Chapter 27
(Cottle's POV)

"What happened when the cylons arrived on New Caprica?" asks Bill.

"They captured me," comes Starbuck's remarkably unhelpful reply.

"And then?" I ask, rolling my eyes at her.

"They took me to a basestar," she says, obviously not wanting to make this any easier than it absolutely has to be... for any of us.

"How long where you held there?" asks the Old Man, still looking for a way to break the ice.

"At the time I wasn't really sure. Keeping track of time in a basestar with no clocks, no shifts and with the lights always on was not easy. I knew it had been more than two weeks, probably several days more, but less than five weeks. That was about it. Eventually I learned it had been a little more than three..." she trails off.

"So it was a remarkably accurate guess," he points out.

"You could say that," she replies, shrugging her shoulders and looking away.

"Would you mind telling me how you came to that figure?" asks Bill when it becomes apparent that she is not going to say anything else.

"Um, yes," she says and I can't help but snort at that, deeply relieved to see a glimpse of the old Starbuck shining through in spite of everything.

"Kara," he pushes and I decide to let her answer even though I can see that she is not happy with this particular line of questioning and even though I know that this is unlikely to be all that relevant in the long run. Of course, if my suspicions as to how she knew are correct, then her discomfort is nothing compared to what Bill and his son are in for... but then again, having it spelled out for them may be just what the two of them need.

"I had my period once and I knew when that was due, okay?" she growls before explaining. "Less than two weeks and it wouldn't have been over, more than five and I would have started a second one."

"Okay, let's move on," I say, trying hard not to smile at the looks on the two Adamas' faces. "What did the cylons do to you on that basestar?"

"I don't know," she says, suddenly clamming up... not that she had been all that forthcoming with information up to this point.

"What do you mean you don't know?" jumps in Apollo.

"I mean I don't have a frakking clue... not really," she whispers, not meeting his eyes.

"How could you not know?" he insists, not willing to back down.

"Because as a rule scientists don't tell their frakking lab rats what they are doing to them and that's exactly what I was! All I know is that while I was there I was poked and prodded on a regular basis and I had no control over any of it. I was tied down and examined, I was studied and injected with the gods know what. Simon spent countless hours seeing what made me tick and there wasn't a frakking thing I could do about any of it!" she all but yells at him.

"I see," says the Old Man, obviously wanting to maintain some semblance of military discipline and trying hard to keep things from spiraling completely out of control. The problem is that that's also been the closest thing to a 'real' answer I've heard from Starbuck so far and I'm beginning to suspect that letting the two of them go at it --that letting Apollo push-- may actually be our best bet if we want to get to the bottom of this.

"So what happened after those three and a half weeks?" I ask, realizing that someone has to say something if we want to keep things from stalling here.

"Leoben showed up."

"You hadn't seen him up to that point?" I insist.

"No, as I said, Simon was the one who had been playing mad scientist on me."

"And when Leoben appeared?"

"Simon examined me, gave me a shot of something --some sort of fertility drug, I think-- not that that was a particularly unusual occurrence. Hell, at times it felt like the bastard was always coming at me with a frakking needle, and then he handed me over to Leoben, told him that I was ready for him to take me away. After that I was escorted to a heavy raider and taken down to New Caprica... to the detention center. We got there at night. The place was huge and I think some parts of it were still being built. I didn't see anyone on the way in... I didn't see anyone in all the time I was there... well, almost anyone."

"Almost?" I ask, somewhat surprised by that unexpectedly detailed reply.

"There was someone..." she trails off, obviously not wanting to talk about it.

"Who?" Bill prods gently when it becomes apparent that she is not going to elaborate on that, at least not willingly.

"Kacey," she whispers.

"Kacey?"

"Yes."

"And that would be?"

"A kid," she sighs, rather reluctantly.

"The little girl you brought back with you?" he asks and she just nods in reply.

"And that was it?"

"Unless you want to count the frakking cylons," she growls, almost daring us to push the issue.

"So let's count the cylons. What did they do to you?" I challenge, somewhat relieved by the fact that that was a verbal reply... not to mention the fact that it actually had more than two syllables to it. That may not seem like much but as far as I'm concerned that's progress. In fact, as far as openings go, that's probably the best we could have hoped for under the circumstances so I decide to go with it.