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  “I’m sorry, Kara!” Peter called. There were tears in his voice. “I’m so sorry.”

  He dropped into the loader bucket. Lee dove to the floor. Even though she was two stories above it, the explosion knocked Kara off her feet. It was like being slapped by a giant hand. She landed beside Sharon, the latticed metal of the catwalk scraping her bare arms and shoulders. Automatic alarms blared. Sharon recovered her feet first, yanked Kara back to hers, and towed her toward a set of stairs that led downward. The heat sucked the air from Kara’s lungs and shriveled her hair. The hot smell of scorched metal stung her nose and acrid smoke clawed at her eyes. Then she heard the scream of tortured metal, and a section of the catwalk behind them crashed to the main floor. The section Kara and Sharon were standing on tilted backward. Kara, her hands cuffed behind her, lost her balance and fell heavily to the latticework. She slid backward with a yelp, losing more skin to the catwalk.

  “Frak,” Sharon said, and managed to grab Kara by the hair. White pain ripped Kara’s scalp and she screamed. Sharon, who had hooked an arm around a strut for support, hauled Kara closer, then managed to get a hand under Kara’s arm and yank her along until they came to a level section of the catwalk near the stairs. Kara felt like a bruised bag of meat. She coughed and stumbled, but Sharon yanked her down the steps anyway. Twice she stumbled and fell, and both times Sharon hauled her roughly to her feet.

  “Lee!” Kara called over her shoulder. “Lee!”

  “Shut up,” Sharon ordered. “We have to get to the Raptor.”

  “I’m not going with you, bitch,” Kara spat. “You had that planned from beginning, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah.” Sharon opened the door. “You didn’t honestly think I’d wreck a plan we’ve been perfecting for months, did you? This way, Peter’s still dead, the cure is destroyed, the only other person whose body makes the prion is with me, and I still have a hostage that’ll get me clear of the Fleet. If you’re very nice to me, I’ll give you a vac suit before I dump you out the airlock, and if you’re really nice to me, I’ll let you put it on first.”

  “So why did you tell Lee to come along? Why kill him?”

  Sharon shrugged. “Someone had to handle the chains.”

  Kara decided not to respond to this. Sharon shoved her into the corridor beyond the doorway and shut the hatch. The heat vanished, letting Kara breathe more easily. They were standing at a well-lighted T intersection.

  “All right, let’s see,” Sharon said, “assuming Captain goodboy Apollo wasn’t lying about the Raptor—and your life expectancy will be really short if he did, honey—we need to go … this way.”

  “I’ll frakking kill you,” Kara gasped. “I swear I’ll find a way.”

  “Sure, sure,” Sharon said, towing her along. “Even if you managed it, I’d be alive and kicking humanity’s ass again before long. Not that there’ll be much ass to kick now that Peter blew himself to bits and took the cure with him.”

  “He didn’t do it,” Kara snarled. “That was you.”

  “Whatever. Let’s see. Left up here, then right, and the ship should be—ah-ha!”

  They came across a hole, perhaps a meter and a half in diameter, that had been cut into the bulkhead. Lying on the deck in front of it was a big circle of ceramic. It looked like a mutated round drawbridge. Sharon pushed Kara toward the hole. Kara ducked to get inside and found herself in the familiar interior of a Raptor transport. Sharon also ducked to follow. The moment Kara crossed the threshold, she straightened, spun, and kicked Sharon in the head before the Cylon woman could straighten. Sharon grunted and went down to her hands and knees. All the anger and fear Kara had been carrying with her exploded like a missile. She swept Sharon’s arms out from under her with a sweep kick and jumped forward. The back of her foot came down on the back of Sharon’s neck. Kara pressed down.

  “Now who’s the hostage, toaster?” Kara panted.

  “Don’t call me that,” Sharon growled. In a flash of movement, she grabbed Kara’s ankle and yanked. Kara lost her balance and crashed to the deck on her side. Sharon scrambled to her feet and kicked Kara under the jaw. Her teeth clacked together and Kara saw stars through an explosion of pain. The Raptor spun around her.

  “Frakking human bitch,” Sharon spat. “I should shoot you right now.”

  Running footsteps pounded down the corridor toward the hole and the hatchway that framed it. Sharon started to shut the hatchway, but an arm interposed itself. It was shaking.

  “Wait!” said a male voice. Kara was too groggy from Sharon’s kick to recognize it, but Sharon seemed to. She let the hatchway open again just far enough to reveal a dark-haired man crouching over to peer inside the Raptor.

  “Helo,” Sharon said. Her hand dropped to her belt and toyed with a small control Kara hadn’t noticed before. “This is a surprise. Trying to delay me long enough for the rest of the troop to catch up?”

  “No,” Helo said. His dark eyes were serious. “Sharon, please don’t do this. Leave Starbuck here.”

  Sharon looked genuinely puzzled. “Why would I do that?”

  “I know you aren’t … aren’t my Sharon,” he said. “But you have to know how much I love her—you. Please leave Kara here. Everyone over at CIC is too sick to chase you. Leave Kara here.”

  “So you can try to synthesize a cure from her blood?” Sharon scoffed. “I don’t think so, Helo.”

  Kara tried to sit up, but the pain in her head and her bound hands made it impossible. She could only lay with her cheek pressed into the cool floor.

  “Then do it for me,” Helo pleaded. “I’ve talked to my Sharon a lot, and it sounded like all of the Sharons … all of you … share some of the same memories. Don’t you remember any feelings for me?”

  “Your Sharon never died, Helo, so her memories were never downloaded anywhere. You’re just another human.” Sharon started to push the hatch shut again. “One who made the stupid mistake of falling in love with a superior being.”

  A pistol appeared in Helo’s hand. “I gave you a chance,” he said, and fired.

  Sharon, however, was already moving. She ducked, and her foot came up in a sideways kick that slammed into Helo’s midriff and flung him backward. He hit the opposite wall with a terrible thud. The bullet ricocheted off a strut in the interior. Kara heard a cracking noise, but lying on the floor as she was, she couldn’t see much. Helo slid to the deck, clearly dazed.

  “I could kill you, Helo,” Sharon said, her hand once again on that strange control at her belt. “But I won’t. The plague can take you. Maybe there’s something to the whole ‘feelings for you’ thing after all.”

  She slammed the hatchway shut, spun the wheel to lock it, and reached into a storage closet to remove a white vac suit. With practiced ease, she slipped it on and sealed the helmet. Kara was too groggy to do anything but lie there. And what did it matter if she fought back, anyway? Lee was dead, Peter was dead, the cure for the plague was destroyed. Almost everyone in the Fleet would die within the next two or three days, and the Cylons would be able to mop up the remaining handful at leisure. A single tear ran from the corner of her eye and down the side of her nose. Everything she had worked to preserve, everything she had fought for, was gone. Her life was a waste.

  And you’re a waste of life, said her father’s voice. Just a scared little nothing.

  Sharon, fully suited, took up the pilot’s seat at the front of the Raptor, and switched on the radio. “Galactica Actual, this is Boomer. Anyone over there well enough to give me a high sign?”

  There was a long pause. Kara tried to remain hopeful. If there was a way to negotiate her release, Commander Adama would find it. Sharon didn’t wait for an answer. She released the clamps holding the Raptor to the side of the Monarch, and the bright stars beyond the pilot’s canopy began to move.

  “This is Galactica Actual,” came Colonel Tigh’s voice, and Kara’s heart sank. The man was as diplomatic as a hammerhead shark. “Just what the hell do you think you’re
doing?”

  “Hey there, Colonel,” Sharon said, as if this were a perfectly normal day. The Raptor picked up speed. “The Old Man too sick to come on the line himself?”

  “None of you goddam business,” Tigh snapped. “You just bring that Raptor back, missy, and we’ll call it even.”

  “Nah. Thought you might want to know I’m making off with one of your star pilots,” Sharon said. Her voice was tinny over the suit’s intercom. “Lieutenant Thrace is lying here on my deck, stunned but in one piece. She’ll stay that way unless you try to fire on me with those shaky hands of yours.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Tigh countered.

  Sharon got up from the pilot’s chair and hauled Kara to her feet. Pain slashed through her head, and she felt warm blood dribble down her chin from a cut she hadn’t noticed before. Sharon plunked Kara into the copilot’s chair and said, “Say hello, Lieutenant.”

  Kara remained silent.

  “If you say hello,” Sharon said sweetly, “I promise to give you a vac suit of your own before I shove you outside.”

  “Frak you,” Kara said.

  “That could be a recording,” Tigh said.

  “Repeat what the good Colonel just said, Starbuck,” Sharon ordered. “If you want the vac suit, that is.”

  “That could be a recording,” Kara said through gritted teeth. Every movement only made the pain worse.

  “There you are, Colonel. So hold your fire and everything’ll be just fine. I’ll stick Starbuck here in a suit, give her a tracking transponder, and toss her outside. Once I’ve jumped away, you can come and rescue her.”

  The lie was so transparent, even Tigh had to see through it. Kara had no illusions about her eventual fate at Sharon’s hands, but the pain in her head made it difficult to think.

  “Where’s Peter Attis?” Tigh demanded.

  “Back on the Monarch,” Sharon said.

  “Where, exactly? The Monarch is a big place.”

  “I guess you could say he’s all over the place, really. Boomer out.”

  A tiny crackle came from the canopy in front of Kara, and a hairline crack ran across the Plexiglas. Kara’s blood chilled as she realized what had happened—Helo’s ricochet had chipped the canopy and the resulting weakness was getting worse. Sharon, however, didn’t seem to notice. She was busy plotting a jump.

  “Okay,” she said, putting in the final numbers and standing up. “While the computer’s finishing that up, you and I have things to do.”

  She hooked a hand under Kara’s elbow, tugged her out of the copilot’s chair, and hauled her toward the closed hatchway.

  “No suit?” Kara said, already knowing the answer.

  “No suit,” Sharon agreed. “I was lying. Hell, I’m doing you a favor. Better to die now than watch all your friends die while you live.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Kara said half-heartedly Sharon’s grip was steel-strong and Kara couldn’t break the handcuffs. Her mind came up with a dozen ideas, each one more desperate and unworkable than the last. Sharon let go of Kara and put her hands on the wheel that would open the hatchway and evacuate the air. The resulting blast of wind would shove Kara straight out into space. Kara swallowed, trying to hold on to every sensation she could because they would be her last ones. The air rushing through her lungs, the heart beating in her chest, the pain stabbing through her head. It didn’t seem fair, having pain as her final sensation. Sharon started to turn the wheel—

  —and then another Sharon rose up behind her, both hands laced together in a double fist. Kara stared, not comprehending what she was looking at. The second Sharon brought both hands down on the back of the fist Sharon’s head. The thin fabric of the vac suit head covering was no protection, and the first Sharon staggered in pain and surprise. The second Sharon hit her again and again and again, a dizzying rain of blows that thudded against the vac suit. The first Sharon collapsed to the deck.

  “Sorry it took so long,” the second Sharon said. She was wearing a prison jumpsuit, and her stomach was a little rounded. Pregnant. It was Caprica Sharon. “I had to wait until she was in a vac suit before I made a move.”

  “What?” Kara said, confused. “Why?”

  The Plexiglas crackled audibly. Caprica Sharon spun in surprise. A spider web of cracks was spinning a network across the canopy.

  “Oh frak,” she whispered, then flew into action. She leaped behind Kara and snapped the handcuff chain. Kara winced, but she was growing used to pain by now. Every part of her body hurt by now. Caprica Sharon pulled Kara to her with easy strength, and both of them groped through the storage closet for vac suits. The canopy crackled again and the web of cracks grew larger. Kara thought she heard a faint hiss of escaping air. Gods, nothing ever came easy, did it? She should be in the clear now, but she was still struggling for life.

  “Could we make it back to the Monarch?” Kara asked.

  “That canopy’s going to go in less than a minute,” Caprica Sharon said. “So that would be a ’no.’” She thrust a suit at Kara, who pulled it on with chilly fingers. Neither human nor Cylon spoke further. The first Sharon lay on the floor, still unconscious. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. The canopy made a soft popping sound, and this time the hiss of escaping air was clearly audible. An alarm beeped on the console, in case no one had figured out that the Raptor was losing air. Kara checked the fastenings of her suit and reached for the helmet. A slight breeze caressed her cheek, bringing a reflexive stab of fear. A breeze was a fine thing outdoors on a still summer day, but on a ship, it heralded death by decompression. Kara yanked on the helmet, sealed it, and inhaled the rush of plastic-scented air. Caprica Sharon, meanwhile, had put on her own vac suit, but she set the helmet aside.

  “What are you doing?” Kara asked, her voice close and muffled inside the suit. The canopy was by now nothing but a network of cracks.

  Caprica Sharon wordlessly reached down, unfastened the other Sharon’s fabric helmet, and ripped it free. She put it on her own head and fastened it, then shot a glance at the canopy. Now Kara understood. She supposed she should have felt some sort of pity or reluctance, but all she felt was glad relief.

  The first Sharon’s eyes popped open and she vaulted to her feet so fast, Kara couldn’t react. She caught Caprica Sharon by surprise as well. The first Sharon plowed into Caprica and knocked her face-down to the deck with the first Sharon on top of her.

  “I’ll kill him and you,” the first Sharon snarled for no reason Kara could see. Who the hell was him?

  “You can’t reach the control while you’re in that vac suit,” Caprica Sharon gasped back.

  The first Sharon got her fingers under the fastenings of Caprica Sharon’s cloth helmet. Damage alarms and air alarms blared through the Raptor’s cabin. Caprica Sharon couldn’t get the leverage to fight back. The first Sharon ignored Kara entirely.

  Wild anger roared over Kara. The first Sharon was responsible for everything that had happened—the plague, Kara’s sickness, Peter’s death, Lee’s death, the destruction of the cure. Strength she didn’t know she possessed thundered through her. She grabbed the first Sharon’s vac suit by the back of the neck and at the small of back and lifted.

  The first Sharon weighed less than Kara had anticipated. Startled, the first Sharon came free of her victim with an indignant yelp.

  “Grab something!” Kara shouted inside her own suit. Without waiting to see if Caprica Sharon had heard, she swung the first Sharon once to gain some momentum, then flung her straight toward the canopy. Sharon hit the weakened Plexiglas face-first dead between the pilot and copilot chairs. The canopy exploded outward, and Sharon blew into space. Her scream was lost in the rush of air.

  A hurricane blast knocked Kara off her feet from behind, and she found herself flying toward the empty canopy. She desperately grabbed for one of the chairs and missed. Then an iron hand caught her ankle. Caprica Sharon, her other hand firmly clutching a handhold, towed her back to saf
ety. Kara caught a glimpse of the first Sharon as she drifted through uncaring vacuum, twitching and clawing at her own face as bloody vapor burst from her mouth and nose. The pain and horror of her expression made Kara look away, despite her earlier feelings of anger and hatred. The Cylon may have deserved the death, but Kara found she didn’t want to watch it.

  The blast of air was short-lived on such a small vessel, and it died quickly. Once the women were sure neither of them was injured or leaking air, they both carefully climbed into seats, Caprica Sharon in the pilot’s chair and Kara in the copilot position. It was unnerving to sit in a Raptor, looking at the stars without a Plexiglas barrier between herself and vacuum. She felt as if she could float off into the emptiness. Maybe she should. Everyone in the Fleet was either dead or dying, and she didn’t want to be the only one left behind.

  Lee was dead. The thought hit her like a punch to her already-sore gut. Frak. She felt tears well up and blinked them back. Crying in a vac suit was almost as bad as throwing up in one. To distract herself, Kara shot Sharon a glance. The Cylon’s face was calm inside her vac suit helmet.

  “Thanks,” Kara said hoarsely. “For saving me. Twice.”

  “Thanks for saving me once,” Sharon replied with a small grin. “Why don’t you radio Galactica and tell them we’re coming? I have the feeling they won’t believe anything I have to say.”

  Gaius Baltar filled a pipette with fluid from a Petrie dish, prepared a slide for it, and slipped it under the microscope. He peered through the lenses.

  “Well, Gaius?”

  For once, Gaius didn’t jump or yelp or spin around. He had sensed Six’s presence before she spoke. “I’ve been listening to the radio news,” he said without turning around. “Quite a lot’s been happening aboard the Monarch.”

  “And a lot’s been happening in this lab,” Six said smugly.