We are on Aerelon, some years ago, in a rural barn. A younger Darius is there, out of uniform. Our view pans across an array of implements, blades and tools and comes to rest on a bloodied mess of a man; it seems Darius is interrogating him. As he mercilessly brutalises the barely-living subject, our view is interspersed with fragments of a ceremony on the Myriad, in the present day, as Darius awards Abel Zetes with a medal and praises the heroism of the crew in recent struggles.

The ceremony over and the crew dispersed, our view courses through the Myriad. Past Jena Dorian working, with her inner Leoben looking on; through CIC, with Darius, Stanton and Zetes plotting the next jump; through mess halls and training rooms, into the Brig, where Ivor Nereus sits in apprehension and prays; to the starboard flight pod, to where Furik concludes a CAP briefing and leads his pilots to the launch tubes.

The Vipers streak forth from the Myriad. Our view passes them and moves into the Helios Refinery, where workers process the Ore, where machine parts pound and grind and shift, as Althea Ward inspects the production. Our view leaves the refinery and enters the habitation modules, passing parents and children, traders and security, through the gleaming corridors of the ship to a cell, where Sheryl Timuc writes furiously on one of dozens of scraps of paper that festoon her prison.

Back in CIC, Zetes notices an unknown DRADIS contact, sending Furik and the others to investigate. They discover Colonial ships apparently under attack by a Cylon baseship and a number of Foxbats - the Cylon fighers from the first war. Frenzied communications rattle back and forth from one fleet to the other; the new ships control the Foxbats and are desperately trying to spool up their FTL drives before they are destroyed.

Darius jumps the fleet’s civilian ships to emergency standby co-ordinates and moves to intercept the attacking Cylon Raiders. The Foxbats, attacking the Raiders, are initially ignored but are then rapidly decimated, but they provide a chance for the new civilian vessels to take cover behind the Myriad. But the Baseship jumps to close quarters and begins pounding the Myriad with missiles and a nuclear warhead, which obliterates one of the Flight Pods entirely. Of the new ships, the Hyperion, the Hestian Hope and the Steropes have time to jump to safety, but the Song of Orpheus is boarded by the Cylons. Unable to help, the Myriad jumps away to rejoin the fleet.

A Council Session is hurriedly organised. It transpires that the Deep Space Research Vessel Hyperion is commanded by a renowned scientist, Dr Viktor Perseun, whose family was involved in the creation of the original Cylons; the Doctor himself has a prosthetic leg virtually identical to that of a Centurion. He is accompanied by his Chief Engineer, Holo Kraexus, and the corporate liaison for the project, Gil Thesaro. The Council does not react well to another of his cohorts, an old-style Cylon Centurion identified as Gamma 569, but Perseun assures them that the Cylon Scout Ship, its Foxbats and Centurions have been disarmed and are entirely under his command. The Doctor indicates that his mission was to research new sensory apparatus and that he found a planet, Chiron, whilst doing so, around which he found in orbit the Cylon Scout Ship with its occupants, who were blissfully unaware that their race had ever rebelled against its creators.

Present also are Julius Hoxam, the supremely laid-back captain of the transport Steropes and Leonidas Crolp, the pricklier captain of the colony ship Hestian Hope. Both had fled Colonial Space after the attack and, encountering the Hyperion, had resolved to refuel and seek refuge on the planet Chiron. Although the decision meets resistance from Priam Teucer, it is agreed to give these Captains equal voting rights, though the issue of whether they were to join the fleet’s socialist economy was tabled.

The Council also discusses the curing of those poisoned by Dr Nereus, which was possible using fruit picked from a very specific tree in Hangar 1, Bay 5. Commander Darius took flak from Teucer for continuing to use Nereus in surgery on those injured during the recent attack, but the Council was assured that Nereus would remain in captivity. Medical personnel from the Hestian Hope are not of his quality, but are to train Military medtechs to replace Nereus.

There is fallout, too, over the arrest of the Oracle during Furik’s trial; it is decided that she should be released and is consigned to the Steropes under Hoxam’s care. Ward and Teucer reach a compromise on socialisation of assets as Teucer’s demands for hereditary control of the ships is agreed and his continued production of street drugs formally tolerated.

It is agreed that the fleet needs to acquire a considerable quantity of resources to replace the Flight Pod, rebuild lost Vipers and repair the fleet. A return to either the Colonies or the Hephaestus is considered too risky, so a course is plotted for the distant planet Chiron…

Survivors: 3218

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