CHAPTER

2

 

 

Kara flung up a hand to shield her eyes, though the Viper’s cabin was well polarized. Moments later, the shockwave hit, flipping her and Lee ass over teakettle. Both Vipers bucked and weaved as their pilots fought to regain control. Kara bounced around within her harness, jarring her new bruises. A few hundred kilometers away, the basestar was exploding in the world’s most brilliant firework display, as if the Lords of Kobol had cracked open a doorway into hell. Kara ignored the pain, ignored the light, and just frakking flew.

The other Vipers turned tail and ran as well. Ahead lay the Galactica and safety. The raiders buzzed about, obviously confused and uncertain by the loss of their commanding ship. In a few minutes they would recover, however. The light and shock of the explosion faded, and Kara regained full control of her Viper.

“Get ’em!” Lee barked.

The fight was short, nasty, and to the point. The Cylon raiders didn’t have a chance to regain their equilibrium before the Vipers shredded them the way a chef shredded soft cheese. Into an omelet. With tender mushrooms and sweet onions and—

Kara’s stomach growled as another Cylon puffed into a satisfying fireball under her buns. Guns! Under her guns. Frak, when had she last eaten?

The basestar was an expanding nebula of radioactive debris, and Hot Dog got the last Cylon raider, a fact he announced with a whoop that made Kara’s ears ring.

“Let’s go home, people,” Lee said. “You did good.”

“Services for Shadow?” Kat asked.

“This evening,” Lee said.

Kara eased her Viper around to face the enormous Galactica, her mood gone suddenly pensive. She had barely known Jen “Shadow” Curtis and now she was gone. Kara had long since stopped keeping track of the number of Viper pilots they had lost since the Cylon attack—the number was just too depressing. What she wanted right now was a stiff shot of something that would burn all the way down, a hot meal, and maybe a card game. Or sex. With someone nice and—

“Viper squadron, I’m reading a distress signal,” Gaeta said, breaking Kara’s chain of thought.

“From the basestar?” Lee said, surprised.

“Negative. The signal is Colonial.”

Kara’s heart jumped. “Is it Shadow?”

“Also negative. It’s an automated signal from an escape pod.”

Escape pod? “Vipers don’t have escape pods,” Kara said, “and we’re the only ones out here. Gaeta, you’re seeing things.”

“Still negative, Lieutenant. You should be getting it on your screen now.”

Kara glanced down. Sure enough, the source of a Colonial distress signal was flashing.

“Have any ships in the Fleet launched escape pods?” Lee asked.

There was a pause. “Negative, Captain,” came the warm voice of Tactical Officer Anastasia Dualla—“Dee” to her friends. “No distress from the Fleet, and no pod launched.”

“Apollo, Starbuck, go check it out,” Adama ordered.

“On it, sir,” Lee said, and both Vipers swung around. Kara made a face and her stomach growled again. Dammit, this mission was over. She was supposed to get food and booze and… maybe something else. Still, curiosity nudged her. So did suspicion. Cylons could be slippery as a snake in an oil refinery. This might easily be a trick.

“This might easily be a trick,” Lee said.

Kara suppressed a snort. “You read my mind, Captain. Scary.”

“Frakking scary, Lieutenant.”

Kara homed in on the signal, brought her Viper about, and hit the acceleration. May as well get this over with. Lee followed, a little above and behind her. She dodged around a couple pieces of basestar debris and finally caught sight of the signal’s source. The pod was boxy, about two meters tall, two meters wide, and five meters deep. A red distress light winked steadily on the top, and it was slowly rotating end over end. A rudimentary thruster jutted from the back, designed to give just enough boost for the pod to grab some distance from whatever vessel it was trying to flee. Kara stared, instantly recognizing the design.

“It’s a Colonial escape pod,” she reported, not quite believing it. “Where the hell did it come from?”

“Has to be the basestar,” Lee said, his tone also conveying disbelief. “Unless one of the Fleet ships blew up when we weren’t looking.”

“No such luck, Apollo,” said Colonel Saul Tigh, the Galactica’s executive officer. His voice was dry and hard as old wood, and Kara could imagine him in CIC, his bare scalp gleaming in the artificial light. “Nothing that comes from a Cylon ship is worth saving. Open fire.”

Kara stuck her tongue into her cheek and moved it around. Tigh wanted the pod destroyed, and that automatically made her reluctant to make it happen. Tigh was a grade-A, no-holds-barred, frakked-up, drunk-ass shithead. In her humble opinion. Unfortunately, the frakked-up shithead also had rank on her.

“Sir—” she began.

“Belay that,” Adama interrupted. “Starbuck, can you get any closer and check it out better? Apollo, you provide cover.”

“Commander,” Tigh said, “I don’t think that’s a good—”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Adama cut him off. “Your objection is noted.”

“Moving in, sir,” Kara said, not bothering to keep the smugness out of her voice. Adama—now there was a commander you could respect. If Bill Adama asked her to check out the heart of a star, she’d salute and fire all thrusters. She edged her Viper closer. Beyond the pod, the blazing yellow sun continued pumping out radiation across the spectrum. Already, the basestar debris field had largely dispersed. Kara matched velocity with the pod, though it continued to turn slowly end over end. Her finger remained on the fire button for her weapons. Colonel Tigh was an ass, but that didn’t mean she had to be stupid.

The pod rotated some more, and a porthole slid into view. Through it, Kara caught a glimpse of a human face, a male she didn’t recognize. He was staring into space with wide, frightened eyes. They locked gazes for a startled moment.

Help! he mouthed. Then the pod’s rotation carried the porthole out of view.

“There’s someone aboard,” Kara reported, forcing her voice to remain steady. “I just saw a man’s face.”

A moment of silence fell over the airwaves. A raider was just one shape Cylons came in. Some Cylons were shiny metal robots, complete with built-in pulse rifles. And some looked perfectly, exactly human. Cylons also seemed to go in for repetition. All their robotic forms looked alike, and the human forms seemed to be limited in their variation. Kara had heard rumors that the Cylons used only twelve human shapes. She herself had encountered at least two female forms and three male forms, and she had killed one of the latter back on Caprica when—

—a shiny shard sinking into soft flesh, a choked cry gurgling from a ruined throat, an ineffectual hand clawing at her face—

Nausea quivered in her empty stomach and Kara shoved unpleasant memories aside. She needed to concentrate on the present job, not on past nightmares.

“Is he human or Cylon?” Tigh demanded.

“No way to tell, sir.” Kara resisted adding an epithet about the stupidity of Tigh’s question. “He looked human, and I haven’t seen him before, but that doesn’t say much.”

“I’m dispatching a search-and-rescue Raptor, Starbuck,” Adama said. “You and Apollo can return to Galactica.”

“Sir,” she acknowledged, though she felt oddly reluctant to leave the guy, whoever he was, spinning alone through space. The feeling wasn’t rational—there was nothing she could do for him in a Viper, and for all she knew, he was a Cylon. But the feeling remained. She gave the pod one more glance before bringing her Viper about and falling in behind Lee as he headed for home.

Home, she thought. When did Galactica become home? As a Viper pilot, Viper trainer, and occasional CAG—Commander Air Group—Kara spent more time on ships than she did planetside, and her small apartment on Caprica usually showed her neglect. But now that Caprica and the other Twelve Colonies were overrun by Cylons, she felt a strong need to return there, feel the open spaces around her, breathe the crisp, fresh air. Cook a meal. Sink into a soft chair. Hell, she even missed dusting the furniture. Before the Cylons attacked, she had treated housework as something to be seriously considered after every major earthquake. Now she would happily spend a year hunting down dust bunnies if it meant she could go back home whenever she wanted.

The thought struck her as strange. Kara had never seen Caprica or her apartment as anything but a base to operate from. She usually felt out of sorts planetside, and came truly alive only when she was flying. It was, she supposed, the lack of choice. Before the Cylon attack, she could go home if she wanted to. Now that the Cylons had removed the choice, she wanted it back.

“Viper four-one-six, Galactica,” said the Launch Signal Officer. “Approach port landing bay, hands-on, speed nine eight, blue stripes. Call the ball.”

Kara guided her Viper into the Galactica’s port landing bay, as instructed, keeping her speed at ninety-eight for a manual landing. Lee preceded her into the cavelike bay, its roof arching high above, its floor perfectly flat. A ways ahead of her was an elevator pad painted in blue stripes. Lee was already skimming down to land on one with red checks. All her instruments were in the green and she was having no problems.

“I have the ball,” she said, and guided her Viper down to a perfect landing. The elevator pad dropped down, taking Kara and the Viper with it. A few moments later, she was on the even more cavernous flight deck. Ceramic tile that had once been white faced most of it. Rows of sleek Vipers and boxy Raptors stretched into the distance. Half a dozen members of Galen Tyrol’s damage-control people surrounded Kara’s little ship before the elevator pad could drop flush with the deck. Kara released the canopy. She pushed it up and removed the helmet to her vac suit with familiar ease. Hard smells from the flight deck assailed her—sharp solder, scorched plastic, metallic air. Kara shook her short blond hair, then hauled herself out of the Viper. The flight crew ignored her as unimportant. The Viper needed their attention more.

“Not bad out there, Starbuck,” Lee Adama said. He had removed his own vac helmet, revealing a startlingly handsome, boyish face topped with tousled brown hair. Bright blue eyes met her brown ones. “Did you forget your receipt?”

“Receipt?” she said, puzzled.

“When you returned the merchandise to the Cylons,” Lee clarified with a grin. “Looked like they wouldn’t accept it without a receipt.”

She rolled her eyes. “Gosh, Apollo—so funny I forgot to laugh.”

“Wisecracks are your department. Everybody knows that.”

“How much damage did you do this time, sir?” broke in a new voice.

Kara gave Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol an insouciant grin. He was a stocky, dark-haired man who wore a continual expression of worry from the long hours and short supplies he dealt with as chief of Deck Crew Five. He and his people oversaw the maintenance and repair of the Vipers, Raptors, and shuttles that defended the Fleet. Kara was notoriously hard on her Vipers and wasn’t much bothered when they came back to him heavily damaged. She knew that to a man like Tyrol, it was like bringing home a sports car covered in dents with all the glass broken, and she could rarely resist teasing him.

“Meh,” she said. “A few dings and cracks. Nothing you couldn’t suck out with a plunger or slap together with some epoxy.”

Tyrol’s pained expression was interrupted by the staccato clatter of boots in quick-march. Startled, Kara drew back in time to avoid a squadron of marines. They wore full combat gear, face plates, and flak jackets. The barrels on their pulse rifles gleamed and their stomping boots echoed in the enormous flight deck.

“What the frak?” Kara said as they trotted past.

“The SAR Raptor’s bringing in that escape pod you found,” Tyrol explained. “The marines are just in case.”

Kara was supposed to head for a post-flight debriefing, but there was no way she was going to miss this. Lee stayed with her. News about the pod had evidently leaked out because a small crowd of other onlookers slowly gathered. Most of them were Tyrol’s technicians, and they were clearly performing make-work to have an excuse to stay close. Kara made no such pretense, and leaned casually against her Viper. Twice she caught Lee looking at her out of the corner of his eye, and she caught herself looking back. Idle curiosity? Or more than that? She felt a faint flush coming on and looked away. Several weeks ago, Kara had returned from a classified mission on Cylon-occupied Caprica. The events of the mission had been upsetting, to say the least, and Lee had done his awkward best to comfort her. And that was when he had said It.

Upon her return, Lee had met her at the airlock and grabbed her in a tight hug. He had followed this with a brotherly kiss that had, for a second, turned into something a little more powerful. Both of them had pulled back in surprise. Others had been present, however, and they hadn’t had a chance to talk until later when Lee found her in a locker room, disconsolately bouncing a Pyramid ball. Lee had asked what was upsetting her, but Kara refused to talk, and Lee filled the silence with words of his own.

You’re my friend, and I love you.

The simple phrase, said in Lee’s straightforward manner, had gone straight through Kara and stabbed a red-hot nerve she hadn’t known existed. It brought up strange feelings, confusing emotions, difficult memories.

You’re worthless, Kara. No one loves you. You’re just a worthless piece of trash. Her father’s voice, the one that brought up hatred, fear, and a strange desire to please, still echoed in her head sometimes, and Lee’s words brought it back again. It all confused her, scared her, and she retreated into easy flippancy.

“Lee Adama loves me,” she sing-songed at him. Her tone made him turn away, clearly sorry he had said anything. She pressed the advantage, taunting him with playground banter until he had slouched out of the locker room wearing a “Yeah, sure” expression. Neither of them had referred to the incident since, which was just the way Kara wanted it.

Didn’t she?

Lee shuffled his feet, looking like he was about twelve. Kara looked at her nails. Tyrol fussed over the Viper.

“Crack in the main manifold,” he muttered, “scoring on the cabin, and what the frak happened to the landing gear?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary for Lieutenant Thrace,” said Specialist Cally Henderson. She had short brown hair, a round face, and an enormous clipboard. The paper on it was already half covered in notes. Kara waggled some eyebrows at her and Cally shook her head in mock sorrow.

Two elevator pads descended side by side. One bore the Search-and-Rescue Raptor. The SAR Raptor was larger than the “normal” Raptors and sported equipment that let it haul in ships, pods, or other objects in distress. The other pad bore the escape pod. It was large enough to hold over thirty people, if they were friendly. It had two portholes, but Kara couldn’t see inside it from where she was standing. The marines quickly stepped up and trained their weapons on the airlock door with the various clacks and clicks of ready weapons.

“Everyone stay back, please,” bellowed the Sergeant Major in charge of the platoon. “We’re not expecting trouble, but you should remain at a safe distance.”

Kara snorted. If “not expecting trouble” meant pointing a dozen pulse rifles and readying a handful of grenades, she was dying to see what “expecting trouble” looked like. She continued to lounge against her Viper, seemingly unconcerned but actually crawling with curiosity. It was sheer coincidence that the Viper’s wing was providing a nice bit of cover between her and the pod.

“Where the hell did it come from?” Lee asked beside her.

She shrugged. “Maybe a Colonial ship we don’t know about survived the Cylon attack and passed this way.”

“Not likely. We’ve been in this system for days. We would have picked up the distress signal a long time ago. Has to be from the basestar.”

“You said that earlier,” she pointed out. “Why would a Colonial escape pod be on a Cylon basestar?”

“Maybe we can ask the guy you saw, if the marines don’t blow him away.”

The wheel on the airlock turned all by itself. The marines remained outwardly impassive, but tension thickened the oily air. The flight crew stopped all pretense of work and stared at the slowly moving wheel. Most had obeyed the Sergeant Major and moved away or stolen behind some kind, of cover. The wheel made the familiar cricket-chirp sound that Kara heard every day from doors all over the Galactica, and the door swung outward. She tensed, ready to dive fully behind her Viper.

Nothing happened. The doorway stood empty, the inside of the pod completely dark. Kara narrowed her eyes. Someone in there had shut of the light. Why?

The marines stayed in attack formation around the door, their expressions tense. Still nothing moved.

“Attention rescue pod,” the Sergeant Major barked. “We have you surrounded!”

Kara pushed back a laugh. Yes, the rescue pod was armed and dangerous. Any minute it would—

Movement exploded from the doorway. Kara caught a glimpse of a woman with long black hair and almond eyes. She wore a green jumpsuit and she moved faster than any human had a right to move. Before the marines could react or even blink, she stiff-armed one of them so hard that he flew backward and crashed into one of his compatriots, bringing both of them down. The woman didn’t stop moving. She grabbed a rifle barrel with impossible speed and yanked. The marine holding it left his feet and smashed straight into the heel of her hand. He dropped to the deck and the woman whirled the rifle into firing position. Kara recognized the woman’s face and gasped just as the rest of the squadron opened fire. Needles and bullets tore through the woman. She jigged in place as bloody holes ripped through her skin and clothes. Then she dropped to the deck, rifle still in her hand. It clanged against the deck plates.

“Frak,” Lee muttered. “Sharon.”

Kara nodded. One of the five versions of Cylons Kara—and Lee—had encountered took the form of Raptor pilot Sharon Valerii. Sharon had been a “sleeper” agent, a Cylon who had been programmed with false memories to make her think she was human. Her mission had been to assassinate Commander Adama, and she had nearly succeeded. Her corpse still lay in the morgue. On Caprica, Kara had come across another version of Sharon.

This copy had known she was a Cylon, but she had helped Kara on her mission, and Kara brought the Cylon back with her to Galactica. Caprica Sharon currently occupied the brig, and although she had helped Galactica fight the Cylons on numerous occasions, it sent cold shivers across Kara’s skin to see “her” out in the open.

This version of Sharon was clearly dead, another one for the morgue. Kara pushed through the gathered crowd and saw for herself. Sightless eyes stared at the ceiling, and one of her legs was bent beneath her. Kara pursed her lips, then looked at the pod. It was still dark inside it.

“I saw a man in there,” she called to the marines. “Before I came in to land. He’s probably still there.”

The marines who weren’t down or attending to the wounded turned away from Sharon’s corpse and trained their rifles on the pod again.

“You in there!” barked the Sergeant Major. “Hands on your head and come out!”

Long pause. Then, “I’m coming. Don’t shoot!”

A shadow moved, and a figure stepped slowly out of the pod and into the light, his hands on his head. He looked out at the marines and technicians with an uncertain, hesitating expression. Every marine rifle instantly snapped around to train on him. Kara felt her eyes widen. Frak, the man was gorgeous. His golden hair shone like sunshine in the harsh light of the flight deck, and his eyes, blue as a Caprica lake, looked out from a smooth, square-jawed face. He wore a blue short-sleeved shirt cut tight enough to show off an arresting build and arms that begged Kara to run her hands over them so she could feel their corded muscle. She remembered her earlier thoughts on the Viper and felt a little flushed despite the weaponry that bristled around her.

“Don’t shoot!” the man said, and his voice was smooth and light, almost boyish but still fully a man’s. “I’m not a Cylon!”

Kara stared at him. His voice sounded familiar, and the more she looked at him, the more it seemed like she should know him. But she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“Lie face-down on the ground,” the Sergeant Major said. “Now!”

Slowly, the man obeyed. He looked alone and vulnerable in front of the pod. Kara felt sorry for him, though she knew full well that he could be another Cylon. The Fleet had been tricked far too often to trust a newcomer easily.

Two marines put a set of heavy shackles on the blond man. He didn’t resist. He also didn’t speak. Two more marines disappeared into the pod, rifles at the ready, and reemerged to report that no one else was inside. The Sergeant Major hauled the blond man to his feet. He still looked familiar.

“Oh my gods!” Cally said abruptly. She was clutching her clipboard to her chest. “That’s Peter Attis!”

And then it clicked for Kara. Peter Attis. Rock star. His image had graced posters and album covers and magazine pages all over the Twelve Colonies. He had started his career when he was sixteen, and his song “My Heart Has Eyes for Only You” had soared to the top of the charts. Kara, then thirteen, had decorated her bedroom with his pictures and collected every single song. In school she had doodled in her notebook every possible combination of her name and his—Kara Attis. Peter Thrace. Kara Attis-Thrace. Mrs. K. Thrace-Attis—accompanied by the required heart over the i in “Attis”. Thank the Lords of Kobol she had outgrown that phase right quick and that no one had ever seen those notebooks.

A murmur went through the assembled group. Several had recognized him, too. Peter’s music had matured along with him, which garnered him fans from every part of the age spectrum. He had even gone through a brief but intense grunge phase, which Kara still listened to.

Leaving Lee behind, Kara stepped forward to get a better look. The prisoner was shackled and Kara outranked the Sergeant Major, so the marine didn’t object. Peter looked at her with the bluest eyes Kara had ever seen. For a moment, Kara was thirteen again, and her heart was racing with a strange thrill.

“Peter Attis?” she said. The teenaged fangirl inside her jumped up and down and said, I have all your records. I think you’re the greatest! Kara told it to shut the hell up and instead said, “Hell, I used to listen to all your stuff.” The half-quashed teenager put a little too much enthusiasm into Kara’s voice, so she added, “But that was a frakking long time ago.”

“Thanks,” Peter said, and flashed a wide smile that went straight down to Kara’s toes. “It’s always nice to meet a fan—or former fan. Uh… even when I’m chained hand and foot.”

All at once, Kara was aware of her surroundings. She cleared her throat and backed up a step. “Just a precaution,” she said. “Though I’m sure you couldn’t be a Cylon.”

“And why is that, Lieutenant?” asked Colonel Saul Tigh behind her.

Kara bit the inside of her cheek and turned to face him. Tigh was somewhere in his sixties, with a short fringe of white hair surrounding his bald pate. He wore his navy blue Executive Officer’s uniform stiffly, as it were filled with wood and wire instead of skin and muscle, and his face was screwed into a permanent mask of disapproval. Behind Colonel Tigh stood Commander Bill Adama and Dr. Gaius Baltar. Adama’s craggy, acne-scarred face looked grave. He and Tigh were of an age, but Kara thought Adama wore his years far better. Gaius Baltar was much younger, a genius with computers, physics, and some areas of biology. He was also the vice president of the Colonies.

“Peter Attis can’t be a Cylon because his history is too well-established, sir,” Kara said to Tigh, keeping her dislike out of her voice but not bothering to disguise a small sneer. “He’s been a star since he was sixteen years old, and lots of people recognize his face. He has family—or he did. A brother and two sisters and parents.”

“They all died in the attack, though,” Peter said softly.

“So there’s no way to verify his identity,” Tigh said. “He came from a Cylon ship, and I’m thinking he needs an introduction to the nearest airlock.”

“I’m not a Cylon,” Peter repeated. His voice was calm but his face was pale. “What can I say that might convince you?”

Kara gave Adama a desperate look. “Commander, shouldn’t we—”

“We’ve been bitten by too many snakes, Lieutenant,” Adama said. “I think the Colonel may be right.”

 

“Isn’t he handsome?” Number Six whispered in Gaius Baltar’s ear. Her breath was warm and wet on his skin, and her slender hands lay hot on his shoulders. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, though long practice had taught him not to spin around to look at her. He was standing at the back of the crowd, but someone might still see, and people looked at you funny when you acknowledged the presence of empty air.

“If you go in for that type,” he said softly. “And before you ask, I never have done, thank you.”

Number Six smiled. She was a tall, heavy-breasted woman with pale blond hair, gray eyes, and full, red lips. At the moment she was wearing a pale blue dress that flowed in some areas, clung in others.

“Jealous?” she said.

“You can’t be serious,” he responded. The second word came out more like cahnt. “He’s a singing ape with the IQ of a trained poodle.”

She ran a finger across the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine. He half closed his eyes in catlike satisfaction. No one could see—or hear or feel—Cylon Humanoid Model Number Six except him. Back home on Caprica, he had thought she was a real human woman, one genuinely attracted to his natural charisma, brilliant mind, and well-toned physique. She was the most inventive lover he had ever taken to his bed, and Gaius’ bed had been a playground for more years than he cared to count. Only later had he learned how she had tricked him, seduced him into giving up the secrets to Caprica’s computerized defense network. The Cylons had penetrated the Twelve Colonies moments later, and Gaius himself had barely escaped death. No one on the Fleet knew about his treason—except Number Six. He had seen her die on Caprica, but now she appeared to him like some strange ghost, able to touch him, push him around. Seduce him. She had initially claimed to be a hallucination created by a chip the Cylons had implanted in his head, but Gaius had gotten his brain scanned, and no chip had turned up. He had since given up trying to define what she was or where she came from.

“Looks like you won’t have to worry about him for long, Gaius,” Six murmured. “They’re going to toss him out an airlock. Typical mistrustful behavior.”

“Yes, you and your kind have given us so many reasons to trust everyone.” But the rebuke was mild, almost habitual.

“And you’ll never get the chance to learn what he’s really about.”

Here he did turn his head. Fortunately, he was at the back of the crowd and no one noticed. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Six nodded at Adama and Tigh. “Look at them. They’re going to have Peter killed. And his secrets die with him.”

“Why would I care about his secrets?” Gaius snorted, though he found himself staring at Peter Attis.

“You won’t,” Six said. “He’s going to die before anyone even knows he has secrets. Too bad. There’s glory in working out a puzzle like his.”

“Commander,” Gaius called out. He wormed his way through the crowd of people gathered around the Raptor. “Commander, if I may?”

“What is it, Doctor?” Adama said in the tired tone he often used with Gaius. It was a tone Gaius found immensely irritating. He was the vice president of the Colonies and the single most intelligent human being in the Fleet, yet Adama insisted on treating him like an annoying flunky.

“I think it might be best if we—if someone—interrogated this man first. If he’s a Cylon, it would benefit us to learn all we can from him. If he’s human, he clearly lived among the Cylons as their prisoner for quite some time, and he might have valuable insight into their thinking. He could hardly be a threat in the brig, in any case.”

“I think Doctor Gaius is right, sir,” Kara Thrace said.

“Which means we should definitely toss him,” Tigh growled.

Adama’s face remained impassive. He looked at Kara, then at Tigh and Gaius. Gaius held his breath.

“Toss him,” Adama said shortly, and turned to leave.