Ever since the fleet left the Atlantia behind two weeks ago, nothing eventful had happened, they only had a couple of minor skirmishes with cylon scouts, the fleet had found an asteroid rich in minerals such as aluminum and titanium, they could use this materials to build new Raptors that could be manufactured on Zeus.

Zeus was the newest Mercury Class Battlestar, being commissioned only four months before the attacks on the colonies, she was the newest ship in the fleet, as President Adar had ordered budget cuts on military equipment, Fleet HQ opted to change the standard Valkyrie Class, which formed the bulk of the fleet, for a heaviest type of Battlestar, they called it the Mercury-Block Two, which had four extra KEW turrets and the ability to manufacture Raptors, which proved essential on long-term assignments.


Commander Lee Adama entered the small CIC of his Battlestar, the Zeus, he was greeted by the crew who were on watch.

"How are the mining ops doing?" he asked to his new X.O.

"So far so good" Starbuck answered without even looking at him.

Lee had taken almost a week to convince his father to make Starbuck his X.O, Tigh was furious at the idea but Adama ultimately agree, she was promoted to Major, the only condition that she demanded was that she could be able to fly her viper in combat if needed to, to which, Lee had reluctantly agreed.

"Is it truth the old man gave the go for the rescue mission to Caprica?" Lee asked.

"Yeah" She answered.

"How many Raptors are you taking with you?"

"That's what I wanted to talk with you about"


"You want to take a Battlestar back to the colonies?" Admiral Adama asked with a tone of surprise in his voice.

"You realy think this will work" Cain said.

"Yes sir, becau-"Starbuck wasn't even able to finish the sentence before Lee interrupted her

"If we ran into trouble, having a Battlestar is the only way to insure this mission works, and we don't know the total number of survivors, that means that the SAR Raptors could not be able to carry all of them from Caprica to the fleet" Lee explained.

"But, you said that the number of survivors on Caprica was around fifty" Cain said.

"Yes sir, but we believe there might be more of them, when I first met the resistance group, they told me that in the initial days after the attack there still was radio traffic, messages mostly from remaining military units that ordered all of the remaining civilians to hide underground" Kara explained.

"Yes, but most of them will be dead by the time we get there" Cain said.

"Why didn't you report this before?" Adama asked looking at Kara.

"I thought they would be dead by the time we got there and that it wouldn't be a difference if I told you or not" Kara justified.

"What are we expecting on the ground?" Cain asked.

"The rock is crawling with chrome-jobs, however, they are few humanoid models, on my stay on the planet I only encountered three, when I arrived at the planet they were at least six Basestars in orbit" Kara said.

"Okay, you have a go" Adama answered with confidence evident in his voice.

"Which ship will we be taking?" Lee asked.

"Admiral Cain made a plan to go back to the colonies, you will take Pegasus, and the mission will be under her command" Adama answered.

"That's good for us, we get to kill more of those toasters" Cain answered with the desire for vengeance evident in her voice.

"When do we leave?" Kara asked cockily.