The damaged battlestar suddenly lurched forward as it arrived at its destination, emerging from the FTL jump. Sandra Robbins, still struggling with the two personalities fighting for dominance inside her mind, lost her footing and stumbled backwards. A ceiling panel fell down behind her and a bundle of wires from a cable that dangled down brushed against her neck. When some of the bare wire ends touched the back of Sandra's neck, several bits of her Cylon program were flipped. Instead of her Cylon personality taking control, it got almost completely deleted, with only some basic information remaining. Her human cover personality became dominant. And then there was some hidden information, some data that was supposed to have been deleted a long time ago. She saw vague images of five people, five faces, three men, two women. She did not know who they were or where she had seen them before. Then there were memories. Buried memories of her and the other Cylons. There were memories of eight different models with multiple copies of each model, including her. There was one model she did not recognize. A man with brown hair and brown eyes. She thought his name was Daniel, but she was not sure. There were multiple copies of him as well. Who were those five people and where were they now? What happened to the other Cylon model?
The Pacifica had come out of her FTL jump several light years away from the coordinates where Crichton was going to meet up with Moya.
Crichton had taken a shower and put on a fresh uniform, one that fit him, while the crew was making repairs. He had ordered anyone not involved in repairs or in taking care of the wounded to get some rest. In the meantime, Lieutenant Hill had put together a casualty list and a damage report, and assigned repair teams to fix the damages with the highest priorities.
"Sir, we just received a message that Picon Fleet Headquarters has been destroyed. Admiral Nagala is leading the Fleet from the Battlestar Atlantia. We have also picked up reports of equipment malfunctions throughout the fleet. There have been nuclear bombings of several of the Colonies", the communications officer reported to Crichton, who had just entered the auxiliary control room.
John Crichton tried to piece this information together as best as he could. Picon Fleet Headquarters seemed to be a command center, probably THE command center of the Colonial Fleet. Their colonies were under attack. People were dying, probably millions of them. It became clear to him that these people were fighting for their existence. The situation was bad. Really bad.
"Sir, we need to get back into the fight", Ensign Jones reminded him eagerly.
"Damage report, casualties. What shape are we in?" Crichton demanded to know.
"Overall we have 186 dead, 348 wounded, and another 223 missing out of a crew of 2500." Hill reported. He paused.
"Commander Kronus, Colonel Wellman and most of or command personnel were killed when the CIC exploded. Major Robbins was found unconscious in a corridor with minor burns to the back of her neck. You sir, and Major Robbins are the only surviving officers above the rank of Captain", Hill continued.
"It will take us at least a week to get the CIC operational again. Until then we are repairing our main systems and we will be able to run them from here for the time being. Our main forward cannons will be back online in about 3 hours." another crewmember added.
"We have 173 vipers, but only a third of them are fully operational and many of those are from other units. There are 9 raptors, 5 of them are operational and we can repair another two within the next few days. The remaining two are beyond repair. ", Jones reported.
"The message mentioned equipment malfunctions. That reminds me some of the vipers and raptors were acting up during the battle. What's up with that?" Crichton asked.
"Our deck crews found out that all the vipers that were malfunctioning had the new command navigation program installed, while the ones that were working were either older models or had not been upgraded yet.", the ensign continued.
"Get rid of that program and have them reinstall the old software."
"They are already on it, sir"
"Sir, our people are dying back home. We got to get back and defend the Colonies", Ensign Jones complained.
"We won't be able to make a difference the shape we're in and with most of our birds grounded. I'm not going to send any more people to their deaths."
"I suggest we pull into the nearest shipyard, make repairs, and get back into the fight", Ensign Jones suggested.
"There are probably no shipyards left! The Cylons are everywhere. Wiley Coyote would come up with a better plan than that. We barely managed to get away", Crichton rebuked him.
"Who is Wiley Coyote?" Petty officer Nelson whispered to Lt. Hill.
"Probably someone from his old ship", Hill whispered back.
Most of the Colonial military force had already been destroyed and the Colonies have been hit by nuclear warheads. Aboard one Cylon basestar at the edge of colonial space a group of humanoid Cylons was coordinating raider attacks with the goal to eliminate surviving civilian ships.
"One of our raider squadrons has discovered an unidentified ship in an asteroid belt right outside colonial space", one of the Model Six humanoid Cylons reported.
"Probably just a mining expedition", the Model One in command of the basestar responded. "Why did they not destroy it?"
"Neither the design nor the material composition of the ship match anything the Colonials are using", the Six answered.
"Aliens?" a Model Five wondered.
"Do you really believe this nonsense? There are no aliens! God created man. Man created machines. There is no word about aliens. Probably some top secret research project the Colonials were working on. I want that ship captured intact!" the One shouted
"I will send a task force of heavy raiders with Centurions to board that ship", a model Three said.
"See to it"
The repairs aboard Pacifica had been progressing over the past several hours since arriving at their current location. Damage control teams were still clearing debris out of the destroyed CIC, but the main batteries were operational again and most hull breaches had been sealed. Several crewmembers who had suffered only minor injuries had been dismissed from the sickbay and returned to duty. There were now 60 operational vipers, all of which had been purged of the faulty NCP. Colonel Crichton was in the middle of a speech that was transmitted ship wide through the intercom system, addressing the crew of the Pacifica.
"... 20 minutes ago we have picked up another message. As the only senior officer remaining in the Colonial Fleet, Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica has assumed fleet command and issued a system-wide order to all Colonial Fleet units to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage for counterattack preparations. We are still in no condition to fight, but we need to follow Commander Adama's orders. With the other units around we have a better chance of survival than on our own. We will get this ship back into fighting condition and we will take the fight to the enemy. Those walking trash cans will pay for what they've done."
"Plot jump coordinates to half way to Ragnar Anchorage and spool up the FTL drive. We will make two jumps." Crichton ordered.
Shortly after the Pacifica had completed her first jump, Crichton voiced his suspicions about the message from Commander Adama. He had been thinking all along that there was a 50/50 chance that the Cylons could have sent a fake message to lure surviving Colonial ships here.
"This message from Commander Adama could be a trap. The Cylons might be waiting there to finish off whoever survived. So we need to be ready for them. Get me the most senior pilot. We need to organize our viper squadrons and come up with a defense plan."
"That would be Lt. Cain, sir. The CAG got killed saving the pilots whose vipers quit working and all the squadron leaders are either dead or injured", Hill responded.
Crichton would rather have stayed longer until more vipers had been repaired, and then jumped to the rendezvous coordinates where Moya should be waiting. But he had to play his role and needed to follow Adama's orders. At least now they had more Vipers than a few hours ago and the main batteries were functional again.
Lt. Cain entered auxiliary control. She instantly made eye contact with Hill, who smiled at her and she smiled back. As Crichton turned around to face her, she stood at attention.
"Sir, Lieutenant Sheba Cain reporting as ordered."
"Lieutenant Cain, as our currently most experienced pilot you are hereby promoted to the position of acting commander of our air group until further notice. Your orders are to gather the best of our pilots and assign them to squadrons. We have 60 operational vipers and I want all of them crewed and ready for launch when we arrive at Ragnar Anchorage."
"Sir, may I make a suggestion?" Cain asked.
"Go ahead."
"Instead of dividing our vipers into 3 squadrons of 20, we should divide them into 4 squadrons of 15.
"That makes a lot of sense under the given circumstances", Crichton agreed.
Together they came up with a defense plan that would buy the Pacifica enough time to make another jump in case there were really Cylons waiting for them at Ragnar Anchorage. The jump coordinates would be to Moya's rendezvous point.
The Pacifica jumped again and ended up near Ragnar Anchorage.
"Sir, we are picking up distress calls. There are 19 civilian ships. They are under attack by a squadron of Cylon raiders. Make that 18 civilian ships." Jones reported.
"Send out everything that can fly and shoot. Protect the civilian ships until they can jump out." Crichton ordered.
Sheba and her four squadrons of vipers launched. Fortunately the Cylons thought one squadron of raiders was enough to mop up a bunch of defenseless civilian ships, so now they were outnumbered by the vipers from the Pacifica.
"Contact the civilian ships. Tell them to prepare to receive jump coordinates"
"Sir, some the civilian ships are responding. Apparently none of them have FTL drives and they claim to have been abandoned here by the Galactica for that very reason."