MONDO EXTRAS

Fifteen minutes away from the Zephyr, Raptor shuttle crew cracking jokes, and Galactica picks up hostile Cylons on dradis. Hoshi sees the incoming enemy, and the Fleet is forced to make an emergency jump. There's no time to get to the Zephyr, so when the shuttle jumps, it jumps into nothingness. There's no Fleet at all, just the black. And no matter how many times they call out -- for help, for home, for anyone -- there's no answer. The Eights onboard suggest they'd be afraid to give away their location, with Cavil's ships arriving: maybe they can hear you calling out, all alone in the black, and they're too scared to answer. Putting the Fleet's safety before yours; doing the right thing.

But Felix Gaeta is a believer, and he knows they wouldn't just leave a Raptor behind. They'll notice that they're gone, and send someone back to look. All alone in the black, Brooks the deckhand begins to pray, to Poseidon. The Eights know our scripture better than we do, but they're pretty literal: when one Eight asks him why he's praying to Poseidon, so from the ocean, he just says they're on a ship, after all. If there are no oceans, no rivers, no lakes or streams, ever again -- if the Colonies just drift in the black forever, without the hope of Earth -- Poseidon won't have much to do.

Remember the red line? It's how far you can jump before you can ever come back. You're not supposed to cross it -- technically, you shouldn't be allowed to -- but they're crossed it this time. The calculations for such a jump are so complex they are nonlinear; home is an itch you can't scratch. Hard Eight doesn't recognize the star patterns around them in the black. Cylons can do that. But humans have their skills, too: soon enough, Felix figures out that the FTL calculations were corrupted: high-energy particles, flipping one bit of data in the coordinates from one to zero. The chaos in the system. The group pulls together for a moment, worrying about Cavil's army, about the nonlinear calculations that will bring them home, the possibility of other complications they can't see yet. Sweet Eight smiles at him, shaking her head: "Don't you recognize me, Felix? It's me." His leg itches sometimes; there are complications he can't see yet.