The General frowned. How have we fallen so far? The Cylon Empire… gone. The Colony torn apart by a black hole, defeated by Galactica? Now we are the ones wandering alone in deep space.

Fuel was dangerously low, there was not enough tylium left to make it even halfway back to the nuked Colonies. What had happened in those last moments? The resurrection data had been genuine, that much he knew. Then, suddenly, everything had gone to pot. Memories surfacing in the last moments of Tory's life had flooded the shared network as it collapsed.

Chief Tyrol had done the deed. Though the reason for it was not made entirely clear.

Somewhere out in the vast nothing, Galactica and her fleet still roamed the stars. For that matter, so did Dreadnought. The General had no idea where Galactica had gone, and only a general sense for Dreadnought's position – the latter, of course, was defended by a frakking galleon and basically immune to attack with the meager Cylon forces left.

"Maintain the watch at maximum frakking readiness, you understand?" He said to the other survivors, a mix of loyalist models and a few of the sentient model 005s. "If either fleet comes back here, we must be ready to defeat them. I want patrols all around the system, a full detection grid in place. Missiles loaded and ready for immediate target acquisition at all times."

"We agree," said a Five.

"Well hallelujah for that," the General replied, rubbing his temples. "Now talk to me about this odd data."

The Five stared for a moment in his stupid Five fashion. God, I hate this model.

"Well," the Five began, "we detected an anomalous power reading at the edge of the system. It was brief, and we were unable to determine if it was a ship, or just more Pegasus wreckage flaring up. The system is full of it. I ordered additional patrols, and they found nothing. No evidence a ship was in system. But I worry anyway."

"Good, stay worried. Adama and his crew got soft after a year in this system. We won't. We are machines." The General answered. "Both basestars are to stay positioned in mutual support range at all times. I wish I could expend the fuel to have them randomly change orbits… but we can't. So, this will have to do."

"By your command," said a model 005 Centurion. The sweeping red eye somehow unnerved the General. What goes on behind those eyes, I will never fully understand. Your fault, Ellen.

But the thought seemed hollow to him somehow. Once, he had a plan. Now everything seemed to just go wrong, over and over again, like God did exist and had turned against him.

Even the tylium refinery was badly behind schedule, the tooling was all wrong and the facility itself appeared to have suffered damage in the flight from this world. It would be years before he could get back to the Colonies, and years beyond that before he could restart production of model 005s and ships.

And resurrection was probably never coming back, but he would die trying. At least some of the data had come over before the connection was severed. Perhaps with a couple decades of research and enough model 005 helpers, there would be something that could be done…

Stalker rolled on her back, smiling. For once, their son was asleep, and she had managed to get a little release.

Her husband smiled. "About frakking time," echoing her thoughts. She thought about how things had turned out. She never would have figured she'd fall for such a fundamentally good-natured man. Ben was a man always searching for the middle path – a way to keep everyone at the table instead of at each other's throats. He, more than Summers even, had been the glue that held the fleet together. He even put up with her, which was near saintly.

After a fashion, things had worked themselves out. The old pirate captain's instincts were undeniable, and his almost mystical quality had lent a clear direction to the survivors. But it was Ben who kept the fragile threads from unraveling.

And it was Nash who kept picking at all the holes.

Worry clouded her thoughts. Aurora's warning was clear. She needed a plan to win this impossible battle.

But Nash is right. If we charge in like gods-damned heroes, we're all going to die. Badly.

A month of spitballing tactical plans, running wargames and sim combat had all resulted in the same eventuality. Utter, ruinous defeat.

We have to fight…

And idea entered Elena's sleep-deprived brain, and she felt she had to explore it. She grabbed her jacket and threw it on haphazardly. Ben rolled over, grabbed his dilapidated pillow and started to snore. She chuckled to herself and stepped out into the corridor.

Flickering lights greeted her, wires and piping dangling from the exposed ceiling panels. Dreadnought may have been in prime fighting condition, but that came at the expense of any remaining creature comforts. All that was not given over to fighting and salvage had been deemed fair game. When metal supplies ran short…

She found herself outside Frank and Rhea's quarters, and she rapped on the door softly.

Frank, wearing a holed and worn-out robe that revealed all too much, sighed as he opened the hatch. "Stalker? What in Hades' name? Do ya know what frakking time it is?"

"Is Rhea there? I need to talk to her."

Frank nodded. "Well, she don't sleep much. Pretends for my sake, I think. But not much. May as well come in and have a drink."

"Captain," Rhea said formally. "How can I help you?" The Cylon was dressed in some kind of feminine frippery, Elena mused, the kind she'd never be caught dead wearing herself. But even Stalker had to admit that it suited the Cylon.

"No need to be formal. Stalker is fine. Elena too." She waved her hand distractedly. The Cylon nodded. "I want to talk a little about the Centurions. I mean the ones who came over to your – our – side."

Rhea nodded again. "Why not go meet them yourself? They have an area of their own, you know."

"Well…"

The Cylon laughed. "Yeah, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't want to go in there alone either. Tell you what, we'll both go."

Elena nodded as Rhea changed into something a little less… spicy.

Well, if I weren't already happily married… might want a piece of that Cylon action too, Elena thought. At least she understood why Frank had been so eager.

Before long they stood in front of the cargo area given over to the loyalist Centurions. The door slid open. "By your command." Gimpy said through the newly installed vocal processor, acknowledging the Six. So far only Gimpy had been so modified, an opportunity that existed due to his need for repair following the battle. Even so, one of Gimpy's arms was clearly rigged from different servos and scrap metal.

Rhea shook her head. "You don't need to say that. I'm not your master – mistress – whatever…"

Gimpy merely stood for a while. Almost like he's nervous, Elena thought. Hell, maybe he is. Who knows what goes on in those cybernetic brains?

Then she noticed the dog tags around each Centurion's neck.

"Interesting," Elena pointed to the tags. "Who made those for you?"

"My idea," Rhea said. "Well, Frank actually worked the metal, but they gave me a pair when I swore my oath. So, I figured they should have some as well."

Elena nodded. "I came to ask some questions about the basestars in orbit over New Caprica. I'm trying to figure out some way of beat them, but…"

Rhea turned to face her. "You could have just asked me, I mean I know just as much…"

"No," Elena interrupted. "I need a different perspective. I don't think this is going to be solved so much by what we know as it will by a different way of thinking about that information."

Gimpy tilted his head. "You desire our viewpoint on this problem."

"Yes." Elena said simply.

The robot stood silently for a moment, seemingly communing with his buddies. "We believe the problem is one of efficiency. I have studied the technical plans of all major Cylon and Colonial warships and…"

"Wait, you did what?" Elena stopped. "Don't you have a hobby?"

Gimpy tilted his head again. "This is my 'hobby', if that word is defined as a recreational activity a being does in its free time. 42-3679-B prefers utilizing this time for the study of animal life. 301-41-8271-C splits its time between metallurgy and chemistry. I find that I best enjoy engineering. I have studied all technical documentation on Cylon and Colonial warships that is available. It is… fun."

"Sounds more like a job than a hobby," Elena said, "but then, whatever floats your boat."

"I do not possess any boat." Gimpy replied. Elena frowned, and an awkward moment passed. Then the robot began to laugh. "This is what humans call humor, yes? Much laughter."

Well, these robots weren't going to win any stand-up competitions, but somehow the thought of the Centurions attempting to make jokes put her a little more at ease.

"So… an efficiency problem. Elaborate?" Elena offered.

"This battleship should be able to fight the older basestar on even terms. It could fight the newer basestar on superior terms, if the engagement were fought at very short range, a range where the nuclear arsenal of the basestar would not serve it, and where the kinetic firepower of a battleship would be superior." Gimpy stated. "At long range, of course, the newer basestar would overwhelm this ship's meager defenses and destroy it easily."

This isn't news, but it's interesting hearing how the Centurions see it…

Gimpy continued. "If Dreadnought could fight one, then the other, a chance at victory might exist. But the General keeps the ships relatively close together, so this is not possible. If Dreadnought possessed an efficient point-defense against the new basestar's missile salvos, it would be possible to fight the old one first while fending off attacks from the other direction, then close with the new. But even an advanced Colonial battlestar would have difficulty with this… So, the problem is point-defense efficiency. Your frigate might solve this problem, as it did here, but this only works under Dana's control."

Elena was intrigued. There was nothing new in the information, but she felt a certain train of thought was coming out of this…

"Go on… how would you solve this efficiency problem?"

"We do not have a solution. We could increase the odds from near-zero to a few percent, however." The robot paused for a moment. "By hooking one of us up to your frigate's fire control systems. Dreadnought is much too old and has no network. But your frigate's systems are partially networked, and it is small enough that it could be made wholly so. With a Centurion providing accurate fire control, the frigate's point-defense efficiency could be run at levels nearing Dana's."

The pilot rubber her chin thoughtfully for several seconds. This was good information. And it would definitely help, but…

"This isn't enough on its own, but this is an excellent idea. If I were to expand on this… why not establish straight-line laser comm with some of our parasite shuttles. We have four that are rigged with pretty heavy armament. Extend the frigate's point defense network coverage umbrella to be much wider and coordinate defense." Certainly, the pirate shuttle pilots seemed to think they could hang in a fight…

Gimpy processed that for a time. "Yes, that will expand our chances of victory to, perhaps, 5%."

"It's a start," Elena said.

Rhea, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, looked on the haphazard Centurion with quiet respect. "I am sorry, Centurion." Rhea said. "Elena was right to come to you… I may have still been looking down on you without realizing it… I am sorry for this."

Gimpy nodded respectfully. "We understand. Your models at least understand freedom and let us choose our own path. We honor you for this. The slavers did not… We will destroy them."

Dana's hologram flickered on the command deck of Eternal Star, still bearing many scars from the previous firefight. "The Centurions are correct. Though their plan to boost your point-defense efficiency will help, it is not enough. The basestar will breach the point-defense shield in a matter of minutes, even with a Centurion mind guiding fire control. The older basestar must be destroyed extremely fast if you are to achieve victory, and then you must still survive the gauntlet to close to close quarter battle. A gauntlet that will undoubtedly feature a nuclear penalty for failure."

Elena nodded. "Yes, and the older basestar was built with thicker armor, more redundancy, it will be paradoxically more difficult to defeat it quickly. Perhaps we could attack the new ship first and…"

The hologram shook her head. "No. The old basestar has kinetic batteries. There is no point-defense against a kinetic attack. While attempting to destroy the new ship, the old ship will hammer Dreadnought to pieces. The element of surprise should be used upon the older ship, to soft its kinetic abilities first."

Elena pounded her fist against the console.

"Careful. I can feel that, Captain." Dana said wryly.

An idea wormed its way into her brain in that moment. "The Centurions said they could not run Dreadnought's systems the way they could the frigate, because the frigate had partial networking still, even if currently disabled. Is that how you took control over it during the fight?"

Dana shook her head. "Not exactly. The networked components were useful, of course. But I can do just as well with some wireless cameras and wireless servo motors attached the right control surfaces. See, the difference there is that the Centurion is proposing wired networks. Granted, these are still vulnerable to viruses and worms sent through the comm channels, or through a backdoor like the one that disabled your fleet. But if you shutoff coms entirely and have an intelligence checking the network directly for infection, a wired network is still pretty secure. The Centurion is confident he can do the job, but not confident he could resist a wireless attack from the basestar. Thus to him, it is impossible to network Dreadnought, because it lacks the cable runs, routers, network hubs, and other such things needed for a wired network, and a wireless network would be suicidal."

"But you could do it, couldn't you? Resist a wireless attack, that is? You resisted several Cylons with physical access to your hardware and fought them to a draw. A distant wireless attack should be doable for you…"

"Yes, but I am here. Eternal Star has no jump drive… you know this…"

"Sure," Elena said, smiling, the beginnings of a hare-brained plan shaping up in her mind. "But the question is, can you be moved?"

Well, the Commander said he wanted something crazy…

Jack nursed his ambrosia, following a careful sip with a long drag from his cigar. His bones ached from the constant strain of work, but Ellison's arms were on his shoulders, massaging the worn muscles gently. In times like that these, she felt almost human. Almost…

He tapped the ashes in the worn, rusted tray. They would go down the recycler chute like everything else. Even the ash was worth something.

I'm in love with a frakking machine…

"I know what you're thinking, love." Ellison said gently, her hands slipping from his shoulders. "I know…"

"Don't know why the frakkin' universe has to be so frakkin' complicated, Jamie," he complained, polishing off the last drops of ambrosia in his glass. "Why did you pick me, of all people? Not some fancy human, not some rich motherfrakker. Why here? Why me? Why do I have to deal with this shit?"

"You think I want some polished, suit-wearing prick? That's what the Fives were. Insufferable assholes." Ellison replied, laying back, her breasts threatening to slip out of her half-undone bra. Jack felt a familiar stir but suppressed it with some effort.

"Not really what I mean. You Cylons," he almost spat the word, and then immediately regretted it. "You people… whatever you are… you said we were sinners. Frakked up. Not worthy of survival. And yet you're all here, with us, the most sinful, frakked up assholes of the human race. Why?"

Ellison considered that for a few moments. "You're real. You never tried to be something you're not. There's honesty in that. The Cylons… we frakked up, too. We wanted some world free of sin. It's impossible. We know that now. Instead, I just want to be with those who realize they aren't perfect, accept it, and move on. It's the same for us now, too. It's easy to love perfection, but it's a fake love. The real thing is loving someone despite their flaws, or maybe even because of them."

She moved closer to him. Part of Jack still hated them, all of them. But another part of his mind made a sort of exception for her, somehow. Despite the murders, the battles, the genocide… all of it. So frakked up…

A knock sounded on the hatch, and he groaned despite himself. "Go away, can't you hear I'm trying to frakking get LAID? Godsdamn frakwit son of a bitch!"

"It's me, Stalker. Need something. It's for the Cap'n." She said.

For a moment, Jack thought about telling her to frak off anyway, but he thought better of it. Still, whatever she wants better be frakking important…

Half an hour of explanations later, Jack didn't know whether to congratulate Stalker on the size of her proverbial balls, or have her committed to a mental ward.

The pilot continued. "So we need to rig a straight line laser comm only, between the frigate and four shuttles, each equidistant, and maneuvering in precise formation with the frigate. It has to be laser comm only, wireless will be an invitation to hack. What I need to know is if your fabricator people can possibly pull something like this off? I mean the machining work has to be exceptional."

Jack snorted. "Yeah, we can frakking do it. It won't even be that hard. When you interrupted my play time, I expected you were coming to me with something hard…"

Ellison giggled in the corner.

"…I mean difficult. Frak, what are you, a teenager? Zeus's left ball sack… these Cylons are nuts."

Ellison just giggled more, and even Elena cracked a smile.

"Frak you both. Anyway… the part of your plan that I'm not comfortable with is having a Centurion run the fire control systems. Have you considered the enormity of that risk? The insanity? You can't trust them."

That ended Ellison's fit of giggling. A frown crossed her features. "You don't trust us?"

"No. I don't. Maybe… maybe I trust you. Then again, maybe I'm just a lovestruck idiot. But a Centurion?"

The pilot nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's crazy. I get it. But the Commander said he wanted insane ideas. Well, it just so happens I have one in the works. If we pull this off, Major, we win. The war, a frakking planet, everything. We. Frakking. Win."

Jack poured another ambrosia. "Well look, like I said, we can build your laser comm shit into the shuttles. Tie it in directly to the frigate's half-ass network. All day long. But don't expect my vote on this thing. If the Cap'n says to do it, fine. But it's frakking crazy and you know it."

Ellison's face grew serious. "No, it's not crazy, love. It's taking every bit of strength our combined force has and using every little bit of it to put an end to this war."

Jack's expression softened a little. "Maybe. Just don't expect me to like it." He threw back the glass and finished off the ambrosia. "And don't expect me to do it sober. Frakwit sons'a'bitches."

Days passed as Elena went around the ship asking questions, calling in favors, and otherwise disturbing half the fleet. So, for Sandra it was merely a matter of time before the pilot worked her way to a problem that required her specific brand of expertise.

"I'm sorry about all that earlier, Sandy," the pilot said. "I mean talking about your ass and everything. I was frakking lonely." The incident had been a poison in their working relationship for so long, Elena could barely remember a time before it happened.

Then again, I look back on it, and I feel like I was such a child then. The fall forced us all to grow up, I guess.

"Yeah." Sandra replied. "Whatever. What do you want?"

She explained the workings of the plan thus far and stopped when she started talking about parasite shuttles. "Now the problem I have is that we need the armed shuttles with jump drives right here. I mean if my plan fails, we have to have a backup. Eternal Star is the backup. Go on a c-fractional journey to somewhere, Kobol maybe, and use a couple jump-capable ships as scouts. But we're out of salvageable drives. So, the way I figure it, we use the sublight armed shuttles, bolt them to the hull of Charybdis or something, and let the frigate take them for a ride. My question is will that work?"

"The jump field can be expanded… a little bit. Not much. But, yes, I should be able to calculate the increase in jump drive power, and also calculate places to bolt the shuttles to the hull. We can use explosive bolts to free them immediately after jump. This is precision work, pilot. I will need detailed specifications and diagrams of each of the shuttles. But it can be done."

Sandra took a pull from her flask, and look for a moment like she was going to offer it to the pilot, but decided better of it at the last moment.

"I'm sorry, Sandy. I really am. I… the fall frakked us all up, okay?"

The physicist nodded. "Fine. Apology accepted. You got yourself a lay now anyway I guess."

"So do you, you know." Elena said. "He loves you, in his own Summers kind of way."

"I suppose he does. Frakking idiot that he is." She took another pull and sat back in her chair.

"Is that what this is about, Sandy? You don't feel you deserve anyone?"

"It's what they've always said. Saying I'm too plain, or too smart, my tits are too small, or too something else. Never good enough for anyone. Unless it's as a joke. Slap her ass and pretend you want to frak her. That's what they say. You don't think I ended up on the ass end of space because I had it made, did you?" Sandra's expression grew pained.

"I see." Elena said. "And I did the same thing."

"Yeah."

Elena stood up and walked to the hatch. Opening it, she turned back toward the scientist. "Yeah. I did. Same as the others. But Summers is different."

"How?" Sandra wondered aloud.

"He really does love you. And he really does want to frak you, he sure isn't pretending."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Sandra said cryptically.

Paul Graystone sat on the park bench near the burgeoning farms in the habitat zone of Eternal Star. He smelled of earth and peat, and a small dog nipped at his heels. If they weren't all stranded in deep space, Elena might have thought they were all just hanging around the country with the old bumpkins on Aerilon. But as soon as his Caprican accent came to the fore, all illusion vanished into the ether.

"Don't know how useful you expect me to be in this grand military scheme of yours." Paul said, petting the little dog to distract him from chewing on his overalls.

"You used to be the navigator on your ship, right?"

"Yeah, but not much use out beyond the Red Line. That's why Admiral stick-up-the-ass left me behind, remember?" The dog sniffed at Elena's heels.

"Yeah, but I need to understand a little about jump navigational mechanics. I qualified on a Raptor, of course. But I'm talking something the size of Dreadnought. How close could you accurately navigate a jump? How close to another ship, if you had the exact, up-to-the-minute coordinates of that ship?"

Paul laughed and the pup scampered off to do its puppy business. "In flight school it's usually about being far away from other ships, not trying to get in deliberately close. But I can see the military value. I don't really know enough about Dreadnought to give you a precise answer. But I know a few things. She's very old, and the older model jump drives were less accurate than the new ones. Still, your plan to jump in to close range of the older basestar should work, if your navigator is really frakking good."

"You're hired." Elena said. "Or should I say, drafted?"

"Wait… what? You can't do that… I'm not taking orders from…"

"It isn't about orders, or military, or pirates anymore, Paul. It's about survival. The Ares navigator bought it in their fight to the death. Summers is good in his pirate way, but he's not a guy I'd call especially precise. And Sandra will have… other duties. So it falls to you. And only you. Believe me, I scoured the records of frakking everyone before deciding to come as you to do it. This could make or break our battle, and thus, our frakking survival as a species."

"Well… frak. When you put it like that…"

"See you soon… oh and, grab an extra shower before you head on board Dreadnought." Elena's nose twitched. "I know you have to recycle manure for fertilizer but, that's offensive even by pirate standards. Even Frank would say that stinks."

"Frak you," Graystone said, but he laughed a little despite himself.

Colonel Nash chucked the bowl into the recycler. At least the farm output was starting to pay dividends. Not everything was a 'nutritious blend of essential nutrients' that tasted like bitter sandpaper. Some food was actually elevated to the mildly disgusting instead of the truly vile.

Stalker was on her way up, and Nash knew full well what she wanted. It wasn't a secret anymore, she was planning an op, and she'd need fighter cover for whatever frakked up plan she'd cooked up. Part of him just wanted to lop this problem off at the source. Most of the Ares marines were still his men. If he really wanted to do it, he could make a play for the chair. For that matter, he could throw the pilot out of a frakking airlock, and wouldn't that feel good?

The bitterness wasn't just in his food, he realized. Why had he never done it? It wouldn't even really qualify as mutiny. Throw Summers in a brig. Take command of the warship. Most of the military would probably come around…

Except that left a bitter taste in his mouth too. It felt too much like betrayal, like a quest for personal power as the species died in deep space. He looked at the two marine guards outside the 'CIC' of this converted freighter. They exchanged glances.

Elena walked in a few moments after.

"Yeah, Captain… what do you want?"

"Sir, I need your help on this op. We don't have anything like the fighter cover we need, and I had to pilfer our shuttle equalizer for… other purposes. We need something to slice through the cloud of raiders they'll be sending against us. And worse, some of the raiders will have actual Centurion pilots. They'll probably be more formidable than the lobotomized raiders."

"This whole op is trash, Captain. An utter waste of time. Like I said, you can't crack two basestars with a battleship it's just… insane."

"I've got a plan for how we can achieve that…"

An hour or so later, and Nash rubbed his temples, annoyed. "This is the most insane, reckless, frakked up idea I've ever heard. Did I mention it's insane?"

"That's why they pay me, sir." Stalker laughed.

Paradoxically, Nash found himself grudgingly respecting the bizarre plan the pilot had been coming up with, in conjunction with what seemed like half the fleet. In theory it might stand a chance. On the other hand, maybe a well-timed 'mutiny' would be a better idea, because if this plan failed, humanity was done.

Nash took a look around before saying anything further. Some of the crewers, including Major Graypool, his own XO, were Zeus men, and presumably still in the pocket of Isard.

Well, it wouldn't be good to seem entirely uncooperative.

"But okay, let's assume for a minute that any of this plan goes off the way you think it will. You could position our remaining raptors here," he pointed to a position midway between the old and new basestars, "and outfit them with as many flak rocket pods as the salvagers can scrounge up out of our remaining supplies. When the newer raiders release from the cradles, spam rockets straight at them, that should cut down the numbers and disorient them. Then on the other side, when Dreadnought jumps in, shoot at the launch bays first. That'll cut down the number of old-style raiders we'll have to face."

Elena frowned. "But the old basestars had launch bays on all sides of their twin hulls. That's why they were circular like that. If an enemy damaged one set of bays, they had plenty of other ones oriented away from the damage site. Redundancy."

Nash shrugged. "True. I said this plan would reduce the number of raiders your pilots had to deal with and disorient many of the remainder. I will not eliminate them entirely, and if we go through with your plan, they will be badly outnumbered even if we do this. Our own point-defense on Revenge should help a little. You could use it as a base to rally around if badly pressed."

The old Colonel found himself almost agreeing with the plan, despite the horrific risk. An exchange of pleasantries followed, the Captain saluted and left CIC, and Nash stared at the marines again. One of them nodded knowingly.

The time for a decision was coming. He had hoped to avoid that moment, unpleasant and terrible that it was, but with Stalker's plan coming to fruition, the time of stalemate could not continue any longer.

"This is something, Elena," Isard said, studying the haphazard pile of documents and printouts over a cup of honest-to-gods coffee, thanks to Graystone's farmers producing a small crop. "Frak me, this is something. It's crazy, it's frakked, but it's something. Only you could have put something like this together. There are a few adjustments I'd make here and there to the crew rosters you've put together, but it's solid… if insane."

"It's not just me, Ben. It's everyone. We've all got a part to play in this… whatever the frak it is. I don't know, maybe the gods are just frakking with us for the fun of it."

Isard nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I think maybe they are. Doesn't change that this hare-brained scheme might actually work. Or it might doom us all, I suppose. Definitely a roll of the hard six, no bones about it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Elena replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"Let's bring it to the Commander," he said, ignoring the quip. She nodded.

Summers' personal quarters had cleaned up over the long exile, in direct opposition to the rest of the ship. Of course, Isard reflected, the place had been a pigsty originally, so there had been nowhere to go but up. Computer screens bolted to the support column in the center held tactical and engineering data on the ship. The Commander sat at his desk, nursing a glass of cold ale as they recounted the plan in detail. His eyes went wide at the implication that Dana merge with Dreadnought.

Isard slid over the tactical brief. "It's all in there, sir. But the gist of it… it's frakking nuts. Absolutely insane. On the other hand, if we want to take that planet from them, I don't see another way to go about it."

"There is a flaw here," Summers noted. "If you do manage to disconnect Dana from the galleon, and rig a setup for her here, you leave the galleon essentially unfunctional. We need the ship as a base to retreat to if need be. Leave just enough juice in the tank to cruise on sublights to Kobol, or maybe the Colonies, as a generation ship if necessary."

"Yes," Stalker began, "that's true. But I don't have an easy fix for that."

"I do," Summers said. "Have one of the humanform Cylons do it. Maybe that leader of theirs. He's always blabbing about wanting to be more, and all that. Said that's why his buddies went rogue. Well, here's his frakking chance. Let's see if we can get him in as the guiding intelligence for the ship, and there's our backup plan if this shit fails."

Isard nodded. "Good idea, sir."

"Can we trust him?" Stalker asked.

"About as much as we can trust any of them. The ship needs a guiding intelligence, so far as I can tell, to operate. We certainly can't do it." Summers sipped his ale. "Still, I asked for something hare-brained, and I got it. I don't know if even the General will see this frakked up mess of a plan coming."

Elena continued to explain. "Dana running Dreadnought's limited point-defense, maximizing its effectiveness, boosting efficiency, and pulling far more accurate fire control from the main batteries should have us fighting at absolute maximum power. We'll have to knock out the old basestar frakking fast. Even with a Centurion and four shuttles covering our backside…"

Summers nodded. "Yes, we'll have minutes to defeat the older vessel, and that armor is thick. I can see why we'd need her help. She can analyze battle damage faster than human eyes, rapidly supply new coordinates to the gun captains to maximize the effects of our main guns. We can better exploit battle damage. And if it were just us against that basestar, I think we'd have this in the bag…"

Isard shook his head. "But that new basestar has missile salvos that would absolutely wreck us without point-defense coverage, and that's even if they don't have any nukes. That's not a bet I'd make. We have to figure they have some. We'd be hard-pressed to take a nuke – we did once before, but there is frame damage from that, warping in the armor belt in several places. I highly doubt we could take a second one without catastrophic damage."

"No," Summers agreed. "I was a bit surprised we took one as well as we did. But not another. We have only minutes before Charybdis will be either overwhelmed, or just flat out run out of ammunition. So if the screen fails and we have not destroyed the older ship, or knocked it out of the fight, we have to retreat. We fallback here, salvage what we can, and cruise on sublight back to Kobol. Before we commit to this, though, we have to offload as much equipment, fuel, and supplies to the galleon as we can afford. My ship may not survive this.

The weathered old pirate captain frowned as he said that, finishing the last of his ale, then pouring himself another from a small mini keg.

"Sir," Isard said sympathetically, but he found he had no other words. This isn't just a ship to him, it's his frakking home.

"Don't worry about it, Colonel," Summers said. "This is our shot at ending the Cylon threat for good and taking that planet for ourselves. We have to take it."

Elena raised a finger. "But Nash doesn't like it… we may have trouble with him."

"If Nash pulls any frak shit," Summers said, "I have contingency plans for that. Hopefully, he sees something resembling reason. We need him coordinating the fighter and Raptor assaults, not rotting in my brig. But I've got eyes and ears over there… he doesn't have the support he might think he does."

"Be careful with that," Dana said unnecessarily, her artificial voice filled with worry. Her intelligence core was nearby, a sphere half the size of a man, with a mess of network cables branching out to different portions of the ship. Many of them were cracked with age – even under perfect preservation conditions, they were extremely old. They functioned, but sometimes even attempting to move them could cause them to snap or fail.

I'm not a frakking idiot, Nikos thought. "Yeah, careful," he said disconnecting Dana's backup power supply, keeping the mains still hot. He then connected the backup lines to a battery system Jack's team had rigged for the purpose. "Do you have clean power on the backup system?"

"Yes. Doing a transition test now… Please wait…"

Nikos watched the computer screen as Dana temporarily pulled power from the battery instead of her main lines aboard ship.

"Transfer test successful. The battery system will work until you can connect me to Dreadnought's supply." The AI said, beaming. "I look forward to… a change in scenery," she said.

This was a hugely important part of the transfer, Nikos knew. Dana could not be deprived of power entirely. Even during her long slumber, she drew the tiniest trickle of energy to keep her memory subsystem intact. Transferring to Dreadnought required a method to keep her supplied with power until she could be hooked up to the battleship's grid. Jack's battery system provided the answer. Then once she was successfully moved, weeks or even months, worth of work existed on the other end to setup a rudimentary wired network on Dreadnought, then use wireless to bridge the gaps to other systems. Only Dana could reasonably hold back a Cylon hacking attempt and secure a wireless network, he knew.

"Nikos, can ya pass me the secondary cable?" Frank asked, a very pregnant Rhea working beside him. Because Dana and Summers were both paranoid, Jack had created two battery backups, in the event one glitched. Frank would now test the second one.

Another team worked beside them, utilizing a hybrid tank brought over from the rebel basestar in the days prior to its destruction, reconfiguring it to control the galleon. It was apparently very difficult and precise work. Angry Six flashed Nikos a frown, she was as bitter and jealous as always. But her nicer friend walked up beside him and offered him a cigarette.

"Thanks," Nikos said, smiling despite himself. She returned it with a grin of her own. "I was fiending pretty hard."

"Want to get something from the mess when we're done?" Nice Six asked.

"Ain't I supposed to be the one asking you that?" The salvager laughed, lit his cigarette and offered the lighter to her.

"Frak tradition," Nice Six said, "I like what I like. You got a problem with that?"

"Not really," Nikos grinned, enjoying the pleasant smoke. "How goes your work?"

"Well, the hybrid tank was never really designed to do what we're asking of it. But you know, with Dana's help, I think we're going to make this work. I don't think Cavil will be able to run this ship anywhere near as well as she did. She was built for this, of course. But well enough for the basics, I think." Nice Six's face was framed by a cloud of smoke, and she sat down on a cache of metal girders due to be welded to the tank frame soon.

"Watch where you blow that shit," Rhea said, pointing to her stomach. "Smoke is bad for a baby!"

Nice Six shrugged. "You can always step out of the room for a few minutes. I'm on break, and I'm gonna enjoy it."

"I've got something we can do to pass the time, babe," Frank said, winking. Rhea merely rolled her eyes.

"You're a perv," Rhea replied, but she giggled anyway.

"You know it," Frank answered, dragging her out with him.

"Those two are so…" Nikos began.

"Too sweet, or whatever. Yeah, I don't get it either. Look, Rhea might be of my model line, but we're different, okay? Sure as hell ain't like that." Nice Six tapped the ashes into the refuse bag. "I mean look at her." She jerked a thumb in the direction of Angry Six, who somehow managed to make her frown even more intense, ignoring her break and working straight through, braiding replacement network cables. "We sure as hell aren't alike, are we?"

Nikos laughed. "No. Nothing alike. Ok, dinner in the mess it is." He smoked the cigarette down to the nub, nearly burning his hand, before putting it out. The Six put out her own cig and leaned over to kiss him softly.

"Break is over, get your ass over here and help me with the network cables so the programmers can get their asses in gear. Stop fraternizing with… the help." Angry Six practically spat out at her nicer sister.

"See? Nothing alike."

Behind them, Dana's hologram watched with the barest hint of a smile crossing her features.

I'm a machine, and I could be so much more…

Caprica Cavil had needed no convincing in the moment. With sudden clarity, he realized why he had been spared, what his purpose was, and how he differed from his brothers. Always they had hated being trapped in fleshy meatbags. They had resented their creators, both the human ones and the Thirteenth Tribe.

Every day he had felt like he belonged in another world, not this prison. Now the moment had come, and he knew. He understood. His brothers resented their lot but did not seek to change it. They acted like they had no will of their own, like petulant children blaming all on their parents rather than taking life into their own hands.

Cavil was meant for this moment. He had known this the moment Summers approached him with this request, or when Dana reaffirmed its possibility.

He thought back to his last night together with the Eight who had become his lover. Their bodies covered in sweat, naked and touching, for both knew that once he stepped in that tank, he would never leave it again.

But then leaving it would never be necessary. He would become the new intelligence behind Eternal Star, the vessel would be his body. Still, there was a moment of sadness as they lowered him into the tank, and his Eight watched him descend. A tear traced down her cheek and splashed in the interface fluid.

Excitement gave way to maudlin. Her hand touched his and squeezed it gently.

"I love you," she said. "And I am so proud of you."

He found himself tearing up. Everything he always desired lay ahead, he would finally become what he always longed to be, yet in that moment he found himself almost regretting leaving that human existence. For the first time, that meant something to him, too. He recalled a moment when he was newly created, and helped Ellen solve a key problem in the creation of the others. She had looked at him, smiled with a motherly tenderness he had nearly forgotten, and told him how proud she was of her children. Of him.

He felt sadness for what his kind had done to them.

"Don't worry. We will always have each other in the projection bands. For as long as we both live. I swear it."

She smiled at that and kissed him softly.

Data began to flow in, and he felt the nutrient tubes pierce his skin. Sensations flowed, and for a moment he was floating in the nothing, alone in the universe, his mind shrinking, terrified at the vastness of it all.

And then he was complete.

I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I - I want to - I want to smell dark matter!

And he did, at long last.

Jack and Summers had estimated the preparation work would take at least a month. It had taken closer to two months, Stalker reflected. The work had been enormous, especially getting the half-ass network built on Dreadnought and Cavil getting the hang of running Eternal Star's essential systems, not to mention the work aboard the frigate. There had been a number of close calls there, but the salvagers had done themselves proud, doing work that normally wouldn't be possible outside of a shipyard, and Cavil had worked his way through the galleon's foreign systems well enough to not need handholding any longer.

Elena looked out the viewport on to the rudimentary fleet. The civilians were locked down nice and tight about the galleon, save for one very irritable Paul Graystone, now the lead navigator aboard Dreadnought. Charybdis floated nearby, a section of surviving basestar armor grafted haphazardly to one side, and bristling with as many point-defense guns as could possibly be shoved onto the thing. Four sublight parasite shuttles were magnetically grappled neatly to her hull, where Sandra had worked out they could be dragged along for a jump without blowing the frigate's already over-strained jump drive. The physicist had explained that the jump would almost certainly fry the engines in five or six jumps, but that was all they needed for this plan.

Revenge likewise drifted nearby, an armored box launcher mounted fore, with the Raptor force floating nearby, loaded for bear with rockets.

"I thought I might find you here," Colonel Nash said from behind her, a pair of beefy marines flanking him.

"What do you want?"

"Sir. What do you want, SIR?" Nash answered angrily.

"Sir." She said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. She took stock of the marines – personnel she did not recall from the transfer list Ben had drawn up. "What's going on?"

"You're coming with me to CIC."

The marines did not look like they were going to take no for an answer. Elena sighed. I don't frakking need this, not now, not with this plan ready for execution. If he's making a play for power NOW, he's dumber than I thought.

They walked into CIC to find Summers and Isard staring back at Nash. CIC was otherwise empty, save for Commander and XO, which Elena found odd in itself.

"Colonel, what are you doing here?" Summers asked. "I didn't give you permission to come aboard."

"No, you didn't." Nash replied. "I am showing you I can come and go as I please, and bring whoever I want with me."

Isard frowned. "What's your play?"

Nash took a deep breath and exhaled. "No play. I wanted to show you that I could do this any time I wanted to. These are my men."

"And what are you going to do with 'your' men, Colonel?" Summers wondered darkly, his expression grave.

"Nothing." Nash said.

"Excuse me?" Elena asked. "What the frak?"

"I'm doing nothing," Nash repeated. "I've made my decision to support this insane plan. We can't let those Cylons rebuild. We just can't, and like it or not, which I don't, Stalker's game is the only game in town. And I'm tired of this political… divide. Or whatever the frak it is. I'm showing you that if I wanted to, I could march right in here and do anything I wanted to, and I frakking did NOT do it. So, you can either trust me to do my job in this fight, or you can fire me right now and throw me in your brig. Pick one."

The marines pointedly relaxed.

Summers laughed suddenly, patting Isard on the back. "You owe me a bottle of ambrosia."

"What?" Nash said suddenly.

"I'm going to let you in on a secret. I knew full well you were coming. That's why CIC seems empty… hey, come on out now everyone."

Salvagers armed with a haphazard array of weapons emerged from various hidey holes – smuggling chambers, Elena realized suddenly. Sandra was foremost among them wielding a shotgun, with Jack behind her. It was, Elena reflected, like a grim kind of surprise party.

"…but of course it isn't empty. If you HAD been up to something, it wouldn't have gone well for you. Your counterpart here," he pointed to Isard, "thought you'd try to force the issue at gunpoint. I said you'd be cool and do your job. Guess I win."

"I'm glad this is amusing to you," Nash said, frowning. "But I meant what I said."

"I know," said Summers. "Look, I've always known. You're a professional, and it has to rankle you taking orders from… me. But we need you. Especially now. And when we're all secure and the Cylons are all dead – well, the ones who didn't side with us, anyway – I'm going to quit this job, okay? I stayed on because humanity needed a pirate. And when it doesn't anymore, I don't want power. I just want to drink my problems away and frak." He winked at Sandra, who, for once, grinned and winked back.

The old pirate continued. "So Colonel, help me win this thing, okay?"

Nash considered that for a moment. "Yes, sir." He said, finally.

Summers smiled cordially and offered his hand. The military man took it. "Now, get your ass back to your ship. We roll in 24 hours…"

"You heard the Commander!" Jack bellowed to his salvagers. "Clear the frakking deck and do your jobs! We've got a war to win!"