With the Myriad fully repaired and Nicholai Crane in the Battlestar’s brig, the Fleet Council turns again to the question of where the fleet should go next, torn between fleeing Colonial space or striking the Cylon base in the Tigris Sector. Nestra Duvali is dispatched aboard the Crazy Ace to scout Tigris but not before Teucer and Ward have again clashed over the state’s seizure of private assets, which the Accretion Disc is resisting.

A ballot is held to choose the Arbiters for the trial of Krysten Furik; Priam Teucer, Catteus Malo and Nicteus Phileman are selected, with Katsuga Moran serving as the prosecution. Furik’s defence, a marine named Max Yurl, is also confirmed and petitions the Council to allow trial under military tribunal but is rebuffed. The Session ends with a report from Dr Nereus that more people are falling ill from the contaminated medicine, the source of which is still unclear.

Ward and Teucer almost come to an agreement over the toleration of the Disc’s drug labs but his demands to remain Captain in perpetuity cause an explosive argument. Meanwhile, Max Yurl and Katsuga Moran are reviewing the last of their evidence in the prelude to Furik’s trial. With no warning, Commander Darius awakes; learning of Furik’s trial he demands to be taken to the court chambers at once.

There Moran argues his guilt of crimes against humanity, through a combination of incompetence and negligence. Her case was based on testimony from Professor Sultran that there were 322 people aboard the Artemis Retreat and the allegation that Furik was consuming the halleucinogenic substance Khamala. The Arbiters were shown the flight recorder data before Sultran and Furik took the stand.

Max Yurl shows the court the gun camera footage, which gave no sign of human survivors and questioned Ivor Nereus who indicated that Furik’s piloting abilities had improved since the time he reports taking the drug – which was after the Hephaestus incident. Joker, Furik’s co-pilot on the mission, also confirmed to the court she saw no survivors. With the sympathy of the Arbiters tilting towards Yurl, Moran demands that the Oracle from whom Furik claims he got the Khamala be required to give testimony; on her refusal, the Oracle is placed under house arrest. A commotion breaks out when Commander Darius lapses suddenly into unconsciousness and the court adjourns to reach a verdict.

Darius awakes a few hours later, even as Ward and Dorian are undertaking investigations into who attempted to poison the Commander, the CAG and the Cylon. Dorian reports that the perpetrator covered their tracks well; neither she nor Ward can identify the culprit. But shortly afterwards, there is a false explosives alert on the same deck as the brig and the area is evacuated; by the time the ruse is revealed, Crane is dead, the oxygen sucked from his cell. Again, no culprit is identified. The investigation halts for Furik’s verdict: by a vote of two to one, he is found not guilty and amid tumult and clamour he is set free.

Ward and Dorian meet to discuss using Teucer’s people to investigate the inexplicably fruitful hydroponics bay but end up cracking a cipher on a datastick retrieved from the Galleon by Ward; one of four encrypted files on the stick, it contains a partial record of the Galleon’s movements, including its waypoints at resource-rich worlds.

Just then, Nestra returns from her scouting mission and reports that the Tigris Sector base is lightly armoured and defended by a solitary Basestar. Stanton, still in command, agrees with the Council that the mission should go ahead; as the civilian fleet jumps to a safe rendezvous point, the Myriad prepares for battle. The Gryphon is used to scout the disposition of the Raider patrols; the Battlestar exploits a gap in fighter cover to rapidly demolish the Basestar before her Vipers start engaging the Raiders. Dorian detects the unusual radiation signatures once more.

The Base rapidly evacuates; as the last of the Heavy Raiders jumps away, CIC receives a transmission from human survivors on the Base, who claim to be from the Artemis Retreat. Raptors are dispatched to the Tigris Base and the three hundred civilians are recovered; Furik, already judged innocent, is fully exonerated. He has little time to enjoy it, however, as he loses consciousness on the return flight to the Myriad. His Viper is recovered and he is found to be suffering an extreme case of the med contamination.

But the contamination of the meds is suddenly explained. Nereus' deputy, Tomasi, reveals evidence that Dr Nereus knew the source of the contamination all the time - and indeed that he was responsible for it. Zetes has more shocking news still; when he locked down the compartment containing Nereus' quarters, he found Cylon code being fed into the system by the Doctor. Dr Ivor Nereus is a Cylon. The marines storm Nereus’ room, restraining him for the walk to the brig. Even as they do so, however, Jena is walking through the corridors of the Myriad, flanked by a man who looks a great deal like Leoben – a man only she can see or hear. She arrives at Hangar 1, Bay 5, the bountiful hydroponics chamber.

We are floating in space. Furik is beneath us, lying in a pool of stars, at peace. A light touches his face. He reaches to it and begins to move towards the distant illumination. As he comes close, he sees a hand stretching out of the light. Propping himself on one arm against some insubstantial support, he reaches out towards it. The glowing fingertip touches his and a brilliant burst of white consumes the scene.

In the Brig, Nereus’ interrogation goes as no one expects. He claims to be part of a renegade faction of Cylons who reject the war on humanity and wish to end the Cycle of Time; Nereus says his cohorts, all of whom are modified ‘variants’ of the seven humanoid models, can no longer tolerate the deaths of billions across the reaches of time at the will of the One God. Nereus and the other Variants saved the Myriad to fulfil their plan of ending the war by making both sides more like the other – the eventual end-state, Nereus claims, of each ‘cycle’.

To that end, they blew their Basestar apart when the Myriad crashed into it; and it was they who generated the radiation pulses, which Nereus says inhibit Cylon resurrection. The former Doctor then tells Darius and Stanton that the Myriad is not the only surviving Battlestar; also fighting on are the Cerberus, the Pegasus, the Charybdis and the Galactica. But now that Crane has told the other Cylons of the Variants’ heresy, they will, Nereus warns, redouble their efforts to capture the fleet.

Dorian and Leoben pass into the decontamination lock. As the air cycles, they are swept with a laser-guided radiation field, the flickering red light of which looks just like the edge of a fiery blade. They pass inside and move to the base of a lush tree, weighed down with immature fruit; but at head-height there is one, gloriously red apple. Leoben tells Jena that whatever her choice, one world will end and another will begin. Jena picks the apple and the garden behind her blooms. She then turns and walks away from the tree, Leoben at her side.

Survivors: 2608