[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined 03] - Sagittarius is Bleeding

by Peter David - (ebook by Undead)

  “What’s this supposed to mean?” she demanded. “What, we’re both Adama’s prisoners now? Is that it?”

  Neither marine said anything. Instead they walked out of the room the heavy door slamming shut behind them.

  “Oh, they’ll fry for this,” Freya told Sharon. She glanced around the cell as if seeing such an enclosure from the inside out was a huge novelty. Perhaps it was. Sharon had had plenty of time to become accustomed to it, so the “charm” had pretty much worn off. “I’m telling you, Sharon, they’re going to fry, the lot of them. Adama’s military-industrial complex has gone too far this time. Too far by half. They think they can silence protest or run roughshod over individual liberties, but when I get through with them—”

  “Shut up.”

  Freya looked taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Shut up… and listen.”

  There was something in Sharon’s voice, a… deadliness… that completely seized Freya’s attention.

  Sharon took a deep breath and let it out. “You lied to the Admiral. You’re not going to be allowed to lie to me. If you know what’s good for you, you’re going to tell me what’s going on, and you’re going to tell me now.”

  “Sharon, this is—”

  “If you don’t know what’s good for you,” Sharon continued, unfazed, “then you’re going to give me grief, and you’re going to stonewall… but you’re still going to wind up telling me, because I’m going to make you do so. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Obviously I do. I’m not stupid. And it’s perfectly clear what’s happening. You think that you have to throw your lot in with Adama and his ilk because you don’t have a chance when it comes to fighting for your own interests.” She smiled in a way that was an odd combination of sufferance and pity. “Sharon, Sharon, Sharon… you’re underestimating what a careful program of legal savvy and public relations manipulation is capable of producing. I didn’t have a chance to show you my nine-point plan to—”

  She didn’t get any further. Sharon’s right hand stabbed out and seized her around the windpipe. Freya’s eyes were round white orbs of shock and terror, and Sharon told her in low, measured tones, “Okay… obviously you didn’t understand what I said, which would seem to indicate that, yes, you are stupid. Normally that would be your problem. Now I’m making it mine.”

  Sharon took a step forward and shoved Freya back. Even though she was a couple of heads shorter than Freya, there was no disputing who was the stronger. Freya, having no say in the matter at all, was slammed back against the cell walls, which rattled under the impact. She let out a cry. Sharon didn’t care. Instead her eyes burned with fearsome intensity and her fingers worked their chokehold around Freya’s windpipe. Freya tried to cry out a second time and this time around she wasn’t even able to inhale the required air.

  “Listen very carefully,” Sharon Valerri told her, and there was no mercy in her voice and less than none in her eyes. “You need to understand your situation: You are locked in a cell with a Cylon. Do you understand that? A Cylon. Not a human. Not one of your own. A Cylon. And Cylons do not hesitate to do whatever the frak we feel like doing in order to accomplish our own ends. You are going to talk to me. If you do not… I am going to hurt you. I am going to hurt you in ways that you didn’t know you could be hurt. I have a thorough and intimate knowledge of human anatomy and I am not afraid to use it. There are places on your body where applying the slightest pressure will visit agonies upon you that you will not have believed possible. And there will not be a mark on you to show an adjudicator or a Council member or the president herself. But the recollection of the pain you will suffer will stay with you forever. It will stay with you until old age, presuming you live that long, and on nights when you go to bed convinced that you’ve finally, finally left it behind you, on those nights you’re going to wake up screaming and your old nightmares will be back to haunt you. And in those worst nightmares, you’re going to see my frakking face looking at you with the most inhuman expression of detachment you’ve ever seen.

  “I will torture you for information and I absolutely will not give a goddamn about it. I can do that, you see. Nice advantage over humans. I can just turn my emotions off and do what needs to be done.

  “And I will do that to you.

  “Now talk to me about what I want to know… and don’t stop until I’ve told you I don’t want to know any more.” As a perverse afterthought, she added, “Please.”

  She released the pressure on Freya’s throat slightly on the assumption that Freya would start talking.

  Instead Freya snarled in her face, “F-frak you,” and launched wad of spittle that landed squarely on Sharon’s left temple. Sharon made no move to brush it away.

  “And we’re off,” Sharon said softly.

  Outside the cell, the marines heard the screams start. They weren’t Sharon’s. The guards stared at each other, and silently exchanged a question: Are we going to do something about that?

  After a few long moments, they did do something about it: One of them went off to get some earplugs while the other remained at his post and whistled idle tunes softly to himself.

  And he listened to the screams.

  He hated to admit to himself how much he liked the sounds of them. He wondered if it made him a bad person.

  Ultimately he decided that, if it did, that was okay.

  He could live with that.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Laura Roslin was doing an admirable job of keeping her cool, which provided a sharp contrast to Tom Zarek. She sat behind her desk, her fingers steepled, her level gaze on Zarek, whose renowned cool under pressure was showing its first signs ever of melting.

  “You can’t be blaming me for this bloody mess,” Zarek told her fiercely.

  Laura tried not to flinch at his use of the word “bloody.” Images from her dreams still had considerable force to her, and she was bound and determined not to let any of her haunted nights impede her ability to deal with the current situation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept for more than two hours straight, and inwardly she lived in fear that some new delusion was going to present itself to her and make her unable to handle whatever problem she was embroiled in.

  Outwardly, she wasn’t presenting the slightest hint of her inner doubts. “They’re your people, Councilman.”

  “They’re from Sagittaron, Madame President. That doesn’t make them ‘my people’.”

  “You brought him in here. Brought him to my office, with high-flown words of how they deserved respect and proper treatment. How they were discriminated against because of their beliefs. And now it turns out they’re nothing but terrorists.”

  “That is not true,” Zarek said forcefully. “They have a grievance…”

  “So do terrorists.”

  “They’re the injured parties here, Madame President. Gunnerson is asserting that members of Galactica are responsible for one of their most precious artifacts going missing.”

  “If Mr. Gunnerson had a dispute with the military, and he wanted to be treated like a civilized member of society, then he could have come to me.”

  “With all respect, Madame President, the last time you had a major dispute with the military, Adama threw your ass in a cell and nearly demolished the fleet. So in my view you don’t exactly have a stainless record when it comes to such matters.”

  The blush of her cheeks shone a bit brighter against her makeup. “One wonders how that would have come out if you hadn’t been speaking with all respect.”

  Zarek started to speak again, but then reined himself in. “I’m sorry,” he said, which were two words that she certainly hadn’t expected to hear him utter anytime in their relationship. “That was uncalled for. Not… entirely irrelevant, but uncalled for nevertheless.”

  She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of the apology, as half-hearted as it was. “The point remains, Councilman,” she said evenly, “that we have an
explosive situation on our hands. Adama is champing at the bit to get in there and get his people back.” which wasn’t entirely true. Certainly Adama was monitoring things and she’d been talking to him extensively about it. But Adama wasn’t anxious to have yet another incident on his hands, and as long as his officers weren’t in immediate threat of losing their lives, he was willing to hold off taking action and instead allow diplomatic efforts to proceed. There was no reason for her to tell Zarek that, though. “I want to sort this out as much as you do, Councilman. There are human lives at stake, and besides, I’ve currently got every reporter in the fleet packed into my press room howling for a statement.”

  “Let me go over to the Bifrost,” said Zarek. When she shook her head, he said more forcefully, “I’m their representative, Madame President. I have some degree of relationship with their leader. In fact, I was over there earlier, before this business began. I’m the logical person…”

  “You’re the logical person to be an even better hostage, Mr. Zarek,” Roslin reminded him. “You’re not an outsider anymore. Like it or not, you’re a man of influence. A member of the Quorum. That gives you a certain amount of trade value. I’m not interested in handing them yet another chip. Their ship is embargoed for the duration and that’s the end of it.”

  “Then at least let me talk to them.”

  “Gladly,” she said, “provided they were willing to talk to us. Our initial attempts have received no response…”

  With timing that Laura Roslin would look back upon as being almost supernatural, Billy knocked and entered the room without being told to do so. “Wolf Gunnerson of the Bifrost on the line for you, Madame President,” he said, clearly trying to deliver the news in as dispassionate and professional a manner as he could.

  Roslin and Zarek exchanged looks. “People will surprise you,” Zarek said calmly.

  “Record the call,” she told Billy.

  He nodded. “Recorder is already on.”

  For a heartbeat she considered conferencing Adama in on the call. She quickly discarded the notion, not because she didn’t trust him to remain cool in the situation, but because she preferred to hold him in reserve as a possible club. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the admiral in check was going to play better if Adama wasn’t actually in on the conversation sounding firm but reasonable.

  She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then picked up the phone. In deference to Zarek, she pushed a button so that a speaker was activated. That way Zarek could listen to what was being said, although he couldn’t be heard himself. “This is President Roslin.”

  “Madame President,” came Wolf’s voice. “Thank you for taking my call.”

  “Thank you for calling,” she said formally.

  “So… it appears we have a bit of a predicament on our hands.”

  He didn’t sound especially threatening. They might just as easily have been chatting about each other’s respective health. “I would categorize it as somewhat more serious than that,” she said. “I hope you don’t think this is some sort of game, Mr. Gunnerson.”

  “No, Madame President, I most certainly do not. The most obvious difference is that games have clear winners and losers. If matters spiral out of control, we will have nothing but losers.”

  Roslin wouldn’t have said it aloud, but Gunnerson was sounding amazingly reasonable about it. It was hard to remember that he was the one who had set this entire fiasco into motion. Although the chances were that he would have come right back and said that Adama was the one responsible.

  She knew perfectly well the reason that Adama had sent two of his people onto the Bifrost. Adama had been most efficient in keeping her apprised of his actions. The problem was that she had no way of knowing whether this entire issue with the Edda was some sort of trumped-up maneuver to try and distract from the business at hand. She wondered if Gunnerson even knew that they had a possible Cylon agent on board, although admittedly she was still having trouble believing that the boy was an operative. Roslin had to think that making no mention of Boxey was the best way to go, particularly if Gunnerson didn’t bring him up.

  Zarek, hearing what Gunnerson was saying, nodded and gave Roslin an encouraging thumbs-up. She tried not to roll her eyes at that. As if she needed moral support and pep talks from Tom Zarek, of all people. “I’m pleased to hear you say that, Mr. Gunnerson. This matter needs to be resolved immediately by the release of the colonial officers.”

  “I would love to comply with you, but I can’t at this time. Not until I know what the status of the Edda is.”

  “You have my personal guarantee, sir, that the two officers had nothing to do with it.”

  “And my people have my personal guarantee,” he replied, “that I will take every step to ensure the Edda’s return. Releasing two prime suspects—whom I assure you will not be harmed—would be counterproductive, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I would say, Mr. Gunnerson, that if you have the slightest hope of the Midguardians becoming members of the Quorum, then you have to release Admiral Adama’s people. Certainly you see that your actions won’t sit well with the Quorum.”

  “That is only because I’m not making my case to the Quorum itself. Were I to do so, I believe I could make them understand not only why I’m being forced to take this action, but why we should be given our rightful place in the hierarchy of the colonies.”

  “I am making endeavors in that direction, Mr. Gunnerson, but they will be completely undone if this is allowed to continue. All we have is your word that the colonial soldiers will remain unharmed. You’ve no way of guaranteeing that…”

  There was no response from the other end.

  “Mr. Gunnerson?” She flashed a look of concern in Zarek’s direction. He shook his head, his face blank. Obviously he had no clearer idea than Roslin of why Gunnerson had suddenly gone silent. “Mr. Gunnerson, are you still—”

  “Sorry. Sorry, Madame President,” his voice came back, and he quickly added, “And I’m sorry I interrupted you just then.”

  “It’s quite all right.” She kept the relief out of her voice. “Go ahead.”

  “I was just thinking: There’s an easy solution to this, other than freeing the suspects.”

  “It’s not readily apparent.”

  “Allow me to come to Colonial One and address the assembled Quorum.”

  She was startled at the notion. Zarek was quickly nodding enthusiastically, but a silent look from her stopped him. She glanced toward Billy, who shrugged noncommittally. “Mr. Gunnerson, we are not going to allow ourselves to be strong-armed into meeting with you.”

  “No one is strong-arming anyone, Madame President. I am volunteering myself in what could reasonably be viewed as a hostage exchange. You are asking me to place myself into a weaker position by releasing the suspects. I am instead offering to put you into a stronger position by voluntarily coming over there. Strong-arming? I would be counting on your good offices to allow me to meet with the assembled Quorum rather than, say, turn me over to Adama to be tossed into a holding cell.”

  “I could still do that, you know.”

  “Yes, but I would believe you if you said you wouldn’t. I would take your word for it. I am that determined to have my chance to speak to the Quorum and make my case on behalf of my people.”

  Zarek gestured that she should put Gunnerson on hold a moment so that he could speak to her. Her immediate instinct was to ignore him. It wasn’t as if she needed Tom Zarek to tell her what to do. On the other hand, she had brought him here as the Sagittaron representative, so it probably wasn’t going to hurt to hear what he had to say. “Mr. Gunnerson, please hold on,” she said, placed him on hold and then said brusquely, “What?”

  If Zarek was put off by her tone, he didn’t let it show. “What have you got to lose?” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “We both know we’re on the clock. Adama may be—”

  “Admiral… Adama,” she corrected him. She had been the one who had given him
the rank, and she found she didn’t like Zarek simply referring to the fleet’s CO simply by his surname. It struck her as disrespectful.

  Taking it in stride, he amended, “Admiral Adama may be willing to wait, but he’s not going to do so forever. If Gunnerson is here, that could well buy us more time. The longer a hostage situation goes on, the better chance there is having it ended with words instead of casualties.”

  “And you would know.”

  “Yes,” he said crisply, “I would.”

  She tapped a thoughtful finger on the desk, and then took the call off hold. “Mr. Gunnerson, are you still there?”

  “Still here, Madame President.”

  She realized she was rolling the dice with the Quorum. She was counting on Sarah Porter and Tom Zarek, of all men, to make this happen. As president she could call a meeting of the Quorum but she was not constitutionally empowered to force them to show up. It was part of the checks and balances built into the constitution, to guarantee that the president would always have to use tact and diplomacy in her dealings rather than strong-arming the representatives of the people. Of course, the constitution—or at least the original copies of it, preserved from its original drafting—had been blown to bits by the Cylons. Its spirit, however, lived on. “If you come here to Colonial One, I will ask the Quorum to assemble. You will be allowed to present your case to them. But what this will buy you, Mr. Gunnerson, is twelve hours. After twelve hours, barring credible evidence that they have committed some sort of crime, I will insist that officers Thrace and Agathon be released. And by credible evidence, I am ruling out confessions. I am not going to give anyone over there incentive to try forcing admissions of guilt out of them. If the officers are not released by that point, I will indeed turn you over to Admiral Adama, at which point, gods help us all.”

  There was another pause, but this time Roslin said nothing, allowing time for a response to come.

  “Very well, Madame President,” said Gunnerson finally. “Your terms are acceptable. I will take a transport to Colonial One. You will assemble the Quorum and I will speak my piece over allowing my people to be given official representation. In return I guarantee the safety of .the colonial officers for twelve hours, as of which point they will then be returned, hale and hardy, to the Galactica.”