AN: Some people wondered why I cut out the events (aka, the shooting) from "Sacrifice." I liked the show (mostly), but I didn't really know how to put Ilana of the middle of it; I thought that the events of the episode and dealing with the repercussions of it took me away from what I was trying to do with this story. Yes, Lee getting shot would have stirred things up again for everyone, but that's not what I wanted to happen. Sorry if this offends.

Pegasus' Viper pilots hung back, waiting, while two Raptors went out to investigate the two contacts that were showing up on Dradis. As they all listened in to the wireless reports from their cockpits, it didn't appear that any of the pilots on the hangar deck gave a frak that Ilana and Kara were still onboard the ship.

"Pegasus, Red Devil," one of the Raptor pilots reported in. "Our two birds look intact. Can't quite see yet, and we're unable to raise the Raptors on wireless…" There was a pause as they got closer to the drifting ships. "Oh, my Gods. Pegasus, both Raptor crews are dead. I repeat: they're all dead." Everyone in the hangar sighed. They'd dared to hope that maybe things would turn out okay.

A second later, alarms began blaring and the ship shuddered violently as it was hit. All the pilots hurriedly began pulling on helmets and closing their canopies. "Let's go, let's go!" Kara yelled to the deck crew.

The Vipers were launched out into hell. Three Basestars were visible before them, peppering Pegasus with nukes. Raiders were also launched, spraying weapons fire at the Colonial fighters. "All right, Showboat," Kara told one of the pilots, "You take red squadron. Hit 'em on the right. Athena, you take blue on the left. The rest of you, follow me. We're going straight up the gut."

They were getting hammered hard and barely making a dent in the endless onslaught of Raiders. Athena tried not to cringe as she saw an explosion signifying the third or fourth member of blue squadron to die. It was senseless, completely and utterly senseless. They shouldn't be out there; they shouldn't have fallen for the trap.

"Starbuck, Pegasus," they all heard over the wireless. "Command has been assumed by Major Adama. All fighters should focus on protecting our top side."

"Wilco, Pegasus. We've got your back."

There was no question of why Lee had taken command; there wasn't time for that now. Everyone just knew that if they were lucky enough to survive the day, things on the deck wouldn't be the same as when they left.

A huge burst of salvo fire emanated forth from Pegasus' forward guns, squarely hitting the center Basestar of the three. The ship started to break off its attack, although the other two weren't.

"I'm bingo ammo," one of the pilots reported.

"Me, too," another chimed in.

"Roger that," Kara told them. "Pegasus, Starbuck, we're skosh ammo out here."

"Copy that. Do what you can."

"If you've got something left in your guns, use it," Ilana ordered. "Otherwise, get your six on the flight deck!" There weren't many of them still out there fighting after that, but those that remained tried their hardest to buy Pegasus a few more seconds to get their FTL engine back online. One pilot managed to knock out a nuke with the last of his ammunition, only to be taken out by a Raider a second later as he tried to make a run for home.

"Pegasus to all Vipers," they finally heard. "Return to ship. I repeat: get yourselves home." No one had to be told twice.

Streaking through the sky, Starbuck brought up the rear as the remains of Pegasus' three squadrons headed for the deck. "Pegasus, Starbuck," she called in. "Nobody behind me but toasters. Now get us outta here."

Moments later, the ship disappeared in a bright flash of light. If only the memory of whole episode could have vanished as easily.

Pegasus had taken heavy losses. They'd lost pilots, engine crew, deckhands, marines, and their commander. The ship had structural damage that they were scrambling to repair. Almost every single one of their surviving fighters had taken damage of some sort. At the moment, 'the bucket' was looking a hell of a lot better than 'the beast.'

"How many did we lose from the squads?" Ilana asked Kara as they worked together on Pegasus' flight deck that evening, fixing up their own ships before they returned to Galactica.

"Seventeen."

She sighed. "Out of fifty."

Kara shrugged. "Or out of fifty-two if you count a couple of pilots who'd been thrown off the ship."

"Plus three Raptors."

"Yeah. We've been turning out new MarkVIIs, but we don't have any replacements ready for the Raptors."

"Or the pilots." Kara slowly nodded. "Do you remember all of their names?" Ilana asked.

"Not yet," she replied without looking at her. "But I will."

It was late at night by the time that Lee, Kara, and Ilana all arrived back on the Galactica in their Vipers. Adama had wanted to see Lee, so he disappeared off to his father's quarters. Ilana was surprised to see that the light was still on in the pilots' ready room. Hotdog was at the front, going over paperwork.

"Hey," she said as she walked in and sat in the front row of chairs.

"Hi. I heard you had quite an interesting day."

"Yeah. I'm looking forward to sleeping it off tomorrow."

"You're leaving me to do the early shift briefing all by myself?"

"Absolutely," she replied with a little smile. He returned it. "What are you still doing down here, anyway?"

"The weekly log."

"This early in the week?"

"I meant last week's log."

"Oh."

"I thought Kat had done it, she thought I had done it – XO chewed us both out."

Ilana smiled. "Nice."

"Mmm. Who decided this was our job in the first place? I never asked for any responsibility."

"None of us did," they heard a voice say, and both spun to see Kara in the back of the room. "Sometimes it just comes along anyway." She glanced at the schedule hanging by the door, and then turned back to Hotdog. "Get your ass in your rack; you're on early shift tomorrow. And you better not be late for my briefing." She then turned and left. Ilana and Hotdog just smiled at each other.

"CAG's back," he said.

"Oh, yeah."

Ilana's bunkmates were kind and did allow her to sleep for most of the following day. She finally got up around dinnertime and found Lee and Kara eating together in the mess. "Are you still here?" she teasingly asked her big brother as she joined them.

"Yeah, but not for long."

Kara smirked. "Commander Adama has a ship to get back to."

Ilana almost choked. "What?" Lee pointed to his collar. "Okay, Dad has seriously lost his mind."

"I still can't believe this dipstick said yes," Kara continued. "I mean, all the pressure and responsibility. Sleepless nights. Officers giving him a hard time."

"It could be worse," Lee pointed out. "You could be my new CAG."

"Or even better, your XO," Ilana added. Kara pretended to have a heart attack.

"No, thank you," she said. "I'm staying here to be Galactica's CAG. I believe the Old Man said something about wanting to keep an eye on me. But I get to pick new squadron leaders out of the deal." She eyed Ilana. "You're not gonna be one of them, kid."

The younger girl tried not to be hurt. There weren't many officers left on Pegasus or Galactica that had as much experience as she did, but if Starbuck was the one making the choices, everyone already knew that they didn't exactly see eye to eye most of the time. Ilana thought that had been changing lately, but…

Lee grinned at his little sister, knowing what she had to be thinking. "That's because I already had dibs on you," he said, holding out his hand and offering her Captain's insignia. "I told you that Pegasus needed a new CAG."

"You can't be serious."

"Your brother's got his own frakking Battlestar," Kara told her. "I don't think it gets more serious that that."

"Dad agreed to this?"

"Yeah, eventually. I told him we were a package deal; I've lost a lot of time with you already."

Ilana smiled, looking down at the ranks in her hand. "I never would have imagined this three years ago," she commented. "I mean, I don't think any of us could have seen the attacks coming, but…the three of us sitting around a table on the same Battlestar, working as part of the same BSG."

"Occupying three of the top seven positions in the fleet," Kara added with a grin. The others returned it.

"I guess we're just somewhat lucky," Lee said. "Although we're only all going to be on the same ship for as long as it takes you to finish eating and get packed," he told his sister.

Ilana picked up another forkful of her food. "I'm going, I'm going."