Pegasus
Lee looked out at the stars and shook his head. 'People look out at those stars and some of them see hope. Each little light representing a possible future for us. Each one a different salvation. I look out and see only the space between. Endless darkness. To me, those lights are nothing more than a mockery. Most of them are so far away you couldn't get to them with a thousand jumps. Others are just fossils of long dead stars, the light traveling billions of years through space, long out-living the stars from which each ray was born. I look out and see a graveyard, or a sea of possible enemies. How many times has this pattern been duplicated in the billions of years this galaxy has existed? A sentient species evolves on a planet. They learn and grow. Eventually they create artificial life, to make their lives easier or better. The artificial replaces the organic. The galaxy is probably home to thousands of different varieties of cylon.
"Action stations. Action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship."
'Great, just what I need. I've got to go be inspiring. Frak.' Lee wearily got to his feet. As he continued to move, he shed the weariness and the fatigue that he had been wearing like a second skin. It would be back though, it was inevitable.
It was a drill of course. It had been drills for months. The rescue mission drills.
'What are our frakking chances?' There were so many variables it was impossible to say. They knew nothing of the situation on New Caprica. 'For all we know, everyone's dead already. If they're not, they might not be on that planet anymore: evacuated back to the colonies or maybe a cylon world, well beyond our reach. Even if they're still there, New Caprica could be surrounded by the entire cylon fleet for all we know.'
He had brought up his concern with his father. Diplomatically:
"How do we know they're even alive?"
"We don't."
That had been it. Oh, they'd discussed the need for intel, but Adama was convinced that they had to have some mission ready:
"Even in the dark as we are, we need a plan. If they get wind that we're still around then our chance of getting our people off that rock is gone. This way, if our cover gets blown, we can move right away, and preserve the element of surprise."
"Yes sir."
It's not like Lee had really tried to change his mind, because about half of him agreed with the admiral wholeheartedly. Lee smirked at himself internally, that was him all-over these days 'half of him agreed wholeheartedly."
He reflected back as he was walking to the C.I.C. for another mind-numbing drill. He'd been on the wireless with Kara, talking to her for the first time in almost a year. He remembered the subdued anger; a seething burn. Then Dee had seen the cylons...and then he'd picked up the wireless and said "Kara, the cylons have found us and in a minute we're going to have to jump away. I just want you to make sure that you stay alive. When we come back to rescue you stupid mother-frakkers, who thought it was a good idea to settle on a ball of muck and ice, I don't want to find that the toasters have killed you. They simply wouldn't take enough pleasure in it." and then he'd hung up.
As he approached the C.I.C. he thought 'It may be stupid. We may not have a chance in hell. But gods-damn me if I'm going to let those robotic-emotionless-genocidal-frakkers kill my former best-friend/lover/almost-sister-in-law. Almost half of Lee was almost sure of it.
New Caprica
'All in all, things are going slightly better than I thought they would.' thought Billy Keikeya. 'After all, I'm still alive and who would have predicted that?' Resistance members did not have what one could call a long life-expectancy and Billy had started behind the curve, lacking the military training most of the others had. But he'd had no real choice. As soon as he had seen those raiders in the sky he'd committed himself to the fight. When it became clear that the cylons wouldn't be wiping them out from the sky, that is.
They'd settled into some weird occupation that the cylons were attempting to sell as a new beginning. Ultimately, it must be said, much better than anyone could have expected. Not that the humans were content, but not being obliterated from orbit was an unexpected windfall.
The Resistance coalesced around Saul Tigh, and Billy had found a new mentor. Not that Tigh had acknowledged him, or so much as spoken to him really. Except the once:
"You the president's nurse maid?"
"Uh, not really. She was my..."
"I didn't ask for your life story kid." Tigh interrupted.
"I'm sorry..sir?" Billy offered tentatively.
"I'm not a 'sir' anymore, and you were never a soldier. That much is clear." Tigh laughed
"Fine...I was her assistant." 'you ugly old...' Tigh had nodded, the matter settled. In his mind, Billy was sure Tigh now had a mental picture of Billy with 'President's nurse maid' as a subtitle.
As incompetent as he clearly was interpersonally, it was also clear why Adama valued him; despite...well everything else about the man, he was a warrior. Something Billy was committed to becoming.
He found that his mind was suited to tactics. Political thinking translated fairly well to warfare. The heart of each was the same: know your enemy. 'Look long and hard. Think long and hard. Win.'
So he'd observed them, their dire enemy, and found that despite all of their advantages, the resistance was hurting them. Some of the cylons had been killed by the resistance several times. They were not the same afterwards. Not at all. So Billy had suggested that they target the same ones and kill them over and over. You could tell them apart if you looked hard enough; dress pattern, movement, associations. They had files on the specific targets.
'That's number nine' thought to himself. The ninth time they'd killed 'Jessica'. The other cylons were getting worried about her. Particularly the other sixes. 'There is some sort of connection between the members of a given model-line, maybe if we kill her enough times it will send them all off the deep end. Probably not, but it's worth a try.'
Jessica had been the one who had caught Tigh.