Daala and the Fleet Chapter 18: A Trap, a battlestar galactica: 2003 fanfic

So very sorry about the long wait. My time is very limited, and updates may not be frequent at all. That being said, a big thank you for everyone who has reviewed.

Disclaimer: Don't own them...I wish I did, considering how dark S4 is...

Spoilers: Pegasus

Chapter 18- A Trap

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

Both Leoben and Natalie were in the same room. There were wearing stun cuffs around their wrists and ankles, but besides that had been treated very nicely, with cots and regular food. Of course, it was some kind of paste that was made for Stormtroopers, and tasted horrible, but the two Cylons ate them without protest and projected themselves somewhere else. Suddenly a door hissed open. A tall man walked in, followed by two Stormtroopers. The troopers motioned with their rifles for the prisoners to go to opposite ends of the rooms. They complied, wondering what was going on. The man took a small remote out of his pocket and pushed a button. The stun cuffs let out small shock, not enough to knock them unconsous, but enough to immobilize them.

"You can still move your head and talk." The man said. His voice was low and gravely. "I'm going to give you one chance. Tell me why the Olympic Carrier is back from the dead and there are two Captain Lee Adamas in a holding cell just like this one aboard this ship."

As he had expected, neither of them said a word. "Very well. Come in."

Two little black balls floated into the room . They were bristling with needles, spikes, and other tourter devices.

"Here's how it works." The integrator said. "These two droids are very skilled in producing pain, and they're programmed to enjoy it. We've been studying the Cylon body, and have found the right spots that will produce unbearable pain. They'll go to work on the Six, and you," he said, gesturing to Leoben, "will get to watch her suffer unless you tell us what we want. If that doesn't work, then will switch. These two have never failed before."

The man smiled. "It's time to see what you're made of."

Raptor 398

Sophie was not looking forward to this. Cain was still mad at her, which was probably why she was piloting a Raptor right now, even though she was the CAG. Of course, the person on board was very important, even though she had no respect for him what so ever. Lt. Thorne, Cylon interrogator. She had seen his handiwork. There were also two Marines escorting him. But her worry was who she might find on the hanger deck. If Starbuck was lucky, she would be in her rack. She looked around. No Starbuck. She had started to quietly escort Thorne from the Raptor past the hatch that led out of the hanger deck and into the joining hallway when a deep voice boomed out from behind her. "Deadbolt! What are you doing here?!"

Wincing, she turned to find Colonel Saul Tigh. She had met him when he had spent a few years at the flight academy. Not that she particularly minded seeing him, while she didn't like him that much, she was still glad he was alive. "Good to see you too, sir."

"Drop the sir, we're all friends here."

She sniffed the air around him. It defiantly stank of alcohol. Rumor had it that he the XO, Belzen and shared a few drinks of Galactica's chief's home-made brew. He was defiantly drunk. As she started to leave he grabbed her arm.

"There's someone you see. He motioned for someone in the hanger bay to come over. "Hey Starbuck, did you know Deadbolt was alive?"

Time seemed to slow down for Sophie. She shook Tigh's hand off her arm and stepped back into the hanger, almost running into Kara.

Kara had been working on her Viper when Sophie had arrived. She had quickly hid under the Viper's belly when Sophie's raptor landed, and thought she had got away from her. She was about to leave the hanger when Tigh called for her. She felt like ignoring him, but then remembered that he had access to the Chef's moonshine. When she rounded the corner to meet him she pretty much ran right into Sophie. She was so startled that she froze, and that gave Sophie the time to punch her in the jaw. It hurt, but it had probably done more harm to Sophie's hand then had had done to Kara. But it did knock her off balance enough that she couldn't block a fist in her stomach. She doubled over, and threw herself backward to avoid a boot to the face. She stood up and lunged at Sophie, head butting her. Something crunched, and a bit of blood trickled down Sophie's face from her nose. Angrier then before, Sophie threw a wild punch, but missed by a good foot.

Colonelt Tigh stood watching them, stupefied. He wasn't sure if what he was seeing was real, or whether his alcohol-fogged mind was just hallucinating two pilots trying to kill each other.

Helo had been pulling the same manitence shift as Kara. He was glad that the pilots had finally accepted him, or at least most of them. He was double checking that the gimbal on his raptor when he heard a drunk Tigh shout, "Deadbolt! What are you doing here?!" He stifled a groan. Deadbolt was here. Well, at least if Kara had any sense she would-

"Hey Starbuck, did you know Deadbolt was alive?"

He sprang up from his sitting position on the Raptor and sprinted over to the source of the voices he had heared.

He had known Kara longer thany anyone still alive after the attacks, hell, he had know her longer than almost everyone else before the attacks. He knew that Kara and Sophie had met in the academy and had become good friends. Sophie didn't show quite as much piloting skill as Kara, but she was a little bit more disciplined. She had got transferred to the Pegasus, while Kara had gotten transferred to the Galactica along with Helo. After about (1 year?) later Sophie had been up for promotion to captain. But something had gone wrong. Kara did something (she refused to tell Helo what), and they had a fight. Then there was some kind of investigation, very secret. Helo wouldn't have know about it if it weren't for the fact that Kara talked a lot when she was drunk. It seemed like Kara had tranfred some blame to Sophie, which had gotten her busted down from Lt. S.G., about to be promoted to Captian, to Lt. J.G. Apernalty the last stwaw in their relationship had been when Kara was escorting a Raptor on a flight from Pegasus to Galactica. Kara had been showing off and had acidently clipped the left engine cowling of the Raptor. Sophie had several friends onboard Galactica, and they had thrown a surprise birthday party for her on the Pegasus, and for some reason Kara had been cosen to fly escort. The cowling that got hit sprayed metal parts all over the place, and some got sucked into the Raptor's engines, casuing them to explode. There had been no survivors, and it had been written off as a technical malufinction on Kara's bird. All he knew was that if they encotered each other again ther would be trouble. Sure enough, when he got to the two pilots they were in a full blow battle. It looked like Sophie might have a broken nose, and the way that Kara was holding her arm protectively over her stomach wasb't good. Tigh had passed out on the floor. He ran into the middle of the fight, grabbed each of their soulders with an arm, and pushed them apart. Not suprisgly, he got a black eye for the touble. "Knock it off." He said, but they still were trying to get eachother. Kara suddenly kneed him in the groin. With a yelp of pain he let go of them, and stumbled way. He franticly looked around for help. The chief had been about to start packing for his new assignmed. Cain had decided that he would serve the fleet as a deckhand on the Pegasus. When he saw the fight he came running over to help. Together, he and Helo managed to restrain the two women.

Sophie took one look at Helo and sneered. "I remember you. Helo. You always did take Starbuck's side, no matter what she did."

"That's 'cause it's the right one!" Kara taunted.

"Shut up, Kara." Helo growled.

Kara's eyes narrowed. "Frak you, Helo. Maybe you should hit her. That way you could go to the brig and spend some quality time with Sharon, huh?"

"She's not in the brig, she's in a-"

"Wait, did you say Sharon?" Sophie asked, all intrest in fighting forgotten. "Sharon Valerii? The Cylon?"

Helo resisted the urge to sigh. "Yes."

"You're the one who got her-oh frak."

Helo looked at her quizickly. "What?"

"The man I was escorting was Lt. Thorne, Cylon Interogator. He uses…extreme tactics to get information out of rposners."

"What are you saying?"

"We've had two Cylons on our ship, both female. He rapes them, then gets the crew to join in."

Helo's eyes widened. "Are you saying that-"

The chief grabbed his arm. "We have to go. Now."

With that, they took off down the corridors, racing to the holding cell specaily constrted to hold her, knocking anyone in their way.

Kara looked at Sophie. She was wondering whether she should start hitting her again when she realized that her legs couldn't support her body anymore. She fell to the floor, breathing heavily.

Sophie was about to kick her when she reaized that the last thing Galactica need right now was a pilot with serious injuries. All she knew was this wasn't going to end well.

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

Natalie screamed in pain as the integrator droid injected her with yet another drug. It took one of its needles and plunged it into the spot where her skull connected to her spine. Most of the pain didn't originate from a phisicle source; rather she was imagining it. Leoben couldn't take it anymore. She had supported him when no one else would, when his brother Leobens had outcased him for his beilf that while Kara Thrace had a special destiny, there was someone else that had a even more important destiny. He didn't know who, but he knew that he or she was out here. Natalie had supported him when no one else had, and risked losing her status with the rest of the Sixes to help him. As he thugh about it, he realized that maybe it was possible for one Cylon to love another Cylon

"Stop." He said. The interrogator turned to him.

"What?"

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Just stop it."

The man nodded. "Very well. He pressed a button on a remote he was holding and the droid removed the needle and injected another shot from another needle it had (Leoben had lost track of how many devices it had a long time ago), this time a pain killer.

"Tell me what I want to know or this starts again."

Leoben took a deep breath. "When we found out that the Galactica had escaped destruction, we began to formulate a plan to do whatever we could to disrupt it's activities. Captain Lee Adama was know to have taken a large role in the survival of the Battlestar and its fleet, so we came up with a plan. Some of the Simon models cloned parts of his body from DNA samples. We were able to get a body which looked like him, but it was comatose. So we integrated parts of a Doral model's body to give him a mind. When we captured the Olympic Carrier we made a copy of it's transponder and recognition codes. We wouldn't have been able to do this without the help of Gaius Baltar. He traveled on the Carrier once, and their recognition codes broke down. He helped them repair it, and he has an almost photographic memory. The six that was in charge of getting information out of him got the recognition codes for that. Apparently he talks a lot when he's drunk.

"The real Olympic Carrier was sent back to the fleet, minus the crew and passengers. They tried to get close enough to the fleet to detonate the nuclear warhead that they had aboard their ship, but they were shot down. But everything, the ship coming back from the dead, the second Lee Adama, all that was cover for a agent to slip aboard the Pegasus. I don't know who, and that's the truth."

The interrogator stood there for a moment. Then he motion for the guards and the droids to leave.

"That will be all for know. Food will be served at 1730 hours, and usual.

And then he walked away, like nothing had happened. After a few minutes the stun cuff's shock had worn off enough that he was able to crawl over to Natalie. She was asleep, and after what she had been though she would probably stay that way for a while. He gently planet a kiss on her forehead, and then slouched on the wall next to her, and soon he fell sleep too.

Battlestar Galactica, BSG-(75)

Sharon was in her cell, doing pushups when the door opened. A man walked in, tall with only a little hair, flanked by two Marines. She stopped her exercise and stood up.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked.

The Marines clicked off the safeties on their guns. The man walked up to her and hit her in the face, hard.

"What the frak?!" she spit out.

He grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall. "Why are there two Lee Adamas? Why is the Olympic Carrier still alive?"

She honestly didn't know the answer, as she had been out of contact with the Cylons for long enough that she didn't know all their plans, especially the more secret ones, giving the riskeness of the mission she had had, but she did have a guess. But she sure as hell wasn't telling him. "I don't know."

"Wrong answer." He said. "Hold her." He threw her down onto the cot she splet on, and the marines flipped her on her stomach and held her down, the muzzles of their guns touching her head, discouraging any form of resistance. It wasn't until she felt hands tug on her pants that she realized how much trouble she was in. "I'll tell you!" she screamed, but he didn't listen. The pants came off, and oh gods, he really was going to do it. "No!"

Running through the halls, Chief Galen Tyrol wondered what the frak he was doing. This wasn't his Sharon. Still, when he heard the news, he knew what he had to do.

Run to the holding cell. Open the outer hatch. Inner hatch is open. Thorne must want people to know what's going on. Run inside. Too late. Grab Thorne off Sharon, fling him into a wall. Tackle a Marine.

Finally a Marine that hadn't been attacked manged to grab his gun.

"Freeze! Freeze! Don't either of your frakking move! Get down! On your knees! On your knees. Hands behind you heads! Now! Do it now!"

When they saw the gun Helo and Tyrol reluctantly got off the marine and Thorne. The Marine that had been tackled strubbled to his feet. He then went over to Thorne. Right next to Thorne's head was a bolt that protruded from the wall. It was covered in blood. When the Chief had thrown the interrogator at the wal his head had hit the bolt, and it had gone right through his skull. The Marine bent down and felt for a pulse. There was none. He looked at the two, anger visible in his eyes. "He's dead. You motherfrakers killed him."

"The assault happened here. They should face court-martial aboard Galactica." Commander Adama said on the private line to Admiral Cain. A Raptor had taken Tyrol, Helo, and the body of Thorne to the Pegasus.

"Commander, I am the senior convening authority present and they will be tried on the Pegasus.

"They're my men."

"One of my men is dead." She shot back.

Bill gritted his teeth. "Fine. We both have strong feeling about this case. That only underlines the need for an impartial trial."

"Oh, you mean an independent tribunal? Because according to your logs, Commander, you dissolved an independent tribunal when you didn't like the verdict. And if I'm not mistaken, Chief Tyrol was on trial there as well."

"That was a different time."

"Yes, indeed it was. I'll be in touch, Commander. Thank you."

Before Adama could say anything else Cain hung up on him.

Thirty minutes later he was still in his quarters. Besides worrying about the trial, he still had Lee on his mind. At least Lee was on the Star Destroyer. Bill didn't think he could completely trust Daala, but he didn't even want to think about what would happen to Lee if he was locked up on the Pegasus, not with the story of what had happened there fresh in his mind. And then there was this Deadbolt character. Captain Sophie Narcasa, CAG of the Pegasus. Upon seeing each other, she and Kara almost beat each other to death. He knew Kara wouldn't tell him, and the only other person who would know was Helo, and he was on the Pegasus. Maybe he should talk to Laura. She always made him feel better. He was about to reach for the phone when it started ringing. He picked it up.

"Adama."

"Bill, I just talked to Belzen. Court-martial's over." It was Saul. Bill's mouth dropped open in disbelief. They had just arrived on the Pegasus less than hald an hour ago.

"Over? When did it start?"

"I don't know, but they've been found guilty on all counts. She's going to execute them for murder and treason."

"I want a marine strike team in a Raptor in five minutes. Prepare to launch alert fighters. I'm on my way to the CIC."

When he arrived in the CIC Saul was right there to greet him. "Launch the Raptor and get me a line to Cain."

Dualla slipped on her headset. "Pegasus, Galactica please secure a channel. Commander Adama wants to speak with Admiral Cain."

Bill picked up the phone. There was a hiss, then Cain's voice came over.

"Go ahead."

"You told me they'd get a fair trial. What kind of trial could they have possibly have had?"

"You said they'd get a fair trial. What kind of a trail could they possible have had?!"

"I assure you, I heard them out. I weighed their statements to that of the guards and I took into consideration their service records and commendations. It was a difficult decision, Commander, but I dare say it was a fair one.

"They have the right to have their case heard by a jury.

"I am a flag officer on detached service during a time of war! Regulations give me broad authority in this matter."

He covered the phone and spoke to Tigh. "Launch the fighters."

He picked up the phone again. "You can quote me any regulation you like. I'm not going to let you execute my men."

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62

Cain stood in the middle of the CIC, obviously unhappy.

"I highly suggest you reconsider that statement, commander.

"Admiral, the Galactica is launching Vipers and a Raptor." Belzen nterrupted.

"Commander, why are you launching Vipers?" she said in a barely controlled voice.

"Please arrange for Chief Tyrol and Lt. Agathon to be handed over to my Marines as soon as they arrive."

"I don't take orders from you." She hissed.

"Call it what you like. I'm getting my men."

Cain was fuming.

"You are making such a mistake." She said.

"I'm getting my men."

And then he hung up. Cain stared at the phone in disbelief and dropped the phone.

"Action Stations."

The duty officer complied and flipped a switch, and klaxons began sounding over the ship. "Action stations, action stations, set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill."

She turned to her XO. "Launch the alert Vipers."

"Admiral, this will spiral out of control quickly. We could end up firing on a friendly ship."

"I said, launch the Vipers."

Belzen stood up straight. "Sir, I can not comply with that order."

Cain stared at him for a second. Then she spoke. "Give me your sidearm."

Confused, Belzen gave her his pistol. She flipped the safety off, jacked a round into the chamber, and fired a shot into his forehead. Blood and gore splattered the console behind him, and he fell down to the floor, dead. Cain dropped the still smoking gun on the planning table and addressed Captain Fisk.

"Colonel Fisk," she said, emphasizing his new rank, "will you carry out the order?"

"Yes sir." He said immediately, not wanting to meet the late XO's fate. "Launch alert Vipers."

Cain took a deep breath before saying, "And target the main battery for Galactica. And may the gods have mercy on their souls."

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

Daala was working out in the gym when she heard the intercom. "Admiral Daala report to the Bridge, urgent."

She was out the door in an instant, and arrived in the bridge in less than a miniute, still dressed in her exersize clothes.. She saw Commander Kretas standing there, his face grim.

"Report." She said.

"Take a look out the window. You're not going to believe this."

She looked out the bridge's viewport, which provided a beautiful view of space. Or an exlent way to spot your enemies. Right now she could see the Pegasus turning around to bring her main batteries in line with Galactica, while Vipers were in a complex dual, with no one firng yet.

"For the love of-you have got to be kidding me." Daala said. "Why in the Emperor's name are they doing this."

"We monitored the 'secure transmissions', which took the computer three seconds to crack, and watched some security camera footage."

Daala nodded. They had taken the opportunity to place prototype devices that they had rescued from the Maw on all the ships in the fleet, specifically the Battlestars. They were small, black spheres that stuck to a ship's hull. Once attached, they would use a small drill to bury a powerful tracking devise, as well as well a system that hacked into the ship's computer and could monitor electrical signals, such as security tapes.

"It appears," Kretas continued, "that the 'Cylon Interrogator' that Cain sent over tried to rape their prisoner."

Daala closed her eyes. "Did he succeed?"

"Yes, although it didn't last long. It appears that the officer who impregnated the Cylon and the officer which previously had a relationship with another copy of the same model learned of the plans and burst into the room at the last minute, saving her. Unfortunately, Cain's interrogator was accidentally killed in the process. Cain took them back to her ship and basically ordered their summary executions. So no Adama is insisting on taking them back to his ship. They both launched Vipers, but there have been no shots fired yet. The fact is that Adama's ship was going to be used as a museum, and his fighters were going to be exhibits in the museum. Cain has a top of the line Battlestar with a larger number of brand new fighters than he has old ones. Galactica will get destroyed, but the Pegasus could take enough damage that we couldn't repair it. And who know who many civilian ships will get hit. Then we have the Mirage, who has a Pegasus loyal crew. The Basestar has Shaw as a Commander, and she is fiercely loyal to Cain. Of course, our troops are ready for the order to take over the ships. But we need to do something fast, otherwise this will get out of control fast."

"Okay. Sound General Quarters, roll ninety degrees starboard and depress all ion batteries to maximum elevation so we can his the Pegasus with everything we've got. Target the engines only. It's main threat is the main batteries, so if we can stop it from getting in line with Galactica they'll be fine. The our troopers on the Mirage and Archer that if they so much as load a shell into their cannon or a missile into a tube, neutralize the command staff and take control of the ship. I want out cloaked interceptors out here now. If they can get into the middle of that dogfight without being detected they could disable most of the ships with their ion cannons before the Vipers have any idea what's going on.

Felyan Goruma was already in the hanger bay when the alarms started to go off. He was Drake 11, pilot of the lead cloaked TIE Interceptor. His wingman, Salk Orn was with him a moment later, scrambling to get in his flight suit. Felyan donned his helmet and motioned for Salk to follow him.

"Lets go. Orders are for just us to launch. The Colonial Vipers are having a skirmish, and were here to break them up using some of our ion cannons."

Salk grinned before he put his helmet on. "Sounds like fun. Lets go."

Drake 11 and 12 often flew separate from the rest of Drake Squadron. They were some of the only qualified pilots on the ship to fly the cloaked fighters. The cloaking shield, while having the positive effect of making them invisible on scanners and to the plain eye, defiantly had its drawbacks. Under ideal conditions, the ship they launched from would send a tight-beam signal to them, un detectable to any other ship. The signal was a combination of infrared, radar, visual and electronic monitoring systems that displayed a fairly realistic view on the viewport. They had this advantage now, but it was a lot harder when they operated on their own. Daala's technicians had managed to place a small infrared camera that could 'see' through the cloaking device, but it was hard do fly and was dangerous to use in close areas, because at full spread the TIE might have less than a quarter of a second to dodge an object once it appeared. With the exception of Talon, they were probably the best pilots on the ship.

As they flew out of the hanger, they could see on the artificial view the ion cannons firing on the Pegasus. The computer system on the TIE took the visual feed from the Gorgon and fed it into the cockpit. They could see the lights flicker and then go out on the Pegasus's engines. She could still maneuver with her side thrusters, but couldn't get a firing solution on the Galactica.

And then suddenly they were in the middle of the dogfight, watching the Vipers twist and turn. Felyan when he saw that most of the Vipers were so distracted by the firefight that hey had stopped maneuvering. Good. The cloak required so much energy that he couldn't fire his weapons with it active, so he quickly turned off the cloak and selected his ion cannons. His wingman saw him drop out, so he followed. He lined up on the first Viper, a Mk. VII, and let loose a fire-linked double blast. The blast completely shorted out all systems in the Viper. He quickly lined up the next one in his sights, and shot that one. He could see Salk disabling other Vipers too. In only thirty seconds, every Viper in the air was disabled. They had been so confused that they had not gotten a single shot off.

Basestar Archer

"They're firing on the Pegasus!" Kendra Shaw screamed. "Load those missiles and get me a firing solution on that Destroyer!"

The distinctive whine of a blaster bolt filled the CIC of the Basestar, which had been changed to look more like a Battlestar, and less like the organic feel of a Cylon ship.

Shaw whirled around to face the source of the noise. A Stormtrooper, one of the ten Daala had assigned to the Archer, had fired a shot into the ceiling.

"Commander Shaw, by order of Admiral Daala, you are ordered to stand down."

Shaw mentally evaluated the situation. There were only four storm troopers, and she had almost ten crew members in the CIC with sidearms. They could take them. In a blur of motion she un-holstered her pistol and shot the lead Stormtrooper in the face. The bullet hit his helmet and bounced off, hitting the floor. The trooper quickly flicked his blaster to stun and began to sweep the entire CIC with stun bolts, and the other three joined in. Within a few seconds, all the crew members were unconscious.

Battlestar Galactica, BSG-75

"Sir, all of our vipers have lost power."

Adama looked at Lt. Gaeta strangely. "What to you mean?"

"I don't know. Pegasus has the same problem with their vipers, and now the whole Battlestar is drifting."

"Is it a Cylon virus?"

"Probably not, sir. We're not all that much better protected than the Vipers, so the virus should affect us if it were to effect them.."

Across the CIC, Dee received a message.

"Sir," she said. "I have Admiral Daala on the line."

"Put her through."

Bill picked up the phone.

"Admiral Daala."

"Commander Adama, that was quite a stunt. Do you realize that you almost got yourself, a portion of the civilian fleet, and possibly the Pegasus?

"Cain was about to execute two of my men without a trial."

"From what I heard, they did kill a officer."

"While protecting a prisoner from getting raped."

"Well, they didn't quite get there quick enough to do that, although they did seem to help. I'm not sure what you want me to say. That you can't rape a machine, you're disobeying a superior officer, or that you're contradicting yourself?! You gave the person who shot the other eight model 30 days in the brig for 'an unauthorized discharge of a firearm', and I get that directly from your logs. Now your willing to start a war for what could be called two Cylon sympathizers?"

"This is different."

"Fortunately for you, commander, I agree. I have no problems with extreme methods of interrogation-"

"-torturing." Adama interrupted.

"-but," Daala continued, "there is a line, and Cain crossed it. Once on your ship, twice on hers. This can not go on. I will expect you to be on neutral territory, Colonial One, in one hour. I'm sure the president would not object. Oh, and one last thing. Out Cylon gave us information about your son. We'll talk more about it soon, but it is good news."

With that, Daala ended the transmission.

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

She walked over to Kretas. "Contact Roslin and Cain. Ger the details together, and get the Apollos ready. I'm going to my room to change. Tell me when you get all the details together.

Daala was in her quarters, enjoying a hot shower. One of the luxuries of being an Admiral was that she could get water instead of a sonic shower. This was not how she had planned her life to go. After the Maw was discovered, she wanted to hit the rebels when ever and where ever she could. But now she was trying to find a planet named Earth. She closed her eyes. This was not working. Cain seemed determined to provoke Adama. She had to be dealt with. But later.

She stepped out of the shower, toweling off…and ran right into Kretas. They both jumped back in surprise.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" she demanded.

"You told me to contact you, but you weren't picking up the phone. You said you were changing, but it was half an hour later, so I thought you would be done. You left the hatch unlocked.

"Kretas. Do. You. Know. Anything about-forget it. Get out of here. I'll meet you on the bridge."

Kretas practically flew out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Daala sat down on her bed. There was something between them, that had been showed when he had kissed her at dinner. But it shouldn't evolve into anything else. That would not be appropriate.

Colonial One

Once again, Daala, Laura, Cain and Bill were on Colonial One, but the atmosphere was decidedly more hostile this time. They were all sitting in the comfortable chairs.

"Would you like to start, Madam President, or should I?"

Laura offered her a smile. "If you wouldn't mind, I would like to start."

"Go ahead."

When Laura addressed the Commander and the Admiral, her friendly smile and tone were gone.

"What happened today was a failure of leadership on both parts-"

"Lets just cut through it, shall we?" Cain said, standing up. "Two of his men killed one of my men and I have full authority to execute them."

"They were trying to stop a prisoner from being raped."

"You can't rape a machine, commander!"

"I'm surprised you'd say that."

All heads swiveled around to Daala, who had interrupted them.

"To tell you the truth, you have no idea how surprised I was when I saw the Cylon called Gina Inverie in that brig. I would have though you would have shown more compassion towards your lover."

There was a muffled gasp of surprise from Laura, while Bill just looked on.

Cain clenched her fists. "You are way out of line, Admiral."

"No, you are way out of line. You have allowed the men on your ship to act like animals. Don't tell me you haven't noticed that most women are armed when they walk on your ship, even off duty? The only reason I'm not considering pushing this further is because we have a Cylon fleet on our tail."

Cain blinked. "What?"

"We did a scan, and your Tylium reefing ship has been leaking a small but traceable amount of radiation. Not enough to be picked up on your sensors, but the Cylons have better ones. Now, it would be relatively easy to fix the ship and evade them, but they have a resurrection ship with them. I believe you have been briefed on them."

Both Cain and Adama nodded.

"If we take it out, we may be able to discourage the Cylons from following us. Permanent death is not something they are used to. Now, both of your Battlestars will be needed. The Cylons have beefed up their defenses because of my Destroyer. There are six Basestars guarding it."

"We can't beat that." Cain interrupted.

"Maybe." Adama said. "But I have someone on my ship who specializes in out of the box thinking.

"Alright. You take you out of the box thinker and get a plan for the Galactica. You can include the Pegasus in your planning if you feel it's necessary. We'll take care of the Gorgon, Mirage, and Archer.

Adama could see Cain bristle at the fact that she was now effectively out of the planning process.

Battlestar Galactica, BSG-75

When Lee has stepped off the Raptor that had brought him back to Galactica, he had expected a person or two to be waiting. His dad had made the announcement that he was human, so he wasn't worried about a certain someone who worked on the deck to shoot him in the gut. At the most, he had thought that a knuckledraggers might stop to see the Raptor, or a group of pilots might come to congratulate him. So he wasn't' prepared for the veritable mob of people who quickly hustled him off the hanger deck and to one of the mechanic rooms. Starbuck was waiting for him, one hand behind her back.

"So, enjoy your time with the Imps?"

Lee frowned. "Imps?"

"It's a pain in the ass to say 'Imperial' all the time. Anyway…"

She revealed what she had been hiding. A bottle of the Chief's brew.

'Figured you could use a drink or two. Or three. Or four. Or-"

"I get the picture Kara."

He took a closer look at her. There were a few cuts and bruises on her face, and she had a protective bandage around her abdomen. Now that he looked, she also had some scabs on her knuckles. He had patched her up after fights long enough to know the signs of when she had delivered one of her famous right hooks.

"What happened to you?"

She tried to pull of a innocent look. "I tripped and fell."

"And cut up your face injured your stomach at the same time, while hurting your knuckles?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

He shook his head. "Well, did you mention something about a drink?"

She gave him a typical Starbuck smile.

"Yup".

Basestar 124, Cylon Space

One of the Brother Cavils paced around the control room, furious.

"So they disabled the tracker?"

One of the Sixes nodded.

"We had four on our Basestar that was captured. As far as we know, they've disabled all of them. But there's a good side."

"It's Boomer." Another Six continued. "She's onboard the Pegasus. She managed to get a message out, They've found out that we're tracking them."

"Can Eight disable the Battlestar?" Cavil asked. "We don't have the firepower to bring them all down, not with that Destroyer out there. We need to…" his voice trailed off as he noticed that both Sixes were smiling.

"All right, I give up. What's your plan?"

"We've managed to get a hold of a Five leading group of seven Basestars on a patrol. They're ready to come in on our command. We the humans come, jump the Resurrection Ship safe out of the battle, and drop the Basestars in behind them. That will be a total of thirteen Basestars. They can't withstand that firepower. Once the warships are down, they civilian fleet has no way of protecting themselves. And that will be the end of the human race."

Again, sorry about the wait. Well, please review!