GALACTICA SDF
                                HOLOCAUST
                              by Davey Jones
                adapted (loosely in places, tightly in others)
                         from the original teleplay
                  BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: SAGA OF A STAR WORLD
                         by Glen Larson and company


   "I'm on him!" Lieutenant Thehivi snapped excitedly.
   "Backing you up!" his wingman, Flight Sergeant Sapechi, called back.
   Thehivi was busy. The cylon manta whirled and spun, the last remaining ship 
of its ill-fated ambush patrol, knowing it, too, was doomed if it did not 
escape its pursuers. The Lieutenant quickly glanced from side to side, then to 
his HUD, fingers tapping rapid commands on his keypad.
   Three missiles rocketed back from the cylon; Thehivi cursed, sent his 
scorpion into an evasive pattern even as he gave up trying for a target lock. 
He sent countermissiles out, then frantically tried to redo his previous 
efforts.
   "Sending you some presents," his wingman said laconically. Thehivi 
grinned thinly; Sapechi talked more on patrol than off duty, and he seldom 
said more than necessary anyway. On his screen, a small cloud of antimissiles 
fuzzed around his partner's Venger-class stinger-C; the cylon's attack 
disappeared in a glare actually briefly visible off to one side.
   His systems meeped; target lock was achieved. With a cry of triumph Thehivi 
approved and launched a trio of rattlers, at the last centon instructing them 
to follow the remainder of Sapechi's countermeasures in. A manta was no better 
at dodging fire than the average viper, it was true, but best not to tempt 
providence; nail the bastards while you had the chance was the unofficial 
motto of the 4734th Strike Wing, CircumSagitarra Prime Base.
   The cylon managed to dodge most of the incoming fire by flying closer to 
the tight-packed rings of rubble and rock the three ships were traversing. The 
humans had earlier been forced to silence their proximity alarms; they already 
knew that their speeds were too high for flying in such conditions, and they 
didn't need the constant screeching.
   Now they had to split their attention between their target and the rocks 
around them as they dove back into Hereit's rings in pursuit. It almost cost 
them their lives.
   A flare lit Thehivi's cockpit, his fighter shuddered, and an alarm he 
couldn't shut off wailed. "Frack!"
   "Missile?" Sapechi queried, a rare note of concern in his voice.
   "Rock," the Lieutenant replied disgustedly, keying commands. "It's...c'mon, 
c'mon...not bad. High port engine took some grubble. I'm already losing power, 
but all other systems are still operating. Confidence is good."
   "Taking the point," the Flight Sergeant said. On Thehivi's HUD, his 
partner's indicator smoothly slid forward. The cylon blip was dodging 
frantically; it had already led one rattler into a small orbiting mountain, 
but the other two were clinging tenaciously. Most of its countermeasures were 
negated here in this gravel-pit wonderland; if it did not successfully lose 
the other colonial missiles, it was done for.
   It happened quickly, actually.
   A larger-than-normal chunk of rock, almost twenty kiloms on a triangular 
side, loomed swiftly before the trio of ships. The cylon tried to dodge while 
the rock was still distant; one rattler saw this as a fine opportunity and 
flared the last of its fuel to catch the manta suddenly, unexpectedly. It went 
off just short of its quarry, but the fringe of the blast rocked the cylon, 
shoving it back toward the rock. The last remaining rattler, deeming this too 
good a chance to miss, followed its predecessor's example. The blast took out 
the manta's rear portion, sent the raider careening down to the asteroid.
   Thehivi and Sepechi curved off in opposite directions, avoided with ease 
the flying mountain on which there bloomed a bright globe of light, light that 
quickly died.
   The colonials looped back around, slowed and hovered, checking the impact. 
Nothing remained to mark the passing of yet another alien fighter save the 
large, still-glowing crater and a haze of blazing dust thrown up by the 
explosion.
   "Looks good to me," the taciturn Flight Sergeant called his wing leader.
   Thehivi nodded to himself. "Right. Leave the rings. Let's get back to 
base."
   "Roger." The Lieutenant was startled as his quiet partner offered a 
further observation. "Maybe now some of those men on that troop carrier'll 
rest a little easier."
   "You know," Thehivi mused aloud as the two fighters kicked briefly into 
superlight for the jump back to their homebase, "if the cylons honor 
ceasefires like this, I don't think either one of us is going to be of a job 
any time soon."
   "Amen to that."

                       *** *** *** *** ***

   Almost five sectons later to the day, Lieutenant Starbuck, ace fighter 
pilot of the Blue Squadron aboard the battlestar Galactica, was thinking 
just about the opposite.
   He held his head under the spraying water, rinsed long blond hair, tipped 
his head back to clean his face. Shaking the water off, he turned, letting the 
shower clean his back as he stood, thinking.
   Well, I may've been wrong, he thought sardonically. Looks like the 
cylons may actually live up to their promises. Be the first time. He turned 
the shower off, and splashed off to the nearby lockers, following the concept 
through. Good thing, too. Be interesting to see what I could do as a 
civilian. He snorted to himself as he visualized a tall, blond man, smoking 
stig clenched tightly between his lips, raking in a huge pile of cubit 
markers, as the horde of beautiful women around him squealed their delight and 
amorous promises. Gonna take more than those rubes from Gold Squadron to get 
me that much in the bank, he thought, toweling his hair dry. Come in 
handy, though, when little miss Command Lieutenant Athena gets back from the 
Atlantia. I show her a good time tonight, she ought to be in a good enough 
mood to give it up. His smile widened as he dried his broad chest. Hey, 
that's a series of coups no one could ignore! I nail the alleged `champions' 
of Gold in a friendly game of pyramid, I nail Lieutenant Athena, Commander's 
Daughter and Professional Virgin, and I nail the Cylons to the wall! Well, 
that last maybe with a little help from the Fleet, he granted magnanimously.
   He finished drying his body, wrapped the towel around himself-not that he 
was particularly modest-and there was no one to be modest for in the unisex 
shower, with practically everyone glued to their viewers watching history 
unfold around them-but he didn't feel like having his hands full-and took a 
stig from his locker. He sucked it to smoldering life as he stepped under the 
air dryer, thumbed it on, and finger combed his damp hair as the dryer worked.
   I'm not sure which of tonight's festivities to look forward to most, he 
decided. Gonna be a pleasure to show everyone just who is the reigning 
chancery champion on this ship, and that's a plus. Those guys from Gold've 
been making a little too much noise about how clever they are; gotta take `em 
down a peg. Well, a few. He grinned to himself, shaking his mane in the 
breeze. Hell, a lot. Let `em work their way up from the bottom again.
   And it's going to be a definite pleasure to finally nail Athena! he 
told himself with grim satisfaction, and paused to scratch the inevitable 
physical reaction. Starbuck had never taken defeat, especially romantic, 
lightly. God alone knows how much I've spent on that girl so far, and she 
never puts out. Well, after tonight, she's gonna know what she's been 
missing. The hair dryer shut off at his touch; he padded back to his locker, 
pulled his shave kit out, and proceeded to the sinks. Although that could 
have drawbacks, he reflected. She's the clingy type; she's gonna want 
commitment and all that felgercarb. He slapped his kit down before the 
mirror, looked critically at his face.
   A straight-lined, strong-jawed face surmounted by a long, slender nose, 
thin, full lips, and dark blue eyes beneath thick blond eyebrows stared back 
at him in approval. He grinned, gave himself a high sign. Hey, she wants 
exclusive rights to the Starbuck, she's welcome to `em. There's enough of me 
to go around. Nav Captain Noday's perfectly satisfied being my exclusive 
woman-didn't take her long to figure out that being bez was for the birds!-
and Flight Sergeant Ariassa's perfectly happy being my exclusive woman. 
Athena'll fit right in!
   
   Zac had waited as long as he could.
   He brushed long, black hair back from his forehead, glanced up and down the 
corridor, and played obsessively with his headset.
   No sign of Starbuck, he thought frantically. Where the hell is he? If 
Apollo comes along and he's not here, I'll- That thought was too distressing; 
he shifted it aside for another. 
   The Peace Conference had already begun, about two days ago. The final 
ceremonies were due to begin in just another few centars. Already, most of the 
assembled Fleet had gone to light Alert, and the atmosphere was that of a 
party long in progress just awaiting the arrival of the guest of honor.
   Zac blinked dark green eyes. His father was Adama, the commander of this 
battlestar, the Galactica, and its attendant support fleet. His sister was 
Athena, a Lieutenant in Command, Adama's hand-picked trainee to someday 
command a battlestar of her own. His brother was Apollo, a Captain in Flight, 
leader of the Galactica's Blue Squadron. Him? He was just a lieutenant, only 
two sectars graduated from the Caprican Academy at Q'rella.
   Of all the lousy timing! he had cursed on more than one occasion since 
reaching his duty assignment aboard this ship. A secton-ten damned days-
before I graduate, the Cylons have to go and do something stupid like sue for 
peace. So of course when I get out here, there's nothing for the hottest 
new pilot in the fleet to do but cool his heels. I think if I fly one more 
`escort' patrol for some planetary bigwig I'll shoot myself just to get out of 
my misery. Zac still grumbled from time to time; the few remaining combat 
patrols still being sent out by the battlestars as those behemoths slowly made 
their way to the rendezvous point at Cimtar-Mephis were going to the 
experienced pilots; he and others who were newly arrived were getting the 
milk-run duties.
   And today! If I don't get at least one patrol in now, before they can sign 
the treaty and get all peaceful, I'll never have the opportunity, he 
thought forlornly. Dammit, Starbuck, you said you'd let me take your patrol! 
Where the devil are you?
   Zac's eyes narrowed, his shoulders squared, his back straightened, and he 
stalked off toward the pilots' ready room. No more mister nice guy. He'd 
find Starbuck, and demand that the pilot live up to his agreement.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   System Grand Base Picon-Sud floated in empty space, a part of the vast 
defense network that ringed the last known human star system. Its 
responsibility was the `south' hemisphere of the system, ever vigilant for an 
enemy approach. The station was a hulking rock almost twenty kiloms in 
diameter, studded by the metal and plastic of human buildings. Starlight 
gleamed from the huge barrels of beam cannons, casting dark shadows across the 
gaping maws of missile launchers. Lights circled this asteroid, tiny slivers 
of life amid the cold darkness of space here at the southern `pole' of the 
colonial star system.
   Sensor arrays spread across both poles of this worldlet, ever alert, ever 
vigilant for the incursion of cylon fighters or invasion forces. These arrays 
could easily detect the approach of something as small as a single-seat torp-
fighter as far out as a half light jahron; unhampered by either planetary 
gravity fields or the radiation interference of the central suns, they could 
detect superluminal movement even farther out.
   In the command center of this defense post, Corporal Hodakon lifted his 
dark head, spoke uncertainly to his headset. "Supervisor? Sergeant Shombo? 
Corporal Hodakon here. EM 3 Array."
   One level above him, Sergeant Shombo turned her bulky body in his 
direction, nodded. "What's the problem, Hodakon?"
   "I'm reading a peculiar anomaly, Sarge," Hodakon reported, his tone 
indicating his confusion. 
   "What kind of anomaly?" Shombo asked with the patience of a true non-com.
   "Almost like a cloaked ship, or a ship in a stealth field," the corporal 
responded.
   Shombo's eyes narrowed. "That shouldn't be happening," she pointed out.
   Hodakon nodded to her, motioned at his screen. "I know, Sarge; I checked 
with flight control before I bothered you. They said there are no scheduled 
warship flights in this area at this time."
   Shombo's wide mouth drew to the side in displeasure. "Frack. You've 
probably got another damned sensor glitch. Rideti told me they'd fixed 
that!" Hodakon just sat and waited. "All right. Use the north slope array; 
commandeer it if necessary. Hit this alleged bogie with a tight probe."
   Hodakon held up his hands helplessly. "I haven't got my clearance for that 
yet, Sarge," he explained.
   Shombo cursed, said something to the technician seated next to her, and 
advanced to the stairs. "All right, all right, I'm coming." When she had 
reached him, she leaned over him, tapped at his keyboard. "There. How the 
devil did you end up on command deck duty if you don't have your clearance?" 
she queried irritatedly, locking her command into the queue.
   Hodakon grinned ruefully. "I've got my low level," he hastened to explain. 
"I'm just waiting on my-"
   "Ah!" the sergeant interrupted him, standing back. "There we go!" The pair 
waited for a moment, and Hodakon's screen flashed distressfully. "Grife. Same 
damned thing he swore was fixed. I'm gonna staple his butt to the-" The 
sergeant turned to stalk off.
   "Uh, Sarge, what do I do about this?" Hodakon asked. He had only been on 
command deck duty for two sectons; he was still uncertain about having so much 
authority at his fingers.
   Shombo turned to glare angrily at him. "Register that anomaly, log it, send 
word to traffic control to get a patrol to that area to physically check it 
out, and go back to your normal duty, corporal," she told him sharply.
   "But...but what if it's a cylon or something?" Hodakon asked curiously.
   "Then the fighters'd handle it. But it's not," the supervisor assured him. 
"Can't be. We had this ghost on and off for about a sectar a couple'a sectons 
ago. Turned out to be something wrong with the interface between the north and 
south arrays. Besides," she assured him quickly, "the cylons don't have the 
tech to go stealth on that wavelength, or we'd've known it by now. That'd be a 
colonial ship if it was anything."
   Hodakon raised an eyebrow, shrugged. "Oh, well." Shombo turned, stomped off 
the deck.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Starbuck wiped his face dry, picked up his kit, and turned. Zac barreled 
into the locker room and almost ran him over.
   The younger man stopped, aghast. All the angry words, the furious demands 
he'd planned to issue, disappeared. "Starbuck, what're you doing?" he 
shrieked. "Apollo's gonna be here any michron! What're you going to tell him?"
   Starbuck proceeded calmly to his locker, stored his shaving gear, and sat 
down on the plastic bench. He puffed calmly, blew a pungent cloud of smoke in 
Zac's face. The young man coughed, waved the fumes away. Starbuck grinned 
sardonically. "Zac, now, just calm down," he advised, using his stig as a 
pointer for emphasis. "Apollo's a good guy. Why are you so nervous?"
   "Well," Zac said, his enthusiasm suddenly sidetracked, "he, they-"
   "Yeah?"
   "Starbuck, they all think of me as a kid!" Zac said earnestly. "Athena 
and Apollo are the worst! They still think of me as their little brother!"
   Starbuck took another long draw, held it, enjoying Zac's discomfort at his 
own calm. "Yeah, well, kid, right now you're acting like a little 
brother." He hiked an eyebrow, stood up to rummage in his locker for clean 
underwear. "It's just a routine patrol, anyway. Why's this one so important 
to you?"
   "Just...because it is," Zac mumbled. He caught the look of amusement in 
Starbuck's eye. "Look, Starbuck, I'm a warrior! I proved it at the Academy. 
I've earned that. They just don't seem to realize it. I want to prove it to 
hi-them." He stopped, searching Starbuck's face anxiously.
   Starbuck couldn't resist. He calmly pulled his underwear over his head, 
stretched it for comfort, stretched them down. He lifted an arm, cautiously 
sniffed his armpit. By the time he was done with his personal inspection Zac 
was almost bouncing from the walls. "Well, now, Zac," he dissembled, snapping 
the fastener of his underwear, "if you stop to think of it, this may not be 
the best time to go out on patrol-"
   "Starbuck! It's a peace envoy!" Zac's voice was pleading now. "What 
possible trouble could there be?!?"
   Starbuck shrugged into a shirt. "Well, now, Zac, that's not the point-"
   From out in the corridor came a baritone bellow. "Starbuck! Are you in 
there?"
   Zac's eyes just about popped from his head. He turned a look of pure 
anguish to Starbuck. "It's him! Starbuck, you promised-" he hissed.
   Apollo, already suited up in the normal dark flight suit of a fighter 
pilot, helmet in hand, strode into the locker room. His dark hair was clipped 
back by the headset he wore, and his emerald eyes widened briefly as he took 
in the pair standing guiltily before him. He gave his younger brother an odd 
look, turned his attention to his wingmate. "Starbuck, what're you doing? 
We're up for patrol, right now. Hurry up, dammit."
   "He-e-e-e...can't make it," Zac managed to squeeze out. Apollo turned a 
cool look on the younger man, and Zac flushed in spite of his determination. 
"He's not feeling well." Starbuck jammed his stig into his mouth to punctuate 
the statement, puffed aromatically.
   Apollo eyed his brother, then turned a searching look on his best friend. 
He had the distinct impression that this was some poorly-timed joke. He had 
been in a bad mood for some time now, for reasons he had not been able to 
discuss with anyone; yet he decided to play along, just to see what the two 
were cooking up. "Oh?"
   "Well," Starbuck dithered. "You know how it is..."
   "I wish I did," Apollo said sarcastically. Starbuck rolled his eyes. Zac 
kept switching his frantic gaze from one man to the other. "Well, now, that's 
kind of short notice, you know?" Apollo snapped, "Especially with everyone 
wanting to stay back here and start celebrating the signing of the Armistice." 
His gaze turned evaluating. "Maybe it was a little too much anticipation. 
Think so, Starbuck?"
   "Well, maybe."
   Apollo beamed. "Good." He clapped a hand on the half-clothed man's 
shoulder. "I'm sure a little precision flying in an interceptor'll have you 
feeling better in no time. Don't you think so, Zac?"
   Zac blanched. "Uh, Apollo, I think he said his stomach was cramping up or 
something, earlier," he offered desperately. "Diarrhea, maybe," he finished 
weakly.
   Apollo allowed his face to show nothing but concern. "Oh, well, that is 
different," he observed. "We obviously can't have you sitting in a fighter if 
you're sick as that, now can we?" Starbuck shook his head in a saintly manner, 
Zac frantically nodding agreement. Apollo looked up at the ceiling tiling, 
frowned, carefully avoiding his brother's eyes. "That does leave us in a 
bind, though," he pointed out. "I mean, with everyone on night pass right now, 
I'm gonna have a hard time finding someone to fly this patrol with me-everyone 
who's good's already likely half-drunk. I don't know who I'm going to be able 
to find." He paused, snapped his fingers. "Ah! Flight Sergeant Aqem Ton! Now 
there's a pilot who won't be drinking too much! Or Captain Marduq, maybe-"
   "Escort duty for the Commander's shuttle," Starbuck mumbled, eyes 
cautiously downcast.
   Apollo snapped his fingers again. "Blast, that's right. Well, let's see, 
who else-" Zac was practically hopping up and down in place now. "Ah, yes, 
Lieutenant? Do you have any suggestions?" Zac opened his mouth. Remarkably, 
nothing came out. First time for everything, Apollo thought in amusement. 
"Yes?"
   Zac broke down at last. "Aw, c'mon, Apollo! I got some of the highest marks 
at the Academy! I was Ace High in my senior year! I know the drills, and I've 
studied the patrol routes tonight `til I could make it to, to Cylon with my 
eyes shut! My ship's on line and ready!"
   Apollo's eyes widened. He grinned in heartfelt relief, glanced at Starbuck. 
"Well, isn't that fortunate? Don't you think so, Starbuck?"
   "Real stroke of luck," the other pilot grinned, puffed.
   Apollo turned to Zac, put on his best authoritarian expression. 
"Lieutenant, I'm afraid you're going to have to pull duty for our poor, ailing 
Starbuck. Report to Beta Bay in," he glanced at his wrist, "three centons. 
We're already late for the mission briefing."
   Zac just stared dumbly at him. He still had half a dozen arguments 
percolating; they were getting tangled in Apollo's last words. You're going 
to have to pull Starbuck's patrol, the words echoed. His look of dismay very 
gradually faded from disbelief to complete and gloating satisfaction. His 
fists went out; his head went back. "Yes! There's a God after all! Wheeeee-
haaaaa!!" he bellowed exultantly. Starbuck choked at a blow to the back, 
Apollo staggered at a victory slap on the shoulder, and Zac was gone, his 
footsteps pounding into distant silence.
   Apollo grinned in the direction his younger brother had disappeared, looked 
back at his friend.
   Starbuck lifted an eyebrow. "That's sad, Apollo."
   Apollo rolled his eyes. "And we were never like that?" he asked.
   "I don't know," Starbuck muttered back, reaching for his pants, "I can't 
remember back that far." He glanced at his friend, carefully considered his 
next words. Apollo was a good friend, but if anyone was likely to accept such 
an offer, it would be him. "Listen, if you're that worried, maybe I should 
go along. After all-"
   Apollo shook his head, grinning now at the reluctant tone in Starbuck's 
voice. He heard and understood perfectly well the hesitance with which the 
daredevil pilot of Blue Squadron was offering to relinquish his ill-won night 
off. "No," he chuckled, "he'll be fine. He's right about his marks, and he 
wouldn't've been assigned to Blue if he couldn't handle it, right?" He turned 
to leave. "Besides, it's not as if we were at war any more, is it?" He paused. 
"See you later. And Starbuck?"
   Starbuck lifted an eyebrow-yes?
   "Take care of the stomach, huh?" Apollo reached back and slapped his 
friend's ambrosa-gut, hastily exited the locker room.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Council President Adar aleis Vohen was tall, slender, and white-haired. 
Adar's eyes were small, dark, deep-set beneath massive, still-thick eyebrows; 
his mouth was thin, his face lined, his nose long-the better to poke into 
others' affairs, his friends and enemies alike could agree. The ceremonial, 
decoratively designed robes he wore did more to make him look skinny than they 
did make him regal.
   Adar might be a politician, after fifty jahren of public service the holder 
of the highest post in the Colonies, and he might be self-centered and tunnel-
visioned at times when doggedly pursuing his goals, but he was by no means 
stupid or unobservant, whatever his detractors might prefer to believe.
   So when the seven assembled battlestar commanders, well-trained warriors 
all, each standing silent and allegedly attentive behind the council 
representative of his world, began to shift uncomfortably, eyeing the 
doorways, the massive, wall-sized viewscreen, or their own timepieces, he did 
notice. The Councilmen were long inured to sitting and at least appearing 
interested for long stretches of time; the commanders of the seven greatest 
remaining warships the colonies had ever possessed, activated or under 
construction, were less practiced at such pursuits.
   He knew their Command Trainees and Executive Officers were sitting in a 
nearby lounge, watching the endless streams of speeches made by the lesser 
politicos aboard the ship of state Star Kobol and thanking their own lucky 
stars that they didn't have to sit through a Council celebration. Normally he 
would have found something to object to in such callous disregard for the 
importance of the Council; now, he was jovially forgiving.
   He smiled triumphantly and lifted his chalice, a huge, golden, jewel-
bestudded thing, swirled the purple liquid around, waited until he knew he had 
everyone's attention. "Gentlemen," he began, a sparkle in his eyes, "I know 
you are anxious to take rest before the arrival of the remainder of the Cylon 
Peace Initiative Party. No doubt our honored guest is likewise ready to rest a 
bit before the signing takes place," he offered with a nod at the cylon that 
sat-that was the best word for it-beside his own chair. That alien being 
dipped a long, flat head, thick eyestalks waving slowly.
   "Your suggestion honors me, Mister President," the thing's voder rustled. 
"Indeed, I will with pleasure take a few centons of rest and refreshment."
   Adar nodded again. He noticed that while the councilmen all smiled and 
nodded at the cylon negotiator's soft words, the seven military men had 
stiffened; their attitude toward that being was well-known and little 
appreciated at such a time as this. He frowned briefly at them as a group, 
continued in a pleasant tone. "But I think it appropriate that we end this 
meeting with a toast." He paused for dramatic effect. "A toast to the most 
significant event, the most monumental achievement, in the history of mankind. 
My brothers, I would like to raise my chalice to you-"
   He studied his colleagues as each rose in turn, lifted his own cup in 
salute. Gemonese Councilman Lathugu, dark face alight with pleasure; Aquarian 
Councilman Issova Bena, her tanned face smiling, blonde hair a pale contrast 
to her darker brethren; Aerian Councilman The Lord Prince Thomoji alik Farber, 
black hair still startling against such a deep red skin, his own royal 
accouterments brilliant beneath the standard council sash; Caprican Councilman 
Cheroke e Femani, bald, heavily bearded, dark eyes bright; Sagitarran 
Councilman Lord Aleksandros, his own expression more somber than it had been 
before today; and each of the others. All of them had worked hard for this 
day, this time. On any other occasion, what Adar said next might have been 
merely politicking, merely bandying words. Now, he meant what he said.
   "To you," he continued, "the Council of the Twelve. Not merely my 
friends, not merely the representatives of each of the Twelve Colonies of Man, 
but twelve of the greatest statesmen and leaders ever assembled. Through your 
tireless work, your unceasing efforts, mankind has finally achieved what he 
has struggled a thousand jahren to attain: Peace.
   "My friends, I salute our esteemed guest, the representative of the High 
Hold of Cylon itself. I salute the assembled leaders of the Colonial Military, 
without whose efforts as well the Colonies would long ago have perished. I 
salute the peace that is soon to descend upon our tired worlds. And, my 
friends, I salute you." He lifted his chalice; with a soft murmur, the 
council members and assembled military did likewise. As Adar bent to sip his 
drink, a dry, sardonic voice cut through the silence.
   "Inappropriate."
   Adar was so startled he almost dropped his chalice. He glanced astonishedly 
at the speaker, mildly gratified at the soft whisper of disapproval that came 
from his council brethren.
   Count Shoshaki Baltar, the former Piscean merchant king and, of late, a 
frequent voice in the successful peace negotiations, smiled ingratiatingly, 
stepped closer to Adar, lifting his own chalice. Adar took note: the apathy of 
the military toward the council and its trappings and ceremonies was as 
nothing beside the active antipathy toward Count Baltar. Had Baltar not 
surprised him with his quiet words, he would have taken offense at their 
attitude toward a man Adar himself considered a hero of the people.
   "I say, rather," Baltar offered, stopping beside Adar and lifting his 
chalice high, "that we lift our cups to that one who, for the first time, has 
brought the disparate and dissident races of mankind together, listening in 
consideration, speaking with one voice, standing united before the Empire. 
That one who has devoted most of his life to achieving that which will come to 
pass today. My friends, I propose a toast-to President Adar-and to peace. 
Toast!"
   In illustration of that unity, twelve voices shouted approval as one. Adar 
started to protest, and Baltar laid a thick hand on his sleeve, shook his head 
and smiled. Adar shrugged, lifted his own chalice and offered it to his 
colleagues. "To peace...at long last!" And drank deeply.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The rock had not orbited Hereit long; only about five centuries had passed 
since a cylon attack had broken through the scattered, fragmentary defenses of 
the Second Colonial Hegemony and dealt humanity such a crushing defeat that it 
had taken them almost four centuries to work their way back up.
   The asteroid's life had been quiet until recently; starships patrolling 
nearby never approached it, and the other rubble that orbited with it seldom 
disturbed it.
   That rest ended now, for the second time in only sectons.
   A light bloomed, rectangular against the dark, planetside face of the 
asteroid. There was a brief puff of white as atmosphere dispersed into the 
void, and dust and dirt, undisturbed for centuries, settled quickly to the 
rock.
   Against the light a manlike figure appeared. It floated weightlessly to the 
flattest surface of the asteroid, stopped.
   Dannel sem Kuro- paused to survey his surroundings, taking note of Hereit's 
position, of the distant jewels of the central suns. He scratched at his neck, 
deliberating. His survey of the asteroid had given him no evidence to support 
the hope that any of the project's shuttles were intact. And none of the 
communications arrays seemed to have survived the attack. Wherever the others 
had gone, they had most likely thought him dead-what a surprise they've got 
in store for them, he thought with a touch of cheer, when I walk in the 
hatch!-buried in the landslide that had sealed his hibernaculum away from the 
rest of the complex.
   God alone knew how long he had actually been asleep; he hoped that it 
really was as short a time as it felt like. Perhaps the project would have 
reestablished itself elsewhere; the authorities would know, if anyone would.
   Unfortunately, astronomy had never been his strongest subject in school. He 
knew which planet this asteroid was in orbit around by the simple fact that 
the gas giant was a hard planet to miss! Sagitarra was far too distant, in-
system, for him to pick out of the suns' glare; his best bet would be to 
simply dive sunsward and take his chances.
   That had its own dangers, though; it would take him well over a day to 
reach any of the shipping lanes that he might hope to cross. He knew in theory 
that he, as any of his partners, could cross that span of space unaided-but 
none of them had ever ventured past a few light-centars from Hereit, and 
safety. Navigation by sight, especially for that long a time, with no relief-
it was dangerous in the extreme. But he simply could not see any alternative, 
short of sitting in the remains of the complex and hoping that someone might 
come looking.
   He patted his bulging tunic, feeling the tiny transponder. Its power source 
was low; he would have to leave it off until he actually reached Sagitarran 
orbit, or however close he could estimate it. He would not even be able to 
call for help until his endurance would be running out.
   Finally, resolve straightened his back, stiffened his shoulders. He had 
friends and family waiting for him, and he was getting no closer to them by 
just standing here, stargazing. He leaped into the sky, accelerated quickly 
and disappeared in the general direction of the central system, almost a 
light-day distant.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Corporal Rigella dela Patikarru was a short, well-built young brunette. Her 
duty station was traffic control on the Galactica's bridge. She had been put 
out that she had to pull a shift tonight; with the upcoming peace and 
Armistice, everyone in the fleet wanted to celebrate. But her roommate had the 
rank to manage a duty switch, and Rigel had gotten stuck with it. Had this 
been her normal shift, with her normal commander, she probably would have kept 
a small window on her screen open to the commercial broadcasts from the Star 
Kobol-Adama was a stern taskmaster, but if his people knew their jobs, he 
allowed them enough leeway that people enjoyed working for him. But the 
commander was aboard the battlestar Atlantia right now, his presence 
required at the actual signing, and Captain Omega had assumed command more as 
a formality than anything else. He handled the bridge with ease-being Tigh's 
Exec Trainee, he had been doing so for several jahren already-but the council 
had decreed full military honors and preparedness, which left little room for 
laxity on duty. And now she was torn between emotions. Darn it, she thought 
sourly, her lips thinning in petulance, I'm sitting right here in the middle 
of the Armistice Effort, and I'm going to have to wait until I get off duty to 
see what's going on not more than twenty kiloms away! Mama Delors will never 
believe me!
   But despite the novelty of working a shift with the Captain in command, and 
despite being calm and steady as she went about the business of managing 
incoming and outgoing traffic aboard the battlestar Galactica, Rigel was 
excited. She had been working to catch the handsome young executive trainee's 
eye for some time now-not for nothing was her normally dinon-black hair now a 
lighter brunette!-and this was going to present her with all the opportunity 
she could have asked for.
   She heard Omega say something to Lieutenant Artemis, the ops officer of the 
watch, and glanced around surreptitiously, studying the man quickly before a 
beep warned her where her attention was supposed to be. The warship always had 
ships coming and going, and it took a small army of dispatchers to keep up 
with the flow. Her own station usually handled one of the launch bays. Today, 
she was one of three handling the shuttles and patrol flights from Beta Bay.
   She sighed and glance-read the briefing on the next job of her task list. 
"Launch Bay Beta, Patrol seven-seven-three, you are cleared for launch. Stand 
by for course information and departure angle," she advised the distant 
fighters, her voice cool, pleasant, professional.
   "Patrol seven-seven-three, we acknowledge," a voice she recognized as 
Captain Apollo from Blue Squadron responded.
   "Transmitting course information now, patrol," Rigel responded. She watched 
the information scroll up her screen; it flashed at her just before the 
Captain's voice came back to her.
   "Vector coordinates transferred and locked. Acknowledged. Awaiting launch 
clearance."
   Rigel checked her master screen, tapped a request; the ship's navigator 
approved a departure vector. "Patrol seven seven three, transmitting launch 
instructions now. Your catapults are twelve A and C. You are cleared for 
launch in four centrons."
   "Acknowledged. Thanks, control."
   "No problem, sir," she said, and knew they could hear the smile in her 
voice. "Good luck. Come back safely."
   "Thanks, Rigel."
   "Hey!" the second patrolman's voice came. "What about me, Rigel?"
   Rigel laughed cheerfully; most of the pilots knew her voice, liked her. She 
was one of the few controllers not so caught up in the job that they would 
talk to the pilots instead of merely instructing them. "You too, sir. Good 
luck."
   "That's more like it."
   "Zac, shut up and launch."
   "Huh? Oh, yeah. Right."
   Then, of course, Rigel had a hard time explaining to her teammates at the 
traffic control console what she was laughing about.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Sagitarra Prime, the orbiting fortress and drydock, circled the world after 
which it was named in a citron-slice fashion, north pole to south, sectioning 
the planet every three days. The massive station had begun its celestial life 
as an asteroid from the outer system. After it had been towed into orbit, it 
had been melted, spun and hollowed, until the shipbuilders of Sagitarra had a 
yard almost twenty kilometers long and a quarter that in diameter. 
CircumSagitarra, as it came to be known, emerged over the course of the next 
four hundred jahren the foremost shipbuilding facility in the system-and had 
become, after the destruction of Piscea's own Shiffbau Station, the only 
drydock capable of overhauling or rebuilding a battlestar.
   Currently, aside from the myriad regular, smaller commercial ships that 
were docked there for cargo transport or general maintenance work, the 
interior of the tube-shaped station was filled with two hulking, brightly-lit 
hulls. One was the battlestar Rikkon. It had been some twelve jahren since 
the battlestar had been mortally damaged during the battle of Cosmara 
Archipelago, limping back to the central system with only a fragment of its 
proud Fourth Fleet to bear witness to the carnage it had suffered and induced 
alike; it would be another six before that titan of the spaceways returned to 
the fields of battle. The other was the Rikkon's sister dreadnought, 
Aegis, under construction for less than a jahron so far, little more than a 
gray-and-silver latticework. It would be several more jahren before that star-
going giant assumed the form so many people recognized so readily, jahren her 
builders prayed she would be given.
   
   Tech Sergeant Larse of operations frowned down at the ring of new personnel 
she'd been saddled with. "What was that, you slugs?" she bellowed. All twelve 
young people flinched; dead silence reigned. "And someone better speak up, 
or I'll log enough demerits for the lot of you that you'll be on kitchen 
patrol for the rest of the time you're here!"
   A hand went up hesitantly. "Here, sergeant," a young man said, and gulped. 
"Spaceman Raths."
   "All right, spaceman," Larse said in her normal tone of divine thunder, and 
glared solely at him. His fellow trainees relaxed, breathing sighs of relief; 
off the hook again, at least temporarily! "What the hell's so important you'll 
interrupt a class for it?"
   Raths had to pause to regain his courage. He had already earned enough 
demerits from this instructor alone that he feared he'd never be assigned 
off of CircumSagitarra. He had signed up to see the galaxy; he had no desire 
to spend his initial six-jahren tour aboard the space station, however vast it 
was. "Uh, I think I've got a bogey, sergeant," he reported.
   Larse snorted derisively. "Term's unidentified trace, spaceman, at least 
until you earn your qualification-which none of you here is likely to do if 
you keep coming up with felgercarb like this to avoid studying!" She spared a 
glare for the assembled lot; then she returned her attention to the 
unfortunate Raths. "Well, okay, spaceman, let's show the others how it's done. 
Call your unidentified trace up on the master screen."
   Raths, only too happy to turn from the trainer, did as he had been ordered 
with a minimum of clumsiness. Larse studied the huge display quietly for a 
moment, then muttered to herself.
   "Sergeant?" another trainee said hesitantly. Larse turned bloodshot eyes on 
that worthy. "Sergeant, I've got it on mine, too."
   "And mine." "Me, too, Sergeant." A chorus of agreement went up. Larse 
stared around the circle.
   "All of you got this?" Larse shook her head. "Shit. Never mind. Not your 
fault this time. Clear your boards and start the exercise again."
   "Sergeant?" Raths asked uncertainly. Larse spared him a look. "What is it? 
It doesn't read like any of the textbook examples of cylon warships..."
   Larse shook her head. "It's not. You guys actually deserve a note of merit; 
you caught a bunch of those high-up bigwig R&D people with their robes up." 
She saw the look of confusion on the young faces around her, took pity. 
"There's some kind of orbital research station, about ten diameters out. They 
keep it cloaked all the time, and usually in a stealth field as well. It's 
only come down once in all the time I've been here, and that's a hell of a 
long time. It ain't nothing for you to worry about. Get back to work, all of 
you! You'd better have exercise twelve done by the time I get off the comm!" 
The trainee warriors spun to their consoles, went to work with an enthusiasm 
spawned of terror.
   Larse grinned thinly on the way back to her station. She had to send a 
message to an old friend of hers, one she knew to be stationed on that very 
research complex, and give him a hard time for letting a bunch of trainees 
catch him out!

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The gas-giant Cimtar-Mephis, named for the Kobolan Lord of Darkness, was a 
relic of the interstellar collision that Colonial scientists claimed had 
formed the multiple-star central system some billions of years ago. It orbited 
at the very edge of the realm of Colonial space, almost a light-day out from 
the core stars, farther out than even Sagitarran scouts ventured regularly. It 
was patrolled, yes, and a manned station perched in frigid solitude on an 
inner moon Cimtar-Thule, acting as both an outer colonial sensor base and the 
support outpost for the fuel cracking plants that skimmed the upper clouds of 
Cimtar-Mephis and regularly, if no more often than necessary, fueled that 
base. The Colonial military had been hard hit in the last few rounds of peace-
desperate budget talks. The nearest world, the gas-giant Hereit, was almost a 
half light-day away; the closest inhabited world--Sagitarra, outermost of all 
the twelve major worlds--was still almost two-thirds of a light-day distant. 
Cimtar-Thule outstation was comfortable, but spartan and boring; few people 
actively sought stationing there, and new arrivals were big news.
   So it would normally have drawn at least some attention when two human 
fighters burst into sublight space in a crackle of electromagnetic pulses and 
sped toward that ancient king of worlds.
   Apollo eyed his console, logged the readings, and touched his pad. His 
brother's face appeared on the screen, blinked at him. "Zac? All systems 
normal?"
   "Everything's good, Apollo," the young man responded cheerfully. Truth be 
told, he had barely noticed his wingman's call. The sight of the dim, 
colorfully-banded gas giant, dominating the ebony sky around him, had him awed 
into a rare sense of being impressed with something besides himself. "This is 
great."
   Apollo smiled at the youthful exuberance in his brother's voice, at the 
expression of wonder on his face, and sympathized. He, too, loved to fly. He 
fought because he could, because he was good at it and because someone had 
to, but he didn't enjoy it in the same way that most of his friends and fellow 
pilots did. Apollo had never found anyone he could admit it to, but he loved 
to just look at the stars. Not eye them as navigational aids, or use them as 
sources of radio noise to cover an attack, but just gaze at them as brilliant, 
beautiful sources of light. Flying a fighter in battle was heady; but to fly 
that same fighter and just observe in wonder and delight--such rare 
opportunities that he found to do just that were why Apollo chose to remain 
a fighter pilot.
   He kept such sentiments to himself. His father's greatest pride was that 
his son was a leading pilot of his battlestar; he certainly would not have 
been sympathetic to such feelings. And he doubted very much that his best 
friend Starbuck, whose love for adventure had already begun to carve him a 
niche in the folklore of the Galactica, would find anything to applaud in 
that sort of artistic mentality. And Zac was consumed by a need to get out, to 
prove himself, to do everything he could as quickly as possible, and then find 
something else to conquer; Apollo really couldn't conceive of his younger 
brother enjoying such a viewpoint on the part of his older brother.
   So it honestly surprised him when Zac, his eyes wide, broke the silence 
with quiet awe rather than a series of stale jokes. "It's different out here, 
Apollo."
   Apollo raised an eyebrow, smiled. "I know what you mean. Out here, no 
battlestar, no colonies, nothing between you and infinity but your fighter. 
Nothing but stars all around."
   Zac glanced at his communicator, grinned back at his brother. "Don't forget 
Cimtar-Mephis."
   Apollo chuckled. "How can I forget it?" He paused, decided it was worth 
risking his reputation for the chance to talk with his brother; they had spent 
so little time together in the past few jahren, let alone when they were 
growing up, that Apollo could take only a distant, kinsman's pride in the man 
his sibling had grown into. Other pilots aboard the Galactica, as well as 
personnel who had met him while he was still a cadet at the Academy, had 
spoken highly of him. He, too, wanted to get to know this likable young man. 
"Does it impress you?"
   "What? Just an old gas giant?" Zac said derisively. Apollo remained silent. 
"Well, yeah, kind of. I mean, when they took us out on long patrols in flight 
training, we just went system north or south, and once we did a raid on Aer. 
Aer, of all places!" Zac snorted. "I've never been this far out-system 
before. I thought I'd gotten used to flying, to space, but this...it's--it's 
just different, somehow." Zac cut himself off, moderately annoyed; if he 
kept talking like this, he was going to get a reputation as a softy--and he 
couldn't afford that!
   Apollo's voice was more cheerful as he performed another brief check of his 
readouts, gave the rapidly-nearing world a glance--they were only light-
centons distant, coming closer every michron--and continued the discussion.
   "Zac, this is nothing," the pilot insisted. "Sometime soon--when the 
war's over, I mean, and everyone starts scaling back the military like they're 
saying they will--we may be able to get back into deep space exploration. Did 
you know," he added, "that it's been almost seventeen jahren since the last 
deep probe went out? And it was minor, too."
   "Yeah," Zac said, "Uncle Cahan's ship."
   Apollo's voice showed his surprise. "I'm surprised you remember. I know 
Artemis barely does, and she was around ten at the time. You were what, 
seven?"
   "Ahh, I don't, but Dad like to tell stories when he was home. All the 
illustrious ancestors--Uncle Cahan, and Phaestus, and Ares and Hera and dat-
da-dat-da-dahh." Zac made retching noises. "Enough to make you sick. Sometimes 
I wish I'd opted for a commission in Science or something instead of flight. 
After listening to Dad I'd almost rather do survey than fly a fighter!"
   "Well," Apollo commiserated, "flying a fighter in combat is exciting, in 
its own way, but exploring new worlds, proving and colonizing--I think 
that's where the real challenge is."
   Zac considered this bald statement for booby-traps. Apollo was supposed to 
be some top gun pilot, not a thinker. "You really think so?" he finally 
decided to ask.
   Apollo rejoiced inwardly at the honest curiosity he heard in the young 
man's voice. "Yes, I do," he said firmly. "We've always sent out probes, but 
we--the Colonies--haven't had the resources to mount any major expeditions 
for, oh, over a hundred jahren, and like I said, not even any minor ones for 
over a decade and a half. Think about it. We've explored every inch of the 
Central System. Five suns, thirty-four planets, thirteen of them inhabitable, 
two asteroid belts, and God alone knows how many comets and rogues. We've got 
this system mapped out; there aren't any more surprises here. But out 
there...just think about it, Zac. Who knows what wonders we could find once 
we're at peace, once we've got the time to be human again?"
   Zac didn't know how to react. He had volunteered for this flight in order 
to get out and fly at least one combat patrol while the opportunity 
presented itself. That he was flying with his older brother, the Ace of the 
Galactica, had just been added incentive to take Starbuck's duty. Deep down, 
he had secretly hoped that the two of them would land directly in combat, and 
he could fly rings around his sibling, show him just what he was made of. That 
was the Apollo he had grown up imagining, mostly in absentia.
   This Apollo was different. Considerate, careful, and smarter than Zac had 
been giving him credit for. And, much though he hated to admit it, what his 
older brother was saying was striking home in him as well. Although he loved 
flying, and flying fighters in particular, although he thrived on the 
excitement of the speed and power he commanded, still there always seemed to 
be something missing.
   Perhaps Apollo and Zac were more alike than either of them knew. Neither 
was overly distressed at thinking about this possibility.
   Zac couldn't stand the seriousness any longer. "Well, if you'll guarantee 
me my captain's bars, I'll sign up for your expedition."
   His brother laughed. "We'll see."
   "As long as what we see aren't more cylons," Zac continued in heartfelt 
disgust. "That's all we need to do is bring back something else creepy to 
fight with."
   "Amen to that."
   Zac's voice became curious. "Have you ever met one, Apollo? A cylon, I 
mean?"
   Apollo was slower to respond, his voice thoughtful. "Yes, Zac," he finally 
said. "I have."
   "Really? Hladno!"
   Apollo grinned. "I've even met the ambassador itself. Talked with it 
briefly."
   "Yow," Zac breathed softly, feelingly, his eyes wide. For a moment Apollo 
believed he was truly impressed. "Can I touch you when we get back? I swear 
I'll never wash that hand again!" Apollo rolled his eyes. So much for serious 
discussions.
   Zac surprised him with his next question. "Are you looking forward to 
peace? With the cylons?"
   "If you mean, am I looking forward to the prospect of ending the War, yes, 
I am," Apollo replied somberly. "If you mean am I planning on it before I see 
it happen...no. I want it, but I'll believe it when it comes to be, not 
before." He laughed, tapped a command out on his keyboard. His brother's face 
disappeared from his screen. "And I don't think we need to be discussing 
this over an open line. We might end up embarrassing our commanders." His 
course came up on screen; he eyed it, approved it, transmitted it to his 
wingman. "Here's our new course. We'll swing down across Cimtar-Thule, and 
take a south-up course around Cimtar-Mephis itself. Keep your distance, and 
let's go."
   "On your tail, oh Ace of Aces," Zac responded cheerfully. Apollo laughed.

                          *** *** *** *** ***

   Starbuck stepped into the Ready Room and paused, impressed in spite of 
himself.
   The Ready Room was a two-level chamber equipped with bunks and lockers for 
those pilots who were on active alert. A Launch Order could come at any time; 
the pilots of the Galactica's interceptors and fighters had to be closer to 
the launch bays than their own small private or shared cabins permitted. While 
there were screens for viewing or reading, and a mess hall immediately down 
the corridor, the usual line of recreational pursuits permitted warriors was 
drastically less when sleeping here than when on casual duty. Most pilots 
actually dreaded being on alert and not having to fight-boredom was a 
constant enemy in the Ready Room.
   Upper level officers, such as Major Dzhillin, the Flight Commander, or 
Colonel Tigh himself, were almost as constant adversaries as ennui-Blue 
Squadron as a group had been penalized on more than one occasion for 
conducting proscribed activities in a controlled environment. Drinking or 
romancing were the least of the wrongs frequently committed there; the ship's 
executive officer especially despised gambling, and those who loved to partake 
of it.
   Starbuck had known that tonight's match would draw an audience; this battle 
had been building for a couple of sectars. But even he was awed at the amount 
of humanity packed into the small room. Every bunk in the place had four or 
five warriors perched uncomfortably thereon; uniformed shapes lined the walls, 
knelt on the floor, leaned against the lockers. There must be fifty, sixty 
people in here, easy, Starbuck gloated silently, exulting in his reputation. 
The level of his glee dropped a little when he noted the number of Gold 
Squadron insignia on shoulders in the room. Then apprehension snuck in; he 
glanced at the security monitor, full of dread that the sight of all these men 
crowded into one small, unexciting chamber would alert the ever-vigiliant 
Colonel Tigh.
   Beneath the screen stood Lieutenant Greenbean, one of Starbuck's teammates. 
The tall, lanky young man caught Starbuck's nervous glance, brushed his own 
dirty blond hair back into place, and unobtrusively held up a small box, 
lights blinking all over it. One thumb jerked at the security monitor; one eye 
winked confidently.
   Starbuck nodded, his cocky grin returning. Greenbean was the squadron 
wonder with electronics; if he had `bugged' the monitor again, then this game 
was secure against any discovery save actual, physical intrusion.
   He faced his opponents. The two men were Gemonese, lighter skinned than his 
also-Gemonese friend Boomer, dark curly hair and black eyes so similar on them 
that they could have been brothers. He caught himself remembering lines from 
an old, bawdy song about brothers and sisters whose parents were siblings too, 
and quickly wiped the smirk of derision from his face. He replaced it with his 
standard, devil-may-care, batten-down-the-hatches grin; he felt rather than 
saw the Blue Squadron half of the room sigh in relief and anticipation.
   He laced his fingers, cracked his knuckles, and casually descended the 
steps, aware of every eye in the room following him. Sauntering to the chair 
opposite his opponents, he took a seat, unbuttoned his jacket, and leaned 
back, relaxing. "Evening, fellows," he said cheerfully to his enemies, "name's 
Starbuck. Understand you think you're pretty good at Pyramid?"
   The two card players glanced at each other, back at him. "My name is 
Peder," the one on the left said, "and this is my brother Meralo."
   Hah! Starbuck thought. Knew it!
   "And we know that we are good at pyramid," Peder finished calmly. "We 
have simply come to see if you are as bad as we have heard." The Gold half 
of the room erupted into a spontaneous cheer, hastily damped; Starbuck's 
expression never wavered.
   "Then I guess it's a good thing you stole some balls and showed up, huh, 
fellows?" he returned. The Blue contingent whooped approval; the visitors were 
less impressed. "Shall we use your cards?" he asked.
   There was a stir behind him. Peder and Meralo glanced unreadably at each 
other, back at him. "If this meets with your approval," Meralo returned, his 
brows descending. What could the egotistical Caprican have in mind? One thing 
no card player ever did was trust another's deck.
   "Sure thing, guys," Starbuck grinned, held out his hand. Meralo slowly drew 
forth a still-sealed deck, handed it over. Starbuck unsealed it, riffled the 
octagonal plas sheets, and began to slide them in and out of the pile, slowly 
at first, gaining speed with the passing michrons. He smiled comfortingly all 
the while at the two Gemons, never looking at what his hands were doing. After 
a ten-michron stretch where even the best eyes could not follow his fingers, 
he stopped suddenly, slapping the deck to the table with a loud smack. "Make 
your cut, guys," he said, his grin edged with steel.
   "Let's play pyramid."

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Athena dela Rafael strode purposefully down the corridor of the battlestar, 
long legs eating the distance, medium-length brunette hair bouncing in step.
   It had been a long day already. Once the Galactica had joined her four 
sister dreadnoughts at the Cimtar Rendezvous Point, the President of the 
Colonies had, at almost the last centon, ordered all battlestar commanders and 
their aides, be they assistant trainees like her or actual executive officers, 
to attend at least the preliminary rounds of celebration and congratulation.
   Right now, her body's internal clock said that she should be sleeping 
comfortably, dreaming of command bars and handsome pilots. Instead, she had 
just spent the last five centars in one of the Atlantia's officers' clubs, 
talking and sharing operational notes with other command assistants. Those 
whom she had not met previously had been pleased to make her acquaintance, and 
wished her the best of luck, when she assumed command of yet another 
battlestar, in twenty or thirty jahren. Her own concerns had been closer to 
home-would they even have a battlestar to give her in twelve or thirteen 
jahren? None of the officers assembled there shared the opinions of the 
politicians and bureauticians about the trustworthiness of the Cylons; all had 
sympathized.
   However, there had been little else to do in the recreation area, 
especially as a command trainee and future battlestar commander could not 
simply commandeer a couch and catch a quick nap. She could have toured the 
Atlantia; the offer had been made. But she had been aboard other 
battlestars, and frankly, the Atlantia, oldest remaining of the colonial 
fleet's mobile fortresses, was showing its age. She could not help but 
contrast its clean if threadbare look with the tighter, harder look of her own 
home ship.
   But, after eternal, endless centars, her father, Galactica's commander, 
had summoned her. Apparently the commanders were being permitted to return to 
their ships until the arrival of the Cylon Ambassadorial Fleet.
   Seldom had news pleased the active young woman so much.
   As she walked she gave some thought to what she wanted to do once she was 
back on the Galactica. Sleep certainly entered into it, but there would 
likely be another several centars to wait; scuttlebutt had it that the Cylon 
representative had offered his government's apologies, but the peace fleet had 
been delayed in its departure from Cylon. She could spend her wait on the 
bridge, but Colonel Tigh and Captain Omega, while they would welcome her 
company, would not likely have anything exciting for her to do. And Artemis 
would have figured out by now who got Marduq picked for escort duty!
   The thought of Starbuck occurred to her and she smiled reflectively. Part 
of her was fascinated by the brash, irreverent pilot, and from the effort he 
put into keeping himself the center of her attention, the attraction was 
mutual. He was handsome as the devil, and as exciting a man as a girl could 
wish for. Her older brother's best friend, she had known him for several 
jahren by word and the occasional meeting when the battlestar returned to Port 
Caprica for a few sectons' leave. It was not until she had been selected by 
her father as command trainee and assigned to the Galactica herself that she 
had begun to see a darker, less pleasing side to the young man.
   Athena valued honesty highly; it had genuinely startled and distressed her 
when she had learned just how many woman `her' handsome young pilot was 
romancing at any given time. Competition didn't bother her; she was confident 
in her charms. But Starbuck showed a distressing tendency toward 
manipulativeness, a casual disregard for the feelings of others that bothered 
her somehow.
   But when things were right... Athena shivered delightfully at the memory of 
his eyes, bright as they met hers, his arms, so strong around her as they 
danced, his laughter at the chancery tables. She heaved a deep sigh as she 
moved down the hallway; nobody's perfect, she admitted to herself. We'll see 
what we'll see.
   She rounded a corner, sighed with relief. There, not more than a hundred 
metrons distant, was the wide double door of the Atlantia's Council Chamber, 
a room every battlestar duplicated. She moved for that opening quickly; she 
wanted to go home!

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Starbuck was exultant; his hand was excellent, only two removed from a 
perfect, full pyramid. Only two hands could beat his-Lords' High, two face 
cards removed from a top hand-or a Full Pyramid, something exceptionally rare.
   His expression remained bland, revealing nothing to his nervously 
whispering opponents. The two men, holding the cards between them, eyed their 
own hand, eyed him, and eyed the table with the impressively-large pot in the 
center.
   "Ready?" he asked them politely, his eyes mocking. When they fell silent, 
he shrugged nonchalantly, reached for the golden pile of cubits at hand. 
"Since you guys are still just learning," he sneered, "I'll just wager 
this much for the last build." He slid out fully half his remaining store of 
funds, the markers in neat, gleaming stacks.
   The Gemons looked blankly at him. For a moment Starbuck was afraid they 
really were as bad at this game as he made them to be. Then, the one on the 
left, Peder, stirred, reached for their common store of funds. Starbuck let 
out his breath.
   "Despite the humbleness of this hand," Meralo said-the Gold spectators let 
out a collective sigh as well, and Starbuck eyed them to silence-"for the 
honor of Gemon, we must meet your challenge-" As if waiting for his cue, 
Peder shoved a stack of cubits equal in size to Starbuck's recent raise into 
the center pile. The Blues shifted silently. "-and for the glory of our 
homeworld," Meralo continued, bulling over the start of Starbuck's victory 
speech, "we must raise you with another, equal measure." Peder duplicated his 
last feat, leaving only a fifth of the Gemons' stash intact. "Is this 
satisfactory?" Meralo inquired politely, his eyes mocking.
   Starbuck didn't let his glare reach his eyes. His face cheerful, his grin 
easy, he nodded. "Sure thing, guys. And in the name of my homeworld and for 
her everlasting glory, I'll measure your raise"-he slid the remainder of his 
store foreward; the Gold viewers sighed and the Blue watchers made a slightly 
different sound-"and I'll double it."
   There was a collective gasp from the Blue half of the room. Even the 
Gemons' eyes widened slightly, and they quickly counted their cubits for the 
required amount. Peder grinned thinly at Starbuck. "Do you have the required 
funds?" he asked politely.
   Starbuck turned to his closest companions behind him. "C'mon, guys," he 
said sotto voce, "out with it. Let's go. C'mon, c'mon-"
   Flight Sergeant Boomer, dark skinned Gemon himself, glanced at those 
closest to the gambler. He jerked his head backward. "Could we speak to you 
for a moment? In private?" He glanced at the brothers, grinned, and said in 
gemonese, "We'll just be a michron, guys. Relax." He grabbed Starbuck's arm 
and all but dragged his friend from the chair.
   Behind a concealing wall of pilots, the young man rounded on the cocky 
gambler. "Are you crazy?" he whispered tightly. There was a reason he had 
stopped gambling with Starbuck after only two games.
   Starbuck looked at him earnestly, striving desperately to keep an honest, 
open expression on his face. It was not an easy act for him, and it was not 
working this time. "Weren't you listening?" he grinned cockily. "This is for 
the glory of Caprica...doesn't that mean anything at all to you?"
   Boomer stared evenly at him. Starbuck glanced around; most of the 
expressions around him were equally unenthusiastic.
   "Look, you guys," Starbuck continued along different lines, "have I ever 
steered you wrong?"
   The gallery continued staring silently at him.
   "All right, all right," he raised his hands and admitted defeat. "Look at 
it this way, though. We're gonna double our money. They're trying to buy the 
pot. Have you seen my hand? We've got this game sewed up!"
   Lieutenant Jolly eyed him malevolently. That in itself was enough to give 
Starbuck pause; Jolly was the easiest-going of the pilots in the free-wheeling 
squadron. "You said this was going to be the shortest game you'd ever 
played. You said they were just bluffers."
   "Hey, so they learned fast enough to make it a challenge," Starbuck 
retorted, turned back to Boomer. "C'mon, you guys, we haven't got a choice 
now. If we don't meet the ante, we lose everything we've got riding."
   Boomer glared tiredly at him. "He's right, guys," the man said reluctantly. 
"C'mon, everybody in." Starbuck beamed as he took custody of the currency. As 
soon as he had counted the requisite amount, he shuffled back to the table, 
dumped the glittering pile onto the already impressive mound.
   "There you go, guys," Starbuck smiled, turned his cards over and spread 
them out. The gallery as a whole, Blue and Gold alike, sighed, and Starbuck 
basked in the admiration. "Beat that."
   The Gemons wordlessly spread their own cards out face up. The Blue half of 
the gallery gasped again, and even Starbuck felt his heart pound, barely 
noticing the Gold half's sudden, spontaneous cheer.
   The Gemons' hand was a Lords' High. Better than his by a single card.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Apollo?"
   "Yeah, Zac?"
   "You ever been to Thule station?"
   Apollo's brows descended, considering the question. Deciding that if it was 
a joke it was one he hadn't heard from his brother yet, he answered it 
seriously. "No. My only ground assignment so far was Rhita base. Boomer's been 
to Thule, though." He paused. "Why?"
   Zac's head glanced out of his cockpit, looked back at his brother. "I was 
just wondering. Figure even out here in the middle of nowhere they've got 
some kind of security measures."
   "I'd think so," laughed Apollo. "Thule's the support base for the gas 
crackers that come to Cimtar-Mephis for raw materials for fuel."
   "Then why haven't they challenged us yet?" Zac asked.
   Apollo gave the question some consideration. "I don't know," he said 
curiously. "I know Boomer said they used to have to go dark and quiet for 
security reasons, once for a couple of sectons. I suppose they could've done 
that this time because the Armistice is coming up."
   "Is that normal?" the younger man insisted.
   "How would I know?" Apollo snapped back. "I've never been there, remember?"
   "Yeah, well," Zac grumbled into silence. "Maybe we should call them anyway, 
just to make sure?"
   "If they're conducting a security blackout, they won't answer," Apollo 
pointed out.
   "Oh, yeah," Zac returned. Apollo grinned.
   Both men's sensors sang out in unison. "Zac-"
   "I see it," the man's brother responded. "Searching for transponder," he 
reported.
   Apollo was already working with his warbook. The screen flashed, blipped 
through several questionable silhouettes, slowed and stopped on one 
particularly discomforting shape. "My warbook makes it-" His sensors meeped 
again; he quieted them with a touch. "Warbook makes them to be tankers."
   "From Thule?" Zac asked.
   "Cylon," Apollo responded grimly. Silence crackled across the comlink.
   "Apollo, why would a pair of cylon tankers be in orbit over Cimtar-Mephis?" 
Zac whispered, subdued. "Hells, they're hanging in the atmosphere. They 
couldn't skim fuel without getting caught. Surely Thule would've sent out 
intercepts or something."
   "Yeah," Apollo mused, eyeing his warbook readout, "they would've. The 
tankers are reading powerless, though."
   "Completely?"
   "Completely. I read only their presence, and that only visually, for some 
reason. Their lift-and-drives have to be working or they'd've fallen, but I 
don't get any tighter reading." Apollo thought for a moment. "It's possible 
that the pair of them tried to get close for some fuel siphoning and got 
caught by a patrol."
   "Maybe that's why Thule's on security blackout?" Zac wondered aloud.
   "Could be. Come on, hit your turbos," Apollo ordered, thumbing the cover of 
his control yoke. "Let's check it out."
   "Apollo, you know it's against regulations right now to use turbos except 
during combat or point-to-point-" Zac protested.
   "Zac, you're not on board the Galactica now, sitting in a simulator," 
Apollo pointed out sharply. "You're on the line. Things are different out 
here. Now let's go." He pressed the actuator button, felt the suggestion of g-
forces press him into his seat. On his display, Zac's fighter quickly followed 
suit. Good. The kid had some sense after all.
   "Apollo," Zac's voice whispered as their speed rapidly built up, "be 
careful. I've ... I've got a funny feeling about this."
   So do I, little brother, so do I, Apollo thought. "Oh, really?" he joked. 
"Since when have you been taking part in Academy experiments?"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The being that nestled within the control yoke of the low, flat vehicle 
humans called a Manta was only technically a Cylon. Since the Cylon Empire 
was known to encompass several hundred worlds, incorporating almost twenty 
different species of being, any of those aliens subject to the authority of 
the Holdfast could be-and were by humans-deemed a Cylon.
   Nonetheless, the majority of living beings that crewed cylon fighters were 
made of races other than cylons proper-and none of the cyborg killer ships 
were genuine cylons; no true offspring of the Keep would have allowed its 
brain and central nervous system to be implanted as the control of a starship.
   The sensors of the cylon's ship signaled for its attention. It regarded the 
readouts, and decided to notify a superior before taking action.
   Its superior stared at it unblinkingly-for it had no eyelids on its long, 
stalked eyes-and asked what it had to report.
   The pilot reported that, according to its data, sensors were detecting the 
approach of two human fighter craft.
   Are the humans tracking the strike fleet? the superior asked.
   Apparently not, replied the sensor pilot, for they approach still. It is 
possible that they are curious about the shielding tankers.
   It is far too late in the plan for us to risk discovery, the superior 
responded. Take a task force and destroy the humans. Let neither survive.
   By your command, the pilot responded.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Adama do Rafael swept his long, black cape back from his arm, the silver 
embroidery chasing the sides glittering in the lights of the salon. Someone 
shrilled laughter, high and long. His massive head turned, long white hair 
shifting, dark eyes seeking out the cause of celebration.
   He sighed with resignation and turned his attention away from the cheerful 
ambassadors from Liber, Piscea and Aquaria huddled close to Adar and Count 
Baltar. Thank God the Cylon Spokesman left, he thought.
   He turned to look back at the massive wall viewer. It wasn't the same as 
being able to stand at the rear of a launch bay and really look at open 
space, but it was good enough for his mood right now.
   Adama had been a warrior for over sixty jahren now, an officer for over 
fifty of those six decades plus, and the commander of one of the five 
remaining battlestars for the last thirty. He had devoted his life to the 
defense of the colonies and the preservation of human life, and although 
through the years it had been difficult at times, he had never once regretted 
his decision to enter the military so long ago.
   In all those jahren of combat and service, he had seen the cylons, seen 
them as few of the politicians and negotiators and planetbound peacemongers 
had ever had the opportunity to do. He knew the cylons, from intelligence 
reports and from combat experience and from more face to `face' meetings than 
he cared to remember, and he knew in his heart that they could not be 
trusted-especially in a matter as important as this Armistice.
   But at times like this, he wondered if he truly knew them as well as he 
thought he did. Surely, Adama, commander of the battlestar Galactica, was 
not the only human of the colonies who still distrusted the cylons and their 
overtures of peace.
   Admittedly, the other military men were making no secret of their distrust, 
but that had always been the military position. It was unfortunate that no one 
but the military had regular contact with the cylons.
   He glared at nothingness, letting the stars and space blur together, 
knowing it would take several centons for his daughter to reach the conference 
chamber. He had not wanted to attend this pre-ceremony celebration-aside 
from his oft-expressed opinion of the Armistice itself, he knew well that he 
and his fellow commanders were here only for show and ceremony, something he 
tolerated without enjoying at the best of times. Here they were, a fleet of 
seventy ships, including the last five battlestars the colonies still had-
well, there's always the Rikkon, assuming that they could finish work on it 
within a few centars, he reflected with a flash of amusement-sitting nearly 
idle in space, trojan-positioned in solar orbit behind the largest planet in 
the system, waiting for the cylons to deign to show up. Tactically, it made no 
sense whatsoever. He had been relieved to find out that the commanders of the 
other starfortresses felt as he did about this, too. But the military was 
subject to civilian control; it always had been, and if these particular 
commanders had any say in it, it always would be. The Council reached 
decisions on policy; the military carried out those policies. And keep 
ourselves ready to clean up the mess afterwards, a traitorous thought said to 
him.
   Adar's high-pitched voice cut through the gabble that Adama had been tuning 
out. "Baltar, don't be modest. This armistice would not have been possible 
without your tireless efforts and work." Adama rolled his eyes at the murmur 
of agreement from the councilmen surrounding the president and count. "You 
have secured for yourself a firm place in history-the architect of peace after 
a thousand jahren of war."
   Baltar tried to smile humbly; to Adama, he just looked more oily than ever. 
Adama knew the man to be a merchant king, important on Piscea, becoming so on 
other worlds like Leus and Aquaria. He had actually attended one of the 
Piscean Military Academies for three of the required five jahren-had even come 
to the Caprican Academy at Corella for one half-jahron as an exchange cadet 
while Adama had been stationed there as an instructor-before withdrawing to 
enter his family's business. That family's fortunes had then been making a 
rapid and impressive upswing, and Baltar had placed himself at the forefront, 
riding the wave, enjoying the fruits.
   In recent times his family's riches had become less centralized in focus, 
as well as more generalized in source. Adama had nothing against merchants; he 
knew many socially, was even related to one by marriage.
   Adama simply objected to Baltar.
   The man had always seemed unctuous, self-serving-someone looking for a 
boot to lick or a tail to kiss, he thought unkindly and completely 
unrepentantly.
   And when, after almost a thousand jahren of on-and-off warfare, a conflict 
that had done nothing but escalate for the past five centuries, the cylons 
selected him-out of the blue!-as their spokesman to the colonies, in the 
name of peace-that had been unbelievable. Completely and absolutely 
impossible.
   Yet the Council of the Twelve had been willing to listen. Truthfully, 
Adama was forced to admit, so were the military. Our best projections gave us 
only another century at most before we fell to the Cylons. Without peace of 
some kind, the Colonies were already doomed. Our leaders had no choice but to 
entertain this idea. Adama heaved a deep sigh. I can only hope as I have 
never hoped that I am wrong and the others are right.
   "That the Cylons chose me as their liaison and spokesman to the Council," 
Baltar smiled, humbly accepting the praise being ceaselessly heaped on him, 
"was an act of providence, not of any small skill that I might possess." He 
nodded gracefully to the three Councilmen standing next to Adar. "That the 
Council had the foresight and wisdom to listen to the messages of peace that I 
conveyed, and the courage to implement them-those are the facts that deserve 
to be in the history books."
   "Ah, Count Baltar, you are too modest by far," the Lean Councilman said, 
his thick accent almost masking his words.
   As Baltar began another good-willed denial of any fame, Adar looked up and 
around. The Council had dissolved for now; several of the Colonies' 
representatives had already retired to their quarters, to rest and, no doubt, 
to scheme how to insure their own homeworld's ascension to power in the war-
free future that even now approached. Six of the others stood in one corner 
talking quietly and laughing loudly.
   Dismissed, all but one of the impatient battlestar commanders had cleared 
the room, no doubt shuttling back to their warships as quickly as possible. 
Adar considered calling the bridge and rescinding their takeoff permission; it 
might be better to have them all at hand in case the Cylon Delegation showed 
up earlier than rescheduled. Then he shrugged; his own military days were long 
ago, but not so distant that he did not remember the torture of standing 
attendance for no reason other than the pleasure of government officials.
   That one remaining commander was his old friend Adama, standing alone and 
silent at the wallviewer.
   Adama didn't look around as he sensed Adar walk up to his side. It fell to 
Adar to break the tense quiet. "Well, Adama, I see that this celebration was 
not as big a success as I'd hoped with all my children." He grinned openly 
at Adama's dark look. "And you may spare me that Look of Infinite Wisdom 
expression, too. I know perfectly well not a one of the seven of you wanted to 
be here."
   "Well, that at least is true," Adama admitted grudgingly.
   "Have you perhaps calmed down enough to stay here on the Atlantia until 
the peace delegation arrives?" Adar asked, a rare note of genuine friendliness 
in his voice. "I understand Commander Caraker offers a superb mess."
   "I'm waiting for my command aide," Adama replied stiffly.
   "Your daughter, yes?" Adar asked. "Athena?" Adama nodded. "How is she 
working out?"
   "Lieutenant Athena is an excellent officer, sir," Adama said. "I have every 
confidence in her abilities. She will be a fine commander one day." He shifted 
uncomfortably. "No, I think we will go ahead and shuttle back to the 
Galactica."
   Adar turned his gaze to the representation of space. "Do the peace talks 
disturb you so much, old friend?" he asked quietly. "Does the prospect of 
peace really grate on you as it seems to?"
   Adama breathed quietly. "Peace does not disturb me, Adar," he said equally 
quietly. There were few opportunities for these two old acquaintances to 
simply talk, man to man. "Not even peace with the Cylons. Not really.
   "What disturbs me is what is coming this way, even as we speak. The Cylons, 
for the first time, are being invited into the Central System, and we are not 
prepared to do anything to stop them."
   Adar glanced sharply at him. "Adama, the negotiations have been under way 
for five sectars already, over a half jahron. The Cylons have conducted 
themselves honestly, even honorably, at all times. They asked for this 
armistice, not us." Adar's thin hand came to rest on Adama's shoulder. He 
turned his friend, faced him squarely. "We are a war-weary people, my friend. 
After a thousand jahren, we deserve some hope. And now God has seen fit to 
give us that hope, in the form of peace with our oldest enemies." His 
fingers squeezed. "They want peace, Adama."
   Adama shook his head sadly. "Forgive me, Adar, but you could not be farther 
wrong if you deliberately tried to be." He looked his friend in the eye, 
hoping, willing that the man might understand. "I have seen the cylons, 
Adar. I have seen them here in this room, speaking fine words of peace and 
love, of commerce and trade. And I have seen them," he gestured toward the 
wall of stars, "out there, as they really are. They are an utterly amoral 
race, Adar. They have completely enslaved nineteen alien races, and wiped out 
of existence twenty-seven that we know of. Any race as a whole that does not 
agree with their views of the universe-or that cannot survive enslavement-is 
nothing and less than nothing, worthy only of destruction." He touched his 
broad chest. "We are human, Adar. We love to think, to feel, to question and 
explore and build. We love our freedom, our independence and the fighting 
spirit that lets us defend that independence with such fervor. We value most 
our ability to differ from one another, whether in an argument like this one 
or a thousand-jahren war to defend that right." His hand dropped. "They are 
not human, and we should never make the mistake of ascribing human 
characteristics to them. Our way of thinking-it is as alien to them as their 
own mores and cultures are to us. The one thing that our two races can agree 
on is that we hate each other. To exist with us as their equals, for us to 
enjoy the same rights to expansion and defense and life that they wish to 
control-it is a way of existence that they could never accept."
   "But they have, Adama," Adar insisted, certain he'd found the chink in 
Adama's argument. "Through Baltar, they approached us for peace."
   "Baltar," Adama echoed flatly.
   "And I fail completely to understand your dislike for Baltar, Commander," 
Adar said, his voice leveling out. "The man has been the architect of perhaps 
the greatest feat of diplomacy and civilization since-"
   "Yes, Mister President," Adama said tiredly, "of course, you're right." 
Neither had convinced the other; neither ever would.
   Adar gave him a hard look. "Commander-" he began.
   Adama looked up, saw his daughter in the large double doors at the front of 
the chamber. She caught his eye and nodded. "Mister President, if you will 
excuse me?" Adama offered politely, tipping his leonine head deferentially. 
"My aide has arrived. I thank you for having me here," he finished ironically, 
"and will look forward to seeing you again later at the Armistice signing."
   Adar nodded stiffly, disapproving of Adama's view, unable to continue to 
argue without turning the disagreement into an outright fight. His angry eyes 
followed the dark-robed battlestar commander's form until it disappeared-but 
it was a long while before he rejoined the rest of the celebrants.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The pilots watched Cimtar-Mephis swell with impossible speed for brief 
michrons. "Synchronize drop-now," Apollo ordered, tapping his timer. Both 
fighters went sublight simultaneously, emerging into realspace only tens of 
kiloms distant from one another. Their cockpits immediately sang with the 
impact of thin atmosphere all about them, huge dim contrails stretching into 
invisibility behind them, unidentifiable vapors flaring to plasma against 
their forward rad-fields as they continued decelerating.
   "Wow," Zac breathed. Apollo nodded absently. Cimtar-Mephis now filled 
almost half the sky, still tens of thousands of kiloms distant but so large 
that it dominated the heavens. Apollo's HUD highlighted a twin pair of spots, 
dark against the dim, uprearing cloudmasses of the turbulent atmosphere. The 
fighters had emerged within a hundred kiloms of their targets-not bad by any 
standards.
   "Got my track on those ships," Apollo snapped, pulling both men's attention 
back to the job at hand. He sent his fighter spearing in that direction. Zac's 
viper shadowed his wing leader's. The young man's head nodded in Apollo's 
screen.
   "Me, too." He paused. "Apollo, my warbook had a reading on them, but all 
I'm getting right now is-"
   "Jamming," Apollo finished grimly. "Me, too. Low level, not good for long 
distances."
   "But the warbook said they were depowered tankers," Zac protested. Apollo 
gave up arguing with his own warbook after a third attempt gained him no 
further information on the mysterious ships. His proximity alarm warned him 
that they were rapidly nearing the hurricane system the mysterious ships were 
floating in the eye of. When the two ships had assumed a dim but solid 
visibility to the naked eye, he disengaged his autopilot.
   "My foot," he said sharply. "If they're jamming, even if that's all 
they're doing, they're hiding something." He tapped commands into his keypads, 
took the joystick in hand. "Take the high point. I'm going down and around 
those things, see what else may be here."
   Zac's voice was alarmed. "That'll put you right in the middle of that storm 
system, Apollo," he said. "My systems aren't reading anything around that 
jamming field. If there's a lightning center in there it'll rip us apart!"
   "Not us, Zac, me. You stay put." He grinned at his brother's head on 
his screen. "I don't want it said I taught my little brother bad habits on 
patrol!"
   He pushed his stick forward slightly. The viper obligingly dipped, jetted 
forward as he nudged the throttle with his right hand. The whipping clouds 
rose to meet him. The world dimmed and his canopy went gray before the dark 
shape of the first cylon tanker appeared before him.
   Apollo slowed his ship, feeling an atavistic thrill at maintaining his 
course and heading manually. He tapped for spots; broad circles of light swung 
around through the dimness, touched the metal giant so near to him.
   Even as close as he was his sensors could not break through the jamming 
field. By eye he could confirm that his warbook had earlier correctly 
identified the ship. It was long, low and multi-compartmented, the kind of 
ship cylons used as a refueling station for their longer-distance raids.
   From the way it was shivering and slowly tilting in the hurricane winds, 
Apollo guessed that it was empty. Just hanging here jamming hell out of 
space. Why?
   "Apollo?" Zac's voice was quiet in his ears. Apollo started, glanced at his 
chrono, felt a mild surprise at how long he had been quietly observing this 
derelict. He shook his head to clear it, made a guess at the location of the 
sister tanker.
   "I'm all right," he responded, guiding his viper away from the first craft. 
He had guessed right; the dim form of the second tanker slowly faded to 
visibility before him. "I was just checking the ship for any kind of ident."
   "See anything?"
   "No markings, but it's definitely a cylon ship. Class 2 or 3 tanker." He 
slowed, aimed his spotlights at the second ship. "So's the other one. And 
they're both riding the wind like they're empty and abandoned."
   "If Thule sent someone in to take `em out," Zac observed slowly, "why would 
they leave `em here? Why not just shoot `em down and be done with it?"
   "I don't know," Apollo answered slowly. He sat back. This tanker differed 
in no way from the first one. He glanced around at the cloudy grayness all 
about him. The colonials were deep enough in the atmosphere of the gas giant 
that the stars were no longer visible. A gust of wind, several hundred kiloms 
a centar, jolted his ship, and moisture of some unidentified chemical 
splattered his canopy. Other than the soft keening of the wind and the tiny 
clicks of his ship's systems, all was quiet. Far too quiet to suit him. 
Something about this was screaming run!
   Instead he nudged his throttle forward again. "I'm going to go a little 
deeper and see what's here, Zac," he reported.
   "I'd rather you didn't, Apollo," Zac came back. Apollo grinned slightly at 
the concern in his brother's voice. His grin died abruptly as the young man 
continued, "I'm losing my track on you. This jamming is interfering."
   At this distance? Apollo's brows descended. "Are you still reading me?" 
he called back, leveling his flight path.
   "Still reading four and one," was the response, "but I'm only getting 
intermittent tracks from your transponder." He paused, continued. "Let me come 
in and help," Zac offered. "We can be done twice as fast..."
   "Negative, Lieutenant," Apollo snapped. "Hold station. I'm not staying in 
this soup any longer than I have to." Like all space-based fighter pilots, 
Apollo hated guiding craft through atmosphere of any kind. His were reflexes 
honed to the instant reactions of a vacuum fighter. Even as powerful a vehicle 
as a viper was something of a boark in any atmosphere thick enough to make 
sound. "If I find something, I'll let you know. And you let me know when 
you get a lock on me again."
   "All right." A beat. "Be careful."
   "Trust me." Apollo sent his viper into a shallow dive, buffeted by winds 
and flinching involuntarily from the splatter of snowflakes as big as his 
head. He gave up trying to eye anything, resorted to his enthusiastically 
lying instruments.
   He spent several centons cruising aimlessly about inside the thunderhead 
over which the two derelicts were maintaining watch, finding nothing but bad 
weather. He shook his head; perhaps it was just paranoia. No doubt the 
tankers had arrived here with jamming on full strength, and been neutralized 
by the fighters from Thule Base. Perhaps the warriors there planned on coming 
back and salvaging the freighters-a noble aim for espionage purposes if 
confusing to the pilots who had to investigate the handiwork. He pulled his 
fighter back around to return to his wingman, only then realizing that, in the 
featureless grayness around him, he had no idea which direction was back. 
"Damn," he muttered.
   "What?" Zac's voice was anxious.
   "Nothing," Apollo said, disgusted with all things atmospheric. "I'm going 
to do a nose up to get out of the clouds. You may as well head out too; I'll 
rendezvous in low orbit."
   "You didn't find anything?"
   "Not a thing," Apollo reported, pulling back on the stick and watching the 
artificial horizon on his control board rotate satisfyingly forward. He gave 
his fighter full throttle, enjoying the low thrum of power that pressed him 
gently into his seat. "I think we were right all along. These ships came on a 
raid or something and got caught-"
   Three gold-white spears of light snaked past him. "Frack!" He looped his 
viper into a steep dive, curling down past his attackers as they shot up.
   He emerged into a small, clear zone in the thunderhead, a hurricane's eye 
perhaps only a few hundred kiloms across. At the first look, every hair on his 
head tried valiantly to stand on end. In that dim grayness he made out the 
running lights of hundreds-no, thousands of massed cylon fighters, 
everything from dragonflies cruising the periphery of the group to manti, 
reavers, araks and tarants. Toward the center he could just pick out a huge, 
black-on-black insectoid shape, and recognized it as a cylon superweapon 
rarely seen and seldom survived-a ripper cannon.
   His viper almost immediately swept back into the sheltering clouds. Once 
the vast formation of enemy forces was out of sight, the thrill of pure horror 
that had immobilized him faded. Only then did he hear his warbook frantically 
shrilling at him. He absently tapped it into silence. My God! he thought, 
there are enough fighters there to take out a battleship, or a carrier, or 
even a- Then the realization of what those derelict tankers were really 
doing hit him.
    He went to full throttle; the acceleration pressed him back into his seat. 
A quick jerk of the joystick sent his viper careening to one side, just as 
another series of shots passed through the space he'd been in.
   "Apollo?" Zac had heard his brother's frenzied breathing over the comlink. 
He asked with concern, "Apollo! What's wrong?"
   Apollo was too busy to do more than grunt noncommittally; from the 
thunderhead around him had materialized four dark, ellipsoid shapes, craft he 
did not need his warbook to identify for him. Manti! he thought, frantically 
arming his countermeasures and trying to eke out any more thrust from his 
shrieking engines.
   He sent his fighter into a tight spiral, still climbing virtually straight 
up, and jinked to one side. The manti, closing for what looked like an easy 
kill, went to all sides, unable for the moment to do more than send warning 
shots at him for fear of hitting each other.
   "Zac!" the older man gasped. "Get orbital, quick!" Apollo was gratified to 
hear the whine of his younger brother's fighter over the comlink.
   "All right, Apollo," Zac returned, the hesitance in his voice disappearing. 
"What's your problem? Can I assist?"
   "Cylons!" Apollo wheezed as he banked his viper into another tight, high-
gee series of evasion curves. "Get high! You can't help me if you can't see 
them! I'm on my way up now!"
   "I'm on my way," his wingman reported coolly. A michron's pause, and he 
continued, "I've got a lock on you again! And two-three-four cylons!"
   "Thanks," Apollo muttered irritatedly. The sky was already fading from 
pinkish-gray to black, stars hesitantly reappearing. The manti, also clear of 
both atmosphere and their own covering jamming field, opened fire again. 
Apollo armed and sent a few quick countermissiles back along his flight path, 
expecting no great benefit but hoping to throw his pursuers off. Indeed, the 
manti were within visual range; his missiles were likely to miss them by dint 
of the fact that they were too close to him.
   "Zac!" Apollo roared. "Get clear of the jamming! Get out of here! You've 
got to warn the fleet!" He jerked his fighter sideways again, his wings 
scorched by fire from two of his pursuers.
   "I'm going, I'm going," Zac insisted. "But what am I warning them of? And 
what about you?"
   "Cylons!" Apollo repeated, frantically countermaneuvering as the manti 
started to assume a pinwheel formation, a graceful, interlocking and deadly 
maneuver few colonial pilots had ever escaped. Apollo knew he was in trouble. 
"Lined up from here to hell! Enough to stock enough basestars to destroy the 
colonies!"
   From the ebony sky came a rain of fiery death, stitching a harsh pattern 
through the assembling cylons. Those graceful ships broke their formation in 
haste, fluttering off in all directions. Behind the covering fire, Zac's viper 
went rocketing straight down, a dim flash in the corner of Apollo's eye.
   "Zac!" Apollo roared, preparing to reverse his course and rescue his 
foolhardy brother. "I told you to get out of here!" On his scope Apollo 
watched as his brother's flightpath leveled out, saw the flare from a distance 
as Zac engaged his boosters for a max-gee pullout.
   "I am on my way out, Apollo!" was the grunted rejoinder. The gee-forces 
the younger man was pulling were tremendous, almost more than even his 
protective fields could neutralize. "Just thought I'd join the party as I 
went."
   Apollo eyed the curving tracks of his erstwhile pursuers, noted that they 
would not be able to catch up with him or his brother until well away from 
Cimtar-Mephis' constricting grasp. He felt a dull gratitude that his brother 
had rescued him from almost certain death; the full reaction would as ever 
settle in once the combat high had run its course.
   "All right! Good job! Did you take any damage?"
   "No, no damage." There was a pause. "I've got a lock on you, Apollo."
   "Good. Rendezvous as quick as you can. As soon as your systems'll let you, 
go superlight. One of us has to get word back to the fleet!" His warbook's 
beeping interrupted him. He glanced at his HUD and groaned.
   The cylons, far from being discouraged, had regrouped for pursuit.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Dan swallowed the last of the still-potable protein drink he had salvaged 
from the wreckage of the lab, disdainfully threw the empty container off into 
empty space. His stomach still felt as though it was wrapped around his 
backbone; thoughts of half-cooked thumper steaks and salads piled high with 
rhita dressing were an ever-strengthening distraction to him. But that fuel 
and the cubes of bool he was saving for later would at least keep his flagging 
energy up enough for him to reach the shipping lanes. After that, it would be 
a matter of willpower more than anything else. His plans assumed that some 
ship would be passing through the nearest commerce route when he got there and 
triggered his beacon; he had carefully avoided speculating on what would 
happen if no ship was within range. He had no idea where Sagitarra--or any 
other colony--was in its orbit at this time of year. None of the chronos at 
the station had been working, so he truly had nothing but his undoubtedly out-
of-sync biological clock to reckon by, and his body was telling him that it 
should be desyatki, perhaps already devanosti, moving from spring into summer. 
And as he recalled (Why didn't I pay more attention when the shuttles were 
coming and going?, he chastised himself), Sagitarra was almost a third of the 
way around the system from Hereit right now--a distance he could never hope to 
cover before malnutrition and exhaustion sent him into a coma that he would 
never awaken from, here in the unforgiving vacuum of space.
   The feeling of something in his belly lifted his spirits slightly. He 
added energy to his flight, knew he was gaining speed as he fell sunsward. 
With nothing in space as a referent, he could not accurately judge his speed--
but he assumed it to be higher than he had attained before.
   Desperation could also do wonders for flagging spirits.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Captain Marduq grinned thinly as the slam of g-forces of a viper launch 
pressed him into his seat. In his headphones he heard his friend and wingman 
Lieutenant Alekas grunt in boredom. Marduq enjoyed the feel of a fighter in 
flight; Alekas, on the other hand, usually affected a boredom that was nothing 
but show.
   The battlestar Atlantia swung down and to his rear as he pulled his 
fighter around, systems locking on his own mothership, the Galactica. "Ahoy 
the Roflo," he called.
   "Roflo aye," came the voice of Flight Sergeant Ariassa, tonight piloting 
the commander's shuttle. "We have launched. All systems nominal."
   "Fine." Marduq needed no more reassurance than that. He switched 
frequencies. "Galactica, this is Captain Marduq, Blue Escort two three. We 
have launched from the Atlantia and are on long approach. Our ETA is in 
sixteen centons, at 0864."
   "Galactica aye," the mothership responded. The soft, familiar voice 
continued, "Call again at 0860 for approach instructions. Copied?"
   "Copied, Galactica. Thanks."
   "No problem, sir. A moment, please." Marduq grinned as the flight 
controller's voice disappeared, and a young woman's face flickered onto his 
screen. Her eyes widened in surprise; he gave her a quick smile.
   "Remind me to thank Corporal Rigel when I get back, Artemis," Marduq 
instructed his young lady.
   Lieutenant Artemis, Operations Officer, currently pulling an unwelcome but 
necessary shift of duty in place of her cousin, smiled back. It was definitely 
a friendlier, more intimate smile than a Caprican girl would give anyone but 
her lover. "Marduq! Oh, Lords, are you a sight for sore eyes!" The young 
woman laughed. "I wish I had time to talk, I truly do, but--"
   "Over an open comline?" Marduq asked skeptically.. "Everyone in the fleet 
would hear it. And I'd never hear the end of it."
   "Ah, go ahead," stage-whispered Alekas over the open line. "Give her 
some good suggestions, snowman. We're all listening!"
   Artemis let out a stifled shriek and Marduq rolled his eyes. The man was 
right; a conversation between lovers was best conducted anywhere besides an 
open fleet com line. But did he have to be right where everyone could hear 
him?
   "Alekas! You just wait `til I get you here, you-" Artemis caught herself, 
a disgusted look on her pretty face. "Never mind. I've got to get back to 
work, anyway." Marduq started to reply when Artemis looked at something 
offscreen. Her smile faded, a look of concern drawing her thin brows together. 
"Now what?" she asked irritably. She glanced back at her pilot. "I'm sorry, 
Marduq, I've got to go. We've got something major happening here now."
   "Understood," he assured her warmly. "See you later, then."
   "I'll take that as a promise. Galactica out."
   Marduq's smile became mournful as Alekas' voice came over his briefly 
silent com line. "Well, gee, Snowman, tell me some of those ideas! I'm 
all ears!" The formerly short flight was already looking longer.

                          *** *** *** *** ***

   The chamber was huge by human standards, full of rounded corners and smooth 
lines and dim reddish light. In the center of the vast hall, what could best 
be described as a throne reared to a dizzy height. Atop that small tower, in a 
control yoke designed more for esthetics than function, a cylon High Commander 
perched, watching silently as the hordes of warriors around it scurried about 
the business of operating a basestar.
   The High Commander reached out with a curiously fluid limb, stroked empty 
air imperiously. A hologram in colors almost invisible to the human eye swam 
into view before it. Another limb gestured, differently; schematics in alien 
mathematics curled across the face of the diagram.
   The being was satisfied with what it saw. Another limb indicated for aides 
to approach. Two armor-garbed warriors and an AI approached the command 
throne, the centurions' footsteps loud in the otherwise soft-edged silence of 
the command center. The AI made no sound at all, gliding on quiet lifters.
   By your command, came the ritual report.
   Your own report, the High Commander demanded of the AI.
   The lights that flickered and circled that artificial being sped, shifted 
to new patterns. All basestars assembled have reached proper deployment 
position, the creation reported emotionlessly. When the High Commander was 
silent, in contemplation or some inhuman emotion of its own, the AI continued 
insistently, The time for the final annihilation of the pestilence known as 
humanity is nigh, Leader.
   The High Commander shook itself from a contemplative doze and tipped its 
head, a gesture common to cylon and human alike. After so long, it replied, 
the cool logic of hatred coloring its communications, the time is nigh. Yes. 
Give the word. Let the attack begin.
   By your command, the AI said quietly.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Captain Mikhail Raths took his viper sublight again with a bored flourish. 
On his screen three bright indicators, the other vipers in his wing, 
flickered.
   "All right, people," he said tiredly, "you know the drill. Take a good, 
hard scan of the area, and report back in." Acknowledgements were quickly 
returned. This was the end of a long, uninteresting shift-all four pilots were 
looking forward to getting back to Picon-Sud, getting off duty, and enjoying 
the Armistice celebration. They, and all the intercept pilots currently on 
patrol, had been hearing far too much about the festivities to be 
participating so little.
   Raths turned his viper outward, triggered a strong search pulse. For long 
michrons his viewplate remained empty, the thinline track sliding up and off 
his screen. Absolutely nothing, just as he'd known it would be. The systems 
back at the station had been acting up for sectons now; the sysanalysts 
themselves admitted that they had multiple bugs to work out of the newly 
installed operating software.
   "Report," he ordered irritatedly after another few centons.
   "Nothing." "Not a thing, cap." "More of the same."
   "All right. Reverse and link up," Raths said, already inputting course 
commands. "Let's show `em a precision arri-"
   The sound of his warbook shrieking was only barely louder than those of his 
wingmates shrilling over the comlines. On his screen and HUD alike, a huge, 
green circle swam into visibility.
   "Basestar!" one of his wing-he had no idea who-screamed. His instincts 
functioned well in spite of his shock. His viper spun in space to face his 
home base.
   Picon-Sud was huge, carved of an asteroid, covered with the technological 
litterings of mankind. The cylon Basestar, however, smaller, was infinitely 
more impressive, a semicircle of ebony cut from the brightness of the military 
base. Two flattened double-cones joined at the tips, like a child's top built 
by a devil. It was dark black, the silver of running lights and dying stealth 
fields hinting at rather than revealing its lines.
   A basestar, Raths thought with a thrill of terror, his fingers tracing 
long-familiar patterns across his controls, without conscious volition setting 
an intercept course-as though anyone could have missed such a massive target! 
A basestar! But how! There's no way a basestar could make an approach without 
going superlight, and we'd detect them if they did! How could this have 
happened?
   A moving track on his HUD drew his attention. One of his wingmates-FSG 
Magnib according to his command computer-went shooting off on a collision 
course with the alien vessel.
   An intolerably bright flash of light blinded him for long michrons. His 
hands guided his ship unseeingly until his vision slowly returned. Still 
blinking painfully, he glanced back into a scene of horror.
   The basestar had dropped its stealth field at a distance of no more than 
five kiloms from Picon-Sud, and immediately opened fire with every weapon it 
possessed. Tiny rods and massive poles of destructive energy slammed into the 
human space station, blowing chunks of asteroid and complex alike into vapors 
and fiery flinders, raking the station mercilessly. Even as this was 
happening, the basestar fuzzed at the sides. Raths didn't need his warbook's 
warning to know that the cylon had launched missiles in addition to its beam 
attack.
   Picon-Sud disappeared into a glare of dust and vaporizing rock, brilliant 
explosions lighting the darkness of system space.
   There was a brief squawk in Rath's earpiece, louder even than the static 
which, he only now realized, had been dinning in his ears since the attack 
started. He glanced frantically around, belatedly noticed that his wing was 
now down to three men.
   There was a louder burst of white noise in his ears, a whiter flash of 
light to the side of him, and the nearest face of Picon-Sud disappeared into 
molecular memory. The basestar continued to press its attack, not letting up, 
and Raths realized that the warstation was doomed; there had been no warning, 
no time to raise their own defenses, and no way now to strike back against the 
enemy so close at hand. All the early detection systems, all the missile 
batteries and defense cannon emplacements, the three strike squadrons of 
fighters trapped in the launch bays, unable to shoot into action-all had been 
overwhelmed in the initial, unrelenting assault.
   He realized what he did have to do: get warning to the colonies. 
Someone had to spread the word that the Armistice was nothing but a sham. He 
wasted little time with fancy course programming, slapping keys for the rough 
direction of the central cluster. "Brook! Shime!" he cried to his remaining 
wingmates. "Get out of here! Clear space! Get warning back to the council! Go, 
dammit, go!"
   Speaking aloud over an open com line had been a mistake; now the cylons 
knew that there were ships out here. Raths saw beams of energy as thick as his 
fighter sweeping around from the shape so dark against the bright glow of the 
dying Picon-Sud to stab at the human midges. Three keys and a frantically 
slapped initiate button later, he watched the stars streak and blur. He 
would never know what became of his wingmates.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Artemis kept the worry that gnawed at her thoughts from reaching her face. 
Her expression remained calm, her voice level, as she acknowledged yet another 
fault in the scheduled communications linkup of the fleet comm net. She had 
not even been able to tell Marduq why she had to sign off-only that it was 
necessary. The only sign of excitement she gave was to nervously brush her 
soft brunette ponytail off her shoulder.
   Something was going awry.
   She tried a different approach, attempting to perhaps circumvent some 
software glitch that was only now misinterpreting command's requests. While 
the screen flashed WAIT at her she rubbed tiredly at her dark green eyes and 
thought to herself that this was the last time she was volunteering to take 
her cousin's duty, Command Responsibility or not. Next time, Athena could just 
persuade Noday to do this! Artemis was looking forward to celebrating the 
Armistice as much as anyone, and had eagerly anticipated her young man's 
return. Then President Adar had summoned commanders and their assistants, and 
Athena had begged so heartily for her to cover this shift that Artemis had 
laughingly agreed to do her best friend this favor. She had not known at the 
time that Athena had also requested Marduq be assigned as chase pilot for the 
commander's shuttle. On purpose, knowing her. "I'll get you for this, 
Athena," she muttered softly, "I swear I will."
   Her screen flashed, blinked obnoxiously: UNABLE TO COMPLY. "Damn!"
   Captain Omegas per Ledu frowned as she looked up and caught his eye. 
Artemis reflected grimly that he had no reason to be any happier than she at 
the current state of affairs. She knew of no one in particular that the quiet, 
handsome fourth-in-command of the battlestar had in mind to spend the 
Armistice Eve with-although she knew a few young ladies who dearly wanted to!-
but even such an efficient workaholic as Omega had to be looking forward to 
tonight's scheduled celebrations. "No luck?" the man asked her.
   "None," she replied dryly. "The systems are failing left and right, and 
there seems to be no explanation for it. No sooner does ops patch one up than 
another one drops out." Omega's frown thinned and he turned to his own 
console, repeated Artemis' request for information from the Galactica's 
suddenly uncooperative information systems. When the system again flashed a 
NON-OP sign at him he sat back in his seat, ran long fingers through well-
groomed brown hair, and thought, hard.
   Something is going on. Something concerning the commnet and systems 
software. Cylons? Sabotage? Surely not-how could it have happened?...but how 
else to explain...? "Communications," he snapped. The lieutenant in charge of 
that section glanced across the bridge at him. "What's the status of Picon-
Sud's carrier?" That station had dropped unexpectedly from the nets not more 
than centons ago, an unnerving signal of silence on such a tense occasion.
   "Still working to reestablish, sir," that worthy reported.
   "Artemis," Omega said, returning his attention to the young woman at the 
ops terminal. She looked up, the eyes that had mirrored the overall 
cheerfulness of the fleet now darkening with concern. "How about our patrols?"
   Artemis obligingly tapped at her keyboard; her readout echoed itself to 
Omega's terminal. "Fourteen flights reported nothing abnormal; most requested 
an update of their own from us. Apparently our communications are having 
problems, too. Flight fifteen reported damage to one cobra. They diverted to 
the Aquaria for emergency repairs." She stopped, tapped at her keys again. 
"Flight sixteen has dropped out of the comm nets."
   "Which flight is that?" Omega asked.
   "Blue seven-seven-three," the girl said. Her eyes met his. "Captain Apollo 
and Lieutenant Zac, outbound to Cimtar-Mephis." No sign of concern for her 
other cousins entered her voice; as yet, nothing was actually proven wrong, 
and Artemis was a calm officer. "Their scheduled contact with Cimtar-Thule has 
not been logged."
   "Have you contacted Thule station yet to ask for help locating them?" Omega 
asked, calling up another series of reports. Artemis' next words brought his 
attention back to her.
   "Thule station has been silent for almost a day now, sir."
   "Cause?" Omega's eyes were hard.
   "Unknown," she responded matter of factly. "I've got cross requests in to 
our wing, the other battlestars and CircumSagitarra, trying to lock down 
what's going on. They've been known to go dark before."
   Omega sat very still for a long centon, his chin resting in his hand as he 
gazed, unseeing, at his terminal. He reached a decision.
   "Artemis, ask Colonel Tigh to come to the bridge, please. Stress that it 
isn't an emergency, but it is urgent. Put all crews on standby, and put the 
ship on Yellow Alert." Artemis' eyes widened briefly, narrowed again. She 
nodded acceptance. Omega turned his attention elsewhere. "Flight Control."
   "Sir," reported the sergeant in charge of that division of terminals.
   "Call all our patrols back. Patrol seven seven three is out of touch at 
present. Reestablish contact with them as soon as possible, and apprise me of 
any difficulty in doing so."
   "Sir," the sergeant acknowledged, turned and began delegating the work. 
Omega turned back to his terminal. He typed in a name and address, waited 
while the connection went through. A narrow, tanned, high-browed face appeared 
in his flatscreen.
   It blinked in surprise, then grinned. "Omega! Hello! To what do I owe the 
pleasure of this call?"
   "I think something's wrong, Monweal," Omega told his friend, the executive 
captain of the battlestar Solaria. That man's friendly expression slid into 
one of attention. Omega went on to explain the communications problems, the 
disappearances of patrols,  and the silence of moonbases and sentinel 
stations.
   "It may be nothing but a series of coincidences," Omega concluded quietly. 
"Too many people doing too much celebrating at the same time. But it doesn't 
feel right, somehow." Monweal nodded; he and Omega were countrymen, 
Sagitarrans, Toplanders, and each knew the truth of the occasional nudge of 
foresight. Neither had ever been particularly talented in that area-but in 
future executive commanders, even subconscious hunches often proved valuable.
   "Commander Doesley should be back aboard shortly," Lemnos said. "I'll 
see that she's informed of the problem. And Omega?" Omega nodded his 
attention. "You're not the only one. We've lost contact with several patrols, 
in that same area of the system. I'll see that we search for all our lost 
warriors."
   "Good enough. Omega out." Monweal nodded again and his face vanished. Omega 
turned his seat as an ensign at the main hatchway loudly called "Colonel's on 
the bridge!"
   Tigh waved back to duty those personnel who had snapped to attention, 
joined his own executive officer on the command podium. "What's going on, 
Omega?" he asked tersely.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Flight Sergeant/3 Ariassa grinned as her copilot, FS3 Zolotoye, groaned and 
stretched. "I'll be glad when we get back to the ship," the man said, relaxing 
and scratching his thinning hair.
   "I'll bet you will," Ariassa needled him. "Which one's waiting for you this 
time, Jen or Salla?"
   Zolotoye didn't even break stride turning to leave the cockpit. His hand 
good-naturedly swiped Ariassa's short blonde hair forward. "Both of `em, 
missy, as ever. Tonight's a night for celebration!"
   "Yeah, right. You headed for the reefer?" Zolotoye paused on the stairs, 
nodded. "Bring me back a can of chai if you would. Been a long day, and we 
still get to go back to the Atlantia when the cylons arrive."
   "You got it." Zolotoye moved into the passenger cabin, nodded politely to 
the commander and his conversation partner, and grinned at the young 
lieutenant. "Ma'am," he said cheerfully, "I'm headed back in back for a while. 
There's a seat free up front if you want to go and watch."
   Athena's eyes lit up. She loved few things as much as the experience of 
sitting in the cockpit of a vehicle in flight. She had a dream of someday 
learning to fly herself, although she knew combat flight was forever out of 
reach, thanks to her command status. "Really? Thank you, Sergeant!"
   "Any time, ma'am," Zolotoye said, standing out of her way. "Have fun."
   Ariassa reached up, nudged her communicator as a call came in from the 
chase pilots. "Marduq to Ariassa. Anything to report?"
   The pilot grimaced, looked mournfully at Athena as she moved into the 
cramped copilot's area and took a seat. "Strap in, ma'am," Ariassa warned her, 
nodding approval as the young officer did so correctly. The pilot turned back 
to her screen. "Nah. All systems green, engines nominal, telemetry flatlined." 
She paused, grinned again. "Got a replacement copilot, though."
   "A replacement?" Marduq's voice was curious. "What happened to 
Zolotoye?"
   Ariassa indicated for Athena to don the copilot's headset. Athena fumbled 
with it for a few michrons, settled for holding it in place. "I guess he knew 
talent when he ran into it," Ariassa said.
   "Hi, Marduq!" Athena said cheerfully.
   "Athena? Hah. I suppose they'll let anyone fly nowadays." Marduq's tone 
was teasing.
   "Of course," Athena agreed, nodding to the headset. "They're letting you 
fly, aren't they?" The two were long-time friends through their joint 
affection for her cousin.
   "Well, he's only flying tonight because all the real pilots were out 
celebrating," Alekas growled over the line.
   "Oh, really?" Marduq retorted calmly. "What does that say for you, then, 
pretty boy?"
   "More'n it says for you, snow slither." Athena shook her head, smiling. 
To listen to the two pilots, an observer would have thought them to be the 
deadliest of enemies, rather than the close friends they were.
   "Ma'am," Ariassa said, pointing out the front port. "Look. You can see the 
Galactica already." Athena followed the woman's outstretched finger, eagerly 
searching the starlit firmament.
   "Yes! I see it!" She had seen her own home battlestar dozens of times on 
approach and departure, but the view never failed to impress her. Even now, 
not yet a jahron after her own assignment to this fortress, she still felt a 
mingling of pleasure and apprehension at the thought of someday commanding a 
battlestar of her own. Her family and friends assured her that she would be an 
excellent commander, and her examiners opined likewise. Nonetheless, as the 
great pale shape slowly grew larger, she took a perverse pleasure in the 
feeling of excitement.
   An idea struck her. "I can access the command channel from here, can't 
I?" Athena asked Ariassa. The pilot shrugged.
   "Commander's always been able to, ma'am. Long as you know your password, 
you shouldn't have any trouble. I don't think we're secure for high-level 
intel, but you can give it a try." She pointed to the copilot's keypad. "Store 
Zolotoye's configuration and use that one."
   "Thanks." Athena did as she had been instructed, then confidently tapped 
out commands, the soft sound of Marduq and Alekas' continuing bantering and 
the ship's engines and life support systems drifting through the background.
   There was a loud click in her ear, and she smiled even wider. "Yes! Got 
it." Ariassa nodded, unseen, as Athena settled back to enjoy the view while 
eavesdropping on her ship.
   Her smile faded a moment later. She sat up straight, pressed the headset to 
her ear. Zolotoye, coming up the stairs with his friend's drink in one hand, 
winked at the pilot and started to tease Athena when that girl held up one 
slender hand for silence. "Commander!"
   The quiet voices from the rear fell silent. "Yes?" Adama's voice asked.
   "Sir, I think there's a problem aboard ship," Athena said, no longer 
smiling at all. Pilot and copilot exchanged curious looks. Zolotoye moved his 
lanky frame out of the way as the battlestar's commander strode forward.
   "What do you mean, Lieutenant?" Adama asked calmly, glancing forward at his 
rapidly nearing starship. Ariassa began quietly making her own arrangements 
while the two officers conversed.
   "I don't know what's going on, but..." She paused again. "Sir, they just 
put the Galactica on Yellow Alert." Adama's eyebrows rose. He did not ask 
for the headset, trusting his daughter's perception. Instead, he turned to 
Ariassa.
   "Sergeant, contact bay control and get us a priority approach," he ordered.
   "Already doing it, sir," Ariassa responded.
   Adama nodded, turned back to his aide. "Leave the pilots to their jobs, 
Lieutenant." He jerked his head toward the rear. Athena, reluctance visible 
despite the sudden seriousness of the situation, vacated the copilot's chair. 
While Zolotoye squeezed back into his place, Ariassa called the chase pilots. 
"Yo! Boys!"
   "What is it, Ariassa?" Marduq asked.
   "We've got a situation here, Marduq," she reported grimly. "Command Alpha's 
getting our approach priority upped. The ship's gone to yellow."
   "Why?" was Alekas' logical question.
   "Dunno," Ariassa answered, acknowledging the Galactica's response to her 
request with a tap on the keypad. "They haven't even told us officially yet. 
The lieutenant was listening in and caught the alert when it was called."
   "All right," her lead escort said. "We're right here."
   Ariassa and Zolotoye looked curiously at each other, shrugged in unison. 
Neither could guess why the ship was going on alert. They could only hope it 
was something as simple as an in-flight salute.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   An explosion sent light searing into Apollo's eyes, his cockpit darkening 
fractions of a michron too slowly. "Ow!"
   "Apollo?" Zac called back concernedly.
   The two dodged frantically, only infrequently able to launch the 
countermeasures that might have bought them time to accelerate along a course 
back to the assembled fleet. The four manti in pursuit clung to their colonial 
targets with the frenzy of a carnivore making a long-overdue kill.
   Blinking tears away, Apollo glanced at his controls. Damn! Still not a 
good enough lead. The vipers' flightpaths were nightmares of twisting, 
doubling curves. Any time either man tried to steady long enough for a lock on 
any of the manti, the other aliens were right there, getting their own lock.
   And the randomness of human reflexes could only hold off the combat 
computers of the foreign-thinking cylons for so long in any case. Their shots 
were coming closer all the time.
   Another heart-stopping near miss rocked Zac's viper to one side, the 
missile's fireball actually grazing it. That does it, Apollo thought, his 
anxiety turning to perfectly human anger. He glanced at his instruments; the 
cylons were still jamming the colonials. No chance to call for help or send a 
long-range warning. He looked to his tac board, counted the same number of 
pursuers that had chased them from the upper reaches of Cimtar-Mephis' clouds.
   "Zac!" he called urgently.
   "Yeah?" was the querulous response.
   "We're never gonna make it back to the fleet just running from these 
creeps," Apollo pointed out.
   "They're eating our missiles like candy," Zac pointed out right back. "I 
don't have many more."
   "Exactly," Apollo agreed. He forced a smile into his voice to boost his 
brother's shaken confidence. "Besides, it's kind of insulting. There're only 
four of them back there!"
   "I don't know, Apollo," Zac tried to put the same joviality into his words 
he heard in his brother's, "they seem to be doing awfully well right now."
   "Only because the backshooters are behind us," Apollo assured him, and 
switched smoothly into batlang. The hard, clipped syllables of the variable 
verbal shorthand of the fighter corps made a pleasant change after long 
centons of the scream of engines and the whine of alarms. "When I give the 
signal, hit your reverse thrusters-"
   "Reverse?!? Apollo-!"
   "Maximum braking," Apollo insisted. "We'll give `em a little surprise. 
Ready?"
   "All right."
   "Three-two-one-now!"
   Both men slammed forward against their restraints as the vipers' drives 
shrilled even louder, the fighters suddenly slowing appreciably even by combat 
standards.
   The four manti, bunched together in close pursuit, screamed silently past 
the colonials. Apollo could imagine the shock coursing through the thoughts of 
his alien counterparts at seeing their targets suddenly rush backwards past 
their pursuers.
   Apollo wasted no time in arming and releasing the heaviest ordinance he 
possessed. He even locked his blazers in on the dipping, weaving manti, hoping 
that luck might favor him with a hit. Even as he started to alert Zac to the 
next step in the plan, he saw his brother's ship fuzz with missiles of its 
own.
   At least one of his missiles found a target; a cylon fighter disappeared in 
a glare. Another followed it michrons later as one of Zac's rattlers caught up 
to it. They had been the two trailing ships, too slow to escape the colonial 
counterattack. The surviving ships separated, taking opposite courses, 
circling around to continue the attack rather than flee. Damn! thought 
Apollo. He had really hoped he and his brother could make their escape in 
the confusion. "Let's go, Zac!" he ordered, stabbed his throttle forward 
again. "And not bad; you got your first cylon already!"
   "I'm with you!" came the rejoinder. Apollo was gratified to hear a note of 
confidence in his brother's voice. He grinned in spite of the seriousness of 
their situation as the young man continued, "Besides, I got both of those-
those were my missiles!"
   "Oh, yeah?" One of the manti had completed its turn; Apollo was fighting 
for his life again. "I'll argue the point later."
   "Gotcha."

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Yes!" Tilus shouted exuberantly, jumping into the air and coming back down 
on the cushions in the common room with a monstrous thump, arms and legs 
outstretched. "Yes!" he reasserted, "did you hear? The Armistice is 
finally beginning! Now! My friends," he cried grandly, his full bass 
thundering even over all seven screens that were carrying different Peace 
Talks broadcasts, "we are living history!" He pointed at the largest of the 
screens, carrying a broadcast live from Bliznetsi, their own city, the capitol 
of Gemon.
   With the exception of the owner, the entire complement of this Sheiga 
House, socialator and staff alike, was assembled in this massive meeting room. 
Tonight, rarity itself, the Kaltso House was closed to the public; no orders 
for entertainment or companionship had been accepted.
   Tonight, peace was being celebrated by all.
   Tilus' companions laughed at his cheerfulness. Even among men and women 
trained in the arts of comfort and fellowship, Tilus was an extrovert, highly 
popular with both the Sheiga House's regular patrons and the passing souls who 
sought a night's company, well-loved by his friends and his psuedo-family as 
well.
   "Yes, well, Tilus," Sasha said with mock firmness, kneading Anton's wide, 
dark shoulders, "if you persist in leaping around like that, you can live 
history in your own room!" There was a roar of good-natured laughter at this 
meaningless threat, which Tilus acknowledged with a salute.
   Anton grinned, looked back at his friend in appreciation, and raised his 
own head from her lap. "I was going to offer a toast. Is everyone here?" Sasha 
continued kneading his arms but glanced around, taking a quick headcount.
   "Yes, I think-no, we're missing one."
   "Who? We're all free tonight." Sasha's fingers briefly squeezed his 
shoulders and she caught his eye. "Ah. Yes, I should have known." He reared 
back, levered himself gracefully to his feet.
   "Perhaps she wishes to be alone tonight, Anton," Sasha suggested. There was 
no malice, no jealousy in her voice, emotions almost alien to the outgoing, 
vastly-loving Gemonese as a people; she spoke an honest opinion.
   "If that's what she wants, then I'll respect her wishes," Anton nodded. 
"But would you wish it on anyone to be alone tonight of all nights?" Sasha 
shook her head, smiled wistfully. Anton touched her cheek with a gentleness 
that seemed out of place to his graceful bulk. "I'll be back when I've found 
her."
   In truth the massive man felt he already knew where his friend would be 
now. The others could take joy in the coming peace, the end of a war long 
fought and long-regretted, a conflict foreign to everything these gentle 
people had been taught to revere. His friend, however, had her own reasons to 
find sadness amid the raucous joy.
   He was right; the first chamber he came to showed a gentle amber light 
around the door, an indication that the room was in use. He placed fingertips 
sensitive enough to read the raised print of the blind against the smooth 
wooden panels, felt the faintest of vibrations even through the soundproofing. 
He sighed and touched the lockplate, entering quickly that the sound from the 
room would not disturb his friends in the front of the building.
   His eyes blinked involuntarily at the thundrous, crashing chords 
reverberating from the walls. This was not the gentle, folksy ballad of a 
classic, or the racy chords of the city streets, or even the rhythmic 
multidrums of the hillsmen, but a harsh, pulse-pounding beat of a martial 
anthem, one foreign to this gentle world but familiar nonetheless to this 
woman and her friends.
   In contrast to the volume of the music, the room was dimly lit, the lamps 
set to seem like huge, reddish candles that flickered and swam in the breezes 
of the chamber. Even the walls had been reset-rather than wood or metal or 
fiber, they seemed carved from the heaviest, hardest stone. Carpets, real 
ones, covered a floor that no doubt matched the walls in apparent texture, and 
tapestries waved in the simulated breeze from simulated windows. A breath of 
incense tickled his nose; he wiggled it to stifle the sneeze reflex, stuffed 
his fingers in his ears, and watched.
   The woman danced.
   She whirled and spun, grace in motion, her delicate toes seeming merely to 
brush the ground on their way to loftier destinations, her long limbs flowing 
and boneless, slender fingers fans against the view of her unseen audience. 
She crouched to the thick rugs, arms waving both temptation and denial to her 
watchers, hair a golden spray as her head turned, the jewels of her headdress 
sparkling in the red light. As she came to a stop, kneeling, the shimmering 
veils that had circled her like the smokiest of clouds drifted to rest across 
her back and arms. For a moment she paused, one knee up, the other to one 
side, a figure in abject submission.
   Then she was up again, this time a rolling invitation and desperate plea at 
the same time. Her gowns and veils whirled, drawing wildly leaping shadows in 
the guttering light of imitation candles.
   All the while, her eyes stayed shut. The woman danced in familiar settings, 
to familiar music, for that most familiar of audiences.
   Anton was moved in spite of-or because of-the exotic quality of the dance. 
She had mastered these techniques at the behest of Dame Harleson, owner of 
this Sheiga House and holder of her contract, and had subsequently had cause 
to rejoice in such teachings.
   Anton knew why she danced here, alone except in her thoughts and memories. 
He thought, if he cared to check so thoroughly, that beneath the shadow and 
rouge on her cheeks and eyes, that he would see the silver glitter of tears.
   He knew who she danced for, and who she cried for.
   The socialators who worked in this Sheiga House, as in any on Gemon, did so 
because they loved people, because they thrived on the good feelings of those 
around them and were well-trained in evoking such reactions. None was unhappy 
in their profession, an ancient and blessed one-
   -yet each had the dream of someday meeting someone that might care more 
than most, someone to purchase their contract and take them away to join a 
family somewhere.
   How would it have felt to her, Anton wondered, no longer noticing the 
loud music for the bright, twisting form of his friend, to have had him buy 
her contract and take her away somewhere? She would have belonged to him, as 
partner, or concubine, or wife, but only to him, never to be part of a family. 
It would seem so sad to me.
   But she loved him, he admitted admiringly, loved him as she has loved no 
other. And he promised her that he would return for her, and that they would 
be together.
   And she wanted him to return. She wanted his love. If any could have 
adjusted to such a lifestyle, it would have been her. He sighed in genuine 
sorrow. He could regret for his friend the opportunity forever lost to her.
   He turned to leave as unobtrusively as he had entered. She wanted solitude 
tonight, and he, as her friend, owed her that consideration. He knew why she 
wanted to be alone, to celebrate the long-awaited peace even as she mourned 
the memory of a man she had loved and been loved by.
   For some, peace had come too late.
   Ah, Cassie, Anton thought as the door slid silently shut at his back, 
will you ever be able to forget your handsome commander?

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "All systems nominal, ma'am," the navigator reported.
   Merchant Captain Hadar nodded. The thin harshness of her face and the 
tightly-bound bun of gray hair, two-feathers binding of a married mother 
notwithstanding, gave the woman the appearance of a stern taskmaster, someone 
to be obeyed or avoided. In truth, in space, she was a austere commander.
   When one is an officer in the merchant marine service and the commander of 
a mining frigate, one has certain standards to uphold.
   There was a smile in her voice, however, as she acknowledged the update. 
"Thank you, Van. Mehlam, how long `til we go subluminal?"
   "Another decenton still, ma'am," the woman replied. Even aboard merchant 
frigates of individual worlds the times were usually given in military 
standard time units. "Nine centons seventy-five on my-mark," she temporized. 
Hadar acknowledged her with another nod.
   "Mister Sidol, are we in range of any commercial stations yet?" Hadar 
asked. The youth at the communications station started; this was his first 
outsystem voyage, and the first time his trainer had permitted him to assume 
bridge duty unsupervised. So far he had managed to avoid Captain Hadar's 
notice.
   He performed a frantic check, touched a switch-the wrong one. Raucous 
popular music in a foreign language blared from the speakers, preceding 
startled shouts by only michrons. The youth frantically slapped switches, 
finally found his all-kill. Blessed silence filled the bridge.
   "Thank you," Hadar said drily. Her tone was even, but there was a sparkle 
in her eye. The lad was nervous-could her reputation have become so severe 
since he signed onto the ship?-but did good work. He would likely make rank 
quickly if he learned to keep his calm. "I assume that that is a yes." 
There was a badly-subdued snicker from the outback monitoring terminal. Hadar 
fixed the offender with an evil eye, to no avail; that man had known her too 
long to be impressed with the act.
   "Er, yes, ma'am," Sidol stammered. "We're picking up stations from Aer and 
Gemon already. We're getting CircumSagitarra's navigational beacons, too, but 
we won't be able to get any vid stations for another few centons."
   "Thank you." Hadar turned around to roll her eyes; it wouldn't do for the 
lad to see her smirk. Ruin the image.
   She settled for contemplating the image of her homeworld as it slowly 
swelled in the viewer around which the bridge was constructed. Hadar hugged 
herself. It mattered not in the least to her how many worlds her company sent 
her to to wrest raw materials from-to her, no other world could compare with 
Sagitarra. She knew people from other colonies considered it too cold, too 
harsh, too mountainous, too far from the bright central suns. What those 
others felt to be an unhealthy pale she saw as the silver shine of snow-
covered prairies. What those others thought an unpleasant dimness she thought 
the perfect light to live in.
   Soon, she felt like shouting, soon it will all come to pass. I will be 
home, my children will be home, and the war will be history. The sagitarran 
merchant marine mining ship Helcha Taiya had followed the news on the 
commercial stations as far out as it could while superluminal, and once they 
had reached their target planet Hadar had even permitted the minor expense of 
an orbital booster so that she and her hundreds-strong crew might follow the 
progress of the Peace Talks and Armistice as they labored. They knew that 
prosperity still awaited them-the rare earths and heavy metals they had lifted 
from that alien world over the course of the last three sectars would be 
valuable in peacetime as in war-those who made technical things, from tiny 
readers to fighter craft, would always need such materials.
   And then there were her children. Ah, Dallos, Wattra, we raised a brood of 
hellions, didn't we? Her son Marduq was a combat pilot in the colonial 
military, assigned to one of the battlestars that the civilian newscasts had 
said were assembling for the Conference. Her daughter Rachel and the girl's 
children, Hadar's grandchildren, had reportedly planned her return from Aer to 
coincide with the Helcha Taiya's own arrival date. Only one of Hadar's 
children, borne of her body or her cowife's, had joined the Taiya's crew; 
the others were happy to live at or near home, having no desire to leave 
Sagitarra.
   And as much as she loved the business, loved being in the merchant service, 
Hadar sometimes felt an almost overwhelming desire to retire, to settle down 
on the spread Dallos and his brothers had built for the clan, to watch her 
children raise thumpers even as she bounced dark-eyed grandchildren on her 
knees. Until now, there had been the drive of the war to push her onward-the 
war that had taken her oldest son and daughter alike, that had taken her 
husband and cowife-but that war was ending. Perhaps that drive would end as 
well.
   Well, we'll just ford that drift when we hit it, she admitted 
sardonically, sitting up straighter as she felt a presence beside her. She 
glanced up in mild surprise, noted the ship's young business manager. "'Lita," 
she said, smiling. "You startled me."
   The serious young woman nodded. "Sorry, ma'am. You were staring at 
Sagitarra so hard I thought something was wrong."
   Hadar smirked. "Daydreaming. It's a bad habit. I was thinking about how 
nice it will be when I'm surrounded by family." She patted one of Lilita's 
hands. "Speaking of which, I know you'll be going to see your parents, but 
Marduq and his sister are both planning on being back for a while. I hope 
you'll be there too."
   Lilita smiled back. "I know. Marduq's last letter was full of Armistice 
plans. No, truthfully, I may just stay at the spread until he gets back. 
Father is likely on Liber right now, and Mother's probably with him."
   "You could always catch a shuttle," Hadar offered. "Business likely won't 
take more than a few days, a secton at most. I don't imagine the festivities 
will be over by then."
   Lilita shook her head, her exotic ebony hair waving gently. "I think not. 
Liber is a boring planet at best-how Father came to accept the ambassador post 
there, let alone keep it for the past twenty-some jahren, is beyond me!-and if 
Marduq's going to be back, maybe he'll bring Artemis, too."
   Hadar laughed. "Good. A merchant captain can never have too many 
grandchildren," she teased. Lilita bore the teasing good-naturedly-her calm, 
unflappable nature was one reason she had achieved such an influential 
position in the merchant service at such a relatively young age. Hadar patted 
the girl's hand once more, then turned her attention back to business; now was 
no time to drift off into speculation. Lilita moved around to the hatch, 
undoubtedly heading for her own cramped office. "Mehlam, initiate stage two 
alert. We'll go subluminal a little closer in than usual and cut down on our 
approach time. Sidol, get us an approach lane to CircumSagitarra."
   "All right." "Aye, ma'am."
   The others on the bridge quietly readied their people for reentry. All were 
looking forward to their return, even those whose families were among the crew 
of this vessel. I suppose it's true, what they say, Hadar reflected with 
amusement at the thought. Everyone spaceman has two homes: the one he 
journeys through the universe in, and Sagitarra.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "All right, you slobs, line it up!" Lieutenant Vinston ordered. "Move it! 
Single columns, like for a funeral drill." By way of illustration his own 
combat mecha stepped ponderously forward, massive feet making no sound in the 
vacuum of space against the outer hull of the battlestar. "Line it up! We were 
supposed to be out here over a third of a centar ago."
   The 47335th Cavalry Batallion, 1st Ranger Regiment, duly followed orders. 
The hulking, vaguely man-shaped cylon-fighters clumped their way into a 
semblance of a salute formation. "Squad leaders, I want a headcount in one 
centon. Full accountability. Rodens, you on the command circuit?" Normally 
combat mecha maintained their own separate comm net; one fighter had been 
detailed to listen for instructions from the distant authority who would be 
guiding this presidential salute.
   Presidential lunacy, more like it, the commanding officer thought to 
himself as he watched his people pull their combat vehicles into line. Why he 
couldn't just line us up in Gamma Bay like the Rangers get to do I'll never 
understand. 
   "Hey, Vinnie," someone interrupted his thoughts. He pulled himself back 
to his tac displays. He recognized the voice of his exec, Lieutenant Livedas. 
"So what's the deal?"
   "So why didn't you check the training schedule and find out?" he asked the 
woman. "You're supposed to know these things in case I don't!"
   "So tell me and I'll pass the word."
   "We're lining up to show the President and the Council just how pretty we 
all look when we're celebrating peace," Vinston told his friend. "They're 
going to give us a signal, and we're going to give them a flyby salute. You 
should've checked your onboard log, too, Livvy," he grinned. "It's got your 
firing orders and everything."
   "Well son of a gun-you're right for once, y'know that?" There was 
joviality in her voice. A moment of silence. "Hey, wait a minute-there's no 
duration on these orders! What's the deal?"
   "Squad leaders, report. All accounted for?" Vinston called over the 
circuit. The reports came back that indeed everyone scheduled to be present 
was here. "Okay. Stand at rest. Rodens, you keep an eye out for the heads-up, 
right?"
   "Right!"
   "All right. Livvy, they don't specify a duration because we don't know how 
long it's gonna take the bastards-"
   "Sure you don't want to rephrase that?"
   "-the higher-up officials of our governments and the visiting cylon 
delegation alike to get their acts together. The actual ceremony was supposed 
to have started a couple of centars ago, but they haven't showed up yet." 
Various voices made ominous sounds on the commline. Vinston nodded even though 
all communications right now were verbal. "Yeah, well, we're gonna hang out 
here and wait." The sounds were less than pleased now from the troops. "Yeah, 
I know, me too, people. But somebody's gotta do it, so we may as well give `em 
a good show if we've gotta be out here."
   "Permission to tune in on the civvie broadcasts, boss?" one of his troops 
called. He consulted his readouts, saw nothing out of the ordinary.
   "Yeah, go ahead Aaron. What, there another coq game on? Today's a holiday, 
you know."
   "Not just a game, sir," the young wrangler corrected him 
enthusiastically, "a championship final. The Milieur Catsen and the Lausi 
Yszufi are-"
   "Enough!" Vinston laughed. Coq was one of the hundreds of inexplicably 
popular sports practiced on the colonies. Like most, it had never successfully 
made it off its world of origin. Ensign Aaron had tried on numerous occasions 
to interest his fellow drivers in the sport, with virtually no success; the 
only thing Vinston understood about the game was that it involved a great deal 
of leaping, diving, striking and tackling of opponents, with no readily 
apparent goal in mind. Although I have to admit that trying to explain 
triad's just about as hopeless, Vinston reflected. "Go ahead. The rest of 
you buggers, don't let me catch you eavesdropping on the command channel 
again. One butt-burning in a career is enough for me." He paused. "And if they 
say something interesting, lemme know, okay?" He settled into his seat, 
flipped his faceplate up and reached under his seat for a can of chai. This 
was going to be a long night.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Adama strode onto the bridge of the Galactica, not pausing to notice the 
mood of quiet intensity as he climbed the spiraling ramp to the command 
podium. "Tigh! Omega! What the devil is going on now?"
   Omega's attention remained on his screen, where he was communicating with 
the team of analysts who were attempting to track the systems glitch that was 
paralyzing more and more of the battlestar's computer system. Tigh looked back 
at him, frowned.
   "Commander," he greeted his friend. "What isn't happening? It was bad 
enough that the cylons didn't show up when they agreed to; you'd better 
believe intel's pitching fits about that. At least two outstations have 
gone silent-we're still not sure of the status of Thule Station-about a 
quarter of our own systems are offline from a problem no one can explain or 
trace, and one of our patrols has dropped out of the net as well. I think-"
   "Sir!" Omega interrupted the men; they turned to look at him. One hand 
touched his earphone. "Sir, we've confirmed that Thule outstation was not 
scheduled to go dark at this time. Long-range telemetry from the Atlantia 
suggests that there is some sort of anomaly from that area of the system." He 
met Adama's eyes. "Analysis suggests a high probability that it is jamming of 
some kind."
   Adama and Tigh exchanged looks. "Jamming?" Adama queried.
   "Could be smugglers-now would be a good time to be out and operating-or 
another incursion by Dragonid terrorists-or..." Tigh broke off.
   Adama said nothing, just turned to face the massive screen that fronted the 
command center. He stared at the view of starlit space, a faithful 
representation of the cosmos through which this vast warship cruised. Straight 
ahead he could just make out a glitter of light that occasionally strobed for 
a few michrons, a star he knew to be the battlestar Atlantia.
   This whole affair was screaming wrong! to him. He had no hard evidence to 
offer; ship's systems had gone down before-it was a rare battle indeed when a 
battlestar's computers were one hundred percent functional-and the continuing 
problem with smugglers and revolutionaries alike was one that had been a major 
factor in the Council's vote to pursue the peace process. Neither situation 
was new.
   But now? In these circumstances-practically the whole of the Colonial 
Defense Force gathered within a ten-kilom-diameter sphere of space, and an 
alien armada on its way for a rendezvous, an armada no commander in his right 
mind would meet with anything less than a full battle wing-it felt completely 
and terrifyingly wrong.
   He turned back to Omega. "Get me the President," he ordered firmly.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Starbuck swallowed, hoping that he would have no reason in the next few 
centons to look behind him and see the expressions on his friends' faces-
former friends, maybe, he thought reluctantly-and smiled jauntily. "Good, 
fellas, good! At least you're making this a challenge, right?" The gemons 
paused from raking in their take, glanced at each other uncertainly, and 
looked back at Starbuck. That worthy eyed his opponents and came to a 
difficult decision.
   The pilot reached into his pocket, withdrew the reserve stash that he had 
concealed and carefully avoided even thinking about, slapped the cubits on 
the table. "Game's not over yet, fellas." He slapped another handful of golden 
markers on the table, ignoring for his own ease of mind the low mutter from 
the ranks of the squadron that had been backing him up. "Last hand. Trinomes 
high, caspice rules, and crimson's low.
   "Sudden death." He riffled the deck, played with it absently, his eyes 
never leaving his adversaries. "You in?"
   The pilots from gold squadron exchanged a disquietingly emotionless look. 
Starbuck enjoyed a brief thrill of horror at the thought of the brothers 
declining his challenge, and what would likely happen to him after the 
visiting spectators had left. He snapped the cards a little louder to get the 
men's attention back.
   The two nodded to each other. One began placing the horrifyingly large pile 
of cubits in neat, even stacks; the other took a measure equal to Starbuck's 
opening wager, pushed it to the center of the table. Both gemons grinned.
   "Sudden death!!!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Athena, perched on the console of Artemis' station, glanced back as her 
father's voice rose, his tone pleading. It disturbed her to see her proud, 
forceful parent reduced to begging to get the attention of a man who she 
willingly admitted did not deserve the power he had.
   She shook her head, looked back at her cousin. Artemis glanced up from her 
troublesome readouts, patted her cousin's knee. "Try not to worry, `Thena," 
she advised her friend. "It's still more likely than not that this is just a 
routine system failure. It's happened before."
   Athena nodded absently. "I just keep remembering what happened the last 
time a failure came at such a bad opportunity.
   "So what happened over there, anyway?" Artemis asked to change the 
subject."
   Athena grinned slightly, glanced around, made certain she was unobserved, 
and took the opportunity to stretch hugely, then scratched frantically at her 
auburn hair. "As soon as the commanders all showed up, they sent us lower-
downs away. All I heard from Father was it was boring, boring, boring!" She 
sighed. "They offered us a tour of the Atlantia, just to be polite, but 
nobody wanted it. After a while, even watching the speeches on vid got to be a 
waste of time, and just about everyone wandered over to the hangar deck. I 
think they probably wanted to watch some coverage that wasn't Council 
sponsored."
   Artemis chuckled in sympathy. "I can believe it. I opened a window to check 
the news reports from the Star Kobol; I haven't seen anything that dry 
since...I don't know, maybe since that Piscean local patrol stopped that band 
that was smuggling lubricant." She shook her head. "You'd think there'd be a 
little more variety, wouldn't you? The first real peace in a thousand jahren, 
and all we get are people who are preaching about the Council and its long-
range plans." She paused to enjoy her own stretch. "I can't even go celebrate-
and it's your fault, too-because as soon as the Cylons actually show up for 
their own party, Marduq's got to go with you two back over there."
   Athena's grin was purely mischievous. "Well, I did owe you one for last 
week when you-" Artemis' smile froze, then slid into a frown. She held up a 
hand to silence her cousin, the other tapping at her keypad.
   "Oh, my God," she whispered michrons later.
   Athena's eyes widened. She slid off the console. "What is it? Can I help?"
   Artemis nodded, pointed at the empty station next to hers. "Slave to mine. 
Give me a hand. Commander!" she called loudly. All three command officers on 
the podium paused, looked down at her. "Sir, our missing patrol is reporting 
that it is under attack." Tigh nodded; she returned her attention to her 
panel, striving to cut as much as possible of the distant interference from 
the ill-fated patrol's carrier signal. Then in the corner of her eye she 
noticed the look on Athena's face. She spared her friend a glance.
   Athena grinned bravely; only someone as close to her as Artemis would know 
how much worry there was behind that facade. "Hey, if Starbuck can't beat 
off an attack, then who-"
   Artemis shook her head. Her words were intended to comfort, anyway. "Not 
Starbuck, hon. He shammed out again. Zac took his place." Athena's smile 
dipped; her cheerfulness had vanished by the time her cousin finished. She 
took a deep breath. Some of her father's unease was communicating itself to 
the bridge crew-and much of her initial relief that her beau was safe was now 
obscured with worry: both of her brothers were out there alone, under 
attack.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Our patrol is under attack, Mister President," Adama said urgently.
   Adar's face floated in the holofield before Adama and Tigh. As the man 
started to reply, another face, rounder, darker, slid into the picture. Adama 
managed to conceal his distaste at again being forced to see Count Baltar; 
Tigh was not so inclined.
   "As a precautionary measure, I would like permission to launch an intercept 
wing," Adama recommended, his tone less hard, less inflexible than it had been 
during his private conversation with the man earlier.
   Baltar leaned forward in the holo, whispered something to the president. 
Adar nodded approvingly. "Quite right, Baltar. Commander, as a precautionary 
measure, I must insist on restraint. This may simply be another encounter 
with outlaw traffic of some kind-I'm well aware of the recent problem's with 
smugglers, and I know you are too-and quite possibly another foray into our 
space on the part of the survivors of the Dragonid Rebellion of decades ago. 
They would certainly like to ruin the peace attempt, as you well know. We 
could jeopardize the entire peace effort, the entire cause of peace, were we 
to display a warlike attitude when we are so close to our goal." Adar's 
attitude was that of a parent talking a child out of a tantrum.
   Adama took a deep breath; now would not be a good time to lose his 
temper. "Mister President," he snapped, "two of my fighters are under armed 
attack-"
   "By forces unknown," Adar snapped back, some of the fire of his youth 
in his voice. "Commander, I just explained to you the situation we are in 
right now. You will not launch any further patrols until the situation is 
clearer. Do you understand this?"
   Adama nodded stiffly, forced his expression back to one less adversarial. 
"Sir, might I at least urge to you bring the rest of the fleet to a state of 
alert-"
   "I will consider it," Adar said. He was already turning away as he 
concluded, "Thank you, Commander. That will be all." His head and Baltar's 
disappeared.
   There was silence on the bridge of the Galactica for a long centon; no 
one wanted to risk the commander's ire. Tigh's patience ended first. "He'll 
consider it," the man muttered coldly, "he'll consider it? Has he lost his 
mind?" Adama turned, looked at his friend with tired patience. Omega grinned 
forebearingly at his trainer. Tigh noticed that he had drawn attention to 
himself, looked vaguely embarrassed, but pressed his point. "I'm sorry, sir, 
but-" Adama raised a hand, waved away any thoughts of wrongdoing; he agreed 
with his hot-tempered exec. "-well, it's just that...the patrol that's under 
attack-" Adama's eyebrow rose-Yes? "Well, it's Captain Apollo's patrol," the 
man got out.
   Adama sighed heavily, turned back to the viewing wall. He finally responded 
tiredly. "Well...if I can't have confidence in my own son, who can I depend 
on?"
   Omega and Tigh exchanged a look of unease. "Sir," Tigh continued softly, 
"Lieutenant Zac is with him."
   Adama's eyes locked on his second-in-command. "Zac? He wasn't on the patrol 
roster, was he?"
   Tigh shook his head. "Volunteered. Something about trading duty with 
Starbuck. It's the two of them out there."
   Adama did not reply.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Apollo!" Zac's voice was stressed.
   The man's eyes traced his HUD, located targets. "I've got them!" Apollo 
snapped back. He pulled his own viper around as tightly as possible, took up 
pursuit. One cylon continued after his brother; it had the young man in a bad 
position. The other dropped back, ready to engage him again. Apollo sent more 
missiles in the thing's direction on general principle, then launched another 
pair in the direction his fighter's instincts said the thing was likely to 
dodge. His own ship bucked as he launched countermeasures, noting with 
distress that this running battle was costing more and more with every passing 
michron. Soon he would have no missiles left-neither viper had been equipped 
for full combat on a simple patrol flight. Damn the Council's cost-cutting 
anyway! Apollo cursed, spared his brother's blip another glance. "Keep him 
interested, Zac! I'm on my way!"
   Zac's voice was broken up; the other cylon's missiles were going off all 
around the young man, seriously close, enough to jar his fighter, upset 
communications. "Interested? Believe me, they're interested!"
   The second cylon dodged just as expected. Apollo had to look away briefly 
as one of the thing's own attacking missiles avoided his countermeasures, 
detonated far too close for comfort. The glare made his eyes water; his ship 
shook, the wings scorched along the upper edge.
   A shifting blue-to-red glare caught his eye, off to the side in the 
distance; then his HUD reported that his own target was disabled, floating off 
into infinity missing most of its engine system.
   He turned his attention back to the last remaining attacker, even now 
coming into killer range of his younger brother. "Zac-"
   His warbook breeped warningly, echoing that in Zac's fighter. "Apollo! He's 
achieved lock! I'm-"
   "Hang on, hang on!" Apollo ordered, overrode his safeties and hit his 
turbos, gambling that he could narrow the wide gap between himself and the 
battling pair with a brief, unexpected superlight jump. If he went sublight 
again too late, he would overshoot attacker and prey alike by far too many 
unrecoverable kiloms. The stars jerked, blinked. Almost as soon as he achieved 
superlight he unphased his field generators, dropping jarringly sublight 
again. It was a move that no flight trainer ever approved but that every 
fighter pilot sooner or later either mastered or died attempting. Cylons had 
been getting better in recent jahren; humanity's war effort was lagging. When 
technology failed, it fell to the humanity to make up for the shortfall.
   The stars swam again, and Apollo frantically brought his viper around. 
There! "Zac, hang on! I'm coming!" His warbook shrilled again as Zac's 
fighter tried and failed to neutralize the cylon's attack. "Zac!"
   "Apo-" Zac's voice broke off as an explosion englobed his fighter. Apollo 
locked his weapons on the cylon in a red rage, loosed his remaining supply of 
killer missiles. "Apollo," Zac's voice was weaker but clear. Apollo let out 
the breath he had not realized he had been holding. "Dammit, dammit, dammit," 
Zac whispered hoarsely, almost to himself.
   Apollo swung his ship into pursuit, watching both traces as he tried to 
capture an advantageous position in the coming fight. The cylon swung wide, 
trying to stay close to Zac's fighter and at the same time avoid Apollo's 
salvo. Yes! Apollo gloated, Viper bait! As the cylon swung down, Apollo's 
ship twisted, loosed another volley of blazer shots. The alien ship was busy 
dealing with a swarm of small but deadly missiles; it looped right up into the 
path of Apollo's shots. There was a dimmer flash than that of a missile 
strike, and the cylon went dark, flipping and twisting in suddenly powerless 
flight. As Apollo watched, exultant, one of his trailing missiles caught up. 
The cylon disappeared in a flash of fragments that quickly disappeared into 
infinity.
   "Nice job, Apollo," Zac coughed.
   "Naturally," Apollo responded, trying to sound as confident as he wished he 
felt. "How about you?"
   "I'm ready to fight some more." There was a beat of silence. "But my 
response is down. Confidence is low. I'm getting funny readings from my 
systems."
   "Roger that. Hang on." Apollo took a quick reading, swung his ship toward 
his brother's. "Let's take a look here."
   Within a half-centon a light swam out of the darkness. Apollo swallowed; 
even from a distance he could tell that his brother's fighter was in worse 
shape than he had thought. "I'm here, Zac," he said, his voice low.
   "How bad does it look?" the young man asked. "Give it to me straight."
   "All right." Apollo looped low, as close as he could come to the other 
fighter. He traced his spots across those parts of the viper that were not 
still glowing dimly. Gaping holes showed dark against the hull, the edges 
ragged and torn. As he watched, sparks traced a line down the edge of the 
wing; he heard a spurt of static as it discharged into the dead, mangled port 
engine.
   Inspection complete, Apollo pulled up alongside, gave his brother a high 
sign. Zac returned it. "Well?"
   "Your port engine is gone. Nothing left there. It looks like your 
stabilizer's still in one piece, or mostly, God alone knows how. Your 
translight web is intact, too, which is a good thing. But with that third 
engine missing, we're going to be slow."
   "I guess that's not bad for fighting four cylons, huh?" Zac asked somberly.
   Apollo grinned, let it show in his tone. "Absolutely! The day those guys 
can outfight us without a ten-to-one margin-"
   "Apollo," Zac interrupted him. His voice was emotionless, bordering on sad. 
"Take a look at your scanner."
   Puzzled, the man did so, at first seeing nothing. Then he narrowed his 
sensors' focus back toward the rapidly receding Cimtar-Mephis. As if by magic 
a line of triangles lit on his screen-then another line, and another. He 
watched in horrified silence as the picture built up with a display of enemy 
fighters that threatened to overwhelm his display, sweat suddenly cold against 
his neck and back.
   "Yeah," he whispered, swallowed, "but a thousand to one, that's not fair."
   "Apollo?" Zac's voice was that of a younger brother again. "What's it 
mean?" His tone indicated that he knew very well what it indicated-he wanted 
Apollo to dispute it, to disprove it.
   Apollo had no more comfort to offer. He already realized what was coming, 
emerging from the dark clouds of the King of Worlds. He had a vision of 
hundreds, thousands of such fighters drifting through the sunslit skies over 
Doroenia, over Corella, over Caprica City, raining death and destruction 
across the bright, living landscape, buildings exploding, toppling, people 
dying-
   "It means there isn't going to be any peace," he told his brother flatly, 
anger building, replacing the hopeless, empty feeling in his gut. "There may 
not be a hell of a lot of anything if we don't warn the fleet. Punch it! 
Superlight! We'll fix our heading once we're under way!"
   "On your tail again!" The fighters jerked superlight in unison, and another 
problem immediately reared its head. Zac's fighter slid smoothly backwards 
relative to his brother's. Apollo throttled back, remained stationary in 
relation to his wingman.
   "Zac! Keep up!" Apollo ordered. Zac fumbled with his controls, did 
everything he could think of.
   "It's no use, Apollo," he said resignedly, slapping his panels in 
irritation and dawning fear. "Get out of here. Warn the fleet."
   "Zac-"
   "Apollo, I'm short an engine! You know I won't be able to keep up with 
you." Zac swallowed, blinked. "And someone's got to get back to warn 
everybody."
   Silence crackled across the intercom. "I can't just leave-"
   "You have to," Zac insisted. "Believe me, I'm putting everything I've got 
into those last two turbos. Warbook says those bastards're still sublight. 
They may not want to risk going FTL where the Fleet'll see `em. With luck I'll 
still make it back ahead of them." His brother was silent. The lead between 
the ships remained constant. "Do it! Apollo-"
   Apollo's voice was quiet, but once again full of confidence-and pride. "You 
can fly with me any time...brother." His fighter speared off into the gray-
and-stars of hyperspace, leaving Zac alone. The young man reached under his 
panel, fumbled for a particular board, snapped it out and glanced at it. He 
pulled one small square off, replaced one jumper, and snapped the board back 
in. When he tapped at his controls now, he found that he had a much larger 
power allowance to him, and he wasted no time putting it all into his two 
remaining engines. He felt a surge and his speed climbed. I may make it back 
right behind Apollo yet, he thought with a brief satisfactory gloat; not for 
nothing had he been hanging around with maintenance techs since he arrived 
aboard the battlestar.
   He had to keep an eye on his readouts, though; that bypass was dangerous. 
Too much power could blow his remaining turbos, leave him stranded light-
centars from anywhere.
   Nonetheless, his fortunes were looking up. He settled back into his seat, 
started to relax-and sat back up as his warbook bleeped at him. "What the-" A 
tiny triangle drifted onto the stern edge of his long-range display. As his 
hair began to stand on end another trace joined the first, and another. "Oh, 
frack," he whispered, remembering that few blessings come without attendant 
curses.
   The cylon attack force had made its own superlight jump.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Dan watched the tiny ball of metal foil drift alongside him as he chewed on 
the normally tasteless cube of dried nourishment. Hunger made the best of 
sauces; he savored the little survival ration as long as he could.
   The foil ball receded from him only gradually, glittering dimly in the 
light of the still-far-too-distant central suns. He watched it with a dullness 
he knew clinically came from his own tiredness and malaise. None of the 
rations or protein drinks he had found to be still consumable had been the 
special preparations for the team members. Those of his brethren on the 
project required higher amounts of different chemicals to keep themselves 
healthy, things the normal scientists and workers claimed made the drinks and 
snacks completely unpalatable. There were times he and his comrades had 
agreed; now, with his own medical training, he recognized the beginning of the 
end of his journey.
   His body burned fuel faster than a normal human's did, and operated like 
that under normal conditions. In circumstances like this, using his power non-
stop, for several centars and God alone knew how many millions of kiloms, his 
body was already beginning to burn itself out. Clinically he knew that he was 
in no immediate danger; nonetheless, he had studied the long-range side 
effects of power usage, and he knew better than most of his teammates what 
would happen when his body had finished using its fat deposits and began 
consuming its own muscle tissue.
   Before that happened, he had to contact help. There might be no recovery 
for him if he reached that stage.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The alarms blared. Adama turned from his daughter and niece, strode up to 
the command podium. "Tigh!"
   His exec turned to him, face grim. "Tactical just tracked incoming, sir. 
One emergence, vectoring right for us."
   Adama's eyebrow lifted. "One of our fighters?"
   Tigh nodded. "There's some kind of interference. We haven't actually 
communicated with the man yet. But the signature is that of a viper." Tigh 
noted the look that crossed Adama's face-which of his sons was not coming 
back?-and continued quickly. "Sir, with our systems malfunctioning and one of 
our fighters unaccounted for-if we don't launch something-"
   Adama raised his hands, turned away. His voice was full of distress. "We 
cannot launch, Tigh. The president has expressly forbidden that." He was well 
aware of the tense, unhappy looks of his bridge officers as he looked away. 
   Omega, Artemis and Athena looked at each other, back at their superiors. 
Omega put his hand over his mouth and coughed. When Tigh absently nodded a 
blessing he rolled his eyes and coughed again, louder. "Hlrrt!" His mentor 
looked around at him.
   "Are you all right?"
   Adama smothered a grin, looked back at his exec and fourth-in-command. "We 
cannot launch, it is true. However..." He paused as if in thought. "Now might 
be an appropriate time for a nice, extensive battle stations drill." Omega's 
smile was that of long patience finally rewarded; Tigh's smile was positively 
feral. "Omega, if you would do us the honors?" The tall young man smiled, 
leaned over his control board. "Sound the alert!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Starbuck broke his pyramid face to smile jovially. He paused to enjoy a 
long draw on his stig, one of the specially doctored ones he'd been saving 
since his last landfall. This was an occasion worth the expenditure.
   The gemonese brothers finished muttering to themselves, pushed a store of 
cubits into the center of the table. "We meet. Play your hand, Starbuck."
   Starbuck released a puff of smoke in their direction; more than one of his 
comrades leaned close for a sniff of the second-hand stigsmoke. Then, with 
theatrical elaborateness, he laid his hand down, spreading the cards so that 
each was clearly visible. They were arranged in ascending color and value, all 
of the same face.
   "Read `em and weep, fellas," Starbuck crowed, "you may never see another 
one. A perfect pyramid!" His smile was radiant.
   Peder turned to Meralo, their looks dark, angry. Meralo raised his hand, 
obviously intending to throw his hand on the table-
   -and the alert sounded. The lights dimmed, flashed to red, making 
everything shades of crimson and blackness. Shouts and screams replaced the 
anticipatory silence that had filled the room; people were abruptly bumping 
and shoving their way to the narrow door, running for the access tunnels to 
the hangar decks.
   Two huge gold squadroneers came rushing by, ran into the table. Bolted to 
the floor as it was, the thing still moved. Starbuck's cards went flying. He 
made a futile grab at them as they fluttered away, then shot his hands out to 
meet those of the gemons.
   Peder smiled thinly. "Unfortunate, Starbuck."
   Meralo reached around the clasped hands, scooped out about half of the pot, 
and likewise smiled. "We will have to replay our sudden death at a later date. 
Duty calls."
   "Hey, wait!" Starbuck cried. The Gemon pried his hand from Starbuck's grip. 
"Come back here, you little-" The two turned in unison, joined the press of 
bodies at the door, and were gone. "Somebody stop them-" No one paid Starbuck 
the least attention. The room was already almost empty. The cubits caught his 
eye. He looked around; no one was even looking in his direction. He quickly 
scooped the markers toward him, poured them into the pockets of his 
flightsuit. As he staggered metallically toward the door, he made a note to 
himself to redistribute the wealth as soon as his partners remembered to bring 
up the subject.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Frack!" Zac eyed his readouts with anguish. They were indicating redline 
rapidly approaching. He nursed his fighter along more with prayer than with 
any technical expertise; every michron he stayed superluminal maintained what 
lead he had in front of the pursuing cylon armada, a lead that had narrowed in 
the past few centons.
   The alarm squealed; his viper lurched as a second engine joined the first 
in oblivion. Before the third engine could die Zac flipped a thumbswitch up, 
frantically cut his FTL drives. The stars swam and flickered as he went 
sublight. Almost immediately the seemingly endless cylon horde behind him 
disappeared. They had been almost two light-centons behind him; it would not 
take them long to catch up and pass him.
   He snapped his faceplate down, tried his comm systems. "Blue 773 to 
Galactica! Come in, Galactica! Frack!" He had to turn his communicator 
back off at the roar of static that threatened to deafen him. He glanced back 
at his engine readouts, shook his head. The first engine was long dead; the 
second one was showing no sign of being able to repair itself at all, let 
alone in the next couple of centons. That meant that his third engine had to 
last long enough for him to clear the jamming and warn the fleet.
   His warbook shrilled; he glanced around unhappily, shrank back in his seat, 
a thrill of genuine terror overriding the calm fear that had been with him for 
the past centons. "Oh, no," he whispered to whatever God might be listening, 
"not more of them."
   No less than six manti had gone sublight in his vicinity. Even as he 
watched, they curved around, slowing to intercept him.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Starbuck's groundcrew, watching the festivities with bored amusement, 
turned as one as the man jingled up to his fighter. The tech sergeant in 
charge of his fighter handed him his helmet and yelled through the cacaphony 
"What's up? What's going on?"
   Starbuck clumsily lifted one bulging leg into his cockpit, sat down. He 
allowed the ground tech to fasten him in, although he could have done it 
faster himself. "Nothing to worry about!" he hollered back, pausing to put his 
helmet on and seal it. "Probably just some kind of flyby salute for the 
President and the Council when the Cylons show up."
   "Oh, like the Cav Batallion," his chief said, nodding wisely.
   "Yeah, whatever," Starbuck echoed, having no idea what the battlestar's 
ground forces were doing as a governmental tribute.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Lieutenant Olgiv grinned, gave her technician Argus a quick handshake for 
luck, and went her own way on the takeoff field. The scream of engines from 
the line of brightly decorated Striker Shi-64s was deafening; she regretted 
having left her earplugs in her helmet.
   Her copilot was already in the fighter, running through the preflight 
checkdown. She grinned at him, got a grin back, and paid him no more attention 
until she had finished hooking her flightsuit into the ship's systems.
   "Comm check, Cree," she said to him.
   "Good and clear here, Oli," the young man responded.
   "So how's it going?" she asked him, smoothly taking up her own part of the 
takeoff procedure. This size fighter required two pilots only when flying 
combat missions; these particular examples of that killing machine were 
display models, used by the military for celebrations and displays. This was a 
milk-run duty tonight-the base commander had acquiesced to Caprica City's 
Council's request for a military flyover, preferably with plenty of stunt 
flying. How much stunt flying was going to be visible at night was a question 
the Base Commander had wisely kept to himself, merely approving it and leaving 
his squadron commanders to decide who the lucky pilots to fly this mission 
would be.
   Oli had volunteered for it. She was one of those fortunates-or 
unfortunates, depending on who you asked-who had received a groundbase 
assignment immediately after graduation and commission. Considering that few 
enemy attacks ever made it this far in-system, and none in her lifetime had 
made it past the upper-level planetary defenses, ground duty was usually 
equated with boredom, and the erosion of pilot reflexes. When the opportunity 
had arisen to try out for the Silver Clouds precision flying team stationed at 
Shella Base outside the capitol city, she had jumped at it, passing the test 
with little difficulty and assuming a place on the team.
   In fact, flying came so naturally to her, that it had been a genuine 
surprise to learn that only one member of the team had joined with greater 
ease than she had.
   "Yo, Cree, I asked you how you're doing," she repeated louder when her 
partner ignored her.
   Cree was a sandy-haired, pleasant featured young man, long and lanky in 
build, with a quiet, diffident air about him. He was newly graduated and 
commissioned, only a couple of sectars out of the Dorogan Academy. She knew 
well that new pilots could and frequently did receive ground assignments, but 
in a moment of nosiness she had glanced at his record, and frankly she had 
been astonished at his grades. He had graduated second in his class, 
apparently right behind his roommate, and he flew so well his flight 
instructors had actually offered him a position as a junior instructor, 
better than his equally impressive classmate. Rather than accept such a 
comfortable position, though, the young man had requested and been given an 
assignment to Shella base. Why remained the mystery. After only a couple of 
sectons her curiosity had become so overpowering that she had been forced to 
go to him, admit what she had done, and ask what crime he had committed to end 
up here.
   "I did it for personal reasons," the young man had replied with an 
uninsulted smile. "My twin sister's a civilian working for Pudont Industries 
in Caprica City, and she and I are all that's left of my family. This way I 
get to be close to her and I get some flight experience before they ship me 
into battle." All Olgiv could do was shrug; the reason might not be as 
exciting as the skullduggery she had fondly imagined, but it was reasoning 
that certainly made sense to her.
   "All right, Clouds," the flight commander's voice crackled in their ears, 
"let's go. Form up on a heading of four-seventy-two ten, and we'll proceed 
from there. Altitude at five thousand." Acknowledgements rattled through 
Oli's earphones, and she waited until Cree returned her thumbs-up before 
reaching for the throttle.
   The striker's engines screamed shriller; these craft, not needed for 
combat, had not been modified to carry ordinance. They still possessed not 
only their gravitic drives, but their reaction engines, engines powerful 
enough to drive these vessels at almost three times the speed of sound in a 
normal atmosphere, engines that could put out some volume. Olgiv pushed her 
yoke forward; the striker obligingly moved ahead, swung to the right to join 
the takeoff line.
   Neither pilot bothered to engage the neutralizers; a manual takeoff on a 
civilian morale mission would likely not require combat maneuvering, at least 
not until the aerobatics had begun. Both young people felt a primal excitement 
as the g-forces mounted, pressing them into their heavily-cushioned seats, and 
the horizon swung sharply down, replaced quickly by a star-filled night sky 
and the distant golden horizon of Caprica City.
   Oli snapped the autopilot on as soon as their fighter was in place in the 
formation; until she disengaged it, their fighter would follow the flight 
leader's like baby downies following their mother. "Okay, sport, out with it," 
Oli said, turning to her partner. "What's up?"
   "Nothing's up," Cree returned with an easy grin. "I've just been thinking a 
lot tonight."
   "Always dangerous," Oli advised him, reaching under her seat for a can. She 
offered him one, took another for herself. "About what? You mad `cause you got 
to fly tonight while everyone else is off duty?"
   Cree tabbed the spout open, took a pull. "Bleah. I thought you were going 
to get some Verheiser. This pomelo juice stuff gets old. Nah," he continued, 
turned to face forward again, watching the city draw slowly nearer, "I 
volunteered too. Sandi's got to pull a midnight shift, so there wasn't anyone 
to go and spend the evening with. I'll get to do my celebrating tomorrow, 
after the Armistice." He glanced at his partner, winked. "This way I get paid 
and still get to have some fun, right?" She laughed. "No, it just dawned on me 
a little while ago that my best friend's right up there where it's all 
happening. He got stationed on a battlestar right out of the academy-he got a 
rank bump and his choice of assignment for graduating valedictorian-and 
knowing him he's probably taken half the ship over in confidence games by 
now."
   "Sharpy, huh?"
   "More often than not," Cree laughed. "It was almost as much trouble keeping 
him and my other unitmate straight as it was passing exams. The only demerits 
I got were because of those two. I swear, I don't know how Thil ever got 
into the Academy."
   "That the one on the battlestar?"
   "Ha! Not likely," Cree snorted. "Thil got an assignment to Flanzen Base-I 
think he was headed for a research project. His degree was engineering. The 
other one was Life Science, and Piloting." Cree finished the last of the 
small can, crushed it idly, popped it into the garbage bin beside him. "But as 
much as I like this duty, being stationed here at Shella Base, I kind of envy 
him tonight. He's going to be there when they sign the Armistice, get to see 
it as it happens. Shoot, he's up there where everything's happening."
   "Wish you were up there?" Oli asked him curiously.
   "Really?" Cree pondered. "No, I don't guess so. I've always liked it more 
quiet, more peaceful. I like to sit back and take things as they come."
   "And your friend's different?"
   "Zac? Oh, brother, you'd better believe it. If he's not the center of 
attention, he wants to be as close to it as he can!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Zac opened fire with his blazers as the first of the cylons looped into 
range. The bolts tracked through space, dimly lighting the enemy ship, 
narrowly missing it. "Frack!" He had not really expected a hit so soon in the 
engagement-he knew what the odds of him getting a hit at all were-but there 
had been that off-chance...
   He checked his communicator again, switched it off at the crackling roar of 
static. No luck; his only option now was to drive on, take out as many of the 
cylons as he might, and pray that he got a chance to warn someone before 
they stopped him.
   When his warbook revealed that all five of the other pursuers had now 
entered effective range, he realized that his chances had dropped from slim to 
none. To hell with it then, he thought, his fear fading before a cold rage. 
And them, too. The cylons had planned this too well; the Colonies were in 
trouble. Zac was not going to see the outcome of the battle shaping up-but he 
could make a stab at the one about to involve him.
   "Here you go, guys," he whispered, locked his remaining three missiles onto 
three separate targets, and loosed them. As they sparkled grayly away into the 
darkness, he powered his blazers up full. As soon as his systems could achieve 
a lock for him, he would use his last remaining shots.
   He switched the comm system back on, slid the sound down, waited.
   
   Dannel twisted in flight, a bright flash in the distance catching his 
attention. He searched as best he could, found what had caused the disruption. 
Some sort of small, one- or two-man craft, on a heading into the central 
system, his own destination.
   He was tired already; this was easily longer than any of the training 
flights he had undertaken through space before now. It occurred to him that if 
he could contact the vehicle somehow, he might persuade the pilots to let him 
share their journey, at least to some nearer port of call.
   The rapid-fire pulses of other ships going sublight surprised him. He cast 
about for them as well, felt his hair stand on end as he sensed the strange 
contours, the alien power signatures of those engines. Cylons! Dannel 
thought to himself, his lips thinning in hatred.
   Whoever that first pilot was, he would need help against that many 
adversaries. The astronaut concentrated on increasing his speed; as well he 
reached out, tentatively made nonphysical contact with the human fighter. Once 
he had a hold on it, he tightened his grip, drawing himself closer with even 
greater speed. Nonetheless, it would take long centons for him to reach that 
lone fighter.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Commander!" Omega's voice rang out through the quiet bustle of the bridge. 
Adama and Tigh alike looked around at him. "Sir, the first fighter is 
definitely Captain Apollo. We have his telemetry now; he's cleared whatever 
was jamming his."
   Adama nodded. "Bring him into the command deck," he ordered. It would be a 
much shorter journey to the bridge from the specialized docks maintained for 
command personnel would be to bring him all the way in and forward from either 
of the primary bays. "I want him here as soon as possible."
   "Yes, sir," Omega acknowledged, "but sir, there's more." Adama and Tigh 
alike turned to face him. "Long range telemetry picked up a second fighter 
going sublight about seven light-centons away. We might have missed it in this 
interference but there was an immediate breakout of at least five, possibly 
six other craft. No telemetry since then on any of them, but we've tracked 
missiles and blazer fire. Sir, that second viper is doing a fighting retreat." 
Omega touched his headphone. "And sir? Our crosslinks with the other 
battlestars and the sensor lines indicate something very strange approaching 
the fleet."
   "Ships?" Tigh asked.
   "Can't say, sir," Omega replied. "If it's ships, they're cloaking on our 
frequencies. But no one else has any guesses what it could be."
   Adama looked down at Artemis and Athena at the ops station. "Get me the 
president again," he snapped.
   
   Adar's face on screen was just as patient and virtuous as it had been only 
centons before. "Yes, Adama, what is it now-"
   Adama wasted no time with niceties. "Mr. President, we have what appears to 
be a wall of unidentified craft approaching this fleet on a direct heading 
from that area of the system where two of my fighters were attacked earlier." 
Adar's look said Oh, not that again. Baltar leaned into the picture.
   "Very possibly a welcoming committee from the cylons, Mr. President," the 
merchant prince suggested.
   Adar nodded approvingly. "Ask the ambassador to come to the bridge, 
please," the president ordered. He turned his attention back to Adama. "We 
shall ask the honorable ambassador once and for all what is going on here."
   You would believe the word of a Cylon? Adama thought disbelievingly, then 
shook his head. Now was not a good time for infighting, whatever for.
   "Mr. President, may I at the very least suggest that we launch some sort of 
welcoming committee of our own?" The picture flickered briefly as he 
watched. Adar's brows descended.
   "What was that?"
   "That, Mr. President, is a jamming field we believe to be projected by 
your welcoming committee!" Adama took a deep breath, forced some calm into 
his expression. "Sir, I-"
   "Adama, correct me if I'm wrong, but the cylons can't conceal themselves 
on our frequencies," Adar pointed out smugly. Adama was forced to nod. "So it 
would truly behoove you to settle back and let the situation develop." As 
Adama's expression became stormy, Adar's look of friendliness took on lines of 
steel. "Don't force me to make that an order, Commander," he warned.
   "But sir, even if it is not a cylon force, we should at least have a 
defense ring of our own out there!"
   "Mr. President," Baltar oozed, "there remain many feelings of hostility 
among our pilots. If this is indeed just a band of smugglers, they will likely 
turn and run when they realize what a force of arms they approach. And if they 
are cylons, then the likelihood of an-unfortunate incident-is so high. 
Especially with all of those angry warriors in the sky at the same time." He 
clucked. "No doubt there would be so much confusion that many sad mistakes 
would be made. So much work could be undone so easily with just one 
misjudgement." He smiled unctuously, glanced emotionlessly at Adama.
   Adar nodded, looked back at Adama. "A very good point, Baltar, thank you. 
Commander, did you hear that?"
   Adama just stared, at first not trusting his voice not to betray his anger 
and helpless frustration. The screen blinked, fuzzed, steadied again. Sensing 
more than seeing Tigh's impulsive motion behind him, Adama held up a steadying 
hand. No one on the bridge of the Galactica made a sound.
   "Mr. President." Every word sounded bitten from iron, cold as ice. "I 
cannot possibly have just heard you correctly. Did Count Baltar seriously 
suggest that we sit here-" He paused while the screens fizzed, cleared slowly. 
"-just sit here, totally undefended, not even making an attempt at a 
defensive posture-"
   Adar snapped right back in anger, "Commander, we are on the first peace 
effort man has brought to fruition in a thousand jahren! I will not allow 
that peace to be jeopardized! Not by you, not by anyone!"
   Adama was leaning forward, fully prepared to lose his temper at his 
commander in chief, and Omega hastily interrupted. "Sir! Captain Apollo has 
docked!" Adama jerked his head acknowledgment.
   As he was taking a breath to continue the discussion with the president, 
Artemis cried out, "Sir! On the general channel! It's Zac!
   
   The first missile exploded close enough to fill Zac's vision with dancing 
green spots. He blinked tears away, noted the spinning stars that circled his 
lonely fighter, and automatically went into stabilization mode. That saved his 
life-for however long-as a second missile went careening past, aimed for where 
he would have been.
   Another missile detonated too close to his fighter. The glare outside his 
darkened canopy counterpointed the wailing his ship was doing. I'm not going 
anywhere but hell now. He blinked at the burn in his eyes, miserable and 
angry in his last moments of life that he had failed in his duty. No-Apollo 
got back. He had to get back, warn them all what's coming- Another near 
miss jolted his ship, snapped his head back. He saw stars, his own rather than 
cosmic ones, and heard ringing in his ears. In the distance, circling him as 
the universe continued to do, he made out an assemblage of lights. Squinting, 
he made out enough to enjoy a brief thrill of victory. The fleet! I made it! 
Then his eyes glanced at his HUD, dully tracked the salvo of missiles curving 
toward him.
   His comm light flared in the chaos. For a michron he just stared, 
disbelieving. "You sunnova-!" He did his level best to bring his foot up and 
kick his control panel. "Now you decide to work-never mind!" He slid his 
volume up with one hand, the other sending his battered fighter into a weak, 
ineffective dodging pattern.
   
   Adama turned from Adar, looked achingly at his youngest son's visage in the 
monitor. The picture was broken, jumping from jamming influences, the sound 
crackling, and the young man was obviously not receiving anything, but the 
words were clear enough to those who chose to listen.
   
   "Galactica, this is patrol seven-seven-three-" He thought he heard a 
weak, static-filled response of some kind, bulled on. "Just listen! I'm under 
attack! Cylons, a whole fleet of them, on their way to ambush the fleet!" 
Another missile detonated nearby, rocked him on its fringes. "Galactica, you 
are about to come under attack! Do you copy! Cylons, hundreds, maybe thousands 
of `em, on their way, immediately behind me-"
   
   "Clear deck!" the marine bellowed, pounding down the corridor, his weapon 
up and active. Apollo panted behind him, grateful for the man's influence in 
clearing the press of curious and apprehensive personnel who had, until now, 
been celebrating the end of a lifelong nightmare.
   They rounded a corner, headed for the turbolift at the end of the walkway. 
Already the lift was filling with partiers on their way to celebrations. "Hold 
that lift!" the corporal bellowed. He was a huge young man already; the 
peoples' eyes were drawn to him by that stentorian roar. They took note of the 
weapon-then remembered their shipboard drills. The lift cleared as though a 
bomb had gone off in it. The jogging warriors literally slid into it in their 
haste; while Apollo was leaning on the wall, breathing heavily, the corporal 
overrode the lift's safety locks, sent the car shooting up and forward toward 
the command deck. Apollo could do nothing now but watch the traffic indicator 
and pray that they reached the command center in time.
   
   Zac's warbook shrilled as a missile got a hard lock on him. He fancied he 
could see the projectile as it came at him. His fingers fumbled for the 
eject switch.
   The glare took him before he could complete the move.
   
   The picture sparkled and rolled for an instant, more violently than it had 
for simple jamming, then stabilized again-without Zac's face in it.
   The bridge was dead quiet. Even the normal quiet background chatter had 
faded to silence when the crew noticed what was on the monitors. Several 
crewmen had dialed for that screen; their voices were the first to break the 
stillness, murmuring to their comrades, explaining the tragedy that had just 
occurred, speculating on the tragedy about to unfold.
   Tigh, his stomach twisting, gazed at his friend and commander. Adama still 
stared at the vid screen, as though willing the picture to come back, for 
Zac's face to reappear. There was a choked sob below him; he glanced back, saw 
Athena and Artemis gamely continuing their functions. A single tear rolled 
down Athena's thin face as he watched; she made no further sound.
   Omega snapped to life first, hauled his chair back to his control panel and 
began quietly snapping orders into his mike. Tigh, turning back to Adama, was 
distracted by Adar's petulant whine. "What was that?"
   Adama straightened, shook his cape back to immaculate neatness, swallowed. 
No expression touched that dead face. He motioned to Omega without looking; in 
response, the lights went crimson, RED ALERT claxons wailing abruptly. Tigh 
nodded, unseen, and trotted to the lower circle of stations. "Mister 
President," Adama said quietly, "I believe that was my youngest son. Ops! 
Launch all fighters, maximum spread! Omega, alert all other ships in the wing 
that an attack is under way."
   "Adama, what are you-" Adar started. Adama swung his hand across his 
neck; the picture obligingly died. He turned away, a massive, emotionless 
statue in the red light. Omega started to give him a status update, thought 
better of it as Adama gripped the railing with massive hands, just for a 
moment a tired, old man who had been hurt too much to bear.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Commander Doesley thundered onto the bridge of the Solaria with a haste 
that belied her huge size, an urgency that laid to rest any thought of her 
normal boundless good humor. She stopped at the base of the tower, just 
listening in disbelief for a moment.
   "Galactica is launching all wings," a traffic controller announced 
through the cacophony.
   "Columbia launching intercept wings," another one added. "Her support 
ships are following suit."
   "Stand by on our own," Captain Monweal snapped from the command tower. 
"What reaction from Atlantia and Pacifica?"
   "No other carriers or battlestars launching at this time. Star Kobol 
requesting a status update," communications responded.
   "Ignore them!"
   "Atlantia on the line!" another comm specialist called. "Commander 
Caraker wants to know what's going on!"
   "Put them on hold," Monweal snapped.
   "Monweal!" Doesley snapped. "Status report! What the hell's going on?"
   The Solaria's fourth-in-command glanced briefly at her from his readouts. 
"Commander! What isn't going on?" Colonel Alop, the executive officer, 
picked up a spare headset and adjusted it as he headed for the nav ring. 
"There were a number of patrols out. Several of them disappeared, and one of 
the ones that went quiet showed up again."
   "From?" the commander boomed.
   "Galactica. One of her ships got back; another one came under attack a 
centon or two ago. We lost its trace. The Galactica immediately launched an 
intercept wing; I believe they've got their fighters out now as well. 
Columbia did likewise almost immediately."
   Doesley's expression was a study of surprise. "Andros I could see-he's 
still new at this. But I gave Adama credit for more sense than-"
   The bridge went red, and the alerts went off deafeningly. "Incoming!" 
tracking screamed. Monweal's lips thinned; he spun his chair back to his 
panel. Doesley moved to look over his shoulder. A michron was enough tell her 
what was happening.
   "Ops! Launch all interceptors!" the commander snapped. "Get the fighters on 
deck immediately!
   "We are under attack!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Flight Sergeant Boomer dug hard at the itch in his side. His pressure suit 
and gloves conspired to rob the motion of any effectiveness. The irritation 
had been present long enough that he was seriously considering unsealing his 
suit to reach in and scrape off that part of his dark hide, alert status or 
no.
   "Hey, Boomer," Jolly's voice whispered in his ears. Boomer, exasperated, 
looked at the fighter in the launch crib next to his own. His jovial wingman 
lifted a hand. "Any word yet on what's up?"
   "None," Boomer snapped, then deliberately settled his irritation. Pilots 
were always installing extra equipment in their assigned craft, usually 
readers or music players. He, forever inquisitive, had prevailed upon his 
friend Greenbean to help him `borrow' the necessary equipment from the science 
department to build a security monitor. Boomer frequently knew about high-
level activities aboard his base ship before its command officers did. "There 
was nothing on the net as of a few centons ago."
   "So we just sit."
   "That's ri-i-ight."
   The itch intensified. Boomer groaned, reached for the seal of his helmet. 
There was no way he could go for the next God-only-knew-how-many centars 
suffering such a distraction. Just as his gloved fingers touched his neck ring 
three lights flashed down his control board. Green. Amber. Red. Boomer was 
seldom startled, taking life as it came; his friends maintained that nothing 
could surprise the unflappable pilot. Even as the incredulous words of his 
friends were crackling in his ears he was bracing his hands on his armrests.
   The massdriving launch tube lit up brightly; there was an intense pressure 
as his ship was picked up and hurled forward. Halfway down the tube his own 
lift-and-drives took over; his speed increased. As his interceptor hurtled 
from the comforting grays of the starship into the cold blackness of the 
cosmos, his fingers found the joystick; a touch of a button beneath his left 
hand and his reaction engines flared. He immediately went into his own 
characteristic spin, changing direction from the standard takeoff angle.
   That variant habit served him well this time. Three yellow-white bolts of 
death streaked through the space his fighter would normally have occupied. 
Another interceptor, just emerging from its own driver, was less fortunate. 
Boomer did not wince at the explosion of the man's ship, but even his normally 
ordered thoughts were becoming chaotic. We're under attack! he told himself, 
making himself believe it. His HUD exploded with traces; instinctively he 
sent his ship into a random whirl, fingers firing his blazers without 
conscious thought. 
   "Boomer!" Jolly's voice screamed.
   Thank God! Boomer thought in relief. "Jolly! Heads up! It's an attack! 
Form on me! They're hitting us as we make space!"
   "I'm on you!" his friend answered. "I'm pulling back around for a cover 
run!"
   "All right!" Boomer snapped, eyes darting from one side of his HUD to the 
other, calculating possibilities. There were several more flashes, and two 
launch tubes gouted fire and went dark almost immediately as the battlestar 
reacted to seal itself from attack. "Never mind! I'll form on you!" He 
pulled his fighter around in a max-G turn, looping around past the rear gate 
of Alpha Bay. Something pale and metallic flashed peripherally; when nothing 
showed on his display, he banished it from his thoughts.
   He and his friend spotted a triad, three trios, of cylons fighters making a 
strafing run on the launch tubes. The Galactica's defense cannons were 
accounting for innumerable attackers father away; closer to the ship, they 
were handicapped by the need to avoid damage to their own ships.
   He heard Jolly's curse, echoed it an instant later, and hastily launched a 
spread of light missiles. The cylons were too intent on their attack. Two of 
the attackers flared, spun away; a third took a hit, sparkled, spun into the 
hull of the battlestar. The globe of light and energy spread, faded quickly, 
leaving a blackened patch on the hull. The other cylons lifted, turned away 
from the huge vessel.
   "What the frack?" Starbuck's voice. "Who the hell put us out here 
without a warning? What the hell's going on here?"
   "What's it look like, bright boy?" another pilot snapped. Boomer 
recognized Lieutenant Giles' voice. "Form up on me, quick!"
   "Blue! Second and Fourth Squads, listen up!" Boomer recognized the 
harried-sounding voice of Captain Parsons, second-in-command of Blue Squadron. 
"Take low point and protect the launchers on Alpha!"
   "What about Beta?" Greenbean's voice interrupted hesitantly.
   "Red's got that!" Parsons snapped back. "We've got to keep these 
snitworms back long enough for Gold and Green to get the fighters out or we're 
done for! They're targeting the tubes."
   "We're on it, skipper," Jolly, second squad leader, responded.
   "First and Third, take high point," Parsons continued as though he hadn't 
heard, "and protect the ship period."
   "The Star Kobol!" someone's voice screamed. "She's under attack!"
   "Forget `em!" Parsons snapped. "Protect the Galactica. The fighters'll 
go for the Star Kobol."
   Boomer's eyes tracked automatically to his HUD, then found it in real view 
as well. The tiny, brightly-lit diplomatic ship, until now barely visible in 
the dark distance, was glowing fiercely. What looked like clouds of flitters 
circled it. Boomer's fertile imagination supplied a less comforting analogy-
like makos circling a kill. He spared another thought. Apollo was out on 
patrol, Zac with him, and Shem and Monras, too. I haven't heard anything about 
them-God, I hope they're safe.
   Then he was too busy fighting for survival to wonder any more.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   No one even noticed when the corporal pounded onto the bridge, his 
companion panting behind him.
   Apollo took a very brief michron to breathe deeply, only now noticing the 
frantic bustle of activity that filled the command center. His father was at 
his podium, leaning against the railing, eyes shut; Omega was quietly snapping 
orders from the exec's position, while Tigh prowled the second level, 
directing God only knew what. Athena and Artemis sat with their backs to him, 
concentrating on their monitors.
   "Commander's up top, sir," the corporal boomed, loud in spite of the 
alarms. Artemis looked up at the sound of the young man's voice, her reddened 
eyes widening at the sight of her cousin. She turned and whispered something 
to Athena as Apollo nodded his thanks to the young marine. The warrior 
saluted, turned, and left as Apollo wearily strode for the access ramp.
   Athena rose from her seat and intercepted him. He was honestly surprised to 
see the streaks of tears on her face; tears had never come easily to his 
sister. He was even more surprised when the young woman threw her arms around 
him, holding him tight and trembling. "Apollo," she murmured, pulling back to 
look at him, "thank Mother God you're all right."
   Apollo, uncertain, off balance, squeezed her shoulders, pushed her away 
when she moved to embrace him again. "Athena, I'm fine, but I've got to get to 
father. I've got to go back for Zac." Something in her expression made his 
stomach twist, but he continued, moving past her, "We were ambushed. They 
jammed our communications. I've got to-"
   "Apollo. Wait."
   Normally he would have ignored her, continued to make his urgent report to 
the commander, return to the rescue. Now, the deadness of her tone stopped him 
in his tracks. He whirled on her, frustrated, fearful, angry. "Athena, listen 
to me! I've got to-"
   "You don't-don't have to go back now." She swallowed visibly. When Apollo 
started to retort she shook her head.
   Now it was Apollo's turn to gulp at the lump in his throat. The heat of his 
run was quickly replaced with a spreading chill of dread. "Zac's...all right 
then? He made it back to one of the other ships?"
   A single tear rolled slowly down Athena's face as she slowly shook her 
head. "He... he... just short of the fleet..."
   The worry and anger slid from Apollo's face, to be replaced with an 
expression that was all the more terrible for the sheer lack of emotion it 
showed. He nodded acknowledgement to her for the news. He squared his 
shoulders, turned. His brother's cheerful face swam before his eyes, the young 
man's voice gleeful, teasing words he could no longer hear. "I guess," he said 
quietly, "I've got time to give my report in detail, then."
   He barely got two steps before Athena moved, another two before her hand 
grabbed the sleeve of his flightsuit, yanked him around. There was as much 
anger as misery in her eyes now. "Your report? Is that all you can say?!? 
Zac's dead!" She choked on an angry sob.
   "We'll probably all be dead soon," he responded dully, pulling free from 
her grip. He could feel her eyes on him as he mounted the command podium.
   Omega paid him no attention as he stumbled past the man's chair, and Apollo 
barely spared him a glance. His father turned from the railing as he neared, 
and in spite of the stresses of the past few centons-had it only been centons 
ago, that Zac was still laughing, excited at flying his first combat mission, 
still alive?-Apollo was shocked at how much older his father looked, how 
tired and without hope.
   Adama took his son's shoulders, pulled him close. Apollo stiffened at the 
touch; his only hope now was avoid any emotion at all. His hurt ran too deeply 
to let it out. On the middle deck Tigh noticed them, said something into his 
headset and moved to join them.
   Adama noticed his son's reticence, nodded sadly. He understood. "You had no 
choice," he said quietly.
   "Father, I-"
   "Captain, we must know how many basestars we're dealing with, and where 
they're located," Tigh, all business, snapped as he ground to a stop.
   Apollo tore his gaze from his father's eyes, turned and gripped the 
railing. "No basestars."
   Tigh followed him, disbelief in his voice. There was no way that datum 
could be correct. "Captain, you must be mistaken. There are several thousand 
ships out there, everything from manti to blastpods. A strike force that size 
couldn't possibly function this far from a base without a base ship. They 
wouldn't have enough fuel to even reach-"
   "No base ships!" Apollo cried in anguish, then breathed quickly, deeply. 
He turned, faced the colonel. "No base ships. At all. There were two tankers 
floating empty; there could've been more elsewhere." His voice rose, a sharp 
edge to it. "Just that strike force, hanging there in Mephis' upper 
atmosphere, waiting for..."
   "Captain," Tigh snapped, reminding him that everyone there was in the same 
situation.
   Adama stepped in. "How would you explain that, Apollo?"
   "I don't know, I-" Apollo ran his fingers through his hair, shifted, full 
of nervous energy. "My guess would be that they ferried them in there a few at 
a time, over a period of sectons, sectars maybe, and brought the refueling 
tankers in to keep them running. That way they'd be there, ready to strike, if 
the time came."
   "But why-" Tigh started, only to be interrupted.
   "Incoming!" Omega yelped. The men turned to look at him. "Athena?"
   "No ident from warbook," Athena called out.
   "It's avoiding our countermeasures!" added Artemis for good measure.
   "Damn," Tigh snapped. "Smart supernukes."
   "Defense! What's your status?" Athena called out.
   "Targeting Alpha Bay!" Omega continued, touched his headset. "Alert! Alpha 
Bay, prepare for impact!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Dannel made one last herculean effort and bolted forward. Light, heat and 
thunder, however briefly in the temporarily relieved vacuum of space, 
surrounded him.  The cylon missiles reached their target just after he did; a 
sharp pain dulled his sight as he blocked the explosions.
   Already badly damaged, the human ship never had a chance. The critical 
michrons it took for him to come in physical contact with the fighter sufficed 
for some malfunctioning circuit to actuate; the front part of the interceptor 
jerked free of the drive section, the explosive bolts that kicked it little 
more than love taps compared to the explosion that surrounded both him and his 
target.
   Let's go, Shaitan. Show God what you're made of. He shoved, as hard as he 
could, with an effort he had not believed himself to still have the strength 
for. The escape capsule careened free of the ravening energies, tumbling dark 
and ignored into the cool blackness again.
   He shook his head--he had not been prepared for such a close call--and 
regretted it almost immediately as his vision swam. He had been unconscious 
too long; he needed food and rest, or he would not be able to operate like 
this much longer. Still pushing the craft for all he was worth toward the 
nearby lights, he drifted close to the capsule's nose. The canopy was streaked 
and dark from the michrons it had been exposed to the explosions; he could not 
see inside. He sensed motion though, and decided that the pilot had survived 
the shock. But there was still need for haste, before that pilot's slim 
chances could drop to none. The escape capsule could not have much power--
however long the pilot's air might last, he would quickly freeze to death in 
space without power for life support.
   He oriented himself on the nearest conglomeration of lights, put himself 
behind the vessel, and turned up the power. The sooner he and his rescue 
victim reached cover, the sooner he could find out just what was going on. 
Whatever he had expected to find on heading in-system, this was not it.
   The ship was a battlestar--that much he quickly ascertained. He recognized 
the type of ship, although he could not make out name or number. His 
experience with such vessels of war was limited anyway; he put it from his 
thoughts. As he watched, something happened: for several heart-stoppingly long 
michrons, he feared the ship had suffered some catastrophic accident. It 
looked as though it had exploded--lights shot out from both long decks to 
either side, a seemingly endless cloud. Then he nodded in relief--they were 
ships, most already circling and changing course.  Undoubtedly he had emerged 
in the middle of a battle. There was really no time to waste.
   Less than I thought, he startledly reflected as the huge vessel opened 
fire on him. He had no idea why--surely their sensors would have detected that 
this was one of their own fighters rolling powerlessly toward them, and he had 
not thought battleship sensors delicate enough to pick him up. Nonetheless, it 
took concentration and strength to deflect the beams of destructive energy 
directed at him, concentration and strength that he desperately needed to turn 
toward getting his temporary responsibility slowed for the eventual 
undoubtedly rough landing.
   I've seen things coming out of the front of that boom, Dan decided after 
a few michrons' flight, but none going in there. All the incoming traffic 
must be heading to the rear port. All right, then. Let's do it. He strained, 
and the battle-scarred capsule's course curved upward. The warship's grayish-
black hull slid backward beneath him even as he lowered the capsule's speed. 
The turn at the end of the bay was the hard part--the capsule might be 
weightless in space, but he was working with its mass, over a thousand kilons, 
close to the limit of his manipulative ability. As slow as he finally forced 
the capsule to move he made a marvelous target, but passing this close to the 
ship's hull had the advantage of silencing the defensive guns--no doubt they 
wanted to avoid shooting themselves.
   One of the tiny interceptors that had launched so precipitously centons ago 
whanged by, startling him--he had been paying less attention to his 
surroundings than he should have been. He had no idea what report the pilot 
must have made on seeing him and his captive capsule; no doubt interesting 
things would be going on inside.
   The bay entrance swung up before him. He reached out, spread his 
nonphysical grip, and pulled on the ship even as he pushed on the capsule. The 
bay was brightly lit, approach lights blinking a friendly greeting, twin 
approach lanes clearly indicated. In the distance down the bay he could see 
small vehicles moving, amber and red lights flashing. Good; they would be 
prepared for his arrival.
   Intellectually Dannel knew that a starship with an open-ended launch bay 
would be using hysteris fields to keep its atmosphere in; he had even 'felt' 
such fields as he instinctively brushed the coqfield-sized opening to 'grip' 
it. Its child ships undoubtedly had some means of flowing peacefully through 
it--it was hardly productive to make them fight their way in and out of their 
own mother ship! Nonetheless, he had to push through by sheer brute force. 
This effort and concentration ensured that he was completely unprepared for 
the return of gravity.
   They crossed a glowing yellowish-white belt that ran the inner perimeter of 
the landing field and the capsule suddenly resumed its full weight. He yelped 
in surprise, struggling to keep it airborne even as he dipped and swayed in 
his own flight. Unsuccessfully; the capsule crashed to the deck with all the 
not-inconsequential speed that he had imparted to it in attempting to escape 
friendly fire. Dannel cringed at the scraping and clanging, wincing in 
sympathy with the still-unknown pilot as the capsule bounced from the deck, 
whirling end over end, crashing again to the deck and skidding thunderously to 
an ungentle stop at the base of some sort of control tower. Only then did he 
notice the wailing alarms and the emergency vehicles speeding beneath him. He 
loosened his support field, letting in fresh air. There was a heavy, metallic 
taste to it, breathable as it had to be, but the warmth of it! Spots danced 
before his eyes, his vision momentarily graying, and he quickly sealed himself 
away from the physical universe once more, absently concentrating on cooling 
his own air supply as he glided toward the crash site.
   The first of the rescue vehicles had reached the wrecked capsule. One, a 
mechanical, vaguely manlike manipulator, reached forward and tugged at the 
plane's canopy. With a metallic groan, it bent backward, then spanged and 
came open. The man inside moved weakly, his restraints flopping open before he 
reached up to remove his helmet.
   In spite of himself he enjoyed a brief thrill of relief; the pilot was 
unquestionably human. This was not then some nightmare he had awakened into, 
but a genuine attack--granted not the kind of combat he had been created for, 
but the pilot's attackers had been cylons, of that he was certain, and those 
he had been created to destroy.
   Dannel drifted to a stop about five metrons off the deck over the gathering 
at the capsule. "Hey!" he called. Everyone looked around in surprise at the 
voice from nowhere. Then some bright soul looked up. That worthy's own 
startled cry was louder than the sirens. Dan, satisfied that he had these 
people's attention, waved his hand toward the distant entry gate. "Take care 
of that pilot. I'm going to help the others. Good luck to you!" He turned and 
accelerated, this time through barely feeling the nudge of the atmosphere 
fields.
   
   Zac shook his head, regretted it immediately. He was uncertain whether the 
persistent ringing was in his ears or outside his ship. He still could not see 
out of his fire-blackened canopy; all he knew was that he had hit something, 
hard.
   There was a mechanical noise from outside. For an instant Zac felt the 
atavistic terror that all humans inevitably experienced on actually meeting a 
cylon cybernaut; then he realized that if he could hear it, he was no longer 
in airless space, and there were no cylon ships that he could have crashed to 
a landing on. I--I made it. I'm safe! I'M ALIVE! There was a grinding noise 
from outside, and, with the sound of stripped and popping seals, his canopy 
rose. A man in a bright yellow bumbler looked under the edge of his canopy, 
nodded as he made eye contact. "He's alive!" the man called. "Get the medics 
over here."
   Zac undogged his harness, reached up and unsealed his helmet, dropping it 
into the floor and pulling his feet up from around it. His legs were weak; the 
adrenaline rush of his close brush with death had not yet finished. I've got 
to get word to Father about the ambush, Zac thought, elbowing himself up. 
God, please, let Apollo be safe...
   "Nu!" someone yelled. He glanced around, noted that the gathered techs 
and medical people looked equally puzzled. Then someone let out a surprised 
cry and pointed up. Zac's eyes tracked involuntarily; even he gasped at what 
he saw.
   A man in brightly colored civilian robes, a heavily embroidered scarf 
wrapped around his shoulders and chin, swords hanging from his hips, floated 
in mid-air about five metrons off the deck. Only when he shifted did Zac 
notice a long auburn ponytail blowing in the winds of the bay. Obviously 
satisfied that he had their attention, the man blinked dark eyes, nodded. 
"Pomogite etot lochik. Idu pomoc drugie. Bud'te sdorovwi!" With that unknown 
pronouncement the man turned--in midair!--and zipped back out the entry port 
of the bay, disappearing within michrons into the darkness of space.
   For longer michrons no one in the rescue party, including the victim, 
seemed able to move. Even on top of a sneak attack at a peace conference, this 
was a bit much to take in.
   Zac coughed painfully, bringing everyone back to the real world. Two men 
stepped up on the bumbler's feet, lifted him down with strong hands. "Get me 
to a comm station," he snapped, fright surfacing. "I've got to report to the 
commander!"
   
   The officers braced themselves for impact.
   Nothing happened.
   After long michrons, Adama fixed Omega with a steely eye. The young man 
nodded. "On it, sir." The commander turned back to his son and exec, the 
abortive missile strike already dismissed from his thoughts.
   Tigh continued with his questioning. "How would you explain the lack of 
basestars, Captain?" he pressed. "Why would the cylons do something as stupid 
as sending unsupported fighters into a sneak attack against the entire Sixth 
Fleet?" The man shook his head. "You must be mistaken. There have to be 
basestars or carriers there, some support ships, perhaps just waiting out of 
our range. You said that Thula Outstation was silent--could it have been--"
   Omega yelped in surprise, shock on his face. Everyone turned apprehensively 
to him. Eyes wide, he gestured wordlessly at his screen. Tigh and Apollo 
gasped; Adama felt as though a fist were squeezing his chest; for a moment he 
could not breathe. "Zac?" Apollo whispered.
   "Lieu ... tenant Zac, reporting in. Sir," that young man said insistently, 
seeing no one in his screen except Omega, "listen up! Flight 773 found a cylon 
attack force at Cimtar Mephis. Several thousand fighters, all classifications. 
There were at least two tankers, reading empty, but no sign of base ships of 
any classification."
   Apollo moved to Omega's station, leaned into the picture. "Zac! You're 
alive!"
   Zac's dark eyes widened. "Apollo?" His head briefly went out of focus as he 
leaned it against the screen's pickup. "Thank God," he said softly. "I didn't 
know if you'd made it back or--"
   "Zac, we thought you were dead!" Apollo said, still disbelieving his eyes.
   Zac's expression became curiously bewildered. "I ejected, Apollo, but I ... 
I had help getting back."
   "Help? What are you talking about?"
   "Lieutenant," Tigh snapped. Zac's eyed narrowed. He coughed, nodded. "You 
said no base ships at all?"
   "That's right, sir. There were two refueling ships with the attack force 
that were jamming our sensors. Captain Apollo actually found them, but neither 
one of us detected baseships anywhere."
   No baseships, Adama considered, his thoughts now racing, unconnected, 
relief at his youngest son's salvation still foremost in his mind. No 
baseships. No baseships. Why? Why leave a fleet of attack craft unsupported 
for so long? The support ships would be out of our operational range at Cimtar 
Mephis. It doesn't add up! It--
   Realization dawned suddenly. They were able to approach to point-blank 
range before we detected them. The cylons have our cloaking frequencies! How?! 
That is one of the closest-guarded secrets of our military technology. With 
that ability, the cylons could sneak fighters in, completely undetected, to 
attack us, or a defense station, or a ground base ... or...
   "My God!" Adama cried. Everyone looked askance at him. "Their baseships 
would have been out of our range at Cimtar Mephis, yes, but it wasn't 
necessary--they were needed elsewhere!" Tigh and Omega realized what he was 
talking about immediately. "Ops! Get me the president!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Walkers! Fire at will! Pick your targets, people!" Vinston was already 
fighting for his life. Incoherent screams of rage and surprise flooded the com 
channels; even military training was little preparation for such a sneak 
attack.
   A line of vipers flared out from Beta Bay; his rear viewer showed him that 
a similar line of interceptors had just shot out of Alpha. His target scopes 
breeped loudly; without conscious thought he slapped the authorization key.
   The man-shaped combat vehicle spun with startling speed, cannon-arms 
swiveling and locking on target. Four parallel beams of energy spurted; two 
cylon manti sparkled, puffed into vapor. Vinston spared himself a very brief 
victory thrill even as he sought another target. "Rodens! Get me the shipnet!"
   "Jammed, sir!" the communications specialist snapped back. "All 
frequencies are closed! We can't even talk with the command center right 
now!"
   "Mikki, look out!" Munras' voice cried. Vinston spared a glance for his 
forward monitor. Cylon fire walked along the battlestar's hull toward a pair 
of mecha at the end of the formation.
   Sergeant Mikki's defender stood its ground, calmly trading shots with the 
attacking reaver. Both fighters simultaneously scored fatal hits; the reaver 
glowed and flared and disappeared into infinity. Mikki's mecha spurted long 
sparks that grounded against the ship's hull. "I've taken a hit," Mikki's 
voice wheezed unnecessarily. "Signals are d--" With no other warning his 
mecha disintegrated in an atomic flare.
   "Incoming!" Vinston tore his eyes from his subordinate's death, glanced 
at his tac display. His warbook faithfully identified every approaching 
attacker.
   "Frack! Tarants and arahs. Rangers! We have a boarding party coming!" 
Vinston called. Acknowledgements came back quickly; the mecha wranglers 
braced.
   Two more defenders and one protector took fire. One of the smaller mecha 
went dark, external lights flickering; the other two pounded back, no longer 
seeking to coordinate with their fellows. This was no carefully-planned 
battle, no result of long centars of strategical and tactical planning--this 
was an all-out attack, what might be the ultimate battle for survival.
   The cylon tarant was a dark, evil-looking cyborg, easily twice the size of 
any of the mecha now slugging it out with their alien attackers. Six long legs 
that had been folded beneath its bulbous body slowly opened. Vinston watched 
in alarm as the cybernetic terror machine, defended by a small cloud of manti, 
drew closer to the vulnerable engine section of the battlestar. The onboard 
defense batteries held up well until three of the covering manti performed 
suicide runs, silencing the guns for good. Vinston's blood ran cold. If the 
tarant managed to actually get a foothold on the ship, it could literally tear 
its was in, and wreak havoc inside the battlestar, where combat mecha could 
not get to to fight it. And if it chose simply to suicide over the engines, 
the fireball might well reach the volatile tylium feeds to the Galactica's 
huge engines. If that happened-- "Livvie! Take two guardians and stop that 
tarant!"
   "Never mind, sir," a familiar voice said in his ear. "I've got it." He 
glanced at his display. The defender that had taken a fatal hit moved slowly, 
lifted itself from the hull. Sparking and shuddering visibly, explosions 
racking it, it crouched and leaped. Circling manti twisted in its direction; 
Vinston and others raked them with fire, keeping them away from their 
compatriot.
   The dying defender struck the tarant, bounced free, grabbed at the thing 
with its only functional claw, and held on in spite of the tarant's crew's 
sudden efforts to dislodge it. "Somebody tell my--" the young voice 
whispered painfully. There was a glare as the defender exploded, a glare that 
englobed the tarant, then spread as that mecha's disintegrating power plant 
joined the conflagration. When the light dimmed, there was no longer either 
cylon or warrior there.
   "Nice catch, Aaron," Vinston whispered sadly.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Look out, Dierdre!" Kamen's voice called.
   The young woman immediately sent her scorpion into an evasive pattern that 
served, at least momentarily, to escape the cylon pursuers. As she 
straightened out, seeking targets of her own, one attacker flared. Her HUD 
reported that her wingman had taken at least one alien out of action. "Nice 
shooting!" she told him.
   "Thanks!" There was barely a pause. "We'd better get back to the 
Atlantia and cover the others, Dee. They're too thick out here. You pull 
fourth back; I'll get third." Rather than thinning with gradual loss through 
battle, the cylons seemed more numerous than ever. Pilot after pilot was 
disappearing, blown out of existence by dint of sheer force of numbers rather 
than through any cylon battle skills. At this rate of attrition, the 
interceptors and fighters of the fleet would not last long.
   "Agreed," she nodded to him in the comm. "Plasma Gold Squadron, fourth 
squad, fall back. Defend the Atlantia." She paid little attention to the 
scattered acknowledgements of many unfamiliar voices; she had already lost too 
many friends today to keep track of.
   "Look!" someone called; she did not recognize the voice. "The 
Pacifica's taken hits!" Dierdre glanced out into space. The battlestar 
Pacifica had been flying close enough to her own base ship, the Atlantia, 
that it was visible to the naked eye.
   It was more visible than ever now, both launch bays gouting fire, areas of 
its hull glowing dully. Even as she watched a small line of bright pinpricks 
she knew to be cylon attackers circled upward. She winced in spite of herself 
as the line made no effort to change course, impacting on the underside of the 
ancient war vessel. With another glow of light, the Pacifica shuddered 
visibly. There was an eye-searing explosion. As the light died to bearable 
levels, a chill of horror raced through Dierdre; the battlestar had split 
right in the middle. As she watched, the ship's alpha bay vomited flames and 
went dark, hurtling off into infinity. The rear portion of the battlestar spun 
forward, engines blazing wildly, doing as much damage to friendly forces as to 
enemies as, belching flame and debris, it accelerated uncontrolledly into the 
cloud of mixed alien and human fighters. The forward half, likewise spinning, 
valiantly continued firing, fighting to the last.
   "My God," Dierdre whispered to herself. An alert shrilled loudly. She 
tapped it to silence, glanced at her display. "Oh, no," she muttered, and 
accelerated back to her ship. Cylons were even now circling into the 
Atlantia for a similar maneuver.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The Cylon High Commander looked down from its throne. Report, it said to 
the lead warrior.
   The human is in holding, that dull being responded.
   Report, said the High Commander to the ambassador from the Peace Initiative 
Party.
   That being waved its eyes gently. Their highest leaders and most powerful 
remaining warships were all present at the rendezvous point, the 
representative whispered. All believe still that we are aboard the courier 
ship awaiting the arrival of the Hold's Finest.
   None suspected? the High Commander pressed.
   Many suspected, the ambassador corrected, especially their higher warriors, 
but none with any real power believe aught but what we have told them.
   Report, said the High Commander to the AI in attendance, on the readiness 
of the Fangs of the Hold.
   All have responded as in position, the computer responded. I believe, it 
further offered, that most are likely apprehensive--to be so close to the 
humans' planetary defenses is a--
   I did not ask you this, the High Commander reprimanded the AI. That 
construct fell into silence that, to any human, would have indicated a 
sulkiness unplanned by its creators of the Hold. Nor, the cylon pure 
continued, should they be. Thanks to the traitor and his followers, none of 
the human holdworlds will be capable of defending themselves. It turned its 
attention to the ambassador. You and yours have done well, cylon told thrall. 
Your genes will flourish. You may retire to enjoy the coming victory.
   By your command, the smaller being sighed, and slid from the chamber.
   The time for the end of the pestilence known as man is now, the High 
Commander mused quietly. Let the word go forth:
   Let the attack begin!

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   In many places at the same time space shimmered and cloaks dropped and 
shapes of death revealed themselves.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

    Rachel watched in heart-stopping suspense as the umbilicals from 
SupraScorpia station pulled away, disappearing into the glare of the dock's 
lights. Another maneuver; another centon closer to freedom.
   She felt a stir next to her, reached and took the small, cold hand of her 
son. "Momma," the boy murmured, "can we--"
   She glanced warningly at him and he fell silent, the fear of the past 
several days coloring his expression. She instantly regretted the 
overreaction. Frightened was not what she wanted him or his little sister to 
be--just cautious.
   She pulled herself from the port long enough to embrace the boy, reached 
out and drew her daughter into her arms as well. "You've been good so far," 
she praised them softly. "Just a little while longer. Then you can make as 
much noise as you wish, I promise you." The indomitable spirit that had 
carried her through the last five jahren of hell on Scorpia now gave her the 
strength to hold her children and comfort them, still their embryonic terrors 
as the progressing day was easing her own longer-lived ones.
   Technically, no one aboard this interplanetary liner should have cared that 
a young, offworld-born, legally Scorpian woman was aboard. Certainly she had 
every right to visit with offplanet relations.
   But her husband, Overcaptain Orion Nodhkhap of the Scorpian Low Guard, had 
anticipated such moves in the past. Any time she had tried to escape from the 
hell she had married into jahren ago, she had been spotted and returned to his 
household, to punishments whose memories could still make her cringe 
involuntarily. On Scorp, there was no divorce--the only means of leaving one's 
abusive husband was suicide.
   Or flight.
   Rachel's eyes stung, tears from a mixture of terror and budding relief. If 
she could make it out of Scorpia's sphere of influence, she would be safe. 
Indeed, here in orbit she was farther away from Orion than she had gotten 
before, and such success lent her confidence. Her husband was away--peace 
treaty and armistice notwithstanding, the Scorpians were forever sending more 
pacification troops in to settle disputes on Scorp-occupied Taura--and even if 
her absence was discovered by Orion's household or friends sooner than she 
had planned for, the most the crew of this liner would do was place her under 
arrest. And once the ship reached Sagitarra orbit, she had friends and 
family of her own who would receive certain messages already sent and stored 
to be read only in such circumstances; those people would help her.
   She knew her mother was due to return from her own merchant service mission 
soon. Mamma Wattra, God grant her rest, had held a low opinion of women who 
left their men, for any reason; Mamma Hadar was more understanding. Besides, 
she had been the most vociferous in warning her youngest daughter about 
rushing headlong into marriage with an offworlder, however dashing and 
handsome.
   Six jahren had proven her mother right. The Scorpians were barely tolerant 
of offworlders in any case; when she finally realized that she was less of a 
mate than another broodwife to her husband, with no natural or legal rights, 
she had asked for a divorce, a release her increasingly arrogant and hateful 
husband had unrelentingly denied.
   God, please, she prayed, as she had done steadily and with ever-
increasing despair after the birth of her daughter, please, deliver my babies 
to safety even if not me. Don't let them grow up on Scorpia. Please...
   The voice of the ship's master blared from the speaker over her head. She 
started involuntarily, her clutching fingers drawing small cries from her 
children. "And if you'll look on your monitors, you'll have a very good view 
of SupraScorpia Station as we make our departure. Isn't she a beauty?" There 
was a low murmur from the cabin's passengers, and the master's voice 
continued. " We have our final departure line. All hands prepare for orbital 
departure. Lift begins in two centons. Cabin attendants, please report your 
status."
   Rachel released a trembling breath. Two centons and counting. Once the 
liner was under way, it would not alter course to return one wayward 
passenger. Two centons, and she would be free...
   The ship trembled, steadied, shook again, harder. Rachel was no spaceman, 
but she knew that ships under drive in planetary gravity wells did not shake 
like some atmospheric shuttle.
   The liner's alarms shrilled. "What the devil--?" the captain's voice 
said. Then a wordless shriek stabbed through the cabin's speakers, a scream 
echoed michrons later by voices in Rachel's cabin.
   "Cylons!"
   On Rachel's tiny monitor, amid wildly dancing stars, a huge, dark double-
diamond shape glowed with lines of azure fire against the night face of the 
nearby planet. A cylon basestar... Rachel thought dully, too shocked and 
disappointed to be as terrified as she shortly would be. Even as she watched, 
a thread of light stretched between that war fortress and the brightly-lit 
SupraScorpia. Where that thread touched the station, metal and plastic 
exploded glaringly into vapors. Then secondary explosions shook it, just 
before the picture jumped and rotated. Scorpia itself briefly slid into view.
   Where are the planetary defenses? some part of Rachel numbly wondered. 
They're just about the best defended world in the system. Only Sagitarra's 
defenses are better. The planetary defense net should have begun reducing the 
daring invader to rubble almost immediately--she had seen vids of past 
attacks and how quickly they had been neutralized. She cried out as the ship 
jerked, hard enough to jolt the passengers through a contragravity field. Her 
dancing screen showed one more brief shot of the cylon basestar, multiple 
beams of energy reaching down to the surface of the planet. Another jolt shook 
the ship as the captain tried to align the ship for an emergency departure 
from the area. Another jolt, and another, harder still, plunged Rachel into a 
red haze. Her last thoughts were regretful and angry--We never had a chance!

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Cap'n Pos cursed genially and clutched the nearby railing as the behemoth 
rolled under the ship, unknowingly rocking the craft with its wake. He blinked 
away tears as his sunglasses went awry, hurriedly fixed them--Aquaria's 
summers were bright, and sea-blindness was not a habit-forming experience.
   Then he grinned, perpetual good humor returning, as Jensy worked the ship's 
struggles to remain upright into her pitch. "And there goes another one, 
folks. They know us by now. Big as they are, ferocious as they can be when 
they want to be, they still know that we won't hurt them. Feel free to lean 
over and look." Most of the crowd of tourists that filled both decks of the 
sightseeing ship were already doing so, those against the railing loathe to 
give up their spots to those less opportune.
   Pos grimaced slightly. Today was the day that the long-awaited Armistice 
with the Cylon Empire was due to be signed--even now, if he recalled, glancing 
at the chronometer and making the automatic conversion from local time to 
system standard. For most people, this was a holiday, a day to rejoice and 
celebrate. But some people still had to work for a living, and of course, the 
hundreds of thousands of tourists who had journeyed to the sunslit seas of 
Aquaria were not going to suspend their expensive vacations for something as 
political as peace.
   He grinned as the gargantuan mobe known to the locals as Old Faithful 
surfaced less than a tenth of a kilom away, glad for the windshield 
surrounding him as twin spouts of vapor jetted into the air. The incredibly 
old, incredibly lazy creature rolled its eyes around to gaze ruminantly at the 
humans that ooohed and ahhhed at its presence.
   That old faker, Pos thought dryly. This particular mobe had been a 
regular part of the tourist scene here in Sknil, on the coast of Aquaria's 
only minimal continent, for the past twenty jahren, since he had retired and 
come to work for the firm of Globa and Sharls. In that time, this mobe had not 
only never attacked any human being, but it had garnered for itself a 
reputation of desire for attention, sheer sloth and gluttony that left the 
locals exasperated and the hordes of curious sightseers delighted. One could 
always count on Old Faithful to join the show of a pride in flow; usually the 
only problem was in getting rid of the old fellow.
   The mobe lifted its head from the water, tail flukes rising counterpoint. A 
mouth opened, stretching the length of the head. The tourists murmured, the 
press at the rail thinning slightly. There was a pregnant pause, and the mobe 
issued its challenge--a high-pitched whining, inappropriate for something of 
its size, disconcerting to those who had braced for some stentorian roar. Pos 
chuckled, recognizing that tone. Old Faithful was ready for the inevitable 
handout of grain bales and fish that it knew the humans would feed it.
   High in the blue-white skies, a star flared. Pos blinked, rubbed at his 
eyes--no star should have been visible in Aquaria's daylight! Another star 
flared, much lower, toward the horizon, and a third blinked fitfully between 
the first two. Pos glanced down to the deck where Jensy, having noticed 
nothing, continued her narration. "We call this one Old Faithful," she 
explained, "because he's always out here running interference for us. He's 
been protecting us from that particular pride for going on forty jahren now." 
The crowd made appreciative noises, happy to have such a vast and powerful-
looking protector. "In return, we give him treats from time to time. He seems 
to enjoy it, and it certainly works wonders for...what in--?"
   Pos dialed his windshields down to maximum transparency, followed the 
direction of his partner's gaze. The pride of mobes, over a hundred of the 
behemoths, was just vanishing beneath the waves, the flukes of the last of the 
sounding beasts disappearing amid the white froth of a whole-herd crash dive. 
A chill raced through Pos' body in spite of the midday heat; he had never 
known anything to make a pride disappear so hastily.
   A child in the crowd said something inaudible; Jensy laughed and took it 
up. "Yes, that's right--Old Faithful can be pretty ferocious when he wants to 
be! Let's give him his reward, shall we?" Jensy glanced up at Pos and gave him 
a discreet hand signal. Pos nodded, reached for the communicator.
   He never completed the motion. From the sky where the second star had 
flashed a scintillating line stretched, touched down across the horizon. The 
thread of fire flickered, disappeared--Pos would have called it a bolt of 
lightning except that there was not a cloud in the sky--and then another 
streak stretched from that point. Even as he blinked at its brightness, 
similar bolts erupted from invisible points high in the sky down to the sea's 
surface. One came down close enough that Pos made out the explosion of ocean 
at that beam's touch.
   Instinctively, his hand bypassed the communicator and came down on the 
alert button. The crowds on deck went quiet for long michrons as the alarm 
yelped. Jensy looked up, then looked out to sea. Her tanned face paled.
   Across the heaving surface of Aquaria's sea, the beam of destruction, over 
an eighth of a kilom wide, walked toward the boat, followed by a trail of 
explosions. Pos had time to note that where the beams had first touched, the 
waters were glowing redly. The last thing he saw was the almost supersonic 
explosion of earth, magma and dead sea life--then the advancing wave of 
destruction wiped him and those with him from existence.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   This, Serina decided, had been one of the longest, least pleasant days of 
her entire life.
   The newswoman, already garnering a planetary fame for herself in the 
journalism field in spite of her relative youth, had had not only today, 
Armistice Day, but the entire secton leading up to it to reflect on how 
fortune, glory and Brijjid Prizes for Excellence in Journalism were all 
slipping through her fingers.
   It seemed as though everyone in existence had come into Caprica City over 
the course of the past eight days, all anticipating the celebrations that 
would officially begin tonight when the Peace Treaty was actually signed, but 
which had actually begun that almost-a-secton previously. Serina had reached 
her limit of patience with Man In The Street interviews before the first of 
those interminable days was through; since the real story was happening up 
there, in space at the edge of the colonial system, the only material left to 
report on here on Caprica was make-do material, casual interviews and fact-
finding and retrospectives.
   You could have been there, she reminded herself bitterly, smoothing her 
hair in the reflection of the newsvan's window before pulling her shawl 
stylishly across her dark mane. All you had to do was sleep with Joyha. 
You'd've given him what he wanted, and he'd've given you the story of the 
millenium. Angrily, she turned away, glanced out at the bright city around 
her. In truth she had seriously considered her producer's 'offer'--amid the 
power plays of ACVi-37, the planet's largest broadcast network, hers was a 
rising star equalled by few in speed and reach, and this would have been her 
ticket to eternal notoriety. And Joyha, damn his eyes, was attractive enough, 
especially for someone his age.
   And truthfully there were few things that she had balked at doing--
especially when she was just getting started-- over the course of the past few 
jahren in her race to become the world's best-known journalist. Her thirst for 
a story or expose had always outweighed her consideration of sensibilities, 
her own or anyone else's.
   Her young son raced by, a small, loudly yapping creature hot on his heels. 
"Boxey! Settle down!" She shook her head exasperatedly. Her son had been much 
of the reason she had hesitated when Joyha had made her his 'proposal,' and 
only she knew why, a consideration she had decided not to share with the boy 
until he was much older. "Stay close!" the newswoman added, waving a hand in 
the child's direction. Boxey, now turning the tables and chasing his wildly 
barking, very dusty daggit, did not deign to respond, but his circles drew 
closer to where the newscast crew was set. "Boxey!"
   "I'm not Boxey, momma," the child objected during a brief pause in his 
flight. "I'm Bast of the Colonial Patrol! And Muffit's Rocket Rodon!" The boy 
turned and flew off into the skies of imagination again, avoiding passers-by 
with blithe unconcern.
   "Don't worry about him, Serina," her cameraman said. "Tatji's keeping an 
eye on him." He paused to look around. "Wherever Tatji is," he added. Balab 
had been her tech chief for the past few jahren. His zeal for insider 
reporting was scarcely less than her own, but his own calmer nature invariably 
resulted in better reports from her desk. The two made a formidable team.
   "I don't want him getting too far away," Serina insisted. At that moment 
her earphone chimed softly, and she put her fingers to it automatically. 
"Yes?"
   "Signal's going out from the Star Kobol again," her distant director's 
voice said. "Get set to take over."
   "Right. Where am I in the presentation?" Serina gave her wayward son one 
last hard look and turned her attention to her camera and crew.
   "'Everyday people going about their everyday business'," Wey cued her. 
"Balab, get around to the other side. We need to get her against the Peace Day 
setup."
   "We're gonna get all the other news crews in the picture, too," the 
cameraman objected.
   "Naw," the girl at the control panel told him calmly. "They took off after 
somebody from the Presidium."
   "Serina, you're on," the director told her.
   Serina swallowed quickly, trusted that the cool nighttime breezes had not 
mussed her hair, and nodded to the camera. "Serina here. As you can see, all 
through the city, as all over the planet and, indeed, all through the system 
tonight, celebrations have begun for the Armistice, the first true peace 
mankind has known in almost a thousand jahren. Later tonight we will of course 
be returning you live to the Star Kobol, where the ambassadors and 
negotiators, the Council of Twelve and most of our own Council of Seventy are 
waiting, along with our correspondent." Because that ovina was willing to 
sleep with Joyha and I wasn't, dammit, dammit, dammit! She smiled, gestured 
broadly behind her. The Presidium reared from the ground like one of the 
ancient pyramids, an edifice of silver plas and shining metal, brightly lit in 
the twilight sunsrise from half a hundred halogen spots, gliders and personal 
flitters circling about it. Directly in front of it, immediately in line with 
the newswoman, two lines of flags flapped fitfully in the gusty ocean winds. 
The first line was composed of thirty-seven flags and banners, the ensigns of 
the United Nations of Caprica. The second held twelve uniformly-sized flags, 
one for each of the colonies. Across the pentangle, a similarly huge building 
stood more darkly. Serina had tried earlier to get into the Central Defense 
Administration building, only to be repeatedly turned away. Between the UNC 
and the CDA buildings, children from all over the world had come together in 
the past secton to plant transplanted flowers and shrubs in the shape of 
letters, glyphs that spelled out the word PEACE.
   Through the pentangle streamed a seemingly endless flood of people, all 
happy, laughing, and cheering, celebrating the final arrival of long-awaited 
peace. "As you can see," Serina continued, forcing a smile into her voice as 
well, "the streets are filled with ordinary people. Those who have worked 
today are just now heading home, to families and friends, behaving not as 
though this were any ordinary day, but fully cognizant that this is perhaps 
the most significant day in human history.
   "As you know, preparations for the switchover to a peacetime economy have 
been under way since the actual armistice was announced, almost a half jahron 
ago, and indeed, the Council of Seventy's preparations for that switchover 
continued until just this morning, when the last of those scheduled to attend 
the armistice signing boarded their shuttles and left to join the Fleet, even 
now holding station at Cimtar, still awaiting the arrival of the Cylon peace 
delegation." Serina gave an inconsequential high sign with her fingers as she 
pretended to adjust her scarf.
   "Nope," said her director from across the city, "still nothing. They've 
been having interference on and off all--"
   Serina shook her head slightly. "In just a centon we'll be going to our 
studio in Corella, where our military correspondent Argus is waiting to speak 
with retired marine Colonel Ares, liaison to the Council from SkyStar 
industries, who will be speaking with us about..."
   Wey, paying less attention to Serina than to the monitors before her, 
glanced up as something caught her eye. There, in the distance, something 
flashed brightly in the gold-orange dusk. Fireworks? Already? As she 
speculated, another star flared in the dimness, and a third across the sky, 
almost lost in the glare of city lights.
   
   "Capriq Prime in fifty centons," the pilot reported. The woman leaning over 
his shoulder nodded to herself in satisfaction; a half centar and they would 
be docked at Caprica's largest and best equipped space station, only another 
centar from the Tsentri Needle, the orbital elevator that would carry the 
tired but happy members of the supergroup Spheroids back to the surface, on 
their ways to their respective homes for a few sectons' well-deserved break.
   The pop singer born Temissa von'la Herrn, and now known world-wide as 
Retlove, stepped back from the cockpit of the band's custom interplanetary 
shuttle. There were few musical groups who were so popular that they could 
afford their own spacebus, and fewer still who were becoming as popular off-
world. With such a spacecraft one hired the best available pilots; and then 
one left those pilots to work their jobs without interference.
   Retlove was not yet certain just what she wanted to do when the band 
reached Tsentri Yonshuu and went their separate ways. She knew the band's 
agent Ercein had been discussing some quieter jobs for the band, including the 
possibility of a guest-appearance in an episode of Love's Shining Sword for 
her, but at his last communique there had been nothing definite.
   In truth, Retlove was ready for a rest. The Spheroids had been on tour 
for the last two jahren, first a Caprican world tour, and then a tour of 
seventeen cities on Aer. The dark-skinned woman grinned ferally at the memory-
-few Caprican groups ever became popular offworld, and almost none ever 
managed to break into the fiercely protectivist Aerian market. The 
Spheroids' musical style, a mixture of hard, crashing zithron chords and 
percussive tonalities, had mixed well with the martial spirit of Aer; 
Retlove's band had already been invited back for another world tour there.
   Retlove  stopped in the door of the lounge and grinned again, this time in 
complete and utter delight.
   In a band consisting of nine members, from her to her backup singers to the 
drummers, there was bound to be a personal attraction at some point between 
any two members. Such 'on the road romance' was common in the business.
   Retlove's primary basstoner Agasso was a tall, well-muscled young man, dark 
skin and bright hair a sign of his nitlan background. He had cheerfully lived 
up to that exotic heritage, romancing first the lead percussist Berrin, then 
the main backup vocalist Milla, carefully switching them off, skillfully 
keeping the situation from becoming an issue. The two young women had merely 
fought one another, as viciously and quietly as women were wont to do over a 
man, amusing the rest of the band no end.
   But on a ship this small, as difficult as it was for any two people to 
sneak off to a corner--or a bedroom--it was more difficult still to keep it a 
secret.
   Milla slouched in a comfortable wickron chair, a souvenir from Aer, angrily 
flipping darts at the target on the far wall. She was paying no attention to 
what she was doing; every dart she flung went wild, tiny wings flipping and 
fluttering.
   Retlove eyed the young woman without a trace of sympathy. Milla looked much 
as she had for most of the tour, bright golden hair artfully disarrayed, 
emerald-beaded lashes thick beneath vermillion makeup, a checkerboard pattern 
on her left cheek prominent. Her legs were long, smooth and bare; she had been 
dressing very lightly lately, in an apparently too-late bid to retain Agasso's 
affection. Her bracelets tinkled in the quiet of the chamber.
   Retlove was not overly concerned for Milla's anger and hurt. In truth, the 
young woman was a very talented singer--too talented for Retlove's taste. 
The girl had actually been called on to perform solos during performances 
along the tour, solos the band had supported her in while warily watching 
their leader. The girl had become very smug by the time the tour ended; she no 
doubt anticipated a future fame of her own, replacing Retlove in the band.
   Retlove was many things, but not a fool. This would end up being Milla's 
last tour with the Spheroids. Retlove had no desire to encourage competition 
in her own band, least of all from someone who, she was forced to admit, did 
have a better voice and a depressingly better appearance than she herself did. 
Besides, she thought snidely, if I tell the company that she's unreliable, 
she'll be out on her astrum. They'll listen to me a lot sooner than to her.
   "Hi," Milla grumbled without looking up, flinging another dart at the wall. 
"How much longer 'til we get to the station?"
   "Not much. Half centar, maybe." Retlove strode past the angry young woman 
to the bar. She filled a glass with emerald liquid, walked back and flopped 
down in one of the ordinary seats. She fished for the remote control in the 
deep cushions.
   "D'you know what that swininon is doing--" Milla snapped, apropos of 
nothing.
   "Save it," Retlove snapped. "I want to watch the news. They're supposed to 
be signing the Armistice sometime soon, and--" Both women looked up as the 
lights dimmed, went red. At the same time the ship's sirens, toned-down 
civilian versions of military alerts, wailed. The lead pilot's voice echoed 
through the room, and could be heard from the door to the personal quarters as 
well.
   "Everybody, get up! Get to the lifeboats! This is not a drill! I repeat, 
this is not a drill! We have an emergency! All hands to stations! All 
civilians to the life pods!"
   Milla's dark eyes met Retlove's pale ones for a long, tense moment. The 
band's leader elbowed herself from her seat, downed her drink and tossed the 
glass into the chair. "Get back to the life pod," she ordered. "Wake up anyone 
who's sleeping and get them back there."
   Milla nodded, a handful of darts dropping unnoticed to the floor. "All 
right, Retlove, but what--"
   "That's what I'm going to find out. Get moving."
   In the cockpit Retlove had to stop and get used to the almost-darkness the 
pilots preferred. "Aurora! What the devil's going on?" she demanded angrily.
   "Trouble!" the lead pilot snapped, not looking around.
   "Duh," the singer grumbled. "Tell me what kind of trouble." The copilot 
tapped two switches; the front panels lit up, seemed to go transparent and 
become windows on space. There, almost close enough to touch, floated the 
band's homeworld, Caprica. "Oh, that helps a...lot..." She fell silent. From 
some unseen point in space threads of light stabbed planetward, disappearing 
into the horizon's haze. A second invisible source joined the first, and the 
third was barely visible beyond the glowing edge of the planet.
   "Cylons!" the pilot snapped. "Capriq Prime reported 'em just before they 
went off the air."
   "Just before they--" Retlove gasped, stepped backward. She seldom followed 
any news other than business matters, but even she had enough of a grasp of 
current affairs to realize what her pilot was saying. "No! No, that's not 
possible, it's not--"
   "Possible or not, there are cylons over the planet right now, ma'am," the 
woman snapped. "Get back to the life pod, and send Berto forward; I need all 
the extra hands I can get. We're already on approach, and I've got to try and 
get us out of here before we're spotted."
   "Yes," Retlove stammered, her heart pounding. Cylons had never in her young 
life penetrated this deeply into the colonial system; such raids were only 
matters of historical interest to her and her friends. Death was staring her 
in the eye. "All right. I'll do that. Can we--can we help at all?" she 
whispered hoarsely.
   "Pray," the woman responded grimly. "That may be the only chance we do 
have."
   
   Sergeant Herak grunted, sat back in his seat. "Damn. They lost the signal 
from the Star Kobol again." This had been a long day for those assigned to 
pull duty; the officer in charge, fortunately, was an open-minded individual, 
perfectly willing to let her people open windows to watch the celebration as 
long as their own work was properly covered.
   "Have we got an open line to DCHQ?" Lieutenant Amlev asked him, stopping by 
his terminal. None of the other techs in the room paid them any attention. All 
were at their stations, in theory monitoring Caprica City's part of the global 
defense nets, in actuality watching all fourteen local broadcasts--except the 
far station, which had actually locked in on two offworld broadcasts, one from 
Gemon, one from Aer--as the news correspondents, every one of them visibly put 
out at having not having been selected for the Star Kobol parties, took 
their frustrations out on the military and any passers-by.
   "Yeah," Herak said, tapping his broad screen. "They don't have a signal 
from 'em either. They've been reporting weird interference from out there all 
week, you know. It's like the Cylons knew Cimtar Mephis' moons were all 
lining up for a perfect interference run or something."
   Amlev fixed him with an angry look. "Don't even joke about that," she 
spat. "Fine. Since you're in touch with them, you let me know when they get 
the Fleet back again. As a matter of fact, why don't you--"
   There was a shriek from the corporal at the far end of the monitor bay. His 
cry preceded the alarm klaxons by only michrons. "Incoming!" the corporal 
bellowed. "We've got hostiles, two--holy mother God, we've got three 
Basestars in close orbit!"
   "Full alert!" Amlev snapped. The lights dimmed, went red. There were loud 
hisses as the center's doors all sealed, emergency procedure against direct 
attack. All local broadcasts disappeared from the monitor screens. She strode 
to the command station at the center of the room. "Herak! Get me DCHQ!"
   The screen next to Amlev's seat flashed, blipped, and began to blink 
fretfully. "What the--" The computer's voice echoed mournfully from the 
overhead speakers.
   "Malfunction. Malfunction. All nets dropping. Renet and report 
immediately. Repeat, all nets dropping. Outstations report to *squrrrk*" The 
computer's tones rose; its words sped up into gibberish; and then there was 
quiet--even the alarm klaxons ceased to wail. There was dead silence for 
almost five michrons. Everyone was too startled to react.
   "What the frack?" Amlev jabbed at her control panel, then frantically 
tapped out an override code, to no avail--every system in the room had just 
gone dead. "Herak!" she bellowed. "I want DCHQ! Barr! Get me the lower deck! 
Wilkes, Coriol, Dennein! Take all defense systems to manual, and--"
   "Ma'am!" Swindo called almost immediately. "We're down! I mean really 
down!" Panels flared, flickered, lit the dimness.
   "I've got telemetry!" Corporal Barr said hastily.
   "Me too," his partner Wilkes echoed. "Migod! Incoming, for real! We're 
being fired on!"
   "Have we got links to the staging area?" Amlev demanded.
   "Negative!"
   "How about downdeck? Any contact? Have they got any outlinks?"
   "Come on, come on," Amlev heard one young man farther down the row 
murmuring desperately, his screen one of the few still lit,.
   "Negative on that, too!" was the shouted response. "Telemetry's the only 
thing we have got now!"
   "Herak! I mean it! I don't care what you do, but get me a line to DCHQ! 
Swindo! Something, anything, but I want firepower in twenty-five michrons!"
   "Impact!" another corporal called out, her face visibly pale even in the 
reddish gloom. The noise in the room stilled. "Aqessoni Region, Dixon Range. 
Five hundred megakil. Strike two. Strike three. Supernuke, three gigakil."
   "Are they responding? Or intercepting? Is Capriq Prime--?" Amlev asked 
desperately. If this was just a localized failure--
   "Negative. No response. All systems offline." There was a pause. "Another 
strike, also supernuclear. Wait--now reading heavy beam weaponry, telemetry 
says it's rippers. Target somewhere off the Iczer."
   "Frack!"
   Another monitor spoke up. "Corella just took a hit, ma'am--no, they're 
under regular fire now."
   And another. "Multiple signature, Tsentri District."
   It was a sham, Amlev thought coldly. There was never any peace, never 
going to be.
   "Right. Herak, dammit, get me DCHQ! Arylla, you'd better have our glitch 
found and out of the way before I get to your station, or you're in trouble!"
   At that point the lights in the center flickered, dimmed to blackness. A 
chorus of startled yells filled the darkness. Then the lights flashed back on, 
almost immediately followed by the renewed, startlingly loud humming of the 
monitor systems. There was a ragged cheer as the crew realized they had their 
defense net back. None wasted any time, immediately dialing for controls and 
sliding up every intercept weapon this net station controlled. They had an 
opportunity.
   However brief. Even as Amlev was snapping orders, her screen flashed, 
filled with the round face of Jaybo, the base commander. "All stations, 
listen up!" the man snapped. "The net's been sabotaged. We don't know how it 
was done, but we know what's been done. The entire system's been infected. 
We're on backup right now, and there's no guarantee how long it's going to 
last before the virus hits it. System coordinators, do not count on 
assistance from Aqessoni, Corella Prime, Rettel Outland, Fleetwood or Tsentri 
sectors--those areas have reported or taken direct hits from the basestars 
we're tracking, and are out of the net."
   "All stations! Fire for effect!" Amlev snapped. "Target that incoming! Get 
everything you can!"
   At that moment, audible even through the thick, blastproof walls of the 
military district defense HQ building, the ululating raid sirens of the city 
began to wail.
   
   "--and in just a moment, we should begin receiving pictures of what is 
already being described as the most significant event in--"
   There was distant flare on the horizon, turning the reddish gray twilight 
dawn to an orange-white. Serina broke off, startled, caught herself almost 
immediately. "It appears that some of the louder celebrations may be 
beginning. Let's see if we can get a look at--" There was another flash, 
brighter, and then a flare that, even across the the distant horizon of the 
sea, turned the dusk to day for long michrons. 
   The festive crowds in the pentangle had gone silent, at first thinking as 
had the reporter, that the fireworks were now beginning. Now they were 
uncertain. 
   Serina took control of the situation again. "Something seems to be 
happening. Perhaps you saw it, like the glow of an explosion. Everyone in the 
pentangle is staring. No one appears to know what is--"
   From the hills only kiloms distant came the bright flashes of missile 
launches. It was long michrons before the percussive cracks rolled through the 
open area, but Serina fell silent at the first light. Tens, then hundreds of 
shimmering stars hurled themselves into the dimming sky. Serina, startled, 
turned her head skyward, Balab belatedly turning his camera up as well.
   Three--four, no, five stars detached themselves from the firmament, 
circling slowly, then with increasing and disturbing speed brightening, 
drawing visibly closer. As Serina watched, dumbfounded, dozens of the tiny 
motes of light from the city's mountain ranges whirled through the sky, 
centered on the approaching stars.
   "Serina! Close your eyes! Duck!" Balab's words were a harsh scream.
   Serina, startled, almost hesitated too long. Her cameraman grabbed her 
shoulder, threw her to the ground, threw himself across her.
   Then, in the blink of an eye, the cool gray sidewalk beneath her cheek went 
white, a glaring, burning white. Serina closed her eyes, threw her arm across 
her face, and fought back the screams deep in her throat as the first rumbles 
of atmospheric intercepts knocked the breath from her.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   "Adama, you're finished! Do you hear me?" Adar bellowed in the 
screen. "Where is Tigh? By God, I'll--"
   "Mister President!" Adama roared, overpowering even the old politico's 
volume. The president broke off, surprised that anyone would ever raise their 
voice to him. "Mister President, I request permission to leave the fleet," he 
said more quietly. "I have reason to suspect that all twelve of the colonies 
are in imminent danger of attack."
   "What are you--damn it, someone turn off that infernal wailing!" Adar's 
picture said. "What the devil is--"
   "Sir! We're under attack!" someone off-screen told the president. 
"Commander requests your presence on the bridge."
   "Under attack? What kind of--" He turned, locked gazes with Adama. He 
opened his mouth to speak; some impact shook the ship beneath his feet. His 
expression went from fury to uncertainty in one michron. Neither man spoke. 
Another hit shook the Atlantia, and a series of them rattled that vessel. 
Adar's picture jumped, rocked, steadied after a brief flurry of interference.
   "Maintain contact!" Adama snapped at no one in particular.
   "Adama..." Adar began, broke off to clutch at a stanchion as his ship was 
rocked by a series of explosions. "Oh, God, Adama, no, pray that you're 
mistaken!"
   "Mister President--"
   Adar wailed in horrified anguish, the cry of a man who knows that death 
is finally approaching for him. Unlike most men, Adar knew well that in his 
dying, he would have company. "How could I have been so wrong, so 
misguided, so foolish..."
   "Mister President," Adama insisted.
   Adar kept talking as though he had not heard. Under his voice the listeners 
could still hear the Atlantia's damage control alerts shrieking. There was a 
louder thump, and when Adar's picture stopped shaking, another siren had 
been added to the soundtrack. "My God ... I've led the Fleet ... the 
entire human race to its destruction--"
   "ADAR!" The volume or the familiar name got through to the man; he 
paused, focused on the commander. "You didn't lead us to this disaster, 
Adar," Adama said insistently, more quietly. "But we were led."
   Adar took only michrons to realize what Adama was hinting at. "Bal--
Baltar? No, Adama, I--I don't believe it, I can't, no human being 
could do such a--I'll get him up here--Baltar! Baltar!"
   "Adar, listen to me," Adama bulled on--and broke off. In the screen there 
was a massive explosion. The President disappeared in a wall of flame. He had 
to have been killed instantly; no living being could have survived such an 
impact. A hurricane wind of loose items, furnishings torn free from their 
fastenings, rolled through the chamber. The picture rocked, tilted sideways. 
After another strangely soft whump the sound died; michrons later the 
picture fuzzed and faded.
   Adama, in shock, tore his eyes from the holofield. "Omega, give me standard 
on screen two." One of the displays floating over the nav ring flickered, 
switched to a photographic view of space. There, in the distance, one bright 
light flared irregularly, circled by a cloud of bright motes of light. "Pull 
in. Give me tactical." The space in the shot obligingly swung toward him 
dizzingly. The glowing dot became the burning, cloud-shrouded form of the 
Atlantia, now in her death throes. Even as her batteries fought back with 
all the fury that could be brought to bear by a colonial warship, a string of 
lights circled smoothly upward into its midsection. Some of them disappeared, 
touched by the threads of death the battlestar defended itself with; other 
puffed and vanished, stopped by the ship's own tiny defenders.
   But others from a seemingly endless supply got through. There was a sudden 
instant suggestion of a shockwave, and a globe of light grew from the 
Atlantia's gamma bay. Those watching winced in sympathy, urging the 
ineffective defenders to still greater speed. Another line of suicide ships 
circled up and into the starboard landing bay. Fire gouted from the forward 
end as the ships reached their goal; instants later the rear vomited light and 
heat, and, with deceptive peacefulness, the bay began to come apart.
   The disruption climbed the bay supports to the body of the battlestar. 
Normally even such damage as this was not fatal; given backup and defense, the 
Atlantia could have pulled back, secured herself, and continued to offer 
assistance to her division.
   Several of the circling stars twisted in space, came down on the bow of the 
forward section. Flame englobed the command area. Several other attackers 
struck the engine section.
   Light flared, intense, unbearable, feeling as though it burned even though 
this was nothing but an electronic representation. All those on the bridge 
winced, covered their eyes, blinked spots and tears away.
   When Adama's vision fuzzily returned, he sought first for the distant shape 
of his ship's sister vessel. Where the battlestar Atlantia had cruised, so 
proud and hopeful, nothing remained but a rapidly dimming, slowly expanding 
cloud of gas and debris.
   For a moment--just a moment!--all was quiet. Only the helm and sensor 
sections had witnessed the Pacifica's earlier struggle, and that worthy 
vessel, surrounded by a ring of cruisers and blastships, was still carrying on 
the fight. All on the bridge had witnessed the Atlantia's destruction.
   A face blinked into the holofield before Adama. It fuzzed, twisted at some 
nameless explosion, and almost stabilized. "Adama!"
   He turned, breathed a quick if heartfelt sigh of relief. "Doesley!" At 
least one of his fellow battlestar commanders was still around to plan with. 
"Thank God! What about the others?"
   "Pacifica's out of it," Doesley snapped quickly, paused for another fuzz 
of interference that was slower to clear. "They're already abandoning ship. 
Atlantia just bought it--"
   "We saw," Adama confirmed somberly.
   "And Columbia just disappeared a few centons ago, God alone knows where. 
They probably bought it from that ripper cannon floating around out there. 
I've lost two cruisers and my second blastship already. Adama, we need to 
coordinate, quick, and--"
   "Doesley, we cannot stay here," Adama said firmly. "I believe that while 
the Sixth Fleet is fighting here, the cylons have sent basestars to the 
homeworlds." Doesley's angry expression slid into one of horror as the 
realization dawned on her that Adama was speaking with dead certainty.
   "But--the planetary defenses will--" she started to object.
   "Commander," Omega interrupted, "how many of your ship's systems are 
functioning properly right now?" At her blank look he elaborated. "Somehow, a 
virus was introduced into our computer network. It was somewhat clumsy, and 
not all that well written from what of it we've isolate, but we're still 
fighting with only sixty-some percent of our normal efficiency. I'll bet your 
systems aren't much better off. However the cylons did this, they did it 
thoroughly. And there's nothing to have stopped them from doing the same to 
the planetary defense nets--not if they could do this to closed systems like 
ours."
   "My God," the Aquarian breathed. Then her expression hardened. "Right. 
Adama, I'm pulling the Pacifica out. We're heading for--what's closest? Right. 
We're going to proceed to Scorp and attempt to defend there. Will you come 
too?"
   "No," Adama snapped. "Two battlestars, two planets. We'll have a better 
chance of salvaging something if we can surprise them."
   "Roger that. I'm going to leave my fleet here, with orders to withdraw as 
soon as the Pacifica's gone. Advise you to do the same."
   "I was planning on exactly that."
   "Right. God damn whoever did this." She glanced back at her compatriot. 
"Luck, Adama. I'll let you know how we come out."
   "The Blessings of the Lords on you, Doesley," Adama replied feelingly. The 
woman's interference-streaked visage disappeared.
   "Communications breaking apart rapidly, commander," Omega told him quietly.
   "Can you reach any of our outer wing?" Adama asked him. "Even if just the 
Nereid, or the Triton, they can pass the order--"
   "Negative, sir," the young man replied. "Ops and Traffic Control are 
already losing our fighter network. Half our telemetry is down because we're 
losing our crosslinks. The cylons are jamming us too well this time."
   "Commander!" Tigh shouted from across the bridge. All on the podium 
turned to look at him as he pounded up, preferring to bear his bad news 
personally. "Sir, long range scanners are picking up basestar decloaking 
signatures in the vicinity of all planets still in range of our sensors." He 
tapped out commands on Omega's board as that man leaned out of the way; a star 
map of the colonial system bloomed in the holofield. He jabbed a thick finger 
into the light, brushing pale representations of the colonial homeworlds. 
"First tracks were here, here, and here--actually within the local space of 
Virgon, Sagitarra, and--"
   "Yes..." Adama whispered hoarsely. "Caprica..." In spite of his quiet tone, 
those around him heard, realized what he was saying. There was a brief murmur 
of shock that circled the bridge. Adama straightened; his eyes blazed fury. 
"Helm!" he roared. "Bring us around. Navigation, set course for--"
   "Sir!" "Commander!" "Father," Athena's voice was not the loudest objection, 
but it was easily the most penetrant of the babble, "what are you doing?"
   "We're withdrawing!" he snapped.
   "Sir, recommend course for Sagitarra," Omega the unflappable suggested. 
"They are closest to our location, and if we arrive in time we can bolster the 
planetary--"
   "Negative!" Adama growled. "Flank speed for Caprica. Nav, I want a 
superluminal approach. Ops--"
   "Sir, our support ships--" Tigh began.
   Apollo spoke at the same time. "We can't just abandon our fighters!"
   Adama's reply was hesitant; even he did not like the reply he was forced to 
give. "They will remain with the rest of the wing, to support and defend them. 
When the wing falls back, they will accompany them--"
   "Those with enough fuel left, maybe," Apollo snapped.
   "And what about the others?" Athena pointed out desperately. "What about 
the ones that have been fighting the longest, been--"
   "Sir, at the very least, let's transmit our intentions," Tigh pleaded for 
their men. "Give them some warning, let them know to conserve what resources 
they can--"
   "No." Adama's response was flat, emotionless. "In order to breach the cylon 
jamming, we would have to use so much power that the cylons would hear our 
intentions as well." He turned to face the twin screens. "No, if we are to 
gain any advantage at all at this point in this disaster, it will be through 
complete surprise."
   Artemis, harried, glanced up from her panel as Athena's quiet voice turned 
to anger. "You're killing them," the girl whispered, thinking herself unheard.
   
   Boomer whooped as his target disintegrated, closed his eyes reflexively as 
his flightpath took him through the explosion's globe. He automatically looked 
to his HUD and selected another target. Just as he locked onto one and twisted 
his interceptor around to follow it, his display flashed an alarm. Startled, 
he paid it more attention, then cursed softly.
   "Hey, Boomer ..." Starbuck's voice crackled through the unusual 
interference.
   "I see it," Boomer snarled quietly, then took a deep, calming breath.
   "Where's she going?" Starbuck asked uselessly.
   "Don't ask me, bucko," Boomer said, trying hard to focus more on the 
attacking cylons and less on his disappearing mothership. "The Commander's 
calling the shots this time."
   Even as he was lining up for a long-distance shot, Greenbean's voice joined 
the growing cacophony of confused communications. "Hey, guys, what gives? The 
Galactica's pulling out!"
   "There's gotta be a reason," Boomer said, half to himself, half to reassure 
everyone else.
   "Sure! It's dangerous around here!" Alekas growled. Few of the pilots 
were joking--this had moved from a dangerous game to the dark business of 
survival or death. "Heads up, Boomer, you've got a pair on your tail!"
   "Huh? Frack!" He jerked the stick sideways, hopefully spoiling some alien 
target lock.
   "Pull up, Boomer," Jolly ordered him, "pull a vice nine seven. I'll get 
him off you."
   "Roger." Even as his fingers went through the instinctive moves of avoiding 
enemy fire, his eyes sought out the rapidly diminishing shape of his home 
vessel. Even as he watched, it lengthened, flared and vanished, only to 
reemerge in realspace...where? Where was it going? There's gotta be a 
reason, he told himself, a little afraid because he was not even convincing 
himself this time.
   "Listen up, people," Parsons' voice rang through the interference that, 
Boomer realized belatedly, had been growing steadily worse through the course 
of just the past few centons. "Don't waste time asking; Commander's gotta 
have something up his sleeve. Green second and third, fall back on the 
Nereid. Keep the support ships protected while they fall back. Captain 
Rylla, you've got that detachment. Green four--"
   "Nobody left out of them, sir," a voice snapped. Boomer shivered at the 
tone of the young woman's fear. A chain of explosions nearby startled him; his 
systems had not had time to warn him of the incoming crackers. His interceptor 
twisted 'down' in a sudden course change, buying him time to think.
   "Right. Green first and Blue second, fall back to the Triton. That's the 
ship you're gonna adopt. Lieutenant Jolly, you've got that detachment."
   "Understood, sir," Jolly responded curtly. There was no uncertainty in 
his tone. "Let's go, people."
   A line of centip-stringed manti flashed past in Boomer's peripheral vision. 
More instinctively than consciously he loosed a pair of chaser missiles, and 
locked his blazers. Then he glanced startledly at his HUD. His blood ran cold 
as his eyes tracked nothing but patterns of static. His close-range sensors 
were now ineffective; the cylons were blanketing the whole area in a jamming 
field of such strength that everything but direct eye contact was useless. 
We're in trouble was all he could think. Discretion being the better part of 
valor, he rolled his craft away, flicked his turbos on briefly, hopefully 
escaping the manti he had almost engaged without being spotted by them. His 
dark eyes searched the flare-lit dimness around him, located what he thought 
was the Triton. If nothing else, he could fall back to that craft, help 
defend it as it withdrew, and follow the Galactica to wherever it had 
gone.
   The ship drew nearer, within michrons a visible oblong of gray metal and 
shining lights. Oh, no... Boomer despaired, the reflexes of an instinctive 
pilot taking over. The Triton was under increasingly heavy attack. He winced 
as a line of cylons, a whole assortment of sizes, pinwheeled up and struck the 
side of the military vessel. "Jolly!" he roared, forcing his viper into a 
tight turn and picking off one, two, three cylons with cold, mechanical 
precision and the speed of hot desperation. After several michrons' silence he 
called again. "Jolly! Where're you at, man?" His left hand increased the 
volume in his earphones, dropped it quickly at the deafening roar and crackle 
of interference-spawned static. Frack! I'm on my own.
   His fingers danced across his panels, his hand shoving his joystick forward 
and throttles wide, all instinctive reactions to a peripheral flash.. The 
fringes of the explosion that consumed the colonial cruiser Triton still 
caught up to him. For a moment the darkness of space was replaced with the 
blinding glare of flame; then his fighter, now blackened and scorched, fought 
its way clear. He spared a brief look behind himself. Where the Triton had 
floated, surrounded by both its guardians and its attackers, was now a rapidly 
dimming globe of light, the edges already fuzzing and losing their hard-
edgedness. Several pieces of wreckage wheeled past him, glittering dimly in 
the light of other funeral pyres.
   Boomer, still in shock, was numb; he could feel nothing at all for the crew 
of that starship, for his wingmates and fellow fighter pilots, for the human 
race that he knew, with cold certainty, was facing its greatest and, perhaps, 
final battle. The chances were good that while the Fleet, most of the spacial 
military that the colonies still possessed, was occupied here, the cylons were 
attacking the colonies themselves. Boomer had never seen any of the individual 
planets' defense nets in action; the courses in flight school were his sole 
experience with that final stage of protection. He felt no confidence in their 
ability to defend the civilian population of the system, only a niggling hope 
that shrank with every eternal michron he spent flying isolated and alone in 
the dimness. The fear that he would never see his family or his children again 
crept into his thoughts; at that waking nightmare some sense of purpose 
steeled his spirit. The shocks of the past centons had been too great, 
however; no matter the training, a warrior still has his limits, and for a 
warrior with the soul of a poet, those limits were far more easily exceeded. 
There was no more hatred, no more terror, no more exultation or excitement or 
misery. The only feeling he could acknowledge was a cold, hard determination 
to sell his own life as dearly as possible.
   
   Wrapped in the fire of dozens of individual battles, the battlestar swept 
forward, picking up speed with each michron, drives' screams a bone-tickling 
vibration beneath their feet. A string of manti circled upward, intent on a 
suicide run that would finish the Galactica as such strikes already had the 
Atlantia and Pacifica. Seemingly from nowhere a pair of cobras winged 
past, fire raking the carefully-lined aliens. Most disappeared into bright 
glares; the others were handled by the overworked shipboard defenses. One of 
the last actually disintegrated just michrons before impacting on the central 
hull.
   "Damage control!" Tigh snapped amid the babble.
   On the hanging viewers and the Wall on the World alike, space flickered and 
swam. Concentric ripples, more sensed than seen, circled around and past them. 
The stars streaked and stretched, flickered, then steadied as the ship's 
sensors began filtering their input for delicate human senses. "Superlight 
achieved, sir," Omega said. Adama nodded acknowledgement, his eyes on the 
screens.
   "Lieutenant Artemis--can we pick up any of the broadcasts from Caprica?" 
the commander asked. "Military, civilian, I don't care. Something by which we 
may judge what the cylons are doing?"
   "Working on it, sir," the young woman responded. She and Athena played a 
frantic duet on their keys, whispered to one another for a few michrons, and 
went into another frenzy of activity.
   Over the nav ring the two screens showing a false representation of 
superspace blinked, tiled themselves into nine smaller screens apiece. Each 
screen was different, some showing civilians--obviously reporters, to look at 
them and their conduct--some showing scenes of architecture or images of vast 
crowds of happy, celebrating people. "We have eighteen of Caprica's twenty-two 
local FTL networks," Artemis reported, a note of hope in her voice.
   "Maybe we're not too late," Apollo murmured softly.
   "The interference has stopped," Tigh noted, brows descending in a frown.
   "We've left the area of the effect," Omega informed him. "Sir, helm reports 
seven centons to normal breakout. Rusei orbit," he added. Incoming vessels 
never made a superlight approach any closer to a planet than fifty planetary 
diameters; the gravitational shockwaves of a ship going superluminal or 
reducing its speed to sublight would have wreaked havoc with any planetary 
gravity field.
   Adama glanced back at him. "Approach time from breakout?"
   Omega glanced back at his console. "Assuming standard combat decel curve, 
we will achieve minimum engagement distance with anything that may be in local 
planetary orbit within a minimum of another 2 centons. This could be as high 
as six if any target is actually on the other side of the planet from our 
breakout point. Local orbit can be achieved in four centons."
   Adama looked back at the tiled broadcasts, the faces of the speakers and 
listeners and merrymakers, all so full of life, so unknowing of the menace 
that stalked them. "How close in can we move the breakout point?" he asked 
quietly.
   "Not recommended, sir," Tigh snapped. "If I recall, Rusei is antipodal 
right now to the Tsentri Needle. If we come in too close, we'll set up a 
disaster of our own."
   Adama was quiet, occupied with his own thoughts, watching the civilian 
broadcasts with frightening intensity. Apollo, himself shaken after the 
disasters and emotional upheavals of the past few centons, reached out. He 
wanted to somehow offer comfort to his father. The old man seemed less the 
disciplinarian and taskmaster; now he was just a figure consumed with fear and 
grief, a man who could not permit himself the easy relief that others beneath 
him might have enjoyed.
   "Sir!" the navigation station called. Athena's voice echoed that 
serviceman's cry a michron later.
   "Sir, we show double--no, triple uncloaking in local Caprican orbit." 
Adama's leonine head turned in the girl's direction. Apollo's hand froze. 
"Telemetry reads them as basestars, Devastator class. Sir, we're picking up 
high energy signatures--"
   Apollo's hand fell to his side as his eyes turned back to the screens. As 
the images tiled on the viewer were locked in, they hung steady. The only time 
one would change was if a channel was switched, or a signal lost.
   One screen flickered, flashed, and immediately duplicated the view 
immediately beside it as the communications computer failed to relocate the 
signal. By now everyone on the command tower was watching. Another screen 
flickered, to be replaced with a duplicate of the station next to it. Both 
those images disappeared, and one screen had four representations--for the 
three michrons that it remained on the air.
   As the officers stood helplessly, more and more of the civilian broadcasts 
disappeared from the airways.
   
   In the middle of the booming, roaring shockwave, the lights went out again. 
For a long centon the personnel in the defense coordination center could do 
nothing more than hold onto their shivering perches and crouch fearfully in 
the darkness.
   The shockwave lessened as it rolled past the central city. There were red 
flickers, and the battery-powered emergency lights came on. Amlev glanced 
around. "What have we got? Anything? Anything at all?" Another shudder shook 
the building, softer than the last one.
   Sergeant Herak carefully picked his way over to the coordination consoles, 
touched a pair of them briefly. "Negative, ma'am. That last shock did it. We 
have no power." He faced her in the dimness. "If what the commander says is 
true, we may not even have a defense network now to net back into. In fact, 
we--" He paused to brace against a console as another string of shudders shook 
the building. When things had calmed down he caught his commander's eye, 
started to speak. There was a pounding at the main door; all eyes turned to 
it.
   The pounding repeated itself, and words came through. "Hey! Anyone alive in 
there?"
   Amlev moved to the hatchway, elbowed through the press of bodies there. She 
tapped the opener, slapped it disgustedly, and nodded to a pair of corporals. 
Those worthies opened a panel beside the door, undogged a crank, and began 
manually opening the security-sealed doorway. It was hard work; the hatch was 
heavy, solid, intended to keep any attack or intrusion out of this critical 
area. And the building seemed to have shifted in the initial shock; the door 
stuck at first, coming free only reluctantly.
   Within a centon the hatch's edge emerged from the wall. While the warriors 
continued to work, Amlev put her face against the gap. "Who's out there?" A 
light shone in her face; she blinked, snapped irritatedly "And point that 
damned thing somewhere else!"
   "Tech sergeant Perrig." The light disappeared, becoming merely a lighter 
glow through the rapidly widening opening. "Any casualties in there?"
   "Negative," Amlev responded. "How quickly are we going to get power back?"
   Perrig shook his head, held up a personal communicator. "We're not going 
to. There's been a strike up the coast; the whole power grid's out. Apparently 
we stopped some supernukes just short of the event limit. We lost our backup 
power supply in the shockwave."
   "Installations built by the lowest bidder," Herak stage-whispered.
   Amlev glared at her NCOIC and cursed. "Ma'am, the commander's ordered the 
complex evacuated," Perrig informed her.
   "Evacuated?" There was a disbelieving babble behind her that she stilled 
with an upraised hand. "Evacuated?" she echoed. "That came from the 
Commander?"
   "From the commander himself, ma'am," Perrig told her, motioning with his 
communicator. "We've got people undogging the doors downstairs. Me and my 
squad came up here to help anyone that was stuck."
   "How can we just evac--" Amlev stared angrily. Perrig interrupted her 
urgently.
   "Ma'am, this complex is dead. This is not just an attack, this is the 
mother of all attacks. We managed to save Caprica City, for all the good it 
did us, but we can't do anything else. Anything. Word from downstairs is that 
the network was sabotaged; we can't do anything if we do get power. Only 
thing we can do is get out and help the civilians as much as possible."
   Amlev glared helplessly at the man as the hatchway ground to a stop. She 
let out her breath with an angry snort. "All right. Herak, get everyone 
outside. Perrig, is there a route cleared?" The man nodded. "Fine. You lead 
'em out."
   "What about you, ma'am?" Herak asked her as the personnel in the defense 
center began to stream into the dimly-lit corridor. She went to her console, 
picked her shoulder bag up and rejoined her top sergeant at the hatch.
   "Let's go, Herak," she muttered, picking her way past ceiling tiles that 
had fallen in the shock, plas crunching beneath her feet.
   He glanced pointedly at her dark briefcase. "State secrets or something, 
ma'am?"
   She shook her head, moved past him as he held a brace of wires out of the 
way. "It was a present for my daughter," she corrected him. "A network reader. 
I backed a lot of stuff on it testing it, and was using the center's software 
to run diagnostics on it. I'm pretty sure I've got plenty of technical 
information there. I think we're going to have a use for it soon."
   
   "Sir," Omega said. In spite of his low tone, everyone listened to him. 
"We're detecting multiple supernuclear impacts on the surface of the planet. 
Capriq Prime is off the air. Tsentri Needle reported incoming, and is now off 
the air as well. Rhita base is reporting lighter incoming fire, and appears to 
be defending itself. No one has reported fighters at all, just overwhelming 
ordnance." There was a long silence. More of the civilian broadcasts 
disappeared. There were only four different screens taking up eighteen tiles 
now; another disappeared as Tigh watched.
   "Are any defenses on the planet operational?" the executive officer asked 
when Adama remained quiet. Omega nodded, his eyes dull.
   "Luboka and Petrovid are still on the air and reporting operational. 
Caprica City was broadcasting intermittently. Sensors registered several 
intercepted strikes before it went off the air." Tigh glanced at his 
commander; Caprica City, aside from being the capital of Caprica itself, was 
the closest metropolis to Adama's ranch home Valerium, only centons away from 
the city's outskirts. "Seven outstations are making sporadic broadcasts, but 
their signals are weakening."
   "Keep me posted on the status of Rhita base," Tigh murmured. Omega nodded. 
"How much longer 'til breakout?"
   "Four centons and closing, sir," Omega said.
   All the warriors could do was watch, helplessly, as the people of Caprica 
died.
   
   When the glare faded and the wind died to normal gale proportions and the 
ground ceased to do anything but shiver occasionally, Serina dared to open her 
eyes, blinked away tears. The crashing of masonry and plas had stopped a 
moment earlier. Things seemed to have settled down. "Balab?" she asked, trying 
hard not to surrender to the screams she felt building within her. The man 
atop her, his hands covering her face, shifted, breathing heavily. At first 
glance he looked little worse for the wear, although he was dusty, his 
jumpsuit wrinkled. When he sat back and blinked dazedly at her, though, she 
saw the angry red of the back of his hands and neck. "Balab! Your hands!"
   The man glanced at them, reached back and touched his neck. "Ow." His eyes 
widened. "My God, Serina. They did it. They really did it."
   "Did what?" Serina asked, as confused as ever. Her subconscious still 
fought to keep her from admitting what she knew had happened, what was 
doubtlessly still happening. "Shot missiles at their own people?"
   "Serina, that was a cylon attack," Balab said, levering his bulk to his 
feet. He brushed futilely at his pants, grimaced at the grimy feel of them. 
"They must have stopped it just about as low as they could. Look," he 
suggested, motioning to the city behind her. Serina glanced around in 
trepidation, gasped in horror.
   Caprica City was burning. The horizon was no longer the pale blue-white of 
the city lights, but the dim orange of burning property. No lights were 
shining in any building; indeed, the far Presidium Pyramid was darker than its 
nearby brother, the ebony shadow of an impact crater marring the formerly 
smooth eastern face of the building. Many tall buildings had lost their 
windows sometime during the shockwave-induced hurricane; plas and metal 
glittered in the light of fires. Many other buildings had actually cracked; 
two had toppled.
   People were running, fleeing they knew not what, running they knew not 
where. Serina realized with a start that there had been screams in her ears 
for several long centons; she had simply not heard them.
   She turned dark, frightened eyes on her partner, who was just turning away 
from their newsvan, an odd look on his face. "Boxey? Where's Boxey?" she 
cried, the professional journalist disappearing behind a mother's concern.
   Balab nodded. She belatedly realized that he was yelling to make himself 
heard. Part of her wondered if this hearing loss was temporary, or if she 
would have partial deafness to cope with as well in her fight for survival. 
"Tatji's out there too. Let's go."
   "What about Wey?" Serina asked as Balab helped her to her feet. She glanced 
back at the news vehicle.
   "Don't worry about her," Balab told her, steering her away firmly. "Let's 
find the kids." Serina managed to catch only a glimpse of the vehicle. One 
side was still in the air as the truck's park field struggled valiantly to 
keep it in place; the other was actually touching the ground in contradiction 
of manufacturers' safety claims, weighed down by the huge ornamental stone 
column that had landed on it. Its windows had shattered, shards of plex 
dusting the ground. One small hand dangled from the warped rear door. A pool 
of blood had formed in the dirt beneath it; the flow had already slowed almost 
to a stop.
   
   Another quake shook the ground as Herak's people made their way out of the 
front door. There was no panic and remarkably little conversation. A noncom 
was loudly ordering people off in various directions; Herak listened briefly, 
nodded approvingly, and got his people's attention. "All right, everybody. 
Lifesaving drill. You know the game. Get these people off the streets, into 
the shelters. Get 'em moving and keep 'em moving."
   "Sergeant," corporal Denein spoke up hesitantly as the command crew broke, 
dispersed, each heading out to do what he could. "What about--I mean, my 
family--they--"
   Herak fixed the girl with a steely eye. "You're not gonna get to 'em 
anytime soon, spaceman. There's not going to be any public transport operating 
right now, and I'll lay you odds that every private vehicle out there got 
wiped by the same shock that ionized the comm nets." He softened his tone. "I 
know. I'm worried about my family, too. But we can do more good right now 
helping around here." He glanced upward by way of illustration, where the 
twilight sky, dimly reddish on the horizons, was filled with stars that moved. 
"Now get out there and show these people what colonial warriors are made of!"
   
   Another brace of missiles emerged from the endless depths of the basestar 
lowest in orbit. Several remaining partisan missiles had been cruising around 
above Caprica City, seeking targets. As the deadly cylon cargoes of death came 
within range, the defender missiles sought them out, detonating each well 
above the city; no destruction would be wrought by either the projectiles or 
their aftershocks this time. The last of the partisans destroyed itself and 
the last of the incoming hostiles together; had the cylons launched another 
round of missiles, Caprica City would have died in a nuclear firestorm.
   But the basestar that had launched the missiles had already orbited past 
optimum range for that metroplex. It would return and destroy that particular 
locale later.
   Or so its commander planned. That being gazed emotionlessly at the 
representation in its viewfield of the volcano that had replaced what had been 
this world's largest municipality, supervising the next use of the ship's 
fragile, horrifyingly destructive ripper cannon, when its group leader 
communicated with it. There is need for your devastator elsewhere, that worthy 
informed its subordinate.
   No thought of disappointment entered the cylon's thoughts; if it did not 
actually supervise the destruction of another city on this world of vermin, 
its fellow commanders would do so. It acknowledged the directive, issued its 
own orders.
   
   Shockwaves!
   The flares of light in the distant skies were just another series of 
sourceless terror to Serina. She screamed in spite of herself, hands over her 
ears, Balab shouting his own terror amid the thunder and chaos.
   In the near distance, screams and crashes rose even through the noise of 
the explosions. As Balab watched, another building, already cracked from both 
quakes and shockwaves, split in the middle and toppled majestically sideways. 
The building beside it toppled likewise on impact of the first, a topple-block 
effect that would have been amusing had the man not been all too aware of the 
number of human lives lost in the disaster. Louder cracks drew his attention 
to the Defense Building close by. There were few windows in the huge gray 
building, and most of those had long since come out; a number of the bodies 
lying still or, more horrifyingly, writhing in agony at the building's base 
had been struck by falling plas.
   The remaining trim on the building shattered concussively, fell in a 
glittering rain of razor-edged death. Balab shielded Serina as best he could, 
both from the sight and the fragments themselves. None of the fallout reached 
where the two crouched, hugging the masonry as though it were the strongest 
durinium shielding.
   The ground continued to tremble. Balab had no idea why; he had always been 
told that Caprica City's location along Doroga's eastern coast was 
tectonically stable. But something was going wrong. The city would come down 
around their ears any centon now. They had to find the children and get out 
while they still could.
   Near the flaming PEACE display, a small, bright-haired form caught his 
eye. His heart pounded; his breath stilled. "Tatji--?" He rose to his feet. 
Shrill cries drew his attention. On the stairs--God alone knew what the child 
had been doing up there when he had been told to remain near the newsvan--was 
Serina's youngster.
   "Serina! Serina!" he yelled at her. She shook her head, blinked tears away 
and looked up at him. "Boxey! He's up there! You go get him! I see Tatji!" 
Please, God, let her be all right... Serina's face had lost some of its 
distress at hearing her son's name; she glanced where her friend pointed. "Go 
get him and come back here! We've got to get out of here while we still can!" 
Serina nodded, stood with his aid, stumbled off. Balab didn't spare her 
another glance, his vision riveted by the still, small form of his only child.
   
   "Boxey! Boxey!" Serina screamed, picking her way across broken masonry 
and buckled pavement. She stumbled, twisting her ankle; she took no note of 
the injury. She slipped in scrambling up the stairs, scraping her hand against 
the rough-finished synthacrete. She gave the pain none of her attention, her 
vision focused on her son. "Boxey! Come here!" The child was huddled next to 
the staircase wall. At first, when he remained unmoving, another scream 
trembled in her throat at the fear that he might be dead. Then he heard her 
voice, lifted his head, looked around tearfully.
   "Momma?" she dimly heard amid the chaos.
   "I'm here, honey, I'm here," she cried, dashing over the last of the 
obstacles to clutch the boy frantically to her, kissing him hysterically, 
holding him so tightly that he protested in pain and fright a moment later.
   Over her head, one of the last remaining ornamental columns, ironically 
placed as a tribute to the founders of the city centurons ago, rocked and 
teetered. Serina, partially deafened, did not hear the stone groaning and 
shifting.
   "Muffit," Boxey cried suddenly, struggling in his mother's arms. "Muffit! 
Where's Muffit?"
   Serina glanced up, all around. Her terror had only been eased by the 
recovery of her son, not banished. Nonetheless, she did not have it in her to 
leave a defenseless house pet here to die in this hell. "Don't worry, honey," 
she offered what comfort she could to the boy, "he'll be all right. We'll find 
him."
   "I want Muffit," Boxey insisted, squirming.
   Serina tightened her hold on him. "We'll find him," she said again, 
stroking his hair, trying to offer to him the solace that no one could offer 
to her.
   
   Herak spotted a huge man running across the area. "Hey!" he yelled. 
"Mister! Evacuate the mall!" The man paid him no attention, stopping by one of 
the multitude of still forms that littered the pentangle. Herak swore softly, 
jogged over to the civilian's side.
   As he reached the man, he heard a laugh of relief, almost hysterical in 
tone. "Sir!" Herak yelled again. This time the man jerked his head around, 
startled, frightened. "Sir, you've got to get out of here. The rest of these 
buildings could go any time!"
   "My daughter's alive," the man sobbed in relief, a dirty sleeve dragged 
across his face leaving a dusty smear.
   "Good. C'mon, let's get you and her out of here." Herak stooped, lifted 
the unconscious child, gave her to her father at that man's insistence. Herak 
turned to leave, stopped as the man moved in the opposite direction. "God 
damn it," the soldier muttered, caught the civilian's arm. "Not that way! 
This way!"
   The man shook his thick head. "My partner's up there! Her son took cover on 
the balustrade!" Herak glanced in that direction, spotted a dark-haired woman 
crouching with a small boy in her arms. He nodded, pointed at the way that 
seemed to offer the least peril. "You go that way!" he said loudly, 
punctuating his words with gestures. "I'll go get her!" The man nodded, turned 
and scooted away with remarkable speed and agility for a person of his build.
   Herak jogged nimbly across the grubble, nodding to the few other military 
that were still in the area. "Hey! Ma'am!" he hollered. The woman took no note 
of him, and he realized only belatedly that anyone outside was likely to have 
suffered hearing impairment from the recent explosions. "Frack!" A ponderous 
creaking drew his attention from the stonework that he was scrambling across; 
he tracked the sound to its source, saw the column right above the woman 
rocking slowly, about to topple and crush her and the child. "Oh, dobe! 
Lady! Move!"
   Serina looked up at a voice in the soft-edged silence of her world. A man 
in a warrior's uniform was scrambling up the staircase toward her, shouting 
something. He was pointing up, past her. Confused, she glanced behind her, saw 
the column teetering. Terror paralyzed her.
   The warrior struck her in a body blow, knocking her to the next step up the 
stairway. There was a tremendous crash, one more felt than heard, and dust 
flew. Serina huddled close to her son, held him tight, waited long michrons. 
When the tremors stopped, she opened her eyes and looked around.
   Her foot was barely a centim from the heavy green marble of the ceremonial 
marker; part of her dress was actually caught under the stonework. A man's 
hand poked from beneath the pillar; as she watched in horror, a trickle of 
blood emerged, flowed into the cracks in the stairs.
   
   "Breakout in eight decentons, sir," Omega snapped.
   Adama nodded slowly, spoke softly. "Replot our breakout closer to Caprica," 
he ordered.
   "Sir, that's not recommended," Tigh pointed out. "We could--"
   "Tigh!" Adama retorted loudly, then lowered his voice. "There are three 
basestars ravaging the planet. The less warning we give them, the better our 
chances will be of surviving this encounter." He looked pointedly at Omega. 
"Bring us out at maximum engagement distance, Captain, on a closing course."
   "Aye, sir," Omega replied slowly, relayed the orders to the helm.
   "Ready all ship-to-ship batteries," Tigh snapped into his headphone. 
"Shipboard defense systems, report your status."
   "Revised breakout time is now--seven point seven decentons and counting," 
Omega reported coolly.
   Apollo had nothing to do; there was no task on the bridge that he could 
perform that required his assistance. He could only stand and watch and wait. 
Three basestars, he thought, unable to tear his eyes from the twin screens 
over the nav ring that now showed the battlestar's approach on tactical. The 
remote sensors were building a hatefully complete picture of the devastation 
that had been wrought in just the past centons. No cities were on the air any 
more; fewer and fewer of the planetary defenses were broadcasting. Caprica's 
main orbital station had ceased to exist; a glowing, dimming cloud shone like 
a star where it had circled for centuries as a guardian presence. The proud 
orbital elevator at Tsentri had been sheared off, was even now still toppling 
destructively to the surface so far below it. Three basestars. Against one 
battlestar. We don't have a chance in hell.
   "All stations, full alert," Tigh ordered. The man glanced at the display 
that had hypnotized Apollo, then looked pointedly at his commander. "Sir, I 
recommend a full spread of shipkillers immediately on reemergence." The 
battlestar carried few enough of the supermissiles that they were usually 
conserved for close-range conflict, something no one now wanted to engage in. 
Tigh lowered his voice. "Against three basestars we haven't much of a chance, 
but we may be able to account for at least two of them if--"
   "Sir!" Omega's cry drew the other three men's attention; they glanced back 
to the tac display as he pointed. On it, the form of one of the three 
basestars, a baleful orange circle, flared, telemetry readings scrolling 
beside it faster than could be read or registered. Then it was gone.
   "Four decentons to breakout," the executive captain said into the dead 
silence.
   "Solaria," Adama whispered. "Doesley reached Scorp."
   "They've bought us a chance, Adama," Tigh muttered. "Let's use it." Adama 
nodded acquiescence. "Prepare for breakout! All stations, prepare for 
sublight. Helm, I want a course of four-seventy-seven twenty-three, full 
combat speed, immediately on breakout. Defense, I want that trailing basestar 
to take everything we've got in the first salvo." Adama remained silent, 
gazing at the tac screen, as Tigh continued to snap orders. The bridge grew 
steadily tenser as the time of engagement drew closer.
   "Breakout in five, four, three, two, one," Omega chanted. "Breakout! We are 
subluminal!"
   "All batteries, commence fire!" Tigh bellowed.
   
   As Serina clambered to her feet the ground trembled once, then again, 
harder, then rippled with a horrific subterranean groaning. The earthquake 
shook the buildings of the city as the atmospheric explosions earlier had 
failed to do, structures bending, breaking, falling in an orgy of thunder and 
death. Serina screamed, unheard amid the cacophony, and clutched her son 
tightly beneath her sheltering body.
   
   "Status!" the base commander roared. One hand brushed at a persistent itch 
on his head; he ignored it when his hand came back bloody.
   "Incoming! Two hypers, four supers, targeting this base!" ops called back.
   "Partisan support?" the commander asked.
   Ops shook his head. "Not a chance, sir. We're down to a couple of shots 
anyway. We've had it." He paused. "We might be able to divert power to the 
shields."
   "Would it even stop the supers?" Ops shook his head curtly. The commander 
lost no time to indecision. "Right. Fire control, target the leading basestar. 
I want everything cannon one is capable of."
   "Single shot'll blow the cannon, sir," the noncom at the trigger control 
advised.
   "Will the shot get through?" was the commander's question.
   "Yes, sir," the noncom reported.
   "Do it. Take that bastard out."
   The lights dimmed as the cannon exploded with light and energy, michrons 
before the first of the arriving cylon salvo struck the last remaining 
planetary defense base.
   
   The tac screen sparkled with traces as dozens of missiles, of all sizes and 
power ratings, trailed off toward the rear battlestar. "Helm!" Tigh cried. 
"Bring us around on an intercept course with that--holee--" The secondary 
screen, duplicating the Wall on the World in its realspace view, lit with an 
unbearably bright flash; everyone turned away, shielding their eyes. "Yes!" 
he hissed triumphantly an instant later, his exultation echoed by those around 
him.
   The beam from the planetary cannon was thick enough to be visible even at 
outer orbit distances, bright enough to blind unshielded eyes, shining a 
painful violet, lasting for long michrons. It punched into the first of the 
two orbiting killers, blasting completely through only michrons later. Unable 
to sustain such overload conditions for long, the cannon's containment fields 
began to waver. The beam twitched, raking the basestar further. Then the 
cannon's fields began to fail. The last of the beam was a huge pulse that tore 
the cylon vessel apart at the center. A massive explosion filled space where 
the top and bottom of the basestar had joined. When the light began to die, 
the top section of the attacking ship was spinning off into space, internal 
lights flickering and dying, secondary explosions and the crackling lines of 
disintegrating metal crawling across its darkening skin. The lower half, still 
belching flame and debris, tumbling end over end, began a long, fatal descent 
into the atmosphere.
   Explosions were bright pinpricks on the surface of the planet as the human 
defense installation was destroyed by its own overloaded weaponry. Michrons 
later the flares grew in intensity as the cylon missiles struck.
   "They did it," Tigh breathed. "They took it out."
   "They bought us the time and grace to get the third one," Adama added. 
"Let's not waste it. All stations, retarget the remaining basestar. Second 
salvo, commence fire. All weapons, open fire."
   "All stations acknowledge, sir," Omega reported. On the screen, further 
threads of light could be seen, stretching with majestic slowness from the 
colonial vessel to its alien counterpart.
   As the watched, the first salvo of shipkiller missiles reached the cylon. 
That alien commander had been startled by the unexpectedly sudden destruction 
of its compatriot; the incoming missiles from a source that had only just 
appeared from nothingness apparently confused it even further. A couple of the 
missiles were stopped by a surprisingly weak net of defenses; then explosions 
flared against the dark hull. A cheer went up from the command bridge at the 
sight; the colonials were finally striking back against a concrete target.
   However surprised the alien commander was, it recovered quickly. Its 
defenses began to account for the incoming missiles of the Galactica's 
second salvo, even as the battlestar's c-beam and blazer cannons were raking 
the devastator's already shattered skin. The battlestar shivered as the first 
cylon beams struck, raking the starboard landing bay. As Artemis and Athena 
coolly ordered damage control measures Adama and Tigh nodded, kept watching, 
snapping occasional quiet orders to their headsets.
   The battlestar, still decelerating, swung about majestically, paralleling 
the wounded basestar's course. The two ships traded fire, both shuddering 
mightily at the impact of beams and missile strikes.
   Enough of the missiles were getting through that eventually the battlestar 
began to feel it. Sirens wailed, the lights flickering briefly; a trio of 
cylon missiles gouted fire from the underside of the engine section. The 
ship's fuel lines immediately sealed themselves off, but the impact craters 
continued to belch flame and debris for long centons afterward.
   "Direct hit on engine 3, sir," Omega snapped. "Engineering reports the 
damage is restricted and rerouting is effective." Adama nodded 
acknowledgement.
   "Ops!" Tigh said. "Damage estimate on the cylon. Where's our best bet to 
hit--what's wrong?" The look on Artemis' face was completely nonplused.
   "Sir--" she started, stopped and double-checked. "Sir, I show defenders and 
protectors outbound on a course to intercept that basestar!"
   "Defenders?" Adama asked unbelievingly.
   "Protectors?" Tigh queried, equally doubtful. Their eyes met in sudden 
shared understanding. "The Rangers! They were still outside!"
   On the tac screen, tiny dots circled with the colors of colonial vessels 
crawled toward the bright red circle that represented the cylon. Brighter 
lines bloomed; the surviving rangers had opened fire on the cylon. "Defend 
those mechs!" Adama ordered. Omega passed the command on to weaponry. "Ops! 
Get them back here! They'll be of more use to us alive than dead!"
   The secondary tac screen blinked, shifted its view to realspace. A band of 
defenders floated in space before the battlestar's nose, jets flaring in the 
darkness. Even as the crew watched, the mecha opened fire, seemingly raking 
space at random. When a chain of explosions filled space, they realized that 
the giant combat crafts had neutralized another missile attack. With almost 
visible reluctance, the man-shaped vehicles began to drift back to their home 
vessel, still firing on both incoming missiles and the more distant target of 
the basestar.
   The two city-sized vehicles of destruction, colonial and cylon, continued 
to swamp each other's defenses. Omega stopped even reporting effective 
strikes; too many of the cylon's projectiles were getting through. Fewer than 
expected; the still-independent rangers were catching more than their fair 
share, taking much of the load off of the overburdened automatic defenses.
   An opening presented itself with startling suddenness. A trio of colonial 
missiles managed to rock the mortally wounded basestar, set it spinning. 
Before its commander could stabilize its ship, Adama and Tigh echoed one 
another. "Main C cannon! Target and destroy the junction!"
   The screen flared, darkened automatically as the glittering beam of pure 
destruction reached out from the battlestar, touching with deceptive 
gentleness the center of the basestar where the two polygonal halves joined. 
An explosion flared, brightening suddenly as the overstressed cylon shields 
flashed into the ultraviolet and collapsed. An even larger explosion came just 
michrons later; the cylon's upper hull was a black circle against the yellow-
orange of flame and energy; as the colonials watched, that hull slowly 
disintegrated, engulfed in destruction.
   For a moment, disbelieving silence held sway on the bridge; then, as the 
sensors confirmed the kill, a triumphant roar shook the walls. Everyone 
managed to find something to rejoice about in the destruction of their final 
enemy.
   Even as the light of the dead basestar was dimming again, Adama turned. 
"Damage control. Report as soon as possible. Omega, are sensors detecting any 
other cylon vessels in this area?"
   Omega paused to check with that station. "Negative, sir. There's been no 
sign of deployed fighters, and apparently there were only three basestars in 
orbit to begin with. The first intel believes went to Scorp. We detect what's 
left of the second in far orbit; there is no sign of life or operation. That 
was the last of them."
   "Excellent. Take us out to far orbit. I want room to maneuver if any more 
show up."
   Omega nodded. Athena lifted her head, caught her father's eye. "Sir."
   Adama hiked an eyebrow, motioned for Athena to join them on the podium; her 
attitude bespoke news that did not bear loud issuance.
   The girl stopped facing him. Her eyes were red, but her voice was firm. She 
had pushed her own grief back, meeting her father's gaze unblinkingly. "Sir, 
we are not picking up any communications from the surface. There are no 
stations broadcasting." Adama nodded somberly; he had expected this, however 
gut-wrenching the news was.
   He turned to Omega. "Any communications remaining with Rhita base?"
   Omega shook his head. "Not right now, sir, but unlike the surface stations, 
I'm getting an intermittent carrier wave from the base."
   "See that communications gives priority to reestablishing contact with 
them, if it's possible," Adama ordered. Rhita Base had been Caprica's major 
off-planet military installation; if it had survived, it would make a good 
secondary operations base. The commander turned to Athena. "See that Wilker 
and his department are furnished with all available sensor readings. Tell him 
I want a rough analysis and prediction of immediate ecological and 
environmental problems on Caprica within two centars. A more detailed outline 
can wait; I just want the broad picture."
   "Yes, sir."
   Adama turned to Tigh. "Tell Salik to mobilize every medic he's got. I want 
them ready to move on a moment's notice when we've ascertained that it is safe 
to send down landing parties." Tigh nodded. Adama moved to the other side of 
the podium. "Lieutenant Artemis." The girl looked up from her panel. "What 
readings from Cimtar?" Those within earshot grew very quiet; for a few centons 
everyone had managed to forget the pilots and support ships they had been 
forced to abandon on their mission of mercy.
   Artemis' voice was flat, emotionless. "No readings whatsoever, sir. The 
jamming field is still cloaking that area of the system."
   Adama sagged, leaned an elbow against Omega's console. Tigh braced himself, 
spoke. "Sir, could we perhaps still get to Scorp in time, support the 
Solaria? Or get to Sagitarra and bolster their defenses?"
   "Sagitarra's in flames, sir." Omega's voice barely hinted at the pain he 
felt in speaking of his own homeworld's demise. "No signals, no carrier. Long-
range telemetry reports three basestars at Scorp. No battlestar."
   "A single battlestar against four basestars was never a contest," Tigh 
responded bitterly.
   "They bought us the time to defend one colony," Adama reminded him. "We may 
salvage something yet. What about Virgon?" he asked Omega quietly. Virgon was 
at its closest approach to Caprica right now.
   "No telemetry. There are no intercolony beacons currently on the air." 
Omega turned back to his panel emotionlessly. Adama and Tigh locked gazes.
   "Get us into orbit," Adama finally repeated. "Full cloaking and shielding. 
Get the rangers back aboard. As soon as we have inserted into orbit, get a 
pair of shuttles to Rhita base. Reestablish communications with the surface as 
soon as possible."
   "Assuming it's even possible."
   "And see that they continue monitoring Cimtar and the ambush site. If they 
can reestablish contact with the fighters, talk them back to us."
   "Recommend sending out support ships, sir," Tigh said. Adama shook his 
head.
   "Our priority right now is the planet beneath us. Once we have achieved a 
guardian orbit, we will make our next move."
   "Which is?" Tigh asked.
   "Which is?" Adama echoed. "For now, we will only prepare for our further 
action. Until then, we wait and see what the cylons do next."

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Boomer's finger lightly touched the activate button of his comm system, 
not quite depressing it. Then, as he had done the last number of times, he 
pulled his finger back. He still bring himself to break the eerie silence that 
had filled his cockpit in the last forty-some centons since the cylons, 
without warning or explanation, had turned and left, great shimmering clouds 
of uncounted thousands of alien fighters simply wheeling in space and 
departing.
    He had not tracked them in his departure--to do so would have been to 
signal his existence to them, and when a superior force had damaged you, logic 
stated that it was lunacy to draw that attacker's attention back to you. His 
passive sensors had lost the cylons when their attack fleet vanished into the 
void of superlight flight.
   And Boomer had sat, nervous, growing more tense by the centon as his own 
fertile imagination supplied the phantasms his sensors failed to show.
   Dammit! he thought angrily. This isn't getting anything accomplished! 
Better to go out like a leus than a mwish! He placed his finger on the 
activate button, then paused. Logic could still offer a solution to the 
problems presented by adrenaline.
   He dialed his power down low, then activated his communicator. For the 
first time in almost a half centar he heard the faint hiss of static, the roar 
of cosmic background that was ever-present in the best of communications 
systems. His fingers danced across his board, activated his sensor array 
again. Within michrons his HUD began showing tracks in space. A few, he was 
elated to see, showed the emerald of friendly forces, their data indicating 
them to be still functional.
   To his distress, there were far more yellow indicators on his screen than 
green. There were too many emergency transponders here in space. Part of him 
marveled that so many ships had survived the onslaught; another part marveled 
that the transponders had not immediately drawn hostile fire.
   His eyes searched the display, failed to find the track he wanted. "Jolly?" 
he said, his voice automatically lowered although the system was handling the 
volume. "Jolly? Lieutenant Jolly, do you read? Respond, please." He listened, 
his insides winding tighter with the long michrons of crackling silence. 
Dammit, Jolly, answer! You're a survivor!
   "Boomer?" came the whisper in his ears. Boomer's control slipped briefly 
with an elated whoop; then he increased his transmitter power slightly.
   "Jolly! Thank God! Turn on your transponder; I don't see you on my scope."
   "You're not going to, either," his wingman's voice rattled a laugh. "I 
took a couple of sideswipes. Guess the transponder was quick to go."
   "Jolly!" Boomer's voice was edged with concern. "How bad--"
   "Still good to go, Boomer," his friend assured him. "I could still 
fight, if I had anything left to fight with."
   "How's your power?"
   "Still good. I can go, if you know anywhere we have to get to." Jolly 
laughed, and Boomer felt relief wash through him; at least he was not going to 
die alone. "I've got you on my display. How about I talk you over to me?"
   "Sounds good to me, buddy." Boomer nudged his ship forward, waited.
   After a few michrons, Jolly continued. "All right. I've got your heading. 
Come around four-twenty by sixty-seven by seven-thirty. That'll put you in my 
area in just a few centons."
   "On my way." Boomer was silent for long centons. "Jolly? You got anyone 
else out there?" he finally said.
   "I'm picking up lots of traces," his wingman responded. "No comms except 
you. If they're smart, they went to silent running when the cylons pulled out. 
Speaking of which--"
   "No idea," Boomer reluctantly admitted. "As soon as they turned around and 
headed out I went quiet; figured I could watch and see where to go next." He 
laughed bitterly. "Lot of good that move did."
   "Yeah," Jolly said sadly. "All the battlestars are gone, all the 
carriers and blastships. I think I've got traces on a couple of corvettes, 
maybe a couple of cutters, and I show a couple of dozen fighters of all sizes. 
I'm not getting any comms, though."
   "They're not stupid. We may have to find 'em physically to get 'em to talk 
to us."
   Jolly's voice was quieter still as he asked, "Your long range comms still 
up?"
   "Yes." Boomer knew what his friend was going to ask. "I'm not receiving 
anything on the civilian beacons. The STL stuff I'm getting is still old; no 
FTL at all. If any of the STL stations are still on the air it'll take almost 
a day for us to find out out here." Ghostly broadcasts that had already 
outlived their civilization, drifting through space in a false illusion of 
life. "One station was talking about their representatives just leaving for 
Cimtar."
   "Yeah. So where do we go from here?"
   "We'll figure that out after we link up." Boomer glanced back to his 
display; the indicator he had decided was his wingman was close enough now 
that he might spot him by eye. "Take a look around. I'm going to flash my 
spots." He did as he had said; Jolly's voice was elated.
   "I saw you! You're up and port of me."
   Boomer reoriented his ship, saw a quick flash of light. "Right. I've got 
you spotted. Here I come."
   Jolly and Boomer, their ships aligned, exchanged thumbs up, then got down 
to business. "All right. Now what?" Even as Boomer took a breath to respond 
another voice crackled in his ears.
   "Jolly! Boomer! Is that you guys?"
   "Starbuck?!" Jolly laughed excitedly; Boomer just leaned his head back, 
closed his eyes. There were other survivors. They might have a chance at 
getting away from here yet.
   "Yeah, 's me." The daredevil's voice was curiously subdued, for all the 
relief apparent in it. "You guys know anybody else that survived?"
   "Just linked up ourselves," Jolly responded. "Get over here and join us. 
Where's Giles?" As Boomer glanced at his HUD to track Starbuck's flier, he 
saw several other green traces moving.
   "Guys," he told them cheerfully, "I think we've got family coming in to 
roost."

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Wilker's thin face was haggard, his eyes shiny. The other command officers 
had been given the anodyne of adrenaline and victory in their combat; he had 
had to face this nightmare cold.
   "Sir, I recommend that we adjourn to your office," he told Adama.
   The commander shook his head tiredly. "These people are not children, 
Wilker. I am confident in their ability to--"
   "Sir!" Wilker's voice barely rose as he interrupted. "Sir," he continued 
more quietly, "I really recommend that this briefing be restricted." Adama 
locked gazes with the battlestar's physical sciences officer. Something in the 
man's haunted expression got through to him. He nodded slowly. "Tigh, Omega, 
Athena. Join me in my office. Lieutenant Artemis, you have the bridge."
   "Sir," the girl acknowledged, switching her board's functions to Omega's 
normal post.
   "I've already asked Dr. Salik to meet us there," Wilker murmured as the 
party wound its way past the navigation and communications section.
   As soon as the door closed behind him, Adama fixed Wilker with a steely 
eye. "Now, Doctor," he said formally, "your report." Wilker paused another 
moment, fiddling with the projector. Finally a global hologram of Caprica pre-
attack blossomed over the briefing table. Wilker continued typing, and a 
second globe appeared beside the first. Lines began to sketch themselves in 
midair, joining pristine and discolored areas of the two globes. Finally 
satisfied, Wilker stood up.
   "Sir, you'll have to understand that this is just the broad picture. My 
people are still running simulations on the data that we've received. I don't 
anticipate a really complete report any sooner than about five centars."
   Tigh's lips pursed. "A half day? Is there that much data to go through?"
   Wilker looked bleakly at him. "Not the data; the simulations. We're getting 
the final predictions on the planetary outlook."
   "You mean when Caprica will have recovered from the attack?" Athena asked 
softly.
   "Not when," Wilker said evenly. "If."
   "Your report, Wilker," Adama insisted quietly.
   "Yes, sir. You know the cylons had three devastator class basestars in 
orbit over Caprica," he began. Three small red double diamonds orbited the 
Caprica pre-attack holo. "No shocks were detected, and hyperlight shocks are 
almost impossible to completely damp. The best that intel has been able to 
offer us is that the basestars--all of them--emerged somewhere either very 
distant and snuck in sublight, or that they risked emerging between some of 
the central suns--Helis and Polla, for example, were in a very favorable 
lineup just a few sectars ago. In any case, they made their approach 
successfully.
   "Once in orbit, of course, they decloaked and began their attack. The 
primary methods of attack were warheads and c-beams. Sensor readings show that 
no less than seven thousand two hundred and fourteen missiles, with charges 
ranging from twenty megakil to three gigakil, reached their targets. I won't 
give you a list of the cities that were destroyed, but over ninety percent of 
Caprica's industrial and economic centers no longer exist. Every military base 
on the planet was a target as well. For some reason--we still don't know why--
every attack on a military base succeeded. There are no bases intact on the 
surface.
   "Defenses in seven metropols either held off the attacks or sufficiently 
blunted the force that the cylons could bring to bear. While we have no 
contact except for amateur communicators and a very few isolated military 
personnel who had the good fortune to be away from their bases at the time of 
attack, we do know that there are survivors. It's probable that certain 
locations not struck, such as the Dausyn Outback in Pullos, were deemed lesser 
or inconsequential targets, being agricultural in nature. We may never know 
for certain. Aqessoni, even more heavily agricultural, took some of the first 
strikes."
   "Where do we have contacts right now, Wilker?" Tigh asked quietly.
   Wilker's fingers brushed several widespread locations on the Caprica post-
attack holo. "Aside from the scattered individuals, we have sufficient 
contacts from Tervetuloa, Enido, New Excamelo, North Akon, Motiakston, 
Peppercul and Caprica City to establish that those cities survived. How intact 
we still don't know." He glanced askance at Athena.
   Athena's voice was low but steady. "Most of the survivors we have talked to 
are still asking for details themselves. In Enido and Caprica City we were 
able to determine that the attacks were actually stopped at a much lower 
altitude than they should have been."
   Wilker nodded. "That's just the nukes," he pointed out somberly. "It gets 
very much worse, sir.
   "Intel reported that the cylons used a ripper on two separate locations--
Manabe, in northern Eriat, and New Bassior, in the southern Iczer Ocean." 
Adama closed his eyes, sighed deeply. "Both of those locations are now 
volcanos, both throwing dust into the atmosphere. Within a day at most, there 
won't be any sunlight to work with on half the planet, which will create its 
own power problems, if anywhere still has an intact power array. In addition, 
the lightning storms that resulted from the ripper strikes are spreading as 
the atmospheric disturbances feed on themselves."
   He stopped, collected his thoughts. "And sir? I emphasized that the 
basestars must have snuck in close sublight because there were no FTL/STL 
shocks detected. When the third basestar left to assist those at Scorp with 
their attack on the Solaria, sensors detected massive tectonic disturbances. 
There was enough crustal stress piled up that, just after our breakout, 
massive quakes struck most of the planet. I don't believe we actually 
triggered the earthquakes by ourselves, but there was enough slippage piled 
up, and on top of the cylon attack and departure, our breakout was the last 
straw."
   "What losses to the earthquakes?" Adama asked quietly.
   "We don't know yet, sir," the scientist responded. "The quakes are still 
ongoing in several locations. I hope this isn't the big one where you lose 
Friscangelos," he added.
   "Anything else?" Omega pressed matter-of-factly. Wilker glared tiredly at 
him.
   "The second of the remaining basestars was disabled by one of the last 
ground stations. The basestar's upper hemisphere is assuming a high orbit over 
Caprica at this time. The lower half went down in the Golnii Ocean, off 
western Doroga, about five kiloms from Doroenia." He fell silent momentarily 
as Salik pounded his fist on the table; the battlestar's chief physician had 
had family in that area. Wilker swallowed, continued, having no way to soften 
the blows to his friend. "We won't know for some time how much damage will be 
caused by that; the tidal waves are still continuing. That, on top of the 
earthquakes...it didn't do that part of the planet any good."
   Wilker's fingers touched a tiny golden thread stretching into open air from 
the pre-attack Caprica image. "The Tsentri Needle was one of the cylons' first 
targets. They struck it in seventeen different locations, shearing it off."
   "Where was Capriq Prime during all this?" Omega asked.
   "Capriq Prime was the first target the cylons hit," Wilker said, and 
shivered. "Our telemetry at that range was rough-edged, but it appeared that 
one basestar was almost on top of the station when they uncloaked. We'll never 
know for sure, but it's certain the Needle had no defender when the attack 
came." He cleared his throat, continued. "The needle finally finished 
impacting on the surface four decentons ago." His long fingers traced a dark 
smear on the Caprica post-attack picture. "The strike zone is about twenty 
kiloms across, and almost a thousand long. Aside from the impact itself, there 
has been so much dust thrown up that readings are now almost impossible. Even 
if there are survivors in that area, it will take days for the dust to filter 
out of the atmosphere."
   "If it can," Salik spat. Wilker nodded sadly.
   "That's one of the primary points, sir," he said. "Coming to the point of 
this: Caprica is in bad shape now, and it will not be getting any better any 
time soon. You're looking at a nuclear winter with a vengeance. There are 
nuclear strike areas, two new volcanoes whose calderas are bigger than most 
cities, vaporized and liquid ocean thrown up from the basestar crash, more 
dust and fires from the Needle's strike, and earthquakes. Plus, our 
simulations indicate that after about three years of a mini-ice age, Caprica 
will turn into a hothouse hell. The same five suns that have made it a 
paradise will cause an escalating greenhouse effect. Sir, intel was still 
uncertain why the cylon signals from the rest of the system stopped about a 
half-centar ago, but it doesn't really matter. They didn't have to do any 
more damage. Short of a miracle of God, Caprica will be completely 
uninhabitable within a jahron. And frankly, sir, the other colonies that had 
no battlestar to protect them must have fared even worse."
   There was a long silence in the room. Truly, no one knew what to say.
   Adama, the strength in the darkness, finally spoke. "The survivors. What 
are the primary problems going to be for them?"
   Wilker snorted in spite of himself. He was not insensitive; it was just 
that even his legendary dissociative nature had reached its limits. "What 
aren't going to be problems for them? Those who survived in the cities are 
going to have the normal physical damage--from scrapes to broken limbs. A 
bigger problem will be rad damage; even stopping the nukes and supers will 
have released a lot of damaging radiation."
   "Types?" Tigh snapped.
   "Salik's gotten the report." The medico nodded angrily. "In general, 
anything you can think of, they'll likely need treatment for." Wilker 
swallowed. "The outlook is a bit better outside of the metropoli. In the 
country, we may find survivors who are actually uninjured. There won't be any 
technology to help us treat anyone."
   Athena spoke in his pause. "Are you saying there's nothing we can do to 
help these people?"
   Salik turned to her. "What he's saying is that this battlestar is probably 
the last remaining source of help for these people, Lieutenant. There'll be 
no power, no light or heat or water, across most of the planet." The doctor 
turned to the commander, concern bright in his eyes. "Sir, my people have been 
ready for three quarters of a centar. We can start ferrying down to the sites 
in greatest need and begin administering aid."
   "And be trapped down there if the cylons come back?" Tigh snapped. "I don't 
think so."
   "Tigh, we may be the last, best hope some of these people will have to come 
through this disaster with their lives," Salik insisted. "The medical 
department is prepared to take that risk."
   "I'm not certain we're prepared to risk you, though, Salik," Tigh responded 
angrily. An argument was brewing; Adama could feel the tension growing.
   He raised his hand, drew everyone's attention. "Wilker." That worthy looked 
at him. "What is your estimate of the survivors' chances? How long do they 
have, without aid?" Wilker looked at Salik, nodded for him to respond.
   Salik turned to Adama. "Sir, the critically injured will be dying right 
now. Those with less severe injuries may hold out a couple of days, but the 
science department reported that weather patterns are already horrifyingly 
disrupted, and getting worse visibly. Within a day, most of the surface will 
likely be twenty, as much as thirty degrees below the normal temperature for 
this time of year. Anyone outside and unprotected from the elements won't 
survive long. We're talking torrential rainstorms and blizzards. If they get 
sleet, it could be that much worse."
   "Your recommendation?"
   Salik slammed his hand on the table. "Sir, you've already heard my 
recommendation! Let me and my people get down there and start trying to help."
   "And what kind of long-range plan are you suggesting?" Adama countered 
quietly. Salik was angrily silent. When Tigh started to speak Adama held up a 
silencing hand. He was quiet for a moment, contemplating all that had been 
said.
   Finally, he looked up. "Wilker. What city is in the best overall shape?"
   "Caprica City, according to data," Wilker responded, "but sir--"
   Adama motioned him to silence. "Salik. Have your personnel report to the 
launch bays. You will await further orders there. Leave a detachment aboard 
sufficient to handle on-board medical needs." Adama looked at Omega. "Order my 
personal shuttle prepared, Captain," he further ordered.
   Omega the unflappable blinked. "Sir?"
   "I'm going down to the surface."
   The immediate uproar that this bald statement engendered was still not loud 
enough to drown out Tigh's voice. "Belay that, Omega! Commander, there is no 
way you can go to the surface at this time! If the cylons were to come back 
while you were down there--"
   Adama continued quietly, as though his exec had not spoken. "Maintain full 
cloaking. Stealth fields full out as well. Maintain a high orbit--put us in 
geosynchronous orbit about a thousand kiloms from Rhya." He rose slowly, 
tiredly. "Continue efforts to reestablish contact with Rhita Base, and with 
the other colonies."
   "Commander--" Tigh began dangerously.
   "Sir, at the least, take a fighter escort," Athena interrupted. Tigh glared 
angrily at her, back at his friend.
   "As exec, I have to insist on that, sir. You may be the commander of 
the last remaining warship of the Colonies. If you insist on this lunacy, 
you're going to be protected." Adama nodded quietly. "Very well. I expect 
regular contact, sir. If your signal goes out I'm going to have marines at 
your location. As a matter of fact..." He turned to Omega. "Get a squad of 
ground forcers to the command deck. Orders to accompany and guard the 
commander." Omega nodded. Tigh turned back to Adama. His voice softened. "I 
mean it, Adama. I want regular contact. There's no telling what conditions are 
like down there right now, and we can't afford to lose you."
   "Understood, Colonel," his friend said. "Doctor, if you'll prepare your 
teams for deployment?" He remembered a point, turned to his daughter. 
"Lieutenant, what is the status at Cimtar?"
   Athena stared dully at him. "All cylons communications ceased approximately 
a half centar ago, sir," she reported. Adama nodded his knowledge of this 
fact. "Past that, we have detected nothing from that region of the system. If 
any of our wing survived, they are not broadcasting."
   Adama bowed his head tiredly, raised it after a few michrons of silence. 
"Major Dzhillin," he addressed the until-now silent flight commander of the 
battlestar, "I want to speak to you for a moment. Doctor," to Wilker, "I'd 
like to speak to you first. Privately." Wilker raised a confused eyebrow but 
circled the table to join him.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   The brothers stood at the rear gate of Alpha Bay, staring in silence at the 
quiet immensity of space. Below and behind the ship, clearly visible to them, 
their homeworld burned. Most of the surface was well-lit; this time of year, 
there was no true night on Caprica. The bright blue oceans and green plains 
and brown prairies and sparkling, barely-present ice caps--all were smudgy and 
gray now. Vast parts of the surface were already obscured by whirling storm 
systems. Apollo watched one hurricane spin across the central plains of his 
own homeland and felt sick; to be moving visibly at this distance, the storm 
system must have been moving at almost sonic speeds--a type of storm that had 
never until now touched the landlocked pampas. None of the cities there would 
have been built to withstand such pressures; likely little would be standing 
just centars from now. Across the distant southern horizon a dull red glow 
burned; God alone knew what had happened there, but it had not been 
beneficial.
   Zac turned away, limping slightly. "I can't look any more, Apollo," he 
whispered. "I--"
   Apollo turned, put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "We couldn't have 
done anything more," he offered, in desperate need of some solace himself. "If 
we hadn't gotten here and given some advance warning, the Galactica might 
have been destroyed back at Cimtar, and everything would be gone." Apollo took 
a deep, painful breath, forced himself to look away from the hypnotic vision 
of the dying planet slowly receding behind them. "At least we managed to do 
some good. Don't ever forget that. The people who are still alive are still 
alive because we did get here when we did."
   Zac ran his hand through his hair tensely. "I know." He swallowed, tipped 
his head back, eyes closed. Then he looked around and caught Apollo's eye. 
"What about Mother? And everyone at Valerium?" he asked, little emotion in his 
voice. "That part of the coast doesn't look like anything happened to it. God, 
she's got to be all right, she's just got to be--"
   Footsteps pounded up behind the men. Startled, they whirled, only slightly 
surprised to see Major Dzhillin panting to a stop. "There y'two are!" he 
exclaimed, annoyance coloring his thick Virgish accent. "Where're y'r coms?"
   Zac and Apollo looked at each other. "Mine's in my ship," Apollo responded. 
"I imagine Zac's is in what's left of his. What's up?"
   "Mission," Dzhillin snapped. "C'mand'r's r'quested a shuttle. 'e's headed 
down t'th' planet."
   "What?" Zac and Apollo made a duet out of the exclamation. Apollo continued 
as Zac sputtered. "He can't do that!"
   "'e's the c'mand'r, 'pollo," Dzhillin growled disgustedly. "'e c'n do 
whate'er 'e damn well pleases, h'we'er damnfool stupid t'is."
   "But--"
   "List'n up. Th'three've us're th'only fighter pilots left 'board. W'got two 
missions starin' us'n th'face. One've us' goin' t'fly escort f'r th'c'mand'r's 
shuttle." He eyed the brothers carefully.
   Zac faced him. "I'll do it."
   "Your fighter's totalled," Apollo pointed out. Zac glared at him, then 
returned his attention to the flight commander.
   "I can take yours, sir," the younger man insisted.
   "What'd th'medics say 'bout you gettin' back into'a bird?" Dzhillin asked 
point-blank.
   "I'm perfectly fit and ready to go, sir," the lieutenant insisted.
   "Not likely," Apollo said. "The medic that checked you over said it'd be 
best if you didn't even drive a grounder for a while, let alone the bumbler 
they gave you."
   "'sides," Dzhillin added, "if y're seein' flyin' men'n outer space, 'm 
kind've leery--"
   "He was real!" Zac shouted in spite of his attempt at control. "Dammit, I 
saw him! All the techs that pulled me out of my capsule saw him too!"
   "Y'wan'to 'splain how 'e flew wi'out a fighter'r a liftsuit?" Dzhillin shot 
back. "'r op'rated'n space wi'out'n envirosuit?"
   "I can't!" Zac snapped. "But we all saw him. Dammit, sir--" Zac's 
expression became stormy, and it looked as though he might actually become 
insubordinate.
   "Ne'er mind," Dzhillin went on, forcing the young man to silence. "Y're 
one've the more level-headed ones 've got. Y'say y'saw 'im, y'prob'ly did. 
Sure's hell wish we had somethin' like that right now." He paused, shifted 
gears. "Right. Three pilots, only two of 'em flyin'. 'kay. 'pollo, since this 
is y'r planet, y're flyin' escort f'r th'shuttle." Apollo nodded. "And y'd 
better keep y'r head 'bout y', Cap'n," Dzhillin warned him. "That's gonna be 
ever'thin' y'grew up takin' f'r granted burnin' under y'. Y'let it go, y'got 
it? Th' c'mand'r's safety's y'r first prior'ty. 've already tol' th'shuttle 
pilots that if we give 'em an alert, th'cylons come back or an'thin', they're 
t'get under cover wherever they have to. Y'make sure th'c'mand'r survives, 
y'got it? Sightseein' y'can do later."
   "I can do my job," Apollo snapped, on edge, regretting his tone almost 
immediately.
   Dzhillin's grizzled face eased. "I know, 'pollo. But th'fact remains that 
there isn't anythin' left now. This battl'star may be all w'have. 've got'r 
work cut out f'r us 'f that's true."
   "All right then, sir," Zac said, jumping back into the conversation. "I'll 
take the other mission." Dzhillin fixed him with a lizardlike stare.
   "Wi' my bird? Not likely." As Zac protested, Dzhillin continued. "Neg'tive, 
Lieutenant. If y're not up t'flyin' a planet'ry level mission, y'd not be up 
f'r this'n."
   "Which is? Sir?" Zac asked angrily. He wanted to do something to ease the 
pain in his soul.
   "'m flyin' back t'Cimtar," Dzhillin said.
   This reaction was almost as quick as the first. "What? Sir, whose idea 
was that?"
   "Y'two been list'nin' t'the reports on th'net?" he asked the brothers. Zac 
shook his head; Apollo nodded.
   "I listened until the basestar was destroyed. After that..." He trailed 
off.
   Dzhillin nodded understandingly. "Th'cylon signals all stopped 'bout'a half 
centar ago." Apollo and Zac glanced at each other, back at their commander. 
"Don' know why. We w're gettin' telem'try fr'm all ov'r th'system," he added 
grimly. "All th'colonial signals stopped. Then th'cylons 'parently jus' picked 
up'n left. No recall signal--not that we could hear, anyway--no partin' shots-
-"
   "Like they needed to take any," Zac muttered.
   "--they jus' left."
   "And you're going back to Cimtar--" Apollo guided the question.
   "To find any of our boys who're still around," Dzhillin revealed, "and lead 
'em back here."
   "Do we know there are any survivors?" Apollo forced himself to ask.
   "No." Dzhillin shifted, looked down at the deck, then back to the men. 
"We've received no signals at'all fr'm Cimtar. F'r all we know, th'personnel 
'board this ship're the last survivors've the ambush. But we're hopin' that 
there're still some others there. If they're there, 'm gonna find 'em. If they 
c'n get back here, 'm gonna tell 'em where we are."
   "They don't know?" The brothers looked at each other.
   "Neg'tive. Th'c'mand'r pulled us out und'r comms silence t'keep th'cylons 
fr'm knowin' where we were headed."
   Apollo nodded acknowledgement. "How soon is the commander leaving?"
   "In 'bout ten cent'ns," his commander responded. "Y'r ship's already set, 
up on c'mand deck alpha."
   "What about me, sir?" Zac insisted. "Dammit, I want to do something--"
   "Y're likely t'be," Dzhillin growled. "An'body I bring back's gonna be 
hurtin' anyway. I want you standin' by'n case w'get too many malfunctionin' 
fighters comin' in at once. We're set up f'r combat damage, but we've nev'r 
had anythin' quite t'this scale. If they pulled maint'nance people up here f'r 
it they might miss gettin' someone out where y'd know how." It was make-do 
work for an injured pilot, a man without a craft to fight in, and all three 
knew it. Zac's expression was stormy; he did not like the situation. Equally 
certainly he knew that there was no argument he could offer to change the 
assignments. He nodded stiffly. Dzhillin reached forward, laid a hand on each 
man's shoulders. "Luck, gentl'men. We're goin' t'need it now mor'n ever." The 
brothers nodded back to him. He turned and jogged back off toward the launch 
tubes.
   For a moment neither brother could speak. "Apollo," Zac finally got out, 
paused. "Listen--I--" He stopped again, then gave his older brother a hug. 
Apollo was startled, then returned it. Now was a time for family, the 
reassurance of a familiar presence, not the dissociation of professional 
officers. "Get him back safely, Apollo," Zac instructed the man.
   Apollo nodded. "I intend to."
   "All right," Zac said, stepping back. "Luck, then."
   "Thanks. See you later." Zac's pensive gaze followed his brother's 
flightsuited form until it disappeared into the lifts.
   "God, I hope so, Apollo."
   
   Within another forty centons, a gaggle of over a hundred and eighty fighters
of all makes--mostly vipers, with a few scorpions and cobras and strikers and starfires, 
and a pair of starhounds from the Pacifica's aging squadrons--had gathered 
around Boomer, Jolly, Starbuck and Giles. Additionally, three full-size 
crafts--the Neimohan and Draynax of the late Atlantia's support fleet, 
and the Forrestallan from Solaria's wing--had survived the battle in 
halfway operative condition. Marduq had joined the flock, dragging his damaged 
wingman with him, and Boomer had relievedly released authority; nonetheless, 
more of the pilots were communicating with him simply because his had been the 
first voice they had heard in the deadly silence. He was elated; with these 
ships together, it would still be possible to strike out for one of the 
colonies, make contact with some other, better-established, better-defended 
military unit, regroup their forces.
   "Flight Sergeant Boomer," the comms man on the Forrestallan with whom 
he had been talking hailed him. "The commander's made his call. We're shaping 
for Aer. Any of you want to attach yourselves, you're welcome; we may need the 
support."
   "But I thought your docks had been damaged," Boomer argued. He had been 
waiting for this decision; it was not the one he wanted. He felt all the ships 
should head for the same destination together. "How can--"
   "We can't get any of you on board," the comms man said apologetically. 
"You come along, you'll have to jump alongside us. But the captain's getting 
set to go. How many of you are coming with us?"
   "Boomer?" Jolly's voice was hesitant. He, for certain, did not want to 
head for Aer, at least not initially. "What d'you think?" Other voices 
expressed similar hesitance, dissident support for other destinations. 
Solaria's pilots would naturally think of Aquaria first, and those from the 
Atlantia would wish to shape course for Piscea or Gemon.
   Boomer turned his attention to the other cutters. "Neimohan, Draynax, 
what are you planning on doing?"
   "Neimohan. We're conducting repairs right now. Captain's still deciding 
what we're going to do after that," that faceless voice responded. Boomer's 
flagging hopes rose slightly.
   "Draynax. We're headed for Liber. Captain says what the Forrestallan 
offered is open as well; you're welcome to join us. Our docks are already 
full, though, so you'll still be on your own."
   "I'll go with you," one pilot's voice said.
   "I'm with the Neimohan," another said.
   "Damn," Alekas' voice echoed through Boomer's ears. "If we're all 
splitting up--" A thrill of panic chilled Boomer.
   "Negative!" Marduq's voice snapped. "All the pilots from the 
Galactica, listen up. We're sticking together."
   "But if--" someone started.
   "Galactica pilots, consider that an order," Marduq said. Boomer sighed 
with relief at the authority of the ranking pilot among the survivors of his 
squadron mates. "Wherever we go, we're going as a squadron, got it?"
   "Yeah?" Starbuck's voice snapped back. "Then where we heading, boss? 
In case it's slipped your mind, none of us have any weapons left, half of us 
are missing sensors, and all of us are short on fuel--those that are in any 
shape to handle a trip to any of the colonies."
   "Incoming!" shouted faceless voice. Boomer's eyes went to his HUD; it was 
blinking and focusing a crosshair on the newest arrival, already scrolling 
information beside the new track as the electronic echoes of STL breakout 
faded into nothingness.
   "I show it to be colonial," Ortega's voice snapped. "Hold your fire."
   "Anybody that's got anything to fire," Starbuck growled.
   "'tention th'fight'rs," snapped a voice the Galactica fighters 
recognized instantly. The babble of excited conversation in Boomer's ears 
threatened for a moment to deafen him. The major's gravelly voice roared over 
them. "At ease, dammit! Keep y'r comms down." Silence descended on the 
line. "'at's bett'r. Right. 'is is Dzhill'n. How many people'm I talkin' to, 
an' fr'm what ships?"
   "This is Marduq, sir," that man responded. "We have one hundred eighty-four 
individual fighters still flying. There are two light cutters and one heavy 
one remaining of the wing ships."
   "Which ships?"
   "Neimohan, Draynax and Forrestallan."
   "Right. List'n up: the G'lactica's in orbit at Capr'ca." He waited a 
few michrons for the babble to die down. "Yeah. 'at's where w'went. I was 
sen' back t'find any s'rviv'rs'n bring 'em home. Y're sure y've found 
ever'one?"
   "Negative, sir," Marduq corrected him. "We've found everyone whose 
transmitters still work, and those whose drives are functional. We've got far 
too many emergency transponders showing right now. How many support and rescue 
craft are--"
   "None."
   "What? Sir--"
   "None." Dzhillin's tone went cold. "Cap'n, marshall th'fight'rs. We're 
headed back t'th' G'lactica. Neim'han, Draynax, Forrest'llan, 'is is Maj'r 
Dzhill'n, flight command'r, battl'star G'lactica. I can' ord'r y't'come 
wit'us, but I strongly urge y't'do so." After a moment of silence the comms 
men from those ships responded with negatives. The man aboard the 
Forrestallan summed it up:
   "Captain says our first priority's our homebase world, sir."
   "Right." There was no way that Dzhillin could argue with that. "You 
fight'rs, y're all part've this squadron now. Form up'n set yr course fr 
Capr'ca." As a rush of protests began he bulled onward. "That's an order, 
dammit. You people may be the last fighters we've got. We're regrouping while 
the commander figures out what to do next."
   "Sir," Alekas said, subduedly for him, "all of us here are low on fuel. 
I doubt that any of us have enough to make it home."
   "Refuelin' Station Chi57D's 'ntact," the major told him. "Add that t'y'r 
course; I stopped by on m'way out here. We'll refuel 'ere; those who're too 
damaged t'get'ny farth'r c'n wait there."
   "Then the commander's going to send back rescue ships?" Marduq pressed.
   "Th' c'mmand'r's still fig'rin' out what t'do," was the disquieting 
response. "Let's go. FTL'n one cent'n on my--mark. Neim'han, Draynax, 
Forrest'llan, y'know where we're headed. C'mmand'r Adama rec'mends 'gainst 
long-range c'munications at'is time, but if we can, we'll get word back t'you 
what'r plans are." Acknowledgements were slow to come back. "Right. FTL on 
m'mark." Boomer hastily input his course, rested his finger on the initiate 
button. "An' five, four, three, two, one, go!" Boomer's finger depressed 
the contact; space swam before him, went gray and black. He was away from the 
ambush site, headed at least in theory toward safety.

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Serina pulled hard on the strips of torn cloth. The makeshift bandage 
tightened. The injured man grunted once, then gasped in relief. He nodded 
tiredly up at her. "Thanks, ma'am," he whispered hoarsely. "That's better by a 
lot."
   "Happy to help." Serina sat back on her heels, brushed a strand of hair 
from her face. "That should do you until we can get you to a medicenter." The 
man snorted painfully, disbelievingly, closed his eyes to drift away, hoping 
for some anodyne to his pain, knowing there would likely be none. In spite of 
the confident tone in her voice, Serina was struggling with a depression and 
lassitude that matched the wounded man's own.
   Here, in a parking deck under an overhang beneath one of the few remaining 
solid structures, several hundred people stood, crouched, sat or lay on the 
rubble-strewn synthacrete. The moans of the injured were a low background 
noise; after the first few horrifying centons, Serina had been able to tune 
out the worst of them, as though their cries were everyday, normal things. Her 
hearing had slowly begun to return, although Balab told her the ringing would 
last for days. The darkness of the cloud-shrouded twilight cast an eerie pall 
on the scene; it looked like something out of dela Cole's Descent, a 
disquieting vision she had been unable to completely dismiss. It was hot under 
here too, surprisingly so for this time of jahron; the mugginess was 
undoubtedly due to the rain that had begun falling no more than a centar ago. 
The humidity trapped and enhanced the smells of blood and sweat and fear that 
were so strong in this confining space; Serina was fighting a constant battle 
with herself to keep her own fears and hysteria in check.
   Off toward the outer edge of this cleared area a group of men stood just 
out of the downpour, talking and gesticulating. Serina speculated that they 
were deliberating on a course of action; while she heartily agreed that 
staying in the city was a bad idea, she had no real idea of anywhere else the 
refugees could go to. This fatalism was what kept her own spirits so low.
   She looked up as a young man in military browns emerged from the pale 
yellow hangarage entrance and jogged across the area. There was a low mutter 
from those around her; she was ill-inclined to fault their feelings. The 
military had failed in their much-vaunted task of protecting the planet; at 
the very least the act of breaking into the vehicle storage area in this 
complex was the least they could be expected to do.
   The warrior reached the crowd of planners, delivered his report. At this 
distance Serina could not make out their words, but in spite of the anger with 
which the civilians greeted the soldier, there was an air of satisfaction 
about their group as they broke apart and began circulating through the crowds 
of injured. "All right, people," called the self-declared leader of the group, 
a tall, lean man. "Listen up." Serina reflected ironically that mere centars 
ago he had likely been a handsome, striking man; now his thinning hair was 
dirty, scrapes discoloring his face and bare hands, his fine robes filthy. 
"We've got haulers," the man continued. "They're pulling them up now. Get the 
wounded on first, then the children and women. After that we'll apportion 
space. Everyone else can walk."
   Serina stood, brushed her hands futilely on her already sticky robes. 
Across the area Balab gathered the children to him. She caught his eye and 
nodded toward the yellow rectangle where carriers were whining and sliding 
into view. He tilted his head, moved in that direction. Serina jogged around 
moaning bodies, following the leader pro tem. He turned at her touch on his 
sleeve, his impatience ill-concealed. "Where do you think we're going to go?" 
she asked him point blank, her voice loud enough to carry. "Are any of the 
survival shelters or bases likely to have weathered the attack?"
   The man jerked his head; Serina accompanied him as he strode on toward the 
hangar entrance. "None of the com network's are on any more, so we haven't got 
any word on the shelters or bases, no," he admittedly angrily. "Our plan was 
just to get out of the city. If there's a second wave coming, the city will 
be the cylons' first target." Serina failed to suppress a shudder at the 
thought of a wave of cylon fighters screaming down over the already mortally 
wounded city, beams raking through unprotected people, buildings toppling, 
blood flowing like a river ... She jerked back to the real world as the man, 
not noticing her trepidation, continued. "Couple of those military jackastrums 
said there was a monitor base out to the east, up in the mountains. We thought 
we'd head there."
   The two reached the hangar door just as a second huge carrier slid out, the 
soft hum of the thing's lift-and-drives startlingly loud in the sudden silence 
of the crowd that stood pensively waiting their turns to board. No one wanted 
to be left behind; Serina wondered if there were going to be enough vehicles 
here, intact and still working, to carry everyone. There was an air of grim 
expectation, of tension and waiting; it was not a comfortable feeling.
   The man at her side felt it too. He conveyed some message without words to 
one of his impromptu helpers in the gateway. That man nodded. "Warboy here 
says there're enough of these things to carry everybody." Serina noted how the 
few surviving members of the military had gathered together, and the way they 
stiffened at the man's words. She felt no sympathy for the betrayers of her 
people; she had already heard whispers of plans to dispose of the warriors 
once they had served what purposes they still might. "May be some crowding," 
the large man continued, "but everybody's got a ride." The crowd did not 
actually move, but Serina could feel some of the tension fade away.
   She judged it a good time to continue pressing her questions home. "All 
right," she asked the mob's leader, making certain that those around her could 
listen in, "we're all getting away. Where are we going? You said the plan 
was to head for a post up the coast. Have you a new destination in mind?"
   The mob's leader gave her an angry look, a glance that became searching 
after a few michrons' silence. He nodded again, acknowledgement of her 
tempering control on his newfound authority, and turned to those people within 
earshot. "Start getting the wounded on the carriers first," he instructed 
again, then addressed the crowd at large. "Yeah. We were going to head for a 
monitor station up near Holej Peak. While we were figuring that out we saw a 
couple of ships." There was a low murmur  of surprise, and the man nodded. 
"Yeah, at least something's still flying. They left contrails, which at this 
point means military ships." The murmur became one tinged with anger; the 
little military clique tightened against a common enemy. "The soldier boys 
said there's another survival base, one for government use, out to the south, 
about a half centar away. They think if that was a military damage survey they 
might head for that base first. That's where we're bound."
   "What then?" Serina asked logically. There were nods from only a few of the 
people around her; most would be satisfied to escape from the charnel pit that 
had once been the beautiful Caprica City.
   "Then?" The leader shook his head. "Our first priority is to get out of the 
city. It may be that there's still a strong military force somewhere. If there 
is, they'll have ships, ships we can use." The murmuring became one of 
satisfaction. "That satisfy you?" he asked her belligerently.
   "Eminently," she told him coolly, turning away to join Balab and the 
children. Already the patterns were forming. Civilization was breaking down, 
and the strong were seizing power. What that would mean in terms of survival 
was clear; what it would bode for civilized behavior was another. Serina tried 
and failed to suppress a shiver. 

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Caprica exploded from the gray of hyperspace in a riot of blaze and emerald 
that left Boomer's eyes watering with relief. Not for long michrons did he 
note the ugly discolorations of the recent cylon attack; he had truly been 
ready to give up hope of ever setting foot on a planet again. Even as foreign 
a world as Caprica was a welcome thing indeed to see spreading itself across 
one's canopy.
   The other pilots in the impromptu squadron, almost half of whom actually 
hailed from this world, shared his feelings. In spite of the mechanical 
difficulties that had begun plaguing many of the fighters as long ago as a 
half-centar, most of the voices on the comlines were full of relief, and 
exuberance. One war whoop--Boomer recognized the voice as that of Ensign 
Greenbean, the youngest surviving member of his own squadron--brought a smile 
to his lips.
   Major Dzhillin's gravelly voice brought him back to the real world. "At 
ease! I want the lines quiet! There may still be cylons monitoring the area, 
you astrums!" The bevy of voices in Boomer's earphones stopped as though a 
switch had been opened. "Form on me. Squadron approach," Dzhillin snapped 
succinctly. "Keep your coms tuned low."
   "Sir," Giles said, his own voice dim, weak from lack of broadcast power, 
"I'm not showing the Galactica anywhere."
   "Probably cloaked and shielded," Marduq responded.
   "That she is and then some," Dzhillin growled. "Eyes on Rhys, people. 
Only way we're going to find the Galactica is by eyes." Even Boomer raised 
his voice in concern; no one, in this day and age, flew by simple line of 
sight! "You heard me. If they spot us coming in, they'll let us know where 
they are. Until then, treat it as a stealth exercise. Alekas, how's your 
fighter doing?" he changed the subject.
   "Next to dead," the pilot responded gruffly. Only about half of the 
pilots still had visual systems, but those few could see the worry on the 
lanky pilot's face. "Breakout finished my guidance systems. I'm flying by the 
seat of my pants now."
   "That ought to give you a broad reach," his wingman told him chidingly. 
"I'm coming in for support. I'll--" He broke off. "What the devils?"
   "Marduq?" Alekas called back. "Problem?"
   There was a centon's silence before the pale warrior's voice returned to 
the airwaves. "Nothing. I've been cooped up in this cockpit too long. I'm 
seeing things."
   "Such as?" Dzhillin's voice snarled softly in the static.
   "Like I said, sir, nothing. Something between us and this moon. No sign on 
my sensors, and it certainly wasn't what it looked like." He changed tones, 
put more good cheer in his words. "And listen, pretty boy, you'd better get 
your act together quick. I'll wager your sister will be in the bay waiting to 
critique your landing." Marduq's own scarred fighter drifted toward the 
center of the metal pack.
   "She'd better not be!" Alekas protested. "I'll kick her butt if she 
leaves her post!"
   "Mn-hmn," Marduq acknowledged knowingly. "I'll believe that when I see 
it."
   "Starbuck?" Dzhillin continued his checkdown. "Your systems back on 
line?"
   "Sort of," the ace responded, then yelped. "Ow! One of my panels just 
shorted out!" He started to pull at his hand.
   "Leave your suit on, you blithering--" Dzhillin snapped. Starbuck stopped 
his move, stricken by sudden paralysis.
   "Vital?" Giles asked, keeping most of the concern from his voice..
   "Checking." There was a tense silence for long michrons before Starbuck's 
relieved sigh crossed airless space. "Not totally. My guidance is logy, but 
there. Power suppressors're giving me all kinds of warning messages--nope. Not 
responding. I'm working with one set of power controls now." As if to 
illustrate the point his interceptor twitched sideways in space, sparks 
beginning to cloud from no less than three small power points on his hull. His 
translight web glowed fitfully, then died.
   "I'm closing up on you," Giles told him. That man's cobra slid more 
easily through space; Giles had weathered the battle better than his wingman 
had.
   Dzhillin continued with his checklist as the ragged flight of battered 
pilots worked their way slowly away from the burning face of Caprica. 
Surprisingly enough, less than ten of those fighters who had successfully made 
the trip from Cimtar to here were in grave difficulty; Alekas and Starbuck 
were the worst off.
   As if by some tacit agreement, none of the surviving warriors had yet 
spoken of the fact that most of them were rapidly running out of air; many had 
already been forced to sacrifice heat for propulsion, and go to their 
flightsuits' life support to preserve the energy for their telemetry. Seldom 
had human fighters been forced to do quite so much in quite so short a time 
with quite so little.
   Jolly's fighter was scorched, but still holding together; the thickset 
pilot was still protesting that he could help others when Boomer instructed 
him to shut up. "Just relax and enjoy the ride, Jolly," he said. "May be the 
last rest any of us get for a long time."
   
   There was not even a silence that one could brood in, Artemis reflected. 
The bridge was always busy at the slowest of times, the silence always broken 
by sounds as soft as the hum of power lines, as loud as running feet and alarm 
klaxons.
   It was quieter now than it had been for almost three centars. A third of a 
day gone by already, the girl thought with dull surprise, her fingers 
automatically tapping out requisite commands at her keyboard, their speed now 
slowing with fatigue and fear. So short a time for the world to end.
   There had been no word from her uncle's shuttle since the initial landfall 
two decentons earlier. She had, in direct contravention of procedure, 
prevailed upon the sergeant sitting at the communications station to notify 
her as soon as any further word came in. That young man had nodded, promising 
nothing, and she had accepted it in silence.
   Few people knew the battlestar's fourth-in-command as well as she. It was 
with her and Captain Noday that that young man usually pulled his tours of 
command. Others saw him merely as a well-groomed, well-controlled officer, 
never losing his temper or his composure, always with a ready answer. One had 
to know him to appreciate his sense of humor, his inner strength.
   So few but Artemis could see the tightly-controlled hysteria that drove 
that young man to still greater efforts. He had been working without pause to 
reestablish communications with any station still broadcasting--and his 
failure had been utterly complete. Even the local stations that had been 
broadcasting only a centar ago had fallen silent; there were no FTL stations 
emitting signs of life any more. Navigation had located some seventeen 
standard beacons, scattered throughout a system that had boasted tens of 
thousands of stations carrying such apparatus. The silence boded ill for any 
happy resolution to this disaster.
   Her work window flashed a message at her. She tapped it away beneath a 
finger, logged a message for Omega. As long as none of the more intricate of 
the battle support programs were accessed, the ship was fully functional 
again. She and the systems analysts had been unable to actually eradicate the 
cylon virus that had been actively disabling their combat computers; the best 
they had been able to accomplish, after over a centar's unremitting effort, 
was to block away the affected programs behind layer after layer of guardian 
walls and passwords.
   If the cylons were to suddenly show up, leading another wave of attacks, 
the Galactica might well fall. She could only pray that the colonial 
warriors would be given time to recover and regroup, to prepare their battered 
forces before continuing what looked to be the final battle of the War of a 
Thousand Jahren.
   The primary alarms went off in an explosion of wailing noise; the command 
center's lights shifted to red. Her heart pounding in her chest, Artemis 
cleared her board and opened a channel to the command podium, ready to resume 
her normal functions of intermediary and disseminator.
   "Inbound!" a nameless tech at the tracking station called. Omega nodded 
curtly. The command podium was already turning slowly to face the Wall On The 
Universe, both master screens flickering to give weak tactical views. Colonel 
Tigh had ordered all active sensors shut down until further notice; the huge 
warship was dependent on those radiations it could passively detect for 
warning of imminent approach.
   "Give me identification," the battlestar's fourth-in-command said quietly. 
Artemis immediately began to piece the varied data coming from the multitude 
of stations on the bridge and scattered through the ship into a coherent 
whole.
   "Sensors report multiple STL breakouts," she told him a moment later. 
"Warbook is not-- wait--" Her expression went from tight concern to disbelief 
to elation in a spread of michrons. "Sir!" she shouted, laughing with relief, 
"They're ours! They're fighters from the wing!" Omega the implacable sighed 
heavily, rolling his eyes in relief, sagging for just a moment in welcome 
ease.
   "Cancel red alert," he said a few michrons later. The noise of the alarm 
was replaced by a general cheer from the bridge crew, regulars and service 
techs alike. Someone had survived the ambush, returning to their home ship. 
"Get me contact with whoever's in charge. If it's not Dzhillin, I want to know 
who is leading the pack."
   "Yes, sir!" Artemis returned, going about her new task with a fervor 
unequalled outside of actual combat. A message routed to the communications 
station brought quick results; within two centrons her screen was filled with 
the craggy face of the battlestar's flight commander. "Major! Thank God!"
   "'Day, Lieutenant," Dzhillin snapped, as though he flew across the system 
into a war zone and led unknown numbers of survivors to safety every day. 
"Got a bunch of boys and girls that need to roost in the worst way."
   Omega's voice filtered down from the command podium; with the touch of a 
key, Artemis brought his own face up in another window. "Major. Good to have 
you back. What luck for us?"
   "Not so lucky as we could've hoped for, Omega," the pilot said, his 
normally forceful voice softening. "We've got a hundred and seventy here in this 
flight. We had a hundred eighty-some when we left Cimtar." Omega's eyes closed briefly, 
whether in pain or prayer none could have said. Then he locked gazes with the 
major.
   "Understood, sir. I'm going to put you in direct communications with 
landing control for Alpha and Beta. Is there anyone in need of special 
consideration? Emergency crews are already on standby."
   "Yes, unfortunately. Ten of these men are flying ships that are coming 
apart around them."
   "All right. Get them lined up on priority approaches," Omega told him. 
Without shifting his eyes from his screen his fingers began to tap out 
commands on his keypad. "Split them up however you see fit. I suggest putting 
the worst of the cases into Alpha; that's where the heavy equipment is at 
right now."
   "Roger that. Okay, you yahoos, listen up!" Dzhillin turned his own 
attention from the battlestar to his flock of injured and dying. "Split it 
off. Alekas, Starbuck, Mayhar, Broder, Foss! You people line it up, in that 
order, on approach for Alpha. The other five of you head for the starboard 
bay. Bay control frequencies are automatic; if your comms aren't working, get 
your wingman involved. The rest of you pull it back and take it slow. Nobody's 
gonna die in the next four or five centons while the trouble children get 
taken care of."
   "All right, Alekas," Marduq's voice whispered in Artemis' earpiece. "You 
heard the man. Shape it up. Everyone's watching."
   Marduq, Artemis' thoughts raced. Her fingers trembled briefly as she 
searched for his frequency. To no avail; he was apparently broadcasting on 
voice channels only. It did not matter; relief was so strong in her that for a 
moment she could not see through the welcome sting of tears. She brushed 
quickly at her eyes, gave a quick thought of thanks to God for having 
delivered her man back to her, and went to work. With that many pilots trying 
to come in at once, bay traffic control was likely to be overwhelmed.
   She glanced up and back, nodded in welcome to Athena and Tigh as they 
returned to the bridge. Tigh headed for the podium for a briefing on what the 
situation was; Artemis jerked her head at her slave station. "C'mon, Athena," 
she said cheerfully, "give me a hand. The boys are back!" Athena's thin face 
lit up, transformed in an instant from worry and fear to happiness, welcome 
relief from the past centars.
   
   Giles' cobra was a hulking shape just metrons away as Starbuck glanced up 
and out. His HUD had ceased to function long centons ago; he had not even been 
able to shut it off, and he had to squint and look hard to see past the static 
and random patterns that kept projecting against his cockpit and visor. 
"Frack!" he uttered wisely.
   "More problems?" Giles asked him.
   "I want 'em to hurry up, Giles," Starbuck explained carefully, irritation 
carefully hidden behind a concealing wall of sarcasm. "At this rate I can get 
out and walk back to the ship. In fact, I ought to--ow!" He broke off with 
a yell as a panel near his leg flared. He slapped hastily at it, knocking it 
loose to dangle grotesquely. Half the circuit boards he could make out in the 
small chamber were dark and scored; few telltales were flickering. "Frack! 
That's done it!" Even as he spoke he was pulling back on his stick, tapping 
and then pounding at the keypad under his hand that remained obstinately 
unresponsive. Attempting to change course did no good; his viper was 
accelerating now, burning the last of its fuel in one marvelous blaze of 
glory--and he had no control over it. "Galactica!" he bellowed calmly, "I'm 
in trouble!"
   "On line, Starbuck," Athena's voice answered in one ear; the other 
earpiece remained maddeningly silent. "What's your status?"
   "Athena, begging your pardon for not putting this more politely, I'm in 
trouble! I mean I'm in real trouble! Get me a systech on line, quick!" The 
distant running lights of the battlestar were swelling slowly but with 
unpleasantly quick speed.
   "I'm here, Starbuck," the girl replied calmly. Starbuck reflected briefly 
that it was indeed easy for her to remain calm--she was not sitting atop one 
of the best bombs ever created by colonial science! "Start your checkdown--"
   "Athena!" he interrupted her hoarsely. "I'm not kidding! This is no time 
for trainees! Get me a systems technician--"
   "I'm the best you've got right now, mister," she snapped right back, 
concern giving way to righteous anger. "And you will be in trouble if you 
don't lock it in, now."
   The other pilots were noticing the byplay now. "Hey, Starbuck, what's 
up?" was the gist of the inquiries.
   "My controls just blew and my throttle locked itself open," Starbuck 
snarled. "Give me a centon and something else'll likely break down, too!" He 
went into a stream of cursing that stopped centrons later as he realized he 
was only wasting airtime. 
   Colonel Tigh's voice came over his channel. "Lieutenant. What's your fuel 
status?"
   "If you believe these da--these gauges, I'm dry," Starbuck responded. "God 
only knows how much I've still got, but right now I'm pointed right at Alpha 
Bay and I can't slow down or change course!"
   "All right," Athena's voice broke in. "Run the quick check with me. 
Alpha circuit up?"
   Starbuck glanced at that particular panel, uncertain whether to be relieved 
or irritated that it was still functional. "Up."
   "Close it and alternate with your port servo circuit, mainline."
   "Closing ... and alternating," Starbuck responded breathlessly, trying 
not to watch his home ship swelling so rapidly before him. He pounded at his 
keypad, pulled back on the throttle. "No response. Still wide open." Other 
ships were sliding backward past him now, over and beside him, all around him. 
There were three others in front of him, and Giles' cobra was still doggedly 
hanging off his starboard wing.
   "Quick now," Athena insisted. "Omega-C. Close it and alternate it to the 
servo circuit. Use your booster controls--"
   "I know, I know!" Starbuck's voice held a tinge of anxiety now. Going out 
in a blaze of glory had always been little more than a heroic concept to him--
he had no desire to try it out for real! He yanked back on his weapons' power 
switch, was not really surprised when he felt no change in the viper's power 
vibration. "No luck."
   "Starbuck, what the hells are you doing?" Marduq's voice joined the fray. 
Starbuck was not pleased to notice that two of his companions were still 
before him--and were not moving out of the way. "Pull up, dammit!"
   "If I could I would!" Starbuck growled back. "You pull up! I'll be damned 
if I can do anything with this--" At that moment his drives ran out of fuel. 
"Oh, dobe!"
   The disaster happened quickly after that, amid a flurry of communications. 
"Alpha Bay, this is Lieutenant Alekas, on final approach. Hope you're not 
counting off for neatness, because I haven't got much control left," Starbuck 
heard Alekas' voice calling.
   "Alekas! Pull up!" Marduq's voice gave up haranguing Starbuck and worked 
on saving his wingmate's life.
   "He's coming in like a rocket," Omega's voice commented clinically. 
   "Alekas' fighter is on approach," Tigh answered her. "Pull him up."
   Starbuck watched in horror as one of the two fighters directly before him 
swelled with impossible speed until it filled his vision. The thing's drive 
flares were so bright they were overwhelming his canopy; it could not darken 
enough any more. He flung a hand across his face.
   Then the ship ahead of him twitched, flicked slightly to one side. "This 
is Alekas. I'm pulling up. I'll--Starbuck, what're you--Holy Mother God--" 
Starbuck felt his ship lurch as his high stabilizer actually ground along the 
underside of Alekas' fighter; then he was too busy to care any more about his 
squadronmate's fate as the bay gate opened around him. There was no way he was 
going to make it; his ship was headed straight at the underside lip of the 
approach corridor. Starbuck felt the michrons slow; he felt that he had 
already picked out which flashing strobe was his target.
   He hoped it would be quick.
   A dark shape flickered over his head, lit suddenly by a glare from behind 
him. His ship thumped as the shape struck his viper's nose. Starbuck did not 
know which to disbelieve more, the brightly-clothed manlike form sprawled 
across his ship's nose, or the sight of the lights of Alpha Bay swinging 
magically up and around him.
   Then he was too busy to care. He struck the atmosphere field at the end of 
the bay at very close to combat speed, the jolt of even that soft impact 
pressing him painfully into his restraints. The figure on his ship's bow 
lifted its head briefly, lowered it again as the viper shook and began to 
twist sideways in flight. Starbuck, hope for survival just building, ducked 
his head; the viper would probably explode on impact at this speed.
   The bay's emergency pressors flickered past him, circled around and snapped 
into focus. The breath was crushed from him by the press of sudden 
deceleration; he could not have screamed in agony if he had tried. The figure 
on his ship, shaken loose by the deceleration, went flying off into space; 
Starbuck could spare it no more attention. The bay around him shook and 
turned, stabilized. The pressor handlers were rough-handed, but skillful; 
within a hundred metrons his speed had been dropped to nothing, and his 
crippled ship was more gently wafted off to the maintenance side of the 
landing bay.
   For long michrons he just sat in his cockpit, disbelieving the hand that 
fortune had dealt him. He had gone from trouble to disaster to salvation 
within the span of a centon. That was more luck than anyone deserved. His 
hand shook as he reached up to unseal his helmet. It was the work of only 
michrons before he had his canopy lifting jerkily.
   The emergency crews were already circling around him. He was already 
reaching for his pocket; now more than ever he wanted a good, stiff, barely-
doctored stig to calm his nerves. "Hey, fellas," he started into his opening 
speech, bravado once more evident in his tone, "give it a good..." He broke 
off, confused when none of the ground crews around his downed fighter took the 
slightest notice of him, their attention instead focused behind him. 
Irritated, he turned--
   --and froze, his anger draining away before the chill of incredulity at the 
sight of a man floating in the air over the landing deck. Starbuck sat back 
down on the edge of his cockpit, hastily unsealed his pocket, and withdrew a 
half-smoked special.
   His nerves really needed some help.
   
   Tigh glanced up at his own aide. "Alekas?"
   Omega shook his head. There was a muffled cry from the traffic control 
deck; the man's sister, a deck comptroller, had been witness to the pilot's 
death, so close to salvation. The men did their best not to dwell on the 
tragedy that had just happened. "How about Starbuck?"
   "Apparently he got one last shot of control," Omega reported. "He pulled it 
up high enough for the bay controllers to get a hold on him and bring him 
down."
   "I thought his controls were shot?"
   "So did he." Omega shrugged, his expression nonetheless relieved. 
"Apparently he's a better pilot than even he thought he was."
   "What about the rest?" Tigh continued quietly. "What's the total?"
   Omega glanced unnecessarily at his screen; he knew too well what Dzhillin 
had already reported. "A hundred seventy fighters made it back from Cimtar--sixty 
nine, now," he added quietly. "Mostly vipers, with some of our own cobras and a 
few scorpions, strikers and starhounds added in. Dzhillin said there was a 
frigate, a blastship and a light carrier that survived. They were allegedly 
headed for other colonies. We'll have to see about reestablishing contact with 
them as soon as possible."
   "Any other battlestars? Any word from the Solaria?"
   "No, sir," Omega reported. "All signals from Aquaria ceased over a centar 
ago. We are the last battlestar." It was both a statement of fact and a 
benediction.
   Tigh shook his head; the disasters just kept coming. "How many of the 
fighters are our own?"
   Omega's gaze was emotionless. "Twenty-five, sir."
   Tigh's knuckles paled as his grip on the railing briefly tightened. Then he 
relaxed. "Very well. Make the other pilots as welcome as you can. It would 
seem that we're their base ship now."

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Valerium was a homestead that had grown with the jahren. Adama had acquired 
the land from his first father-in-law, and had overseen the building of the 
sprawling domicile that now lay in smoking ruins. The land was on the higher 
part of a bluff that overlooked the distant shore of the Iczer Ocean. Uphill, 
in the forested distance, Apollo remembered the small lake that had been built 
expressly for the use of Adama's family, close and extended. 
   Apollo was still in shock as he faced out across the bay. The bright, airy 
house he had grown up in was now smoking rubble, small flames still licking at 
the outskirts. When the defense base at Caprica City had stopped the incoming 
missiles, the resulting shockwaves had done much to demolish the old, 
comfortable dwelling. The lightning storm that had only just dissipated had 
done little to improve the situation. The bolts, drawn perhaps by the house's 
shielded power receiver, perhaps simply by bad luck, had struck with all the 
fury of the foiled cylons themselves.
   He heard murmuring behind him. At first he refused to turn from the sight 
of Helis and Polla, Caprica's 'day'time suns this time of the jahron, sinking 
into a blood-red sea. Nia was not visible this time of year, but it would not 
have mattered; Valerius and Derzo, which would normally have been visible in a 
sunrise behind him, were completely hidden by the dark clouds that were 
turning midafternoon into night. The murmuring came again, harsher. The marine 
he had detailed to care for old Paxontas would care for the man. Apollo knew 
somewhere deep inside that the aging caretaker would likely not survive 
another centar, regardless of what aid he received. Apollo had known him as 
long as he could remember; the groundskeeper had been almost as important to 
him during his formative jahren as his own father had been.
   And now he lay in the mud on a rain poncho, cold, blinded, burned, 
confused--and dying. His old mind had retreated into hurt confusion; Apollo 
doubted that he truly understood what had happened, what was happening even 
now. Apollo himself had found him; none of the rest of the staff had survived 
the disaster that had destroyed Valerium. Old Nanna, who had kept him and his 
siblings and cousins out of trouble when their absent father and bureautician 
mother were not there to do so; Pedros and Frobullte, the wranglers who had 
kept his mother's equinuses, who had taught him to ride, who had taught him to 
swim; ben Akelse, and Huan-yi, and le'Vido--people who had been like family to 
him in his young world--all were dead.
   And his mother...
   His father had disappeared into the wreckage of the house, the marines who 
had accompanied him and helped him through the wreckage waiting respectfully 
outside--and the man had not reemerged. Apollo could not even cry at the 
thought of his mother's death--too much had happened in too short a time. His 
family, his life, his whole world had been cut off, razed as though it had 
never been. Part of him realized that he was in shock; that part of him did 
not even care.
   Paxontas' moanings grew softly. Apollo rubbed at his burning eyes, blinked 
away the purple afterimages as he moved to the old man's side. The young 
marine kneeling next to him glanced up, nodded respectfully to Apollo. The 
pilot blinked his thanks to the young man, glanced down at the old keeper. 
"Can he hear me?" Apollo whispered. The young marine slowly shook his head. 
"Is there anything else we can do for him?" The groundforcer's negation was 
shorter, slower. Apollo put a hand against the old man's hot forehead, 
absently stroked the thinning hair, a lump in his throat burning at his eyes. 
After long michrons he stood. "Keep him warm for--keep him warm," he 
instructed. The marine nodded once more, returned his watchful attention to 
his charge.
   "Sir!" Apollo glanced around, startled. Lt. Stern, the commander of the 
squad of groundforce warriors detailed to this little expedition, jogged over 
to him. Stern saluted briefly, glanced up the hill at the open field where the 
commander's shuttle and Apollo's viper now sat, rain-slicked and smoke-
smeared. A small ring of men in enforcer armor circled the two vehicles; 
Apollo knew the rest of the detachment were spread across the landscape, 
protecting his father from anything that might happen.
   "Yes?" Apollo snapped. Now, less than ever, did he want to suffer through 
the trappings of military existence.
   If Stern noticed the anger and frustration in Apollo's eyes, he ignored it. 
"Sir, outscouts report a convoy of vehicles making their way here."
   "So?" Apollo asked. "They're likely headed for somewhere safe! One of the 
survival stations, or--"
   "Sir, they're making their way here," Stern emphasized. Apollo started to 
respond, stopped as the message registered with him. "They're coming up along 
SR95, up from Caprica City. My scout reported that they took the exit that 
leads here."
   "Ground vehicles only?" Apollo was confused.
   "Yes, sir. Chances are good that grounders are the only things still 
running. If they stopped anything nuke or supernuke, they wiped anything that 
flies." Stern shifted slightly. "Sir, if the commander's about done--"
   "Lieutenant," Apollo almost shouted, "these people have just been through 
the worst disaster in memory! If they're in need of assistance--"
   "Sir, if these people are well enough to make their way out here, where 
they probably saw our contrails headed for," Stern pointed out in tones just 
as steely, "they're less likely to want help than to take whatever ships and 
materials we've got for themselves." He did not even blink. "I'd rather the 
commander was aboard the shuttle--hell, sir, I'd rather he was back aboard 
the Galactica!"
   Apollo ran his fingers through his hair with nervous energy, glanced at the 
forested horizon of the hills that were between Valerium and the groundway 
under discussion. "I know it's been a disaster," he offered, more quietly, 
"but do you think we have that much to fear? These are civilized people--"
   "Sir, these are civilized people that just had civilization blown out from 
under them," Stern corrected him. "If any of that convoy are still behaving 
like civilized people, they'll be the exceptions. If they found weapons 
somewhere--and I'll lay you odds they did--they'll be fighting us and each 
other for that shuttle and plane." Apollo glared tiredly at him. "Sorry, sir, 
but that's standard riot control training. You should have seen some of the 
films of Taura when the Scorps first occupied it."
   Apollo sighed heavily. "All right, Lieutenant. Do whatever pullback you 
think best--get everyone in the ships' vicinity. I'll get the commander out 
here." He glanced over at the poncho-covered form of the old groundskeeper. 
His voice dropped. "And...I don't know if it matters, but if you can detail a 
couple of men--" 
   Stern nodded. "We'll take care of him, sir." Apollo returned the young 
man's salute, and both men went their separate directions.
   Until now, Apollo had gone no deeper into the wreckage than the outer 
circle. He picked his way carefully toward the house, avoiding smoke-blackened 
timbers and spikes of plas and metal. He reached what had been the broad 
double doors just as the young men standing guard straightened and turned to 
enter. "Did you get your pullback order?" Apollo asked them.
   "Yes, sir."
   "All right. Hang on here; I'll get the commander." The marines nodded, 
turned to face outward again.
   Apollo had to wait a moment upon entering the vestibule while his vision 
adjusted; none of the suns' dimming light seemed to reach inside. A red glow 
caught his eye from down the hall. With difficulty he stumbled through the 
near-darkness in search of that will-of-the-wisp.
   He thought at first that his father would be in the living area, perhaps in 
the area reserved for his parents. Part of him had hoped until this time that 
his mother had survived the disaster, would be coming back to the ship with 
them.
   But his father was in the family room, standing slumped and silent before 
the wall that held the family's images, a montage of smiling, happy faces that 
covered all the years of Apollo's life and before. There was no sign of his 
mother.
   Apollo stopped behind his father, not touching him. He had to swallow a 
painful lump in his throat before he could speak. He had never in his life 
heard his father cry.
   "I'm sorry, Ila," Adama whispered. He sniffed softly. "I was never here..." 
One large hand touched, feather-light, a still-glowing holo of his wife. 
"...never here when it mattered..."
   Apollo felt that he had never wanted anything less in his life than to 
interrupt this moment. This was not a military man mourning a defeat; this was 
just a man in sorrow for the loss of the one being that had meant more to him 
than any other. Apollo had lost a mother; his father had lost a friend, a 
lover, a helper and a mate. The son's loss could in no way eclipse the 
father's.
   He shifted. Plas crunched beneath his boot. Adama straightened, glanced 
back. "Apollo," he said, dull surprise in his voice, turning his face away to 
wipe at it. "I didn't hear you come in."
   "No, sir," his son choked.
   "I was just--just gathering a few things," the man offered. He motioned at 
the wall. "These likenesses...this one of your--"
   Apollo hardened himself to the hurt with a physical effort. "Sir," he 
started, softened his tone with an effort. "Father, there is a convoy of 
civilians on their way here."
   Adama shrugged. "They are welcome to whatever shelter they can find here."
   Apollo touched his father's shoulder; the older man was unresponsive. "Sir, 
Lieutenant Stern believes they may be more of a mob than a refugee train. They 
probably saw the ships come down. When they get here, they're going to want to 
take the ships and escape."
   "Escape..." Adama whispered softly, emotionlessly. "But escape to 
where...?"
   "It won't matter, father," Apollo pointed out. "The marines won't let them 
take the ships. If they get them anyway, we won't care because we'll be dead 
too. You need to come back to the shuttle, sir, and let us handle it from 
there."
   For a long moment his father made no response. Apollo wondered if he should 
repeat his request, or perhaps call for assistance. Then his father 
straightened, shrugged his slicker into order. "Very well, Captain. Inform the 
Lieutenant that I am on my way out." He softened his voice. "Just...just a 
michron, please..."
   Apollo nodded, unseen, to his father's back, and turned to leave. His 
expression eased. "Father?" he offered hesitantly. "Maybe--maybe she wasn't 
here...maybe she--" He stopped as his father shook his head, slowly, 
ponderously, finally.
   "No, Apollo," the man said quietly, once more in control of his emotions, 
"she was here. She was here..." he trailed off. Apollo nodded again, turned 
and picked his way back out of the house.
   
   Apollo made certain that his father was on the passenger deck of the 
shuttle before he came back downstairs. Two troopers slid up the ramp as he 
reached the bottom deck, their armor's drives whining. Stern and his exec were 
standing beside the door, glaring out the door into the misty dimness. 
"Lieutenant," he said, peering around the hatchway.
   "Sir," Stern replied, not looking at him. "The crowd's here. Took 'em less 
time than I estimated."
   "Are all your men here?" Apollo asked.
   The groundforcer shook his head. "Got two scouts inbound. They're circling 
around to avoid the crowd. Shouldn't take 'em more'n another couple of centons 
to get here."
   Apollo scrutinized the distant crowd of dark shapes, the occasional bobbing 
lantern doing little to show any of the faces of the mob. He glanced up, saw 
rain already falling. "That's not going to help matters, is it?"
   Stern shook his head.
   Apollo longingly gazed at his viper, only tens of metrons away. "I need to 
get to my ship."
   Stern nodded. "Dacey! Lorage! Front and center!"
   "That's not necessary," Apollo protested. "I can run that distance before 
they can reach me."
   "You hope. Sir." Stern shook his head. "I still think they'll be armed. 
They may just decide to take potshots at you, sir. In that case my people can 
run interference until you can get that thing airborne." Two marines clumped 
up in their armor. "You two get the Captain to his ship." The men nodded, 
stomped to the ramp and, with the whine of lift-and-drives, skated down the 
metal slope. Stern glanced at Apollo. "You're up, sir. Don't waste time when 
you get there. Get that ship in the air first thing. We'll be right behind 
you."
   "What about your men?" Apollo asked again.
   "We can keep anyone away until they get here," Stern assured him. "Our 
priority's getting the commander out of here. Yours is to run interference for 
us." He nodded, turned his attention back to the outside world. "Good luck, 
sir."
   "Thanks." Apollo jogged down the ramp and into the warm, wet twilight. His 
boots slid in the muddy grass; he went to one knee, cursed, pushed himself up. 
His viper was a pale shape thirty metrons away. Aiming for that goal, he 
jogged away.
   He could hear the nearing crowd. Their words were not yet clear, but the 
overall sound was, and it was not a comforting noise. When he started running, 
he heard a louder noise, one of anger and discomfiting exultation. He breathed 
deeply to slow his racing heart, jogged a bit faster.
   The marines did not look at him as he reached his interceptor. "Hurry, 
sir," one advised him coolly. "They're in range now."
   Apollo reached up, slapped the pilot's patch. In response, the cockpit 
whined and lifted, and a small stairladder slid smoothly from the base of the 
fighter. He put a foot on the lower rung, reached up for the handhold--
   --and a blazer shot sparkled from the metal just centims from his head. He 
yelped, tingling and jerking reflexively from the corona loss of the shot. His 
fingers cramped, lost their strength; he fell to the ground.
   "Targeted!" one marine snapped.
   "Got 'im!" his partner responded. The man raised his weapon arm, snap-fired 
three shots. The mob howled as the beams tore into them, blowing several 
people backward, scattering the others in screaming confusion. "Shuttle 
Galilas, this is Sergeant Lorage. We are under attack, repeat, we are under 
attack." Apollo could not hear the ship's response; the sergeant merely 
muttered, "Yes, sir," and stopped talking.
   The vast majority of the mob, unaffected by the defender's shots, surged 
forward, howling angrily. More shots came from the crowd, projectiles whanging 
from the enforcers' armor, beams flaring from their shields. The marines were 
knocked back, but held their ground, began firing into the crowd.
   "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Apollo bellowed into his communicator from under 
cover of his landing gear. "Stern! Call them off! Cease fire!" Two more 
enforcers whirred up to form a skirmish line between the crowd and the viper.
   The lead one spoke, his loudspeaker blaring. "Attention! All of you! Drop 
your weapons and cease hostilities immediately! This is an order!"
   At the forefront of the crowd a large man in formerly opulent robes 
screamed counterpoint, waving his rifle illustration. "Get them! Fragging 
dirty napjakes! There're only four of them! Get those ships!" The crowd 
surged in anger.
   "Right," one of the newly arrived enforcers snapped. "Target that man." The 
crowd slowed a bit; the sergeant had spoken over his loudspeaker. Sergeant 
Dacey, on the other end of the defense line, snapped off a shot. The 
rabblerouser at the front of the mob screamed once, blown backward, and was 
silent by the time he hit the ground. The newly arrived colonial spokesman 
continued as though he had not paused. "Target anyone in that crowd that has a 
weapon. Drop 'em." The crowd slowed, stopped in its advance.
   Four more enforcers slid up, squished to a stop in the wet grass. The 
muttering from the crowd grew in loudness, darkened in its tone. Apollo 
glanced out, saw that at least for the moment no one was shooting, and came 
out.
   At the sight of the pilot, the crowd's roar rose again. Six gleaming 
weapons pointed into the mob; the noise abated slightly. Apollo looked out at 
them, trying to work up the anger and hatred that he felt he should be 
experiencing, unable to feel anything but compassion. All of them were dirty; 
most seemed to have been cut or scraped. Several were visibly burned; others 
wore bandages hastily created from garments and rags. Several in the mob were 
supported on the shoulders of their companions; others leaned on pseudo-
crutches or the poles of the lanterns they carried.
   As he advanced quietly toward them, two men broke ranks, walked toward him. 
The larger of the pair, a corpulent man in soiled casual clothing, started to 
run; the enforcers' weapons crackled warningly and he slid to a stop, anger 
and helpless fury on his face.
   Apollo stopped about two metrons from these ambassadors, swallowed. No 
words would come. These were the people he and his fellows had been sworn to 
protect--to give their lives protecting, if need be. It was in their name that 
his friends had fought and perished--and been betrayed. He and his had done 
what they could, had done what they had to, and still they had been deceived. 
They could have done no more.
   But these people did not see the matter that way. To them the peaceful 
skies had rained fire and death, leaving their lives in shambles, their 
futures uncertain at best. They could not accept the responsibility themselves 
for the disaster--the could not blame themselves and their desire for peace.
   Not when a scapegoat so handily presented himself.
   "Where were you, boy?" Balab cried in frustration and anger. "Where were 
the rest of you fancy fliers?"
   The slender man beside him stepped forward, shook a fist in Apollo's face. 
"Where were you, lad? When the cylons were killing everyone? What were the 
lot of you doing, boy?!?" Apollo's mouth worked; no sound came out. There was 
nothing he could say.
   Balab snapped; he could take it no more. Before the sergeant in charge of 
the warriors could say anything the big man closed the gap between himself and 
Apollo, seized the younger man by his flight harness, shook him like a daggit 
shaking a rodon. The enforcer-clad marines cursed, moved for a more 
advantageous shot, and the slender man that had joined Balab shot forward, 
also taking hold of the pilot. The crowd, sensing the possibility of victory, 
surged forward; the marines backed up, sighted on the crowd--
   --and a low, penetrating voice called "Wait!"
   The gruff voices of the marines could do little more than slow the angry 
advance of the mob; but this woman's soft word brought the whole tableau to a 
silent stop. Balab looked back at his friend, tears of angry and fear rolling 
down his cheek; the man beside him looked equally confused and upset. Apollo 
was limp in their grasp, waiting to see what his own fate would be.
   Serina, holding her son's and friend's daughter's hands tightly, elbowed 
forward from the crowd. The mob, mostly men, edged aside that she might move 
more easily. She ignored the enforcers, walked up to the three-man tangle. 
"They want to kill you, Captain," she said icily. "Frankly, I think they 
deserve to. But I want to know where you were, too. Did you desert? Why are 
you here instead of fighting the cylons?" Her hard gaze softened somewhat; her 
hands pressed the children against her. "Where were you? We watched... and we 
hoped... and we prayed..." Her eyes went hard again. "And none of you ever 
came." Her silence was damning.
   Apollo glanced at the children leaning tiredly against her, a small, 
grubby, dark-haired boy, and a taller, blonde-haired girl. Their young eyes 
showed nothing but confusion and fear. He glanced at the woman, looked at her 
more compassionately for this insight. These people, too, were frightened and 
confused.
   "Most of us..." He had to stop and swallow again; the news still hurt. 
"Most of us are dead." His next pause was not intentional, but it served well; 
a murmur went through the mob, less of anger than of surprise. "The Fleet... 
The Sixth Fleet is destroyed. The Armistice was a sham, a trap. We were taken 
by surprise..."
   "But you're here," Serina insisted, the bottom pulled out from under her 
opening argument.
   "From the battlestar Galactica," Apollo responded. 
   "It survived."
   "Yes," Apollo trailed off, looked away. He looked back at the woman, met 
her unblinking gaze steadily. "It's the only one left. While we were fighting 
off two cylon basestars--" The stir that this caused in the crowd was more 
impressive for the slight relaxing of the tension in the air. "--the third 
that had been attacking Caprica disappeared. We think it helped destroy the 
only other battlestar, the Solaria."
   A slender, dark-haired woman, a grim expression on her face, shouldered her 
way to the front, ignoring the enforcers as though they were not there. "He's 
right." Apollo and Serina turned to look at her in equal puzzlement. The woman 
nodded, grinned slightly. "Lieutenant Amlev. Acting commander, Caprican 
Defense Station East Doroga." The woman gave Serina a cool look. "We read 
three basestars in orbit before the attack started. You're so down on 
warriors, ma'am," she spat, "you try remembering the ones who kept Caprica 
City afloat when the rest of the planet was sinking." She turned her attention 
back to Apollo, touched a small shoulderbag. "I have data here that may be of 
some use later, sir," she said more officially. Apollo nodded absently. The 
sergeant in charge of the enforcer ring motioned with his free hand, and Amlev 
moved behind them. A handful of military among the crowd shouldered forward, 
joined the band behind the protectors.
   Serina, still angry, angrier now that her primary target had been proven 
innocent of wrongdoing, turned back to the pilot. "And what about the Council 
of Twelve? Aboard the Star Kobol? Did they--" She stopped as Apollo just 
shook his head slowly. "The Council of Seventy?"
   "Everyone, miss," Apollo said grimly. "We lost most of our fighters there 
when we left to defend Caprica."
   "But what about the other colonies?" Serina hedged, pressing the children 
tightly. The nightmare was beginning again. "What about Sagitarra? And Scorp? 
And, and--we're united! We have the will...we're united, captain." She 
stepped forward, her whole attitude that of a teacher trying to instruct a 
recalcitrant student. "All twelve colonies, captain... we're finally united... 
surely nothing can possibly defeat our combined strength... not if we fight as 
one--"
   "We became as one too late," a deep voice said. Apollo jerked his head 
around, startled; he had not heard his father approach. Neither had the six 
marines already on station, to judge from their leader's soft cursing. 
Lieutenant Stern and his exec, their weapons up and trained on the crowd, were 
no happier with the situation, judging from their stormy expressions.
   Adama stepped calmly forward. He glanced at the two men holding his son, 
motioned them away. Something in his calm demeanor, his forceful presence, 
touched them; they released the pilot, stepped back. The battlestar commander 
stopped, slowly looked across the face of the hundreds in the silent crowd.
   Serina felt her heart racing. The nightmare was a dream no longer; the end 
of the world had arrived. "C-commander Adama..." she whispered, disbelieving, 
not wanting to believe.
   Adama had conducted many media interviews in his tenure of service; he had 
long ago cultivated a gift for faces. "Siress Serina," he murmured, nodding 
politely, the deference any gentleman offered a lady.
   Serina swallowed hard, blinked at the burn in her eyes. "Then it's true," 
she said bitterly. "We are defeated. We're doomed." She did not miss the 
look that passed between commander and pilot, father and son.
   Boxey glanced up at his friend. Tatji looked back at him curiously. Neither 
was following the adult discussion much; too much had been happening lately 
for young minds to comprehend. In the absence of understanding, childlike 
enthusiasm rose to the front. The children grinned at each other, nodded in 
secret understanding. They looked at Apollo, smiled as charmingly as they 
could.
   Apollo, amused for the first time in days, smiled slightly in return.
   The children took this as encouragement. Tatji twisted one way; Boxey 
turned the other. Serina lost her grip on both of them, reached futilely for 
them as they trotted through the wet grass and ground to a stop in front of 
Apollo. They had no idea who the big man in the dark clothing was; whoever he 
was, he did not fly the fascinating vehicle just metrons away, and therefore 
could be of no importance at all. From about a metron away both leaped into 
flight, barely caught by a staggering Apollo. One marine in armor reached out 
a steadying arm; they children took no notice.
   "Can we have a ride in your ship, sire?" Boxey asked guilelessly, Tatji 
nodding frantic agreement.
   Apollo regained his balance, then glanced bemusedly at his father's 
expressionless face. He set the children down on the ground, then knelt, 
coming eye to eye with them. "Fighters are no place for little boys and 
girls," he said appeasingly.
   He glanced up at Serina's next quiet observation. "They're going to have to 
be... if we're to survive." Her glare dared Apollo to dispute the point.
   Adama looked down, looked up, turned and looked out to sea. For long 
centrons he was quiet. The crowd shifted uneasily. Stern's eyes roved the lot, 
picking out potential marks.
   Serina moved over to stand beside Adama. "We are going to fight back, 
aren't we?" she insisted. "We can't simply give up--"
   Adama still seemed deep in thought, but he turned away from the dimming 
sunset. His next words seemed addressed more to his son and the reporter than 
the crowd that listened so hungrily. "Yes," he murmured, "yes, we are going to 
fight back." A roar of satisfaction went up from the frustrated crowd, a group 
cry of vented anger. They might have been silent for all the notice Adama took 
of them. "But not here. Not now." His eyes turned up to the smoky, rain-filled 
skies. "Not on Caprica. Not in the colonies. Not even in this system."
   Silence gradually fell over the crowd as his words trickled back. Serina 
and Apollo exchanged uncertain looks. "Sir," Apollo finally breached the 
question, "what are you suggesting?"
   Adama seemed to ignore the young man, striding forth to stop at the front 
of the crowd. The people pressed closer, in mixed curiosity and relief, the 
closeness no longer quite the threat it had been just centons ago. "All of 
you. This will be your task. Spread the word.
   "Spread the word by whatever means you can, in whatever ways possible, to 
everyone that can hear."
   "What are we tellin' 'em?" a slender man asked matter-of-factly.
   Adama fixed him with a steely gaze; the man shivered in spite of himself at 
the fire in those eyes. "Tell them to take flight in whatever craft are 
available. Any ship that will take space, tell people to ride it."
   "Sir, there's not enough time to arrange for provisions, or for a colonial 
fleet," Apollo said. "We don't know where the cylons went. They could come 
back any time now, finish the attack, eradicate Caprica like they did the 
Fleet!" He paused. "If any of our pilots survived, we can--"
   "No," Adama corrected him calmly. "There are too many of the cylons, and 
far too few of us. There is a time to fight, and that time has ended after a 
thousand jahren. Just as there is that time to fight, there is a time to 
withdraw, to heal and strengthen in hopes of fighting another day."
   "But there's no way we can board the entire population of Caprica aboard 
the Galactica, sir," Apollo disputed. "And barring a miracle there are no 
troop carriers left. We haven't got anywhere to put these people, anyone!"
   "Then we will use whatever is available," Adama pointed out reasonably. 
"Every passenger liner, every freighter, every tanker and hauler. Inner orbit 
buses. Private yachts. Anything that will carry our people to the stars." A 
stir went through the crowd.
   "And when our people are out in the stars?" Serina asked quietly. Adama met 
her eyes unflinchingly.
   "Then we will lead them to safety," he replied equally quietly, "and we 
will protect them until they are strong again." He faced the crowd again, 
raised his arms in benediction and release.
   "We will fight back--and this time we will win!"

                         *** *** *** *** ***

   Epilogue--one secton later.
   Adama leaned tiredly against the table, facing the crowd that he had 
assembled in this, the largest meeting room of the battlestar. Behind him, the 
wallviewer displayed the colonial system, the five life-giving central suns 
and the twelve new, eye-searing stars of death. The cylons had finished their 
genocidal attack; the colonies were no more.
   And yet, he felt, as he looked out across the sea of face turned toward 
him, he asked himself: could the colonies ever truly die as long as even one 
of her children still lived, still carried the beliefs of their fathers and 
the Lords of Kobol in their hearts and souls?
   No, he said. The worlds of the colonies were gone, destroyed in blazing 
fire; but the colonials still lived.
   Serina coughed politely. Adama returned his attention to his audience, 
nodded amusedly at the young woman. He cleared his throat, straightened up, 
and began to speak.
   "You are here," he told the assemblage, "as the representatives of the 
ships of this refugee fleet. In all, there are two hundred and twenty vessels, 
carrying untold thousands of human survivors to the stars. It is to you, and 
your descendants, that the task of keeping the ideals of the colonies alive 
has fallen."
   "Where, precisely, are we going to keep these ideals alive?" Sire Uri 
asked, his voice petulant, his manner angry. The holocaust had done little to 
better his fortunes; in this ragtag fleet of fugitives, one's former station 
in life, however opulent, meant little. The press of life was too great to 
allow much luxury--and Uri had been a very comfortable personage on his 
native Liber.
   Adama was well aware of the frictions and power-plays, both overt and 
subtle, that had been happening during the past secton. He was distressed that 
such men as Uri were still holding the power of men's lives in their grasp; he 
had no way of disputing that authority. In the absence of absolute authority 
himself, he had been forced to turn his energies elsewhere.
   "Long, long ago," he began, speaking to the crowd as a whole, his eyes 
tracing the myriad faces, a cross-sample of humanity, "how many thousands of 
jahren ago is unimportant, our history records tell us that a mother 
civilization sent out seeds of life. We are descended from some of those 
seeds." The crowd stirred uncomfortably; so far the talk was not as comforting 
as they had hoped it would be. "Those of us here represent all the known races 
and cultures of man, survivors from each of the twelve colonies. We are all 
that remains of that proud mother race.
   "Save one colony," he continued strongly. "A sister world, or another 
motherworld--on this point the histories are unclear. It is held that it is a 
thirteenth colony--a sister planet, remembered now only through those ancient 
writings."
   Geller vo'Tahsmin, a doddering old fellow, one of the few survivors of 
Caprica's Council of the Seventy and already speaking as the representative of 
Caprica, lifted a hand. Adama nodded to him. "Commander, I've read the 
histories too. Including the secret ones. Frankly, none of them ever spoke of 
knowing where this lost colony was." The man glanced around at the others in 
the crowd. "And if this ship alone is any indication, we're not likely to even 
make it to the nearest star system--let alone across the galaxy on some 
damnfool crusade. We're almost out of fuel, and provisions, and--"
   "A very good point, Sire Geller," Adama inserted smoothly, before the man 
could get too carried away--or sway too much of the opinion in the room. "Our 
first plan of action calls for us to make our way to somewhere that will have 
the fuel and provisions we will need for our voyage."
   The Lady Princess Regina duFares Shirow Dougal, one of the last surviving 
members of the royal family of Aer and representative of her people among the 
Fleet, spoke regally. "Commander, I believe I speak for the vast majority of 
those assembled here when I point out that this is hardly a fleet of sturdy, 
well-equipped warships, full of warriors ready to leap into battle." She fixed 
Adama with a hard look. "Most of these people barely escaped with their lives, 
only to see their very homeworlds destroyed. They are physically and 
emotionally unprepared for a voyage such as you suggest!"
   Adama nodded, approving her words; he had feared that she would be more 
trouble than the others of the newly assembled Council of Twelve. He looked at 
the other side of the group as Siress Hadar, the current Sagitarran 
councilman, stood. "Commander, from what my people tell me, less than a third 
of the ships in this 'fleet' even have lightspeed capability." There was a nod 
of disapproving agreement from the other newly elected councilmen; a number of 
those in the crowd, mere ship's representatives, were looking uncertain. "How 
do you propose to find this, this thirteenth colony, if it even exists, with 
ships and equipment such as--"
   "We will find it," Adama interrupted her, "because we have no choice. If we 
merely hold station here, at the edge of our own system, the cylons will 
sooner or later discover us."
   "If we haven't all starved or frozen to death before that," Uri snarled.
   Adama nodded acknowledgement. "My engineers, especially in cooperation with 
those of the other major ships of our fleet"--he nodded at Hadar, who sniffed 
at the sarcasm in his attitude--"are working on ways to propel this entire 
fleet at the faster-than-light speeds we will require to cover any meaningful 
distance.
   "Until that time, we will travel only as fast as our slowest ship," he 
said, the feeling in his voice rolling out across the faces of his listeners, 
"and we will be only as strong as our weakest brother.
   "The Galactica is the only surviving battlestar, but there are three 
other military vessels in our flight. We, together with the larger, more 
independent ships who have joined their forces with us, will defend our 
defenseless brethren."
   "Like you defended us at the Armistice?" someone jeered from the crowd.
   "As they defended us at Caprica," Geller added, nodding to Adama.
   Serina rose to her feet, taking the floor. Adama tipped his head to her, 
and she spoke. "Sir, forgive the void in my education, but mythology and 
religion were never my strongest subjects. All I've ever known about are the 
colonies, and the few colonies we ourselves planted. This--this 'thirteenth 
colony'--where is it? What is it called?"
   Adama raised an eyebrow at the young woman who, undaunted, raised an 
eyebrow right back at him. He knew very well that she had been permitted to 
see many of the history documents, open and secret alike; he had seen some of 
her specials on that very subject. She must have decided to steer what had 
shown every sign of becoming a virulent argument back onto the course he 
intended. Serina, Adama realized, was going to be a force to reckon with in 
the sectars to come.
   "I wish that I could tell you precisely where this other world is, Siress," 
he replied slowly, "but I cannot. None of the histories gives its precise 
location. Several of the notations passed down from the Lords of Kobol 
themselves indicate its general direction."
   "So you're asking us to join you on a religious quest?" Serina pressed.
   "No." He paused, sighed deeply. "I am telling you. This is what we are 
going to do." When the woman started to protest he bulled forward, drowning 
her out. "There is no other choice."
   Serina's silence was less pleasant than irritated now. "And this lost 
colony? What colony is it?"
   Adama paused, then continued. "Earth. The records call it Earth."

   ende de GALACTICA SDF: HOLOCAUST