Author's Note: This story has been resurrected from the dead, or perhaps it never really died in the first place. I have actually gone back and rewritten the previous chapters somewhat. Mainly this was a function of fixing minor mistakes in editing, and clearing up some details that I had left too vague. The story remains fundamentally unaltered. The sum of it is, I'm a better writer today than when I began writing this story, and it needed a little help.

"You never asked yourselves why you deserved to survive. Maybe you don't."

-Number 8

Commander Thomas Summers stared at the mirror with disbelief. He had been a man of many things, a scavenger surviving on the fringe, a one-time pirate and a rather consistent drunkard. A commander in the Colonial Fleet was not something he ever figured on being, nor particularly desired. Yet times had changed. The uniform was worn and ill-fitted, scavenged from spares aboard Ares. The insignia seemed hastily scrounged up and unpolished, but it was what it was. The promotion had been at least partly self-serving for the Admiral, and probably illegal under the traditional rules, but no one had questioned it. Might made right, after the fall, and though the clever military man had seen fit to reward the pirate with the right to keep his own ship, it was obvious Andego was no fool. Summers found he didn't really care anyway, in fact it was rather liberating to be freed of the responsibility for humanity's survival.

There were more disturbing questions in his mind, at any rate. Summers found himself drifting back to the moments when Andego and his escort first set foot aboard Dreadnought, and the terrible tidings they brought with them...

…...

The newly minted Colonel Benjamin Isard stepped upon Dreadnought, for the first time seeing her as his ship. The Zeus still burned in his memory, but it was a fading thing, the struggle for survival overcoming his own guilt. There simply wasn't time to grieve, to mourn. He knew there would be a price to pay for that later, supposing anyone survived this grueling gauntlet the Gods had left him. But that was for another time.

Isard's eyes wandered a moment, spotting Summers leaning against the bulkhead, his usual tankard missing, grinning wearily. It was unorthodox, this proposal, Isard knew the pirate was ready to agree to pretty much anything that left Dreadnought in the hands of her owner. Isard passed the folded uniform and insignia over to the pirate with a slight, unavoidable chuckle. The terms had been agreed to over the wireless, but there was still a sort of gallows humor about it all.

For his part, the Colonel only felt relief. If there was one way to keep Elena and her little faction in line, this was definitely it. And it served his own sense of rightness pretty handily. For their part, the salvagers had been less than thrilled about being "drafted" into military service, but for them, little would change. Isard had only one uniform to deliver, and it had been handed over. And it had been explained that rules about drinking on duty, or most military protocol for that matter, wouldn't be forced upon them. Shoot a lot of toasters, the Admiral had pointed out over the wireless, and nobody really cared what you did. That had worked its way over into a sort of grudging acceptance for the crew, and Summers himself.

"Sir," Isard used for the first time, "the Admiral has told me he doesn't expect you actually have to wear it. But protocol is protocol, so he's giving you one, at least. This is the closest size he could salvage for you." Somehow Isard found his new position as this man's XO as slightly less bizarre than he thought when the Admiral had spoken of it. If someone had told him before the Fall that he'd be in the ass end of spacing, second-in-command of an obsolete battleship, working for a pirate, he'd have committed the offender straight to the fleet psychiatrists.

"Stinks less than my regular getup. Guess I don't mind it." The newly minted Commander said ruefully. "It'll shut up that damn bitch, Stalker, too. That's worth the price of admission by itself."

"I have another message for you, sir. The Admiral will be shuttling aboard momentarily to discuss the details, but... they have a Cylon prisoner aboard." Isard's smile faded. "According to the prisoner, there are a total of twelve models."

"Is the prisoner anyone we know?" Summers asked darkly.

"I better let the Admiral answer that..."

As if on queue the docking seal shifted to green again and the hatch slid open, groaning with the protest of extreme age. Several marines entered first, but they didn't have Summers attention. Isard watched bemusedly as the pirate's expression shifted, recognizing the rank insignia.

…...

Summers allowed himself a moment's pause to consider the man standing in his loading bay. Mark Andego was older than he sounded on the coms, or perhaps the events since the fall had weathered his face. Summers didn't know, but for the first time since he could remember, he was glad he was sober. For a moment Summers merely stood there, but he found himself giving a weak, half-hearted salute. More a gesture than anything else, for the salvager had never bothered with such formalities since the death of his father.

It amused him that here, in the depths of space, suddenly commissioned into a military he had spent years hating, that he would think once again of his father, or the disappointment the man had been. The priesthood was like that sometimes, though. Faith in the Gods demanded much sacrifice, and he, Thomas Summers, had been that sacrifice for his father. Priests had all of mankind to worry about, and there was little time for trifling details. It had been that way right up until the day the terrorist fanatics of the One God had bombed his father's temple out of existence.

"Captain Summers, I presume." Andego returned the salute with perfunctory military crispness, before extending his hand in civilian fashion. Summers considered the hand a moment. They said making peace with the establishment was part of growing up. If that were true, he'd spent the last few decades wandering about space as a drunken child. It was not a thing he cared to think about. He took the offered hand and shook it firmly.

"Commander now, I suppose... sir." Summers answered wryly.

"Formalities, Commander. Your world never really needed them, and my world needed them too much. I suppose we can meet in the middle." Andego said pleasantly. The Admiral was an interesting case, but if his crew had any issue with it, they wisely kept silent. "Look, when you get right down to it, we could all wander space like warlords. Carve out a little ant-pile on some asteroid someplace. Hide, cower. What you did today shows you're better than that. If you wanted to jump away right now, head out into deep space on your own, I'd let you, even if I were able to stop you. But, somehow I don't think that's your plan."

"Didn't have much of a plan until now." Summers admitted frankly. "Beyond staying alive, drinking like a fish, and killing a toaster or two when the opportunity presented itself, that is."

"It was the same for us, really. Although we ran out of ambrosia in a matter of days." Andego added.

"You never want to run out of booze on Dreadnought. Crew morale is measured in liters."

Andego smiled. "Not all that different for us, Commander."

Summers took a deep breath, and even Isard's face registered a puzzled expression. No one had really seen the old Captain without his beer, or his expression reduced to such deadly earnestness.

"Speaking of ideas... we've been pursuing one." The old pirate paused for a moment, letting it sink in. "How much do you know about Kobol, Admiral?" That caught both Colonial officers flatly off guard.

"Just the stories from school, really." Andego answered, obviously intrigued.

"The scrolls say Kobol is real, never had much reason to doubt 'em." Summers began. "Think about that. Somewhere out there is a habitable planet, possibly still inhabited, or at the very least containing whatever scraps our ancestors left behind."

"Before the First War, many ships searched for it. They all came back empty handed." Andego answered, but the Admiral was obviously intrigued. "After the war, they stopped coming back at all."

"It's out there. Somewhere." Summers answered. "And it's not like we have much choice about heading out into unknown space. We'd already figured on trying to find it. We didn't have anything better to do."

"Not really much choice," Andego agreed. "When we left Caprican space, there wasn't much left other than a about two dozen baseships. That's off the table unless you know where a battlefleet is lurking about."

"Kobol." Isard stated simply.

"Birthplace of us all..." Summer recited simply.

"Not all of us." The Admiral interrupted as a marine handed him a photo. "Not the pet toaster we have on board Ares, anyway." Andego passed the photograph on to Summers, and the old pirate cringed.

Ellison. Summers winced. There were twelve Cylon models, but it had to be another Ellison. That was about as terrible of news as he could think of. First she was a Cylon, second she got into his head somehow and now, they had another copy to deal with.

Didn't I tell you? The voice rang out in his mind, but he wasn't listening. Not really.

…...

Commander Thomas Summers buttoned up the uniform and gazed once more at his reflection. Somewhere behind him, a tankard sat empty on the metal cabinets he'd scrounged up for a desk. Sandra would be waiting for him out there, he knew, and some things never changed. Dreadnought was still brimming with pirates and military rejects. Her holds still held salvage gear and spare parts crammed tightly against the bulkheads. But as he stepped out onto CIC, he knew nothing would be the same. The old world was gone, and with it, the only real distinction between old pirates, and battleship commanders. To survive in this frakked up universe, one had to be a little of both.

Thoughts of Kobol still rang in his mind. And he heard his father's voice on the pulpit, his voice filled with that awesome power.

Every time men managed to come down again, they returned with more fire. Every time men tried to navigate the stars, their souls were filled with more outrage. When they fell upon the tribes, the Lords were still there. The towers collapsed, and the Lords whispered the names of the Pure, those who would be saved. It was pronounced from the Rock. Men had tried to take the power of the Gods, to create life. For this, and their many sins, Kobol had fallen. The Lords wept and the Sirens wailed their tears. Athena cast herself from the Rock, the sacrifice of blood. The caravan of the heavens had begun. As the Galleon lifted into the skies, the Lords cast their warning.

Kobol would exact her price in blood from all those who returned.

The hatch slid open and the sounds of CIC filled his ears, breaking his introspection. Men bustled back and forth, some in uniform, some not, but all his men. CIC held the friendly icons of a real sort of fleet. Ares and her combat air patrol blinked from the DRADIS array, next to a less exciting police frigate and a pair of freighters. At least Graystone's refugees had a better home, now, though some had elected to stay on to help crew Dreadnought.

"Commander on deck!" Isard's voice boomed across the room. From behind the officer, Sandra smiled weakly. Her cup still brimmed with her own brand of liquor, but there was something new there, too. For the first time, the scientist look genuinely alive. Pirate salvagers weren't known for their optimism, yet Summers knew it for what it was.

Hope. Thin and ragged hope had come, the only sort his crew would have admitted to, but still hope nonetheless. At least he had a place to search for, somebody to frak, something to drink and some toasters to kill. Maybe things weren't so bad after all.

"Jack... did you finish that little project?" Summers asked, trying to keep the humor out of his voice.

"Aye, Cap'n. It's done. Not sure what our new friends are going to think of it though." Jack Stanton slid a photograph across the tactical console, grinning with pride.

Scarred and battered, Dreadnought slid through space, her pock-marked prow partly covered in white paint. A grinning human skull stood out in the center of that armored mass, a pair of crossed wrenches just below it. It was the universal symbol of the old Caprican space pirates, the kind that were more legendary than real.

Ares was in formation above her, looking every bit like that God of War had favored her in battle. Great blackened gashes covered both hulls, yet they lived, engines still pulsating with life. Between them smaller civilian freighters flanked a lightly armored frigate, all surrounded by Vipers, Raptors and one cobbled-together assault shuttle, all in various state of disrepair.

All this has happened... again. Again. Again.