The four warships broke Caprica orbit to mild fanfare and headed at moderate speed for a warp point out beyond the farthest planet in the system, one that would take them to Borallus. On the way, Rhiannon had her chance to take Columbia Jr. out and put the warp scout through its paces. Its maneuverability and decent defensive armament proved reassuring.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked Ares, in the copilot’s seat beside her as they idled back in towards the Columbia.
“So far so good. Not quite as nice as our little striker. Certainly not as clean....”
Especially not when they had cut the gravitics to test the ship’s sensors and stealth qualities and had seen debris floating out from everywhere in zero-G. Screws, tiny washers, o-rings, dirt particles, crumbs.... “I’m going to have that seen to, believe me.” Looking back over her right shoulder at their navigator, she asked, “Any comments?”
The navigator was named Leah, a blonde, brown-eyed, physically interesting Caprican who at first glance struck Rhiannon as existing in some kind of complex dream world. Most brain-implanted navigators were slightly strange—it came with the territory—but on initial inspection Leah appeared to only vaguely coincide with reality. “Fine, fine,” she said absently, not quite focusing on her readouts.
“Right,” muttered Rhiannon, swapping looks with Ares. He smiled and twirled a fingertip at his temple. Amen, she thought, line up four or five of her and you’d have a wind tunnel. Still, she’s supposed to be good, that’s what counts. “Columbia, COL-480 requesting permission for approach and landing.”
“Clear to land in beta bay,” Columbia’s flight officer came back.
As they eased into the bay, which was a fairly tight fit for something as big as the scout, Ares asked, “Do you have anything else on for the rest of the day?”
“I’m sure I have several things to do,” Rhiannon replied evasively. Go away, she thought. She was increasingly aware that Ares was interested in her and was at a loss as to what to do about it. Mostly she just avoided him except when they were on duty, which wasn’t very nice but was a useful delaying tactic until she figured out a way to handle him or he found someone else to pursue or best of all, someone decided to clue him in as to why she wasn’t reacting the way he expected her to. “In any case, I believe you two are supposed to turn up in the armory for weapons qualification this afternoon.” With sudden inspiration, she added, “And I may borrow a viper and go over to the Victory.”
“Visiting your mother? Someone told me this was Commander Akamas’ idea, in case you’re still upset,” he added.
“No, I just want to see her.”
Ares concentrated on his shutdown routines for a few centons, then said, “If you see Colonel Noday, give her my regards. And apologize for me being such a jerk the other day.”
“You weren’t a jerk. You should see how some other people treat her. Like she’s not even there, damn them.” As she reset switches and noted down final readings, Rhiannon didn’t see her own navigator turn and look at her.

Ares watched Rhiannon head off in the direction of a turbolift, then he turned to Leah and said, “I suppose we may as well go to the armory.”
“Certainly,” she replied readily.
This ought to be interesting, he thought as he followed her out of the hangar. Watching her fumbling around with a firearm was not as much fun as he might have had otherwise but it was bound to have its compensations.
One of Columbia’s marines was in the armory checking the weapons inventory when they arrived. The man was a big, veteran ground forces type, a senior sergeant almost as wide as he was tall and all of it muscle. On the right cuff of his tunic was the thin gold honor stripe for distinguished service on Borallus. I would not like to piss this guy off, Ares thought. To the trooper, he said, “Lieutenants Ares and Leah for weapons requalification.”
The sergeant checked his terminal and nodded. “Right this way, sirs.”
They followed him into the firing range; he waved at a rack of assault rifles and said, “Rifles first. You know the drill.”
Actually, Ares did not know the drill. He’d learned to fire an assault rifle as a matter of course; anyone sent to Borallus was taught to use one since lasers were generally useless on that strange desert planet.. But he’d never really gone beyond basic qualification on it and didn’t know that there was a set procedure for requalification. However, he was unworried that any ignorance might show and embarrass him in front of the marine. Leah, after all, would surely ask what to do.
After putting on a pair of ear protectors, Leah went to the rack and lifted out an AR-27. It was the basic Colonial assault rifle, and a good enough design that no one had ever reworked and spoiled it. The weapon was a straight-line design with the twenty-four-round magazine fitting into the left side of the receiver directly above the trigger group. Ares watched, beginning to goggle slightly, as the navigator racked the bolt back to check the chamber. She picked a magazine out of an open box, inserted it into the receiver and slapped it firmly to seat it. Then she operated the bolt once more to cock the rifle and in a micron was punching three-round bursts down the range, holding the weapon the usual way he’d seen Ground Forces-types handle it, butt pulled firmly into the shoulder, the forearm lightly resting on the palm of the left hand but not gripped tightly; the weapon was easy enough to control in spite of the kick of the full-power cartridges. Fixed to the spot in disbelief, Ares turned his head to check her marksmanship and watched each burst strike in the killing zone of the Borellian nomen-sized target that was rather traditional on Colonial firing ranges. What the...where on Kobol did a navigator pick that up?.
With the magazine empty, she ejected it and put in another, making a few distinctly professional-sounding comments to the sergeant, who smiled approvingly. Then she shot off another magazine, this time from the hip, the weapon pouring out fountains of empty cases. The marine smiled and nodded happily, then glanced sourly over his shoulder at Ares.
“Today, sir?” he suggested.
Ares went and picked up a rifle.

Landing aboard the battlecruiser Victory was a somewhat more complicated procedure than coming aboard a battlestar with wide open hangar bays. The battlecruiser’s hanger was located amidships, accessed by two huge doors, one on either side of the smooth hull’s gracefully curved upper slope. Instead of flying directly in, Rhiannon joined formation close alongside, the hangar door beside her opened and a mechanical arm reached out, gently grasped her viper and drew it in through the protective forcefield, delicately depositing it on the deck. Rhiannon climbed out and watched the ship’s well-practiced ground crew ease the viper into a tight parking space between a shuttle and one of the ship’s own vipers. Room in the relatively small hangar was at a premium, and a good half of the ship’s compliment of thirty vipers were hanging from handling cranes on the bay ceiling.
Room indeed was at a premium throughout the entire ship. Though nearly as long as a battlestar, most of Victory’s interior was packed with her enormously powerful weapons fit, the engines needed to power them and propel her, and the bays that housed the ship’s three enormous radiators when they were retracted to make the ship stealthy. Crew quarters were limited to an area just in front of the hangar, far back from the nose. Even the bridge was located there. The space-saving corridors seemed cramped to Rhiannon; she felt as if even she would have to duck through the doorways and she was not a tall woman. She knocked at the door marked COMMANDER.
Miriam looked up and smiled as her daughter came in, put aside her work. In the Sagitaran manner, following tradition reputedly handed down from Kobol, Rhiannon dropped to one knee to receive her mother’s blessing. Miriam formally touched her head then drew her up and into her arms. After a long embrace she stood back a little and looked her youngest over. Face to face they were the same height, the same general build, and their facial resemblance was marked. “You look well,” Miriam said. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I heal fast,” Rhiannon explained, with the unconscious arrogance of youth.
“You’re lucky; I never did. What do you think about warp scouting?”
“As little as possible. Lords, mother, you should meet our navigator, she’s from another universe.”
“Noday’s met her, and she’s supposed to be quite good. She’s very intelligent, too. You know that navigators are a little weird, dear. I like navigators.”
“Obviously, but Noday isn’t weird.”
“She isn’t a navigator any more, either.”
They sat down together on the couch under the port and Miriam said, “Tell me about this young gentleman they have you working with.”
“I’m trying to figure out what to do with him. He’s very persistent, and I am not interested. What should I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want him as a friend. I don’t want to permanently offend him, but he’s just...not my type.”
“Tell him that.”
Rhiannon squirmed uncomfortably. “It’s not that easy....”
“No, it’s not. What’s he like?”
“He’s very nice. A good officer; competent. Doesn’t like the flying very much but tolerates it. He has problems with his family,” Rhiannon added.
“I’ve met his father. A most interesting man,” Miriam commented.
“He is, but I don’t think Ares takes after him much. Or at least he thinks he doesn’t want to.”
“You’ll have to bring him here for dinner. And your navigator. I’d like to meet her. I’ve read her Command Academy thesis; a nice piece of work.”
“She really is weird, Mother, I’m not making this up.”
Miriam affectionately brushed her daughter’s hair back “How are you feeling?”
Rhiannon sighed, then she said, “I dream about it. I just...don’t seem to be getting over it.”
“It takes time. Sometimes it takes a long time. Your aunt...I’m not sure she ever really got over Klymene, and she died not long after you were born. It’s a shame you never knew her; she tended to knock a few of the rougher edges off Dirce.”
Glancing over at the portrait on the wall, Rhiannon said, “The one I always wished I could meet was Hector.”
Miriam smiled. “There was a man,” she said admiringly.
“Does anyone know what happened at Molecay?”
“The only people who know what happened at Molecay are dead.” Miriam shook her head, asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”
“No. I’ll get better. I keep telling myself that,” Rhiannon added. “And I still keep thinking about it and dreaming about it—hades, Mother, it isn’t as if I was in love with her or anything.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Rhiannon wasn’t so sure herself anymore, but she said, “Mother, sometimes I couldn’t stand her. Sometimes she was....” Rhiannon stopped; there were some things she would never tell her mother. Sometimes she was perfectly foul to me, Rhiannon thought. She saved my life and took advantage of my gratefulness. And yet...maybe in some way I did love her. Gods, that’s horrible. “Part of it is guilt for all the times we fought over something stupid, part of it is wondering if I could have done something differently...I guess I just have to work through these things.”
“I think so,” said Miriam. “And if you don’t feel you can talk to me, you can always talk to Noday.”
“I know that. I’ve always felt like I have two mothers,” she added.
“Well, in a way you do.”

The Third Fleet stopped at Borallus only long enough to take on some final supplies. The brevity of the visit was something Rhiannon was thankful for. She locked herself in her quarters, lucky for once that she was junior enough to rate only an inside cabin, one without a view of the tawny, ravaged planet and its bloated sun.
Also in orbit around Borallus was the battlestar Nebula, homebound from a lengthy patrol of the outermost boundaries of Colonial space. Her third officer was an old shipmate of Starbuck’s, and the two met over ambrosa in his quarters aboard Triumph.
Gesturing with her glass, Rigel asked, “How do you stand it?”
Starbuck put his feet up on his desk and replied, “Stand what?”
“This ship. It’s claustrophobic. Hades, it gets to me and I’m a lot smaller than you are.”
“Claustrophobia was never one of my problems.”
“Maybe not; it is one of mine. It’s why I never tried for pilot. So, looking for Kobol? Where’s it supposed to be?”
“Out beyond Carillon someplace.”
“Huh. You’re going by way of Carillon and then where?” Rigel wanted to know.
“Then we’re not so sure,” Starbuck admitted. “It’s supposed to be out somewhere in the general direction of the Delphian Empire. I’d heard you were out in that area.”
“Not quite so far out as that. I don’t think any ship from the Colonies, military or civilian, has been in the Delphian Empire since before the Destruction sometime. But we did speak with an alien ship that had been in that vicinity lately.”
Starbuck sat up, interested. “Yeah? What’d they say?”
“We asked them about the Delphians and they said that their information was that the Cylons had destroyed them.”
Apprehensive, for the Colonials believed they had entirely exterminated the Cylons, Starbuck asked her, “They didn’t say the Cylons were still there?”
“Evidently not, and haven’t been for a long time. The Cylons raided some of the alien systems in the vicinity, but that stopped not long after the Destruction. The assumption is that the Cylons pulled out to concentrate on us. I don’t know how much pull you have with Aeneas, Starbuck, but you ought to suggest he send a ship or two out to Gamoray to check things out.”
“I was going to suggest that anyway. Could you send me a report on that encounter with the aliens I can pass along?”
“I’ll do it as soon as I get back to the ship.”
“Dinner first?” Starbuck suggested.
“Dinner and nothing else. My husband kills people like you,” Rigel said. The comment was not quite a joke.