A Book By Its Cover

This story and all themes and ideas contained in said story are the sole ownership of J.L. Scott. Any copyright infringements can be prosecuted in a court of law.

To borrow a phrase: Battlestar Galactica no mine...no money, no sue, please?

"Apollo, keep up!" Ariel called back to him. She was stopped, again. It was nearly pitch dark in the woods where the trees grew so closely together that the canopy blocked out the full moon. He could barely see her. His head hurt and his leg had begun to throb. He could feel blood trickling down his leg and knew the running was only making it worse. But he could hear Cylons crashing through the trees and underbrush now, they were getting closer. He kept moving, feeling a little like a weight tied to her leg. She hadn't eaten all day, not since that morning's berries and water. She found a few things for him, mushrooms and some leaves that had tasted like mint, but hadn't taken any for herself. Apparently natural sources of food were somewhat scarce up here. Especially with the woods on fire behind them now.

"Come on, just a little further, we're almost there" she said as he finally caught up with her. She slung his arm over her shoulder and it was easier to move with her support. He might not have a concussion, but he had hurt his head and it was finally catching up with him. And so were the Cylons.

"It's right there" Ariel told him but he saw nothing. Strike that, he saw Cylons.

"Ground!" he cried and pulled her down as he dropped. He pulled his gun out and fired at the machine before it could fire at them but he missed. His hand was shaking. He tried to hand the gun to Ariel but she pushed it back, shaking her head.

"I don't know how" she replied, "We don't have guns" Lee raised the gun again. The Cylon fired first. It had bad aim, and the ground next to them spit up into the air. Lee fired, again, again, again. The Cylon went down. They got off the ground, Ariel supporting Lee again, and they were off. Cylons were behind them, firing, but there was no time to stop and fire back. All they could do was dodge and thank the gods that the Cylons had bad aim. Odd, for a machine to miss.

"It's here" Ariel announced, stopping. Lee didn't see anything but more trees. But they had stopped so he turned and began firing back at the Cylons who were even now growing too close for comfort.

"Ariel Serenity Marie Angelique Veronica Nimon" Lee heard something like a whoosh and Ariel's hand on his arm pulled him backwards, into an even more complete darkness. Suddenly, the woods disappeared, the Cylons disappeared. There was nothing but black.

"Lights" Ariel's voice said and a flicker, then a glow, then full overhead lights came on, nearly blinding Lee. He was staring at a wall with "Exit" marked in red at eye level. He could see the faint outline of a doorway. He slowly turned on his heel and glanced around the space. It was a laboratory of some sort. There were work tables with microscopes and tubes littered across them. Lee didn't recognize all of the equipment.

"Where are we?" he asked. Ariel was standing by his side, her eyes drifting over the room in a familiar way.

"This is my father's retreat" she replied.

"Where is he?" He couldn't hide the suspicion in his voice, the doubt.

"I told you, he died two years ago. I'm not lying to you, Apollo, and I'm not a Cylon so quit looking at me like that" she replied, almost hotly. Lee put his gun away, but didn't take his eyes off of her. He believed her.

"Then what are you?" he asked.

"Human" she answered as if it was obvious and he was stupid to have asked. He shook his head.

"No, no human can do what you've been doing. You hear them before they're close enough to hear, you run and never get tired and you hardly eat" He could've gone on with a few other odd things he'd noticed about her but he stopped. She closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them again, he could see how tired she was. Exhausted.

"Come on, lets get you fixed up and I'll tell you everything" she turned around and crossed the lab. He followed, not too closely, careful not to touch anything. There was a door, and behind it a stairway. He had to use the walls to get himself up. At the top was that cozy little cabin he'd been imagining, with a huge bed that was making his mouth water and a fireplace. There was even a kitchen, though no food.

"Sit" Ariel ordered and Lee lowered himself onto the couch in front of the fireplace. There was chopped firewood sitting beside it and Ariel piled it up, lighting it was a box of matches that sat on the mantle.

"The smoke is caught and ventilated out, so it won't give away our position" she explained. She got up and crossed to the kitchen, opening a cupboard and pulling out a box marked "food stuffs" that looked like it had been issued before his father had even joined the military. She tore the box open and pulled out two packets, tossing one to him. He didn't look at the date before opening it and stuffing the contents in his mouth. There was running water too, and Ariel was boiling some on the stove that apparently still worked. This was not the level of technology he'd seen in the village. This was on par with modern facilities. What was going on?

"You're going to have to take that flight suit off so I can dress those wounds" Ariel said around a full mouth. Lee swallowed what he'd been chewing and regarded her. She was in another cupboard, pulling out what looked like clothes, tossed them to him.

"They were my father's" she explained, "Nothing fancy but they're dry and clean" She turned around and started fiddling with the water. Lee unzipped his flight suit and tossed it aside, pulled the brown pants of soft cotton over his legs. They were baggy, made for a much bigger man. He needed a belt. Ariel was banging around in cupboards again, this time pulling out first aid supplies. She crossed the small room to him and nodded at the couch. He was waiting for her to start talking, start explaining what was going on.

"Not until you're fixed up" she said, as if she could feel his anticipation. Lee laid face down on the couch. She rolled up the leg of the pants and Lee felt a warm cloth wiping away the crusted and dripping blood.

"Have you ever heard of a scientist named Zigroy Nimon?" she asked. Lee turned his head so that he could see the fire.

"Yes" he answered, "He was a geneticist. Disappeared a while ago" He'd learned about it in school.

"Yep. A geneticist hell bent on genetically engineering the perfect human beings" Ariel went on as she applied something that stung like hell to his leg, "He'd done all the laboratory experimentation he could and wanted to try it on a fetus"

"Yeah, I remember reading about it. The Medical Ethics council forbade him from doing it. There was a big controversy about it. Didn't he have his title stripped away?"

"When he went ahead and performed failed experiments anyway, yes" she replied. Lee wanted to know where she was going with this. Nimon. Her last name was Nimon. Dr. Nimon disappeared about 30 years ago. She was nowhere near 30.

"He was not happy with…well anything, after that. He disappeared for a while, then reappeared, then disappeared again for good" she continued, "He came here" She had finished with his leg. Lee turned over and sat up. She sat back on her feet and looked up at him.

"He was your father" She nodded, "You're genetically engineered" She nodded again. She was created. Like the Cylons.

"I'm different from the Cylons" she said right away, "I was born, not produced. I share genetic material with both my parents, my father married a woman from the village. Her name was Marie Biddle" Lee didn't know if he could handle this. She was an artificial human. Beautiful, smart, strong Ariel was an artificial human.

"It's not like I chose this, Apollo. I was born this way. I've never used my advantage for anything but to help people. I've wished my whole life that I wasn't who I was, but it doesn't change anything" He looked back at her. She was being sincere. She hadn't chosen for her father to mess with her genetic codes.

"The truth is I could swear up and down that I'm not a Cylon, that all I want to do is help people, but it won't make any difference if you don't believe me" She stopped and looked at him. He looked at her. The scratches on her face, her swollen feet, her ripped dress. It was a lot to take in.

"I believe you"

"Raptor five just came back" Starbuck announced in the briefing room, "They didn't find anything"

"Well, that severely limits our options" Dr. Baltar said. Adama gave him a look from across the room.

"I tend to agree with Dr. Baltar" President Roslin said, "We need supplies and there aren't any in this sector. We need to jump to another sector" Colonel Tigh looked to Adama. There was fading hope in his eyes. To lose another son would break the man. Tigh had known William Adama a long time and he remembered what it had been like when Zack died. Perhaps no one else had noticed the devastation. It had only increased when a short while latter his wife had followed their youngest son. Tigh knew that with the passing of Lee, the Adama line would end. And the Fleet would be out a great leader. And he would have to be in charge.

"We'll give it another 24 hours" he said when the Commander said nothing. Nobody objected.

"She died when I was six"

"Do you remember her?"

"A little. Some people say I look like her" Ariel smiled, just a bit. She had changed into some of her father's old clothes as well and had been forced to find rope to use to keep the pants up. She looked very funny, sitting in front of the fire with her hair unbraided and her father's clothes on. Lee had washed her feet for her, careful to be tender. She didn't cry or show any signs of pain when he'd cleaned the cuts out.

"You look like her?" he asked.

"Well, I certainly don't look anything like my father" she laughed, "He was tall. And I know what you're thinking. If he was going to genetically engineer the perfect human, why not make her tall and lithe and blonde with blue eyes, right?" He was thinking that, actually.

"Dr. Nimon was kind of nuts" she answered, "He wanted to make the perfect human, and he thought part of that was being imperfect. You know, so that people still looked like their family?" She wiggled her eyebrows and sighed.

"He really pushed you, didn't he?" Lee suddenly realized what her childhood must've been like. No playing camp in the backyard with a younger brother, no school yard games or giggles with other little girls.

"Yes, he did. To the edge of my limits. Just to see how far I could go" she replied with a matter of fact tone, but it changed, to something sad and angry, "I was nothing but an experiment to him, he rarely remembered that I was also a little girl with feelings and no mother. All I ever wanted was to make him proud of me, but no matter how fast I ran or long I went without eating, he was never satisfied"

"How long you could go without eating?" Lee repeated, unable to believe what he'd actually heard. Her father would starve her just to see how long she could go without eating? What kind of man would do such a thing to his own daughter?

"Seven days" she told him, "Only a couple days longer than you could. It wasn't enough for him. He'd come back up here and fiddle around, make notes"

"Must've been hard, growing up with a man who was never happy with anything you did" Lee commented, thinking about his own childhood.

"You're father's very proud of you" Ariel said with that look in her eye again. Lee ignored the message of what she said and focused on the words.

"How do you do that?" he asked, his eyes narrowing just a bit. Sometimes he felt that she was looking right through him, seeing more of him than others could. More of him than he could see himself, "How do you hear what I'm thinking?"

"I can't hear what you're thinking, but I can sort of…feel what you're feeling. Dr. Nimon was a firm believer in telepathy. He never got over that I wasn't"

"Telepathic?"

"A mind reader? Yes" Ariel laughed lightly, rubbing her temple. Then the smile faded and she sighed. Apollo glanced at the time on his watch. It was later than the time he'd allotted for rest.

"We need to get going" he said, "We need to get off this planet"

"Off the planet? And go where exactly?" Ariel asked, her brows lifted.

"Back to the Galactica" Lee replied, confused. Of course back to the Galactica.

"Apollo, the Galactica is not up there anymore" Ariel said, "If she were we'd have been able to see the battle at night, Starbuck or someone would have come back for us by now. It's been four days. They're gone"

"No" Lee shook his head, "My father will wait for me" Ariel didn't reply right away. She looked at him. She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him it couldn't be. He could tell. He could see her now. She opened her mouth.

"All right"