"We still don't have any idea who this man is", Colonel Horten said to his CO, Commander Karies, pointing at a picture of John Crichton.
"He could be a terrorist, a smuggler, maybe even a Cylon sympathizer", the CO replied.
"On Sagitarion he claimed to be from Picon and on Picon he claimed to be from Tauron. But according to our source his accent does not match. The items he purchased are mostly food, medical supplies and everyday items. Strangely no weapons or ammunitions, or else I would say he is doing supply runs for a terrorist cell", Horten went on, going over a report from Colonial Intelligence.
"Hmm", Commander Karies said.
"Here it says that he bought a number of parts for an MkI viper", his XO continued.
"Our orders are to arrest him, question him, inspect his cargo, and hand him over to Colonial Intelligence", the Commander pointed out.
The security on all space ports on Saggitaron had been stepped up since Tom Zarek, a well-known terrorist, was headed to Caprica for parole hearings on a prison barge called the Astral Queen. Space port personnel were ordered to report all suspicious activity. Crichton was suspicious, but not suspicious enough to warrant an arrest. When he showed up on Tauron a few days later, Colonial Intelligence planted a tracker on his transport pod and informed the nearest battlestar to stop him.
John Crichton was on his return trip to Moya from Tauron, the second planet he had visited since his arrival in the Cyrannus System. He had sold several tons of ores and minerals that Moya had mined from one of the asteroids in the asteroid belt where she was hiding. After stocking up on food and other supplies for himself and his family during his first trip to the planet Saggitaron, Crichton had decided to use his visit on Tauron to look for items he could trade on other worlds once he left the Twelve Colonies. For that purpose, had bought several crates of an alcoholic beverage that the locals called "Ambrosia" and many other unique items. He also managed to acquire engine parts from two old MkI colonial vipers at a scrap yard. During the long flight to the Cyrannus system, John had studied the technology of the Twelve Colonies from the files the strange Doctor had given him. As a scientist he was mostly interested in the designs of the Colonial ships, especially their propulsion systems. He was planning to use these engine parts to upgrade his Farscape module, which was parked in a hangar aboard Moya. John was piloting his transport pod back to Moya. He had just left the orbit of Tauron and set the autopilot for the several hours long flight back to Moya, which was hiding in an asteroid belt just outside the sensor range of the Colonials. He was looking forward to spending time with his pregnant wife Aeryn and his son D'Argo, who had both stayed behind on Moya. Aeryn was expecting their second child, a girl. She was going to name her Xhalax, after her mother. D'Argo was named after the Luxan warrior Kar D'Argo, who had sacrificed his life protecting John and Aeryn several years ago.
John Crichton was reading another entry on the history and culture of the Twelve Colonies, while flying on autopilot, when he was intercepted by two colonial vipers from the battlestar Solaria.
"This is the Colonial Battlestar Solaria. You will be escorted aboard for inspection of your cargo. Failure to comply will be met with deadly force."
Crichton had no choice but to switched to manual control and to follow the two starfighters he recognized as colonial vipers to the Solaria, or else he would have been shot down. He then landed his transport pod in one of the landing bays. As soon as he had landed, he was forced out of his transport pod by marines at gunpoint, patted down, and lead to a small room with a desk and two chairs. The marines had taken away Winona, his pulse pistol, and handed it to a middle aged Colonial officer. The officer sat down behind the desk and the two marines shoved Crichton into the chair across from him.
"I am Colonel Horten, Executive Officer of the Battlestar Solaria. And you are under arrest for flying an unregistered spacecraft, forgery of official documents and reasonable suspicion of involvement in terrorism and/or piracy."
"...and for not wearing a seatbelt and for parking in a handicapped spot. Yadda, yadda, ya." Crichton quipped.
"You think you're funny?" Horten yelled right in Crichton's face. "Wait until Colonial Intelligence gets here"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You really need to watch your blood pressure. You'll blow a gasket or have a heart attack, if you keep going like this", Crichton retorted. He had been through far worse interrogations, like the time when Scorpius had put him in the aurora chair.
"Watch your language."
Horten swallowed his anger and calmed down a little. That prisoner would be handed over to Colonial Intelligence in a few hours anyway. Let them deal with him, he thought.
"Your name?" the officer asked.
"I'm Captain James T. Kirk", Crichton answered.
Horten wrote down the name and held up Winona. Close enough that Crichton could see her, but not close enough for him to grab her and start shooting.
"I have never seen a weapon like this before, Mr. Kirk. Can you explain where you got it and what you are planning to do with it?" the XO asked.
"Oh that? That's a toy. I bought it on Tauron as a Christmas present for my son"
Horten let it slide. He didn't have time for this. Not with the training exercise scheduled to begin in two hours. Two Colonial Intelligence agents were due to arrive later that day and conduct a more thorough interrogation.
"Your ship does not match any models manufactured in the Colonies, nor is it registered in our database", the XO of the Solaria continued.
Crichton was glad that he had taken one of Moya's transport pods and not his module. Not only was the transport pod larger and could hold more cargo, but also the Colonials would have found data leading to Earth.
"My ship is..." he was getting ready to respond with an improvised explanation when suddenly all hell broke loose.
"Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill." a voice announced from a loudspeaker mounted on the wall in a corner of the room.
Then the lights went out.
"What the frak..." Horten cursed.
The emergency lights came back on, but then the ship was rocked by a massive explosion. Crichton fell forward out of his chair onto the table, but Colonel Horten fell over backwards with his chair and hit the back of his head against the wall behind him. A pool of blood began to form.
Crichton reacted quickly, grabbed Winona, which had fallen off the desk, turned around and shot one of the marines. The ship shook again the moment the second marine fired, causing him to stumble, miss Crichton's head by an inch, and the bullet to hit the ceiling instead. Crichton, who was crouched on the floor, wasted no time and shot the second marine.
Crichton checked Colonel Horten's pulse, but the man was dead. He realized that the dead XO's uniform could be his ticket out of this mess once this attack has stopped. If he survived, that is.
"Great, now I'm stealing from the dead. Did I really sink that deep? Rygel would be proud", he thought to himself, while quickly replacing his clothes with the dead colonial officer's uniform.
The battle was not going well for the Battlestar Solaria and the rest of Battlestar Group 21. Two support ships and the lead battlestar were already destroyed, the other ships, including the Solaria were drifting around in space, powerless, easy targets for the attacking Cylon raiders and heavy raiders. With the new CNP installed on almost all ships of BSG21, it took the Cylons only four Baseships and their supporting raiders to destroy most of the numerically superior force within just a few minutes. Resistance was minimal.
The tide seemed to turn when Colonial reinforcements arrived. Battlestar Group 53 consisted of 3 of the more modern Mercury class battlestars and a dozen cruisers and destroyers of varying types. The battlestars launched vipers and began thinning out the swarms of raiders, but many of the vipers suddenly suffered engine failures as soon as they had left the launch tubes. With only a fraction of their fighter force operational, the newly arrived reinforcements could not prevent the Cylons from launching another salvo of nukes at the already battered Solaria. The flak field managed to destroy five of the nuclear warheads, but a sixth impacted on Solaria's hull.
Aboard Solaria, Crichton was running through corridors toward the hangar bay where he had parked his transport pod, when the ship shook from the explosion.
"All hands abandon ship, I repeat all hands abandon ship." the voice from the loudspeakers announced.
"Oh great", Crichton thought, when everyone suddenly started running in the same direction he was. Luckily for him there was so much panic and confusion that people did not recognize him as someone who did not belong aboard this ship. The Solaria shook from several secondary explosions as Crichton reached the hangar deck. There was a lot of pushing and shoving going on and John Crichton found himself aboard one of the raptors.
"Excuse me sir, but you are not part of our regular crew. I was wondering if you came aboard for the training exercise", a young woman sitting next to Crichton inquired.
"Yes, I did", Crichton answered. "I teach basic tactics at the academy".
It was in Crichton's favor that there had been several groups of cadets with their instructors aboard for a training exercise. So an officer who was not part of the battlestar's regular crew could be easily mistaken for one of the visiting instructors.
Five raptors had made it out of the Solaria's hangar bays, with Crichton being aboard the third when secondary explosions ignited the Tylium storage tanks and engulfed the ship in a massive fireball. The battlestar broke in two and then both parts exploded. The last raptor was hit by debris and spun out of control before it collided with another piece of debris and exploded. Two more raptors were shot down by a Cylon raider.
Crichton's raptor landed aboard another battlestar, one that was larger and looked more modern than the Solaria. Crichton could read the name "PACIFICA" spelled out in large capital letters. Crichton and the other survivors quickly exited the raptor so it could take off again and rescue more survivors from what was left of Battlestar Group 21.