------- authors note ------

This is my first fanfiction on BSG2003, and please bare with me if I did not get any details right. Please mail me if you have any corrections or want to add a bit of info I missed on about. More to come soon.

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Commander Adama stood in the CIC, or Combat Information Center, onboard the Battlestar Galactica. It was the last surviving Ship in the Colonial Military after the Cylon Holocaust two years in the past. He was the military leader of a ragtag fleet of civilian refugees, the last hope for the survival of mankind. Their target - the mythical Planet Earth, the thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, the reason all people kept on going. They believed in the speech held by him two years earlier,
as he told them he knows where to find Earth and how to get there. The only problem is - it was a lie.

"Sir, the Fleet has completed the Jump, all ships are present and accounted for." someone reported,
forcing Adama to refocus on the here and now.

"Good work Mr. Gaeta, please order the Fleet to stand down their FTL drives, we put enough stress on the engines already in the last couple of days. If our predictions are right, we will stay here for a while." he replied.

This stop - a luxury they could not afford often due to increased Cylon activity in the Sector - was a neccessary one. They once again were running low on the most basic of supplies - water. The area they jumped in showed to be a promising system on sensors, possibly containing one or more planets with an atmosphere and liquid water on the surface.

"Sir, sensors report that there is indeed one planet in this system, orbiting the central star at the outer edge of the "green zone". It is possible that there is not only water but also an Atmosphere on that Planet." Gaeta stated.
"Excellent Mr. Gaeta. Please monitor the system for Cylon activity, it's a bit too quiet for my liking. It's always disquieting if things go too smoothly." Adama answered.

"Colonel Tigh, send out a recon Viper to the planet to verify our sensor results, and just in case prepare a recon Team and a Raptor too. You'll lead the expedition in case the Viper results show to be promising. I don't want to move the fleet deeper inside the system before we know it's quiet over there."

Tigh saluted, and began relaying the order to the appropriate stations. Shortly after, a standard Combat Air Patrol guarding a specially designed recon Viper, equipped with advanced sensors, but no weapons, was launched and set a course for the planet. It took the small group a few hours to get there, so everyone in the CIC relaxed and turned back to routine work - everyone but Adama.

His nerves were quite strained - the frequent attacks by Cylon forces had left their marks on him - not sleeping very well only worsened the situation. Since he got nothing to do until the results came in, he decided to take a break and get back to his office - he had made a habit out of building models of old sea-going vessels - and the last one .. did not survive a hard time the Fleet went through. He decided to re-build another vessel, bearing the name Discovery - a sailing ship that set out to discover new land,
and ultimately found a new continent back in the old days, before industrialization started to hasten the pace of civilisation. He found the name very fitting, as the only hope they had at the moment also was a big discovery, one they all hoped for. They needed to find a way to the mythical planet Earth.
A few hours later, the intercom rang and Commander Adama was ordered back to the CIC - he did not get very far with his model, since his thoughts were not easy at rest as he would like them to be. He was at high alert all the time, planning the next step should they be disturbed by a Cylon fleet during this mission.

As he reached the CIC, the preliminary results from the recon team were brought up on the monitors - the planet contained an atmosphere, but much to their disappointment, it was not breathable. It contained the usual components expected from a planet in the green zone, but the oxygen levels were far too low for a human to breathe it. "At least it is not toxic", he thought.

But, one thing they got right - the planet contained an ocean - or, more to be exact - a very, very big lake filled with liquid water. It needed to be desalinated, but that was not a big deal and could be done on the spot with minor work. He was as pleased as he could be daring the circumstances.

"Shall I move out with a recon team in a Raptor, Sir?" Tigh asked.

"Mr. Gaeta, have your scans turned up anything unusual in the last hours?"

"No sir, the system is quiet - apart from this planet, there is only a small asteroid belt a bit outside. No unusual movements have been recorded on DRADIS and the data sent by the Recon team shows that the planet - at least the quarter the team mapped so far - contains no signs of life of any sort apart vom micro-bacteria in the reported salt-water-lake. Nothing to worry about if you ask me Sir." he responded.

"Well .. Colonel, I guess that won't be neccessary. Time is of the essence here, and we simply just don't have the luxury to waste time anymore. We'll have a hard time as it is because we need all personell to wear pressure suits while working. The recon flight is cancelled" Adama answered.

"Signal the Fleet, we are going to move closer in the system. All ships containing desalination systems are to be travelling at high priority, the others follow. We need to get this Operation to work quickly and efficently. The Cylons have shown an exorbitant expertise in tracking our movements, and I'd like not to be in the midst of a culmination of pipes and tugs between our ships when they jump in." he ordered.

The Fleet began to slowly move in the direction of the planet, using sublight only. It took them quite a few hours to get there,
but when all ships had arrived the work began quickly. All available Raptors began ferrying personell and equipment to and from the planet directly to a site scouted out by the recon Viper, suited for installing their equipment.

No-one knew that they would make an even bigger discovery than this planet within a day's time.

- End of Chapter one -