Final Stop

Previous Session: Zeus Engagement

The fleet jumps into orbit around the gas giant Andromache, where a moon rich with Tylium) orbits nearby. Petty Officer McClaren spots a derelict freighter floating around the moon. There's no sign of life, but the alert is raised and a mission is put together. Deadlock, the CAG, will lead it in person. Boxcar'll fly a Raptor across with a squad of marines, and they'll be escorted by six Vipers on the way over.

Dr. Meirion holds a roundtable with his students - specifically to discuss the anti-jump effect and whether it was connected with the link between the Basestar and its constituent Cylons. Are the jump calculations based on the same wavelength as the 'hivemind' exhibited by the Cylons? 

The abandoned freighter is not quite so abandoned after all. When they shine a light through the frosted windows of the tumbling Sharpsburg, a low-power distress radio sounds out. The pilot, a woman called Max cries for help in a weak voice. 

Over the radio, she asked in detail about circumstances and how she came to be here. She tells a tale that her first mate, a man called Kiran went crazy and she beat him to death (she thinks?). After being convinced that they won't be prosecuted for their dodgy history, she admits that they were running weapons to the Gemenon resistance when the Cylons attacked. They were caught by Cylon raiders near Zeus, but jumped here and the damage they sustained mean they've been stranded ever since. 

Deadlock makes the call to Stump to come over in another Raptor. Theirs is full to the gills with armour/muscle-bound marines so they need extra space to bring back anyone they rescue or any interesting materiel they find. 

Here's Deadlock's plan: Max is going to turn off all the systems aboard the Sharpsburg, they're going to set up an umbilical tunnel and transfer her across after Boxcar sends in a drone to take a look around.

Rhys Meirion takes a leap of faith, he ignores interruptions from his students. He really wants to see this woman up close; to see if his suspicions ring true.

****

They bring Max off, who jumps across in her spacesuit to Stump's Raptor to head back to the Valkyrie. Boxcar sends in the drone into the Sharpsburg, and quickly it finds Kiran's body and then they find signs of long habitation up in the cockpit.

The marines go across to do a more complete sweep, examining some things the drone couldn't get into. Foster opens a cubby hole near engineering and is eviscerated by a Cylon centurion.

Deadlock and the rest of the marines hear the scream over the mic before it's cut off. The next thing Boxcar sees is a Cylon jumping across through the umbilical over to her Raptor, colliding with her co-pilot who's standing at the doorway. She spins the Raptor to get rid of it and it spins out into the darkness, but in the confusion it lets rip a dozen shots from it's chain-gun and it knocks out the main comms transmitter, and Boxcar doesn't notice as she tries to get the Raptor back under control.

Deadlock is in danger of being cut off from escape, as McBain, the squad corporal take a faceful of lead from a Cylon, but between his last breath and Deadlock they empty their guns into the centurion and put it down. Deadlock tries to rally his marines, but Atlanta gets skewered by the remaining Cylons claw. Deadlock and Swift finish it off. 

These are not their parents' centurions. They're sleeker, more powerful and still yet more nimble. 

Back over at the Valkyrie, Max is coming aboard, Stump and his co-pilot checked her out and reckoned she was ok. 

Meirion wonders if it's possible to place relics locally to detect Cylons aboard the Valkyrie, and he goes to Behari, but she doesn't listen. 

Marcus heads down to the hangar, and notices that Max is identical to Tara, but with dark hair. Meirion is checking the records and recognises the similarity as well. 

Across at the Sharpsburg, getting back aboard the Raptor, Deadlock notices that the radio is out and that the patrolling Vipers are out of short-range comms. 

Marcus talks to the freaking-out Meirion and together they warn the marines on deck to keep an eye on her - Marcus fingers a concealed firearm as they survey her crossing the hangar deck. They put in a call to Tara's room, where Fernando tells them that she's headed down with Charlie to help out in the engine room. They put in a priority call with the duty officer down there to arrest Tara immediately.

***

As Boxcar approaches the Valkyrie to land, the power cuts out through the Battlestar, and she waves-off to try again.

In sickbay, watching Max carefully, Marcus strikes, stabbing her in the throat with a screwdriver.

In jumps a Cylon Basestar.

Meirion heads down towards Engineering via Causeway B with a couple of marines, without power it's a challenge to get through the ship. These doors need to be opened manually, and inside they find dead engineers. Tara is inside with the chief engineer, she has a sidearm to his head and opens fire on them.

Outside, Boxcar is one of the few Raptors out there and Behari makes the decision to launch her last two remaining nukes at the Basestar; Boxcar'll give them firing solutions and they'll just have to hope the close range does the rest. Behari has to get emergency teams to redirect any residual power from life support to launch Vipers. Otherwise they're a sitting duck, and breathing will be an optional extra anyway.

Tara isn't to be talked down, and with the situation aboard getting grim, the marines open fire on her, grievously wounding her and the chief engineer. Bleeding out, she laughs at Meirion's suggestion of their friendship. Viciously, he kicks her in the head til she's dead.

The rest of the engineering team start to bring everything back online.

**

Boxcar is guiding the nukes in, but the Vipers are getting torn apart by the Cylon Raiders, but the giant dog-fight is giving Boxcar the cover she needs. The nukes hit the Basestar, destroying one arm and damaging another; and it goes defensive.

Deadlock organises a scratch squadron of Vipers to attack the circling raiders from his co-pilot seat next to Boxcar, but it's almost meaningless.

The engineering team, urged on to even greater effort, makes a mistake and power is surging irregularly.

Back up on the bridge, McClaren notices an anomaly in comms and isn't convinced by Meirion's excuses as to what he was doing at the station. Burns doesn't buy it either and orders him put in the brig!

Another wave of Cylon raiders overwhelm the remaining group of Vipers and then they send in a handful heavy raiders - a few dozen Cylon Centurions board the Battlestar.

*

Looking on, Deadlock pulls his gun on Boxcar and tells her to approach the Basestar - they must find a way to stop it. Swift backs him up, but she's not sure about all this. They fly inside the Basestar, past glowing cinders and floating centurions, and then further inside past scores of stacked raiders.

Manoeuvring carefully to a central steel column, they land softly, seeing a human enter a hatchway. They follow, sick to their stomach, and Boxcar lifts out a jury-rigged bomb. As they approach the hatchway, Meirion steps out.

He tries to talk them down - it's him, but that's impossible. Deadlock just shoots him. Swift follows up inside and opens fire on a handful of 'skinjobs'.

They don't have a remote detonator and there are Cylon Centurions coming. Deadlock tries to lay some Cylon guilt on Boxcar (her dad is a Cylon!) but she's not budging. Deflated, Deadlock gives them time to escape and sets the bomb.

With a destroyed Basestar behind then, Boxcar and Swift take the Raptor out to see the human fleet being torn apart.

They jump.

2 Survivors

FIN

Zeus Engagement

Previous Session: Disputed Territory

Marcus' hard work over the previous few days pays immediate dividends as he gets the relics inside Zeus' satellites running to interfere with Cylons in overlapping range of them.

Sofia Behari
The Commander

Commander Sofia Behari gets onto Marcus - she wants his assessment of how vulnerable those Cylons will be to his new secret weapon. Those raiders floating around Athena are currently most vulnerable, but they'd better be wary of a second basestar jumping in between Minos and Athena; Zeus. Marcus does alert Behari to the possibility of using the relics to create a field which would prevent any jump inside the overlapping relics, but that would require a mondo power source.
that's their best and most obvious escape route. They won't be able to jump out this close to

The Valkyrie and the rest of the fleet close in with Persephone; with another Viper group launching and defending in a close cordon.

Meanwhile Boxcar escorts the Sinqa back to the fleet and then acts as C3i, going quiet to maintain surveillance on the Cylons. Deadlock briefs the squadrons and they hold their positions for now.

Raiders #2 come in fast with Squadron B intercepting them. 20 or 24 go dead in space, as blue arclight shoots out of the artefacts. Marcus is happy with himself, but Behari is concerned as the lights go dim on the Valkyrie (and strangely enough, they go blue as well). The pilots are ecstatic as they mop up the helpless Cylon raiders.

Marcus gets back onto Behari. He reckons he's got a 40% chance of interfering directly with a Basestar, but it'll take a lot of power.

Squadron A, with Deadlock leading, head towards Hermes. Behari provides some covering fire for them, but the power requirements of long-range fire cause the FTL computer to go down, losing their jump coordinates!

Boxcar is in a position to scout, still identifying the same route out; with raiders on the breakthrough route not dog-fighting and hanging back.

***

Squadron A pulls back to protect the fleet , but in the fight against massed raiders, Hercules, Easy and Snake Eyes are all killed and the Cylons break through the cordon. The Valkyrie opens up on the closing raiders and puts up a wall of fire which forces the Cylons to break, giving A Squadron a chance to catch them, all-but wiping out 2 groups of raiders.

After mopping up, Deadlock thinks about heading back to the barn, it's time to rearm the Vipers, and with the Valkyrie laying waste around nearby, they might just have the time and space to do so, and he uses his CAG privileges with the crew chief to get a new(ish) Viper, as the rest of his squadrons sit in hot seats to get replenished.

Boxcar is looking for a weapons load, anything to turn the tide. Behari is thinking about the few nukes she still has locked away, and quickly gets one launched at the Basestar. Boxcar has a tight-beam on it, and with no guidance running from the Valkyrie, the Cylons shouldn't be able to intercept. Boxcar takes it under her wing, and sets up guidance and proximity counters so that it'll detonate on top of the Basestar and when she's made her getaway.

Deadlock launches to fly interference, getting rid of any raiders that look hungry. The nuke goes off behind them and the Basestar is destroyed. The Cylons cut their losses and all nearby raiders bug out.

*

But a new Basestar jumps in.
The race is on to get the FTL back online, and get all the Vipers/Raptors back aboard before they get entangled again.

They jump with the civilian fleet to a system outside of Colonial space. A known Tylium source.

3471 Survivors

Next Session: Final Stop

Disputed Territory

Previous Session: The Valkyrie

Seth and Rowena start off by complaining directly to Prof Rhys Meirion. So much so that he begins to wonder what's going on behind his back. While he questions his students, he bamboozles the Marine guards on the relics to allow him to take all the devices attached (he assured Corporal Polati that this was what the Commander meant). He gets Miranda to run diagnostics on all of them, but it'll take a while before they get anything like a complete picture together.

Meanwhile, Captain "Deadlock" Chitnis is tasked to interrogate Tara, the professor's suspicious protege. As soon as he tries to charm her, the anti-military/anti-establishment attitude comes out. She mouths off about his fascist tendencies, but isn't convinced by his attempt to get her to come clean - she obviously paid attention during Law 101.

After a while though, Deadlock gets a read on her. He reckons that if he can guarantee her safety (the suggestion is that she wants to be kept away from her professor and fellow students) she'll spill what she knows. She claims she was under orders from Rhys - well, not exactly orders. He makes suggestions and drops hints as to what he wants, but uses their actions afterwards to judge them as being compatible with his viewpoints.

Rhys puts his students to work analyzing the data from the relics' peripherals. He wants to keep them busy. He gives them a pep talk about making sure that they don't get caught in an 'us vs. them' dynamic with the military - they have to prove their worth.

Deadlock goes to brief Command Behari, he suggests that they keep Tara on board and under supervision. Her actions smack of recklessness and not sabotage. He's going to put the two of them in a room together and see what happens. Meanwhile they agree to put a rota in place to have two Marines on guard on the relic ship at all times, just in case.

***

Deadlock goes to visit Rhys, but the professor stonewalls the CAG - of course there's no link between the relics and the power outage throughout the fleet! He does ask about Tara - when he hears that she's safe but scared, he wonders if he can meet with her. Rhys intends to find out what's going on - without tipping his hand that he doesn't actually know what Tara was up to.

Tara is looking a little bit more disheveled when they arrive to speak with her. She complains about her conditions, but completely wigs out when Rhys sits down at the interview table. She flat-out says she doesn't want him there and doesn't trust him. She won't talk with him in the room. When Deadlock asks the professor to leave, she calms down a bit; but gives out to him as well - how could he have betrayed her trust by bringing him here?

(Of course Rhys is looking on from behind the one-way mirror outside).

He'll manipulate everything against her now - she tells him about a previous student of his, a girl called Athina. When she refused to play his games and brought charges against him for sexual harassment, he got his collegiate allies to expel and blackball her. While Deadlock assures her that Rhys no longer has that kind of power, he's not sure if he's entirely convinced of that.

When Deadlock exits, he's greeted by a WTF look on Rhys' face! They talk about getting Rhys back on board to take a look at the relics; if Rhys were to pick a handful of students, how many would that be? And who?
Rhys quickly identifies Miranda, Lukas, Iona, Beth and James as the best candidates for that job. He can't vouch for Tara any more, due to her 'lack of judgement'. Deadlock is fascinated by these relics and really needs for them to be useful. With military supervision and technical participation in the research, Professor Meirion's team will be able to get involved again. He also wants Tara to be involved - they need eyes and ears inside the professor's group.

It takes some convincing but he manages to sway Behari to allow it - he will debrief Tara regularly and compare her story with the regular updates from the rest of the technical group. Of course, it's explicitly stated that Deadlock is personally responsible for this project - if anything goes wrong, especially with either Tara's or Rhys' involvement, it'll be his blotter with red ink on it.

Deadlock heads down to the flight deck - the Chief, Dylan, will find a berth for Tara in return for that nice bottle of liquor Deadlock has been saving.

Back at the lab, Miranda reports that all that data has come through. It looks like at the end of running usual diagnostics on each of the relics Tara apparently entered an unknown sequence of commands into the C3 unit.

At the subsequent meeting with his entire group, Rhys tries to get a read on who could be spreading discontent. He identifies Lukas as the beta in the group, he's responsible for a lot of alternative ideas. He gets good feedback from the group that they need to provide actual results to the military, and allay their paranoid. Lukas will heqad up the data team, while Iona will lead the team dealing directly with the relics. They'll work on small controlled outcomes and if there's any confusion on short or long-term goals, they're to come directly to him for clarification.

Deadlock and Tara arrive at the meeting, and Rhys gets an inkling that his real enemy in this has just made themselves known.

**

Helene 'Boxcar' Sulla has dropped out of full-stealth mode and has gone to pick up the picket drones. They'll be useful and if she doesn't get them now they'll go too far to be detected, never mind caught up with again. She heads back to Atropos Station, but finds it completely abandoned, and no sign of damage. She docks and roots through the place, but it looks like it was picked clean (apart from her secret stashes). After heading back out she catches the trail of a Battlestar and does a standard landing approach after getting picked up by the patrolling Vipers. They're cagey, but the Valkyrie lets her land once she runs through her ID. She runs the landing strictly by the book (does she know any other way!) albeit a 40-year old book only the old-timers aboard have even read.

Amazingly enough, Burns (the XO) gives her an unqualified complement on her flying (a first time for everything!). Deadlock and a contingent of Marines receive her in the starboard landing pod and get the introductions out of the way.

After getting the tour, and something like an appraisal of each others abilities, Deadlock says he can assign her a berth as one of his Raptor pilots - Boxcar pushes for rank as a full-grade Lieutenant, but Deadlock has her number, she'll start off as Ensign like everyone else. She can earn the extra pips on her collar. He does ask her for a favour - maybe she'll help him keep an eye on Professor Meirion? Helene grins - sure, why not?

They're quickly jolted out of their cosy arrangements by an alert - CIC has just picked up a distress call from a colonial ship near the edge of the asteroid belt identifying itself as Diomedes. They're scrambling to take a look, but by the time they've gotten a scan of it, a dozen plus Cylon raiders have jumped in to attack the massive civilian ship.

Boxcar's Raptor takes a high angle in on the ship and she helps coordinate as Deadlock leads 'A' Squadron in right up the Cylons' tailpipes - they're so fixated on taking out the sitting duck in front of them they just didn't notice the Vipers until it was too late.

Boxcar has fed the Diomedes the Valkyrie's current coordinates and they jump to the Battlestar's protective cordon before any of the Cylons can complete their approach.

Deadlock's Vipers take out about half of them on the first attack run, but as things get hairy and a dogfight breaks out, a few of the Vipers get hit - Muzzle loses control and slams into a Cylon, both craft explode in a fireball.

The Diomedes checks out - it's an agricultural / hydroponics ship, with just over 600 people aboard.

*

They plot the course to Zeus, a gas giant at the edge of the system, a secondary rendezvous point for the Fleet after Ragnor Anchorage - there's also likely to be some small mining stations and vessels in orbit.

Jumping in they find absolutely no signal traffic in system; Behari sends out several scouting Raptors with Vipers covering them. Scattered throughout the orbit, they detect the remains of several large gas refinery vessels, and on the larger satellites around Zeus, the ruins of mining stations.

Boxcar goes deeper into take a look at one of them, switching on her Raptor's stealth systems;
As she passed by an abandoned station, she notices two Cylon Raider detach from the surface of the rock and head towards her 'escorting' Vipers. She flashes her lights directly at Deadlock's Viper, giving him a few seconds warning so that they can smoke the two Cylon craft.

Boxcar's return following hot on the heels of the Raiders almost causes an accidental blue-on-blue incident (Deadlock reminds himself to caution her about that later!). She does come back with some positive news. She's made contact with Horatio Halphen, the leader of a small station (some 20 gnarled miners, whose station was missed by the Cylon attack).

They're transferring the movable equipment and ore to the Sinqa when a Cylon Basestar jumps in to disgorge a hundred Raiders towards the Valkyrie. Throughout the orbit, each satellite detaches a handful of Cylon Raiders - they're caught between two fires...

3489 Survivors

Next Session: Zeus Engagement

The Valkyrie

Previous Session: Atropos Station

The Scarab powers slowly through the asteroid belt. They know Atropos Station well and the cloaking effects of the asteroid belt has helped on salvage runs more often than not.

Glen Holtzer is the captain of the Scarab, a beat-up salvage and refinery ship. Intense eyes stare out of a burnt and gaunt face. Used to be he ran the ship for a conglomerate, but he was always first amongst equals and no bean counter is going to take his ship off him now.
He's seen every kind of trouble this hard life can throw at a you out in space. His crew have an intense respect for him, and he's definitely the best man for the job. Who knows if there's anyone better to bring them through the war or a way home.
He's a bit of a safety nut - his scars are living proof of the cost of not doing things the right way - no amount of extra money or time are too much to pay to take care of his crew.

Getting close to Atropos, the Scarab's command crew don't notice a hulking ship following quietly behind them . The Battlestar Valkyrie is cruising as quiet as can be, at battle stations, but without any Vipers launched.

The Valkyrie's CAG, Dre Chitnis (callsign: Deadlock) sits inside his Viper. The Captain's hollow face and calculating eyes are accentuated by the low red lighting of the launch tube. Alongside him in the launch tubes are:

Fender - who was in the academy with Deadlock, and despite the better exam results, always got promoted behind Deadlock. Always giving him grief.
Lunchbox - solid and reliable, got Deadlock's back and always comes through in a pinch.
Beeper - can fly but panics when stressed out, doesn't really deserve her wings, but needs must.
In the Raptors ready to go are:
Stump - the veteran ECO aboard the Valkyrie, has been aboard the longest.
Dropout - always says he's going to drop out because others aren't doing things by the book.

Dre Chitnis 'Deadlock'
The CAG

Sitting and waiting with no room to stretch, Dre's thoughts turn to Freeze. Just a few months ago, in this very region of the asteroid belt, he sent Freeze into certain death. Tracking down pirates isn't usually so dangerous but this time it was different - he still has no idea why they were so tough, but everyone knew his orders to Freeze were a death sentence. Cash and Tango, Freeze's mates, still haven't forgiven him.

Dre wonders how he would react - he's never refused a direct order, never - everyone knows he'll always follow through. The rule-book might get bruised the odd time, but he'll always do his duty.

****

Getting closer and closer to Atropos now, the Station looks abandoned. There are no landing beacons or lights turned on and they're not responding to any radio communications. Holtzer orders the Scarab to make anchor onto the asteroid the old-fashioned way. They'll get into their suits and knock on the door with the biggest Gods-damned spanner they can lay their hands on.

Smith and Fox get a crew together and armed with whatever's handy, just in case - they let the Scarab's landing party in and there's an emotional greeting between the two groups. But all-too brief as Professor Meirion arrives in the hangar and begins negotiating with Holtzer on the price for accomodating his 227 crew inside the station. Holtzer suggests maybe he'll start selling tickets aboard the Scarab for a one-way trip away from this floating death-trap.

The heated discussions are interrupted as Marcus pipes down saying that the can detect a ship coming in. He can't tell if it's Colonial or Cylon, but it's definitely as big as the Basestar they spotted the other day. The Valkyrie opens up a channel with the Atropos, but with an argument going on over exactly what it is, Marcus puts them on hold.

The Commander of the Valkyrie, Sofia Behari, order the alert Vipers to launch. Deadlock buzzes the station and then gets Stump to take a closer look at the Scarab. Aboard that ship, the crew in the cockpit get a very close look at a Colonial Raptor and are near-blinded by its searchlight before they call up Holtzer over the radio.

When the Valkyrie hails Atropos again, they get a more welcoming response. The duty officer placates Marcus' concerns that there may be a Cylon Basestar nearby (the nearest one was last spotted over 0.5 AU away and heading in the other direction). Behari orders two Raptors across, one with a squad of Marines and the other with technical experts, including Doctor Lennox.

***

Duncan Lennox
The Doctor

The Doctor dresses in casual wear, only his ID proclaims him as a military man. His hardened face and steady eyes are renowned aboard as hallmarks of his medical skills; though they also hint at his cynicism.

Lieutenant Duncan Lennox is cornered by the XO, Colonel Tom Burns, who instructs him to go across to the Atropos to identify and requisition whatever medical supplies he can find there. Lennox gives him some grief about being a delivery boy, but Burns declares that if he'd play nicer with everyone else he wouldn't be left as the oldest Lieutenant in the fleet (with a bit of seniority he could send over someone else to do the grunt work!).

As he examines the station's resources, he relates what he knows of the Cylon attack, the Fall of the Colonies, to the others:
The Cylons struck the main Colonial Fleet without warning, and preceeded by a powerful network virus which disabled most of the Battlestars instantly, rendering them defenceless. In the chaos that followed, the Valkyrie, docked at the Scorpio Shipyards and offline for maintenance was immune to the Cylon virus, spun up her systems and jumped to Caprica orbit. She engaged in combat with two Cylon Basestars and expended several nuclear warheads to come out on top of that fight. Further Cylon reinforcements led Commander Behari to cut and run, despite the presence of a small group of civilian ships nearby. Then they saw the circling Basestars begin a nuclear bombardment of Caprica itself.

Rhys Meirion appeals to the military officer's humanity and oaths. Surely they will not just ransack the station but will bring everyone along with them wherever they go. Deadlock accedes to the pressure from the compelling professor and promises he will bring it to the CO. He does make the point that they should probably leave Cylon-controlled space, there's not way they can fight the concentration of Basestars that'll jump them if they make a serious move into orbit. Hiding in this area isn't a long-term plan either.

**

Captain Holtzer sends over the Scarab's specs and inventory to the Valkyrie and organises work parties to cross to Atropos Station to load up everything into the other ships.
The Sinqa (a mining ship) and the Musuq (a freighter) which work closely with the station are packed with supplies and their skeleton crews supplemented by skilled personnel out of Atropos. The Scarab takes her fair share as well, but the Valkyrie takes the majority of the 423 people who called Atropos Station their home.

Professor Meirion and his students supervise the transfer of the Relics, they'll be going into the vacant ancillary medical bay alongside Doctor Lennox's infirmary. As the lugging occurs, Duncan gets friendly with Tara, a pretty blonde PhD candidate, and as she talks about the relics (or devices as she sometimes refers to them) she becomes very animated until she suddenly quietens down - as if she had lost the run of herself before realizing that she was about to spill a secret. Duncan knows that she

Tara
Dr. Meirion's PhD Student

was about to confirm that she was moments away from confirming that they are going to activate the device!

The Doctor goes directly to the XO, and Tom Burns wants to talk to the Professor about it. Meirion is not intimidated by the forceful officer (no mean feat - he eats junior officers for breakfast!) and keeps a clear line of reasoning going under Burns' glare. The relic in question is most probably a communications unit, meant to coordinate the other relics' operation.

Burns orders a medical examination of Meirion and all those in contact with the relics - hearing the Professor's stories of how he believes these are ancient relics of pre-Kobol creatures (he's not even sure they were human) gives him the creeps.

With Marines on guard, all of Meirion's students are given in depth scans by Doctor Lennox. The Professor is quite indignant, and insists that others involved in the transfer be tested also. It'll be a few days before the results come back.

*

A few hours later, the Valkyrie loses all power momentarily. In fact every ship and the patrolling Vipers lost power as well. Behari places the fleet on alert and orders all jump-engines to spool up to get away from Atropos. There's nothing on DRADIS, but then Lieutenant Albus relates his calculations that the spread of power failures suggests that the event began inside the Battlestar itself!

Professor Meirion finds the relics, but it's obvious that one (yes, the one in question earlier) had been activated. Commander Behari calls a meeting with the senior leaders of the fleet. Meirion tries to grill her about her plans and Holtzer joins in with concern as to how vulnerable the Valkyrie is to these power outages (not realizing that the Valkyrie was offline due to standard maintenance for the Cylon attack). She counter-attacks with questions as to the nature of these relics.

She informs them that Meirion and his team will have no contact with the relics until she is satisfied that they prove of no further danger to the ship. They will in fact be moved to the Musuq (by Holtzer's crew). And despite Doctor Lennox's misgivings about relating the name to her, she places Tara in the brig immediately. Deadlock will put a permanent patrol around the Musuq, which will be stations well away from the other ships.

Concessions are argued out of Behari, but not many. Lennox will begin the interrogation of Tara, and Meirion may supervise (in an absolutely hands-off role) the transfer of the relics.

2,865 Survivors

Next Session: Disputed Territory 

Atropos Station

Deep in the Erebos asteroid belt lies the Atropos Station. This small colony is an illegal mining operation, and more recently an archaeological expedition to find rumoured relics of Kobol.

Marcus Celik
The Engineer

Marcus Celik is one of the senior members on the station. The Engineer's workspace includes machining tools along with a mysterious relic from long ago. He wears a mismatch of clothes festooned with utility belts and pockets, even without the oil and dirt he would have a grim face but his eyes are clear.

Marcus made his name in the colony fixing the oxygen scrubbers after a catastrophic failure ten years
ago. Pretty much everyone who was there that day accepts that he saved everyone's life.

The only obstacle which remains unfinished for Marcus is the ancient relics they've discovered below the colony. He struggles to admit that he just can't get hold of many of the concepts which underpin their workings.

*

Dr Rhys Meirion
The Visionary

Rhys Meirion leads the archaeological dig under Atropos. The Visionary professor leads a group of
about ten dedicated students (and a few locals), and who are rigorous and spiritual. They can be a little judgmental however. He prefers formal wear (even when on the dig site) and his charming face and kind eyes are belied by his restlessness.

Rhys is ashamed of the failure of his marriage. His ex-wife, Zoe, is a historian and while they met through work and had three children together. He's adamant that no one is to blame for the break-up.

Rhys fears that his students might abandon him if he cannot provide order and structure.

**

Helene Sulla 'Boxcar'
The Pilot

Helene Sulla (callsign 'Boxcar') is Meirion's daughter. The gifted Pilot runs her fast and responsive Raptor (old military surplus from the 1st Cylon War) on various oddjobs for the colony. With the amount of enhancements she's added in the last few years (stealth, atmospheric flight and reaction control) it's no wonder it's so cramped. She dons survival wear which hides her athletic body, but everyone is struck by her unyielding face and cold eyes.

Helene's co-pilot Paul Ong doesn't really come up to her exacting standards. She does everything by the book. In fact over the last few years, eight or nine others have washed out: they quit or she fired them.

Helene's piloting skills are almost entirely self-taught. No one really believes her, but when they ask if she's had many near misses she always replies that "there is no such thing as a near miss."

***

Rhys is having breakfast with (the exceptionally charming) Charlotte, who wonders how he managed to get what must be the grandest quarters in the colony. If most of the rest of the class hadn't already been in her position, they would be jealous of the nicely made and fresh eggs he's prepared for her. A disturbing thought passes through his mind that Charlotte is just a little bit older than Helene (but not quite as old as his other daughter, Cassandra (a marketing director in Vergis Corp).

Over the tannoy comes Fox: "Frak! Everyone better take a look at this" Fox runs the colony, so this must be important. They race out to the main common area where people are gathered around watching one of the feeds (currently picking up weak signals) from the news channel Caprica 5.
A reporter is on a hill overlooking a large urban area (identified as Caprica City) - she describes an ongoing fleet action in orbit but is unsure who is responsible, with several of her sources blaming Gemenon and others identifying the Cylons.

Suddenly, a gigantic explosion appears in the distance, obliterating the city and then as shock wave rushes towards the camera the feed goes dead.

Dread and panic fills the station, but Rhys starts to calm people down as he announces he'll be visiting Fox to come up with concrete plans for the colony, they'll find out what has happened, but everyone should get ready to evacuate on short notice.

**

Helene is on a recovery flight on the inner rim of the asteroid belt when the outlying drone cordon she set up to monitor Colonial activity near the asteroid belt are picking up a huge increase in military-grade communications coming from Caprica. The signals are strange but she sets them up to alert her to any capital ships in area. While the background radiation and mineral emissions from this area of the belt are enough to defeat normal scans, they mightn't be prof against a large scale incursion.

She calls back to base, where Marcus is working on something. His workspace doesn't have DRADIS or anything, so he wanders up to the control room where he can get eyes on everything. She sets up the drones to head further out to see if they can pick up some extra information.

Fox and Smith (her second in command) are huddled around the communications array, in the corner the earlier footage from Caprica 5 is paused right before the nuke goes off. Marcus asks them to play it and when they step back to take it all in, he sits down to get the long-range DRADIS online.
Marcus quickly fills in the blanks for Helene. He identifies that big capital-class ship she was vaguely looking out for as a Cylon Basestar. Thankfully it's skirting their area and looks like it's just establishing a cordon to prevent any escaping vessels reaching the asteroid belt from Caprica - just so long as nothing attracts its attention!

Frak! Helene quickly shuts down the drones along with her Raptor. She's floating in space for a long while before she thinks it's wise to fire up the life-support/engines and head back in.

*

Back at the colony Fox & Smith are coordinating with Rhys and Marcus to shut down everything that has a significant external signature along with grounding all flights immediately.
Marcus puts his mind to setting his relic to enhancing the natural interference of the asteroids to prevent any sort of detection from any reasonable distance. Problem is, it'll take a bit of time, and may be dangerous for those moving and placing the relic...

Next Session: The Valkyrie