After Commander Crichton had spent hours contemplating the ramifications of joining the two fleets and after discussing the issue with his wife, he made a public announcement to his fleet. He made it clear that he would have to relinquish overall command of his fleet to Admiral Adama, but that he hoped he would remain Commander of the Battlestar Pacifica. He also let the people know that they would also now have a new civilian government under President Laura Roslin, whom many remembered as the former Secretary of Education. Everybody was excited that they would soon meet up with Galactica's fleet, hoping they would get to see long lost friends and relatives. Thanks to Starbuck, the people in Crichton's fleet had known for nearly two months that the Galactica, the Pegasus, and another fleet of civilian ships had survived the Fall of the Colonies.

Some people were less excited than others. Chief Spencer knew that his cousin Jackson was a viper pilot aboard the Galactica. What he did not know as that Major Jackson Spencer had actually been the CAG of the Galactica and had been among the first casualties the Galactica had suffered. The deck chief of the Pacifica and his cousin had not seen each other in over 20 years. They had never gotten along well and always ended up getting into fistfights when they were young. The Chief was about as excited about the prospect of seeing Jackson again as someone would be about finding a hole in their EVA suit during a spacewalk. And Chief Spencer had done plenty of spacewalks lately. Mostly to repair damage on the Pacifica or to install new upgrades.

Sheba Cain had been told by Starbuck that her mother was dead and hoped Adama would not assign her to serve aboard the Pegasus. She also hoped she could remain assigned to the same ship as Thomas, who had recently proposed to her.

Aboard Babylon 4, Colonel Horace Atwood was contemplating what the changes in the command structure would mean for him. Would Adama accept his commission and leave him in charge of Babylon 4? Would the Admiral be receptive to his ideas for expanding the fleet? How many of Adama's ships would need repairs and refits? How would this affect the resource situation?

Captain Thomas Hill had similar concerns. He was only in his twenties and only held the rank of Captain, yet he was XO of a battlestar, a position that would normally be filled by an older, more experienced officer, usually with the rank of Colonel. Would Adama reassign him and replace him with one of his own officers? How would all this affect his upcoming wedding with Sheba?

Major Robbins seemed to be the one who had the most to worry about. She was a model 3 Cylon, yet she was fiercely loyal to humanity, or what was left of it. Just like the rest of Crichton's officers, she had proven her loyalty over and over again and he knew that he could count on his former XO, now the XO of Babylon 4. How would she prove to Adama that she would not betray humanity to the Cylons? Would he just throw her out of an airlock, just for being a Cylon? Even after becoming fully aware of who she was, she had risked her life for the Pacifica and her fleet many times and had given orders that had resulted in the deaths of several of her Cylon siblings.

Aeryn Sun was wondering how Adama would react to Moya and Pilot and hoped she could keep up the cover story. She trusted John that he would get all of them through this sticky situation, just like he had gotten them through so many other sticky situations before. As a fully trained Peacekeeper, she had plenty of tricks up her own sleeve and was perfectly able to take care of herself and even get John out of trouble as well if necessary. Both knew that they could count on each other.

During a press conference aboard Colonial One, President Laura Roslin also made an announcement to the people in her fleet. Admiral Adama had decided that the Galactica would jump to the coordinates of the space station to assess the situation, then send a raptor back to the fleet if everything checked out. Once the raptor returned and gave the all clear, the fleet would jump to Babylon 4 as well. The fleet would be guarded by the Pegasus during the Galactica's absence. Adama and Roslin had been told by Starbuck that the worm aliens had been to Earth and seem to know how to get there, but had agreed not to make it public yet.

Roslin was president again since the New Caprica debacle, which had led to the forced resignation of Gaius Baltar only a few weeks after he had been elected. Shortly after the planet had disappeared, the scientist and short time president had become more and more mentally unhinged. He had been declared unfit for the presidency by reason of insanity and been forced to resign or be removed from office after he had been observed talking to an imaginary Model Six Cylon on multiple occasions. His vice president was not very popular and so the people in the fleet had demanded new elections. Two weeks later, new elections had been held, which Roslin had won by a landslide.

After the press conference was over, William Adama and his old friend Saul Tigh shared a few drinks together in Adama's quarters.

"Having a base like the one Starbuck described would go a long way in giving some of the ships a chance to get some long-needed repairs, the Admiral stated.

"Yeah, but it would also be a big fracking target for the toasters to shoot at," his XO countered pessimistically.

"Depends on what the station has to shoot back with. According to Starbuck's report, Babylon 4 has pulse cannons, similar to the ones on the bird she came back in.

"I wonder if that space station Crichton found is the one that the 13th tribe had sent back to us from the future."

"You mean the one that strange guy on New Caprica had talked about?"

With the help of his wife, John Crichton was putting together a fake service history, a story that he hoped was convincing enough to fool the old Admiral into believing he was a real colonial officer. His biggest fear was that Adama or one of his officers had served on one of the ships he listed and would call his bluff because they had never run into each other.

"What about the Battlestar Valkyrie?", Aeryn suggested.

"Bad idea! Starbuck mentioned that Adama had commanded the Valkyrie a few years ago", John responded.

Aeryn rattled down the names of a few ships she had heard or read about. Finally, they had managed to create the most convincing story of Crichton having served on ships that belonged to fleet units that had operated as far away from any units Adama had served on as possible. This was not supposed to be an official service record, just a story that Crichton could tell Adama if he asked on which ships Crichton had served.

On one hand he was glad to meet up with Adama and his fleet, on the other hand this would make things more difficult for him. For the first time in a long time he will have to answer to someone above him.

On their base on Minbar, the Cylons were making plans to attack both Colonial fleets simultaneously. They had monitored both fleets closely and noted that this is the closest both fleets ad ever been and predicted a high probability of both joining up soon. A combined Colonial fleet would be a lot harder for the Cylons to defeat, so they needed to prevent this at any cost. Cavil had hoped this would happen a lot later, so the new advanced raider would be ready by then. This new advanced raider was based on technology the Cylons had salvaged from the wrecks of the Minbari and Shadow ships in orbit. Work on a prototype was to begin soon. Not only were the Cylons concerned that both fleets would join, but they were also worried the Colonials would find their base. Just earlier that day a patrol had come close to Minbar. A raider squadron had been sent to intercept them, but was destroyed by some sort of advanced fighters, indicating the Colonials were working on a new fighter design of their own.

These advanced fighters worried Cavil, not only did he not know how many of them Crichton or Adama had at their disposal, but he was also afraid they would negate the advantage of the new advanced raiders.