Chapter 3

As soon as she entered the storm field everything in Starbuck's ship went crazy. Every instrument panel started flashing and then they all went blank. It was only by sheer force of will that Kara managed to hang on to the throttle and keep the ship stable. The engines misfired and she thought that it might be a very short trip, but fortunately they didn't stall and after a couple more coughs they went back to normal.

"Galactica, do you read me?" There was just a sound of static in reply. "Stupid question, of course you don't. Well you're on your own now, Thrace."

Kara started to test out all her equipment. Although the engines were still running, the thrusters wouldn't fire. Just about everything else except life support seemed to be off line. She realised that she should be thankful that she could still breathe! She decided to drop one of the chief's "breadcrumbs" to mark where she had entered the field. This was easier said than done as the missile firing system didn't appear to be working. Eventually, on the third try, the missile tube opened but didn't fire, however, that was all she really needed. She tipped the ship forward so that the silvered ball just fell out of its tube. With her marker set, Kara started to concentrate on figuring out where she was going. She did a time check and set her speed; she'd need all this information to be able to make calculations about the depth of the field. Looking out of the cockpit all she saw was grey cloud. She had once been stuck on Sagitarra during their foggy season. This was just like that; cloying, claustrophobic and impossible to navigate through. Fortunately, one of the old fashioned pieces of equipment the chief had found allowed her to keep the ship set on a straight course, although it was no help in actually setting the direction; that was entirely up to her judgement or more accurately guess work, as she couldn't see anything. She hoped there wasn't anything too solid in the field because she could hardly see ten feet in front of her and would have little or no warning of any impending hazards.

After the first hour, staring at the continuous white fog rushing past her cockpit was making her feel nauseous. She knew that she had to get over this or the mission was doomed to failure. Pilots could die if they vomited in their helmets. Her one and only experience of getting very sick in a viper had shown her that she never wanted it to happen again. It had been years ago now and she couldn't help but smile at the recollection. She'd been out on a real bender with some friends; for what reason she couldn't recall, but she'd gotten hugely drunk and passed out in her quarters. Unfortunately for her, instead of the late shift the next day that she had been expecting, she had been made to fly an early patrol. She'd made it through the first hour before she had had to come back. She had really thought that she was going to die in that plane. Her CAG had seen through the "food poisoning" excuse instantly and she had been made to not only clean up after herself, but she'd been grounded and been put on maintenance duty for a week. Kara had sworn then that it would never happen again and she wasn't about to start now. She swallowed manfully and started to whistle a favourite tune to try and take her mind off of her turbulent stomach.

−

Kara had been flying continuously through the field for six hours and quite frankly she was bored. She had worked her way through her entire memory bank of songs, singing loudly and out of tune in her cockpit, but even that method of entertainment was palling. There seemed to be nothing in this phenomenon and it was obviously much bigger than they had anticipated. She was starting to wonder if she ought to start thinking about turning around and heading back to Galactica; this thing could just go on forever. She had dropped one of the chief's silver balls at hourly intervals for the first three hours, but as the journey progressed she was worried about running out of them and had lengthened the gap to two hours. She decided that eight hours was going to be her limit. She knew that if she turned around at that point she would have plenty of fuel and oxygen to get back to the ship, even if she got a bit lost on the way. She was just reaching this point when the grey mist seemed to start thinning out. Suddenly she got a glimpse of stars and knew that she had made it through.

She emerged into the space beyond the storm; straight into an asteroid field.

"Oh holy frak," she shouted as she tried to regain control of the ship as it emerged from the storm. Some of her systems were coming back on line and it was throwing everything out. She managed to dodge the first asteroid, but was clipped on the wing by a second. This sent the viper spinning out of control into another, larger rock. She managed to gain some control but not before the tail had smashed into the asteroid. A piece of rock hit the canopy of the cockpit. Fortunately it didn't break but she was left with a large crack obscuring her view. Alarms started going off in the cockpit and the plane lurched downwards. She fought with the joystick and managed to regain some semblance of control. She fought with the unbalanced ship to avoid the continuing stream of asteroids and other junk that seemed to be inexplicably drawn towards the storm field.

She made it out into relatively clear space and contemplated what to do next. Fortunately, one of Lee's fears hadn't come true: there were no signs of any Cylons, but then there wasn't much sign of anything else either. Doing a diagnostic check confirmed that she had lost her starboard engine for the time being. There was no way she could get back to Galactica without it. As she didn't have an EVA suit on, she needed to find somewhere with gravity to set down and make some repairs. The small moon ahead looked the most viable option. She grappled the disabled ship through the outer atmosphere and headed for the surface. It looked like she had managed to pick about the most inhospitable place in the universe. The viper was being buffeted by strong winds and the surface of the moon was obviously frozen, but having come this far she really had no choice but to land and make the best of it.

"Frak, frak, frak, frak! Just my luck again. Why can't I ever get stranded on some planet with a tropical climate? I always have to pick the spots where I get my butt frozen off."

She put the ship down on a piece of high ground hoping this was at least solid ground: if they needed water stocks then she had found another good frozen supply. At least she thought it was water; checking the instruments told her there was little or no oxygen in the atmosphere.

Kara checked her watch; eleven hours gone since she had entered the storm. She got ready to climb out of the viper to see if she could do anything to fix the damaged engine.