on a liner that she would never have
afforded, with a backpack full of stolen money and
jewelry...

"Next?"

*****

Khufu was exhausted. He had been flying continuous
combat patrols for nearly a secton, to the point that
Doctor Xerkon had pulled him from flight status until
he got some rest. Because Khufu had never been one to
slack off, he had volunteered to assist the
administrative processing staff aboard the
"Unification Day" in interviewing the survivors coming
aboard. Xerkon had grudgingly signed off on it, as the
Unification Day's lounge was staffed and running, and
would provide at least some distraction for the tired
pilot.

It had been a long day. The Unification Day ran on
Colonial Standard Time - the system used by the
Colonial Military - but it was synched to the Gold
Star asteron base; the transition was processing
through, like everything else, and the lag was
dragging him down.

There was a severe lack of military-grade
administrators available to record and processChapter 1 - Escapes

ABOARD THE BATTLESTAR PEGASUS

The Yahren 7346, Molokay System


Betrayed.

The thought thundered through Commander Cain's mind
like a Viper's engines on turbothrust. Someone had
betrayed them.

Cain was on the high platform of the Pegasus' bridge,
looking over Colonel Tolan's shoulder at the data feed
from the sensor pit. Off their starboard/stern
quarter, the screen was filled with targets.

Cain had been selected to form and lead the Fifth
Fleet to relieve Molokay. The Molok's were the
Colonies' sometime ally in the never-ending war with
the Cylon Empire; once it was clear that the Cylons
were moving to destroy them, the Molok's had sent
frantic messages to the Colonies, begging for help.

The Council of the Twelve had sent Cain, the Colonies'
greatest living military Commander. Cain accepted that
title as a simple matter of course; his Caprican
friend, Adama, ackowledged that Cain was a better
war-leader, although it hurt his pride to do so. Adama
was a g the
incoming survivors. They were being interviewed (in
theory) as they came aboard every ship of the
assembling fleet, but processing what was rapidly
turning into eighty-thousand souls was proving to be
an overwhelming task.

Khufu had interviewed thiry-three people so far, that
cycle. The
interviews were all the same. Name? Place of birth?
Date of birth? Last residence before the attack? Yes,
terrible thing...Designation? Blahblahblah...His
thirty-third interviewee got up.

"Next?" he called.

The woman was short and rather attractive. She was
lugging a backpack and a sample case, and carrying a
sleeping youngling in an improvised sling. She wasn't
exactly well-dressed, but certainly not from the lower
dregs. She nervously adjusted herself in the chair.

Khufu tried to smile, but didn't think it was very
convincing. "Your name, Miss?"

"Uh...Kendra, daughter of Agon and Sarah." Kendra was
a bit intimidated - the Captain before her was a
Leonian and a Ra-ist, from his shaven headood fighter, in Cain's opinion, but his main
interest was in politics.

And now someone, someone interested in politics, had
betrayed the Fifth Fleet.

A voice whispered in his head: Now you know what
defeat is. Yes, Cain thought bitterly. Yes I do.
"Tolan," Cain said, biting back the bile, "general
order, all ships: scatter drill."

Tolan looked up from his station in shock. "Sir?"

"You heard me, Tolan. It's a trap. Tell the transports
to break and hide at top speed, then head for the
nearest jump point. Signal to all Battlestars: form on
the Pegasus,and accelerate to flank."

"Yes, Sir," Tolan replied grimly.

A lot of my people are going to die, this day, Cain
thought. Someone is going to pay for this...and I
don't care how long it takes.

With great difficulty, he pushed from his mind
thoughts of his daughter -- out there, leading her
wing.

*****

The battle was a forgone conclusion; the Cylon attack
fleet was huge, the largest Cain had ever seen in one
place in his entir...she also
found him very attractive.

"Your date of birth?"

"The fourth day of Shii, seventy-three twenty-five."

"Place?"

"Athena City, Virgon."

"Where were you living when the Cylons attacked?

"In a flat in District Twelve, Parish Eighteen. On
Auric Street...Uhh, Captain?"

Khufu looked up; she was staring at his jacket, hung
on a peg behind him. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry, but isn't that a patch from the Battlestar
Medusa?"

Khufu's interest perked up; not many civilians were
conversant with Battlestar insignias. "Yes, it is. Why
do you ask?"

"Oh...I-I'm sorry," the girl stammered, "it's just
that Miriam's father was aboard the Bucephalus..."

Khufu paused - no way, he thought. "What is his name?"
he asked gently.

"Flight Sergeant Shane, from Gemon..."

Khufu thought for a moment. "Well, I don't recall the
name, but all the surviving Buc pilots went into
Falcon Squadron. Let me check..."

"Oh, it's alright; his family told me they were
notified of
his...death."

Khe career as a Warrior.

No fewer than thirteen Basestars had been hiding in
the shadow of a massive, heavily-ringed gas giant,
safe from the Fleet's scanners. They had revealed
themselves, disgorging Raider craft by the hundreds,
and were bearing down on the helpless transports.

The four Colonial Battlestars, led by the Pegasus,
spread out into a roughly parallel course, all four on
a roughly even plane of advance, and hurtled towards
their old enemy.

Cain was unsettled; nothing about this was right. The
Cylons didn't typically hold anything back in their
attacks. This time, however, the Cylons were keeping
about one fourth of their Raider units back,
protecting the Baseships.

That was frakking strange; Cain could not recall such
a thing ever having been reported. The tactic was
similar to the Colonials' own practice.

Felgercarb. This was forcing him to commit the
entirety of his Viper reserves to punch through their
Raider line -- leaving another Raider line for them to
deal witufu's fingers still punched keys on his computron,
but his eyes
narrowed a bit. "You weren't notified? That's standard
practice, to notify spouses first."

"We-," she tried to meet his gaze and failed, "we were
never sealed."

"I see...You knew his parents?"

She nodded. "After Miriam was born, I contacted his
father on Gemon. Shane had told him that he intended
to ask me when he returned from Molokay, but..."

"I'm sorry," Khufu said, "the Buc put up a good fight.
And from what I can see, he's not on the roster of
Falcon Squadron. What do you know of his family?"

"They tried to support me, sending me a little money
every
quarter-yahren, but I haven't heard anything since the
attack."

"Well, it's possible that they either made it out with
the Galactica, or on the new draft from Gemon. What
are his parent's names?"

"Reynald and Mala; I'm not sure of their parent's
names."

"I'll keep an eye open," he smiled. "What was your
Designation on
Virgon?"

"I was an assistant researh.

"Tolan, signal to all Battlestars: all Viper wings are
to stay as close as possible to their parent
Battlestars - they are not to pursue Raiders out of
range."

"Yes, Sir," Tolan replied stolidly. Beneath his
veneer, he was scared; this was bigger than anything
in his worst nightmares. "Lead Viper elements will
engage Cylon fleet screen in 3 microns."

"Understood," Cain replied.

Frak.

*****

The bridge of the Pegasus was bathed in the blood-red
light from the battle lanterns; smoke coursed through
the bridge - the atmo-cycling system was barely
running. The Battlestars had all taken severe damage
already...and had only just reached the Cylon line.

"Status?", Cain asked calmly. It was strange: right
now, he would usually be shouting.

"All Battlestars have taken heavy damage, Sir," Tolan
replied. "Pallas reports her Alpha landing bay
completely destroyed; Bucephalus has fires out of
control and burning towards their main energizers;
Medusa reports heavy damage to Beta lanch and restoration
technician at the
University of Virgon; I worked in the Library
District."

Khufu paused, and looked carefully at the girl...there
was
something..."What were you working on at the time of
the attack?"

Kendra smiled. "Drudgery, really. At least, I thought
so at the time. We maintained holo-scans of historical
materials, mostly manuscripts. When the attack
happened, I was on my way to our offices' celebratory
gathering. We managed to get into the Library's
basement complex, where we had our office. Once I
realized what was happening, I opened the safe, and
removed our holo-chip files..."

Khufu sat, amazed. "And where are the files, now?" The
thought of that much information saved, when so much
had been lost...

Kendra smiled again, and toed the sample case at her
feet. "I wouldn't be dragging this around if I didn't
think it was important."

Khufu took a chance. "What were you doing two days
ago?" he asked.

The girl paled visibly. "Uh...well...I...ummm...I-I'mding bay, fires
burning, but under control."

"The Cylons?"

Tolan paused. "Sir...it looks like their flank
squadrons are splitting off..."

"Are they trying to flank us?"

"Uh, I don't think so, Sir. They appear to be heading
away from the line at a 90ø angle, relative."

Which meant that the transports were dead - the
Baseships were scattering to plug the system's other
jump points, and the transports would be helpless
against a Basestar. Cain sighed - inwardly. No need to
upset Tolan anymore than he already was. "All ships,
maintain course. Hurt them...And ready evasion slugs,
if possible." An invention of his: it would send out
multi-spectral bursts of interferance that should
blind Cylon sensors long enough for them to escape.

"Yes, Sir."

If they could escape.

*****

Cain pressed his right hand harder against his temple,
trying to hold the flap of scalp in place against his
head. His vision was fuzzy and his head pounded like
the Furies, but he could still focus.

The
sorry...I didn't mean to-to...", she stammered, tears
welling in her eyes. "I was just out looking for food
and the Cylons came and
IhidinthegarbagethenIshottheCylonthentheVipercameandIranandw
eneededthemoney..."
Tears were pouring down her cheeks, now, the little
girl was awake and starting to cry at her mother's
distress.

"Stopstopstop," Khufu said, totally bewildered at the
sudden change. "Whatever happened, I'm sure it's not
something that can't be fixed. Now, you said something
about shooting a Cylon?"

Kendra was miserable, trying to wipe at her tears,
fearing that she would soon be in front of an Opposer;
Ra-ists were generally straight-laced about
proprieties and legalities. She *knew* she shouldn't
have lisened to that stupid voice. "I was out looking
for food, when I heard a Cylon vehicle coming. I hid
in a pile of rubbish, and it stopped right in front of
me, and some Cylons got out, but one was different..."

"Different how?"

"It was auric-colored..."

"Alright -- th Warrior was still in Command.

Rubble from bulkheads and debris from destroyed
equipment littered the deck; here and there, a body
sprawled. Klaxons blared, but they seemed distant to
Cain.

"Tolan? Tolan, are you alright!?" Tolan was slumped in
his chair. "Tolan!" Cain shook him with his left hand;
it, too, was covered in blood - his own?

Tolan shook his head groggily. "Whu-?" His face
screwed into a mew from the pain: his right shoulder
was obviously broken.

"HELM, REPORT!", Cain thundered into the din.

An officer down in the Pit stepped forward through the
smoke. "Sir, we are still on our last heading...Heavy
damage repoted in all sections..."

"All auxiliary damage control personnel to their
stations! Then set course for the closest jump
point...When you do that, tell where that leads."
Without waiting for a reply, Cain staggered across the
high deck, and leaned over. "Sensors! Status on the
other Battlestars? Surviving Vipers?"

Captain Demetrios, his sensor officer, coughen what happened?"

"Well, the fighter came in and dropped a bomb, but it
didn't hurt the Cylons, so I stood up and shot the
auric-colored one..."

"Shot it with what?" Khufu was having a hard time
believing it, but he was now convinced that this was
the figure he had seen running away from the Cylon
command track that morning.

"I'd found a destroyed Cylon in the rubble a few days
before, and took its rifle."

"Alright...then?"

"Well, the other Cylons turned when I shot, and I just
started pulling the trigger as fast as I could, and
the rifle blew up, and then a Viper came and destroyed
the vehicle, and I ran into a store, and...well..."

"Yes?"

She wouldn't look at him; she hugged the girl closer
to her. "We needed clothes, and I thought we were
about to be rescued, and I knew we'd need money, and
there was a cash box..." She hugged the girl again,
silent tears flowing down her cheeks.

Khufu stifled a laugh. The girl was certainly no
criminal, and obviously had no idea of whed, and
wiped something from his mouth. "Sir. Pallas and
Bucephalus are gone. Completely destroyed. We did not
see the Medusa destroyed, but when the glare cleared,
she was gone."

"Frak. Captain, I can't see over to Flight Control.
Get hold of whatever Vipers are out there, and sound
the recall..." and collapsed onto the deck,
unconscious.

***** *****

The bridge of the Battlestar Medusa was wreathed in
smoke and flames. Commander Cyrus grimly maintained
his Chair, even as the damage control teams battled
the flames around him. His hard features and dark
curly hair, only now starting to turn gray after 84
yahren, belied his Gemoni birth in the Harzhan
Badlands on Gemon's equatorial continent.

He hadn't thought of home in yahren. He pushed the
thought from his mind. "Hala, report."

Colonel Hala, his second in command, said from her
chair, "Sir. I think those slugs worked; the Cylons
don't seem to be pursuing."

"Any sign of the Pegasus?"

"No, Sir...There was too much interferat was
coming. He considered his options, and decided not to
keep her on the edge...mostly.

"Miss," he said, mustering as much seriousness as he
could, "are you a registered member of the Virgonian
Home Guard?"

Kendra stared at him, wide-eyed. "Uh, no..."

"Well, then," he said, mustering every micro-gram of
self-control, "we'll have to notify the proper
authorities."

Kendra nodded meekly, totally defeated. "I'll take
those" Khufu said, picking up the case and backpack
with one hand. "Come with me, please...Carlo?" he said
to the admin supervisor, "I'm escorting this young
lady up to Gamma Deck."

"Sure thing," Carlo said, "and try to get some sleep."
Khufu jerked his head in reply, and slipped his
headset in place. "Khufu to Security," he said
quietly, "I'm en route to Gamma Deck, escorting."

"Copy," replied the security monitor, "I'll let the
guards know."

"Thanks."

They walked through several corridors, until they came
to a lift. Kendra tried to look down, as people staence..."
Watching a Battlestar die was no easy thing; watch two
die in an instant...

Cyrus nodded. "Cain will go quiet - if he's still
alive. Status on Vipers?" The Damage Control teams
finally got the fires out; presently, the processors
began clearing the air of smoke...and other smells.

"We have a count of one-hundred-twenty-seven with us,
Sir. Forty three of our own, and five from the
Pegasus' Silver Spar squadron; the rest are about
evenly split between the strike wings of the Pallas
and the Bucephalus."

"Understood." Thank the Gods for small favors. "Time
to recovery for Beta?"

"Not short of a graving yard, Sir. We can reestablish
atmo in there, but the damage is bad."

"Felgercarb. Set up a rotation for the Vipers: the
ones lowest on fuel, refuel first; those too damaged
to stay out there, we'll cross-deck to Beta when
possible. Unless otherwise designated, all Vipers will
remain skin-tight to the Medusa. It'll be tough on the
pilots, but at least we'll have the strike powred
at her in passing. This was truly then end, she
thought; now she woulod lose everything...

The lift stopped and a voice from nowhere announced
"Gamma Deck". Kendra was certain that it was the ships
brig...a notion confirmed for her when she saw several
armed guards in black uniforms waiting in the foyer.
One of them spoke to the Warrior Captain. "Council
matter, Captain?"

"Definately" came the reply. "If you have a micron,
you might want to come in and witness it."

The guard shrugged, and looked at Kendra quizzically;
she felt very small. "Sure," he said.

Khufu led her through the doorway...into a -- meeting
chamber? There were several figures in the room,
seated around an oblong table. With a start, she
recognized several of them from newscasts on Virgon.
Oh, Lords of Kobol, her mind wailed, I'm going to be
tried right here.

"Captain?" one of the men asked.

"Sire Vladimir," Khufu said, "it would appear that we
have a serious situation regarding this young woman, a
situater ready
if the Cylons show up."

"Yes, Sir."

"And get me Chief Pelops, when he has the chance." The
Chief Engineer was a crusty wonder, able to work
undeniable magik on the engines.

*****

Pelops was a mess. He was covered head to toe in soot
and grime, and he smelled of Boron, smoke and
chemicals. He stopped halfway into the room, faced
Cyrus' desk and came to attention. "The Commander
wishes to see me?" Normally, there would have been a
gleam in his eyes; now, there was nothing but
exhaustion.

Cyrus waved his hand absently...Pelops resumed
walking, and headed straight to the bar, where he
poured two stiff draughts of Ambrosa. He walked back
over to Cyrus' desk, and placed one glass on the
tabletop.

"Death to the Tin-Heads, and Damn the Council," he
said, draining half the glass; he then dropped
unceremoniously into the chair in front of Cyrus.

Cyrus sighed. That was Pelops' main problem: he didn't
care who heard what came from between his lips. "So?"

"We're in a lot ofion that requires the direct attention of the
Provisional Virgonian Council."

The men and women looked at each other in confusion;
several of them were actually smiling. Kendra wanted
to curl into a ball and die.

With a gleam in his eye, Sire Vladimir said, "Proceed,
Captain," as gravely as he could.

Setting Gormley's sample case on the table, Khufu
recounted Kendra's entire story -- leaving out the
stores. Kendra was confused, until Khufu continued.
"In sum, this young woman not only rescued a large
portion of Virgon's Library, she very likely destroyed
the Cylon Commander on-planet...and I have the
gun-camera footage to prove it..."

The room erupted in thunderous applause. Kendra was
like an ovine in a spotlight; she looked up at Khufu,
who smiled down at her, and mouthed "Sorry - I
couldn't resist..."

*****

COLONIAL HOME SYSTEM, 27th Day of B'Kra
IN TRANSIT
ABOARD THE HOSPTIAL SHIP "MERCY"

They were still unpacking a lot of salvaged equipment,
but the Mercy's emergency  trouble, Cy," Pelops said, his eyes
locking onto Cyrus like a blaster turret. "There was
damage to the main energizers; for a brief moment, the
power flickered in the main feed shoot."

Cyrus went through several emotion in a milli-centon:
anger, that Pelops hadn't told him sooner;
resignation, because there was absolutely nothing that
could be done about it...and fear, because of what
that meant for the Pallas' survivors.

"What do you know?"

"Only that the pellets dropped, and are resting
against each other. I don't know if they've been
damaged."

"Assuming that they have, how long before Drive
failure?"

Pelops shrugged. "Three jumps, maybe four. Certainly
no more than that...and the Sickness will be worse
each time." The Sickness was Jump Sickness; it caused
a violent retching sensation in most lifeforms, and
was caused by damaged Tylium pellets.

"We can handle the Sickness," Cyrus said absently.

"Can the Viper pilots?"

"They'll have to..."

*****

The Sickness from ward was full; many people
were still suffering from combat injuries and
malnutrition-caused diseases.

The transfer from the Leo Flotilla was in critical
condition. The unidentified young man had severe back
injuries, multiple broken bones, several internal
injuries and was in a coma. According the reports, the
patient had landed hard in a river after a ten metron
fall. He was lucky to be alive.

What bothered Doctor Jayna was not the patient's
injuries, but the contents of his backpack; it
contained a battery-powered refrigeration unit, inside
of which was a metal framework holding what appeared
to be a small cube of fleshy material...it was also
wrapped in prominently-worded biological hazard
sealer.

Jayna had almost shot the package out an
airlock-disposal, but decided against it, at least
until they decided what to do with it, or until the
young man woke up. With all of the bio-agents the
Cylons had deployed against the Colonies, it might be
something the young man had been workithe first Jump was not that bad,
very mild to what would come later.

After getting the fires out, the Medusa's crew worked
frantically to get Beta landing bay in good enough
shape to at least land fighters; some of the pilots
had been in their cockpits for twenty-five centars, by
then.

As the Medusa withdrew from the slaughter above
Molokay, Chief Pelops confirmed Cyrus' worst fear:
when the power had flickered momentarily in the main
feed chute, it had burned out the relay that supplied
power to the powerful electromagnets that held the
Medusa's ready supply of Tylium fuel pellets in place,
keeping them from slamming into one another. The
pellets were now resting against each other, and the
pellets at the bottom of the chute, the ones ready to
load into the Medusa's Jump drive, were the most
damaged.

Every ship has flaws, no matter how good the overall
design. The Columbia-class Battlestars were no
exception; in their early careers, they had their
share of problems. All of those knng on.

Jayna regarded the young man in his cryo-bed. Under
the bruises and bandages, he was quite handsome; Jayna
would have been surprised if he had been more than an
intern.

She turned away from the cryo-bed, sipped her strong
and unpleasently-cool java, and turned back to her
reports.....

***** *****

THE YAHREN 7348, 28th Day of B'Kra
COLONIAL HOME SYSTEM
JUMP TRANSIT POINT TO STAR HPY-8715


The relay ballute of the destroyer 'Blade'
materialized at the Jump Point, oriented itself, and
shot a tight-beam message to the Medusa, signalling
that the system on the far side of the tramline was
clear...for the moment.

Although it had eighty percent of a Viper's mass, the
relay ballute looked nothing like a conventional
craft. Basically a dodechahedral ball in shape, it was
nothing more than a simple computer auto-pilot, a
large-ish memory bank, a communications suite, a tiny
Jump drive and a set of overly-powerful maneuvering
thrusters. The relay ballutes' design had been
stanown had been
corrected - save one.

In order for the Jump drive to function a Tylium fuel
pellet, the size of a Triad ball, was "dropped" into
the reaction chamber; this was actually a misnomer: it
was lowered through a series of electromagnetic
buffers into a drive chamber that had been primed with
atomized Solium, where the Tylium and Solium were
subjected to a series of powerful and extremely strong
graviton waves, generating a displacement event via a
series of Lanthantie jump coils, which translated into
a spherical Jump field, opening the gateway between
stars.

Tyilum, however, was a very sensitive material; each
fuel pellet had to be polished mirror-smooth during
refining. The slightest imperfection could introduce
random eddies and frequency shifts in the Jump coils,
the transmitters that actually transmitted and
deployed the Field. The random fluctuations caused not
only severe physical effects on living beings, they
would also severely damage the Jump coils themselves,
eventudardized for three hundred yahren; it was just
about as 'boiler-plate' as Colonial technology could
make it, and there were tens of thousands in service
all through what had once been the Colonial Frontier.

This time, however, the maintenance ship "Allodon"
scooped the ballute into its bay; there would be no
trace of the Fleet's passing.
ally to the point of complete failure, where the
coil segments' atomic structure was altered, making
them extremely brittle, and unable to take the energy
surges from the next Jump.

The result would be a massive explosion.

The electromagnets holding the Tylium pellets in place
were extremely durable and reliable, but when they
failed, as they had done on the Medusa, they would
allow the Tylium pellets to slide uncontrolled down
the chute...which usually caused damage to the fuel
pellets. There was a battery backup that was supposed
to engage, but the power surge that burned out the
relay also burned out the relay to the backup switch.

The fault in the design was that short of a graving
yard, there was no way to enter the feed chute to
extract the damaged pellets. Since the sequence of
events that could cause such a failure were so remote,
it was deemed unnecessary to completely redesign the
Jump drive...

...Which, of course, was the exact sequence of events
that happened to the Med