WSG-1: Fall of the Twelve Colonies

by Kelso323

As the Cylons unleash their genocidal strike upon the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, disparate groups of survivors struggle to defy bleak odds and the cold, calculating wrath of the Cylons; aged veterans and a new generation of inexperienced warriors band together to safeguard the addled survivors in their care. Their only mission; ensure the survival of humanity.

6. Part 5 - A Fighting Chance

Battlecruiser Enceladus
Near Emergency Fleet Rally Point 731NE

Colonel Thadius Runel stepped through the hatch back into CIC.

While the scene out in the corridor could easily have been defined as chaotic with a myriad of support personnel rushing back and forth past an equally huddled mass of refugees from the Republica taking up just about every last bit of space not already allocated to someone or something else, Runel had halfway hoped that CIC would serve as his enclave of order amidst the commotion.

So much for wishful thinking.

All around CIC, DC teams were busily replacing burnt-out computer displays, patching up damaged bulkheads and blown power relay boxes. Sparks rained down from where one DC team was using a welding torch to burn open a damage-sealed electrical junction box.

Although the Enceladus hadn't sustained any more appreciable damage while escaping from Ragnar, the fact that they had at last been given a respite from the almost two days of constant combat was an opportunity that Runel seized upon to take a pause and allow the Damage Control teams a chance to effect more extensive repairs to the accumulated injuries the ship had suffered.

"Status, Lieutenant Thorpe?" called Colonel Runel as he stepped around the shower of sparks and made his way over to the plot table.

"Primary repairs should be completed within the hour, Colonel," replied the Lieutenant as he stepped down from the upper gallery. "We should be able to get back underway then."

As he stopped and took the clipboard from Thorpe, Runel couldn't miss the evident fatigue in the young man's blood-shot and bleary eyes, his expression sullen and distant.

"How long has it been since you last slept, Lieutenant?" asked Runel evenly as he looked down at the first couple of pages on the clipboard.

"I've lost track, sir," replied Thorpe, grinning weakly as he gently massaged his eyes.

Looking away from the clipboard, Runel looked back up around CIC. Like Thorpe, most of the crewmen hadn't left their posts since the war had begun.

Setting the clipboard down onto the plot table, Runel reached over and picked up the handset on the side of the plot table.

"This is the Colonel," he began a moment after toggling the switch to the overhead One-MC. "At this time I want all section heads to check with their teams. Anyone who has been at their Action Station for over thirty-six hours is to be relieved and report back to their racks for immediate rest. That is an order."

Hanging up the handset, Runel looked around at the questioning eyes around CIC.

"Let me be perfectly clear, people," began Runel as he looked to each of his CIC crewmembers. "This is war, and in war there are going to be moments where you will be asked push yourselves through some long hours. But, there are also limits, and I'm not about to have the CMO start handing out stims just to keep you people on your feet."

Pausing, Runel took a breath.

"We're all in strung out shape, but fatigue cannot be an excuse for making a mistake that gets others killed. Anyone here who has not been relieved since before we jumped to Armistice Station, you are to go back to your berthing space and be in your racks for the next six hours, is that understood?"

At first, he didn't receive a response, only several questioning, exhausted glances.

"I said is that understood?" he snapped.

"Yes, sir!" echoed the personnel in CIC in near unisons.

"Everyone else will likewise have an opportunity to rest after this first shift comes back on duty."

As the most heavily exhausted crewmembers around CIC slowly began filtering out the entry hatch, Runel turned and looked over at the visibly hesitant Lieutenant Thorpe.

"That means you too, Lieutenant," he said simply.

"With all due respect, Colonel, you need an XO," replied Thorpe weakly.

"Get some sleep, Lieutenant," replied Runel evenly, smiling a bit as he reached over and patted the young officer on the shoulder. "They'll still be plenty of war to fight when you report back for your next shift."

Thorpe opened his mouth as if to protest further, but inadvertently found himself yawning instead.

Runel let out another small chuckle and patted Thorpe on the shoulder once more.

"You just go get some rest, Lieutenant," said Runel as he gently nudged Thorpe towards the last of the few crewmen exiting out of CIC.

As Thorpe turned and headed out of CIC, Runel turned and watched the parade of exhausted crewmembers.

"And in case any of you were wondering," began Runel as they paused and looked back over at him. "Good work; I'm damned proud of each one of you."

Silently, a few of the crew nodded as they continued on their way out of CIC. A couple paused and shook hands with Runel before exiting, the Colonel making his best effort to mutter something heartening to each as they went by. One crewmen, Petty Officer Jania Coulter muttered a weak 'so say we all', her voice choked and raspy, her fingers making a quick praise gesture for her patron goddess across her forehead as she followed the others out the hatch.

Looking back around, Runel watched as the personnel who had now assumed the vacated posts settled in and picked up the myriad of duties left behind by their exhausted shipmates.

"Who's my oncoming Tac Officer?" barked Runel as he looked about momentarily, himself tired enough to not readily be able to recall a name off the top of his head.

"I guess that would be me, sir," stated one of the two officers huddled around the Operations console.

"You guess?" began Runel looking over at the officer who'd spoken with something less than amusement.

"Yes, sir, Lieutenant Birch, sir," piped the officer once more as he took a tentative step down to the plot table.

"You're normally on the Midwatch, aren't you, Lieutenant?"

"Affirmative, sir."

"Then let me just take this moment to drag you back into the daylight," began Runel, leveling the young officer with a grave, no-nonsense gaze. "I don't ever expect you to use the words 'I guess' in my presence again, it's either 'yes, sir', 'no, sir', or 'request permission to be relieved, sir', am I understood, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," replied Lieutenant Birch, swallowing a none-too-small lump in his throat.

"Very good," muttered Runel, looking away from Birch towards the DRADIS. "Now, get on the short wave and get me an updated status report from Savitri, Adroa and Ikenga; the one in this pass-on binder is at least three hours old."

"Yes, sir," replied Lieutenant Birch flatly.

As he watched the young officer virtually scurry away out of the corner of his eye, Runel had to stifle a slight chuckle; along with being an effective prod towards keeping people on their toes, sometimes it was just plain fun to shake up a junior officer,.

Taking a deep breath, Runel waited while Lieutenant Birch contacted the other ships. A few minutes later, the young officer stepped up with several printouts and handed them dutifully to Colonel Runel.

"That will be all, Lieutenant," said Runel flatly as he took the sheets, intentionally avoiding looking over at Birch as he did so to ensure he didn't betray his continued amusement.

As Birch stepped away, Runel focused himself back in and began going over the reports sent over from Savitri, Adroa and Ikenga, the other ships in his small fleet.

As expected, the sheer number of survivors pulled from Rhapsody Station, the abandoned freighters and finally the Republica were beginning to tax the resources of the small fleet. First and foremost was simply a matter of space; while some of the rescued crewmembers had been assigned to replace combat losses, much as it was aboard Enceladus, there were still hundreds more on the other ships who were literally stacked up in the corridors waiting for any available bunk space.

He didn't like the idea of so many aimless bodies cramming up the corridors if the ship found itself in another engagement. In a crisis, people without jobs to keep them focused could panic, hamper DC efforts, any number of potential problems his ship and crew just couldn't afford.

"Colonel Runel, sir?" called the Petty Officer at Communications.

"Yes, what is it?" asked Runel, his tone coming off a touch harsher than he meant for it to.

"Sir, I've got a secured line from the Savitri, Colonel Webber on the wireless for you, sir."

Taking a deep breath, Runel picked up the handset on the side of the plot table.

"Pipe it down here, Petty Officer," he said evenly, as he lifted the handset to his ear.

After a moment of nothing, then static, Colonel Runel heard the other end of the wireless line pick up.

"This is Enceladus-Actual," he said, clearing his throat as he continued to read through the status reports.

"Savitri-Actual, just wondering if you have a plan of action yet?" asked the voice of Colonel Webber flatly.

"Our repairs should be completed within the hour," he replied, his attention never leaving the sheets in front of him as he continued to peruse the tally of facts and figures. "I'll advise you of my intent as soon as they are complete."

For a moment, there was a pause on the other end of the line.

Letting the final page fall back to the plot table, Runel stretched his back as he listened to the dead air coming in over the wireless.

"Spit it out, Savitri-Actual, you wouldn't be calling if there wasn't something more on your mind," said Runel as he reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose.

"If it pleases the Colonel, I do have a suggestion," began Webber, an undercurrent of sarcasm in her tone Runel would have to have been deaf to miss.

"I'm all ears," sighed Runel; at that moment he simply was in no mood to trade barbs with his ex.

"With Ragnar Anchorage out as a resupply point, I had my XO go through the binder," began Webber, her tone softening a bit, but not much. "I suggest we look at plotting a course for the Torvik Anchorage."

"One moment," replied Runel as he set the handset down on the plot table. "Lieutenant Birch, get me everything we have on Torvik Anchorage."

"Aye, sir."

Within moments, the young officer stepped forward with another binder and set it down on the plot table for Runel. Pulling the binder closer, Runel looked over the sheet regarding the Torvik Anchorage.

After a few seconds of looking over the report, Runel picked the handset back up and motioned for Lieutenant Birch to return to his station.

"Says here that Torvik is out near Leto's Twins, binary pulsars," muttered Runel as he continued to look over the sheet. "Most recent survey indicates a rather significant pulsar wind nebula around them. It's going to be an even bigger bitch navigating in that soup than Ragnar."

"But there's potentially three times as much ordnance and supplies at the anchorage," countered Webber.

"And its position in deep space in almost the exact opposite direction from Cylon territory means there could be other surviving forces there," finished Runel as he continued to read down the sizeable manifest list on the station. "I see what you're getting at."

Runel continued to ponder the manifest before him, the unspoken hope that some other units of the Colonial Fleet may have survived never far from his mind.

"Okay, Savitri-Actual, I'll bite on your suggestion," he stated evenly. "But not right away. We've still got three jump points on our EWO list; we'll hit each of those first, loiter at each for approximately three hours and see if we can make direct contact with other surviving forces. After that, we'll make the jump out to Torvik."

On the other end of the wireless line, Runel could hear Webber draw a breath as if about to protest. Instead, she simply paused, presumably to mull over whether it was worth the effort to try and push the matter any further.

"Understood, Enceladus-Actual," she replied finally.

"Now, what about the CAP?" he continued.

"I've been pouring over the communiqués we've received since the attack began," sighed Webber. "As you know the reports are thick with references to the Mark Sevens being shut down along with our capital ships at the outset of engagements."

"I am aware, yes."

"Well, until we know the exact cause, I've rotated the nuggets we have aboard for flight quals out of the Mark Sixes there were training in for our more experienced pilots to use; all we can do is hope that's enough."

"I'll leave that to your discretion, Colonel," replied Runel evenly, again reaching up to rub his strained eyes. "I'll advise when we're ready to get back underway to our next rally point."

"Understood," said Webber, terminating the wireless connection a moment later.

Hanging up the handset, Runel looked back down at the data sheet for Torvik Anchorage.

Twin pulsars; that meant they'd be trying to navigate their way through a lot of DRADIS interference.

He almost hoped they wouldn't need to make a jump out to that location. But then, the one lesson Colonel Thadius Runel had learned over these last brutal days was that it didn't matter what he hoped for, what mattered was what he was actually willing to do.

For a moment, Runel found himself wondering if that meant he was becoming a cynic.

---

Serenity Valley
Sagittaron Colony

"Quit being so damned cynical," muttered Corporal Dwayne Bowman as he pushed his way past a rather significant bush.

"I'm not being cynical, I'm being a realist," replied Lance Corporal Chaffey as he threw a hand up, a moment too late as it turned out, to deflect a branch let go by Bowman. "How do we know this guy isn't leading us into a Cylon ambush."

"Because he's human," countered Lance Corporal Sims as he gently hopped over a fallen tree trunk. "Why would a human betray us to the Cylons?"

"Greed," replied Chaffey flatly. "Maybe the Cylons promised to line his pockets with cubits."

"And where the hell is he going to spend it?" interjected Lance Corporal Auric as he too hopped over the fallen tree. "Last I could tell, everything was being blasted to neat little bits under mushroom clouds."

"Hardly 'neat'," countered Bowman as he continued to follow behind the figure that until recently many had simply dismissed as a figment of their midnight imaginations. "Fallout will be raining down over this area for weeks; we're going to need heavy doses of anti-radiation meds just to survive."

"I hate needles," muttered Auric absently.

"You'd hate a slow death from radiation sickness even more," replied Sims evenly. "So where do you think this guy is leading us?"

"Got me," shrugged Bowman.

"I thought you were the 'expert'," interjected Chaffey derisively.

"Shut up, Chaffey," snapped Bowman flatly.

"Aye, Corporal."

Shaking his head, Bowman found himself wishing he had a good reason for Captain Gaines to rotate Chaffey to the rear of the formation. Nevertheless, he did admit, if only to himself, there was a nugget of truth to what Chaffey had been saying; they had no clue where the 'Ghost', whose name was apparently Kieran Marius, was leading them.

Indeed, it had been a rather surprising act of faith on the Captain's part to allow Marius to take point and lead the surviving Marines deeper into Serenity Valley.

But then Bowman thought about it; in context with all the other unusual and unsettling turns the last few days had thrown their way, letting a veritable phantom lead them through unknown territory wasn't any crazier than anything else that had transpired.

Better yet, beyond faith, now that Marius was in the lead, they were making much better time.

Glancing back, Bowman could see the line of Marines, as well as the few stranded civilian Police and EMT's who were tagging along, make their way steadily up the rise behind him.

The surrounding jungle; and to his eyes, that is literally what it had become, a jungle; was thick with trees and underbrush. The overhead canopy of leaves and branches would provide a good measure of protection from detection overhead; the heat retained underneath the canopy would play havoc with IR, at least until the sun fell again.

Looking back up ahead, Bowman's heart skipped a beat when he realized he had lost sight of the Ghost, Marius, in the underbrush ahead.

Quickening his step, Bowman looked about frantically as he realized he was quickly coming up to the crest of the small hill they had spent the last hour steadily climbing.

"You might want to stop there, Corporal Bowman," came a gruff voice.

Turning, Bowman realized he had very nearly rushed past Marius, the old man simply cradling his rifle as he stood beside a tree.

"Unless of course you'd like to be blown in half."

The almost mischievous grin on the old man's weathered face led Bowman to look down at his feet. Sure enough, another thin tripwire ran across the path.

Without missing a beat, Marius reached down and slid the detonator safety pin back into place on yet another large charge of G-Four explosive tied to the tree trunk.

"I wish you would stop doing that," muttered Bowman as he let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding.

"And miss the look on your face?" chuckled Marius.

Before Bowman could respond, either with words or a swift butt stroke to the old man's face, he couldn't be sure which would be more appropriate at the moment, Bowman watched as Marius stepped up to the crest of the ridge and motioned to another small hill on the opposite side of the shallow valley.

Without a word, Bowman looked out, and to his decided surprise, saw what appeared to be a town resting on the adjacent hill.

"What is that?" asked Bowman.

"I thought you were the 'expert'," muttered Marius with a grin.

Old as he was, Marius' hearing was apparently sharper than his own.

"Okay, you heard us talking, I'll be impressed later," replied Bowman derisively. "My question still stands though."

"That's the town of Serenity," replied Marius evenly. "At least it used to be."

Looking a little closer, Bowman saw that if it was a town, it had not been occupied as such in a very long time. Broken windows, peeling paint, crumbling walls, overgrown brush scattered throughout the narrow streets.

"Okay, and?"

"And that is where we're heading."

Before Bowman could ask anything further, Marius started off down the hill into the small valley below. A few steps down, Marius stumbled and fell with a slight crash and string of curses.

Suppressing his impulse to laugh, Bowman made his way over to where Marius had gone down and found the old man lying flat on his back in a tangle of underbrush. Reaching out to Marius, intent on helping the old man back to his feet, Bowman was surprised when Marius literally smacked his outstretched hand away.

Simply shaking his head, Bowman left Marius to pick himself up off the jungle floor and instead reached over to grab hold of Marius' rifle.

"Don't you fraking touch her!" snapped Marius, enough venom in his voice that it literally startled Bowman.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said don't ever fraking touch Vera!" growled Marius as he practically jumped back to his feet, weapon cradled close to his chest.

"Vera?"

His angered indignation giving way, Marius suddenly looked rather self-conscious as he stood cradling the weapon as though it were an infant.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, looking down at how he was clutching the rifle. "Vera and I have been together a long time."

"You named your rifle Vera?" asked Bowman, smirking slightly.

"What, like you never named your weapon before?"

"Not since recruit training," replied Bowman. "At least, not since I regained access to real women."

Scowling slightly, Marius turned and again began making his way off down the slope.

Not for the first time, Bowman half-wondered about just how many neurons were still firing in the old man's brain. True enough, if Marius was telling the truth about staying behind in Serenity Valley following the war, though the details of exactly how he'd managed to do so and why were still hazy at best, Bowman thought he should expect a little eccentricity.

But naming his weapon?

Shrugging it off, Bowman simply catalogued it away with all the other questions he knew would be addressed once Captain Gaines felt it appropriate.

As he followed Marius down into the valley, then back up the opposing hill…

…why was there always another hill…

…Bowman began to surrender to the idea of just how exhausted he was, his feet feeling like two leaden weights as he finally made it to the crest of the hill and began making his way into the long-abandoned town of Serenity.

As much as he hated to do so, Bowman had to admit that although Marius was likely as crazy as the day was long, the old man was nevertheless in fantastic shape. Cresting the last ridge, Bowman was immediately presented with the most likely reason why.

While at a distance the former town of Serenity simply appeared to be a dilapidated series of abandoned storefronts and buildings on a hilltop, as he finally got to the top of the hill, it began to remind Bowman of just one thing; a fortress. Marius was in excellent shape because he had apparently spent the better part of the last forty years transforming the area into a fully developed defensive position.

Laid out along the top of the hill was a series of fortified interlocking trenches with bunker emplacements and machine-gun nests at regular intervals, all of it assembled of heavy logs from the local timber covered over with layers of dirt and small brush to conceal them from overhead view.

Bowman had not even really realized he had been gawking at the impressive assemblage of breastworks until Auric stepped up behind him.

"What the frak is all of that?" he muttered through gasping breaths.

"A fortified position," replied Bowman flatly as he watched Marius pause on the far side of the trench network.

"Well are you just going to stand there or are you going to get inside the fraking perimeter?" barked Marius as he waved Bowman and Auric forward.

"Just wanted to make sure I didn't snag any more trip wires," replied Bowman.

Snorting a bit, Marius simply waved Bowman and the rest of the Marines in.

Over the next half hour, the remainder of the meandering line of exhausted Marines, Police and EMT's made their way in through the unexpected battlements. As they filed in, each of them seemed equal parts exhausted and curiously amazed as they methodically assembled in what was apparently the old town square.

Stepping out into the center of the large open area at the center of Serenity, Captain Gaines, herself still fighting to get her wind back, slowly looked around at the assemblage.

"Team leaders, get me head counts," she called, gently tugging at the front of her ballistic vest to get a bit more airflow underneath.

After several minutes, the ragged team leaders assembled around Captain Gaines and reported that no one had apparently been lost during what was becoming euphemistically known as their 'little nature walk'.

"All right, Captain, what's next?" asked Bowman as he knelt down, reflexively checking the action of his weapon to make sure it was clear of fouling.

Although the look on her face indicated she was somewhat annoyed that Bowman had presumed to ask such a question so openly in front of the other assembled NCO's, she nevertheless pulled out her map and laid it out on the ground.

"Near as I can tell we've made just about thirty clicks since we left the boneyard," she began as she absently traced their approximate route on the map.

"Thirty-two, Captain," chimed in Marius, his voice cutting in so unexpectedly that everyone reacted as though he had materialized out of thin air.

"Thank you, thirty-two clicks," amended Gaines, her tone somewhat annoyed. "Now, we'll hold here for five hours, start off again around midnight. Team leaders, put your people on a fifty percent watch, trade out in two-and-a-half hours. Those not on watch are to get some chow and some rest. Have the docs also check your people for dehydration and foot injuries, ask the civilian EMT's to help with that too."

With a low murmur of acknowledgements, the assembled team leaders filtered back out to their people to pass on the Captain's orders.

As she herself settled in against a small, circular brick wall, apparently a long-since dried-up central cistern, Captain Gaines let out a long, tired sigh. Opening her eyes, fighting against the urge to simply nod off to sleep, Gaines slowly looked up to see Marius standing there, looking down at her, arms crossed in front of him.

"Can I help you, Mister Marius?" she sighed as she picked back up the map and began looking it over.

"Corporal Marius," he corrected evenly.

"It can always become Prisoner Marius if you keep up that tone," countered Gaines as she glared back up at the old man. "One of those cops that escaped with us is bound to still have a set of cuffs on them."

"I'm just wondering where it is you plan to go, Captain?" replied Marius, conspicuously ignoring the Captain's none-too-veiled threat.

"I plan to keep moving," said Gaines, her tone softening somewhat as she continued to look up at the old man. "For now, you are welcome to stay with us."

"I have no intention of running from the Toasters, Captain," he answered flatly, looking over at the setting sun on the horizon. "This is my home, and I'm not going to just surrender it."

"Suit yourself," shrugged Gaines, frankly too tired to argue with what she still viewed as likely little more than a criminal. "But I am curious what you plan to do when the Cylons do show up."

"I intend to stand and fight," answered Marius as he looked back over at her. "If you're intent on running, maybe I can slow them down for you."

At that, Gaines let out a laugh.

"You really think you'll be able to slow down the Cylons?" she chuckled.

With the memory of their own near-slaughter down at the airfield still fresh in her mind, Gaines made no attempt to hide her doubts that the old man would last long alone, especially against what were clearly a new, far more lethal model of Centurion than those he may have fought during the war.

"And I suppose you think that just because you dug a bunch of fighting holes you'll be able to hold out against a full-on Cylon attack?" asked Gaines, her fatigue overriding her ability to mask her derisiveness.

"No, I was actually counting on the fact that I've had a lot more experience fighting them than you do," replied Marius with a smirk. "Fighting positions are just a bonus."

"And just why exactly did you put all that together?" asked Gaines flatly as she loosened her gear a bit, intent on trying to get some rest.

"I guess I just always had a feeling the Cylons would be coming back," shrugged Marius. "Peace treaty aside, the war was never really over for them; Toasters hate us too much for making them our slaves to simply leave us alone."

Her eyes heavy with fatigue, Gaines closed them, intent on simply ignoring Marius long enough to drift off.

"Do you mind if I show you something, Captain?" said Marius as he reached out towards Gaines.

For a moment, Gaines simply opened her eyes and sat staring at his offered hand. At last resigning herself that it might be the only way to shut the old man up, she took hold of his hand. Pulling the Captain to her feet, Marius motioned for her to follow.

As they began to move off through the old town square, Gaines caught sight of Bowman as the Marine sat sipping generously from his canteen.

Not sure of what it was Marius intended, and not in any way truly trusting what was likely a very senile old man, Gaines motioned for Bowman to join them.

Slipping the canteen back into its carrier, Bowman hopped, somewhat, up to his feet and jogged over next to Gaines.

"Yes, Captain?" he asked as he stepped up.

"Just stay close," she whispered as she eyed Marius' back.

Looking back over his shoulder, it was clear that Marius had heard, but nonetheless continued to lead them off towards one side of the square. As it became clear which building Marius was leading them towards, Bowman reached up and pointed.

"Looks like an old temple, Captain," he noted.

"So it would seem," sighed Gaines, herself beginning to wonder why she had even bothered to follow Marius in the first place. "So help me if he wants us to go in and pray for salvation from the Cylons, I'm gonna kill him."

Chuckling slightly, Bowman continued to follow Gaines as Marius stepped inside.

Reaching the entryway, Bowman and Gaines both squinted a bit, trying to make out Marius in the low light of the temple interior.

"Over here," he called, motioning for them to continue following as he opened another doorway onto a stairwell.

Tired, but nevertheless close behind, Bowman and Gaines started up the stairs. After a few minutes of climbing, Bowman feeling like his feet were even more leaden than before, they reached the upper landing and found themselves in a small tower overlooking the entire abandoned settlement.

While Bowman had already been impressed by the fortifications set up by Marius during the trek into the township, now that he had a veritable bird's eye view of the entire network, he could not help but let out a long whistle.

The fortifications did not just border the old town, they literally surrounded it with three distinct trench lines, log reinforced parapets and compacted dirt embankments, even some fallback positions. The sand bag fortified bunkers set up along the trenches had a clear kill zones cut into the surrounding slopes giving perfect, interlocking fields of fire for any approaching forces; all of it had been painstakingly assembled as though by a unit from the Colonial Corps of Engineers…

Or by a crazy old man with nothing better to do over the last four decades…

And all of it meticulously laid out to encircle the abandoned hilltop town of Serenity. In no uncertain terms, it was a perfect, defensible position.

Looking over at Captain Gaines, Bowman could see that if she was impressed, she was hiding it very well.

"Looks like you've been very busy, Corporal Marius," said Gaines evenly as she stepped up and looked out over the area. "But what exactly am I up here to see?"

"Well, Captain, I just wanted to give you some food for thought, away from the ears of your people," sighed Marius as he looked out across the Serenity Valley. "You could continue pushing deeper into Serenity Valley, but that still leaves you with the question of where you ultimately plan on going. Nearest settlement beyond the Hera Mountains is over four-hundred kilometers, and likely a pile of radioactive rubble by now."

"I plan to hide, take to the hills, keep my people alive and moving until…"

Suddenly, Captain Gaines' voice just stopped. She had been about to say something about waiting until rescue came. Trouble was, she had absolutely no reason to believe anyone would come to their rescue.

If indeed there still was anyone else left alive at all.

"I'm just going to keep my people alive."

Surprisingly, Marius laughed.

"Alive," he began, pointing down at the tired groups filtering out around the town square for better cover. "You call that alive? They're already dead, they just don't know it yet."

"Just what do you expect right now, Marius?" snapped Gaines, snatching up a handful of the old man's uniform lapel a moment before she had a chance to think better of the act. "I have a duty to keep these people alive, and that's what I intend to do, do you hear me?"

For a moment, Marius simply stood there, an almost bemused grin on his face as he looked down into the face of Captain Gaines. Flustered, realizing quite fully that her best threat hadn't even really registered as such in Marius' mind, Captain Gaines let go of Marius' uniform, turned away and started off towards the stairs.

"Sometimes I stand up here in this tower and it's hard for me to believe it's been forty years now," began Marius, his tone growing almost nostalgic as he watched the sun dip below the horizon.

"Forty years since what?" sighed Gaines, half turning back to face Marius.

"Corporal Bowman here knows, don't you Bowman?"

Suddenly caught in the center of an exchange to which he had merely been content to remain a silent bystander, Bowman looked from Gaines to Marius and back again.

"The Battle of Serenity Valley, Captain," said Bowman finally.

Taking a deep breath, Gaines resigned herself to the apparent fact that no matter what she did, no matter what she tried, Marius wasn't simply going to let her be until she'd given whatever it was he had to say her full attention.

"Just who exactly are you, Marius, and don't give me any more runaround, I want to know," snapped Gaines.

"I'm exactly who I said I am, Captain," began Marius as he turned and looked back over to her. "My name is Kieran Marius; I was born on Leonis in the township of Treston. I enlisted in the Colonial Marines at age seventeen, promoted to Corporal when I was nineteen, three weeks before Command ordered my unit to put to ground on this lovely little stretch of nowhere."

With that Marius took a moment to read Captain Gaines' face.

Attentive, but apparently unimpressed, she merely stood watching him.

Turning back to look out at the abandoned town below, Marius took a deep breath and continued.

"When we first arrived, this town had maybe five hundred people. We told them the Cylons had landed a force out there just past the Hera range and that it was coming this way, but they refused to leave."

He paused.

"Have you ever seen two divisions of Centurions?" asked Marius. "No, of course you haven't. Probably not even a picture. But let me tell you there is nothing that will scare you to the fraking bone nearly so much as seeing so many of those pulsating red eyes staring back at you from the darkness; endless, soulless, like staring into the mouth of hell."

Pausing, Marius took in a deep breath.

"But the people of this town still refused to leave," continued Marius a moment later, turning to look back at the Captain over his shoulder. "And do you know why, Captain?"

Genuinely curious, Captain Gaines simply shook her head 'no' in response.

"They refused to leave because this was their home, this was where their parents were buried, where their children had been born, and they weren't about to just cede it to the Cylons."

"What happened to them?" asked Bowman, his interest piqued at hearing an aspect of the battle he'd never read about before; none of the books he'd read on the subject had even mentioned a town.

"Most of the men in the town joined us out on the line, farmers with pitchforks really," continued Marius. "We bunkered down the women and children as best we could here in the center of town, but the Cylons just kept coming and coming, tearing holes through our lines…"

Pausing, Marius took a deep breath, his gaze lost on the horizon.

"Forty years later, I can still hear them screaming…"

Taking another breath, Marius seemed to shake off the thought as he continued.

"After five weeks, Command ordered us to abandon the position, to fall back, but we couldn't."

"Why not?" asked Gaines.

"Because the Cylons had cut them off, Captain," interjected Bowman.

"No, it was because the townspeople still refused to leave this place," replied Marius, himself shaking his head in disbelief, even after forty years. "They preferred to die, as a community, than leave their homes. So our CO, the chain of command had been whittled down to only a Gunny by then, was left with two choices; leave the civilians to die, or continue to hold the position."

"And you stayed," interjected Bowman.

"That's right, Gunny Shriver made her decision, just like the townspeople made theirs," said Marius. "We would stand, and we would continue the fight."

"But why?" snapped Captain Gaines flatly. "If these people were so intent on dying, why did you stay?"

Turning back to face Gaines, even in the fading light, it was easy to see the earnest look on Marius' face, an earnestness that cut through all else.

"Because that's what Marines do, Captain," he said evenly. "Marines make a stand, and Marines fight."

For a moment, that statement hung over the three of them, sinking in as surely as the sun had sunk beyond the distant horizon.

Silently, Captain Gaines stepped up to the railing and looked down into the compound below.

"So you're saying I should keep my people here?" muttered Gaines. "You're saying we should make our stand?"

"That's precisely what I am saying, Captain," replied Marius evenly. "You can keep running off into the hills, but plain fact is that eventually you and your people will run out of anti-radiation meds. One by one, they'll get sick, grow weak and die, lost in the wilderness. That is, unless the Cylons catch up to you first."

Looking over at Marius, Gaines plainly did not like the image the old Marine was painting for her.

"What's to keep the Cylons from simply dropping a nuke on this place and calling it a day?" she asked simply.

"What's to keep the Cylons from simply carpet bombing this entire valley with nukes?" countered Marius. "Truth is, not a damned thing."

Her expression contorting somewhat as she looked at Marius, clearly not heartened by his statement, Gaines nevertheless continued to listen to the old veteran.

"But, I'm willing to bet the Cylons won't do that," continued Marius as he motioned with his head off in the direction of the now-abandoned boneyard. "You and your people humiliated them back there at the depot. They thought they had you dead to rights, yet you managed to fight your way out. They won't forgive that."

"Forgive?" huffed Bowman. "What's to forgive, they're machines."

"Don't fool yourself, Corporal Bowman," replied Marius evenly. "Machines or not, the Cylons know how to hate; they learned it from humanity. And believe me, they learned that lesson very, very well."

"How do you know that?" asked Bowman, his tone losing a bit of its acerbic edge.

Reaching down, Marius slowly unsheathed a long, shiny blade and held it up for Bowman and Gaines to see.

"A Cylon sword," muttered Gaines as Marius slowly handed it to her.

"Exactly," muttered Marius. "What the hell use would a Cylon have for a sword when there's explosives, rifles, submachine guns, all sorts of more effective and efficient ways to kill people?"

"Close quarters combat?" offered Bowman as Gaines slowly handed the sword back to Marius.

"You'd think that," replied Marius, tilting his head slightly as he slid the blade back into its sheath. "But, you'd be wrong; it's so they can kill up close, so close that they can wrap their hands around their victim's neck and slowly, painfully gut the poor bastard neck to navel."

"Aren't you being a bit dramatic?" asked Gaines, letting out a long sigh.

"I've seen it with my own eyes," replied Marius flatly. "They enjoy being able to look into the person's eyes as the life slips away from them; killing us is more than war, it's about revenge. The more your resist them, the more they want you to suffer when they finally hunt you down."

Taking a deep breath, Gaines looked back down into the compound below, knowing a decision needed to be made.

Marius was right, they did not have the radiation meds they would need to survive long-term, the meager supply they had with them would run out long before they made it to any other towns or cities. And after those meds ran out, all they could really look forward to was a slow, painful, wasting death.

Or, they could wait here, wait for the Cylons to attack, an attack all but certain to hit them before long and with sufficient force to accomplish the slaughter forestalled at the airfield.

Die slowly in the wilderness, or violently here? Did it really matter how; either way, dead was dead.

With that last thought, Gaines felt a slow ember build into a flame within her.

---

As Captain Gaines and Corporal Bowman stepped out of the old temple, Gaines began making her way across the town square, her mind settled and resolute.

"Team Leaders up!" shouted Gaines as she made her way back towards the old cistern.

Instantly, the call for Teams Leaders to assemble echoed out through the ranks, several figures emerging from the thickening darkness of night to gather around the Captain and Bowman.

Taking a deep breath, Captain Gaines gently kicked a small stone on the ground and then looked out at the assemblage.

"Okay people, listen up," she sighed, looking out at the faces around her. "Change of plans, we're not running; we're going to man-up the defensive works here and hold this position."

As she looked out at her Team Leaders, Gaines expected some protest, certainly hesitation, but what she had not expected was the looks of determination that instead took hold, a few of the Team Leaders even letting out murmurs of approval.

"Let's make them pay for the Colonies, Captain," muttered Corporal Candor, the highest-ranking individual from the Reservists left in their group. "And for the people we've already lost."

Another low rumble of murmured approvals roiled through the group.

"First thing we need to do is inventory what we have," continued Gaines, heartened by the approval expressed by her Marines. "Have your people go through their gear, get me full lists on supplies; I want ammo, food, weapons, bandages, even extra pairs of socks, everything. We'll redistribute where needed."

Taking a steadying breath, she continued to search the assembled faces around her for signs of uncertainty and found none.

"Now, is there anything else we need to consider?" asked Gaines.

"Comm, Captain," offered Bowman as he held up his squad wireless set. "My batteries are already drained, most of my squad is also, or very near."

"Since we have no spare batteries and no charger, we'll have to just work without them," replied Gaines.

"Moot point anyway, Captain," chimed in Lance Corporal Vallero, the Marine team's wireless operator. "Cylons have begun flooding the area with interference; the PRC-one-ninety can cut through it, but the squad sets are useless."

"Good to know," sighed Gaines as she switched off her own set in mild disgust and then turned back to the assembled team leaders. "So we'll be counting on hand and arm signals."

"What about nighttime, Captain?" asked Corporal Lenore. "Should we use flashlight signals?"

"Absolutely not," replied Gaines flatly as she glanced over at Lenore. "Cylons already have IR, but let's not make it easy for them to pinpoint our positions by shining lights around the perimeter."

"Understood, Captain," sighed Lenore.

"If I may, Captain, these might be a bit more useful," interjected Marius as he stepped up holding a couple portable field phones and a spool of comm wire.

Genuinely surprised, Gaines took the proffered equipment from Marius.

"Don't suppose you have any more of these hanging around?" asked Gaines lightly.

"I might have a few more toys stashed away around here," replied Marius with a smirk.

---

As Captain Gaines, Corporal Bowman and the small entourage of Team Leaders stepped down through the entryway into the old temple basement, Corporal Bowman glanced back over his shoulder, and sincerely wished he had a picture of Captain Gaines' expression. For that matter, he would have like to have pictures of the faces of any of the Teams Leaders standing there in the entryway.

With the overhead lights in the basement flickering to life, powered by a portable generator, the old Marine began methodically walking along the narrow paths set between racks, pulling tarps down from over shelves to reveal, well, just about everything a Marine ground force needed to man the trenches dug around the hilltop village.

Row after row of old war vintage infantry rifles, light machine guns, boxes of ammunition, field phones, dehydrated rations, even a couple of mortars and a small stash of unguided anti-armor rockets.

"Where the frak did you get all of this equipment?" burst Gaines as she stepped down the last few stairs and began slowly making her way through the cache.

"Some of it's left over from the war," began Marius as he pulled the last tarp from over top of a couple heavy crew served machine guns. "The rest, well, let's just say I acquired it later."

Gaines cast a sideways glance back over at Marius.

"You 'acquired' it?"

"What, you don't think I've been spooking your sentries over the last forty years just for fun do you?"

"But how the hell did you manage to sneak this much equipment off the depot without anyone noticing?" shot back Corporal Lenore.

"It took a bit of time," replied Marius with a grin. "Of course, I also had a couple of small tunnels that ran under the fence line, those helped a bit in getting some of the heavier gear out."

"At this point, I'm not about to start giving a frak how he got this stuff out here," began Gaines as she continued to mentally catalogue the stockpile. "What matters is that it's here and gives us a chance to really hit back hard when the Cylons attack."

As she opened up a sealed container and found several sets of heavy body armor, including the reinforced ceramic trauma plates, Gaines turned around just in time to have Marius hand her a clipboard with an apparent manifest of the sizeable basement cache.

"We get out of this Corporal Marius, I just might recommend you for a retroactive promotion to Gunnery Sergeant," she muttered as she began going over the hand written manifest. "Get you some back-pay for all your efforts."

Stifling a small chuckle, Marius stepped off along the rows of weapons as Gaines stepped back over to her still gawking Team Leaders.

Looking up at them, she scanned their faces for a hint of wavering, the slightest indication of trepidation, and found none.

"Okay, people, we have work to do," she said evenly.

---

Warstar Galactica
Near Emergency Fleet Rally Point 279NW

"Third jump complete, Commander," called Major Tyra Burke as she moved in around from the far side of the plot table.

"Very well, begin DRADIS sweep," replied Commander Sean Kelso evenly, his eyes already intently watching the screens overhead.

The first two jumps back into Colonial territory had gone well, which is to say they had not run into any enemy contacts.

Whether that should have concerned or comforted him, Sean Kelso was not quite sure.

What did not comfort him was the fact that while they had not had any contact with the Cylons, they also had not managed to link up with any other surviving Colonial units either, military or civilian.

In a lot of ways, Commander Sean Kelso accepted that he was learning as he went, acting quite literally by asking himself what he should be doing, not making those decisions on the seemingly instinctual level most line officers seemed to.

Looking away from the DRADIS for a moment, Kelso looked out at the faces around the CIC. If they had any real doubts about his ability to command, he could not read it in their expressions. One thing that was clear, however, was that each and every one of them was on edge.

It was at that moment that the klaxon alarm began reverberating through the bridge.

"DRADIS contact!" shouted Lieutenant Cortez. "Bearing zero-three-four carom two-zero, distance fifteen thousand kilometers!"

Major Burke instantly snatched up the handset on her side of the plot table.

"All hands, prepare for combat maneuvering."

"Number and type of contacts, Mister Cortez," called Commander Kelso as his eyes focused in on the DRADIS display.

"Performing IFF now, Commander," answered Cortez.

"That's a large fraking signature, Commander," whispered Burke. "Could be a Cylon Basestar."

"By the gods, I hope you're wrong, Major," muttered Kelso, his eyes never leaving the unknown contact on the screen overhead. "We don't have the ammo to go toe-to-toe with a Basestar right now."

Just then, the icon on DRADIS blossomed with several smaller signatures.

"Cylon Raiders!" burst Major Burke, snatching up the handset on her side of the plot table. "Prepare full counter-battery, point target engagement! Prepare to launch alert fighters!"

"No, wait!" shouted Cortez. "I'm getting Colonial transponders from the new contacts."

Looking up at the DRADIS, Kelso noted that the icons did indeed have Colonial designators attached to them.

"Survivors?" muttered Burke.

"Maybe," replied Kelso as he watched and pondered the myriad of signals closing in.

None of the communiqués he'd read had indicated the Cylons were using Colonial transponders to deceive the fleet; why bother when they were apparently and quite effectively able to simply hack into the fleet's computers and shut them down?

"Hold the alert fighters in the tubes, Major," said Kelso as he watched DRADIS. "Petty Officer Harris, open a wireless channel and send those ships a hostile challenge."

"This is the Colonial Warstar Galactica, identify yourselves immediately or you will be fired upon," stated Petty Officer Harris a she pressed the headset tighter over hear ear.

Almost instantly, crackling static began filtering through the speakers overhead, at last giving way to an audibly tired voice.

"This is Lieutenant Meloni of the Battlestar Heracles. Thank the gods you're here, Galactica."

Snatching up the handset on his side of the plot table, Kelso glanced over to Harris and motioned for her to pipe the wireless feed over to him.

"Lieutenant Meloni, this is Galactica-Actual; what is your current status?"

"Be advised, Galactica-Actual, we have twelve Vipers out here that are squash-ammo and nearing bingo-fuel, request immediate clearance for landing."

"Permission granted," replied Kelso, holding his hand over the mic for a moment. "Harris?"

"Sir?"

"Get on the horn down to Chief Copeland and advise her to make a ready deck for twelve incoming aircraft."

"Aye, sir."

"Lieutenant Meloni, this is Galactica-Actual, you are cleared for approach to the Starboard pod. As soon as you are aboard and have secured your ship, report to me directly in CIC."

"Understood Galactica-Actual," replied Meloni.

Hanging up the handset, Kelso returned his attention to DRADIS, watching intently as the twelve Vipers lined up for landing.

"Lieutenant Cortez, have you been able to definitively identify the larger DRADIS signature?" asked Kelso as he focused his attention back in on the large unknown icon.

"There's a lot of interference out there, Commander," began Cortez evenly. "Looks like there's a lot of clutter and debris floating about, I've been trying to adjust DRADIS to get a clearer picture."

"What kind of debris, Lieutenant?" asked Burke as she stepped over towards Cortez over at the Operations console.

"From the looks of it the remains of two, possibly three other moderate size ships, Major," continued Cortez as he continued to make adjustments to DRADIS. "There's a lot of background radiation, if they are the remains of other ships, they must have been hit by nukes."

"Can you cut through the radiation?" asked Kelso.

"Trying to now, Commander," replied Cortez as he continued to adjust controls on his console. "But there's only so much of this hash we're going to be able to slice through."

As he continued to watch DRADIS, Kelso was surprised when another signature icon suddenly appeared on the screen.

"Lieutenant Cortez?" snapped Kelso.

"Negative on any other contacts, Commander," replied Cortez evenly. "I've managed to isolate another large signature within the debris field."

"Can you identify them yet, Lieutenant?"

"I'm not picking up any transponders but the mass reading and DRADIS signature of the larger contact is consistent with a Battlestar; it could be the Heracles. The smaller signature might be a Combatstar or Escort, but without a transponder I can't confirm the identity of either. In any event, neither is giving off any significant energy signature; they both appear to be powerless and adrift."

"Shall we close range with the contacts, sir?" asked Major Burke as she stepped back over beside Kelso.

"Not yet, Major, let's wait until Lieutenant Meloni has reported in," muttered Kelso evenly as he continued to watch the two hovering signatures on DRADIS.

"There could be survivors still aboard, sir, supplies."

"And if there are, we'll do everything we can to retrieve them, but my first duty is the safety of this ship, and I'm not too keen on the idea of stepping into a Cylon ambush until I've heard the Lieutenant's report on what happened out there."

"Understood, Commander."

Within minutes, the main entry hatch to CIC opened as his CAG, Major Culver and another officer in a flight suit, presumably Lieutenant Meloni, stepped in and made their way over to the plot table. Visibly tired, his hair matted with sweat, the pilot nevertheless stepped up to Kelso, came to attention, and rendered a smart salute.

"Lieutenant Alistair Meloni, Battlestar Heracles, reporting as ordered, sir."

"At ease," replied a somewhat bemused Commander Kelso, silently unsure he would ever get used to such rigid formality, in spite of his rank. "First things first, Lieutenant; are you and your people okay?"

"About as good as could be expected under the circumstances, Commander," replied Meloni evenly.

"While I wish I could say you and your pilots have earned a little down time, I'm afraid I can't," began Kelso evenly as he motioned the pilot closer to the plot table. "Right now, we're running short of both time and pilots."

"All we need is some fuel, some ammo, maybe a bit of chow, and we'll be ready to get back into the fight, sir," answered Meloni evenly.

Kelso could not help but smile at the Lieutenant's bravado.

"Well, Lieutenant, since I don't have time to wait for the formal written report, why don't you give me the short story on what happened here," sighed Kelso as he pointed up towards the two icons on DRADIS.

"We, that is the Heracles and her battlegroup, were assigned as a reserve force for Admiral Nagala's counterattack near Virgon," began Meloni as he leaned in over the overlay on the plot table and pointed to Virgon colony on the chart.

"At first it seemed like it would be a fairly straightforward engagement; four enemy Baseships holding a high orbital position versus five Battlestar groups, with our group in reserve. As Admiral Nagala ordered her main force to engage, the Cylons deployed their Raiders en masse. And that's when the whole situation just turned into a nightmare."

"What do you mean, Lieutenant?" asked Kelso pointedly.

"Tactical feeds, communications, power, everything just failed on all the ships of the main force at the same time," continued Meloni, looking up at Kelso, his eyes looking more tired than before. "And then six more Baseships moved in from the far side of the planet…"

Pausing to take a deep breath, Meloni held the Commander's gaze intently.

"They never even had a chance, Commander," sighed Meloni, his shoulders dropping a bit. "It wasn't a battle, it was a slaughter; not a single ship managed to get off a shot before the Raiders swarmed in over them and began launching nuke after nuke. Five entire Battlestar groups, their airwings, all those people, gone in less than seven minutes."

"But how did the Heracles and her group escape?" asked Burke.

"With all due respect, Major, Commander Dannel wasn't a fool, she saw the writing on the wall when Admiral Nagala's forces lost power," replied Lieutenant Meloni somewhat defensively. "She ordered a retreat, made a short jump out to this rally point in order to try and contact any other surviving units."

"What happened next?" asked Kelso.

"The Cylons found us first, sir," replied Meloni evenly. "About a dozen Raiders jumped in and attacked. Commander Dannel had already ordered the shipboard network shut down, but the work was only partially complete when the Cylons arrived. Main and defensive weapons were lost instantly. Ready-fighters were launched, but the Cylons had jumped in really close to the formation, cutting our ability to react. We'd barely cleared the tubes when the raiders hit the Heracles with three, maybe four nukes."

"But if our Vipers at Virgon were shut-down by the Cylons, how did your Vipers avoid being shut-down as well?" asked Major Culver.

"Can't honestly say, sir," replied Meloni with a slight shrug, chewing on his lip slightly as he paused to think over the Major's question. "I suppose it could be there was too much radiation interference from the nukes, or maybe it's because we were flying Mark Sixes, not the Sevens."

"But why are you flying Mark Sixes?" asked Major Burke. "I thought those had already been rotated out of fleet service."

"Active fleet service, ma'am," began Meloni as he reached up and pointed at the squadron patch on his shoulder. "We're a reserve unit, we were aboard the Heracles for a training deployment exercise when the attack began."

"And Commander Dannel placed your squadron as ready squadron?" asked Major Culver. "No offense to you Lieutenant, but why didn't she place one of her own active squadrons at the ready?"

"I went through OCS with Tasha Dannel," interjected Kelso thoughtfully. "She was good officer, a very pragmatic thinker. Knowing her, Dannel was hedging her bets; even if she didn't know exactly why, she likely figured out that there was something wrong with the Mark Sevens, so having the Mark Sixes in the air first gave her a chance to fight off an attack."

"Like I said, sir," muttered Meloni. "She was a smart woman. It's just too bad it ended up not making much of a difference."

"What do you mean, Lieutenant?"

"Most of our fighters, both Mark Six and Mark Seven were caught on the deck when the Cylons launched their nukes," continued Meloni, shaking his head slightly. "Only fifteen of us had time to clear the tubes and start maneuvering before the Cylons concentrated on the flight pods themselves. A lot of ships were blasted to pieces right as they were clearing the tubes."

"But if the Heracles was that bad off, why didn't the Cylons take you out as well, Lieutenant?" asked Burke evenly.

"After they crippled the Heracles, the Cylons split off and to take down her escorts," replied Meloni. "Orestias went up first, not so much as a Raptor got away, then they hit the Syros, one nuke right up one of the engine pods. Next they concentrated their attack on the Anhur, but we'd began to wrestle the initiative from them by then."

"So you managed to destroy all of the Raiders?" asked Major Culver.

"Every last mother-frakin' one," growled Meloni, quickly tacking on a more respectful 'sir' a moment later.

Taking a deep breath, Meloni paused as he ran a hand through his matted hair.

"What we didn't know was that while we were busy knocking out the Raiders, the Cylons jumped a couple of more ships in behind us," continued Meloni.

"More Raiders?"

"No, Commander, these were larger, not fighters, some sort of troop transports," replied Meloni. "They landed on the Heracles' Port flight pod and deployed a boarding party of Centurions. We took out the transports but they'd already unloaded their Centurions; bastards fought their way aboard."

"Do you know if they're still aboard?" asked Kelso pointedly.

"Not for certain, no sir," replied Meloni. "We received only intermittent wireless calls after they boarded her, mostly emergency handsets, but I think the Marines managed to isolate them."

"What about the Heracles herself, how much damage did she sustain?" asked Kelso as he glanced up at DRADIS. "Any chance that there are any survivors aboard?"

"She took some heavy damage, Commander, stem to stern," answered Meloni as he too looked up to the DRADIS screen. "Engineering sections are all but ripped clear from the hull, and the Starboard pod was almost completely smashed, but she was at Action Stations when the Cylons jumped in, so most of the airtight hatches should have been sealed. There could be survivors scattered throughout the center sections."

His eyes still intently locked on the icons on DRADIS, Kelso took another deep breath.

"What about the Anhur, you said you managed to destroy the Raiders before they could take her out, correct?" asked Major Burke as she pointed up to the second icon.

"She still took some pretty serious hits, Major, I'd say she's in about as bad of shape as the Heracles."

Drumming his fingers on the plot table, Kelso continued to look at DRADIS, his eyes never leaving the two icons.

"I need to get a better idea of how much damage they've sustained," he said evenly. "Major Culver, I want a Raptor and two Vipers, two of the Mark Sixes, prepped and ready for launch immediately. I'm going to go over and take a look."

"Understood, Commander," replied Culver evenly. "But, with all due respect, do you think it's a wise idea for you to go out there yourself? The Cylons might come looking for their missing Raiders."

"I don't think so, Major," replied Kelso evenly. "Any report they'd have sent off regarding the Heracles and her group would have indicated the ships were either dead or dying. Since Vipers don't have FLT ability, they'd likely just leave them out here to run out of fuel; we're too far away from any outposts for the Cylons to consider them a continuing threat."

Motioning for Major Culver and Lieutenant Meloni to follow, Kelso turned and began heading out of CIC.

"Commander, can I speak with you for a moment?" asked Burke flatly as she quickly stepped up behind Kelso.

Looking back over at his XO, Kelso waved Culver and Meloni to go ahead and depart while he followed Burke towards a somewhat more isolated corner of the CIC.

As Burke motioned for a couple crewmen to step away, she turned and looked directly at Kelso.

"Sir, I'm afraid I must protest your taking part in this mission," she began flatly, keeping her voice low enough not to be overhead, but nonetheless quite adamant. "You are the Commanding Officer of this ship in a time of war; your place is here in CIC."

If ever Kelso needed a reminder that Burke was a true-to-life, by-the-book officer, this was that reminder.

"I'm the Commanding Officer, yes, but I'm also an engineer, Major," replied Kelso evenly. "Now, I understand your concerns, believe me, I do. But, I need to go, I'm not about to put anyone else aboard this ship at risk unless I am personally certain there might be survivors over there. And the only way I'm going to be certain is by taking a look at the damage myself."

Major Burke seemed about to continue her protest, but instead merely relented with a nod.

"Good," replied Kelso with a slight grin. "Now, I'm leaving you in command. I want you to go ahead and start maneuvering the Galactica in closer. At the very least, we might be able to obscure her a bit inside some of the ambient radiation and debris."

"Aye, sir."

"Now, in case I am able to determine that survivors are likely aboard either ship, go ahead and start assembling medical and engineering teams, and a Marine security detail for possible boarding."

With that, Kelso reached over and gave her a slight pat on the shoulder, then turned and began making his way back towards the exit.

"Keep her together till I get back, Major," he called as he stepped through the hatch.

"Understood, Commander."

---

Commander Sean Kelso gently drummed his fingers against the side of the pilot's seat as he stood looking out past the Raptor's canopy.

"Sir, can you please stop doing that?" asked the pilot, Lieutenant Cetina.

Looking first down into the eyes of the Lieutenant Cetina, then somewhat self-consciously at his own fingers, Kelso smiled at her somewhat sheepishly.

"Sorry," he said simply, dropping his hand back down to his side as he looked back up past the canopy.

For a few moments, no one said anything else as the Raptor continued to navigate through the debris field.

"Sir, you might want to grab hold of that cargo strap behind you," said Cetina suddenly.

Kelso had been about to ask why, but had the urgency of his question overridden when Cetina suddenly pitched the Raptor's nose over to avoid a large chunk of debris. His hands barely grabbing hold in time, Sean Kelso nevertheless kept himself from being pitched across the small cabin of the Raptor.

"Thanks for the warning," he moaned as he pulled himself back to his feet.

"The Commander is welcome to have a seat, sir," said Cetina evenly as she maneuvered around another chunk, though far less abruptly.

"I think I'll do that," replied Kelso as he gently flexed his fingers, trying to get circulation back into his fingers.

Stepping up, Kelso slid down into the seat, adjusted the straps over his shoulders, and looked back out past the canopy in time to see another large section of a ship's hull. To be sure, Kelso could see that the debris field was getting thicker, which meant they must be getting closer to what remained of the Battlestar Heracles.

Based on the report from Lieutenant Meloni, Kelso had ordered the Raptor to survey the surviving sections of the battered Combatstar Anhur first, primarily because the Cylons had managed to corral and isolate the smaller carrier away from the rest of the Heracles battlegroup before dealing her a deathblow. Surveying the Anhur, it had been quite evident that she would never move again under her own power, the engineering sections were a hopeless wreck.

However, a good portion of the command and mid-hull sections as well as both of the flight pods were intact enough that survivors were likely. While Major Burke was maneuvering the Galactica in alongside the Anhur, Kelso ordered the Raptor around towards the remainder of Heracles' battlegroup.

As they continued to maneuver in towards the crippled Battlestar Heracles, the sheer amount of debris the small craft was encountering left Kelso with little doubt that the two destroyers, Orestias and Syros, were anything but lifeless chunks of irradiated flotsam, the two ships having apparently given their full measure trying to fend off the Cylons and suffering the ultimate price for that persistence.

"Frak!" burst Lieutenant Cetina, the Raptor jarred by an impact, the sound of a dull thud echoing through the cabin.

Unaware as to the cause, Kelso's first instinct was to look down at the craft's instrumentation, and seeing nothing, Kelso felt his heart skip a beat, a few beats in fact, as he looked back up and saw the bloated, mangled form of a body in the charred, tattered remains of a Colonial uniform sprawled out prone across the canopy like some grotesque insect.

Shaking the control stick, Cetina grimaced as her actions dislodged the shattered body from the canopy, sending it hurtling back amid the debris. Looking over at her, Kelso could see the color draining from the young woman's face. Himself no less queasy for the experience, Kelso nevertheless reached over and took hold of Cetina's shoulder.

"You going to make it, Lieutenant?" he asked, tasting bile in his own mouth even as he gulped down what he was certain was an urge to vomit.

Wordlessly, Cetina nodded her head, took a couple deep, steadying breaths, then set about maneuvering the Raptor around more debris.

Thankfully, no other bodies, at least not whole bodies, parts possibly, but not whole bodies, found themselves sprawled out across the canopy as the Raptor finally maneuvered inside the halo of debris that had been the Orestias and Syros.

At last, against the infinite backdrop of stars, Kelso began to make out the outline of the Heracles. Spinning slowly along its long axis, the vessel had clearly sustained significant damage. At the aft end of the vessel, an entire sublight engine pod had been torn free, left to tumble aimlessly amid the other debris. Large sections of the forward command hull had also been ripped open, the gentle spray of rapidly crystallizing water jetting into space from one of the ruptured storage tanks. Even harder to miss was the absence of one entire flight pod, the Port pod to be exact. While he could not be certain, Kelso guessed that the Cylon boarding party likely had something to do with the pod's conspicuous absences; a demolition charge on an ordnance pallet or along a fuel transfer line could have easily touched off an explosion large enough to wipe out the structure.

"Come in along the long axis, Lieutenant," said Kelso as he motioned out at the listing leviathan.

Following his direction, Cetina slipped the agile Raptor along the dorsal side of the vessel, moving forward from the stern towards the bow. Skimming along the veritable spine of the ship, Kelso's eyes scrutinized every visible inch of the hull, his hands reaching out to adjust the nose-mounted spotlight as it shone on the vessel's exterior.

As he watched the hull of the Heracles race by below, Kelso worried he might miss something, so he reached over and motioned for Cetina to slow the Raptor's velocity. As she complied, Kelso looked out once more and was pleased when found what he had been searching for; the main vent hatches for the main center sections of the vessel were still closed which meant the vessel's interior was still sealed.

As the hint of a smile began to crease his lips, Kelso motioned Cetina to maneuver the Raptor down along one of the massive connection struts to the surviving flight pod. As she complied, Kelso kept a keen eye out for similar hatches along the top section of the Starboard pod. Again, they were still sealed.

From an engineer's perspective, so long as the ship's interior hatches had been closed, as they most certainly should have been with the ship at Action Stations, the chances for survivors aboard the Heracles was high. Moreover, while they might be able to retrieve some parts and supplies from the Anhur, the chances of finding critical munitions, rations and other provisions in far greater quantities and with far easier access were better aboard the larger, more modern Heracles.

Reaching over, Kelso picked up a headset and slipped it in over his ears.

"Put me on the wireless, Lieutenant," he said simply as he continued to fiddle with the headset.

"You're on, sir."

"Galactica this is Raptor Zero-Seven-Five," began Kelso as he held the mic steady in front of his lips.

"This is Galactica, go ahead Zero-Seven-Five," replied the voice of Major Burke over the wireless.

"Status of Anhur recovery?"

"We're still going compartment to compartment, Zero-Seven-Five," sighed Burke. "But we have begun taking aboard survivors and some equipment. Taking on the munitions could prove problematic, however."

"Concentrate on the crew," replied Kelso evenly as he looked out past the canopy at the Heracles below. "Viper and Raptor parts are also a priority, but don't waste time trying to access the primary or secondary ammo storage."

"Aye, sir, any particular reason why?"

"Simple; the Anhur' systems are older, they require at least auxiliary power to be online in order to function the transfer cradle systems," replied Kelso evenly as he watched Cetina maneuver the Raptor in along the length of the flight pod. "The Heracles' systems are newer, when we link up we can attached a few exterior support umbilicals to provide enough power to get her transfer gear operating."

"Understood, Zero-Seven-Five," replied Burke dutifully.

"In the meantime, assemble a Marine boarding team aboard a few Raptors," continued Kelso as he watched Cetina almost instinctively maneuver the Raptor inside the upper flight deck towards one of the elevator pads to the service deck. "Launch them as soon as they are ready, we'll board the Heracles and ascertain the status of the crew."

For a moment, there was no response from Burke. Moreover, Kelso thought he could guess why; Burke was likely on the verge of offering another protest to Kelso boarding the Heracles, understandable since they had no way of knowing for certain whether any of the Cylon boarding force was still aboard. However, if the Major was indeed preparing a protest, she apparently decided against it.

"Understood, Zero-Seven-Five, I'll advise as soon as the Raptors are en route to your location."

---

Battlestar Pacifica
Exact Location Unknown

Former Operations Officer Theo Cullen sat gently shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, Commander, I guess I'm more out of practice than I thought," he sighed.

Reaching over, Adrian Kelso gave Cullen shoulder a gentle pat.

"Well, Theo, it could be worse," he smiled weakly. "We could have ended up somewhere where we no chance of correcting the mistake."

"But I should have accounted for the stellar drift, sir," continued Cullen. "It was a stupid mistake."

"And like you said before, it's been years since you've plotted a jump," countered Kelso flatly. "Now, the question is, if you take the stellar drift into account this time, can you plot us another jump and get us to Leto's Twins?"

Looking up at Adrian Kelso, the former Commander could see the doubt in his old Tac Officer's eyes. As they stood there looking at one another, silent, Adrian Kelso gently nodded his head at Cullen.

"Yes, sir, I can," said Cullen evenly.

"Then get it done, Mister Cullen."

Swallowing the apparent lump in his throat, Cullen picked up the chart and stepped away towards the upper gallery. As he watched him go, Adrian Kelso let out a long sigh, turned back, and found himself starring once again into the youthful eyes of Ensign Jinara Cole.

"Yes, I trust him," he said flatly, seeing the question in the young woman's eyes. "Second rule of command; people make mistakes. Third rule; know when it's appropriate to chastise for them and when not to."

"Shouldn't we at least verify his calculations with the other ships, maybe one of the passenger liners?"

Looking back up at the DRADIS screen, Kelso chuckled a bit. Somewhat lost as they might be, at least every ship in his improvised fleet had come through on the far side of the jump together.

"We did that the last time," he replied simply. "Trouble is that civilian ships aren't really meant for travel outside the normal intercolonial traffic lanes, their systems are pretty much dependent on the DRADIS relay network for navigation. Get them out here, well outside the mapped routes and their systems are just too rudimentary to be of much use."

Letting out a long sigh, her eyes obviously worried, Cole gently nodded her head, then looked silently up to DRADIS as well.

"When put into context with everything else we've gone through, everything else we've survived thus far, this is just a speed bump," continued Kelso as he watched the screen overhead. "After being hit with so many sledge hammers over the last couple days, a mere speed bump is a welcome change of pace."

Snorting at that, Cole had to again nod in agreement.

"At least we all jumped to the same wrong coordinates," she smiled, pointing up to the small cluster of ships holding formation with Pacifica.

"See, it's not so hard being an optimist, now is it?"

Within moments, everything around CIC seemed to settle back into the routine.

Routine…

Adrian Kelso had to admit it felt strange thinking of it that way again; honestly, what was routine about a bunch of veterans and refugees escaping an apocalypse?

Nevertheless, routine was just how it felt, that long stretch of monotony that was often the norm between those exhilarating, terrible moments of action. Slowly, Adrian Kelso realized just how many of those long stretches of tedium had been glossed over in his memory, the far more compelling memories of terror and death cheating those memories of their potency. System checks, reports, a slight turn to Starboard, another to Port, the gentle monitoring of other ships as they flew in formation, the terrifying dullness of maneuvering a vessel almost one and a half kilometers in length.

How was it that somehow he had managed to forget that boredom?

And then, quite involuntarily, Adrian Kelso remembered, it was because he never allowed himself to focus on that boredom. Boredom bred complacency, and complacency could be as deadly to a Battlestar crew as an entire barrage of Cylon missiles. A careless valve left open could flood an entire transfer line with volatile fuel rather than suppressant foam during a shipboard fire. A careless deckhand might not check frayed edges on a loading strap on an ordnance pallet leading to a failure that dropped high explosive warheads amid a packed flight deck.

Complacency could kill as easily as the enemy.

As that sobering thought passed through his mind, a somewhat hesitant Theo Cullen stepped back up to the plot table.

"These should be the proper coordinates, Commander," he said evenly as he lay the chart out over the plot table.

Looking down at the chart, Kelso saw two sets of plot markings; the first was the unaltered set which had put them for all intents and purposes in the middle of nowhere. The second was a new marking, presumably a new series of calculations that took into account the fact that over time even stars moved in relation to one another. And no matter how small that relative movement was on a stellar scale, it was potentially enough to throw off jump calculations.

"Okay, Theo, looks good," said Kelso evenly, nodding his head in approval as he looked back up to the DRADIS.

"Did you want to double check the calculations, Commander?" asked Cullen.

"This new set, did you take stellar drift into account?" asked Kelso evenly, his eyes never leaving DRADIS.

"Yes, Commander."

"Then there is no need for me to double check," he said flatly, this time looking over at Cullen. "I trust you. Besides, you know damned well I've always hated math."

With that, Cullen's demeanor cracked a bit, the old veteran letting a smile creep onto his lips.

"Shall I distribute the new set of coordinates, Commander?" asked Cullen, his confidence invigorated somewhat.

Looking back up at DRADIS, Kelso gently drummed his fingers on the plot table as he pondered the relatively blank screen overhead.

"Go ahead and distribute the coordinates, Theo," he began, raising his hand a bit as Cullen turned to step away. "But also include a message that we'll be holding this position for a little while."

"Aye, sir," replied a somewhat perplexed Cullen.

"If I may ask, Commander, why are we holding position?" asked Cole, keeping her voice low as Cullen made his way over to Templeton at Communications.

"Like I said before," said Kelso evenly. "A speed bump; they're there to remind you to slow down and take your time."

Looking down from DRADIS, Kelso saw the somewhat perplexed look on Cole's face.

"DRADIS is clear right now," he continued. "Since we jumped out to this area by accident, I'm guessing the Cylons won't track us down any time soon. I figure it's as good a time as any to stop, have a breather and take stock of what and with whom we've managed to escape."

"We could use the break," sighed Cole as she returned her attention to the DRADIS. "We crammed everyone aboard so quickly, might go a long way to helping people adjust to start sorting out where everyone can sleep, maybe even shuffle the Vanguard survivors around to fill out gaps in ship operations."

"Officer thinking, Ensign," smiled Kelso.

Then, to Kelso's subtle amusement, he noted that Cole had begun gently drumming her fingers on the plot table as she looked back up at DRADIS.

---

Battlecruiser Enceladus
Near Emergency Fleet Rally Point 756NE

"DRADIS sweep complete, Colonel, negative contacts," called Lieutenant Birch.

"And that's number three," whispered Runel as he stood staring blankly up at the empty DRADIS screen.

Looking down at the list of Emergency Rally Points lying on the plot table, Runel slowly reached up, pulled a pen from his pocket, and made a simple tick mark beside the final set of coordinates.

Three rally points, three jumps completed, no contact with the enemy, but no contact with friendly forces either.

Letting out a long sigh, Runel put the pen back in his pocket and cast his eyes back to the screen overhead.

"Kendrick, get on the short range wireless and advise Savitri, Adroa and Ikenga that we will hold position here for thirty minutes," said Runel evenly as he continued to all but glare at the empty DRADIS screen.

"Aye, sir."

Thirty minutes.

Runel let out another long breath.

Thirty minutes to wait, and after that, he was not entirely sure.

As he stood watching DRADIS, Runel took stock of his situation.

Although underway, his ship, the Enceladus, still had a long list of damage needing repair. Those repairs efforts were, however, beginning to bear fruit since his own people were now aided by the additional personnel evacuated from the doomed Republica. For the moment, having them parceled out assisting the DC teams served more than the obvious purpose of expediting the repairs; the less people he left idle with nothing to do but think about what they'd lost, the better.

The other ships of his group, Savitri, Adroa and Ikenga, had fared better so far and were reporting themselves at or very near one hundred percent. As harsh as it seemed to think such a thing, the loss of Republica had offered Runel's ships the opportunity to replace personnel losses they themselves had suffered so far fighting the Cylons.

But to what end?

When they had begun jumping to the remainder of the ERP's listed in the Enceladus' Emergency War Orders, Runel had held out some measure of hope of finding and linking up with other survivors from the Colonial Fleet. Even chance encounters with surviving civilian ships would have been better to the nearly maddening prospect he faced of finding no one else left at all.

He tried to take a measure of solace from the knowledge that Commander Adama and the Battlestar Galactica had managed to fight their way out of the Ragnar Anchorage and escape beyond the Red Line. But without knowing exactly where the Galactica and the ships accompanying her had jumped to the likelihood of ever finding them was not promising. More to the point, if the two Galactica pilots they had rescued near Ragnar were correct then Commander Adama and the Galactica would not be coming back, sincerely believing there to be no one else left alive.

Colonel Thadius Runel was on his own.

As a military man, tried and trained, Runel had to swallow hard to accept that the war was already long since lost. However, as he stood staring up at the blank screen, his own words came back to haunt him.

'In the absence of any other command directives, a commander is to do anything and everything to ensure that their ship and their crew survive.'

He had said those words to Colonel Webber, and he had meant them. And now as he stood beneath the empty DRADIS screen, with all his other imperatives exhausted, Colonel Thadius Runel faced the hard reality that like the Battlestar Galactica, there was now little for him to do but make an escape into the deep, unknown reaches of space, hope the Cylons couldn't follow, and pray that somewhere, somehow, a new home could be built.

So if that was his reality, why did he still feel a lingering doubt?

As he stood there, the main entry opened and the first shift strode back in to resume their posts. Somewhat surprised, Runel looked at the ship's time base clock. Sure enough, per his order, they had stayed out of CIC exactly six hours, not one second more or less.

With no fanfare, the first shift crew spread back out through CIC. As he watched them resume their posts, Runel saw Lieutenant Thorpe enter and make his way towards the plot table.

"Sleep well, Lieutenant?" asked Runel.

"A few hours, sir," replied Thorpe evenly.

"Believe it or not, I'm jealous," countered Runel as he reached over and slid the chart showing their jumps closer. "As soon as you've taken full report from Lieutenant Birch, I need you to plot me two jumps."

Picking up a grease pencil, Runel leaned in over the chart.

"Our first jump will be out to Leto's Twins," he said evenly, pointing the pencil at the twin pulsars on the chart. "From there, I need another jump straight out into the Prolmar sector, beyond the Red Line."

Again, Runel moved the pencil, this time leaving a faint line stretching from Leto's Twins to the ominous 'unknown' label resting beneath Prolmar sector.

"Has anyone ever plotted a jump that far before, sir?" asked Thorpe.

"Commander Adama's Tac Officer apparently did," replied Runel, smirking as he said as much. "Which means, unless you're prepared to admit he's better at his job than you are, you'll be able to do the same."

From the determined expression that cemented onto Thorpe's face, it was clear he was not ready to make such an admission. Stoking the embers of professional rivalry; almost always a convenient and effective way to motivate someone.

"I'll get us there, sir," replied Thorpe, a thin smile also crossing his lips. "So we're going to try and link up with the Galactica after all, Colonel?"

Looking back down at the chart, Runel mulled the question over in his mind. To be sure there was an undercurrent of enthusiasm in Thorpe's voice at the prospect; searching for the Galactica was a much more tangible goal to hold onto psychologically than simply wandering aimlessly through space hoping to stumble upon a habitable planet.

"While it won't be our primary goal, we won't ignore the prospect of finding Galactica if we stumble across evidence of her presence," replied Runel evenly as he looked over at Thorpe. "Start plotting the jumps, Lieutenant."

As Thorpe stepped away with the chart overlay, Runel slowly looked back up at the blank screen. The pragmatic part of his brain had made the rational choice, but looking at that maddeningly blank screen still left him with doubt. Billions of people throughout the Colonies, tens of thousands of ships, transports, freighters, Raptors, luxury yachts, and no one else was left alive?

The seeming impossibility of such an idea gnawed at him.

"Mister Templeton, did Petty Officer Kendrick leave everything to your satisfaction?" asked Runel as he caught sight of Templeton fidgeting slightly over at Communications.

"I think she may have taken my headset, Colonel," replied Templeton as he peered down underneath the panel. "Wait, never mind, here it is, sir."

"Good, as soon as you are ready, I need you to raise Savitri-Actual for me."

"Aye, Colonel."

After a few more moments, Templeton looked up from his console and nodded to Runel, who in turn picked up the handset on the side of the plot table.

"Savitri-Actual, this is Enceladus-Actual," began Runel as he slowly stretched his back, hearing a distinct pop in the process.

"This is Savitri-Actual, go ahead," replied the voice of Colonel Brianna Webber over the wireless.

"Slight change to my orders," began Runel as he leaned back in over the plot table. "We're going to hold this position for a little while longer."

"Understood; what have you got in mind?"

"What makes you think I have something in mind?"

"Because this is our last ERP and we still haven't had any contacts. You wouldn't be ordering a halt unless you had something in mind."

"As a matter of fact I do," sighed Runel. "I know you're hauling a heavy deck over there, but how quickly can you prep twelve Raptors for a reconnaissance run?"

"Standby," answered Webber flatly.

While he waited with the handset pressed to his ear, Runel turned back to Templeton.

"Put an announcement out over the One-MC; have Lieutenant Birch report back to CIC."

"Understood, Colonel," replied Templeton.

"You there, Enceladus-Actual?" came back the voice of Webber a moment later.

"Send it, Savitri-Actual."

"CAG says he can have twelve Raptors prepped for a recon run in forty mikes."

"Good, go ahead and make them ready," began Runel as he slowly looked back up at the blank DRADIS. "Mission order is as follows; straight forward recon run, each Raptor is to jump from our present location back to our home worlds, one Raptor per Colony."

Pausing, Runel turned around in time to see a somewhat perplexed Lieutenant Birch step back into CIC.

"All Raptor crews are to avoid contact with the enemy at all costs," continued Runel as he waved Birch over to the plot table. "They will loiter within shortwave wireless range for six hours, triangulate and record any signals they receive, but they are not to respond; this is strictly a ghost operation. At the end of the six hours they will jump back to a different set of coordinates that will be ready for them by the time they launch."

"Copy that, Enceladus-Actual," replied Webber, her tone almost impressed. "Can I ask why?"

"To remove doubt," he replied flatly. "Get your birds ready. Enceladus, out."

Hanging up the handset, Runel turned to Birch.

"Sorry to call you back up to CIC, Lieutenant," began Runel as he started off across CIC, Birch close behind.

"No trouble, sir," answered Birch, suppressing a yawn as he followed.

Within moments, Runel and Birch stepped up to the larger plot table where Lieutenant Thorpe was diligently at work plotting the jumps Runel had requested. At Runel's approach, Thorpe set down the grease pencil he was holding and straightened up.

"Have you got those jumps plotted yet, Lieutenant?" asked Runel as he settled in beside the table.

"Still working on it, sir," replied Thorpe flatly.

"Slight change of plans," sighed Runel as he looked down at the chart. "I need three plots not just two, I had Birch come back up to give you a hand."

Picking up the grease pencil, Runel reached over and pulled the chart closer.

"Savitri is preparing to send out a recon mission in about forty mikes," began Runel evenly as he looked up at the two junior officers. "Now I don't feel comfortable loitering here at a recorded position for their return so I need you two to find me a new rally point where they can link back up with us. The exact location is at your discretion but try to make it random, avoid the marked lanes or anywhere the Cylons might be trolling about, a place that's out of the way. As soon as you've plotted them, I want you to get those coordinates over to the Savitri."

"Aye, sir."

"From that point, we'll plot our jump out to Leto's Twins," continued Runel as he absently reached over and pointed on the chart overlay. "And of course from there, plot the third jump out to the Prolmar sector."

With that, Runel quickly glanced from Thorpe to Birch, and noted the slight hesitation on their faces; plotting three jumps so quickly was daunting, but then, that is why he had called Birch back to CIC.

"I'm not about to ask 'please' gentleman," stated Runel evenly.

At that, both Thorpe and Birch nodded in acknowledgement as Runel turned and stepped back over to the main plot table beneath DRADIS.

Even as he settled back in beneath the overhead screens, Runel was preparing himself for the all too real likelihood that the Raptors would return with no indications of any more survivors. Nevertheless, he was resolute that ordering the recon run was what needed to be done. As a soldier, if he was going to be forced into abandoning the Colonies, forced to retreat into the vast depths of unexplored space, he was going to be as damned certain as possible that no one else was left.

So long as it was practical, he was going to erase all doubt.

---

Raptor Zero-Seven-Five
Starboard Flight Pod of the Colonial Battlestar Heracles

"Set us down right there, Lieutenant," muttered Kelso as he pointed out through the darkened flight deck at a lift pad illuminated by the Raptor's spotlight.

"Aye, sir," replied Lieutenant Cetina as she slowed the small craft and settled it in over the pad, stopping with a slight thud. "Skids down, sir."

"The other Raptors?" asked Kelso evenly as he glanced out past the canopy in time to see the four other Raptors Major Burke had dispatched per his orders settle in nearby.

"They're settling in on the other lifts, Commander," called Ensign Petrovich from the rear of the compartment.

"Are you certain these lifts will still work, sir?" asked Cetina as she set about securing the Raptor's systems.

"If Heracles were an older Battlestar, Lieutenant, we'd have to wait for Galactica to finish recovering survivors from Anhur or go EVA to get aboard," began Kelso evenly as he watched Cetina secure the Raptors systems. "Lucky for us, she's Mercury Class. All we have to do is engage the emergency battery power for the lift systems and we should be able to drop down into the hangar deck even with the mains offline."

"But I thought the emergency battery controls could only be accessed from inside the hangar bay," muttered Lieutenant Cetina as she watched Kelso reach out towards the wireless keypad.

"Uncommon knowledge from having helped build these ships, Lieutenant," replied Kelso as he punched a few numbers into the wireless keypad. "Mercury's were the first ship to have them set up for exterior control, all you need is the right wireless channel and an engineer's command code; wasn't exactly the kind of knowledge we wanted pirates or terrorists to find out."

As Kelso finished putting the sequence into the wireless, the lift suddenly jolted as it began to descend into the hangar deck below.

As the lift carried the Raptor down from the flight deck, the outer hatches closed above them, cutting off what little ambient light there had been, casting the Raptor cabin into complete darkness.

Kelso tried in vain to see what lay beyond the canopy, attempting to discern whether the access hatch into the hangar bay had opened or not.

"Go ahead and turn on the exterior lights," muttered Kelso, squinting as he tried to make out anything in the stifling darkness.

A moment later, Cetina turned on the Raptor's exterior lights, casting some, but not a lot of light into the cavernous hangar area. While Kelso was able to make out the tail ends of a few Vipers in some of the service bays, he really could not see much else.

No crew, no movement, nothing...

Reaching up, he quickly unfastened the straps holding him in the seat and stepped back towards the Raptor's hatch.

"We reading atmosphere out there, Ensign?" asked Kelso as he glanced over at Petrovich.

"Yes, sir," replied Petrovich.

"Then go ahead and open the hatch," said Kelso evenly as he stepped up to the hatch.

With a flip of a switch, the hatch slowly began to open before him. As it came to a stop, Kelso realized, quite absurdly, that he had been holding his breath, as though something so ridiculous would have helped had the gauges been wrong and there'd been nothing but vacuum outside the Raptor. Shaking his head at that, Kelso stepped out and slowly made his way down the winglet.

As the heels of his boots made firm contact with the deck, Kelso looked over his shoulder as the other four Raptors sent over from Galactica likewise settled into place nearby. However, whereas he had emerged alone from his ship, the opening hatches of the other Raptors quickly disgorged over a dozen heavily armed, combat-clad Marines out into the darkened hangar deck.

As the Marines swept out into a wide circle around the Raptors, the lights mounted on their weapons cut into the darkness, casting eerie shadows about the service bays. With more light, Kelso was able to get a better view of the hangar deck; there were several Vipers, all intact as far as he could tell, a couple Raptors as well. There were tools and spare parts, all the equipment need to make Galactica more operationally effective.

Still, he saw no survivors.

As the Marines settled into place, more crewmembers emerged from the Raptors, presumably the DC and Medical teams Kelso had requested Burke send over as well.

As he returned his attention to the surrounding darkness, Kelso was surprised when someone called out his name.

"Commander Kelso, sir?"

Turning back around, it took a moment for Kelso make out Lieutenant Meloni, one of the recently recovered Viper pilots, hopping down from the Raptor, his boots making a distinct thud against the deck before jogging the few steps over to him.

"I thought you were going to take a shower, Lieutenant?"

"Left all my clean uniforms over here, Commander, thought I might come over and grab one before I took that shower."

"I hope you didn't come over here because you think I don't know my way around a Battlestar, Lieutenant," asked Kelso as he returned his attention to the surrounding darkness.

"Not at all, sir," replied Meloni. "I just thought that since this is my ship…"

"You wanted to see for yourself how many of your friends may have survived," finished Kelso.

"Yes, sir."

Pausing, Kelso turned back and looked around to the encircling Marines.

"Who's the NCOIC?" called Kelso.

"That would be me, Commander," called one of the Marines as he broke from the circle and jogged the few feet over to Kelso and Meloni. "Sergeant Jeff Caan, sir."

"Okay, Sergeant, here's the deal," began Kelso as he gave Sergeant Caan's hand a quick shake. "We set down here in the aft end of the bay, so let's go ahead and get your people moving forward compartment by compartment."

"Understood, sir."

"Do you want me to take lead, Commander?" asked Meloni.

"No, Lieutenant, let Sergeant Caan and his Marines take point," replied Kelso evenly. "Much as I hope we don't run into any, there could still be Cylons aboard from the boarding action; I suggest we let the professionals with the guns go first."

"Thank you, Commander," muttered Caan, his tone carrying a hint of sarcasm. "Do we have any idea how many Cylons may have come aboard?"

"Lieutenant, any ideas?" asked Kelso as he looked over at the Viper pilot.

"I noted three craft making the approach on the Port pod, sir," replied Meloni as he seemed to play over the memory in his mind. "We were able to make one good pass, ripped the ships themselves up on the deck before the Centurions blew open the airlock hatches. If I had to guess, perhaps two dozen actually managed to breach into the interior."

"Then let's hope some of your shipmates managed to take some of them down, otherwise we'll be outnumbered," noted Sergeant Caan, looking down at his weapon, half-cocking the bolt to ensure the chamber was loaded.

"One way or another, we'll find out soon," sighed Kelso as he motioned for Ensign Petrovich to hand over a large emergency light resting inside the Raptor's compartment.

Taking hold of the large lamp, Kelso toggled the switch into the 'on' position and cast a bright, wide beam of light down the center section of the hangar space. As with most areas of a warship, even the hangar spaces were compartmentalized from each other, and Kelso had no trouble seeing the large, closed blast door at the far end of the area.

"Go ahead and start moving your people forward, Sergeant," said Kelso evenly as he began taking a few tentative steps towards the far end of the bay.

"What do you want us to do, sir?" asked Lieutenant Cetina as she poked her head out the Raptor behind him.

"You and the other pilots go ahead and stay here," replied Kelso as he glanced back over at Cetina. "Keep the Raptors on hot standby for takeoff just in case we need to hustle out of here."

"Understood, sir."

"Everyone else, go ahead and start moving forward."

"First team take point," called Sergeant Caan, his hand darting out as he pointed to the individual teams around the circle. "Second team fall in on the center element around the Commander, DC team and Medics; third team, you cover our tails."

A few curt nods of acknowledgement and the sound of rapid footfalls later, the Marines formed into a wide column and began making their way forward towards the large blast door at the far end of the hangar. Their weapons held at the ready, the Marines intently scanned the surrounding darkness, casting the weapon-mounted lights every which way, into every corner, across every overhead gantry.

"Got a body over here!" shouted one of the Marines at the head of the formation.

Reacting instantly, Kelso and Meloni jogged up behind the Marine. Looking over into one of the service bays, Kelso saw the orange-clad body of one of the ship's deck gang lying face down in a small pool of dry blood.

Glancing over his shoulder, Kelso motioned one of the medics forward. Flanked by two hyper-vigilant Marines, one with the weapon trained on the body, one with his weapon on the overhead gantry, the medic made her way over to the still form, reached down and slowly turned the body over.

While Kelso had half expected to see the man's body riddled with bullet holes, he instead saw the brightly colored handle of a screwdriver imbedded in the deckhand's chest. Beside him, Kelso heard Meloni gag slightly. Glancing over, Kelso saw the young Viper pilot half-bent over, taking in deep breaths, pausing every once in a while to spit some small amount of bile out onto the deck. As Meloni continued to try and recover his composure, the young medic stood up and made her way over to Kelso.

"Other than the obvious, there are no other wounds, no signs of additional trauma," she said simply. "Can't say for certain, sir, but my guess is that this was an accident."

"Probably fell on it when the ship was hit by ordnance," noted Kelso soberly as he glanced back over at Meloni. "You going to be okay, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," replied Meloni as he straightened back up.

"I take it you knew him?"

"Not personally, sir, no," answered Meloni as he absently wiped his lips on his sleeve. "Just wasn't as ready to see a dead body as I thought I would be…"

Nodding slightly, Kelso reached out and patted Meloni on the back.

"All right, let's keep going, there might still be some survivors ahead," called Kelso as he motioned for the Marines to resume making their way forward.

Coming across no more bodies, the line of Marines continued forward until they reached large blast doors at the far end of the bay.

As the leading Marines stacked up beside the sealed hatch to one side of the blast door, they paused and glanced back towards Kelso. With a simple nod, he bid them forward.

Rotating the large locking mechanism, one Marine slowly pulled the hatch open as another stood by with her weapon at the ready. Tentatively stepping from one side to other, the team filed through, then spread themselves back out on the far side, with Kelso and the rest of the support staff following close behind.

Unremarkable, underwhelming, the Marines and support team found themselves in what was simply another long, darkened hangar compartment. As before, the Marines slowly began making their way forward through the space, eyes and lights piercing into the darkness, searching.

The distant crack of gunfire did not register nearly as profoundly in Kelso's mind as the sound of some of the rounds ricocheting off the bulkhead only centimeters from his ear. Dropping full body to the hard deck, Kelso looked up to see a blur of light, the mounted lights on the weapons of the Marines darting about as they searched the darkness for the origin of the gunfire. Even as a couple more shots rang out, the Marines, the support personnel, all of them, rapidly fanned out through the area, searching for cover.

A few feet away in the middle of the cavernous space, one weapon lay still on the deck, the mounted light shining across the form of a Marine desperately clutching his leg, thick ribbons of blood visible between his fingers.

"Gods dammit, I'm hit!" cried the Marine as he clenched his teeth against the pain.

Even with rounds continuing to erupt sporadically from the darkness at the other end of the bay, the same medic who had examined the body dashed out across the bay towards the wounded Marine. Following close on her heels was Sergeant Caan, who likewise dashed out into the open. With the both of them reaching the wounded man at the same time, without a word, they both deftly reached down and grabbed hold of the wounded Marine's gear and began dragging him towards one of the service bays.

Returning his attention to the darkened area on the far end of the bay, Kelso saw a few more intermittent flashes, followed by the echoing thunderclap of gunfire.

"Hold your fire!" called Kelso desperately.

Calling out as much to his own Marines as to the unseen snipers ahead, Kelso was nevertheless relieved when the incoming fire from the far end ceased. Even so, the Marines scattered about on either side of the bay warily kept their weapons at the ready, holding their positions behind whatever cover they had managed to find.

Glancing over, Kelso saw the medic frantically working to control the bleeding, tightly securing a compress bandage over the wound as the Marine let out pain-driven grunt stifled only by the tactical glove clenched tightly between his teeth.

"We need to get this man back to Galactica, Commander," called the medic as she slapped another compress down over the already blood-soaked first.

"Take him through that hatch over there," called Kelso as he pointed to a second hatch on the opposite side from the one they had entered through.

"Riggs, Benavidez, go with her," snapped Sergeant Caan as he kept his eyes locked on the far end of the bay.

In response, two more Marines dashed across the open bay, thankfully drawing no fire. Snatching up their wounded comrade, the two Marines carried him swiftly towards the second hatch with the medic close behind.

Returning his gaze to the far side of the bay, Kelso took a deep, steadying breath and slowly peeled himself up off of the deck, his eyes never leaving the darkness ahead.

"Hold your fire," he repeated as he slowly returned to his feet, holding his hands up as he began taking a few tentative steps forward.

"I'd feel much better, sir, if you'd get your ass over here behind some cover," hissed Sergeant Caan.

Glancing over momentarily at Caan, long enough to gently shake his head 'no', Kelso continued to take tentative steps towards the far end of the bay.

"That's far enough!" shouted a voice from the darkness. "Identify yourself immediately, or we will open fire!"

"I am Commander Sean Kelso from the Warstar Galactica," replied Kelso, his arms still raised, his heart pounding as he stood there in the open.

"There is no fraking' 'Warstar Galactica' you gods-damned toaster!" shouted another voice, punctuated a split second later by the sound of another round ricocheting overhead.

Flinching, but nevertheless staying on his feet, Kelso took another couple slow steps forward.

"I said don't move," came the first voice again.

Again, another round ricocheted overhead.

The nice approach was not working…

Out of pure frustration, Kelso simply dropped his hands back down to his sides.

"Gods dammit, we're not Cylons, now hold your gods-damned fire!" burst Kelso angrily.

Up ahead, there was nothing but silence.

"Look, I don't have time for this crap," snapped Kelso, crossing his arms defiantly as he glared out into the darkness. "We are from the Warstar Galactica, it's a new ship; we were going through a shakedown out near the Cygnus range, she's not even in commission yet, that's why you haven't heard about her."

Pausing, Kelso stood there, impatient, waiting. At the far end, he could hear voices, whispers, but could not make out what was being said.

"We're a rescue team," he began again. "We're here to take on survivors, unless, of course, you'd rather stay here and either freeze to death or suffocate. It's your choice."

Again, there was only silence.

"How do we know you're not lying?" called the first voice finally.

"Bo-Jay, is that you?"

Glancing back over his shoulder, Kelso saw Lieutenant Meloni leaning out from where he had taken cover.

"Bo-Jay, it's Buster, hold your fire!" said Meloni as he slowly stood up and made his way over beside Kelso, arms raised.

"Buster?"

"Don't shot me, Bo-Jay, or I swear to the gods I'll kick your frakin' ass!"

As Meloni stood there beside Kelso, another figure on the far side of the bay slowly stepped out into one of the beams cast by one of the weapon-mounted lights, sidearm at the ready.

"Gods, I never thought I'd see your ugly face again, Buster," stated the figure as he finally holstered his weapon and jogged over to Meloni, snatching the pilot up in his arms.

Like Meloni, the man who had emerged was dressed in a pilot's flight suit. After a few hearty pats, the man let go of Meloni and took a step back.

"Thought the Toasters had smoked your ass for sure."

"Not today," replied Meloni, nodding his head towards Kelso. "But if it weren't for the Commander here, we'd have run out of fuel over an hour ago."

Looking over at Kelso, the man could not miss the indignant look on the Commander's face.

"Commander Kelso, this lousy shot is Lieutenant Boland Jenner, call sign Bo-Jay," said Meloni as he gave Jenner a quick slap on the shoulder.

"Not so lousy a shot from where I'm standing, Lieutenant," replied Sergeant Caan as he briskly stepped up and landed a hard right hook against Jenner's jaw. "Do we look like we're covered in chrome plating you near-sighted fighter jock!"

Staggered by the impact, Lieutenant Jenner stutter-stepped and then collapsed onto the non-ski deck.

Lashing out with his arms, Kelso grabbed hold of Sergeant Caan as Lieutenant Meloni likewise grasped onto Jenner as he lunged up from the deck towards Caan.

"What the frak!" burst Jenner as he lashed out with one hands towards Caan.

"What the hell are you doing, Sergeant?" burst Kelso as he shoved the Marine back away from Jenner.

"He hit one of my Marines, Commander," growled Caan as he glared over at Jenner. "Seemed only fair he get hit in return, 'course, he's not in any risk of bleeding to death like my man is."

"I want him brought up on charges," snapped Jenner as he wiped at the trickle of blood coming from his lip. "Striking a superior officer in time of war…"

"Shut the frak up, Lieutenant!" burst Kelso as he looked back over at Jenner. "Any charges against him would be brought before me, and since you almost took off my head with your gunfire, I'm not likely to be a very sympathetic ear."

"I'm sorry, I didn't…we didn't know you were human," said Jenner somewhat sheepishly as he looked back over at the still fuming Sergeant Caan.

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to the man you shot," replied Caan flatly as he continued to wrestle his anger back under control.

"Now as for me," continued Kelso as he looked at both Jenner and Caan. "It's just damned lucky for the both of you that I'm a man who believes in looking at things in context."

"Yes, sir," muttered Caan evenly.

"Understood, Commander," said Jenner, nodding his head slightly as he continued to massage his sore jaw.

"Now, back to the bigger problems at hand," sighed Kelso as he glanced over at the other figures beginning to emerge from the darkness behind Jenner. "We need some lights in here."

With that, Kelso turned around and saw that his own Marines and crewmembers were likewise beginning to tentatively step out from behind cover.

"Where's my DC team?" called Kelso.

"Here, sir," replied a voice from behind a rather sizeable tool locker.

"Get your ass out from behind there and see what you can do about getting me some emergency lighting in here," said Kelso evenly as he turned back to face Jenner and Meloni.

A few moments later, the DC team quickly stepped over and connected a battery pack to circuit box inside one of the nearby service bays. As the emergency overhead floodlights came to life, excising the darkness, Kelso flinched, blinking his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden change.

Opening his eyes again, Kelso was surprised to find himself facing what to him seemed to be nearly an entire flight deck crew. All about, huddled into the service bays at the far end were a myriad of crewmembers, some in green fatigues, some in the orange and yellow coveralls indicative of hangar service personnel. Moreover, Kelso saw a small cluster of pilots, apparently the ones who had been firing at them, slowly lowering and holstering their sidearms.

Taking a deep breath, Kelso looked back over at Lieutenant Jenner.

"Can I presume you are the most senior officer present?" asked Kelso.

"Thus far, yes, sir," replied Jenner evenly. "Most of the more senior pilots launched during the initial attack before the main launch systems were knocked out."

"And most of them were blasted even before they cleared the tubes," muttered Meloni.

"How many people do you have down here, Lieutenant?" asked Kelso as he slowly stepped past Meloni and Jenner and looked over at the haggard faces of the surviving deck gang.

"Last head count was two hundred and ten, Commander," replied Jenner as he motioned over towards the huddled forms ahead. "About thirty pilots, the rest are deck gang."

"Any wounded?"

"Nothing severe, sir," replied Jenner, sighing a bit as he stepped forward a few steps. "Most of our critically wounded from the attack have already…"

With that, Jenner's voice trailed off somewhat as he motioned over to one of the service bays where several still forms, bodies, lay draped beneath some drop cloths.

"Meloni said the ship was boarded by Centurions during the battle, have you had any contact with other areas of the ship?" asked Kelso.

"Most of the hatches were closed and sealed when the ship went to Action Stations," began Jenner as he led Kelso over to a handset mounted on the bulkhead. "We were able to make intermittent contact with individuals scattered all over the ship earlier, but the system went dead a little while ago. There were some reports of boarders over on the Port pod, but we lost contact with the deck gang over there even before the phones gave out."

"That's because the entire Port pod was destroyed," said Kelso as he reached over, picked up the phone handset, punched a few keys, and got no response.

"Have you been able to make your way back into the main areas of the ship?" asked Kelso as he hung the handset back in place.

"Not as yet, Commander," replied Jenner. "At first we just bunkered down here in case some Centurions made their way over here. After sitting here in the dark for a while without any word or update, we tried to pry open some of the hatches but near as we can tell they were damaged in the attack, the frames may have been bent, we can't get them to so much as budge."

"DC, did you bring any cutting tools with you?" shouted Kelso as he glanced back over to the DC team.

"No, sir."

"Then we'll have to wait until Galactica comes alongside," sighed Kelso as he looked back over at Jenner.

"How long before they're able to dock, Commander?" asked Meloni.

"Depends on how long it takes to take the survivors aboard from Anhur," replied Kelso as he watched the surviving deck gang slowly begin making their way over to him.

"Has there been any word on how the battle is going, sir?" asked Jenner hopefully. "We've been cut off for almost a day now."

Looking over at the young pilot, Kelso took a breath.

"Not well, Lieutenant," sighed Kelso.

Although Kelso was fairly certain Jenner was able to pick up on his drastic understatement, the Commander felt it wasn't the time to start reading off the long list of casualties and tragedies in front of the already visibly demoralized deck gang assembling around him.

There would be time to let them know the full scope of the destruction later. Right now though, he needed them to get their heads back into the fight.

Stepping forward, Kelso motioned with his hands for all the survivors to gather in closer around him. As they settled into a sizeable semi-circle around him, Kelso noted the looks on their faces; tired, angry, fearful, uncertain.

"Okay people, I know most of you are anxious for news about what's going on," he began, his voice echoing a bit off the bulkheads. "But I'm not here to gossip. Suffice it to say the situation is bad."

"Is there anything you can tell us, sir?" asked one of the deck gang flatly. "Has there been any more attempts to counterattack?"

Looking down at the man, barely more than a teenager as far as Kelso could tell, the Commander took a deep breath.

"Right now, crewman, the only thing I know and can tell you with any certainty is that you are all alive," replied Kelso, his tone quite sincere. "And believe me when I say that that counts for a hell-of-a lot right now."

Nodding his head, the young crewman seemed to accept the answer.

"Now I know you've all been through one hell-of-a wringer already," sighed Kelso as he looked back out to the others. "And while I wish I could tell you that you've earned some down time, the truth is that I need you all to get ready to jump back into this fight."

Pausing, Kelso looked out into their faces, a small, almost sinister grin creeping across his lips.

"And for those of you who might be looking for some payback, believe me, you'll get your chance soon enough."

---

Serenity Valley
Sagittaron Colony

Captain Gaines leaned in over the railing of the tower and looked down at her Marines working in the early morning light.

While the basic trench line and fighting positions had already been in place when her beleaguered force had followed Corporal Marius into the former township of Serenity, the work they managed to complete over the last few hours was no less impressive.

While she had allowed most of her people to get some rest in the night, she had also nevertheless put those whose turn it was to be awake to work laying out and emplacing the significant cache of weapons and equipment Marius had hoarded away in the temple basement.

In the early morning dawn, Gaines saw that several of the heavy machine guns had been put into place and boxes of ammunition moved up to the positions to ensure a steady rate of fire should the Cylons besiege the position. Strung out between each of the main bunkers, newly laid comm wire linked the positions together via field phones.

In the courtyard below, two mortars were also being set under Marius' guidance. According to the old Marine, so long as they were placed exactly where he directed, he already had a long list of preplotted target reference points for them to zero-in on. The few civilian police officers and medics who had been unfortunate enough to get caught on the ground with them had traded out their light ballistic vests for some of the heavier body armor from the cache, more or less integrating themselves into the rest of the battle line.

All told, Gaines had to admit, if the Cylons decided to attack Serenity, they might overrun them by sheer weight of numbers, but it would cost them to do so.

As she continued to look down through the compound, Gaines saw Lance Corporal Vallero, her communications operator, splicing the last few lengths of comm wire into several field phones near the mortar position. After a quick function check, dialing out to each of the individual positions and receiving a reply from the Marines posted at them, Vallero stepped over and picked up another pack. Making his way over to the central cistern in the courtyard, Vallero then reached into the pack and pulled out a portable wireless transmitter. Not thinking much of it at first, Gaines looked down at her watch and noted it was approaching the top of the hour.

When she saw that, Captain Gaines suddenly felt a twinge of concern, however vague.

Something was not right, but she was not exactly sure what…

Glancing back down, Gaines caught sight of Vallero as he pulled out a portable satellite link antenna and began attaching it to the transmitter.

"Oh, frak!" she burst, turning hard on her heels and shooting off down the staircase.

Within seconds she'd vaulted down the steps, landing with a thud on what used to be the temple main assembly hall floor and bolted for the door.

Erupting out into the morning air, she dashed across the open courtyard directly towards the communications operator. For his part, Vallero was completely ignorant of her rapid approach as he lifted the wireless handset to his ear and keyed the transmitter.

"Stop!" she burst finally, loud enough to echo off the surrounding building facades, but not enough to fully grab the man's attention.

"This is Junkyard Six-Comm, to any station this net, over…" said Vallero evenly as he glanced up and saw Gaines approaching.

"Stop!" she shouted again.

This time, confused, Vallero looked around, as if completely unaware that the Captain was in fact shouting at him to stop what he was doing.

Even as he turned back to look at the Captain, Vallero keyed the handset once more.

"I say again, this is Junkyard Six-Comm, to any station this net…." he said again, stopping when Gaines finally reached him and swiped out at him, slapping the handset from his hand.

Stunned, Vallero fell back slightly, not so much from the strike, but out of surprise.

"Captain?" he burst, looking up at her as she stood over him, panting heavily.

"No…transmissions…" she said in between gulping breaths. "They'll give away our position… Cylons will be able to get a transmission fix…"

His eyes lighting up, Vallero reached out and toggled the power switch to off.

"I'm sorry, Captain, I was just following SOP," said the man evenly.

"I know you were," sighed Gaines as she stretched her hand out to help the operator back to his feet. "But for now, frak SOP, the longer we can avoid letting the Cylons find our position, the better."

"Understood, sir," replied Vallero as he began to disconnect the antenna.

As she watched him, Gaines suddenly had another thought.

"Wait," she sighed, holding out her hand as she looked around to the other Marines working to improve the emplacements. "Go ahead and leave the set assembled."

"Aye, Captain," replied Vallero evenly, securing the antenna back into place.

"Go ahead and leave the set active, monitor it and report any traffic you pick up on wireless," she continued as she looked back down to him. "But, no outgoing transmissions."

"And if I do pick up a signal, Captain?"

"Report it to me, I'll decide whether or not to answer," replied Gaines. "That way, if it calls down the thunder from the enemy, I only have myself to blame."

As Vallero looked back up at her for a moment, he was surprised, even relieved when she grinned.

"Aye, Captain," he said, grinning slightly as well as he turned the set back on. "I'm going to set for random scan, hopefully it will give us a better chance to pick up a transmission, I'll even punch in some of the civilian bands."

"Let me know if you pick anything up," said Gaines simply as she began moving off to inspect some of the fighting positions.

---

Lieutenant Al Crandle hated sitting in a powered-down cockpit.

What he hated even more was sitting in a powered-down cockpit watching Cylon Basestars and Raiders in orbit of Sagittaron, moving about with impunity amid the pulverized hulks of several Colonial vessels.

"Gods-damned mother-fraking Cylon cock-suckers," he growled, perhaps for the hundredth time since they managed to sidle up into position and power down.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" muttered his ECO, Lieutenant Janice Krieger.

"Like it frakin' matters; my mom's dead," replied Crandle acidly. "They're all dead."

"You don't know that," countered Krieger.

"Don't give me that optimist crap," snapped Crandle as he glared out past the wrecked hulk of a shredded Battlestar. "Gods what I wouldn't give for a fraking nuke to fire right about now."

"Not our mission," said Krieger simply as she continued to adjust the wireless monitor on the panel in front of her. "Remember; strictly observe and report."

"I know the mission, doesn't mean I have to like," replied Crandle as he continued to watch a wide formation of Raiders sail past the Battlestar wreckage. "Gods, I'd love to have a nuke right now."

"Look, if floating around in the middle of enemy occupied territory isn't exciting enough for you, when we get back, put in for a transfer over to Vipers," shot back Krieger, her tone growing annoyed. "But for right now, do me a fraking favor and shut the frak up so I can monitor the wireless. Gods, I'm getting sick of listening to you bitch up there."

Scoffing a bit, Crandle nevertheless shut his mouth as he continued to watch the Cylon activity beyond his canopy.

Sitting in silence, glancing down occasionally at the blank instrumentation on the powered-down panel in front of him, Crandle gently thumped his fist against the side of his seat in frustration.

"Stop!" snapped Krieger.

Crandle turned around and was about to give Krieger a piece of his mind about minding her own damned business regarding how he passed the time, but stopped even before the first word escaped his lips when he noted the concentration on her face. With slow movements, her fingers played with the wireless controls, gently adjusting the frequency.

Finally out of frustration, Krieger yanked off her flight helmet and slipped a headset on over her ear, pressing down on the earpiece as she listened intently.

As he watched her, Crandle was surprised by the gentle tingle of excitement that slowly began making its way up his spine.

Was it possible she had actually picked something up?

"Damn," she muttered a moment later.

With the tingle beginning to fade, Crandle watched as Krieger reached up and ran back a digital recording of whatever it was she had picked up.

Returning to her deep concentration, Krieger again set about slowly adjusting the settings on the recording.

"Holy frak, I've got something," she finally announced, a thin smile creeping onto her lips.

"Let's hear it," snapped Crandle as he closed his eyes and concentrated on what he heard through the flight helmet's speakers.

Faint at first, Crandle did not hear anything but static, and was about to tell Krieger she was mistaken, when out of the static, he heard a voice. Faint at first, it was nevertheless distinct…

"That's it, I lost it after that," said Krieger.

"Play it again and bring up the low end a bit," said Crandle as he again waited and listened.

Again, faint, but distinct, Crandle heard the transmission through the static.

"This is Junkyard Six-Comm, to any station this net, over…"

Opening his eyes, Crandle looked back out past the canopy, past the dead Battlestar, even past the Cylons, looked out at the world beyond, the thick plumes of gray dust marring its natural green-blue hues. Somewhere down there on Sagittaron, amid all the fallout and death, someone was still alive.

"Did you isolate the frequency?" asked Crandle evenly.

"Yeah, but I'm not picking up anything else," replied Krieger.

Cracking his knuckles, Crandle scowled as another wing of Raiders passed along in low orbit over Sagittaron.

"Have you run the unit call-sign through our registry?"

"Came back as the unit call sign of a Marine detachment stationed at a reserve depot on Sagittaron," replied Krieger.

"Send them an acknowledgment over the same frequency and encryption," said Crandle evenly.

"Our orders say observe and report," countered Krieger. "They also state quite clearly that we are not to respond."

"Frak that, if there's someone down there, we need to let them know we heard them," snapped Crandle. "If I were down there, I'd want to know someone had heard me."

For a moment, Krieger did not say anything.

Looking back over his shoulder, Crandle watched the hesitant Krieger.

"Do it, Janice," he said simply. "A short message, text only, something to let them know they were heard."

Eyes locked on one another for a moment, neither of them said a word. Finally, taking a breath, Krieger turned back to her panel.

"Fine, if you were down there, what would you want to hear in response?" she asked as she set the wireless to transmit on the same frequency.

Pausing, Crandle thought it over. Looking out at the swarms of Cylon Raiders, he didn't try to think of something profound as much as something honest.

"Something straight forward," he began, a grin creeping onto his lips for the first time. "Tell them they're not alone."

---

"Captain!"

The voice echoed out through the square so suddenly Captain Gaines almost instinctively began scanning around for some sign of the enemy approaching. Seeing nothing, she turned back around and saw her communications operator rushing up breathlessly, a small piece of paper in his hand.

Finally coming to a stop before her, Vallero held out the small slip of paper, to her. Taking the paper, Gaines saw that it was a communications printout, she likewise saw the eager excitement in his eyes. Holding the small piece of paper up, Gaines looked at the short length of text.

"Raptor Seven-Two-Three copies; you are not alone."

A rapid tingle shooting up her spine, Gaines looked back over to her comm-operator.

"Is this confirmed?"

"Proper encryption protocol and everything, Captain," replied Vallero with a wide grin. "Authentic and legit."

"Keep monitoring," replied Gaines as she waved him back towards the wireless set.

As Vallero jogged back over to the transmitter, Gaines looked back down at the text.

"You are not alone," she muttered, reading the words right from the slip.

Looking skyward, Gaines could not help but grin slightly; somewhere out there, a Raptor had heard them.

And where there was a Raptor, she hoped, there was also a Battlestar.

Her eyes still cast skyward, Gaines felt invigorated somewhat, imbued with renewed purpose.

"You are not alone…"

---

Battlestar Heracles
Starboard Flight Pod

His arms crossed, Commander Sean Kelso watched as the large airlock hatch gauge turned green, indicating a good seal. Reaching out, Kelso motioned for one of the Marines beside him to help open the large securing latch holding the airlock shut.

With slightly more effort that it should have taken, no doubt due to some damage that had deformed the hatch somehow, Kelso and the Marine slowly wedged the doorway free and pulled it open.

"Permission to come aboard," called a voice on the far side as the hatch thudded gently against the bulkhead.

Looking up, Kelso saw Galactica's Deck Chief, Maria Copeland staring out at him from the airlock interior, a veritable army of deckhands stacked up behind her.

"Granted," huffed Kelso evenly as he motioned them forward into the Heracles. "Certainly took you people long enough to clear out the Anhur."

"The Commander's orders were to be as thorough as possible, sir," replied Copeland, tongue-in-cheek as she began guiding the myriad of Medical and DC teams forward through the airlock.

As he watched them pass, Kelso suddenly realized that a good number of the personnel coming through the hatchway had shoulder patches from the Anhur on their uniforms.

"I see you've already started putting some of the personnel you rescued to work," noted Kelso as Copeland stepped up beside him.

"I'd have to say some of them are eager to help out, Commander," replied Copeland as she held up a clipboard for him. "Having a warship blasted out from under them was apparently a motivating experience for a lot of them."

"I take it this is a manifest of what we managed to take on from Anhur?" asked Kelso as he looked down at the small stack of pages attached to the clipboard.

"Yes, sir," replied Copeland evenly. "No doubt you'll be going over it in detail later, but suffice it to say we retrieved quite a bit from her."

"Not bad considering the amount of damage she sustained," noted Kelso evenly as he continued to flip through the pages. "What about the senior command staff or engineering personnel?"

"Both the forward command area and engineering were too badly damaged to survey, sir," sighed Copeland. "Frankly I doubt anyone could have survived in those sections."

"I figured as much when I saw the damage she suffered," sighed Kelso as he handed the clipboard back over to Copeland.

"If there's nothing else, Commander, I should get back to directing these knuckle-draggers," said Copeland as she motioned towards the still steady stream of personnel coming through the hatch.

"I'll be in CIC, Chief," began Kelso as he turned and headed back through the hatch, a few personnel stepping aside to let him through. "Advise me once you've started making headway into the interior sections of Heracles."

"Aye, Commander."

---

"Commander on deck!" snapped Lieutenant Cortez as Kelso stepped through the hatch into CIC.

Standing at rigid attention by the plot table, Major Burke looked across to him.

"At ease," replied Kelso evenly as he made his way back over to the plot table, his eyes focusing in on DRADIS as he moved. "Report, Major."

"Negative contacts on DRADIS, Commander," replied Burke evenly as she picked up clipboard from the plot table and held it out to him.

"What's this?" asked Kelso evenly as he took the clipboard.

"Final tally of recovered survivors from the Anhur," answered Burke evenly.

"Chief Copeland already gave me a run down," replied Kelso as he went to hand the clipboard back to Burke. "Let's go ahead and wait until we've got another head count from Heracles for the final report."

"Understood, Commander," replied Burke as she took the clipboard back.

"Has there been any word from Major Macedo?"

"I know his team managed to pull the navigational hard drives from the damaged Scimitar, sir," began Burke as she stood staring up at DRADIS. "Whether they've managed to retrieve any data from them…"

Burke's voice trailed off as the entry hatch opened and Major Macedo himself quickly stepped through.

Noting Burke's voice trailing off, Kelso first glanced at her, and noting where her attention was, likewise looked over towards the hatch as Macedo stepped up.

"We managed to retrieve the information you were looking for, Commander," began Macedo excitedly as he quickly stepped up and unrolled a navigational chart.

Flattening out the corners of the chart, Macedo quickly pulled a grease pencil from his pocket, gently adjusted his thin-rim glasses, then began pointing at a mark on the overlay.

"This is Sagittaron, obviously," he began, making a small circle around it. "And here are the coordinates the Scimitar was supposed to jump to."

Again, Macedo made another small circle on the chart.

"Lieutenant Cortez, can you join us over here, please," called Kelso as he motioned his Tac Officer over to the plot table.

As Lieutenant Cortez made his way over from the upper gallery, Kelso looked down at the chart.

"And these are the coordinates where the civilian fleet jumped following their escape from Sagittaron?"

"It would appear to be the case, yes, Commander," replied Macedo evenly.

"Lieutenant Cortez, get on the horn down to Major Culver," began Kelso as Cortez stepped up next to him at the plot table. "Have CAG ready one Raptor for a reconnaissance run to these coordinates."

"Understood, Commander," replied Cortez evenly as he turned and stepped over to the Operations console.

"Major Burke, what do you think is the likelihood that the civilian fleet managed to evade detection by the Cylons?" asked Kelso evenly as he eyed the chart lying on the plot table.

"There were some reports of Cylon activity in that region at the start of the attack," sighed Burke as she riffled through a few stacked communication printouts. "But, those coordinates are still pretty far off the normal marked space lanes, so it may be possible they managed to evade pursuit."

"Major Macedo, what about our Vipers, have you made any headway making sure the CNP security issue doesn't compromise our fighters?"

"Believe it or not, sir, yes," replied Macedo evenly. "Since the Mark Sixes being flown by Lieutenant Meloni and his people weren't affected, we downloaded a copy of the nav software from their systems. So far it seems to be adapting fairly well to the computers onboard the Mark Sevens. All fighters should be action-ready within the hour."

"Good," sighed Kelso as he looked up at DRADIS. "From the looks of things we may be able to take on some more surviving fighters, both Mark Six and Mark Seven from Heracles, so keep on it as they're brought aboard."

"Aye, sir."

As Major Macedo gathered his papers and made his way out of CIC, Kelso glanced across to Major Burke.

"Anything to add, Major?" asked Kelso evenly.

"I suppose I'm just wondering what your next course of action is, Commander."

"With no confirmation of any other surviving Colonial units, our clearest course is to try and link up with that civilian fleet," replied Kelso evenly as he looked back up at DRADIS.

"If I may be so bold, has the Commander considered the possibility that the Cylons might be setting a trap for us?"

"For us specifically, I doubt it," replied Kelso evenly. "Have I considered the possibility that they may have overtaken the civilian fleet and are lying in wait for anyone who might come looking for them; yes I have, hence the reason we're sending a Raptor to recon the situation first."

Looking across to her, Kelso grinned slightly.

"You still don't think I'm really up to this, do you?" began Kelso evenly. "Or perhaps, more precisely, you are curious to know whether I'd be willing to put this ship and crew in harm's way just to find out if my father is still alive."

This time, there was a more blatant challenge in Kelso's tone. It was intentional. While Burke had so far not directly challenged his command authority, there were still subtle hints in her tone, in the questions she asked.

"I'm not going to fence with you over this issue any more, Major," began Kelso evenly. "Moreover, I shouldn't have to. You said you would follow my orders. If you cannot do that, to the letter, then I suggest you relieve yourself of duty right now."

The gauntlet had been thrown. To look at Burke, you might think she had actually been slapped by it.

"With all due respect, Commander," began Burke, her tone even as she looked back across the plot table at him. "As XO, it is my job to not only ensure that every possibility has been presented to the Commander for consideration, but to also ensure that his judgment has not been compromised."

"That is certainly true, Major," replied Kelso evenly. "Nevertheless, the question remains, will you follow my orders or not?"

While they had kept the tone of their voices low, it was almost impossible for the CIC crew not to notice the exchange between them. That made it all the more important in Kelso's mind to ensure that the tension between himself and Burke be finally put to rest.

"You are in command, sir," she finally said.

As much as he tried, Kelso could not be sure if that was a complete acquiescence on Burke's part. The few days they had worked with one another still left many questions in his mind, certainly enough to undermine the formation of a deep trust that most CO/XO relationships took for granted.

Nevertheless, Kelso knew the ship needed an XO. Moreover, he knew he needed Burke.

And in their current situation, Kelso understood quite well, much like planning their next course of action, charting his course with Major Burke would need to be taken one step at a time.

---

Battlestar Pacifica
Near the twin pulsar formation Leto's Twins

"Jump complete, Commander," called Theo Cullen. "Checking with fleet; all ships present and accounted for."

"Very well," replied Adrian Kelso as he rubbed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he mentally shrugged off the lingering sensation of the jump. "Commence full DRADIS scan."

"Aye, sir, commencing now," called Cullen.

"Are you able to get a good fix on our current position, Mister Cullen?" asked Kelso after a few moments.

Snatching up a chart, Cullen quickly made his way over to the main plot table.

"Presuming the calculations are correct, Commander," began Cullen as he lay the chart out across the table. "We should be right about here, above the northern polar position but the interference is quite a bit heavier than I was expecting."

"Heavier than I was expecting too," muttered Kelso as he looked back up at the DRADIS. "Charts said there'd be a nebula formation here, but I didn't think it would be this thick. How long will it take to map out the gravitational eddies in the area?"

"Best guess, it could take us as much as eight hours to accurately chart the gravitational currents in this area," replied Cullen as he too looked up at the screen. "Could take even longer considering we didn't expect Leto's pulsar wind nebula to be this large."

"That's a long time to maintain this position, Theo," sighed Kelso as he glanced over at Cullen. "Even in this soup, it might still be possible for an enemy patrol to get a fix on us."

"Well, Commander, if I may, the more ships we have out there mapping the currents the less time it will take," replied Cullen evenly. "But, we do need to map out those magnetic currents before attempting a descent. Once we slip down inside that nebula, we'll be navigating by dead-reckoning; the last thing we'll want is for one of our ships to get disoriented and drift, it might get caught in one of the eddies and get pulled down towards one of the pulsars themselves. Even if the gravity itself doesn't crush the ship, a gamma flash along the equatorial line will cook anyone aboard in an instant."

"Then we'd better make sure the area gets mapped properly," sighed Kelso as he pondered the implications of even one of their ships falling to such a fate. "Capshaw?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"Advise Proteus to alter the initial mission profile; double the number of Raptors from four to eight, and also advise them to prepare a CAP to cover us while the mission is underway, advise them to contact us as soon as all birds are ready to fly."

"Aye, Commander."

"Theo, go ahead and monitor the mapping mission and start plotting the course down into the nebula periphery," continued Adrian Kelso as he looked back up at the clouded DRADIS display overhead.

"Understood, sir," replied Cullen as he gathered up the chart and headed off towards the larger plot board in the upper gallery.

As Cullen settled in, Adrian Kelso's gaze settled back in on Ensign Cole opposite him at the main plot table.

Her eyes were fluttering a bit as she stood there looking up at DRADIS, drowsy, she caught herself as she began to fall forward slightly towards the plot table.

"You okay, Ensign?" asked Kelso evenly, a slight smirk on his face.

"Yes, sir," snapped Cole, doing her best to shake the grogginess from her expression, though not enough to stifle the yawn that escaped her. "Just a bit tired."

Nodding his head, Kelso looked about CIC. Everyone looked tired, and he doubted he looked much better than any one of them. Nearing the third day of their escape, the adrenaline had long ago worn off; they needed a rest.

"Commander?"

"Yes, Ensign?" replied Kelso as he turned back to her.

"What's the plan of action?"

Groggy as she might be, Kelso doubted Ensign Cole had not heard the conversation with Cullen.

"What do you mean, Ensign?"

"I mean, after we pull into the nebula, sir, what's the plan after that?"

Taking a deep breath, Kelso glanced around again at his tired CIC crew.

"Well, if the Raptors are able to plot us a clear path down within the nebula, we'll move down into the heavier interference and continue the transfer of personnel and supplies we started at our last jump point," began Kelso as he absently reached up and rubbed his aching eyes. "After that…"

Looking across, Kelso could see Cole drifting off again.

Reaching across, Kelso held his fingers a few inches from her face and snapped his fingers, startling her.

Embarrassed, Cole looked across at him rather sheepishly.

"Sorry, Commander."

For his part, Kelso grinned slightly.

"Capshaw?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"Go ahead and advise the fleet; as soon as the Raptors have plotted us a safe route down into the nebula, we'll be holding our position within it for forty-eight hours. When we do, all ship commanders are to start rotating their people for some real rest."

"Aye, Commander."

The relief in Capshaw's voice was as readily apparent as the expression on Ensign Cole's face.

"While I'll be the first to admit that a little rack time sounds good right now, Commander," began Cole even as she fought, in vain, to suppress another yawn. "With the Cylons still out there, is it such a good idea to hang around in one area for so long?"

"The Cylons may be machines, Ensign," began Kelso, smiling slightly. "But we're just plain, simple, tired humans. You can push a man only so far before he begins to break down; as any doctor worth his salt will tell you, coffee and adrenaline can only carry you so far."

Taking a deep breath, Kelso reached up and massaged a kink that was forming in his neck from so many hours spent looking up at DRADIS.

"We need time, and once we're down inside the nebula, the damned Cylons would practically have to fly into us to ever know we were there; good a time as any to get some real sleep, and then take fresh stock of our situation."

Cole nodded.

"Commander, Proteus reports Raptors are up and preparing to commence the survey."

"And the CAP?"

"Six Vipers aloft, starting patrol now, sir. Another twelve are at Ready Five."

"Very well."

With that, Kelso looked up and saw, intermittently through the interference, the icons designating the Raptors and Vipers as they started their separate missions.

"Sometimes the hardest part of war has nothing to do with the fighting itself," began Kelso as he watched the Vipers and Raptors spread out from Proteus. "At least when you're in combat, you're occupied, you have focus on an objective. What is most often forgotten, and what historians seldom seem to ever touch upon is the long hours spent waiting, watching, the stretches of boredom that divide those few moments of sheer terror."

Tired as he was, Kelso could not be sure if he had already said as much over the last couple of days to Cole. If he had already given her the speech regarding the 'boring' side of war, Cole gave no note of it. Indeed, from the expression on her face, Cole was not taking much note of anything, tired as she was. Nevertheless, she began to nod gently a moment later, indicating that at least on some level his words had managed to pierce the fog of her fatigue.

Looking back up at DRADIS, Adrian Kelso took a long, deep breath, felt the slight churning in his stomach of heartburn, and waited.

---

Battlecruiser Enceladus
Raptor recon mission rally point

"Time?" burst Colonel Thadius Runel as he stood watching DRADIS, arms folded.

"Six hours, thirty-three minutes, Colonel," replied Lieutenant Thorpe.

"How many Raptors are still overdue, Lieutenant?" asked Runel as he continued to glare up at DRADIS.

"Three, sir."

Runel took a deep breath; three Raptors, six aircrew.

It was possible they were overdue for any number of reasons; mechanical difficulties with their FTL's, navigational error. It was also just as possible that all three had been discovered by the Cylons and wiped out.

Taking a deep breath, Runel found himself surrendering to that last, terrible likelihood.

Nine Raptors had managed to return safely, though with no news on any more possible survivors. As a soldier, he knew from the get-go that sending the ships out on the recon mission had meant that some of them might not come back.

But still, six crewmen had apparently been lost. And worst of all, he would never know exactly why.

"Advise the fleet to prepare to get back underway, Lieutenant Thorpe," sighed Runel as he looked back up at DRADIS. "We'll hold position for seven more minutes then start the clock for the jump out to Leto's Twins."

"Aye, Colonel."

Silent, Runel continued to watch the ship's chronometer as it continued to tick away the last few minutes, apathetic, unyielding.

"Seven minutes, Colonel," called Lieutenant Thorpe.

Taking a deep breath, Runel resigned himself to the situation.

His six pilots were gone.

"Advise fleet to prepare for FTL jump, Lieutenant," sighed Runel, looking down away from DRADIS.

"Aye, sir, starting the clock, FTL jump in…"

A sudden alarm from DRADIS overhead cut off Thorpe's countdown.

His eyes darting back to the screen overhead, Runel caught sight of a single contact. Within moments, the IFF return designated the craft as one of the overdue Raptors.

"It's Raptor Seven-Two-Three, Colonel," called Lieutenant Thorpe.

"Advise all ships; hold jump," snapped Runel as he leaned in over the plot table, his eyes locked on DRADIS. "Any indications the Raptor has been followed?"

"Negative enemy contacts, Colonel," replied Thorpe a moment later.

"Templeton, raise that Raptor on wireless."

"Aye, Colonel."

"Where was Seven-Two-Three scheduled to recon?" asked Runel as he glanced over to Thorpe.

"Flight plan says Seven-Two-Three was assigned to Sagittaron colony, sir."

"Sir, I've got the Raptor on wireless," called Templeton. "Piping it overhead."

Nodding, Runel listened intently as the overhead speakers crackled to life.

"…say again this is Raptor Seven-Two-Three, I am declaring an emergency."

"Pipe it here, Mister Templeton," snapped Runel as he snatched up the handset on the side of the plot table. "This is Enceladus-Actual to Raptor Seven-Two-Three; what is the nature of your emergency?"

"Be advised, our mission was ambushed by two Raiders," replied the harried voice over the wireless. "Damage to Port engine, primary hydraulics are failing; my ECO is injured and non-responsive."

"Copy condition and situation, Seven-Two-Three," replied Runel as he glanced over at Templeton. "Savitri will have a ready deck upon your arrival."

As Templeton nodded and began dispatching the message to Savitri, Lieutenant Thorpe quickly made his way over to the plot table.

"Sir, Savitri is at the far end of the formation," began Thorpe as he stepped up next to Runel. "It will take them almost three extra minutes to reach her."

"What do you suggest, Lieutenant?" asked Runel, lowering the handset away from his ear.

"He can be on our deck in under a minute," replied Thorpe flatly.

Glancing up at DRADIS, Runel saw that Thorpe was correct; the Raptor was indeed much closer to the Enceladus.

"Advise our hangar deck to make ready for a wounded bird, Lieutenant," called Runel.

Nodding, Thorpe turned and headed back over to the Operations station.

"Enceladus-Actual to Raptor Seven-Two-Three, alter your trajectory for priority landing on Enceladus," began Runel as he lifted than handset back to his ear, his eyes locked on the wounded ship's icon on DRADIS. "We'll have emergency and medical teams standing by for your arrival."

"Copy that Enceladus-Actual."

Hanging up the handset, Runel glanced up at DRADIS and watched as that the Raptor altered its flight path towards Enceladus.

"Lieutenant, you have the conn; I'll be down on the flight deck."

"Understood, Colonel."

With that, Runel turned and quickly headed out the entry hatch, breaking into a run as he stepped out into the main corridor.

---

"Get a fraking extinguisher on that fire!"

As Colonel Runel stepped out into the main hangar deck, he caught sight of literally dozens of deck personnel swarming in around the visibly damaged Raptor caught up in an emergency arresting net. Smoking, smoldering, the Port engine was a wreck, little more than a few fragments still bolted to the craft's frame.

A shower of sparks erupted from the ship's undercarriage as personnel continued to scramble around it with fire extinguishers. With the forward canopy cracked, Runel had trouble making out movement within the Raptor's main compartment.

Another shower of sparks rained down as the sound of the Raptor's main hatch struggling to open echoed out amid the already chaotic cacophony filling the air.

Finally, the hatch came to a stop, barely half open, a pilot emerged, his helmet removed, hair matted, pulling the still form of another pilot out onto the winglet as a medical team surged forward with a stretcher.

Holding off to one side of the hangar space, Runel was anxious to speak with the Raptor crew, but also did not want to get in the way. Finally, the medical team managed to drag the unmoving pilot down off the winglet and placed them on the stretcher as the other pilot scrambled clear, practically falling off the winglet onto the hard deck, dashing away from another cascade of sparks from the wrecked Port engine. As it happened, the man managed to scramble up beside Runel, who reached out and grabbed onto the man.

"Lieutenant!" shouted Runel, as much to be heard over the echoing shouts of the deck gang still working to put out the fire as to get the frantic man's attention.

Looking up, eyes wide in near panic, the man nevertheless clutched onto Runel's outstretched hand and was hauled to his feet.

"Never crashed one before," he muttered absently as he reached up and ran a gloved hand through his matted hair.

"Never mind that, what the frak happened?" shouted Runel as he tried to gently shake the man back to coherency.

Ignoring Runel, the pilot caught sight of the medical team as they worked feverishly on the unconscious Raptor crewmember off to one side of the bay. His face contorting a bit, the pilot suddenly bolted over to them.

"How is she?" shouted the pilot as he stood over the stretcher.

"Shrapnel intrusion in the left chest, third degree burns to her face, arms, neck and leg," snapped one of the medics as he began cutting away some of the unburned portions of the flight suit. "Now get the frak back!"

Collapsing down beside the stretcher, the pilot clutched onto one of the unconscious woman's hands.

"Gods, Janice, I'm so sorry, don't fraking die," he began to cry. "Gods, don't you fraking die, please…"

"She's stable, we can move her," snapped one of the medics. "Let's get her to medical."

As the medics began to lift the stretcher up onto an emergency gurney, one of the medics lashed out and shoved the pilot back, apparently the only way to expediently get the half-sobbing man to let go of her hand.

As they rushed the injured woman out of the hangar bay, the deck crew finally managed to get the showers of sparks and smoldering fires out on the Raptor. For his part, the pilot, stunned, simply sat watching his ECO disappear down the corridor, the medics still frantically assessing her as they raced away.

Glancing over at the Raptor, Runel caught site of the deck chief as he simply gave him a thumbs-up; the fires were out.

Taking a deep breath, Runel turned and quickly stepped over to the pilot. Again reaching down, Runel once again hauled the man back to his feet. Taking hold of his shoulders, Runel turned the pilot to face him.

"Lieutenant?"

The man's gaze was still off down the corridor, even though the medical team had long since turned around a corner at the far end.

"Lieutenant!" snapped Runel, finally getting the pilot's attention. "What the hell happened out there?"

His breathing heavy, ragged, the pilot tried to compose himself.

"We…were ambushed," he began, ripping a glove from his hand, then reaching up to rub his eyes. "Two Raiders from our nine o'clock high..."

Taking another deep breath, the man reached up and unzipped the front of his flight smock, revealing the sweat-soaked undershirt underneath.

"They launched three missiles almost before we realized they were vectoring in on us," he continued. "We launched countermeasures, threw off two, but the third detonated close enough that we took some shrapnel. I was still pulling a wide evasive turn when they opened up on us with their guns, took out our Port engine. We spooled up for our jump when Janice's, I mean, Ensign Krieger's panel exploded."

"If you were running dark, how did they zero in on you?" asked Runel.

Hesitant, the man looked at Runel.

"It was my fault, Colonel," he answered flatly.

"How's that?"

"Ensign Krieger picked up a signal from the surface of Sagittaron," began the pilot, momentarily cradling his face in his hands. "I ordered her to send out a response."

With that, the young man again began to sob lightly.

"Fraking Cylons must have picked up the return signal…"

His anger flaring, Runel snatched the pilot up by his smock lapels and slammed him against the bulkhead.

"Your orders were to maintain strict wireless silence!" snapped Runel angrily. "What the frak gave you the authority to counter my orders and break silence?"

"But the signal, sir, from the surface…," groped the pilot, still half-sobbing. "I felt it was important for them to know they'd been received by someone."

"And how the hell do you know who it was you were signaling in the first place," growled Runel angrily. "For all you know, that was a Cylon ploy meant to trick you into giving up your position so they could ambush you exactly the way they just did."

"Their unit call-sign and encryption came back valid, sir," replied the pilot weakly. "I just thought…"

"No, Lieutenant, you didn't 'think'," countered Runel flatly. "That's the problem, you weren't thinking at all when you replied to that signal."

Letting go of the pilot, Runel took a step back.

"And because of that, your ECO may pay for your mistake with her life."

As he stood there, fuming, Runel caught sight of another medical team as they stepped up to assess the pilot himself. Clearly, they had seen him grab the man up by his uniform, but Runel also clearly did not care.

The man had violated orders, his orders, and a young woman would now likely lose her life because of it.

"Well, I hope it was worth it to assuage your desire to be a hero, Lieutenant," fumed Runel. "Because if Ensign Krieger dies, her death will be on your head. I suggest you remember that the next time you decide to ignore orders."

Tired, grieving, the man suddenly let out a ragged breath, his eyes suddenly rolling backwards as he unexpectedly collapsed into the arms of the medical team.

"Frak, he's been hit too!" shouted one of the medics as she lowered him onto another stretcher. "Intrusion in his upper back; looks like he took some shrapnel as well."

Stunned, Runel looked over at where he had slammed the pilot; there was a streak of blood on the bulkhead.

"Get him to medical," snapped Runel.

Instantly, the medical team began rolling the injured pilot down the corridor.

His eyes momentarily transfixed by the bloodstain on the bulkhead, Runel began angrily shaking his head.

"Frak," muttered Runel as he turned and looked over at the wrecked Raptor. "Chief!"

"Colonel?"

"The pilot said his ECO picked up a wireless signal on Sagittaron, I need you to pull the hard drives for the comm system."

"Easier said than done boss, this ship's a wreck."

"Do what you can, Chief, let me know what you find," replied Runel as he turned and set out for CIC. "Hopefully some good can be salvaged from this mess."

---

Warstar Galactica
Salvage operation of Battlestar Heracles

"Once we managed to cut through the main entry hatches, things went pretty smooth," sighed Chief Copeland as she handed a clipboard over to Commander Sean Kelso.

As he began to flip through the pages on the clipboard, Kelso had to admit that Chief Copeland and her growing army of deckhands had managed to recover an impressive amount of materiel in just a few short hours.

No, 'impressive' was not exactly the right word, 'phenomenal' felt more appropriate.

Yet even as he flipped through and read along each line item, somewhere in the back of his consciousness, a small voice kept reminding him that there had been a terrible price paid, a sacrifice culled in order to provide them with the materiel they now collected.

From the Heracles, there were over thirteen hundred survivors. Nevertheless, nearly eighteen hundred had been lost.

The Anhur had almost twelve hundred survivors. However, nearly double that number had perished aboard her.

Between the two ships, the numbers of Vipers and Raptors recovered, in spite of the total destruction of one entire flight pod aboard Heracles, gave the new Galactica a respectable air wing, even if it was still barely half the full capacity the ship was meant to carry.

But beyond the numbers of men and fighters, the terrible loss of the Heracles and her battlegroup had yielded them scores of supplies, munitions and fuel that the Warstar needed every bit as much. Thankfully, as he had hoped, once emergency power had been restored to Heracles' logistics transfer systems they had manage to move a veritable mountain of vital materiel over to the woefully under-provisioned Galactica.

Taking a deep breath, Kelso set the clipboard down onto the plot table.

"I see we've had no contact with any of the Cylon Centurions that boarded the Heracles."

"No, sir," replied Copeland evenly. "From what we've been able to gather, only a few, maybe four or five, actually managed to push out from the Port flight pod before it exploded. The survivors of the Marine detachment said that two of them made their way up to CIC and assassinated the command staff before they were taken out. The others were stopped trying to penetrate to auxiliary damage control."

"Good damned thing too," sighed Kelso. "If they'd made it there, they could have vented the entire vessel into open space; we'd have found no one left alive."

Pausing, Kelso began lightly drumming his fingers on the plot table.

"Just in case, Major, make sure we have a Marine detail tasked with guarding both fore and aft damage controls as well as the main magazines and fuel storage areas."

"Understood, Commander," replied Major Burke evenly.

"How soon will you have the supplies locked down so we can get back underway, Chief?"

"Within the hour, Commander," replied Copeland.

"Then I won't keep you from your duties any longer, thank you, Chief."

"Sir," snapped Copeland, executing a smart salute, which Kelso casually returned.

As Copeland began making her way back out of CIC, Kelso began absently flipping through the pages once again, his fingers continuing to gently tap on the plot table as he gave the figures another quick once-over.

"I have the final report submitted by our recon Raptor here, Commander," offered Major Burke as she handed a printout to Kelso.

"Go ahead and paraphrase their findings for me," replied Kelso evenly as he continued to look over the manifests compiled by Chief Copeland.

"Crew reported no active contacts at the jump coordinates indicated by the Scimitar's nav computer," began Burke as she glanced over the printout. "The only thing they found was a massive debris field."

"Any definitive identification on the Pacifica or any of the other ships that escaped Sagittaron?" asked Kelso soberly.

"No sir, nothing large enough to identify as such," replied Burke. "Residual debris is consistent with that of a Battlestar-sized vessel and ambient radiation indicates a massive explosion, most likely a large tylium detonation, but nothing to indicate which vessel it might have been."

"No indications of continuing enemy activity in the area?"

"No direct contacts, no, sir."

Taking a deep breath, Commander Sean Kelso digested what Burke had said. While it was clear the Raptor had located the final location of some large destroyed warship, there was no clear evidence that it was Pacifica or any of the other ships that had apparently escaped with her from Sagittaron. However, while he could still arguably hold out hope that his father and the other civilians were still managing to elude the Cylons, he did have to concede that the trail to finding them had gone cold.

Letting out a long sigh, Kelso resigned himself to that fact.

"Do we have our jump out to Leto's Twins plotted, Major," asked Kelso as he continued to peruse the sheets.

"We'll be able to execute the jump as soon as we've severed our docking connections with the Heracles, Commander," replied Major Burke as she stared down at his tapping fingers.

"Since we have the time, go ahead and go back over the calculations one last time with Lieutenant Cortez," continued Kelso as he let the sheets fall back into place and looked up to her. "Those pulsars put out a lot of hash, DRADIS is going to be practically useless once we near the surrounding nebula, so let's make sure the coordinates are as on the dot as possible."

"Aye, sir."

With that, Major Burke turned and headed off towards the upper gallery to retrieve Lieutenant Cortez.

Watching her go, Kelso half-wondering where he stood with Burke after so flatly asserting his authority before. In truth, snapping subordinates around had never been his style of command. Indeed, he'd often been one of the first to mock officers who strutted and preened about, flexing their proverbial command muscle over a subordinate for no other reason than that they could. It was irritating to think that this situation may have put him in a position so outside his norm that he himself may have begun to devolve into such behavior.

Was he trying to put Burke 'in her place' for no reason other than that he was covering up his own insecurities? No, he could not let himself dwell on it, not now, not under the current circumstances.

There could be only one Commander. And like it or not, he was it. She had to accept that or the chain of command might break down at the wrong moment.

The entry hatch to CIC parted, breaking Sean Kelso from his train of thought.

Hesitant, a young officer peered in, unsure, even as the Marine outside motioned her towards the plot table. As he watched, the young woman slowly made her way towards the plot table, looking around in what he guessed was mild awe at the surrounding CIC.

"Major Cassiopeia Lefler, reporting as ordered, Commander," she said as she slowly came to attention beside him.

"At ease, Major Lefler," smiled Kelso as he turned around to face her. "According to Chief Copeland, you are the senior-most surviving officer from the Heracles, is that correct?"

"It would appear so, yes, sir," replied Lefler evenly. "I guess being the Chief Medical Officer, having my work space buried deep within the hull had its advantages."

There was a hint of guilt in Lefler's tone; many of her colleagues had perished, people she had perhaps known for many years. It was the kind of thing that was probably going to be hard for her to cope with as time went on.

For his part, Kelso felt he could understand that feeling.

With Scorpion Shipyards, his post for most of the last twenty years blasted to debris, it wasn't hard for him to conjure up the image of some friend, some colleague that was now just a memory.

"As the last surviving senior officer, there is one task that I want you to assist me with."

"Of course, Commander," replied Lefler evenly.

"Major Burke, you have the conn, continue preparations for getting underway."

"Aye, Commander."

With that, Kelso motioned for Major Lefler to follow as he made his way out of CIC.

---

With the salvage operation all but completed aboard the Heracles, Commander Sean Kelso and Major Cassiopeia Lefler saw only a handful of personnel as they made their way along the deserted corridors of the Heracles. As he led Lefler back into the bowels of the now-lifeless Battlestar, it was not hard to see the questioning look on her face. He had not told her yet why he was bringing her back aboard, and to her credit, she simply continued to follow without question.

"Here it is," said Kelso simply as they stepped out into a long corridor.

Long, actually, did not do the space justice.

The corridor quite literally extended off to the pair's left and right quite nearly beyond their ability to discern.

Every Battlestar, indeed, most every major warship in the fleet had a similar corridor, extending quite literally from one end of the ship to the other; a single corridor used to transfer personnel, bulk supplies, anything that could potentially need to be moved from stem to stern.

Over the years, it had become an informal tradition to dub this main drag with some colloquial name, typically honoring the ship itself in some way. Aboard the Heracles, as designated by the simple hand-made sign, this particular strip was known as the 'Heracles Highway'.

Turning down the long stretch of corridor, Kelso made his way towards a single object that still managed to glint even in the dull emergency lighting.

It was the ship's commissioning plaque. The large bronze plate, emblazoned with the ship's name, hull number, commissioning date and sponsoring Colony had been bolted in place several years before, in plain sight, for all the crew to see and feel pride in.

Perhaps it was inane whimsy on his part, but as a shipwright, a man who had spent years assembling mighty warships like the Heracles, indeed had actually participated in the construction of Heracles herself, he felt it somehow his duty to honor the ship's sacrifice, especially since that sacrifice now allowed the Galactica a chance to continue the fight.

So it was that as he and Lefler stood before the large bronze plaque, Kelso reached into his pocket and pulled out a large spanner wrench he'd snatched up while passing through the hangar deck. Without saying a word, Kelso handed the spanner wrench to Lefler. Looking first at the wrench, then at the plaque, then back over at Commander Kelso, Lefler hesitated for a moment, then simply nodded.

With all the graceful attention of a physician, Lefler began to unseat the corner bolts holding the plaque in place. Taking great care not to mar the surface of the plaque, she slowly, even tenderly removed each of the four bolts.

When she had done that, Kelso stepped forward and helped her tug on the plaque until it came free of the bulkhead, the first time it had done so since the vessel had first been placed into service many years before. The dull 'thunk' of the plaque coming free echoed out along the length of the 'Heracles Highway', as though it were the dying ship's last heartbeat.

Taking off her uniform tunic, Lefler gently wrapped it around the plaque and tucked it up under her shoulder.

Pausing for one last moment, each taking one last look around at the corridor, the two of them then began making their way back to Galactica. As they stepped off the 'Heracles Highway', Kelso understood and was humbled by the knowledge that they would likely be the last human beings to ever do so.

---

"Are we ready to get underway, Major?" asked Commander Sean Kelso as he made his way back towards the plot table.

"Affirmative, Commander," replied Burke as she too made her way back down from the upper gallery. "All umbilical support lines and docking connections have been severed; we are free to navigate."

"Very well," replied Kelso evenly as he stepped up, casting his eyes back to DRADIS. "Have the jump coordinates for Leto's Twins been entered into the system, Mister Cortez?"

"Affirmative, sir," replied Cortez as he made his way over to the FTL station. "The board is showing green, ready to jump on your order, Commander."

"Start the clock, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir, the clock is running, FTL jump in five, four, three…"

As Lieutenant Cortez counted off the few seconds, Commander Sean Kelso's eyes were intently locked on the DRADIS signatures of the Heracles and her shattered battlegroup.

Their death had provided the Warstar Galactica with the chance to avenge them. He had considered ordering the derelict hulls completely scuttled, but in the end had decided against it. In truth, a part of him sincerely hoped the Cylons discovered that not all aboard the shattered Heracles and Anhur had perished, that they had a chance to learn that someone had rescued the survivors and had salvaged the supplies.

He wanted them to know that someone still survived to continue the fight. He wanted them to know someone still remained to seek vengeance for the destruction wrought upon the Colonies. And above all, Commander Sean Kelso hoped that knowledge frightened the hell out of them.

"...two, one, jump!"

In an instant, everything around him, including space itself, seemed to both contract and expand. Perceptions mired in three dimensional awareness were altered, the battle of human sight and sensation grappling with the bending, folding, momentary alteration of the very physics of space.

In an instant, the Battlestar Heracles disappeared.

In an instant, Commander Sean Kelso and the crew of the Warstar Galactica took their next step into the uncharted future.

---

Battlestar Pacifica
Near the twin pulsar formation Leto's Twins

"Contact!" snapped Theo Cullen, his voice cutting through CIC like a searing blade. "DRADIS contact, Commander!"

With a dump of fresh adrenaline coursing into his system, Commander Adrian Kelso looked up at the screen overhead.

Hovering close to the nebula surrounding Leto's Twins, DRADIS was sporadic, but nevertheless, between intermittent flares of interference, one lone icon appeared and began closing in on his small flotilla.

"Action Stations!" snapped Adrian Kelso reflexively.

His eyes never leaving DRADIS, the intermittent signal appearing and disappearing within the soup of the nearby nebula, Kelso mentally conceded after the fact how ridiculous it must have sounded for him to give the order.

Pacifica herself had no weapons, no fighters. Nevertheless, a moment later he heard the overhead warning siren begin to sound.

"Action Stations, Action Stations; set Condition One throughout the ship; this is not a drill," said Theo Cullen as he stood holding a handset to his lips. "All available crew report to emergency damage control stations. Marine detachment; prepare to repel borders."

"Commander, Proteus reports they have broken formation and are turning to intercept the incoming contact," called Aria Capshaw.

"Where's the CAP?" countered Kelso, his eyes never leaving the approaching icon.

"They've already turned to intercept as well, Commander."

---

Pete Townsend sat flexing his fingers around the control stick as he nosed his Viper over towards the closing contact.

Five days ago, he had been lounging on a beach at a Libran resort, drinking ambrosia, lying to a hotel concierge girl about how he was a Caprican business executive on holiday. After spending one hell-of-a night with the young woman at her beachside villa he'd slipped out while she slept and returned to his job at the Sagittaron Reserve Depot.

Now, here it was, five days later, Sagittaron was doubtless entering the early throes of a nuclear winter, the young lady who'd made his toes literally curl with ecstasy as he lay with her was likely dead, and he was sitting in the cockpit of a Viper, turning to engage what was almost certainly a Cylon Baseship.

He half-wished he had another shot of ambrosia there with him in the cockpit.

"Anything to take the edge off," he muttered as he gently adjusted his heading.

"What's that, Pete?"

"Nothing," he muttered, shaking his head slightly.

Without realizing it, he had accidentally toggled his thumb over the wireless transmit button.

Looking over, Townsend saw his wingman holding tight formation off his Port wing.

"You're not losing it over there, are you?" asked his wingman, Joe Newbold.

"Gods, if I were losing it, don't you think this would be about the right time?" muttered Townsend as he glanced down at the hash obscuring his DRADIS. "It's been fifteen years since I took Viper ACM, nine years since I was even in the fraking Fleet, and now here I am in the cockpit of a Viper rolling in on a Cylon Basestar."

"Makes your toes curl, doesn't it?"

"I can think of about a dozen better ways to have my toes curled, Joe," replied Townsend flatly as he once again caught sight of the incoming contact on DRADIS.

---

"Status!" called Commander Adrian Kelso as he leaned in over the plot table, his eyes glued to the intermittent signal.

"Contact remains CBDR with the fleet, Commander," replied Theo Cullen. "So far they haven't launched Raiders, but they are coming in hard at flank speed, sir."

"Where's the Proteus?"

"They've moved into a defensive position midway between us and the contact, Commander, preparing to scramble the rest of their fighters, primary and secondary batteries are deploying for suppressive barrage."

"Cullen, we need to plot an escape jump, fast," snapped Kelso as he kept a keen eye on the obscured DRADIS overhead. "How long to calculate a jump?"

"To where, Commander?"

"Anywhere but here."

"I'll start calculations now, sir," shot back Cullen as he practically jumped up and raced over to the chart on the upper plot table.

"Capshaw, send out recall signal to all our survey Raptors," continued Kelso. "As soon as Cullen has our jump plotted we're getting the hell out of here."

"Aye, sir."

As Capshaw relayed the message via wireless, Kelso stood gently drumming his fingers on the plot table as he watched the unknown contact continue to close in on the Proteus.

"That's a large signature, sir," muttered Ensign Cole. "Do you really think it's a Cylon Basestar?"

"She's not transmitting a Colonial recognition code," replied Kelso as he kept his eyes glued to the overhead screen.

"But why aren't they launching Raiders?"

"With all this DRADIS interference, they might be having trouble getting a firm lock on our ships," said Kelso evenly. "This much hash would play havoc with their Raiders as well, they'll probably hold off launching them until they've closed the distance."

"Won't Proteus have similar problems locking in their counter-battery as well?"

"That they will," conceded Kelso with a slight nod. "But we're not going to stand toe-to-toe with them, we just need Proteus to hold them off long enough to calculate a jump."

"What about our Vipers, sir, what if they get lost in this soup and are unable to return to Proteus before we make the jump?"

"Harsh, terrible reality of combat, Ensign," replied Kelso as he glanced across the table at her. "Sometimes it devolves into a numbers game; we might lose a few pilots, but we need to concentrate on saving the tens of thousands of refugees we're carrying."

Nodding, Cole swallowed hard as she returned her attention to the overhead DRADIS.

"Status of the jump calculations, Mister Cullen?"

---

Warstar Galactica
Near the twin pulsar formation Leto's Twins

"Contact!" called Lieutenant Cortez. "Correction, multiple contacts, Commander."

His attention never having left the DRADIS during the jump, Commander Sean Kelso's eyes searched through the sudden interference clouding the overhead screen.

Sure enough, there they were, nearly two-dozen contacts holding low position near the periphery of the pulsar wind nebula surrounding Leto's Twins.

"Sound Action Stations, Major Burke."

"Aye, sir," replied Burke as she snatched up the handset on her side of the plot table. "Action Stations, Action Stations; set Condition One throughout the ship; this is not a drill. Action Stations, Action Stations; set Condition One throughout the ship; this is not a drill. Section heads report to Combat upon manning of Action Stations."

"Helm, bring us around, all ahead flank, close with the main body of the formation," called Kelso as he continued to watch the contacts on DRADIS.

"That many ships, is it wise to take us in so close, Commander?" asked Burke, keeping her voice low.

"At this range with this much interference, gunnery is going to have a hell-of-a time getting firm target locks, and we don't have the ammo to waste," replied Kelso evenly. "Besides which, bringing the ship up to speed, we'll have a better chance to maneuver if they try to flank or bracket us."

Watching DRADIS as the ship came about and began closing in on the small fleet, Sean Kelso gently drummed his fingers on the plot table.

"Mister Cortez, are you able to cut through the interference at all?" asked Burke as she glanced over to the Lieutenant at his post.

"The radiation from the nebula is playing havoc with DRADIS, Major," replied Cortez evenly. "My guess is that the fleet may be some sort of supply convoy; DRADIS has managed to isolate five capital-grade vessels, the rest are much smaller, possibly transports."

Hearing this, Commander Sean Kelso felt a tingle along the back of his neck.

"Commander, one of the larger ships has broken formation and is closing with us," continued Lieutenant Cortez.

His eyes narrowing a bit, Kelso watched as one of the contacts did indeed turn and begin closing distance with Galactica.

Something did not feel right…

The contact that had apparently turned to engage them was smaller than Galactica, much smaller. More to the point, based on the DRADIS returns, it was not even the largest vessel of its own formation. Why were the Cylons only turning one ship into the attack instead of meeting him with everything they had?

"Lieutenant Cortez, are we picking up any transponder signals from those ships?"

For a moment, Kelso's question hung over CIC. Considering the horrific breadth of the Cylon attack, the idea that other Colonial units might have survived seemed painfully slim at this point.

"Mister Cortez!" snapped Kelso. "Do you detect any Colonial transponders within that formation?"

Spurred by the tone of Kelso's voice, Cortez turned back to his station and began an IFF inquiry.

"They're not running with Colonial Transponders, Commander," replied Cortez a moment later.

Overhead, DRADIS let out another series of low alarms.

"New contacts, Commander!" snapped Cortez. "Multiple inbound, separate vectors, already in the air, by their signatures they could be enemy Raiders."

"Why the frak didn't we detect them when they launched?" shot Burke as she too focused back in on DRADIS.

"The interference must have masked their signatures, Major," replied Cortez. "The signal return is still very weak, but I make six contacts on an intercept course."

Snatching up the handset, Commander Sean Kelso toggled the switch for primary fire control.

"This is the Commander; I need a firing solution for those inbound Raiders."

"Computing fire solution now, Commander."

With the handset poised against his ear, Sean Kelso watched as the Raiders continued to close in. As he waited for fire control to confirm a firing solution, his gaze wandered around the CIC…

And settled on Celia Harris at the Communications console...

Her expression was one of deep concentration as she pressed her headset close to her ear. Glancing back up at DRADIS, Kelso lowered the handset a bit, hesitant, then looked back over at Harris.

"What have you got, Harris?" he finally called out.

Looking up from her console, Harris seemed surprised that Kelso was addressing her.

"I'm picking up traffic on the short range wireless, Commander," she replied.

"You're picking up on the enemy communications?" asked Burke.

"I don't think so, Major," replied Harris, hesitant. "I mean, the communications are scrambled, but they're on Colonial frequencies."

"Fire control to CIC, we have a firing solution," called a voice over the handset in Kelso's hand.

"Standby," he snapped, hanging the handset up a moment later.

Stunned, Burke looked at him from the far side of the plot table. Glaring back at her, Kelso gently shook his head, his expression clear.

Don't you dare say a damned word.

Silent, Burke looked back up at DRADIS as the six small contacts continued to close in.

"Raiders will be on us in two minutes, Commander," she said simply.

Ignoring her, Kelso looked over at Harris.

"Harris, issue a hostile challenge to those ships, give our ident and registry and push their response up on the speakers," said Kelso evenly as he too looked back up at DRADIS.

"Attention approaching vessels; this is the Warstar Galactica; operational registry Whiskey-Sierra-One-Zero-Zero-One; identify yourselves immediately or we will open fire."

---

Battlestar Pacifica
Near the twin pulsar formation Leto's Twins

Commander Adrian Kelso stood looking up at DRADIS, thoroughly stunned.

"I say again, this is the Colonial Warstar Galactica, identify yourselves immediately or we will open fire."

"What the hell is a 'Warstar'?" muttered Cole as she watched the contact continue to close in on DRADIS.

"I guess we're about to find out," muttered Adrian Kelso as he snatched up the handset on the side of the plot table. "Capshaw, advise Proteus to hold their attack and open a channel to that ship."

"You're on, Commander."

"This is Pacifica-Actual, hold your fire, I say again, hold your fire, this is a civilian refugee convoy."

His eyes locked on the DRADIS overhead, handset to his ear, Adrian Kelso waited with baited breath for a reply. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, a voice filtered in through the static being put out by Leto's Twins.

"This is Galactica-Actual."

At the sound of the voice over the wireless, garbled as it was, but nevertheless familiar, Adrian Kelso felt as though his heart had dropped into freefall within his chest, the hand holding the handset to his ear beginning to tremble.

"This is Pacifica-Actual, go ahead, Galactica-Actual," he choked out, a lump forming in his throat.

For a moment, there was no response; was he imagining it, was it really his voice?

"Dad," began the voice on the other end hesitantly. "Is that you?"

As tears began welling in the corners of his eyes, Adrian Kelso tried to wipe them away with his sleeve.

"Sean?" he muttered, his voice choked.

It was his son, and he was alive.

"Sean, thank the gods, is that really you?" continued Adrian Kelso, uncertain, fearful that it still might not be.

"Yeah, Dad, it's me."

As Adrian Kelso fought to contain the flood of emotion washing over him, fought to figure out what to say to the son he had till now thought dead, the old Commander listened as another transmission began filtering in through the speakers overhead.

"My, gods; Townsend to Pacifica, you're not going to believe what I'm looking at out here."

---

Slowly rolling the Viper to Starboard, Pete Townsend sat dumbfounded as he looked out at the massive warship. Although he had never seen anything like her, the ship was undoubtedly Colonial.

"Pete, gods, look at the size of her," muttered his wingman, Joe Newbold. "Have you ever seen a ship that fraking big?"

"I didn't think it was possible to build a ship that fraking big," replied Townsend as he looked down along the long axis of the ship.

"Well I don't know about you, but seeing that ship does make my toes curl," chuckled Newbold.

Chuckling softly himself, Townsend caught sight of the ship's name emblazoned on the flight pod.

"Galactica?" he muttered, reading the ship's name.

"It's like a dream, isn't it, Pete?"

"Yeah," he muttered, still awestruck as he continued his pass along the vessel. "Like a dream."

"Damn, Pete, we might just make it through this mess after all."