New Orders ((AU Lost Year RP for number_eight))

[arrow_of_apollo]

"You've got to be kidding me." Lee all but gaped back at his father. The weekly meeting between the CO's of the only two existing human battlestars had started out just as it had over the last few weeks since the presidential election. With the entire fleet in parking orbit around New Caprica, it wasn't as if there was a lot to discuss other than fuel supplies and resignation letters. But these new orders had thrown the younger Adama for a loop.


"Not at all," replied Bill. "Just because Baltar wants to sit here and pretend as though the Cylons are never coming back, you and I both know it's only a matter of time. And intelligence is going to be our best resource."

Lee shook his head. "And what makes you think that we haven't learned everything we're ever going to learn from this... resource?"

Bill fixed his son with a hard look. "She's a Cylon. There's always more than what we're being told."

It wasn't as though Lee could much argue the point. No one knew how deep the infiltration of Cylon agents had gone, and what other models of the humanoid machines looked like. If the human race was going to survive, it needed to know all it could about the enemy trying to kill it. Lee understood the reasons, but there was still one other question to ask.

"Why me?"

The older man shifted uncomfortably in his chair, something that told Lee couldn't help but note. "After the... incident aboard Pegasus," Bill said, the euphemistic word clearly sitting very poorly with the Admiral, "it's clear that we need to take a different tack with this interrogation. The Cylon has feelings--"

"Manufactured feelings," said Lee.

"Manufactured or not, it's clear that these Cylon agents can be affected by psychological means."

Something very sickening roiled in Lee's gut. "Dad, you're not suggesting--"

"Of course not," Bill said through grit teeth. "Cain's men were animals and their methods abhorrent." The older man reached for the sideboard and poured them both a finger of ambrosia. "The 'Sharon' Cylon is programmed to believe it was a Colonial Officer. So I'm sending in a superior officer to debrief her."

Shaking his head, Lee was still dubious. "And after the... incident..." using the word in place of the truth turned his stomach, too. "What makes you think it'll trust a superior Colonial Officer, especially a male?"

"That's for you to figure out."

**********

Lee nodded to the Corpsmen standing to either side of the cell door. The huge, glass and steel-enclosed chamber was built to just about withstand a fully armed assault from inside, or from outside, and it made Lee nervous just to step into it. But he was about to do more than that.

He'd spent two days going over every text he could on prisoner interrogation, reading every paper on the subject that Pegasus' databanks still held. Lee's plans for the session had been written and rewritten a dozen times until he was hopeful that he would be able to at least begin building some kind of rapport with the Cylon agent.

'Sharon', Lee, he reminded himself silently, call her Sharon.

"Hello, Sharon," he said, his voice calm and even. "I brought you something."

Lee pulled a bundle from under his arm, setting on the end of the cot that was the only furniture in the cell until the Marines brought in a small table and two chairs. When he stepped back, the bundle rolled open to reveal a clean set of clothes-- underthings, pants, top, even a sweatshirt. Lee nodded to the two Marines, then took a seat.

The Corpsmen moved out of the cell, then locked the door with a solid clunk.

Comments

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

She'd done her best to push away every single person who had given her the benefit of the doubt. Well, Sharon mused, that really only means Kara and Helo. Maybe Chief. Kara had moved to the new planet that President Baltar had decreed "New Caprica", and so had Chief. But Helo?

Well, considering that Sharon had knowingly allowed a Cavil model Cylon onboard Galactica, then told him to basically frak off, she was surprised that he came to see her at all. She was still trying to get over what had happened to Hera, but she knew, she knew, that Cottle had murdered her. Sharon hadn't even been allowed to spread her ashes into space.

No, Helo and Chief had done that for her, and how had she repaid them after they both had saved her from the... incident?

She let a Cylon agent onboard.

"Frak them. Frak them all," she muttered, but her heart wasn't as into it as it had been at first. After all, despite her efforts to push Helo away, he still came by to try and talk to her through the glass partition.

She let him. Sometimes.

Sharon figured that the noise she heard was Helo coming back again, but no, this time it was Lee Adama. When she was finally alone with him, she looked down at the clothes and "furniture" that he'd brought along with him.

"Nice. So, what? You expecting me to give you some secret Cylon intel now just because you gave me a pair of pants? You'll have to do better than that, Lee."

Not that she really had anything to tell him, anyway.