Trama

President Roslin's abduction by the Cylon Hybrid triggers a bitter power struggle within the Colonial Fleet.

Dr. Cottle works desperately to save Natalie 6 and Athena is sitting in the brig. With the Basestar having jumped into hyperspace with President Roslin and Gaius Baltar on board, Tom Zarek assumes the interim Presidency. The fleet has lost more than the President however as they had already transferred an air wing to the Cylon ship pending the attack on the resurrection hub. When one of the Raptors returns, they find a crewman on board, dead. Admiral Adama simply won't support a Zarek-led government and Lee Adama tries to arrange a compromise. He gets Romo Lampkin to help him find the right candidate to replace Zarek as interim President. Adama learns that Col. Tigh has been having sex with Caprica 6 and that she is pregnant. Realizing that he will go to any lengths to find Roslin and that he has lost his objectivity, Admiral Adama comes to a major decision about his future.—garykmcd

'Previously on "Battlestar':

Survivor count: 39,674

Admiral Adama agrees to an alliance with the Rebel Cylons, in which the Colonial fleet would help their new Cylon allies destroy the main Resurrection Hub and unbox D'Anna, the model that knows the identities of the Final Five.

Meanwhile, Leoben, Natalie/Six and the Rebel Eights planned to take the humans working with them on the base ship hostage until the fleet released the Final Five.

Roslin hears the prophecy about the opera house in her dreams from Starbuck, and decides to visit the Hybrid to get some answers. But at the moment Roslin orders the Hybrid to be plugged in, Athena - on Galactica - shoots Natalie/Six for approaching Hera, out of fear that her opera house dream of a Six and Baltar taking Hera away is coming true.

The Hybrid's first act is to jump the baseship to an unknown destination with the President, Baltar, Helo and half the Vipers in the fleet aboard.

This week's episode opens with a barely alive Natalie/Six. Her breath damply catches in her throat as they're wheeling her into sick bay on a gurney. Doc Cottle is trying to save her.

The Quorum of Twelve is in chaos, screaming back and forth, confusion over what happened. Zarek hasn't arrived yet, and Lee whispers something to a guard.

Dualla tells Adama that Zarek is still waiting to talk to him, but the Admiral ignores her; a grim expression darkens his face. He joins Tigh in sick bay to watch as Cottle works on Natalie. Tigh brings him up to speed on the situation: Galactica is down 40 Vipers thanks to the Hybrid's surprise jump. They have to reconfigure their defence posture. Adama asks where Sharon (Athena) is, and orders her to be brought to his quarters.

Back at the Quorum, Zarek briefs the representatives on what he knows, which isn't much. Zarek tells the Quorum he's asked Adama to come before them to answer their questions, but the Admiral won't take his calls. He tells them Roslin was on the base ship when it jumped, and Athena shot the leader of the Rebel Cylons in cold blood. While Roslin is gone, he says, "For now, by the powers granted me by law, I have taken over as president."

On the operating table, Natalie is getting visions of a green forest. She reaches her hand upward, and Cottle takes it. Then, as a peaceful expression washes over her face and she sheds a tear, the leader Six dies.

Lee calls Adama and informs his father that by refusing to meet with Zarek, the Admiral is only fanning the suspicions of the Quorum. Adama replies that he couldnt care less about their suspicions.

Lee says, "Maybe he's not the man we hoped for, but he is next in line. And the fleet needs reassurance and stability - frankly, of the kind that military command can offer."

"If this fleet needs reassurance," Adama hisses back angrily, "then you reassure them. That's your job now. You can tell Zarek he can go to hell."

Adama's quarters: Athena stands before the Old Man in handcuffs.

"Why?" Adama growls. "Do you hate your people so much that you look for any excuse to kill one, or did you deliberately try to sabotage this truce?"

Athena says no, and explains she had a vision that she and Baltar were going to take Hera.

There were too many witnesses, Adama counters. They all said that Hera was lost and Natalie had merely knelt down to talk to her. But Athena insists she knew the Six was going to kidnap Hera because she had a vision.

"A vision," Adama whispers dismissively. It was more than that, Athena tries to explain, but you can tell Adama is not convinced.

He continues, "You murdered an unarmed woman, and by doing so you put the lives of every single person in this fleet at risk. And quite possibly, cost the lives of the President and your husband. You disobeyed the direct orders of your superior officer. But more importantly, you betrayed a promise to me. I trusted you."

Athena weeps and says that she'll accept any form of punishment he thinks she deserves, but begs to keep her daughter.

"I'm afraid the brig is no place for a little girl," Adama concludes, and orders the bawling Athena to be hauled away.

Back at the arguing Quorum table, a delegate points out that at one time Adama supported Baltar's administration. Does Zarek think that the Admiral would support his? Zarek says he doesn't have an answer to that question. So another delegate poses the same question to Lee: Does he think Adama will support Tom Zarek as president?

Lee pauses for a moment, then locks eyes with Zarek, the man who recommended Lee's nomination, and replies, "No."

The Quorum's discussion tumbles into chaotic dissonance.

Command deck: Adama and Tigh assess the situation. A recon Raptor returned with the report that the Resurrection Hub was no longer at the coordinates Natalie handed over to Adama, but neither was the Rebel Cylon base ship. Adama stresses that the President could still be alive somewhere, but Tigh adds they have bigger problems. Starbuck can't scratch together enough Vipers to get into the air and defend the fleet, so she suggests the civilian ships pull their formation tighter to make them easier to defend. Adama is less than thrilled.

In the President's quarters, Zarek accuses Lee of betraying him, and this after pulling strings to get him nominated to the Quorum. Lee replies that Zarek needs to slow his roll because it's not like he was actually elected president, and Zarek retorts, no, but he was elected to office. In Zarek's point of view, the President chose him to be vice president to legitimise her coup.

Lee replies, "In the military, we used to talk about facts on the ground. Well, the facts on the ground are these: Right or wrong, Adama will never recognise you as president and we need someone that he will." He mentions that there are bylaws in place for the Quorum to select an interim president in a time of crisis.

Zarek scoffs that Lee must have someone in mind, but Lee says he doesn't...which is why they have to form a search committee. "Well," Zarek spits, "good luck with that."

Next, we're at the quarters of Romo Lampkin. But Romo is not so fast to accept this assignment. His motto: "When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, stand aside and wait for the class action suit. The case is a loser, he tells Lee.

But Lee insists the Quorum won't lift a finger to do anything about this, which is why they need to take on the task. And frankly, Lee says to Romo, he needs a reason to get out of that room. Unless Romo wants to discuss why he has holed himself up in there.

Romo asks Lee if he can afford his fee -- which, for the last case (defending Baltar) happened to be a room with a view. Romo grandly sweeps his hand toward a tiny twelve by twelve window looking out into deep space.

Lee says he can't top that, so Romo backs off and says he'll take the case on, pro bono. Romo's grey and white cat gazes at its master. "Word to the wise," Romo adds. "Sometimes it's better to settle for what you've already got."

Command deck: Adama observes that Tigh has forged a relationship with the locked up Six, and asks him to see if she knows the coordinates to the Resurrection Hub. Tigh heads to lock-up and repeats the query to the Six, who is surprised that Tigh and Adama haven't gotten those details out of the other Cylons. Besides, she tells him, only the Hybrids know that information, and only after a jump.

Tigh explodes, yelling about the fact that the base ship disappeared with a number of military personnel aboard, as well as President Roslin.

The Six finds his anxiety over the missing base ship to be odd. "She's the real reason you're so angry. So worried. I can hear it in your voice...why is a dying woman so important to you?"

"Not to me, gods damn it, to the Old Man!" This piques the Six's interest. Admiral Adama? she says. Then she asks, "Saul...do you love me?"

Suddenly she looks like Tigh's dead wife, Ellen again. An alert klaxon goes off, and Tigh snaps out of the spell. He grabs her by the throat and roughly tells her that he's done with her mind games. Tigh strides out of the cell.

The command deck: a Raptor from the other half of the fleet has appeared on Dradis contact, but it seems to be simply floating there, disabled. Tigh marches onto the deck just as Adama orders a recon team to go have a look. When the team gets closer, they see that the hull has been badly damaged. Upon forcing open the door, we see the pilot's clouded, dead eyes.

It's Pike.

Once they get the Raptor aboard Galactica, Adama gets inside to find a charred book -- Roslin's copy of "Searider Falcon." He concludes that this Raptor was the shuttle that took Roslin to the base ship. Tigh tells him that they were able to retrieve the coordinates of the Raptor's jump point from the ship's computer. Also, Zarek has called again, requesting to be brought into the loop about what they found in the Raptor.

Adama ignores Zarek's message and tells Tigh to spin up the FTLs -- they're preparing to jump.

In the Quorum's empty meeting room, Lee and Romo are examining potential candidates for interim president. Romo has his cat carrier with him, and sets it down. We hear the cat meow from within.

"We are essentially looking for an understudy," Romo says. "The problem is that one doesn't usually get a chance to wield political power without the ambition to seek it."

Lee points out that Roslin didn't seek office, and Romo explains that she's the exception to the rule. "Just like you, Mr. Adama," Romo adds. "Never seeking out a job unless it's handed to you?" He runs down Lee's resume, all great jobs that were basically assigned to him. Lee seems embarrassed by this observation.

Then Romo looks out of the window and asks Lee if his father has some other place he needs to go. Lee turns his eyes toward Romo's view in time to see Galactica jump away. Lee's shocked. Where in the hell are they going, and why didn't they inform the rest of the fleet?

Galactica, after the jump: The coordinates bring the Battlestar into an area strewn with post-battle detritus, including battered Colonial fighters and remnants of Cylon base ships. A recon team finds one of the fleet's Vipers -- it's identified as Sandman's bird, but there's no evidence of Sandman. Tigh confirms that the signatures they're picking up seem to be consistent with the remains of a resurrection ship. Looks like they completed the mission. But where did they go after that? Adama wonders. Tigh thinks the President's base ship was destroyed, but Adama refuses to believe that. Tigh observes Adama is far too emotionally invested in this mission.

The Quorum: Zarek once again tells the prickly delegates that he has no idea what's going on, but he found out that Adama has requisitioned several ships from the fleet to continue the search for Roslin. Additional fuel resources will be directed toward that mission.

Back in Romo's quarters, Lee and the legal eagle's brainstorming mission continues. They're still bringing up names: Captain Thrace? Romo says he was impressed by her gravitas and her behaviour as a judge during the trial. Lee replies that Kara has no desire to seek political office. Romo jokes that he's even more impressed with her now. Lee storms around the room and kicks the cat's empty food bowl, "Gods...don't you ever feed that animal? Where is he, anyway?"

Romo looks down and sees his cat zip under the desk. He soon grows more frustrated, and despite Lee's protests, erases the names on the board, once again concluding, "This one's a loser. An exercise in futility." Lee takes the board from Romo and starts again.

Sick bay: Adama asks Cottle about the effects Laura's unforeseen break from treatment will have on her cancer, and Cottle doesn't have very uplifting news.

"Let's just say that the sooner you get her back here, the better her chances are," Cottle concludes.

"And while you're digesting that" - he adds somewhat ominously - "I ran some tests on your Cylon prisoner. Guess what I found?"

Adama's quarters: Tigh begins briefing Adama on the search for Roslin, and Adama cuts him off. He doesn't care about that, Adama says. He shares with Tigh that the guards informed him that whenever Tigh goes down to visit the Six, he cuts the cameras. Tigh assures Adama that he's not torturing the Cylon, and Adama says he knows that. Torture, Adama says, he could understand.

Cottle informed Adama that the Six is pregnant.

Tigh's remaining eye flaps wide open.

"What the frak have you been thinking, Colonel?" Adama says angrily. "Do you deny it?...You don't. You can't!"

"Who has been interrogating whom, Adama says. How many secrets have you told this thing?"

"How can you even ask me that?" Tigh responds. "Question my loyalty?"

"I need more than your loyalty," Adama says. "You are my first officer. I need judgment. I need your competence!"

Tigh hits back with, "You're risking all our lives, and for what? Our missing pilots? No, for a woman. For a frakking woman!"

Adama points out that that woman is the President, not some skin job he's been banging, and Tigh had better watch his mouth! Oh, and by the way, how would Ellen feel about that?

Tigh continues to lip off about Adama's relationship with Roslin, and Adama accuses Tigh of defiling the memory of his dead wife.

Tigh takes a swing at Adama. Adama pops Tigh. They start fighting, and crush Adama's model wooden ship.

A bloody-lipped Adama catches his breath, reaches over to his beloved model ship and jokes, "Do you know how many times I've had to fix this thing?"

Then he asks Tigh; "What are you going to do with that woman?"

Tigh doesn't know. "What are you going to do about Laura, if you ever find her?

Adama replies, "I don't know."

Athena's in the brig, humming a lullaby to herself and silently crying.

Command deck: Adama tells Starbuck to send ships out to do a search. Starbuck tersely offers that she's short on fighters as it is, and now Adama is asking the remainder of his already thin squadron to go out on blind search and rescue missions for a vessel that may already have been destroyed?

"My people are going to feel like they're being asked to go on suicide missions," she says.

"I'm not asking," Adama replies, "You're dismissed, Captain."

On a bridge above the flight deck, Adama watches the pilots as they prepare to launch, and Romo Lampkin walks up to present writs of forfeiture to absolve some of ships from blame should anything happen, or some kind of noise that ultimately has no great bearing on this scene.

The key moment is what comes after: Romo shares that Lee told him Adama once gave him his grandfather's lighter before a mission, for luck. Adama gruffly responds about how silly it is to pour superstitious importance into a hunk of metal, but as Romo and Adama look down on the pilots and their loved ones exchanging hugs and lucky trinkets, Romo observes that this is what people do. And, how silly is it that people headed off into battle would give away their luck when they need it most? Adama informs Romo that he's in no position to judge people headed off into battle since he's never had to do it.

"I always imagined you a realist, Admiral. Not one to indulge a vain hope at the cost of lives. But then, everyone has his limits."

He continues, "Sine qua non, as they say."

Adama translates: "Without which not." Yes, Romo says, it represents those things that without which life has no value, that which we cannot live without.

Adama says he may have a point. Romo adds; "Tom Zarek may not be an ideal president, but we could do worse."

Adama turns and looks at him. "You're right. There are limits to my realism. Goodbye counsellor."

Adama's quarters: Lee is there, and the Admiral finally comes out with what has been eating him. "I can't give up on her. I can't let her go. I've lost my objectivity. And now that I see that, I have no choice."

Then, the Admiral says: "Tell the Quorum that I'm relinquishing command immediately."

Romo Lampkin's quarters: The lawyer sits alone, mulling over his options in a conversation with his cat. "No man is perfect," he observes. "No man is less perfect than a candidate for high office." Thus, he continues, the list of likely candidates is winnowed to none.

Then he stops. Maybe he's been going on about this in the wrong way. What about the qualities one wants and needs in a chief executive? Honesty, of course. The wisdom to recognise correct from popular choice, as well as the courage to see it through; and the experience of knowing when the wrong choices cost lives and the right ones save..."You might as well just spell out one name," he concludes. "Just one. One we knew from the start." He writes a name on the board.

"Sometimes you take on a losing case," he tells kitty, "and you make yourself a believer. Other times, no matter what you tell yourself, in your heart, you know the outcome is fixed. Veritably inevitable. With that, the defence rests." Romo grabs the cat carrier and calls his cat to follow him.

As he walks out the room, the camera pans over to the board: Romo has written Lee Adama.

Romo encounters Lee in the hallway, and tells him he's found his candidate, someone the Admiral can't help but accept. "Congratulations, Mr. President."

Lee is baffled. He says he never wanted his name to be on the list, but Romo counters, in so many words, that Lee should just cut the ruse. That's why he had Romo cross off the other 47 names.

"Savour your victory," Romo says, pulling a gun out of his waistband and shoving it into Lee's face, "because you'll never get a chance to serve."

Why all this? Because Lee's the perfect guy for the job, after Baltar's disastrous presidency and Roslin's governance by fiat. Lee represents a great shining hope, Romo explains.

"Only hope is the last thing we need!" Lee says. "We're a doomed race, and it's time that we embrace that essential truth."

At this point we find out why the camera's been so lovingly trained on Romo's fuzzy friend. Romo drops the bag he always carries with him, and has Lee open it. Lee does, and stifles the urge to throw up. "That's right...they killed my cat!" Romo says.

They? Lee asks. Yes, they. The dregs of humanity, Romo says. Lee observes the cat's been dead for weeks. Romo Lampkin's been seeing a dead cat all this time. Romo says the cat was his wife's, and he'd just retrieved it from a vent when the bombs began going off. He had a choice: Either to get on a shuttle and save his skin, or run home and try to save his wife and family. He chose the former. Lee shares that he knows all this because he read his file before Baltar's trial.

Lee talks about everybody making choices, and some of them being the wrong ones, and that everybody sins and makes mistakes and maybe the concept of a clean slate is a delusion. But after a point that's what they have to hold on to, and he believes in humanity's ability to go on, and that he's made his choice.

Then Lee implores Romo to let go of his past. "Put the gun down, and help me," he says. "because I'm telling you, I'm going to make a difference in this fleet."

Is that your final word? Lampkin asks. Lee says, that's up to you.

"Then swear it."

Cut to: Lee being sworn in for office.

Next scene: Adama hands Tigh his Admiral's wings, telling him to lead the fleet to Earth. He also tells Tigh to give Athena back her daughter. "She needs her family. We all need family. Take care of his one." Adama hugs Tigh. Tigh looks at his pin, considers his new responsibility, and walks away. Adama sinks into his office chair and puts his face in his hands.

The President's office: Romo pays Lee a visit, and ribs him for having one day in office under his belt and already procuring a presidential pet. Turns out it's Jake, the dog from New Caprica who guarded the blind drop point. He's a genuine hero of the resistance, Lee says...and Romo's new pet. Romo replies that the only things he can't stand more than cats are dogs.

Adama's quarters: The Admiral talks to Lee, and says he disagrees with his decision to keep Tom Zarek as vice president. Then he observes how infinitely more difficult it is to be the president than what he's about to do, which he characterises as getting in a plane.

"Waiting alone in a Raptor while the rest of the fleet jumps away, that's not just getting in a plane," Lee says. "That sounds a lot like suicide, dad."

Adama says it's better that he's risking his own neck, and Lee replies that it doesn't matter that as President, he orders Adama not to do this.

"I don't know if I ever told you this," Adama says, "but one of my first missions was recon." He recalls the feeling of being alone in a Raptor in enemy space, facing his fear. "It's a good memory."

Lee asks his father why he's doing this, and his answer is simple: He can't go on without Roslin. "Laura's going to get to the rendezvous point. I have to believe that."

The flight deck. Admiral Adama heads to his Raptor, where Lee and Starbuck are waiting for him. They salute.

Adama asks, "What do you hear, Starbuck?"

She issues her standard reply: "Nothing but the rain, sir."

"Then grab your gun and bring the cat in."

"Yes sir."

"Keep the light on," Adama finishes. "I'll be back."

"You can count on it," she says.

He gets into the Raptor, and the door closes. Lee looks on with worry.

Cut to the brig: Athena has Hera, and is humming a lullaby.

Adama's Raptor launches. He calls back to Galactica that he's in position, and looks on calmly as the fleet jumps away, leaving him alone in deep space. Once they're all gone, he picks up Laura's burnt copy of "Searider Falcon," puts on his glasses, and begins reading.