Handlung

With Hera now likely in the hands of John Cavil, Admiral Adama sends out search teams to locate The Colony, the Cylon home world if you will, that Ellen Tigh says is the only place she imagines she could be. Adama reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the Galactica has reached the end of its days. He orders all repair activities halted and decides to strip the ship and share everything that is salvageable with the rest of the fleet. Starbuck meanwhile shares with Gaius Baltar what she found on the uninhabitable Earth. He subsequently - and quite publicly - proclaims her to be an angel.—garykmcd

"Battlestar Galactica" - "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" - March 6, 2009

In a series of quick cuts we see Hera playing with a battlestar, moving it towards a baseship and three heavy raiders, running through the opera house then playing again. Her toy battlestar dissolves into the real thing floating in space.

We zoom in through the Boomer-created hole on the side of the ship. A Six and a dude get into a fight about the Cylon goop not helping the ship but making it smell. The Six thinks the goop is fine but the ship is made of inferior alloys. An Eight breaks it up.

Ellen, Starbuck, Apollo, Tory, Tigh, and Adama, discuss the Hera situation. Ellen says she thinks Cavil and the others will take her to a colony that they repaired to after the first big war to examine her. She knows where it is. Apollo doesn't understand why they should jump into a Cylon's hornet's nest for one child. Ellen points out that with Caprica Six's miscarriage that child is their only hope for a future. Starbuck thinks she may be the only hope for a future period and explains how Hera wrote the notes to "All Along the Watchtower." Which Tigh reminds Adama was the same song "that switched us on" and that led them to earth, adds Starbuck who thinks Hera is the key to the future. Adama, who's drinking, sniffs at the "destiny" talk- fate, the gods- have led them nowhere good and he can't walk his ship without wondering if he's going to catch a bullet for getting them into this mess.

Tigh says they're still alive and he wouldn't have thought they would be four years ago. He wants a recon bird at least. Adama says to make it a heavy raider, he doesn't want Helo and Athena to find out.

In their quarters Helo begs Athena to look at him. She's a mess, crying. He asks if she hates him, tries to make her say it. She does have hate in her eyes but she doesn't say it.

We get a vision of Athena and Roslin chasing Hera through the opera house, up to the point where the Six took her and closed the door.

Caprica Six shifts in her sleep in her hospital bed.

Roslin also stirs, to Adama at her side. She tells him she's been having the dream again.

Down on the deck a fissure opens up in the hull and people start getting sucked out. The Six and the dude who were arguing before fight to hang on and crawl towards a few others behind a safe door. The dude makes it, the Six gets sucked back outside the door. She yells at him to lock it. As he seals it she flies into space. (Now that's teamwork?)

Survivor Count: 39, 521

In a calamitous sick bay Cottle tells Tigh that the hull breach damage is 61 dead or missing, 26 cylons. An engineer, the same dude who fought with the Six, is talking about percentages of the ship getting ripped in half. Tigh barks at him and then tells Adama that "that Cylon Rep Sonya" wants to know when Adama will be transferring the flag. Adama snorts derisively at the idea of flying a flag on a baseship. Tigh agrees.

Roslin croaks that it must be hard for him to say goodbye to both of his women at once. Adama goes to her bedside. He says neither one of his women is dying, they just need more care and attention. As he speaks she has flashes of the opera house and softly says "Hera." He kisses her hand.

Fleet Captains' Meeting 1750 Hours

A female captain is freaking that Adama will have to abandon Galactica and that the Cylon baseship will be the sole means of defense. Yes, says Apollo, under Adama's command and with the force of it's fighter pilots as always. A male captain says it seems they're putting a lot of power in "some people's" hands, shooting a glance at a Six, saying "and I use the term loosely." He thinks it's weird since the Cylons were trying to kill them and everything. Apollo says his concerns are noted.The Six says the Cylons have accepted Adama as commander as return for a seat on the council and they will abide by their promise. Another captain rises to complain about air quality. He says he's submitting a requisition for Galactica's C02 and particulate scrubbers. Others take umbrage and start shouting requests like FTL drives and the female captain says an inventory of Galactica's resources will need to be done so they can distribute them equitably. Apollo tells them Galactica isn't going to be stripped like a whore and no one will remove a single bolt until Adama gives the high sign. The male captain wonders what Gaius Baltar has to say about that. "Gaius Baltar?" Apollo sputters.

We cut to an outside shot of the ship as we hear Baltar talking about angels, how they take the form of our nearest and dearest who put you on the raod back to salvation. We see Starbuck listening to the transmission with closed eyes, crushing out a cigarette. We cut to Baltar saying he believes in these angels because he sees them, and he smiles up at his hallucinatory Six. He wishes everyone a beautiful day and signs off. His harem is handing stuff out. He chases after Caprica Six and gives his condolences for her loss. He offers her a place to stay. She declines joining his harem. He tearfully says that's not what he meant and that they are trying to make a difference in the fleet. She says he hasn't really changed, but she has. He cries as she walks away.

We get an outside shot of the ship as repair work continues.

Tigh enters sick bay and Cottle tells him an injured Eight wants to speak to him. She thanks him for allowing her the privilege to meet her father before she died. He gruffly says he shouldn't be thanking her since he spent most of his life trying to kill Cylons. She says "too much confusion" - a line from "Watchtower"- and flatlines.

Boomer's raptor appears between two planets. Hera is aboard crying that she wants her mommy and to go home. Boomer gets snippy about her sniveling and whining. She gets up and says "let's see if you can cry in your sleep." She whips out a syringe and cruelly says that it will be a long snooze since "these" don't come in kiddie doses. She cries more and Boomer refrains from injecting her.

Ellen is beseeching Tigh to do more to save Hera. He says he got them to send out a recon mission. She gripes that it's their people's future at stake. He mutters at her "our people, our people" as he rummages under a couch. He's pleased to find a bottle but mad to discover it empty and hurls it against a wall. He says his people are the people on this ship, the only family he's known and the only one he cares to. She kneels by him and says he's a pip. She says he's truly an old man, that he was her husband 2,000 years ago. He says that ain't nothin' but a number to him but Adama's friendship, "ah frak!" She says he's a Cylon whether he remembers that life or not he has to know that they had a mission to end the cycle of violence between man and machine. "That was a bust" he snarks. She admits they failed but now they have a second chance with Hera. Without her their children will die one by one. He says he had a child, he died. Ellen tearfully says he's wrong, he had millions. She hugs him.

Boomer's raptor appears again. She's trying to get Hera to eat something. She tells Hera that sometimes when she's sad she goes to this "special place." Her house with Tyrol. She stands and projects herself into the house. Hera reaches out and grabs her hand and is also in the house. Boomer is quietly shocked that Hera has the power of projection.

Baltar shaves and Starbuck interrupts him from a nearby stall. (The latch was busted.) She asks him if he believes in the bilge he was spewing about angels. He does believe. She asks if he's seen them. He says with alarming regularity and smiles over at his special Six. Regularity is important when you're full of crap, Starbuck replies, flushing the toilet and pulling up her pants. Baltar observes how charming this is. He says she's entitled to her opinion and asks who she is by the way again. She tells him she's a dead chick and explains that she means really dead, not just dead inside. She hands him her dogtags, explaining how she took them off her body. She says he used to be a scientist so he should run tests because the only thing she knows for sure is she's not an angel. He looks at them.

Starbuck walks through a door into Cylon-y room, where they have hooked up Anders to the main power grid, hoping to jump start his brain pan. She asks the Eight watching him to give her a minute alone with her husband. She talks to him. She says she remembers telling him that if she found out he was a Cylon she'd put a bullet in his head. But then someone did it for her and now all she wants is to have him back because he's just Sam, her Sam. And that's how she wants to remember him, so she pulls out her gun and points it at his head and suddenly his arm shoots out and grabs her powerfully forcing her to drop the gun as he starts babbling like the hybrid. The power on the hangar deck flickers and the engineers look around perplexed. It flickers around the ship, CIC, flight prep room. The last thing Sam says is "you are the harbinger of death Kara Thrace, you will lead them all to their end, end of line" and lets her go. He then says "resume function" and blinks rapidly.

Adama reads a book to Roslin in her hospital bed. It's a pulp cop story. She tells him to go to page 61. She pulls out a little cigar she stashed there. She says Cottle won't mind since it's medicinal. He says he can't believe she saved it. (Maybe it's not a cigar but a really big space blunt, judging by how they're drawing on it). She asks if he remembers that day. He does, the day of Baltar's groundbreaking on New Caprica and how he and Roslin talked and talked. She says she's thinking about the cabin she wanted to build in the mountains by a clear stream. She says she still thinks about it all the time. She wonders what home really is, an actual place or a longing for some kind of connection. She spent her whole life moving around on Caprica and then... this, and then... now. She says she doesn't think she's ever felt truly at home until the last few months with him. She says she knows he loves the ship, probably more than her. She says if he doesn't get them off the ship he might lose both his gals at the same time, and asks him to give them both a chance. She takes another toke and smiles. He looks pensive.

Baltar runs tests on scrapings from Starbuck's dog tags.

Anders continues to hybrid-babble as an Eight and a Six explain to Tigh and Starbuck how the Cylon goo in the ship has allowed Anders to commune with its electrical grid, which is what has been causing the power fluctuations. They didn't realize he had this ability. Tigh asks about the FTL drives, since the hybrids had jump powers. An Eight says theoretically Anders might be able to do this too. (Right now the computer firewalls are keeping him out but the nerve fiber workings of the goo might also make it possible for him to breach those). Tigh tells them to take him offline. The Eight unplugs him. Anders goes silent. Tigh calls it a blessed relief.

Caprica Six and Ellen are telling Adama that according to the recon mission Cavil moved the colony just before the civil war and they don't know where he moved it to.

In the projection Boomer shows Hera into the room where she thought her daughter would live. Hera jumps on the bed.

Work continues on Galactica. Helo comes to speak to Adama. He asks permission to take a raptor and look for Hera. Adama explains about the inconclusive recon mission. Helo asks again for a raptor, that maybe he can find something. Adama says she's gone, he's lost a son and Helo has lost a daughter but he can't condone a suicide mission and tells him to let it go. Helo twitchily freaks at this "let it go?" He says Adama is the one who can't let it go, that the ship is dead but his daughter might still be alive. Adama says he understands Helo's pain but tells him not to lecture him, that Helo is there to take orders. Helo apologizes and starts tearfully begging for one raptor, even if it is a suicide mission it's a chance to do something.

Caprica Six, Adama, Ellen, and Baltar speak at the mass funeral of the humans and Cylons killed by the hull breach. Baltar keeps looking at Caprica Six, holding Starbuck's dogtags. At funeral's end he starts speechifying about the gift of eternal life given to everyone. The crowd- which includes Starbuck and Apollo- stops to listen. He says all they need is to show the courage to embrace death in order to cross over, as someone here has already crossed over. He says one of them is living proof that there is life after death. He says the blood on the dogtags he holds is necrotic, i.e. from a dead body, but the DNA is a 100 percent match for one Capt. Kara Thrace. Ellen and Tigh stare at her. A murmur goes up. Baltar says he told them there were angels walking amongst them and that she took the dogtags from her own remains. Starbuck begins to make her way through the crowd. Adama tries to silence him. Baltar says she's not a Cylon since they've all been revealed and to ask her themselves, she won't deny it. Starbuck comes up and slaps him. Adama dismisses everyone. Adama leaves staring back at Baltar. Apollo gives Baltar a 1,000 yard glare.

Starbuck is staring at memorial photos on the walls of Galactica. Lee says he doesn't care what she thinks she saw on Earth or that he himself saw her viper explode. He says that he's there and she's there and that's all that matters. He gently strokes her cheek but stops short of kissing her and says he'll see her around. She smiles tearfully at him, but once he's out of sight she puts a picture of herself up on the wall. She smiles beatiffically at it.

Boomer's raptor finally reaches the Cylon colony. She carries Hera to Cavil. He says it's a shame he couldn't be there to see the look on Ellen's face when she realizes that they played her. He tells Boomer to go rest and that they'll take it from here and reaches for Hera. She hesitates. He says they'll take good care of her. He takes her away and Boomer looks tired and sad. Cavil puts her down and she begins to cry and call for Boomer through the wall. Cavil assures her she'll have new playmates soon.

Adama comes to look at the continuing repair work. He takes off the pins on the collar of his dress uniform. He walks into his quarters and feels the crumbling broken walls. He grabs a paint brush and begins swiping white paint at the walls in a frenzy.He crumples to his knees and begins to cry, we see a vision of Galactica spinning in his head.

Starbuck goes to Anders, quiet in his tub of goo. She says she knows he can hear her and that's she's come to accept that the old Starbuck and Anders are dead and gone. Now she needs to figure out what she is and why she's there. She thinks it has something to do with a pattern in the music (she's holding the sheet music as well as Hera's drawing). She can't figure it out but thinks Anders can somehow and that they will sit in the room until they figure it out. She plugs him back in. He shudders to life and says "new command."

Tigh walks into Adama's quarters where he's washing his face. Adama says he's decided to stop the repairs on the ship. He pours them both a drink. He wants the crew to start stripping the ship and pack all the weapons and gear and start offloading civilians the next day, everyone and everything by the end of the week. They're abandoning ship. Tigh gets mad saying Adama can't do this. Adama says he has to, the ship is dying. Tigh says he can't let him do it. Adama says Tigh can't be blamed for what he is especially since it includes being the finest officer and friend he ever had. He says the ship never let them down so they're going to send her off in style. They sit and drink, accepting what they're about to do. They toast Galactica, the grand old lady, the best ship in the fleet.