03 - Sagittarius is Bleeding (32 page)

But she had not fallen back to sleep.

Instead she had lain there and stewed on her situation, and although yes, it
had all been a dream, she found herself being irrevocably drawn back to a grim
and depressing realization: She had nothing. Anything that she possessed—even
something as inviolable as the bond between mother and child—could be taken away
from her at a moment’s notice and a president’s whim.

Ever since the first visit from Freya Gunnerson, she had nursed the notion
that maybe, through some miracle, Freya could prevail. Perhaps it was possible.
Perhaps she could indeed achieve for Sharon some measure of freedom, some claim
upon happiness. But her thoughts in those dark hours had turned bleak and
frustrated. She knew the dream itself was not, could not, be real. That didn’t
prevent her from connecting with the emotions and fears that were the underlying
motivators for it.

Despite the fact that there was a child within her, she had never felt more
alone.

Her foul mood had not dissipated during the day, and it was at that point
that Freya had unfortunately chosen to show up and share with Sharon her latest
views and theories on her case. When Sharon had lashed out at Freya, allowing
her deep frustration with her situation to fuel her hostility, she had almost
enjoyed the comic look of confusion in Freya’s face.

Almost.

Part of her was still angry with herself. After all, this had been the first
individual in ages who had shown herself remotely interested in Sharon’s
welfare. So why was she lacing into Freya, of all people?

She had to think it was because she had come to the conclusion that her
situation was not only hopeless, but it was obviously hopeless, and anyone who didn’t realize that… well, there was simply
something wrong with them. They were stupid on a genetic level. That being the
case, why should Sharon be wasting any time at all with them?

And then… then Adama had shown up.

And she’d learned of the situation that had developed on the
Bifrost.

And she’d learned who was involved in it.

And that had focused her attentions in a new direction.

So it was that when Freya Gunnerson was escorted back into the cell area that
Sharon Valerii occupied, Sharon fixed her with a level and very disconcerting
gaze. Adama, to Freya’s clear surprise, was no longer there. All bluster and
annoyance, Freya said loudly to the marine escorting her—as if she were hard of
hearing, or as if she were playing to an audience in imaginary balconies—“I
don’t know what you think you’re doing! You have no legal right to hold me
here!”

“I know,” said the marine. “I’m just sick about that.”

There was a second marine backing him up, and Freya looked around in
confusion as the marine escorting her unlocked Sharon’s cell. The second marine
kept his weapon leveled on Sharon lest she, for some reason, decide to charge
the door in what would certainly be a suicidal escape attempt. Sharon stayed
right where she was. Freya was shoved into the cell with her and the door locked
behind her.

“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.

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.”