- When the Galactica crew detects that a Cylon Basestar has swung around to attempt to intercept the refugee fleet, Commander Adama decides to attack.
- On a night off, Apollo takes Starbuck, Cassiopeia, and Sheba to one of the least-explored areas of the Galactica - the last of the ancient battlestar's astro-navigational domes, an area Apollo has been repairing in his spare time as relaxation and as an outlet for his passion for deep-star exploration. The dome's scanner is set for long-range communication, and to their surprise they receive a signal, an image of an ancient spacecraft similar to what the Colonies once flew. After showing the signal to Boomer and Commander Adama, they are sent on a long-range Viper patrol to a distant solar system on the transmission's line - and to their horror they discover a Cylon basestar orbiting one of the system's planets in its search for the Colonial Fleet. They escape to the Galactica undetected, and Adama considers avoiding the system, but then decides that he's tired of running and begins preparation to attack the basestar. Apollo recommends infiltrating the basestar to cripple its centralized command chamber before the Galactica attacks, and to their surprise Adama is able to secure information from Baltar, who is allowed to barter knowledge of the Cylons in exchange for freedom, Adama willing to risk that Baltar will also see eventual rescue by the Cylons. The Galactica thus begins its most important mission yet as battle is joined between the ancient battlestar and her Viper fleet against the stronger Cylon raider phalanx of the basestar.—Michael Daly
- It is a night off. Apollo takes Starbuck, Cassiopeia, and Sheba to a narrow corridor above the Galactica's mammoth nuclear-fueled thrusters. They climb a scaffold to an enclosed dome chamber at the ship's very summit. Inside is a scan console and the chamber is cozy enough that Starbuck coyly comments to Cassie about its potential for love. Apollo then activates the dome, and it opens up to reveal space itself, shielded by thick transparant material. The dome is an astronavigational dome, the last surviving such dome on the Galactica since her launch five centuries earlier.
Sheba mans the scanner, which Apollo has repaired in his spare time because of his passion for deep star exploration and for relaxation via old-fashioned starmapping. To her and the others' surprise, the scanner, set for long range transmission, receives a signal, of a small starcraft orbiting a planet. Apollo records the transmission and believes the ship is like an ancient Colonial spacecraft from two millenia back.
The foursome roust Boomer out of bed, as he is expert as long-range comms, but all he can surmise is that it is a harmonic signal, a short-range retransmission of a primary signal, but also notes that if it is a primary transmission it can only be intergalactic to be as faint as it is.
Upon learning of the transmission, Commander Adama orders Apollo, Starbuck, and Sheba to fly along the path of the transmission, which leads to a solar system a fairly short lightjump from the Fleet. Scanning the planets, Apollo and Sheba find nothing, but Starbuck picks up an object orbiting over the third planet, and to his horror the object is a Cylon base star.
The three vipers warp out of the system in time, and Colonel Tigh ponders backtracking around the system while Adama speculates the transmission is a Cylon ruse to entice the Fleet into its trap. Adama also makes a stunning decision - instead of avoiding the system, he orders preparation to attack the Cylon base star, reasoning it is the only one within any reasonable reinforcement range; in any event Adama is tired of running from the Cylons.
In contrast to the mammoth command bridge of the Galactica, the command chamber of the base star is claustrophobically spartan, manned by three scan centurions and a gold-hued First Centurion. The first centurion climbs from the base star's main flight bay to the bottom of the ship's central core, through mammoth computer banks, and into the chamber, where he learns of detection of a short blip outside the system. The First Centurion orders the launching of a combat probe to circumnavigate the system.
While Raiders emerge from one of the base star's launch apertures, on the Galactica the ship's warriors (huddled before a scale model of the Cylon star fortress) are debriefed on the base star's strengths - 300 fighters (to the 150 now comprising the Galactica's own viper contingent), two long-range mega-pulse batteries for ship-to-ship combat, and 100 laser cannons for antiship and antiassault fire. Apollo has pondered Adama's plan to launch vipers to draw out the base star's fighters while the Galactica engages the base star from the sun side of the system, hoping the Cylons will focus on the vipers and not notice the Galactica's arrival. Apollo realizes that achieving surprise requires knocking out the base star's scanners, and that he and Starbuck can fly the captured raider brought to the Fleet by Baltar.
To Apollo's surprise, Adama agrees with him, and summons Baltar from the Prison Barge. Once in Adama's chamber, Balter is offered a deal - barter his knowledge of the Cylons' security procedure in exchange for freedom, which entails landing him on a habitable planet within short lightjump range of the Fleet. He is to be freed upon the base star's destruction - and must take the chance of Cylon victory as he will be kept aboard the Galactica when she attacks.
While Baltar agrees, Boomer has rigged a small ID transmitter for Apollo and Starbuck so their raider will be identified as friend via a red dot in the inevitable chaos of the Cylons' fighter fleet. Cassi and Sheba, meanwhile, have their own concerns, scared as they are for the two mens' safety; for Sheba it goes beyond fear, for she is falling in love with Apollo.
Baltar later reveals that Apollo and Starbuck can infiltrate the base star if there are other fighters in space and must knock out a guard centurion at the bottom of the ship's central core, then blow up the chamber's computer banks and flee. The two warriors thus launch in Baltar's personal raider and jump toward the system, where they encounter the combat probe, fall into place, and land on the base star.
Once inside they sneak their way to the hatch to the bottom of the core. Climbing down the scaffolding, they are spotted by the centurion and barely escape his fire before gunning him down amid the buzzing rumble of the base star's gravity drives. As they plant solonite explosives to the mammoth computer banks the Galactica's viper fleet enters the system as is scanned by the Cylons. The first centurion then enters the computer banks and the two warriors must flee pursuit by two guard centurions. In the pursuit the ID scanner falls out but they can't retrieve it as they barely escape the gigantic explosion of the computer banks, while outside the Cylon fleet attacks the Galactica's vipers and furious combat erupts with the Galactica's pilots shooting down Cylon raider after Cylon raider despite taking fearful losses themselves. The Galactica herself then enters the system as the base star orbits high, its scanners now blinded and the command chamber sealed off by the explosion. The Galactica reaches absurdly close range of the base star and opens fire, a micro-second before the base star's aft antiassault batteries finally detect the battlestar and commence their own fire. The first centurion orders mega batteries to open fire and the Galactica takes serious hits as her own antiship laser cannons blast away at the base star, a battle that will determine the fate of the Colonial Fleet and amid a new transmission from a distant galaxy concerning an ancient starcraft and a faint message that "the Eagle has landed."
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