Zero Hour
This would be the time remembered by human history. When the peace held between the Twelve Colonies of Humanity, the Twelve Tribes of Kobol, and the Cylons was shattered in one single, swift blow, that was the time. They struck with no warning, crippling the Colonial Fleet, and some of the finest Battlestars known were destroyed in mere minutes without a fight. Soon afterwards, the Twelve Colonies themselves were subjected to nuclear bombardment, and the genocide of mankind was nearly at hand. Only a handful of ships would survive this first strike, this engagement without peer, yours among them.
But all this has not yet come to pass.
You serve aboard the Battlestar Lethe, BST 61, and you are not the Colonies’ finest. The crew aboard her are a ragged mixture, you among them, of old men and women soon to retire, veterans of the First Cylon War far past their prime, of young and inexperienced officers and flight crewmen right out of their academies and schools, and of reservists used to two weeks aboard before they go back home to their families and civilian jobs. For your time aboard her, aged as she is, you’ve performed patrol duties in home systems, acted against pirates to show the flag of the Twelve Colonies, and moved cargo that may otherwise not be safe. Today is that last mission. Forty-eight hours ago, you loaded a mixture of rations and communications equipment aboard the Lethe at Ragnar Anchorage for transport to Cambrian Station. Officially a research outpost hidden within the Rhodes Cluster Nebula, this station is a lynchpin in the line against the Cylon borders, intercepting communications dispatches with only a skeleton crew in operation. Today is the scheduled offload.
Today is history.
But all this has not yet come to pass.
You serve aboard the Battlestar Lethe, BST 61, and you are not the Colonies’ finest. The crew aboard her are a ragged mixture, you among them, of old men and women soon to retire, veterans of the First Cylon War far past their prime, of young and inexperienced officers and flight crewmen right out of their academies and schools, and of reservists used to two weeks aboard before they go back home to their families and civilian jobs. For your time aboard her, aged as she is, you’ve performed patrol duties in home systems, acted against pirates to show the flag of the Twelve Colonies, and moved cargo that may otherwise not be safe. Today is that last mission. Forty-eight hours ago, you loaded a mixture of rations and communications equipment aboard the Lethe at Ragnar Anchorage for transport to Cambrian Station. Officially a research outpost hidden within the Rhodes Cluster Nebula, this station is a lynchpin in the line against the Cylon borders, intercepting communications dispatches with only a skeleton crew in operation. Today is the scheduled offload.
Today is history.
