I would like to thank Sable Cold for taking on the impressive job of being the Beta Reader for this book. As always reviews are welcome. If you find this is easier to read and fallow. Thank Sable Cold and all of his hard work

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

Chapter 7: No You Cannot Shoot the Lawyers!

High Orbit, New Caprica

885 Days after the Fall of the Colonies, 3 years 9 months AT

A few hours after both Battlestars returned to the system, Laura was sitting at her desk in the same room that she had been sleeping in. She was working on the seemingly incredible amount of paperwork needed to lead less than fifty thousand people. The hatch that separated her office from the rest of the ship opened, and in walked an odd looking thin man. With a quick look at her day calendar, she knew who it was. She had to fight very hard not to let anything show on her face. The other person would notice it and more than likely find a way to use that not only against her but against Bill also.

This person was Baltar's lawyer, and this was not the first time she was seeing this man at close range. He was not an unknown to her, not with so few individuals of the human race left. He was wearing the same suit she had last seen him in. Laura felt something hollow in her stomach when the hatch closed behind the lawyer. The closing of the hatch sounded a lot like the gong on the river Styx should have sounded to her ears.

That he was wearing the same clothes all the time was not an uncommon situation. Not with the overall shortage of clothes in the fleet. Even before the last year on New Caprica, most people only had one or two changes of clothes in the limited luggage they had with them that day the Cylons attacked. Some people had a dozen outfits with them, and the crews on some of those vessels had even more than that. But those were the odd men out compared to the normal people lucky enough to be on a spaceship when the Cylons returned.

Laura took her time and watched the man as he limped to the chair in front of her desk. She thought the limp was some kind of gimmick but he did have a walking cane. One that no one could remember him not having near him at all times and looked well used on both ends to Laura. He also was wearing a set of dark sunglasses that no one in their right mind should need on board a starship. But he always wore them, right along with the walking cane in his hand. The other odd thing that he was known for was being carried in his off hand.

That was the hand that was not holding the cane. Instead it was holding a medium sized, off white animal travel carrier. This one had a cat in it, and it was one of the few pets to make it out of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol's space with the rag tag fleet. The lawyer sat down in one of the chairs that faced Roslin from across her desk, and was staring right back at Laura. All without a word of permission being given, or requested by either party. It was very rude of him, and he did not care if he had been asked or not. He was playing a power game, and he had won this round... Sort of.

"He must be a hell of a card player, or crazier than Starbuck. I wonder what would happen if I got him and Starbuck to sit at the same card table for an evening. What might happen? Ohhh I bet that it would be worth recording for later viewing." While Roslin entertained idle thoughts of recording such a confrontation, she met the lawyer's eyes with her own. When she felt the time was right, she opened the meeting.

"Okay, Mr. Lampkin. What is wrong now?"

Romo Lampkin was watching the sitting President of the Colonies behind her desk. He liked using his dark sunglasses to hide that he was sizing someone up like a pig that was about to go to market. This person, who was being called the President, might have only been a school teacher before the new war started, but she was not that now. Or at least, she was not that right now. He had seen her while she was teaching before the Cylons had found them again, and he had seen her after.

At first, he had not known what was driving his curiosity. Then, just before he walked into that converted tent, he knew why he was there. He had bet that this woman had changed from her past life. She was by then a power player, and he had bet that sooner or later, she would seek a higher position not long afterward. After the Cylons had taken over the little refugee camp, he had wanted to see what she was up to. It did not take him long to know that she was not just teaching the little ones any more. She was one of the power players behind the scenes of the resistance that was forming against the Cylons. At that moment, he knew that he would have a run in with her again. That is, if they lived through the Cylon occupation.

Romo had planned to go for the straight stare down approach. But now, he knew that he would lose the point he had scored by taking a seat without it being offered first. He would have to change plans. Study the President a bit more before he could push further.

"I want you to dismiss all of the charges filed against my client. We both know that they are just trumped up, politically driven junk." He gave a smile that was as fake as his need to wear the sunglasses on the ship.

Laura looked down her glass at the man in dark glasses, just like she did to teenagers who wanted a different grade on a test that they did not deserve. With a level tone that was almost flat, she gave him a simple answer to his question. "That is not going to happen and you know it. Baltar committed the crimes we have charged him with, and he will have to answer for them. The few people we have left deserve to have justice for what they were put through."

Romo did not let up with his attack. He quickly decided to act like he was in court and she was the sitting judge without a jury to worry about just yet. "Crimes? Can you prove that he did any of these crimes? Or are you just saying that he 'did' these crimes as your opinion? Do you think you have enough evidence that he did a crime? Or any crimes for that matter, that I can't convince people were actually done by the Cylons and now just pinning on him? I don't think so, because if you did, then you would have already had the trial and shoved him out an airlock. Just like you did to those Cylons a while back. The right to a speedy trial is a keystone of our legal system." Romo had to fight down the urge not to stand and pace around the room as he spoke his well-practiced lines. He had used this speech, or a version of it, a hundred times. And he had always been pacing around a courtroom when he gave it.

Laura was tempted to pull out the file that had the recordings and other evidence gathered for the prosecution. Most of them were about how Baltar had been partly responsible for the Cylons putting the back door into the software program he had created for the government. The same back door that the Cylons later used to kill a few billion of their people in a single day.

It was only a fleeting thought. She wanted to play that card for a larger audience, and not for one man with a power complex. She was just glad that she did not have to turn it over to him like the Earther laws required.

She gave the man a little smile instead of giving over any useful data. "Mr. Lampkin the reason we have not had the trial yet, is simply that we have had more important things we have to do first. You know and I know, that a trial can delayed for any number of reasons. You know, like say a massive storm or other disasters in that scale of things. So I can legally delay the trial for as long as this storm is causing havoc on our people." The storm that she was referring to was not one of the natural variety, but rather the Cylon one.

Romo now smiled back at the woman behind the desk. "I think it's time to do some fishing, and see if my money was well spent or not." He kept the parts of his face that she could see very still. "Miss. Roslin. I know that the reason that you had 'things to do first' as you called it, is because you know when the Cylons are coming back, and how strong they will be when they return to this star system." Romo was thankful for the dark glasses as he dangled the bait out in the open. He could feel his heart racing, and even a bit of sweat to start to build up on his upper lip.

Laura kept the smile on her face, and did not let it move a fraction of an inch as she worked through the words the lawyer had just dropped in her lap. "That kind of information is a state secret, as I think you well know. You should also know that I cannot confirm or deny anything like that, Mr. Lampkin. So I will ask one more time what do you want? I do not like playing games, and that is what you have been doing since you walked into my office. I have more important things to do than deal with any Baltar related issues today."

"Frak, she does know something, and she is not going to talk about it," Romo realized, but decided not to it pursue at this at this time. The job came first. Romo did not know that one corner of his mouth had dropped a little as he heard what the President said to him. That was the only clue he gave that he had been surprised by what she had said and not said at the same time.

"I want a court date set. And if you cancel it, I want my client released out of confinement by the end of that day. I want this in writing, before I leave your office. If I have to, I will camp out here." He looked around the room. "The floor looks pretty comfortable to me."

He had a few more demands he was thinking about throwing on the table, but at the last second he stopped talking. He remembered that she was not a judge or even another lawyer. This was a leader of people in a war. One that had cost a lot already. There was not much room to push past a certain point, and he was pretty sure he had reached that point already.

Laura looked at the man and did not say a word. She wanted him to sweat a little. The look she was giving him had caused more than one person to melt. And not in a good way, either. Then she leaned over, and pulled out a larger calendar. She stared flipping through a few pages, and stopped. She then flipped through a few more pages, and stopped a second time. She did this four more times, and as she had hoped it was wearing on the lawyer's nerves.

"How about in eight months' time? Call it two hundred and forty days from today. How does that work for you and your lying frakker of a client? I want the ability to move that date in case of emergency. You know, something like a Cylon attack or something."

She had her finger on a date, but she was looking over the top of her glasses. She had already picked a date close to this mentally some time ago, but she had been smart enough to not write it down. She was waiting to see how things happening around the fleet worked out before she said the first word about it. It she could delay it longer, there was a good bet that she would have pushed for a later date for the trial. However, that would have been farther down the road.

Romo pulled out his own pocket calendar, and made an answering show of flipping through the small pages himself. It was hopelessly outdated, but he was not going to let her know that bit of information. Not at a point like this in the meeting. When he reached a page with some space to write on. He made a note about today's date, and what would be 240 days from then.

It was with as much boredom as he could put into his voice that he replied. "Oh, I think I can work with that. But I still want it in writing. And I want a list of what you can consider an emergency. If something is not on that list, I will push for my client to be released." He was making some more notes on an empty spot of his outdated calendar. It was not that he needed to do that, but it was a game. And he was not going to lose that point in his mind that he had scored against Laura Roslin.

Roslin smiled sweetly at him, and now Romo knew it had been a trap of some kind that he had walked into. "Tory has the paperwork on her desk. All you have to do is sign off your agreement on it. So unless you have more on your mind, I have another appointment that requires my attention." She was not looking over her glasses at him anymore. She did not want to use up all the power it had on a given person. Besides, she had gotten what she needed out of it already. After all he had not readdressed the question about the Cylons returning yet.

"Frak she's good at this," thought the lawyer as he resolved to spend some more time figuring out what made the President tick. Everyone had to have a soft point somewhere that can be used against them. He needed to make sure he had his A-game on next time they cross paths. And they will cross paths again, of that he had no doubt. Romo put the small calendar away in the pocket he had pulled it out of. He knew that his moving hands should distract from anything that might show on his face as he was thinking about the future.

"No, and thank you Madam President for your time today. I will review the paperwork to make sure it's in the best interest of my client. Will Ms. Foster be able to handle any changes that might need to be addressed before I agree to it?"

To Romo's surprise, he meant what he said. That was rare in his line of work. He rose from the chair and left the woman to her work. As promised by Laura, the paperwork was waiting for him when he exited her office. And even more surprising, it had exactly what she had told him would be in it and not a word more. He tried to get some stuff added out of sheer spite, but in the end, he could not.

He backed down, but only after trying to anger the human form Cylon. Tory did not rise to the bait. Instead she threatened to shred the paperwork and have him start all over again with Roslin. Romo graciously declined the offer, and signed on the line that said he agreed with what was written in the document.


Tory was smiling as the strange man came out of the Roslin's office. She could tell that the lawyer had met his match in the battle of wits today. He should have known better than to try crossing swords with Laura. She herself was still coming to grips about being a Cylon, instead of being just a human. She had seen the medical tests and reports, and she still did not believe deep down.

It seemed like Tyrol had been able to grasp that something was different about him from the start. For her on the other hand, it was harder for her for a while. That all changed after the Earthers put her in that chair and dug around in her head for a few minutes. They had showed her the difference between what she remembered, and what had really happened to her. It had been eye opening and more than a little frightening.

When they removed the memory blocks the Ones had put in her head before sending her to live in the Colonies in exile, she had almost lost her sanity right then and there in that chair. She somehow found that she did want to live, and to live at any cost. But for three days, she did not know what she would do. No one could possibly trust her at that time. Frak, she did not even trust herself, now.

When she was told that Laura Roslin not only needed her help, but wanted it, that had been another surprise, but at least it was on the positive side of the ledger. The last surprise to Tory was that she wanted to have her old job back. After the guard left her cell, a wave of memories washed over her. Not all of them were good but most were. She had enjoyed working with Roslin, and decided that she did want to do something like that again.

For only the second time, Tory was glad she had volunteered to let the Earthers play around in her head, and introduce her to that frakking chair. So far all but one of the Final Five had undergone the treatment to have the blocks removed. Sometimes she would sit up late wondering how long it was going to take for all of the Cylons POW's to do the same thing. She knew that it had been offered to them, but as far as she knew, only members of the Final Five had gone through with it.

Romo took the offered pages from the human form Cylon. He was still working out his own internal feelings about some of the Cylons working with the humans. The dark skinned female Cylon did not offer any small talk after the threat of shredding the document. She only answered direct questions when asked, with the shortest number of words possible. It seemed to him that she might almost be daydreaming or something while she was setting at her working desk.

Now that was a crazy thought, Cylons that daydream while on the clock. He was a lawyer, and the first week of that school had been all about training to never sign something without reading it completely first. It was a lot more than reading the words, you had to completely understand them. It was in later classes that they tried to teach you to start working out ways to counter whatever was on the pages you were handed. He had so enjoyed law school. It had been a perfect fit for the way his mind worked.

He would not leave this room until he had a complete understanding of the paperwork. He even planned on staying for a bit after he was done. He had talked himself into believing that he had been run out of Roslin's offices. To get a little payback, at least on her assistant, for the perceived rushing, he intended to stay as long as he wanted after he was done reading the paperwork. He decided to chat up the female looking Cylon who was working for the older woman in the other nearby room. After all, what did he have to lose in the effort? It was not like he had anything else to do today. Besides, he wanted to get even for the threat she had made about shredding the sheets of paper that he needed from her.

Tory was working at her normal pace, but kept an eye on the strange man without letting him notice it. Something about him made her uncomfortable inside, and not in a good way. If she had been in her old office back on Caprica, she would have called building security and had him thrown out on his... ear. She was reading a screen with half closed eyes, only moving two fingers to command the computer to change screens. This let her look like she was not paying any attention to anything that was going on around her. But that was very far from the truth.

Then he started talking to her again once she had completed the tasks dealing with him. She was not thrilled at this turn of events. Tory looked up from her computer, and tried to give him a certain look to make him go away. She figured he either had spent too much time with Baltar, or was cut from the same cloth as he when it came to making small talk. Tory thought it was too bad she could not shoot the lawyer.

After a fresh exchange of names, Tory just tuned the lawyer out, and started on another project that had to be done. Really she just wanted him to leave the office. She was very relieved, therefore, when he exited and closed the hatch behind him. Tory barely looked up when he finally left. She merely marked the time next to his name in the digital appointment books, and moved on to the next task on the long list of things that needed her attention today. As she started working again, she felt a chill run down her spine. Something was off, but she had no idea what it might be. She could just feel that something was off. This would be nagging at her for the rest of the day.

While Lampkin had left his meeting at the time he wanted, he had not made it to the launch bay in time to catch his shuttle back to the ship he was living on. And it was not like he could just walk over to another ship. He would have to wait for almost two hours before he could catch another ride off of this converted Liner. The liner that was called Colonial One was slated to spend one week underwater, and one week in space.

Laura wanted to show the crews of those ships that could not land that they had not been forgotten by their leadership. As she was floating in space above the planet, something was happening a short distance away from that blue and white painted ship. At least it was a short distance in the scale used when talking about objects moving in and around a stellar system.


On the other side of the fleet of ships, the damaged Battlestar Galactica's Chief Engineer was working in one of the few remaining empty sections on the great ship's only remaining hangar pod. The room had once been used to carry the anti-Raider missiles, typically mounted under the wings of the Vipers and in bays on the sides of the Raptors. With the extreme shortage of those types of weapons in the fleet, and the low likelihood that they would have a sudden large resupply of those weapons, the room had been repurposed.

Now fitted with blowout panels, it was serving as a test area for different ideas in the fertile ground the Earthers had made of the Colonials' minds. Tyrol was not alone as he worked on one of two sections of oddly shaped and colored metal. Both sections were in the center of the little room, each fixed to the top of a heavy duty metal worktable. Admiral Adama was watching as the Chief and an Earther ran two visibly different hand held devices over the odd metal pieces mounted in the work area. The two started talking again as the sensors moved about, but they were too far away and talking too softly for the older Adama to understand what was being said. All he could do was wait with his hands clasped behind his back, and try not to shoot them too many dirty looks while they finished up their tasks.

Chief Tyrol picked up a backpack like device that had been resting at his feet. It looked like twin silverfish colored cylinders feeding a thick gold colored hose. The hose went from the cylinders worn behind the wearer to a hand held device that looked not unlike some sort of weapon. It looked a lot like one of the heavy firefighting devices used by damage control teams to fight fires onboard ships. But at the same time it looked different and more lethal looking somehow.

The reason for the subtle differences was that the device was not human made, but put together by Cylons to be used by other Cylons. The Earther in the testing room had said it looked like something called an old style flamethrower. Bill had heard of such things. They had been common when the Colonies warred on each other, though they had fallen out of fashion during the Cylon War. The Earther said that they mostly used it to clear land of invasive plants. The cleared land could then be used for farming. Despite the rather mundane explanation, the Earther was beginning to look so uncomfortable that Bill decided not to press for more details.

Athena and another Number Eight moved from a different wall mounted table, and started to work with a few nobs on the device that the Chief now had on his back. When one of the women stepped back away from the pair, Athena slapped the palm of her hand on the top of the Chief's enclosed helmet three resounding times. Athena then took a few quick steps away from the other human form. At no time did she enter the field of view of the man with the twin tanks on his back.

Bill thought that must have been an agreed upon signal that everything was ready. Because a few seconds later the Chief pointed the weapon like hand held device at the wall. A dark colored liquid came rushing out of the odd looking device. It soon engulfed one of the pieces of metal about four and a half meters in front of where he had been standing. The odd sound that had accompanied the burst of liquid also reminded Bill of the sound that the heavy firefighting gear made when used in a normal atmosphere of pressure. It was an oddly pitched whooshing sound.

Then Bill had a flash of an idea. What if that odd blackish looking spray had been a gout of red and orange flame? Now he understood what the English word flamethrower meant. Now he understood why the Earther did not want to talk too much about what one was used for back where they had come from. The vivid, full color picture of a burst of flame in his head made his blood run ice cold. He had to give himself a little shake to get his mind back on track to evaluate this test that the Chief had wanted him to see. Now he was wondering what made people come up with a hellish weapon like that and then use them on other people of all things.

Bill had another shiver as he fought to keep those thoughts out of his fore mind. And he had to fight to put them back into a very small box buried in the back of his mind. He forced himself to focus on the test. This let him notice that the black liquid had settled very quickly. It was also a lot thinner than he thought it had been when it first left the nozzle of the device. Chief walked to an empty side table, and took the device off of his back, setting the device down with a solid bang on the metal topped worktable. It would seem like the test had not used that much of whatever was in those tanks.

The device must have been heavier than it first looked, because the Chief seemed very relieved to have the two metal cylinders off his shoulders and back. The Earther in the group was waving his hand held device in the air. He made a few passes with the device both in the vicinity of the test site, and in the clean air away from the test site. It was only a few seconds before he waved the bystanders to come closer and removed a small air filtering device that was in his mouth.

He would only have done that for one thing and that was if the area was safe for non-protected individuals to approach. No one wanted to be the first to enter what might be a danger area filled with an unknown substance of Cylon manufacture.

The older Adama saw the slow pace of the damage control teams, and walked a little faster than them. Bill had to keep a slight smile off of his face as the larger Chief bulled past everyone and beat them all back to the twin samples at the end of the room. Bill was betting that even though the Chief was a Cylon, he did not notice that he had almost run other people over in his enthusiasm to get back to the test samples.

Maybe this was a mistake that the Cylon makers had made. Making the human form Cylons a little too human in the end. Bill had to fight a slight chuckle from forming on his lips at this thought.

Adama walked up behind the Deck Chief and now head engineer of the whole ship as he ran his own little device over the metal samples. After checking his hand held device two or three times in different areas of the piece of metal the Chief ran his bare hand over its surface. He covered a large area of the display in a few broad swipes of his arm. He was making odd, low keyed sounds. Sounds that Adama would later swear in his memoirs was not far off from how someone would speak to a kid or a lover with those low tones. When he seemed to be done Tyrol straightened his back, and turned to face his commander with a small smile on his face.

"Sir, it seems be working." He started to pat the tested metal scrap out on display for this test. His smile seemed to be a little larger as he patted the metal sample. The only thing that was holding him back was the knowledge that this was only the first test that would need to be run on those fragments. It still might work out that he was wrong in the end.

Adama nodded and stepped around the shorter man who was blocking direct access to the test stands. He looked at both samples as closely as he could without getting dirty or needing any scanning devices. The one that had not been engulfed by the black liquid still looked the same to his eyes with their decades of experience. The other one was changed, but apart from the now overlying layer of dark liquid, it was a very subtle change to his eyes. The scrap the Chief had been fondling had an odd black tint, an almost oily looking sheen that seemed to be changing slowly to a metallic silver-black tint right before his eyes. Other than that, they did not seem to have changed much. Adama did not know if this slight change that he could see was good or bad yet. But he was keeping an eye on the Chief to see if he would give a hint at what way he was leaning in his own assessment of the test results.

As the two men were watching the two samples, the other two knuckledraggers went about waving of what both men knew were Colonial damage control devices around both of the fragments in slow sweeping arcs. Tyrol soon joined the other group composed of the most experienced Damage Control personnel in what was left in the fleet. The Chief had a thin smile on his face when he came back to the head of the Colonial fleet who also just happened to be the same person holding sway over life or death for him if he screwed up.

Tyrol turned his device so that the Admiral could read the display and the information it was trying to convey to its users. "Sir, this damage control stuff the Cylons made seems to be working. It's getting into even the smallest of the micro cracks that the portable damage control system can see. I will have to see how small of a crack it can work on, but from what I can tell, and it matches what we were told by the other Cylons, it seems to be growing some kind of crystal like formation deep into the stress cracks. Then it builds a second layer over that first layer of crystal to make a kind of a cross lock into the first set of fresh crystals. If it was a cut on your arm, I'd say that it's forming something like a scab over the breaks on the skin. The normal firefighting breathers, or battle damage suits, were not harmed. They should be okay to be reused at least a few times before they have to be inspected by a support crew. I think this will work. But we still need to do a destruction test on the sample to be sure how well it is working. For all we know, it might look pretty, but that's about it."

Tyrol stopped talking, and waited for his commander's decision. He had an idea of what would happen, but he would not start that until he had his orders. If this little demonstration had happened before they had found this planet, the Chief would have already started the next phase of testing, and then get permission from the Commander later. Maybe he would get that level of trust back, but it would not be soon, or easy for that matter.

Adama could not help himself, and soon he too was running his bare hand over both of the samples as the Chief talked. He could feel that the one they were running the test on had a slightly smother feel to it. But that was about it. Well, aside from the color change on the one that the Cylon substance was tested on.

"So, Chief... If it does work out, how do we use it to fix my ship? And also, how much would we need to do the job? That is, if it passes all of the remaining tests. I know you have lined up a few more for this little hunk of metal?" Bill was hoping that he was speaking the truth, and not wishing upon a star.

The Chief looked at his feet, then at the test sample, and then back to the Admiral in front of him. Tyrol was still side on to the other human form Cylons who had been helping with the test. He had waited to say more, but stopped when he saw the two Number Sixes start walking over to them. The one in the lead did not have a smile on her face, and that could be a bad thing. She had heard what the Admiral had said, and had not liked it at all. She was the one that had told Tyrol about the substance. She did not like that she had been doubted in the first place, and she was not about to let it go.

Both were among the first of a new crop of human forms who were trying the parole system out. They were still in the early stages of working their way through the ins and outs of what parole really meant. One had been captured at one of the Cylon defensive points through a method that was... different from that of any of the other human forms. She had been found pinned under debris, and knocked unconscious by a nearby missile blast. A mixed crew of Earthers and Colonials had stumbled onto her while inspecting the site, just as she was just coming around back to the real world from her unexpected trip into Lala land. She had been unarmed, and had not been happy about the situation she had found herself in.

From the reports that came in later about her, she had a mouth that could made a space miner blush. And she had not been shy about using it. Even then the Earthers had not felt right shooting a person who was both unarmed, and pinned under a few hundred kilos of wreckage. To rectify this issue, one of the Earthers had put three knock out darts into her chest in quick succession. It was just to make sure that they worked on her kind. They had been told, but seeing was believing, even if it was a little overkill.

When the drugs had worn off, she was placed in the general population with the other captured Cylons. She was told by those other Cylons what had happened to all of the other Cylons that had taken up arms against the Colonials and their new allies. This Number Six had not been one of the human forms inclined to take up personal arms. She had always been in one of the support roles that even the Cylons needed to maintain to a functioning fleet. That however did not mean that she was a meek person. Far from it, in fact. Even when that might have been the best course of action to take.

As soon as this Six was close enough, she started letting her opinion be known to the Colonial commander with some heat in her tone. "Of course it worked! Do you think we were trying to sabotage your old frakking ship or something? We've been using it on our own ships for years now, and we tested the frak out of it before we even started deploying it to the rest of the Cylon fleet. Why wouldn't it frakking work on this museum piece of a warship?" The Six' balled up her hands were on her hips by the time she finished addressing the Colonial.

Her eye would have been shooting fire if she had that ability. The Colonials were only lucky that she was using her sharp tongue to lash out. It was just too bad that she was as good at her job as she thought she was. She was able to identify issues on equipment, and fix them even faster, faster than any other three deck crews, human or Cylon. The second Six had not said anything yet, but her head was nodding up and down at every word that was said by her twin.

Tyrol rolled his eyes, and tried not to look at the Old Man directly. All while the other human form put both feet in her mouth all the way to the hip joints. Not for the first time, he wondered if Cylon blood stains were easier or harder to wash out of clothing. He was betting that the Admiral was about to rip her a new one any second.

Adama was about to shoot the Cylon, and not in a metaphorical way. His hand had moved to his hip where until recently he had been carrying his sidearm every day since the day after he had been shot. He had just rescinded the order for all on duty personnel to carry loaded side arms. Now it was only a suggestion that they have them ready in case of an alert. Trying to set an example, he had gone without. Now he was wishing that he had not decided to do that today. He took two deep breaths to get his blood pressure under control before asking the question again. He did not like having to ask the same question twice even to members of his own crew, much less a hitchhiker. That did not even count what this Cylon had said about his beloved girl, and to his face no less.

"So, like I said before. After it has passed the tests, how do we fix my ship that you're hitching a ride on?" Bill's index finger was was by now tapping a pattern against his right hip, and he did not even notice what he was doing.

Both Model Sixes turned red as the tone struck home. The second Six was going by the name of Donna, but she also had little experience in dealing with humans. Much less having to deal with one of the famed Adamas. She had been found in one of the few emergency life pods that had been successfully launched from one of the Basestars before it died under the hammering of Colonial weapons. The only reason it had been brought in to one of the Colonials' ships by one of the few SAR Raptors was that it was only a few hundred meters from a damaged Viper. One with a still living pilot manning the little craft's by then useless controls.

Her main job in the Cylon Fleet had been as one of the few human form Cylons working in the engine room of a Basestar. That is, before it had been blasted out of space by Colonial weapons fire. She had seen the rising level of damage being done to her ship and as luck would have it, she was only about five or six paces from an escape pod when she realized it was done for. She had just closed the hatch when all hell broke loose. After a quick second, she was back from the flashback of her drifting in space aboard the life pod wondering about the many different ways that she was mostly likely going to die. She stepped into save her fellow Six any more embarrassment. Maybe. Or maybe she was stepping in to save her own hide.

"I don't know, Sir." She felt that a little bit of sweat start wet her under arms. "This is as new to us as it is to your people, Sir."

The 'Sir', had been thrown in at the last second, but not because she was being disrespectful to the Colonial Commander. It was simply not a form of address Cylons normally used even on their warships. "I don't know how much of it we can find on what's left of the Basestars in system. It is based on an organic compound that we found on our side of the border. We used it as the base compound for the repair matrix. I know that I can make more of the key catalyst with the lab equipment in the fleet. But I don't know if we can grow the basic bio-compound that makes the matrix work the way it is supposed to." She was being completely honest with the Admiral.

Adama nodded his head. He had been afraid of that when he read about Tyrol's proposed course of action to repair the damage to the old warship. He looked away from the pretty Cylons, and back at the not so pretty Cylon that was once more his Chief Engineer. He made a face, and gave an order he knew he should not have had to. He also knew that he needed to do it, at least until both Tyrol and he were as comfortable with each other as they used to be.

"Okay. Fix the other sample just like we normally would. And test them both as hard as you can. I want the draft report on my desk by the evening meal, Chief."

He now looked once more at the female cylons, and pointed a bony finger at them. His craggy face was not angry, or friendly. "I want you to report to the main briefing room when you are no longer needed here. We have a complete set of electronic deck plans for the class of Basestars that were in this system."

Bill had ordered that file loaded not long after reviewing Tyrol's plan. He had been looking at it on and off for some time now, mentally marking out the places where he would put damage control equipment. This had all been on the off chance that this test would prove fruitful. Bill paused to make sure that he had the Cylons' attention.

"We will need you both. We need you to mark everywhere that this stuff might be stored on what is left of those Cylon ships, along with anything else that might prove useful." He turned away and started walking back to his office. He was hoping to find out that Laura was on her way over when he made it back to CIC. Before he could get far though, a voice reached out to his back. He almost lost his cool, stopping and turning slightly when the female Cylon started talking.

"Sir, the longer the stuff sets, the better it works. It really needs twenty hours to even come close to being fully set."

The Six that had been recovered planetside was almost frantic with her statement. She did not want the tests to fail because she felt her kind would be blamed for that failure. She was not sure the humans would keep their word, and not put an end to her life permanently. She really did not want to die. She had not even liked the thought of dying when her people had access to resurrection. Now they did not even have that, so death was total now. She had no problem telling her peers that this frightens the frak out of her.

Adama was still more or less facing away from the two Cylons. "I know, but time is something we don't have much of. Testing early will give us a baseline of information, and we can work out a timeline with that confirmed data point. I am planning on some salvage missions on the Basestars, starting first thing tomorrow. I want to add be able to add that stuff to their list. And that's only if it's worth the time and dangers to those crews to go looking for it in the first place." Bill now exited the room to the stunned eyes of those left behind.

This was the first time that anyone in this group had heard anything about a return to the wrecked Cylon ships. By order of the Admiral and the Acting President of the Colonies, the battle damaged wrecks had been very carefully not messed with. What was left of the Galactica's starboard hangar pod had been searched. Taking a page from the Earthers the Admiral had even sent a second group over to walk down every hall and look in every room.

The first mission had only looked for any one who might still have been alive shortly after the battle. They had been able to save only three people out of all of those souls that had been in that part of the ship during the battle. It was a very glum recovery crew who had reported back to the damaged Flagship. Still, three was a lot better than zero.

The second search mission was launched a month or so after the Cylons were confirmed to have been all destroyed in this local area. They had gone after items that were worthwhile and yet small enough to be retrieved for reuse by the rest of the fleet. Like three MK II Vipers that had been moved over to that hangar for extensive repairs. They had been moved there to free up more room in the more active port pod for the upcoming battle. They were even able to recover six Viper engines and a Raptor that had a blown out jump engine but was otherwise a fully functional scout craft on that last mission.

Everything else, like personnel effects, had been left as they were the day of the attack. This again was on the Admiral's written and posted orders. Bill had wanted to pull every weapon, round, tool, and anything else that was only bolted down. But the other part of his brain knew that a lot of that kind of stuff needed to be left behind. He needed to convince the Cylons that the surviving humans had left this system as fast as they could. He did not want the Cylons to know when the surviving humans had left this system. Anything that would throw off their tracking calculation could be helpful to the humans in the end.

The two different types of Cylons were silent, as the Admiral continued on his way out of the room that the testing had been done in. They did not have anything more to say. They were all thinking on their own that when the Admiral changed his mind about something, it usually meant something big was up or about to happen. When the two Number Sixes turned to look at the other Cylon, Tyrol, he had similar look of shock plastered on his face. He had not known about this third mission to the wrecked Cylon Basestars either. For once the Chief's network had failed him. He viewed this as another sign that he had a lot of making up to do.


As the older Adama made his way back to CIC, he was thinking about his last words to the two Cylons. He had not noticed the poleaxed look that the Chief had at his statement. Bill could understand that look. He too had been blindsided by the request from one of the Earthers a few days ago. That request ended up kickstarting the entire process of planning for a relook at the Cylon ships. Every time he thought about that meeting, he would both shake his head and curse himself.

His name was John Keller, and he had an idea that supposedly came up after a few drinks at the dirtside bar. He had gone through channels to reach him, but he had kept what his actual idea was very close to his breast. That is, until he could get some face to face time, as he called it, with someone high enough in the food chain. Adama was still kicking himself for not thinking about it first. His son had banged his head on the hatch door when Bill told him about the Earther's idea in some detail. It just was one of those ideas that was so simple, it had been overlooked. And in this case, it had repeatedly been overlooked. It was one of those ideas that only someone like Starbuck could have come up with in the first place. Bill was still shaking his head every time the thought of that idea crossed his mind. It had connected so many dots that it was not funny.

After Bill returned through the heavy metal armored hatch that separated the flagship's CIC from the rest of the ship. Bill had to take some time physically checking each station in the CIC. He was looking for any and all updates. As was expected there were no issues in the CIC that needed his direct attention. He was not supposed to check back in for another few hours after the Chief's little test, but they were able to update the commander without any delays when he showed up out of the blue.

With that task complete, he returned to his favorite work area near the main plotting table. On it was the complete briefing for the next day's mission to the floating wrecks nearby. Bill could not help himself, so he opened the folder with properly cut corners. He pulled out his reading glasses from their carrier and started to re-read this file's pages to himself. He soon had his pen out to mark the changes he wanted, now that he was over the shock of missing the idea. He would hand off a copy of the folder to the mission commander first thing in the morning. Sometimes you would be amazed at what you noticed was missing after you set a report down and then came back to it a few hours later. He gave a soft chuckle as he reviewed the file one last time. This brought several sets of eyes to look at him for a fast second, before going back to whatever task they were supposed to be doing.

The plan was for a mixed group of Earthers and Colonials numbering twenty people in total for this mission. That number also included four human form Cylons who had already volunteered. Those four would be going with them to act as guides in the dark zero gravity of the floating wrecks. They would be leaving after the morning meal to start searching the Cylon wrecks. They had planned to look for missiles, warhead bunkers, and a short list of other things that were considered useful. Useful enough to be worth the risk of going through the wrecks searching for them.

Adama made a note for them to look for reservoirs of that damage control substance the Chief was looking at using to help fix his ship. John Keller had brought up the core idea, along with someone named Joseph Vo, for the real jewels that might be hiding in those hulks. It would seem that the two had been talking about the Raptors that were under repair after a very visible engine malfunction. This got them to thinking after a few drinks.

"Why not check those Cylon wrecks for any Raiders or Heavy Raiders? They could just take those engines and any spare parts and tools that were laying around inside of the wrecks." That became the keystone for a lot more detailed idea that was quickly worked up.

It would seem that a lot of the Earthers had been sitting around having a few cocktails and thinking about all of that material just floating in space unused. And thinking that they might be able to take advantage of it. John had been told the reason for not cleaning up the Cylon battle wreckage and he agreed with the principle. Then the Earther dropped his other little bombshell on Admiral Adama. Would the Cylons really miss a few missiles or repair parts that might still be left on those dead hulks? All they need to do is be careful when they did the grabbing.

The Earthers and Bill's own knuckle draggers would love to figure out how any of those items worked. What if they could make a salvage run or two, and pull some nice little goodies out of those wrecks? They could work on ways to counter those insanely effective seeking weapons the Cylons had been using on them besides having to shoot each one down with outgoing fire.

The Earthers had been able to recover some missiles and had turned them over to the Colonials already. But Bill wanted more of them. A lot more. As many as he could get his greasy old hands on. Adama was thinking that if they had enough them, then maybe they could modify them for Vipers or Raptors to use against their makers. Well, that would be very nice. And it was also a scenario where he would not have to divert a lot of resources to build replacements for the weapons he was using up. Now add to getting a few of those missiles the possibility of getting some compact class jump engines, or even just some spare parts for them?

That would help with an area that his support ships were falling behind on. The Raptor's jump engine was the smallest ever known. That is, until the Cylons showed that they could put them on Raiders as well as larger Heavy Raiders. Still, making Raptor sized engines took special skills, tools, and other items that Bill Adama was already short and getting in shorter supply of by the day.

So the plan was to enter the larger parts of the wrecks. They were to look for any missile magazines or areas where the 'friendly' Cylons said something of value might be located. During the planning brief, it came up that the salvage team also wanted to search the many missile tubes that the wreck had. Bill had vetoed that idea with some prejudice. Colonial and Cylon doctrine always said that a missile was live as soon as it was loaded into any type of launching device.

And the one thing you did not want to do was mess with a live Cylon warhead. Or any other live warhead for that matter. Such things tended to suddenly decide to go into unfriendly mode without at least kissing you first. The highly specialized Colonial explosive techs did not even mess with trying to work on them. They had a simple rule, blow them in place, and fix the damage later. It just was not worth losing a bomb or ordnance disposal team ninety-nine times out of a hundred. All while the disarming tech tries working on disabling the warheads.

This expedition's raiders were using full Earther made Environmental Body Armor, or what they called EBA for short, and a few of their smaller armed manned robots. On the Colonial side was some of their deep space suits, along with their newly acquired Chipwell Challenger power armors on their first live mission. The idea was that they would use the built in strength advantage that the Earther machines gave them. They could rip through any hatches and bulkheads that might get in the way. Bill knew that even the heavy hatches that protected a Battlestar's ammunition bunkers where not that much stronger than the average Heavy Raider hull. If that held true for Cylon construction, they should be able to do the job quite nicely. The only way to know, was to gain the first hand experience doing the task. They could always bring up a few more of the larger machines to do the lifting for them if it came down to it.

Adama had also nixed the idea of using any Colonial or Earth made cutting tools while in the Cylon wrecked hulls. Adama felt that it would leave too many clues about who had done the damage post battle. If any Cylon took the time and boarded the wrecks after the Colonials were gone, they would quickly be able to work out a good idea of when the cutting had taken place. The only clues they intended to leave should point to something big or catastrophic having ripped or torn the hatches off their mounts during the battle. Adama could not help himself from grinning at the thought of a Number One Cylon called John trying to work out what had happened to the three Basestars while they had been gone. He hoped that it would cause a lot of sleepless nights for him, the other Number Ones, and any other human form who would see the damage these two battlestars had caused. It may well be the first time for the Cylons to see what a pair of battlestars could do to a Cylon battle fleet.

His final note was that they were only to take things that might be of very high value, yet small enough that they would not be noticed missing. In other words, they would have to leave behind any Cylon bodies, Raiders, or Heavy Raiders behind. He signed his name at the bottom of each page and passed the whole file off to one of his staff. His staff would take care of copying it and passing it out to those who needed copies, as well as entering it into the ship's logs for future review.

Adama finished up some more mundane paperwork, did his rounds around the CIC again, and after checking the large clock at one end of the CIC, he then headed to the Raptor landing bay to meet up with Laura. He was planning to take the rest of the day off, and spend some time watching a movie the Earthers had given him. He was going to be with Laura on what they were calling a date night. He had no idea what a Hobbit was or might be, but he had been given the 'Complete Set' to be returned only after he had viewed all of the movies in the box set.

This was the first time that Laura and he could set aside a block of time to do something together like a good old fashion date. So they had blocked off ten hours, to just be together with each other, the movies, and some food. It was not as much time as he wanted to set aside, but both of the leaders had their own full schedules to deal with. It had taken a fair amount of juggling just to get those hours for tonight. To have asked for more would have tempted fate a little too much.


Eleven hours later, and just before the evening meal was severed on the different ships' mess halls, Adama was back in the CIC of his flagship, and Laura was heading back to her ship. She still had a full set of meetings that would last long into the night, again. He was looking around his work area, and he could tell that it was missing... something. He was trying to remember what it was, and then it hit him like a bat to the knees. Bill looked around the room quickly, and found who he was looking for. He was kicking himself for being so recharged that it had taken a little bit of time for his mind to get back into the game of being the fleet's Admiral again.

"Colonel TIgh, the Chief was supposed to have a report for me before evening meal. I have not seen him." In the old days, that would have been all he needed to say to launch the guided missile of an XO rampaging around the old Battlestar looking for the report. Or more to the point, he would be looking for the person or persons, who were supposed to have done said report. Bill had a smile on the inside as he visualized all of the havoc Saul Tigh had done in similar situations in the not too distant past. He really was a great XO.

The XO of the ship looked up when his name was called. However, he did not explode like Adama had expected him to do. Instead he walked smoothly over to the fleet commander and his friend.

"Bill, he dropped it off a few hours ago." He reached under the table, and pulled out a few sheets of cut cornered paper from a lower area by the Admiral's legs. Saul thumbed through the stack, making sure that it was complete, then passed them over to the commander. He had been keeping it out of sight so that the wrong eyes did not see it. The last thing he wanted was for any more information to be leaked to the Quorum. In Saul's opinion, they had been causing more and more issues of late. And so far any issue they caused had been an issue that did not need to happen.

Adama gave his friend a small smile, one that the rest of the staff would find hard to see. That is if they happened to be looking the right way, and were not busy. Both were in short supply at that moment. He reached across the narrow part of the table to take the file in his hands.

"Good. Did you read it?" He had his suppositions, but he wanted to see what the other person might say to the question. He was still trying to figure out if his friend was still his friend or something else entirely. He knew what way he was leaning, and he knew that he was leaning that way more and more every day.

Saul put both of his hands flat on the table, and leaned closer to the fleet commander. "Yeah, I frakking did. Tyrol tested both repaired samples, exactly as you ordered him to."

Saul stopped talking for a few minutes. He was wondering about how and why the Chief had made sure to say those words his report. He was wondering what parameters Bill had given the Chief for the tests that had been run. "The one that he used that Cylon goop on came back rated at just over fifteen percent stronger compared to damage repaired with our usual procedures. Even with letting it set for only three hours before they started with the testing. They spent six hours working on the second test object using standard methods before they started the strength test. The rest of the report is just a long winded way to say that it's a quicker, stronger, and easier way to do the job of repairing hull. That is, if we can find enough of the stuff to be worthwhile. Or have enough of the stuff that will work to do us any good." It had not been uncommon for the XO to read the incoming reports and then paraphrase them for the battlestar's commander before the Cylon attack.

Saul looked around the CIC, but he did not see any hint that any unwanted ears were turned his way. "Me, I think that if you add in how long it would take to make the repair materials themselves. And that's not counting what we would have to stop making while those materials are being produced. It's a no-brainer on what method we should try to use. If we can."

Saul was looking and knew his ex-friend was evaluating every word he had said, as well as the tone he had used while telling what he was thinking. A part of Saul's mind gave a slight flutter as a long ago memory came bubbling up. It was just as he had done, back when they had first started working together many years ago.

Adama felt that he was nodding his head as he flipped through the pages and listened to Saul give him an overview and his opinion of the report. "I was afraid of that. Glad I put the Cylon stuff on the wish list for tomorrow's mission already. We will just have to wait and see what the boys find over there. Why court trouble, and make wishes, if we don't have to?"

Adama was wondering what kind of trouble he would have to deal with when word got out to the press about him using Cylon technology to repair the flagship of what remained of the human fleet. Some might liken it to spilling human blood in a temple to the gods or something equally as bad. Sometimes it was hard to figure out what was going to push a group off the deep end.

Saul gave his friend an odd little smile that very few in the CIC would be able to translate. "I was thinking the same thing. Glad you told me about the change." He gave a soft snort. "I would have looked like a frakking ass if I had told them before they launched, not knowing it was in their orders already. Do you think that we might be able to expand to the full list after this test run?"

What very few people knew was that there was a bigger plan. It would depend on how this first run went, and on what part of the next phase Bill would announce as his new idea to the real world. Bill was the only one who could clear the teams to mount more expeditions. Bill was more worried about ruining the stage he had made sure was set up than finding everything that might be useful.

Both men just smiled at each other, and it was almost like old times for a few long seconds. Adama did not have anything else to do, so he spent the next few hours talking with his friend the Cylon. The same one that also was the XO he knew and trusted for all of those years. Again for the hundredth time in the last couple of years. It would seem that the Cylons had made the human forms too much like humans for them not to be humans in the end. They were even standing in the same location, and giving the same body language that was an old habit for the pair.

"What a way for a plan to back fire on someone," thought Bill while he was updating his logs back in his cabin before turning in for much needed sleep. He had put down all of his thoughts, and his concerns went down beside them. He even included thoughts about the Cylons making human forms too much like humans. So much so that in the end they turned out to be more human than machine. That they also had been made with the ability to weigh different ideals, and change loyalties to fit their newly chosen ideals.


Early the next day, just as the sun was rising over the bay that the Earther Settlement called home, one Raptor and one of the slab-sided Colonial cargo shuttles cleared the thin upper atmosphere of the planet at a steady pace used for fuel efficiency rather than speed. It was soon met by a pair of Raptors that had taken off from the now fully repaired Battlestar Pegasus. Three of the four ships were going to have a full day ahead of them in a very high stress environment. The trip to the first bit of Cylon wreckage was only a few hours of flight away, but the crews on those small craft had very high, most would say overly optimistic, hopes for the success of today's tasks. Then again, most of the people in those craft, were just happy to be getting the space time. That, along with the extra pay that went with the stress was very welcome to most of them. The bragging rights also did not hurt at all.

The cargo carrier was going to be the center of the operation. Due to its larger cargo area, it was also carrying most of the people for today's task on the first leg of this mission. Inside of the Colonial cargo ship, the only sound that could be heard was the sound of air moving around the outer hull. Soon the steady vibration of the engines overrode that sound. John Keller was looking over the people and equipment that were his responsibility for today. As long as the mission was on, he can not help but consider it his command.

John's eyes lingered over one of the Cylons who would be helping out today. It seemed to him that Kathy was looking worried as she stared off, lost in her own mind. And she was rubbing her hands on the three gold chevrons attached to her suit sleeve. This marked her new rank in the Earthers' combat forces for everyone to see. Each person in this group had volunteered for the task, no matter how dangerous it might turn out to be. Within only an hour that the notice had been posted, more volunteers had turned up than there was space in all of the assigned small craft. Even if they had doubled the number of craft planned, they would still have had too many volunteers.

Kathy had no idea how she had been chosen to be on the team. But she was glad that she was going on today's mission. Most of the people on the mission did not have the right equipment on their own to do the work that was expected to be performed. They all had been selected because of their skills in their heads or hands, and not what they had in their personal weapons lockers. Some had had to sign a loan for a list of items from the leadership's supplied stores. They would all have to be cleaned, and any repairs made before they can go back into storage where they would stay in case of a future need by someone else.

John felt a slight bump through the soles of his feet. He did not need to be told what had caused it. He knew that it would be the fourth Raptor assigned to this mission attaching itself to the airlock of the slower moving cargo ship. It would be transferring most of the Colonial personnel needed for the operation, to this one larger craft.

It normally would be a bad idea to mix groups who have never worked together on a mission in the unforgiving rigors of deep space. But the Colonials had both the space experience, and the ships to make this mission happen at all. Even after a lot of burnt brain cells, he could not find any other way around this road block.

So John had had to make a deal. After all, it had been mainly his idea. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense for the Colonials to come along after all. If for no other reason than that it would add people who knew how to apply a quick patch to a leaking suit in the Death Zones. The one equalizer in this whole mission, was that both groups did not have much experience in Zero Gravity. Most nonmilitary Colonials had never been in Zero Gravity. It had not been a common situation for a few hundred years for them. All of their ships and space stations had artificial gravity, and the crews and passengers had always felt that they were still on a planet. The Colonial military did spend some time in zero-g, because during the first war with the Cylons, they had acquired a taste for shutting off life support. And that included the gravity providing plates and subsystems.

All of the little ships were attached to the cargo shuttle sides at different points. The idea was to save fuel, and at the same time let the crews work on a few skills. Skills that might have gotten rusty, or did not exist at all, during their time running and hiding from the Cylons. Those refreshed skills would be put to use in the very near future in scenarios that would not be as forgiving as training situations. The training was better done out and away from sight of most armchair spacers. The Admiral had pushed this modification after reviewing a recent Raptor mission that had not gone so well. The crew had lived, but if that had happened in combat, the Cylons would have killed the crew and craft with obscene ease.


John was so engrossed in looking at the internal corridor diagram of the first target Basestar that he did not notice that one of the Colonial crewmen had walked into the cargo bay from the command section of the small craft. When she flipped a wall mounted switch, it activated an internal communication system. He almost jumped out of his suit in surprise at the blast of static that came through his helmet mounted speakers.

The high pitched female voice came through the speakers in each of the suits that were being held in the cargo area of the intersystem cargo shuttle. "Okay People, we are almost to the target area. I am venting the ship on the count of ten. You need to keep an eye on your frakking buddy. If they or you need help, you need to sing out first and think later! I have not lost a cargo yet, and I don't not intend on doing so today. If I did not let the Cylons stop the mail, neither will I let a bunch of space green horns do so today."

The Colonial had spoken in a mishmash of Caprican and English for everyone to understand what was being said. She also spoke slowly, so that everyone could understand. She stopped talking and smiled as each person in the cargo bay held up a single thumb to show that they understood what had been said. This was the universally agreed upon signal that the message was understood loud and clear. This way someone did not get overlooked. With too many voices coming over the speakers at one time, it could get confusing. Working in space was dangerous even if you understood perfectly every word that was said to you or your buddy. If someone did not give a thumbs up, the issue would be readdressed right then. Not five minutes later, right frakking then.

John looked at the read outs for his suit, then the read outs on each of the people that were on his immediate left and right. The same was being done by each of the people in the cargo bay. This was no time to be a hero, not when they were about to lose the atmosphere. Just after he checked the person on his right, the lights in the cargo area went very strange. It was the atmosphere being pumped out of the bay and back into the tanks of the small craft. Without those mix of lightweight molecules to scatter the light, it seemed like all of the light in the cabin somehow got colder and weaker in just a few seconds.

A new female voice came in through his speakers and he, as well as all the other suits helmets, looked up at the sound. "Co-pilot, are we safe and ready to open the main hatch to space?" The voice was unknown to John, but that was not that big of a deal. He did not know that many Colonials by voice yet. He was getting better every day, though. Just like they were doing with the voices from people that had called Earth home.

Each of the suits gave their single thumbs up sign again. Then the lone standing Colonial hit a switch. One that normally had to be hit by two people to override the safety. The oversized hatch at one end of the bay swung open without a sound. It did not even have the very little vibrations that could usually be felt through the suits' contact with the ship. The few stars that they could see through the small, open hatch was the first thing to stand out to the people in the cargo bay. They were crisp, sharp, and did not have the twinkling effect typically seen when they were viewed from a planet's surface. It seemed like none of them had ever seen this many stars before in their lives. This time they did not have a glowing planet blocking their field of view of the great stars and nebula surrounding them on all sides.

The Earthers had not seen a lot of stars since they had been on this cold planet. So it was even more striking to them than to a Colonial having his first time in vacuum. Then the amazing sight was blocked by a Raptor moving across the hatch's fully opened metal mouth. Through the open maw of the hatch, it was easy to see someone in a Colonial made space suit standing in the opened doorway of the Raptor with an odd looking device in his hands.

The strange looking hand held device gave a puff of white gases, and something floated the few hundred meters to the open bay of the cargo ship. This was where the Colonial, who was still standing in the opened hatch waited. She was there for a purpose, and was able to stop the object with a quick grab of her hands. In a few additional quick hand movements, which were unseen by the rest of the passengers as her bulky suit blocked their line of sight, a thick wire connected the two Colonial made ships together in the black of space far away from any planet or other man-made objects.

John and the rest of the people in this now fully atmosphereless bay, knew what the device was before it had been fired at them. That was because they had practiced something like this a few dozen times while helping with the modifications that needed to be done to the Lucky Find. When the line was ready, the Colonial in the shuttle turned slightly and gave John a thumb up signal. She was saying that it was safe to start the next small step in the very complex plan. She could have given two, but with the hatch open to deep space, you always kept one hand attached to the ship.

John gave the single thumb sign back, and all of the helmeted covered heads turned towards him almost as if they were one being. Everyone would stay off the radio unless they thought it might be an emergency of some kind. That skill had been hard to train into the Earthers. It took a while until they got used to working on the outer hull of the ocean ship turned spaceship. These people had been the best, if not the first, at both figuring that out, and putting it into practice. Knowing and doing sometimes were not the same thing.

"Okay. By the numbers people. I want numbers one through five on the line first. Make sure you and your buddy are properly connected before you step to the door and take the ride over."

John was number one, so he would be the first one on this test run. He walked to the hatch, grateful for the artificial gravity plating on this ship. It was almost like he was walking out of an airlock on one of the small sub surface craft. He also knew that his stomach was not going to like him very much in the next few minutes. John made sure to check all of the readouts in his helmet, then give one final look to check for any leaks that might have popped up while he moved around the small craft. He was doing everything he could think of to get his mind off of what he was about to do. It just was not something that a sane person should be doing.

"Next time John. Just send a frakking memo." John could not remember who had told him that line or where it might have come from. Now he understood every letter of the phrase, and why it might have been said before by someone so long ago.

The Colonial standing in the hatch hooked a leader line to an attachment point on John's suit, and gave it a tug hard enough to almost take John off of his feet. When she was sure everything was good to go, then, and only then, did she gave a hand wave to the Raptor floating along out in space. Before John could say a word to stop what was about to happen. He was yanked out of the cargo ship's bay so hard that he thought he might have broken his back, or at least popped a few vertebrae out of alignment from the force of the tug.

The Colonial made SAR line pulled him all the way to the Raptor's open door in a just a few seconds. But it was a few seconds of sheer unmitigated terror. It happened so fast that John did not even have time to scream after the sound of his back popping reached his own ears through the suit. Then it was over, and the Raptor crewmen attached a second line to his suit before releasing the leader line. The leader line was sent to fly back over to the cargo shuttle. It was moving even faster than it did when he was attached to it.

Nine of the other suits that the cargo ship had carried into space were sent over to the Raptor in less than five minutes. All using the same line that John had used. The SAR line returned to the crewman on the Raptor's door one last time to be recovered by its crew for later use. Then with a few jets of gas from different parts of the little military craft fired in seemingly random order, it moved away from the larger cargo craft.

It was soon replaced by the second Raptor, to load its portion of the salvage crew from the cargo carrier. Every move was being recorded by both Colonial and Earth made systems for later study, review and critique for any improvements that could be identified. That part was going to suck, but it also was something they could not get out off.

The Earthers standing on the wing of the first Raptor took the time to do some sightseeing while their ride made the rest of the journey to the target piece of Cylon wreckage. Only about half of the whole group from Rifts Earth had spent that much time in space. And all of that had been when they were helping or working on the Lucky Find being mated to the hull of the Colonial battlestar. That would have meant this small group of people had more space experience than any other group on the Earth where they had come from. But that was not saying much in the first place. They would have been shocked to learn that they now had more time in the vacuum of open space than most astronauts could count up into the early 21st century.

John even did some of this sightseeing for a few minutes. It was an impressive sight, until one part of his mind told him that he had things that needed to be done instead of just look at the stars. Now he started looking for the target they were going to board. He needed some of the help provided by this suit to see the target. It was still so far way, with so little light reflecting off of the gunmetal hull, that it was hard to see unaided. It was strange not to be able to see something until it was a lot closer. He had expected to be able to see just like he did planetside on a clear and sunny day. That was just not the case in space, much less so far from anything that could give a person a frame of reference with which to measure distance. Learning curves always were strange in how they were addressed by the human mind and psyche.

What they were going after was a one of the largest intact sections from one of the destroyed Basestars in this solar system. It was one of the Y sections with the connecting joint ending in a jagged circle, and each of the three ends of the arms missing anywhere from two thirds to a half of what their full length had at one time been. If they could work out any issues on this large hunk of hull, it would be leveraged later. This one had been judged to be the easiest to land on. Besides, the large bit of Cylon hull should give the humans a lot better of a chance of finding what they were looking for.

They had run scans on the wreckage not long after the battle, and it was cold as the local space surrounding it. By now it had been so long without power that any Centurion, Raider or any other Cylon that might have survived the battle would have long since had its battery run dry in the cold volume of space. However today's crews were still going in with lots of firepower ready, just in case those numbers turned out to be wrong. All were hoping that they would not need any of the heavy firepower they were carrying.

One Raptor was going to dock on the longest of the battle damaged arms, and John and his team were going to dock at the damaged area that had been the connecting joint between the top and bottom Y-sections. One of the Colonials, going by the name Felix, would be leading the second group of salvagers today. John had given orders that groups could be broken away from any other group or main body of searchers as long as there was no less than two people in each sub-group.

John had gotten that from the age old rule in ocean diving. The part about always having a buddy next to you while you were under the water. The Admiral had agreed with the intent. And he had reinforced John's order with one of his own that had been passed along.

While John was thinking about the other team on the other Raptor, Athena had picked out where she wanted to attach her craft on the floating wreck of the onetime Cylon capital warship. She was not talking to anyone as she was working on closing the distance to the place she wanted on the hulk. She was considered to be the best Raptor jock in the fleet. This was just another difference between her and the one called Boomer. No one would even think to try to tell her what her job was. Well, they would only do something like that once. She had already developed the reputation for having a very nasty snap kick.

The protruding nub that John's team was going too land on looked like it was one of the main access routes between the two larger halves that used to make up the Cylon ship. Athena had a deft touch, and John could barely feel the thump of the contact being made between the two floating bits through his boots' soles. Once the Colonial made craft had settled on the erstwhile Cylon ship's hull, he unhooked his safety line and stepped off the wing of the little craft. The one he and his team had been using as a deck to ride on for the last few minutes.

The wreck had been without power for months, so it did not have active artificial gravity. But it did have enough mass and spin caused by the battle to give it about a sixth of what Earth or Caprican normal gravity was. John slowly and carefully made his way to the nearest opening in the Cylon ship. Thanks to the skill of Athena, he did not have to walk that far on the battle scarred hull of the Cylon wreck.

John was using a hand held light to look into the dark, sharp toothed mouth of the beast that the plan said he would have to step into. He could see about six meters down the access way, before his light ended on a closed, circular metal hatch. From what he had been briefed about Cylon ship construction, that hatch would have been locked into place either manually during the battle or more likely automatically when one of the sensors detected one of the two ends had been exposed to the vacuum of space. John looked around the hatch, but it did not show any damage that could be seen from this distance.

John let out a breath, and turned his head enough to see that this team had off loaded from the Raptor's left wing. He turned just in time to see Athena exit the open hatch of the Raptor. She had even started making her way toward John's location. She was mostly in the standard issue Colonial space and combat suit she had brought with her when she moved to the Settlement governed area, plus a chest piece from an Earther made armor. She could have worn more, but she was not sure it would not have interfered with her ability to fly the mission. She had developed into a very conservative person when it came to her preferred dress in combat or mission support.

She would be the last one of his assigned team to exit the craft, but the craft was not empty of life. Helo would be staying with the craft, as more of a guard and radio man than anything else. John recalled that just finding a baby sitter both of them could agree on had been almost an epic job in itself. That was until Robin and Eva said one of them would do it. John had overheard part of the story in the bar one night, and Helo had told his two friends about the issue. The pair of women had been more than happy to help look after the little girl.

John smiled inside as he watched Athena coming towards him over the outer hull of the cylon Basestar, one careful step at a time. Athena had already taken up the Earther habit of personalizing her private owned armor. It was still a work in progress, but on the main front of the chest piece was an almost finished image of a woman with a flaming sword in one hand. He wondered what the Raptor coloring might end up being when no one was looking. He knew that some nose art was in the works, if not a completely new paint job for the former Colonial craft. Sometimes the converted where more into it than those born into those ideas.

"I have got to keep my head in the game or someone is going to get hurt," thought John as he gave himself a mental shake to get his mind back on the mission. "Okay we have a closed hatch. It's about twenty feet in from the lip. I will go first. Follow me, just like we worked on last night." He did not wait for any replies from his team, before he turned and went up and over the jagged metal lip of the Cylon hull and into the access corridor.

The group walked slowly deeper into the ship. When John reached the sealed hatch, he checked the emergency read outs mounted nearby. The display told him that the corridor on the other side was reading that it had already emptied out into space. John used the amplified strength provided by his suit to rip the closed hatches off its mounts after only two attempts at forcing the hatch open using the Cylon built systems. After that little delay, it went smoother than he had hoped, and deeper they went into the ship looking for the items on their little shopping list. Everyone's heads were on swivels as they went deeper into the dead ship.

Helo could only wait in the Raptor and listen to the Earther made radio hooked into his ship's systems. It was the first modification that the Earthers had done to the Raptor after it had been turned over to them. They had already worked out that if you were going to have an asset like the Raptor, you might want to talk to it. He would make regular contact with each of the team leaders, and then forward the update from those two teams to the flagship on the Colonial made systems.

One of the screens on his station in the Raptor held a digital map of the wreck. And each contact would update the map with the location of the small, and smaller teams' locations within the wreck. This display was mirrored on the CIC's of both of the Battlestars, being updated as Helo relayed the information from regular contacts. Helo would have preferred to be with his wife in case they ran into trouble of some kind, but there were few ECO's who could talk in both English and Caprican.

Every time the thought of them running into active Centurions, or worse, active human forms came up, he would run down the list of reasons why he was not at her side instead of sitting in a Raptor with an ion pistol in his lap. She had enough firepower in her group to take down a full Cylon company. Without calling for back up of any kind. What would one more gun do or add to the equation of firepower? He stopped thinking for a minute and made a note on one of his systems as a few short sentences were passed to him by one of the teams. They were supposed to contact him when they found something that was interesting. Even if it was not on their shopping list, he would mark the location and pass along the data while he worried some more.

Bill was on the flagship as the mission was being run. He had high hopes for this mission, but was also worried about the overall risk involved. He and Saul were staring holes into the flat top command table as they waited. This display along with about half of the monitors around the CIC all had diagrams of the wrecked part of the Basestar displayed on them. They were updated with little red dots, but Bill was getting frustrated that very little hard information was coming in. All he could do was look at the updates, and spin his mental wheels in the mud.

It was after the third or fourth position update, that Bill had finally had enough. He half turned to the Saul. "Is there any way we can get a video data feed or something piped into here? I want to see what is going on for frak's sake!"

Bill pitched his voice just loud enough, so that the rest of the CIC could hear it. This would start the ball rolling even before Saul could start shaking their trees. Bill made his own note about trying to see if any improvements could be added, down the road.

While Saul was starting to relay the question that was now an order, a reply came from the oddest of sources in the over crowed room. A young male voice came from the Damage Control station about half way across the room from the two leaders. It was being relayed through a speaker from the main Damage Control area, a room almost so far aft it was near the massive engines that propelled the million tons of warship through normal space while drinking fuel by the ton.

"Sir, our people on today's mission are in Damage Control rated Suits. They had the longest rating on air supply among what we have on the ship at this time." The young voice broke, and you could almost see someone in that far away room give the person the signal to quickly get to the point or the Colonel or maybe even the Admiral was going to rip his lips off.

The voice was now even more unsteady, as the speakers repeated the words in the main control room. "Anyway, all of the new suits, like we got from Ragnar and the Pegasus, they all have a medium range transmitter for back up communication to Main Damage Control. And a video transmit ability tied into it on a side band. This was so that any battle damage can be assessed by CIC and Main Damage Control directly." The voice trailed off into complete silence, following as the last word was spoken out loud.

Bill could see Saul looking at the speaker mounted near the same area where the Cylon bomb had been found with a confused look on his face. The confusion on Saul's face was matched by the one on Bill's face. Both were caused by two issues. One was that neither man recognized the voice coming over the speaker, and the other was that neither man knew about that ability in the latest generation of Battle Damage suits that they had picked up. The ones the old girl had in her lockers were the oldest ones. Some may have even been used in the last Cylon war. Besides, both men were on the way out of the service and had stopped caring about a growing list of things as their retirement got closer.

Bill finally shot Saul a look, and Saul gave a slight nod before looking around the CIC. "Well, you heard the man. Get that video feed piped in here right the frak now!" Saul was back to bellowing and stomping around the CIC like a bull in a china shop.

Bill had to quickly look down at the table top to hide the slight grin as his XO went about his job of getting the job done. As it turned out the crewman who had brought up the information had been on some extra Damage Control training on the Pegasus as some kind of punishment. That punishment had ended up saving his life.

After that close call, he had focused on learning every part of his job, and he had become so good at learning it that he was transferred to the Flagship. As the two ships regularly switched crews around between them ships to equalize experience, he was rotated aboard. The young man and two equally young assistants had to be brought to the CIC to rig some of the older equipment to receive video feed from the newer suits. It took longer than Bill, or Saul for that matter, wanted to have the job completed. But it was done before the next scheduled location update came in from the teams.

Bill and Saul were shoulder surfing over the newly modified damage control monitor. Saul had made sure that Felix and the other Colonial suits had turned on their cameras. That had been the only delay before the data started coming in. As soon as the screen flickered, it was viewed by those three people alone. It took a while, but in no time at all, Bill was able to start using the multiple views on display to reach an end goal that very few people knew about.

Bills eyes went wide as the view on one part of the display changed suddenly. It was of a team that was backtracking to catch up to another team. One that had found something of interest. Bill's eyes shot open, and his heart skipped a few beats. He slapped the operator on the shoulder overly hard, and pointed to the screen.

Bill was amazed his voice sounded so calm, even to his own ears. "Screen Three. Have them back up to the last hatch. I want them to pan the camera around the hatch frame, slowly." Bill was finding it hard to breathe normally, as he waited for the operator to pass along his orders.

Saul shot Bill a look, but Bill was focused on the screen. The rest of the world could have stopped moving and Bill Adama would not have noticed. Everything else was ignored as the operator relayed the Admiral's commands to the unknown person on the other end of the shifting images.

The person walked backwards, and did as he were told. The hatch frame was soon on display on the screen. Bill did not say anything more as the suit did three or four sweeps of the camera on the hatch frame. The person in the suit traced the hatch frame three times very slowly and did a complete visual scan.

Bill had the most evil looking grin on his face, making Saul think that he could feel some sweat was starting to build up on his lips. He was about to ask what was going on, but Bill shot him a look that could have frozen a star. Saul could only lick the salty sweat off of his lips, and wait to find out what the frak was going on.

Bill looked back down and leaned a little closer to the open ear of the station operator. He started to speak very low and softly almost in the ear of the enlisted person. "Okay, tell them to point the camera at the deck. Have them sweep it left to right, then move it forward. And again, do it slowly. I need some detailed images of the deck pates as they move to about a third of the way to the next hatch."

The operator nodded his head in understanding, and passed along the strange orders. He had to repeat them twice, before saying it was the Admiral's orders. And to just do it for frak's sake before the Colonel got on the line with them.

At some point as the person was still following his instructions, Bill looked up and locked eyes with his XO. It would seem that he had seen enough. "Colonel Tigh, please send a message, in my name to Colonial One, both Raptors, the Cargo shuttle, and both team leaders. They are to take the whole shopping list. I say again. They are to take the whole frakking shopping list, and don't worry about the breakage to the hull. But they better not hurt anything on the shopping list."

Saul's eyebrows now flew up as far as they could go. He had no idea what Bill had seen, but it must have been very good. Before he passed along those orders, he made a note to talk to him in private to find out not only what he had missed, but why it had changed the game so much.