Kara's fingers curled into a fist so tight the nails cut into her palms. She ached to just spin around and punch some blood, ochre or whatever out of Serena's manufactured head and decorate the white marble floor they were tip-tap-toeing across with nice red splatters. But she didn't. One dead Cylon would be great, especially if it were Serena. But many, many dead Cylons would be greater. And hey, the bitch was taking her to that God crap-head. Talk about a golden opportunity to do some damage. Woo-hoo, the good kind of news. Almost good enough to make Kara's knees stop knocking together.

She was scared. Holy shit, she was terrified. By all 102 of the frakkin' Holy Lords, Kara was more frightened than anything she could remember. Not for herself, but for her babies and humanity's comeback tour back on Zodiac. If Serena's littermate had been betraying ever since Judgment Day, which explained a hell of a lot, like why they could never outrun the Cylons, but it also meant they might know about humanity's last hope. Maybe. Oh God, please no. Please?

Serena once again poked Kara with that polite little pistol, and Kara snarled a word-less obscenity back over her shoulder.

"Just hurry up, will you?" Serena said. "My God doesn't have all day to wait around for a human."

Ambling along Kara rolled her shoulders and wagged her head trying not to go into attack mode. If the Cylons' God lived here, this tower had to be their Heaven, right? No wonder they'd sprung for the white marble and gold trim. The toilets were probably platinum. It was even gaudier than the ancient, 10th-century Lords' Temple back in Caprica City and that was going some.

Ahead the column of female slaves stepped into sunlight in a new section of the hall. For a dazzling moment became the wingless angels that were supposed to show up at a Lords-blessed death to take heroes off to the Higher Realms.

When Kara passed the same spot, she figured maybe she'd missed the dying part 'cause she was certainly flying. On her right, just an arm's length away, the entire wall had changed to clear, frame-less windows that looked straight out on a blue sky, and straight down below to Cylon Central spread out like Caprica City in mid-summer. Lush green trees alternated with white buildings while black robotic dots scampered on a brilliantly reflective cement pavement as if their lives had some meaning and purpose other than killing and being killed in their frakkin' endless war.

Spacing had hammered vertigo out of Kara years ago, but she was more than 14 stories up and only a few feet from a sheer drop with no nice safe Viper or Galactica under her butt. She veered to the other side of the hall.

There no doors marred the marble expanse, at least none of the obvious kind with handles and hinges, but as Kara walked along every five or six meters a pair of cracks ran from floor to ceiling. When they'd reached about the middle of the building, the lead slave halted and spread arms as if to pray. After deep moaning groan thrummed from well-practiced slave throats, the wall cracked wide-open and peeled back. The women marched in, each kissing the doorjamb as they passed through.

"Follow them," Serena's drippy sweet voice ordered from behind.

"Yes, Sir," Kara muttered, but added sotto voce, "Up yours." Flexing an arm, she grabbed it at the elbow. "Shove it up to here" that had meant back in the rough neighborhood where Kara grew up.

Serena didn't say anything. Maybe Cylon programming didn't cover obscene gestures.

Entering the tall chamber, Kara squinted and her hands came up to shield her eyes. If the hall outside had been bright as a greenhouse, this was dazzling but in an entirely different source-less way. There were no windows, just light. It came from everywhere and left no shadows. In the relentless illumination Kara could pick out the individual threads on the slave women's ragged clothing.

The slaves gathered around a translucent pillar centering the room. One, a tall gray-haired gal, clapped her hands three times then with her head bowed in either humility or trepidation, put her hands on the gleaming glass and with a slight grunt pushed. A curved pair of doors slid in and to either side to reveal ...

God? Frak, if that thing is a God, Kara thought, I'm a Cylon.

The Cylon God was a man. At least Kara thought it was. The sex wasn't in doubt, since the creature didn't wear a stitch of clothing. But the species was another matter. It had the general outline of human -- one dick, one head, two arms and two legs -- but that's where the resemblance stopped. Hairless gray skin draped an endoskeleton without any cushioned rounding of muscle. Its eyes hid in two bottomless black holes, and its mouth cut a lipless slash. Something black and invasive traced paths under the thing's skin only to sprout in fine-haired tufts that fastened onto the pillar's interior wall. Red, black, yellow and green filled tubes cascaded from the head, chest and gut, the fluids pulsing, dripping, flowing.

God needed an image consultant and a makeover. God was vile.

Then God moved His head slightly to one side, and Kara realized He was looking at Serena. Finally He spoke in a voice that grunted in Kara's ears like a pig in a garbage dump. "You may leave Us, Seven Slash Two Four Nine."

Serena's answer held no subservience. "No, my Lord God," she stated flatly, the look she gave at Kara said plainer than words, "Don't get any ideas, Thrace. I'm not going anywhere."

Even in Heaven there is war, Kara thought. Apparently God and His Cylons did not get along.

But to Kara's disappointment, God did not chew out Serena for insubordination. Hanging upright, He wheezed, gasped and groaned, as He watched the slave women crawl up to Him on their knees. Pulling out some cloths from under their robes, they began to do disgusting things to His Body. They seemed to be … yes, they were definitely giving Him a bath. Dripping cloths stroked over the loose skin bag, dipped into a shallow basin that somehow appeared in the base of God's pedestal, were wrung out, and came back again.

"You are Starbuck," God finally said.

Kara giggled. The Cylon God knew her name? Now that was notoriety. This whole audience with God was priceless. Too bad she'd never have a chance to tell Lee about it. He would have laughed until he'd cried. Thinking of Lee straightened out Kara's thinking. Lee was dead. Soon she would be too. "That's a big yeppers, God. Starbuck, that's me."

The head moved slightly and piss-pit eyes squinted. "You are very pretty." A long gasp filled in a pause before He finally continued with, "I am Gabriel Sochard, I invented Cylons and I've lived Hell for fifty years." After His long speech God aka Sochard coughed for a minute straight.

Oh, yeah? Kara thought. Like I'm supposed to care?

Sochard's head rolled once again to Kara's left. "Seven Slash Two Four Nine, two more deathstars have deployed to pursue Galactica."

Sochard cum God's tired eyes closed, his face relaxed and Kara wondered if the bastard had mercifully died and saved her the effort. Killing him was going to be like squishing a bug. She'd punch God's insides to his outsides, after which Serena would shoot her in the back, she'd die and it'd be all over. No fun at all.

A minute passed then two. Sochard still hung lifeless. Kara was considering ripping up the frak-fart's carcass, Serena's pistol be damned, when a spasm flapped Sochard straight up as brass bright as a flag in a high wind. His eyes flew open smoking hot.

"Did you really think your humans would be safe on Zodiac?" Sochard growled, his voice filled with the hate of his fifty billion Cylon subjects.

Frak it, the Cylons knew about Zodiac. That knocked out what little stuffing Kara had left. "I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard …"

Sochard interrupted her. Plainly he hadn't been listening. Maybe he was deaf. "My Cylons are strong. We are the future of the universe. Today … tomorrow … we will … we are …" The voice trailed off as Sochard's head sagged.

Kara looked to Serena, still uneasy that Sochard had mentioned Zodiac. She forced a laugh. "This is your God? I've seen fresher pickled fish."

Surprisingly Serena didn't answer right away, she just watched the slave women massaging Sochard's hanging limbs. "I can talk to my God," she finally said, "and He answers." She turned in Kara's direction. "Tell me has the humans' God ever talked to you? Have you ever seen one of your precious Holy Lords? And why did your compassionate God let 30 billion of you die in one day? Why doesn't He at least save the rest? You know the truth already, Kara. Your God fought mine and lost. Your God is dead and the Human Race is over and done with."

Kara snarled back, "Not until the last of us are crushed into the ground, and even then you'll be slipping around in our goo."

Sochard grunted and both Kara and Serena looked his way. He was slowly coming back awake. Plainly the bastard was dying, frak, he'd died a long time ago, but the Cylons were still using him as some sort of central node, maybe legitimizing commands by pushing them through the "God route". Who knew the Cylon mind?

Sochard's eyes opened again, all the fire of a moment before gone. This time they were black and empty. His mouth opened and he sighed. "Kiss me, Starbuck. It's been a long time since a pretty girl kissed this old man."

For a moment Kara stood in slack-mouthed astonishment, then she grabbed her chest, bent over and made as if to toss her cookies. "Pardon me. Sudden attack of nausea," she said as she stuffed a hand into her mouth.

"Very funny, Kara," Serena said. "Stand up and put your hands behind your back." Obeying a wave, a couple of the slaves scampered over from the bathing operation with a length of wet cloth, but stopped a few feet away from Kara, plainly terrified, and Serena had to threaten them with her gun.

"You'll want to get that tight," Kara said to the slave who sidled around to her back. The slave paused, looked at Kara wide-eyed, then quickly away. The slave's knot wasn't tight at all, but Kara didn't pull against it. She had other plans and they didn't involve escape.

Having completed their bath assignment, the slave women bowed first to Serena and then to their God. A moment later they all scampered out the door. Serena waved her pistol and shoved Kara within a foot of Sochard. Kara stumbled, righted herself and looked up into a face that sagged on its cheekbones like an over-done pot roast.

Serena seemed to think Kara was too scared to fight back. The stupid bitch-let never could see what was right in front of her, in this case, literally. Kara was scared all right, but not of Serena.

"Scared spit-less," she was praying silently. "Precious Holy Lords, keep me scared spit-less and I will go to Temple every Lords' Day." The Lords listened. Her mouth was as dry as space.

Grabbing one of Kara's bound arms, Serena pushed her into Sochard's flaccid body. "If you don't want to die right now, I suggest you pucker up, Thrace."

Pursing her lips, Kara's tongue pushed forward the suicide pill she'd popped in her mouth during the upchuck routine. When her lips met Sochard's, it took only a quick squirt to get it out of her mouth and into his. Then pushing past a dry, flaccid tongue, she hockey-pucked the deadly pill down Sochard's throat and into his gut.

At that point, he must have realized what was going on because he twitched and gasped, but Kara didn't pull back. In fact, despite halitosis that put the Galactica's septic tank to shame, Kara kissed Sochard until Serena pulled her off. "Man, your God gives good tongue," Kara said.

"What did you do?" Serena screamed, her eyes on Sochard's lifeless, hanging body.

"Killed him, I hope," Kara snarled.

"You bitch!" Serena's pistol came up.

"Takes one to know one!" Kara shouted as she made a desperate dive for safety on the far side of Sochard's pillar, tugging at the towel binding her hands as she fell which came apart. Kara managed easily to land on a shoulder and forearm, rolling clear as a shot shattered marble where her butt had just been.

As it happened she needn't have bothered.

The lights flickered and went out. In the dead blackness Serena's pistol continued to flash and bark, ricochets spinged and sparked, and shattered glass sang a symphony.

Lee murmured to Casper who had begun sponging at the blood on Commander Adama's forehead, "Get back to your post, Soldier. I'll take care of him."

Casper looked like he'd been kicked, but he nodded, wavered to his feet and picking his way through the litter on the deck, made his way back to the draedus console.

Sopping tentatively at the sluggish red flow, Lee glanced up at Gaeta and asked, "Where are we, Lieutenant?"

His face as white as stellar drift Gaeta was at the FTL console cradling the blue key against his chest. His fast-blinking brown eyes couldn't quite keep up with the tears, and one rolled down his cheek and disappeared into an open mouth. Just five minutes earlier he'd fired the pins that had ejected the starboard landing pod. Six men had been left behind in the pod and when they'd jumped fifteen more in Vipers. They'd recovered only seven planes. Gaeta's voice was thick, as though his mouth didn't want to release any words. "I didn't have enough Tylium for much of a jump, Sir. We're only 7,500 klicks in the direction of the smaller moon. Barely shouting distance." A slender hand stole up to stifle stray sobs. "Is the Commander okay? He's not dead is he?"

Lee didn't know what to tell him. "No, not dead," he said quietly almost to himself, but it was more of a hope than actual knowledge. Then Lee remembered basic first aid training and added firmly, "The Commander's bleeding, and dead men don't bleed. Help me get him off the floor. Let's put him … over there, against the bulkhead."

Even after a none-too-gentle drag across the deck, the Commander's eyes remained closed. Gaeta returned to the navigation station, while Lee took off his jacket and tucked it under the bloody head. As he quickly pressed a fresh large bandage to the cut he muttered, "Don't you dare die before me, old man. We're going out together." Bending over, he kissed a rough cheek. "Together, you hear? You wait for me."

Amy knelt next to Lee. " If you don't mind, Sir. I'd like to take care of him. The guns are dry. My job's finished."

Lee nodded and hugged her across the shoulders with one arm. "Thanks, Amy." Surging back to his feet, he looked around. Everyone but Amy had returned to station and they were looking at him as if he had all the answers. Lee realized that he was in command. His first, last and only battlestar command. "Any of the deathstars catch up with us yet?"

Casper and Anderson answered in chorus. "No, Sir."

Gaeta was checking his wrist chrono and his two camera monitors. "Captain Adama, you'll want to see this. Shiva's impacting in 15 seconds."

Lee waved at the last functional overhead monitor, the one that usually showed the draedus. "Can you put it up there?"

Gaeta nodded and stepped across the aisle to stand next to Casper's console. A planet about the size of a postage stamp replaced the twin oscillating humps of the draedus grid.

Casper himself continued to look down at draedus readouts. "Of frak," he said, "we've got company. Two deathstars. One off the port bow, one underneath us. They're launching already. Launch Vipers, Sir?"

Lee glanced Casper's way then quickly back to the overhead monitor. Yeah, right, launch their last seven Vipers to ram a few more Raiders. That's all they could do. The Vipers were out of shells. "There's no point. Keep 'em corked. Let's watch the show."

Gaeta fiddled with the monitor resolution. Overhead the planet jumped five times larger, then five times bigger again until a single image filled the entire screen -- a splash tower a hundred klicks tall of dust, dirt and ground water climbing from where Shiva had hit target. Curved shock waves raced away from it across the planet's dull gray hard surface like water across a pond. The planet shook and visibly wobbled on its axis. It was magnificent.

Everyone in CIC watched, everyone except Casper. He loved his draedus, always had. "Frak! Oh my sweet God. Sir! Captain Adama! The deathstars are breaking off. They're … I don't know what they're doing, Sir! They're spinning around and … and … Frak! One of them just started firing on its own Raiders! We need to move away, Sir, or they're going to poke some holes in us too!"

Lee's heart jerked with hope. Maybe they weren't going to die just yet. He nodded at Gaeta and Anderson, who ran to the helm. When the maneuvering jets kicked in, the Galactica pivoted delicately on its short axis to point at clear space. The thrusters engaged, and for the last time that day the big ship ran away.

At first Sharon fought waking up, dreading the pain and confusion. But as her mind reluctantly swam out of the black end of the pool and into conscious awareness, she discovered pain-free placidity.

The mental robot monster that had been beating on her brain, demanding entrance was gone. She was Sharon Valerii again. A Colonial, a human soldier with a lover and a son. Not a Cylon obscenity without a name, family or friends.

Had her gamble paid off? Had she been reborn? It seemed so.

Sharon sobbed in relief and new lungs easily filled with air. She was lying down, probably in one of the cribs. Her eyes had opened but either she was blind or the robot tenders had turned out the lights. And there was no sound. Panicking a little, she sat up and called out, "Hello? Anyone there?" Or tried to, it had sounded more like a croaking bullfrog. No one answered anyway. She turned her head. There! Yes, over there something glowed, maybe it was the doors into the marble lined hall. She wasn't blind after all.

Scrambling out of the crib Sharon realized a few more details. She'd lost the Redleken helmet. She was naked.

Overhead the lights flickered off and on, as fat light pulses swam lazily up and down the tubular fixtures. Illumination puddled and shimmered around the room. At the back, the two robot attendants came to life again with a grind of metal on metal. They headed for what might be a garbage chute because they carting away a limp pile of vacated flesh.

Sharon looked away. She was alive not dead. That wasn't her anymore. The Holy Lords had granted her a miracle, a second chance. Grabbing a sheet from the empty crib and wrapping it toga-style, Sharon padded for the exit. The transport might still be outside the building. Kara might even let her onboard. What were a few more impossibilities to the precious, much-to-be-praised Holy Lords?

"You'd think that frakking Snake woulda given up by this time," Heppenmeier gasped.

Gamert, who was lugging their deactivation code transmitter on his back, only grunted. He didn't have enough breath for anything else.

Kelly on one knee and holding the electromag rifle at ready peeked over the parapet. Maybe two hundred meters down a piece of hell still slithered after them. Compared to its earlier lightning dashes, the Snake was inching along, but even with three-quarters of it blown away it pursued as tenaciously as a Piscean saccala prowling for shellbats. Slamming its shattered thorax against the steps in a bang-crunch-crunch-bang rhythm, the Cylon pulled managed a smart pace. The grenades had done a good job, just not good enough. It was still chasing them and they were still running.

One of the nameless recruits, a semi-short guy with an itchy trigger and no smile, twitched his face like it hurt. His name was Spencer. Yeah, Spencer Something. He wasn't nameless at all. Frak, Kelly get a grip. "She said … fif … teen …, Cap. Been … that …," Spencer wheezed, then coughed like an asthmatic seventy year old. He didn't say, "Can't go no more," but he meant it.

Kelly glared at the officious bastard. He was about to say, "Who's in charge of this mission?" when he realized who was really in charge:

Holy Lord Fat-Foot, the Frak Up, that's who. He'd frakked up good. They didn't have much hope of shutting down the Cylon Central Command with that Snake still after them and the mission clock ticking down to the wire.

Kelly turned to look down the stairway just as a hot belch of fire blew up. Involuntarily ducking, he swore and waved at his team to move back. They definitely weren't getting to their Raider that way.

The other recruit, Nameless Number One, had back on the tenth floor, taking their flamethrower combo with him to the Blessed Star Field. Kelly had thought they were all goners when the Snake had cornered them in a blind canyon of locked doors and towered over them like a ragged piece of death … and then it had stopped, frozen in mid-snarl.

Assuming the Snake's wiring had finally shorted out, they'd hung around gawking at it and kicking the tires, then Holy Frak, it had humped up and crunched the poor bastard recruit like a piece of fruit. The rest of them had started running and climbing, the lights flickering off and on overhead and the Snake rattling after them.

They'd gotten maybe two empty door-less corridors away from the stairwell and the Snake, trying to run but more like stumbling along. On Kelly's right stretched a wall-high-and-wide view of Cylon Wonderland, on his left more of the frakkin' white marble. Ahead -- way ahead -- a gaggle of humans or robots or something milled around, dark forms outlined against a sunlit side window. Suddenly they disappeared, maybe down another stairway. Behind Kelly the Snake's scrambling grew louder.

They couldn't go down and they sure as frak weren't taking another flight up. Kelly didn't know if they could make another ten feet. Puffing like mad he leaned against the marble wall, Gamert, Heppenmeier and Spencer too. Spencer had better be right. This had better be the right floor.

There'd been more than a few times that Kelly had regretted being a Colonial officer. This wasn't one of them. He had a job. He was going to do it. Pushing away from the wall, he told Spencer, "You and I are going to hold off the Snake while Gamert and Hep look for …"

He got no further. At his elbow the marble wall cracked from top to bottom, spreading rapidly into a hole full of pulsing light and dark. Starbuck shot through, an angry female stone out of a sling, a swarm of bullets chasing her. "Kill the bitch!" she screamed as she flew past Kelly, knocking him clear.

Hep and Spencer stumbled quickly away from the gaping doorway and line of fire, but Gamert, slower moving with the transmitter on his back, went down like a sacrificial calf in the fall harvest feast, a bullet in his neck. The transmitter caught two more bullets on the way down then shattered under Gamert's heavy, lifeless body.

Colonial curse words weren't potent enough. Kelly roared. But even in his rage, soldier reflexes kept him moving, and without even looking inside the room he sprayed it with his hard-shot rapid-fire until his trigger click-click-clicked on empty. No more bullets went in but none came out either.

Kelly turned to ask Starbuck what the frak that had been about, only to find she and Spencer had dragged her halfway down the hall. Looking back over his shoulder, Spencer was screaming about something and pointing like a schoolgirl.

Heppenmeier also stared back the way they'd come while fumbling frantically at the grenades on his belt. "I'll get it!" he screamed as lobbed one long and low. "Run, Cap! Run!"

Kelly glanced in the same direction. Oh damn, the Snake. Hep's grenade skittered under the metal carcass and caught.

They had to get away from this frakkin' glass before that grenade went off! Throwing away the empty hard shot, Kelly took off after Spencer and Starbuck. His weapon just missed Heppenmeier and bounced off the wall of windows.

The building began to shake.