As much as Kacey enjoyed that morning with her mother, being with KJ and Hera/Isis was easier than anyone else. They didn't need to talk to know what was going on with each other and had bonded quickly. Hera/Isis hadn't had that easy of a time, either. She was slowly starting to get to know her birth family, but felt torn between them and her adoptive mother – their current predicament couldn't be blamed on any of them, but they were all paying the price.
"You want to come to dinner with me tonight?" Hera/Isis asked Kacey as the three children looked over star charts on the observation deck. "I'm eating with my mom – Maya."
Kacey smiled, appreciating her friend's struggle with nomenclature. "Sure."
"Me, too?" KJ asked. "Mom and Dad ore on duty." Sharon and Helo had gotten a few days away from their responsibilities on the ship to spend with their family, but in the end, they'd gone back to work. Their feelings toward their superiors didn't change the fact that they were still soldiers and still needed.
"Yeah, sure."
"Attention all hands," a voice came over the wireless system. "Commence jump prep."
KJ looked up at the girls. "Which constellation do you hope we find?" he asked them.
"Cancer," Hera/Isis replied.
"Taurus," Kacey added. Both constellations were four away from the three the fleet had previously located – Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Capricorn – and could be an enormous help in finding Earth. Somewhere along the line, KJ had decided it was good luck before a jump to declare what you desired to be on the other side.
Everything warped as the ship moved to its destination. The children began looking out the window and counting the ships they could see, checking if everyone who had been visible before was still out there.
"What's that?" Hera/Isis asked as she realized that one of the hulks of metal nearby hadn't been there before.
Kacey frowned. "I'm not sure."
In Galactica's CIC, everyone was also trying to figure out what they'd just jumped in on top of. "It's not registering as Cylon," one of the officers on duty reported to Adama. "Whatever it is…it's OLD. Serious material decay."
The Admiral stared up at the screens over the center console. "An abandoned ship…" he murmured to himself, "Left behind on the way to Earth? Major!" Lee looked up from his spot across the room, talking with one of the other command crew. "Take two Raptors; see what you can find."
Lee found his wife and gave her command of one of the search teams while he took the other himself. They got together the best Raptor pilots left in the fleet – Athena and Racetrack – plus a few marines and did a quick mission prep in the hangar. Everyone was suited up, briefed, and ready to go within the hour.
"I want comm. lines open at all times," Lee told the group as they climbed up into their birds.
Upon leaving Galactica, both Raptors circled the abandoned ship several times, examining its exterior. The rest of the fleet had moved away, just as a precaution. Galactica was the closest ship, and it was still a few minutes away at top speed. The CAP circled around behind the Battlestar, the little ships barely visible in the enormous blackness of space.
The ship was comparable in size to Colonial One and had probably been home to a few hundred people at one point in time. The deterioration was severe, but it didn't look like the ship had been brought down in battle. Everyone was outfitted with flight suits since the probability of finding a habitable atmosphere onboard was low.
"Found the docking bay," Kara reported in. "Aft section, starboard side."
"Copy that, Starbuck," Sharon responded from her spot in the other Raptor.
A huge flash of light made everyone in both ships look away. In that instant, Lee realized that the only way an FTL jump would produce that big of a flash was if whatever had just appeared was practically on top of them.
"Search teams, return to Galactica!" he yelled, even as the massive Basestar above them began bombarding the fleet with weapons fire. They'd fallen straight into a Cylon trap without a second thought. As the Raptors struggled to find a way to navigate through the Cylons' firing solution, they could see Colonial ships begin to jump away.
"We're hit!" he heard Racetrack yell and looked out the canopy to see the other Raptor begin to lose attitude control.
"Galactica, Apollo; we need the jump coordinates. We'll meet up with you on the other side."
"Copy that, Apollo."
"Apollo, Starbuck…FTL drive…"
"Say again, Starbuck, you're breaking up."
"…FTL gone…" Lee swore under his breath. "…back to Galactica…" But their attempt to make a run for the Battlestar didn't work. The Raptor's engines quickly gave out with a nice flash of fire.
"Can we get a tow on them?" Lee asked Sharon.
"Even if we could, there's no way we'd be able to drag them all the way back to Galactica without getting our own ass tagged."
"ETA on CAP?"
"Galactica's already recalled them," their ECO reported. Lee muttered another curse.
"Options?" he called out. There wasn't an answer. "I'm not going to just abandon that ship!"
"If we cut power, I think I might be able to give our FTL system enough juice to get both ships a short distance," the ECO commented, fingers already flying over the controls.
"That means we need to connect up," Lee deduced. Sharon started going through the necessary maneuvers. "When you say cut power – how much?"
The ECO glanced up. "Everything down to life support. And there's a good chance we'll blow our own drive in the process." Lee didn't like it, but they didn't have a choice.
"Send Galactica the coordinates we're going to; someone's going to have to come find us."
Standing in Galactica's CIC, Adama had already watched every civilian ship disappear off of Dradis as they each jumped away. Now, he watched as the two remaining Colonial signals merged into one. "Galactica, Apollo; we have Raptor 295. See you soon."
"Copy that, Apollo," the communications officer replied. The dot on the Dradis screen disappeared a moment later. Adama picked up the receiver at the center console.
"All hands, prepare for FTL jump."
Once they came out on the other side, the command crew began to verify their position and check the status of the rest of the fleet. "Everyone's accounted for," Tigh told the Admiral.
He nodded. So far, so good, but he couldn't breathe easy yet. "Have two Raptors sent to pick up our search teams."
After almost eight years of flying together, Lee was impressed that Sharon's piloting skills could still surprise him from time to time. She'd brought their Raptor up belly-to-belly with Kara's – no easy task considering it was still on an erratic flightpath – and managed to keep the two ships close together while their ECO finished his modifications and got the FTL online.
When the ships made it through the jump and Sharon backed away a bit, the first thing Lee noticed out the canopy was that both of them were missing the tips of their wings and tails – elongating the FTL "bubble" to encompass the other ship hadn't been 100 effective. However, both crew cabins were still intact. "Nice job," he congratulated the ECO.
The younger man smiled before beginning to calculate their new position. Lee didn't like the fact that he heard him mutter, "Frak," a few moments later.
"What?"
"We still didn't have enough power."
"How far did we get?"
"Nowhere near our estimated position… Athena, are the sublight engines still responding?"
She jabbed at a few buttons "Negative. We've lost just about everything."
"What's the problem, Lieutenant?" Lee asked.
"We might still be in Dradis range for the Cylons."
TBC...
