Ever deeper in space, supplies of plots are running low aboard the Colonial fleet. Existing on survival rations, Ben and Eugene discuss two episodes for the price of one.
First, Starbuck may have found his long-lost father, but the reunion may be a short one if the con man pretending to be Starbuck’s father is killed by the fearsome Borellian Nomen who are hot on his trail.
Second, Starbuck fights for his freeddom when he is implicated in the murder of of another warrior. Can Baltar save the day?
12 Sectons after Baltar’s surrender and the departure of Count Iblis, the Galactica continues on the mysterious course provided to them by the space angels. The outlook amongst the fleet is hopeful as there are increasing signs of the trail left behind by the colonists who headed to Earth. Blue Squadron is on furlong aboard the Rising Star, where Starbuck is trying to convince Apollo to back his surefire gambling system at cards.
Meanwhile three Borellian Nomen, brutish, isolationist colonist who rarely mix with the other colonies appear to be on a blood hunt, searching for a man they know as Capt. Dimitri. The man they are pursuing is a con man named Chameleon, and we clearly see him use his silver tongue to con others. Realizing that he is being pursued and having heard a news program on Starbuck talking about Starbuck being an orphan, he manages to introduce himself to Starbuck. He lays the foundation work to convince Starbuck that he might be his long-lost father, which Starbuck swallows, hook, line and sinker. Apollo and Boomer aren’t as convinced. Under the Colonial Warriors escort, they take him to the Galactica for genetic testing, effectively getting him out past the Borellian Nomen and off the Rising Star.
[expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”]
Cassiopeia runs the genetic tests, while Starbuck feels increasingly betrayed by his doubting friends, Apollo and Starbuck, and begins to make plans to resign and spend his time with his new-found father. The Borellian Nomen, still on their blood hunt, come aboard the Galactica as new Warrior recruits. It all comes to a head when the Nomen confront Starbuck and Chameleon in the Alpha hanger bay. They escape, but it is time for reckoning. Chameleon admits that he was on the run from the Borellian Nomen. He had posed as Capt. Dimitri and conned them out of their money, discovering, at the same time, that they were amassing weaponry for their eventual takeover of the fleet. He saw Starbuck on the news and used the story to con Starbuck into taking him to the Galactica for safety.
There’s just one wrinkle – the results are in and Chameleon IS Starbuck’s long-lost father. He swears Cassiopeia into never telling Starbuck so that he won’t throw his career and friends away.
Murder on the Rising Star
The Triad championships are getting heated. Apollo and Starbuck are up against a tough opposing team, featuring the particularly aggressive Ortega, who has been nettling Starbuck for years. During the match he repeatedly fouls Starbuck until they are both ejected from the game for fighting. Starbuck utters some regrettable words, such as, “I’ll kill him” and, when Cassiopeia breaks up a fight between them later, “This is only delaying the inevitable.”
As with all good 1970’s TV, you can’t say “I’ll kill him” in front of witnesses without the person in question ending up murdered, and so it is with Ortega, found dead in the locker room, shot with Starbuck’s laser.
Apollo, although unskilled and untrained as a Protector, takes on the job of protecting Starbuck at the murder tribunal. The Opposer offers a self-defense plea deal but Starbuck refuses because, you guessed it, insists he didn’t kill Ortega.
Starbuck decides that, with the court of public opinion against him and having an incompetent and inexperienced Protector, he’d be better off escaping from the brig, stealing a Viper and living his life on some lonely planet – oh, if only he knew – but Apollo talks him down and he returns to the brig.
The trail to find the real killer leads first to a mysterious name, Karibdis, that Adama knows of. Karibdis was Baltar’s protege who sabotaged the defense network on the night of the Cylon attack, but no one but Baltar knows what he looks like. The trail then leads to a Pyramid dealer on the Rising Star. On the night the colonies were destroyed, he bribed Ortega to let him aboard the Rising Star, leaving some poor child behind to die. Well, that’s it then, problem solved, he must be Karibdis and killed Ortega.
But no! Maybe he isn’t. Ortega let three people bribe him into letting them onto the Rising Star – any one of them might be Karibdis!
Apollo hatches a cunning plan. He lets the three think that he doesn’t believe that any of them are the killer, and that Ortega was killed by a man named Karibdis and that he’s going to go collect Baltar to identify him. Knowing that the real Karibdis will be forced to make a move to kill both Apollo and Baltar to keep his identity hidden.
While Boomer bumbles through being Starbuck’s Protector pro tempore, an audio drama plays out aboard the Galactica shuttle as Karibdis makes his move. Shots are fired, followed by silence, and then…
…Apollo is alive, Karibdis is dead, Starbuck is deemed innocent, and Baltar has saved the day! Hurray!
At the next Triad tournament, Starbuck receives a standing ovation.[/expand]
