the ugly truth written all over his beautiful face, she could have convinced herself that none of this had ever happened; that it really wasn’t happening. Reality though threaded itself in her mind.
God would kill her after all. That He would settle the score by killing Helo was unbearable. Helo was the love of her life; he was her savior. With him gone, she and the baby were doomed. Karl C. Agathon was guilty of only one crime, loving her. It hurt. It hurt so much that sorrow rose up from her stomach in the form of bile and lodged itself in her throat, leaving her unable to swallow.
As darkness pilfered the remnants of her short life, a trembling Sharon grasped the edges of the thin blanket and drew it over her head. Pitching forward, she buried her face in her hands and keened for her love.
Sharon, can you hear me? We’re going to make it. We’ve made it this far and we’re going to make it all the way. I love you, Sharon Valerii. I love you!
It was the meanest moment of eternity.
Author: HoniBrownHateza
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Predominately Sharon, with an appearance by Helo and Chief Tyrol.
Date: November 19, 2005
Spoilers: Through Pegasus
READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT WHICH MIGHT UPSET SOME READERS.
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. All Rights Reserved.
Summary:Sharon Valerii contemplates her faith in God and in love. A shocking event will test her faith in both.
~~
Many of the crimes she’d committed were punishable by death. Among them was treason, abandoning God’s plan for humanity and betraying God’s love. Lesser crimes like disavowing her family and denying her true nature deserved at least a lifetime of incarceration, {boxing. Everything she’d done was for the sake of love, for the sake of one man. For him, she’d taken the ultimate leap of faith. Thus, she had to trust that love would save her from what was to come. Anyone in her position had to know that payment for such self-crushing love would have to be settled in blood. That was the price all selfish people had to pay.
~~
Sharon Valerii lay listless on the bunk, only bothering to move with it was absolutely necessary to adjust the covers. There was no place to go and nothing to do. On top of that, enduring a persistent headache, nausea, fever and dizziness was just as easy lying down as it was standing up or sitting in a chair. Hibernating between the sheets also prevented the Marines from bearing witness to her tears, her silent suffering.
The last ten days had passed as one. Every artificial sunrise and sunset was the same as far as she was concerned. So tired in mind and body, she slept on and on like corpse and when she woke up her right arm was always throbbing. Initially, she’d contributed her condition to blood loss because it had been ten days since the last Cylon assault, ten days since she’d sliced open her hand and shoved the fiber optic cable up her arm.
The imminent attack of the massive Cylon fleet, more than 200 raiders strong, left her no option but to interface directly with the Battlestar Galactica. The strain of intercepting, modifying and retransmitting the Cylon virus that threatened to take over the ship’s systems, took a toll on her body. Severely weakened, she’d worried herself sick about the life of the baby that nestled in her womb.
The only reward for that sacrifice was two days spent in sick bay listening to Dr. Cottle bitch about what he considered to be a stunt on her part. Under different circumstances, she might have been offended, but in truth she didn’t mind his fussing because at least he treated her like a person, a Cylon person. He despised her race as much as the next human, but he considered human model Cylons to be bad people, not merely programmable machines. Dr. Cottle also didn’t allow his personal pain to suffocate his humanity or to interfere with his professionalism. For that, she was grateful.
Blood loss though was not the problem. Bit by bit, she came to realize that death, which was once mute to her, now spoke with a power greater than a million words. Theoretically, every human model Cylon knew that death was possible but that knowledge did not always keep pace with reason. Upon the death of a body, that model’s consciousness could be downloaded into a new body, providing a ship was nearby to handle the transference. In essence, he or she would be resurrected. Death to them was like a man, who on a rainy day, thought of sunlight on a mountain far away.
The acute realization of death did not come to the forefront of her mind until she nearly suffered a miscarriage. From that moment forth, death stared her in the face, forcing her to think nonstop about her life, her destiny and her place in the universe. Contemplation had almost struck a crushing blow when she finally recognized that the basic tenants of Cylon indoctrination and technology denied her the full range of what it meant to be alive.
It was then she truly comprehended that she could not lay claim to being alive because she had no true awareness of death. Without understanding how to die, she’d been oblivious to what it meant to be alive. Almost every facet of her so-call life was a lie, with the exception of the past few months, a mere sample of her existence. It was a lie, a failure and a complete waste. The Cylons, in trying to remake themselves in God’s image, had attempted to replicate human beings without human tradition, history, legacy or sensibility. Cylons didn’t even have heroes.
As such, they also didn’t fully comprehend hope, desire, ambition and love. Theirs was an existence that denied life. They existed without even the faintest shadow of life. Cylons were ships lost at sea with no means to navigate. She learned that there was more to being alive than having a heartbeat and the ability to draw breath.
To live, one needed spirit. Cylons had souls but they lacked the spiritual powers to create questions about themselves and the God they worshipped. Having a spirit meant constantly formulating questions and storing up inquiries even if the questions couldn’t be answered. Cylons merely accepted that what had gone on before would happen again. There was a plan and they followed it. That wasn’t living. That was a task.
Further introspection also forced her to acknowledge that downloaded memories did not make up the core of her. A life led by learning and loving made her who and what she was. A downloadable consciousness was merely a shell of someone else’s existence.
The ability to give and receive love was an essential part of being alive. She was fortunate to know true love. Love at its zenith. A love that transcended the lies, deceit and treachery that once shrouded her existence. It was a love bestowed by a man who lived according to love and being loved; a man whose heart and soul were pure and untainted.
Love was a complex emotion and she couldn’t fully process it, but it was there just the same, growing in strength every time she saw him. Somewhere along the way, the seed of love had been planted inside her and the fruit of that love had sprung forth a hundredfold. The intensity of that feeling left her breathless and mere thoughts of him quickened her blood. The sound of his voice sent vibrations of feelings throughout her heart and soul. He’d given her life twice, literally and figuratively. He was life-giving rain.
He was also the catalyst for her greatest sins, her greatest crimes. To ensure his survival, she’d obliterated every Cylon in his path. For him, she’d stolen the precious gift God had bestowed upon her people, the child she carried. For him, she’d placed her life in the hands of a man who wanted to kill her on sight. The path she chose was a dangerous one, but one she willingly walked.
In the end, she loved Karl C. Agathon, Helo, more than she loved God.
~~
As a Cylon, belief in God had always penetrated her soul like water flowing over dry earth. God was justice, love and goodness. But God was not Helo. Betraying God was an unpardonable sin and He would not allow that betrayal to go unpunished. God would exact his revenge at the time of his choosing. How, she did not know, but she knew He would.
On Caprica, it was her firm belief that God had guided her hand when she’d decided to flee with Helo and their baby. Since that time, God was silent. It was clear He no longer wanted anything to do with her.
Still, she prayed. She prayed for mercy, for forgiveness and for understanding. She also prayed that Helo’s love would make it possible for her to endure a burden she’d never known before, never sought. He gave her courage and ensured that the tiny flame of faith did not die out. Even so, a life led without God was lonely and her suffering was almost unbearable. That was why she cried.
The night she’d lain helpless as the child’s life gushed between her thighs and soaked the bunk might have been a part of God’s punishment. God might have deemed her unworthy to bring forth new life. God might have intended to rip the child from her uterus. Miraculously, Helo appeared in the nick of time. To this day, he still struggled to comprehend the forces that pulled him away from a training exercise and sent him racing towards the brig to save his daughter’s life.
Sharon understood. Helo was her guardian angel. He had to be because God chose him to father the new Cylon race. It was his duty as a father to protect his child. On Kobol, he admitted that he’d meant to kill her on Caprica when she’d stood before him unarmed, leaving her fate to his mercy and love. Her betrayal had all but destroyed him but in the end he couldn’t do it. Somehow, someway, he found the strength to believe in the sincerity of her love.
If experiencing love at its fullest was the only way I could conceive, why is God silent to me? Why has God turned his back on me? Why is my baby destined to be born in this glass cell? Will God allow her to be a laboratory experiment, one to be poked and prodded by Gaius Baltar?
As a prisoner, Sharon tried to make herself very small. She’d boarded the ship with nothing but her heart and she’d demanded nothing more. For the sake of Helo and the child, she did nothing to irritate the deep wound the Cylons had already inflicted upon humanity. For her family, she endured. For them, she was courageous, but she understood that courage could also cause trouble for those she loved.
The recent Cylon attack left her in a vulnerable position. God, she believed, had presented her with two heartbreaking choices: to save humanity and her small family or to massacre her people. He should have known better. He should have known that in all things, Helo came first.
He, not God, was first in her heart and nothing would ever change that.
~~
Cylons had remarkable foresight and tenacity of purpose. Without a doubt, they considered her betrayal to be a schizophrenic change. Because Model Number Six hated her, it was likely that she championed the massive attack on the human fleet. As a mother, it was unconscionable that Six would hurt the baby. As a Cylon, Sharon’s mind accepted that as long as she was a germ of a great disaster, she had to be crushed, baby and all.
Having that mindset, she understood that the real choice wasn’t Cylon vs. Human. It was something far more primitive. Her true options were to sit back and wait to be rescued or to prove to Six and the others that she was a weak, pathetic waste of genetic material. Since Cylons foresaw every contingency, they had to know that even if they did take control of the Battlestar Galactica, Commander Adama would have found a way to take her life. To Six the loss of the raiders was a small price to pay in testing her loyalty. When the humans were finally defeated, they’d make sure Sharon died with them.
Saving humanity had also come at a great personal cost. In doing so, she’d had to assist in her own humiliation. She’d been marched to the CIC wearing a collar around her neck and chains on her hands and feet. She’d had to endure the pelting of dirty thoughts - the only real weapon humans had against her, and she’d had to bravely shove the cable up her arm, disable her own ships and standby helplessly as they were slaughtered. The humans called their actions payback.
Her status on the ship remained the same though. She was fed, clothed, housed and even allowed to take a seven-minute shower everyday, just like everyone else. Unfortunately, the human opinion that she was nothing more than a dirty loathsome thing had been validated.
Thinking along these lines brought an old story to mind. It was a fable about a clever animal who knew everything there was to be known. By remembering everything there was to learn, it amassed enough knowledge to qualify it as man’s teacher. Being an animal though, it lacked one thing: the capacity for faith. Man knew far less than it did, but by faith - and faith alone, even the most undeserving humans received God’s love and favor.
The Cylons were not animals. They were knowledgeable, God-fearing sentient beings. Despite that, humans and possibly God himself considered them to be things, inferiors. In her heart and soul, she was Sharon Valerii from Troy, and nothing could soften the total rejection by her human friends. That they considered her baby to be an abomination threatened to crush her spirit. But neither her faith in God nor her love for Helo would allow her to be an emotional coward. She would persevere and she would continue to suffer in silence because her baby’s life depended on it.
~~
Determined to get her ass up and moving, Sharon gritted her teeth and rolled to the edge of the bunk. Shivering, she tried to rise but a sudden stupor seemed to sweep over her, as if every organ in her body was momentarily paralyzed. She allowed the moment to pass without complaint. All things considered, it was a luxury to spend her time in contemplation.
Why then did it bother her so much that they allowed Helo to visit her every night before he retired to his rack, regardless of the time? Why then did every tale of crew members warming up to him send chills racing up and down her spine? Was it because every time she saw those same human faces they were stamped with hostility or hatred?
“That’s not it,” she whispered, her own voice broke the solemn silence of the night. In loving Helo, she’d never felt so deeply the sheer joy of being alive. She’d also never felt so much fear. People scared her and fear of them kept this particular problem flitting across her mind.
“Are they trying to wean him away from me?”
Thinking of Helo being forgiven and understood by his fellow man should have brought her peace of mind, but it didn’t. She should be experiencing joy at tasting the tepid waters of peace and security, but that never came to pass. Instead, the day-to-day suspense was killing her.
“Am I jealous?”
Admittedly, she was lonelier than before. When Helo visited, he was no longer so desperate. He was optimistic in a way that frightened her. In addition, the glass cell was colder than it had ever been despite the thermostat being exactly the same. Perhaps it was because God was now an object of fear and perplexity, where he once represented harmony and joy.
No, that couldn’t be it.
Life was too pleasant and that terrified her. Her fear had a human face, too. Commander William Adama had it in him to be a Cylon. He was like a spider watching his prey caught in a web. He was waiting for her spirit to weaken and by destroying the Cylon fleet, she’d given him the upper hand. There was no reason for him to treat her with open contempt because killing her with generic kindness would do the trick.
A person with a relaxed physique was weaker in resistance to pain. The better they were treated, the weaker they became in body and in spirit. Once she was effectively soft, Adama could deliver the killing blow. He had no reason not to do so. The very sight of her was like a finger in an open wound. Whatever love and affection he might have once felt for the other Sharon did not extend to her.
Now that she understood, she rolled off the bunk and dragged her feet across the floor until she reached the toilet. In a gesture of pure contempt, at least two of the guards were standing in a position that gave them an optimum view of her doing her business. This time she didn’t care.
After completing her toiletries, Sharon returned to the bunk and began doing push-ups. She followed that with sit-ups. At the moment the exercises were not a threat to her pregnancy.
~~
Without warning, the door opened with a loud clank. The footsteps announced the approach of three men. Sharon tensed. Two armed Marines, one blond, the other dark-haired, entered the room followed by a balding overweight Lieutenant. She got to her feet by using the bed railing and hung back, fearful of making any sudden moves.
“Who the hell are you?” The aging man jutted his chin as though to mock her. Instinctively, her heart beat faster.
“What is the function of this ship?” He moved purposely across the room and thrust a surveillance photo on the bunk. The small smile on his lips was something akin to a challenge.
“I don’t know.”
“Here, take a closer look,” he said, suddenly grabbing her by the throat with one hand. “What makes it so important? Why would two Basestars be tasked to protect it?”
He leaned in close to hear her answer. “I…don’t…know,” Sharon coughed and sputtered. Every instinct demanded that she fight but she had a baby to protect. She couldn’t risk getting shot.
The Lieutenant flung her onto the bunk. Still coughing, she massaged her neck. “I don’t know,” she repeated when she found her voice.
She tried to face him again and was rewarded with a right cross that sent her sprawling across the bunk again. “What the frack?!” she cried.
Her senses were on edge; she was in real danger. The very air vibrated with malice because the men meant to commit bodily harm upon her person, not to gather intelligence. They knew they couldn’t kill her, but they could show her a full range of pain, suffering and humiliation.
This is wrong! This isn’t like Commander Adama! If he wanted to kill my baby, he’d be more humane! This can’t be happening!
“Mr. Harper,” the Lieutenant said, grabbing her by the back of the neck and forcing her face-down onto the mattress. Fear shook her like a gust of wind as the Marine seized her wrists and pulled her forward until her feet were dangling off the floor. For the first time in her life, Sharon’s body was outside her will and control.
“No!” Her heart beat furiously; she became disoriented. She knew what was to come but she couldn’t escape it. With her arms restrained and no traction, she was helpless. “Noooooo! My baby! Please don’t hurt my baby!”
Her words turned into screams as the second Marine planted his forearm in the small of her back, preventing her from moving. Perspiration flowed down her forehead and into her eyes, partially distorting her vision as the Lieutenant began pulling down her pants. She struggled and struggled but to no avail. In no time at all, he exposed her to mid-thigh. Now she was completely trapped; she couldn’t even kick him. Her anguished cries didn’t even block out their dialog.
“Nothing like a hot piece of Cylon ass to cap off nice day, eh, Sir?” It was the fair-haired man who spoke.
“Let’s see how well Lt.- ”
“Agathon, Sir,” the same Marine said. “Big guy, Raptor pilot, obviously not too smart.”
“- trained his Cylon whore,” the officer said without missing a beat.
Sharon continued howling, frightened by the horrific sound that was emerging from her depths. Impelled by terror and despair, her intestines grew cold. A spasm wanted to run down her spine but couldn’t. As she struggled to control her emotions, the Lieutenant jammed two cold fingers inside her womanhood, forcing her to stretch but her body refused to adjust to the invasion. Hot tears wrung from the core of her crept down her cheeks. Sweat wrung from straining muscles forced the dark-haired Marine holding her arms to release her left wrist, but the flaxen-haired one held Sharon in place by the waist.
“She’s barely initiated, gentleman.” The Lieutenant’s voice took on a kind, almost gentle tone. “Very nice. Almost pure.”
“It’s a Procreation Model, Sir,” the blond Marine said. “More than likely, she was only after his seed.”
Sharon shook violently as the older man continued to maul her insides by pinching her walls, digging into her softness and bruising that part of her which was designed for pleasure. Her brain began shutting down, desperately trying to blot out the pain, torture and humiliation. Abruptly the man snatched his fingers away and began undoing his pants. Desperate for air, she’d barely taken a breath when she felt his manhood against her left thigh. Small and helpless, the only thing she could do was scream and pray that someone would come.
Helo!
Prying her slender thighs wide open, the man shoved himself inside, damaging her even further. He ripped her to shreds from throat to stomach to legs. He was the physical embodiment of pain.
Please God protect my baby! I beg you!
“She’s tight, gentlemen, very tight,” he growled deep in his throat. The words pierced her ears syllable by syllable. “Gods!”
“Get off of her!” A new voice rose above the guttural sounds she made.
Her savior literally plucked the Lieutenant out of her. The momentum caused by the forced separation pulled Sharon off the bunk and sent her flying across the room. Clumsily, she tried to pull up her pants, but she couldn’t find her balance and ended up on the floor.
The room was in pure chaos. Shouts. Curses. Flying bodies. Everything happened so fast her mind couldn’t process it all. She couldn’t focus because the roiling inside her stomach and intestines was like a series of deafening sonic booms.
“Freeze! Freeze! Don't either of you frakking move! Don't move! Don't either of you frakking move!”
The voice barely punctured Sharon’s fog as she drew along side the bunk and buried her face in the covers, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Get down. Get down! On your knees. Hands behind your head. Now! Hands behind your head. Do it now. Do it!”
The shadow of two men appeared in her blurried line of vision.
Chief?
Stunned, Sharon was grappling with the knowledge that the Chief Petty Office had come to her rescue when the other man kneeled close by.
Helo! Oh God, Helo!
It wasn’t a trick of the light. He’d come just as she prayed he would.
Sharon planted her free leg beneath her body and sat back on her heels. The Raptor pilot she loved offered the nearest Marine a cursory glance, but his complete attention was on her. Knowing Helo as well as she did, Sharon knew he was struggling to conceal his feelings. Yet, his desire to dart forward to and comfort her was so strong it felt like a physical sensation. It was as if she could feel his strong arms around her thin body, generating heat.
He said nothing because no words could serve them.
But the agony she read in his eyes made Sharon want to crawl out of an airlock and die.
Oh God! Did he see what happened? He’ll never want me again. He’ll stop loving me! I’m dirty. I’m nasty. I’m filthy. I let another man have me. I let him taint our daughter. Why didn’t I fight harder? Oh God! Why didn’t they kill me?
“He’s dead.” The blond Marine was standing over the body of the fallen Lieutenant. The shocking words ricocheted around the glass cell like a fireworks display. The Chief collapsed, deflated. Helo briefly lost his composure but quickly regained it.
If Sharon hadn’t seen the ugly truth written all over his beautiful face, she could have convinced herself that none of this had ever happened; that it really wasn’t happening. Reality though threaded itself in her mind.
God would kill her after all. That He would settle the score by killing Helo was unbearable. Helo was the love of her life; he was her savior. With him gone, she and the baby were doomed. Karl C. Agathon was guilty of only one crime, loving her. It hurt. It hurt so much that sorrow rose up from her stomach in the form of bile and lodged itself in her throat, leaving her unable to swallow.
As darkness pilfered the remnants of her short life, a trembling Sharon grasped the edges of the thin blanket and drew it over her head. Pitching forward, she buried her face in her hands and keened for her love.
Sharon, can you hear me? We’re going to make it. We’ve made it this far and we’re going to make it all the way. I love you, Sharon Valerii. I love you!
It was the meanest moment of eternity.