The sirens echoed through all Pegasus, causing a generalized chaos. Some ran, others screamed, others, using all their cold blood, reported to their duties.

"Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill," Kara heard Hoshi communicating.

A lump formed inside her throat. That shouldn't be happening, that couldn't be happening… She knew they were nowhere close to be ready to face an attack. There were not enough pilots, or deckhands. The ships were not prepared. Not even the guy who was replacing her as the CAG, Firelli, was prepared…

"They found us," Sharon murmured, reaching for the cabin's phone in order to call the CIC.

Hera simply sat seemingly calm on the sofa leaning against Kara, who was freaking out right now.

The cylons returning changed everything. This can't be happening, this can't be happening, Kara repeated inside her head. She should be out there fighting, not hiding in her frakking cabin…

"Yes, I'll tell her that," Sharon said. Kara looked at the other woman and saw that she was still on the phone. "Okay, I will. But Helo, tell Apollo that if I'm needed out there… alright. Love you too." She hung up and turned to Kara. "It's a cylon attack. Helo just confirmed it. Lee asked to tell you to stay calm. He wants me to stay here with you."

"Stay calm?! There's a frakking cylon attack out there and I'm here! I can't fly, I can't fight. And I don't need a frakking babysitter!" Kara shouted, getting up exasperated. She looked at the sofa and saw that Hera was starting to look scared – her shouting hadn't helped.

Sharon approached the sofa and picked her daughter up in order to calm her down. "I'm not here acting as the babysitter. Would you rather be all alone here?"

Kara sighed and sat down. "I can't bring a baby into this mess," she said. "I can't stay hiding behind the front lines… That's not what I do." She was Starbuck, a fighter, a leader.

"What you do is protect everyone in the fleet," Sharon corrected her with a hard look on her face. "You're a protector. Now, do what you have to do and protect your child."

Protect your child… She could try, but something told her that there was no shield in the universe that could keep the cylons away. And that was enough to keep her nerves rising.

---

The CIC's condition could be described by one single word: panic. The arrival of the cylons couldn't have caught them in a worse time.

Lee was standing in the CIC trying to contact his father in Galactica. Inside his head, he cursed Baltar over and over. If it wasn't for his stupid law that allowed everyone to desert them…

"Your father in line 1, sir," Hoshi told him.

Lee picked up the phone. "We have to get out here, sir," he said.

"We can't just leave all these people behind," the Admiral responded.

"There's nothing we can do. It's taken us forever just to get to action stations over here," Lee replied. It wasn't a light decision for him but the fleet would be decimated if they stayed behind. "We're in no shape for a fight, sir."

"They'll be wiped out."

Lee sighed. "We don't have a choice. We need to get out of here right now."

There was a moment of silence. "Alright, but we'll be back," the Older Adama declared

"I'll make sure we're ready for that," his son promised before hanging up. He turned to Helo. "Begin jump prep. We're leaving."

It didn't take long for Hoshi to calculate the jump and contact every ship in the fleet. "Sir? Jump 458 underway. Galactica says the rest of the fleet is ready to jump, none of the ships reporting trouble with their F.T.L. Drives."

"Are there any fighters outside?" Lee asked the XO.

"Half a dozen from Pegasus, a few more from Galactica," Helo said, looking at the monitors. "But they seem to be returning. Hoshi, tell them to hurry."

"Yes, sir," the officer agreed, giving orders to the vipers through the wireless communications.

Lee sighed. He felt like a frakking coward for running away from the fight but that was the only way. They would be smashed like bugs if they didn't run. Nobody was prepared for a fight against a massive cylon fleet… He wondered why those frakkers had found them.

"All fighters aboard, sir," Helo announced, bringing Lee back from his thoughts.

"Right. Execute jump," he commanded.

The usual feeling of the ship jumping, like they were being pulled in high-speed, felt like a punch on the gut to Lee. It was official, they were deserting those innocent people. Who knew if they were still alive when the fleet was ready to fight…

"Jump 4-5-8 complete," Hoshi said, sighing in relief."All civilian ships present and accounted for, sir."

"Helo, have Lieutenant Firelli arranging the schedules for intensive flight training," Lee ordered the XO who nodded. "Hoshi, contact Galactica for me."

While Hoshi tried to get hold of Galactica, Lee was trying to form a plan in his head. Intensive training… he wished Kara was the one in charge but there was no way he would put her on that position, considering her pregnancy. Firelli, the incumbent CAG would have to do.

"Line 1, sir," the communications officer said.

Lee lifted the phone. "Admiral, we need to start forming a plan," he said.

---

Manwhile, down in New Caprica, the cylon ships were starting to land on the surface. Hundreds of centurions walked through the streets of the city while the people watched in either sided of the road. Fear was filling the air.

Laura Roslin watched from the entrance of the school, along with Tory Foster and Dualla. She had returned to the school after her call to Bill had been interrupted. She had heard the word cylon in the background. She had known that they were coming even before the ships were visible on the sky…

"How did they find us?" Roslin asked rhetorically. There was a nebula surrounding the planet… that was supposed to make them invisible.

Tory didn't react to anything. She simply stood there in her usual cold self. However, deep inside she was freezing with the fear…

Dualla, on the other hand, was shaking. She turned around and re-entered the school, unable to see that toaster parade anymore.

"We need to do something…" Roslin murmured. She joined the mob and started walking through it in order to go back to the raptor that she had used to contact Bill earlier. She needed to know what was happening up there.

Samuel Anders, Saul Tigh and Galen Tyrol were inside of the raptor along with a few more members of Sam's pyramid team, making the ship inside of the ship very crowded.

"Miss Roslin," Tigh said when she joined them inside.

"Did you manage to contact the fleet?" she inquired.

"The fleet is gone, ma'am," Sam stated. "They left us an encrypted message and left."

"We managed to de-encrypt it," Tyrol told her, pointing at the screen.

'Not ready for a fight. Keep eyes open, we'll find a way to contact you. Hang in there. We'll be back to get you. Promise,' the message said.

"We can't really blame them," Tigh murmured. "The ships are a mess; they'd be smashed in no time."

"But what do we do now?" Roslin asked.

"Survive," Sam said. "We make a resistance move and fight." He looked at his fellow team members. "Wouldn't be the first time for us…"

"The recruiting has to start soon," Tyrol murmured. "I received a message from a secret source saying that Baltar had already surrendered us all…"

"We also need a base and ammo," Sam pointed out.

"There's a shelter under the school," Laura told them. They stared at her in surprise. "You never know when it comes handy…"

Tigh nodded. "Alright, we'll use the school. Now, let's spread around. We'll meet again tomorrow by the same time in the school."

---

Sharon was sitting on the sofa with Hera sleeping on her lap. She was feeling furious, guilty… She felt like she was the enemy. It was simple logic: Cylons were the enemy and Sharon Valerii was a cylon, leading to the conclusion that she was the enemy. It made sense to everybody, even for herself. And, in from of her, Starbuck seemed to be freaking out again.

"Starbuck…" she murmured.

"I need to get out of here," Kara interrupted her, getting up with difficulty. She went to the bedroom and locked herself in there.

They had jumped. All she could think was that the cylons were winning again. And they were letting them. Her thoughts were a mess: she was worried about the cylons; scared because of the baby, pissed off because she couldn't fly…

And then, that was when she felt it. Her stomach contracted painfully and she curled, shutting her eyes. Then, she felt wet. Had her water just broke? One month and a half before it was supposed to? No, she concluded when she checked. There was a blood stain.

"Sharon!" Kara called, unlocking the door. Something was very wrong.

A/N: Small chapter, especially compared to the last one. I know, this is a mean cliffhanger.