03 - Sagittarius is Bleeding Read Online Free

So what did she do?”
    Now it was Lee’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Specifically… nothing. She
herself has done nothing wrong. But the other Sharon shot my father, so…”
    “So it has to do with that Admiral Adama is your father?”
    “No, it has to do with that the Sharon who is in the cell is just like the
Sharon who tried to kill the admiral. If one Sharon did that, then this one
might try it.”
    “But she might not try anything.”
    “There… is that possibility, yes.”
    “And she hasn’t so far.”
    “Again, yes, but—”
    “Here’s what I don’t get,” said Boxey. “If you,” and he pointed at Kara, “had
a twin sister, and she did something really, really wrong, and you hadn’t done
anything, and they told you they were going to lock you in a cell because you
might do something even though you hadn’t yet… would that be, y’know… fair?”
    “No, that wouldn’t be fair,” said Kara as she took back the card deck and
started shuffling. “But it’s not the same thing.”
    “How come?”
    “Because it’s not.”
    “But I don’t see why…”
    “Because she’s not human !” Kara said. “Okay?
She’s a machine. She’s a toaster. If I had a twin sister, she’d be human like me. But
Sharon isn’t human and she never was. She’s… a frakking… toaster.
Understand?” She started riffling the cards from one hand to the other.
    “I guess.”
    “Good.”
    He paused, frowning, and then asked, “I just never saw a toaster that could
get pregnant.”
    The cards flew out of Kara’s hands, spraying all over the table.
    “Yeah, that was a new one on us,” Lee deadpanned.
    Suddenly an alarm slammed through the ready room. Kara Thrace, who had been
slightly wobbly from her alcohol intake, was immediately on her feet. So were
Lee and Cally, all of them scrambling toward the flight deck, leaving Baltar and
Boxey staring at each other.
    “Cylons,” said Lee with certainty as they ran.
    “Good,” Kara said. “With a choice of robots trying to kill me or this
conversation, I’ll take the robots.”
    Seconds after the pilots had left the table, one of Baltar’s personal
guards—tasked with attending to the safety of the vice president—came in and
took Baltar firmly by the arm, pulling him to his feet before Baltar could even
react. “Come sir,” he said, “we’re under attack. Regulations state that I have
to get you to a secure location.”
    “Well, thank the gods,” said Baltar. “And just where would be ‘secure’
exactly? I thought our entire problem was that no place was secure.”
    “Sir, we’re under attack. Regulations state—”
    “Yes, yes, yes.” Baltar turned and tried to scoop up the remains of his
chips, but the agent wouldn’t be delayed any longer. As he pulled Baltar away, the vice president called to Boxey, “Don’t you dare touch my stack!”
    Boxey watched him go, then walked over to Baltar’s unimpressively small stack
of chips and touched them repeatedly in a mutinous display of defiance that no
one saw.
    Then he sank back into his chair and thought about Sharon Valerii, who had
saved his life, sitting alone and scared in a cell, except it wasn’t her, except
it was.
    He wondered if she remembered him, or even had the slightest idea who he
was.
     
    Baltar hurried down the hallways, the agent making sure to keep him moving
quickly. His mind was an enforced blank, as it always was at such times when his
life was at risk. Suddenly a familiar voice said to him low, suggestively,
almost right in his ear, “Where are you running to, Gaius?”
    He almost skidded to a halt as he looked to his right and saw, no longer the
agent, but the statuesque blond Cylon that he’d come to know as Number Six. Even
as he nearly stopped, though, Number Six pulled him forward so that he continued
to move. He tried to respond, but his voice was paralyzed in his throat. She was
right there… right there. The woman who had been his lover,