Eleven

The insertion into Caprica space had been quite easy after the final jump Apollo and Starbuck had transferred to their Vipers and detached from the underside of the APC. They had remained close to the larger ship to hide their numbers before splitting just before atmospheric insertion. Around Caprica there were was no space traffic at all no surviving Colonial military ships, no civilian freighters, no Cylon fighters and more importantly no Cylon Baseships.

Inside the atmosphere the three ships dived into Caprica's Great Gorge six kilometres deep at its deepest point they could travel through the Gorge without worry for Cylon radar. Coming to rest about half way through the Gorge Apollo, Starbuck and McQueen met briefly "welcome to Caprica" Kara Thrace said morbidly.

"Not exactly how I remember it" Lee Adama said quietly

"It looked like the city to the south was mostly intact." McQueen said

"Delphi" Kara said quietly "Caprica City didn't look as good." She said speaking of the Capital of the Twelve Colonies.

"We'll avoid Caprica" Lee said "I'll take the northern hemisphere, Starbuck, you take the southern, Keep things fast and low, if the Cylons never discover we are here all the better." He said the hotshot blonde pilot nodded her agreement with the idea "Colonel, try to approach Delphi Spaceport see if you can see any transports we could use, try to stay out of sight especially the APC its weapons would be prizes for the Cylons."

"Understood" McQueen replied

"Our rules of engagement?" Starbuck asked

"If you see any human survivors you are cleared to engage any Cylon contact and attempt contact with the survivors preferably by wireless." Lee ordered Caprica felt wrong but they had a chance to right some of that wrong.

Nearly an hour later they were flying just above the treeline looking for survivors. Officially Lee was scanning the Southern Hemisphere avoiding the cities unofficially he was angling his search towards a small Colonial Reserves Air Base, his old base, before he had been ordered to Galactica he'd been stationed on Caprica partly because he'd decided not to pursue a path aboard a Battlestar unofficially because of what was based there or at least near it. Flying over the base he saw a line of Caprican Air Force Vipers atmospheric versions of his own Mk. II Viper, beside them were a row of Blackhawk Marine Corps VTOLs. "Apollo to Reserve Base 16" He said into the wireless using the base's official name.

"Apollo, you see something?" Starbuck asked she must have been monitoring his wireless' channel.

"Continue your search, Starbuck, keep comms to a minimal." He said circling the Reserve Base for a second time "Com'on" he whispered looking down at the base. "Frack it" he cursed firing the Viper's retros he brought the fighter down slowly extending the landing struts as he handed the craft near the row of Airforce Vipers. Dismounting from the Viper he pulled off his helmet and tossed it back into the cockpit of the aircraft drawing his standard issue side-arm.

Running from the Viper to the bases main building he stood his back against the wall glancing through a window seeing a small amount of movement. Pushing the door open he raised his gun as he entered seeing the figure move around the corner following slowly silently he turned and pointed his gun at the figure "don't move a muscle or I'll drop you." He said holding the gun pointed at the figure's back "turn around slowly" he said the figure turned rigidly not moving a muscle out of place Lee could see it was a female, her face was covered in dirt her blonde hair tied back "Gianne..." he whispered barely believing what he was seeing. He was so focused on what he was ahead of him he missed the rifle butt swinging towards him, smashing into the side of his face and knocking him unconscious to the floor.

"Welcome back to Caprica, Apollo" the older man said looking at the downed pilot and then at the woman "he deserves worse my daughter." He said quietly.

To the south Starbuck had been flying terrain following for the last hour and wasn't enjoying it the south was mountainous and covered in trees. Starbuck kept glancing down but the tree cover was thick so far she'd barely seen an animal let alone a human. As she sped over the trees however she saw the sunlight glint against a Centurion's armour to the right turning she saw a small compound. Moments later she could see small arms weapons fire being exchanged by both sides. "Starbuck to resistance fighters respond." She called out over the wireless seeing more Centurions emerge from the trees. "This is Starbuck respond."

"This is Samuel Anders whoever you are Viper if you believe in the free Colonies we need support that tree-line is crawling with Cylons." A voice came through in between the weapons fire.

"Roger that, keep your heads down" Starbuck called out rolling her fighter to the right cutting in the Viper's thrust to a minimum she spun the craft a full 180 degrees before opening fire with her KEWs strafing the treeline, moments before her cut-down thrust caused a stall Starbuck triggered her fighter's last missile turning the treeline into fire. Spinning the fighter back around she kicked in the thrust taking her fighter back into the air "Starbuck to Apollo, I've found survivors, repeat I've found survivors, Apollo do you read?" She called out but there was no reply.

The APC had flown as close to the Delphi Spaceport as they could before landing in a crop of trees then a small team consisting of McQueen, Boomer, Crashdown, West, Cooper and five of the marine team had moved in while Vansen, Wang and Damphoouse kept the APC ready to fly and the rest of the marines set up a "kill-zone" for anything that got too close.

Boomer was ahead of Helo and several of the others as she turned the corner of a burned out building on the outskirts of Delphi Spaceport she saw a figure moving towards the spaceport along a second parallel path. She was dressed in a Colonial flight suit like Boomer had the same dark hair tied back into a rough pony-tail, the same skin colour and the same features. "You" she said shocked at seeing Boomer. Immediately Boomer grabbed for her pistol drawing and raising it quickly she fired a single shot catching the other Sharon Valerii in the shoulder. The other Cylon dropped to the ground grabbing for her shoulder. Boomer moved forward aiming her gun at the downed woman.

"Where's Helo?" Boomer demanded looking down at the other Sharon Valerii

"Go to hell" the downed woman said looking up "you'll never get to him, you or any of the others."

"I'm not with the others I'm with Galactica" Boomer explained the other Sharon looked up at her unbelieving "I can get you out of here."

"False hopes don't get far." Sharon said "if you're going to do it, go ahead, I'm never giving up Helo." She said Boomer's finger tensed on the trigger but before she could fire three shots rang out catching Boomer in the stomach and chest moments later Karl "Helo" Agathon moved from the trees his pistol still drawn as he looked down on the fallen Cylon.

Since the first day of the Cylon assault Helo had been stranded on Caprica. The day before he'd been Boomer's ECO but their ship had taken a hit during a fight with the Cylons and been forced to land for repairs Helo had given up his seat on the ship for Gais Baltar who he had seen in a crowd of survivors. Soon after Sharon had landed she'd claimed to have returned to rescue him after feeling bad for abandoning him for the last 46 days they'd evaded and fought the Cylons at every turn. Now she looked down at the downed woman and then to the woman who had been with him all this time, the woman he'd fallen in love with "Sharon, what the hell is this?" He asked staring from one woman and then to the next, they were identical other than the gunshot wounds, his pistol was still levelled on the fallen woman.

With the refugee fleet Galactica had continued to send out Raptor patrols to scout out nearby systems, keep an eye out for Cylon patrols, search for resources useful to the fleet and plan the fleet's next move.

After four such trips Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson and her ECO Hamish "Skulls" McCall were getting a little tired of these scout missions Galactica just needed to move on, Apollo and Starbuck were likely never coming back. "Okay Skulls, mystery trip number five in three, two, one! Jump!" Racetrack called out as the Raptor moved away from Galactica moments later the ship vanished in a flash of light leaving the fleet behind.

Leaping across space the ship appeared in another system over another world, in-fact falling towards another planet "Oh frack, frack, frack, frack!" Racetrack screamed as she tried to pull the Raptor out of the planet's gravity well. "Gods damn it Gaeta! What the frack you can't jump that close to a planet, you jump into the atmosphere or away from the Gods damned planet!" She screamed behind her Skulls tried and failed to hide his laughter. "Shut-it Skulls, get your ass up here and look at this." She said bringing the Raptor under control "would you look at that!" She exclaimed looking at the world it was blue, green and white as clouds passed over several continents which were split up by seas and oceans.

"You think it's Earth?" Skulls asked excitedly

"I think its habitable" Racetrack said looking at her mind racing glancing down she looked at the DRADIS readings "it could be Kobol, we're the right kind of distance from the colonies."

"We're not that lucky" Skulls said dismissing the idea

"Whatever this place is the Commander is going to want to know. Spin up the FTL Skulls, this was a nice short trip." Racetrack said turning the Raptor away from the planet taking a long look at the world as she turned the ship.

Hours later Commander Adama stood in the Galactica's CIC with the desk microphone raised to his mouth. "This is the Commander, you are all aware that one of our Raptors discovered a world that may or may not be the world of Kobol." He said looking at Saul Tigh "we do not know the condition of this planet but we will be returning to it. Stand-by for jump." He said lowering the microphone "Mr Gaeta, order Raptor 275 to remain behind after the jump they are to wait for six days for Captain Adama's expedition and then jump this ship ahead of the fleet, we'll be taking no chances." Adama said grim faced, he'd suggested to the President that a Scout-in-Force deployed by Raptors should be sent to the system but Roslin wanted all the people of Colonies to see the world.

The Galactica "flashed" into the Kobol system high above the world immediately the sensor console went crazy "MULTIPLE DRADIS CONTACTS!" Gaeta shouted drawing both Adama and Tigh's attention up to the central monitoring console three large red dots appeared on the screen.

"Oh my Gods!" Tigh said looking down at Commander Adama "we're jumping right ontop of the fracking Cylons!" he exclaimed as the Civilian fleet began to complete their jumps into the system.

Adama looked at Tigh then called out "SET CONDITION ONE throughout the ship, launch all Vipers and Raptors, all weapon batteries on the Cylons!" He snapped

TO BE CONTINUED...

END OF PART ONE

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