“We aren’t setting off the bomb!” Peter shouted at her.
Kara mustered all her willpower, forcing her lips to move the way she wanted them to. “Peter!” she gasped.
He turned and looked at her. Instant realization came over him. “Frak! I’m sorry, Kara. I’m so sorry.” He dashed over to kneel beside her and push up one of her sleeves. Kara felt the sharp prick as the syringe pierced her skin.
But Sharon was already there. She grabbed Peter’s wrist and twisted. He yelped and dropped the syringe, though it remained stuck in Kara’s arm. The plunger hadn’t moved.
“None of that,” Sharon said. “We’re getting out of here. Now.”
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” he gasped.
“The less you know—”
Peter lunged. He caught the bottom of Sharon’s mask and yanked. Caught by surprise, Sharon didn’t react in time, and her face lay revealed. The mask made a crumpled red beard beneath her chin, though her hair was still covered. Kara continued to shake on the floor, the syringe sticking out of her arm, but she saw Peter’s face go pale as milk. His face looked so horrified and stricken that Kara would have felt sorry for him if she weren’t twisting in the final stages of a disease he had given her. She looked down at the syringe poking into her arm.
“Mistress Eight,” Peter whispered, rising to his feet.
“One of them,” Sharon said, also rising.
Cracks of gunfire came over the scanner. People screamed. Kara’s blood went cold at the sounds, but more of her attention was focused on the syringe. The needle had pierced her deeply—Peter wasn’t a medical technician and had just jabbed it in. A thin bit of blood trickled down the side of her arm. Hers or Peters? Kara gathered her strength. She probably had one chance to make this work. If she frakked it up, she was dead.
“Oh gods.” Peter backed up a shaky step, his attention on Sharon. “Oh gods, what have I done?”
“So much for faith,” Sharon said. “Or maybe you’re swearing to your multiple gods out of habit.” She caught up the duffel bag with easy strength and set the timer inside. Kara, still on the floor, couldn’t read the numbers, but she heard the familiar beeping of a countdown. “I suppose this is where I bow out. There’s a lot more I can do, but not if I’m dead or captured.”
Kara made her move. She half rolled, half flopped onto her stomach. The motion drove the syringe deeper into the meat of her arm. It was like being stabbed with a thin knife. Kara bit her lip at the unexpected pain and flopped onto her back again. The syringe fell out of her arm and clattered to the floor. The plunger had been pushed all the way in.
“Resourceful as ever, Starbuck,” Sharon said, noticing for the first time what Kara was up to. “Now I really have to go.”
“Where’s … groll delk karoledd—frak!” Kara tried again. “Where’s … real Sharon?”
“I’m perfectly real,” Sharon said. “More real than the One. More real than Peter’s faith.”
“There is no One, is there?” Peter said slowly. He was wrapped in his own fear and misery. The self-centered bastard wasn’t even trying to fight Sharon. Not that he had a hope of hurting her, but Kara thought he should at least try. “You all just fed that religious stuff to me, made me believe it. But it’s all shit.”
Sharon cocked her head. “You think so? God exists, Peter dear. How you see God is up to you, really. But we don’t care what you humans believe. The prions will kill most of you and leave the rest so weakened that you’ll be easy prey. Thanks be to God. And to Peter.”
More gunfire over the scanner. More screams and shouts. Kara found that the shakes were already lessening. How long before she could get up and walk?
“I need to get out there and help all those people!” Peter said. “Maybe if I surrender, they’ll stop shooting!”
“No, Peter,” Sharon said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
Peter twisted out of her grip. “I’ll kill you,” he snarled.
“Will you?” Sharon drew herself up to her full height. Even though she was half a head shorter than Peter, she seemed to tower over him. “I could beat you to death five times before you threw a single punch at me. Now back away.”
Peter stared at her for a long moment. Try, Pete! Kara thought, pushing herself up to hands and knees. I’ll back you! Or try.
But Peter dropped his eyes and backed away. Kara’s heart sank. Sharon snorted and gave him a contemptuous glance. The crack and pop of gunfire boomed from the scanner, and Kara tried not to imagine bleeding corpses piling up on the deck. Sharon, meanwhile, grabbed Peter’s arm. Something metal flashed in her hand. In a single swift movement, she clicked a handcuff to Peter’s wrist and snapped the other inside the duffel.
“What the hell?” Peter gasped, shaking his wrist.
“You’re a hostage now,” Sharon said. “Actually you’ve always been one—you were just too blind to see it. It won’t take those marines long to chew through your people, so let’s get moving.” She hauled him unprotesting toward the door leading to the other exit—the newly made one, Kara assumed. The scanner continued to spout the cold crackle and crunch of an ongoing massacre. Sharon reached the door. Kara tried to get to her feet, using the wall for support. The cure for the plague was in the hands of a bomb-toting Cylon, and she had to do something. She pushed herself from hands and knees to just knees, then got one foot on the floor. So far, so—
Her legs gave out and she crashed back to the floor. Too much too soon. Sharon laughed at her and opened the door.
“Fight her, you frakking coward!” Kara shouted in a lastditch effort. Or she tried to. What came out of her mouth made no sense at all.
“See you on the other side, Starbuck,” Sharon called over her shoulder. “Wherever that is.”
Then main door burst open and a dozen helmeted and faceplated marines poured into the storeroom, rifles at the ready. “Freeze!”
It was Lee’s voice. Kara wanted to collapse with relief, but all she could do now was shake. Sharon turned to face them in her own doorway, wrenching Peter around in front of her.
“Go ahead and fire,” she said. “But Petey here is between you and me. So how good is your aim? Feeling a little shaky? Want a bit of babble?”
“I said, freeze!” Lee barked. “We’ve got you, Sharon. There’s nowhere to go.”
Sharon yanked open the duffel bag and showed Lee the ordnance inside. Peter was cuffed to it, and the timer showed a countdown of twenty-two minutes and ten seconds … nine … eight.
“Let’s play hide and seek, Captain Adama,” she said with a winsome smile. “Just you and me. You need Peter alive to cure the plague. I want a shuttle off this ship. Count to a hundred, then come find us to talk about it.”
And she vanished into the dark beyond the door, dragging Peter with her.
CHAPTER 15
“Two days’ worth of work, Gaius?” said Number Six.
Gaius Baltar continued to peer into the microscope. “That’s what I told the Commander. Having you repeat it doesn’t change anything.”
“Liar. Words have power, Gaius. You just need the right thing to say at the right time.”
“Also true. Completely and totally true.” He pushed himself away from the microscope and, swiveling on his stool, reached for the telephone. His face was scratchy and unshaven, his clothes were wrinkled and disheveled, but his movements snapped with energy. This often happened to him when he was midway through a project. A sort of manic power crackled through him and he could go for days without sleep—or last for hours in bed.
Six’s hand landed on his and pressed them into the dialing pad before he could punch more than two numbers. “Wait. Who are you calling?”
“The president. She needs an update on the situation.”
“Don’t you think Adama can tell her?”
“I’d rather tell her myself, thanks,” he said with a little smile.
She slid her soft hand up his forearm, his shoulde
r, his neck. A tingle of electricity followed her fingertips, and a coppery taste tanged Gaius’s mouth. She leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Call her later. You’ve been working so hard, Gaius. Don’t you think you deserve a break?”
“I have so much to do,” he murmured back, though his hands stole up her sides, caressing the cool, smooth fabric of her high-slit dress. “So much work to save the Fleet.”
“Will twenty minutes matter in the grand scheme of things?” she said, slitting her eyes like a hungry cat. Her hand reached beneath her own buttocks, opened his fly, and slipped inside. Gaius gasped, then let out a long, rumbling sigh. Her touch made little shudders of pleasure ripple up and down his entire body.
Gaius glanced over his shoulder at the microscope, then at the telephone. He was vice president of the Colonies and their pre-eminent scientist. He was a powerful man with equally powerful appetites, and he needed to indulge them. He deserved it, especially after everything he had done for the Fleet. His hands slid up Number Six’s smooth thighs.
“Yes, Gaius,” she panted against his mouth. “Oh, yes.”
His groin tightened, and desire slid over him in a hot rush. He pulled her down into his lap and kissed her, devouring her mouth like a wildfire consuming a forest. He half expected her to push him away, but she met him with a ferocity so powerful, she growled. The sound rumbled in her breasts, and he felt them move against his own chest. His groin ached, and he felt like he could push into her, push through her, until the two of them were a single being.
“Twenty minutes?” he said. “I was thinking sixty.”
Lee Adama pointed impatiently at the door. “You six go after her and Peter!” he told the marines who had entered behind him. “The rest of you secure this room. Go go go!”
The marines hurried to obey. Lee pulled up his face plate and ran across the room to kneel next to Kara. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. But his hands were shaking. Concern, fear, and relief all mixed together inside her and made her entire body feel weak. Or maybe that was still the plague. Lee gathered her into his arms, and she let him. Hard muscle made a barrier around her, sealing out the rest of the world. For a short, blissful moment, she let herself feel safe and cared for. She felt tears welling up, and she forced them back. Lee looked down at Kara and she looked up at him. His eyes were so blue and full of … what? Concern? Love? She wondered what he was seeing in her eyes.
And then he was kissing her. His lips were warm on hers. The move surprised both of them, and Kara’s eyes opened wide. A second lasted a thousand heartbeats. Kara wanted this and didn’t want this. Too many things could go wrong—would go wrong. Best to end it before it began. Kara tensed to push Lee away, but a howl of pain followed by gunfire jerked them apart. Thuds, more shots, another scream. Lee scrambled to his feet and hauled Kara up beside him with an easy strength that left her a little breathless. The other marines in the room had spun and were pointing their rifles at the door Sharon had used. Sharon appeared in the doorway again, holding a pistol to Peter’s head. The ordnance was still cuffed to his wrist. Kara swallowed.
“Hold your fire!” Lee barked.
“See what you did?” Sharon said. “Now I have weapons. I said I’d talk just to you, Captain, and to Lieutenant Thrace there. The both of you. Anyone else follows me, I kill Petey. If both of you don’t come, I kill Petey.” She vanished back into the darkness.
“Frak!” Lee muttered. “Can you stand by yourself, Kara?”
Kara checked. The shaking had ended. She also felt no desire to babble nonsense. Her voice was her own again. She felt weak, but strength was already returning. Lee’s hands, however, still trembled.
“I think I’m okay,” she said in a tight, tired voice.
“Helo!” Lee shouted. “I want you and the others to check the hall for wounded. And dead.”
“Those people,” Kara said as Helo and the others obeyed. “I heard the orders on the scanner. You killed them?”
Lee looked at her, and Kara’s heart suddenly felt like a bruised apple. A wave of revulsion made her stomach roil. The arm that held her up had just killed a score of innocent people.
Then Lee shook his head. “We didn’t hurt a single person. Adama broadcast those orders, figuring Peter would hear them and come out of hiding to surrender himself. We fired into the air to make it sound like we were shooting. People screamed, so that made it even more realistic. Or so we thought—it obviously didn’t work.”
Relief swept Kara in a powerful wave that weakened her knees. Lee tightened his arm around her shoulders. “It almost did work,” Kara said. “How did you get in here?”
“I asked the Old Man to let me bring two forces,” Lee said. “I sent one down to the great room as a distraction,” Lee said. “The rest of us got back into the Raptor, flew around to the other side of the ship, and burned through over there. That got us around the crowd. We figured the perpetrators would think all the marines were wading through the passive resistance people, letting the rest of us sneak up on them. But we got lost—the schematics are wrong. Eventually, we had to home in on the ordnance signal. Then Da—Commander Adama gave the killing orders, hoping to flush Peter out into the open and maybe distract the bad guys some more. I just wish it had worked.”
“I told you it almost did. Peter was about to run out there and give himself up, but Sharon stopped him.”
“Yeah. Sharon.” He ran a shaky hand over his face. “What the frak is that bitch doing here?”
Helo trotted up. “Sir, we have six dead. She—” He swallowed, and Kara could see the distress on his face. “I’m sorry, sir, but she killed them all. Sharon …”
“That wasn’t your Sharon,” Kara said quickly. Both Lee and Helo stared at her in surprise.
“What do you mean?” Helo asked, his voice full of hope.
“That’s another Sharon copy. I saw her close up, and she isn’t pregnant.”
Helo grabbed Kara’s free shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. She—this new Sharon—must have been hiding in a secret compartment on the rescue pod. I don’t know what happened to our Sharon, but that wasn’t her, and I’m betting our Sharon wasn’t behind the attack on the concert, either.”
The love and hope that crossed Helo’s face was so clear, Kara’s heart ached for him. She hadn’t loved anyone like that since Zak.
Really? said a treacherous little voice in the back of her head. What about his brother?
“So where is our Sharon?” Helo asked. “And why did she escape?” Behind him, marines were dragging dead bodies into the storeroom, clearing out the doorway. Some were missing their weapons.
“No idea,” Kara said. “But the Sharon who has Peter is definitely someone else.”
“Wait a minute,” Lee said. “What happened to you? Why aren’t you shaking anymore?”
“Peter … cured me.” She bent down, freeing herself from Lee’s hold, and picked up the syringe from the floor. “With his blood. Lee, we have to get him back. He’s the only cure for the prion.”
Lee visibly relaxed. “Thank all gods. If he injected you, Kara, then we’re fine. Your body will start making the cure prion and—”
“No,” Kara interrupted. “My blood’s AB positive. It’s really rare, and I can only give blood to other AB positives. Peter’s O negative. He can give blood to anyone.”
“Baltar and Cottle might be able to synthesize the cure prion without using your blood,” Lee said. Then his face fell. “But not before most of the Fleet dies. Dammit, we need Peter.”
“Shit,” Helo said. “Nothing is ever easy around here, is it?”
“Sir,” Racetrack approached, raising her face plate, “do you want us to go after her?”
Lee checked his watch. “No. She said she’d kill Peter if anyone but me and Kara went in there. Call the Old Man and tell him what’s happened. You think you can fire a weapon, Lieutenant?”
Lee’s words filled Kara with a new strength. She sus
pected it was mostly adrenaline, but right then, she didn’t care. Her hands were blessedly steady, and the thought of filling that bitch Sharon with chunks of metal made Kara itch to get moving. She held up her hands.
“I’m solid like a rock, sir,” she said.
Lee handed her his own pistol and rifle. Helo gave her his kevlar armor, and she belted it on. It felt solid and comforting, despite the stiff weight. Kara accepted an equipment belt and a helmet.
“What do you think her game is?” Helo asked. “There’s nowhere for her to go. Now that we know she’s on the Monarch, there’s no escape. Even if the Old Man gives her a frakking shuttle in exchange for Peter, she has to know we’ll blow her out of the sky the minute she’s clear of this ship.”
“I don’t know.” Lee tried to check the firing mechanism on his own pistol, but his hands were shaking too much and he couldn’t get the slide action to work. “Frak!”
“Maybe you should stay here,” Kara said. “I’ll go alone.”
“Like you always do, is that it?” Lee said. “Noble Starbuck, the maverick, on her own again. Well, not this time.”
“Lee,” she protested, “you’re sick. You should—”
“I should get my ass moving,” Lee told her. “Sharon—bad Sharon—said she wanted to talk to me and maybe you. We don’t know what she’ll do if I don’t come, so I’m coming.”
“Fine,” Kara said. “Just keep your pistol in the holster, buddy. You fire with those hands, and you’re just as likely to hit me as her.”
They trotted toward the door. On the way, they passed the six bodies the others had laid out. Kara carefully avoided looking at them. If there was a friend among them, she didn’t want to know it. Not yet.
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