Epilogue

The crew of the Battle Cruiser Craton were all working on FTB Station. The Craton was deserted, aside from a skeleton crew. Her landing bays were empty of all Raptors and maintenance technicians. Resting in one of the landing bays were three Mark VIII Vipers. The cockpits of the three Vipers glowed a soft blue as they activated. Inside the cockpits, on the Heads Up Display, were red vertical scrolling symbols. On the DRADIS screen below the HUD were red zeros and ones interchanging in a variable pattern. On the left hand side of the cockpit, on the Systems Monitor, was a program running:

-

MN SYS PWR=NOT ABLE

THRST CTRL=INOP

DRADIS=LOCL ACC ONLY

CNP=ROLBACK VRS 34/5

FTL=INOP

COM=OFF

AUX PWR=OFF

CMD: AUX PWR ON

AUX PWR=ON

CMD: COM 1 ON

COM=ON

CMD: COM 1 FREQ: 349.4

COM=ON/XMIT

-

On a computer terminal, in another room close to the landing bay on the Craton, a computer screen flashed: RECEIVING TRANSMISSION. Then the same red characters began to scroll vertically on the computers screen. Momentarily, a program running in the back ground flashed a quick pop up: VIRUS DETECTED. Then the pop up was subsided. After a few moments the computer screen went back to normal.

-

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read my story. I first got the idea after watching the Miniseries DVD one rainy afternoon. I refused to believe that the populations of twelve worlds could be annihilated to a few fifty thousand. There had to be others. I wanted to try to write a plausible story to show that. While writing, I made several rules: I couldn't interfere with the TV Shows story line. I wanted this to be a standalone story (in my mind, this had to be something you could plug into a DVD player and watch without watching BSG). 10 chapters MAX! (which I broke). No more than fifty thousand words. Anything more than fifty thousand words is just too much to keep up with (these are short stories after all).

I actually wrote the first three chapters in third person. I did a rewrite and decided on first person to add a more 'Documentary' feel to it. While writing I listened to the BSG Soundtracks and watched various episodes of the show. I always wondered if I should post the song I was listening to when I wrote that particular paragraph. I wondered if that would help or hurt? I also did much investigating into BSG continuity. A few characters in here are secondary or major characters in the series. (Who was his dad? Do a BSG wiki search. . .)

One of my favorite shows is Lost. I like how they tie the characters past lives around one another without them knowing. I wanted to do that to my characters with RDM's BSG characters. That is why I began the flashbacks. Instead, the flashbacks began something interesting. They began to tell, not just the past story of the main character, but why he was doing his present actions. Also, I am an aviator in the USAF, so I used a lot of our own technical jargon we use from my airframe, and just rewrote it for this story. I hoped it added to the realism.

I enjoyed reading your comments, and still do. Some of the concerns in the comments were interesting. I always feel the need to respond, but I resist in the hope that you re-read the story and make sure you didn't pass up your answer.

Also,a few alternate endings I am writing. They are to be added later.