(early) Happy birthday, Amsie!
Rebirth (1/2)
Authors: SabaceanBabe and Un4scene
Word count: 5,272
Date: June 10, 2005
Rating: PG-13
Characters and pairings: Helo/Sharon, Boomer, Tyrol, Kara
Summary: Sharon is in the hands of the Cylons and Helo finds that it’s up to him to rescue her before the Cylons take their child.
Spoilers: all of season 1, a few from the rumors we’ve heard of season two
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to lots of people, but none of them are me. Not making a profit - please don’t sue.
Authors’ notes: This is a birthday present for shadowserenity (June 12, people - send her love). She wanted a Helo/Sharon story that wasn’t totally depressing and had some happy and shippy baby bits. I’m not sure if this is that, but it *is* what she gets. ;) Originally, un4scene was simply going to beta for me, but she gave me too many good ideas and directions for this to be considered all mine. :D Last but not least, part 2 probably won't be up until after (yes, after) Serenity screens on the 23rd. If I can finish it to Dani's satisfaction before then... maybe. :P
Surrounded by the nothingness of her dreams, she called for him. Her faith in God and in her fellow Cylons had been shaken to its core. Everything she had ever known was gone. Everything she had ever believed in was a lie.
Except for him. He wasn’t like her. He was a fragile human and yet he was the only thing left that she could count on. But he was only human; he couldn’t hear her. And because he couldn’t hear her, he didn’t know that she needed him.
She called for him in her dreams, but he never came.
***
“I love you…”
The memory of Sharon’s last words to him as she led the chrome toasters away echoed in his head as Helo passed through the brig to maximum security. Intertwined with the memory was Boomer’s wordless cry as her sentence was passed - he couldn’t think of her as Sharon anymore for she was too different from his Sharon.
Death…
It was a harsh word and a harsh fate. Helo had contemplated it himself more than he liked recently, his own as well as that of others, human and Cylon alike. Now he had to come to terms with it in regard to the rook who had been his responsibility since she had been assigned to Galactica. She was a rook no longer and Helo also had to come to terms with the fact that he was, in part, responsible for that sentence of death.
The trial had been brief; the evidence against her was overwhelming and incontrovertible. Even so, Boomer might have escaped the death sentence had it not been for the testimony of Kara and himself. Attempted murder could be forgiven. It didn’t automatically carry a sentence of death, even if the victim was the commanding officer of the entire Colonial military force. But Sharon Valerii was a Cylon and that fact couldn’t be ignored or downplayed. She was the enemy and dangerous.
“-chine and you don’t keep a dangerous machine around!”
The angry voice belonged to the Chief. There was a clatter of something heavy hitting metal and Helo quickened his pace, not sure what he’d find. He had enough experience of brigs to suspect that the sound he’d heard was that of a body hitting the bars of a cell, hard.
Rounding the corner, Helo saw two Marine guards watching as Chief Tyrol held Boomer’s wrist in a painful grip, her arm pulled through the bars as she struggled to break free. “Men and women from my crew are dead because of you. Socinus is dead because of you.” Tyrol’s voice was filled with condemnation and something that Helo recognized as self-loathing. It occurred to him that Tyrol was in the same place Helo had been a few weeks before, when he’d first learned that Sharon was a Cylon and that so many things had been lies.
It disturbed Helo more than a little that the guards did nothing to protect their prisoner. Boomer looked frightened and defiant at once, the emotions at war on her beautiful, scarred face. “Stand down, Chief!” Helo’s voice was steel.
Tyrol released Boomer’s wrist as though it burned him and took a step back. He and the startled Marines saluted Helo. Tyrol’s face was flushed, his dark eyes intense.
“What the hell is going on here?” Helo addressed the guards. His gaze flickered over to the Chief for a second before he continued. “Since when is a visitor allowed to assault a prisoner?” Tyrol’s eyes widened, surprised at the accusation.
“Sir?” one of the guards ventured.
“I can see the marks on her wrist from here, Corporal.” Sharon’s eyes- Boomer’s eyes seemed to bore into Helo as she rubbed at the angry red impressions the Chief’s fingers had left on her skin. There was already the shadow of a bruise on her cheek, where the bone had connected with one of the bars.
“She’s a Cylon, sir,” the younger guard stated, as though that were justification for any abuse.
“She is a prisoner under your care and you will treat her as such.”
“Collaborator.”
Helo’s head whipped around. He stared at Tyrol, saw the same contempt in the man’s eyes that had been directed at Boomer, turned on Helo instead. “What did you say, Chief?”
“You’re a frakking Cylon sympathizer. Sir.”
Helo kept his own anger under tight control. “Get out.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Chief. Get out. I won’t report this, because I know what you’re going through, but it ends now.”
Tyrol looked at Helo for a long moment, but then he seemed to deflate. The hostility faded from his eyes and he shook his head. “She used you, Lieutenant, just like she did me. How can you defend her? For frak’s sake, sir, you testified against her.”
“She is what she is, Chief.” Helo looked at Boomer, who had retreated to a corner of the cell, at the fear in her eyes. He didn’t see a Cylon saboteur, an attempted murderer; he saw a broken, terrified child. She seemed younger now, more raw than he had ever seen her. “You’re right that we can’t keep a dangerous machine around, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt her. Isn’t it enough that she has to die?”
“She’s not human, sir.” Tyrol’s face showed his confusion at Helo’s attitude.
A faint sound drew Helo’s eyes back to Boomer. She looked as though she were about to say something, but stopped herself; he didn’t know if she would’ve spoken to him or to Tyrol. Her eyes met Helo’s, held. “Actually, Chief, she is physically human.” He thought of Sharon as he had last seen her on Kobol, her pregnancy just starting to show.
“Is that what the other one told you?”
Helo’d had enough of this conversation; he hadn’t come here to compare notes with Tyrol but to say goodbye to Boomer, who had once been his friend. He broke eye contact with Boomer, turned again to the man who had been her lover. “You’re dismissed, Chief.” Helo’s tone invited no argument.
Tyrol saluted stiffly and wheeled about, walking quickly away. The younger Marine followed to unlock the door and release him into the main part of the brig while the other remained at his post.
“Corporal, you’re responsible for the safety of your charges. Don’t forget it again.”
“Yes, sir.” The man’s neutral expression cracked for a second and Helo wondered if he, too, thought him a Cylon sympathizer.
Ignoring the guard, Helo approached the cell. Boomer’s face seemed to melt as the tears that had threatened finally spilled. “Helo.” His name was a plea. She almost ran to the bars, reaching through them, reaching for him. He laced his fingers with hers. “This isn’t happening… Why is this happening?”
His voice was gentle as he answered her. “It is happening, Boomer. You’re a Cylon.”
“No, it isn’t true.”
She shook her head, emphasizing the denial, the movement not stopping when Helo said, “You were programmed to believe you’re human, but you are a Cylon.”
“Please, don’t let them kill me, Helo.”
“I can’t do anything about it, Boomer.” Her cold fingers tightened on his, squeezing almost to the point of pain. “I came to say goodbye and to let you know that I’ll be there. You won’t die alone.”
A change came over her face then. Suddenly, Helo knew that what he saw wasn’t Boomer, but rather a human-model Cylon, one that was very much aware of what she was. Her fear was gone, replaced by curiosity. “I think I understand why you were chosen.”
“Chosen for what?”
“To father the next generation.”
Helo tried to pull his hands away from the Cylon, but she wouldn’t let him. Her grip was too strong for him to break. Just that quickly, the Marine standing in sullen silence only a few meters away might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy - if she chose to harm Helo, the guard couldn’t prevent it, whether he wanted to or not.
The Cylon cocked her head, looked at him with a strange half smile. “Are you frightened of me, Helo?”
Was he afraid? He held himself motionless as he thought about it and realized that he wasn’t. She could probably kill him in a heartbeat, but he didn’t think she would.
Not waiting for him to answer, she continued, “She’s calling for you, you know. She has been for days.”
“Who’s calling for me?”
“Your Sharon. The others have her. They’ll take the child.” Helo felt his pulse begin to pound, imagined his heart skipped a beat as she continued conversationally, “Once it’s born, they’ll no longer have a use for her. They see her as defective. A traitor.” She leaned in closer until her face pressed against the bars, close enough that Helo could feel her breath. “She’ll die a traitor’s death.”
Not expecting a useful answer, still he had to ask. “Do you know where she is?”
“They’re on Kobol, for now. A baseship is on its way.” As before, without warning, she changed. Boomer looked at him through liquid-dark eyes, begging him to help her.
“Helo, what’s happening to me?” she whispered.
***
Sharon had dreamed again. Dreamed that she had called for Helo until her voice had become hoarse, her throat sore, until all that could be heard was a pitiful whimper. She thought she was awake now, because she could neither see nor hear anything; when in the dream, a misty light surrounded her.
In reality, she was held in darkness, both the literal darkness imposed by a straightforward lack of light and the more figurative darkness of being cut off from the system. Always, the system had been in the back of her mind, able to be accessed in case of need. Always, there had been a dim awareness that she wasn’t alone, that others of her kind were within reach. There was no instant communication, no reading of minds. She hadn’t even noticed the system anymore until it was gone, although she thought that the others could still spy on her through the severed connection.
The others had taken everything else from her as well before discarding her here: her clothes, her weapons and ammunition, her canteen. To compensate, her cell was kept at a temperature that was bearable, if not precisely comfortable. Sharon had become used to it - at least she was dry.
She didn’t know how long she had been held here, or even where “here” was. They fed and watered her at irregular intervals as though she were an animal. Sometimes when there was food there was light, but mostly it was just the darkness, the scent and the brief difference in air quality during its delivery the only clue that she had been given food or water.
At first, she hadn’t worried. She carried Helo’s child, after all, and the fetus was too new, too undeveloped for the others to risk either taking it from her or causing her real harm. Until the baby was viable, they couldn’t kill her.
But she had realized over the past however much time it was that she hadn’t thought things through. She had kept Helo safe from the immediate danger of the Centurions that hunted them by the simple expedient of breaking off from the rest of the group. Sharon had known they wanted her more than the humans, with the possible exception of Helo, and had acted on that knowledge, protecting Helo and by extension the rest the best way she could. The fact that she had acted as a decoy had allowed them the time they needed to escape the planet’s surface.
But after a week on the run, the Centurions - the ones the humans called “toasters” - had caught her and taken her to the others. There had been half a dozen of them, including one of her own model. She had tried to speak to them, tried to interject herself into their discussion of her, of Helo, of the other humans who had been trapped on Kobol, but they hadn’t permitted it. They had talked around her as if she couldn’t hear them. It was then that she had been cut off from the system. Finally, one of the Six models had ordered the Centurions to take her to a holding area to await interrogation.
Sharon had been held awaiting interrogation for long enough to think through quite a few different scenarios, most of them unsettling. The most frightening of them - for she was now frightened, for both herself and her child - was the prospect that the others would take the fetus, keep it alive through artificial means and thus make Sharon unnecessary.
Curling protectively into a fetal position, she let the tears come. “Helo…” His name echoed her dreams.
After a time she felt warmer, safer somehow, as she had when she and Helo were on Caprica. Even though there was no real need to close her eyes - the darkness was almost suffocating in its intensity - close them she did. She pretended that Helo was there with her, his arms and body wrapped around her, keeping her and their child safe.
***
She had held herself together, at the end, and Helo thought that might have been, at least in part, due to his presence. When the guards had brought her into the room, she had scanned the faces of those who had come to watch her die, looking for one in particular, but not finding him. Tyrol hadn’t attended Boomer’s execution and Helo had watched the hope die in her face. She had looked so lost as they seated her in a chair in the center of the stage. Ignoring the whispers and looks directed at him - some curious, some accusing - Helo had pushed his way through the crowd to the front where she couldn’t help but see him.
The moment she spotted him, he knew it. She stiffened, straightened her back and pressed her shoulders into the chair, lifted her chin. Her wide, terrified eyes locked on his and held, unblinking, as Doc Cottle administered the injection that would take her life. He hadn’t looked away until she was well and truly gone.
For Boomer, there was no more fear or pain or uncertainty. Whatever part of her had been human was, he hoped, at rest. As for that part of her which was Cylon, if what Sharon had said was true, then it had uploaded itself to another copy. Resting his forehead against the cool metal of Boomer’s locker in quarters, Helo entertained the possibility that Boomer’s Cylon soul may have joined with Sharon’s consciousness, since the fleet wasn’t far from Kobol. Sharon might be the nearest copy.
“Gods…” Straightening, he pulled open the door. The locker was filled with the same sorts of things that could be found in most of the lockers aboard Galactica: clean uniforms, boots, a few items of civilian clothing, soap, shampoo, a few photographs. There was nothing out of the ordinary and Helo felt strangely disappointed.
Without ceremony, he shoved her things into a bag. Most of it would go to the quartermaster to put back into circulation. The private things, such as the photographs, Helo would see if the Chief wanted. Recalling their last meeting, Helo had to laugh at himself for thinking the man might want a reminder of her. But they were supposed to have had feelings for each other. If their positions had been reversed, if it had been Sharon executed, Helo would’ve wanted to keep whatever he could of her.
The realization surprised him.
About to close the door of the now-empty locker, Helo was caught by his reflection in the mirror, saw what Boomer must have seen: his face, but older, thinner, dark shadows painted under his eyes. On the mirror’s smooth surface there were traces of what looked like yellow paint. Helo examined it more closely and saw the faint outline of a word - Cylon - that had been scrawled there and hastily wiped away. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was something he had to look forward to, merely because he had refused to abandon her.
What appeared to be a photograph was wedged behind the mirror; he hadn’t seen it until he had leaned in close to those yellow flecks. The photo stuck when he pulled on it and he carefully pried at the mirror. It and a couple of others slipped free and he realized they had probably fallen behind it some time ago, forgotten.
The photo had been taken a few weeks before the decommissioning ceremony; a lifetime ago, it seemed to him now. The photographer had captured the smiling faces of Boomer, Starbuck, Flattop, and himself, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, beers in their hands. They had been celebrating Boomer’s first solo landing - not normally such a big deal, but it had been in front of the Old Man and it had been flawless. Helo smiled remembering it. That had been a good day - none of them had known then that it was one of their last.
Helo’s grip on the flimsy piece of pasteboard tightened. Flattop and Boomer were dead. The Starbuck and Helo in that photograph were just as dead, he thought, even though they both still physically lived. No one who had survived that day of destruction would ever be the same.
Slipping the photo into his pocket, Helo hefted the sack that contained all that was left of Boomer. Just as the things in the sack would be reassigned, so would her rack and her locker. Helo felt an abrupt longing for a lollipop. He lifted a hand and roughly wiped the tears from his face.
“Karl, are you okay?”
He hadn’t heard anyone come in. Embarrassed, Helo slammed the locker shut, fumbling for a second to keep from dropping the sack. “Kara.” Nobody else ever called him Karl. He turned to face her.
She nodded at the sack. “Boomer’s stuff?”
“Yeah.”
She blinked several times rapidly, her eyes wide as she fought her own tears and Helo thought of the photograph in his pocket. Boomer had been Kara’s friend, too.
Kara took another step into the room, tossed a magazine to the foot of her rack. “Do you think her soul made it to wherever a Cylon soul goes?”
“I don’t know.” He let the sack slip gently to the floor. “Kara…” She dropped to her rack, focused those big, brown eyes on him. Her eyes looked as bruised as his had, reflected in that mirror. “Kara, she said something to me, a day or two ago.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A day or two ago?”
“I visited her in the brig,” he admitted.
“Before or after the trial?”
He leaned back against the lockers, banged his head once, knowing what she was going to say. “After.”
“Not bright, Karl.”
Helo shot her a lopsided, self-mocking grin. “When have you ever known me to be bright, Starbuck?” He noticed that she was looking at her hands, rubbing bruised knuckles. He frowned. “You in a fight?”
Raising an eyebrow, she gave him back his grin. “Yep. Over you. Seems there’s a faction thinks you’re a Cylon sympathizer. Now I know why.”
He bit his lip, shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I know I’m not, you know, the Old Man knows.”
“It does matter, Karl. The duty roster has you back in the cockpit of a Raptor. If your ECO, your wingmen don’t trust you…”
He sighed. The damage had already been done and he couldn’t bring himself to care enough, just then, to want to undo it. “She told me Sharon’s been calling for me for days. That the Cylons have her and they’ll kill her as soon as the baby’s born.”
“I thought Boomer didn’t remember anything about being a Cylon.”
“She didn’t. I think her mind… fractured somehow. One minute I was talking to Boomer, saying goodbye. The next I was talking to a Cylon.” He snorted. “Scared the hell out of me.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
“They’re holding Sharon on Kobol, but there’s a basestar on its way.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Have you reported this?”
“No.” His reply was little more than a whisper. He should have reported it right away, he knew. It had been a good day and a half since the Cylon had said it. But Commander Adama was still off the active duty roster, still recovering from his wounds, and he would have to go to Colonel Tigh with the information. Finally, he met Kara’s eyes. “I don’t trust Tigh.”
“That makes two of us, but you have to report this.”
“You’re right. I know. It’s just…”
“Karl, you are not going to play hero and go down there to rescue her.” When he didn’t answer, she laughed and stretched out, her crossed arms pillowing her head. “You’re a frakking moron, you know that?”
“There wasn’t anything I could do for Boomer.” The image of the life fading from Boomer’s eyes stung. The thought of the life fading from Sharon’s eyes, of that blonde Cylon taking their child… He couldn’t let that happen. Sharon had protected him during their time on Caprica, she had kept him alive; he would have died that day in the woods at the hands of the one she called Six, if not for Sharon, engineered though her presence had been. It was his turn to give her something back, if he could.
“I can’t just abandon her.” He focused again on Kara. “I love her, Kara.” It was the first time he had said it aloud. For that matter, it was the first time he had admitted it to himself.
She stared at him and he felt uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. She mouthed a word - he thought it might have been the name of her dead fiancé, Zak - then, “You have to tell Tigh about the basestar.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “He’s got both of us under observation. Until that lifts, you can’t go after her - he’d have you shot down.”
Helo could practically see the gears turning in her mind. “What are you proposing?”
“That heavy Raider is close enough to a Raptor that they’re going to want a Raptor pilot to handle it. They’ve got me going over her ‘cause I have experience with Cylon ships.” She opened her eyes again. “I’ll see if I can get you assigned to her.”
“It’ll take weeks to figure that heavy Raider out…”
She nodded agreement. “And it’ll probably take weeks before Tigh calls off the watchdogs, even if the Old Man were to return to active duty tomorrow.” Her eyes sparkled with a reckless glint. “Plenty of time for us to figure a way to steal her.”
***
Sharon slept. When she woke, she was still surrounded by darkness - cloying, consuming. The air smelled different, not the scent of water or of the bland food she had been given. Something else.
“Is someone here?”
There was no answer. She sat up, listening intently, trying to force her eyes to pick up the slightest glimmer of light, her ears to detect the tiniest whisper of sound. But there was nothing. It was as though she were wrapped in meters-thick cotton, nothing but the air she breathed able to penetrate it.
Drawing her knees up to her chin, Sharon wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek on her knees. For the hundredth time at least, she wished that she had never tried to lead those Centurions from Helo and the other humans.
She thought of those humans, all save Starbuck people she had known only from her downloaded memories, not from experience. Galen Tyrol, the one her - predecessor? counterpart? - had instinctively chosen as a sort of protective camouflage while living among those who were her unknowing enemies. Commander Adama, the human who was perhaps the most dangerous to the Cylons. Gaius Baltar, the man Helo had given up his place for, unwittingly volunteering himself into the Cylon plans for the future.
Helo. How she wished he were here with her now, selfish though that wish was.
“I’m here, Sharon.” Helo’s voice was a whisper, shocking her to the depths of her soul.
“No, you can’t be.”
“Well, why the frak not? You’re the one who wanted me to come here.” Now he sounded more like the man with whom she had played Triad in her borrowed memories. “Don’t you want me, Sharon?” There was teasing in his voice.
She didn’t trust this. He couldn’t be here. Her mind was playing tricks on her. If there was anything of reality to the sound of his voice, then it was some kind of recording fashioned by Six to torment her.
“Is Six the blonde?” he asked in response to Sharon’s unspoken thoughts, curious. “Well, if you don’t want me, I’m sure she’ll be happy to-”
“Shut the frak up. You’re not here.” No more able to see now than she could five minutes before, Sharon looked up toward where the ceiling of the small chamber should be. “I’m not falling for it, Six. You can stop playing your little games.”
In answer, the room flooded with light. Bright, painful light.
Sharon couldn’t see a door, although she knew there had to be one. All she saw was Six, dressed in virginal white. Six, who stood in a corner of the featureless room, one hand held gracefully palm to wall, the usual predatory gleam in her blue eyes. She cocked her head to one side, stared at Sharon unblinking. Those intense eyes drifted from Sharon’s face to her once flat stomach as though she could see beyond the barrier of Sharon’s crossed arms and legs. Six licked her lips, smiled, and Sharon shuddered.
“Who were you talking to, Sharon? Your lover? He isn’t here. You’re quite alone.” She trailed her fingers down the wall as she stepped away from it, toward Sharon. Step after slow, inexorable step, she stalked her helpless prey.
Six’s attitude, rather than causing further distress, made Sharon angry. She smiled back at the blonde, the smile not reaching her eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong, Six.” Her smile only widened as the other woman’s eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “I’m not alone.” Sharon taunted Six, knowing it was a foolish thing to do. “I have my child here with me.”
A chill ran down her spine when Six relaxed back into her previous rapacious stance. She brought out from behind her back a hypodermic needle. “That’s quite true, Sharon, for now…”
***
When Helo arrived in the ready room - Gods, was this really his first mission brief in over three months? - several others were already there. Plenty of empty seats were available, one of which was next to Starbuck, so he headed that way. His own personal Marine guard took up a position to the left side of the door. Another guard was already stationed to the right; Helo figured that one belonged to Kara.
She rolled her head on the back of the chair to look at him as he dropped into the seat. “Damn, Starbuck, you look like crap.” Or at least like she hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Taking her sunglasses from the neckline of her tanks and placing them carefully over her eyes, she pantomimed a kiss at him and said, “I love you, too, Raptor Boy.”
Helo laughed and relaxed into his chair, stretching his arms out over the backs of the two to either side. Kara leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair was damp and smelled of shampoo.
A third Marine walked down the side aisle past Helo and Kara as the CAG stepped up to the podium. The first thing Adama seemed to focus on was Kara’s head on Helo’s shoulder, the second the dark glasses she wore. Helo felt it when Kara broke into a smirk, but her head remained on his shoulder and the glasses remained over her eyes.
“We have reason to believe that a Cylon baseship is headed toward Kobol,” Adama began. Kara pounded Helo’s thigh once with her fist, acknowledging that he had gone to Tigh, after all. “It may arrive any day and we’re still too close to the planet, so we have to be ready for that possibility.” Adama stopped talking and looked around the room, pausing for an instant on each face. “There are several new crew assignments, so pay attention,” he continued, consulting the printed roster in his hands. “Lt. Agathon, you are assigned as pilot to Raptor 386. Lt. Pindar, you’re Agathon’s ECO. Ensign Shakri, you’re on the CAP; you and Costanza will act as wingmen to Lt. Thrace…”
The rest of the assignments meant nothing to Helo, so he tuned Adama out. A wave of nostalgia coursed through him as he recalled the last time he had been here. It had been Ripper giving out the assignments and Adama was just a visitor flying with them for the decommissioning ceremony. Boomer had sat next to him and the room had been so crowded with pilots that a few had to listen from outside the door.
Now Ripper and Boomer and so many others he had known were dead while he made plans to steal a ship and become a deserter, both criminal actions, so that he could infiltrate an enemy stronghold and play hero. So that he could attempt to rescue the woman he loved and the child she carried. His child.
Kara was right - he was a frakking moron.
That heavy Raider was designed for use by the bio-Cylons and Kara thought that it was a design that included elements of both the Raider she had taken and Colonial Raptors. Between the two of them, he and she ought to be able to determine how the damn thing worked. He prayed that it wouldn’t be too late, since it seemed the fleet was about to leave Kobol’s system, and every jump they made would make it that much harder for him to find Sharon.
Helo’s awareness was brought back to the briefing when Kara shifted, pulling away from him. Leaning forward, eyes still hidden behind the dark glasses, Kara smirked at the CAG. “So Apollo. You’ve had some time to work out the kinks… How do I fit in the cockpit with my watchdog? Sit on his lap? ‘Cause that could be fun.” There were several snickers from around the ready room. “But what if I grab the wrong stick?”
Helo smacked Kara in the back of the head, eliciting a glare from her. He thought it was a glare, anyway, since he couldn’t see through the glasses.
Apollo rolled his eyes eloquently. “You’re just a laugh a minute, Starbuck,” he tossed at her, shaking his head, lips half-quirked in a faint smile. “All right, that’s it. Dismissed. Good hunting.”
***
Ice and fire warred in Sharon’s veins; she felt nothing but the pain. Whatever Six had injected into her burned through her body, leaving nothing in its wake but frozen ash, cinders.
She whimpered, but as time passed and the pain increased, she began to scream. As she had in her dreams, Sharon screamed his name over and over again. When she no longer had the strength to scream, she still called for him. Not as frantic, but just as desperate. Helo’s name became the only prayer she knew.
Six had won.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Cross-posted all over the place. :P
What can I say? I'm a feedback whore.
link to part 2
Authors: SabaceanBabe and Un4scene
Word count: 5,272
Date: June 10, 2005
Rating: PG-13
Characters and pairings: Helo/Sharon, Boomer, Tyrol, Kara
Summary: Sharon is in the hands of the Cylons and Helo finds that it’s up to him to rescue her before the Cylons take their child.
Spoilers: all of season 1, a few from the rumors we’ve heard of season two
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to lots of people, but none of them are me. Not making a profit - please don’t sue.
Authors’ notes: This is a birthday present for shadowserenity (June 12, people - send her love). She wanted a Helo/Sharon story that wasn’t totally depressing and had some happy and shippy baby bits. I’m not sure if this is that, but it *is* what she gets. ;) Originally, un4scene was simply going to beta for me, but she gave me too many good ideas and directions for this to be considered all mine. :D Last but not least, part 2 probably won't be up until after (yes, after) Serenity screens on the 23rd. If I can finish it to Dani's satisfaction before then... maybe. :P
Surrounded by the nothingness of her dreams, she called for him. Her faith in God and in her fellow Cylons had been shaken to its core. Everything she had ever known was gone. Everything she had ever believed in was a lie.
Except for him. He wasn’t like her. He was a fragile human and yet he was the only thing left that she could count on. But he was only human; he couldn’t hear her. And because he couldn’t hear her, he didn’t know that she needed him.
She called for him in her dreams, but he never came.
***
“I love you…”
The memory of Sharon’s last words to him as she led the chrome toasters away echoed in his head as Helo passed through the brig to maximum security. Intertwined with the memory was Boomer’s wordless cry as her sentence was passed - he couldn’t think of her as Sharon anymore for she was too different from his Sharon.
Death…
It was a harsh word and a harsh fate. Helo had contemplated it himself more than he liked recently, his own as well as that of others, human and Cylon alike. Now he had to come to terms with it in regard to the rook who had been his responsibility since she had been assigned to Galactica. She was a rook no longer and Helo also had to come to terms with the fact that he was, in part, responsible for that sentence of death.
The trial had been brief; the evidence against her was overwhelming and incontrovertible. Even so, Boomer might have escaped the death sentence had it not been for the testimony of Kara and himself. Attempted murder could be forgiven. It didn’t automatically carry a sentence of death, even if the victim was the commanding officer of the entire Colonial military force. But Sharon Valerii was a Cylon and that fact couldn’t be ignored or downplayed. She was the enemy and dangerous.
“-chine and you don’t keep a dangerous machine around!”
The angry voice belonged to the Chief. There was a clatter of something heavy hitting metal and Helo quickened his pace, not sure what he’d find. He had enough experience of brigs to suspect that the sound he’d heard was that of a body hitting the bars of a cell, hard.
Rounding the corner, Helo saw two Marine guards watching as Chief Tyrol held Boomer’s wrist in a painful grip, her arm pulled through the bars as she struggled to break free. “Men and women from my crew are dead because of you. Socinus is dead because of you.” Tyrol’s voice was filled with condemnation and something that Helo recognized as self-loathing. It occurred to him that Tyrol was in the same place Helo had been a few weeks before, when he’d first learned that Sharon was a Cylon and that so many things had been lies.
It disturbed Helo more than a little that the guards did nothing to protect their prisoner. Boomer looked frightened and defiant at once, the emotions at war on her beautiful, scarred face. “Stand down, Chief!” Helo’s voice was steel.
Tyrol released Boomer’s wrist as though it burned him and took a step back. He and the startled Marines saluted Helo. Tyrol’s face was flushed, his dark eyes intense.
“What the hell is going on here?” Helo addressed the guards. His gaze flickered over to the Chief for a second before he continued. “Since when is a visitor allowed to assault a prisoner?” Tyrol’s eyes widened, surprised at the accusation.
“Sir?” one of the guards ventured.
“I can see the marks on her wrist from here, Corporal.” Sharon’s eyes- Boomer’s eyes seemed to bore into Helo as she rubbed at the angry red impressions the Chief’s fingers had left on her skin. There was already the shadow of a bruise on her cheek, where the bone had connected with one of the bars.
“She’s a Cylon, sir,” the younger guard stated, as though that were justification for any abuse.
“She is a prisoner under your care and you will treat her as such.”
“Collaborator.”
Helo’s head whipped around. He stared at Tyrol, saw the same contempt in the man’s eyes that had been directed at Boomer, turned on Helo instead. “What did you say, Chief?”
“You’re a frakking Cylon sympathizer. Sir.”
Helo kept his own anger under tight control. “Get out.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Chief. Get out. I won’t report this, because I know what you’re going through, but it ends now.”
Tyrol looked at Helo for a long moment, but then he seemed to deflate. The hostility faded from his eyes and he shook his head. “She used you, Lieutenant, just like she did me. How can you defend her? For frak’s sake, sir, you testified against her.”
“She is what she is, Chief.” Helo looked at Boomer, who had retreated to a corner of the cell, at the fear in her eyes. He didn’t see a Cylon saboteur, an attempted murderer; he saw a broken, terrified child. She seemed younger now, more raw than he had ever seen her. “You’re right that we can’t keep a dangerous machine around, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt her. Isn’t it enough that she has to die?”
“She’s not human, sir.” Tyrol’s face showed his confusion at Helo’s attitude.
A faint sound drew Helo’s eyes back to Boomer. She looked as though she were about to say something, but stopped herself; he didn’t know if she would’ve spoken to him or to Tyrol. Her eyes met Helo’s, held. “Actually, Chief, she is physically human.” He thought of Sharon as he had last seen her on Kobol, her pregnancy just starting to show.
“Is that what the other one told you?”
Helo’d had enough of this conversation; he hadn’t come here to compare notes with Tyrol but to say goodbye to Boomer, who had once been his friend. He broke eye contact with Boomer, turned again to the man who had been her lover. “You’re dismissed, Chief.” Helo’s tone invited no argument.
Tyrol saluted stiffly and wheeled about, walking quickly away. The younger Marine followed to unlock the door and release him into the main part of the brig while the other remained at his post.
“Corporal, you’re responsible for the safety of your charges. Don’t forget it again.”
“Yes, sir.” The man’s neutral expression cracked for a second and Helo wondered if he, too, thought him a Cylon sympathizer.
Ignoring the guard, Helo approached the cell. Boomer’s face seemed to melt as the tears that had threatened finally spilled. “Helo.” His name was a plea. She almost ran to the bars, reaching through them, reaching for him. He laced his fingers with hers. “This isn’t happening… Why is this happening?”
His voice was gentle as he answered her. “It is happening, Boomer. You’re a Cylon.”
“No, it isn’t true.”
She shook her head, emphasizing the denial, the movement not stopping when Helo said, “You were programmed to believe you’re human, but you are a Cylon.”
“Please, don’t let them kill me, Helo.”
“I can’t do anything about it, Boomer.” Her cold fingers tightened on his, squeezing almost to the point of pain. “I came to say goodbye and to let you know that I’ll be there. You won’t die alone.”
A change came over her face then. Suddenly, Helo knew that what he saw wasn’t Boomer, but rather a human-model Cylon, one that was very much aware of what she was. Her fear was gone, replaced by curiosity. “I think I understand why you were chosen.”
“Chosen for what?”
“To father the next generation.”
Helo tried to pull his hands away from the Cylon, but she wouldn’t let him. Her grip was too strong for him to break. Just that quickly, the Marine standing in sullen silence only a few meters away might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy - if she chose to harm Helo, the guard couldn’t prevent it, whether he wanted to or not.
The Cylon cocked her head, looked at him with a strange half smile. “Are you frightened of me, Helo?”
Was he afraid? He held himself motionless as he thought about it and realized that he wasn’t. She could probably kill him in a heartbeat, but he didn’t think she would.
Not waiting for him to answer, she continued, “She’s calling for you, you know. She has been for days.”
“Who’s calling for me?”
“Your Sharon. The others have her. They’ll take the child.” Helo felt his pulse begin to pound, imagined his heart skipped a beat as she continued conversationally, “Once it’s born, they’ll no longer have a use for her. They see her as defective. A traitor.” She leaned in closer until her face pressed against the bars, close enough that Helo could feel her breath. “She’ll die a traitor’s death.”
Not expecting a useful answer, still he had to ask. “Do you know where she is?”
“They’re on Kobol, for now. A baseship is on its way.” As before, without warning, she changed. Boomer looked at him through liquid-dark eyes, begging him to help her.
“Helo, what’s happening to me?” she whispered.
***
Sharon had dreamed again. Dreamed that she had called for Helo until her voice had become hoarse, her throat sore, until all that could be heard was a pitiful whimper. She thought she was awake now, because she could neither see nor hear anything; when in the dream, a misty light surrounded her.
In reality, she was held in darkness, both the literal darkness imposed by a straightforward lack of light and the more figurative darkness of being cut off from the system. Always, the system had been in the back of her mind, able to be accessed in case of need. Always, there had been a dim awareness that she wasn’t alone, that others of her kind were within reach. There was no instant communication, no reading of minds. She hadn’t even noticed the system anymore until it was gone, although she thought that the others could still spy on her through the severed connection.
The others had taken everything else from her as well before discarding her here: her clothes, her weapons and ammunition, her canteen. To compensate, her cell was kept at a temperature that was bearable, if not precisely comfortable. Sharon had become used to it - at least she was dry.
She didn’t know how long she had been held here, or even where “here” was. They fed and watered her at irregular intervals as though she were an animal. Sometimes when there was food there was light, but mostly it was just the darkness, the scent and the brief difference in air quality during its delivery the only clue that she had been given food or water.
At first, she hadn’t worried. She carried Helo’s child, after all, and the fetus was too new, too undeveloped for the others to risk either taking it from her or causing her real harm. Until the baby was viable, they couldn’t kill her.
But she had realized over the past however much time it was that she hadn’t thought things through. She had kept Helo safe from the immediate danger of the Centurions that hunted them by the simple expedient of breaking off from the rest of the group. Sharon had known they wanted her more than the humans, with the possible exception of Helo, and had acted on that knowledge, protecting Helo and by extension the rest the best way she could. The fact that she had acted as a decoy had allowed them the time they needed to escape the planet’s surface.
But after a week on the run, the Centurions - the ones the humans called “toasters” - had caught her and taken her to the others. There had been half a dozen of them, including one of her own model. She had tried to speak to them, tried to interject herself into their discussion of her, of Helo, of the other humans who had been trapped on Kobol, but they hadn’t permitted it. They had talked around her as if she couldn’t hear them. It was then that she had been cut off from the system. Finally, one of the Six models had ordered the Centurions to take her to a holding area to await interrogation.
Sharon had been held awaiting interrogation for long enough to think through quite a few different scenarios, most of them unsettling. The most frightening of them - for she was now frightened, for both herself and her child - was the prospect that the others would take the fetus, keep it alive through artificial means and thus make Sharon unnecessary.
Curling protectively into a fetal position, she let the tears come. “Helo…” His name echoed her dreams.
After a time she felt warmer, safer somehow, as she had when she and Helo were on Caprica. Even though there was no real need to close her eyes - the darkness was almost suffocating in its intensity - close them she did. She pretended that Helo was there with her, his arms and body wrapped around her, keeping her and their child safe.
***
She had held herself together, at the end, and Helo thought that might have been, at least in part, due to his presence. When the guards had brought her into the room, she had scanned the faces of those who had come to watch her die, looking for one in particular, but not finding him. Tyrol hadn’t attended Boomer’s execution and Helo had watched the hope die in her face. She had looked so lost as they seated her in a chair in the center of the stage. Ignoring the whispers and looks directed at him - some curious, some accusing - Helo had pushed his way through the crowd to the front where she couldn’t help but see him.
The moment she spotted him, he knew it. She stiffened, straightened her back and pressed her shoulders into the chair, lifted her chin. Her wide, terrified eyes locked on his and held, unblinking, as Doc Cottle administered the injection that would take her life. He hadn’t looked away until she was well and truly gone.
For Boomer, there was no more fear or pain or uncertainty. Whatever part of her had been human was, he hoped, at rest. As for that part of her which was Cylon, if what Sharon had said was true, then it had uploaded itself to another copy. Resting his forehead against the cool metal of Boomer’s locker in quarters, Helo entertained the possibility that Boomer’s Cylon soul may have joined with Sharon’s consciousness, since the fleet wasn’t far from Kobol. Sharon might be the nearest copy.
“Gods…” Straightening, he pulled open the door. The locker was filled with the same sorts of things that could be found in most of the lockers aboard Galactica: clean uniforms, boots, a few items of civilian clothing, soap, shampoo, a few photographs. There was nothing out of the ordinary and Helo felt strangely disappointed.
Without ceremony, he shoved her things into a bag. Most of it would go to the quartermaster to put back into circulation. The private things, such as the photographs, Helo would see if the Chief wanted. Recalling their last meeting, Helo had to laugh at himself for thinking the man might want a reminder of her. But they were supposed to have had feelings for each other. If their positions had been reversed, if it had been Sharon executed, Helo would’ve wanted to keep whatever he could of her.
The realization surprised him.
About to close the door of the now-empty locker, Helo was caught by his reflection in the mirror, saw what Boomer must have seen: his face, but older, thinner, dark shadows painted under his eyes. On the mirror’s smooth surface there were traces of what looked like yellow paint. Helo examined it more closely and saw the faint outline of a word - Cylon - that had been scrawled there and hastily wiped away. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was something he had to look forward to, merely because he had refused to abandon her.
What appeared to be a photograph was wedged behind the mirror; he hadn’t seen it until he had leaned in close to those yellow flecks. The photo stuck when he pulled on it and he carefully pried at the mirror. It and a couple of others slipped free and he realized they had probably fallen behind it some time ago, forgotten.
The photo had been taken a few weeks before the decommissioning ceremony; a lifetime ago, it seemed to him now. The photographer had captured the smiling faces of Boomer, Starbuck, Flattop, and himself, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, beers in their hands. They had been celebrating Boomer’s first solo landing - not normally such a big deal, but it had been in front of the Old Man and it had been flawless. Helo smiled remembering it. That had been a good day - none of them had known then that it was one of their last.
Helo’s grip on the flimsy piece of pasteboard tightened. Flattop and Boomer were dead. The Starbuck and Helo in that photograph were just as dead, he thought, even though they both still physically lived. No one who had survived that day of destruction would ever be the same.
Slipping the photo into his pocket, Helo hefted the sack that contained all that was left of Boomer. Just as the things in the sack would be reassigned, so would her rack and her locker. Helo felt an abrupt longing for a lollipop. He lifted a hand and roughly wiped the tears from his face.
“Karl, are you okay?”
He hadn’t heard anyone come in. Embarrassed, Helo slammed the locker shut, fumbling for a second to keep from dropping the sack. “Kara.” Nobody else ever called him Karl. He turned to face her.
She nodded at the sack. “Boomer’s stuff?”
“Yeah.”
She blinked several times rapidly, her eyes wide as she fought her own tears and Helo thought of the photograph in his pocket. Boomer had been Kara’s friend, too.
Kara took another step into the room, tossed a magazine to the foot of her rack. “Do you think her soul made it to wherever a Cylon soul goes?”
“I don’t know.” He let the sack slip gently to the floor. “Kara…” She dropped to her rack, focused those big, brown eyes on him. Her eyes looked as bruised as his had, reflected in that mirror. “Kara, she said something to me, a day or two ago.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A day or two ago?”
“I visited her in the brig,” he admitted.
“Before or after the trial?”
He leaned back against the lockers, banged his head once, knowing what she was going to say. “After.”
“Not bright, Karl.”
Helo shot her a lopsided, self-mocking grin. “When have you ever known me to be bright, Starbuck?” He noticed that she was looking at her hands, rubbing bruised knuckles. He frowned. “You in a fight?”
Raising an eyebrow, she gave him back his grin. “Yep. Over you. Seems there’s a faction thinks you’re a Cylon sympathizer. Now I know why.”
He bit his lip, shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I know I’m not, you know, the Old Man knows.”
“It does matter, Karl. The duty roster has you back in the cockpit of a Raptor. If your ECO, your wingmen don’t trust you…”
He sighed. The damage had already been done and he couldn’t bring himself to care enough, just then, to want to undo it. “She told me Sharon’s been calling for me for days. That the Cylons have her and they’ll kill her as soon as the baby’s born.”
“I thought Boomer didn’t remember anything about being a Cylon.”
“She didn’t. I think her mind… fractured somehow. One minute I was talking to Boomer, saying goodbye. The next I was talking to a Cylon.” He snorted. “Scared the hell out of me.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
“They’re holding Sharon on Kobol, but there’s a basestar on its way.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Have you reported this?”
“No.” His reply was little more than a whisper. He should have reported it right away, he knew. It had been a good day and a half since the Cylon had said it. But Commander Adama was still off the active duty roster, still recovering from his wounds, and he would have to go to Colonel Tigh with the information. Finally, he met Kara’s eyes. “I don’t trust Tigh.”
“That makes two of us, but you have to report this.”
“You’re right. I know. It’s just…”
“Karl, you are not going to play hero and go down there to rescue her.” When he didn’t answer, she laughed and stretched out, her crossed arms pillowing her head. “You’re a frakking moron, you know that?”
“There wasn’t anything I could do for Boomer.” The image of the life fading from Boomer’s eyes stung. The thought of the life fading from Sharon’s eyes, of that blonde Cylon taking their child… He couldn’t let that happen. Sharon had protected him during their time on Caprica, she had kept him alive; he would have died that day in the woods at the hands of the one she called Six, if not for Sharon, engineered though her presence had been. It was his turn to give her something back, if he could.
“I can’t just abandon her.” He focused again on Kara. “I love her, Kara.” It was the first time he had said it aloud. For that matter, it was the first time he had admitted it to himself.
She stared at him and he felt uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. She mouthed a word - he thought it might have been the name of her dead fiancé, Zak - then, “You have to tell Tigh about the basestar.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “He’s got both of us under observation. Until that lifts, you can’t go after her - he’d have you shot down.”
Helo could practically see the gears turning in her mind. “What are you proposing?”
“That heavy Raider is close enough to a Raptor that they’re going to want a Raptor pilot to handle it. They’ve got me going over her ‘cause I have experience with Cylon ships.” She opened her eyes again. “I’ll see if I can get you assigned to her.”
“It’ll take weeks to figure that heavy Raider out…”
She nodded agreement. “And it’ll probably take weeks before Tigh calls off the watchdogs, even if the Old Man were to return to active duty tomorrow.” Her eyes sparkled with a reckless glint. “Plenty of time for us to figure a way to steal her.”
***
Sharon slept. When she woke, she was still surrounded by darkness - cloying, consuming. The air smelled different, not the scent of water or of the bland food she had been given. Something else.
“Is someone here?”
There was no answer. She sat up, listening intently, trying to force her eyes to pick up the slightest glimmer of light, her ears to detect the tiniest whisper of sound. But there was nothing. It was as though she were wrapped in meters-thick cotton, nothing but the air she breathed able to penetrate it.
Drawing her knees up to her chin, Sharon wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek on her knees. For the hundredth time at least, she wished that she had never tried to lead those Centurions from Helo and the other humans.
She thought of those humans, all save Starbuck people she had known only from her downloaded memories, not from experience. Galen Tyrol, the one her - predecessor? counterpart? - had instinctively chosen as a sort of protective camouflage while living among those who were her unknowing enemies. Commander Adama, the human who was perhaps the most dangerous to the Cylons. Gaius Baltar, the man Helo had given up his place for, unwittingly volunteering himself into the Cylon plans for the future.
Helo. How she wished he were here with her now, selfish though that wish was.
“I’m here, Sharon.” Helo’s voice was a whisper, shocking her to the depths of her soul.
“No, you can’t be.”
“Well, why the frak not? You’re the one who wanted me to come here.” Now he sounded more like the man with whom she had played Triad in her borrowed memories. “Don’t you want me, Sharon?” There was teasing in his voice.
She didn’t trust this. He couldn’t be here. Her mind was playing tricks on her. If there was anything of reality to the sound of his voice, then it was some kind of recording fashioned by Six to torment her.
“Is Six the blonde?” he asked in response to Sharon’s unspoken thoughts, curious. “Well, if you don’t want me, I’m sure she’ll be happy to-”
“Shut the frak up. You’re not here.” No more able to see now than she could five minutes before, Sharon looked up toward where the ceiling of the small chamber should be. “I’m not falling for it, Six. You can stop playing your little games.”
In answer, the room flooded with light. Bright, painful light.
Sharon couldn’t see a door, although she knew there had to be one. All she saw was Six, dressed in virginal white. Six, who stood in a corner of the featureless room, one hand held gracefully palm to wall, the usual predatory gleam in her blue eyes. She cocked her head to one side, stared at Sharon unblinking. Those intense eyes drifted from Sharon’s face to her once flat stomach as though she could see beyond the barrier of Sharon’s crossed arms and legs. Six licked her lips, smiled, and Sharon shuddered.
“Who were you talking to, Sharon? Your lover? He isn’t here. You’re quite alone.” She trailed her fingers down the wall as she stepped away from it, toward Sharon. Step after slow, inexorable step, she stalked her helpless prey.
Six’s attitude, rather than causing further distress, made Sharon angry. She smiled back at the blonde, the smile not reaching her eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong, Six.” Her smile only widened as the other woman’s eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “I’m not alone.” Sharon taunted Six, knowing it was a foolish thing to do. “I have my child here with me.”
A chill ran down her spine when Six relaxed back into her previous rapacious stance. She brought out from behind her back a hypodermic needle. “That’s quite true, Sharon, for now…”
***
When Helo arrived in the ready room - Gods, was this really his first mission brief in over three months? - several others were already there. Plenty of empty seats were available, one of which was next to Starbuck, so he headed that way. His own personal Marine guard took up a position to the left side of the door. Another guard was already stationed to the right; Helo figured that one belonged to Kara.
She rolled her head on the back of the chair to look at him as he dropped into the seat. “Damn, Starbuck, you look like crap.” Or at least like she hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Taking her sunglasses from the neckline of her tanks and placing them carefully over her eyes, she pantomimed a kiss at him and said, “I love you, too, Raptor Boy.”
Helo laughed and relaxed into his chair, stretching his arms out over the backs of the two to either side. Kara leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair was damp and smelled of shampoo.
A third Marine walked down the side aisle past Helo and Kara as the CAG stepped up to the podium. The first thing Adama seemed to focus on was Kara’s head on Helo’s shoulder, the second the dark glasses she wore. Helo felt it when Kara broke into a smirk, but her head remained on his shoulder and the glasses remained over her eyes.
“We have reason to believe that a Cylon baseship is headed toward Kobol,” Adama began. Kara pounded Helo’s thigh once with her fist, acknowledging that he had gone to Tigh, after all. “It may arrive any day and we’re still too close to the planet, so we have to be ready for that possibility.” Adama stopped talking and looked around the room, pausing for an instant on each face. “There are several new crew assignments, so pay attention,” he continued, consulting the printed roster in his hands. “Lt. Agathon, you are assigned as pilot to Raptor 386. Lt. Pindar, you’re Agathon’s ECO. Ensign Shakri, you’re on the CAP; you and Costanza will act as wingmen to Lt. Thrace…”
The rest of the assignments meant nothing to Helo, so he tuned Adama out. A wave of nostalgia coursed through him as he recalled the last time he had been here. It had been Ripper giving out the assignments and Adama was just a visitor flying with them for the decommissioning ceremony. Boomer had sat next to him and the room had been so crowded with pilots that a few had to listen from outside the door.
Now Ripper and Boomer and so many others he had known were dead while he made plans to steal a ship and become a deserter, both criminal actions, so that he could infiltrate an enemy stronghold and play hero. So that he could attempt to rescue the woman he loved and the child she carried. His child.
Kara was right - he was a frakking moron.
That heavy Raider was designed for use by the bio-Cylons and Kara thought that it was a design that included elements of both the Raider she had taken and Colonial Raptors. Between the two of them, he and she ought to be able to determine how the damn thing worked. He prayed that it wouldn’t be too late, since it seemed the fleet was about to leave Kobol’s system, and every jump they made would make it that much harder for him to find Sharon.
Helo’s awareness was brought back to the briefing when Kara shifted, pulling away from him. Leaning forward, eyes still hidden behind the dark glasses, Kara smirked at the CAG. “So Apollo. You’ve had some time to work out the kinks… How do I fit in the cockpit with my watchdog? Sit on his lap? ‘Cause that could be fun.” There were several snickers from around the ready room. “But what if I grab the wrong stick?”
Helo smacked Kara in the back of the head, eliciting a glare from her. He thought it was a glare, anyway, since he couldn’t see through the glasses.
Apollo rolled his eyes eloquently. “You’re just a laugh a minute, Starbuck,” he tossed at her, shaking his head, lips half-quirked in a faint smile. “All right, that’s it. Dismissed. Good hunting.”
***
Ice and fire warred in Sharon’s veins; she felt nothing but the pain. Whatever Six had injected into her burned through her body, leaving nothing in its wake but frozen ash, cinders.
She whimpered, but as time passed and the pain increased, she began to scream. As she had in her dreams, Sharon screamed his name over and over again. When she no longer had the strength to scream, she still called for him. Not as frantic, but just as desperate. Helo’s name became the only prayer she knew.
Six had won.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Cross-posted all over the place. :P
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link to part 2