Those worms knew about Earth. Starbuck needed to keep talking to them. Maybe they would reveal its location to her.
"So, some of you said earlier you've been to Earth?" she started.
"Yep, cool place. Spent my vacation there. Lots of fun", one of the worms said, filling up a large coffee mug.
"What do you want on Earth? You don't strike me as the fun type", another worm said. Several others laughed.
Starbuck grabbed the worm by his midsection, lifted him up and yelled: "Not the fun type? Do you want me to show you some fun, you frakking worm thing? Do you want me to show you some fun?" She shook him and kept yelling: Quit frakking with me, you creepy little freak or your friends can scrape you off the floor!"
She managed to calm down and put the worm alien back on his feet. Then she spotted a clear bottle in one of the crates. She pulled it out and unscrewed the top.
"I wouldn't drink that if I were you", a worm alien wearing a large hat warned.
"Shut the frak up!" she shouted at him.
"Seriously, this stuff is not good for humans to drink. In fact, the humans on Earth use it to clean carpets" the worm said and handed her a different bottle. "Here, try this instead."
She tossed the first bottle on the floor and took the one the alien handed to her. The label of the new bottle said "Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Whiskey" in letters that suggested that the people on Earth were using the same Alphabet as the Colonials.
She opened the bottle and took a sip.
"What is that place you come from? Caprica?" the worm with the large hat asked.
Starbuck figured that if she wanted those aliens to be more forthcoming, she had to give them some information first. So she told them about the Twelve Colonies, how they got destroyed by the Cylons, and how a small fleet of survivors escaped and was now searching for Earth.
"Why Earth? Why not settle somewhere else?" one of the worms asked.
"We tried that. It didn't go over too well"
"Tell us!" the worm begged.
"Yeah, tell us, one of the others said."
"Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!" the whole chorus of worms chanted.
Again, Starbuck wished for her pistol. She really wanted to shoot these guys.
"Okay, I make you guys a deal. I'll tell you what happened on New Caprica, or Magrathea, or whatever the frak you want to call that shithole of a planet, and you give me the coordinates of Earth. Deal?" Starbuck suggested and took another sip from the bottle.
"Deal!" the worms shouted in unison and Starbuck began to tell them how one of the pilots accidentally discovered the planet Magrathea when a Raptor jumped to the wrong coordinates on a rescue mission to Caprica.
2 years earlier (270 days after the destruction of the Twelve Colonies):
"But I think it is a glitch in the nav computer firmware. Bottom line is that we are far from where we are supposed to be, Skipper", Hamish "Skulls" McCall, the ECO said.
"Okay, ahem, any chance that we could still catch up with them?" Racetrack asked.
"Not a chance. Mission rules say we head back", Skulls replied.
"Frack me, this was the first jump", Racetrack complained.
"Yeah, but you gave me those coordinates", Skulls retorted.
"Back to the barn", Racetrack said, visibly disappointed that their mission was already over before it began.
Heey, I'm picking up a large planetary body. It's frakking close.
An image of a planet suddenly appeared on the screen in the center of the cockpit.
"Where did that come from?" Racetrack wondered.
"Hell if I know" Skulls said," There was so much DRADIS interference, it didn't even register.
The two marines on the back seats leaned forward to get a closer look.
"Hey, check this out: Atmosphere is Nitrogen-Oxygen, organic molecular spectra, fresh water", Racetrack said excited. She paused. "Hey, you know what this is? It's habitable. We may just have found a world that can support human life (looking at her copilot). We are not such a bunch of frak ups after all!"
Suddenly they could hear the sound of a trumpet and a holographic image of an old man with a long beard appeared in the cockpit of the raptor:
"Greetings to you", the hologram said. 'This is a recorded announcement, as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit but regrets that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you."
"If you would like to leave your name and your address on a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone", the hologram added. Then there was a beep tone.
Racetrack and Skulls looked at each other for a moment, and then jumped their Raptor back to the Galactica to report their findings. Back aboard the Galactica they discussed what they had found with Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh. Lt. Gaeta was also present. He had already analyzed some of the data they had brought back.
"I've climate readings overall within human norms" Tigh said, looking at the report.
"There is some extremes at the poles that we couldn't withstand, but that's not unusual" Gaeta said.
"Well done" Adama said
"Thank you, sir", the pilots replied.
"What do you make of that strange hologram they described in their report?" Tigh asked after Racetrack and Skulls had left the room.
"Looks like someone got there before we did." Adama replied. "There've been plenty of reports of ships jumping beyond the red line and disappearing."
"That someone seems to have a really frakked up sense of humor, If you're asking me. Tigh commented.
"We haven't used hologram technology since the first war with the Cylons", Gaeta said. "I guess who ever recorded this got here a long time ago and is probably long dead by now."
Aboard the Battlestar Pegasus, Commander Lee Adama was briefing a group of Viper pilots about their upcoming survey mission.
"We got a mottled area here at the river mouth. So it's probably a delta. The Chances are we got significant plant and animal life, so I want a lot of nice low passes across here, Lee said, pointing an enlarged copy of the image that had been taken by Racetrack's raptor.
Some of the pilots nodded.
"I also want you guys to look out for any ships on the surface, wreckage, a shelter, or any other signs that someone has been here before."
The Vipers were supposed to do several flyovers over the habitable areas on the planet's equator and record data. It was also planned to land a survey team aboard a Raptor and have them explore a small area on foot and collect samples of the vegetation. Unfortunately there was currently only one Raptor available, since most Raptors were being used on a rescue mission to retrieve a group of resistance fighters from Cylon occupied Caprica. The remaining Raptors were either undergoing maintenance or being used to ferry people and supplies between ships in the fleet.
As soon as the Pegasus had jumped into orbit of the newly discovered planet, Lee Adama immediately ordered to establish a CAP, as it was standard military procedure. Suddenly, the same hologram that Racetrack and Skulls had seen a few days earlier appeared in the CIC of the Pegasus.
"Greetings to you", the hologram said.
"What the frak is that?" Dee said aloud, even though she had read about the hologram in the report.
'This is a recorded announcement, as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit but regrets that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you."
"He can't be serious", Dee said.
"If you would like to leave your name and your address on a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone", the hologram added, followed by the beep tone again.
"Looks like they want us to leave. What are your orders", Lt Hoshi asked.
"It's just an old recording. We continue our mission", the commander said. "Whoever left that behind is probably long gone."
But then the hologram continued with another recorded message: "It is most gratifying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are a part of our service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients and that the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a curtesy detail. We look forward to doing business with you in future lives. Thank You" Then there was another beep tone.
"Launch alert vipers", Lee ordered.
Dee took the phone and relayed the orders to the flight deck. The alert vipers launched immediately.
In the meantime, deep underground Magrathea an automated defense mechanism calculated that the usual two nuclear missiles normally launched to deal with intruders were not sufficient to destroy a target the size of the Pegasus plus several fighters. The defense system therefore decided to launch all remaining nuclear missiles. Fortunately for the Pegasus and everyone on board, only eight missiles were left, after the others had been either used up over the millennia to deter other intruders or simply malfunctioned. It was also fortunate for the Pegasus that the automated factory that would normally replenish those missiles had been destroyed in a ground quake several hundred years earlier.
"Radiological Alarm!" Lt. Hoshi reported, "Eight nuclear missiles just appeared on DRADIS. They seem to have been launched from the surface."
"Move fighters to intercept", Lee ordered. "Mr. Hoshi, get me a firing solution for main batteries and point defense guns!"