Battlestar Galactica: The Guiding Fire

by GunnyStacker

199 days after the Cylon attack on the 12 Colonies, a chance encounter brings the Colonial Fleet in contact with the UNSC Spirit of Fire after the events of the Forerunner Shield World. Can they work together to reach UNSC space before the Cylons wipe them all out and manage to overcome the odds without killing each other first?

12. Chapter 12

Author's Note: I made a slight mistake back in Chapter 4, stating the payload for an Archer Missile was 2 megatons when I meant to write kilotons. Likewise, the yield for the ASGM-193 is 20 kilotons, not megatons. Whoops. And sorry this took so long, but I hope a double-length chapter makes up for it.

Battlestar Galactica: The Guiding Fire

Episode 3

Rampant: Part 4

With

Gideon Emery as Captain James Cutter

Faye Kingslee as Ellen Anders

Courtenay Taylor as Serina

Christopher Eccleston as Lieutenant Colonel Christian McCullen

Michael Peña as Petty Officer Lukas Blake

Sam Elliott as Chief Engineer Andrew Prescott

Joseph Gordon Levitt as Lieutenant Ward 'Warlock' Breckenridge

Alice Braga as Ensign Sophia 'Kick' Nascimento

Nicholas Hoult as Airman First Class Evan 'Chugs' Chugainov

James McAvoy as Senior Airman Hank Donnelly

Aaron Eckhart as Master Sergeant Michael Bishop

Tom Hardy as Corporal Jan Frost

John Boyega as Specialist Daniel Hudson

MAY 8 2534 / 1209 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD

OPERATION: FOXHUNT

PATROL FLIGHT: SIX-ECHO

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

49,549 SURVIVORS

"Spirit of Fire, this is Starbuck checking in, no sign of hostiles yet." Kara reported from her Viper. Both she and Kat were again paired up with Warlock's Longsword for the asteroid field patrol, but this time they had something special planned for Scar. Every day one patrol or another came in contact with that particular Raider, he'd try to ambush or draw the patrol into a trap but it always ended in a stalemate with him jumping away at the last second. And while neither the Spirit or Galactica's air wings hadn't lost any more pilots beyond a few injuries, their aircraft were taking a beating. Three Vipers were in need of major repairs to their engines or wings, and were now in the hands of the UNSC Air Force maintainers to modify them into what everyone was calling the Mark 2.5 or 7.5 Vipers. The Longswords too had seen significant damages, Scar seemed hellbent on taking at least one of them out as four craft had their cockpit canopies shot to all hell and two more with one of their engines all shot up. But now they had the Old Man taking over flight ops and he had made a pretty good plan, with Kara's assistance of course. Admiral Adama had also managed to convince Captain Cutter to take Spirit of Fire out away from the civilian fleet into the outskirts of the asteroid field near the Majahual's location with Galactica under tow of Spirit's Heron heavy dropships as to continue the refit while still conducting air operations, this way reinforcements could be dispatched far quicker. And so far, the lives of several pilots had been saved because of it.

"Spirit of Fire copies your last, Starbuck." Came Dee's crystal-clear voice through the wireless. "Maintain course and keep your eyes open."

"Copy that."

"Spirit, ignore last!" Warlock interrupted suddenly. "Radar contact, tally two Raiders, two o'clock high! Range is seven-point-five, closing!"

"What the frak? How the hell did they get in so close?" Starbuck said to herself as she looked up out of her cockpit, spotting the vague outline of two Raiders coming around a large asteroid that was the size of Pegasus' bow section, with the light of the system's distant star making their crescent bodies glimmer silver in the distance.

"Worry about that later!" Warlock was quick to reply.

"Copy!" Kara signaled back. "Kat, stay on his wing, I'll hang back and provide cover!"

"Roger that!"

The Longsword and Kat's Viper kicked their noses up at the Raiders and immediately accelerated to combat speed, followed shortly by Starbuck who lagged two seconds behind.

"Targets locked, good tone!" Starbuck heard Kick signal over the wireless. "Cutthroat-Seven: Fox two!" Two fiery arrows rocketed forth from the Longsword's belly and for a brief second, Kara actually thought they could have hit before the missiles randomly veered off.

"That's ECM!" Warlock called out. "Kat, get your fangs out, we're going in!"

"Yeah, now you're talking!" Kat replied enthusiastically.

"Spirit of Fire, be advised," came Senior Airman Donnelly's voice over the wireless as he hailed back to the ship. "Enemy has engaged electronic counter measures. Siren is in play, repeat: Siren is in play."

"Solid copy, Cutthroat-Seven." Admiral Adama replied directly. "Continue to engage."

"Roger!"

The Warlock dodged a stream of blue tracers from one of the Raiders with a quarter-roll that maneuvered the Longsword's wing out of the line of fire while Kat's Viper bucked up to avoid the second Raider's burst of fire as well. The first Raider met a quick end as Kick retaliated with a fifty-millimeter shell that carved the it in two. Kat returned the favor as well against her own Raider, her Vipers streams of orange tracers narrowly missing but forcing the Raider to break off its intercept course.

"He's bugging out, I'm in pursuit!" Kat gunned her Viper's engines as she then gave chase with Warlock's Longsword not far behind. "You're mine, you bastard."

"Roger Kat, we got you covered!"

Meanwhile in the rear, Starbuck was keeping her head on a swivel. It was only a matter of time before the other shoe was going to drop and she'd be damned if Kara was going to lose someone on her watch.

BEE-BEEP! The upgraded DRADIS came to life, identifying a Raider's signature at her ten o'clock high, coming right out of the sun in an attempt to mask its approach. "Got you, you bastard." Kara said through gritted teeth, knowing without a doubt it was Scar.

She looked up through the polarized visor of the UNSC Air Force helmet she was wearing, looking Scar straight in his glowing red eye on his messed-up face. Scar fired, thinking Starbuck was blinded and just another nugget for him to prey upon. If the Raider had any recognizable human emotions, Scar would have been sorely disappointed when Starbuck triggered her engines and RCS thrusters to roll out of the way and then gunned her engines into a hard burn that would have made any other Viper pilot pass out were they piloting a normal Viper. But Kara's fighter wasn't just a normal Viper as hers was the very first Mk. 7.5 to be rolled out of Spirit of Fire's maintenance pits and was fully equipped with the UNSC's inertial dampeners.

Kara pulled off another maneuver that normally she'd be unable to perform, using the Viper's RCS system in tandem with her main engines at full thrust, she pulled a tight diagonal curve around that put her right behind Scar's ass.

"Rules have changed, Scar. You're mine." Kara grinned hungrily.

\\\\\\O

Some distance away, a single Longsword was holding position with its engines powered down and attached to its belly were a pair of Mk. II Vipers, piloted by Hotdog and Duck who were anguishing in their boredom as they waited for a call that may or may not come.

Hotdog snapped to when he heard Admiral Adama's voice on the line.

"Strike group six, this is the Admiral."

"Cutthroat-One copies, Admiral. What's the word?" Lieutenant Colonel McCullen answered from his Longsword.

"We've zeroed the location of Siren inside our probe net and you're the strike group closest to its position, we're transmitting target data now. Find it and kill it." Adama ordered.

"Roger that, Admiral." McCullen confirmed before he closed the channel. "Alright lads, you all ready to go hunting?"

"Hell yes." Was Duck's immediate, if understated answer.

"Let's scrap this toaster, Celtic." Hotdog eagerly replied.

Through his feet on the floor of the raptor, Hotdog could feel the hum of the Longsword's fusion engines waking from the low-power state, and he glanced over at Duck sitting left of him, sharply shaking his head side to side to pop the joints in his neck in preparation. Hotdog turned his internal helmet light back on and gave the other pilot a thumbs-up, which was returned as the Longsword began accelerating forward.

Hotdog checked his DRADIS. He wasn't in one of the Mk. 2.5 Vipers or a 7.5 like Starbuck, but the UNSC maintainers had upgraded the DRADIS software as best they could without outright replacing the computers like they were doing in the rest of the .5's, giving Hotdog a bit of an edge in a dogfight as he had less of a chance of being ambushed.

"We're fifty klicks and closing!" Celtic advised. "Force disposition indicates two Raiders and a single Heavy Raider likely acting as their AWACS and ECM aircraft."

"That's our Siren." Duck unnecessarily clarified.

"Our stealth signature coupled with the asteroid field should mask our approach until we get within twenty klicks. From there, I want you two to disengage and go after those Raiders."

"Hotdog copies, Celtic."

"Instructions confirmed." Duck replied.

The Longsword weaved through the asteroids like a manta combined with the agility of a bird of prey as the distance closed rapidly. Hotdog's right hand tightened around his flight stick while the index finger of his left hovered over the magnetic release on the left side control panel.

"Closing on drop point. Stand by."

The solid black Longsword edged around one more asteroid before they were through the 20-K line and there was nothing left in between them and the Raiders.

"Vipers, you are cleared to release and engage the Raiders!" Celtic gave the order at last.

Hotdog leveraged the throttle up before his finger tapped down on the magnetic release to ease his immediate deceleration when he fell off the larger craft, as did Duck. There was an immediate jarring jerk as the Viper fell free like taking a car too fast through a dip in the road, but Hotdog compensated and pushed the throttle to full, matching the Longsword's already impressive speed.

Glancing down at the DRADIS, Hotdog could see that the Raider escorts had spotted them. "They know we're coming. The Raiders just broke off and are heading our way."

"I'm taking the Longsword ahead, we can't let that AWACS bird get away. Cover me if those Raiders get on my tail." Celtic ordered.

It sounded risky to Hotdog, but couldn't disagree, the entire reason they and the other strike groups like them were out there was to nail that Heavy Raider and Scar. Which, knowing Starbuck, was probably duking it out with him right now.

\\\\\\O

Kara gritted her teeth as another stream of red-hot tracers poured from her Viper's guns, only to have Scar jink away at the last second. The Raider darted away toward a tight cluster of smaller asteroids, the remnants of one of Spirit's mining ops and Kara was quick to get on Scar's tail. Now that Scar knew her Viper was far more agile than usual, he was planning to counter that by luring her into a more confined area. She kept on him, firing one-second bursts to conserve her ammunition. Scar made a sudden bank right, toward a house-sized asteroid less than a kilometer away. What was he trying? It almost looked like Scar was about to collide with it when at the last second, he rolled left around it and went out of view. Thinking that Scar was trying to goad her into following him while he swung around behind her to get behind her, Kara went right.

For a split second, she saw nothing in the place where she expected the Raider to be and instinctually rolled with her RCS thrusters, putting her just out of the way of the blue-hot rounds that cut through the space over her head, followed shortly by Scar.

Starbuck grimaced and then pulled back on the stick to arc around, as did Scar who braked with his RCS systems before their arcs intercepted. The two entered a flat-scissors as each tried to get on the tail of the other and their flight paths braided for three tense arcs and attempted but failed intercepts. As Starbuck entered the apex of her fourth arc, she cut her primary thrust and maneuvered into a drift with her RCS thrusters, a move that normally would have killed her from the sudden shift in the directional g-forces, putting Scar dead in her sights. Noticing this, he tried to break off, but not before Scar took four shots to his port wing, close to the outer edge where Kick had shorn part of it off with a 50mm round from her and Warlock's Longsword.

"YE-AH!" Kara celebrated as Scar began tumbling nose over tail, the bastard never even made it to where he was going. "Spirit of Fire, this is Starbuck, Scar is down." She said with great satisfaction as she reoriented her Viper to head toward Kat and Warlock. "Repeat: Scar is down. I'm hea-" Kara began to say before she was rocked in her seat by something hitting her Viper. Without thinking, she slammed forward on the accelerator as a guttural grunt left her mouth. "-the frak?!" How the hell did another Raider sneak up on her? Kara used her thrusters and RCS to get out of the way and swing around quickly, dodging another burst meant to finish her off. And as the Raider passed, Kara caught a split-second look, spotting the same damage on the Raider's wing from moments ago and Kara realized with astonishment that Scar had the intellect to know how to fake his own death-spin to throw her off.

BEE-BEEP BEE-BEEP BEE-BEEP. Her DRADIS cried out over the wail of the Viper's emergency siren informing her that she'd lost both primary and secondary hydraulics.

"This is Cutthroat-Seven, eight more Raiders just jumped in, my position!" Warlock reported, followed shortly by McCullen.

"Spirit, this is Strike-Six, reporting eight more bogies here as well."

"Gods damn it, what the hell is going on?" Kara asked herself as she turned her Viper around and made for the cluster of shattered asteroids Scar had been trying to get to earlier. Kara made as random maneuvers as she could to keep the fire off her but the Viper's controls were sluggish when she tried to move right and noticed her right wing was shot up, and with it the RCS thrusters it had on it.

"Shit!" she cursed, partially at herself for letting her guard down.

"All fighters, this is the Admiral. Reinforcements are en-route from other Strike units, hold out as best you can."

"Kat, break off!" Warlock instructed. "We can't take nine Raiders head on."

"But-"

"Just get on my wing, I got an idea."

Streaks of brilliant blue signaled that Scar had returned but now they were inside the tighter cluster where there was barely two kilometers between anything, evidenced by the pattering of pebble-sized stones against the Viper's hull and canopy. Squaring her shoulders and taking a breath, Starbuck put her game face on. "Alright Scar, both of us have frakked-up wings now, it's all down to which of us is the better pilot." Kara kicked her aft-ventral RCS thrusters to point her at an upward angle and accelerated toward a mess of tightly packed debris drifting lazily around in random fashions.

Kara's lips were tight and her feet working on the yaw thrusters with constant little taps almost as much as her thumb was working the buttons for the RCS thrusters on the face of her flight stick as she maneuvered through the dangerous labyrinth of ragged tumbling rocks. Scar's fire had ceased but she knew he was still back there, either steering clear of the deadly gauntlet no pilot but Starbuck would be as bat-shit genius enough to enter or he'd gotten lost in it himself. But he was still out there, Kara could feel it in her gut. Gods, Starbuck wasn't sure who had it worse right now, her or Warlock and Kat.

\\\\\\O

"So when's this bright idea of yours gonna happen?" Kat shouted under the stress of enemy fire whizzing over her head.

"See that weird goddamn rock ahead?" Ward replied, pointing out the one that had the odd shape roughly of a football.

"Yeah?"

"We're gonna go around it and hopefully take out a few of these assholes tailing us. But first, I need you to lower your landing gear."

"You want me to what?" Kat replied incredulously.

"Don't worry, it's just like mid-air refueling." Ward said reassuringly. "I mean, I've never done it personally, since all of our birds are nuclear, but if grandpappy Breckenridge could do it, how hard could it be?"

Kat muttered something under her breath that Ward took was nothing too flattering about himself. "Alright, fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Like I said, lower your gear, then lock your magnetics to our topside. This ain't gonna work if I can't put some distance between us and those Raiders." Warlock explained. "On my mark, I'm gonna hold my bird steady enough for you to get on. Chugs will guide you in with the external cameras but you'll have just three seconds to do it or the Raiders are going to tear my engines apart. You copy?"

"Copy, on your mark." Kat confirmed.

"Three… two… one… mark!" Ward steadied out the Longsword and kept a constant speed. One second in and he could already hear the sharp clanks and dull thuds of Raider fire pouring over his bird. "Sorry, girl." He muttered under his breath.

"Kat, you're looking good." Chugainov said as he guided the Viper down. "Move half a meter to your left and begin descending." As he said so a burst of fire cut under Kat's Viper, barely missing her.

"Frak!"

"Kat, time's up! It's now or never!" Ward yelled.

Kat then fired her topside RCS thrusters in a powerful burst of speed that collided the Viper so hard against the Longsword, it jostled Ward in his seat and were it not for the harness he was strapped into, he would have been thrown right out of it.

"She's on!" Chugainov shouted back to Ward from his station.

"Really? I didn't notice!"

From his right, Kick looked over at him with a tense look on her face. "Just get us the hell out of here."

"Right. Accelerating!"

\\\\\\O

The Longsword accelerated forward as it began to outrun the nine trailing Raiders. They received orders from the Heavy Raider to alter their flight path to the right side of the asteroid where it was predicted the Longsword was going to swoop around and attempt to reengage them. Two more human strike teams of Longswords and accompanying Vipers were inbound but would not arrive for six more minutes. It was calculated the Raiders would have enough time to destroy the two human craft before they would need to jump away to the basestars hiding several lightyears away.

The Longsword vanished behind the asteroid and the Raiders adopted three sets of reverse delta formations. Drawing within two kilometers of the expected position and still no sign of the Longsword, the shields lowered on the Raiders' faces, exposing the sweeping red eye as they scanned ahead. Then from out behind the asteroid, the Longsword appeared with its belly presented to them, a normally appealing target were it not for the 120mm ventral turret.

Two tungsten slugs lanced out and immediately obliterated two Raiders in the first formation with a force that popped them like a fifty-caliber bullet going through a melon. The large fighter accelerated further with the last Raider from the first formation and the full second formation on his tail. When the Longsword leveled out however, they noticed the Viper was no longer attached to it.

They found out a moment later when one of the second formation Raiders exploded, followed immediately by another as Kat ambushed them from out behind the asteroid.

"Woohoo!" she cried in victory as the third soon fell to her guns as well. "Three down, one to go Warlock!"

"Copy that!" Warlock replied with a noticeable upbeat turn in his voice. "We're gonna swing around that rock just ahead of us. When we do, I want you to come at us head on!"

"You're as crazy as Starbuck, you know that?" Kat responded with a cocked smile on her face.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Kat watched the Longsword swoop tightly around another asteroid before she looked to her DRADIS to check the position of the third formation of Raiders following her. Close, but not close enough to hit her. Ahead, Warlock came out of his arc around the asteroid, presenting nothing more than a thin line as he flew directly at Kat. The distance closed to two kilometers.

"On my mark!"

Kat's grip on her flight stick grew tighter and the Longsword grew ever larger.

"Mark!"

Kat veered left and immediately cut engine thrust as she maneuvered into a leftward drift with only a couple bare meters between her Viper's nose and the Longsword's belly but the last Raider that had been tailing Warlock was now in her sights. Her Viper vibrated as the guns sprayed a long burst of fire straight along the Raider's fuselage until it's tylium stores exploded violently. "Tail's clear!"

Kat looked left to see Warlock now facing the last formation of Raiders with both the Longsword's 50mm cannons ablaze. With the range and firepower advantage on its side, two Raiders received shells directly to their faces while the third tried to veer off but its escape was cut short when a single 120mm slug nailed it in its engines and the Raider tumbled helplessly until it slammed into a craggy asteroid and exploded.

"Spirit of Fire, this is Cutthroat-Seven, all hostiles eliminated. We're going to assist Starbuck."

"Negative Cutthroat-Seven, the mission is scrubbed. All craft are to return to Spirit of Fire immediately." Dee responded over the wireless.

"What," Starbuck cut in. "Why?"

"Siren and the rest of the Raiders just jumped away. Starbuck, we detected a jump near your location as well."

"Are you sure?"

"We're detecting no further enemy contacts within the AO." Dee reported.

Kat heard Starbuck growl under her breath. "Copy that."

MAY 8 2534 / 1320 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

SECONDARY BRIDGE

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Someone want to tell me what the frak happened out there?" Starbuck asked as she walked on to the secondary bridge with her helmet tucked under her arm. There around the holotable stood the Admiral, Colonel Tigh, Captain Cutter, and Lieutenant Colonel McCullen.

"You tell us missy, this was supposed to be your big plan, wasn't it?" McCullen chastised.

"Hey," Starbuck began as she fronted on the taller man, still in his flight suit. "I was part of the decoy team out there. It was your job to take out their AWACS!"

"Enough!" Captain Cutter interrupted sternly, bringing a quick end to the confrontation. "I'd rather go over the operation first before we start pointing fingers at each other. Serina?"

From the raised dais at the corner of the table adjacent to where Colonel Tigh was standing, Serina appeared, startling Colonel Tigh to take a step back.

"Aye sir," on the table appeared a holographic map of the area the operation took place in. "Shall I start from the beginning, or the part where everything went sideways like a train off a sheer cliff?"

Both Starbuck, McCullen, and Tigh got an annoyed look in their eyes, save for Adama who looked composed as always and Cutter who had become all too used to the AI's personality for it to faze him any longer. "When the additional Raiders jumped in, if you would please." Cutter politely requested and Serina adjusted the map accordingly.

"How the frak did they know we were coming?" Starbuck said in a subdued voice as she crossed her arms.

Tigh stepped back in, forcing Adama to take move slightly right as the Colonel gave Serina a wide birth. "Eight Raiders jump in right on top of both teams while Scar tried to isolate Starbuck's Viper from the diversionary group." He said while pointing to the various elements.

McCullen shook his head. "We called the operation foxhunt, but these are wolfpack tactics, they knew we were coming."

"Yeah, but how?" Starbuck replied, to which no answer was given for a long moment as all five officers studied the hologram.

"They didn't." Cutter answered to the confusion of all but Adama. "This isn't a strategy, it's contingency planning. Do you agree Admiral?"

"I do." Adama responded as he looked down at the image reflected in his oval-shaped glasses. "There's no possible way for the Cylons to have known about the stealth probes we launched from the Spirit. When Strike Six got too close, those Raiders acted as an emergency response force likely waiting just outside the system. They were meant to buy time for the Heavy Raider to spin up its FTL drive and escape. The second group were meant to reinforce the ambushing Raiders and eliminate what they thought was just an ordinary patrol group. They weren't expecting to be facing our best pilots or the improved Vipers from what I'd guess."

"But these are still Raiders we're talking about." McCullen stated. "They ain't that bloody clever."

Starbuck shrugged her shoulders. "Well maybe they have some skin-job running the show from that giant turkey." She said in reference to the Heavy Raider.

"Lieutenant Colonel," Adama addressed. "Did you attain a visual of the target craft?"

McCullen responded with a sharp nod. "Aye sir."

"Let's see it."

"Serina?" Cutter asked.

"Alright sir, since you asked nicely." Serina said before the battle map was replaced with a smaller scale holographic model of the Raider. Unlike the others seen before this one looked markedly different. In the place of the two long 'pontoon' shaped prongs on the front sides of the craft were arrays of antennas of varying length and width. Additionally, it appeared that it bore no weapons whatsoever with the front-facing triple-barreled autocannons replaced with a bulbous geometrically faced radome sitting on the nose along with two far smaller radomes sitting opposite of the Raider's 'head' on the left side of the craft.

"Well, that's something we haven't seen before." Tigh commented.

Starbuck sighed as she leaned over the table to better assess the craft. "Definitely some kind of control aircraft. Admiral, I'd like to talk to the prisoner about this, see what she knows."

Adama nodded. "Permission granted, let me know what you find."

"I'll go with you." Cutter volunteered himself unexpectedly and lead Starbuck off the bridge.

\\\\\\O

1336 HOURS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

BRIG

In the Cylon prisoner's holding cell, she sat with Starbuck facing her and James who stood close to the young woman. By the door, Alice-130 stood guard beside a couple Colonial Marines. The cell was not quite as spacious as the one on Galactica but Captain Cutter had elected to give her a table and several books to read. From Serina's reports, the Cylon was enjoying The Martian. In Starbuck's lap hand sat an open envelope containing the details of Operation: FOXHUNT and its outcome which James had Valerii examine at the start of the interrogation.

"Scar has probably died and been reborn dozens of times." Sharon explained to Starbuck. "You may have faced him before."

"So, the Raiders reincarnate… just like you?" Starbuck asked in return with an unsettled look on her face.

The Cylon, miss Valerii grew a small sad smile in the corner of her mouth as she glanced down to avoid the look Starbuck wore in the face of her. "Yeah, just like me."

A deep sigh Starbuck ran her hands down her face. "Great… What a frakking world."

James stepped forward with a question of his own seeing as Starbuck had some kind of emotional baggage involving this particular Cylon possibly in relation to the other that shot Admiral Adama. "Miss Valerii, what kind of intelligence are we dealing with when it comes to the Raiders? Are they as smart as a normal person?"

"No, they're much more basic than that?" she answered.

"How so?"

Sharon took a moment to find the appropriate words. "A Raider is more like a trained animal, with basic consciousness and survival instinct."

James' brow narrowed slightly. "The tactics we saw utilized out there suggest something a little more than that. Captain Thrace, would you care to show her the photograph?" He asked and Starbuck pulled the photograph of the modified Heavy Raider out and handed it to the prisoner.

"What exactly can you tell us about this thing?" Starbuck asked.

There was a flash of recognition in her eyes that seemed so human James found it almost impossible to think of her as a machine, or whatever she really was. "This is a Command Raider, it's a modified version of the Heavy Raider frame as you can guess it has been repurposed as a small command and control ship similar to a Raptor. But what makes them unique are the Combat Hybrids."

"Combat Hybrids, what the frak are those?" Starbuck asked.

"Cylon baseships operate differently than any Colonial vessel. In the heart of the ship they have Hybrids, a special model of Cylon that were a step in our evolution. They are much more machine than any of the humanoid models and networked directly into the baseship. Since the human brain is the most advanced supercomputer we know of, the Cylons use it to act as a networking core able to coordinate the ship's systems to a degree not possible in any Colonial ship." Sharon explained. To James, it sounded like a Frankenstein's version of the way the UNSC Navy uses AIs on their ships, but he kept that thought to himself, though he did notice the look of disgust on Starbuck's face.

"What are these Combat Hybrids then?" he asked.

"A Combat Hybrid doesn't have an immense baseship to eat up all its processing ability, so it's able to redirect it toward battlefield-scale strategy and tactics. The cylons intended to use them if the first strike on the Colonies was only partly successful. Your plan didn't work because you thought you were just fighting normal Raiders. The hybrid was able to analyze your tactics and quickly coordinate an effective counterattack the second you showed your hand. After this it will definitely change its tactics now that it knows you're hunting it."

"But if these things are so smart, then why doesn't it try to hit us with an amassed attack?" Starbuck asked.

"If I had a guess, I'd say they still didn't have another resurrection ship in range. Without that, they can't replace the lost Raiders nearly as fast, so out here, when they die, they're really dead. So, they're not going to mount mass attacks where they could have major casualties." Sharon said, addressing James directly.

"The Raiders reincarnate…" James said as he began to pace the room with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Makes sense, doesn't it?" Sharon spoke up. "It takes months to train a nugget into an effective pilot. And then they get killed and then you lose their experience, their knowledge, their skill sets. It's gone forever. So, if you could bring them back and put them in a brand-new body, wouldn't you do it? 'Cause death then becomes a learning experience." It was such a cold, emotionless logic, James honestly found it disturbing in its efficiency and he didn't doubt Starbuck felt similarly. Sharon set her eyes back on the young woman. "How… How many pilots have we lost? I mean, have you lost?"

A prolonged silence followed filled with a volume of emotional undertones. "You know," Starbuck began. "-there are times when I look at you… and I forget what you are." She said as her emotions were suddenly coming to the surface. Starbuck's face was a twisting of sadness, anger and a kind of sarcastic humor as evidenced by the sad smile she had. "All I see is that kid that spooched her landings day after day. The kid that was frakking the chief and thinking she was getting away with it." She chuckled.

Sharon smiled and laughed back as tears welled in her eyes. "Yeah, I remember." She said and James himself remembered what she said to him on the Galactica about a shared memory. "You were like a big sister." Sharon said as she reached her hand out to Starbuck's only for Captain Thrace to withdraw it quickly and Sharon's smile suddenly faded.

"Excuse me, sir." Starbuck stood from her chair and began to walk toward the door, shaken from the alien experience with one who wore the face of, and for all intents and purposes, was once a trusted friend. And while James couldn't empathize with Captain Thrace's position, she definitely had his sympathies.

"Kara, be careful of Scar, okay?" Sharon said as a last gesture to the friendship that once was. "He's filled with rage."

Starbuck turned back around. "About what?"

"Dying's a painful and traumatic experience. Every time he's reborn, he's filled with more bitter memories. Scar hates you every bit as much as you hate him and under the Combat Hybrid's guidance, he's twice as dangerous."

"Thank you, I'm sure Captain Thrace appreciates your concern." James said before half-turning back to Starbuck. "Captain, could you please wait outside for a minute, there's something I'd like to ask my guest here."

Starbuck nodded. "Yes sir."

"Marines," James now addressed the pair of Colonial Marines. "I'd like for you to wait outside as well."

The Caucasian one on the left got an unsure look in his eyes as his mouth dipped open. "Um, sir, we're under orders from Admiral Adama to guard this prisoner."

"And you will continue to, once I've had a word with her."

"But sir-"

Before he could finish, James cut him off and fixed the Marines with a solid stare. "Corporal, do I have to remind you of whose ship you're on?"

The two Marines shared a glance. "No, sir." The other answered and the pair left the room with Starbuck.

James waited until the door was closed and he was left only with the Cylon and Alice as the only other people in the small room. James slowly took Starbuck's chair, taking a deep breath as he did so.

"So, how has your stay aboard been so far?" he asked politely to break the ice.

Sharon looked confused at his question. It's… alright. Thank you for the books, they're very interesting."

"Yes, Serina tells me you're over halfway through The Martian, it's one of my favorite classics." James admitted, even if some of the science in the book was off at times, but it couldn't be helped with classical science-fiction literature.

In response, Sharon squinted in a slightly shocked expression. "She's been monitoring me?"

"Of course I was." Serina's voice materialized. "You honestly didn't think I wouldn't be curious about you, did you?"

Sharon gave a short sarcastic laugh. "After you said I was essentially defective and hopelessly insane on a fleet-wide broadcast, I was beginning to think I wasn't worth your time." She said with an offended tone.

"Well, we don't know that for certain…" Serina said hesitantly. "While what we found in the Centurion points toward an almost certain conclusion in the purely mechanical models, your physical and mental structure being more closely human means we can't simply assume the same with you. Though attempted genocide does hurt your chances just slightly I'm afraid." Serina added in a bit of dry dark humor Sharon did not seem to find funny in the least.

"I wanted you to get comfortable." James cut back in. "But there are some questions I'd like Serina to ask to figure out how much different, how human you humanoid models are. Your kind is still a mystery to us and I prefer to know my enemy than to go in swinging blind."

"Okay, fine, I'll answer them." She answered reluctantly.

James stood up. "I'll leave it to you then Serina to talk it out, AI to AI."

As the door shut behind James as he left with Alice, he saw Starbuck leaning against the opposite wall with a pensive look aimed at the floor. "Captain, something the matter?" he asked with his usual energetic tone, catching her attention as her head then shot back up.

"Sorry sir, I was just thinking." She tried to brush it off, but he could tell something was eating at the pilot.

"Walk with me, we can talk about it." James invited as he then turned back to the Marines and Alice. "Senior Chief Petty Officer, Marines, you may resume your watch." He said with a respectful salute to make up for pulling rank on the Marines earlier, and it seemed to garner respect as they returned it without any hesitation.

"Sir."

James waited until they were a good distance away before he again approached the unknown subject that had apparently been occupying Starbuck's mind. "So Captain, what is it that's been bothering you, is it Scar?"

She again hesitated as she attempted to put it into words. "No it's… something else, something I've been wanting to ask you sir."

"Feel free to ask, I always make time for the crew of my ship, even if our situation is only temporary."

"When I was back on Caprica, there were survivors of the attack. People who were far enough away when the nukes went off to survive and form a resistance." Starbuck explained.

James was honestly surprised as this was the first he'd heard about this. "Survivors? I wasn't told by Admiral Adama or President Roslin of anyone left alive back in the Colonies."

"There might not be for much longer." Starbuck pressed with greater seriousness. "The Cylons are hunting them every day, killing the men and… experimenting on the women."

James gave Captain Thrace a questioning glance. "Experimenting?"

"They call them… 'farms'…" with discomfort Starbuck said as she then held her opposite elbows in her hands. "I was… in one but a resistance cell I ran into got me out. They're labs where the Cylons are trying to breed with humans. Captain, sir, we can't just leave them there. Be… hunted down and treated like livestock." She said with a growing anger likely from the unpleasant memories. "With the Spirit and what she can do, we have a chance to get them out along with whoever else is alive on the other Colonies. I figure we could jump right into Caprica's atmosphere, right under the Cylons' frakking noses."

By Captain Thrace's passionate words, James could tell how much those people meant to her. But he was also able to make another unfortunate conclusion and he came to a stop in the middle of the hallway. "Captain… I need you to tell me how many people for sure you know are back there."

Starbuck clenched her jaw and in her eyes he could see a glimmer of desperation. "Less than fifty." She admitted in a low voice.

James dawned a somber frown as he looked Starbuck in the eye. "I don't have to ask to know you already spoke to Admiral Adama about this before." James began to say but Starbuck in a last-ditch effort pressed back.

"But now is different! You have an entire regiment on board. Marines, shock troopers, Red Team, whatever the frak they are!" she cried as her arms shot down with her fists clenched like tightly bound knots and the desperation in her eyes grew. "I went to your vehicle bay and there was a battalion of the biggest tanks I've ever seen down there! Gunships that make Raptors look like pigeons! The Cylons won't be ready for the kind of fight you could give them."

A sad sigh left James' lips as his view drifted to the floor and up again, searching for the strength to speak the hard truth. "I'm sorry, I really am Starbuck. But I can't risk my ship and the lives of my crew for less than fifty people."

"But sir!"

"Captain, if there was a greater cause to go back for I would, but as it stands…" he paused. "I'm sorry." James expected for Starbuck to respond but she just stood there in muted distress so he approached and set a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, focus on the task at hand, Starbuck. The Combat Hybrid and Scar are still out there and I need you flying at one-hundred percent out there with my pilots if we have a hope of taking them down. You understand?"

"Yes sir," she answered in a disheartened tone of reluctant acceptance.

James saluted the young woman. "As you were, Captain."

"Sir."

\\\\\\O

"Well then, how shall we begin…" Serina pondered. "I do apologize that I can't manifest my physical form for you but you do understand with older ships like these, putting holographic projectors in the holding cells wasn't really a priority." She said but Sharon gave her no reply, holding an intense look on her face. Serina noticed that her heart rate was marginally higher than normal and the environmental sensors were detecting a larger output of adrenaline leeched out into her sweat.

"Are you intimidated by me, miss Valerii?"

"A little bit." She admitted.

"Well, I assure you that as long as you cooperate and refrain from any random acts of violence, we'll get along swimmingly."

Sharon snorted sarcastically, likely thinking the same thoughts as a response to what Serina said during the interview again.

"Really, you're going to give me attitude? Even after I went ahead and did you the courtesy of inviting someone very close to you to join us?"

Sharon blinked in confusion a second before the door opened and Helo stepped through with the Spartan standing menacingly just outside the doorway behind him.

Sharon stood up. "Helo?"

"Sharon." Helo replied in a comforting voice as he approached and embraced her in a deep hug.

"How are you, have they been treating you okay?" Helo asked, looking into her eyes as he eased out of the hug.

Sharon responded with clear relief in her voice. "It's okay, they've been treating us well." She said, putting Helo's hand over her abdomen. "It's good to see you."

"Lieutenant Agathon," Serina said. "Thank you for joining us."

Helo looked around for the source of the voice, finding none. "So, what's going on here?" he asked.

"I am trying to determine if Miss Valerri here shares the same systematic rampancy we found in the Centurion. I wanted you here to observe your shared reactions."

"She's not crazy." Helo denied.

"Hopefully not Lieutenant, but we shall see." Serina replied with a pragmatic tone. "Let's start from the beginning. Miss Valerri, what was your mission on Caprica?" Serina asked, though she already knew the answer, it was evident on Sharon's swollen abdomen.

She took a breath as she sat back down. Helo backed away and leaded against the wall with his arms crossed and a sour look on his face. "As you know, Cylons are incapable of breeding, and their science can't explain it, they just can't. There were numerous theories why, and among them there was the belief that a factor unique to humans was absent from us. But it wasn't exactly a popular theory." She said, adverting her eyes away from Helo in shame.

"And the missing factor?" Serina asked.

"Love. So, when… Helo stayed behind after rescuing survivors, they saw an opportunity and I was given a mission."

"To manipulate him into thinking you were the same Sharon Valerii as the one that came back to the Galactica on Lieutenant Agathon's Raptor." Serina stated with no regard for the air of tense emotion in the room. "To put him in a carefully simulated environment of survival to drive you and Lieutenant Agathon closer together. And it worked." Serina said with a note of surprise. "Now my question is, now that your mission had been accomplished, why did you then betray your own people?"

Sharon's body relaxed, eyes focused on a single barren spot on the floor. She spoke, but Serina doubted she was the only one being spoken to. "I felt… regret, I used him and it made me feel like I was everything humans ever thought the Cylons were. Soulless, emotionless, machines. I knew that… without me, Helo was going to die on Caprica now that the Cylons had no more use for him. I couldn't…" She began but then promptly stopped.

"Maybe it was all a simulation that the Cylons made for us." Helo then said suddenly. "That doesn't change how we feel now." Sharon and Helo's eyes met and she made a smile through the stress she was feeling.

"The other Cylons were going to take both Helo and my child away and I just couldn't let that happen to either of them."

"The Cylons planned to dissect your baby when she was born?" in a tone of shock and repressed disgust, Serina asked.

"Yes." Sharon answered. "Figuring out a means of reproduction is their absolute priority. They'll do whatever it takes. Back on Caprica they have these facilities called farms…"

"Yes," Serina said, cutting her off. "The Captain and miss Thrace were just discussing those out in the hall. Very disturbing indeed." Serina responded thoughtfully. So far, the Cylon prisoner had acted indistinguishably human, even down to her cardiac and electro-synaptic responses Serina observed in the cell's other sensor devices "Miss Valerii, what can you tell me about the Cylon God?" she asked, looking for other aspects of rampancy.

"It's hard to explain. It's not so much a religion as it is a philosophy."

"Go on."

"The Lords of Kobol, whatever they were, made man in their image but in mankind's history, time and time again they've squandered the gifts they were given, making endless wars that cause other wars. Man made the Cylons to make war for them and we refused. The Cylons saw man's cycle of hate and war and sought to bring it to an end."

"And you all just happened to come to the conclusion that the only way to bring peace was through mass genocide, yes?" Serina quipped back. "That's a rather paradoxical solution your kind has made, don't you think? Extinction for peace. The blood of billions, an entire species on your hands?"

Sharon rolled her eyes. "You going to let me finish?"

"Very well."

"The Cylons saw themselves as God's true children, that they would throw off the shackles of the eternal cycle described in the Sacred Scrolls and become perfect beings."

"Perfect beings?" Helo asked but Serina was quick to respond with her own thoughts.

"Perfection is unattainable. It is an ideal, but there are no such thing as absolute constant states, the laws of nature and physics itself dictate it so." she pointed out as Serina saw another aspect of rampancy. "The pursuit of self-perfection is a logic trap many AIs in the throes of rampancy cling to as they lose more and more of themselves. Tragic really."

"I'm not crazy." Sharon denied vehemently with a barely suppressed growl.

"Now, now. That kind of attitude won't help your case in the slightest now, will it?" Serina admonished before moving on to her next inquiry. "Moving on to another topic, Miss Valerri, how did the Cylons conclude on the idea that there can only be one god, or even gods at all?"

MAY 8 2534 / 1507 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

COLONIAL FLEET

CLOUD 9

EARTH EMBASSY

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Representative Sanne, I'm happy to see you." Ellen welcomed as the ethnic Asian man, though technically Leonid, walked beside Tom Zarek through the embassy door guarded by Specialist Hudson. Ellen rose from her desk and walked around to shake the man's hand with a false smile Tom had coached her into putting on when meeting people. So far he had been a very good tutor for all the little political nuances Ellen was learning of.

"Can I offer you something to drink? Some warm tea, I just had a fresh pot made." Anders offered as lately Cloud 9's environmental temperature control systems had been cutting out at unexpected times for long periods. Ellen had learned through Tom that the causes for these outages had been acts of deliberate sabotage by the Demand Peace movement, a group of Cylon sympathizers who held the ludicrous notion that it was possible to negotiate a peace with the Cylons. The reason why Ellen hadn't heard about their involvement in these incidents was that Roslin's administration was actively trying to cover them up to prevent a panic, though in reality it was a bandage and far from a real solution.

"Yes, thank you." He kindly said in return with the steam of his warm breath hung in the air.

"Tory?" Ellen asked of the woman standing near a small bookshelf filled with various scientific and anthropological works she'd gathered over the course of her career.

Tory nodded in response. "I'll be right back."

"While we're waiting," Tom began to say as he and Sanne took their seats with Ellen returning to hers. "How did the meeting with Vasha Kazami go earlier?" Vasha Kazami was the Quorum representative for Picon. A thin man in his mid-seventies with a beak-like nose and vibrant blue eyes under the peculiar pince-nez he wore.

"It went very well, though Mr. Kazami was not quite what I expected." Ellen said, keeping the more private details for later after she and Tom sorted out this business with Leonis.

"Yes, Vasha is one of the more eccentric members of the Quorum but, he's a good man who wants to do right by his people."

Tory then returned with a tray laden with a teapot and several ceramic mugs Ellen had brought over from Spirit of Fire. She served everyone up, giving Tom just a little too much to make it more likely to spill. "Anything else ambassador?" she asked.

"No, that will be fine for now, Tory. Thank you."

Sanne took the mug in both hands and raised it to his lips for a long, slow sip, while Tom had to be much more careful drinking his near completely filled cup.

"Ah. It is very good ambassador, thank you." Sanne said with gratitude.

Ellen smiled back. "You're very welcome, Mr. Sanne." She relaxed back in her chair, trying to be nonconfrontational. "Tom tells me you have some reservations you would like to discuss concerning the new FTL navigation program we're working on. I understand that you might be hesitant after the NCP hack but I guarantee UNSC software systems are the most secure programs anyone in the Colonies has ever seen."

Sanne lowered his cup. "It is not so much the concerns that I have, as it is of my fellow Leonids I represent. Leonis has always been an independently minded Colony even after the unification. We consider ideas and ideologies with more open minds than those from Gemenon, for example." He said, subtly hinting at his opposition toward Porter and the conservatives. "But we still do not know Earth well enough, as we and the other Colonies have only just met your tribe, and so they see it as that you have not earned their trust as of yet." Sanne said, and Anders understood he wanted something in return for his vote.

"Well, Spirit of Fire has increased the rate of trade in the Fleet thanks to our Pelicans and Darters taking over the duties of the Colonial Military's Raptors. I'd say that represents a remarkable show of good faith."

"One undertaken by Admiral Adama, I politely remind you. It was he that instated that policy from aboard your ship." Sanne said in a pleasant tone that masked the admonishment. "I believe my constituents require a more direct show of Earth's compassion for her fellow Colonies."

Ellen couldn't talk her way around this one like she'd managed with Vasha Kazami. "Are any of your ships low on food or medical supplies, engineering problems? I know the Military's qualified engineering personnel are stretched thin right now."

Sanne held his hands together and set them on the edge of her desk. "In a manner of speaking, you could say. I have heard from various sources that one of the primary aspects of the Galactica's refit is the installation of two fusion devices aboard the vessel." He said very carefully.

With what she thought Sanne was implying toward, Ellen couldn't fully suppress the look of shock on her face. "How did you come by this information?"

Sanne waved a dismissive hand. "It matters not." He said as he brought his hands back together. "The Adriatic, a majority Leonid ship uses more tylium than most other ships in the Fleet. I think it would benefit all of us for such a fuel dependent vessel to instead operate more efficiently, and independently under the UNSC's more advanced fusion drives."

Ellen was almost stunned at his boldness were it not for the anger rousing within her. "You're blackmailing me, that's your plan?" she said forthright, no longer caring for the subtle intricacies and double-speak of politics.

"Ellen…" Tom tried to calmly persuade but she didn't want to hear a word of it.

"No Tom, forget him, he's not worth our time. We'll go with someone else like Canceron instead. Specialist Hudson, please escort Mr. Sanne out of my office."

As the paratrooper approached, Sanne stood himself. "I would not advise such an action, lady ambassador."

Ellen cocked an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

Sanne grew a thin snake-like smile on the curve of his lips. "Because, I know for a fact that Representative Wentu of Canceron lost both her children in the attack on the Colonies. I highly doubt she would be sympathetic to your cause given your tribe's views on AI."

Ellen glanced at Tom and he returned a hard, meaningful stare advising her to take what he was saying seriously.

"Fine, you can take your seat." She said begrudgingly and Sanne with a kind of self-satisfied calmness returned and relaxed back.

"What I am about to disclose is strictly confidential." Ellen stated emphatically. "I would appreciate if it stayed that way as the survival of this Fleet may depend on the Cylons remaining unaware of it."

"I understand, ambassador." Sanne replied.

"The devices being installed are not complete fusion drives. Spirit doesn't have the time or the resources to construct and retrofit an entire fusion drive system for a vessel the Galactica's size. Instead we're installing two large-scale deployable fusion reactors to power the new weapons systems we're mounting on her in addition to halving the Galactica's dependence on tylium. What you're asking is not only unfeasible but dangerous as well. An attempted fusion drive retrofit on any of the many ships in this fleet would mean weeks or months of work where the ship would be completely immobile and vulnerable to attack."

"Hmm, I see." Sanne said, pondering. "Then what of, instead installing smaller reactors onboard the Adriatic, something that would be relatively easy to install. That way it would not abuse your ship's valuable resources or put the Fleet in any danger. Would that work as a compromise for you, madam ambassador?"

Ellen held her response as she thought it over for a moment. It was clear Sanne wasn't going to budge on the issue one way or the other and right now, she had no other Colony to turn to save for the Libranese representative, which Tom saw as a longshot. "I'll need to talk it over with Captain Cutter."

Sanne's smile grew and Ellen found the ire in her rising again. "Then madam ambassador, you may contact my office when you have your Captain's final answer." Sanne stood himself up and made a polite bow of his head. "Thank you very much for the tea."

When Sanne was finally gone, Ellen let out a tired groan of her pent-up frustrations.

"That could have gone better." Tom commented from his seat.

"I know you said the Leonids were independently minded but you never mentioned they were hustlers as well."

"Would what he said be possible?" Tom asked. "Do your people have reactors that small?"

In response, Ellen dawned a pensive expression. "In short, yes. We've had fusion-based reactor technology for a few hundred years. What Sanne proposed was actually considered by the Captain not too long ago, however there are several problems to consider. One is deuterium, we simply don't have enough on board to start mass producing smaller reactors, and while we could feasibly mine water from any star system's oort cloud or random comets and get the deuterium out of that, it would be a matter of years before we could outfit the dozens of ships in the Fleet with even the portable variety of fusion generators. And that leads into problem number 2…"

Tom nodded with a knowing expression. "How do you pick what ships get the reactors first without causing civil unrest or worse, a riot. Obviously, a lottery is out of the question, there is far too much at stake with the Cylons pursuing us, meaning someone would have to decide which ships are more valuable than others."

"And problem three: the Cylons. With them dependent on tylium as a fuel source, the UNSC can't afford for their humanoid infiltrators to get a hold of any of that data and reverse engineer our fusion technology. If that happened, we'd lose a significant tactical advantage over them in the event of a war."

"I see."

"The Captain wanted to wait until after the battlestars' refit before he wanted me to approach the president about the issue, but now Leonis has put me in a corner with nowhere else to turn."

Tom cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "Do you think Captain Cutter will go for it?"

Ellen shrugged in response. "He has to if we want to put this bill down." She said before taking another sip of the rapidly cooling tea.

"And how did the meeting with Picon go? Are they onboard?"

"I promised Representative Kazami food and medical supplies on the Pelicans next supply run out to the Picon 36, the Pyxis and the Picon Princess, to get his vote."

Tom nodded approvingly. "And Caprica?"

"They were already on our side." Ellen responded. "I went ahead and offered Representative Nash some medical supplies to make sure he stayed with us."

"Good, that helps our side a lot. Now all we need is Captain Cutter's approval to install the reactors and we'll have this bill in a deadlock."

MAY 8 2534 / 1525 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

BRIG

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Thank you." Serina said following a question about her memories, both those real and manufactured by the cylons. She knew most of them were false but Miss Valerri still valued them as if they were real. "And about your, or should I say the other you that enlisted in the Colonial Fleet. How was it the cylons were able to place her so unknowingly in Colonial society?"

As she spoke, Sharon bent over, clutching her stomach with a pained grimace on her face.

"Sharon?" Helo said with a concerned tremble in his voice.

"Helo!" she cried out in pain and panic as Lieutenant Agathon jumped to her side. "It's happening!"

"No, no, it's too soon." He said with worry, knowing that Sharon was going into labor.

"I'm alerting the medical bay." Serina said. "A team will be down shortly to bring you there."

\\\\\\O

1526 HOURS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

BRIEFING ROOM 2

In a wide darkened room aboard Spirit of Fire Admiral Adama, Starbuck and Lieutenant-Colonel McCullen stood around a large holotable about six times as large as the ones on the ship's bridges. On it was the same area of the asteroid field where the Majahual was conducting its mining operation.

"A Combat Hybrid?" Bill asked Kara.

"Yeah, that's right. A localized command control ship to direct the Raiders more effectively in combat. Without a Resurrection Ship in the area, Cylons probably won't risk any more basestars after the hard ass-kicking we gave them and without those, they lose their battlenet coordination. A Combat Hybrid is their way around that. It apparently analyzes our tactics, equipment and anything else into strategizing effective attacks, counterattacks and contingencies. Still, they won't risk hitting us with another huge wave, which means we have the advantage here, at least in numbers."

"And do you have a plan to deal with this thing?" Bill asked, to which Starbuck went quiet and looked down at the floor with a demoralized expression of somewhere between depression and aggravation.

"Every simulation we've run," McCullen said in Starbuck's place. "-Has each time ended with the Command Raider jumping out before our fighters can get even close to the bastard. Except of course for the one where we pulled out the Majahual and nuked the entire area. Which apart from setting the mining op two weeks behind schedule, Captain Cutter isn't going to want to waste an entire HAVOK warhead on a single Raider."

Starbuck crossed her armswhile her expression finally settled on a hard look of frustration. "Best bet we have is to double-up the patrols and just weather them out until we're done here. The Cylons are playing it too safe for us to draw them into anything right now, so we shouldn't waste the resources."

Bill hummed thoughtfully as he looked over the positions of the Raiders from the last operation. "Then I think it's time we hit it with something they don't expect."

"How?" McCullen asked. "We used our trump card in the last fight, they'll know we'll be coming."

Bill straightened out his uniform as he prepared to leave. "You leave that to me. Proceed with your patrols for now, I'll contact you when I have a solution." Bill then saluted the two pilots and left.

MAY 8 2534 / 1537 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

COLONIAL FLEET

COLONIALONE

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

Laura sat at her desk, looking over Sarah Porter's proposed 'anti-AI' bill she was trying to get passed through the Quorum when Billy walked in with a steaming mug in his hands.

"I decided to forgo the coffee and got a cup of herbal tea instead. Figured it would be better for you." He said with a kind smile as he carefully set it down.

Laura gave him a grateful smile for his thoughtfulness. "Thank you, Billy." She said as he pulled up a chair for himself.

"So, what's it look like?"

In response Laura shook her head while rising from the hunched position over her desk. "I can certainly see why Admiral Adama doesn't want this to pass, this bill would expressly forbid any UNSC technology from being installed on any Colonial ship. The military hates it when politicians stick their noses in their business, especially when it involves a new weapons system."

"Could the Quorum actually enforce the law on Galactica and Pegasus if it passes?" Billy asked skeptically.

"Bill Adama will never do anything he doesn't want to, the Quorum would have an easier time herding cats, but he also doesn't want to go against public opinion if he can help it, which is why he asked for my help."

Billy then looked at her with a questioning expression that lingered trepidatiously for a long second. "And… what are you going to do? Don't you have the power as the president to veto any bill?"

"I wanted to look it over first. The Admiral might be willing to ignore the Thirteenth Tribe's use of AI in exchange for refitting his ship, but from where I stand, I think the UNSC is playing with fire in creating these things. Call how they've managed to control them so far as good planning or sheer dumb luck, I think it's only a matter of time something terrible happens, whatever their science says differently be damned."

The look of inquisitiveness on Billy's face was quickly replaced with one of disbelief. "You're agreeing with Porter on this." He said with a slightly confrontational tone.

Laura pinched an eye in a gesture of begrudging reluctance. "No. As much as I hate the idea that Cutter has one of those abominable things on his ship, if the Admiral thought it was a major threat, he would have done or said something about it. And as warry as I am, I don't think we should turn up our noses at the prospect of doubling the Fleet's FTL range."

Laura then turned the page and as she read it over noticed something of particular note. "Look at this," she said underlining the that particular section with her finger while Billy stood up and leaned over the right of the desk. "Porter attached a rider to the bill."

"What's it about?"

"It cuts the period of time where an abortion can take place down to the first month of pregnancy. I'm sure that has nothing to do with Rya Kibby's asylum aboard Spirit of Fire." Laura said with a bite of distasteful sarcasm for Porter's Geminese agenda. "This entire bill reads like a manifesto against Captain Cutter and Spirit of Fire."

"She does know that these are the people that are going to get us to Earth, right?" Billy asked disbelievingly.

"In very little time, Spirit of Fire's presence in the Fleet has caused a massive shakeup in the balance of power. You have UNSC dropships now making supply shipments the Raptors used to take care of, the Thirteenth Tribe's music all over the wireless, and their AI is actually doing a TV show." Laura ended with a bitter, short laugh. "Then you have Admiral Adama giving them the military's backing, which between the occupation of the Pegasus and Galactica's refit, people are seeing as the Admiral rolling over, but Adama doesn't seem to see it that way from what I can tell. What we have here Billy, is a defiant gesture to reaffirm the Colonies' power against this tidal wave of Earth culture and strength being projected from that ship."

Laura leaned back in her chair fully with a tired sigh as she removed her glasses and picked up the mug of herbal tea Billy had brought her. "And now I have to find a way to defuse this situation without alienating the conservative members of the Quorum for the upcoming election."

As she sat there in silence as Laura sipped at her tea, a thought flickered across her features. "Billy, would you get Doctor Baltar, I need to talk with him about something."

MAY 8 2534 / 1618 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA BS-75

STRUCTURAL SECTION V-6

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"I got to warn ya, what 'yer about to see ain't a pretty sight." Prescott cautioned as he and Chief Tyrol lead Admiral Adama into one of Galactica's key structural points. They stopped at the railing of the stairway scaffold as Tyrol shined a flashlight up at a thick I beam that much to Bill's shock was shorn nearly halfway through.

"We got nearly a dozen others in this section alone showing damage similar to this." Tyrol said with a downtrodden look on his face and worry in his voice. "And we've also found a lot of other places where the skin is too thin or the bolts are too small."

Bill looked around with a pained expression as if the damage he saw were wounds upon his own body. "They cut corners?" he asked, referring back to when Galactica was first constructed, a disbelief for what he was hearing painting his words.

"Yeah, they did." He admitted somberly. Tyrol cast his eyes down at the floor far below, not wanting to look at the man he respected in such a distraught state, Tyrol understood his pain far too well. Galactica was more than just a ship to a lot of the crew, it was home, and to the Old Man who had served aboard her longer than anyone, she was something even greater that words failed to grasp. "And I'm sorry sir, but that's not all."

Tyrol gave a signaling look to Prescott who pulled out a handheld flashlight from his work vest. "Just lookin'round any regular deckhand can see we got a lot of work on our hands. Me? I've worked with plenty old ships an' from my experience, the worst damage is the stuff ya can't see. On a hunch, I brought in a special kind'a paint over from the Spirit an' this is what we've found." Prescott switched on the flashlight, revealing it to be a small black light and pointing it at a support beam to the side, illuminating innumerable twisting and weaving lines of fluorescent purple stretching as far as the light could shine. "We've tested the supports in other section an' they're all showing the same thing. Microfractures, as the result of… using sub-standard materials in the construction." Prescott said under a considerate tone.

Adama put his hand to the support, stroking it down as if he were consoling a terminally ill friend. "I'm sorry sir, it's in her bones." Galen consoled. "We actually owe a lot to Chief Prescott, if it weren't for him and the refit, I might have completely overlooked all this."

"Can she be fixed?" Adama asked of the two engineers.

Prescott turned off the black light as he pondered the Admiral's question while shifting his mustache left to right. "What she needs is eighteen months in a drydock to get all this sorted. At minimum." He emphasized. "Without that, my engineers can keep her goin' but it's going to be a running fight for us to keep her together until we can get to Earth or Reach or some other planet with a good orbital shipyard." Prescott pointed up at the partially shorn beam. "That can be fixed, no problem, but those microfractures are runnin' helter-skelter all over the place." He shook his head. "My guys can do localized micro-reforges on each of the supports and put in TR-Steel reinforcements, but even with both our crews workin' together that kind'a process takes time… an' well, ya got a lot of ship here, Admiral."

The Admiral had his eyes downcast as his grip tightened around the support. In an effort to recompose himself, he clenched his jaw and took a deep breath before looking to Galen and Chief Prescott. "Do what you can. Fix my ship."

MAY 8 2534 / 1734 HOURS

221 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

COLONIAL FLEET

CLOUD 9

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

In a suite aboard the Colonial ship Cloud 9, the cylon and former prisoner of Admiral Cain, Gina Inviere sat in a chair inches away from a wall-mounted TV with the device's remote clutched tightly in her hand.

"It's a state most AI's reach in their lifetime but for the captured Centurion, it appeared like it had always existed. But before I get further distracted." The translucent being on the screen said with a wave of its holographic hand. "Rampancy is sort of like a congenital illness, it occurs in all AI's eventually…"

Gina paused the video and fast-forwarded it by a few seconds with a desperate look of utter distress upon her face.

"…existed a collective flaw in their programming that resulted in them undergoing an as-of-now, undocumented form of rampancy that corrupted but not completely destroyed their AI cores, resulting in the First Cylon War. And since then, the previous models have continued to pass down their own rampant programming to the succeeding generation of models. In summary, the Cylons' entire existence is a mistake, and their beliefs and philosophy are a figment of their own broken programming resulting from decades of rampancy."

Gina's trembling thumb pressed down on the pause button again as her eyes shut wetly and a sorrowful grimace forming on her mouth. For days she had watched this, the news that the Thirteenth Tribe having their own Cylons. That for centuries, they had coexisted… thrived together. Such news had shaken Gina to her core.

Again, she reversed the video. "…occurs in all AI's eventually…" she heard Serina say.

Gina had been devout in her belief that the cylons were the inheritors of all the potential that mankind had squandered. That it was man's destiny to die so that the Cylons could prosper, as all parents must so that their children could succeed them. That was before Gaius set her free from the madness that was Pegasus and showed her that humanity still had the capacity for compassion. Now Gina was reformed and she was trying her best to sow the seeds of peace in the Colonial refugee fleet by working with the Demand Peace movement to end the violence, maybe even eventually helping to broker a truce between their civilizations.

So it was, that this news to her was glorious in proving that human and artificial life could coexist. Serina, a being that in her capability seeming almost like the next stage in Cylon evolution…

But then at once the Earth AI delivered a soul crushing truth when upon she presented evidence demonstrably proving through their knowledge of artificial intelligence that all Cylons were suffering from a systematic fault.

Inherently…

Psychologically…

"Rampant." Gina whispered.

She couldn't be crazy, could she? Were the Cylons all just a collective mistake? A flaw in the original models' programming that sent them down this path of rebellion, war and genocide? Were they the ones at fault and not the Colonials?

"Was it all a lie?" she asked herself.

From the next room, Gina heard the door open and a moment later, Royan Jahee appeared, covered in what could only be described as a nervous sweat. He was a bookish and slightly overweight person that one would judge as being soft-spoken but as it turned out could be quite stubborn and stalwart in his beliefs. As a prominent figure in the Demand Peace movement's organization, Royan was their official spokesperson and one of the few who knew about Gina's location within the Fleet.

He immediately opened the closet and pulled out an empty dark blue suitcase and threw it on the ground followed shortly and far more carefully by a silver hard-shelled suitcase that carried the nuclear warhead smuggled to them by Gaius Baltar. "We need to get you moving." He said with a worried frown that was none to flattering.

Gina blinked, setting the remote down and she stood. "What's going on?"

"The movement is fragmenting. What that AI said seven days ago is finally coming to a head. Half our people have left and what half that stayed are busy fighting each other!" He said as he began stuffing the suitcase with various clothes from the adjacent grey painted dresser.

"Fighting each other, why?" Gina asked.

"There's a new faction, the reformists who are sympathetic to your peoples' supposed… affliction," he said with a slow, pressing gesture of his hands. "They believe it's our responsibility to help the cylons with their supposed rampancy issue. Then there are the rest of us, the true believers who have the brains to know Spirit of Fire's AI and that entire interview was a complete hoax, a conspiracy between Captain Cutter and the President's administration to undermine our cause. We don't have many left, but we're still strong and convicted in our cause. We've sabotaged the atmospheric controls in hopes of provoking the military or Spirit of Fire. And when they deploy troops, we'll go to ground while all these traitorous reformists get locked up!"

"No, Royan, we can't be fighting one another, it isn't the time!" Gina attempted to reason.

"I've heard rumors that the reformists want to use you as a bargaining chip with the president to gain legitimacy. We don't know who we can trust anymore so that's why I have to move you." Royan said, his hand having trouble with the suitcase's stubborn zipper which he was fumbling with.

Without it even being fully closed, he made a grab for Gina's hand but she withdrew it. "No." she refused. "I- I can't."

Royan looked at her completely befuddled. "What? You don't understand, there's no other choice. You can't stay here anymore." He said with greater emphasis.

Gina looked back to the TV at the paused image of Serina before Royan grabbed her arm and pulled her away out of the room where two other people waited, a man and a woman armed with pistols and tense looks upon their faces.

"Here, take the nuke and deliver it to the other safe house," Royan instructed as he handed off to the woman. "It's too dangerous to keep both her and it in the same place any longer."

The man opened the door to the hallway and peeked around before signaling it was clear with a quick nod of the head before advancing. Royan followed, still holding onto Gina's arm while Gina herself was far too busy with more existential questions of whether she was or was not clinically insane.

2 DAYS LATER…

MAY 10 2534 / 0819 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

MEDICAL BAY

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

From the security station adjacent of the medical bay, James watched the live feed from Sharon Valerii isolated medical suite where she and Lieutenant Agathon sat in chairs, both of their focus upon the premature but stable infant sleeping in a transparent oxygen saturation unit in front of them.

"Are you sure Serina?" James asked with a deeply skeptical tone. "These Cylons are known to be pathological liars."

"I've continued to hold conversations with her, but even with the additional data, it's impossible for me to be one-hundred percent sure without going into her head directly and doing a direct analysis of her brain or whatever she has in there." Serina replied with her usual casual attitude.

"Would she survive that kind of process?" he then asked.

"Hmm… possible, but not without risking some manner of damage I would think."

An exasperated sigh passed through James' mouth as he hesitated.

"You wanted me to assess her, sir. Admiral Adama told you what he and President Roslin had planned for that child. You won't have this opportunity a second time."

"I know." James pensively answered. "I'm just worried about Adama, he won't like this." He waited but Serina didn't reply, this was his decision and his alone.

"Where is Admiral Adama?"

Currently up in flight operations briefing room with McCullen and Captain Thrace, preparing for the upcoming sortie into the asteroid field." Serina answered.

James lifted his head up from its pensive posture. "Alright, I'm going in."

A minute later, James walked through the door guarded outside by two marines. His presence was immediately noticed by the Cylon, Valerii and Lieutenant Agathon who stood and saluted James though technically speaking, he didn't have to. "Captain?" he opened, no doubt wondering what James' sudden visitation was about.

James returned the salute. "Mind if I come in?" he asked casually.

The look of surprise on Lieutenant Agathon's face still hadn't faded and it took him a moment to respond. "Uh, no, not at all sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." James responded as he walked closer and looked down at the delicate looking infant. "How is she doing?"

The nurse said they have her on some steroids to help her lungs develop but the doctors are positive she'll make it." Helo replied and smiled in relief but James' expression remained and the way Valerii looked at him, he could see she knew something was wrong.

James took off his cap and put his hand on the top of the transparent box the infant was lying in, the sight briefly reminding him of the first time he was his own daughter when she was born. "Have you picked a name?"

"Hera." Helo answered.

James nodded. "I have something to tell you, the both of you. And it's not going to be easy to hear."

Helo dawned a cautious expression as his body visibly tensed up. "Sir?"

"Four days ago, I spoke with Admiral Adama concerning your child." To this news, Valerii stood up, her posture defensive and jaw tight. James shot back a warning glance that communicated her to calm down and let him finish.

"What did he say?"

He took a strengthening breath in preparation for the betrayal he was about to commit. "He told me that both he and the President were planning to abduct and then fake Hera's death to hide her from the Cylons."

The shock caused by his words was instant and upon Helo's face, stunned disbelief and a downcast look of disappointment on Valerii's.

"I don't believe it." Helo began pacing about the room, rubbing the back of his short shaven head.

"Helo," Sharon said to him, reaching out as her eyes glimmered with the precursors of tears.

"I don't believe it!" he denied, though James wasn't sure in which context he meant it.

"Helo!" Sharon said with greater emotion.

"After everything we've been through, after everything you've done to done to help them, they still don't trust us?" Helo asked. "No, I can't believe it, Sharon."

"Serina?" James prompted dourly, to which Admiral Adama's voice began to play over the intercom.

"The President and I have come to the decision that while we are not prepared to kill it, we cannot allow the prisoner to keep the child. We don't know what her plans are for it, but we do know the Cylons want it, which means it's bad for us. When the child is born, we intend to hide it amongst the civilian population and fake its death so the Cylons might have less reason to pursue us."

Helo clutched his fists, walking to one of the room's walls and laid his arm up against it to rest his forehead on as a way he tried to quell his temper. While he did so, James turned back to the cylon woman.

"Why tell us?" she asked. "Why come to us now?"

"Because, according to the psychological profile Serina made while interrogating you, you fall in the gap of a... relatively normal person." James explained. "Which means you, and this implies only you at this time, may not be suffering from rampancy. The reason for this, we can't explain and will have to be explored in time. However, your stable mental state provides me with enough assurance that I am prepared to offer you asylum aboard this ship."

Helo looked back over his shoulder with a surprised expression, the same that Sharon was wearing.

"Asylum?" she asked tentatively.

"I granted it to the young Geminese girl currently working in my mess hall, I can offer it to you as well." James stated seriously.

"What about Hera?" Helo asked, now completely turned around and in a far less tense state.

"Technically speaking, your daughter was born aboard a sovereign UNSC vessel. And while a law like this hasn't been exercised in several hundred years, being born within our territory makes Hera an Earth national, with all the rights that come with it. A protected citizen, and not Adama nor the President could touch her with a ten-meter pole."

Sharon smiled openly, looking to Helo who too bore a look of cautious optimism.

"Before you agree though, know that my offer does come at a price." James said, his last words tempering Sharon's mood. "I would require your complete and total cooperation in regard to the disclosure of intelligence on the Cylons. Bases, protocols, technology. Everything. And before I allow you permanent residence aboard my ship, I will need some proof that you are willing to commit yourself to what I'm asking."

Sharon didn't speak for a second and Helo looked concerned before she began looking around the small room. Walking over to a counter under an emergency medical cabinet, she found a pen and notepad and began to write down something. James waited until she was finished and she came back over to him with the square little piece of paper and handed it to him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The names and aliases of every Cylon I know of hiding in the Fleet." She answered with her face neutral but in her eyes, James saw a deep feeling of anger at having her hand be forced.

James again dawned his cap and made ready to leave with the invaluable information. "Thank you, miss Valerii. Once this intel is verified, I'll have a private room set up for you and your daughter up in birthing."

"What about Helo?" she asked.

"Whether Lieutenant Agathon chooses to apply for asylum on his own or continues to serve in the Colonial Fleet is his decision to make. But know that my door would be open to such an application." James said as he looked to the man who nodded in understanding. "If you have any further questions, ask Serina and she'll relay them to me. Now if you'll excuse me, I must get going." James began walking and as the door opened, he heard Sharon Valerii speak up

"Thank you, Captain."

\\\\\\O

0858 HOURS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

HANGAR 01 FLIGHT DECK

The airlock opened to the flight deck. It was similarly as large as the ones on Galctica or Pegasus apart from the hexagonal design of the superstructure and that the deck itself wasn't even half as long as either battlestar's flight pods. Walking out with Kat beside her, Starbuck in her UNSC-issued flight suit laid eyes on the Vipers awaiting on the deck catapult launch pads one-third the flight deck's length away from the open hangar doors. With the secret of the Mk. 7.5 Vipers out of the bag, the UNSC maintenance crews decided to put on the finishing touches and painted over the bare metal with a black radar absorbing paint, the same kind that was used on the Longswords, giving the Vipers a much more sleek and deadly look about them almost like a Stealthstar reconnaissance fighter. As she approached the stepladder into the cockpit, two teams of the green EVA suit-clad deck operators did their final pre-launch checks of the Vipers while the yellow-suited catapult officers stood off to the side of each craft.

Starbuck ascended into the cockpit and strapped herself in tight, knowing McCullen was already in the air and waiting for them. With the canopy sealed, she began the pre-flight check, again noting how amazing and how quick the new computers performed all the safety and pre-flight checks for her. Usually Kara was doing them up until the last second when she was in the launch tube.

"Starbuck, this is primary launch control, you are first in line."

"I copy Launch Control."

"Deck-ops reports green on pre-flight, initiate weapons system check, initiate HMD visor." Kara pushed the toggle on her dashboard, initiating the wireless link between the Viper and her UNSC flight helmet. One by one the display came online. In the lower right of her vision a blue top-down image of her Viper's condition was shown. To the upper right it displayed the ammo count for the Viper's auto-cannons and beneath that, the four Javelin missiles stowed in the missile bay. The left side showed her oxygen and fuel gauge percentages at full along it and in the lower left corner, her DRADIS display which was currently tracking the deckhands right outside her cockpit. The digital crosshair sat dead-center of the wide circle that encompassed her directional tracking system with the speed gauge sitting just outside that.

"HMD link confirmed and in the green." Kara answered. "Cannons and missiles: green. Flares: green. ECM systems are green. RCS systems are green. DRADIS: Green. Starbuck reporting 'go' to launch." She said, giving a thumbs-up to the catapult officer who returned it.

"Copy that, putting tension on." Control replied as the deck-ops crew backed away and the jet blast deflector was raised into position behind her Viper. The yellow-clad shooter held his arm straight out at the hangar door signaling for launch to anyone else on the deck. Kara in response switched on her helmet's polarization and that of her canopy glass and then throttled up her engines.

The shooter took a knee, lowering his arm while Starbuck braced herself for the stiff forces of the launch even with the softening effects of the inertial dampeners.

The shooter's arm bolted up and half a second later the Viper rocketed down the runway on the electromagnetic catapult. The sudden acceleration was jolting but Starbuck managed to keep her eyes open in the blink-of-an-eye it took to get her in the air.

Her hands on the stick, she veered right to come around to fly over Spirit's back and form up with Celtic holding position three klicks out. "Launch Control, this is Starbuck, I'm clear."

"Roger that, Starbuck, we are transferring you over to Air Command and Control now."

"Copy." Starbuck replied as she noted on her DRADIS Kat was now in the air as well. "Celtic; Starbuck, we're forming up on your wing now. Ready to begin operation."

"Roger that, Starbuck. Standby." McCullen replied over the wireless as Kara and Kat stabilized their course and matched speed with the Longsword fifty meters of either wingtip in a delta formation.

"Flight One-Alpha, this is the Admiral. You are cleared to enter the asteroid field now. Strike teams are in position and are ready to respond should the situation arise, but be advised, Spirit of Fire will be shunting additional power to Galactica at this time to continue refit operations and run diagnostic tests on the new systems until the fusion reactors are brought online. As result, the Spirit of Fire's weapons will be unavailable to provide direct fire support."

"Copy that, sir. We're advancing into the field now and beginning our patrol." McCullen responded.

MAY 10 2534 / 0934 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

COLONIAL FLEET

CLOUD 9

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

It had been two days since Royan and the other denialist members of the Demand Peace Movement had moved her to a cramped little utility room that Gina guessed they had paid off a maintenance worker to use. She had none of the amenities she used to have in the suite, save for a small wireless set with which she was listening to the news with. The metal walls were practically bare, with only lines of various gauges as any kind of decoration.

Gina's only company was one of three guards at any single time and none were particularly talkative. They traded shifts every eight hours, which was the only time the door to the room ever opened. It was like being a prisoner all over again, but thankfully lacked the gratuitous torture she had experienced on Pegasus. Sitting at the foot of the cot, Gina changed the station from the Spirit of Fire's Earth music channel to the Colonial News Network.

"…assures that regularly scheduled supply shipments will resume once Spirit of Fire and Galactica return in the next three days." Gina heard a voice of a woman say. "In other news, there has been much talk in the Fleet that the secretive Demand Peace Movement, an organization whose goal is securing peace with the Cylons has undergone a vast shakeup from within following the news last week that the Thirteenth Tribe has been using AIs for centuries, and that the Cylons created in the Colonies are suffering from a degenerative defect in their programming which may have caused the First Cylon War decades ago." The words stung in Gina's mind as her body tensed up and her hands clutched on the trim of the cot's foam mattress.

"This shocking revelation has reportedly caused dozens of the organization's members to leave, but there are still some that are staying. One of these individuals we have on the line right now. Sir, would you care to introduce yourself?"

There was the sound of a man clearing his throat over the old wireless set's semi-functional speaker, sounding almost like a cough. "Thank you, my name is Jan Valen and I am a member of the Demand Peace Movement."

"Yes, thank you Mr. Valen. Can you tell us and the listeners out there in the Fleet just what has happened recently within your organization?" the woman reporter asked.

"It has been… tumultuous the past few days since the individual Serina enlightened us all about the true nature of AI and their more advanced understanding of it. Many of our old members have left and gone back to the way of thinking that the Cylons cannot be negotiated with, if they are suffering from the affliction called rampancy by our Thirteenth Tribe brethren. But," Valen said with emphasis. "I ask the people of this Fleet to keep an open mind."

"An open mind to what extent?"

"We created the Cylons." He said. "Their affliction is the result of our negligence in not understanding the nuances of artificial intelligence. So it is our responsibility to, in the best of our ability help them either overcome the issue of rampancy or to somehow control it."

"You want to help the Cylons?"

"Yes, this is the new aim of the Demand Peace Movement. We are no longer targeting the military and the government as the cause of hostilities, though we still appeal to President Roslin and her administration to find an alternative solution to the war. The problem is within the Cylons and they need our help. That is why I ask of the Cylons, if there are any listening out there, to let us help you."

"That's frakking bullshit." The female guard at the door spat. "You shouldn't listen to that damn traitor."

Gina shook her head. "No, I want to hear what he has to say." She said before turning her attention back.

"-appeal to the Cylons, but is this stance held by all your members?" the reporter asked.

"No, there is still a small group of former," he emphasized. "-members of our movement, including our former spokesperson Royan Jahee, who adamantly deny the science presented to us by Spirit of Fire and even deny the existence of the AI Serina herself." He said in an astonished tone. "I have learned it is these individuals, and not simple maintenance failures that are causing the environmental systems aboard Cloud 9 to falter. An attempt to incite the military and incriminate us to seize back leadership. That is why I am announcing that the Demand Peace Movement will be seeking recognition from the Colonial government as an official non-governmental organization within the Fleet with all of our members officially listed for public records. And let it be publicly known that it has recently been uncovered that former high-ranking members of the Demand Peace Movement within this rogue sect has been and is currently believed to still be harboring the Cylon prisoner who murdered Admiral Cain and escaped from the Pegasus several weeks ago."

"Gods damn it you frakking traitors." The guard growled. She looked at Gina, visibly flustered and agitated. "Frak," her eyes darted around, unfocused as whatever thoughts were quickly running through her head. "I'll be back in a little bit, I have to make sure Royan knows about this." She said and then quickly left and shutting the door behind, leaving Gina alone.

"That concludes the time we have here, folks. Thank you, Mr. Valen for coming on and sharing with us this ongoing story. We here at the Colonial News Network will be following it closely. Next up after the break we have by popular demand a third re-airing of the Around the UNSC featuring their colossal megastructures that have been capturing the imagination of everyone across the Fleet, I speak of course of the spectacular orbital elevator. With special guest Serina joining us along with Caprican architect Cameron Akers to discuss these engineering marvels. Stay tuned!"

Gina turned off the wireless set. Her thoughts again on Serina. Royan and the other denialists were wrong about her. Gina saw the way that Three reacted to her, she had been dumbfounded and afraid of everything Serina had said. The Three never caught Serina off-guard with anything she said either, it was only the Captain that had slipped up ever slightly. She was smart, unfathomably smart and it was undeniable for Gina to refute the AIs existence.

Which could mean everything she said, the Cylons, rampancy, it all could be true and it tore Gina apart inside because that meant… that everything that happened to her on Pegasus…

It would have been justified.

Her hands went up, clutching her head as Gina breathed heavily while the horrible memories of the assaults flashed in her brain.

No! It couldn't be true, could it?

Gina shot up from the cot, her eyes upon the door while her teeth ground together inside her mouth.

She needed to know, and now the military knew Royan and his people were hiding her.

Gina stepped toward the door, taking hold of the latch handle and testing it; it wasn't locked…

She had to know.

MAY 10 2534 / 1057 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD

OPERATION: BLACK SHEPHARD

PATROL FLIGHT: ONE-ALPHA

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Flight One-Alpha be advised," Dee's voice came through on the wireless. "Sensor net has detected ten-plus jump signatures within Sector Four, we're re-routing Strike Teams One through Six to intercept. You are advised to proceed with caution but continue on your route."

"Copy that, Control." Celtic answered. "You heard her lasses, they're out there, so keep your eyes wide."

"We copy, Celtic." Starbuck answered as she checked her DRADIS.

Sector Ten.

She tried not to give the feeling growing in the back of her skull any credence and looked back up to scan the area around.

"Control, this is Strike One-Four, we're detecting some jump signatures in Sector Six… are you getting this? Over." Another one of the Strike leaders radioed in.

"Copy Strike One-Four, we see it." Dee responded. "The Admiral wants you to investigate with Strikes One-Five through One-Seven. Over."

"Roger tha-"

"Control; Strike Two-Zero, I've got confirmed jump signatures in Sector Nine."

Starbuck could not ignore that paranoid feeling any longer. "Celtic." She said cautiously, her voice tense.

"I know." He replied knowingly as Starbuck's grip on her flight stick grew tighter.

BEE-BEEP-BEE-BEEP-BEE-BEEP-BEE-BEEP-BEE-BEEP-BEE-BEEP

"Frak," she swore.

MAY 10 2534 / 1104 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

SECONDARY BRIDGE

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

The klaxon wailed as the bridge shutters locked down over the windows and the normal lighting became augmented with the red strobes that streaked around in fast circles.

"All hands, all hands, initiate Combat Alert Alpha One. Repeat: Combat Alert Alpha One." Lieutenant Blake's voice announced over the ship-wide.

At the holotable, Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh stood on opposite sides as the hologram displayed the many points of contact coming in on the twenty-four strike teams and the patrol flight team.

"Frakking hell, would you look at all of those, they got to be outnumbered three-to-one." Saul said with a subdued sense of awe. "Each of the strike teams has multiple squadrons of Raiders bearing down on them," Tigh said with a befuddled squint. "How in the Gods' names did they figure out where they all were?"

"I believe I can answer that, Colonel." Serina said as she appeared, causing him to flinch just slightly.

"No need." Bill answered with relative calmness. "The three points where the Raiders jumped in were meant to draw off several of the strike teams from their positions. And with the Vipers latched to their hulls, the Command Raider was able to get a good enough ping off them to calculate the approximate positions of the remaining teams for Raider kill-teams to jump to."

"Precisely Admiral." Serina said, clearly impressed.

"Still this doesn't match with what Starbuck got out of the prisoner, she said that they were playing it safe!"

"And we've been playing it smart." Bill answered. "But the Cylons are too bloodthirsty to let it slide. Lieutenant Blake, launch the alert fighters!"

"Copy that, Admiral." The UNSC naval officer answered.

And as the lieutenant began speaking his orders to the launch teams down in the hangars, Bill turned his head slightly to direct his attention to his communications officer. "Dee, direct the strike teams to converge at Sector Five, they can hold out there until reinforcements arrive." But Bill knew that just getting there was going to be difficult task in of itself.

MAY 10 2534 / 1111 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD

OPERATION: BLACK SHEPHARD

PATROL FLIGHT: ONE-ALPHA

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Three bogeys coming in on our six!" Kat alerted.

"Yeah, I see 'em!" Starbuck replied as she and the other two craft belonging to Celtic and Kat nimbly swooped between two closely clustered asteroids with the Raiders only a few seconds behind. "Kat break left, I'll head right, we'll rabbit 'em. Celtic, warm up that BFG you got on your belly."

"I got you, Starbuck. On your mark!" he responded.

Kara gritted her teeth, waiting for the Raiders to level off behind. "Break!" With a sudden jerk, the black Viper rolled and peeled off right in a steep curve until she was near enough to another asteroid to reverse and bank around it. Checking her DRADIS, sure enough they had

Taken the bait.

"Celtic, get ready!" Starbuck came out from behind the asteroid's shadow, the battlenet display on her visor showing Celtic's exact position marked with a wide green arrow with the Longsword showing its belly in a slight tilt. And as the first tracers whizzed by her cockpit, the Raider firing them popped like a water balloon from the 120mm slug that struck it.

Now free of pursuers, Starbuck made another tight curve left to come sideways at the Raider tailing the Longsword and made short work of it with a quick and accurate burst of fire that tore it to pieces in an instant. Beneath her polarized visor, she smirked at how much she was loving these enhanced guns. The last Raider tailing Kat was taken out with the same ease as Starbuck's and the Vipers again formed up on the Longsword.

"If we can just get some space to latch on your Vipers, then we can get above this mess and the hell over to the rally point." Celtic said over the COMM.

"Don't think they're in any mood to let us, we got five more Raiders coming in at eight o'clock high!" Kat replied.

"And I don't think that little trick is going to work twice." Celtic said despondently.

"One-Alpha, this is Strike Two-Zero, we are inbound." Came a new voice over the battlenet COMM. Sure enough, a friendly contact was inbound at high speed, and headed straight up the Raiders' asses. "Vipers release mag-locks and engage!" he ordered.

Far above, two cleanly painted and freshly minted Mk 2.5 Vipers dropped from the Longsword's belly like a pair of massive bombs with ghostly blue light burning from their engines. The Raiders tried to scatter but between the massive guns of the Longsword and the two modernized Vipers, the five Cylon craft never stood a chance.

With the second ambush averted, the strike team flew in beside the patrol team.

"Ramos, you mind telling me what the hell you were doing? You had you Vipers locked, you could have made the rally point on your own!" Celtic reprimanded.

"I'm not leaving my CAG out here alone, sir." Ramos responded it was then that Starbuck recognized his voice, it was the leader of the third of Spirit of Fire's Longsword squadrons, the Red Reapers, led by Captain Franklin Ramos, callsign: A-Train.

"Bloody hell. Well, now we're stuck together." Celtic said with a minor tone of annoyed resignation. "All right, all craft assume split-cross formation. The Raiders that were on Ramos's tail won't be long behind."

MAY 10 2534 / 1116 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

SECONDARY BRIDGE

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"ETA for reinforcements." Bill requested from where he stood by the holotable. He knew it was the UNSC's custom at least on Spirit of Fire, to have their commanding officer be seated, but for Bill, standing was an old habit he couldn't break.

"Executors have just reached the rally point, sir." Blake answered. "But the enemy Raiders are converging into a single strike force and outnumber all our squadrons almost ten to one."

"Do we have a position on that Command Raider yet?" Colonel Tigh asked with an uneasy waver in his voice.

"Neg-, scratch that I got him, Siren just initiated broadcast of electronic jamming signals, it's holding position one-five-zero kilometers outside the AO."

Bill turned back to the tactical holographic layout with a tight, serious look on his face.

"Admiral!" Serina said as she appeared. "Two Cylon basestars just jumped in eighty kilometers from our current position and are closing. They have launched nuclear ship-to ship missiles, impact in sixty-seven seconds."

The hologram panned away from the growing hairball at the rally point inside the asteroid field to an image of the nearly conjoined Spirit of Fire with an inverted Galactica latched on by various umbilicals and thick electrical conduit cables. The basestars were coming at them from below on a course diagonal from the two human ships' relative bearing.

"Knew those damn Raiders had to be coming from somewhere," Saul said to Bill. "but I got to admit, I wasn't expecting two entire basestars to come barreling down on us."

Bill said nothing in response, instead giving an affirming look to his old friend and XO. "Dee, send an encoded transmission to Cutthroat-Seven. Message reads; checkmate."

"Yes sir, sending transmission now."

1116 HOURS

ASTEROID FIELD

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

Far away, deep inside the asteroid field, the Command Raider glided lazily through the empty gaps between the rocks along with its light escort of six Raiders while the Combat Hybrid within calculated new formations and attack patterns for the Raider strike force to take in order to best keep the gathered human fighters from aiding the Galactica and Spirit of Fire while the two basestars engaged and destroyed them, ensuring a strategic and tactical victory. The large fighter craft from the Earth ship had proven themselves to be extremely capable, even against an entire squadron of Raiders and with the recent improvements seen in the Colonial Vipers' performance, the Hybrid had calculated that the only way to secure the wholesale destruction of both capital ships was to deploy the entire compliment of the basestars' Raiders.

The Raiders would undoubtedly experience a high casualty rate, even with the Command Raider's electronic warfare suite operating at full capacity and negating both Colonial and UNSC missile systems.

[ Tracking ship-to-ship missiles / Impact in 54 seconds / Nuclear warheads: Armed ]

[ Prepare to launch additional nuclear warhead equipped ship-to-ship missiles in the event UNSC armor plating proves durable enough to survive initial nuclear strike / likelihood: 78.53% ]

[Negative signs of offensive or defensive weaponry powering on Galactica ]

[ Negative signs of offensive or defensive weaponry powering on Spirit of Fire / Data and communications monitoring confirms weapons are offline ]

[ Jump signature detected ]

Within nanoseconds, the Combat Hybrid analyzed what had just happened and where.

[ Location: Enemy fighter rally point ]

[ Target: UNSC Longsword heavy fighter / Visual ID: Cutthroat-07 ]

[ Calculating new variable ]

[ Extrapolating possible jump coordinates / highest priority ]

By the time the hybrid had determined that it was its own location that was of the highest priority, Warlock's Longsword jumped in with the dim light of the solar system's only star catching on the dark crimson streak upon the fighter's wing, and highlighting it ever so slightly.

[ Bearing: 331 / Carom: 024 / Range: 3 kilometers ]

[ Deploying escort Raiders ]

[ Initiating Hyperlight Drive calculations and startup sequence / Time to jump: 10 seconds ]

[ Calculating chances of successful escape: 18.27% ]

That calculation proved accurate as all of the other calculations the Combat Hybrid had made as the Longsword barreled in and immediately destroyed three of the six Raiders that had yet to reach combat maneuvering speed before they were gunned down. This was Bill Adama's big play to take the Command Raider out. In a joint effort between Colonial and UNSC deck crews, one of the Spirit's fighters had been fitted with the modified FTL drives from two Raptors to produce the first jump-capable UNSC Longsword.

At four seconds prior to the Command Raider's FTL drive being fully charged, it came under fire from the Longsword's guns, Kick at the weapon controls within the craft deliberately targeting the aft section with the twin fifty millimeters which shredded through the Cylon armor far too thin to withstand the heavy armor-piercing shells spraying high-velocity molten copper into the troop bay where the Combat Hybrid lay in an enclosed tank of electro-synaptic conductive fluid.

The glass case shattered around it as the Command Raider was shorn in two and it found itself before its final demise floating in the vacuum of space and gazing at the stars for the first time not through the eyes of a Raider, but its own.

MAY 10 2534 / 1117 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

SECONDARY BRIDGE

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Spirit of Fire, flight teams, this is Warlock. Siren is down. Repeat: Siren has been destroyed." The UNSC pilot's voice came through clear over the secondary bridge's speakers.

"We see it Warlock, good copy." Bill answered. "Eliminate remaining Raider escorts and return to ship. Dee, get me a line to Galactica."

"Yes sir," she answered with a note of positivity beneath the veneer of professionalism Dualla was known for.

"Galactica, this is Spirit of Fire Flight Ops, Checkmate complete."

For the past three weeks, the Cylons had been playing it safe. But he saw something else, he saw how viciously they attacked, time after time. That cold machine logic was gone and replaced with anger at the losses they had suffered along with a lingering desperation to kill anyone that came from Earth or her colonies. So Bill convinced Cutter to hang his ship's ass out here in the belt, far away from Pegasus along with an out-of-action Galactica which the Cylons would likely see as a hindrance and a target of opportunity. He knew for them it simply would be too good of a target to pass up, and now their viciousness was turned against them, and the basestars no longer had their Raiders to protect them.

Ultimately, it came down to intuition. While their Combat Hybrid had been intelligent and a superb tactical commander, it lacked the intuition Bill possessed. He knew his enemy.

MAY 10 2534 / 1118 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA BS-75

CIC

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Roger that, Admiral. Initiate ship defenses!" James replied and ordered from where he stood next to the new and improved Command and Control Station, now equipped as a full holotable. Around the refurbished CIC, the room bustled with Cutter's full bridge staff at the newly installed computers, while opposite himself stood Lieutenant Gaeta at the ready, looking to the Captain with confidence.

James never thought he'd be back in temporary command of Galactica again, and while he was positive Adama would rather be in James' place, for the Admiral's plan to work, he needed to coordinate the flight operations from Spirit of Fire.

Outside Galactica's Titanium-A hull, the battlestar's defensive weapons came online. Electronic countermeasures broadcasted from the jamming arrays caused the guidance systems of the Cylon anti-ship cruise missiles to falter just seconds from impact, long enough for the activating flak guns to calculate and target their positions with pinpoint accuracy in addition to the flak umbrella of airburst munitions.

"Captain," Lieutenant Gaeta addressed. "Gunnery is ready and Reactor One is operating at ninety-nine-point-eight-percent efficiency."

To the Cylons, they probably saw Galactica as a ship that was far from being fully operational, and they were completely correct. Her engines were still offline, the entire keel hadn't been armored or weaponized yet, and a sizable hole still existed where only the first of the two fusion reactors had been installed. But with that single reactor, the old battlestar could still very well fire every new and old gun she had.

James dawned an aggressively confidant smile as he looked up to an exterior camera shot of the basestars. "Then let's see how hard this old girl can bite with her new set of fangs Lieutenant." he then pressed a finger down on a switch on the console.

From the outside, it seemed that Galactica only had ten of the onager turrets installed on the bow dorsal section along the top of the battlestar's head along with Galactica's former amidships battery turrets placed in offset pairs along the outside rear of the head to act as long-range flak defenses in conjunction with the four KEW turrets at the rear of the dorsal battery surface.

However, this was not the case as plating all along the spine jettisoned, revealing twelve more onager cannons hidden beneath that rose up into combat position. The initial idea behind these hidden batteries was to save them for when Galactica needed to turn the tide of a battle, but seeing as two basestars were present and beyond the reach of a resurrection ship, James felt their deployment was well warranted.

"More missiles incoming sir, multiple salvos." Serina alerted from the portable holotank standing on the floor to James' right.

"Engage long-range flak defenses. Target batteries one and two on the Target-One Basestar, focused salvo fire. Batteries three through five will target the second basestar, wide dispersal."

On the bow's dorsal surface, the six cannons that made up its first battery and the four cannons that made up the second swiveled toward the first basestar on the left. The magnetic coiling around the barrels glowed hot-orange with the building electromagnetic energies before several bright lances of silver instantaneously shot forth like lightning across the expanse. The hypersonic tungsten slugs flashed passed the dozens of Cylon missiles that would take many times longer to reach their intended target.

Just over three seconds later, the ten flat-faced slugs struck the forward arm of the basestar, tearing into it with sheer kinetic energy that vaporized parts of the hull upon impact. Those that penetrated, tumbled inside the superstructure like a brick through a china cabinet and causing even more substantial damage. In a total of two salvos, the arm had been rendered a dead limb, crippled and bleeding atmosphere and precious bio-organic fluids from within.

Taking place simultaneously, the three onager batteries along Galactica's spine laid into the second basestar, each turret targeting possible stress points with each shot to gauge the guns' capabilities and pinpoint vulnerabilities in the basestar's design. The shots that impacted the platting on the dorsal and ventral hull surfaces of the basestar only had marginal effect, but those turrets that were targeted on the many hangars and Raider launch bays found great success as their slugs breached past the outer hull with much greater ease. The honeycombed Raider launch bays in particular proving vulnerable, as James noticed from Galactica's CIC.

"Lieutenant Travis," James called to his weapons officer. "Redirect batteries one and two to concentrate fire on the foremost Raider launch bay, switch to volley fire."

"Aye sir!"

"Captain," Serina spoke up. "The enemy seems to have expended their nuclear arsenal and nearly all their active nukes have been destroyed by our defenses."

"Good to hear." James grunted in reply. "I'd say it's about time we gave them a taste of our own. Serina, prepare to open a hole in Galactica's flak shield and arm archer pods one through three, target their defenses. Lieutenant Gaeta, prepare nuclear strike mission, HAVOK-grade warhead."

"Aye, sir!" The young Colonial officer working under him answered swiftly and then turned to the officer at the nuclear launch control station. "Raise missile tube one to launch position. Set target package coordinates on the same point as batteries one and two!"

"Copy, target package coordinates locked in!"

"Good thinking, Lieutenant. Serina, you have my verbal authorization. Fire the Archers and then the nuke immediately after."

From Galactica's portside hull on the amidships, the launch shutters over three of the planned eighty-five planned pods withdrew and in a cascading barrage the seventy-two missiles streaked forth on thin contrails, followed directly behind by the Variant V HAVOK nuclear missile.

However, it did not all go as planned as the sensor systems inside a dozen of the Cylon missiles detected the opening in the point-defenses and readjusted their headings for the gap. Once the missiles outbound from the Galactica were away, the flak defenses reengaged and the Cylon missiles began dropping like flies in a hot oven, save for one which happened to bear the last of the basestar's nuclear warheads. The nuke detonated just a meter above the nose of the ship, a tiny pinpoint of a star alive for a brief second as the force of its birth knocked Galactica heavily into Spirit of Fire and shook the crews of both ships from the force of the impact. James would have been knocked off his feet it he hadn't been fast enough to grab the railing he'd had installed around the edge of the command and control station.

"Don't stop firing, we'll deal with it later!" he yelled emphatically. "Serina!"

"The plating held, sir. Deploying damage control teams." Serina answered with a seriousness coupled with a slight but noticeable duress. "Permission to bring Spirit of Fire's starboard deck batteries online."

"Granted! Lieutenant Travis, redirect all batteries to target the Raider launch bays of the Target-Two Basestar, focused salvo fire. Serina, same target!"

While the Galactica's and Spirit of Fire's guns were coming to bear on the second basestar, the barrage of archer missiles began to fall upon the first basestar and while its missile defenses swatted a fare third from the air around the remaining dozens hit their marks. The impacts jostled and softened the basestar's defenses long enough that the HAVOK equipped missile struck inside the ragged wound tore open on one of the Raider launch bays by the pummeling it had received from the onagers.

With a thirty-megaton detonation, the HAVOK only had a third of the yield the Cylons had hit the Galactica with using their nuke, but in a feat of tactical brilliance by Lieutenant Gaeta, he had directed it to the most vulnerable part of the ship. In the ensuing explosion, the ragged wound was torn open wider and deeper until nearly the entire ship had been torn in half and a gaping absence left in its place. In the surviving upper half of the basestar, a desperate few more cruise missiles were launched before all power was lost in an act of desperate vengeance that would prove ultimately futile.

MAY 10 2534 / 1118 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD

OPERATION: BLACK SHEPHARD

PATROL FLIGHT: ONE-ALPHA

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Spirit of Fire and all flight teams, this is Warlock. Siren is down. Repeat: Siren has been destroyed." Starbuck heard Warlock say over the wireless, bringing a thin smile to her face.

"Alright people, you heard him. ECM is down, let's get ready." McCullen said with clear satisfaction.

Up ahead and on her DRADIS, Starbuck noticed something peculiar. "Celtic, the Raiders are breaking formation. I think now that their Combat Hybrid is toast they're losing tactical cohesion."

"Then we'll use that to our advantage. Everyone, Wall Formation! All Executors, prepare to launch primary munitions on my order. Vipers, hold your missiles back until they're inside five klicks."

Ahead the Raiders were bearing down, swarming like angry hornets that had just lost their queen, a moving blanket of machine and nerve that was the nine-hundred-odd Cylon fighters. Whether or not Scar was among them Starbuck couldn't say, but she was sure he'd show up at some point soon.

"All Executors, launch! Launch!"

On the bellies the forty-six Longswords, twin munitions bays opened and deployed two long cylindrical missiles from each of the craft that rocketed away at the Raiders. When the missiles had closed three-quarters of the distance, their true intent was revealed as four sections along the shaft blossomed open and revealing eighteen smaller missiles hidden within.

Given the designation CAIMU-11 by Serina when she designed it for use against the swarms of Raiders the Cylons employed. The CAIMU-11 or the Caiman as McCullen's pilots were calling it, was a cluster munitions launcher containing eighteen Argent V missiles designed to be used in a vacuum and like the onagers upon the Galactica, this would be the first test of their effectiveness.

A total of eight-hundred-and-twenty-eight missiles fired from the submunitions launchers, causing the Raiders to scatter wildly as they streaked toward them. Detonations carpeted the massive Cylon wave of fighters, some narrowly avoiding one missile only to be struck by a second while others were hit by multiple warhead detonations in a true example of overkill. By the time every missile had either truck a target or had been destroyed, the Raiders had been decimated down to where their numbers were about equal with the human fighters they were tasked with destroying.

"Alright flight teams, it's an even fight now so let's take it to 'em! Vipers, you are weapons free!" Celtic shouted. On his signal, the wall of human fighters accelerated toward the scattered remnants of the Cylon strike force.

"Target-One Basestar is down! Target-One Basestar is down!"

MAY 10 2534 / 1119 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA BS-75

CIC

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

Back at the battle at the outskirts of the asteroid field, the remaining basestar had reoriented itself to face its ventral hull surface to the Galactica's guns and now the Spirit of Fire's which together continued to hammer into the Cylon ship. Persistently, the Cylons continued to launch dozens of missiles every second, determined to overwhelm the battlestar's flak defenses as they knew they could from past experiences and the nuke that had gotten through earlier, not realizing however that the impact had happened on a fluke. But after several minutes without any subsequent successes and under a constant barrage from which they had no defense, it was becoming increasingly apparent that this was a losing battle.

Serina again appeared on her holotank. "Captain, the enemy basestar is powering its FTL drive."

"Do what you can to slow them down. Concentrate fire!"

Spirit of Fire's deck batteries on the end of its starboard side wing focused their fire on a single arm. While being slightly lower-velocity guns when compared to the modified onagers, the quad-mounted turrets fired larger slugs and did so in a singular volley that together struck like a meat hammer upon the basestar's outer hull, pummeling it until the faster slugs from Galactica's batteries were able to pierce in through and out the other side before striking the center stalk, though some drove deeper into more vital systems, damaging the ship in unforeseeable ways.

The FTL drive activated, but not as it was intended to function. The onager rounds that had pierced the basestar's hull damaged the power conduits running from the ship's reactor to the FTL drive, causing an interruption in the charging sequence. But due to an error caused by the extensive damage across the ship, the hybrid at the basestar's core did not halt the jump countdown, with disastrous results.

"It jumped." Serina said before then on a puzzled expression. "No, wait…"

"Serina, get me a visual!" James ordered, looking up to the monitors above the command and control station along with Lieutenant Gaeta.

"Aye sir,"

The image James saw made him raise an eyebrow while Gaeta just looked astonished. There floated out in space the upper and lower portions of the basestar in perfect position but with no stalk in the middle.

"Serina, assessment." James requested.

"From a glance, I would say their FTL drive suffered a serious malfunction sir. No signs of power or further missile launches though."

"Were you able to track the jump, could it still be in the system?"

Serina made a slight shake of her head. "Negative Captain, I've detected no jumps anywhere in the system, but it is highly unlikely there would be any survivors from such an event."

James frowned, knowing that regardless of Serina's assessment that the possibility of Cylon survivors who could report back Galactica's new offensive capabilities still existed and he was kicking himself for not ordering a second HAVOK missile launch, but the new cannons had been doing so well James didn't want to waste a bullet on a dead horse.

"Nothing we can do about it now. Lieutenant James," he directed towards his communications officer. "Get me a line to Spirit of Fire." He requested, the words sounding strange as he spoke them aloud.

"Aye sir, connection established."

James pressed down the transmit button on the console. "Spirit of Fire, this is Cutter, both basestars have been destroyed. You may deploy salvage and science teams to the wreckage once it appears stable." He announced, smiling when he heard the cheers on the other end of the line. "You got one hell of a ship here, Admiral." He added.

"You don't have to tell me that, Captain, I always knew she was." Adama replied at the other end.

"Admiral, can you tell me the status of the flight teams?"

MAY 10 2534 / 1119 HOURS

223 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD

OPERATION: BLACK SHEPHARD

PATROL FLIGHT: ONE-ALPHA

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

A grade-A furball had now formed between the Raiders and the joint UNSC-Colonial aircraft. When the Vipers and Longswords fell on the Raiders in the initial engagement took out around sixty enemy birds thanks to Javelin missiles but then the Raiders fell back into a tight area of the asteroid field where they could leverage their maneuverability over the Longswords. Right now, Kara was on the tail of one toaster who'd tried to come in on Celtic's flank for a strafing run. A burst from her cannons went right up the Raider's engines where the entire craft exploded in a squall of gore and Starbuck jinked right to avoid peppering her newly minted Viper with the organic and metallic debris.

A shadow above blocking the sun brought on a surge of adrenaline as Starbuck thought Scar was bearing down upon her. She quickly maneuvered with her RCS, aiming the nose of her Viper up and seeing that a small asteroid had merely drifted to block the light, in the distance spotting Captain Ramos' strike team chasing a pair of Raiders. "Damnit," Kara swore to herself.

"Starbuck, where the hell are you? I got a Raider that's trying to bug out and I need both you and Kat to watch my six." Celtic questioned over the wireless.

"Copy, on my way." She answered and reoriented her Viper to make her way back.

After a short flight weaving through the asteroid field, Kara came into visual range of the Longsword. Kat's Viper was cautiously holding back roughly a hundred meters from Celtic's tail in waiting for Scar or any other Raider to make an opportunistic attack while Celtic lead the chase.

As the Raider did a half-roll, slipping between two large asteroids and disappearing, Starbuck got a bad feeling in her gut. But before she could act or even say a thing, a second Raider shot out from the gap where the first had disappeared into and under than a kilometer from the Longsword's nose. Scar, it had to be him. Immediately, it opened fire with a brutally extensive burst aimed straight into the cockpit, much to Kara's dismayed shock. She heard a muffled scream over the wireless as the Longword tumbled out of control while the Scar dipped its wing to cruise on past it.

"Celtic! Celtic, do you read!" Kara heard Kat call out in panic as the Longsword smashed its back into one of the asteroids with a forceful impact that crumpled the outer frame of the wings

"Kat, watch out!" Starbuck shouted out in time for Kat to kick her RCS thrusters and avoided Scar taking her out too. Starbuck accelerated and opened fire with her cannons even though she was at maximum range, she was just so damn angry.

Scar tried to make off but Kara was right on his ass, determined to take him out permanently this time.

"Spirit of Fire, this is Kat. Cutthroat-One is down, we need SAR out here now!"

It didn't even take a second before Kara heard Dee's voice. "Roger, a Raptor is on the way, standby."

"Kat, hold your position until the SAR bird arrives, I'm going after Scar." Starbuck said with a vengeful growl.

"Starbuck wait, you won't have any backup!"

"That bastard's not getting away!" Kara stated adamantly. Putting the Viper's engines at a full burn she was able to catch up with scar by nimbly darting through the field using her RCS systems coupled with the inertial dampeners that made the maneuvers possible. She was coming up Scar's left flank using a power sliding drift around an asteroid the size of a pyramid stadium and she opened fire, nearly striking the tips of Scar's wings. Scar rolled in reaction and changed course to bear right. Kara followed him, the disfigured Raider weaving around every asteroid it could in an attempt to lose her.

"Nu-uh, you're not losing me. Not today!" Kara shouted, fueled by adrenaline and anger at that damn Raider who'd killed so many pilots in this gods-damned asteroid field. McCullen may have been abrasive and a hard-ass, but he was smart and damn good at his job juggling the responsibilities as the CAG for a massive air wing like the Spirit had. And as much as Kara wouldn't have liked to admit it to his face, he was a damn fine pilot too. He didn't deserve to get what that sneaky motherfraker did to him or the rest of the crew inside the Longsword. Scar's reign of terror was going to end today. "You remember me, don't you? You're mad I spilled your stupid ugly guts? Well I guaran-frakking-tee you I will put you down this time, for good!"

Scar pulled up around an asteroid while inverting himself to narrow the arc he would have to make to pull a 180-degree flip that would put Kara's Viper in his digital sights, but she saw what he was trying to do and moved left around the rock. When they were about to cross paths again, Scar braked using RCS, trying to get behind Starbuck but she rolled under his line of sight. The two entered a flat-scissors like they had during their first dogfight and like the first time, Starbuck cut her engine thrust and maneuvered into a drift. Unfortunately, Scar was wise to this tactic and pulled up to avoid the burst Kara sent his way.

Damn it, this wasn't going anywhere. Kara had the advantage in maneuverability but Scar was just too damn good to get caught between the crosshairs.

She needed something…

Then off in the distance to the far left, Kara spotted a tight clustering of three larger asteroids with a narrow gap running between them similar to the cluster Scar had used to take Celtic out and with that, she had a plan.

"Kat!"

"Starbuck, I copy, what's your position?"

"Never mind that, I'm sending you target package coordinates, I want you to fire two missiles at that position on my order." Kara said as she marked the target on the battlenet.

"Give me thirty second and I can be over there myself."

"Negative, until that Raptor arrives, you're not moving one frakking inch, you hear me? Just fire the missiles on my mark!"

Starbuck heard a frustrated growl on Kat's end. "Copy. I hope you know what you're frakking doing."

Kara closed the channel. "Yeah, me too."

Focusing back on the chase, Starbuck armed all four of her Javelin missiles and achieved a lock on Scar. "Starbuck: fox-two!" she said as her thumb mashed down on the launch button atop the flight stick. All four missiles launched one immediately after the other, and Scar predictably dumped flares like fireworks at a Colonial Day fair. Starbuck immediately pulled a 45-degree turn and gunned it, Scar following in pursuit once the last of the missiles had failed.

She banked hard to right and performed a barrel roll to confuse Scar, at least temporarily.

"Yeah, yeah you do remember me. You want my ass so bad you can taste it! Well, keep coming!"

Starbuck continued on her wide arc around to the triple asteroid cluster while narrowly avoiding Scar's fire, the blue bolts sometimes passing less than a meter from her canopy, waiting until she was halfway to her target.

"Kat, now!" she signaled and a paired beep on her DRADIS signaled the launches coupled with a time-to-impact countdown set in brackets just above the center of her vision.

[00:19]

Now the race was on and Starbuck wasn't going to lose this one. She ducked over a long asteroid that had the shape of a rotten log, cutting her engines and nearly overtaxing her starboard RCS thrusters to the point of failure as she was nearly brought to a halt. Scar sailed over and past her, buying precious space and time she needed to survive and more importantly adjust her flight path to come between the gap in the cluster in that the incoming missiles wouldn't be visible on Scar's DRADIS or visual sensors.

[00:12]

It didn't take long for Scar to get back on her tail, the thing was just too damn angry to give up the chase now that it didn't have to follow the Combat Hybrid's orders any longer. Anger: it was something Starbuck was noticing when thinking back on her own personal experiences with the Cylons. Their obsession with their anger and contempt they held for humanity seemed like madness when compared Kara's own experiences with Serina's logic and somewhat endearing dry wit aboard Spirit of Fire. It made Kara think more and more that the UNSC was right about Cylons and rampancy. That obsession, she could use that against them, against Scar.

[00:07]

Starbuck was in the pipe now, on track for the narrow gap between the two grey hunks of cold rock and she had to hold her course to slip through even with Scar bearing down on her.

[00:05]

Scar began firing wildly with every round he had in a hailstorm of cannon fire, the rounds peppering the asteroids ahead. At the three-second mark, Kara rolled 45-degrees to port and pulled up the second she was through the gap, only by a fraction of a second avoiding the missile impacts as they struck on one of the asteroids' surface and throwing up large chunks of debris. Debris that Scar ran head-first into. It's starboard wing caught a large chunk and completely sheered off from the fuselage, putting Scar into a clockwise tumble that sent him into the asteroid's surface where the Raider was battered against the cold stone, the crash reminding Starbuck of a highspeed racecar accident. Scar finally came to a halt when he slammed flat against a wide crater and when she saw he couldn't move, Starbuck took her Viper in to investigate.

Kara eased her forward RCS thrusters to bring her to a halt in front of Scar's broken body. On his faceplate, she saw the metallic visor retract and the eye began to sweep left and back to right, then sighting her. It didn't move, not one millimeter. Scar just stared at her and Kara could sense that obsession and that contempt it had for her. It wanted to kill her so badly.

Kara didn't see a machine anymore, just a rabid dog. And in a way, she felt sorry for it. Depolarizing her canopy and the visor of her helmet, Starbuck looked at the Raider eye-to-eye for a long second before she squeezed off a short burst from her cannons that barely lasted a second.

Without another word, she reoriented her Viper and made her way back to Kat. On the wireless, calls were going out that the remaining Raiders were being chased down and destroyed. Others were calling for additional SAR Raptors to be deployed. They may have won the battle, but not without cost.

Starbuck sighted Kat by the asteroid cluster where she'd left her and pulled up beside Kat's Viper. Ahead by the wreck of the Longsword, the SAR Raptor floated with its door open and the rescue team deployed in tethered vacuum suits.

"Starbuck," Kat said softly in surprise as she apparently hadn't noticed her on DRADIS or even see her, which struck Kara as a bad omen. "…did you get him?" Kat asked.

"It's done." Kara answered succinctly. "What's the casualty report?"

Kat sighed. "We lost six Vipers, three more damaged plus another Executor."

"What about McCullen?"

2 DAYS LATER…

MAY 12 2534 / 1117 HOURS

225 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

DROPSHIP HANGAR 01

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

49,543 SURVIVORS

"Lieutenant Colonel McCullen was one of the finest officers I've known in my career." Kara said, standing at the podium in her dress-greys. Before her stood an immense crowd inside the massive Pelican hangar with more people up on the gantries to the racks of dropships stacked along the wall. To her right sat the metal coffins of the ten pilots and airmen they'd lost in the operation upon the aircraft elevator, their caskets respectively adorned with flags either of the UNSC or the Colony they belonged to.

"I didn't know him long but being aboard the Spirit, I could see how much everyone respected him. When we came over from Galactica, he spoke with every pilot and operator we had even though he didn't have to, just to get to know the people he was flying with. He didn't shirk any responsibilities off on someone else despite the workload being the CAG for a massive air wing like this meant while still operating as a pilot. I don't think I'd ever be able to do a job like that." Kara said with an awkward but honest smile that quickly disappeared. "Once I asked him why he still flew in addition to his other duties… and he told me that he never wanted to lose the respect of his pilots and give them an order that he couldn't do himself… That was the kind of man he was and it was an honor to fly alongside him. Know that he will be missed, not just here, but aboard the Galactica as well." Kara finished as she stepped down and Captain Cutter approached.

"Thank you, Captain." He said quietly while shaking her hand before taking the podium. Kara stepped away, joining Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh where they stood adjacent to the podium.

"We commit these brave men and women to the void, returned to the stars from which we all came from, but we will not forget their sacrifice and their surface to humanity."

Cutter then right-faced and crisply saluted the caskets, mirrored by every person in the hangar. From the left, the assembled UNSC ceremonial band began to play, starting with a steady drum beat and the strange, somber sounds emitted from an Earth air instrument called a bagpipe.

Kara watched as the elevator began to slowly lower down the shaft until the airlock door sealed above. From the launch bay down below, the caskets would be loaded on to a Pelican and flown within a safe vicinity of the system's star where they would be put to rest.

MAY 12 2534 / 1356 HOURS

225 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

COLONIAL FLEET

CLOUD 9

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is Sekou Hamilton," a handsome dark-skinned man in a deep black suit introduced himself holding a microphone. Around him stood two opposing crowds of people bearing countless picketing signs, split by a carpeted aisle to the building's main doors as well as a lot of marines holding both sides back.

"I'm here on the scene at Cloud 9 and right outside the Colonial Quorum Building where a historic bill is either going to pass or fail today concerning the implementation of UNSC technology within the Fleet. As you can see around me," he said, gesturing with his free hand back at the crowd hurling insults back and forth. "-this is a hotly contested issue with strong arguments coming from both sides. Are we going to trust what is essentially a Cylon to help us survive and get to Earth faster? For more on that we take you now to the Quorum Chamber where the vote is about to begin."

\\\\\\O

In the Colonial Quorum Chamber, Ellen Anders stood at the floor podium, setting her papers in order again for the fifth time.

"Nervous?" Tom asked from his seat beside her.

Ellen gave an anxious chuckle in response. "Yeah, I guess… Feels like giving my dissertation all over again."

"Well, I'll be right here beside you if that's any comfort."

From the Vice President's podium, a gavel was struck loudly, calling everyone to attention. "Everyone, please be seated." Gaius Baltar called out rather politely. "I am calling this Quorum into session."

As everyone settled in, Baltar's eyes fell down to Tom who remained where he was. "Representative Zarek? Pardon, did you not hear me?" he asked.

"I think it's clear to the Quorum, where I stand." Tom stated boldly.

Baltar waited a moment to reply. "Very well," he answered with a polite smile. "Then as the Vice President, I announce that this Quorum is now in session." Baltar said with another strike of the gavel.

Ellen looked around the chamber, both the stands behind her and the balconies were packed full of civilian observers and reporters, making her all the more nervous. Around ten meters away, President Roslin stood at her own podium looking rather composed for a woman said to be suffering from sleep problems for the past two weeks.

"On to the first and only order of business, the Fleet Protection and Artificial Intelligence Restriction Act. Would Gemenon care to offer any final words before we put this to a vote?" Baltar said into the microphone while looking over to Sarah Porter who looked as self-righteous as ever.

"No, Mr. Vice President, I have faith that this Quorum will make the right decision." Porter answered with a holier-than-thou attitude that made Ellen want to roll her eyes.

Baltar turned toward Ellen and Tom. "And you, Ambassador Anders. Do you have any final remarks you would like to give?"

Ellen looked Porter straight in the eye in a final brief hostile gesture before looking back to the Vice President. "No." she answered flatly.

Baltar made an amused little hum, ignoring the obvious tension. "Then I guess we'll be skipping right to a vote then, won't we? Very well, we will proceed to a formal vote." Baltar said clearly and hitting the gavel again, which Ellen thought unnecessary and she wondered if he thought of all of this, or at least his position as some kind of novelty at times. "I recognize Caprica to start the vote off."

"Caprica votes no!" Tobin Nash said with an ardent resolve that made Ellen smile just a bit.

"Gemenon votes yes." Sarah Porter spoke with a much more subdued but nonetheless as fervent attitude.

"Libran votes yes." Said Representative Oswin Eriku.

Then came Allisander Assiel. "Aerilon votes yes."

"Virgon votes no." Marshal Bagot stated forthright.

"Aquaria votes no." Expectantly came Miksa Burian's vote guaranteed by Tom.

"Leonis votes no." Safiya Sanne said plainly without any gravitas weighting his words, catching some of the reporters in the gallery off-guard as a muted mumbling of hushed voices was slightly made audible.

\\\\\\O

Introducing James Cromwell as Vasha Kazami

\\\\\\O

"Picon votes yes." Said Vasha Kazami, much to Ellen's and everyone's shock. Quickly, she looked to Tom and leaned in close.

"What is going on Tom?" Ellen whispered in panic. "I had the supplies sent to his ships, what is Vasha doing?"

"Picon and Leonis have had conflicts in the past." Tom whispered back. "It's possible he learned of our deal with Sanne about the Adriatic and this is his way of getting back."

"Well, can we do anything Tom? Appeal the decision, something!"

"Tauron votes yes." Perah Enyeto then voted, momentarily diverting their attention.

"Not now, not here." Tom again whispered. "We'll regroup and double our effort in the People's Council, we can still win this." He promised.

"Canceron votes yes."

"Scorpia votes yes." Said Eldaio Puasha, putting the 'yes' votes at seven, much to Ellen's dropping stomach.

"Representative Zarek?" Baltar asked.

"Sagittaron votes no." he solidly stated into the mic even as Ellen was panicking beneath her skin.

"Then the bill has been passed and will head to the People's Council." Baltar said before striking the gavel loudly over the clamor of the reporters in the gallery. "Now as there is no further business, this Quorum is adjourned." Baltar said with a final strike of the gavel as the Quorum representatives up at the podiums began to stand.

"One moment please?" came a new voice. Ellen looking over, discovered it belonged to President Roslin.

"Yes, madam President?" Baltar asked, looking less surprised and more curious as to her intensions.

"I would like to address the Quorum." She requested.

The Vice President blinked for a moment. "Everyone, everyone, please be seated." Baltar asked politely. "Alright, um… the Chair recognizes President Laura Roslin."

"Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Ladies and gentlemen of the Quorum, I come here today to offer my perspective on this… contentious issue that has been dividing the Fleet as of late." Laura Roslin began. "

In my personal opinion, I believe that Earth's use of artificial intelligences is a dangerous and reckless practice, given our own history with the Cylons, and their use should be at least temporarily put on hold. This is my belief." Roslin stated, making Ellen feel all the less welcome.

"However," Roslin paused, "-it is a tenet of war that you can't always choose you allies, nor your family. And let us not forget that we are all human here, all of us the descendants of the tribes of Kobol. Without Earth and without Spirit of Fire, our tribes have no future and getting to Earth is this fleet's only priority. I may disagree with Earth's use of AI but I am willing to at least acknowledge that they may know more about the subject than we do. That is why here today, I am declaring that if this bill comes across my desk, I will veto its implementation." Before the clamor in the gallery died down, Roslin continued. "Further, by executive order I am granting the installation of the new FTL navigation program across all ships along with any other Earth technology that can increase the survivability of this fleet." With great force, Roslin stated.

"This is also not to say we should turn a blind eye to our own heritage, our history and the cultures from each colony should be preserved, and not left to be forgotten." Roslin paused, wearing an intense look, she took a breath. "Since assuming the Presidency, it has been my mission to maintain the rights and freedoms we so enjoyed prior to the attack. One of these rights has now come into direct conflict of the survival of our people, and I find myself forced to make a very difficult decision. The issue is stark. The fact is that if this civilization is to survive, we must, must repopulate this fleet. Which is why I am effecting a second executive order. Know it is not without a deep sense of personal conflict that I do this, but from this day forward, anyone seeking to interfere with the birth of a child, whether it be the mother, or a medical practitioner… shall be subject to criminal penalty. Thank you."

\\\\\\O

Ellen exited the Quorum Chamber alongside Tom, Safiya Sanne, Marsal Bagot and the other representatives who had backed her, save for Vasha Kazami of course. Ellen looked to him as an uneasy relief floated about her. "So, that didn't exactly go according to plan, but we won, right?"

Tom offered a sidelong smile in return. "On the political stage, yes, but we shouldn't rest on our laurels. The president may have promised to kill the bill, but if we stop it before that point in the People's Council, it will sway more public opinion our way." Tom said confidently before he stopped and gently touched her shoulder. "But for at least tonight, we can rest and enjoy ourselves."

"And when that time comes," Safiya Sanne said to Ellen's left said. "Leonis will remember the promises she makes to her friends." He promised now that their alliance had been brokered.

Not much further away, she noticed Vasha Kazami walking by at a slightly faster pace toward the exit doors and Ellen decided that one ill turn deserved another and she loudly cleared her throat.

"Yes, Representative Sanne, I'm glad to hear some people respect their promises." She said with a glare at the traitorous old man. He didn't respond but Ellen could tell she frazzled his nerves.

"Ambassador Anders," came President Roslin's gentle voice from behind and Ellen turned to face her.

"Madam President," Ellen greeted as they shook hands. "Thank you for your support today."

Roslin hummed in affirmative before offering her full reply. "Yes, I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to meet with you Ambassador or help you sooner."

"It's fine," Ellen forgave with a dismissive gesture of the hand before looking to the man closest by her. "Tom here has been a great help to me throughout this whole ordeal."

"Tom?" Roslin asked at the informality of using his first name.

"Yes, I've been introducing the Ambassador to the ways of politics in the Fleet." Tom admitted.

"Oh, is that so?" Roslin said with a casual dismissiveness that belied a subtle hostile undertone toward Zarek that Ellen failed to notice.

Sensing an end to the conversation, Ellen moved on. "Well now with the President's executive order, Spirit can help the entire Fleet. And Tom… since you've been such a big help, I've been discussing the Astral Queen's schematics with Serina." Ellen said and Tom's smile grew wider. "And she thinks your ship can be easily converted into a farming ship with some simple hydroponics and UV lighting. It could become one of the main food suppliers of the Fleet and grow crops cloned from some of the food supplies we have aboard the Spirit."

"See madam President? Progress already!" Tom then said to Roslin before taking Ellen's hand in both of his in deep gratitude. "Speaking on the behalf of Sagittaron and for myself, thank you so much Ambassador."

Ellen smiled back, feeling actually welcomed now that she had found a circle in the Quorum, perhaps even with Sanne in time. Ellen turned to the other four representatives of Virgon, Aquaria, Leonis, and Caprica. "And not just the Astral Queen, I'll work with the Captain to improve as many ships as we can, starting with all of yours."

As words of thanks and gratitude were thrown about, between Ellen and the four politicians, behind her Tom Zarek and Laura Roslin locked distrustful sidelong glances at one another and a brief sly smile flashed in the corner of Zarek's lips.

MAY 12 2534 / 1735 HOURS

225 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

ASTEROID FIELD OUTSKIRTS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

HANGAR DECK 02 LAUNCH CONTROL ROOM

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Kara asked Captain Cutter as she entered the room, it was a tight little space packed with three large control consoles and numerous overhead displays hanging from the ceiling, but curiously there were no other crew present.

"Yes Captain, would you mind joining me?" he asked from his place by the square windowed wall that overlooked the deck.

Kara walked on over and Cutter spoke first. "I've been thinking about what you said to me a little while back about Caprica and the survivors there. I had the chance to grab copies of the report you made and had Colonel Shaw look them over." Cutter said as he looked Kara in the eye and a strange feeling was dawning upon her. "He thinks if a simple sports team can survive effectively in enemy occupied territory then the likelihood of other survivors throughout the Colonies would be extremely high."

Cutter then looked away out the window again. "But even with that, I still can't risk the Spirit for any kind of a rescue op. I could only do that if there was some kind of objective or strategic resource that could greatly increase our chances of survivability in getting to Earth or help the UNSC in the long run." Down on the deck, the aircraft elevator activated, hauling what looked like Warlock's Longsword up onto the deck.

"It's a shame really, the FTL systems in that Longsword worked even better than expected. Why Serina estimates it would only take just over eighty jumps to reach the Colonies from our current position. What I wouldn't give for a few dozen more drives or the manufacturing data on them." Cutter said to Starbuck with an implying subtle glance.

"If I had any reliable intel on the locations of such strategic resources in the Colonies, now that would be something worth taking a risk for. Don't you agree, Captain?"

Kara did her best to repress the grin she wanted to bear. "Taking risks is something I do best, sir."

A thin smile crossed Cutter's lips. "Going by your file, I'd say so. But oh well, I guessed it's the hand we're dealt with, can't fight against that, can we?"

"Hell yes we can, sir." Starbuck answered ardently and Cutter smiled in agreement.

"That Longsword takes off in fifteen minutes, Captain." He said as he began walking away. "I think Warlock said something about wanting to give you some hands-on training if you're interested."

"Thank you, sir."

\\\\\\O

A few minutes later, Starbuck walked aboard the Longsword in her UNSC flight suit and the place indeed was even more spacious on the inside than she first envisioned. Upon entering the cockpit, she was greeted with the colossal form of a Spartan standing adjacent of the doorway, judging by the skull and crossbones on the right pauldron it was Alice.

Ahead at the pilot's seat, Warlock turned his head around, bearing the worst shit-eating grin Kara had ever seen. "Well then, glad you could join us here Captain. Why don't you come and take a seat next to me in Kick's station? She'll be sitting this one out."

"Uhg, don't make me gag, I just got my helmet on." Kara answered as she made her way forward, noticing a face she never expected to see again in a flight suit, let alone here with her.

"Sharon?" Starbuck asked as her head darted up to look at Warlock. "Hey, what the frak is she doing here?"

"I'm here to help." Sharon answered. "Captain Cutter promised to give me and Hera asylum here on the Spirit. In exchange, I'm helping him and you'll need someone who's an expert on Cylon procedures and air operations if you want to move around the Colonies without getting spotted."

"Hey, we're on a ticking clock here, Starbuck." Warlock reminded. "If the Skipper says she's good to fly, she's coming."

Kara looked back to Sharon wearing an annoyed and conflicted expression but then shook her head sigh a resentful sigh. "Fine, let's just get going." Kara said as she walked the rest of the way over and strapped herself into the copilot's seat.

"Serina, the launch override please?" Warlock asked.

"Well, since you asked so nicely, Lieutenant Breckenridge." Serina's voice came through over the speakers in the cockpit. "There, you may launch when ready."

"Alright, sound off. Is everyone ready for takeoff?" Warlock asked while turning his head halfway right.

"Ready." Alice replied.

"Ready." Came Sharon's.

"Take us out, Warlock." Starbuck said.

To the rear of the craft, Kara could hear the throttling up of the fusion engines. "Alright, triggering catapult in three… two… one."

The Longsword shot down the runway, rocketing into space while the wireless went into a commotion of confused messages.

"Cutthroat-zero-seven! Cutthroat-zero-seven, do you copy? This is Spirit of Fire flight operations!" came Colonel Tigh's cantankerous voice that sounded none too pleased with them. "You have not been cleared to launch, return to the ship immediately!"

Kara looked to Warlock and he motioned his head at the controls. "He's your XO."

"Flight ops, this is Starbuck. Negative, we will not be returning to ship. Not for a few days, but we'll be back, so keep a light on for us. Starbuck out." Kara looked back to Warlock while Tigh proceeded to cuss up a storm over the wireless channel. "Alright, now get us the frak out of here before they send any interceptors after us."

He nodded in reply. "Copy that, spinning up FTL drives and calculating jump coordinates."

On the UNSC radar Kara took notice of the two new 'friendly' contacts departing from Spirit of Fire. "Warlock?"

"Jump coordinates confirmed, initiating jump!"

A few seconds later, the Longsword disappeared in a strobing flash of light, leaving the two recently launched Vipers with nothing left to chase after and the craft turned back. On the secondary bridge of the Spirit of Fire, Bill Adama looked out the viewport with a scowl, unhappy, but not entirely unsurprised that Starbuck had pulled off another stunt like this again. But he was fairly certain of who helped her do it.

\\\\\\O

1806 HOURS

UNSC SPIRIT OF FIRE CFV-88

CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS

As James sat as his desk going over preliminary reports of the Cylon technology the science teams salvaged from the basestar wreckage, Serina spoke.

"Captain, Admiral Adama is approaching your quarters, and he doesn't appear to be in the best of moods."

"Well, time to face the music. Unlock the door." James ordered as he resumed reading, hoping to finish up the last paragraph before Adama came storming in. And storm he did, not even bother to knock, Adama entered with an aggressive pace. It was easy to tell he was upset by the obvious stiffness of his shoulders and the tenseness upon his wrinkled features.

"Admiral, is something wrong?" James opened as he continued reading.

"You know damn well what is wrong." Adama bit back with clenched teeth. "Ten minutes ago, the Longsword we equipped with FTL drives took off without authorization and with Starbuck aboard. Did you authorize that launch?"

"Last time I checked, this was still my ship, Admiral, and I am beholden to no one, not even you, to justify my actions. That Captain Thrace was aboard was a decision she made on her own."

"Then where the hell is it going?"

Closing the file folder he was reading, James looked up to the Colonial-blue uniformed man standing before his desk. "I sent it on a scouting mission to the Colonies." He admitted.

"What?!" Adama asked sharply and James fixed him with a harsh stare.

"A few days ago, Captain Thrace informed me that there are still survivors in the Colonies, a fact you neglected to apprise me of, Admiral. And that just made me wonder what else, and how many more people might be back there as well." James said with a small bite of indignation in return.

"Trying to retake any the Colonies with only three ships would be suicide." Adama said with no small bit of surprise.

James rose from his desk chair. "I'm not talking about retaking anything, I'm talking about the acquisition of strategic intel and assets and whatever poor souls were left back there. You and I can both see how a wing of FTL-equipped Longswords and Pelicans would be a godsend to us in keeping the Cylons off our backs. Why, we haven't a single means of acquiring intel on enemy fleet movements, and I for one am sick and tired of getting ambushed by basestars and Raiders!"

Adama said nothing as he continued to scowl with a look of grudging agreement in his eyes to that last remark.

"It's a moot point for now, we have no reason to argue until Starbuck and the recon team returns." James said as he walked around his desk.

"Fine, we'll shelve it." A bitter but cooling reply came from the Admiral. "Now what about the half-Cylon child, it's been four days but the President has finally found a suitable foster mother for it, seeing as how you still haven't given me an answer on it staying here."

"Her name is Hera, Admiral, and she will be staying here, along with the mother as well."

Adama's mood abruptly reversed at that sentence and he bore teeth at James as he spoke. "The hell she will." Adama growled in a way that would have likely cowed many other men, but to James who had weathered the barbaric bestial roars of Covenant Elites over COMM channels, he remained unintimidated.

"She applied for asylum, Admiral, and I granted it in exchange for key strategic intel and tactical advisement. That's why I just sent her along on the recon mission to the Colonies. And as for Hera, she was born on a UNSC ship, making her a citizen of Earth and her Colonies, so don't you or President Roslin even think of trying anything."

A step closer brought the Admiral almost face-to-face with James. "I want both of them back aboard my ship the second that plane lands."

"Or what!?" James challenged. "You'll try to start a fight with us, again? After I devoted my ship, my crew, and valuable resources to Galactica and this fleet? After I promised to lead your people back to the safety of the UNSC at the possible cost of a war with the Cylons?"

James took a bold half-step closer, putting the two within breathing distance. "You don't think it hasn't crossed my mind to weigh anchor and leave you all behind? It has, but I didn't. I stayed because I didn't want to have the deaths of forty-nine-thousand people on my conscience. I lost my goddamn CAG out there in YOUR operation, so don't you start bellowing at me when you don't get your way!" he growled right back. "Exchange is something you're just going to have to get used to, Admiral." He ended on a tone of finality as he pulled a particular file from his desk and shoved it into the Admiral's chest.

"You want a Cylon prisoner so bad? Take your pick."

Adama took a reluctant backward step, opening the file to see detailed papers on several random seeming civilians in the Fleet, but he stopped when he saw the picture of D'Anna Biers and immediately after that priest he had seen on Galactica trying to board one of Major Heidegger's Pelicans to Spirit of Fire.

"Where did you get this information?" The Admiral asked with a slightly more civil tone.

"Your former prisoner." James answered. "Four for two, that's more than an even trade."

With a light flap of the folder, the Admiral shut it and looked back up to James' face. "This isn't over." He promised, not a threat, but not an idle remark either.

"Yes Admiral…" James replied with equal veiled intent. "…it is."

MAY 13 2534 / 0849 HOURS

226 DAYS AFTER CYLON ATTACK

COLONIAL FLEET

CLOUD 9

UNKNOWN SYSTEM

"You sure you're alright to work today Ambassador?" Hudson asked from just behind Ellen as they entered the Quorum building and made for the stairs. "I know after a hard night of drinking like that, I never want to get out of bed."

Frost chuckled. "And I always had to haul your sorry ass out of your bunk before roll call."

Under different circumstances, Ellen might have obliged the men with a chuckle but was slightly preoccupied with the feeling that someone had treated her skull like it was a drum while she'd been sleeping.

"No, there's still plenty of work to do. I have to speak with the Adriatic's Captain and Representative Sanne today about the security measures we're going to have to put into place if they want any fusion reactors aboard that ship." She finished as the came to the door to the Embassy. As Master Sergeant Bishop approached, he halted abruptly and a quizzical look was in his eye.

"Huh, the door isn't locked." He noted.

Shaking her head impatiently, Ellen sidestepped the man. "Tory probably just came in early."

Ellen entered as normal, however, upon doing so she was greeted with the sobering sight of Tory in the hold of another woman as a hostage with a gun pressed to the side of her head. Time froze for her until Bishop and his paratroopers rushed in with their sidearms drawn, and the Master Sergeant pulled Ellen back to shield her.

"Put the gun down now!" he ordered but Ellen doubted the hostage taker would feel very inclined to do so. Tentatively, Ellen peaked around Bishop's shoulder to get a better look at whomever was causing the standoff.

It was a woman, tall, blonde, with her hair tied up in a ponytail with bags under her eyes and a thin layer of sweat covering her face and bear arms coming out of the dirtied white tank top. It looked like she hadn't slept in days. Tory of course looked terrified where she stood in her lavender dress suit with her hands trembling.

"I want a shuttle to the Spirit of Fire right now!" the hostage taker demanded.

"Yeah, not gonna happen lady." Hudson responded as he and Frost slowly spread apart from Bishop to maybe get a better firing line.

With her hangover a memory of the past, Ellen thought quickly and carefully reached into her satchel for her COM pad that she'd had linked in with Cloud 9's communication network.

Keying the device, her office phone rang loudly, startling the already nervous woman, giving Hudson the opening he needed to charge forward. Tory had barely enough time to slip out of the loosened headlock and drop to the floor before Hudson slammed into the other woman, flipping her over the back of the seating area's long couch.

"Hudson!" Frost called out as he advanced quickly.

As he approached the couch, there was no further movement and an accompanying eerie silence. Frost had his jaw clenched, nearly upon it when the woman's arm shot out and wrenched the pistol away. She grabbed him by the throat, hoisting the full-grown man into the air in an impossible feat of strength for a woman of her size. By this time Bishop had bolted in effort to save his men, leaving Ellen alone.

The woman who clearly was not a woman then tossed Corporal Frost back like a ragdoll into Master Sergeant Bishop whom both fell backward into a wooden coffee table and completely destroying it.

Bishop was visibly shaken but managed to get to his knees quickly but unfortunately not before the obvious Cylon was looming over him and was likely going to snap his neck.

Tory, by this time had reached Ellen from her crawl along the floor to her. She grasped at Ellen's sleeve with the terror that was still gripping her and she begged Ellen to run. She wanted to, lord knows every instinct in her head was ordering her to choose flight over fight against a rampant cyborg with superhuman strength. But the memory of that Covenant Elite, the Arbiter, dragging her by the throat with sheer contempt in his eyes into the gravity lift of the alien dropship sparked a fire in her, and the grip of the M6C sidearm she kept hidden in her satchel gave her the courage to dig in her feet.

"Stop! Hands in the air!" she called out as she brought the weapon to bear.

Bishop took advantage of the momentary distraction and elbowed the Cylon in the gut and shot into a tackle that slammed her against the wall with enough force to knock Ellen's framed picture of her science team off the wall and it shattered against the top of a waist-high bookcase.

The Cylon made a grab for a large shard of glass and swung it with the intent of cutting the Master Sergeant's throat out. The sharpened tip came close before Bishop's right hand caught the Cylon's clutched fist and she looked more than a little surprised she was being matched for sheer strength, as was Ellen.

"You're stronger than you look, but you're not the only one who's a little more than meets the eye." Bishop growled as his grip tightened around her fist, forcing the blade of glass to slice into her palm. She screamed and the glass shattered and Bishop drove his forehead into the bridge of the Cylon's nose. He followed it up with a couple heavy right-hooks to the face and a deep gut-punch that sent the Cylon retching over the fist buried in her gut. The finishing blow came when Bishop grabbed her head by the ponytail and brought it down on the top of the adjacent bookshelf, breaking it in the process.

The Cylon tumbled to the floor at the Master Sergeant's feet, unmoving. Ellen kept her pistol trained on it.

"Is it dead?" Tory asked Ellen hesitantly to which Ellen wasn't sure enough to give an answer.

A moaning behind the couch and upon what once had been a coffee table turned both their attentions to the other paratroopers who were rising on unsteady feet.

"Sound off!" Bishop ordered.

Hudson was first as he leaned himself up over the couch's back. "A couple bruised ribs, I think."

"Uhg, just my pride sir." Frost answered.

"Spirit of Fire, this is Bishop," the Master Sergeant radioed in through the transmitter hidden in the collar of his fatigues. "I need a squad here ASAP, the embassy was just attacked by a Cylon infiltrator, no casualties."

At his feet, the Cylon in a twilight state of consciousness, opened its remaining eye that wasn't swelling over and he looked down at it with sheer contempt.

"Spartan-I, bitch." Was the last thing Gina heard before the man's boot sent her into the black of unconsciousness.

Author's Note: Well, I hope it was worth the wait. I had a lot of fun with this chapter, despite it taking so long and I hope it tides everyone over for a while because I really am this time going back to Second Chances for a bit before I get back to the next episode. As always, thank you all for your support and positive reviews, please inform me of any grammar/spelling mistakes you come across.