XIII

"I see Angels. Angels in this very room", Gaius Baltar said to Cavil, still pointing a gun at the Cylon-one of many guns trained on the Cylon at the moment. The problem was that Cavil was holding a gun to Hera Agathon's head. It was a stalemate.

"Now I may be mad, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

Gaius had Cavil interested, but not convinced. "If I leave you this girl, that means the destruction of my people. How does our extinction fit into this picture you want us to believe in?"

As Bill Adama, Caprica, and at least three other people in CIC held the gun on Cavil, Saul Tigh stunned the room. "We'll give you Resurrection", he stated firmly.

"Saul, what are you doing?" Ellen looked aghast.

He looked at his wife, but didn't flinch. "You give us Hera, and we will give you Resurrection. But the war ends here. You leave Humanity in peace, and give up the pursuit for now and all time."

Cavil glanced down at Hera, the slowly back up to Tigh, who was on the second level of CIC with the other Final Five. It's what you want, isn't it, numskull, he thought to himself. If Humanity leaves us alone, but we have the ability to keep our population, isn't that worth letting them walk forever-just go our separate ways?

"Agreed."

Fifteen minutes later in CIC, two Doral's, and two Simon's had joined Cavil. Lee, Kara, Laura, and Sharon had joined them. Karl had been shot in the leg when Cylon Centurions had stormed Galactica. He was injured severely, but he would survive, Doc Cottle confident he could save his leg.

They had been waiting for The Final Five to go over everything. As Ellen Tigh explained things to Saul, Ishay, Tory, and Galen, it started to make sense to them. Their brief "trial run", in immersing themselves into the data stream, had helped them see thing they had never seen before, and they were certain they could get the Resurrection specs to Cavil's Baseship.

They had already had the experience of seeing flashes of not only their "human" lives pass before them, but their long-ago Cylon lives. Most of it was pedestrian stuff. Most of it would focus on what they knew of Resurrection once all five of them were working together.

One person wasn't sure they wanted to through with it.

Ellen nodded at the four others, and they all slowly, tentatively put their hands into the water of the data stream. Immediately, their minds were assaulted with, at first, images of just themselves, and the lives they had led, both two thousand years ago and more recently. Then as the experience intensified, they started to see flashes of memories of the other four.

Galen Tyrol had seen a few things about Ellen and Ishay, when an image of his now-dead wife Cally imprinted in his mind. At first, he thought it was one of his own thoughts, but as it continued...

Cally was in a launch tube, with their son Nikki...now Tory was in there with Cally...Cally was crying, saying something to Tory, Tory seemingly comforting Cally about whatever was bothering her...Galen and the others saw Tory help Cally rise, and take Nikki from his mother, Tory holding him close...

...The other four recoiled in horror, and looked directly at Tory, mouths agape, as they could see the memory of Tory slapping Cally hard with a backhand, Galen's wife falling to the ground...now Tory was in the launch control room...she turned the key...

Galen's eyes flew open in a rage. He still couldn't look up, but he knew what was coming next. He steeled himself not to block the moment from his mind.

Tory turned the safety key to green...that indicated that the doors of the tube were about to open, that if a Viper were in the tube, that would set it up for launch...

…Tory turned the key...

Galen looked down at the diminutive Tory Foster, his eyes on fire with rage and understanding. Without another word, he yanked his hands out of the stream, causing the other four to react in shock, and causing the Hybrid on Cavil's ship, who was receiving the date, to cry in agony. He grabbed Tory by the neck, picking her small body off the ground, the woman desperately trying to break the vice grip around her throat.

"They've broken the download", a Simon yelled.

"It's a trick", one of the Doral's followed up, "open fire!"

Mayhem broke out as Lee, Kara, and a few of the Galactica guards opened fire, the Doral's and Simon's trying to shoot back, but they were sorely out-gunned, and they flailed to the deck, riddled with bullet holes.

Cavil looked around, knowing it was over. "Frack!" He stuck the pistol he was holding, and fired directly through the back of his skull, dropping like a wet bag of cement...

About seven kilometers from The Colony, a now-dead Raptor floated aimlessly in space, it's three occupants killed when a large piece of space rock had slammed into their windshield, breaking it, and killing them instantly. The pilot's hand was floating above the controls, the vacuum of space keeping it there. Another space rock fell from above the Raptor, hitting the right wing, yawing the ship downward. As the Raptor rolled, the pilot's hand descended from it's floating position, and came down onto to the square switch that would fire the eight nuclear weapons under its wings. The pilot had set the nukes to hot just before his life had ended.

The nuclear weapons fired, hurtling toward The Colony. All eight found their mark, the mammoth ship buckling under the thunderous explosions.

Onboard Galactica, the noise was like nothing anyone had ever heard, the ship being shaken like it was a baby's rattle. Galactica, already in perilous shape, couldn't take much of what was now happening.

Bill Adama was on the floor, protectively covering Laura Roslin, who had fallen immediately after the explosion. "We gotta get out of here!"

He looked around CIC, debris falling everywhere. He saw Kara by the FTL controls. "Starbuck", he screamed at the top of his lungs, "jump the ship!"

Kara raced behind the controls. "I don't have the rendezvous coordinates!"

"Doesn't matter", Adama screamed again, "just jump us out of here now! Jump!"

In that millisecond, Kara thought about Hera, and why she had been so important to their future. She thought about the drawings the little girl had made, that looked a lot like notes from a piano ditty her father had written when she was very little, which was the same notes from a song the Final Five knew back on Cylon Earth two thousand years earlier.

What did it all mean?

She had assigned numbers to the notes, and then realized...the number of notes Hera had put on her drawing, and the letters assigned, matched the same amount of digits needed to put in coordinates for a jump.

Could that be it?

Moment later, Galactica came out of the jump, at the coordinates Starbuck had entered, coordinates that didn't make any sense to her save the madness of Hera, the piano, and the Final Five.

The ship came out of the jump with a sickening, screeching shudder, as the super-structure bend downward on both fore and aft, the middle staying arched as if the ship were like a spoon being bent. Debris flew off the ship in all directions, the occupants onboard still being tossed around like rag dolls.

A few harrowing moments later, the ship came almost to a stop, her momentum slightly carrying her forward. As things calmed, the sub-light engines re-ignited, pushing Galactica forward at a slow, steady rate. There were still small fires on the outside of her hull, steam billowing in all directions, debris following the ship in its wake.

CIC was a shambles, Admiral Adama knowing the rest of the ship was in similar shape. He helped the President to her feet, and instead of musing over what he saw, he went back to work. "XO!"

"Sir", Tigh responded immediately.

"SitRep. Damage Report."

Tigh made sure Ellen was OK.

"I'm OK, Saul", she said with reassurance, "you go."

Tigh turned to make his way down. "Sir!"

As he head away, he looked down and saw the body of Tory Foster, her head grotesquely bent to one side after Galen had snapped her neck. She frakin' deserved it, he said to himself, as he passed by Galen, who was sitting on the floor, his eyes open in shock, simply looking at nothing.

Tigh headed down to the control board just off the main area of CIC. Having had years in staring at the indicators, he knew immediately their condition. "We're mostly here", he said, almost mechanically. "The engines, life support."

Bill Adama turned toward his XO as the Cylon paused for an ominous moment. "But there's red lines through her lateral structural members." Tigh was back at his place across from the Admiral, over their map table. The ship continued to creak and moan, but held together. "She's broke her back", he said starkly, looking right at his Boss and friend. "She'll never jump again."

The silence in CIC was as deafening as the sound that had hit them when the nukes had slammed into The Colony. Everyone knew, deep down, even without Tigh's words, that it was the case, but hearing the words, it was like being told a loved one was dying of cancer.

"Wherever we are", Bill Adama said simply, "is where we're gonna stay."

The only problem was, where were they? Were they anywhere close to a planet that could support life? Or were they, more likely, in the middle of nowhere?

Laura looked over at her wife, who was still standing behind the FTL controls. "Where have you taken us, Kara?"

At that moment, Galactica was passing just beyond a very tiny planet. Kelly had informed the Admiral that Dradis was back up, as were exterior short and long-range scanners. "Admiral, I'm getting some information about the area we're in", the man said. He wasn't much of an expert at space charts and readings. Lee Adama moved over to take a look at what they had.

"Admiral", the Vice-President said, "we seem to be on the outskirts of a solar system. Scanners have informed the main computer that there seems to be nine planets in this system, with one star, quite a long distance from here."

"As soon as we can clear out one of the hangars, I want some Raptors out there to check out the system."

Kara knew that was meant for her. "Aye, sir!" She nodded to her wife, heading out of CIC to round up some pilots.

Two of the people who were sent out to scout were Racetrack and Skulls. They had not been permitted to fly in the battle with The Colony, being used as a strategic reserve if needed. They had come topside to pilot briefing room, simply sensing that something would be happening, now that they jumped away. They dropped Hope off in the daycare, seeing both Kacey and Sammy Roslin, as well as Kamryn Costanza being watched over as well.

Kara decided to have the two former mutineers fly with her, Kara in command, Racetrack as the co-pilot, and Skulls on communications and information. They left first, jumping deep into the solar system.

The third planet from the star that their scanners were detecting, raised their eyebrows.

"Starbuck", Skulls said, as his wife and the CAG flew the ship, "that looks a lot like Earth...doesn't it? I'm picking up water, atmosphere, multiple continents. Gods...if I didn't know better."

"The continents are different", Kara noted immediately, "but I'm not gonna say you're wrong, Skulls."

They moved in toward that planet, as they moved closer, they had another surprise.

"Frak", Skulls breathed.

"What is it, Hamish", his wife asked, looking back at him.

"Starbuck turn to Two-Five-Three, carom One-Six-Eight, and do it nice and slow."

Kara did as requested. When the turn was completed, both the women in the front seats gasped in shock.

"Skipper", Margaret said, her eyes still wide-open, "correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like something that used to orbit the colonies...communications satellites?"

Kara looked out to her left, seeing a much larger object in the distance. "What the frak is that?"

She moved the ship to the left, where in a matter of moments, they were within a thousand kilometers of what looked like...

"Guys", Kara said, at almost a whisper, "I've seen something like this in our history books, it looks like..." Suddenly, Kara went into command mode. "Skulls, put is in gray mode, like right now!"

The man didn't answer, but complied, the tone of Kara's voice like nothing he had ever heard. Out of curiosity, he moved forward after putting the ship on minimum power. "What is it, Starbuck?"

Kara took a moment to collect herself, then turned to the other two. "Keep us in gray mode, Skulls, but...I want you to scan every known audio channel and video channel that we know about."

"You're thinking..." Skulls exchanged a look of incredulity with his wife.

"Yeah, that's what I think."