Chapter 3

Cally hummed to herself as she worked at replacing the port stabilizer valve on one of the Galactica's Vipers. She hadn't been able to get the image of Mark Kelan's shirtless self out of her mind and found it was actually helping her concentrate. She felt oddly at ease.

"Cally, you alright?" Tyrol asked. "I haven't seen you work like this since before the attack."

"Oh, it's nothing, Chief," she told him. "Just…perky I guess."

"Right. Well, whatever it is, I hope it doesn't wear off."

Cally fought hard to suppress the giggle that welled up within her. She didn't succeed.

"Something funny?"

"Nothing, really," she said.

Shaking his head, Tyrol moved on to the other Vipers in various states of repair. Thankfully the Cylons had held back for nearly a week and they were able to catch up with much needed repairs.

So engrossed was Tyrol in his repairs that he didn't notice Lee Adama walking up.

"Chief?"

"Yes, sir?" Tyrol said, saluting his superior officer.

"How are things?" Lee asked.

"As well as they can be during this calm. Not taking it lightly, though. Thank the Gods the Cylons haven't decided to hit us. I've got half a dozen birds down for major repairs, and I just don't have the parts to fix all of them."

"We're working on that," Lee assured him. "Look, I need to ask you a favor."

"Anything," Tyrol responded. "Just don't expect any miracles."

"No, no miracles," Lee told him, chuckling. "I, um, I need someone to be a guide for the guy from Earth."

"A guide? For what?" Tyrol asked, looking up.

"Well, it's becoming apparent that some things are different between the Colonies and Earth," Lee explained. "For some odd reason their week is two days shorter than ours."

"Now that is strange. What else."

"Well, I've been hearing some rumors. He went before the Quorum and was rather upset when he found out Earth is a Colony."

During all of this, Cally, as was her nature, had begun to listen in on the conversation.

"The mythical name of the Thirteenth Tribe…"

"The Hellasians," Tyrol supplied the name, being the son of a noted Caprican priest.

"Yeah, the Hellasians. It turns out they actually exist. He knows them by their common name…"

"The Greeks," Tyrol supplied that name as well.

"Exactly. Anyway, he told me he hates being out of the loop and really I can't blame him. Especially if I were out of the loop for two centuries."

"I see. So why can't you get someone else to fill him in on everything?"

"No one else is available," Lee said, shaking his head. "At least not on Galactica. I could check the Fleet, but…"

"I'll do it," Cally chimed in.

"Cally?" Tyrol asked.

"Chief, I was top of my class in Colonial History," Cally told them proudly. "If anyone can teach him basic history, I'm your girl."

"You do realize that you'll still be required to work on the hangar deck."

"I'll do it on my off time," she told him. "He seems intelligent enough to learn everything quickly."

"Alright," Tyrol said, realizing an argument was out of the question.

Beside him, Lee smiled a knowing smile.

"Just try not to let him get in the way of your duties, alright?" Tyrol said, realizing her eagerness to help the Earth man.

But Cally just smiled and laughed.

The computer chimed for attention. Looking up from a book he had been reading, Mark Kelan noted the message:

"Drive reconstruction complete," the screen read in large, pulsing type.

"Finally," he muttered.

Setting the book down, he typed in a few keystrokes, causing the computer to reboot. As the computer came back online, the operating system loaded up, much to his relief.

"After two hundred years, you still work," he said to himself. "No telling what they use on Earth now, but you're the best there is in God knows how many lightyears."

It had been a struggle to get power to the computer, just another example of the differences between Earth and the Colonies. Apparently the Colonies hard wired everything into the wall and that was an understatement. It seemed the electrical outlet was an invention only common to the planet Earth.

And the Colonies appeared to use more than the 110 volts of electricity he was used to running his appliances. From what he'd been able to gather, they used 330, which just didn't make sense since it didn't double as things did on Earth.

The problems, fortunately, had had an easy workaround. Thankfully, even in the frantic attempt to escape Earth, someone had thought to process a power inverter into the system. Fortunately that power inverter had resided on his hard drive.

"Now, to find out what happened to you guys," he said as he brought up a program he'd designed to monitor the systems during their interstellar transit.

As the program began scanning files buried deep on the individual hard drives that had once held the data streams of his friends, a knock came at his door. Leaving the program to do what it needed to do, he answered it.

"Oh, hi," he said as he was greeted by Cally. "What brings you here?"

"Captain Adama," she told him.

"Oh, right," Kelan said, remembering his earlier conversation. "So you're going to tell me about everything Colonial?"

"That's the idea," she told him, smiling. "Just, you know, don't lose your shirt over it."

Laughing, Kelan sat back down at his computer.

"I doubt that'll, um, happen anytime soon," he assured her.

"So, what exactly are you doing here?" she asked, indicating the computer.

"I finally got it back up," he explained. "Trying to find out what happened to the others. Damn these power systems, though."

"Colonial standards," Cally shrugged. "Anyway, I guess we should get started."

"Sounds good to me. No telling how long this'll take."

At that the program stopped and a photo came up. Cally suddenly stopped smiling.

"My Gods," she whispered.

Turning to look at the screen, he saw the picture of one of his friends.

"That's my friend Jennifer," he told her.

"That's Boomer," she told him, completely in shock.

Looking at the photo and Cally's shocked look, Kelan suddenly realized he had been presented with another, more complex puzzle.